More Custom Character Sheets

Here are two more custom character sheets for a pirate game requested by the kids.

I let them choose from a variety of appropriate character images, which I processed through a mix of tools and pasted onto their sheets.

I like the output... not professional quality perhaps, but I think passable amateur quality.

More on the Stability of Societies

In thinking about how to attack a stable society, both for serious policy discussion as well as within a game, here are some articles related to the issue.

HERE is the grand old primer on ruthlessness, The Prince.  The summary is HERE.

HERE is one of the most poisonous primers for giving a society hell on earth.  The summary of Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals is HERE.

HERE is a discussion of how identity politics undermines social unity.

And HERE is a discussion about how we got to this point.

As I noted previously, I have tried to find ways to turn complicated issues into models in order to better be able to understand and articulate them.  It has concurred with my game design thinking which, I suppose makes the unpalatable reality less awful to swallow.

But looking at the factors of unity and the things that assault those unifying factors, I have to also think that the more I see calls for growing gaming by being more diverse and more inclusive, the more it occurs to me that the intersectional philosophy of so many talented designers is bad for this as it is bad for the societies that suffer from intersectional division.  Not that diversity or inclusion are bad per se.  They can be either good or bad depending on what diverse idea you include, and that is the rub... there seems to be a high ideal with a really shoddy understanding of the words that shape the ideas that shape the behavior. But I suppose that begins to deviate toward another discussion, so I will leave this today with the links above.

Those and this thought: we don't need more intersectionalism to bring justice to societies (or games)... we need more fidelity toward objective Truth and it's source, and more love toward all persons.  The ruthless division should be reserved for the ideas that we discard.

Essential Elements for Stable Civilizations

My single longest game design project has been political.

That is to say, that since 1993, morphing through three different game systems, and seeking inspiration from many others, I have been seeking to make a game about civilizations and politics in order to make it possible to more easily wrap my head around why people (as groups) do what they do.  Certainly, all the standard adventure, mystery, and horror stories that have informed my gaming across those years has held my interest.  Hero stories are, I believe, essential to inspire living a rich and full life.  But heroes do not exist in a vacuum.  They live connected to societies, and though they may end up not quite belonging because of their experiences, they are heroes because of what they have sacrificed for their societies.  The cowboy, the ronin, the knight errant... these are the essential characters that societies can neither live without, nor allow to live within them.  But I am also interested in the drama of humanity, and it is the interplay between societies that has in many ways fueled academic and personal study of history, geography, and culture.

Most of my political reading is poured after the fact into the stew of my game design brain.  I am really just trying to make thought models to understand and communicate ideas like serious political scientists, anthropologists, and historians... I just want to have fun with it too.

That said, one of the issues that has simmered over time, is the foundational question:

What is essential to make a group of people draw together and become a cohesive society?

Having revised and revised this list, and pared down continuously over time, I think that the following has sufficiently held up as a rubric in my brain to warrant a formal list (bum, buuumm!).

1) Language
2) Race
3) Religion (or Worldview)
4) Culture
5) Social Structure
6) Strong Government

These are all elements that draw groups of people together, and they go from the most cohesive element to the least.  They feed or draw from the other elements up and down the chain, and for every element missing, the society is weaker.  From a game design standpoint, they might be viewed as the thing that holds the place of hit points for a society, as they make the society resilient.

Language
This one is the foundation for the rest, since a society that cannot broadly and effectively communicate with itself will fall apart in confusion.  Those who have resources (material or immaterial) and know how to speak the language will be able to get things done while those who cannot speak the language will at best be isolated and left to whatever comforts their resources can provide.  Thus it is essential that a society be able to speak together from bottom to top and across any functional divisions.

Race
This is the most paradoxical element, being both extremely superficial and at the same time a critically instinctual marker that identifies who is part of the group from who is not.  In very basic biological terms, the human animal is distinguished by physical traits of size, shape, and coloration that in simple terms are what we call "race".  Those traits provide an easy marker for who is related and who is not, and therefore who is safe and who might not be.  As such, this is an element that on it's own, is perhaps the most ingrained to the human animal for bringing together a society.  However, as human interaction between races blurs lines, other elements make this potentially a very superficial element if there are explicit mitigating factors to make it so.  But lacking those other elements, race is an extremely powerful force for pulling societies into distinct, cohesive groups.


Religion (or Worldview)
This is a powerful element because given the fundamental ability to communicate, the worldview of the society provides the basic thought framework for the beliefs and values the society holds.  What they believe to be true and good informs behavior of the individual and the social pressure to reinforce it.  The most basic type of worldview is now and has been Religion in one form or another, and this has been the most durable, since religion not only answers where we come from and where we are going also what it all means.  Non-religious worldviews have also existed (e.g. communism/Communism) and held together states even when they have not done so as durably as ancient and still extant religions.  However, unlike language or race, worldviews may cross groups and provide a unifying force where the others are lacking.  I would suggest that lacking the language to communicate however, two groups with a like worldview are more likely to separate for more practical reasons, namely the inability to work out basic things like how to conduct trade among persons, or when one can go to the well.

Culture
This covers the day to day practices that are not necessarily explicitly and exclusively covered under the purview of another element and includes, at least, such things as the clothing, the food, the music, the art, the traditions, and the holidays that a society holds.  There is clearly overlap with Religion here, but many things (like chord structure in music) are not addressed in moral or theistic terms, but nonetheless matter to identifying a culture. and culture is very much influenced by it's geography (Polynesians lack the iron culture that the ancient Persians had, but were consummate navigators).  I suggest however, that culture is primarily about the hundred comfortable, familiar things that are shared by groups in common which act as a unifying force.  Without them, a society has to work harder to come together. 

Social Structure
This is about the organization of roles within a society that make it run smoothly as a unit.  Who has authority and responsibility over the activity, procedures, and production required to make a large group function over time.  It is concerned first with horizontal social relationships, and second with vertical relationships in the society.  This element, like race, is a two sided issue and can be either unifying or divisive since it has built into it who has material and social resources.  Furthermore, it also overlaps with religion and culture, with those potentially informing roles and responsibilities.  If this element is not strong, and the society members feel it is an unfair social structure, then it becomes a liability.  Note that a broad range of social structures is possible, and can well include everything from a very egalitarian society in which everyone has some authority in social decisions and shares similar wealth levels, all the way to extremely stratified societies in which a single ruler possesses 90% of the wealth and legal authority over the masses of the rest.  If the individuals of the society perceive that their needs are being met, social structure can be highly diverse.  Conversely, human nature can corrupt the most idealistic social structure if the people give in to their baser instincts.

