Hi, all. I'm new to the forum, and I thought I'd make my entrance with a game I'm developing.

It takes ideas from many places, notably Walt Freitag's Symmetry dicing mechanism.

The premise:
The Torchbearers are at the front of a subtle demon war.

In greater depth:
One of the gods of the world ended a war with the Major Evil Force, a cabal of mysterious shapechanging demon lords, by sealing them in a corner of the country with a powerful curse.
The curse is aging, and the demons are testing its failing strength. They are already escaping out into the civilized world, working on toppling it from inside rather than take it by military conquest.

Terminology:
The players are called simply players.
The players choose one of their number to arbitrate, control the game world, that sort of thing. This player is the Keeper. The Keeper is analogous to the GM, Storyteller, that sort of thing.

The system:
Characters are defined by three things, Image, Smoke, and Flame.

The character's Image is simply a phrase that describes him or her, like "Honorable Pirate", "Priest of Veamaandhi", "Sorceress", "Skinchanging Demon Spy".

Any player character has an equal number of Smoke traits and Flame traits. These may be any descriptive phrases: Stubborn, Strong as an Ox, Follows the Honorable Pirate's Code, Knows Blood Magic", and so forth. Smoke traits provide penalties to rolls, and Flame traits positive.
I suggest that at least one of each be a relationship the character has, either with other player characters or a group of non-player characters.

In addition to this, the character has some amount of Fuel. This is probably best represented by tokens of some nature; it's an abstract resource.
Fuel can be used in two ways:
Spend a Fuel to give a +1 bonus to a single test, or spend a Fuel to "Increase Contrast"; this applies for a whole scene, and can be done repeatedly.

Increasing Contrast has the effects of strengthening Smoke and Flame: Each time you do so, for the duration of the scene the magnitude of the modifiers applied by your traits increases by 1.
So, if Vakhriyya has Increased Contrast three times since the begining of the scene, and she does something to which her sword Flame applies and no other modifiers do, rather than a +1 bonus she applies a +4. Increasing Contrast only applies to the character's own modifiers; if this roll was against a character who was resisting her with his own "Shchang Fencer" Flame, her modifier would be +3, not 0, assuming the second character had not increased his own contrast.

Tests:
To resolve a test, first determine whether the total of its modifiers is positive, zero, or negative.
When rolling the dice for a test, any Smoke trait that applies gives a negative modifier, and any Flame gives a positive modifier. So, if Vakhriyya Dawndrinker the Honorable Pirate has the Flame "Grew up with a sword in her hands", then she'd get +1 to rolls involving using her sword. If she had the Smoke "Not Very Strong", and was trying to cut down something massive with her sword, then the modifiers would cancel each other out.
The acting character always rolls the dice, though other characters may provide modifiers, either by assisting, which adds bonuses from their Flames and penalties from their Smoke, by resisting, which does the opposite, or by spending Fuel to add a bonus. No one may spend Fuel to add penalties.

If it is positive or zero, the player narrates the outcome of success and the Keeper narrates the outcome of failure. (Before the game, everyone should agree what amount of authority any player has to narrate.)
If it is negative, then vice versa.

After narration, dice are rolled.
There are two types of dice:
The Core die is a d12 marked on half its faces with a point and two faces with a ring.
Modifier dice are marked on three faces with a point and one face with a ring.

For a test, roll the Core die and a number of modifier dice equal to the magnitude of the modifier of the roll.
Then, for each ring remove that ring and a point.

If the modifier was zero, then a point indicates a success. Blank or a ring indicates failure.

If the modifier was positive, then exactly one point indicates an unusual success. More than one point indicates ordinary success. No points and no rings indicates failure. Any number of rings indicates unusual failure.

If the modifier was negative, then exactly one point indicates an unusual failure. More than one point indicates ordinary failure. No points and no rings indicates success. Any number of rings indicates unusual success.

Unusual failure or success: In addition to the narrated outcome, whoever narrated that result can add a fact. This fact can be anything that the narrator has the authority to narrate. This can grant a character a temporary Smoke or Flame; this trait disappears at the end of the scene.

Example: Vakhriyya is fighting Vikakr Face-Blackened-by-Fire. She wants to try to disarm him. The Keeper calls for a test.
Vakhriyya has positive modifiers, so she narrates her success:
"I strike Vikakr sharply on the wrist. He drops his sword at his feet."
The Keeper narrates her failure:
"Vakhriyya strikes at Vikakr's wrist, but he drops his hand, parrying the blow."
If Vakhriyya had rolled an unusual success, she might add:
"The blade bites deeply into his arm."
The Keeper might rule that this gives Vikakr the Smoke "Crippled Weapon Hand" for the duration of the scene.

Characters and Death:
Only the player of a character may narrate his death if the character has any Fuel. If the character runs out of Fuel, anyone with Fuel (and the Keeper, who might not have a character of his own) may narrate the character's death.

Characters and Magic: Torchbearer is a fantasy game, so I had to put in a discussion on this. Magic is probably best expressed as a Flame, though it could simply be narrated by the player, or indicated through the use of Fuel.

Genreally, a character starts with some smallish amount of Fuel, and Fuel returns to characters at breaks in the story, like when the heroes are sailing over the peaceful Sea of Years, or stopping to plan their assault on the fortress. Fuel could also be used as a reward.

What do y'all think? If someone would want to run some numbeers on my mechanic, too, for probabilities of unusual success or failure as well as ordinary success and failure, I'd be hugely grateful.

Looks like despite narrationprivileges given to players, the GM has to do the most of the work. How can the GM keep up cool descriptions in the end? Could I suggest that the characters always narrate? Couldn't the players suggest smoke instead of the GM? Then have some deciding mechanism to regulate how big it could be?

About the premise. Seems a bit flat at first glance, but you didn't write much about it. But as it stands it doesn't make me jump at playing it. Sounds like a tame version of Warhammer.

Oh and welcome to the Forge too. Forgot to say that.

As for the premise, I agree that I wrote it out insipidly. The game's intended to be very setting-dependent. Here's another angle on the premise that's a little less like Every Rules-Light Fantasy RPG:

You are a leihesju, a human with a little shard of divine essence. It's not enough to make you immortal, or give you any of the other traditional marks of power, but it makes you strong, and it makes you bleed like a god, in gold or blue or black.
The spark of divinity has marked you in other ways too - maybe you always smell of freshly crushed grapes, or your eyes are impossibly blue. Whatever it is, you have known your whole life which god marked you. Sometimes, you sense the motions of your god's mind, but usually the Divine will is closed to you.
As an agent of the immortals, the commons have come to treat you as a local hero, and have started to expect you to protect them. Now you start hearing rumours of skinchangers escaping from Kuei-tzu Mu. Duty calls.

Perhaps you're right about the narration privileges; it's possible to give the majority of them to players.
The players could indeed suggest smoke and the like, though I'd like to encourage in-game thinking rather than metagame thinking... "I should try to cut his court ties" rather than "What if I cancelled his Court Ties Flame?"
I didn't want to assign magnitudes to Smoke and Flame to prevent the intrusion of numbers, though maybe it's not the worst of ideas. I hoped that the small effect of a single trait would encourage players to seek actions that involve more than one - Inigo Montoya seeking out the Six-Fingered Man, and so forth.

Pale Fire wrote: Looks like despite narrationprivileges given to players, the GM has to do the most of the work. How can the GM keep up cool descriptions in the end?

(Before the game, everyone should agree what amount of authority any player has to narrate.)

Hi Willows, and welcome to the Forge!

I'll take a look at the numbers. The ring rule will complicate the caclulations quite a bit, but I suspect the end result will be pretty well-behaved. However there may be some surprises, for example it appears there will be more unusual successes/failures than normal ones at a +1/-1 modifier.

Before I go any farther, I have to check: are the modifier dice also d12s?

Also, am I correct in reading this as that two outcomes, for success and failure, are always both narrated before the dice are rolled? I think this should be tried and I've been waiting for someone to attempt it outside Zak's Shadows. Yet I'm curious why you chose it for this particular game. I could see it becoming part of the game's color, such as that the characters' divine taint includes being able to 'see' the two (or more) immediate futures diverging from a decision point. Did you have something like this in mind, or is the dual narration (if I'm interpreting it corrrectly that way at all) purely a metagame phenomenon?

