It's been a while since the last update, but I have indeed written a bit more for the game (though nothing ready to be posted on the page itself.) One thing that's bubbled up is the notion of using task resolution with outcomes as clearly defined, yet open-to-interpretation as the tried and true 'success'/'failure.'

In developing the cosmology of Gears & Spears, I've started working up a divine triumverate of sleeping gods most often worshiped by the robots living in the deserts and jungles of the Big Land. All colorful descriptions aside, the three gods each govern those old fantasy staples: Destruction/Renewal (Paraka, the 'father' deity), Creation/Order (Harhua, the 'mother' deity mentioned in the G&S opening flavor text), and Chaos (Kerija, the 'child' deity).

So, to the point, I have written some prototypical rules for task resolution. The idea is that mundane actions result success/failure but mythic actions are always successful but result in either "Destruction/Renewal," "Creation/Order," or some sort of "Change."

The following is the system as it stands following this design concept.

Addition to character creation:

Divine Favor
In the Divine Favor section of your character sheet, arrange the names of the three sleeping gods in order of their influence over your legendary actions. The three gods are Harhua, governing creation, stagnation and order; Paraka, governing destruction and renewal; and Kerija, governing change and madness.

Acting
Mundane acts are those everyday tasks which can be performed by any onik, including hunting or farming for meager sustenance, walking, talking, and so forth. If ever it becomes uncertain whether a non-legendary onik can succeed in a mundane action, the shining elder rolls one six-sided die, adding the bonus granted by the character's highest-ranking beneficially relevant trait. If a legend is present, and the character has faith in that legend, the SE also adds the legend's faith rating.

If the final result is '6' or over, the action is successful. However, mundane tasks performed by non-legendary oniks will never have major, life-altering effects on the world and certainly not on any character. Mundane oniks cannot kill other characters unless a legend is present.

Speaking of legends acting, a legend is always enormously successful at any mundane action. Period.

Things are a bit more unusual for legendary actions, for the actions of a living legend are aided and hindered by the blessed dreams of the divine, shining triad, the holy personages whose slumbering thoughts are most influential among all the sleeping gods.

These three great beings, Harhua, Paraka, and Kerija, whose dreams linger in the shine of oniks, are those who can help a legends towards their destinies. These three are the most dominant of the hundreds of sleeping gods. They are called the shining triad, the iridescent fates, and the three-petaled gossamer rose.

Legendary actions are those far beyond the ability of mere mortal oniks. Carving canyons with bare hands, singing monsters to sleep with a divine song, and organizing a timid, pacifist tribe into a community willing to defend itself are all "common" legendary actions. In essence, a legendary action is any that would be remembered and repeated in the stories of several generations.

Legendary actions are always successful, without question. However, a dice roll determines which of the three sleeping gods influences the nature of the action's outcome. In simple terms, mythic acts result in either something created (Harhua), something destroyed (Paraka), or something changed (Kerija).

Despite the use of dice, it is not by random whim that one deity will guide a legend's destiny. Each legend has a special attunement, known or not, willing or not, to one of the divine triad. This spiritual resonance is represented by the order in which you place the importance of each deity under the "Divine Favor" section of your character sheet. When creating your character, you placed Harhua, Paraka, and Kerija in whatever primary, secondary, and tertiary rank you felt best fits how you would be playing your character. The higher the rank of the deity, the more likely they'll influence the outcomes of your legendary acts.

To perform a legendary action, first declare what it is your character is doing, then roll three dice. For each beneficially relevant trait your character possesses, add its modifier to each die's result. If at least three of your non-legendary tribe members are present, you may add your faith rating to each die's result as well.

Your tertiary god rules results of '1' and '2.' The secondary god rules '3' and '4.' The primary god rules results of '5' and above. The "winning" deity of each die is said to be "ascendant" or "ascendant over" the die. The following are the three most influential sleeping gods in onik mythology:

Harhua, the azure mother with ten million open eyes, each with ten thousand souls casting the light of a single shine, governs creation, stability, persistence, reliability, honor, tradition, stagnation, stubbornness, community, trustworthiness, life, planning, the intellectual, and "yes." If Harhua is ascendant, your legendary action results in something created, protected, expected, or constructed.

