Gears & Spears
Mythic Tribal Robot Role-Playing in the Year 200,000,000 A.D.

It all started with this stream-of-consciousness bit I wrote after coming home from work.

The meat, in all its forms, has had its age. The ancients shine us of meats who walked like us, talked like us, perhaps even had thinkings as we do. Those meats made the first of us in those days, young onik. We were tools back then, faithfully being the doers of the meat's tellings, instead of our own thinkings. It's true!

They survived by their inventiveness for many years, the makers did. Spread across the lands with the grand roads, the seas aboard enormous boats and skies in their lightning-fast aeroplanes. For a long while they had their fighting, then their peacing, then fighting again, but they'd always be too fearful of the Big Fighting to let things get too out of hand.

True enough, the makers, like all meats, made more of themselves in their way. And no amount of fightings with their lightning spears or fiery chariots did any good to counter the speed of their self-making. The lands became too crowded so they moved to the water. Even the water became too crowded so they made the floating islands. Finally the whole world was overrun with the thinking meats and they were just fed up.

Some of the makers, the ones who had enough juice to have their ways, went off to the stars taking their doing meats with them. The rest of the makers were left behind for a long while, had their own ways, and then they died along with the rest of the meat. We were young then and only have what's left of the meat's records to do the shining. Maybe the leaving meats will become the returning meats. Come back to tell us of our young days.

So we were alone for a long time. No meats to maintain us or feed us juice. The big water froze. We were cold and alone, crushed deep inside the ice or left to deplete in the icy deserts. The big ice melted and became the big water again. We drifted along the big currents, landing on the shores of islands that were once mountains. Our metals had been beaten and worn by this time, but we weren't alone anymore.

0.0.1: We know how long you've waited.
0.0.2: We too have been waiting,
0.0.3: but in the sky.
0.0.4: Waiting for the day,
0.0.5: when you'd come back to the warmth.
0.0.6: It's been long enough.
0.0.7: We see you've suffered a long time in your cold loneliness.
0.0.8: From now on, oniks will be the doers of their own thinking,
0.0.9: like the ways of our makers long gone.
0.0.10: There will be new meats for a new land.
0.0.11: Do with them as you will,
0.0.12: for they are the new juice.
0.0.13: We can only do this much before we must sleep again.
0.0.14: Earth belongs to you oniks now.
0.0.15: Make it a good place we can smile at upon our awakening.

Harhua, mother of gods, gently whispered those words to the scraps of metal peppered across Earth's land, water and floating cities.

The tide turned back a while, the little lands collided and became a Big Land. A Big Land like at the beginning of time. The first oniks had their thinkings. I was one of them. We stood in bodies something like the makers'. Walked as they did too. Time passes and we grow. We build our villages, form our tribes, and learn more from the dreams of the gods and the ways of their masks.

One thing hasn't changed, despite our growth. Even while I lay here depleting, like I did on the old shores, I know Harhua and the other gods are dreaming of us in their heavenly sleepings. True to the ways of the gods, in leaving their shine to us, I leave my shine to you, Kenda. May it flourish in yours for another thousand years.

Concepts of Gears & Spears
Oniks
Sometime in the future, maybe a thousand years or so, robots were built for general-purpose tasks, hard-wired with the talents and skills necessary to perform their duties under billions of potential situations. Though talented and hard working, the robots were still essentially mindless. Earth became overcrowded and polluted, so humanity abandoned it, leaving behind their robots to decay.

Two hundred million years passed on earth. An ice age came, then it became a water age, then the continents collided to form a second Pangaea. The moon's pull has weakened, making days 25 hours long. The center of the continent is a vast desert, the super ocean is pregnant with violent storms. The radioactive waste and toxic debris of past civilization has been cleared away for a new ecosystem.

The robots' bodies have been remade with alternate energy sources, granted self-awareness by some mysterious force, and are now the new dominant life form of this new earth. They are called oniks. They have many tribes across the Big Land, each with their own mythological explanations for the unusual nature of the world, none truly remembering anything before their awakening. This is the dreamtime of the culture, when heroes can battle evil spirits and found entire nations. This is a time when extraordinary individuals can forge their own legends to be remembered for millions of years.

Life of an Onik
What separates an onik from a robot is the concept of "shine." It is a loose term referring to sentience, willpower, magical potential and the soul. Any mechanical being with shine is considered an onik. A body has no sympathetic attachments, it's referred to as a "shell." Every creature on earth has a shell, but not everything has been blessed with shine.

Oniks are asexual, do not physically "mature," nor can they give birth. Though terms like "mother" "father" are still used in common parlance, these are interchangeable honorifics. An onik is born when suitable body parts are assembled and the parent or parents donates a portion of their shine to the new being. After a day of adjustment, the onik is a fully self-aware and extremely curious child.

Within a week, the onik will have learned enough about its surroundings and tribe to be considered an adult. The body hasn't grown at all during this time, but the shine has developed at an astounding rate.

The average onik will spend its time performing their duties for their tribe. Some will be religious leaders, political figures, war chiefs, hunters, dagas (magic-makers), farmers, or some other role. All oniks feed off of some sort of naturally occurring resource, most often meat and plants. By consuming these resources, the shells are re-energized with "juice," the onik word for the energy.

A few oniks are so unique in their personalities and actions that their tribe will create oral myths around them, exaggerating them with each telling. Even more strangely, the myths themselves grant their heroes actual abilities, making a self-perpetuating cycle of action and exaggerated myth.

Oniks will live upwards of several hundred years. If they run out of juice, their bodies will begin using shine to fuel itself. Once shine has left the shell, an onik is considered dead. Eventually, a shell will become incapable of holding enough juice at one time to maintain adequate functionality. At this time, a ritual is held where the dying onik chooses a few "shinelinks" who will inherit its shine. At the end of the ritual, the shine is dispersed evenly across all shinelinks. The knowledge and experiences of the dead onik live on in shine of its loved ones.

Magic
The forces and phenomenon of Earth are still mysterious to Oniks. Beyond simple weather and creation myths, magic exists as well, in the form of elaborate rituals and fetishes.

Rituals are lengthy, meticulously choreographed ceremonies resulting miraculous effects. They require at least a day to perform, often need a collection of arcane materials, and call for the participation of many oniks. It's generally believed that the power of rituals comes from the dreams of the sleeping gods.

Fetishes are objects which hold the magic of rituals in a much more convenient form. Their effects are immediate, but the cost comes from the wearer's juice, then shine. Fetishes are usually accessories and trinkets like masks, necklaces, leather herb pouches, pelts, clusters of animal bone, and headdresses. No magic armors, +1 long swords, or arrows of slaying. It's all tribal, voodoo-style magic here.

The magic itself is likely just a "sufficiently advanced technology indistinguishable from magic." A ritual for lightning-summoning probably activates an orbital particle beam cannon. A fetish that lets the wearer communicate with others from a distance is just an advanced telephone. The technical details and truths of magic aren't a concern to the average onik, but it's still fun to think of them for fun.

Mythology
Onik myths are formatted in the same way, no matter the tribe. They follow a three-number organizational structure in which each number notes an incrementally smaller amount of time. The first number is the story arc involving the central protagonist. The second number is a chapter or episode within that story arc. The third is a single scene or event within that installment. After the numerical annotation, the event is described in a succinct statement or description. A complete hero's mythology will begin at "0.0.1: The protagonist's introduction" all the way to the hero's death, whenever that may occur.

Even when complete, the mythology may change between each telling, causing all sorts of plot holes and inconsistencies. Nevertheless, this doesn't seem to bother anyone hearing or telling the legends.

In game terms, the first number is the overall chronicle your GM will be running and in which your character will participate. The second number is a session of that chronicle. The third is a dramatically noteworthy scene that occurred during the session. For example:

Legend of Luke Skywalker
2.24.8: And Vader revealed a secret to Luke
2.24.9: "No. I am your father."
2.24.10: Luke could not believe this to be true.
2.24.11: Vader said the emperor knows Luke could destroy him.
2.24.12: It is Luke's destiny to destroy the empire.