Strong Government
A fair bit of overlap exists between the government and the social structure, but this is distinguished by a narrower function.  While social structure is primarily horizontal, this is mostly vertical, and has little necessary relationship with the other elements.  It is unlikely to be sufficient alone to maintain a lasting society, but may act where a vacuum exists in another area.  It is about defined authority from the top, not about assumed or understood social contracts, and is enforced by the sword tacitly or directly.  In concert with the other elements of society where they are strong, this is a far less necessary element, but where they are weak, this can act as a unifying force even if it is a unity woven of fear, desperation, and defeat.  

Using this set as a touchstone, I have been able to see how the pursuit of or eschewing of each of these elements has strengthened or weakened societies that I have studied in history or observe in today's news.  While not a perfect, or all encompassing model, it is nonetheless a model I have found to be consistently accurate in the broad strokes. 

Seeing that, I am working on how to use it to create verisimilitude for the political game I have been looking for for decades.

HERE is my current thinking in action.

Story Planner Tools for Games

So this took a bit because in explaining how I use this tool, I thought I might also explain _why_ I use this tool in preference to another.  This is more about designer explanation than player explanation.  If designer thinking is not of interest to you, skip down to the paragraph headed "ADVENTURE PLANNER IN PLAY".  I am going to explain a little about my design thinking first, and then I will use two examples to illustrate my tools in action, one that is familiar (Star Wars: E IV), and then an adventure that I plotted.

Seriously... if you are not really interested in design theory, or games as art discussion, SKIP this part.  For theater, TV/film, or literature geeks, there is nothing new here, move along.  Otherwise, proceed.

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OK... rpgs have in their DNA a little of oral folktales, a little of literature, a little of theater, and a little of TV/film.  Modern games often use the vocabulary of TV/film to discuss play, and as such, it is worth understanding what is in the DNA.  So... there are lots of dramatic structures through history.  One act, two act, three act, four act, five act... beyond that you get something that is more episodic than serial, and might find literature scholars and critics who delve into really really abstruse discussions on structures that are distinctly "art-house" in character.  I won't even go into that playground because very little of the adventure fiction that 90% of rpgs are inspired by follows structures remotely resembling them.  To reiterate, there are some great stories that have something other than three acts (e.g. all of Shakespeare, many of Spielberg's films, a lot of Hitchcock), but three acts is quick, easy shorthand for providing structure, and one of the reasons I have turned to Fate as my first choice game system, is that it is built on quick easy shorthand that is very suitable for telling powerful narrative stories.  Further, because three act structure is what most genre films (and much of television) that gamers are familiar with and use in their own cook books, it provides a very accessible structure to work within.

Is it the only structure?  Nope.  Is it the best?  If you are an avid student of Blake Snyder who wrote Save the Cat which is practically the required playbook for Hollywood writers, absolutely... if you look at the rest of story telling history from Homer to about 1980, then poppycock.  Some literary snobs are adamantly against three act structure for just that reason.  Rigidly codified three act structure is what has given us such films as Battleship, or The Amazing Spiderman, Transformers 2, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and X-Men: Apocolypse (all very formula though not especially good).  Snyder is still following the same basic structure introduced in antiquity, and you can take as much of the skin of his formula as you like and leave what you don't.  See, while the above examples are Snyder playbook scripts, so are the latest Bond films, the new reboot of Star Trek, The Avengers, and the Captain America movies.  The key is the basic structure as an organizing dramatic principle, with the willingness to weave a little when the mood strikes.  But a little more on formula.

Formula is everywhere in genre films now.  This tends to take the principles of structure and make them rigid rules, at which point creativity is more likely to break than not.  Sometimes it gets pulled off well but often not.  Escalation of conflict is something that is a principle assumed in many including the standard three act structure, as it tests the resolve of the protagonist to act within a story.  If the protagonist just gives up and goes home, the story tends to fall flat, so an escalation of conflict in pursuit of what is at stake should make both protagonist and antagonist commit to see a dramatic conclusion.  Done as a principle rather than a hidebound exact formula, this can be done in a host of creative ways.  But forced into the exact formula, it gets predictable and lazy.

Case in point... a tired trope, that absolutely should not be, is blowing-up-the-world threats in every single film of a series (X-Men: Apocolypse ... the most exciting piece of boredom in years).  It's only slightly less obnoxious sibling is the threat more-is-better problem.  Pirates of the Carribean for example, is a good film.  The stakes matter to both the protagonists and antagonists, and you curiously, don't find the rest of the world shaken.  But by At the World's End, the stakes have become global, and while not a bad film per se, it is weaker because in part, there is too much going on and it stretches too thin.  Same for all of the most recent X-Men (and other superhero) movies, and oh so many of the Bond films.  Regarding the last, look again at the Craig Casino Royal.  Excellent movie, with stakes serious enough for the characters to commit everything, but without blowing up the world.  

Finding ways to provide dramatic interest in talky rather than fighty ways between hero and villain provides another creative challenge, because on the one hand it allows a slower but continuous escalation, and reveals things that are more personal to the characters than you get when they are busy punching.  One particular plot device that feels very de ja vu is common to The Avengers, ST: Into Darkness, and Skyfall (all made about the same time)... they all have a formula plot in which the villain gets caught on purpose.  We can argue that this was done well or badly (IMO, Avengers pulls it off, the other two not so much, and that partly because Loki should be a trickster which is not the same as criminal mastermind).  For that matter, Dark Knight does it too very well.  There are other examples in the last two decades.  The reason for this plot device is to allow hero and villain a justified talky scene rather than a fighty scene, but as some have pointed out, the problem when used as a hidebound device, is that it ends up being predictable, and lazy. Indy and Belloq have a perfectly talky scene in Raiders in the bar... the original Wrath of Khan has plenty of talky scenes via view screen... Die Hard has plenty via radio.  This is where hard formula is proven to be unimaginative.

