Since my last attempt at posting the initial steps of designing my own rpg was in violation of the rules for this forum, I went back to the drawing board and tried to use my inspiration and take off from it. I'm still borrowing heavily from the source material, but I've put my own spin on things and incorporated some things that were not in the source material. I'll repost what I have for now. They'll be in the follow-up posts in this thread.

Premise: The characters portray the inhabitants of Kathanaksaya, a realm where human stories and dreams come to life.
Notes:

1. Story Points represent the power characters have over the telling of their own stories.
2. Specialties are the states of mind, dreams, desires, and aspirations that make the character what it is.
3. Players bid Story Points to dictate the outcome of situations.
4. Each bid must be accompanied by a narration of what the bid represents (ie, how the conflict plays itself out).
5. Specialties can determine the minimum bid an opponent must make to influence the story in a situation related to the Specialty.
6. Story Points are determined at character generation but increase through experience and tests of character.
7. Story Points are earned by the number and nature of details the human creates for the character.
8. Kathanaksaya can be used in conjuction with other systems, but it works best in the Kathanaksaya setting.



KATHANAKSAYA
Kathanaksaya is a place where stories live. Stories are the lifeblood of Kathanaksaya. The world thrives on the stories people tell to themselves and other people. As stories grow, Kathanaksaya grows rich and diverse, full of possibilities as the stories weave into one another and beget more stories. Every part and every creature of Kathanaksaya is a story. There are stories that explain, stories that comfort, stories that scare, stories that amaze. Kathanaksaya contains every story ever told, no matter how grand or small. Some parts of it would remind you of the stories familiar to you, stories you are told as a child and stories you read as you grow up. Some of them are as exotic and alien as you could imagine, while others are so mundane you would think you were at home. In Kathanaksaya, you create the stories that make Kathanaksaya what it is. Yet, as you will find out, stories have a way of taking lives of their own. So, why are you still sitting there? Your story awaits you.

The World of Kathanaksaya
Now that you understand what Kathanaksaya is, you can more easily understand how Kathanaksaya works. Kathanaksaya, in addition to being a stage upon which human stories unravel, acts as a prism and filter for these stories. It strips down artifice and deceptive imagery and concentrates the many layers of the story. It becomes the story in its purest form. The lands and creatures don’t simply exist; they inspire.

Kathanaksaya is itself a story. Sometimes, as in the case of famous artists and thinkers, some of Kathanaksaya’s realms are deliberately created. Kathanaksaya’s landscapes are not like anything you can point out on a map. Unlike our world, Kathanaksaya has no identifiable border. After all, what boundaries are there to imagination? What sorts of stories have never been told? Therefore, Kathanaksaya’s topography is extremely fluid, shifting around as stories demand a place be here or there, a journey long or short. Landscapes move as though they have minds of their own. Whether this indicates the land itself is sentient is open for debate, but it is certain that is it alive.

Even time flows differently in Kathanaksaya. While time does pass, how it flows depends on the story. The general trend tends to be that where stories intersect, they share the same perception of time. However, it would be foolish to think this is always the case. There has been many a questing hero who fell asleep in one place and woke up one hundred years later.

Despite the mutable nature of Kathanaksaya’s topography, there are some realms that embody particular story concepts. Creatures and realms tend to share a connection with one another that originate in the stories that made them. The most well-known of these realms are Faerie, the Land of Night, and Microworld.

Faerie is the realm where fables and fairy tales come to vibrant life. Summer and winter are the days and nights here, with spring and autumn being dawn and dusk. Faerie is home to many wonders. Especially intriguing to those who travel the land are the Three Forests. One is of purest silver, the other of gold, and one of diamonds. The peoples are equally awe-inspiring. Wise and mighty kings, regal queens, beautiful princesses, and dashing princes take residence in this vast realm. There are also fairy godmothers and talking animals, and majestic castles. Here, enchantment and magic are par for the course, but the greatest power is a pure heart. Lest we forget, this is not just a land of “happily ever after.” Foul trolls and ogres dine on the flesh of the helpless. Cunning wolves lurk in the forests and lure young girls off the narrow path. Wicked stepmothers plot reptilian ways to be rid of their stepdaughters. Child-eating crones await the unwary young boy or girl.

Not too far from Faerie (or very far, depending on what story is being told), there is the Land of Night. The sun never shines in the Land of Night. All is black save the haunting moonlight. Tangled forests choke the meager light given by the moon. Vast subterranean tunnels and caverns are the homes of its denizens. Creatures that dwell in darkness make their homes in the Land of Night. Werewolves, vampires, ghosts, and monsters of human nightmares live there. It is full of things that slime, slither, creep, and crawl. The Land of Night is known as a den of savagery. Nobody with half a brain intentionally ventures there. Occasionally, there is a hero from another realm who seeks to test his mettle in the darkness of the Land of Night, but most of them do not return. The power of humankind’s darkest stories proves overwhelming for them.

Microworld is a realm of the small. The land itself is barely a few square miles in size, but it is the home of a number of creatures too vast to comprehend. To the big people who look down on it, Microworld is barely visible. Only the tiny buildings and tilled lands of its peoples indicate that anything resembling a civilization is there at all. Many times, big people mistake the minuscule landscapes for models, only to be shocked when a bunch of people run out of them screaming. Because of this, most Microworld inhabitants view larger creatures as monsters to be tamed or destroyed. A few brave Microworld souls use their relationships with the “big people” as a weapon against their Microworld enemies. When denizens of Microworld venture into other lands, they usually fly on a butterfly, hummingbird, or hornet.

The other inhabitants of Kathanaksaya are so diverse and numerous it would be pointless to name them all. Even in these well-known regions, this statement holds true. Some Kathanaksaya are big and strong, like the giants. Some are small and quick like will-o’-wisps. Others resemble human beings. There are sentient rocks, animate plants, beings composed of nothing but air and thought. The list goes on and on. If a human can imagine it and create a story for it, there is such a creature in Kathanaksaya. It does not matter how detailed, how creative, or how involved with the story the human is. You know those fibs you tell from time to time to avoid the displeasure of those who hear them? Those stories exist in Kathanaksaya .

Yet, one trait that all Kathanaksaya’s residents share is this. No matter how skillful or how powerful they are, no being in Kathanaksaya can create stories. Not even something as simple as, “Once upon a time there lived a girl. She died.” For the craft of making and telling stories is the gift of humankind alone. The most that any creature of Kathanaksaya can do is to live out the stories humans create for them.

Humans
Humans are responsible for Kathanaksaya’s continued existence. After all, Kathanaksaya is a world composed of their dreams, their hopes, their fears. Human stories alter, create, or destroy Kathanaksaya as easily as a child with a lump of clay. Paradoxically, humans are the banes and saviors of Kathanaksaya. When they tap into their gift for making stories, Kathanaksaya blossoms. When they forget this gift or deny its power, the Kathanaksaya wastes away. Just as their ignorance of the power of stories destroys Kathanaksaya, so to does a human revive it by creating more stories.

There have been no indisputable cases of humans physically venturing to Kathanaksaya. It seems there is a border preventing the denizens of one world from crossing over into the other. Perhaps this is a good thing. The devastation that a human being’s power fantasy could wield in our world is unimaginable. Likewise, a human being who finds herself in Kathanaksaya could wreak havoc on an epic scale.

