Okay, I was thinking last night about a campaign I've wanted to run for a very long time. In essence, it's the same "turf" as the World of Darkness: Mythic creatures in the modern day. However, I wanted to hew closer to the Sonja Blue series, to add what the World of Darkness, especially as it is currently (over) expanded lacks: a sense of wonder and exploration (in the sense of the original English word, not as in the GNS essay).

I wanted a very Simulationist (but Narrativist-driftable) game that focused on extreme personalities, grittiness, and creating the world as you went. I wanted, however, to be a framework for people to hang stuff onto. I also wanted to have shifting narration, and a very "develop in play" style -- the GM and the players would really "create a story together", just like the Impossible Thing, only without the illusion of absolute GM control.

I tried to think what system would suit what I wanted best, and settled on a heavily-modified version of OtherKind.

Let me know what you think. For this thread, I only want comments on the system, both chargen (which is very Simulationist, I think) and the system proper. Does it do what I want?

http://ivanhoeunbound.com/pretender.html

Obviously, flavor-inducing quotes and art will come later -- this is very much a draft. People who remember the RPG Nightlife will have an idea where I'm going here.

I wanted a very Simulationist (but Narrativist-driftable) game that focused on extreme personalities, grittiness, and creating the world as you went. I wanted, however, to be a framework for people to hang stuff onto. I also wanted to have shifting narration, and a very "develop in play" style

The only thing I can think of is that you might want to reward extreme personalities by mandating that each Trait have an extreme emotion associated with it as a Speciality.

Okay, let's cover this in one big post:

The only thing I can think of is that you might want to reward extreme personalities by mandating that each Trait have an extreme emotion associated with it as a Speciality.

Or find some way to do what TROS or Nobilis does with character flaws: reward the player for them when they are being used entertainingly. Keep a die in reserve when the player gets his or her character into trouble via the character's flaws, and then give it to the player during a tense moment.

Also, remind the players that their characters are going to stay the same in most cases. They need to make sure they like the characters before committing to play them.

Why the distinction between things that modify your Basic Dice (teamwork, Enemies) and those that grant Bonus Dice (Specialties, situations like being drunk)? It seems superfluous, unless the point is that the Basic Dice bonuses don't constrict your narration, while Bonus Dice do; in that case, it might help to clarify that.

I love the Otherkind system and I really like what you've done here. I think the optional categories are great. Ripple and Discovery especially. Style I'd be tempted to make a required category. The game is about style afterall.

I'd be tempted to make it required, and if a 5-6 is assigned to it that the player must describe exactly how cool and stylish the action is. If they do a good job at this then award a token which can be used instead of sacrificing a normal die to reduce future adversity. On a 1-2 I'd call for the description of how uncool the character looks and award a black token. A character with a black token who tries to reduce adversity must use 2 normal dice (1 to discard the black token).

This would seriously tempt players to be willing to sacrifice Saftey or Motion for Style. Having to assign dice to the categories and figuring out which area you're going to be shafted in is the fun of Otherkind, so I think adding another "hard decision to make" category is a good idea.

I think you need to expand the group rules a little. Its not clear to me what your motivation for disallowing Billy's use of martial arts in the example is. Surely when Catherine is involved in a big knock down drag out that she'd rather have martial arts expert Billy at her back rather than joe wimp.

I'd also explicitly include the option to NOT resolve as a group, but let each live and die on their own.

My final comment would be that in addition to assigning an adversity number to a task that perhaps a Progress number is also necessary. Something that would serve as a guage for how much Motion is required. The Motion die could simply serve as a -2 to +2 scale. A Progress number of 2 means that the character can succeed in a single roll if he puts a 6 into Motion. A Progress number of 5 means...this is going to be long and bloody.

I'd also include ALOT of examples for how to apply Safety, especially non combat examples. I'd be explicit about the different effects a low Safety die could have. The computer hacker example demonstrates that there can be a plot impact of "bad stuff" that happens. Some guidelines for how severe, how immediate, or how chronic such bad stuff should be would be important. The Injury effects Adversity section is a good start but it needs to be fleshed out alot more with guildelines on how to apply the concept in play.

All in all I enjoyed it a lot...I must admit I see Dwayne's character as being less terminator-like and more like an Edgar Suit :-)

Hey Kirt.

I think that Style, Ripple, and Discovery are cool. For Style, why don't you have 1-3 be clumsy, 4-6 be slick, and no die be unremarkable? As it is, putting a 3 or 4 in Style is the same as skipping it.

Come to think of it, why would you ever put a low die in Style, Ripple, or Discovery? You might want to reward it somehow. Or what if you were required to put a die in one of them, your choice?

-Vincent

Shreyas, only Normal Dice can reduce Adversity. This is why only Enemies grant them as a bonus -- generally the extra die from facing an Enemy is used to reduce the Adversity of that enemy, making it easier for the young punk vampire to destroy his sire.

Ralph, I was seriously considering making Style a required category, so I have. Not sure about the token thing, I'll have to think about that.

How about instead of a carrot, a stick: If you're particularly clumsy (1-2 on Style), on your next roll increase Adversity by 1 becausae you're out of whack, no longer hitting your stride, no longer in the groove.

In fact, I think a stick fits the "gritty" thing better... I think I'll go add that. *does so*

I expanded the example to explain why Billy's martial arts don't count -- Cindy's "personal combat training" includes martial arts.

I've also added a reminder that you don't have to work as a group.

As for progress, I'd rather not turn that into a system at this time -- I'd rather leave that up to the GM and the players.

More examples on Safety are a good idea. Suggestions are welcome.