All of this is to point out that structure makes a stronger story than no structure, but following that hidebound formula can also lead to the horrible no-no of "railroading" . The basic framework helps clarify how to both allow player agency in an emergent story (I won't argue with the people who think emergent story is an invisible unicorn) and a dramatic arc that serves both plot and character.

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ADVENTURE PLANNER IN PLAY


This is the first page.  This should be filled out not in full before a campaign starts, but rather as story emerges through play.  So at the start of a campaign, the Title, Story Question, Themes, and Tone would be noted, and the Teaser and Inciting incident of Act I summarized.  The rest is only filled in as subsequent sessions are played.

For example, The Herald or Threshold Guardian might be alluded to in the first session of play, but not defined till after the session, and then introduced in the second session.  The rest of Act one might be very simply outlined and prepared for before the second session based on what the players do in the first, and then the player's actions of the second session suggest what would be planned for and outlined in Act two, which would also take about two sessions.  Act three would follow a similar model, though it might be resolved in one session, as the resolution might best be summarized by the players after the final climax.  The point of using this to structure things, is 1) to keep track of where the story has been, and 2) to try to focus the direction it is going while trimming off things that are emerging as superfluous.



This is the second page, and is likewise updated throughout play.  It is a quick recall tool of the things that need to be included meaningfully in the story.  If it is on here, it probably needs stats.  If not, things that come up in play can be thrown out on an ad hoc basis in play and only upgraded to mention here if they become important to the players.



This one drills down to individual scenes.  Here is where notes can be made for specific elements that will keep the action focused on driving the main story forward, and making clear what the scene is for, and what consequences it might have later.

 
And this supports the previous page by essentially breaking the scene into a fractal of it's own with a sort of three act structure.

So there they are.  They are not the only ones I have worked on, and they are still a work in progress.  I will undoubtedly continue to work on and revise them, as they are a little cumbersome at this point.  I would ideally prefer to cut down the set by at least half, and if I can find a satisfactory way to make it work on a single sheet, I will.  But here is this version.

Cheers.

Revisiting Wisdom

I posted these thoughts from two imperfect but wise men just over a year ago.  I was posting more regularly prior to that.  It seems that while I really love some of the creative work done by the indie game community, so much of what comes out on their social media feeds is trite, tiresome, and discouraging.  I am not part of the echo chamber that informs the worldview of so many of the designers who make games I really like.  And I have found that civil discourse respecting the person but questioning or, heaven forbid disputing their worldviews and politics is tantamount to sin.  If gaming is such a hotbed of oppression and privilege as claimed by so many in the community, then it is largely because they create dispute and dissension with many who just want to play games.

* * *  

“ Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that. Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. Hence, rioting is not revolutionary because it invites defeat. It involves an emotional catharsis, but followed by a sense of futility.”

Martin Luther King Jr.

It is unfortunate that so many who are otherwise thoughtful and creative can be so blatantly closed-minded, intolerant, and malicious toward anyone who does not agree with them, and feed them the warm hate they want. Ironic, when so many of these are the ones who claim righteousness against the very things they practice, but somehow find themselves excused of...

Some timeless thoughts from G.K. Chesterton:

"What embitters the world is not an excess of criticism, but an absence of self-criticism."

"Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions."

"Men do not differ much about what things they will call evils; they differ enormously about what evils they will call excusable."

"To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it."

Story Before vs. Story Now

HERE is a (now long in the tooth) essay by Ron Edwards that came from much discussion from active days of The Forge.

Alas... those years of my life were days when I really didn't have time for gaming, and so missed the exciting ferment that led to the indie renaissance.  *sigh*.  It is not fun being behind the curve as a wanna-be designer.

Short version: "Story Before" is plot first and then roll in characters that fit the plot.  "Story Now" is the characters acting as protagonists create the plot. 

Demons in Games

HERE is a discussion about demons in games that I thought was interesting, but lacking.

So here is the thing: demons (I believe) are first and foremost, rebels against the Creator of the universe.

They are fallen angels.  As such, they are:

1) Primordial sentient beings of super human power.
2) Former servants of the Almighty.
3) Beings who had the inordinate temerity to rebel against the Almighty...
4) ...and lost.

I infer from this that they are all at least:

1) Extremely capable.
2) Have the experience of extreme timespans.
3) Live with inhuman arrogance, inhuman denial, or both.
4) They have no hope, and live in a perpetual state of fear, anger, and malice.
5) Are essentially insane, and irrational no matter how smart they are.

None of this is really an amazing revelation.  Furthermore, while derived from the Bible directly, the medieval invention of the Seven Deadly Sins is not contrary to the character of the Bible either, so it is a useful model.  As noted though in the link, I like the earlier model of the Eight Evil Thoughts, and will work from those.  I don't think it is as interesting to link demons to elemental spheres, as their issues are moral and thus their "elements" are moral in character.  They may manifest incidentally in the world in an element, but this is incidental and personal to the individual.

So how would I go about designing a demon for a game?  I'm roughly thinking of Fate style mechanics, so assuming a d6-d6 or 4df die roll.

  1) Rate the Demon in each of the eight sins, with one at 6, one at 4, two at 3, two at 2, and two at 1. 

  - Gluttony
  - Lust
  - Greed
  - Pride
  - Despair
  - Wrath
  - Vanity
  - Sloth

  These are essentially the "skills" and "abilities" that the demon has.  Whenever they seek to take an   action that requires a roll in game, they choose which one they will use, so long as it can be justified.  It can obviously use any one of them in an effort to tempt a character, but it can also use them for itself.  It wishes to destroy the wagon-load of bread being sent as a charitable donation to a starving village?  It may use Gluttony to devour it all, or perhaps Wrath to strike the wagon with hellfire, or Despair, to blight it with mold.

  2) Choose two different species of animals.  These together give primary form to the demon.

  3) Choose an ordinary object that can be held, carried, or worn.  This is the primary tool for the demon, and through which it tempts, seduces, blasphemes, destroys, or fights.  It may or may not be integral to the body of the demon.

  4) Choose another object or place, without the limitation of size.  This is another focus through which the demon manifests both it's obsessions as well as it's power.

  5) Choose an abstract concept, role, function, or office.  This is one more focus for the demon to manifest it's obsessions and power.