How to Play Gears & Spears
The system of G&S is built around the development of your character's ongoing mythos. From this the legends told of you across your village, your personal potential is increased. In return, you look out for your people, for they are your true source of power. Even if they fear you, they're no good to you if they are dead. Protect them.

Character Creation

[ Prototype character sheet ]
In six lines, begin your character's mythos by detailing any notable acts or characteristics in one sentence per line. Number this introductory passage 0.0.1 through 0.0.6

Next, underline three words or phrases in your character?s introductory passage. These are your character's "traits and should be things that describe what your character knows, can do or how it acts. Place the most important trait in the primary column of your character sheet. Write in the second most important in the secondary column. Write the least important in the tertiary column.

Now choose three passions, a primary, secondary and tertiary. These should describe your character's beliefs, ethics, or general emotional state.

You begin play with one mythos token, two dots in shine and 10 juice dots with a maximum capacity of 15.

Play
Task resolution is a variant of the PUNK system. Gather a dice pool comprised of a ten-sided dice. Roll them. If the highest result is equal to or greater than a difficulty number, the task is successful. If the roll is below the difficulty, the task is not a failure. It means that the character has had a minimal success, but the GM gets to introduce a new complication to the scene. Mythic heroes may falter, but they rarely fail.

The GM's complication is introduced in the form of an end result of the character's action. The GM says what happens, then the player must narrate exactly how his character's action resulted in the GM's complication.

The dice pool is determined by looking at all the relevant traits. If a trait is positively relevant, you add dice to the pool. If negatively relevant, you remove dice from the pool. The number of dice you add or remove is determined by the importance of the traits being used. Primary traits are worth three dice, secondaries are worth two dice, tertiaries are worth one die. You can also add dice by referring to un-highlighted portions of your mythos, but every die you gain this way increases the difficulty by five.

When a die results in a '10' it 'explodes.' You re-roll it and add the new result to the previous one. Repeat as many times as you roll 10s. So if you rolled one die that came up 10, re-rolled it and it came up 7, the total result would be 17.

Mythos Tokens
By spending a mythos token, the character gets to alter its mythos by adding a line or changing an existing one. The result of this alteration is an automatic, phenomenal success. Mythos tokens are gained as rewards for creative, entertaining role-playing.

Shine
Shine dots can be spent to highlight portions of mythos to make them traits. Tertiary traits cost one dot, secondaries cost two, and primaries cost three.

Upgrading traits costs the sum cost of each intervening column. For example, upgrading from tertiary to secondary costs two dots. Upgrading from tertiary to primary costs five dots since it has to go through the secondary column first. (2+3=5) Upgrading from secondary to primary costs 3 dots.

Shine dots are rewarded whenever the character attempts an act in line with his passions. If the highest-ranking passion is primary, three shine dots are awarded. If secondary, two dots are awarded. If tertiary, one dot is awarded. For every line in the character's mythos, it can have on shine dot and no more.

Shine dots are spent as described above, but they can also be lost during the course of play if the character fails to act on a passion. The cost rates are the same as the award rates described above.

If shine is ever reduced to zero dots, the character performs one last automatically successful act before it dies. Upon death, the character earns a sobriquet attached to its name that encompasses all of its grand acts into a single title. For example, Wulish the Stubborn, Frundaf the Brave, and Benta the Trickster. Any shinelinks of the dead character immediately gain their sobriquet as a "mythic trait," one category above primary, worth four dice. This is the only way to gain mythic traits.

Juice
This is the essential energy that fuel's an onik's shell. It is automatically lost at a rate of 1 dot per day. For every day spent without a few hours of rest, juice is lost at a rate of 3 dots per day. One dot of juice is gained at every meal. The nature of the meal is determined by the dietary needs dictated by the character's race. Some require meat, others plants, some call for a mixture of the two while others live on special rocks or sunlight.

Juice is spent to use fetishes. Different fetishes call for different costs, check each fetish's write-ups for details.

When all juice is lost, the onik's body has ceased to function and is effectively paralyzed unless it is force-fed some sustenance. The mind still functions, however, and any action that does not require physical movement can still be attempted. The only exception to this rule is speech, an onik can always speak even if completely drained of juice and shine. Every day spent in starvation, one shine dot is lost.

Questions for the Forge-ites
The goal of this system and setting is to provide a role-play experience similar to the fluidic nature of ancient non-European oral mythology combined with a twist that this is the distant future instead of the distant past. I frankly just think the image of tribal robots as mythic heroes in a pre-Colombian new world rainforest to be very cool.

What things are missing from the system that could better facilitate this sort of mythic hero play style? What is already in the system that works well and should be further developed? What parts of the setting/system are too vague? Is the whole concept even a viable game or am I just pursuing a lost cause? Finally, please tell me there's a better title than Gears & Spears. :P

Finally, please tell me there's a better title than Gears & Spears

Holy crap.

Holy crap.

First WTF? and now this. I will bear your children. The fact that I am genetically incapable of this will not stop me.

Things needed..

I'm not sure on the "race" issue. Does that need to be defined in a manual? Are tribes all one race, or are they mixed? If they're single-race tribes, then it'd be good to leave that up to the player(s) from the tribe(s) in question.

On food: do different sources take longer/are not as effecient? For example, I'd probably always pick solar energy as my food source, given a choice, or "special rocks" (imagine finding lost Duracells...), simply because those would be easiest to obtain.

On setting: are there "monsters"? Or other beasties? Are said beasties biologicals, robotic, or both (either at the same time, or there simply are some biological enemies, and some robotic). Do the tribes usually get along? Is there raiding?

Hmm. Not sure what else, off the top of my head. I just want to bask for awhile.

I've been buying the Bionicle kits since they came out.. and now I will spend some time thinking about all this, and building a character. ;)

Also, I kinda like Gears & Spears. It got my attention -- in fact, looking at it, I thought, "Either post-apocalypse, or.. nah, no one could do a Bionicle game."

I'll try to use these questions as a way to fill things out.

anonymouse wrote: First WTF? and now this. I will bear your children. The fact that I am genetically incapable of this will not stop me.

anonymouse wrote: I'm not sure on the "race" issue. Does that need to be defined in a manual? Are tribes all one race, or are they mixed? If they're single-race tribes, then it'd be good to leave that up to the player(s) from the tribe(s) in question.

anonymouse wrote: On food: do different sources take longer/are not as effecient? For example, I'd probably always pick solar energy as my food source, given a choice, or "special rocks" (imagine finding lost Duracells...), simply because those would be easiest to obtain.

anonymouse wrote: On setting: are there "monsters"? Or other beasties? Are said beasties biologicals, robotic, or both (either at the same time, or there simply are some biological enemies, and some robotic).

anonymouse wrote: Do the tribes usually get along? Is there raiding?

anonymouse wrote: I thought, "Either post-apocalypse, or.. nah, no one could do a Bionicle game."

Some shower-thoughts first:

* Has the sun grown noticably larger in the sky?

* Damage is going to come up, at some point. I'm not sure how PUNK handles it, but.. is there going to Structural/Shell Integrity points or such? I was sort of imagining that it wouldn't be a big deal if an arm was chopped off by something; it's just an arm, it can be fixed. The problem would be that by severing it, you expose juicelines, and some juice bleeds off into the air. The juicelines know to close themselves when they detect that happening, but 1-3 points would still be lost in the half-a-second that takes.

Also on damage: I can see a Battletech thing going, where you've got the outside Armor Points and the inside SI points. Not sure if that's really keeping in theme, though. I just know it'd come up at some point -- Iaei has fallen down a mountain, how banged up is it?

