The Forge Archives

I thought I'd separate this from the original thread, which seems to be diverging onto discussions of setting and colour.

So, a quick summary (rewrite?) of the rules and then some musing.

Rules:

Characters:
A character has a Name, a Vision, and a Duty.
The character's Name has two parts: his true Name and the one he gives out.  These may be the same, but this has dramatic implications.
The character's Vision is what someone would answer to the question, "Who's that?"
Examples of Visions are "I am a demon hunter", "I was a jumberjack", "I am the deposed Duke of Night-of-Fireflies".
The character's Duty is what the character believes to be his purpose in life, the answer to the question "Why do you do it?"
Examples of Duties are "Skinchangers killed my family while I cowered under the bed; I want revenge", "My logging settlement was destroyed in a landslide and now I have nowhere to go", "I want my crown back".

The character also has some positive integer of Contrast, as well a number of Traits and some amount of Fuel.

Of Traits the character has an equal amount of Traits designated as Flame and Smoke, unless he is under the influence of Smoke Traces.  Generally, Flames provide positive modifiers on rolls, while Smokes incur a negative modifier.
These Traits are generally things that are defining characteristics of the character.  "I Grew Up with a Sword in my Hands", "I Captain the Pirate Ship Obsidian", "I Will Not Kill", "Vengeance Drives My Every Action", "I Wasn't the Brightest Candle in the Class"  are all examples of Traits.

Contrast:
Contrast is a measure of something's mythic power.  More Contrasty things not only have stronger advantages, but also more fatal flaws.  Characters, Scenes, and even Stories can have Contrast.  Character Contrast makes a statement about the Character's departure from the prosaic; Scene Contrast punctuates Scenes pivotal to the Story, and Story Contrast models the mythic intensity of the Story itself.

Magic:
There are two kinds of 'special' Traits, Coals and Embers.

A Coal is a matched pair of Smoke and Flame.  Ordinarily these have no function, but they can be activated with the use of Fuel.  For the cost of one Fuel, both Traits become active. The Flame burns out at the end of the scene. Whenever the Flame applies a modifier, add that same amount to its Smoke Trace.  The Coal's Smoke remains active so long as its Smoke Trace is nonzero; each time the Smoke comes into play reduce the Trace by one.
Coals are generally pseudo-mystical abilities in Torchbearer.  Examples include "The River Hears my Call"/"The Ferryman Takes His Toll", "The Arrow Knows the Way"/"The Hunter is Hunted", "My White Sword of Summer Lightning"/"The Storm Follows on My Heels".

An Ember is a thematic category from which Flames and Smokes can be created.  For the cost of one Fuel, a character can activate an Ember to create a Flame; he simultaneously creates a Smoke from any of his Embers as well.  Once these Traits are created, they act like Coals: The Flame burns out at the end of the scene, and the Smoke lingers until its Trace is exhausted.
An example of an Ember is "Walking in Beauty", from which could come the Flames "My Voice Broke Her Heart", "Only Beauty Surrounds Me", and "The Statues Strained to Turn and See".  It might create Smokes like "I See Only the Beautiful", "Ugliness Rears Its Head", "I Became Transfixed".

Lanterns:
A Lantern is a magical object, something inanimate inhabited by a Little God.   Lanterns are functionally identical to characters; they have their own Name, Vision, Duty, Contrast, and Traits.  Generally, the Vision of a Lantern describes the object that a Lantern is, and its Duty describes the spirit inside.

Conflict Resolution:
Rolls are used to resolve conflicts rather than tasks.  Thus, it is possible to narrate entire scenes where no die-rolling occurs, only the repeated stacking of modifiers onto a single conflict roll.

The steps of conflict resolution:

Determine the goals of the opposing sides.
Narrate the relevance of Traits and the use of Fuel.
Calculate the total modifier.
Narrate the possible outcomes.
Roll the dice.

Whenever a Trait is relevant to a roll, it applies either a positive or negative modifier, as appropriate.  This is multiplied by the Character's Contrast, the Scene Contrast, and the Story Contrast, as appropriate.  As a guideline, Character and Scene Contrast always apply, but Story Contrast only applies if the conflict is relevant to the story.
When narrating the possible outcomes, the players who initiated the conflict each narrate the outcome where their characters are successful.  Note that conflicts need not be between only two characters; at any time another party might choose a side and join in.  The narration should take into account the magnitude of the modifier; really high modifiers represent conflicts at overpowering odds.