Paraka, the black father with one hundred arms, each with five hundred hands grasping five hundred flaming golden spears, governs destruction, necessary evils, deception, stealth, self-reliance, discipline, hunting, execution, the physical, and "no." If Paraka is ascendant, your legendary action results in something destroyed, attacked, harmed, surprised, or disciplined.

Kerija, the white child, swaddled in the silken hearts of two million stars, whose laughs and cries are carried in the whims of the Great Storm, governs change, growth, maturity, wisdom, uncertainty, unreliability, madness, inspiration, potential, the social, and "maybe." If Kerija is ascendant, your legendary action results in something changed, mutated, diverted, or confused.

Your legendary actions always have three outcomes, one for each die. Resolve the outcomes of each die, from lowest to highest. This means your least influential deity may color the first outcomes of your action, but your most influential diety will have "the last word."

Mythos Tokens
The use of a mythos token is fairly straightforward. Spend a token at any time to automatically cause any effect your character has the power to directly influence, without concern for either creation, destruction, or change. The use of a mythos token represents a moment when your character taps deep within itself to access a tiny fraction of its legendary shine: willpower beyond the power of even the dreams of the sleeping gods.

Further, you can also augment a line or add a new line of your mythos that reflects how you were able to do everything 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.

Summary
Mundane Act Resolution
1. Declare action
2. Determine success or failure by rolling a die.
3. Add the modifier of the highest-ranked, beneficially relevant trait.
4. If a legend is present, add the legend's faith rating.
5. If the final, totalled sum is equal to or greater than '6,' the mundane action is successful. If not, it was a failure.

Legendary Act Resolution
1. Declare action
2. Determine ascendant deities by rolling three dice.
3. Add the modifiers of all beneficially relevant traits.
4. If non-legendary tribe members are present, add your character's faith rating.
5. Determine the ascendant deity of each die, from lowest to highest.
a. Results between '1' and '2' are governed by your tertiary deity.
b. Results between '3' and '4' are governed by your secondary deity.
c. Results 5 and above are governed by your primary deity.

I'll come back to this in a day or two when I've had time to think about your specific questions.

In the meantime.. ergh. I don't really like this turn at first blush; as you say in the Cons, you're taking focus away from the character's mythos, which is the whole point of play. Now all of a sudden a god's sharing the spotlight with you.

Also.. is this how it works, in a nutshell?

Rahu is trying to break a rock. He rolls three dice: azure is 3, black is 5, white is 9.
* He's destroying it, so he uses the result of the black die, 5, to determine the result.

It looks like the create/destroy/change has to do with intent, too. I broke the rock in half:
* I destroyed the rock; once whole, it's now in two pieces.
* I changed the rock; it is still rock, just split.
* I took a whole rock, and created two smaller ones.

And when do you think you'll have a complete playtest doc available? I'm gnashing at the bit to run a game of this. =)

Yeah, as I said, this is essentially just an idea on the drawing board. I could very well strike it down to the cutting room floor, but I wanted some input from the Forge-ites before I make a final decision. The rock-breaking example you described is making me lean very much towards the "Eh, it was just an idea," end of things.

Someone on the forum once said that if the idea doesn't get you excited, you can't expect anyone else to get excited either. To be honest, this idea isn't getting me immediately excited. I mean, intellectually I think it has some interesting possibilities, but maybe not so much for Gears & Spears specifically.

I had this scene in my mind where the players finish off describing their mythic actions by saying, in a wise storyteller style of voice, "...and that's why there are two suns," or "...and that's why we have a stampebeast herd outside the tribal grounds," or "...and that's why we never go to the forbidden city." You get the idea. Basically, I don't care about mythic actions making sense, just good myth. You want to toss the fire spirit into the stars to make a second sun? Go ahead. You want to shatter a mountain, pour magic water over the rubble and create a herd of livestock? Rock on.

What happened here is probably that I just got fascinated with an idea of create/destroy/change task resolution but lost sight of how it actually helped the game.

