A bit of theme- Imagine that God has a perfect plan, and it's your job to defend it. That's what you've trained for- you're on of the best of the best, the real and true last line of defense. What threatens isn't evil, however- it's Freedom, freedom from the utter slavery that is perfect predeterminism. And what's worse, the more Free an agent is, the better they can do their job- but the more likely they go rogue and join the enemy.
Nothing terribly innovative, but I do want one point to get made, loud and clear- The players are IT. They are the Top of the Line. If the screw up a mission, it will have serious ramifications. There is no higher force to cover up for them. To many games, IMO, either have the players in what amounts to a meaningless vaccum (the average dungeon crawl game) or there are larger Powers that Be who will maintain the status quo (the average Storyteller game). This is meant to be a fairly strongly Narrativist game, with some elements of Gamist present as well.
As a sidenote, one additional theme I would like to explore is that of Potential vs Realized Talent. But I'll come back to that.

The primary setting is either the Crusades, Victorian England or modern day, in all cases centered around England. Why? Because London amuses me as the center of a Secret Society bent on enforcing a Divine Plan. No real reason, and not terribly strict- the danger will bring Agents all over the world and can work in essentially any time period.

Where I'm running into something of a sticky point is the mechanics.

Presently, I'm inclined to use a Karma based set of attributes and skills for most humans, with the Freed (humans that have, to some extent, broken loose of the Plan- which has some slackness to account for minor deviations, but not as much as it needed) having both a Permanent and Temporary Freedom rating. Temporary Freeedom can be increased in one of two ways- either by risking it (an Attribute can be temporarily increased- failure loses the risked Freeddom, while success increases it by one) or by participating in acts which violate the Plan (most fights with Things From Outside the Plan will fall into the later- the reason the Plan was built with some slack was to try and account for them).

When your Temporary Freedom exceddes certain (yet to be determined) thresholds, you're Permanent Freedom will increase. That's how far you've estranged yourself from The Plan. As you become further estranged, it will become harder to continue the Fight- in all likelyhood, you'll go rogue. (I haven't quite worked out a mechanical reason for this yet- especially not one that jibes with 'More corrupted agents do better work.)

In a contest versus another character, the highest Attribute + Skill + Situational Modifiers wins. In a contest versus some static challenge, if the character attempting the challenge has an Attribute + Skill + Situational Modifier that is higher than the DC, they make it.

One interesting case, which prevents the game from being diceless, is that my present idea for the Things From Beyond that are outside the Plan don't /have/ set attributes, they have dice pools- which can make them, moment to moment, terrors and cowards. Or possible, just stats and skills that are on average lower, but some constant Die that is rolled and added to any action they attempt. (Fear the elf with a +d20! ;)

There will also be various Special Powers, such as learning aspects of the plan (essentially, wither you would succede or fail at a certain task without spending Freedom), adjusting the difficulty of tasks (either up or down), granting or removing freedom from others, and detecting disturbances. I'm inclined to make these powers either free or very cheap to use, based on the Permanent Freedom Rating- they are either available or not.

---

Adventurers are primarily meant to deal with Threats to the World. These aren't terribly common, and the PCs are the last line of defense- only the worst of the worst get their attention. There exist two options for the down time between attacks- political manuvering, or practice. Since the governments of the world are operating according to Plan, unless something is going wrong (which would be a Threat to the World, yadayada), political manuvering doesn't mean much. So, that leave's practice.

IOW, between stories of dealing with the Threats To Reality, fairly long stretches of time pass, and characters can advance quite a bit.

This is where the Potential thing gets factored back in. In character creation, you make two sheets- your 'starting' character' and then that character with some maximum amount of experience- an ideal, with all your weaknesses and flaws. From that point on, raising attrtibutes and skills that are near to being maxed out is far harder than raising skills and attributes that are far from being maxed out- regardless of the actual level of the skill.

...

Well, that was a somewhat confusing ramble. :) This is the first time I've tried to put down my brainstorming in an even vaugely unified fashion. Questions/Comments/Death Threats? :)

Drew, interesting ideas. I have some crazy musings and comments for you.

On Important Characters:
I love this thinking. I agree, there are too few games where the players matter. I do contend, though, that a lot of Forge games, as I know them, at least brush this point, if they don't paint it in red for everyone to see. Alyria and TRoS seem to suggest it; Clinton's Donjon hides behind a tree and then screams it out loud. I've tried to strike this issue in my games, in a wholly mechanical manner.