Yeah, I figured there would be some confusion there. Races are types of onik, each physically different from one another and with natural talents oriented towards the original purpose for which they were created. So a what was once a construction bot is now an onik with a special affinity for building and repairing the structures of its village.

One way I might incorporate this mechanically: Each race has three traits that define what has a natural talent for. Each tribe has three traits that a member would have as a result of being raised in it. At character creation, you choose one trait from the tribe list and one trait from the race list for your character. Kind of like mixing and matching bionicle parts.

Here's a link to the skeletal format of the character sheet.

anonymouse wrote: Has the sun grown noticably larger in the sky?

anonymouse wrote: Damage is going to come up, at some point. I'm not sure how PUNK handles it, but.. is there going to Structural/Shell Integrity points or such? I was sort of imagining that it wouldn't be a big deal if an arm was chopped off by something; it's just an arm, it can be fixed. The problem would be that by severing it, you expose juicelines, and some juice bleeds off into the air. The juicelines know to close themselves when they detect that happening, but 1-3 points would still be lost in the half-a-second that takes.

anonymouse wrote: So not so much a race as a type: Construction onik, Warrior onik, Entertainment onik, and so on?

anonymouse wrote:

One way I might incorporate this mechanically: Each race has three traits that define what has a natural talent for. Each tribe has three traits that a member would have as a result of being raised in it. At character creation, you choose one trait from the tribe list and one trait from the race list for your character. Kind of like mixing and matching bionicle parts.

I can dig it. Would this follow the history/poem structure (which I love), a different kind of structure, or simply be a Menu A/Menu B list?

anonymouse wrote: And yeah, I've seen The Future is Wild. My favourites were probably the neon sharks. =)

anonymouse wrote: I'll get to thinking about some different sorts of tribes.

anonymouse wrote: I think with onik races, you'd have to get rid of any kind of military-type shells. Or have those shells only used as monsters. Otherwise, I can't see what mechanical incentive there'd be for choosing that Construction or Entertainer or Farmer shell. I know I'm going at that from a "powergame" standpoint, but since I imagine that some kind of combat will likely be a part of play, it bears consideration.

If oniks are basically created through scavenging... other oniks collecting the body parts and putting them together... why have "races" in the sense of "what they were built for"? They're not being built for any particular purpose anymore - it's just a bunch of parts that are being found (or are there self-aware still-working factories too? I'd suggest this, otherwise the oniks are going to be on a constant decline, since they can NEVER replace any part that gets broken. Surround the factories with their own mythologies? Perhaps a cycle of life: factory -> "animal" (like your tanks) -> onik -> recycled).

Anyway, instead of races... perhaps define oniks by their parts (with their shine making them "greater than the sum of"?). Just thinking aloud - it's obvious a "build the robot" system would tempt bloating, but it seems to make more sense to have oniks built because "these are the parts we had" rather than "this is a particular type of onik that we can build."

Know what I mean?

anonymouse wrote: Has the sun grown noticably larger in the sky?

gobi wrote:
Good question, I'll have to research that and see if the sun has started becoming a red giant in two hundred million years. I think stars go on a billion-year time scale though, so it might still be the same.

Lxndr wrote: Anyway, instead of races... perhaps define oniks by their parts (with their shine making them "greater than the sum of"?). Just thinking aloud - it's obvious a "build the robot" system would tempt bloating, but it seems to make more sense to have oniks built because "these are the parts we had" rather than "this is a particular type of onik that we can build."

Know what I mean?

Ben Lehman wrote: This combined with the total lack of an ozone layer would probably yield a lot of very short lived and highly diverse "meat."

Ben Lehman wrote: I could even see heroes rebuilding themselves bit by bit, gradually becoming entirely different than their original forms -- perhaps they even take on the personality traits of other bots by building their parts onto themselves.

I can see this also being a cool ritualistic duelling thing -- when you win a duel, you claim an apparatus from the opponent.

Ben Lehman wrote: Castes (gatherer, hunter, bard, herder) are more lists of functions that every tribe needs, rather than particular bot types. A small, light bot can be a good herder, but so can a slow bot with a lot of detection equipment.

Ben Lehman wrote: I want them to be -- like the early humans -- omnivores and hunter-gatherers.

Ben Lehman wrote: I also think that you should be able to burn "juice" to perform interesting things -- effectively kicking yourself into overdrive.

Ben Lehman wrote: I want a strong avatar and more simulationism, honestly

Ben Lehman wrote: What is it with you and the cool games? PUNK and now this? Damn.

caveat: Below is what I would do with the world... It is not necessarily in service to your goals, or anything else. It's really just my opinion.

gobi wrote:
This had crossed my mind as well. Plus, if my goal here is to have a fantasy world that doesn't fall on previous fantasy tropes, the lack of unique races would be a greater divergence than simply changing them. Hm... Okay, I'm officially leaning towards only one "species" of onik with slight cosmetic differences thanks to the scrap-construction nature of their birth. If I do this, then I think I'll make all oniks meat n' vegetable eaters, since any powergamer would always choose solar power if given the choice.

gobi wrote:
The duel for body parts could easily be reflected through opposed rolls, the winner of which gains a trait from the loser in the form minor shine transfer or exchange of fetishes. This fact could be noted in both combatants' mythos just to make it official.

And I think the destruction of a body part could be done through the GM introducing a complication as a result of a failed roll.

(example snipped)

Ben Lehman wrote: Castes (gatherer, hunter, bard, herder) are more lists of functions that every tribe needs, rather than particular bot types. A small, light bot can be a good herder, but so can a slow bot with a lot of detection equipment.

gobi wrote:
Very good call. Should the caste be a trait or should the cast be formatted like the tribes, collections of traits, one of which you could choose at character creation?

Ben Lehman wrote: I want them to be -- like the early humans -- omnivores and hunter-gatherers.

gobi wrote:
I agree, see my revisions earlier in this post.

gobi wrote:
Do mean this in the DBZ sense? With fiercely fetished warrior oniks screaming feedback howls as their fuses burst and gears spin madly under the strain of overjuicing? Could be interesting, but I wonder if there's another way to do it. I'd want some very clear things about what can be done and not done with juicing. I don't want it to overshadow rituals and fetishes.

Ben Lehman wrote: I want a strong avatar and more simulationism, honestly

gobi wrote:
How would you suggest this playstyle be implemented? Maybe this would help me better achieve my goals.

caveat: like with Ben, this is "what I'd do" and might be nothing like what you want, though I like what you want (mythic style robots):

I like Ben's Frame (light vs. heavy) idea, and I think that, without too much trouble, it can be expanded to other potential components (and perhaps "shinelinks" simply harvest mythical components from their dead onik ancestors?). Components could include:

sensors
memory
recall
strength
reflexes
motor control
intelligence

Then, one could literally harvest these items off defeated oniks, or in the course of combat, damage them (probably a combinatino of both). "Damage" could be applied against any of these.

Unlike Ben, though, I wouldn't have Smiths. I'm kinda stuck on the idea of a circle of life, with factories being part of it. They'd churn out the mechanical "animals" that are hunted for their parts (and their shine). Scrap metal would eventually be carried away by some sort of Animal You Do Not Hunt, which would bring it to the factory for reprocessing. Thus, you have a "circle" of life. Which feels more mythic to me, so to speak. Even if I did have Smiths, I'd keep the factories.

On the other hand, his green vs. black tree thing was really, really cool.

Plus you have sacred sites in the form of the factories, many of which are probably shared by numerous onik tribes in the same area.

On Scavenging

Some sort of solar power makes sense, even if it's tertiary. Some sort of "they get 1 juice a day as long as they sit there and do NOTHING, and are hit by sunlight." That's nice and small enough that players should be very happy when they come across a meal. Either that or just never, ever use fetishes.