The Dice Mechanic:
Torchbearer dice are six-sided.  Three of the sides are marked positive, two blank, and one negative.  A roll consists of rolling one die plus a number of dice equal to the magintude of the modifier.  Then, for each negative rolled, remove that negative and a positive.  Examine the remainder.
If the modifier was zero or positive, a positive mark indicates a success; otherwise failure.
If the modifier was negative, a positive mark indicates a failure; otherwise success.

Fuel:
Fuel is what makes everything work.  It has several uses.  A human character has a maximum amount of Fuel equal to X*C, where X is the sum of his Embers, Coals, and ordinary (not Coal- or Ember-created) Flames, and C is his permanent Contrast.  The character begins each Story with maximum Fuel, and gains one Fuel after each roll in which he acted in accord with his Image, his Duty, or the Story.  There may also be extraordinary ways to gain Fuel.

Fuel's first and most important effect is that only a character's own player may narrate that character's death or other removal from the story while the character has Fuel.  Once the character has no Fuel, any player may narrate his death.

Fuel can also be spent to modify Contrast.  A character can spend one Fuel to raise or lower his own Contrast, three to raise or lower the Contrast of the Scene, and nine to raise or lower the Contrast of the Story.  Personal Contrast resets to default at the end of each Scene.  Story Contrast is special; the character's maximum Fuel is reduced by nine for the duration of the Story for each time he modified its Contrast.

The other uses of Fuel are to activate Coals and Embers, and to Reverse Traits.  A Reversed Trait has the opposite effect on a conflict that it ordinarily would.  Sometimes, a Trait that is irrelevant with reference to a conflict when it is in one mode becomes relevant in another, for example a character who is "Hard of Hearing" might turn that Smoke into a defense against a siren's tempting song.  A player can Reverse his own character's Smokes, turning them into advantages, or another character's Flames, turning them into disadvantages.

Thoughts:
I'm not sure whether I want there to be so many levels of Contrast, interacting multiplicatively.  It creates very, very large dicepools with relative ease.  I think an alternative would be to set a Contrast modifier for Scenes and Stories, that would simply move around Character Contrast rather than multiplying on top of it.  Additionally, the math of tracking Fuel for characters who modified Story Contrast is unpleasant.

I like the ideas quite a bit but I have question. Why do Flames and Smokes even need the canotation that they are Positive and Negative? Let me explain.

Lets take the Smoke of HArd of HEaring.  You mentioned that using certain mechanics you can turn the Smoke into essentially a Flame, if indeed a Siren comes along.  Ok thats very cool but why do you have to activate it?  Can a Flame/Smoke simply be?

Ex1 You are very Brave. Because of this people follow you and generally hold you in high regard.  However, they also expect you to fight their battles for them and will be more disappointed in you for failure then they would someone who is less brave.

Ex 2 You are Hard of HEaring. Ok you need to realy pay attention especially when you do magic in a loud arena, like a battle.  However, all sonic attacks are severely penalized or nullified.

Instead of Flame and Smoke you have... well ok Flam and Smoke but together.  Depending on the situation it works for you instead of against or vice versa.

Just my 2 Lunars

SMH
ADGBoss

Quote from: ADGBossInstead of Flame and Smoke you have... well ok Flam and Smoke but together.  Depending on the situation it works for you instead of against or vice versa.

I quite like using the term 'vantages, but I'd be happier with a better name that has the right colour for the setting.

The whole Flame/Smoke polarity thing has been discussed on the earlier thread, but I'll review here, especially since developments in the game have made it even more important.

This game is about mythic heroism, first of all.  Mythic heroes don't tend to have traits (in my observation) that are ambivalent on a regular basis.  They live in a  world of black-and-white.  Sure, they may turn around their distinctive traits sometimes, in particularly dramatic situations, but seriously, anyone playing a character in Torchbearer who's "Hard of Hearing" rather than "I was Cursed to be Stone Deaf", or one who's "Brave" rather than "I Have Conquered My Fear" is making an accidental detail of a character into a Trait.