- Walt

Thanks for the numbers. I was examining them myself earlier, and I did notice that the low modifiers tend to have high unusual success/failure frequency. On the other hand, this may not be a bad thing; I was considering posing that unusual success/failure only occur on exactly one modifier die; this would flatten that curve a bit, but complicate the calculations yet further.

The modifiers are indeed d12s.

You're also correct about the outcomes being narrated before the dice are rolled. This could certainly become part of the colour - I hadn't thought of that. The reason I chose to do that wasn't precisely color, but certainly atmosphere. This morning, I did think of a way to incorporate the divine taint more thoroughly: through use of Fuel. The marks that a character bears could become more apparent when he draws upon Fuel, which becomes representative of divine energy. That does rather make me want to say that Fuel should return to the character slowly rather than in discrete chunks, and there should probably be some harder rules on total Fuel reserves, but as it is I'm comfortable with the outline of Fuel usage, and will have to playtest it.
I do like the idea that the spark allows players to know certain things; perhaps this can be fleshed out into something more useful.

As for narrative control, this is difficult. I'll have to figure something out, though I'd really like to leave a good portion of Director power in the players' hands. One possible solution would be to take the Puppetland approach and disallow players to speak in metagame terms, so the GM is forced to keep his hand on the pure mechanical elements of the system. I also like the possibility that players only narrate the outcomes that their traits influence: if a character has only a Flame affecting a roll, then he may narrate the success but not the failure. If he has Smoke and Flame affecting it, he narrates both. Then, for resisted and assisted actions, the second participant could also narrate outcomes, if the active participant is not narrating both of them already.
Another option might be to define more of the character's purpose in the story, and let players narrate events that involve the purpose.

Hi 'willows,

I'm thinkin' ... is there any reason for Smoke and Flame traits to be designated as wholly positive and wholly negative?

I'm thinkin' that this option might provide more descriptive flexibility in play: a trait is just "a trait," such that it has potential Smoke qualities (negatives) and Flame qualities (positives) as relevant to given situations. Thus my Pride is "smokey" in a tense negotiation situation and "flamey" during a duel for my honor.

I recommend taking a peek down in the Alyria forum - Seth has developed a fascinating, powerful system and setting in which many of the concerns evident in your design have been hammered into shape. Much of his suffering can work to your benefit in shaping Torchbearer.

Best,
Ron

Aside: It seems that wherever this phrase goes, it very rapidly gets trimmed to 'Willows.

Ron,

The reason that Smoke and Flame traits are designated as wholly positive or negative is simple, in my mind. If a trait is complex enough and important enough to the character to have mechanical consequences in both directions, then it's important enough to take up two slots. Perhaps this is something that I should put in my description of Traits when I collect this material into a pretty document.

I actually had a nearly identical example to yours of this in action:
Our pet example character, Vakhriyya Dawndrinker, has Honourable Pirate's Code as both a Smoke and Flame trait. When dealing with matters of reputation and "face", it serves as an advantage; she is known to be a generally civil person. On the other hand, it impedes her from even attempting actions outside the Code, and her reputation is widespread among the civil authorities.

four willows weeping wrote: If a trait is complex enough and important enough to the character to have mechanical consequences in both directions, then it's important enough to take up two slots. Perhaps this is something that I should put in my description of Traits when I collect this material into a pretty document.

Maybe there could be a Fuel cost for using a Smoke trait as a Flame trait? And you could get some Fuel back if you do the opposite?

By the way, Increasing the Contrast is extremely cool.

Andrew, Henry,

I think I can reply to these both together.
Considering your shadow-of-an-example, Andrew, I came up with the first half of Henry's idea, using Fuel to reverse the effect of a negative trait. I like this because it maintains the distinction between characteristics that are obviously positive and negative, but does something to blur the line for storytelling purposes. I feel that a character using something like a physical infirmity to his advantage should be unusual and special, and so Fuel usage is appropriate.

As for the second idea, I like this less - Fuel should be a constantly depleting resource. But I do think it's possible to put a different spin on this, which resembles an Alyria mechanic a lot (though I thought of it before I actually read the Alyria rules): Fuel could be spent to use another PC's advantages against him. An example might be where two characters are fencing (yes, I do use combat examples a lot), and one has the Flame "Master of X Fencing Style", or something to that effect. The other could spent Fuel and go into a traditional series of attacks, to tempt the other into the traditional series of parries, and then change one of the later attacks once the pattern was established, to capitalize on the fencer's expectation of a different attack.

four willows weeping wrote: Now you start hearing rumours of skinchangers escaping from Kuei-tzu Mu. Duty calls.

It sounds kinda cool. Oh...I've forgotten my bloody manners....Welcome to the Forge.

O.K. so...the Traits listed under "Smoke" and "Flame", they are assigned numbers...and these numbers have some game effect such as modifying rolss...am I catching this right?

kevin671 wrote: O.K. so...the Traits listed under "Smoke" and "Flame", they are assigned numbers...and these numbers have some game effect such as modifying rolss...am I catching this right?

I've forgotten mine, as well. Thank you all for the warm welcome.

On Kuei-Tzu Mu: As I understand it, it's an exotic location mentioned briefly in the Buddhist epic Journey to the West. I have no idea what the Mu means, but Wood, in the sense of Forest, would be a really good interpretation; the region is characterized by a large taiga spotted with skinchanger settlements.

On feel:
Nobilis, what I've seen of it, it fantastic, but I haven't really seen it, only the chapters that are on Hogshead's site for download. Nobilis has a glorious feel.

I'm glad that that's what you detected as the feel, Jonathan - I was certainly going for a kind of Arabian Nights meets Chinese fairy tale (not wuxia, fairy tale) thing, with a very graphical tone. I spent a lot of time describing the regional looks. I'm a little bit of a linguist, and so I even have fictional languages (in some cases, just rules for constructing words, but at least two grammars too) attached to the cultures; I shouldn't be using the name Vakhriyya because it could only come from Kuei-Tzu Mu's demon language (which isn't fake-Chinese; it's designed tot look like Sanskrit. there is a culture with a fake-chinese language, from which the name is supposed to come, but the closest legal approximation would be spelled Kvie-tsu Mu...)
Anyway, I would feel a lot better about the game were I to have completed more of my character designs. There's a series of stories about priestesses of Veamaandhi, the goddess of Law, that I really want illustrated.

The fact is that I'm adapting a D&D setting that I stopped writing solely due to my inability to adapt its mechanics to my goals; D&D is at the same time too weak and too powerful.

kevin:
Jonathan's analysis is correct; nothing is ever assigned numbers. They modify rolls by a fixed amount. Thanks to everyone for the compliments on the Contrast mechanic; that was a flash of good inspiration, I guess, though I clearly still have much to learn.

An idea for magical objects in Torchbearer:
Any magical object is called a Lantern.
(apologies for the terminology; I'm extremely attached to this thing where game terms have fire associations. It feels right for Torchbearer.)
A Lantern can have Traits, hold Fuel, or do both. In addition, particularly potent Lanterns might have a permanent Contrast effect. Lanterns effectively give their users traits. The Contrast effect of a Lantern applies only to its own traits, not its user's.
What is a Lantern? A Lantern is any obbject that has become inhabited by a spirit, for whatever reason. The spirit might have been bound there by a magician, it may have simply inhabited the weapon's raw materials as a spirit of the land and stayed when its shape was changed, it may have taken up residence there for whatever reason...
Regardless of why a Lantern is such, it is true. All Lanterns are able to communicate by some means. They are all intelligent, some very much so. However, depending on their nature, their intelligence may be very alien. A looking-glass inhabited by a flower-spirit might be obsessed with trying to see itself...
It is important to know the Spirit inside a Lantern, as well as the shape the Lantern takes.

