and Christoffer made a fox for the upcoming playtest of my new game about animals who gained human level intelligence and rose up against their masters, briefly outlined here, in case anyone's interested.

Note to Ron and Clinton: I couldn't decide if this belonged in actual play or game design but since it deals with a game I am designing as well as a few things I learned about the structure of the game, I decided to put it here.

Last night involved a few "firsts" for me; my first experience with IRC and inde-netgaming, the first game I've worked on since Dreamwalker and my first chargen session for said game.

Christoffer (Pale Fire) Lerno made a fox---a very sleek and attractive fox that is perhaps not quite as clever as foxes are generally made out to be, and with a bit of a penchant for getting into trouble. Favors include a debt to a crow who once warned him about the presence of human hunters in the area, and the debt of a rabbit who he allowed to share his burrow one freezing winter.

Chris Edwards made a clam. That's right, a clam. Not just any clam, but a telepathic clam, with near genius intelligence that understands human languages and can spit water with great accuracy as defined by Chris's "Aquatic Archer" descriptor. Oh and did I mention, the clam is slightly deranged? He is indebted to a seagull that cleaned him up after an oil spill and he is owed a small favor from a magpie owes after he squirted water at the latch to open the bird's cage. :)

We decided to save the PC/NPC past, present and future event/relationships until we knew who all was playing (and because it was late!).

Needless to say, this was an interesting experience for me and I came away with a better understanding of

Pros:
-There's a lot of story potential between the two of them alone---the fox likes to get into trouble and the clam, is well, he's a freakin clam! It's going to be interesting to see what sort of stories they develop. I can see the story element mechanic coming in real handy here as it basically lets them figure out what they want to do next. I consider myself a good GM, but even I would eventually run out of plot hooks for a clam. :)
-I was forced to redefine some aspects of the Knowing, specifically how it affects creatures without speech or hearing. Thus the explanation arose for the clam's telepathy, although I think I am going to address this further in the future (see Cons, below).
-This was just fun. In fact, I had forgotten just how much fun things can be at this stage. A question arises that you don't have rules for or didn't even think of and you have to address it, make a note of it and then later fit it into your "master plan". Player input is _so_valuable here. And this was just character generation!

Cons:
-For some reason, I think the presence of a telepathic, deranged clam is going to slightly detract from the "dark and gritty" feel of Watership Down, The Secret of Nimh and Rikki Tikki Taavi that I had originally envisioned. *sigh* Still, I guess this is technically not a "con" because it certainly is entertaining and promises to provide some great mental visuals. For playtesting purposes I didn't want to disallow too much and like I said, I think the clam will in fact be an excellent test of the story element mechanic. Still, I do think I am going to have to address this in the future and maybe make the PC animal options a bit more limited, so Bugger (that's his name) should feel pretty special because he may very well be the only telepathic clam I ever allow, in games I run at least. :)

Anyway, the actual playtest session is going to be either sometime this Sunday or next Tuesday night. We're still looking for some more animals so if you think your interested/available, drop me a line and we'll make you up a character. No more clams though. Or oysters, or slugs, or jellyfish, etc. Not for this story at least. Bugger the clam should be enough of a mechanics test this time around so the rest of you play nice. :)

Pete

PS - Rereading, I see there are a lot of smilies in this post, which should give a good indication of what kind of mood I am in talking about all this. Here's another one for good measure! :)


EDITED to fix pore gramurr

Hey Pete,

Nice game idea!

Demonspahn wrote: I was forced to redefine some aspects of the Knowing, specifically how it affects creatures without speech or hearing. Thus the explanation arose for the clam's telepathy, although I think I am going to address this further in the future (see Cons, below).

...For some reason, I think the presence of a telepathic, deranged clam is going to slightly detract from the "dark and gritty" feel of Watership Down, The Secret of Nimh and Rikki Tikki Taavi that I had originally envisioned.

Personally, I have no problems with clams either. Watch the Disney version of "Alice in Wonderland" just for its rendition of The Walrus and the Carpenter. The walking, talking oysters in that movie are perfectly reasonable, and it's a dark, brooding metaphor (though it starts out in a silly, absurd tone). With strange objects, you just have to try a little harder to maintain a tone that's fitting.

Have you watched "The Brave Little Toaster"? It's about the adventures of kitchen appliances, but it's very somber and frightening in some places. I think this is EXACTLY the type of thing you should aim for.

Later.
Jonathan

To be fair to Peter I think the one that "forced" the telepathy on the setting was probably Bugger, Chris' clam.

