I thought I'd separate this from the original thread, which seems to be diverging onto discussions of setting and colour.

So, a quick summary (rewrite?) of the rules and then some musing.

Rules:

Characters:
A character has a Name, a Vision, and a Duty.
The character's Name has two parts: his true Name and the one he gives out. These may be the same, but this has dramatic implications.
The character's Vision is what someone would answer to the question, "Who's that?"
Examples of Visions are "I am a demon hunter", "I was a jumberjack", "I am the deposed Duke of Night-of-Fireflies".
The character's Duty is what the character believes to be his purpose in life, the answer to the question "Why do you do it?"
Examples of Duties are "Skinchangers killed my family while I cowered under the bed; I want revenge", "My logging settlement was destroyed in a landslide and now I have nowhere to go", "I want my crown back".

The character also has some positive integer of Contrast, as well a number of Traits and some amount of Fuel.

Of Traits the character has an equal amount of Traits designated as Flame and Smoke, unless he is under the influence of Smoke Traces. Generally, Flames provide positive modifiers on rolls, while Smokes incur a negative modifier.
These Traits are generally things that are defining characteristics of the character. "I Grew Up with a Sword in my Hands", "I Captain the Pirate Ship Obsidian", "I Will Not Kill", "Vengeance Drives My Every Action", "I Wasn't the Brightest Candle in the Class" are all examples of Traits.

Contrast:
Contrast is a measure of something's mythic power. More Contrasty things not only have stronger advantages, but also more fatal flaws. Characters, Scenes, and even Stories can have Contrast. Character Contrast makes a statement about the Character's departure from the prosaic; Scene Contrast punctuates Scenes pivotal to the Story, and Story Contrast models the mythic intensity of the Story itself.

Magic:
There are two kinds of 'special' Traits, Coals and Embers.

A Coal is a matched pair of Smoke and Flame. Ordinarily these have no function, but they can be activated with the use of Fuel. 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. The Coal's Smoke remains active so long as its Smoke Trace is nonzero; each time the Smoke comes into play reduce the Trace by one.
Coals are generally pseudo-mystical abilities in Torchbearer. Examples include "The River Hears my Call"/"The Ferryman Takes His Toll", "The Arrow Knows the Way"/"The Hunter is Hunted", "My White Sword of Summer Lightning"/"The Storm Follows on My Heels".

An Ember is a thematic category from which Flames and Smokes can be created. For the cost of one Fuel, a character can activate an Ember to create a Flame; he simultaneously creates a Smoke from any of his Embers as well. Once these Traits are created, they act like Coals: The Flame burns out at the end of the scene, and the Smoke lingers until its Trace is exhausted.
An example of an Ember is "Walking in Beauty", from which could come the Flames "My Voice Broke Her Heart", "Only Beauty Surrounds Me", and "The Statues Strained to Turn and See". It might create Smokes like "I See Only the Beautiful", "Ugliness Rears Its Head", "I Became Transfixed".

Lanterns:
A Lantern is a magical object, something inanimate inhabited by a Little God. Lanterns are functionally identical to characters; they have their own Name, Vision, Duty, Contrast, and Traits. Generally, the Vision of a Lantern describes the object that a Lantern is, and its Duty describes the spirit inside.

Conflict Resolution:
Rolls are used to resolve conflicts rather than tasks. Thus, it is possible to narrate entire scenes where no die-rolling occurs, only the repeated stacking of modifiers onto a single conflict roll.

The steps of conflict resolution:

Determine the goals of the opposing sides.
Narrate the relevance of Traits and the use of Fuel.
Calculate the total modifier.
Narrate the possible outcomes.
Roll the dice.

Whenever a Trait is relevant to a roll, it applies either a positive or negative modifier, as appropriate. This is multiplied by the Character's Contrast, the Scene Contrast, and the Story Contrast, as appropriate. As a guideline, Character and Scene Contrast always apply, but Story Contrast only applies if the conflict is relevant to the story.
When narrating the possible outcomes, the players who initiated the conflict each narrate the outcome where their characters are successful. Note that conflicts need not be between only two characters; at any time another party might choose a side and join in. The narration should take into account the magnitude of the modifier; really high modifiers represent conflicts at overpowering odds.