  6) Items 2, 3, 4, and 5 are each defining personality traits for the demon.  Any time in which the demon may find one of them appropriate to a situation or action in the game, they may add a bonus +2 to the sin they are acting with.

So to spitball out a quick demon adversary for a game (and referring back to the original post for reference), I might come up with:

BLUE TOM

Gluttony: +2    Lust: +3    Greed: +1    Pride: +3    Despair: +6    Wrath: +2    Vanity: +1    Sloth: +4   

Demonic Form: (Toad and Chicken) Blue Tom appears in demonic form as a bloated, warty, slime covered beast with the feet of a chicken on the legs of a bull frog, with the body of a frog.  A rooster tail with scruffy feathers sprouts from the hind end, while the front legs are actually chicken wings.  It has a chicken head with enormous frog eyes.  When wearing a human shape, it is a skinny but pot bellied, haggard, slovenly man with stubble, and large watery eyes.

Object: (Guitar) Blue Tom lives as a blues musician with a heroine addiction.  In demonic form, unfolding one wing reveals a distorted guitar with exposed tendons for strings, and frets and keys out of bone.  In human shape, the guitar is a nauseous pearlescent crimson and venom green thing with unearthly haunting music coming from each string.  Each note sounds as if it is plucked from multiple instruments and resonates physically as palpably as it sounds upon the ear.

Object: (Weeping Willows on River Banks) Blue Tom's hunting grounds are bars, clubs, midnight diners, street corners and bus stops.  However, the place that he finishes his business is at willows on river banks.  Those he finds to destroy he induces to meet him at his places of power, and there is always water deep enough to drown in, and he has more than enough spare guitar string for a noose.

Role: (Accuser of the Guilty) Blue Tom's favorite prey is the person who seeks to drown their indiscretion in drink, be they the adulterer discovered, the embezzler caught, the contractor who cut corners revealed by a fatal accident.  This is the person that Blue Tom promises to give relief to, if they are willing to meet him 'neath the Willow Tree.

That is my take.

Hacks to The Quiet Year

After playing The Quiet Year a little more, I have a couple observations that the table made for those games.

1) The contempt tokens, as written, were mechanically irrelevant.  They only slightly mattered to the fiction.

2) Scarce and abundant resources are likewise mechanically irrelevant.  They too only slightly mattered to the fiction.

These are the house rules to The Quiet Year that my table now uses.

1) Contempt Tokens

These are an interesting idea, and as written, they are meant to introduce interpersonal / political conflict into the narrative of the community.  I think this is a good idea, but the problem, is that in every case, used as written, my table has found them lacking in punch.  You drop contempt on a project on the map?  Good for you.  Have a cookie and we will just go on with what we were doing.

Our Hack

We decided that when a Contempt token is placed on any project on the map, that project pauses and cannot continue to completion until the Contempt is resolved in the fiction.  What we found this does, is escalate the conflict and demand stronger factional commitment.  A resolution must be made, and the factions fight harder for what they want.  This can be by violence, or by bargaining with another project, but it does accelerate the story.

2) Resources

This is also a game about scarcity in the wake of a war.  The problem, is that after initially stating the scarcity or abundance of these things, they cease to matter.  Clean drinking water has been declared scarce?  The first round of play may introduce a distilling project, but after that, it might well be forgotten, or even if it somehow does not get completed, or gets destroyed, there seems to be no real impact on the subsequent events if it is not addressed again later in the game.

Our Hack

At the beginning of each player's turn, a cost or complication must be addressed related to one scarce resource.  A cost might add one to the count down dice for a project as it is slowed down, or a complication might be the loss of a character or thing in the fiction due to the scarcity of the resource. If, for instance, drinking water is scarce, if a well is not dug to get it, building a new wall around the village will take longer as everyone struggles with thirst.  By making this a rule at the start of each player's turn, it forces the community to have to confront it more aggressively, and put those scarcity problems more fully into play from the outset.

Beyond Word Association

I was just chatting and a fun thing came to me...

That old game to pass the time, the word association game, can be interesting for a bit, but it has short legs.  However, I do like to play it with children because it encourages the practice of intuitive associative thinking that is very much the stuff of metaphoric thinking, and thus poetry.

But when I was chatting, it came to me to lay a challenge not just of a free association between words, but rather, three things that describe a concept.

For example, I was asked, "Quick!  Say three Pale things...", and the spontaneous answer was, "A ghost of a chance... the lightness of joy... the convictions of a coward...".  Now we may argue just how apropos each is, or how and why they might or might not connect well, but it takes the old game a little farther.  Done in a back and forth, with no time taken to break the rhythm and explain, it can become a back and forth that sounds like a weird sort of riddle game between Hobbit and Gollum (or dragon).

I like this.

Video Games are Boring

...according to THIS writer who has had a career in video game design.  She has some interesting thoughts.

The things that stood out to me are these:

Common reasons people don't like video games because:

1) they are not interested in stimulation or conflict
2) because they lack depth (unlike books or films)
3) they don't identify with the characters or the setting
4) they just. Don't. Care. About. Realistic graphics, physics, or action.

What would entice non-gamers is:

1) taste (and preferred aesthetic)
2) depth
3) exploring who a character is in context to other characters and their situation

She talks about the idea of making games that reveal things about life and humanity.  This may often be impossible if the behavior that the game rewards and punishes funnels choices toward simple adrenaline fueled action over and over.

Religion and Magic in Fate

I would agree wholeheartedly that in too many games (and the novels that they inspire) magic feels very mechanical and technological.  I would argue that magic in games is most interesting when it is designed not according to a paradigm of physics and engineering, but from religion and symbolism... not the mechanistic but the anthropologic direction (as magical thinking actually did).  This is certainly disputable by players of a more engineering bent who prefer a less ambiguous way of including magic in games, but each to their own.

So the designer questions for game magic commonly include

Design Questions
*1) why would I want to be anything but a magic user?*
*2) what can you do with magic?*
*3) what can you NOT do with magic?*

These are useful, but I think more engineering type questions for designing an RPG magic system.  I'm going to swipe and modify a different list of questions (credit to Jared Sorenson as due) to take magic away from a mechanistic paradigm, and back into a more mythopoeic paradigm.  The narrativist focus from indi games is certainly more at the front than the gamist approach from so many other games with ODD DNA.