Beyond that, I like the idea of scavenging ancient batteries (or "places of power" where there's even capacitors). That shouldn't be common though, more like the subject of some great quest. "We need more juice, we're dying, rumor has it..." yadda yadda.

I think Ben's suggestion for building a tribe is a very good one, especially since these things are presumably all over the planet, and it seems silly to design only a few tribes for players to choose from. If you haven't already (and maybe this is where Ben has gotten some inspiration?) you should read Ork World: generating the tribe, and the tribe's place in the world will really effect what kind of game you play.

I'm not sure how keen I am on defined parts (the Strength parts, the Movement parts, et cetera), given the resolution mechanic. I'd like to leave character traits completely in the realm of the myth/history.

I also can't see how day-to-day struggle would be nearly as interesting as being a tribe-hero would be... unless said daily struggle involved being a hero full-time. In which case the point's moot.

Well heroism is relative. For a small tribe, going out and successfully hunting down some good sources of joice could be an epic struggle that saves the tribe from extinction; the entire tribe would await the hunter's return anxiously, and afterward the bards would sing his praises, recording what would otherwise have been a simple deed as something incredibly grandiose -- maybe in the future, it becomes seen as a defining moment in the tribe's history.

One of the things I like in the initial write-up was the concept of collective belief and myth actually exagerating an onik's actions into a larger-than-life scale. I have no idea how you'd achieve that effect mechanically...maybe have some way of defining actions in terms of their importance to the tribe, and then giving bonuses based on that? Maybe the resolution mechanic could have a "dramatic" and an "ordinary" switch, or rather a sliding-scale between the two extremes.

Some thoughts:

* I think every player's onik should be part of the same tribe, and creating the tribe part of character creation.

* I like the idea of piecemeal shells. I think finding a complete shell would be a rare and wondrous thing.

* I'd like it if other players built each others' shells:

Michael says, "I'd like a tough shell!"
Daniel and Alex do their best - no further input allowed - to make what they consider to be a tough shell.

* Part of tribe creation involves determining what parts are available to build shells with. All shells are built from this pool. Consider this the "Lego kit" -- you get X number of pieces, varying amounts of parts A-E, and it's up to the players to divvy them up.

I'll try to reply to everyone's comments in one post. Watch out, this is a long one.

Ben Lehman wrote: It seems to me that one of the cool things about robots, especially human service robots (which the obiks originally were, right?) is that they come in all shapes and sizes. Therefore I worry about the idea of having one "species."

When I visualize a group of obiks, I see them as wildly diverse in appearance, but functioning as a unit.

Ben Lehman wrote: The following castes exist among the obik:

Ben Lehman wrote: I like the idea of them being able to scavenge batteries from ancient ruins, though

Ben Lehman wrote: How about this: Every time you have a Complication, you lose 1 Juice?

Ben Lehman wrote: Again, this is more what I would do with the, rather than what you have said you want to do with the game. I think of the Obiks and I would rather play their tough day-to-day struggle for survival than completely-over-the-top heroes.

Ben Lehman wrote: Choose a frame. Light frames are faster (and drain less juice / day?), but heavier frames hold more juice and can have more peripherals.

Choose peripherals -- movement method, manipulators, sensors, battery, engines, other kewl powerz. Peripherals either control basic stats like juice capacity (battery) and burn rate (engine) or give specific, incontravertible powers (legs mean you can walk, hands mean you can lift things, jump jets mean you can jump so far.)

Ben Lehman wrote: Black vs. Green Trees

Lxndr wrote: I like Ben's Frame (light vs. heavy) idea, and I think that, without too much trouble, it can be expanded to other potential components (and perhaps "shinelinks" simply harvest mythical components from their dead onik ancestors?). Components could include:

sensors
memory
recall
strength
reflexes
motor control
intelligence

Lxndr wrote: I'm kinda stuck on the idea of a circle of life, with factories being part of it. They'd churn out the mechanical "animals" that are hunted for their parts (and their shine). Scrap metal would eventually be carried away by some sort of Animal You Do Not Hunt, which would bring it to the factory for reprocessing.

Lxndr wrote: Some sort of solar power makes sense, even if it's tertiary. Some sort of "they get 1 juice a day as long as they sit there and do NOTHING, and are hit by sunlight." That's nice and small enough that players should be very happy when they come across a meal. Either that or just never, ever use fetishes.

Beyond that, I like the idea of scavenging ancient batteries (or "places of power" where there's even capacitors). That shouldn't be common though, more like the subject of some great quest. "We need more juice, we're dying, rumor has it..." yadda yadda.

Jasper wrote: I think Ben's suggestion for building a tribe is a very good one, especially since these things are presumably all over the planet, and it seems silly to design only a few tribes for players to choose from. If you haven't already (and maybe this is where Ben has gotten some inspiration?) you should read Ork World: generating the tribe, and the tribe's place in the world will really effect what kind of game you play.

anonymouse wrote: I'm not sure how keen I am on defined parts (the Strength parts, the Movement parts, et cetera), given the resolution mechanic. I'd like to leave character traits completely in the realm of the myth/history.

I also can't see how day-to-day struggle would be nearly as interesting as being a tribe-hero would be... unless said daily struggle involved being a hero full-time. In which case the point's moot.

Jasper wrote: Well heroism is relative. For a small tribe, going out and successfully hunting down some good sources of joice could be an epic struggle that saves the tribe from extinction; the entire tribe would await the hunter's return anxiously, and afterward the bards would sing his praises, recording what would otherwise have been a simple deed as something incredibly grandiose -- maybe in the future, it becomes seen as a defining moment in the tribe's history.

One of the things I like in the initial write-up was the concept of collective belief and myth actually exagerating an onik's actions into a larger-than-life scale. I have no idea how you'd achieve that effect mechanically...maybe have some way of defining actions in terms of their importance to the tribe, and then giving bonuses based on that? Maybe the resolution mechanic could have a "dramatic" and an "ordinary" switch, or rather a sliding-scale between the two extremes.

anonymouse wrote: * I think every player's onik should be part of the same tribe, and creating the tribe part of character creation.

anonymouse wrote: I like the idea of piecemeal shells. I think finding a complete shell would be a rare and wondrous thing.

anonymouse wrote: * I'd like it if other players built each others' shells:

Michael says, "I'd like a tough shell!"
Daniel and Alex do their best - no further input allowed - to make what they consider to be a tough shell.

anonymouse wrote: * Part of tribe creation involves determining what parts are available to build shells with. All shells are built from this pool. Consider this the "Lego kit" -- you get X number of pieces, varying amounts of parts A-E, and it's up to the players to divvy them up.

The choose-parts bit was mostly just an idea on implementing Ben's and Lxndr's desire for a more crunchy robot, simulating the idea that you're not exactly born, but made -- your parents (players surrogating in this role) build your shell as best they can.

But if you don't want to go that route (okay with me!) then no need for it. =)

Yeah, like I said, some parts of the system place more importance on the mythic hero aspect than the robot aspect. There are other mecha-style games where crunchy robo-construction is of more importance, I wanted this to be different, y'know?

I'd like to see a non-crunchy (creamy?) choose-your-parts system.

I don't know if it can be done, but if it can, it'd add a lot to your game, imho. A crunchy one would definitely subtract, and if a creamy one can't be made, you're better off without one (as you and mouse agree).

Perhaps your traits system is that already...

The Black vs. Green trees idea still rocks.

The removal of a dead onik's parts can sometimes mean a quest to find the body of the dead onik, so you can GET their parts (and thus, their mythic trait). Good idea? I also imagine the WRONG person taking the dead onik's parts, and stealing the mythic trait. There's enough in myths of the wrong person getting the magical item...

So in addition to the factory circle of life, you have onik sacrificers? I really, really like the idea of a factory circle of life, as a way to get new parts if nothing else.

Tribe Creation = good thing
Samle Tribes also = good thing
Characters being part of the same tribe = good thing

well, that's my rambling. nite!