Example Lantern:
Name: Kaalamdzem Storm-Cloud-Dancing (this is an example of actually using one of those fictional languages)
Spirit: Hawk God
Form: Calligrapher's Sword (A type of weapon; it is so-called for its blade shaped like a paintbrush's bristles.)
Flame:
My Sword is Sharp as Winter
Incredible Reflexes
Smoke:
Temperamental
Addicted to the Sword
Fuel: 2 Maximum

No wonder that I kept thinking about the Diamond Cutter sutra with the names of that character. The smoke thing is good but maybe slightly problematic in some situations as Andrew points out.
Anyway, any chance you'll be using Buddhist (mahayana) metaphysics to help you out here? I made a posting on that somewhere here some time ago.

four willows weeping wrote: On Kuei-Tzu Mu: As I understand it, it's an exotic location mentioned briefly in the Buddhist epic Journey to the West. I have no idea what the Mu means, but Wood, in the sense of Forest, would be a really good interpretation; the region is characterized by a large taiga spotted with skinchanger settlements.

Nobilis, what I've seen of it, it fantastic, but I haven't really seen it, only the chapters that are on Hogshead's site for download. Nobilis has a glorious feel.

There is a culture with a fake-chinese language, from which the name is supposed to come, but the closest legal approximation would be spelled Kvie-tsu Mu...

Anyway, I would feel a lot better about the game were I to have completed more of my character designs. There's a series of stories about priestesses of Veamaandhi, the goddess of Law, that I really want illustrated.

A Lantern can have Traits, hold Fuel, or do both. In addition, particularly potent Lanterns might have a permanent Contrast effect. Lanterns effectively give their users traits. The Contrast effect of a Lantern applies only to its own traits, not its user's.

Flame:
My Sword is Sharp as Winter

Christoffer:
Could you elaborate on the mahayana metaphysics? I don't really know what you're getting at here; a link to your previous discussion would be appreciated as well, if it's convenient.

Jonathan:
As for the Chinese, I'd definitely like to learn more about the sounds of Mandarin; I have a very sad Mandarin-clone going on right now. I actually do care about pronunciation to a certain degree, but I also have aesthetic reasons I'm not using Pinyin; it's use of g, d, b bothers me more than the ambiguous vowels and apostrophes of W-G.

If you want to take a look at some character designs, I'll post a link to them at my Torchbearer d20 site sometime this weekend, along with a list of graphical inspirations. I have some really exciting ideas in mind for the Shchang, my fake-Chinese speaking horse nomad culture. Archery clothing, especially, is loads of fun to design.

I'm thinking of having Contrast be a trait of a character as well as of items; the baseline need not be 1 for everyone everywhere. Then Contrast could be another representation of the 'mythicness' of a character; more Contrasty people could be seen as closer to their gods. Wholly prosaic people and things could have zero Contrast; their Traits would do nothing more than allow them narrative control. This strikes me as an elegant way to depict exceptional, but nonmagical, tools. At that point, characters and items boil down to the same thing mechanically, in almost all cases.

four willows weeping wrote: I actually do care about pronunciation to a certain degree, but I also have aesthetic reasons I'm not using Pinyin; it's use of g, d, b bothers me more than the ambiguous vowels and apostrophes of W-G.

If you want to take a look at some character designs, I'll post a link to them at my Torchbearer d20 site sometime this weekend, along with a list of graphical inspirations.

I'm thinking of having Contrast be a trait of a character as well as of items; the baseline need not be 1 for everyone everywhere. Then Contrast could be another representation of the 'mythicness' of a character; more Contrasty people could be seen as closer to their gods.

Note: Under the new system, the entire game setting will probably see some serious revision, under the guiding hand of the mythology, which is reasonably stable.
Second note: Jonathan, I think I'm replying to your points in reverse.

The people are rather shoehorned into D&D stereotypes; I really am not attached to nunhumans. The game that this is becoming doesn't need them, and you may have noticed that I had already started trimming down the list from the mess of D&D types.

Anyway, yes, the people are very disparate, and the nonhumans out of place. The dwarves, particularly, I simply dropped in for the sake of a particular player of mine who happens to like dwarves; they're in a stereotype too small for a world as large as this one. The elves could easily be humans.
I see a slow spread of people outwards from maybe the region of Vuisoeni on the eastern coast; the central culture is sort of a model from which, ideally, the other cultures of the east all diverge. Theoretically, the obsidian (who become human like everyone else in new Torchbearer) and the Hweostr are from places across the Sea of Years, and that allows them to have much stranger cultures than the mainlander types. Then, the Tarag Thaani and the Shchang should be more similar than they are, and the silver people a little less savage (maybe pastoral would be a better image for them). I'm certainly less of an anthropologist than I am a mythologer and linguist; I appreciate these comments a lot.
On cultural stereotypes:
I should write these from the perspective of a person inside the world. I had been trying to do that, but I lost my touch with the culture of the narrator. Maybe the ideal POV would be something like that of a skinchanger who's out in the human world for the first time, trying not to reveal himself but slowly realizing how he sticks out. That could be an interesting angle of play, as well...
Torchbearer has the advantage over d20 that here, the characters are playing leihesjun, (or skinchangers?) and their patron gods should provide them with the diversity that d20 needed very different cultures to create.

The mythology is definitely pulled together a bit under the D&D model, but I started this work under the premise that the gods weren't subject to alignment; their depection should depend a lot on culture. The obsidian (these and the silver will need in-language names soon) see the weather-god as ambivalent because he can very easily hurt them as much as help them; the Tarag Thaani might see him as good because, in their minds, he just makes the crops grow. Some more elaboration on my creation myth and some stories of the past will probably make this fall together better.

I still feel guilty about calling the continent an archipelago, because though it has chains of barrier islands, it certainly is not an island group... but maybe it was once; I think I'd find a story about weird fish-creature fossils interesting, for a little while.

The little chunks of prose tend to be about priests of Veamaandhi, who's been the central god in the games I've run because I like the imagery I attached to her. I hope I'll have the chance to put up some more.

I'm liking the Contrast idea more and more; I think I'll start putting together a character sheet. I feel like most of my mechanics are ironed out.

A question on that:

Fuel has four uses:
Increase Contrast; this lasts for a scene and can be done repeatedly.
Add +1 to any roll; this can be done multiple times to a single roll.
Turn a Smoke into a Flame for the purpose of one conflict; it is not meaningful to do this multiple times to the same trait.
Turn another character's Flame into Smoke for the purposes of a single conflict; this is also not meaningful to do multiple times to the same trait.
The last two uses probably require some justification:
"I'm Hard of Hearing, so Tzitzemitl's Seductive Voice doesn't affect me as deeply as the others. I'm going to ignore her and keep rowing."

Now, does it seem like any of these uses is clearly more valuable than the others? Do you suspect that some options might lie unused, or that some would be abused?

The posting I refered to as something based on mahayana cosmology is actually not that interesting, but you might find some parallels to your own set-up so you could check it out here. It's basically a metaphysical base system for magic I wrote up in a posting here at the forge after reading a little too much on the subject I guess ;)

I also checked out the stuff you had written so far. A lot echoes Exalted, but without the bloated WW stuff. So it sounds good so far. Of course you should throw out the D&D races, they have no place in your world as you yourself seem to be discovering. All in all it sounds like a very interesting setting you're building.

Okay, I'm not going to resond directly to all your comments on how you're planning to "de-D&D" the setting and background material. Suffice it to say, that completely gets rid of my major concerns and makes me more excited about this project as a whole.

four willows weeping wrote: I should write these from the perspective of a person inside the world.

Torchbearer has the advantage over d20 that here, the characters are playing leihesjun, (or skinchangers?) and their patron gods should provide them with the diversity that d20 needed very different cultures to create.

I still feel guilty about calling the continent an archipelago, because though it has chains of barrier islands, it certainly is not an island group...

Fuel can be used to:

1.) Increase Contrast.

2.) Add +1 to any roll.

3.) Turn a Smoke into a Flame.

4.) Turn another character's Flame into Smoke.