Fading
Perhaps the most feared thing in all of Kathanaksaya is the Fading. The Fading is a process, sometimes slow, sometimes fast, that devours the creatures and lands of Kathanaksaya. It can strike at any place and at any time. It is sometimes acts simultaneously upon several creatures and places. Nothing is invulnerable to it. Even the greatest stories ever told have succumbed to the Fading. Entire regions in Kathanaksaya have vanished without a trace. Though most inhabitants of Kathanaksaya have no personal experience with the Fading, most of them have heard of it and fear it for what it does. The Fading shows itself most drastically in what it does to the sentient creatures of Kathanaksaya .

The Fading begins subtly. The creature forgets details about its past. It begins with things the creature wants to forget. Then it starts on things that never really mattered anyway. After that, the creature starts to realize something is wrong when it forgets important details such as its home, what happened to it fifteen minutes ago, and even its name. When the creature forgets how to think “I am,”it vanishes. Finally, it seems as though Kathanaksaya itself forgets the one that the Fading overtook. The possessions of the missing Kathanaksayan vanish as though they had never been there. Soon afterward, those who had known it lose all memory that it even existed.

What happens to Kathanaksayan after the Fading consumes them is unknown. Most fear that it is oblivion, but others posit that it is merely a transition into another state of being. Some believe the process is natural and inevitable. Some Kathanaksayans, rather than try to figure out what lies beyond the Fading, attempt to understand what it really is and how it works. Is it active or passive? A dangerous combination of both? A few insane (or very wise) creatures think that the Fading is what happens when the one who made them forgets about them, when someone considers them so unimportant that they are not worth considering.

Playing Kathanaksaya

All you need are a sheet of paper, a pen or pencil, and your fertile imagination. In Kathanaksaya, you assume the role of a character who inhabits the realm of Kathanaksaya. You are the embodiment of human dreams and hopes. Then again, you could be the stuff of nightmares, bringing fear and malice wherever you go. It is all up to the story.

To work well, Kathanaksaya requires at least two humans dedicated to creating a story. One or more humans each creates a character, a native of Kathanaksaya, who becomes the focus of the story. This character responds to the world around them according to the natures their human creators endow them with. While they cannot directly change the reality of Kathanaksaya with their wishes as humans can, they are able to react to their experiences and take on a life of their own, thus creating a story. Indeed, the focus of Kathanaksaya lies in the Kathanaksayans' trials, victories, and defeats as they live out the stories initiated by mankind. Orchestrating the stories of the Kathanaksayans is a human who elaborates how Kathanaksaya composes itself to assist in creating the story of the characters the other humans created. He or she presents the player characters with the world of Kathanaksaya, using the imagination which is humankind’s birthright to endow each story with meaning and purpose.

Character Creation
Since the inhabitants of Kathanaksaya gain power through human imagination, it almost goes without saying that the more humans think about them and the more humans develop them, the more powerful they become. Power in Kathanaksaya is not measured by magic, politics, or skill at arms, but by the power each being has over the story that created them. What matters is not that these traits are a part of them, but the hopes and dreams these traits fulfill.

Creating a Kathanaksayan is a simple affair. Kathanaksaya has scant mechanics that are meant to facilitate the plot of the story as opposed to slowing things down with rules disputes. The most important attribute to remember when creating a story for Kathanaksaya is Story Points. Story Points measure the potency of the stories that create the lands and creatures of Kathanaksaya. All stories are not equally powerful. Some are as fleeting as daydreams. Others endure as timeless tales passed on through generations. Have you ever heard of a story that takes a life of its own, where the actions and thoughts of the character influence where it goes? This is what Story Points represent.

The power of different places and beings depends on many factors, but these can be scaled down to three things: the inspiration a story gives to others, the empathy a human feels for his or her creation, and the number of humans believing in or responding to the same story. Even things which are not normally understood to be sentient have their stories to tell, and the power of the dreams which created these things dictates how its story unfolds. Story Points, in a sense, represents a Kathanaksayan’s influence over the events of its story. Powerful Kathanaksayans are endowed with more volition. They are able to choose the path of their stories more easily than those without much power. It is rumored that some stories have become so potent that they no longer follow predetermined pathways, but exist completely on their own will and choose to remain in Kathanaksaya because it suits them.

To determine how many Story Points a Kathanaksaya begins with, the human creating it must answer some questions. The more fully developed and detailed the character, the more powerful it becomes, and the more Story Points it has. As you will see, who your character is is much more important that what your character can do.

Detailing one of these elements-quirks, skills, or abilities-gives it 1 Story Point per element you detail. Naming and describing your character’s appearance provide a window through which the world may interact with it. These give 2 Story Points apiece. A Kathanaksayan’s habitat, daily activities, and personality decide how they react to the world around them and dictate, to some extent, how they will go about living their stories. These garner 3 Story Points for each element detailed. Deciding on a Kathanaksayan’s life until the point the story begins does a great deal to make it more real. A sense of history gives Kathanaksaya a place from which to understand the world and find their place in the greater scheme of things. Giving details about its major life events, its friends and allies and enemies, and its culture gives 4 Story Points for each element details. Finally, a Kathanaksayan’s goals, vulnerabilities, and flaws add the conflict that makes its story relevant and interesting. The propel it to act and react to the world even when not personally inclined to do so. These earn 5 Story Points.

If you create and detail all these things about your character, you can begin with up to 40 or more Story Points, which allows your character to influence its story more than those who are not so well-defined.

Now, you may distribute the Story Points amongst one or more specialties. Specialties represent the particular desires, fears, and states of mind that bring Kathanaksaya to life. Thus, they have great influence over how Kathanaksaya’s creatures look and act. Creatures of fear and malice look and act differently from beings of might, majesty, and joy. Kathanaksaya may begin with as many Specialties as it has in Story Points. However, the norm is to distribute them amongst a few Specialties which are the defining characteristics of each character. Below is a list of sample Specialties. Humans are encouraged to add more, within reason, of course.


Beauty, Craft, Death, Desire, Despair, Fear, Freedom, Greed, Health, Hope, Hunger, Humor, Innocence, Joy, Love, Luck, Lust, Madness, Majesty, Malice, Mercy, Might, Pain, Peace, Reason, Sorrow, Ugliness, Wealth, Wisdom, Youth



Playing by the Rules

Story Points
For the most part, the stories of the characters humans create for Kathanaksaya run smoothly. They think, act, and react to the events of their stories. However, in some cases, a conflict emerges that determines the course the story will take. In these cases, it is the characters’ will, destiny, and power which decide the outcome.

Kathanaksaya uses a bidding system with Story Points. The human wishing to initiate a significant change in the story starts by bidding a number of Story Points. Those who oppose the change may opt to raise the bid by at least one or accept the bid. Whichever human wins the bid must pay the winning bid in Story Points, and whatever change he or she initiated or opposed takes place. It is possible for multiple humans to collaborate in a bid, and the totals are cumulative for all parties involved. The key, however, is to do this in a dramatically interesting way by incorporating actions in each bid.