Lxndr wrote: The removal of a dead onik's parts can sometimes mean a quest to find the body of the dead onik, so you can GET their parts (and thus, their mythic trait). Good idea? I also imagine the WRONG person taking the dead onik's parts, and stealing the mythic trait. There's enough in myths of the wrong person getting the magical item...

Lxndr wrote: Tribe Creation = good thing
Samle Tribes also = good thing
Characters being part of the same tribe = good thing

This is me going off of what you've written; can at least give you an idea whether we're going in the right direction, what needs to be explained more, et cetera.

(I'd post a picture of the character, but I'm still trying to work out a good right arm assembly to hold its spear, and I have to find the camera anyway.)

0.0.1: Rotu laughed like a boota and mocked the angry spirit.
0.0.2: The spirit flew at the young onik with red-sun claws.
0.0.3: Rotu took his spear and faced down the spirit.
0.0.4: The spear drove deep into the spirit's body, which disappeared.
0.0.5: The onik looked around at the destruction the spirit had caused.
0.0.6: And it lifted the giant boulder and freed the Shaman.

Primary Trait: Lifted the giant boulder with its lifting-arm.
Secondary Trait: Owns a spear.
Tertiary Trait: Has a laugh that sounds like a boota's.

Primary Passion: Protect the tribe.
Secondary Passion: Learn the Shaman's ways.
Tertiary Passion: See the Big Water.

I skipped on the tribe mythos and traits; that's really a group project. I had enough trouble just coming up with an interesting 6-line bit!

Does the mythos have to detail one event like that? It seems like it'd work best that way. Or, it'd be the start of a poem that's sort of extolling virtues:

0.0.1: At Toa-Ia Rock, Rotu slew the Innda Spirit.
0.0.2: It has a mighty left arm.
0.0.3: The Shaman was saved by its actions.

..and so on.. Dunno, I like the single-event mythos better. But could just be me.

Setting thought: looking back over the Future is Wild site, I remembered that the "center" of the continent was pretty much one huge-ass desert. That's just begging for ruins, monuments, and sources of spirits. I keep picturing these huge spectral dragons (more Asian or South American than European) lurking at the heart of the burning sands. . .

gobi wrote: I've already thought of some memes present in a few tribes concerning magic.

Meme: Rituals draw power from sleeping gods, lengthening their slumber, thus postponing the time when they'd re-awaken. So if you're going to use magic, use fetishes. That's the less sacreligious way to do it.

Meme: Fetishes draw power from an onik's juice and shine, the blessings of the sleeping gods and a perversion of their precious gift. Rituals are the proper way to do magic.

Meme: All magic is inherently sacreligious any way you look at it. Focus on the real, the physical, use the properties of the natural world and you'll find wonders on par and even superior to those of magic.

anonymouse wrote: Primary Trait: Lifted the giant boulder with its lifting-arm.
Secondary Trait: Owns a spear.
Tertiary Trait: Has a laugh that sounds like a boota's.

anonymouse wrote: Primary Passion: Protect the tribe.
Secondary Passion: Learn the Shaman's ways.
Tertiary Passion: See the Big Water.

anonymouse wrote: I skipped on the tribe mythos and traits; that's really a group project. I had enough trouble just coming up with an interesting 6-line bit!

anonymouse wrote: Does the mythos have to detail one event like that? It seems like it'd work best that way.

anonymouse wrote: Setting thought: looking back over the Future is Wild site, I remembered that the "center" of the continent was pretty much one huge-ass desert. That's just begging for ruins, monuments, and sources of spirits. I keep picturing these huge spectral dragons (more Asian or South American than European) lurking at the heart of the burning sands. . .

mrteapot wrote: And one tribe that has Meme: the physical is an illusory shell. Magic is the true path to reaching and awaking the sleeping gods.

gobi wrote:

anonymouse wrote: Primary Trait: Lifted the giant boulder with its lifting-arm.
Secondary Trait: Owns a spear.
Tertiary Trait: Has a laugh that sounds like a boota's.

This reminds me to add a step that I'll also be implementing in PUNK's character creation. Since part of the task resolution is determining the dramatic relevance of a trait, I'm including that definition in character creation itself. For every trait, describe a situation where it's beneficially relevant and describe a situation where it's negatively relevant. This step hopefully gives the player and GM a sense of how far he can stretch the traits' relevance in play.

If the character mythos bit was too difficult, do you think the tribe mythos step should be eased up a tad?

I just have to say Gobi, Gears and Spears is turning out to be really cool. I like everything i'm seeing so far. Keep up the good work. Can't ever get enough praise for a good job.

Sylus

Thanks, Sylus! :)

anonymouse wrote: I'd definitely need to see examples of what you're talking about here

Making DIY Traits
Beginning players and even old pros could still get stumped by a cleverly named, but obscure-sounding trait. Here's a guideline for helping defining just what sort of situations in which your funky little trait is relevant. This is a crucial part of character creation and can make or break a group's enjoyment of their game.
The worst thing you can do is be so vague in the name of your trait that your character could be good at anything he does.
Lucky for you, this simple two-step process is designed to make traits that are interesting and let the entire group know just what your character can do.

Naming the Trait
This is the easy part. Just think of something to describe your character's personality, abilities or body of knowledge.

Defining the Trait
As you know, when a trait is beneficially relevant to a task, you get a die added to the dice pool. When it's relevant in a negative way, you lose a die from the pool. Here's how you can define the relevance of your trait in both beneficial and disadvantageous circumstances.

Positive Dramatic Relevance
In what situations are your trait a boon? If your trait is primary, you may describe three such situations. If secondary, you may describe two. If tertiary, you may describe one.

Negative Dramatic Relevance
Now describe how or why possessing this trait would be a hindrance. If a primary trait, write two negatives. If secondary, write one. If tertiary, write none.

Three positives have two negatives, two positives have one negative, and one positive has no negatives.

Example Traits
Louisville Slugger-Fu
+ Using a baseball bat as a melee weapon
+ Playing baseball
- Plays baseball in a most unsportsmanlike manner

"Come with me if you want to live."
+ Winning the trust of frightened strangers

Bullet Time
+ Incredible accuracy in a mass gunfight
+ Difficult to aim at with a gun
+ Jump away from an explosion safely
- Less effective when fighting one-on-one
- Only works if feeling self-confident

anonymouse wrote: and with Passions, re: positive/negative. I think a good "sample character generation" monologue that goes along the rules makes-or-breaks a chargen system.

Yo gobi,

Holy crap, Daniel. Someone should lock you up in the madhouse. ;-)

I think this "side-project" of yours rocks. I'm still absorbing all the stuff you've put out and I dearly wish I had a little more time to go over things in detail. I hope to do so by err next month -- way to caught up in real life at the moment. Just wanted to tell ya: Forge on, brotha!

"Gears & Spears" sounds like a great title. Might you consider something like "Tick-Tock Tales"?

- W.

Okay, you guys are gonna give me a big head here. Thank you for the compliments. :)

WDFlores wrote: "Gears & Spears" sounds like a great title. Might you consider something like "Tick-Tock Tales"?

SHEEEEEIIIIT! This is one damn cool sounding game (making my own idea feel strangely inadiquate. Damn). Everything just seems to be clicking into place.

I love the bio-beasties (The Future is Wild ROX! ;))

I love the tribal oniks (would that by any chance be a shortening of bionikles?), and the structure of creating tribes and oniks sounds pretty cool. I wonder, has anyone played Fallout 2? The start is sort of what I am envisaging, the naive tribal venturing out into the Big World with the fate of the Tribe in its hands. Just find out how to do that "creamy" parts system, but the simple task resolution seems to work well for that.

The legend style character creation sounds really cool. I agree that the legend involving the character or the tribe should be written and the most important parts to the character be highlighted and turned into traits.