Pete started out with something vague:

Demonspahn wrote: Yes, all animals understand each other, through a combination of sounds, body language, and limited telepathy (more or less) imparted from the Knowing.

In Goedel, Escher, Bach, by Douglas Hofstadter (apologies on spelling, I think I got his name wrong), the author entertains the notion of ants as intelligent on the colonial level. With all the hymenopterae (ants, termites, bees, wasps, etc.), the entire body of workers are genetically the same, so in that sense it could readily be argued that they're one organism. This has some mighty interesting implications for roleplaying, IMO.

--JB

J B Bell wrote: The author entertains the notion of ants as intelligent on the colonial level. With all the hymenopterae (ants, termites, bees, wasps, etc.), the entire body of workers are genetically the same, so in that sense it could readily be argued that they're one organism.

J B Bell wrote: With all the hymenopterae (ants, termites, bees, wasps, etc.), the entire body of workers are genetically the same, so in that sense it could readily be argued that they're one organism.

Pale Fire wrote:

And then Chris insisted on knowing exactly how the communication worked so he could design his clam's powers right :)

C. Edwards wrote: Telepathy certainly isn't the only explanation that could be utilized, and I like Fang's idea about communication "just working", no explanation.

Wow, feedback!

OK, starting from the top (not quoting because I hate the mini-text after the first quote):

Fang,

Re: human/animal relations: What you're saying is pretty right on (although I might argue that General Woundwort in WD acted very un-animal like, because he was raised by humans and extremely paranoid). But, in fact Ron alluded to the same thing when I initially talked about this idea; that humans were an almost alien presence that the animals in those movies only understood at rudimentary levels.

I wanted to combine the "animals as animals" theme with the "human ways are better" one. After the Knowing, animals are torn between their animal nature and their human ones. This is reflected in the game mechanics via the struggle between Instinct and Reason.

Ex. - Instinct and Reason are on a sliding scale of 5, with the starting "norm" being Instinct 4 and Reason 1 after the Knowing. An animal is presented with a problem, say a bear getting an apple out of a tree. If he uses Instinct, he draws stones to augment his stat+descriptor. His Instinct is maximum of 4, so the best he can ever muster is a +4. For every point of Reason on the other hand he rolls 1d6 and adds that number to his stat+descriptor, which may not seem like much for an animal with Reason 1, but one with Reason 2 should easily be able to accomplish most tasks. The key of course is in the narration. So if the bear uses Instinct, a simple tree shake would suffice. However, if the Bear uses Reason, the player might narrate the bear taking a long branch in his teeth, standing against the trunk and swatting at the apple. Or he maight narrate digging up a few grubworms to trade a bluebird in exchange for pecking the apple stem. (Note: this is just an example and perhaps not the best one at that).

The upside of using Reason is that you're almost certain to accomplish what you set out to do. The downside is that the more you think about and reflect on things, the more "human" you start to become, picking up some of the more negative human traits.

Re: animism: That's exactly what I had in mind with communication via the Knowing, I just couldn't remember the right phrase/word. Thanks! I do plan to keep the origin of the Knowing vague although I posted some theories on the temp web page.

Re: Societies, I'm working on that as part of the setting info and that will in fact be a large part of the game. That's where a lot of the "Favor web" will hopefully come into play with animals working hard to exist together in the more "civilized" settlements, and by settlement I mean more of a territorial area (like a marsh, forest or down) than an actual town. Most insects and fish were not affected by the Knowing and are considered fair game. Not all animals can fish however so food trade becomes a method of bartering Favors for instance.

Not all animals take this route however. Some continue to live as they had and worse, others have become as malicious as humans, hunting for sport or just pure pleasure.

But, obviously if you're a white tiger (or bear or wolf or dog), you can't just go around munching on locals without causing some hard feelings and now that animals can reason, it's somewhat more dangerous thing to make a lot of enemies---a few dogs can enlarge a hole, a beaver can sharpen some wooden pungi stakes and racoons can cover the hole with a screen of brush and leaves.

Re: dark and gritty: Maybe "detract" was too harsh a word. I can definitely see where a deranged clam can actually add to the mood (but for some reason, I'm picturing a living brain/mad scientist type). It's a dangerous world but I like Bugger so I hope he survives. :)

Re: culture shock: I'm addressing this in the background as well. The short of it is that animals suddenly received the Knowing. As far as they can tell it started in one region and quickly spread like a virus or disease to others via contact, the wind, or something. It manifested as a severe headache and when the pain left, they suddenly Knew. Most were afraid at first and still accepted humans as divine. This view slowly changed. They began to talk amongst each other, and to organize in secret. Wrongs and atrocities were revealed (at least from their viewpoint---animal shelters, zoos, circuses, slaughterhouses, etc.). Leaders arose and began to speak of war against humans. Many balked at this but by now they understood that humans would never accept them as equal and couldn't come up with a more peaceful solution.