Kishimojin (Hariti) -- also Gui Zi Mu Shen (The Demon Mother)

Hariti, whose name means "stealer of children," is a female yaksha, or yakshini, who originally came from the town of Rajagriha. The yakshas are one of the eight kinds of supernatural beings who are said to revere and protect the Dharma. The yakshas are a kind of flesh-eating demon or spirit who make up the guardian king Vaishravana's army. Originally the yakshas appeared as the spirits of the trees and forests and even villages; but they had a fierce side as well, and in their more demonic aspect came to be called rakshasas. They are numbered among the hungry ghosts. Hariti's husband is Pancika, one of the 28 yaksha generals of Vaishravana. He is the father of her 500 sons. She is also said to have 10 daughters who are considered rakshasas, which shows how interchangeable the classifications yaksha and rakshasa are.

Hariti was obsessed with eating the children of Rajagriha, and eventually even her brother, the benevolent yaksha guardian of Rajagriha, and her husband Pancika were unable to stop her. Neither King Bimbisara nor even the devas were able to stop her, so in desperation the townspeople turned to Shakyamuni Buddha. The Buddha then visited her home while she was away and used his supernatural powers to hide her youngest son under his alms bowl. When Hariti returned and could not find her son she was distraught and finally she herself sought out the Buddha. The Buddha then pointed out to her that if she felt so badly about missing even one child out of 500, she should consider how badly the parents of Rajagriha must feel when she takes away their children when they have so few to begin with. Hearing this, Hariti felt remorse and compassion for those she had harmed. She repented of her actions; took refuge in the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha; took the five major precepts; and vowed to protect the people of Rajagriha. Shakyamuni Buddha then restored her youngest son to her. In return the Buddha had his monks, from that time on, make a symbolic offer of their food to the hungry ghosts. Hariti came to be considered a protector of children and women giving birth as well as a protector of the Dharma, and her gentle image as a "giver of children" would sometimes cause her to be confused with Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva.

Hariti appears in chapter 26 of the Lotus Sutra along with her ten daughters to offer dharanis for the protection of the teacher of the Lotus Sutra.

Icon: A fierce looking woman with fangs. Her hands form the anjali mudra (gassho).

This gets better and better.

On Splats:
I don't plan to discuss the patron gods too deeply; I'll just provide little vignettes and discussions or role and imagery. Rather than the characters having Traits that recall their gods, they would ideally be influenced by them in play, but not mechanically. Their marks would be the only thing that's overtly obvious... Did I discuss marks? Anyway, with enough emphasis on individualism, the Splat phenomenon should be averted.
On this note, L5R did a clever thing with its clan division where it went to a great deal of trouble to describe several characters that ran deliberately counter to their clan's stereotypes. The name Pretty Eyes Iron Crane still echoes in my head.

On Mechanics:
The more I think about removing that (use 2), the more I like it. The Trait manipulation in certainly becoming the spotlight mechanic, and anything that reduces that runs counter to the design.

On More Mechanics:
I'm thinking of setting up a system of 'dormant traits' that can be activated with Fuel; whenever you light a dormant Flame, it puts up a corresponding plume of Smoke. This might evolve into a way to model magic.
Pale Fire, thanks for the mahayana link. I'll have to look at it more closely this evening... dang posting while running out the door.

And KtM:
That story could be transformed into setting material so easily... maybe the region is named after the Mother.

four willows weeping wrote: I'm thinking of setting up a system of 'dormant traits' that can be activated with Fuel; whenever you light a dormant Flame, it puts up a corresponding plume of Smoke. This might evolve into a way to model magic.

Varashi Eater-of-Serpents stood her ground against Kabula Neranja, chosen son of the Demon Mother and the butcher of thousands. Tossing aside a freshly hewn corpse, the beast turned to face her.

"Today," he growled, "you will meet the Death-God at the ford of the Black River. I hope, for your sake, that you have your toll ready."

Neranja laughed as his body burst into flames that did not consume, but flickered over the surface of his ebon flesh.

[Neranja burns a Fuel Point to fire up the Flame "Licked by Infernal Tongues," and gains the Smoke "The Ocean's Nemesis".]

Varashi only smiled and gestured to the dry river bed behind him.

"I am not afraid of The River, O hideous one. Shall we ask it to join us?"

Suddenly, a burbling sound is heard.

[Varashi spends a Fuel Point to fire up the Flame "And the Waves Hear Her Cries," and gains the Smoke "The Unpredictable Waters." She also burns three more Fuel Points to raise the Contrast.]

Neranja stops laughing.

Varashi turns and begins to run, as the ground beneath her feet grows damp...

[Hey GOOD stuff Jonathan! If I wasn't so involved with Ygg mechanics I'd rave about how I'd like cool stuff like that in my game too. You wanna help co-design Ygg? ;)]

Anyway, just want to post something and mention it turns out I actually read about the Lotus sutra. I read a trimmed down version with a lot of comments. So anyway, if you wanna know the geist of the story you can ask me. Although I'd say that what actually happens in the story isn't all that exciting.

Pale Fire wrote: [Hey GOOD stuff Jonathan! If I wasn't so involved with Ygg mechanics I'd rave about how I'd like cool stuff like that in my game too. You wanna help co-design Ygg? ;)]

Anyway, just want to post something and mention it turns out I actually read about the Lotus sutra. [snip] Although I'd say that what actually happens in the story isn't all that exciting.

As Christoffer said, great stuff. That's so in the feel of the game I could die.

I think the game's getting to the point that I'd like to start playtesting; do y'all have any suggestions for how I might go about that?

Hmm... not really.

If you want to playtest it as a PBeM or Chat-based game, I could give you some suggestions of where to track down players. I'd offer to run it with my Nobilis group, except we're not going to be meeting for the next two weeks. RPGnet has a forum where you can ask for playtesters and you could probably find some here as well. As to what format, that's pretty much up to you.

Still, for a good playtest, you'll probably want to rules (by not the setting) written up clearly enough so other people could run them with no problems.

That's all I can think of right now, since I'm about ready to go to bed. More tomorrow, maybe.

Later.
Jonathan

To determine the result of a significant conflict, this procedure is used:
(this takes something from what I learned from Alyria; credit is due)

I'll use Jonathan's little sample of play as an example, expanded as appropriate.

Determine the goals of each opposing side.
Varashi Eater-of-Serpents stood her ground against Kabula Neranja, chosen son of the Demon Mother and the butcher of thousands. Tossing aside a freshly hewn corpse, the beast turned to face her.
"Today," he growled, "you will meet the Death-God at the ford of the Black River. I hope, for your sake, that you have your toll ready."
Varashi Eater-of-Serpents and Kabula Neranja are clearly at physical odds; they each want to kill or maim the other.

Narrate the influence of traits and the use of Fuel.
Neranja laughed as his body burst into flames that did not consume, but flickered over the surface of his ebon flesh.
Neranja burns a Fuel Point to fire up the Flame "Licked by Infernal Tongues," and gains the Smoke "The Ocean's Nemesis".
Varashi only smiled and gestured to the dry river bed behind him.
"I am not afraid of The River, O hideous one. Shall we ask it to join us?"
Suddenly, a burbling sound is heard.
Varashi spends Fuel to fire up the Flame "And the Waves Hear Her Cries," and gains the Smoke "The Unpredictable Waters." She also burns three more Fuel to raise Contrast.

Narrate the possible outcomes.
For player-player conflicts, it is possible to allow each player to narrate his character's success.
Neranja stops laughing.
Varashi turns and begins to run, as the ground beneath her feet grows damp...
Varashi's outcome; this will probably result in a following conflict of Neranja vs. the River.
Neranja narrowly escapes the waters, which swirl around Varashi, cutting off his escape route.
Neranja's outcome; this sets up more conflict between the two...

Calculate the total modifier.
From Varashi's point of view, we have a +4 modifier for "Waves Hear Her Cries" and a +1 modifier for "Ocean's Nemesis". No other Traits apply (that we know of).

Roll the dice.
It seems Varashi won this one.

Nice example.

Here's another thought that I had last night, right before I went to bed:

Suppose it was possible for players to create custom-built, instantaneous Flame/Smoke combos that would last until you used them up. This is kinda vauge, so I'll give some examples, but the idea was to let characters pay over the long term for short term gain. I think this kind of thing could easily be intergrated into the "dormant" Flame/Smoke magic that you already have.