NO
Human 1: I kill the werewolf. I bid 3 points.
Human 2: Like hell. 4.

YES
Human 1: The werewolf swipes at your belly with its powerful claws, hoping to gut you like a fish. 3 points.
Human 2: I leap back just in time, avoiding the blow. 4 points.
Human 1: The werewolf bites you on the arm. 7 points.
Human 2: Aaaargh! I pry the werewolf’s jaws from my arm. 10 points.
Human 1: The werewolf leaps back and springs on you, pinning you down as it attempts to maul you. 11 points.
Human 3: I toss Allin the silver dagger the gnome gave me. 5 points to add to his 10.
Human 2: I grab the silver dagger and plunge it into the werewolf’s side.
Human 1: The werewolf howls in agony and slumps down on you. The blood is wet and sticky on your hand. It doesn’t move.



Specialties play an important part in bids when particular events involve them. It is easier for a Kathanaksayan to influence a story that resonates with the dreams that spawned it. In this case, you add the score for the Specialty to the number of Story Points you bid. For instance, say that a giant with the specialty of Might rated at 4 and has 8 Story Points wanted to push open a colossal stone gate. The gate’s Story Point total is 12. If the giant wished to force the gate open, he could spend one Story Point and open the bid at 5 (one Dream Point + Might Specialty at 4 = 5). If you used your Specialty to bid, and you win, you only expend Story Points bid in excess of your Specialty rating. Of course, you do not always have to use the maximum rating of a Specialty to start a bid associated with it; you could bid under the Specialty rating if you so desire. This is a great tactic for humans whose characters are more powerful than they would care to admit.

When you run out of Story Points, you no longer have any control over what happens to your character. It is completely left to the vagaries of fate and has no means to resist whatever harm or change comes to him.

Gaining Story Points
Only living through and inspiring stories make creatures of Kathanaksaya more powerful. This is done by fulfilling the dreams and wishes that create them in a manner that is interesting and relevant. There is no easy way to determine how this comes about. A simple way to do this is to examine how they face and deal with the trials that face them in the course of their stories. The power they gain is determined by the scale of the challenge and the power of the dreams inspiring the character. Equal or overwhelming odds against your character says more about its power than a series of small victories.

Not that small victories are unimportant. Indeed, the culmination of many small choices frequently influences how a character’s story manifests. The characters the humans create in Kathanaksaya are not always static. Consider the hero who begins as a warrior of might and virtue. As the story progresses, it becomes clear that he uses his strength, power, and charisma to browbeat others into submission. So, in addition to being a hero of Might and Majesty, as the story unfolds, it becomes clear he is also a man who inspires Fear.

In addition to gradual changes, there are times in the course of a story that a character has a moment of truth that reveals his true nature and seals his fate. These usually come about in periods of great change in an individual’s life. Birth, death, marriage, aging, and all sorts of things that would qualify as landmark moments in life account for these changes. Times such as these also gain a Story Point, but a successful test of character may warrant an additional Story Point. Specialties work along the same lines.

Sample Character
The character I’m going to create is a simple creature. He is a unicorn named Dobie. He is gleaming white, and from a distance he resembles a horse with a long, riveted horn jutting from the center of his forehead. On closer inspection, though, it is clear he is more goat-like. His tail is long and tufted, and he has a silky mane and beard. His eyes are blue. Dobie lived in the secluded peaks of the Silver Mountains, high above the places most people of Kathanaksaya were unwilling to go. Day after day, he feasted on the dewy grass, leaves, and moss of his home. From time to time, he’d venture into the woodlands of the valley for a change of scene. However, when he heard the footsteps of people, he retreated into the lofty peaks. For centuries, many came to hunt him, wanting the prize of his horn (which has great healing and purifying powers), but none were sure-footed or agile enough to conquer the jagged Silver Mountains. Most fell to their doom, their screams echoing into the valley below. Dobie distrusts most people, for he finds them greedy and disrespectful. Yet, he is drawn to innocence. He only allows himself to be seen by a maiden or a child, and he occasionally allows himself to be petted by them, as they do not seek to kill him for what they hope to gain from him. Fortunately, most of them forget the incident and grow up into unusually healthy young men and women. Only one, Sarah, remembers, and only she has not grown greedy and cold with the years. She treats him as she would an old friend, sharing treats with him, and talking with him about her life. Dobie relishes these moments, and little by little falls in love with her. A part of him wishes to be a man so he may love her in the proper way, but he does not know how, so he only hopes. Dobie only wants the peace of the forest, and the company of his beloved Sarah.

Dobie’s appearance and name give him 2 points apiece, so that’s 4 points. Dobie’s personality, habitat, and daily routine give 3 points a piece; that’s 9 points for that. Altogether, Dobie now has 13 Dream Points. Dobie’s horn, which has great healing powers, gives him 1 point. Dobie only gets 4 points for his background, as only his relationship with Sarah is given any detail. However, his distrust of people and his inability to resist innocence give him potent flaws, and he gets 5 Dream Points apiece for those. This totals 24 Dream Points. His fervent desire to become a man for Sarah is enough to give him 5 more Dream Points, bringing the total to 29.

I’m going to give Dobie the Specialties Health, Innocence, Majesty, Might, and Peace. Might and Majesty are least important, so they only get a rating of 5. The other three Specialties are equally important to this character, so they are all at a rating of 6. Since Dobie’s healing properties are so valuable, I’ll add another point to Health, increasing the rating to 7. Thus, when I want Dobie’s Might or Majesty to influence how his story unfolds, I open a bid at 6 due to these Specialties. If Innocence or Peace can influence the story, he starts the bid at 5. Finally, if the power of Healing comes into play, he opens a bid at 8. Given the time it took for me to make him (10 minutes), that’s not bad.

Woo hoo, another Chinese speaker! Can't get enough of them. Welcome to the Forge, by the way.

So, which "Xiang" is it? Is Xiang Guo the "fragrant lands," the "enjoyable lands," or the "elephant lands"?

I'll comment on your system in a bit, but I have to go take a Greek exam in 4 hours, and I HATE languages that conjugate. Suoyou de yuyan yinggai xiang zhongwen na me jiandan.

I'm using xiang(3) meaning "to think, to want."

Man, did Greek totally destroy me. Anyway...

Green wrote: I'm using xiang(3) meaning "to think, to want."

Is there any real reason you're deciding to go with a Chinese title? There doesn't seem to be anything in the setting that specifically calls for it.

Your system looks kinda like Universalis, but requiring a GM (at least as far as I can tell; you didn't mention if the system is GM-less or not). I like it, because, as it's set up, you can easily share characters or have more than one character assigned to a particular player.

Allow players to bid their Specialities without having to spend any Story Points at all. As you have it now, it seems 1 SP must be spent on every action, in order to make it happen, but this would seem to eat up SPs really quickly. But if, as in Nobilis, the Specialty rank represents what the character can do WITHOUT Story Points, resolution of non-controversial issues (which no one wanted to challange) would go faster.

What happens in conflicts that go beyond character vs. character? For instance, if someone is climbing a wall, who bids the SP to challange them? It wouldn't seem to make sense for another character to try to resist their success, unless you mean for there to be elements of player-player antagonism.

the game concepts remind me a bit of the Ethereals from In Nomine, who live in the dreamworld and feed on human beliefs & worship. The Ethereal Player's Guide is supposed to finally come out in February, and you might want to take a look at it. Much of it is written by R. Sean Borgstrom, who wrote Nobilis.