The Dice Mechanic:
Torchbearer dice are six-sided. Three of the sides are marked positive, two blank, and one negative. A roll consists of rolling one die plus a number of dice equal to the magintude of the modifier. Then, for each negative rolled, remove that negative and a positive. Examine the remainder.
If the modifier was zero or positive, a positive mark indicates a success; otherwise failure.
If the modifier was negative, a positive mark indicates a failure; otherwise success.

Fuel:
Fuel is what makes everything work. It has several uses. A human character has a maximum amount of Fuel equal to X*C, where X is the sum of his Embers, Coals, and ordinary (not Coal- or Ember-created) Flames, and C is his permanent Contrast. The character begins each Story with maximum Fuel, and gains one Fuel after each roll in which he acted in accord with his Image, his Duty, or the Story. There may also be extraordinary ways to gain Fuel.

Fuel's first and most important effect is that only a character's own player may narrate that character's death or other removal from the story while the character has Fuel. Once the character has no Fuel, any player may narrate his death.

Fuel can also be spent to modify Contrast. A character can spend one Fuel to raise or lower his own Contrast, three to raise or lower the Contrast of the Scene, and nine to raise or lower the Contrast of the Story. Personal Contrast resets to default at the end of each Scene. Story Contrast is special; the character's maximum Fuel is reduced by nine for the duration of the Story for each time he modified its Contrast.

The other uses of Fuel are to activate Coals and Embers, and to Reverse Traits. A Reversed Trait has the opposite effect on a conflict that it ordinarily would. Sometimes, a Trait that is irrelevant with reference to a conflict when it is in one mode becomes relevant in another, for example a character who is "Hard of Hearing" might turn that Smoke into a defense against a siren's tempting song. A player can Reverse his own character's Smokes, turning them into advantages, or another character's Flames, turning them into disadvantages.

Thoughts:
I'm not sure whether I want there to be so many levels of Contrast, interacting multiplicatively. It creates very, very large dicepools with relative ease. I think an alternative would be to set a Contrast modifier for Scenes and Stories, that would simply move around Character Contrast rather than multiplying on top of it. Additionally, the math of tracking Fuel for characters who modified Story Contrast is unpleasant.

I like the ideas quite a bit but I have question. Why do Flames and Smokes even need the canotation that they are Positive and Negative? Let me explain.

Lets take the Smoke of HArd of HEaring. You mentioned that using certain mechanics you can turn the Smoke into essentially a Flame, if indeed a Siren comes along. Ok thats very cool but why do you have to activate it? Can a Flame/Smoke simply be?

Ex1 You are very Brave. Because of this people follow you and generally hold you in high regard. However, they also expect you to fight their battles for them and will be more disappointed in you for failure then they would someone who is less brave.

Ex 2 You are Hard of HEaring. Ok you need to realy pay attention especially when you do magic in a loud arena, like a battle. However, all sonic attacks are severely penalized or nullified.

Instead of Flame and Smoke you have... well ok Flam and Smoke but together. Depending on the situation it works for you instead of against or vice versa.

Just my 2 Lunars

SMH
ADGBoss

ADGBoss wrote: Instead of Flame and Smoke you have... well ok Flam and Smoke but together. Depending on the situation it works for you instead of against or vice versa.

The whole Flame/Smoke polarity thing has been discussed on the earlier thread, but I'll review here, especially since developments in the game have made it even more important.

This game is about mythic heroism, first of all. Mythic heroes don't tend to have traits (in my observation) that are ambivalent on a regular basis. They live in a world of black-and-white. Sure, they may turn around their distinctive traits sometimes, in particularly dramatic situations, but seriously, anyone playing a character in Torchbearer who's "Hard of Hearing" rather than "I was Cursed to be Stone Deaf", or one who's "Brave" rather than "I Have Conquered My Fear" is making an accidental detail of a character into a Trait.