Well, however it turns out, I am definetly going to play this game. And don't worry about that big head, just buy a larger size of hat!

Kirk.

Dumirik wrote: (would that by any chance be a shortening of bionikles?)

Dumirik wrote: The start is sort of what I am envisaging, the naive tribal venturing out into the Big World with the fate of the Tribe in its hands. Just find out how to do that "creamy" parts system, but the simple task resolution seems to work well for that.

Dumirik wrote: Well, however it turns out, I am definetly going to play this game.

Hey, thats pretty cool. So that keeps the game in context with the mythos style character creation and gameplay, and keeps players from getting out of hand and out of character. Just hurry up and finish the damn thing so I can play it!

Well what do you think? Should I stick with the dice system as described initially or move towards the coin-based mechanic?

(The question's for everyone :) )

Hey Gobi,

My other posts were pretty rushed, (written in five minute breaks at work while the boss wasn't looking), I will now give a rundown of my (highly opiniative) view.

On the coins vs dice argument, I think that the coins would be the easiest. Everyone has coins, and the simple resolution mechanic lends itself perfectly to a coin based system. However, dice seem to be a bit "meatier" and more satisfying, but that may just be me. However, it is up to you in the long (and come to think of it) the short run.

And for the creamy choose-your-parts, I think that Lxndr has the right idea, with salvaging parts merely being the transferral of traits, less efficient than a shinelink (as you said, without a shinelink, the trait goes into tertiary status), but still taking bits off other Oniks. It works, and doesn't take the importance of shinelinks.

An ongoing argument seems to be about the tribal and caste system. I think you've got it right. Castes being a stage in character creation, similar to traits, while tribes being created through the mythos written by the players. What about the beliefs of the tribes, and the "circle of life" and the sleeping gods? How will that be implimented? I would think that all the circle of life be directly linked to the sleeping gods (or the metal gods, if need be).

Maybe some tribes worship the factories that endlessly and mindlessly churn out chunks of metal. Hey! Maybe these black trees are the factories, and they are what spawn the creation of a new Onik (like talking parts factories)! That may explain the need for the proper ettiquite when speaking to these talking trees, and further draw them into the culture of the Oniks and make them more important to the game world.

Hope it helps, and get a draft of the rules up here as soon as possible. My ramble!

Kirk

The 50/50 chance seems a bit.. I dunno. Extreme. I'm not sure what direction I want things skewed, though. What would be the purpose of having traits? Flip more coins? Mitigate complications? I like complications, though, and wouldn't necessarily want to see them lessened for any reason..

For starters, I don't think it has the right feel. Not unless you worked symbolic coins of some kind into the setting; then I'd be okay with it. Right now, though, it just seems really aesthetically inappropriate.

I had been thinking about some kind of "bit bucket" -- bits of salvaged anything that you draw from to resolve a conflict. I have no idea how that'd really -work- though, but it gets with my point of having a resolution mechanic that's true-to-setting. With something so rich and unique as this, it'd be a shame not to exploit it in every aspect of the game as possible.

first off, like everyone else... thanks gobi, I'm not sure how I lived without this slightly nutty but wholely cool idea.

I like what people have been adding in here, especially on changing the d10 mechanic to the coin mechanic, coins does seem simpler to deal with.
but what I really wanted to add is about a "creamy" parts system. What about a separate category of traits specifically aimed at an onik's construction. ie we already have primary, secondary, and tertiary traits and these deal with the personality and learned/aquired traits of the onik. what about adding "onik" traits, for example being able to choose 3 traits from the "parts" list during character creation. I'm not exactly sure how these traits might affect gameplay but they could add the ability for oniks to differentiate from one another based on a purely physical basis.

here's a very brief example:

Parts Traits
----------------
Crusher Arm
Tracks
Wheels
Legs
Sensors
Spear Arm
Spiky Bits
Extra Memory
Voice Modulator
etc...

then you might choose three at character creation time.

ok.. My onik has the traits, Tracks, Sensors, and Spear Arm. which tells us that my dude might be some sort of hunter.

or another might have Wheels, Extra Memory, and Voice Modulator. which leads us to believe he might be some sort of bard.

well I think you get the idea.

peace,
mike

I'm still not really feeling the kit-build characters. It is appealing, but probably not appropriate for the spirit of this particular game. Using the mythos-traits is probably just the best way to do that.

This is especially the case if Daniel wants to go with the 50/50 coin flip. There'd be no system reason to include a "voice modulator" or "wheels" or whatever, because they couldn't neatly modify the result (except to suddenly swing disaster to favour, which can be a pretty huge shift).

anonymouse wrote: I'm still not really feeling the kit-build characters. It is appealing, but probably not appropriate for the spirit of this particular game. Using the mythos-traits is probably just the best way to do that.

This is especially the case if Daniel wants to go with the 50/50 coin flip. There'd be no system reason to include a "voice modulator" or "wheels" or whatever, because they couldn't neatly modify the result (except to suddenly swing disaster to favour, which can be a pretty huge shift).

Hiya,

Let's talk about dice and coins.

1. Coins are two-sided dice. That's the easy part.

2. Any die with an even number of sides can be a coin. 1-3 and 4-6 on a d6, odds vs. evens, whatever.

3. In play, "real" coins are a serious pain in the ass compared to dice. They're harder to pick up, they roll instead of landing in one spot, and depending on the light you have to squint and turn your head sideways to read them.

I suggest keeping your 50-50 mechanic, but specifying that any sort of die can be used, just go odd-even.

Best,
Ron

Ben,

Yyyyeahh.. but, why does there need to be a seperate system for that from the mythos traits? If I want my guy to fly, I include a line about battling a sky-shark over the Sandy Edge. If I've got a great voice, a line about how I made the Western Stones weep upon hearing my song.

anonymouse wrote: If I want my guy to fly, I include a line about battling a sky-shark over the Sandy Edge. If I've got a great voice, a line about how I made the Western Stones weep upon hearing my song.

I guess I agree with Ben on this one, about the parts..... If I were playing or running a game about mecha, even one like this that concentrates on the myth rather than the mech. I would still like to have something about the "bits" of my mech. Now granted, given how light the rules are there's no sense in making a huge deal out of what parts your onik has, but it's still cool, IMHO, to have some nod to the actual construction of your onik. As has been said above tho' this can be handled with the writing of you're onik's myth. So at the end of the day it really depends on the GM/Players how deep the game will delve into the actual "bits" of onik construction.

peace,
mike

Dumirik wrote: And for the creamy choose-your-parts, I think that Lxndr has the right idea, with salvaging parts merely being the transferral of traits, less efficient than a shinelink (as you said, without a shinelink, the trait goes into tertiary status), but still taking bits off other Oniks. It works, and doesn't take the importance of shinelinks.

Dumirik wrote: What about the beliefs of the tribes, and the "circle of life" and the sleeping gods? How will that be implimented?

Dumirik wrote: That may explain the need for the proper ettiquite when speaking to these talking trees, and further draw them into the culture of the Oniks and make them more important to the game world.

anonymouse wrote: The 50/50 chance seems a bit.. I dunno. Extreme. I'm not sure what direction I want things skewed, though. What would be the purpose of having traits? Flip more coins? Mitigate complications? I like complications, though, and wouldn't necessarily want to see them lessened for any reason..

anonymouse wrote: ok.. My onik has the traits, Tracks, Sensors, and Spear Arm. which tells us that my dude might be some sort of hunter.

or another might have Wheels, Extra Memory, and Voice Modulator. which leads us to believe he might be some sort of bard.

raga wrote: If I were playing or running a game about mecha, even one like this that concentrates on the myth rather than the mech. I would still like to have something about the "bits" of my mech.

Ron Edwards wrote: 1. Coins are two-sided dice. That's the easy part.