They knew they couldn't match human weapons so they began to wage a secret war over the next few months (witness the preponderance of When Animals Attck videos) until at least they rose up and struck down their masters. Think about how many times you come into contact with animals every day---dogs, cats, birds, squirrels even. If you weren't expecting attack how easy would it be for them to at least wound you? Think about that on a near global level.

The surpise effect and the utter chaos is what helped their "victory" and by the time the humans realized the true threat level, it was almost too late. Now the world is in a sort of post apocalyptic state, with both humans and animals having to adapt to the radical change in the order of things.

Anyway, blahblahblah. There's a lot more to it to make it sound more plausible and less cheesy but you get the gist. :)

So basically, cuilture shock would be minimal at this point since the Knowing has been in effect for a period of time (under a year, which is a long time for animals, which incidentally might make them more prone to being rash. Hmm...).

Interestingly enough, in the final version of this game I plan to offer enough info to play in 3 different time periods---right after the Knowing but before the uprising (so culture shock would be an issue), after the uprising (the default setting, and the one I'm most interested in at this point) and the relative far future which will almost be more of a fantasy setting, with established animal religions and cults, factions, societies, kingdoms, etc.

Re: drawing the line: I had originally envisioned most PCs playing mammals of some type, with perhaps a few snakes and reptiles. I also saw some neat underwater campaigns with sharks and octopi, dolphins, etc. Then someone in the original thread suggested a tarantula and my Charlotte's Web started acting up so I included a Might 0 bug clause for larger more interesting bugs like big spiders, praying mantises and dragonflies for instance. I thought a Queen ant or bee might be interesting, sending her soliders out on adventure stories with the other PCs, but if not a PC Queen I thought they would make good NPCs. But no gnats, common ants, flies or grubs. These are still food.

And then Chris seemed so enthused about playing a clam and since it was a playtest (and since I don't mind a little ball busting) I figured "why not give it a try?". :)

Re: thanking me: Thank _you_ for showing interest and asking such insightful questions. They get me thinking and I appreciate it.


Jonathan,

I don't think I've seen either of those movies but I will add them to the source flick list I am making to watch, hopefully all in one day. My wife is calling it an animalathon.


Christoffer,

No culture shock to start with since the Knowing has been in effect for almost a year, more or less (I haven't decided the exact number at this point).

BTW, I forgot to mention, "Tofu" the Fox only eats bugs and is otherwise a vegetarian. :)


JB,

A collective bug conscious is an interesting notion and might work as good or even better than a telepathic queen/hive mind. I'll give it some thought.


Fang,

Plants with the Knowing would probably be a bad thing at this point because they are a vital link in the food chain. In the far future setting however, sentient plants could be very interesting...

Alternately, they might have a form of the Knowing now but how would anyone know?


Chris,

I'm glad you brought up those questions, because they were ones I needed to have answers for, even if they never came up again.

Oh, and I apologize about the name, Colonel. <salute>, </salute> :)


Fang,

I'm not too keen on the "ignorant humans all along" theme, especially because it wouldn't explain right off why animals' intelligence has remained undiscovered all this time. But yes, the waking up and the world being secretly changed is sort of what did happen. I kind of like that. It's semi-creepy, especially as I'm sitting here looking at my dog (a rather large but goofy pit bull), looking at me, and wondering if she's thinking "He's on to us." :)


Thank all of you for your comments. I hoped I touched on everything. This promises to be a heck of an experience (for me at least) and I will certainly be posting more on this as it progresses.

Incidentally, I think I have finally come up with a name for this game so if you see it, it's me.

Aware

or possibly,

Aware: <something, something, something>

like,

Aware: The Age of Reason

or,

Aware: Roleplaying in the Age of Reason

or something to that effect.

Thanks again!

Pete

Hey Pete,

Demonspahn wrote: I wanted to combine the "animals as animals" theme with the "human ways are better" one. After the Knowing, animals are torn between their animal nature and their human ones. This is reflected in the game mechanics via the struggle between Instinct and Reason.

...Not all animals take this route however. Some continue to live as they had and worse, others have become as malicious as humans, hunting for sport or just pure pleasure.

But, obviously if you're a white tiger...you can't just go around munching on locals without causing some hard feelings and now that animals can reason, it's somewhat more dangerous thing to make a lot of enemies---a few dogs can enlarge a hole, a beaver can sharpen some wooden pungi stakes and raccoons can cover the hole with a screen of brush and leaves.

