The Forge Archives

Concept

A fixed 6d6 dice pool lightweight game system with a focus on character drama.

Character Generation

Each character is represented as:

a set of Qualities
a set of Dramatic Elements
a set of Virtues (game dependent)
three Ratings: Injury, Heart, and Fire
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Qualities are meant to be broad and are numerically subtracted from difficulties. In this way the higher a quality the better the character. Negative qualities are like handicaps. A qualities of '3' is considered to be very good and is the limit for starting characters. Players can have up to 6 qualities with a total sum of 6.

Dramatic Elements offer a glimpse into the character's motivations, fears, or relationships. Each one is a single element and has an intensity rating of 1 to 3 (higher stronger). Actions which are tied into an element allow the player to spend Heart or Fire and enhance it. Starting characters get three such elements and the GM selects intensities for each.

Virtues are game dependent, but 2 are specified in the core system. The first is drive and it encompases the character's will and desire to survive, achieve, etc. The second is nerve and it relates the character's level of tolerance for mental anguish and pain. Starting characters assign them so they total to 3.

Heart,  Fire, and Injury are tied together concepts. Each is like a point rating. Heart is the point measurement of drive and begins are twice its rating, Fire is the point measurement of nerve and begins a twice its rating. Injury is damage, and is tracked against Fire/Heart. If it ever exceeds the highest of them, the character is KO.

Drama & Gameplay

The game is meant to do deep exploration of character. To accomplish this the GM makes sure they include the players drama into the situations. If a character has a strong compassion for childern as a dramatic element, making the players face a killer teen might be appropriate.

When a dramatic element is introduced in a stressful context (see above) the player gets Fire points equal to intensity of the element. If the player plays out the element well, they can earn additional allotement of fire equal to it's intensity.

When it is introduced in a story assisting or non-stressful way, the element supplies Heart equal to its intensity. Playing the element well earns additional such allotements.

Heart & Fire In Gameplay

Both Heart and Fire points can be spent to reduce the difficulty rating of actions. Each one spent directly lowers the rating one. If more Heart is spent on an action than Drive, the excess is effective but causes a loss of Heart rating (1 per 1). If more Fire is spent than Nerve, the rating suffers like Heart/Drive.

Heart can be spent on actions in the realm of drive related drama, and Fire can be spent in the realm of stress related drama. Heart can always be spent to turn injury points into fire (using drive limit) and Fire can always be spent on combat and stressful actions.

While you can have more Heart and Fire points than your ratings, you cannot hold onto them. At the end of each scene you will lose 1 point from both Heart and Fire that is in excess of rating.  Fire and Heart loss causes the virtue to be recalculated, at half of the rating rounded down.

Difficulty and Rolling

All rolls are made with 6d6 as a pool. The effective difficulty of the action determines the targets. Here is the mechanic:

Roll 6d6.
Drop all dice 3 or less.
Keep the three highest, and count remainder. These remainders are called 'bonuses'.
Compare the three highest to the targets.
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Here are the targets for the highest dice based on DR (difficulty rating).

0: 4/4/4
1: 5/4/4
2: 5/5/4
3: 5/5/5
4: 6/5/5
5: 6/6/5
6: 6/6/6
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Compare the highest to the first, the next highest to the second, and the lowest of the three to the last. Each one from left to right counts as a success step. If any fail, stop checking. 0 success is a failure, 1 is poor/bad, 2 is ok, 3 is good/great.

The bonuses of a roll can be used like this:

Allow the player to specify a detail of the action that enhances effect.
Given to the GM for a twist. This allows the GM to add twists to the result of the action and the player gains 1 heart/fire (GM choice) for each.
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The twists should not enhance the action rolled, but should cause complications or tie in drama elements of the player.

Attack Actions

Combat is meant to be fluid and simple. Defense actions are implied (as a difficulty to the attacks) in this way we only deal with attack actions. This is a normal action roll with difficulty of 2 plus the defenders combat/defensive quality (if they have one). The attacker reduces this by their combat/offensive quality. The result action rating (total) is the injury dealt by the attack (can be raised by bonuses).  Weapons can double or triple damage, depending on the weapon.

A Sample Character

Tommy Chung, a gun toting adventurer type exploring the outer rim. He is looking for his missing sister, to get rich and remain clean.