So, back to the real issue:
How are you going to make it the case that we believe you? I mean, sure you can say that the players are important, but just saying that offhand isn't going to cut it, in my opinion. I'd like to know your plans for supporting the importance of the players' actions.

On Explicitly Making Karma and Fortune Different:
Nice. I'm wary of the apparent complexity of this mechanic, which by your description of it seems to fall into the realm of what in the past has been mainly G/S design, but on the other hand I think it's awesome that people confined by the Plan are wholly predictable from the PoV of those outside it (the players).
As for Freedom and the Outer Things...
...these are clearly aspects of the same thing. My reaction here was, "Hey, if Outer Things have Attributes and Skills like Plan-confined creatures, that makes me feel funny - unless they're under a Different Plan." Then, you could model different Plans with different Attribute trees (maybe there are weird genii from space whose Attributes are Calligraphy, Poetry, and Numerology, instead of, say, Body, Mind, and Spirit, and likewise they have different spheres of influence) and Freedom could represent a sort of meta-Plan ability, allowing creatures to work within "a Plan of their own", sort of.

On the Special Powers:
On the whole, these abilities are cool, and match elegantly with the Freedom business.
It occurs to me that some powers - like Knowing the Plan - make sense at low leels of Freedom but not higher ones. Food for thought, maybe. (Again, my reaction here would be to set a level of Freedom where using the power was most easy, and have the difficulty ramp up in both directions as Freedom varies.)

On Potential:
This scares me a little, depending on how close you're to get to your Potential.
Supposing that you're expected to approach the Potential quite closely, it's a scary concept; I'd only expect very, very experienced and taented players to both attempt and enjoy this.
Supposing that the Potential is, at the other extreme, the very limit that the character can ever reach, and probably isn't expected to hit more than one or two cap, this sounds like a very sound idea to me.
Supposing that Freedom let you mess with your Potential, exceeding it or tinkering with it (at the cost of levels of PF, maybe?) I'd be all over this like college students at a farmers' market.

Hi, Drew. Welcome to the Forge!

Very cool idea, but I haven't much time right now. Just a thought on the "Free-er agents are better agents." Once you hit a certain level of Freedom, you, too, get dice to add to your Att + Skill + Sit.

Perhaps, like FUDGE dice, they can make you better or worse. Just a quick thought.

Re: Adding dice

I'd considered that, and am still considering it. At the present, I'd like to reserve dice for the Things From Beyond- or possibly the highest levels of Permanent Freeedom. Bringing a true element of Fortune into the otherwise (mostly) predetermined Plan can skew things pretty heavily in a hurry.

Re: Character Importance

At present, I'm just standing out in the open and shouting it. ;) I haven't detailed the setting enough to work out how the characters are important, outside of the 'last line of defense' bit. More of a design philosophy/goal than a realized vision as of yet.

Re: Fortune And Karma Split

Er- I'll admit, I'm new here, but how does the Attrr + Skill + Situation (+ Freedom) fall into G/S? Or, of greater concern to me, what complexity are you seeing? I might have misexplained something...

Re: Things From Beyond and abilities

The problem with giving the Spacee Genii from Planet Bob attributes like Caligraphy is that there needs to be a basis for comparison if the Genii gets into a fight with one of the characters. Pretend, for a moment, that one of the characters gets into an armwrestling match with the genii. For reasons. The Genii has no strength attribute. What do I base how well it does in such a contest on?

Put another way- the Things From Beyond have bodies, and even reasonably human minds and personalities. They just want to break the Plan and free humanity from it's predetermined course. So, while on Earth, they get measured with human-style abilities.

Re: Speccial Powers

I like the ramp working both ways. *yoink* :)

Re: Potential

Yeah... I dunno. The lack of any way of measuring potential (or any real meaning to the idea) has something that has seemed to be lacking, IMO, in RPGs that intend character advancecment- everyone can become equally good at everything with unlimited experience , in most systems. Maybe this isn't the right game to explore the idea, though.

But some day, I will. Just because too many stories I like a great deal feature some scene of the Older Hero being stunned at how much potential greatness/magic/whathaveyou he sees in the younger upstart.