Secondly, the mechanics depend on Trait polarity for a great many things.  Reversals would be redundant with ambivalent Traits.  Coals and Embers could be used without fear of repercussion - just invent a Trace you're not particularly frightened of.  This isn't want we want to have happening here; if a hero wants to shoot down the sun, by god let him, but then let him suffer for it.

Third, there is the issue of Colour.  This ties back into the first, but there are also thoughts of terminology and internal constency; I have a lot of this fire terminology flaoting around, and I can't for the life of me think of what I'd call an ambicalent Trait.  Maybe I'll discuss in some kind of optional section modifications to Torchbearer, like this neutral Traits thing.

Quote from: four willows weepingThe whole Flame/Smoke polarity thing has been discussed on the earlier thread, but I'll review here, especially since developments in the game have made it even more important.

This game is about mythic heroism, first of all.  Mythic heroes don't tend to have traits (in my observation) that are ambivalent on a regular basis.  They live in a  world of black-and-white.  Sure, they may turn around their distinctive traits sometimes, in particularly dramatic situations, but seriously, anyone playing a character in Torchbearer who's "Hard of Hearing" rather than "I was Cursed to be Stone Deaf", or one who's "Brave" rather than "I Have Conquered My Fear" is making an accidental detail of a character into a Trait.

Secondly, the mechanics depend on Trait polarity for a great many things.  Reversals would be redundant with ambivalent Traits.  Coals and Embers could be used without fear of repercussion - just invent a Trace you're not particularly frightened of.  This isn't want we want to have happening here; if a hero wants to shoot down the sun, by god let him, but then let him suffer for it.

Third, there is the issue of Colour.  This ties back into the first, but there are also thoughts of terminology and internal constency; I have a lot of this fire terminology flaoting around, and I can't for the life of me think of what I'd call an ambicalent Trait.  Maybe I'll discuss in some kind of optional section modifications to Torchbearer, like this neutral Traits thing.

Willows

Hey, been skimming through your other thread and this one, and noticed no one mentioned one major element of your settings color/Terminology.  The name of the game Torchbearer.

To me, the word torchbearer does NOT bring to mind mythic heroes. When I think Torchbearer, I think of the connotation of young boys/pages who where hired to carry a torch/lantern for people at night. That is, someone who is weak, unimportant and fit only to serve another more important person. The other connotation that comes to mind is the old "Carrying a Torch for her" that of someone pining for a lost love, a kind of whiny whimpy wishing on their part. There could be a more mythic feel to these, but in common practice the negative connotation is the greater.

Perhaps instead you could use Flamebearer. Flame has stronger connotations, the romanticized vision of fire. Another idea is to call it something like Promethian, after the greek myth of Prometheus who stole fire from the gods to give it to man. A link between the mundane and the divine. Promethian/Promethial sounds stronger to me.

The other term I am not in favor of, is Contrast. To me contrast doesn't hold a mythic feel, more of a technological feel, and a mundane or negative one at that. Turn down the contrast on the TV. The contrast they give you for a CT scan makes you sick. There is quite a constrast between the haves and the have-nots in modern society. Like I said, it does not harken to mythic or fantastic things for me.

Perhaps something more mystical and fire related, Nimbus, Blazon, Radiance, or an interesting one , Fulgor - Dazzling brightness; splendor, or better yet, Helion (refering to the sun), I'd probably go with Helion, sounds good, and has a mythic connotation.

Other than that, I like the feel and style of your terminology. And the mechanics seem solid, though the funky dice are a personal dislike. They provide a barrier to play, IMO.

HTH

Rob Muadib

Rob,

I entirely agree on the Contrast issue; I'll look into better terms for that.  I like your suggestions Blazon and Fulgor; I'd rather avoid terms such as Helion that evoke Greek mythology.  Part of me wants to use Chiaroscuro, or maybe a term like Fervor which suggests fire, but isn't it outright.  I think that Fulgor, especially, sounds mythic but without raising connotations of specific mythologies.