Green wrote:

Is there any real reason you're deciding to go with a Chinese title? There doesn't seem to be anything in the setting that specifically calls for it.

Other than aesthetics, no. I generally don't think language should be a limiting factor in the attitude of believing that one should only use words of other languages if the setting is dominated by the culture creating it. Variants from Latin and English were generally too bland or already taken. Also, I think that going into a different linguistic system sort of helps establish the universal nature of the game. It is not a game just about European (or better yet: American or English) stories. I may switch to another term, perhaps even one of the African languages, if I find it suits the game better. In fact, an African term would be ideal, as it would seem fitting that the birthplace of modern humanity would also be the birthplace of human stories..

After searching through the internet for a different term to use, I settled on Sanskrit. The word I came up with for this place is Kathanaksaya, which roughly means "realm of tales/stories." Now how I'm going to shorten that is beyond me.

I would suggest, if you're using Sanskrit and want to shorten Kathanakshaya, either drop the 'na' and use Kathakshaya (what was the na doing there?), use the compound Kathaloka (using the more common word 'loka', place or region, rather than kshaya, which I've only seen translated as "dominion"; kshaya has a connotation of a place that's ruled.), or even go in a different direction entirely: Kathanika and kathika are terms for storytellers; Katha-Pitha (the two 'th's are different there; the first is like English thin, while the second is like boot heel.) means "pedestal of story", it's the name of a section of some Sanskrit book.

Since you are so much more adept at linguistics than I am, I'll let you name the thing and be done with it.

I apologize for the tone of that last post. I was frustrated, and I thought you were being condescending because it seemed like you assumed I was ignorant.

Not at all, sir Green. I apologize if my post had that tone. I'm actually very impressed by you; your game idea's great, and the discussions it's been generating have been totalyl fascinating for me. It happens that I'm a little bit of an amateur Sanskrit student, and I was just throwing out some ideas. Frankly, I really like Kathanaksaya. It's a beautiful word.

I think we're drifting, though, so back to the game:

You mentioned earlier that:

In other words, in most RPGs, you could still create a character without history, motivations, personality, or quirks and still use the system. In Xiang Guo, these things are needed before you could even start to play.

four willows weeping wrote: I think we're drifting, though, so back to the game:

You mentioned earlier that:

In other words, in most RPGs, you could still create a character without history, motivations, personality, or quirks and still use the system. In Xiang Guo, these things are needed before you could even start to play.

I find this comment very interesting. I see how it ties into the system of Story Point awards you've set up; it's great thinking, IMO. But, once the Story Points are awarded, do these things have any impact on play, other than the influence they may have on players deciding to contest actions? I'm wondering if you trust the players to play 'in background' or whether you have an enforcement mechanic set up.

Second, I'd like to know more about things changing through play, as you implied the Marsh of Despair did in your example. Is there a procedure for this that I didn't notice among your earlier posts, or something you haven't told us about yet?

Now that I think about it, do you mean "changes" as in a character influencing the setting without necessarily being opposed by it? Say, if you wanted your character to (be able to) do or have something that doesn't necessarily relate to conflict? Like, if a player decides that her character should have an amulet that allows him to turn into a bear, how Story Points would deal with that? If that is your line of thought, I'll have to think on this a bit more.

Green wrote: In fact, sometimes the power of the landscape is more dangerous and insiduous than its Story Point pool would indicate. Consider a landmark I will call the Marsh of Despair (to avoid copyright issues). The Marsh of Despair began as a nice enough place (It certainly wasn't called such then), but many who no longer wished to live began to use it as a place to dispose of themselves. Over the centuries, as the despair and corpses of those sorrowful souls piled up, the Marsh of Despair began to take on a more sinister edge, spreading its sadness to any living thing that passed through it. Now it seeks only to drag others into its depressing depths.

Green wrote: I apologize for the tone of that last post. I was frustrated, and I thought you were being condescending because it seemed like you assumed I was ignorant.

Hi Green,

Looks good, nice to see you've already thought about how it will look in its final form, what you've written is a nice introduction.

Have you considered doing a "designer's notes" version of your rules? Just a bare-bones one page summary that gives the mechanics and nothing else?

eg
· Players earn story points by building a character
· Players bid story points to affect outcomes of situations.
· Each bid must be accompanied by an appropriate narration of what the bid represents.

Its just that reading through lots of (very well written) introduction to the game made it very hard for me to find the actual mechanics of how the game works. Spelling things out clearly for all the lazy dunces like me makes it much more likely that us lazy dunces can scan quickly over your rules and think "Cool - here's what I think." Also it means that if you change, clarify or develop your game it makes it really easy for me (lazy dunce that I am) to see what you've done without having to read through lots of introduction.

eg
· This is a story-telling game
· Players bid story points to affect outcomes of situations.
· Each bid must be accompanied by an appropriate narration of what the bid represents.
· Story points are earned at character creation
· More detailed characters earn more story points

It just makes it easier for me to get upto date with your latest thoughts!

Anyway... Lazy Dunce I may be but I read through what you've posted at the start of the thread and here's what I thought...

The bid mechanic which combines character trait with Story Points seems nice and easy to work - and hooray for no dice! Looks like the more players there are the more unpredictable (and fun) it will get. This seems great, usually the more players there are the more boring combat and other conflicts become because it just takes too long to get everything done. Also it seems to encourage co-operation between players: rather than everyone queing up to take a separate swipe at the wolf, its more economic for everone to give Story Points to the best fighter in the party. Using economy like that to force co-operation is cool, also I like the fact it will encourage character specialisation (I'll be the fighter, who's going to be the thief? Oh and we need a courtier to do all the talking.)

Anyway a few questions...

At what point are Story Points refreshed? When do you get em back?

Is there a GM?

And the one million dollar question that Im very keen to read your answer to:

What do you see this game as? Is it...

A group of players creating different stories, but the system gives them a need/reason to co-operate.

A group of players creating different stories, but the gm gives them a need/reason to co-operate.

A group of players enjoying the story presented by the game world but sometimes they use story points to change things to suit themselves.

A group of players enjoying the story presented by the gm but sometimes they use story points to change things to suit themselves.

Tony

four willows weeping wrote: It seems to me that nothing in your game can be constant; it's a land of stories. You've described in detail the initial process for creating entities in the game, but I don't see any process for changing the mechanical properties of entities, once they exist explicitly. That's what I'm looking for. I hope this clarifies my question enough that it's useful to answer it.

Gaining Story Points

Only living through and inspiring stories make creatures of Kathanaksaya more powerful. This is done by fulfilling the dreams and wishes that create them in a manner that is interesting and relevant. There is no easy way to determine how this comes about. A simple way to do this is to examine how they face and deal with the trials that face them in the course of their stories. The power they gain is determined by the scale of the challenge and the power of the dreams inspiring the character. Equal or overwhelming odds against your character says more about its power than a series of small victories. Gaining Specialties works along similar lines.

