Outward Urge - an RPG Proposal


*Premise*

The Outward Urge explores the tension between pioneers on the expanding edge of human interstellar expansion. Dynamics form between the entrenched core and the ungoverned frontier, between authority and autonomy, and between convention and eccentricity.


*Setting & Character Types*

The Outward Urge presents human space during the first great expansion. With the invention of FTL travel in the early 2200s, the first dedicated explorers and fringe groups founded colonies in nearby star systems. "Survive off the land" became the motto of colonization. Sixty years later, new improvements in FTL technology bring a second wave of colony building: more colonists, traders, and emissaries of core mega-corporations seeking fast profit.

Characters would be explorers, scientists, small traders, colonists, and enforcers. They would form pioneering teams to assay planetary resources, collect animal specimens, transport goods, transport prisoners, provide security, etc. Comlications would arise from cultural conflicts with colonists, legal conflicts with outcasts, and competition with corporate interests.


*Character Creation*

- Abilities: Physique, Intellect, and Sociability - 12 dice distributed between them.

- Descriptors: each Ability would have one or more descriptors.
(eg Low-G Training or Combat Regimen for Physique;
Gearhead, Techhead, or Academic for Intellect, etc.)

- A Career, set at the same level as the appropriate Ability.
Descriptors for Career as well, defining specialties, with
bonus ones if Career rating is less than the character's
highest Ability.


- Motives.
The player can define one or more Motives, which can
accumulate bonus dice which can later be expended to improve
resolution results.

Motive must have three elements: a benefit, a drawback, and a reason it exists.

Each character starts with a Motive called Outward Urge, which defines the character's reason for choosing a career on the frontier.


*Resolution*

- Conflict Oriented. When conflict starts, players declare goal, Ability or Career, and any Descriptors they think apply. Descriptors give extra dice to roll.

- GM declares minimum numver of Victories required to succeed.
GM might also require an accumulated number of Victories before the conflict can end.

- Player commits none, some, or all Motive dice on the roll and declares whether he's betting to Succeed or Fail.

- Roll d6, count 6s as victories and subtract GM's minimum.
Motive Dice Bet
- Victories Results: To Win to Lose

1+ Victory End Conflict - Success Payoff x1 Investment Lost
No Victories Unresolved Invested Payoff x1
No Victories &
some 1s End Conflict - Failure Inv Lost Payoff x2

Player narrates the result. The kind of result determines what happens to any Motive Dice he used.

Invested - ho hum narration: lose all;
good narration: invest 1 or more.
Investment Lost - All dice lost.
Payoff - ho hum narration - get invested dice back,
good narration - get back with bonus.

GM gauges quality of narration by intensity and believable involvement of the character's Motives. Invoking a Motive Benefit returns one for one; a Drawback returns two for one.


*Reward*

Motive Dice can be expended to increase Attributes, add Career, or Descriptors. Zeroed motives may be eliminated or rewritten.


DESIGN COMMENTS

I'm aiming for a game that favors narrativist-style play in a hard SF environment. The Motive mechanic attempts to allow players to design their own character premise.

With the resolution mechanic I'm really just throwing out ideas - I don't think it's a coherant system yet. (For example, I don't know how Motive dice are earned in the first place). It does try to encourage "talking up" an action after a result is determined, rather than before, and rewards good narration with motive dice.

Another issue is character-premise verses setting-premise for narrativist approach. I think what I've got is a character-centered approach. I'm not sure how a setting-centered approach would work. (I've read Hero Wars, but can't figure what mechanics makes it setting-centered narrativism.)

So, analyses? How will this design work?

Hi Alan,

This is my favorite part:

Alan wrote: Motive must have three elements: a benefit, a drawback, and a reason it exists.

Alan wrote: Another issue is character-premise verses setting-premise for narrativist approach. I think what I've got is a character-centered approach. I'm not sure how a setting-centered approach would work. (I've read Hero Wars, but can't figure what mechanics makes it setting-centered narrativism.)

Hi Alan,

Quick conceptual contribution ...

I consider Hero Wars to be setting-based Narrativism because the conflicts faced by the characters arise from the setting itself: their culture, their geography, their race/ethnicity, and their religion/magic. They have to make decisions about these things' importance, and about making a new meaning out of them. Characters begin play very minimally defined in these terms, and most of character creation consists of situating the character according to keywords (culture, magic, occupation).

"The Old World is over. [fill in the next phrase]"

It differs from a game like Paladin, which is character-based Narrativism because the conflicts faced by the characters are largely defined by their own dual natures - the Light and Dark Sides of ... um, Animus (whew! almost forgot the game term and used another term, there). Character creation in Paladin mainly consists of setting the "starting gate position" for these conflicting elements within the characters' own spiritual identities; external sources of conflict offer only a theater, if you will, for these things to be worked out.

Please note that both of these games result in well-developed, interesting settings and characters, neither of which exists or makes any sense without the other. The issue is mainly one of starting points.