As for names, originally Torchbearer was ironic, referring precisely to those pages you're talking about.  The ironys sort of washed itself out of the game, so the name might be changing eventually.  I have a few ideas myself: Lightbringer, Morningstar; I like Flamebearer as well.  There are a whole lot of less powerful names that I've rejected already.
Though, in a way, at least a subset of the possible characters are clearly torchbearers.  Leihesjun are, in their deepest essence, mortals pressed into the service of gods, and they're probably in one way or another inferior to their tasks.

As for the funky dice, they're not entirely necessary.  Ordinary six-sided dice work fine too, they just have a little more handling time.

Quote from: four willows weepingI entirely agree on the Contrast issue.

And I disagree completely.  The thing with "Contrast" is that the term is self-explanatory.  Your typical player will understand what it means to raise or lower the Contrast of a particular scene.  However, if you use another term with mythic connotations, you'll have to explain what it means or just say that "Fulgore is the same thing as Contrast" in which case you might as well just call it Contrast!  I think the utility of the term here outways any gain of making it more mythic-sounding.

Here's some more terms I was thinking about:

-- Flares: a term for temporary Flames that only lasted one scene (as in Coals or Embers).  A particular ability could be described as "flaring up," i.e. "I burn some Fuel to cause ______ to flare up."

-- Temper/Temperment: not sure what to use these for, but they refer to both the mettle of something and the attitude of an individual.  Maybe possible replacements for Vision and/or Duty?  I don't know.

-- If you really have to replace Contrast, you might try another self-explanatory term like Flamability (or preferably something better than that).  Players will understand if a situation looks too "Flamable" to head into, i.e. the Contrast is too high, making it dangerous.

As for Story Contrast, I like the idea, but isn't it something that could be set at the beginning of a particular story by the players and GM together?  I don't see why the players should have to spend Fuel for it.  In fact, Story Contrast could be a measure of how dramatic Flames and Smokes are by default (without raising the Contrast any) and not actually add any bonuses or penalties in play.

For example:

-- In a story with LOW Story Contrast, the Flame "The Rivers Hear My Call," might be normally used to make a trickle of water flow in a dry river bed.

-- In a story with MEDIUM Story Contrast, the same Flame might be used to create a swiftly-moving creek.

-- In a story with HIGH Story Contrast, the same Flame might be used to create a swiftly-flower river.

-- In a story with EXTREME Story Contrast, the same Flame might create a flood, even without raising Scene or Character Contrast.

Likewise, the Smokes would get increasingly worse as the Contrast increased.  At the beginning of the story or campaign, the players and GM could decide what the BASE LEVEL of Contrast would be for the entire thing (though there could be some stories within a campaign that could have slightly higher or lower contrast).  This wouldn't be used in the mechanics at all, just to determine what characters could do at the base level.

Or, a couple veriations on this idea:

-- Perhaps there could be a way for Story Contrast to wax and wane like the tides or the moon.  Perhaps there are certain times when the magics of the world are stronger and some times when they are weaker.  Perhaps THAT'S what makes Torchbearer (or whatever you end up calling it) so dynamic.

-- Perhaps the level of Story Contrast varies with the characters you choose to base your story on.  A human-level game might have Low Contrast, but a god-level game might have High or even Extreme Contrast.  This would be like choosing your campaign style in Unknown Armies.

Obviously, all of the ideas I suggest here won't work at the same time, and some of them might lead the game away from the direction you want to head.  They're just potential options that occured to me.

As for the name, I kinda liked "Torchbearer" because it's easy to translate into any language you want (for instance, in Chinese, it would be "Huoba Shou," literally "Flaming-Wand Hand," the person who carries the torch).  But I also think there could be other good options, as long as it wasn't culture-specific like Willows said.  Maybe you could have a word that means something like "a great conflagration."  Or, if you want something referring to the characters, how about "Ash Children" or the like.  I'm imagining the tendency, in Chinese, of calling young men "Xiao Huo-zi" (little buddy), but "Huo" (buddy) is just the characters for "fire" and "person" put together.

And I'm rambling.  Your stuff rocks, Willows!  But I've already said that :)

Later.
Jonathan

Putting aside terminology for story contrast (I'll ask a bunch of potential players about Contrast; if opinion is torn here then it probably will be out in the Real World too...)