Secondly, the mechanics depend on Trait polarity for a great many things. Reversals would be redundant with ambivalent Traits. Coals and Embers could be used without fear of repercussion - just invent a Trace you're not particularly frightened of. This isn't want we want to have happening here; if a hero wants to shoot down the sun, by god let him, but then let him suffer for it.

Third, there is the issue of Colour. This ties back into the first, but there are also thoughts of terminology and internal constency; I have a lot of this fire terminology flaoting around, and I can't for the life of me think of what I'd call an ambicalent Trait. Maybe I'll discuss in some kind of optional section modifications to Torchbearer, like this neutral Traits thing.

four willows weeping wrote: The whole Flame/Smoke polarity thing has been discussed on the earlier thread, but I'll review here, especially since developments in the game have made it even more important.

This game is about mythic heroism, first of all. Mythic heroes don't tend to have traits (in my observation) that are ambivalent on a regular basis. They live in a world of black-and-white. Sure, they may turn around their distinctive traits sometimes, in particularly dramatic situations, but seriously, anyone playing a character in Torchbearer who's "Hard of Hearing" rather than "I was Cursed to be Stone Deaf", or one who's "Brave" rather than "I Have Conquered My Fear" is making an accidental detail of a character into a Trait.

Secondly, the mechanics depend on Trait polarity for a great many things. Reversals would be redundant with ambivalent Traits. Coals and Embers could be used without fear of repercussion - just invent a Trace you're not particularly frightened of. This isn't want we want to have happening here; if a hero wants to shoot down the sun, by god let him, but then let him suffer for it.

Third, there is the issue of Colour. This ties back into the first, but there are also thoughts of terminology and internal constency; I have a lot of this fire terminology flaoting around, and I can't for the life of me think of what I'd call an ambicalent Trait. Maybe I'll discuss in some kind of optional section modifications to Torchbearer, like this neutral Traits thing.

Rob,

I entirely agree on the Contrast issue; I'll look into better terms for that. I like your suggestions Blazon and Fulgor; I'd rather avoid terms such as Helion that evoke Greek mythology. Part of me wants to use Chiaroscuro, or maybe a term like Fervor which suggests fire, but isn't it outright. I think that Fulgor, especially, sounds mythic but without raising connotations of specific mythologies.

As for names, originally Torchbearer was ironic, referring precisely to those pages you're talking about. The ironys sort of washed itself out of the game, so the name might be changing eventually. I have a few ideas myself: Lightbringer, Morningstar; I like Flamebearer as well. There are a whole lot of less powerful names that I've rejected already.
Though, in a way, at least a subset of the possible characters are clearly torchbearers. Leihesjun are, in their deepest essence, mortals pressed into the service of gods, and they're probably in one way or another inferior to their tasks.

As for the funky dice, they're not entirely necessary. Ordinary six-sided dice work fine too, they just have a little more handling time.

four willows weeping wrote: I entirely agree on the Contrast issue.

Putting aside terminology for story contrast (I'll ask a bunch of potential players about Contrast; if opinion is torn here then it probably will be out in the Real World too...)

You're taking ideas out of my head again, Jon.

Story contrast could certainly be set at the beginning of the game; I was only providing a mechanic for shifting it in-game. That's an interesting idea of yours for making Story Contrast a narrative thing rather than a mathematical thing; it certainly would cut down on dice rolling, and turn up the randomness of the game, which is nice.

On the subject of Contrast ebbing and flowing:
Strangely, I had a mechanic for this in the d20 game; there I called it the Current, and it affected the efficacy of magicians' spells. It was terrifyingly dynamic - a certain amount of spells cast in one place could raise or lower the Current temporarily - and really did a lot to show how important the pulse of magic was to the workings of the world. Even leihesjun were woven into it; they tended to make the Current shift more rapidly, or pool around them so magics in their presence always crackled with power.
Then again, I had a lot of mechanics for magic in the d20 game, like the spellcaster's Corona, which was shamelessly the Anima Banner of Exalted in a highly mathified d20 form.