Re: Some additional explanation

To further explain the Plan a bit-
God knew, when he was designing the Plan, that some things existed beyond the scope of His vision. So, the Plan is built in with some slackness- a Perfect Plan, where a single act of free will broke the whole pattern, would be a disaster waiting to happen. When agents spend small amounts of Freedom- even if it seems they're making a Major Alteration to the future of the world, it's really a fairly minor thing. Frequently, such alterations are even self-correcting. And, no matter how Free they become, almost every human is still bound to the Plan to some degree.

The Things from Beyond are another matter entirely. They're capable of wildly /and intentionally/ altering the Plan to achieve a different outcome. Their very presence provides Free Will to humanity- just being near them makes lots of people more likely to start breaking the Plan. And, while there is that certain amount of slackness, it can only stretch so far.

Think of the Plan in Foundation/Psychohistory terms, and the Things From Beyond as the Mule. The secret society then becomes analagous to the Second Foundation.

...

Oh damn. Don't ya hate it when you suddenly realize that you've been unconciously stealing even more than you thought? :)

Two thoughts:

1) Fortune and Karma mixed.

Given the theme of this game, I think that you almost have to mix the two in some way. I suppose that instead of Fortune you could substitute some sort of finite point pool to add to stats in order to represent Freedom. Fortune seems better-suited, though.

2) On the Importance of Characters.

Threats to the World should be credible. When they surface (almost by definition), the Plan is on shaky ground. This could be represented by a breakdown of the Karma mechanic... perhaps the greater (or further along) the Threat, the more everything moves toward a Fortune-based mechanic.

This would require, of course, a sliding scale for Karma/Fortune. This wouldn't necessarily be difficult to institute. A simple version would have statistics on a scale where, say, 10 is an average human. For every shift toward Fortune, subtract 3 from all stats and add a d6.

~szilard

Man, you take a few days off for Thanksgiving and great stuff like this gets posted! Let me jump back in here...

First of all, your basic concept (predetermination vs. freedom) is reminiscent of Aetherco's pair of games, Continuum & Narcissist (the latter of which isn't published yet). They deal with the issue through the lens of time travel though, and there's plenty of room to bang around the concepts some more. After all, people have been doing that for thousands of years. You should still check out Aetherco's stuff if you aren't familiar with it. They're some of my all-time favorties.

As for your "corrupted agent" mechanics, you might want to consider something like the Falling mechanics in In Nomine, where players have to roll against their Permanent Freedom to resist being cut loose and becoming Something Outside the Plan. After all, if you build up that much Freedom from God, you may stop being one of God's children entirely. Then again, In Nomine's not the best game to steal mechanics from (since they're pretty weak), so you could probably come up with something better.

Some of the Special Powers you describe sound very much like what Continuum called your "Yet," predetermined events that you know are going to happen. Of course, you'll have to decide whether paradoxes are possible and what happens when things DON'T go according to God's ineffable Plan.

I really like the Potential idea. Having two character sheets that you slowly progress between, developing one character until he's a mirror image of the other, at which point he's fulfilled his potential and dies/goes out in a blaze of glory/gets exalted to the highest heavens, whatever. This means that, if the players are aware of their characters Potential, there's some incentive to break away from God just so you don't have to reach your Potential, can reach a different end, and can keep playing the same character. Delicious. Of course, that may not be what you have in mind.

Don't really get how your stated mechanics fit into the rest of the game yet, but perhaps if you give us some examples, things will be clearer?

All in all, love it. Rocks on toast. Can't wait to see what you do with it next.

First, thanks for the kind words :) I've heard of Continium, although I haven't played it yet- frankly, the idea of that much bookkeeping terrifies me ;)

Seccond, since I'm not sure if this is clear from what follows- the Plan is both unalterable and dynamically changing all the time. Essentially, God created a perfect plan within the limits of His Omniscience- which included that the Outsiders would try and change the Plan, but not just what they would do. So, He created the Angels to keep the Outsiders out, and the Secret Society that produces the Agents (whom the PCs are) to deal with those Outsiders that get in. The Plan was also designed in such a way that minor ripples of Free Will would be absorbed into the background noise, and cancel one another out and bleed away. Only the constant interference that an Outsider churns up can Break the Plan forever.