Qualities:
Marksman 2
Thievery 2
Charming 1
Quick Wit 1

Drama:
Drive: Find Lost Sister. 3
Drive: Become Rich. 2
Nerve: Plagued by addicition to Gleam, an LSD like drug. 1

Virtues:
Drive: 2
Nerve: 1

Ratings:
Heart: 4
Fire: 2

A Sample of the Sample in a Sample...

(There will be no pretty colorful description here, or dialog to emphasis the mechanics)

Tommy Chung scopes the small development towns of Humet for work. He encounters an offworlder which recognizes his charm and quick qit. Offering a tidbit of information, he tell Tommy that the owner of the fine inn Blotniks knows of his sister. Throwing the informant some gold, he decides to visit the inn (+3 heart here for 7 heart- this is not rating, but points. Tommy still has a heart rating of 4).

He enters the inn and demands to see the owner. Little does he know the owner is a kingpin in the underworld of Humet. The six poker players in the corner bust out with a full attack, firing pistols at his rapidly. He dodges using 2 fire, (losing 1 fire rating) and this makes them roll difficulty 2 + 2 = 4. 2 shots graze him for 1 injury each, and he spends 2 heart to turn them each into fire.

He dodges under cover, while contemplating his next move. He surveys the situation from cover, and the GM calls for a roll.

Action Roll: He has no observation based qualities, so its a flat DR 3 (target 5/5/5). He rolls 6d6 for: 5, 4, 4, 3, 2, 1. 3 or less are dropped for: 5, 4, 4. Since he kept only three there are no bonuses and he figures success. The initial 5 gives him 1 success and the 4 fails, stopping the mechanic. 1 success for a Poor/Bad result.[/list:u]

He scopes the inn, but with the massive gun fire and chaos things are ungraspable. Trying harder the GM has him check again.

Action Roll: He gets 5,5,4,4,3,2 for an Ok success and 1 bonus. He throws the bonus to the GM for a twist and the GM gives him 1 Fire point.[/list:u]

Tommy sees that there is a path of cover to the stairs which lead to the inn's second floor. (Enter Twist:) He also spots on the floor next to him a barpack of Gleam which fell off a flipped over table. He grabs the Gleam (player choice, +1 Fire point) and makes for the stairs.
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Ok, its untested but I feel the rules are pretty solid and reward players for acting out their character's drama. The main question/problem I have is that the rules allow the players to burnout there heart/fire (drive/nerve) quite easily. Tommy in the above example has only a Fire Rating of 1 after the gunfire and a Nerve of 0.

I need a mechanic or rule which allows the character to regain their rating.

Here is my current thought:

If the character reaches double their rating in Heart/Fire + 1 in points, they have an in game event. We will just call this an epiphany. This event reveals more about themselves (drama) and the virtue that corresponds goes up 1, doubling the rating of course.

Someone has also mentioned that achieving solid results in the realm of a drama element should raise the virtue one.

Welcome Jason to the wild, wild world of The Forge. Yeeha.

The epiphany should allow the player to define a new Dramatic Element. ?

What's the range on difficulty? If the difficulty is 6, and the character's only Quality is "negative" by one, then does he still roll on the 6 chart, or is there a 7 chart? What's the result of a dif 2 being dealt with by someone with a 3 Quality? Zero or is there a -1 chart?

Mike

Mike,

Epiphany: The epiphany is the source of my problems, as its a thrown in mechanic to allow rating to be regained. I don't feel characters should just burn out and fade away, even heros of legend have moments of weakness. The idea of letting epiphany add new dramatic elements is cool, but I would argue that it should only happen when the virtue is raised beyond its previous maximum. This would stop characters from burning out their virtues and gaining new dramatic elements on the way back up.

I really like the idea of solid results in a dramatic element generates a virtue increase, but I have a hard time picturing what a solid result is on a Nerve based drama element.

Difficulty: The 0-6 difficulty scale was intended to encompass all action difficulties, with a hard limit of 6 at the top and 0 at the bottom. Of course, with only seven degrees its likely that one could exceed the scale. You could however, say every DR above 6 causes one less die to be rolled. This would generate a minimum of 3 dice at DR 9. Below zero, you could make the bonuses automatic (1 for point below). Just some idle thoughts, since its outside the 'lightweight' intent.

Thanks for the warm welcome!

Some ideas I had that may go with your overall concept. The may be a bit different though, so don't let me get too carried away. <g>

(1) 6d6 mechanics. btw, any reason you like these 6d6 mechanics, w/ the pool, and the bonus applied?

