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My Designs Are Inadequate And So Are Yours
Dariel Quiogue wrote:
Hi Frank!
I found this post very meaty and a useful guide in my design of a homebrew system. Not that I hope to achieve fame with it or anything of the sort (ha ha), but getting the creative urge is like having a full bladder - you gotta do it. And, of course, the main motivation of any would-be game designer - there are aspects of reality (or reality as I perceive it) that I want to model and see in play which no existing system models to my satisfaction.
<snip>
THEMES AND SETTINGS
Hm. It comes to mind that another way of looking at this is to examine the Setting and Theme of the particular game or adventure. AD&D was an attempt to blend the pseudo-medieval world of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings with the derring-do of Conan the Barbarian. AD&D was thus set up for two basic themes; the Raid, a foray into a place of danger for the sake of personal gain or to eliminate an enemy, and the Quest, a foray into a place of danger for other reasons, usually involving some magical maguffin. Both usually involved a lot of combat. There were neither satisfactory mechanics nor reasons to play out the lives of characters outside of the "dungeon."
But there are lots of other themes and settings; if rpgs are a new form of literary experience - which they must be, else they're actually wargames masquerading under another name - there's a whole lot of other sources that can be mined for stories and adventures. Now don't get me wrong - I enjoy combat wholeheartedly, but to me it's always a means to an end; whether it is the means I prefer or not depends on the character I'm playing.
It is the responsibility of the GM to acquaint his players with the Themes and Setting of his game, so that players will know what qualities - including, but not limited to, skills - they should give their characters. These qualities in turn must have weight in the game; that is, they allow the characters to have an impact on the world they move in.
For example, in the two Pendragon campaigns we're currently playing (Boy King and Breaking of the Red Branch), the focus is on chivalric heroism; while there is a premium on fighting skills as combat is frequent and bloody, the milieu itself, and the system which models it, makes other character descriptors important. There are bonuses for having and displaying the chivalric personality traits of courage, honor, generosity, justice and the like. There are frequent tests of certain noncombat skills such as oration (storytelling and poetic recitation), music (singing and harping), etc etc - and success in these result in the character gaining something important in the milieu such as fame or romantic attentions.
All themes put a premium on certain qualities - again, not just skills. The Pendragon campaigns I just mentioned rewarded personalities founded on sheer guts and flamboyance; as for intelligence - Pendragon doesn't even have an Intelligence stat (as Tommy once put it, a chivalric warrior's brains are in his ***). The same qualities, however, would tend to be disadvantages in a World of Darkness campaign.
ARENAS
A game may be seen as a series of "arenas" in which player characters are tested; this is where the idea of "Victory Conditions" and "Theme" converge. The different arenas the player can expect his character to be thrown into depend very much on the Theme of the adventure. These arenas occur at vital plot points throughout the game; success or failure determines the direction of the plot from that point, until the next crisis is reached.
Some of the possible arenas are:
1.Combat
2.Subterfuge - sneaking, breaking and entering,
3.Diplomacy - negotiation, supplication, befriending, intimidating
4.Performance - practice of a performing art like singing or oratory
5.Investigation
6.Puzzle-solving
7.Romance - <cough! cough! blechh! ack!>
8.Tests of Integrity - dilemmas that test the character's values and ability to adhere to themA GM must determine how these arenas are to be used in his game and what meaning they will give to the whole thing. I personally found fighting for treasure and xp's alone boring; without a truly dramatic motivation, combat became a pointless series of wrist exercises (rolling the dice). Success must lead to a desired change that is of dramatic value - the winning of a crown, fulfillment of a vow of revenge, fame and glory, uncovering a secret, preservation of one's own honor, etc etc.
TWO BASIC TYPES OF SKILLS
There are two basic types of skills according to what they do in the game; "seasoning" skills, which can actually alter a character's chances of success in the game, and "food color" skills, which round out or emphasize some aspect of the character's personality or background but mean nothing to the way the game is played.
I argue that if a skill has no meaning in the game, it need not be there at all. If a player wants such a "food color" skill for his character, it should cost nothing at all, or at the very most a minuscule percentage of his purchasing power.
Personally, however, I believe all skills can be given meaning; there is nothing we know that doesn't have a practical application somewhere. Some skills, though, tend to be more important than others.
SKILL DENSITY
Various game systems represent skills in varying levels of detail; some list only a few broad skills, others list scads of highly specialized skills. Take for example the skills various systems require to use a typical longsword:
Melee - White Wolf, Star Wars
1-Handed Weapon
1-Handed Edged Weapon - GURPS?
Weapon Proficiency: Sword group - from the AD&D Fighter's Handbook
Longsword - AD&D Player's HandbookNote that with each level the skill grows less and less "dense" - that is, it covers an ever-narrower field. Most game systems make the decision to go general or specific on a universal basis - that is, the level of detail used applies to all the skills available in the game.
I argue that the density of a skill or skill group be modified according to the application of the skill in the game. Skills vital to the game should be low-density (specialized), while skills not so vital to the game should be high-density (broad).