Anywho. This is a first draft, v.01 alpha whatnot. It's mostly a closer look at how the mechanics will work, without having done more than cursory mental playtesting. None of the Arts (Freedom inspired magics) or Divinations and Bindings (Fate based magics) are firmly defined yet, nor are the limits of what Fate and Freedom can accomplish. But, yeah. Easier to debug a system at a low level. :)

Free:
The Game of Predestination and Free Will

Premise: God is Omniscient, in His own way. When He created the world, he had a Plan in mind- and, being od, set reality up to conform to that plan. However, He was aware of those others. Those outside His creation. They formed the limits of his omniscience- God's aware of everything He created, but nothing from outside those limits.

He strongly suspected that those from Outside would try and get in- and so the Plan was built with some slack, to tolerate their interference. And stuff.

The setting exists in my head. It'll get written up better when I'm less tired :) For now, mechanics.

---

Characters have Attributes and Skills. Attributes are rated from 0 to 3, while skills are rated from -1 to 5.

Attributes
0: Below human average
1: Human average
2: Above average human
3: Human upper limit

Skills
-1: Untrained / Default
1: Novice
3: Journeyman
5: Master

Task Resolution
Compare the sum of the appropriate Attribute and Skill to the DC of the task attempted.
-2 or more: Disasterous failure
-1: Failure
0: Bare success/additional complications
1: Mild success
2 or more: Full success

Attributes
Fighting: Natural inclination to physical battle; strength and reaction time
Balance: The ability to keep one's feet in uncertain circumstances
Stamina: The ability to resist physical harm and survive trauma
Wits: Quick thinking and initative
Charisma: Personal magnetism and force of personality

Skills
Weapon Attack: Fighting with a particular weapon style.
Weapon Defense: Defending oneself with a particular weapon style
Theology: Knowledge of things religious and sacred
Occult: Knowledge of Things From Outside the Plan
Tracking: Following someone through the wilderness
Mouuntain Climbing: Traversing a large chunk of rock, including finding shelter and sustense while doing so.

There are a few other statistics, peculiar to some of the more unusal characters of the world- mostly the PCs, although some other important NPCs as well.

Fate and Freedom: Fate and Freedom are both measured in Permanent and Temporary pools. Fate demarks how enmeshed a character is in the Plan. Those who are deeply engrossed are more trustworthy, more resistant to the warping that can come from those Outside, and become ever more privy to how the Plan is meant to work. Freedom is a measure of how far the character is capable of breaking and has already broken from the Plan- as well as using the arts of Those Outside to alter the plan at a fundamental level.

Permanent Fate and Freedom are both measured from 0 to 5, and when added together, may never total higher than 5.
Temporary Fate and Freedom are measured from 0 to 6, and may not excedde the Permanent rating by more than 1.

Fate governs-
*Magics that divine the Plan (what the difficulty of a task is, what the outcome of a course of action will be if no Freedom intereferes, etc). Using such magics costs Temporary Fate.

*Resistance to Gaining Freedom. Highly Fated people gain less Freedom from witnessing the actions of those from Outside, as well as being more generally resistant to their charms and magic. This resistance can be augmented by spending temporary Fate.

*Pervert Free action against the user. Being too close to someone with a high Fate rating makes using Freedom very unreliable. This protection can be temporarily augmented by spending Temporary Fate- but it applies against the character himself as well.

*Interactions with perfectly Plan bound entities, such as the Elohiem- such entities look more favorably on an individual that has deeply accepted their Fate.

*Attunation to Fortune: One of the abilities of those deep into their Fates is the ability to almost 'hear' the actions of Free Will- when the outcome of an action is thrown off, due to either Freedom being spent or an Art being used.

*Binding: Those deeply enmeshed into Fate can even drive out potential Free Will and scourage away violations before they happen, reducing temporary- or even Permanent -Freedom. Theoretically, they could even so bind an Outsider into God's Plan.

Freeedom governs-
*Breaking the plan through good fortune. In game terms, they may spend Temporary Freedom up to their Permanent Freedom rating for a given action, and roll that many d6s- this is added to their total. Then take the highest single Fate rating also involved- including the character's own, if applicible -and roll that many d4s. This bonus is then explained by the player- it is not just 'I do exceptionally well'. The character in some way breaks the Plan- they do better or worse than God intended. Clearly there is another reason- they knew the merchant they were trying to sweet talk, their opponent tripped at an opertune moment, something.