Alternate Design Questions
*1) what is magic about?*
*2) how do I reflect that in this game?*
*3) what behavior does magic reward and punish?*

My aesthetic is largely influenced by texts older than a century and a half, or by modern studies of still existing pre-industrial cultures or practices kept discrete from the industrialized world.  When I look at texts that describe magic uninformed by modern mechanistic thinking, a few things stand out to me:

Observations
*1) magic is highly related to religion, but is not the same*
*2) with magic, size is (mostly) irrelevant*
*3) the prime driver of magic is not energy but rather meaning*
*4) pursuant to 3, symbolic connections are what shape magic effects; principles of sympathy and contagion explain this*
*5) magic goes against the natural order, as defined by the powers of the world


So I am going to offer a very loose answer to your question of preferred flavors of magic and how it affects characters in the game world with those assumptions in mind.

Why would anyone be anything but a magic user in this game?  I answer this by answering the question of what magic is about.  I assume a world in which people are not ambivalent about the notion that they are but small things in a much larger and more powerful world with more powerful and willful agents behind that world (gods, spirits, devils, etc.).  The forces are constrained by their natures, and are powerful, but not omnipotent, omnipresent, or omniscient.  The priests who commit their lives to understanding these forces are most adept at interacting and negotiating with them.  A priest invokes the gods through the legitimately proscribed rituals to get an expected result.

A magician however, may make use of the understanding of the nature and power of the gods, but without regard to the morally proscribed invocation of that power.  In actual history, very often cultures would separate what they did locally as legitimate because it was locally appropriate to their gods, but what the other folk beyond the mountains did was magic.  Even in their own societies, those who practiced something heterodox from normal ritual were considered sorcerers rather than priests.  So here is my answer to question 1 from the first two lists above:

_1) Magic is about an individual (i.e. player characters) invoking a desired outcome through a transaction with the greater powers behind the world.  As such, it is potentially more powerful than any outcome that a mortal could achieve alone.  On the other hand, this is a power that requires a great investment in years of discipline, study, sacrifice, and service to acquire, and as such, precludes the participation in or acquisition of other kinds of knowledge, experience, or ability that other characters might have.  Furthermore, there are obligations to the powers that be that other characters do not have to observe_

In Fate mechanical terms, I would say that means that a magician must commit aspects, stunts, and/or skills in order to have access to magic.  The level of power determines how much investment of other mechanical elements it costs for access.  This is of course mostly the assumption taken already.

My answer to question 2 from the first two lists above is this:

_2)  Magic can potentially do anything, from innocuous charms to repel mosquitoes or light campfires, to awesome effects like summoning a plague to devour the crops in a village or raising a tempest against the enemy fleet in the channel.  The cost depends on what is sacrificed in the magical transaction.  Effects in the interest of the powers are more readily achieved.
Rituals using symbolic connections to the powers are performed in order to accomplish the invocation of the power.  The more symbolic connections, and the more strongly symbolic they are, the more powerful the effect._

In Fate mechanical terms, the cost does _not_ have any specific limitation on number of uses per day, or slots, or cost in manna pool or fatigue as the common price for using magic; magic is not powered like a battery.  The amount of energy to burn down a castle is of no more import than that to light a candle where the powers behind the world are concerned.  What does matter is the _significance_ of the action.  Lighting a candle is of little significance to anyone but the user of the candle.  Burning down a city is highly significant to thousands.  As such, while a magician may very well be able to burn down a city, the magician will bear the burden of finding a way to pay for the loss of property and lives of thousands.  The cost may be a year of the magician's life for every life taken... or the blood sacrifice of no less than a king or queen to rain fire down on the city.

How to judge lesser effects?  I would offer that rituals are performed to establish the strength or legitimacy of the invocation, and each symbolic connection between the effect, and the subject/object of the effect increases efficacy.  Size or value of the components (material, verbal, somatic, focal) is only as significant as they are in the heart and mind of the magician.  For example, if an aspect or stunt is dedicated to a magic staff, or the power of the magician's voice, that thing should be more potent (say a +3 when used).  Otherwise performing rituals are essentially a challenge series of creating advantages to make significance of the objects used.  You want to raise a storm to wreck a ship; your breath blown ritually over a bowl of sea water is two elements.  Your breath might be of a basic similarity to wind, while sea water in the bowl is more powerfully symbolic of the sea itself.  If you collected the spray of a breaching whale (the Breath of the Leviathan) that is in itself worth a bonus as both wind and the water of the sea, and thus worth more.

Need to work more on writing up the details, but there is the concept.

Yes, No, Black, or Blue (a game)

A little word game invented by my friend, the Finn...

This is a conversation game.  The idea is that you and your friend or friends gather for dinner, or while on a walk, and as you do so, you try to trick the other person or persons into saying one of the forbidden words, while avoiding their subterfuges.  Or their overt schemes.

The rules are simple.

You must answer questions you are asked.
You cannot win without asking questions of your own.
You can't say "Yes", "No", "Black", or "Blue".
You can't say variations of "Yes" or "No", nor use gestures or nods for these.
You can say synonyms of "Black" or "Blue".
You can't say "Forbidden Words".
People who are out are allowed to still talk, but not ask questions.

When someone speaks an unmentionable word, you laugh at them, and point... and then move on to the next.  Be the last one standing.

Different Ways to use Dice Mechanics to Support Story

HERE is an interesting article about Jason Morningstar's evolution of dice mechanics in support of different games.

1) conflict resolution
2) uncertainty resolution
3) scene resolution (positive or negative)
4) provoke new events
5) track scenes/limit time
6) reinforce game's themes (by die type) with mechanical benefit
7) incorporate character elements (by die type) with mechanical benefit
8) limit choices
9) guide story ends
10) track change in character
11) make change in character

D&D Behind Bars (or Do All Rogues Play Rogues?)