Setting Story Contrast as a kind of level of mythicity sounds good; at the moment it seems I've been writing in what you would call the medium-high Contrast zone. Variations on this could be exciting; a low-Contrast Torchbearer game could be about conflicts like Zaradia City-of-Ivory's territory dispute, and the ongoing feud between Varashi and Neranja is clearly on a high-Contrast level.

Back to the term Torchbearer. It says a lot, I think. The torch is not the bearer's. The hand that carries it is just that. This is sort of an ongoing theme - humans have to hunt Names and kill for power, skinchangers run about causing pain and death, ultimately leihesjun are servants of the gods and spirits of the land are dependent on the land for sustenance. No one is independent.

four willows weeping wrote: You're taking ideas out of my head again, Jon.

That's an interesting idea of yours for making Story Contrast a narrative thing rather than a mathematical thing; it certainly would cut down on dice rolling, and turn up the randomness of the game, which is nice.

Strangely, I had a mechanic for this in the d20 game; there I called it the Current, and it affected the efficacy of magicians' spells. It was terrifyingly dynamic.

Well, here's a thought.

Stories are described by a level of mythicness. This is a baseline that describes the intensity of the Traits of characters that are central to that Story. Activated Traits might creep toward the next rank of myth, but if they reach it, that signals a change in the Story's significance. Each step of the ladder is described by a reference to a myth or fairytale. For now, I'll use real-world myths for this. The ground - not on the ladder of Myth at all - is everyday life.



• Ordinary Life
• Subtle Myth - Johnny Appleseed, Wily Dalilah and her Daughter Zaynab. Ordinary people do extraordinary things.
• Mystical Myth - The Little Mermaid, Two Sisters Who Were Jealous of Their Younger Sister. Special people in an extraordinary world.
• Embroidered Myth - Aladdin and the Magic Lamp, Julnar the Mermaid and Her Son Badar Basim, Sindbad the Seaman. Nothing is ordinary except that which the story does not notice.
• Epic Myth - The Gilgamesh Saga, The Mahabharat. Stories that reach farther than their protagonists.
• Pervasive Myth - Hou Yi shoots down the Sun, Persephone's Kidnapping, Huitzilopochtli's Blood Sacrifice. The whole World feels the repercussions of these.

four willows weeping wrote: Activated Traits might creep toward the next rank of myth, but if they reach it, that signals a change in the Story's significance.

EXAMPLE wrote: LOW Ordinary
MID Ordinary
HIGH Ordinary
LOW Subtle
MID Subtle
HIGH Subtle
LOW Mystical, etc.

Hi there,

Some more quick references which came to mind:

Jonathan Carroll: Bones of the Moon, Sleeping in Flame, and The Land of Laughs

Gene Wolfe: Castleview, the Soldier books (Soldier in the Mist, Soldier of Arete)

Roger Zelazny: plenty of his early short stories, mostly found in The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth, the pre-Amber novel Jack of Shadows, and most especially Creatures of Light and Darkness

Best,
Ron

Ron: I'll look into those. Thanks.

Jon:
It occurred to me that my scale of myth was actually describing two things - the Characters and their Environment.

It seems to me that if I were to split the scales, there could be a lot of interesting points in the matrix that the linear scale doesn't account for.

So, the Myth of Characters scale goes something like Ordinary - Special - Extraordinary - Heroic - Mythic. This describes the characters' personal power, as well as their impact on the world. The Myth of Environs slides on an identical scale, with its impact being on the general level of Myth in the world at large.
Again, the 'default' campaign is Extraordinary/Extraordinary: The characters stick out as being special, but they are not alone, and the world knows and understands this. Alternate campaigns take different points on the matrix; LoTR is a story where the characters srart out Ordinary in an Extraordinary world, and slowly walk up the scale. Mythic/Mythic games could be used to tell stories about the activities of the gods themselves.