Personally, I was also wondering about way Story Points seem to be tied to quantity over quality. For instance, the way you have things created, it seems to be the amount of detail that determines their importance, when many mythic stories are rather short on details, focusing on overarching themes or single, powerful archetypes. Is there a way for some traits to be worth more than others? Could you have a Wizard who has "Studied the Dark Arts x3" and is therefor able to open a magical door that's "Protected by a Curse," "Locked with Mystic Runes," and "Guarded by a Baalrog"?

Seperately, how are you planning to deal with locations, beings, and things that have secret backgrounds that give them great significance (and large amounts of Story Points)? This is where Universalis breaks down, I think, and if you could find a good solution to that problem, I would be most impressed. Since you have a GM (at least, in some forms of the game) you might be able to get around Universalis' problems, but there could be other more elegant ways of dealing with the issue.

At what point are Story Points refreshed? When do you get em back?

Is there a GM?

What do you see this game as? Is it...

A group of players creating different stories, but the system gives them a need/reason to co-operate.

A group of players creating different stories, but the gm gives them a need/reason to co-operate.

A group of players enjoying the story presented by the game world but sometimes they use story points to change things to suit themselves.

A group of players enjoying the story presented by the gm but sometimes they use story points to change things to suit themselves.

I've edited the text of Kathanaksaya to incorporate designer's notes. You can find it on the first page.

Hey, Green.

Just wondering if you could give us a rundown of the changes you made to your earlier posts; I took a look at the notes and all. Very nice, straightforward.

Two other thoughts:
We've seen your example of bidding SP in action. Can we have a larger example of play? I think that would help us understand Kathanaksaya better.
Secondly, on Specialties again:
I think there's a conflict between the interpretation you have in the notes and the one that you posted a couple of days ago. In the first, you say that a Specialty prevents another entity from affecting resolution without bidding higher than the Specialty; in the second interpretation, a Specialty allows you to make, in a particular contest, a bid of a particular size for free; after you exceed the Specialty you have to pay the difference in SP.
It seems that you're using the second interpretation rather than the first, and besides the first is a special case of the second (the one where you automatically bid your Specialty for free when you can).

Oops, miscounted. Got another thought.
You mention that you can use the Kathanaksaya rules to play in other settings. I misread this as using the rules to play in other systems. It struck me that the formalism of Specialties would be an excellent thing to lay on top of other games with metagame point-spending mechanics.
So, what I'm saying is that since K. rules are strictly metagame, you might find it interesting to talk about how you could apply them to other games.

willows>
I'd be glad to give an example of play if I could playtest it. I don't like misleading players in such a way that they don't get what they expect when they start to play.

As far as Specialties are concerned, that is one of the things I readjusted in my rewrite of Kathanaksaya. I detailed more about how to use Specialties to incorporate both things I elaborated here.

Most of the changes are aesthetic, but I did put greater detail in gaining Story Points and Specialties.

Looking great Green,

It was so nice to read this:

Kathanaksaya is a group of players creating stories who use Story Points to change things to suit themselves (or their characters). The GM enhances this process by presenting the themes, locales, and conflicts which will be a part of the story. In other words, the players initiate and drive the action of the plot while the GM enriches it by giving it meaning and significance. The GM is not "God" in the sense of having ultimate power and authority, but rather everyone plays "God," albeit contributing in different ways. Imagine it as improv theater where the players are the actors and the GM does set design, lighting, sound, and special effects.

I'd be glad to give an example of play if I could playtest it. I don't like misleading players in such a way that they don't get what they expect when they start to play.

Now that I have some free time to myself, I may just do that. It'll take some thought, though, to write it in a way that makes sense to the audience without talking down to them.

I will probably put the things I elaborated on in my next edit of Kathanaksaya, perhaps as a note to experienced RPers.

The Role of Players and Narrators

In most roleplaying games, the players are divided into two castes. There are the players, who create player characters (PCs) as actors in a drama written, directed, and staged by the Game Master (GM). The GM acts as an arch deity in these games. They arbitrate conflicts, establish rules for the game and gaming table, and provide plot and setting. It has been understood by many roleplayers that the GM’s word is not just law, but divine decree. In the hands of an overly autocratic GM, the other players can feel as though they are being railroaded to act out the GM’s own ideas at the expense of their own desires. While this approach may work for the game systems that use them, Kathanaksaya is decidedly different because creating stories is a cooperative endeavor that depends upon everyone to reach for their own goals instead of submitting to the wishes of a single player.

Kathanaksaya is a group of players creating stories, using Story Points to facilitate changes to suit the players or their characters. Instead of a Game Master who arbitrates plot, scene, and rules, Kathanaksaya uses a Narrator. Narrators enhance the story telling process by presenting the themes, locales, and conflicts which will be part of the story. It is the players who initiate and drive the action of the plot while the Narrator enriches the experience by providing the contexts in which the characters’ stories unfold. The Narrator’s primary duty is to synthesize the disparate elements of each character’s concept, background, and motivations into a meaningful whole. The Narrator in Kathanaksaya is not “God” in the sense of having ultimate power and authority, but rather everyone plays “God,” albeit in different ways. Another way of seeing it is that the Narrator serves the story by providing mood and atmosphere, theme, setting, and conflict based on each character’s concept. The players serve the story by providing the characters and action of the story. Imagine Kathanaksaya as improvisational theater where the players are the actors and the Narrator does set design, lighting, sound, and special effects.

The process of creating a story in Kathanaksaya is relatively simple, although each step can be extremely involved. The first and most important step in the process is the discussion between the Narrator and other players that uncovers what each wants to play. Here, the players brainstorm preliminary ideas for character concepts, plot elements, themes, and conflicts. The players reveal their likes, dislikes, and desires for the game to come, especially regarding genre, theme, and setting. After this, the players create their characters. Although not required, it is highly encouraged that the players consider the relationship their characters will have with one another. Even if they are strangers, establishing the nature of PC relations helps the game run more smoothly because everyone understands where they fit in regarding one another. Then, the Narrator carefully reviews the character concepts and determines, from the details given for the PCs, the best way to synthesize the group and engage them in one another’s stories.

The Narrator should be very careful of treating the players as actors who are supposed to act out a script. The story belongs not to the Narrator, but to everyone involved in the process of story making. Potential Narrators should rid themselves of the delusion of godhood before the players suffer the consequences. By relieving the Narrator of deity status, it becomes possible to make players responsible for their own characters and to use them as inspiration for the story, as opposed to the Narrator creating the story and the players making characters that “fit.”

Next, the Narrator crafts locales, plot hooks, and the other characters the PCs will meet as they act out their story. This is the time for shameless manipulation of each character’s background, goals, desires, flaws, and weaknesses. Narrators are encouraged to exploit as much about the character as possible when creating plot hooks, Narrator characters (NCs), and settings. If a Narrator is particularly clever or lazy, he or she can ask the players to provide places and people they would like to visit in the course of the story. In other words, Narrators should spend most of their time creating ways to involve the players in the story of their characters and immerse the players in the world.

When this done, the players are ready to begin their first session of Kathanaksaya. Of course, these things need not be static. People change their minds and get different ideas. When this happens, it is perfectly acceptable to change the story to fit around these new elements, but it is important to keep it consistent with the rest of the story. Indeed, incorporating new ideas helps players get a feel for what they like and don’t like, which will make playing Kathanaksaya easier as they go along.