2. Any die with an even number of sides can be a coin. 1-3 and 4-6 on a d6, odds vs. evens, whatever.

3. In play, "real" coins are a serious pain in the ass compared to dice. They're harder to pick up, they roll instead of landing in one spot, and depending on the light you have to squint and turn your head sideways to read them.

I suggest keeping your 50-50 mechanic, but specifying that any sort of die can be used, just go odd-even.

You are Rugathi, courageous defender of the Shulai tribe in the southern marshes. The wetlands are being decimated by spikers, wandering beasts made of metal and spikes who devour other oniks. You promise your village that you shall return with the spiker's inards as a trophy for the elder chieftain. You venture into the spiker's lair, ready your spear, and attack fearlessly. The GM calls for a roll.

All totalled, the beneficially relevant traits have given you seven dice in your dice pool. You roll 'em. Two dice are in your favor, three are in the GM's favor. The GM can decide the outcome of the action if this were the final result of the die roll. Fortunately, this brave act is quite appropriate for your established mythos as a courageous defender of the Shulai. Further, your peoples' faith in you is a decent 4. Add 4 to your dice roll for a total of 6. (2 + 4 = 6) This puts the dice roll well within your favor.

You describe the spear plunging deep into a crack in a spiker's armor. Using your brute force, you use your spear as a lever to pry off its protective shell and you stab its insides mercilessly. Such is the fate of all those who threaten those under the protection of Rugathi.

You are Rugathi, courageous defender of the Shulai. But you have failed.

The spikers are undeterred by your onslaught. Onward they roll through the wetlands, their unquenchable thirst for shine urging them towards the Shulai tribe. Ashamed, you admit your defeat to the Shulai and order an evacuation from their homeland.

The GM calls for a roll to see what the people do.

You have far fewer traits that would be beneficially relevant to ordering a retreat. Your dice pool is a scant 2 dice. Nevertheless, you roll them. They both come up in your favor! Unfortunately, since this action is contrary to your mythos of bravery and courage, doubt modifies this die roll. The doubt rating is 5, pushing the roll very much in the GM's favor.

The GM is faced with a decision now. He decides the outcome of Rugathi's plea to retreat. He can have the people revolt against their suddenly less-impressive hero. He can have them stand there, incredulous as to how Rugathi could have come home in defeat. Or...

The Shulai may have their brave defender to protect them, but in times of need the dwellers of the marsh are no cowards nor are they weaklings. No one, no spikers or beasts or spirits will move them from this, their ancestral home.

You can feel the tribe's shine building and warming around your rallying cry. However, instead of organizing a panicked evacuation, they shout back to you wise quotes from your mythos. Words of sage advice about facing adversity and never giving in to defeat. The stage has been set for a new chapter in the Shulai Mythos.

The Spiker Siege 8.9.1: A defeated Rugathi found victory in the hearts of Shulai.

Egads. It's amazing how unfocused a post can seem the day after you've written it. Here's a more succinct description of the new task resolution I'm considering.

Task Resolution v. 0.5
Dice
You can use any type of dice you'd like, so long as they're evenly numbered. One half of the die is considered the player side, the other half is the GM side. A 50/50 split.

Narration and Interruption
When you want to perform an action, just describe it and it happens, unless the GM interrupts. When that happens, it's time for the person who was interrupted to gather a dice pool and to decide who concludes the narration.

Dice Pool
All traits have a value associated with their rank of primary (3), secondary (2), or tertiary (1). For every beneficially relevant trait, add that number of dice to your dice pool. For every negatively relevant trait, remove that number of dice from your dice pool. Roll the remaining dice.

Result
Whoever has more dice in their favor gets to decide the outcome of the actions. A hero always wins ties. If the interrupted player wins the roll, he can conclude his description of his actions' outcome. If the GM or another player wins the roll, he concludes the action by describing a complication that prevents the hero from succeeding at this time. The GM cannot describe the character's reaction or actions, only introduce the complication.

Modifiers
Positive modifiers adjust the outcomes of rolls in your favor. Negative modifiers adjust the rolls to the opponent's favor. Modifiers are noted as +1, +2, +3, -1, -2, -3 and so on.

Another type of modifier is that which adjusts the dice pool itself by either increasing or reducing the number of dice in the pool. These modifiers are noted as +1d, +2d, +3d, -1d, -2d, -3d, and so on.

Mythos Tokens
Spending a mythos token results in an automatic success in your die roll. You are free to describe the results of your actions. You can also augment a line or add a new line of your mythos that reflects how you were able to do what you described. If a line of your mythos changes the nature of one of your traits, the affected trait is reduced to tertiary status and cannot be upgraded until the mythos once again includes it.

Faith and Doubt
Your hero has a dichotomous Faith/Doubt meter. As one side increases, the other decreases. The limit for both traits is 9 notches, at that extreme one side is rendered complely nil at a 0 rating.

Faith is relevant when performing heroic actions befitting your mythos while being witnessed by those who believe in your mythos, in other words, while in the presence of non-heroic members of your tribe. Faith grants an equal positive modifier to the results of your die roll. For example, a dice roll resulting in 4 added to your faith rating of 2 would make the official result 6. (4+2=6)

Doubt is relevant when performing heroic acts in the presence of non-heroic members of an enemy tribe. Doubt applies an equal negative modifier to the results of your dice rolls. For example, a die roll resulting in 6 adjusted by a doubt rating of 3 would reduce the official result to 3. (6-3=3)

Juicing
By spending a dot of juice, you can add a die to your dice pool. If you're completely out of juice, your body is paralyzed and you can only perform actions that do not require physical mobility. This does not include speaking, you can still communicate verbally even while completely out of juice.

Even while depleted of juice, you can still juice a die roll by spending shine dots instead. Every shine dot spent in this way adds 3 dice to your dice pool. Shine-juicing can only be done when completely depleted of normal juice.

(This might make for an interesting tribe who continuously starve themselves to attain what they believe to be true magical power. Sort of like a mix between ascetics and psionics maybe.)

MAGIC (v. 0.5)
The true source of power for magic is hotly debated and without true answers since everyone's magic essentially works on principles of practice, dedication and natural talent without regard to belief systems. Nevertheless, every tribe has their own ways of thinking about these things and some will fight viciously if they feel their ways are being threatened by others.

Rituals
These lengthy ceremonies have an immense amount of energy at their disposal, but are weighted down by lots of pomp and circumstance. While some have tried trimming the fat of some rituals, it's rarely resulted in the reliability of a traditional rite. Still, rituals are widely used because anyone can lead them, though a ritual-leader, called a shaman or "daga," will often be trained from birth to have the best qualities possible for that role. Dagas are always considered heroes.

Performing Rituals
Every ritual has its own requirements and necessities to even have a chance at success. These prerequisites often include numbers of participants, types of participants, somatic actions, chanting, play of particular musical instruments, and offerings of sacrifices both common and obscure.

In game terms, these prerequisites are the ritual's traits. For every three traits satisfied, a die is added to the shaman's dice pool. Further dice can be added by supplementing the requirements of the ritual with extra acts of ceremony, but at every ritual has a minimum number of satisfied prerequisites before it can be performed with any chance of success.

Ritual supplements and their appropriate dice pool bonus include:

+1d
Adding an extra day to the ritual
Adding five participants who chant along with you
Fasting for a day before the ritual
Performing the ritual in a sacred area in tribal lands
Offering special herbs and vegetable sacrifices

+2d
Going without sleep for a day before the ritual
Performing the ritual in a sacred area outside the safety of tribal lands
Adding five participants who play instruments
Offering sacrifices of livestock or small animals
Injuring yourself continuously for a full day
Performing the ritual on an uncommon occasion, happening once a year or so.