So, it seems that default conflicts (ones where rolls are significant) are at the Myth level of the characters. Things below their current Myth rank are trivial, and they have to really push to do things of higher Myth level, but once something happens, the Myth reacts and the Story's heart starts beating faster.

This lets me bring in a new element I've been thinking about. Ever hear of kriya-yoga? Enlightenment through spiritual crisis. The Crisis happens in nearly every fairytale I can name, at the point where it takes the step into the more deeply fantastic. When Aladdin steals the jewel fruits in the Cave of Wonders and the Cave slams shut, that was Crisis. The moment that Badr Basim of Persia found out that the mer-people Sultan had forbidden him to marry his daughter Jauharah until he had proven himself through some impossible task, that was Crisis. Snow White takes her first bite of the apple. Arthur first sees the Sword in the Stone. Hansel and Gretel smell the gingerbread cottage. Taran finds out that Hen Wen the pig is an oracle. Perkar meets and loves the goddess.

So, what does Crisis do? I don't really know; it signals the moment when everyone's heart skips a beat. Crises are turning points in a story. What this means in mechanical terms, I don't know.

four willows weeping wrote: So, the Myth of Characters scale goes something like Ordinary - Special - Extraordinary - Heroic - Mythic. This describes the characters' personal power, as well as their impact on the world. The Myth of Environs slides on an identical scale, with its impact being on the general level of Myth in the world at large.

So, what does Crisis do? I don't really know; it signals the moment when everyone's heart skips a beat. Crises are turning points in a story. What this means in mechanical terms, I don't know.

Well, it isn't really sensical for Vision to shift rapidly, being as it is a loose description of character concept. It could, on the other hand, bloom like a flower into higher levels of Myth - Varashi starts as a wizard acolyte, then becomes a sorcerous demon hunter when Neranja kills her lover/mentor, then becomes the heroic demon-slayer and picks up the epithet Broken Obsidian when she slays Neranja in a feat of glorious plutomancy.
Crises of Vision, then, are events that change the way the world sees a character.

Crises of Duty are just as you described them, changes in the character's goals. Once Varashi slays her personal demon, she takes it upon herself to learn more about the skinchangers, to wreak vengeance upon Neranja's higher-ups.

Could you not also have Crises related to specific Traits then (i.e. Crises of Flame)?

EX: Varashi has the Flame "My Sword is Sharp as Winter." However, in the final battle with Neranja, her (obsidian?) sword is broken in two. Now, like Aragorn, she seeks a way to heal her sword. Until this matter is resolved, the Flame is considered to be "in Crisis."

I'm not sure how a Crisis would affect Traits. Maybe they would cost Fuel to activate? Varashi might have a harder time fighting with only the broken remnants of her sword, but she could still do it (like the prince from "The Pirates of Dark Water").

Maybe a Trait in Crisis could be replaced by another? Instead of "My Sword is Sharp as Winter," Varashi now has "I am Resolute as Iron," illustrating her new determination (not that she wasn't determined before).

What do you think?

Later.
Jonathan

Logical, but now I'm confused.

A Crisis turns out to be a transformation of character. Good. This answers the dangerous, unasked question of character development. They have Crises.

But what triggers a Crisis? It seems that Duties can be resolved (thus, the Duty is 'in crisis', as you call it, during a conflict that may resolve it), and Visions can grow (they go into Crisis between the point where the character views herself as different and the world responds), but what do Traits do? Can a player force a Crisis?

Jump back to (I'll adopt your terms; they're strong) the discussion of The Heart Myth and The World Myth. The idea of Crises came from the point in the story where someone's Myth burns higher.

So, farther even to your Myth Levels:
A Crisis of Heart happens when someone pushes his inner Contrast past 9. We call this the Law of 9. That pushes the character's Heart Myth to the next rank, and resets his Contrast to 1. This also replaces the idea of characters with permanent high Contrast. Again, characters can act as if they had weaker Heart Myths by burning Fuel.
A Crisis of Story happens when someone pushes the Scene Contrast past 9. Again, the World Myth rises a rank and the Scene Contrast drops, but now everyone feels the beat of Myth grow louder. The shadows grow deeper, the sky a little bit more blue, birdsong starts to sound as if it had words.