In my next post, I will provide a sample of play.

Sample of Play

Step One: Preliminary Discussion

Sue, John, and Cappy are getting together to play Kathanaksaya. From their discussions about what they want in the game, it becomes clear that Sue wishes to be Narrator because she has no interest in playing one character but instead wants to create interesting locales and plot hooks. John, who is new to roleplaying, has no expectations, but he too is interested in exploring the world and meeting the strange creatures mentioned in Kathanaksaya. Cappy is an experienced roleplayer looking for something new. He is most keenly interested in having the background he provides for his characters mean something, and like the others, he would like to explore the world.

As far as likes and dislikes, John, being new, is not sure what he wants, but he likes to read epics and stories of ordinary people becoming unlikely heroes. He also has an intense interest in mythology. John has no particular dislikes, but he would rather a story spend more time being interesting than “realistic.” Cappy enjoys interacting with different characters and seeing how his character’s nature, experience, and mannerisms affect these encounters. He loves to play a fish out of water. He has already played other roleplaying games where combat or politics seem to be the only courses of action. He wants his character’s actions to have meaning for the characters as defined by the players. Sue prefers settings that are not so rigidly defined that they hold no surprises for the players. She likes to have room for exploration and embellishment. She hates wasting time on petty details best left creating on the fly or according to player questions.

Step Two: Creating the PCs

John and Cappy get together and decide what characters they’d like to play. John has recently been reading about unicorns, so he takes that as inspiration for his character. He creates Dobie (as detailed above). Cappy is an avid David Bowie fan, and he has been yearning to use this interest in a roleplaying game. He creates a character named Ziggy 1847. Although Ziggy 1847's character portrait is extremely detailed, Cappy makes a cheat sheet that includes Ziggy 1847's relevant information. Most important to mention here are his dark secret that he had killed Ziggy 730 and that he seeks to find his own uniqueness. John and Cappy decide that Ziggy 1847 and Dobie are strangers.

Step Three: Synthesizing the Group

Sue takes a look at the characters John and Cappy created, and she notices that they share a desire to become something else. Dobie wishes to be a man. Ziggy 1847 wishes to be special and unique. She brainstorms a while and comes up with an idea. Dobie knows of a landmark called the Wishing Tree. It lies just beyond the realm of Faerie and the Land of Night. When he meets Ziggy 1847, he has already started his journey, and he is near the borders of Bowies Wonderworld when he crosses paths with Ziggy 1847.

Step Four: Creating the World

Sue is happy that Cappy has already done much of the initial work for her by creating Bowies Wonderworld. Next, she has to detail Faerie and the Land of Night, as well as a few surprise landscapes the other players will have to cope with. In particular, she is interested in the idea of the Marsh of Despair. She also creates a few antagonists who will pursue the characters, perhaps competitors for finding the Wishing Tree. An elite squadron of Major Tom’s forces and some hunters seeking Dobie’s horn would make things more interesting.

Step Five: Playing the Game

Dobie and Ziggy 1847 have journeyed far and have become close friends. In their trek to find the Wishing Tree, they have searched all of Faerie for answers, including the Three Forests and the Ice Mountains. Finding no help there, they turn to Toonland, but are nearly killed by the antics of its inhabitants. All the while, they eluded the forces of Major Tom and hunters seeking Dobie’s horn. Just when they were about to give up, they came upon a wise old hermit who knew where to find the Wishing Tree. It was beyond the black depths of the Land of Night, close to the borders of Paradise. Thanking the hermit, they took the most direct path through the Land of Night, encountering a myriad horrors and overcoming them with their combined ingenuity and teamwork.

Now they approach the Marsh of Despair, a bleak, hopeless realm of deceptive safety. The adventures of Dobie and Ziggy 1847 have severely taxed their reserves. Ziggy 1847 only has 4 Story Points left. Dobie, however, has 10. Watch now as the story unfolds.


SUE: You finally come to the edge of the Marsh of Despair. Beneath the thick blanket of fog you see no signs of life. A few patches of solid earth are dotted across murky puddles and ponds. All around there is the silence of the dead.
JOHN: (as Dobie) “Come on.” I hop on the solid patches of land as I make my way through.
CAPPY: (as Ziggy 1847) “I— I don’t want to go in there.”
JOHN: “You have to. It’s the only way we can get to the Wishing Tree.”
CAPPY: “Alright.” I follow Dobie, a little slower because I am not quite as surefooted as a goat.
SUE: You walk along the Marsh of Despair for a long time. The lack of living beings begins to weigh on your spirits. (To Cappy) An eerie depression sinks into you as you travel. What’s the point of all this? There probably isn’t even a Wishing Tree anyway. 4 points.
CAPPY: Uh oh. I stop where I am and look around. I move a bit slower as my spirits start to sag.
JOHN: “Are you alright, Ziggy?”
CAPPY: “Why are we doing this? I mean, there probably isn’t a Wishing Tree anyway. This is stupid. Let’s just go home. We’ve seen enough.”
JOHN: “How can you say that now? We’re so close! We can’t give up!” 5 points.
CAPPY: I reluctantly keep walking.
SUE: (To Cappy) As you trudge through the swamp, getting the sickly-looking mud all over your beautiful clothes and your ultra-cool platform shoes, you begin to wonder at the futility of it all. What difference does it make if you find the Wishing Tree or not? You’re still just another Ziggy, nothing special. 7 points.
CAPPY: I “I can’t go on. Why don’t you find the Wishing Tree without me?”
JOHN: “I won’t leave you here. You’re coming with me to the Wishing Tree if I have to butt you all the way there. We’ve come to far for this now!”
CAPPY: “What difference does it make? You don’t need me. Even if I get killed out here, there are a million others just like me that’ll replace me.”
JOHN: “That’s not true, and you know it!” I affectionately rub my muzzle against Ziggy to give him the strength to carry on. 8 points.
SUE: (To Ziggy) The fact that Dobie cares about you makes you feel a little better.
CAPPY: I walk behind him.
SUE: After a brief interval, the soggy ground begins to slurp ever so gently as Ziggy starts to sink into the swamp. 9 points.
JOHN: “Ziggy! You’re sinking!”
CAPPY: “I know.”
JOHN: “You’ve got to get out of there! You’ve got to fight the sadness! C’mon Ziggy, fight it!”
CAPPY: “I can’t. It doesn’t matter anyway. I’m nobody important.”
SUE: Ziggy sinks further down.
JOHN: “You’re important to me. You’re my friend. Ziggy, please! You’ve got to move or you’ll die!” I try to butt him out of the swamp. “Move, please! I won’t leave you. Ziggy!”
CAPPY: Seeing how much Dobie cares for me stirs my spirits a bit as I reach out to him and weakly say, “Help me, Dobie.” 3 points to John’s bid for 8.
SUE: The swamp eases its grip from you.
JOHN: I pull him out of the water and let him ride on me.
SUE: Soon, you see the edge of a land of ethereal, diaphanous beauty ahead, and you immediately recognize it as Paradise.
JOHN: “Ziggy, look! We’re almost there.”
SUE: That concludes this chapter of the adventure. Dobie, you definitely get SP for your altruistic display by saving Ziggy from himself in the swamp. The way you did it really touched on the Specialties you created for Dobie, especially with the innocence. Ziggy, you get SP for roleplaying how Ziggy almost succumbed to the sadness of the swamp. That was really good.
CAPPY: Despair is one of Ziggy’s Specialties.
SUE: Really? That makes sense, then. Alright. You get 1 SP for overcoming the marsh. You both also get 1 SP for playing your specialties, and since this was a major obstacle, you both also get two SP. That takes you both up to 4 SP gained this chapter. Now, we have to get erady for Paradise.