(Alternatives- each spent Freedom is a d4, while Fate subtracts at a steady rate- either Fate, or on the table below
0:0
1:1
2:3
3:6
4:10
5:15
and so on.)

Example: The Agent Jared has to climb a virtually impassible mountain. He has a Balance of 1, a Mountain Climbing of 2, a Fate of 2 and a Freedom of 2. The mountain (he divines) has a difficulty of 5 to climb- meaning that his normal attempts to scale it would be a disasterous failure (1+2-5 = -2). He elects to spend two Temporary Freedom, and rolls 2d6, adding this to his total and subtracting his Fate roll (2d4). This could range from a monsterous disastere if if the dice fall badly and impose a -6 penelty (2-8), or could provide a (12-2) +10 bonus- Jared scaling the mountain with godlike speed and ability. On average, Jared will get a +2 bonus from spending two freedom, and a -1 penelty from spending one freedom.

Example: Father Jameson has a Fate of 4, and is assisting Agent Jared (above) in apprehending a dangerous criminal. Jared, feeling outclassed in a fight, again spends two freedom to add 2d6 to his total- but the Fate penelty is now 4d4, owing to Father Jameson's 'help'. At best, Jared will get a +8 bonus, and at worse, he'll hit a -10 penelty. What's worse, on average, he'll now see a penelty of -3 on average; Father Jared carries the Will of God with him where he goes, and woe to those who break it.

*The Art of those Outside, which Alters the plans. These Arts can make unattempted tasks easier or harder, and- at their height, even rewrite the recent past, causing a character to turn a failure into a success- or another's success into a failure. Such Arts cost Freedom.

*Interactions with those from Outside who are bound by no Plan- such entities look more favorably on those humans that approach their state.

*Destiny's Doupleganger. One Art, unique to Freed humans, is to create a sort of 'echo' of themselves, that acts their Predetermined role out, while they go on their undetermined way.

*Breaking the Chains: Those with a very high Freedom may break the bonds of Fate around themselves and others, although such actions are never taken lightly. This can reduce Temporary or even Permanent Fate.

Permanent Fate and Freedom are not raised through normal advancement, but instead through spending Temporary Fate and Freedom. Record each time Temporary Fate or Freedom are spent- when the total reaches certain threshholds (below), then increase the Permanent rating. If increasing the Rating of the Permanent Fate or Freedom would raise the combination of them to higher than 5, then either the character can choose to sacrafice the not-being-raised stat by one, or the being-raised stat by 2. (IE, I have have Fate 2 and Freeddom 3, and spend a Fate point that bumps me to Fate 3, I can either sacrafice Freedom back to 2, or I can sacrafice Fate to 1).

It is said that some Agents, by deeply studying the mysteries of God's Plan, have ever more deeply enmeshed themselves into the Plan, completely subjecting any vestige of Free Will to God's Plan. They can be powerful tools, but are ultimately limited- some of the more subtle Outsiders are entirely invisible to these- after all, God never intended that the Agent would see such a violation. But their uunderstanding of the Plan is unrivaleed, and they are utterly uncoruptable.

Darker rumors also circulate. Rumors of Agents who fight those from Outside for years. Decades. Subsuming themselves in their work, and becoming ever more erratic- one day defeating the Master of the Blades at a practice match, the next being defeated by a common farmer. At the height, they leave the Plan entirely, and become just as estranged to God's Will as the Outsiders. These rogues are the greatest danger faced- many start with good intentions, trying to improve upon the Plan... which may be the greatest danger of all.

Mechanically, if an agent reaches a theoretical sixth point of Fate or Freedom, then it's up to God to decide what happens next.

---

Combat

Combat with the Free is quick and deadly.

Characters act in Wits + Fighting order.

Combat is a contested action- take the sums of the Fighting + Weapon Attack versus Fighting + Weapon Defense. If that's equal to 0 or more, then damage may be dealt. If it's -1 or less, that attacker's turn is over.

If the character's Weapon + The Degree of Succecess vs Armor + Stamina is 0, then the opponent is beaten. That's it. A 0 indincates they are barely knocked out, a 1 is a fairly mortal wound, while a 2 is an utter slaughter.