You're taking ideas out of my head again, Jon.

Story contrast could certainly be set at the beginning of the game; I was only providing a mechanic for shifting it in-game.  That's an interesting idea of yours for making Story Contrast a narrative thing rather than a mathematical thing; it certainly would cut down on dice rolling, and turn up the randomness of the game, which is nice.

On the subject of Contrast ebbing and flowing:
Strangely, I had a mechanic for this in the d20 game; there I called it the Current, and it affected the efficacy of magicians' spells.  It was terrifyingly dynamic - a certain amount of spells cast in one place could raise or lower the Current temporarily - and really did a lot to show how important the pulse of magic was to the workings of the world.  Even leihesjun were woven into it; they tended to make the Current shift more rapidly, or pool around them so magics in their presence always crackled with power.
Then again, I had a lot of mechanics for magic in the d20 game, like the spellcaster's Corona, which was shamelessly the Anima Banner of Exalted in a highly mathified d20 form.

Setting Story Contrast as a kind of level of mythicity sounds good; at the moment it seems I've been writing in what you would call the medium-high Contrast zone.  Variations on this could be exciting; a low-Contrast Torchbearer game could be about conflicts like Zaradia City-of-Ivory's territory dispute, and the ongoing feud between Varashi and Neranja is clearly on a high-Contrast level.

Back to the term Torchbearer.  It says a lot, I think.  The torch is not the bearer's.  The hand that carries it is just that.  This is sort of an ongoing theme - humans have to hunt Names and kill for power, skinchangers run about causing pain and death, ultimately leihesjun are servants of the gods and spirits of the land are dependent on the land for sustenance.  No one is independent.

Quote from: four willows weepingYou're taking ideas out of my head again, Jon.

Before I ever take out a patent on something, I'm going to have to remember to check with you first :)

It's nuts that we both currently have game concept threads based on each other's ideas (my "Quixote & Coyote," your "Marionettes.")  At this rate, we definitely have to do a collaborative project at some point (though it might end up being pretty out-there).

QuoteThat's an interesting idea of yours for making Story Contrast a narrative thing rather than a mathematical thing; it certainly would cut down on dice rolling, and turn up the randomness of the game, which is nice.

That was mostly because I was imagining characters getting dehabiliting amounts of Smake Traces in an Extreme Contrast story, when you want to encourage them to do crazy stuff.  Raising the Story Contrast then, would also make the game "more epic," with everything that means: higher base power levels and fewer consequences.

QuoteStrangely, I had a mechanic for this in the d20 game; there I called it the Current, and it affected the efficacy of magicians' spells.  It was terrifyingly dynamic.

I think that would still rock as an optional rule (maybe all the Story Contrast rules could be optional, defaulting to something like that Middle-High Contrast level you mentioned).  You'd have to come up with a way to keep it simple and intuitive though, in keeping with the other mechanics.

Later.
Jonathan

Well, here's a thought.

Stories are described by a level of mythicness.  This is a baseline that describes the intensity of the Traits of characters that are central to that Story.  Activated Traits might creep toward the next rank of myth, but if they reach it, that signals a change in the Story's significance.  Each step of the ladder is described by a reference to a myth or fairytale.  For now, I'll use real-world myths for this.  The ground - not on the ladder of Myth at all - is everyday life.

[*]Ordinary Life
[*]Subtle Myth - Johnny Appleseed, Wily Dalilah and her Daughter Zaynab.  Ordinary people do extraordinary things.
[*]Mystical Myth - The Little Mermaid, Two Sisters Who Were Jealous of Their Younger Sister.  Special people in an extraordinary world.
[*]Embroidered Myth - Aladdin and the Magic Lamp, Julnar the Mermaid and Her Son Badar Basim, Sindbad the Seaman.  Nothing is ordinary except that which the story does not notice.
[*]Epic Myth - The Gilgamesh Saga, The Mahabharat.  Stories that reach farther than their protagonists.
[*]Pervasive Myth - Hou Yi shoots down the Sun, Persephone's Kidnapping, Huitzilopochtli's Blood Sacrifice.  The whole World feels the repercussions of these.
[/list:u]

Quote from: four willows weepingActivated Traits might creep toward the next rank of myth, but if they reach it, that signals a change in the Story's significance.