Vincent, I didn't make the change you suggested as I made Style a required category. After all, it is a big part of the game. Let me know what you think.

I've also added a bit about why you'd assign a low number to an optional category. The main reason to do this is to make things more interesting, and more realistic. If you think the story would be more interesting or realistic if you found out your character can never become human again, then make that negative Discovery. Want your recent actions to stir up that Enemy organization that wants to kill you? That's a negative Ripple. Players ARE willing to hose themselves to make things interesting.

Also, keep in mind that Adversity, unlike Iron, can be applied to any die -- usually to Safety or Motion, but it could be applied to Discovery if the GM wanted, to throw in a black revelation.

Since I make Style a required category, I made a new optional category: Pull. I'm curious what people think. Any suggestions for additional optional categories are welcome as well.

Thanks to everyone for their feedback!

http://ivanhoeunbound.com/pretender.html

xiombarg wrote:
How about instead of a carrot, a stick: If you're particularly clumsy (1-2 on Style), on your next roll increase Adversity by 1 becausae you're out of whack, no longer hitting your stride, no longer in the groove.

I expanded the example to explain why Billy's martial arts don't count -- Cindy's "personal combat training" includes martial arts.

As for progress, I'd rather not turn that into a system at this time -- I'd rather leave that up to the GM and the players.

I've also added a bit about why you'd assign a low number to an optional category. The main reason to do this is to make things more interesting, and more realistic. If you think the story would be more interesting or realistic if you found out your character can never become human again, then make that negative Discovery. Want your recent actions to stir up that Enemy organization that wants to kill you? That's a negative Ripple. Players ARE willing to hose themselves to make things interesting.

Since I make Style a required category, I made a new optional category: Pull. I'm curious what people think. Any suggestions for additional optional categories are welcome as well.

Ralph, I've added some extra verbiage to the Discovery description to cover your concerns.

As for the token thing, part of the reason I'm resisting is I want to keep things as streamlined as possible. I don't want one more thing for people to keep track of. And I tend to think looking cool is its own reward -- I don't see it as a "Charisma stat" at all.

As for whether the optional categories should be optional, I want to keep the option of just discarding dice for a focused effect. Sometimes you just want to look extra good while skateboarding, and you don't want to have to make up something you Discovered about the world while skateboarding.

As for the "no doubling up rule", remember that this is only for PCs working together. If I have 5 ninjas with me, who are GMCs, then I get Bonus Dice from them granted by the GM, as seems approriate. If I have 5 GMC schoolteachers with me, I get less Bonus Dice out of it.

If a PC is helping me, I'm guaranteed an extra Bonus Die just for having a PC helping me, plus a die for any Specialties that I don't have. Throw more than one PC in there, and that's a lot of dice. Yeah, sure, maybe it's more useful to have the two PCs with me who are trained in martial arts than those who don't, but I'm probably getting Bonus Dice for personality traits and all sorts of things, too. I'm just trying to cut back on the number of dice.

However, I forgot to include Billy's personality Bonus Die for Fire, so I've changed the example to reflect that.

Thanks for the feedback. Does anyone else have an opinion on all this?

xiombarg wrote:
As for whether the optional categories should be optional, I want to keep the option of just discarding dice for a focused effect. Sometimes you just want to look extra good while skateboarding, and you don't want to have to make up something you Discovered about the world while skateboarding.

Yeah, playtesting is the next step. I might have time to try it out in a month or so, when our Sunday game opens up, or I might foist it on people during a Wednesday game.

As usual, don't let this stop any of y'all from trying it out for yourselves. ;-D

As for your assertions that high Style should have a reward, I had a few ideas I wanted to run by you and everyone:

1. Stealing from the V:TM CCG (Jyhad, aka Vampire: The Eternal Struggle), when you assign a 5 or 6 to Style, you get the Edge, represented by some item you can pass around the table. Only one person at a time can have the Edge, which can be turned in to the GM to reduce Adversity by 1 (or 2, or something). Still a token, kinda, but less tokens to keep track of.

2. Why does effectiveness have to be the reward? What about narration? When you put a 5 or 6 in Style, on your next roll, add 1 to the die assigned to Narration, making it more likely you narrate.

3. Use the Edge, as above, but when you turn it in you get to circumvent the Narration die and become the narrator, regardless of who rolled and/or what was the Narration die was.

As for concerns about characters being over-effective, well, Pretenders are supposed to be very effective. About the only time Sonja Blue seemed to fail anything was in relationships (low Water, really, with Specialties in short-term stuff like "looking good"), or when facing a LOT of supernatural opposition (elder vampires, and then only some of the time)... or when she was stuggling with herself ("the Other"), which is something an interested player would roleplay.

I might be setting the guidelines for Adversity too low, but that's another thing playtest will bear out.

I suspect that without something to generate conflict mechanically that you're going to get an awful lot of wandering around not really doing anything, but that might not be the case.

xiombarg wrote:
As for your assertions that high Style should have a reward, I had a few ideas I wanted to run by you and everyone:

a lot of Simulationist games get by without a mechanical way to generate conflict.

xiombarg wrote: Yeah, playtesting is the next step. I might have time to try it out in a month or so, when our Sunday game opens up, or I might foist it on people during a Wednesday game.

Mike Holmes wrote: So you'll be by Indie Netgaming soon then? So you can try it out well before that? :-)

And to swing this somewhat more on-topic, several of my players saw the current draft of Pretender from a link on my Livejournal and are, without prompting, enthusiastic to play, which is the first time I've seen 'em like that. (Of course, half of them are White Wolf vets, so...)