I feel that if you wanted, there are alternate ways of describing the dice that achieve the sme mechanic, if you wanted.

For example: Discount anything above 2. (This limit can be mod'd for the Reality level.) Add up the rest, and compare to DR.

(2) Heart/Fire. How about:
* Every time you make some contested choice in relation to your Drive/Nerve, add those to your Heart/Fire. Each subsequent scene involving said choice re-adds this again. You may choose to let Drive/Nerve relate to the acquisition of these drama points, rather than
* Every choice/scene that's "Cool" (not related to the choice/angst) reduces these by half. (Side-effect: after an emotional scene, as you're adrenaline recedes, the Injury will start to take actual effect.)
* Have some limit to keep the accumulation

Also, I was thinking:
* Create two tracks for bad things, like Setback and Injury (whereas Setback is more psychological, and can also represent temporary damage)
* Don't bother reducing either without in-game events (so you don't burn them for healing)
* Have the player define some Habit or something that, by doing, they can help reset their Setback to zero.

Part of me does feel that what you're going for is best addressed by the Heart/Fire aspects of the mechanics, rather than the 6d6 ones. Just my thoughts.

Dev,

I'll admit that I find your mechanic confusing- perhaps you could give me a little example?

I went with the 6d6 fixed pool mechanic for three reasons:

1 - It makes the same three steps of success possible for anybody, no matter the DR.
2 - It adds the concept of bonuses as something that a player/GM utilize as well.
3 - The rest of the game was so simple I did not feel that the complexity of the mechanic was an issue.[/list:u]

Quote(2) Heart/Fire. How about:
* Every time you make some contested choice in relation to your Drive/Nerve, add those to your Heart/Fire. Each subsequent scene involving said choice re-adds this again. You may choose to let Drive/Nerve relate to the acquisition of these drama points, -SNIP-
Every choice/scene that's "Cool" (not related to the choice/angst) reduces these by half. -SNIP-

I'm not sure how you are using the term 'contested choice' is that a contested action? or some a choice that conflicts with a dramatic element? The concept behind Drive/Nerve is the ability to properly utilized the emotional Heart and Fire for action, so I don't see how it would limit aquiring the points.

Reduces what by half? The total points, the accumulated points? Nevermind me, I'm just dense :D

The two track idea is interesting, and it could offer some interesting mechanics and gameplay. The thing that I wonder though, is that the loss of Heart and Fire already represents the idea of 'Setback'. I would think though that setback would be gained is some arbitrary manner, while H&F is spent on actions.

As far as reducing injury was concerned, I was thinking something simple- like the character recovers injury equal to their drive per week.

The habit sounds like a crutch for the players, something they can turn to for relief and comfort. Its an interesting idea and might work well if done right, but it could be disasterous. The game is not meant to paint the entire picture of a character, just their moments of trimuph and defeat. If the habit was something mundane as it probably would be, I think it would detract from the gameplay itself.

You have got me thinking again-
Thanks,
Jason

A clarification:

Quote from: DevFor example: Discount anything above 2. (This limit can be mod'd for the Reality level.) Add up the rest, and compare to DR.

By default, the "limit" is 2. Therefore, discard all die results over 2. Roll 6d6...

5 4 3 1 2 1 = 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 2 + 1 = 4.

1 3 1 6 4 3 = 1 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 = 2.

etc.

Quote from: Jason Petrasko

Quote(2) Heart/Fire. How about:
* Every time you make some contested choice in relation to your Drive/Nerve, add those to your Heart/Fire. Each subsequent scene involving said choice re-adds this again. You may choose to let Drive/Nerve relate to the acquisition of these drama points, -SNIP-
Every choice/scene that's "Cool" (not related to the choice/angst) reduces these by half. -SNIP-

I'm not sure how you are using the term 'contested choice' is that a contested action? or some a choice that conflicts with a dramatic element? The concept behind Drive/Nerve is the ability to properly utilized the emotional Heart and Fire for action, so I don't see how it would limit aquiring the points.

Reduces what by half? The total points, the accumulated points? Nevermind me, I'm just dense :D

I mean by "contested choice" that the character proactively makes a choice to explore or act on their Drive or Nerve. Each scene they enter into causes an activation (and increase of Heart + Fire points), and each subsequent scene involving this increases the level (rising tension); but the longer they act in ways that don't relate to their Drive/Nerve, these Heart/Fire points reduce by half each scene.