Whoa.  I don't think I realized the full significance of that the first time I read your post.  That could be a frickin' brillaint concept if you expanded on it.

I was a little worried about the arbitrary nature of Flame and Smoke effects, since you're basically leaving it up to the GM and players to figure out what a given Flame can do at varying levels of Contrast.  However, if you use this cool little idea, it builds a scale that would be very easy to understand.

You set up a list/table of the varying degrees of "mythicness," similar to the one you have now but with intermediate levels between them.  For this example, I'll use High, Middle, and Low.  So it would look like this:

Quote from: EXAMPLELOW Ordinary
MID Ordinary
HIGH Ordinary
LOW Subtle
MID Subtle
HIGH Subtle
LOW Mystical, etc.

You wouldn't have to define the various intermediate steps; you'd only have to define "Ordinary" and let the GM determine what fell under High, Middle, or Low.

So, say we're playing a game where the range of the characters' normal actions (the ones you don't have to roll for) is only Subtle.  They can do things that would be impossible for Ordinary mortals, but it's not completely unbelievable.  I'm thinking along the lines of Atlanta or Beowulf here.  Heroes with crazy athletic abilities, but they're not going to be flying around or breathing fire.  They have a range of actions between LOW Subtle and HIGH Subtle, but can't do anything more spectacular without spending Fuel.

Now, in a "standard" campaign, the characters' activated Flames and Smokes would operate within the Mystical range, from LOW Mystical to HIGH Mystical.  LOW Mystical abilities would be ones that took place at a Contrast of 0-2, MID Mystical abilities might be 3-5, and HIGH Mystical abililities between 6-9.  However, when the Contrast hits double digits, the power level gets kicked up a notch and now is counted as LOW Embroidered (entering a whole new category of possibilities; LOW 10-12, MID 13-15, HIGH 16-19).  If a character ever managed to get a Contrast of 20, their abilities would then be LOW Epic.

So, basically, when you determined the "mythicness" at the beginning, you'd be basically choosing the level of Contrast that was the default (Ordinary 0, Subtle 10, Mystical 20, etc.), but that Contrast, since it was assumed, wouldn't have any effect on the mechanics, just the level at which the characters operated.

It's just an idea.  Looking back at it now, I think it definitely needs some cleaning up, but I think the core concept is sound.  I really like the idea of limiting the characters to one level of "mythicness" and their powers to another, so I was just trying to tie that into the Contrast (or whatever) mechanics you already had and make it a continuum.

Later.
Jonathan

Hi there,

Some more quick references which came to mind:

Jonathan Carroll: Bones of the Moon, Sleeping in Flame, and The Land of Laughs

Gene Wolfe: Castleview, the Soldier books (Soldier in the Mist, Soldier of Arete)

Roger Zelazny: plenty of his early short stories, mostly found in The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth, the pre-Amber novel Jack of Shadows, and most especially Creatures of Light and Darkness

Best,
Ron

Ron: I'll look into those.  Thanks.

Jon:
It occurred to me that my scale of myth was actually describing two things - the Characters and their Environment.

It seems to me that if I were to split the scales, there could be a lot of interesting points in the matrix that the linear scale doesn't account for.

So,  the Myth of Characters scale goes something like Ordinary - Special - Extraordinary - Heroic - Mythic.  This describes the characters' personal power, as well as their impact on the world.  The Myth of Environs slides on an identical scale, with its impact being on the general level of Myth in the world at large.
Again, the 'default' campaign is Extraordinary/Extraordinary: The characters stick out as being special, but they are not alone, and the world knows and understands this.  Alternate campaigns take different points on the matrix; LoTR is a story where the characters srart out Ordinary in an Extraordinary world, and slowly walk up the scale.  Mythic/Mythic games could be used to tell stories about the activities of the gods themselves.

So, it seems that default conflicts (ones where rolls are significant) are at the Myth level of the characters.  Things below their current Myth rank are trivial, and they have to really push to do things of higher Myth level, but once something happens, the Myth reacts and the Story's heart starts beating faster.