Best,
Ron

Hi all,

Emily: thanks for the response.

Ron: thanks for the clarification. I think I begin to understand.

After reflection, I think my question is not "is this a good design" but rather "is this the best approach for the premise and setting?"

I haven't played enough different narrativist-style RPGs to know which approach would work best. I do know that simulationist-style design attracts me, but I also know that _playing_ a sim-game disapoints me. I want protagonism and some moral choices for my character.

I can envision three design approaches:

1) Sorcerer style: Abilities with descriptors and a character-based premise mechanic.

2) Hero Wars style: Keywords in categories like Homeworld, Education, and Career would provide clusters of skills. The setting would be defined to place those keywords clusters into thematic relationships to the game universe.

3) Riddle of Steel style: characteristics, skills, research and information gathering rules, social interaction table, spaceship stats, all coordinated with a character-based premise mechanic (Motives).

I also recall something Ron said about how character-based narrativist play starts with character and leaves setting open to be defined in play, while setting-based narrativist play starts with setting and leaves character to be defined.

It seems to me that, in a hard SF setting, both character and setting must be defined - the setting by providing rules for generating technology, planets and colonies which reflect hard SF conventions, and the characters by providing a range of background that fits into the setting. How would this relate to Ron's obseravations on starting places for narrativist games?

So, in everyone's experience, what would be the best design approach for the premise and setting in my first post?

Alan:

Go Hard SF game! Here's my 2 cents.

I would lean toward 1 or 2, especially 2. The HW categories sound like a great idea. I had thought about something similar for what I'm working on: "I'm from an arctic world, so I should by implication have survival skills," and so forth.

The third option leaves too much room, IMHO, for rules creep. You can pay attention to the laws of physics without tables and charts.

A comment on the d6 mechanic you mentioned in your first post. I've noticed that extreme odds like 1:6 take a much longer time to average out than 3:6 odds. Much like how "natural 20s" can disappear from a gaming session, only to come out en masse the next game.

-Matt

The only problem with "setting based" for this is that, well, the people are developing their own setting. As pioneers, they are making a new place to call home. As such, the only "place" that exists out here is "the Frontier" and people cannot say that this is where they are from. As such, the usual method of linkage to a place will not work, IMO.

OTOH, what you have instead is the potential to essentially create places from scratch. That is, the players as people forging new territories will be parts of movements that are important to them. So give players values that are associated with the place they are trying to create. They "win" if the place that gets created is like the one they wanted to start.

(Aside: I saw the Springfield vs. Shelbyville episode of the Simpsons last night. In that, grandpa Simpson tells the story of how explorers Shelby and Jebedia Springfield first explored the area. Upon deciding on a spot for their town, Shelby reveals that his motive for starting a new town is so that there can be "a place where men are free to marry their cousins" because, "their so darn attractive". Springfiled being repulsed by the notion, the two go their separate ways and found Shelbyville and Springfield. Egads, how I love the Simpsons.)

Anyway, the conflicts then come over the desires of the different people who are establishing these new frontiers. The obvious example is the ranchers vs. the farmers, and the railroad stories of the Old West. Basically, characters would have certain sets of ideals for their new colonies, and would have to fight with those who had differing ideas for the use of the resources there. Could be pretty cool. Basically, you'd get your beliefs as a bonus when fighting for them. Believe in freedom from oppressive govenment? Then you get your bonus dice when fighting to ensure that your colony is free from such forces. Very TROS.

Do we Terraform? Or are the colonists into preserving the environment that they find? Do we exploit the mineral contents of the world? At what level of potential pollution? What sort of governmental form is acceptable? If any? What sort of values will be promoted by the new communities? What sort of technology is available, accepted or required? Yadda, yadda.

I see lots of room for cool intragroup friction. Make characters in a group session, but only in terms of the skills. So that you can get a cool "exploration team" together with a suitable mix of skills. But then have them make their character's values in secret. Then, first session is the one where the team is assembled (so potential incompatibilities are unknown). The GM just looks at the character sheets and the values, and then has some third party send them off on some exploration venture. All the GM has to do is assure that the PC values come into conflict in play, and Voila! Instant story. The isolation of distant places, and the need to rely on each other will come into contrast with the characters differing beliefs. The former keeping the group together, and the latter trying to fling it apart. Neat.

For example, the GM sees that one character is anti-autoritarian, another is for a strong secular central government, and a third is a religious fanatic. The characters are hired by a corporation to do some exploring of a geographical feature near a new colony to find a source of water for it that they can develop. The mission soon becomes relatively unimportant, as the players discover that the settlemet is a religious colony that has weak controls on trade and such, bur regiments the mores of its people with an iron hand. Worse, there are elements seeking to form splinter groups. Into this situation walks the PCs with their heavily conflicting opinions, and a huge amount of corporate resources that they could use to incidentally help one side or the other. Do they help either side? Which?

I assume that communications are only as fast as the FTL travel? The standard concept used to enforce the 'frontier' feel?

Mike