I had mentioned earlier that characters can gain Fuel for acting consistently with their Vision or Duty. So, a way to allow flexibility here would be to declare that quality In Crisis during some conflict where it is relevant. Rather than gaining Fuel, if the character wins the conflict he may change his Vision or Duty.

Now, finally we come back to where we started. In what manner do Traits come into Crisis? Identically to Vision and Duty. In a conflict where they come into play, the character declares a Trait In Crisis. Should the character be fortunate enough to win the conflict, he may replace that Trait with another. So, Varashi gives up the power of her Sword, for the time being, and gains the Resolve to have it repaired and restored to her.

What do you think?

This just keeps getting better and better...

four willows weeping wrote: This answers the dangerous, unasked question of character development. They have Crises.

Story Myth seems to me to be a multiple-participants thing, so maybe multiple characters need to be having Crises for the Myth to intensify. This makes sense; the climax of a story could easily involve several Duties being resolved. No one person alone can make a story into a Myth.
Characters raising their Myth through Crisis: Brilliant. Especially the idea of layered Crisis of several things at once; something I hadn't even thought of. So, to go with 9 there can be 3; three layers of Crisis seems enough to trigger a shift of Myth.
On Traits: There was a reason I specifically talked about Traits rather than using terms like Smoke/Flame/Coal/Ember. Certainly, you could put a Smoke in crisis, and exactly what you described would occur: the Smoke falls into the background, and a new one steps forward to take its place. Maybe during your training for dropping Swings a Sword Like a Club you lost all that fine noble polish your finishing school worked so hard to create, and now you have Warrior's Ill Manners. Also, you could call a Crisis in order to bring out a Trait that you didn't have at all. This is a pretty major sort of Crisis, and shouldn't happen often, but it would actually create a new Trait pair for you. You could also do this with Coals (maybe call Crisis to turn a Coal into two 'live' Traits) and Embers (which, being unpaired, would just spring out of nowhere, unpaired).

I want to avoid ideas like 'GM approval'; I realized I'm trying to build a game where the traditional GM isn't a necessity (though for some styles of play, appropriate; sometimes the players want to play games like Explore and Solve-the-Mystery, which are more fun when you're actually anticipating finding out). Maybe putting the question to vote?

I had also posed the idea of Fuel reserve being determined by a characters Traits and Contrast. Clearly this was foolish. I'm starting to think that the pool should be either uncapped, or have a constant cap. I'm leaning more toward uncapped, as it encourages dynamism and the two styles of play that my friend Josh likes to liken to the princes of Amber: Benedict uses his reserves of power, so it seems like he has a lot. He doesn't, though, do anything really wildly exceptional, for an Amberite. Corwin, on the other hand, is subtle. He doesn't show his hand often, but when he does it's obvious that he's very competent in his own bailiwick.

If you're going to go with "3 Crises + 9 Contrast = More Myth" you could probably have that work for both World & Heart Myths. To increase the World Myth, you'd need to have 3 different characters all having Crises in the same 9-Contrast Scene. I think that would be rare enough (since Scene Contrast is pretty hard to come by).

Say, can the characters pool Fuel to buy Scene Contrast? I think they probably should be able to.

Another thought: Do you want there to be a way for the Heart & World Myths to WEAKEN? Say, if they put everything on the line and fail horribly: if Neranja totally takes Varashi to the cleaners, does her Heart Myth get shattered along with her sword? Or can you only go up? Perhaps it COULD go down (i.e. optional rule), but since all changes in Myth are subject to a vote by the players, they could ultimately decide what they thought made the most sense.

Also, you could call a Crisis in order to bring out a Trait that you didn't have at all.

The rule of 3 and 9 is nice.
Pooling Fuel: Yeah, this is imaginable. Maybe rather than buying discrete levels of Contrast, they just throw Fuel at the Scene, and when that raises the Contrast, it reacts.