So, the basic problem is still there. How do I encourage mythic role-playing in all its dramatic, sometimes illogical fun? For reference, here are the current rules for G&S.

ok... after a third re-reading I'm starting to understand exactly how this works. it sounds a little convoluted but it may have an interesting impact on play, as it definately calls the diety aspect into the player's description. I dunno could be cool, playtesting would be fun :)

peace,
mike

I think I agree with you that, while this system is interesting and exciting, it isn't what you want for G&S. You gain a certain closeness to the mythic roots of the onik culture, but at a dramatic cost of character differentiation.

I could see this still being used, but rather than have each theme correspond to one of the gods, each legend could choose three resonances that are important to him. So for a Vedic Indian sort of flavor, you could have resonances with family ties, enlightenment, and duty, while a more Greek-coloured hero resonated with national pride, hubris, and ...something else....

Admittedly, I've taked this route before and haven't playtested it, but i think it has a lot of potential for enforcement of ongoing themes.


As for the rock-breaking example, you can colour me unimpressed; that looked like a mundane action to me. Now, if you were trying to get past a mountain, then I would be impressed:
* I created something; I built a bridge around the mountain in a night and a day.
* I destroyed something; in a fit of fury I smashed the mountain into sand.
* I changed something; in a moment of inspiration, I rode a river to the mountaintop and reversed its course so I could ride down the other side.

Shreyas Sampat wrote: I could see this still being used, but rather than have each theme correspond to one of the gods, each legend could choose three resonances that are important to him. So for a Vedic Indian sort of flavor, you could have resonances with family ties, enlightenment, and duty, while a more Greek-coloured hero resonated with national pride, hubris, and ...something else....

Shreyas Sampat wrote: As for the rock-breaking example, you can colour me unimpressed; that looked like a mundane action to me.

Shreyas Sampat wrote: * I destroyed something; in a fit of fury I smashed the mountain into sand.

I like this link between tribe creation and the mythic hero - it sounds much more in line with my understanding on the original goal of G&S.

As for drawing the line tighter, you can do that if you want. Desive a simple test:
Is it change? If I Change a mountain and then ask you what it is, you will still answer, "It's a mountain."
Is it creation? If I Create something, and I ask you what happened, you'll tell me, "Something is there that was not before, and all else is largely unchanged."
Is it destruction? If I Destroy something, and I ask you what is there, you will reply, "All remains but the object of your fury."

Personally, I believe that each route has its own benefits; the interpretive route can be leveraged to produce valuable insights into character, while the more rigid route will probably create more unpredictable results, and generally force the players to think harder about their mythic actions.

I think this 'plot token' idea is something that you can definitely try out; the 'three dice' mechanic is still more or less opaque to me.

gobi wrote: This could be interpreted as changing the mountain into sand, or even a desert.

The other two described attempts to get past the mountain are fairly within their lines of definition, but the whole process is a very tricky bit of phrasing. Perhaps so tricky that it ceases to be fun to actually play?

Shreyas Sampat wrote: I like this link between tribe creation and the mythic hero - it sounds much more in line with my understanding on the original goal of G&S.

Shreyas Sampat wrote: As for drawing the line tighter, you can do that if you want. Desive a simple test:
Is it change? If I Change a mountain and then ask you what it is, you will still answer, "It's a mountain."
Is it creation? If I Create something, and I ask you what happened, you'll tell me, "Something is there that was not before, and all else is largely unchanged."
Is it destruction? If I Destroy something, and I ask you what is there, you will reply, "All remains but the object of your fury."

Jonathan Walton wrote: Nonsense. This is exactly how Nobilis does it. It's inevitable that there will be multiple ways to acheive the same end.

gobi wrote: Is there a better word for "ideal" that can be the opposite of "taboo"?

re: the rock: I was invisioning a rather big rock, if that changes anything. ;p

Jonathan Walton wrote: How about "Sacred" and "Profane" as categories for things? So a given tribe will consider X sacred and consider Y profane.

anonymouse wrote: re: the rock: I was invisioning a rather big rock, if that changes anything. ;p