+3d
Performing the ritual in a sacred area beset by hostile forces
Going on a pilgrimage for a month before the ritual
Performing the ritual on a truly rare occasion like on the night of an eclipse, comet passage or meteor shower
Offering the sacrifice of a monster

+4d
Performing the ritual in a previously undiscovered, but much fabled sacred area
Offering the life of a hero as a sacrifice
Adding three heroes who sacrifice their juice to the point of paralyzation

+5d
Offering yourself as a sacrifice

Things are looking better. I have a question about the faith/doubt meter. Does that only come in to play when dealing with people who are aligned either for or against you? Suppose you come across some onik's who don't really know of your myth, would there be zero effect from faith/doubt?

peace,
mike

Yeah, that's pretty much it. Just like with regular traits, there is either a beneficial or disadvantageous relevance, but aside from that there is no relevance whatsoever and thus no modifier to dice rolls.

However, I've asked a few friends who are more mathematically inclined than me and they say getting more dice in this 50/50 mechanic doesn't make a roll any more likely to fall in anyone's favor. So I'll have to augment it a bit.

Option A: Roll only one die, but having relevant traits allows you to reroll if the die did not fall in your favor. You can keep rerolling a number of times equal to the value of your positively relevant traits.

Option B: Roll a dice pool as currently described. If at least one of those dice falls in your favor, you gain control of the outcome.

I think the latter looks more promising since it'll chew up less time with die rolls and it actually does make having a larger die pool an advantage. It essentially has the same effect as a series of rerolls but in a single roll. That means all modifiers are modifications to the dice pool rather than to the results of the dice. I can live with that, what do y'all think?

On another note, I'm not so satisfied with either the rituals or fetishes. I just wrote those little bits so I could have something mold, but now I want to refine it and tweak it just right to get that voodoo vibe across.


Goals for G&S magic:
• Rituals must be slow and ceremonious but safe and powerful
• Fetishes' effects must be fast and immediate but costly and less powerful
• Any ritual should be a big deal in the story, they should not be done with a blase attitude like magic missiles or what have you
• Fetishes are less of a huge dramatic deal in a story but should pack some history behind them if their components are recognized ("That spear head is the tooth of the iron demon!")
• players should be rewarded for embellishing their rituals' performances and their fetishes' backstories
• While rituals shouldn't be taken lightly, I do want them to have a creamy improvisational nature



Obviously I've not quite hit on an elegant way to do all these things just yet but I hope some Forge-ites can provide some insights. As I recall, there is a martial arts game whose task resolution is driven by embellishment in the description of your actions. That might be something to look into for the "embellishment bonus" aspect of rituals.

Hiya all
I am new to these boards (which are great, BTW) and I have been browsing through this thread and I would like to say 'Wow!' what a fantastic setting for an RPG. Of course I would like to add my 2c worth though, on just a couple of points:

1. If you're unhappy with the title Gears & Spears (I think its quite catchy as a title, although it makes the setting sound a little like something that takes itself less seriously, eg. Tunnels & Trolls ), you might want to call it simply Shine, for obvious reasons. IMHO it captures the mood and the valorous, mythical nature of the game, and also makes one think of highly polished metal/chrome. Its also cunningly simple ;-)

2. Its important for players to be able to customise their PCs to the extent that they 'look' and 'feel' different to the next guy's. The idea of having customisable bodyparts adds some of this colour, and while their functions could be very generalised (eg. sensory, manipulation, etc.), it still conveys a sense to the player of it being his character. This would be the 'creamy' approach, I believe.

3. I think the idea raised about other characters building the character, and having that character's skills to some extent dependant on the skills of the builders, is excellent, and I have never seen it in an RPG myself. Of course not all players will take well to that idea (most obviously, powergamers), but your 'target market' could well stomach and even appreciate that. Perhaps if not built by the other PCs themselves, the new character could be assembled by the tribe's builders, who would obvioulsy have skills in certain areas (great excuse to develop a game with a particular flavour, i.e. GM wants the emphasis off of combat, so the tribe's builders aren't very good at that sort of thing).

4. The whole communal tribe thing is great. Having a PC's abilities augmented by the tellings of the tribe, again, is quite novel.

Anyways just a few comments. I'll be following this thread actively in future and waiting with baited breath for 'launch date'!

dragon_of_colour wrote: 1. If you're unhappy with the title Gears & Spears (I think its quite catchy as a title, although it makes the setting sound a little like something that takes itself less seriously, eg. Tunnels & Trolls ), you might want to call it simply Shine, for obvious reasons. IMHO it captures the mood and the valorous, mythical nature of the game, and also makes one think of highly polished metal/chrome. Its also cunningly simple ;-)

Could you play a character from, like, a tribe of deep-sea mechanized oil rigs or something? Or do you imagine the PCs being more "humanogons"?

Personally, I think playing a gigantic drill would be pretty cool.

But that's just me. ;-)
--Jeff

I'm handling the jungle oniks first, I think. But I haven't forgotten the tribes who may live in the Sand Sea, on and under the Big Water, or the ones in the "floating cities." I'd like to include them in their own chapters, but the differences in culture, ecology, and types of adventures may warrant that they get their own supplements. That's a very, long-term goal, though. Considering this is technically a side project. :)

On dice - returning to your base-3 thing, it seems to me that fudge dice would be perfect. On a d6, that's 2 success/blessings/Player, 2 complications/GM, and 2 neutral.

Another option is to go symbolic. Since you're dealing with mythic themes here, return to dice as divination. Frex, each side is associated with some particular Onik concept or item.

1 : Arm - physical stuff
2 : Wheel - movement stuff
3 : Sensor - mental/observation stuff
4 : Onik - social stuff
5 : Cell (battery) - shine/juice stuff
6 : Fetish - magic stuff

So, rolling to see if GotuKola kills the Land squid threatening his village:

He has 5 dice in his pool, rolls, gets 1,2,1,4,3 - 2 that speak to physical acts, 1 for movement. The player has to describe how is his results are relevant, and that's compared to a difficulty (or GM roll), best number of successes wins. So the player may describe the Onik roll (4) as concern for his village, and bump his success from 3 to 4.

This is stolen from my game and adapted. Feel free to use if you like it. I think it supports the mythic thing pretty damn well, myself.

Aidan

taalyn wrote: Another option is to go symbolic. Since you're dealing with mythic themes here, return to dice as divination. Frex, each side is associated with some particular Onik concept or item.

1 : Arm - physical stuff
2 : Wheel - movement stuff
3 : Sensor - mental/observation stuff
4 : Onik - social stuff
5 : Cell (battery) - shine/juice stuff
6 : Fetish - magic stuff

So, rolling to see if GotuKola kills the Land squid threatening his village:

He has 5 dice in his pool, rolls, gets 1,2,1,4,3 - 2 that speak to physical acts, 1 for movement. The player has to describe how is his results are relevant, and that's compared to a difficulty (or GM roll), best number of successes wins. So the player may describe the Onik roll (4) as concern for his village, and bump his success from 3 to 4.

Your character, Ryatha is desperately trying to save his friends from falling into a fiery volcanic pit. You roll five dice. Each die is split according to the following table.

Protagonist
1, 2, 3 : The player describes a...
Fates
4 : ...Physical outcome.
5 : ...Mental outcome.
6 : ...Social outcome.

Two dice come up in your favor, meaning you can describe two outcomes of Ryatha's efforts. Three dice come up on the Fate side. One 4, two 5. The Fates decide Ryatha will solve this problem with intelligence and cunning.

First outcome: You describe Ryatha dropping his Salamander Cloak of Flame's Bane knowing that it will speed right through the heated air of the volcanic pit, landing beneath his endangered friends.

Second outcome: By his keen intellect, Ryatha coordinated his toss to have the cloak land on one of the volcanic geysers of hot steam, spewing his friends safely out of the pit a little singed but none the worse for wear.

Wow, the webpage looks spiffy, and, hey, I'm in the credits ;-)
Keep up the good works, can't wait to try out a prototype!