Freedom may be spent, as per normal, on any or all of these phases (initative, attack, defense)

Additional rules will need to be crafted for multiple opponents attacking the same person- in all liklihood, they will give up their attack to add a +1 to an ally's Weapon Attack and Damage values.

Weapon is a measure of how deadly a weapon is, while Armor is a measure of damage absorbing capacity. While there is no theoertical upper cap, the most potent magical artifacts should be considered at a 5. They are measured in the same fashion as Skills (from -1 to 5)

Example Weapons
Fist: -1
Knife: 1
Long Sword: 2
Gun: 3
Angelic flameblade: 5

Example Armors
Plain clothes: -1
Hardend leather: 1
Chainmail: 2
Full platemail: 3
Excalibur's sheathe: 5

---

Those From Outside
They have many names. Godlings. The Damned. Fae. Soulless. Outsiders. Aliens. They have many ideals. Some, such as the Elfkin, are bound by no plan of God- but mortal poetry can chain them down as surely as iron will. Others, like the Godlings, need human worship like a man in the desert needs water and bread- without it, they wither, while with it they are a fiercer foe than any could dare. In every case, however, the Outsiders desire to modify, or even destroy the Plan. Some claim that they are good and right, trying to Free humanity. Others don't speak- they merely seek out and destroy crucial bits of the framework.

When dealing with an Outsider, it is not merely neccesary to defeat the source of the madness- but to correct whatever changes have been wrought, as best as possible, before the Plan has changed too radically.

For the most part, they are kept Outside by the Angels, but now and again, one is either minor enough to slip by unnoticied, or great enough to muscle past. The minor outsiders are of little consequence- agents in training are dispatched to deeal with them and the consequences of their plans. The great ones are another matter entirely. Full agents are useedd to take care of them.

(Sidenote- why don't the Angels take care of Outsiders that get in? The Plan never called for the Angels entering the Earth, and they are spirits which are so deeply enmeshed in their Fate as to be unable to violate such a prohibition. It is, therefore, up to the Agents)

When the Outsiders appear, they can look like anything. Some have no set form, while others look like animate skeletons, or creatures that have given rise to many of our mythic beasts. The Manticore is rightly associated with chaos and madness- one of the earliest Outsiders was that twisted beast.

They also have their Arts, which can directly modify the Plan. and, strangly- despite having no Fate, many also have a deep understanding of the Plan. Many also have stranger abilities- magics that let them vanish from the eye, change their shape, or perform other effects.

Even so, they are measurable and understandable in human terms, though not neccesarily by human limits. They use the standard set of Attributes and Skills, but can have them at higher or lower threshholds- some have been impossible fierce, others have had a force of personality that would bring nations to their knees. There are two important mechanical differences, however- first, Outsiders have regain Temporary Freedom not, as humans do, by witnessing acts of Free Will. Instead, they simply rebuild it, regaining up to their Permanent Freedom every day, or by canibalizing a point of Permanent Freedom into ten Temporary Freedom. Second, they naturally /never/ have Fate. While some Outsiders claim to be bound to a Higher Plan and to be just as helpless before it as humanity is before theirs, there is no evidencee of such. And finally, they do not gain additional Permanent Freedom by spending Temporary Freedom- an Outsider's Permanent Freedom may be a virtually unalterable facet of their being, or be based off of ome external factor- like a Godling's worship.

Permanent Freedom also represents something else for Outsiders- it is, in a way, a measure of spirtual strength. Very few have a Stamina or Fighting lower than their Permanent Freedom.


---
Gaining Freedom, Accepting Fate

Outsiders introduce Freedom into the Plan by their very existance. This isn't always a good thing- a number of humans use Freeedom to choose slavery. But, there you have it.

The first time a human sees an Outsider, they gain Temporary Freedom equal to the Outsider's Permanent Freedom - their Permanent Fate, minimum 0.

Afterwords, when an Outsider spends Temporary Freedom in an action the human is involved in, the human gains as it- again, minus their Permanent Fate.

Accepting Fate is a more difficult matter. It requires failure when no Freedom has been spent by the character to try and complete the task. Whenever someone attempts a task and /fails/, they gain an amount of Temporary Fate equal to the degree of failure in the task. Of course, they also suffer from the consequences of failure... but they have the warmth of knowing that God meant for them to fail, and it's all a part of a higher plan.