EXAMPLE:

Varashi is staring down Neranja. She wants to create an avalanche to bury the demon, but has no such Flame, either among her active or dormant Traits.

For X amount of Fuel, she creates the Flame "Carries Winter with Her," which will last for the duration of a single scene. However, to counter this she has to accept the Smoke "Ice Queen," which makes her always seem cold and aloof to those who interact with her. Unlike the Flame, which will die out soon, the after affects will continue to smolder (I love using these fire-related words!) and continue giving off Smoke.

Basically, "Ice Queen" will stick around as a mild curse, interfering in her social life until it does a certain amount of damage, such as destroying several important relationships. I'm not sre how you'd measure that, but you might be able to stay it sticks around long enough to have an effect equal to that of Varashi's avalanche earlier. So it's a trade off.

/EXAMPLE.

I don't know that I'd have this be unlimited (that you could create ANY Flame you wanted), but you could have categories that people could buy during character creation or advancement. You could buy Flame/Smoke categories in pairs, and call them "Embers" or something like that.

EXAMPLE:

Before her conflict with Neranja, Varashi's player decides to buy an Ember. For the Ember's Flame aspect, she picks "Mistress of the Elements," which will allow Varashi to create elemental-based Flames on the fly by burning Fuel. For the Ember's Smoke aspect, she picks "7 Years of Solitude," which means her elemental Flames will always leave her with Smokes that harm her social interactions and ensure that she lives the life of a loner.

/EXAMPLE.

Now, in the rules themselves, you could have a list of Flame/Smoke aspects that players could use to build Embers, but then allow them to create their own. Aspects would be broader and more powerful than the kinds of things normally allowed as Traits: Elemental, Social, Military, Secrecy, Knowledge, Movement, Emotional, Biological, Physical, etc. They'd be more like Spheres in Mage, but would always have a negative Smoke aspect to smack you when you used them.

I'm not sure if this fits within your vision, but I think it'd be cool, even in limited ways. If you don't think it works as an overarching rule system, you could limit it to certain spirits or magical styles or the gods.

Later.
Jonathan

I had wanted to set something up like this earlier, when I proposed the dormant traits mechanic, but hadn't thought of a way to limit it. This categories idea seems really appropriate. I'll have to figure out the precise costs of that and so on...

On the availability of various cool tricks like this, dormant traits, etc:
I thought of this as a way to differentiate the different types of gods.
The skinchangers are so inconstant that they don't have access to dormant traits, and if they want temporary abilities they have to buy them as Embers.
The Hollow Gods, spirits of creature and place, are their opposite. They don't hold surprises, and thus have access to dormant traits but not to Embers. (dormant traits - Sparks? That seems off... Cinders? Those are ashes...Brands? Torches?)
The Walking Gods, humans without a touch of divine blood, who captured a spark of immortality by involving themselves in legend, are severely limited by either not having Contrast manipulation or having neither Brands nor Embers.
The leihesjun, being the eyes and hands of the Hidden Gods themselves, are at the top of the power ladder. They can do all this. Prosaic humans, without a trace of Spark, are the least privileged. They have no native access to Fuel. (This looks a lot like the Exalted heirarchy of access to magic, for some reason.)

So, why isn't the world run by leihesjun? They're powerful, flexible, and have the favor of the Faceless behind them.

Enter godsblood.
Everyone knows that the sacrifice of blood is a potent thing. Well, the gods bleed too, and if you slay a god and drink the blood of his heart, you gain a portion of his power. In game terms, this boils down to gaining access to the next cool Fuel ability you don't have, that your victim did. (This means that a human has to kill a great deal of powerful creatures to get leihesju access to powers: anything for Fuel usage, something for Contrast, something for Reversal, something for Ignition of Brands, something for Embers.) Granted, there isn't much that can slay a ccareful leihesju, but there are things out there that can.
Besides the simple Fear of Blood, there is the issue of preoccupation. Who really wants to rule the world? The immortals certainly aren't interested in that. They all have their own goals, and ruling the world is likely to be low on the list unless it makes some later goal that much easier to obtain. Thirdly, Dhei Yaarnje is BIG. The Sea of Years is so named because it takes Years to cross it. Not even the dawnseekers can maintain lines of communication across those distances. (In Torchd20, dawnseekers were a sect of priests that had powers of mindlinking and perfect navigation; they came about as a result of the obsidian exodus from their homeland and their continuing attempt to find their home. In D&D style, the mindlink could not be permanent, so there's this constantly shifting web of dawnseekers meeting and linking to keep their supernally quick communications alive.)

four willows weeping wrote: I had wanted to set something up like this earlier, when I proposed the dormant traits mechanic, but hadn't thought of a way to limit it. This categories idea seems really appropriate. I'll have to figure out the precise costs of that and so on...

On the availability of various cool tricks like this, dormant traits, etc: I thought of this as a way to differentiate the different types of gods.

The skinchangers are so inconstant that they don't have access to dormant traits, and if they want temporary abilities they have to buy them as Embers.

The Hollow Gods, spirits of creature and place, are their opposite. They don't hold surprises, and thus have access to dormant traits but not to Embers. (dormant traits - Sparks? That seems off... Cinders? Those are ashes...Brands? Torches?)

The Walking Gods, humans without a touch of divine blood, who captured a spark of immortality by involving themselves in legend, are severely limited by either not having Contrast manipulation or having neither Brands nor Embers.

The leihesjun, being the eyes and hands of the Hidden Gods themselves, are at the top of the power ladder. They can do all this.

(This looks a lot like the Exalted heirarchy of access to magic, for some reason.)

Enter godsblood.

The Hollow Gods, spirits of creature and place, are their opposite. They don't hold surprises, and thus have access to dormant traits but not to Embers. (dormant traits - Sparks? That seems off... Cinders? Those are ashes...Brands? Torches?)

Leihesjun have been the default characters for the purposes of this discussion simply because it's less confusing to use examples that aren't incapable of some things. I could see several chapters devoted to discussing how it's possible to play as anyone in the heirarchy; I also like your idea of playing the humans climbing the ladder, though that takes out the opportunity to use Marks, which I just love (but look like Exalted again... gah)

Fuel gain:
This could be different for the different castes as well. Blood-drinking sounds right for skinchangers. Leihesjun might have to do things that have some direct association with their gods (this is nebulous), or they could get it as a contsant trickle of power through their 'link'. Hollow Gods could be fearsome creatures with Fuel associated with their territory; maybe they gain some amount of Fuel whenever the light of Dawn touches their lands, and they have no cap to their reserves, so the most active gods are probably the least dangerous. Humans could gather Fuel through dramatic actions that inspire fear and wonder; maybe each caste feeds on a different emotion.

I have to run; more thoughts later. I'd be overjoyed to have you helping design, by the way, but, time flies, and i'm late

Walt reminded me to go back and look at your dice mechanic...

Basically, it looks like "Fudge on Crack," and I mean that as the highest compliment ;) Still, I was playing around with it a bit to see if I could come up with something similar that didn't use D12's (mostly because it's much harder to find blank D12's and pretty difficult to put little tiny marks on their sides).

Your standard die (+,+,+,+,+,+,-,-,_,_,_,_) could be reduced to a D6 (+,+,+,-,_,_). Heck, you could even buy a Fudge die and cross one of the minus signs to be a "+."

However, your mod die (+,+,+,-,_,_,_,_,_,_,_,_) is REALLY hard to reduce. The closest D6 would be (+,+,?,_,_,_) with a half-ring as the "?"; if you rolled two half-rings, you have to take away a "+". Not very elegant, unfortunately.

I'll see if I can come up with anything else. Maybe an optional diceless mechanic?

Later.
Jonathan

The mod die is problematic because it's an expansion of Walt's d6 mod die with only one point and no ring. I linked to his discussion of his mechanic way back in my first post. The thinking behind my mechanic was to expand Walt's (I linked to the discussion on it in my first post) in such a way as to define degrees of success and failure.

The base die is a d12 only because the mod dice are d12s as well. The Alyria forum discussed making moon dice with stickers, and I figured that I could use stickers to make Torchbearer dice (to continue the fire motif, I might use little gold starbursts or flame designs for the point and a black or blue circle for the ring, I dunno) as well.