...So basically, culture shock would be minimal at this point since the Knowing has been in effect for a period of time (under a year, which is a long time for animals, which incidentally might make them more prone to being rash. Hmm...).

Fang,

Pow! Thanks for this. Just the sort of thing I need to address. Been mulling your post over all night and I came up with a few things in response.

OK, first off, I think a tiger would actually be better equipped than say a dog, for fishing; only some fish Know, so they are still fair game. But I read somewhere that a brown bear eats like 10 x the amount of food per day as an adult human and I imagine a tiger might need more because of a higher metabolism/activity level. So, obviously one region couldn't support too many large predators, at least not ones who were playing by the "rules" of the new society.

Speaking of societies, I'm hoping the concept of the Favor web can provide a reasonable explanation as to why large predators can coexist with "prey". I'm think of a mutually beneficial arrangement here where the carnivores would be supplied with food (fish, bugs, cans of Alpo, etc.) but expected not to eat the residents _and_ protect the community from outside threats. As a side note, if I were a rabbit and you moved into my neighborhood, I would do everything in my power to make sure you were well fed. :)

Also, now that the immediate human threat has subsided, a lot of animals are trying to return to their roots, so to speak, and retreating into the wild. These animals resume the normal predator/prey harmonic for the most part so larger predators could conceivably live in the more "civilized" areas and hunt food in the wild.

Also, as gruesome as it sounds, the sick and dying, diseased, old or otherwise infirm must still be rooted out to avoid weakening the entire populace. These animals would be turned out into the wild by their kin and left to the predators who would hopefully be somewhat more "humane" than usual when making the actual kill.

The "food issue" should be an important factor---I think it, along with the danger of disease, lends itself to the darker feel I was shooting for. I also think it addressing it lends a bit of credibility to an otherwise far-fetched setting and helps keep it from too becoming Disney. Even so, I don't want it to become the focus of every session because I want to avoid a shark-like mentality and an unending search for food.

So in that respect the food issue will be outlined as above, but most likely relegated to backstory (unless there is a story-related reason to bring it to the fore, say because of a famine, or other catastrophe). The game's default will be that the PC carnivore survives off fish (maybe insects), diseased, sick and dying and those who have "returned to the wild".

One thing to note: I'm thinking from a North American perspective here; obviously things will be structured somewhat differently in other places, say in Africa, where a pride of lions would need to be fed. I plan to address this as wellm and already have a few ideas.

As to overpoplulation, I actually _had_ thought of that and decided that Reason should overrule Instinct (or vice versa?) here, at least in settled areas, in that it would be up to the populace to police their own, based on what their environment could handle. Overbreeders are just asking to be turned out by the community at large and left to be devoured at will by the large predators, until their numbers are back down. Does that make any sense?

After thinking about all of this I had also come up with another notion, that of the Knowing not being automatically transferred to future generations, but only the strongest and smartest of the litter. The large predators would then be allowed to hunt these "unevolved" types. The humans would not see any difference and still fear all animals. Any thoughts on that?

Fang Wrote: Really, man does not make up much of a killer of other species (unless you count domesticated food-source animal genocide).

Well, _I_ don't necessarily count killing domesticated food-source animals as genocide, but then again, I might view things differently if I were an intelligent, self-aware cow. :)

Fang also wrote: Maybe Roy will be interested in a new partner if something 'unfortunate' happens to Siegfried; which way was Vegas?

They're both still alive?!! I would have thought you'd be picking sequins out of your teeth for months.

Pete
(who thinks "Fang" is the perfect name for a giant white tiger). :)

Hey Pete,

Glad to help; your game sounds like all that could be coolness.

Demonspahn wrote: OK, first off, I think a tiger would actually be better equipped than say a dog, for fishing;

Demonspahn wrote: As a side note, if I were a rabbit and you moved into my neighborhood, I would do everything in my power to make sure you were well fed.

Demonspahn wrote: Also, as gruesome as it sounds, the sick and dying, diseased, old or otherwise infirm....

Demonspahn wrote: As to overpoplulation, I actually had thought of that and decided that Reason should overrule Instinct (or vice versa?)

Demonspahn wrote:

Emperor Fang wrote: Maybe Roy will be interested in a new partner if something 'unfortunate' happens to Siegfried; which way was Vegas?

They're both still alive?!! I would have thought you'd be picking sequins out of your teeth for months.

Fang: Glad to help; your game sounds like all that could be coolness.