This lets me bring in a new element I've been thinking about.  Ever hear of kriya-yoga?  Enlightenment through spiritual crisis.  The Crisis happens in nearly every fairytale I can name, at the point where it takes the step into the more deeply fantastic.  When Aladdin steals the jewel fruits in the Cave of Wonders and the Cave slams shut, that was Crisis.  The moment that Badr Basim of Persia found out that the mer-people Sultan had forbidden him to marry his daughter Jauharah until he had proven himself through some impossible task, that was Crisis.  Snow White takes her first bite of the apple.  Arthur first sees the Sword in the Stone.  Hansel and Gretel smell the gingerbread cottage.  Taran finds out that Hen Wen the pig is an oracle.  Perkar meets and loves the goddess.

So, what does Crisis do?  I don't really know; it signals the moment when everyone's heart skips a beat.  Crises are turning points in a story.  What this means in mechanical terms, I don't know.

Quote from: four willows weepingSo,  the Myth of Characters scale goes something like Ordinary - Special - Extraordinary - Heroic - Mythic.  This describes the characters' personal power, as well as their impact on the world.  The Myth of Environs slides on an identical scale, with its impact being on the general level of Myth in the world at large.

Right.  So ignore everything I said ;)  This is simpler and better.

You might try different names for these scales though, to evoke the feel.  "The Myth of Environs" is okay, but The World Myth might be better.  Likewise, "The Myth of Characters" could be The Heart Myth, i.e. the self-myth they whisper to themselves in their heart, telling them who they are and what their place in the world is.  Godlike PCs, being self-centered beings, might have Heroic or Mythic Heart Myths, while humble mortal PCs would have Ordinary or, perhaps, Special ones.  And, of course, the Heart Myth of the PCs could grow in power with the PCs and the "mythicness" of the campaign.

QuoteSo, what does Crisis do?  I don't really know; it signals the moment when everyone's heart skips a beat.  Crises are turning points in a story.  What this means in mechanical terms, I don't know.

It seems like your Crises are describing several different things at once.

-- The characters' goals change significantly (or completely).  Maybe this could be modeled as a change of Duty? EX: "I must now escape from this prison and take back my throne from my wicked half-brother" or "I must prove myself through some impossible task" or "I will not sleep soundly until I have pulled the sword from the stone."

-- The characters' position in the great scheme of things changes; they suddenly become significantly more or less important than they were before.  Or their self-identity suffers a major shift.  Maybe this is a change of Vision? EX: "I am the chosen guardian of an oracle pig" or "I am the son of Helios and am worthy of driving the Sun Chariot" or "I am destined to be the Once and Future King."

Then again, I don't know if you want characters to have constantly shifting Visions and Duties (though that would add to the dynamic feel that you're building).  Maybe you need a trait like "This is My Chosen Method of Achieving My Goals" and shifts in that would be Crises.  When the characters were forced into changing the way they approached the world or diverging off on a new course of action, it would signal a shift in the direction of the game.

Also, if you have a group of characters whose methodologies are:
-- "I am traveling to _____, for a special audience with the king."
-- "I am passing through _____, in search of the woman who killed my one true love."
-- "I am going to burn down the city of _____ and slay everyone in it."

You have clearly developed some reasons for them to interact, or travel together, or whatever.  In a PC group where everyone had a variety of methods, there would be little tension lines between those who were trying to achieve different things.

Just some more ideas off the top of my head.

Later.
Jonathan

Well, it isn't really sensical for Vision to shift rapidly, being as it is a loose description of character concept.  It could, on the other hand, bloom like a flower into higher levels of Myth - Varashi starts as a wizard acolyte, then becomes a sorcerous demon hunter when Neranja kills her lover/mentor, then becomes the heroic demon-slayer and picks up the epithet Broken Obsidian when she slays Neranja in a feat of glorious plutomancy.
Crises of Vision, then, are events that change the way the world sees a character.

Crises of Duty are just as you described them, changes in the character's goals.  Once Varashi slays her personal demon, she takes it upon herself to learn more about the skinchangers, to wreak vengeance upon Neranja's higher-ups.