I'm not sure if there is a way to not only have a less odd die type but also to arrange the faces attractively; the second ring of a base die forces me into ugly arrangements on a d12.

Rg... going for dinner. Still more later.

As for playing leihesjun and defending yourself from the lesser gods:
I don't want that to be going on a lot; the power of godsblood should be at least partly obscure. Mortal magicians know that drinking godsblood makes them mighty, but they don't understand the capabilities it grants them well enough to recognize its true value.
Leihesjun should be in fairly close communication with their gods; they aren't simply infused with power, but also consciousness, drive. If gods were in the habit of having thousands of leihesjun, then this analogy would apply: an anthill related to a single ant as a god does to the sum of the part of him in the Upper World and the leihesjun who serve him. The ant doesn't really know what's going on, and the hill doesn't know what's happening at that level of detail, but each knows its purpose and works to the same goals. The fact that the Hidden Gods are vanishingly rare and the leihesjun require a lot of power to maintain makes the analogy less graceful but no less true.
I can see an outgrowth of this, a story where commands from on high manipulate the characters like pawns. It wouldn't be wildly interesting without some personal conflict, perhaps the characters' relationships with each other or the environment running counter to their orders...

I don't see a way that a mortal, without a stroke of incredible luck or the assistance of some kind of more powerful being (a magical object, a spirit ally) could have a chance of taking down someone of worthy blood, but once the first killing is over with (that first killing would be a spectacular story, if it panned out) the rest of the line is a lot less difficult. Mortals don't even have a Fuel buffer to keep them alive.
On the other hand, right now I really want to run a game of skinchangers hunting down some mortal magician, for fear that the magician will do something undesirable to a particular demon lord whose Name he has learned. (Name is tied deeply to Blood and power; I think I'll associate these somehow mechanically. Maybe with a combination of a person's Name and Blood you could be him, or draw on his Fuel or Traits? The preciousness of given Name is why my example characters carry noms de guerre.)

I'm starting to think that Human characters would be eminently playable, and the player can choose what power his character has no access to - activated traits, Contrast, or Reversal. I seriously doubt that anyone would sacrifice the use of Contrast, it being so wildly useful, but perhaps a character who carries a magical object that can use Contrast on itself would be playable.

Now I'm actually going to dinner.

four willows weeping wrote: I don't see a way that a mortal, without a stroke of incredible luck or the assistance of some kind of more powerful being (a magical object, a spirit ally) could have a chance of taking down someone of worthy blood, but once the first killing is over with (that first killing would be a spectacular story, if it panned out) the rest of the line is a lot less difficult.

(Name is tied deeply to Blood and power; I think I'll associate these somehow mechanically. Maybe with a combination of a person's Name and Blood you could be him, or draw on his Fuel or Traits?)

I seriously doubt that anyone would sacrifice the use of Contrast, it being so wildly useful, but perhaps a character who carries a magical object that can use Contrast on itself would be playable.

Well, I programmed the die roll distributions and the result is a bit surprising, at least for me. The system is reasonably well-behaved, but I think you might be as surprised as I am by how slowly the chance of failure (for positive mod scores) and the chance of success (for negative mod scores) actually decays.

The table below is for positive modifiers. The symmetry is still intact, so for negative modifiers the numbers are the same and you just reverse the words "success" and "failure."

The key number I use to characterize Symmetry variants is the factor by which the chance of failure diminishes for each added point of positive modifier when the mod is positive (which is also the amount the chance of success decreases for each additional point of negative modifier, when the mod is negative). Because of the added complexity of the rings, this isn't quite constant in this case. It varies between a factor of .923 and .909 (and may rise higher again at higher modifier totals). The variation isn't a surprise and it isn't a noticeable problem. But the magnitude of the number is; it's a much slower decay rate than even basic fine-grained d6-based Symmetry, in which each point of positive modifier decreases the chance of failure by a factor of .841.

As a result, the overall chances of success increases by about the same amount as if the modifier dice had only a single point side (and no rings). It takes a +8 just to get to a 75% chance of success. Clearly, the rings are having a powerful effect.

I've found this difficult to understand intuitively (and I haven't totally ruled out the possibility of an error in my program). Shouldn't three points and one ring average out to about the same effect as two points? Apparently not. Here's one way to look at it:

A modifier die turns failure into success only if
(a) the net result of the other dice is zero (what you treat as an ordinary failure) and
(b) the modifier die rolls a point

At most two thirds of the failures are ordinary failures, so the chance of a modifier die turning failure into success is at most (failure chance for all the other dice) * (2/3) * (3/12). This decreases the overall failure chance by one-sixth at the most.

But the overall reduction in failure chance is reduced due to the cases in which the modifier die instead turns success into failure, which happens if the modifier die rolls a ring and the net result of the other dice was one net point. The chance of this occurring is (chance of one net point on all other dice, which equals the "unusual success" chance) * 1/12. If the unusual success chance is equal to the failure chance for all the other dice (which is only true for the first modifier die), then this effect undoes half of the benefit of the chance of the modifier die rolling a point.

As the modifier increases, the chance of the one-net-point unusual success chance decreases, which would tend to reduce the adverse effect of rolling a ring on the next modifier die. But at the same time, the fraction of failures that are normal failures (and can thus be turned into successes with a roll of a point on the next modifier die) also decreases, which reduces the benefit of the next modifier die. The two effects offset, keeping the decay rate of the overall failure chance relatively steady... but very slow.

[code]
Number of modifier dice = 0
Any success 0.5000
normal 0.0000*
unusual 0.5000*
Any failure 0.5000
normal 0.3333*
unusual 0.1667*
*if the rules used for nonzero modifier scores were to be applied
Number of modifier dice = 1
Any success 0.5417
normal 0.1250
unusual 0.4167
Any failure 0.4583
normal 0.3056
unusual 0.1528
Number of modifier dice = 2
Any success 0.5833
normal 0.2188
unusual 0.3646
Any failure 0.4167
normal 0.2731
unusual 0.1435
Number of modifier dice = 3
Any success 0.6212
normal 0.2943
unusual 0.3270
Any failure 0.3788
normal 0.2429
unusual 0.1359
Number of modifier dice = 4
Any success 0.6547
normal 0.3578
unusual 0.2969
Any failure 0.3453
normal 0.2164
unusual 0.1289
Number of modifier dice = 5
Any success 0.6841
normal 0.4126
unusual 0.2715
Any failure 0.3159
normal 0.1938
unusual 0.1222
Number of modifier dice = 6
Any success 0.7099
normal 0.4606
unusual 0.2493
Any failure 0.2901
normal 0.1744
unusual 0.1157
Number of modifier dice = 7
Any success 0.7327
normal 0.5032
unusual 0.2295
Any failure 0.2673
normal 0.1578
unusual 0.1095
Number of modifier dice = 8
Any success 0.7530
normal 0.5412
unusual 0.2119
Any failure 0.2470
normal 0.1435
unusual 0.1035
Number of modifier dice = 9
Any success 0.7712
normal 0.5753
unusual 0.1960
Any failure 0.2288
normal 0.1310
unusual 0.0978
Number of modifier dice = 10
Any success 0.7877
normal 0.6061
unusual 0.1816
Any failure 0.2123
normal 0.1200
unusual 0.0924[/code]

If you were to make the modifier dice the same as the Core die (2 rings, 6 points, 4 blank), the decay would be closer to basic Symmetry, with four modifier dice yielding a success chance of just over 76%. Would you like to see the numbers on that version?

- Walt

That math is amazing. I would certainly like to see the numbers on that alternative (which is especially attractive because it requires only one die type).

I'm very excited about the implications of this. The possibility of having dice that I can simply call 'Torchbearer Dice' is better than can be believed.

Thanks, Walt. I don't know how I can effectively express my gratitude.

The other good news is that, if you do go with your "standard" die type, you have a viable D6 alternative, which'll make it much easier for players who just want to try out the system without going to great ends to find dice.