What this EoP makes me want to ask is, "What is Sue doing"? I'm tempted to contend that the responsibilities given her would be more elegantly distributed among the players, either Multiverser-style as different positions of responsibility (Setting Guy, SP Guy, NPC Guy) or Universalis-style, dividing power by the way players want to affect a thing at a time (if my passing understandings of both games are not incorrect).

Wait. Rather than asking what she's doing, which we know and understand, I want to know why she's doing it. I know that traditional game design has grouped these responsibilities and powers in a single person for time immemorial, but does it serve a purpose in your game? Where's the value-add? How do you feel the game would change if you moved around the power-structure?

Rather than asking what she's doing, which we know and understand, I want to know why she's doing it. I know that traditional game design has grouped these responsibilities and powers in a single person for time immemorial, but does it serve a purpose in your game? Where's the value-add? How do you feel the game would change if you moved around the power-structure?

Your EOP reads great. I wouldn’t be afraid to extend it, to closely detail character creation right through all the scenes in a typical session. It seems like you have a very particular style of play in mind and its important that the players understand how this game is built to work.

Concerning the GMs role, Universalis addresses all of your concerns about Gmless play. You sound like you’ve tried play like this before but confusion resulted – the Universalis system deals with sharing out GM powers, as does my game Theme-Chaser (although not so wonderfully as Universalis! Geez what a poor plug that was). My opinion is stick to your guns and keep the GM, it seems like character-creation is all about building a very personal vision, that might jar with the negotiation and compromise needed for GMless play. A GM can be there to provide the reasons for why all these unique, individual characters come together, without the players having to compromise their uniqueness.

I loved the way one player was able to introduce elements of pop-culture into the game. You might want to make it explicit (I’m sure you already have but I’ve just missed it) that players can build whatever races, regions they need in order to create a character background. Otherwise you’ll get the “But there are no Elves in my world” GMs preventing players from making the characters they really want.

In the EOP of play I was especially interested to see how the conflict and the back-and-forth bidding lasted for the whole scene. In fact you could say that the scene was about Ziggy’s faith in his dream. Troll-Babe is really great for the way that it actually gives rules for making scenes. The GM announces when a scene starts and ends, so you don’t get any of that stupid stuff that drives me so crazy…

Us: Ok we’ll get in the car and drive down-town to the Jar-Jar club to buy some weapons. Does anything happen on the way?

GM: Traffic is pretty busy so its slow going.

Us: Ok we’ll turn on the radio for the news while we wait. Anything on?

GM: Usual celebrity gossip. Oh there’s been a car crash on the Eastern express.

Us: I’ll download the report onto my palm-top.

GM: Its just a car crash. Drunk driver.

Us: Anyone we recognise?

GM: Uhhh, nope.

See its stupid, I want a scene at the Jar-Jar club, the GM wants a scene in the Jar-Jar club, but because neither of us just says “Let’s just skip to the Jar-Jar club” we waste time pissing about not really sure what’s meant to be happening or what anyone else wants to do.

The trick is simply for the GM to say “Ok this scene is over. For the next scene let’s do you guys at the Jar-Jar club”. Or a player can chime in and say “My character has the disadvantage, nagging girl-friend, can we do another scene about that first? It was really funny last time.”

That kind of clarity about what is a scene and how they work might be really useful for a game like yours. For example if I was playing Ziggy I would be wanting scenes that challenge my faith in my own individuality and would need gaps in play where I could ask the GM for stuff like that. Also you might consider that each scene should be focusing on only one conflict. In your EOP of play its much more satisfying I’m sure you’ll agree to end the scene with the characters having renewed faith in themselves instead of it dragging on with “Ok, what do we see now” or “We’ll find a place to camp down for the night, who’s taking first watch?”. You can still have more scenes in the Marsh of Despair (for example they might get attacked by a swamp monster in the next scene), but the point is that every scene is about something and the players and gm all know what that scene is about. If I was to role-play your EOP with some old friends of mine we would have spend hours tramping about the Marsh of Despair with the bored players waiting for the GM to do something and the bored GM waiting for the players to do something. That’s just the way those guys played, they wanted great stories but didn’t know how to achieve it with traditional RPG systems. Clarifying how scenes work might be one way of doing that.

Anyway it all looks great Green, glad to hear you're getting the chance to play test it.

Tony
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Edited to include Trollbabe link 17 Jan 03

Your EOP reads great. I wouldn’t be afraid to extend it, to closely detail character creation right through all the scenes in a typical session

It seems like character-creation is all about building a very personal vision, that might jar with the negotiation and compromise needed for GMless play. A GM can be there to provide the reasons for why all these unique, individual characters come together, without the players having to compromise their uniqueness.

You might want to make it explicit (I’m sure you already have but I’ve just missed it) that players can build whatever races, regions they need in order to create a character background. Otherwise you’ll get the “But there are no Elves in my world” GMs preventing players from making the characters they really want.

That kind of clarity about what is a scene and how they work might be really useful for a game like yours. For example if I was playing Ziggy I would be wanting scenes that challenge my faith in my own individuality and would need gaps in play where I could ask the GM for stuff like that. Also you might consider that each scene should be focusing on only one conflict.

You clearly have some strong narrative goals here, as your quote from "The Role of Players and Narrators" shows. What I wonder (this has been wondered at me too) is how you're going to support those concerns.

What I mean by this is that not everyone has unlimited expertise. You can tell Narrators to keep the players interested, but not all of them will know how. I'm tempted to suspect that those who do know how won't have to be told. So, I think Kathanaksaya, strong as it is already, would benefit a lot from a section on various techniques and processes that make Narration work.

I notice also that a strong part of the Narrator's role, from your EoP, is to analyze and anticipate the players' interests. This is really interesting, from my point of view, and I'd really like to see this elaborated upon. I think you could get a lot out of informing the players (all of them) that they can talk about what they want to happen in the game, and have the Narrator arrange the scene to bring that about. Rather than restricting the explicit player-Narrator communication to pre-play, why not have it going on all the time? It seems as if the pre-game communication is stronger because the players aren't tied to characters yet, but once play begins, you imply that players and Narrators shouldn't explicitly discuss their interests, except through the game medium. To me, this is a recipe for unsatisfying gaming.

On that note, I think that if your Narrators play as you direct them to, with expertise. their scripting, rooted as it is in what the players care about, shouldn't lead to frustration.

What I mean by this is that not everyone has unlimited expertise. You can tell Narrators to keep the players interested, but not all of them will know how. I'm tempted to suspect that those who do know how won't have to be told. So, I think Kathanaksaya, strong as it is already, would benefit a lot from a section on various techniques and processes that make Narration work.