Myth weakening... I think I'll definitely discuss it, rather than just leaving people in the dark. I'm unlikely to use it myself, at least not often. I tend to think that the only point that Myth might weaken is at the end of a story, when things are winding down. It's possible that the high-ranking Crises, Vision and Duty, can cause dilution of Myth just as they can make it rise.

I've been making shady comments on the GM thing... My stance on that has been shifting, and so your unclarity on the topic is certainly not a shortfall of yours.

I think that I'll present a few different rulesets for Fuel gain and initial Fuel, because I see several things working. A slow-paced game could comfortably force character service for Fuel, while a faster one might assume downtime, another that Fuel doesn't shift between stories (the reasoning behind this being that if something involving a Fuel shift had happened, that would be a story too). A really high-powered Exalted-style game might have Fuel continually supplied to the characters; a low-powered game might require the Godsblood Hunt for Fuel. Lots of things you could do here that tweak the flavor of the game. I think I'm happy with the default system of character service, though.

A few alternate Fuel mechanics:

Tumbleweeds:
Each player starts with the same amount of Fuel. Fuel can only be spent during conflicts. At the end of the conflict, all the Fuel spent is given to the successful party. It is divided among the participants if the successful party is more than one character.
Two sub-mechanics:
Fuel Theft: Actions that net Fuel for character service create 'Fuel Debt'; at the end of a conflict characters with Fuel Debt try to fill their debt before dividing the remainder among the successful parties.
Runaway Fuel: A character may willingly transfer Fuel to another. Apart from this and the winning of conflicts, there is no way to gain Fuel.

The Hive:
Players don't have personal Fuel. Instead, there is a single pool of Fuel that all the protagonists of the story share. Character service adds Fuel to this pool, and Fuel expenditure removes it.

Shadows:
Each character starts with the same amount of Fuel. Fuel usage rules are different. You may spend Fuel to:


• Increase another character's Contrast. Give that character the Fuel you spent.
• Ignite another character's Coal or Ember; you name the manifestation of the Ember. Give that character the Fuel you spent.
• Reverse another's Trait. Give that character the Fuel you spent.
• Increase Scene Contrast. Set this Fuel aside; Fuel gained from character service comes from here.



Metamorphosis:
You do not gain Fuel from character service. Instead, each time a Crisis you participated in resolves, you gain an amount of Fuel as follows:


• Trait Crisis
• Vision or Duty Crisis
• Story Crisis



Since some of these deal with different Fuel behaviors, they can be overlapped in certain cases.

While trying to adapt "Quixote & Coyote" to use Torchbearer's rules (see my new thread, here), I think I came up with a solution to your problems with the term "Contrast."

You don't need it.

It could be completely replaced by Heart Myth and World Myth.

Check this out: You don't spend Fuel to raise Character Contrast or Scene Contrast; you spend Fuel to increase the roaring fires of your Heart Myth or the World Myth itself. The Three/Nine Rule would still work, of course. If your Heart Myth was Ordinary(+0) and you increased it all the way to Ordinary+9 (and had 3 Traits in Crisis), it would bump up to become Mystical(+0). Likewise with increasing the World Myth.

Actually, this unifies those two mechanics even more than they already were, making things even simpler.

What d'ya think? Does it work?

Later.
Jonathan

That solution's both intelligent and elegant. Thanks, Jon!

(More in the morning.)

So, I was trying to come up with a logo for Storypunk when I accidentally stumbled across an effect that makes really cool flames.

"Hmm," I thought, "what kind of logo could use some really cool flames?"

THIS KIND wrote: [img]http://www.godmachine.org/torch.jpg[/img]

Hmmm... can this be used for a kind of corona effect? Envision the title I have on my Geocities page, set on a black rectangle , with the O(omega) replaced with a graphic like an eclipsed sun...