Heck, you could just convert your own:

[img]http://www.100flowers.indie-rpgs.com/Dtorch.jpg[/img]

Later.
Jonathan

Guys,

I have nothing to add about the game as yet. Just wanted to say I really enjoy this thread and the discussion. It's a model both of civil dialogue and focused creative synergy. Fun to see the concept of the game unfold between the three of you.

Ah! I lied. One comment. I generally prefer options that permit me to easily modify existing die types over those that require extensive modification or stickering higher sided polyhedrons (which can prove an awkward task). Thus, Jonathan's suggestion regarding use of ordinary six-siders or Fudge dice works best for me.

Best,

Blake

Blake Hutchins wrote: Just wanted to say I really enjoy this thread and the discussion. It's a model both of civil dialogue and focused creative synergy. Fun to see the concept of the game unfold between the three of you.

I generally prefer options that permit me to easily modify existing die types over those that require extensive modification or stickering higher sided polyhedrons (which can prove an awkward task). Thus, Jonathan's suggestion regarding use of ordinary six-siders or Fudge dice works best for me.

Ever read J. Gergory Keyes' novel The Waterborn? That was the ideal that this game seeks to attain. It's incredibly mythic: the story opens to a teenage boy falling in love with the goddess of a stream, who soon after tells him that the River downstream is eating her, always eating her, nibbling away at her feet every moment of her life. He is outraged, and swears to kill the River for the Goddess that he loves. (Moment a boy becomes a mythic hero.) It just gets better from there, and I think that that opening would make a great way to start a Torchbearer game.

Here's the story I was talking about. I'm not completely satisfied with it, but it's good enough to illustrate my point. It's in a pseudo-R. Sean Borgstrom style, because that's just what I was channeling at the moment.

[The Great Wheel Turns]

Later.
Jonathan

Okay, here's how it works out when you use d6 configured as (3 point, 2 blank, 1 ring) for all of the dice.

This isn't too bad. It start with a decay rate just a little steeper than plain Symmetry, such that 4 modifier dice give you a little over a 75% chance of success. However, the decay rate itself slowly decreases as you add modifier dice, so additional modifier dice have slightly less benefit. By the time you're at +8, the chance of success is .866 instead of Symmetry's .875.

Not a big difference, but keep in mind that plain Symmetry is a fairly fine-grained system to begin with. You need to be able to stack on a lot of modifier dice when necessary, if you're going to be requiring or allowing rolls in situations where the success chance is over 90% or under 10%. That's why I've extended the table below to 20 modifier dice. The number of dice might be an issue if you're dealing with special dice or asking players to mark dice. (But using d6s makes this a lot more practical! Especially with Jonathan's marking scheme.)

The normal/unusual success distinction is still a little broken, with the chance of unusual succss maximized at +1 and steadily decreasing as you add modifier dice (even as the overall chance of success is increasing).

[code]Number of modifier dice = 0
Any success 0.5000
normal 0.0000
unusual 0.5000 (but with zero mod, these are considered normal)
Any failure 0.5000
normal 0.3333
unusual 0.1667 (but with zero mod, these are considered normal)
Number of modifier dice = 1
Any success 0.5833
normal 0.2500
unusual 0.3333
Any failure 0.4167
normal 0.2778
unusual 0.1389
Number of modifier dice = 2
Any success 0.6667
normal 0.3750
unusual 0.2917
Any failure 0.3333
normal 0.2037
unusual 0.1296
Number of modifier dice = 3
Any success 0.7199
normal 0.4792
unusual 0.2407
Any failure 0.2801
normal 0.1651
unusual 0.1150
Number of modifier dice = 4
Any success 0.7623
normal 0.5579
unusual 0.2045
Any failure 0.2377
normal 0.1353
unusual 0.1024
Number of modifier dice = 5
Any success 0.7959
normal 0.6215
unusual 0.1744
Any failure 0.2041
normal 0.1133
unusual 0.0908
Number of modifier dice = 6
Any success 0.8235
normal 0.6735
unusual 0.1500
Any failure 0.1765
normal 0.0959
unusual 0.0806
Number of modifier dice = 7
Any success 0.8464
normal 0.7168
unusual 0.1297
Any failure 0.1536
normal 0.0819
unusual 0.0716
Number of modifier dice = 8
Any success 0.8658
normal 0.7531
unusual 0.1126
Any failure 0.1342
normal 0.0705
unusual 0.0637
Number of modifier dice = 9
Any success 0.8823
normal 0.7840
unusual 0.0983
Any failure 0.1177
normal 0.0611
unusual 0.0567
Number of modifier dice = 10
Any success 0.8964
normal 0.8104
unusual 0.0860
Any failure 0.1036
normal 0.0531
unusual 0.0505
Number of modifier dice = 11
Any success 0.9087
normal 0.8332
unusual 0.0755
Any failure 0.0913
normal 0.0464
unusual 0.0450
Number of modifier dice = 12
Any success 0.9193
normal 0.8528
unusual 0.0664
Any failure 0.0807
normal 0.0406
unusual 0.0401
Number of modifier dice = 13
Any success 0.9285
normal 0.8699
unusual 0.0586
Any failure 0.0715
normal 0.0357
unusual 0.0358
Number of modifier dice = 14
Any success 0.9366
normal 0.8848
unusual 0.0518
Any failure 0.0634
normal 0.0314
unusual 0.0320
Number of modifier dice = 15
Any success 0.9437
normal 0.8978
unusual 0.0458
Any failure 0.0563
normal 0.0277
unusual 0.0286
Number of modifier dice = 16
Any success 0.9499
normal 0.9093
unusual 0.0406
Any failure 0.0501
normal 0.0245
unusual 0.0256
Number of modifier dice = 17
Any success 0.9554
normal 0.9193
unusual 0.0360
Any failure 0.0446
normal 0.0217
unusual 0.0229
Number of modifier dice = 18
Any success 0.9602
normal 0.9282
unusual 0.0320
Any failure 0.0398
normal 0.0192
unusual 0.0205
Number of modifier dice = 19
Any success 0.9645
normal 0.9360
unusual 0.0285
Any failure 0.0355
normal 0.0171
unusual 0.0184
Number of modifier dice = 20
Any success 0.9683
normal 0.9429
unusual 0.0254
Any failure 0.0317
normal 0.0152
unusual 0.0165[/code]

- Walt

Walt, thanks again for the math. I think the fineness of the grain will be workable - like TROS, the modifiers will probably stack high for actions the player really, really wants to succeed.

About a year ago, Neranja killed Varashi's lover in front of her. Now they're having another confrontation. Varashi flares with Fuel, reversing her Vengeful Smoke, calling up The River Hears Her Cries and Voice of the North Wind, and turning up her Contrast to 6, adding up to 18 dice

Class... site update this evening.

For those who prefer tables.

[code] Success Failure
Dice Any Normal Unusual Any Normal Unusual
0 50.00% 0.00% 50.00% 50.00% 33.33% 16.67%
1 58.33% 25.00% 33.33% 41.67% 27.78% 13.89%
2 66.67% 37.50% 29.17% 33.33% 20.37% 12.96%
3 71.99% 47.92% 24.07% 28.01% 16.51% 11.50%
4 76.23% 55.79% 20.45% 23.77% 13.53% 10.24%
5 79.59% 62.15% 17.44% 20.41% 11.33% 9.08%
6 82.35% 67.35% 15.00% 17.65% 9.59% 8.06%
7 84.64% 71.68% 12.97% 15.36% 8.19% 7.16%
8 86.58% 75.31% 11.26% 13.42% 7.05% 6.37%
9 88.23% 78.40% 9.83% 11.77% 6.11% 5.67%
10 89.64% 81.04% 8.60% 10.36% 5.31% 5.05%
11 90.87% 83.32% 7.55% 9.13% 4.64% 4.50%
12 91.93% 85.28% 6.64% 8.07% 4.06% 4.01%
13 92.85% 86.99% 5.86% 7.15% 3.57% 3.58%
14 93.66% 88.48% 5.18% 6.34% 3.14% 3.20%
15 94.37% 89.78% 4.58% 5.63% 2.77% 2.86%
16 94.99% 90.93% 4.06% 5.01% 2.45% 2.56%
17 95.54% 91.93% 3.60% 4.46% 2.17% 2.29%
18 96.02% 92.82% 3.20% 3.98% 1.92% 2.05%
19 96.45% 93.60% 2.85% 3.55% 1.71% 1.84%
20 96.83% 94.29% 2.54% 3.17% 1.52% 1.65%[/code]

Mike

Ahh. Thanks, Mike. That's much more readable to me.