HERE is an interesting article about inmates in maximum security prison who play D&D.  It seems that it has a good record of getting people who have made anti-social choices in life to practice cooperation, empathy, and self sacrifice in ways that they did not before prison.  I thought this little bit was curious:

Which kind of escapism the inmates at Sterling gravitate to is perhaps best illustrated by the moral alignment they choose for their characters. In D&D, a character's moral compass is known as their 'alignment' and is determined by two axes: good/evil and lawful/chaotic. On one extreme are the lawful good characters, defined by their sense of compassion and affinity for the rules. On the other, chaotic evil—callous rule-breakers driven by self-interest. Despite their often erratic real life behavior, Klug noted that his players gravitate towards lawful good characters. Sometimes, this role involves self-sacrifice—a trait not usually associated with prison life. Yet these inmates are game to try. After all, everyone likes to think of him or herself as a good person, and the best way to get there could be through a little practice and a daily dose of game therapy.

Good on them.

More Thoughts on Pagan Religion in Games

One of the things that becomes very clear reading accounts of actual pagan religion, is the fuzzy distinction, if not lack of distinction between pagan gods and the idols that represent them.  In traditional OSR games informed by Gygax's aesthetic, clerics and paladins might on paper be worshipers of any number of pagan deities, usually in some henotheistic fashion that still was virtually indistinguishable from Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox structure, hierarchy, and praxis (with little regard for theology).  Given that it was rooted in war gaming, and the role of cleric or paladin mechanically was to provide a different way to win at murder hoboing, this is understandable.

Be that as it may, looking at the way actual pagans treated their idea of gods was different.  The idea of a god that actually inhabits a sacred grove, or spring, or tree feeds into the idea that an idol set in a temple can also be the literal inhabited body of the god.  This has a few interesting implications for gaming priests.

1) The god is present where their idol is.  Unlike the Judeo-Christian understanding of God who is spirit and to whom idols are anathema, pagans would carry their shrines and idols with them where they traveled, be these the deified ancestor shrines, or the more general national god shrines.  A properly kitted out pagan priest should likely have variable levels of luggage with commensurate degrees of value to performing ritual petitions; a pocket idol for day travel and small petitions, a coffer sized shrine for short journeys for moderate petitions, and a cart sized shrine useful for longer journeys or semi-permanent establishment and more serious petitions.

Mechanically, this should probably be reflected in the power or scope of miracles available to be petitioned by the pagan priest, with larger shrines making for either easier petition, or greater powered miracles, or both.

2) Defeating your enemies in battle makes taking their gods (the idols in their shrines) as booty a particularly prestigious trophy.  The logic is that if the enemy lost, then their gods were less powerful than your gods, and thus just as the enemy can be captured (if not killed) their gods too can be enslaved.  For instance, in Samuel I and II, and Kings I and II, there are many examples of pagan peoples carrying away the gods of those whom they had vanquished in order to display them as servants at the feet of their larger and more prestigious home idols.

Mechanically, this should probably mean that captured gods (idols) reduce the power or likelihood of petitioned miracles.  That is exactly why the cleric has reason to adventure with the thief; somebody has to go rescue those idols.  The ramifications of this alone are grist for many possible side adventures if not main adventures.

3) Establishing shrines as nodes of power, and colonizing an area with more of your idols makes a region more potent for your god or gods.  It may very well be that pagan priests could develop a sensitivity to the piety of a region, and the power level or the likelihood of petitions being granted, and this would provide a strategic value to the cleric in decision making that did not exist before.  This could get especially thorny if the adventurers were in a land of foreign gods and their priests have the edge.  The very real value in planning ways to corrupt their priests and desecrate their temples in order to tip the scales is a fantastic way to change the pacing and layers of story in a mission.  Again, it makes a really compelling context for the priest to adventure in the company of the rogue who can grift the foreign priest into defiling themselves with drink, forbidden food, or other carnal infractions in order to block their access to the power of the idols, which in turn allows an opening to break the power of their temple.     

An Idea for Refresh with Flashbacks in Fate

I was thinking about a way to make mechanics support fiction with Refresh in Fate.  The default position is that refresh is filled at the beginning of a session.  I also want to make it a reward to the players to actively include flashbacks and backstory snippets that explain their histories and the world they have bumped up against.

Rather than giving refresh in the default fashion, I propose that when a player calls for a flashback, or has a backstory moment that explains one of their abilities, they get a fate point refresh.  This can happen at any time in play, but is limited to the level of the character's refresh for that session.

A flashback should be about a learning experience involving the skill, stunt, or aspect the player wishes to use, but can be either an account of success or failure.  Though not required, if it includes a shared experience with another PC, that PC also gets a point of refresh.  If another PC is brought into the scene, they should give some input as to their part in the experience.  The player of the flashback character should suggest something about the scene, the reason the other character was there, and something about a conflict or challenge presented either to them both, or between them.  It is the job of the second player to use the "yes, and..." principle to add to the vignette.  This is a good time to include things that the two characters can banter or bicker about.

Furthermore, the flashback need not be (should not be) long, but a vignette, and need not give a whole or complete resolution, so long as it shows a point that was pivotal or meaningful to the character.

So, for example in play, suppose a character is lining up a tough long range shot at an enemy, and the player needs a fate point.  They may call for a flashback at that moment.  In the flashback, they describe how they were out hunting with their friend (another PC) before their adventuring days.  The deer is in the sights, but it is a hard shot, and the character mentions how they were both very tired, hungry, and annoyed with each other by that time.  The other player, following the "yes, and..." principle, keys in on the annoyed bit and says in the flashback, "you'll never make the shot."  The first player describes how they squeezed on the trigger, breathing out "damned if I don't...".  The flashback ends.  The GM passes over a fate point to each player.

This is good, since it allows an ambiguous ending to the flashback that gives both players something to work with.  The second player can decide that the shot missed, using that moment for their character to say "it's too far.  We can't afford for you to miss this one", which invites a response, tense, cocky, or otherwise.  Or they may choose the generous route, and offer "good thing you finally learned how to shoot" which still invites a response, whether banter or bickering, such as "yeah... too bad you still haven't".  Roll.  Spend fate point.  Be awesome.

Man Against Nature in Fate

In an interesting discussion on G+ Fate Core page, the question of how to "fight the environment" came up.  The setting in question is a zombie apocalypse world, and after some discussion, here is my take on a man vs. nature (or un-nature) challenge.

I'm a fan of Zombie fiction like Dawn of the Dead, World War Z (book not movie_) or The Walking Dead not because the zombies are the villain (they are pretty boring for that) but because a zombie apocalypse strips us naked and forces us to confront inexorable death with grace and humanity, or with savagery and terror... 