Here's something like what I was thinking. (You'll have to copypaste the link; Geocities won't let me link directly to files from outside its domain.) Something about whole-word display text effects makes me squirm. What typeface did you use there? It's interesting. (I patched my text together with letters from nearly everywhere. I think I used like four different fonts.)

As for a Storypunk logo... I imagine typewritten letters grading into hand-drawn script. That would be holy hell to draw... Illuminated machine-drawn text? I dunno.

On Names:
We said earlier that you can use a person's Name to deflect Smoke from yourself. How does this work?
If you know a Name, you can "bind" it to a particular Smoke Trace. It still exists and you still 'expiate' it in the same manner, but you do not suffer penalties for it whil a Name is bound to it. You can bind a Name at any time, but they can only become unbound through the dissipation of Smoke.

Hmm...if you don't mind maybe I'll play around with some of your graphics ideas (for both of you...)...I'll let you know if I come up with anything interesting...

I like the Torchbearer lettering you have going on willow

Logos:

The font's called "Viner Hand" but it's not quite what I wanted, either. I wanted something that looked tribal and mythic/divine at the same time, but couldn't find a font that I thought really worked. I might try mixing up a few fonts if I make another attempt. Really like your eclipsed-sun image. I'll see if I can figure out how to duplicate that (maybe using a Lens Flare effect).

After all this conceptual thinking, I think my visual art muscles are needing to stretch a bit :) Nothing I've tried for Storypunk has really worked yet, though I like your suggestions. I'll have another go at it.

Name Bonding:

I guess I'm still a little unclear on how you're describing this.

So, Varashi learns of the True Name of Neranja and wants to punish him from afar, since she's currently trying to track his position. So, the next time she's supposed to take Smoke Traces on herself, she binds the Smoke "Solitary Existence" to Neranja's Name.

Okay, so the Smoke should affect Neranja now, is that right? The beast will no longer be able to have contact with his own kind and will be shunned by even his own family, assuming he has one. So, every time Neranja's life suffers because of the Smoke, you remove one point of the Trace?

Or, is the Smoke still Varashi's, but Neranja's Name blocks the ill effects? For instance, when Varashi interects with others, she suffers no ill effects, but one point is removed from the Trace (and something, presumably rather bad, happens to Neranja?).

I'm probably just be dense, of course. Feel free to enlighten me.

Later.
Jonathan

Second interpretation.

Unfortunately, this doesn't actually deflect suffering onto the victim, something I wanted to cause.

Perhaps the Smoke could be noted on the victim's charcter, along with its magnitude and source, and function as the first interpretation, with the restriction that a particular source cannot be duplicated - if you know a person's Name, you can bind one Smoke onto him, but not two. If that person knows your Name, he can prevent you from binding Smoke onto him; the remainder of the Trace also returns to you when he dies. If you die, the remaining Trace dissipates. (Insert whatever other Smoke manipulation... Dividing Traces over several Names? Deflecting Traces transferred to you? Discussions of other Name properties? The power of Blood?)

Hey, Blood - with a person's Blood, you can transfer a Trace without its bond to you. This means that in addition to that Trace, you can bind a second one to the same person. Unfortunately, this tends to use up a good portion of the Blood you have on hand.

Attempt #2:

[img]http://www.godmachine.org/torch2.jpg[/img]

Don't worry. I'll get sick of doing this eventually :)

Name/Blood Magicks:

Coolness.

Bedtime for me,
Jonathan

Hey. I've fooled around with pics for torchbearer too... I made two...

I've placed them (and any future pics) for viewing on my website Art section.

here's the link

http://www.geocities.com/bob_mcnamee/html/art.htm

about halfway down the page...Click the picture for a large version!

Enjoy!

Idea:

You know how in some medieval lettering styles, the miniscule R was like the uppercase R, but without the stem on the left? That's a dang pretty letterform.

I love your graphic, Jonathan. The effect is stunning.

I think I've sort of run out of mechanics musings for the day; maybe as I'm writing up this crazy thing, something will come to me. Ciao, all.

I just edited my previous message...to correct the link...