Thanks! It's still early but I sure hope so. If anything, PETA might get a kick out of it. :)

Me: As to overpoplulation, I actually had thought of that and decided that Reason should overrule Instinct (or vice versa?)

Fang: That doesn't seem to stop humankind.

Yeah, so maybe I should flip it. I guess I'm counting on the whole maintaining the balance thing. The animals _know_ what nature expects and what it can support, numbers wise, now they have the Reason to understand why it works. Take a wolf pack for instance (in our world) that only comes together when game is scarce. Only the Alphas are allowed to breed based on food supply.

In this game most animals would take a cue from humans and try not to make the same mistakes---others would make the same mistakes as they become more "human". Thus overbreeding, and other human like things potentially even more self-destructive (like overhunting/foraging for pleasure).

Fang: I still see predators, tolerated or not, as being seen as villains. Likewise, I'm not sure you'd support the 'tone' well, if you go into detail about the ecology of things (let the hierarchy stuff inform your construction of animal society,simply don't mention in the actual game).

Many predators _would_ still be viewed as villains, image not helped by packs of wild dogs/wolves and "rogue" cougars or bears that "raid" settlements for food. Another reason why having a big fella like yourself around is a good thing.

As to the second part, yes most of the ecological details will be for my reference. Some may make it into the GMs section but the most important thing is, I don't want to bog the game down with too many non-essential details because that might get a bit too far from what I want the game to be about. An occasional food shortage is interesting to deal with but not on a nightly basis. I guess I'm thinking of VtM here---you don't have to roleplay the encounter _every_ time you need a drop of blood.

BTW, humans are considered fair game as well. Like you said, they're an acquired taste, but in some circles considered a delicacy. :)

Fang: So what about animal allies? Squirrels, rabbits, and coyotes do famously around the 'fringes of mankind.' Wouldn't it be in their best interest to 'partner up?' Is it strictly 'man versus nature?' (That could make an interesting metaphorical underpinning to the way games should be run, without mentioning it in the text. As a matter of fact, you could speak toward a lot of personality issues; 'he was a natural born killer.')

Are there human player characters?

Funny you should ask. I had expected this question to arise during chargen, much moreso than a telepathic clam. :)

The game has (will have, I hope) several themes, one being nature vs. man, one being nature vs. nature, but the most important being the struggle between Instinct and Reason and the ability of an animal to cope with becoming more and more "human". Whether I am able to effectively convey these themes is another matter (although that is what I am shooting for). Incidentally, the themes will probably be somewhat more of hidden element that I use as a guide while writing the game, rather than a stated design goal in the actual text---I don't want to come off all flaky here like I'm creating "art" or something, when what I'm really trying to do is provide a vessel for me to play/tell stories from the POV of an intelligent animal. :)

But back to humans, at this point in time, humans view animals as enemies. Humans have undergone/are undergoing the huge "culture shock" mentioned earlier. Their whole world has been turned upside down. Their link in the food chain been changed. Some have gone crazy, and roam the land as scavengers with more Instinct and less Reason than some animals. Most of the humans that are left have tried to rebuild some semblance of the society they knew. We're talking your broad range of post-apocalyptic cultures now---power mad warlords, benevolent leaders/remains of governments, family clans and other small communities.

Some animals might live on the fringe of these societies (or still be enslaved by them) but human friend would be extremely rare to non-existent. Basically, few humans would trust the motivations of an animal. A human ally _might_ be possible but anyone consorting with humans like that will be viewed by other animals with suspicion at the least, hatred at the worst. Falling into this category would be certain arrangements that might be made between humans and some unscrupulous animals---a dog who helps humans hunt racoons or birds, a bird who acts as lookout for humans, etc. These animals would be despised, hunted and killed by most animals if at all possible.

And lastly, I am going to include the _very few_ people, maybe 1 in an umptigazillion, who actually experienced the Knowing. Most of these were some type of animal lovers already but even so, they are treated with suspicion and distrust by most animals and their own kind. I wanted to avoid using them in playtesting right now though because I want to make sure the animal mechanics hold up.

Any thoughts? What did you think about the evolutionary aspect of the Knowing only being passed down to the strongest of the next generations?

Super cool discussion.

Pete

Demonspahn wrote: Any thoughts? What did you think about the evolutionary aspect of the Knowing only being passed down to the strongest of the next generations?

Le Joueur wrote: You've got all I can give; for the rest I don't know. It's yer game, do what you want. I'm the Madman, remember? I go around prompting deep thought, irresponsibly.

Fang Langford

p. s. Besides, I have an empire to run.