Of course the zombies of the apocalypse are part of the environment, as often as they are directly an opponent, properly done. 

Consequences are a mechanic that supports us understanding what the cost of our choices successful or not, is in the fiction.  As such, I would argue that the zombies themselves, as a practically endless horde, make consequences a moot issue.  

Stress is about the near misses or the things that could have cost us but didn't.  It's alternatively a way to pace conflicts, but as a pacing mechanism without consequences or the ability to take out the opposition, is no different than scoring successes in a challenge or a contest.  So mechanically, again I would say stress for the zombie horde itself is a moot issue.

It makes more sense to address the horde part of the apocalyptic environment as an obstacle to be overcome, and that you can create advantages on.  An advantage you create mechanically may be "Hacking the Horde to Bits" with your chainsaw in the fiction; your Zombies! approach vs. the player's Fight skill.  Likewise, PCs can create an advantage like "rickety barricades" with the Twinkie shelf and the ice cream freezer mechanically, which in the fiction prevents you from using your Zombies! approach till you have overcome their barricade.  That all works out neatly mechanically with little fuss, and reflects the fiction perfectly.  The Brick can still do all the fighty stuff while the Brainiac does the crafty stuff, and it would just be as created advantages mechanically even though in the fiction it would be hacking the zombies to bits with garden tools while the other is fixing the car.

MURRAY'S FULL SERVICE AUTO STATION

Aspects:

Decrepit Zombie-Infested Gas Station

Broken Glass And Debris

Collapsing Veranda Roof

Scene Goal/Murray's: Hinder and Devour the Living

Scene Goal/PCs (Pick One):

Scavenge fuel (3 victories) - Applicable Skills: Notice, Investigate, Survival, Crafts, Drive.  Tasks: Find gas can and siphon; find a vehicle with fuel, siphon fuel.

Scavenge a working vehicle (5 victories) - Applicable Skills: Notice, Investigate, Survival, Drive.  Tasks: Find vehicle keys; Find matching vehicle; Scavenge Fuel (as above).

Scavenge a part to fix a vehicle (7 victories) - Notice, Investigate, Survival, Crafts, Drive.  Tasks: Find needed part; remove broken part; replace part; scavenge fuel (as above).

Zones: Behind the Service Station; In the Service Bays; In the Convenience Store; In Front of The Service Station

Skills/Approaches:

- Zombies! (+4): Can Overcome, Create advantages, Attack, and Defend.  The behave like Romero Zombies, slow, mindless, tireless, hungry.  

 - Hazards (+3): can attack and defend.  This is strictly reactive, and cannot create advantages or overcome, but can harm or hinder direct actions by characters who move through, or interact with the environment (other than zombies).

- Notice (+2): Can overcome, discover (CAA), or defend.  This assumes the area has active agents to notice things - e.g. the endless hordes of Zombies.  You use this to make active agents (zombies) become aware of characters.

- Scarcity (+2): Can create advantages, and overcome.  This represents the lack of, or requirement to have to improvise for characters to find the resources they need.  You use this defend against character's attempts to find things they need.

Stunts:

- No Straight Paths:  Murray's gains a +2 to Defend with Hazards when Heroes move from one Zone to another to Attack.

- Wake The Dead:  adds +1 to Zombie! for one scene on a successful create an advantage roll with Notice when and if loud noise, bright lights, or recklessly obvious movement draws attention in Murray's.  Yes it starts small, but is open ended as a zombie horde grows.  Reckless parties could find themselves in a sea of hungry dead...  

- That's Not The Item You're Looking For:  Murray's has a +2 to Scarcity when creating the advantage That's Not The Item You're Looking For after the Heroes think they have found the item they were searching for.

October Challenge... Harder Than I Thought

SO, I set a challenge for myself on the 1st to write a game a day just as a brute force method of priming the creative pump.

It used to be so easy... alas!

But as I look at it, I have had the second thought that there are 24 hour RPG challenges (like THIS for instance) that are described as a designer's triathlon meant to push the limits of creativity in design, fiction, and layout, and these only happen once a year.

And I blithely thought I would do 31 in a row.

SO I have decided to be a bit more modest in my plans, as one of the designs I spent some hours with this weekend past kept bogging me down with the perfection monster.  As such, I will strive not to be concerned if there is a complete game per se every day, so much as a vignette of a game.  I suppose that much of what I will expect would count as a subsystem of a game.

But, there it is...  Art and Fear... quality comes out of quantity. 

The Sound Of One Hand Clapping: OR Thoughts On Writing An Adventure Without Writing It

So on of the problems that comes of being a gamer "of a certain age" is that there is so much more of life that demands my time, leaving so much less for being able to play.  This is doubly so as I think of rpgs.  The time and effort that I once had to plan, craft, write, and map careful game adventures simply costs too much compared to the fact that, 1) I'm not getting paid for it (though this is a point for some other discussion), and 2) I may never get a chance to fully use it.  The last time I went all out writing, plotting, drawing out timelines, locations, maps, handouts to include faux news clippings (on newsprint paper), antique book pages, faux email printouts, and matchbooks for exclusive clubs... I only got about 1/3rd of the way through the campaign before it petered out due to player time commitments.  I think that one hurt more than I am consciously aware of, as that was distinctly the last time I gave that much creative effort on a labor of love in a game.

But it was also one of the things that moved me ineluctably down the road toward indie games with more rules light and narrative design principles.  As much as I still think that GURPS and Pathfinder for instance are well designed engines, I really just love Fate (and the host of Fudge-like games of a kind) for it's mechanical simplicity, bounding the mechanics by narrative statements.  This kind of game is to be sure, one for players you trust, but I don't want to play with the other kind anyway.  So the challenge is trying to find a way to get satisfactory story out of minimal prep.

Fate does this by making "Session 0" a critical feature, with issues, and games based on say, Apocalypse World have fronts, but otherwise "play to see what happens".  I suppose that what I am thinking about then, is a way to kind of start with those sorts of things, and add just a little more structure so I can create and thereby provide a little more detail.  So it seems that a good starter question for each session, is to have the players review the issues and their individual character goals, and considering context and continuity of what they did previously, ask the players the following question to start the game:

What are you doing?