After reading over Kathanaksaya again, I began to wonder exactly how important the text about humans and the fading are. Although it is incredibly interesting, I fear that they may not have any bearing on actual play, and therefore should be eliminated. What do you think? Should they be kept? What do you see happening with the things I wrote for these ideas. To prevent alot of scrolling up and down, I'll post a revised form of what I had before.

Humans
Humans are responsible for Kathanaksaya’s continued existence. After all, Kathanaksaya is a world composed of their dreams, their hopes, their fears. Human stories alter, create, or destroy Kathanaksaya as easily as a child with a lump of clay. Paradoxically, humans are the banes and saviors of Kathanaksaya. When they tap into their gift for making stories, Kathanaksaya blossoms. When they forget this gift or deny its power, the Kathanaksaya wastes away. Just as their ignorance of the power of stories destroys Kathanaksaya, so to does a human revive it by creating more stories.

There have been no indisputable cases of humans physically venturing to Kathanaksaya. It seems there is a border preventing the denizens of one world from crossing over into the other. Perhaps this is a good thing. The devastation that a human being’s power fantasy could wield in our world is unimaginable. Likewise, a human being who finds herself in Kathanaksaya could wreak havoc on an epic scale.

Fading
Fading is a process, sometimes slow, sometimes fast, that devours creatures and lands of Kathanaksaya. It can strike at any place and at any time, but it usually attacks those things that have been largely ignored and forgotten. It is sometimes acts simultaneously upon several creatures and places. Nothing is invulnerable to it. Even the greatest stories ever told have succumbed to Fading. Entire regions in Kathanaksaya have disappeared into nothingness. Most in Kathanaksaya have no personal experience with Fading, but those who know if it fear it like no other force they can imagine.

Fading begins subtly. It shows itself most drastically in sentient creatures. Initially, the creature forgets details about its past, beginning with things it would rather not remember. Then it loses memories they are indifferent to, such as trivial facts and other things which have little to no bearing on how they live. It realizes something is wrong when it forgets important details such as its home, what happened to it fifteen minutes ago, and even its name.

Physically, the creature declines as well. Some lose parts of their bodies, which disappear as though they had never been there. Others become more and more transparent, resembling an apparition when Fading approaches its advanced stages. Neither pain nor pleasure nor any other type of feeling accompanies Fading. In fact, Fading could be said to be a physical and psychological numbness that overtakes the creature. At the final stage of Fading, the creature vanishes. Soon afterwards, the possessions of the missing character vanish as though they had never been there. Finally, the other characters lose all memory that the Faded one had even existed.

What happens to Kathanaksayan after the Fading consumes them is unknown. Most fear that it is oblivion, but others posit that it is merely a transition into another state of being. Some believe the process is natural and inevitable. Some Kathanaksayans, rather than try to figure out what lies beyond the Fading, attempt to understand what it really is and how it works. Is it active or passive? A dangerous combination of both? A few insane (or very wise) creatures think that the Fading is what happens when the one who made them forgets about them, when someone considers them so unimportant that they are not worth considering.

Kathanaksaya, so far as I've seen, doesn't have mechanics for the Fading; it'll never see play if I don't miss my guess (the same way Mage: the Ascension has no rule for madness, so you never see characters going Marauder). But the Fading is really interesting. I'd like to see it, personally. So 'm going to throw you an idea, but first...

If you're going to leave in the Fading text, then it stands to reason that the Humans text stay there as well; it's kind of funny that the game is explicitly about beings being imagined by other (presumably fictional) beings.

Suppose you were to bring Humans and the Fading into play:

Humans are simply characters with no manifestation in the game world, outside of their ability to participate in SP bidding in accord with their Specialties. They are quite literally fighting to tell their version of the story. I wouldn't suggest having more then one person play a Human in a game of Kathanaksaya; it's a very weird kind of position. Maybe instead of a Narrator, there's a Human "telling" a particular story of Kathanaksaya, participating in the unfolding of events in the Narrator capacity rather than as a character does.

The Fading is something that happens to Kathanaksayans as their traits shift in prominence; as people forget some qualities and remember the others...
Mechanically, at the start of the gane none of a character's Specialties have Remembrance. When you use a Specialty, it gets Remembrance; Remembrance is either on or off. At the end of a story, each character's lowest Specialty without Remembrance Fades by a point. If all their Specialties have Remembrance, no Fading occurs.

it's kind of funny that the game is explicitly about beings being imagined by other (presumably fictional) beings.

I've added this to the EoP which details the process of playing Kathanaksaya. Hopefully, this would help establish a habit of players asking what they would like from the Narrator.

Step Six: Recap and Requests

After the session dealing with the Marsh of Despair, the three players discuss what they liked, didn’t like, and anything they would like to see more of. This has two major purposes. The first is to keep all the players happy by letting them voice their desires and concerns before these issues derail the story. If Sue likes describing settings in a way that evokes an introspective, almost religious mood, communicating this to John and Cappy can cut down on frustration because they won’t be as likely to do slapstick humor. The second is to give the Narrator an idea of how to prepare and what to prepare for. If John and Cappy want light-hearted fun, it makes no sense for Sue to plan the next session around escaping from the Land of Night.

The players from the above example briefly talk about what worked and what didn’t work for the session, and all three agree that they had a great time. Sue was highly entertained by the dramatic dialogue of the characters. She enjoyed watching Dobie and Ziggy interact with each other. Cappy and John liked this too. Cappy adds that he liked how he felt free to have his character act naturally, without feeling pressured by the Narrator to play accordig to someone else’s ideas of how his character should be portrayed. He thoroughly enjoyed dealing with Ziggy’s crisis of faith. John is not sure why, but he had fun. He liked being useful.

After such an intense session, Sue, Cappy, and John all agree that they need a break. While they don’t want people slipping on banana peels, all of them want relief from the tension that permeated the chapter dealing with the Marsh of Despair. Sue reassures them that Paradise will not be anywhere nearly as stressful. Cappy asks whether or not there will be time to face Major Tom and kick his butt after the Paradise chapter is done. Cappy also says that Ziggy wants show Dobie his home. John wants Dobie to interact with Sarah and to save some innocents. If that means kicking Major Tom butt, he is OK with it. Sue, inspired by the relief of tension, takes these ideas and comes up with something she is sure the other players will enjoy.

I like shreyas' idea about Remembrance, so I have decided to incorporate it into the game. The text goes shortly after the part about Specialties, an it is this:


When your character uses a Specialty in a bid, that Specialty gains Remembrance. Remembrance does not work like Specialties because instead of having a variable range, it is either there or not. When you have your character use a Specialty in a bid, simply mark that Specialty in a way that sets it apart from those which haven’t been used, such as an “R” by the Specialty you have used. At the end of a story, the Specialty with the lowest rating that has no Remembrance will fade away. The only way to regain the faded Specialty is through living through and inspiring more stories along the lines of the Specialty that had disappeared. The fading of Specialties does not affect your character’s Story Point total at all. However, it does make it harder to bid in your character’s favor.



The only thing I see as a problem is what happens when no bidding occurs. Anyone with ideas on how to solve this?