The important numbers are (I think):

0 -- 50%
2 -- 65%
4 -- 75%
8 -- 85%
16 -- 95%

Which, just pondering a little bit, looks like a pretty decent spread to me. In situations where you would have closely matched opponents and the spread of dice would be between -3 and +3, both sides have a reasonable chance of winning. And it's only by rolling massive amounts of dice that you can really have an well-assured victory.

Honestly, I'm less sure about how to interpret the "Unusual" results, since they seem a little counter-intuitive...

Later.
Jonathan

Dang, just lost a long post on mechanics. Well, try again...

The unusual mechanic might be the next thing going out the window. Though I see a certain appropriateness in the slow reduction of frequency as bonuses rise, I'm not too excited about it, unlike the other mechanics, which I love.

This means that theoretically the game could be played with pure Symmetry, which has the benefit of not having to subtract rings but also the disadvantage of having multiple die types. As it stands, one could run T with unmodified d6, reading 1 as ring and the numbers where all the corners are occupied - 4,5,6 - as point.


Some thoughts on the mechanics of activated Traits:
(I think I'm going to represent things like Fuel and Smoke Traces with glass counters or something like them, by the way; it seems the cleanest way to track rapidly shifting numbers during the game.)

Contrast: Characters with permanent Contrast greater than one can spend Fuel to reduce their Contrast (one Fuel per level of Contrast) for the duration of a scene.

Coals: A Coal is the term for an inactive Flame/Smoke pair. For the cost of one Fuel, both Traits become active. The Flame burns out at the end of the scene. Whenever the Flame applies a modifier, add that same amount to its Smoke Trace.

Embers: An Ember is a thematic category from which Flames and Smokes can be created. These can have a Contrast value, like that of Lanterns. Unlike Lanterns, though, the Contrast of the Trait itself and the Contrast of the character both are successively (not simultaneously; 3 Trait Contrast and 3 Character Contrast add up to 9, not 5, total dice) applied to the Trait for the purposes of figuring bonuses. It costs Trait Contrast squared to ignite a Flame from an Ember. At the same time, a Smoke issues from one of the character's Embers; it need not be the same. The Smoke has the same Contrast as the Flame does for the duration of the Flame, which burns out at the end of the scene. Like Coals, Ember-created Flames incur Smoke Traces.

Smoke Traces: The Smoke from activated Traits sometimes lingers far longer than the heat it provides. Whenever the Smoke Trace comes into play, apply the appropriate modifier and reduce the Trace by one. When it reaches zero, the Trace dissipates. (Yes, this means that Traces can create a lot of negative modifiers for characters that use Contrast indiscriminately.)

Example:

The sorceress Zaradia City-of-Ivory is at the Emerald Court, disputing a piece of land with Sicnifr Duke of Laain Tal. They have seen fit to bring their case to the Kanj Emperor himself.

Zaradia really wants to win this, so she activates her Ember Beautiful and Terrible Queen to create the Trait Terrifying Gaze of Disdain at an intensity of three, for a cost of nine Fuel. For two more she raises her Contrast to three.

Zaradia presents her gase to the Emperor, and as she returns to her seat she delivers one brief, terrible glance at Sicnifr. A crow cries ominously outside. Sicnifr is so shaken by this that he entirely botches the delivery of his argument, swinging the conflict in Zaradia's favor by nine dice.

This isn't free, though. When Zaradia created her Flame, she also created the Smoke Weak As Tea from her Ember Internal Alchemist. Her athletics will suffer for nine successive rolls.

I think I might become worried about the Trait Contrast mechanic of Embers... the math seems to indicate that fairly low Trait Contrast and high Character Contrast is very cost-effective.

The Waterborn and Blackgod are some of my favorite fantasy novels, willows. I agree wholeheartedly.

Best,

Blake

four willows weeping wrote: The unusual mechanic might be the next thing going out the window. Though I see a certain appropriateness in the slow reduction of frequency as bonuses rise, I'm not too excited about it, unlike the other mechanics, which I love.

Contrast: Characters with permanent Contrast greater than one can spend Fuel to reduce their Contrast (one Fuel per level of Contrast) for the duration of a scene.

Coals: A Coal is the term for an inactive Flame/Smoke pair. For the cost of one Fuel, both Traits become active. The Flame burns out at the end of the scene. Whenever the Flame applies a modifier, add that same amount to its Smoke Trace.

Embers: An Ember is a thematic category from which Flames and Smokes can be created. These can have a Contrast value, like that of Lanterns. Unlike Lanterns, though, the Contrast of the Trait itself and the Contrast of the character both are successively (not simultaneously; 3 Trait Contrast and 3 Character Contrast add up to 9, not 5, total dice) applied to the Trait for the purposes of figuring bonuses.

Yeah; I already had my doubts about Contrasty Embers, and clearly it was very difficult to word so others could interpret it easily. I wanted to give them something besides their flexibility to differentiate them from Coals, but that might be unnecessary.

Strange that you use Shot-Down-the-Sun; I wrote a little story last night that mentions in passing a character with the name Arichesja Raven-Swallows-the-Sun (with a little pun in it, too; Arichesja translates to burning-bloom in the world's fictional language; it's one of the appellations of the sun.) You can see the slow progress of my update working its way across the site.

As for Contrast application to Everything, that's certainly a thing. At the moment, I've specifically mentioned (and not rejected) Character and Lantern Contrast; I like your Scene Contrast idea as well. That's probably as far as Contrast can sanely go; anything that can be construed to have Traits can have its Contrast manipulated, but only holistically. (Which, I guess, was the idea behind Contrast anyway.)

One thing that concerns me about Scene Contrast is that it seems to me that it would be hard to price. Characters and Lanterns are singular entities, so their Contrasts can be manipulated with relative ease, but an entire Scene having its Contrast raised can have very far-reaching effects.

It would seem reasonable, I think, to price Scene at 3 per point of Contrast; the likelihood of more than three characters having an effect on a roll seems low to me, and a Scene should not have a great number of rolls. Besides which, I like the number three.

The Smoke Trace mechanic is doing exactly what you said, unifying all the mechanics. Originally I had it simply subtract an equal number of dice over time, but that requires not only bookkeeping but would result in strange optimization. With this other setup, characters are likely to pay a lot more for drawing on the supernatural. It draws Torchbearer away from Exalted again; Exalted characters certainly could shoot down the sun, and then get up the next morning and make toast. A Torchbearer would certainly spend years running around burning off his bad karma for that kind of thing.

This means that theoretically the game could be played with pure Symmetry, which has the benefit of not having to subtract rings but also the disadvantage of having multiple die types. As it stands, one could run T with unmodified d6, reading 1 as ring and the numbers where all the corners are occupied - 4,5,6 - as point.

four willows weeping wrote: Strange that you use Shot-Down-the-Sun; I wrote a little story last night that mentions in passing a character with the name Arichesja Raven-Swallows-the-Sun.

Well, it's Contrast, so it gives you extra dice, so you take extra Traces. No reason to much the system up with confusing exceptions.

A question for the storytellers: What makes a game/world/story mythic? I don't want Torchbearer to become high-powered wuxia fantasy; what drives the characters to the heights of mythic beauty that creates stories like Waterborn? Should the game have some mechanic that reinforces mythicity over fantasy, like the Riddle of Steel has its powerful Spiritual Attributes mechanic that ties characters and the story together?

I can see Traits being used to model TROS SAs; this was part of the idea behind leaving them as poorly defined as I did (Though I plan to define them more sharply in the finished product).

Another question that has been bugging me:
A lot of RPGs present some system for mechanical character development. With the system I have here, does this seem workable or even appropriate?

Edit: Updated the site (front and people pages) with cleaner Torchbearer material.