Now the answer to this cannot be a weaksauce answer.  No "chilling in the tavern", or "shopping for equipment upgrades".  This has to be a clear, powerful answer that is an expression of what the character wants enough to fight for, perhaps kill for, and perhaps die for.  In Fate, this is easy to do by examining aspects, and then figuring out how that action can go wrong... what can be worse, or what complications are expected.  This should be detailed, and provide the specific picture for the starting scene of the game.  This is also a good time to get fate points, and in a particularly gritty game, rather than refreshing automatically, give FP based only on this.  But the players ought to do this, perhaps as a flashback, creating the starting scene.

Next, based on what trouble they have chosen to get themselves into, they need to suggest two or three steps, or sub goals, or objectives that they need to take in order to get themselves out of that jam.  These can be a bit broader, leaving tags that the GM can plug into an overall scene planner to shape the game in a fashion that provides more build and story unity without a whole bunch of pre-loaded prep.  The players get what they want in broad strokes, and the GM gets to make stone soup - letting much of the heavy lifting be done by others.

This is very close to what It's Not My Fault does, with just a little bit of customizing.

Conflict Currencies In Game Design

So ultimately what separates a story from a documentary or some other kind of mere information media, is the narrative of a normalcy - conflict - normalcy cycle.  The meat of the story, is the conflict and it's resolution.  No big news there, but it does bring to mind a way to frame a design principle in my mind for story games of all kinds.

Going back to Jared Sorenson's three questions for game designers:

1) What is my game about?
2) How does my game do that?
3) What behaviors does my game reward and punish?

The first question is not about the setting, but rather the theme of the game.  So D&D actually is (at least in most of it's older incarnations) about killing things and taking their stuff.  Star Wars the rpg is not about a galaxy full of aliens and spaceships, but it does begin to tell us something meaningful when it gives us the fairy tale cues "A long time ago" and "a galaxy far, far away", and when we begin to understand it through the sub titles (A New Hope).  Star Wars, is about not giving up living, breathing hope in in the face of an oppressive mechanistically ordered system.  It is about the personal war between choosing Life vs. The Machine.

The second question is identifies the things that the mechanics need to address or ignore in more detail.  D&D (old school) has lots of rules for combat, physically damaging things, surviving physical damage, and advancing with more and better equipment purchased with lots of treasure.  Alternatively, Star Wars is a story centered on moral and spiritual choices, the rpg, to really capture the essence of that story, needs to have strong mechanics for the morality of choices, and mechanics that address temptation and corruption.  Because it is not a piece of military techno-fiction, nor a story about the clever advances of scientists and engineers, any mechanics regarding the finer points of tactical advantages or power to thrust ratios of engines is actually superfluous to the game... Star Trek is the next game over on the shelf.

The third question digs deeper into how you actualize the types of important mechanics.  D&D offers experience points for killing monsters, and for gathering treasure, which put into the player's hands, allow upgrades and bonuses to the character's abilities which make them more effective at fighting and surviving.  Star Wars should have some measure of where the character stands in relation to the light side or dark side of the Force, as well as some kind of way to measure in play changes in status depending on actions taken in the story.

This gets me to my refinement on the second and third questions (is that 2.5?  or 3.5?...).  My question is:

??) What is the Conflict Currency?

Whether the kind of conflicts that are important are sword fights, star ship battles, social brinksmanship, or pitching woo in hopes of enduring love, the meat of any story is about those basic literary questions:

1) What does (character X) want?
2) Why can't they have it now?                              =                  CONFLICT!!!
3) What is at stake if they don't get it?

The Conflict Currency then, is what mechanically represents the things that are important to the kind of conflict in the story the game is telling.  It is safe to say that most rpg's include some king of physical combat.  This is one of the common kinds of conflict then, and needs some kind of conflict currency.  This is often represented by accumulated hit points in some way that are paid as the price for being hit, and weapons with some kind of rating in how many hit points they can cause to be spent.  Another kind of conflict currency is used for the use of magic.  Whether there is a budget of magic points (a.k.a. a "mana" system) or  a budget of slots for pre-packaged spell effects (e.g. a "Vancian" magic system, a la D&D), these get spent and are recovered in some cyclic fashion like hit points, in order to get effects in the game.

To be sure, virtually every rpg has multiple conflict currencies, as there are multiple kinds of conflicts that are available, or at least multiple strategies for confronting and overcoming the arch conflict.  It gets to be problematic if you are playing a game for which there is not any conflict currency, or for which you have some currency that feels undervalued in that economy.  This can be a way to focus a game of course, but it can also make some kinds of play feel short changed.

Not to bully D&D, but I will use it as a case in point (and it is not by any means the only one, and in fact provided the foundation economies by which many game designs have been built).  D&D has a varied and interesting economy for conflicts that are at their core, about killing creatures that you wish to pillage.  There is the basic attack action with weapons that costs the opponent hit points.  There is also a host of magical and magical-like effects that likewise either improve your likelihood of making a successful attack action, or increases the amount of hit points that are expended for a hit.  There is a multi-stage cycle of die rolls that shape the outcome.  However, if the players should instead want to play a battle of wits and cunning, there is a much more simplified pass/fail mechanic for that kind of conflict, generally resolved with a single die roll.  Should the player want to play out the advancement of a romance that sparks, smolders, and ultimately blazes into a bonfire, there are no mechanics whatsoever.  D&D is really not a game for rom-com conflicts then, which is neither here nor there, as that is not the stories that it is designed to tell.

But it does demonstrate why thinking about conflict currency matters to game design.  So if I am designing a game of grand, sweeping, dynastic conflict, I need to ask myself, what kind of Conflict Currency I need for that game.  Fate is a really great toolbox for this as the same basic mechanical blocks can very easily be re-skinned or re-named to match the themes of the story in question.  Does a dynastic political game need rules for the common procedural elements of adventure games like sword fighting and sneaking?  Not really, or not in the normal sense.  But there does need to be some kind of conflict currency for diplomatic treaty resolution, the wax and wane of public opinion, and the strength or weakness of succession faces and factions.  This phrasing makes it a little sharper when deciding how to answer or refine the answers to Sorenson's questions 2 and 3.