For example, it should be possible for a warrior character in a game like AD&D to have a separate skill for each of the weapons he's carrying such as sword, mace, axe, dagger, etc; "color" non-weapon proficiencies however can be described in general - Craft for smithing or basketweaving, Survival for all hunting, fishing and orienteering skills, Performance for all singing and musical instrument skills, etc etc.
In the game systems Adrian and I are designing (characterized by lots of mutual Intellectual Property Rights violations), skills are tiered; it is possible to buy both general and specific abilities, and the values "stack" up. Since the costing scheme for such skills is cumulative in my system, it is effectively cheaper to buy several "layers" of the same ability group rather than raise any one aspect to a high level. A side benefit is that greater character variety is possible, as characters that have similar competencies in the same field may now have them for different reasons.
Speaking of random effects, one would expect that an expert at a particular skill would consistently be able to achieve the same effect each time he uses that skill. A rank amateur would be expected to achieve a diversity of effects, most of which are bad. For those who are statistically inclined, I’m talking about lowering the standard deviation of the effect for experts and increasing it for novices.
Say, wha-? Okay, let me illustrate this by way of an example. Imagine that we have a character who is an expert at shooting a stationary target. After years of practice, he can be expected to hit the bull’s eye practically all the time. Compare him to a novice shooter, who will more likely shoot many areas around the target, possibly even outside the target, rather than hit the bull’s eye itself. The more practiced the novice becomes, the smaller will be the scatter pattern around the bull’s eye. The more consistently will he then be able to achieve the effect that he wants.
This is why I've always preferred die roll + constant systems over die-pool systems. Die-pool systems tend to be much more random, specially when they use dice with more faces; contrast for example L5R, which uses d10's, and Star Wars, which uses d6's.
... Oh, all right, I guess I’m partial to FUDGE, the free game system, because it presents a very elegant core that still allows me to define the rules the way I want to. Nevertheless, it does give the game master a lot of work to tackle. If you’re trying to design your own generic game system, you’re going down a path that many others have paved before. The level of acceptance for many game systems, such as GURPS and FUDGE, is so high that you face very stiff competition in the RPG
world.Hey, all right, another convert (to FUDGE)! I must agree that FUDGE is one of the most flexible and elegantly designed generic systems I've seen - and it's free to boot.
Dariel
Adrian Martinez wrote:
Dariel, this reminds me of the Inventory of Situations I sent you a few weeks back. Idea: could we use a series of questions based on those situations, rendered in the idiom of the milieu the GM plans to run, as a guide for players to come up with their character concepts? I was thinking that each situation could have an illustration drawn from the milieu. This would also serve to clarify to the world builder what his world is like.
Dariel Quiogue wrote:
Not surprising, since the seed of this writing came from that very document. Yes, I think we could use descriptions of the arenas to be encountered as a guideline to how characters are to be created. However, rather than being obvious it might be better to let the player read a short story based on the milieu that illustrates these points. This goes back to Tommy's recommended reading, but in addition to this enterprising GMs can write prologues for their campaigns that will be given the players to read well before character creation actually starts.
Though I am aware of and have come across such 'food coloring' skills, I have always tried to make every skill -- or ability in MATRIXX parlance -- count in terms of story terms and game mechanics. Alas, I cannot say that I have achieved success as yet, but I still try. The reasoning I have behind this is that if anything in the world exists, it must exist for a very good reason. There is meaning in existence, and therefore it is a possible plot hook. Good in theory, but I have yet to find a way to put it into practice. Sigh. The quest continues!
Such skills have meaning only if GM and player collaborate to do so.
I encountered this conundrum when I was trading ideas with Deke a long time ago before he and Cindi moved out of Sta. Ana. I was working on my system even way back then (Frank, you can attest to this. My madness began back in college when I began fiddling with the DragonQuest Rules!). Finally, in desperation, I threw up my hands and adopted a multiple ability stacking system.
It is always good to be stacked ... <ducking for cover>
On further reflection, I guess a more accurate metaphor of the ability stacking system I have been trying to make would be the Lego block system. That is, the character in question "assembles" his response to any situation from his repertoire of abilities.
hm ...
Dariel
"Number One, in my cabin, now! Resistance is futile!"
Frank Perez wrote:
MY DESIGNS ARE INADEQUATE, AND SO ARE YOURS
A total shock. These are the only words I have to describe how I felt when I combined Dariel's concept of arenas and my use of the Pareto rule in choosing skills. I now realize that every RPG system created since the dawn of civilization has been woefully inadequate. Hell, my own pathetic attempts at game system design have been sorely lacking. If you've been thinking the way I had, then your own designs must be inadequate, too.
You may be asking, "What sort of drivel is this?" I bet you are wondering right now if poor old Frank Perez has gone stark, raving mad. Mwah-ha-ha-ha-hah! I'm not mad. I've merely undergone a paradigm shift. (Heh-heh. Talk about euphemisms.)
WHAT THE HELL IS THIS PARADIGM SH-T?
Allow me to explain. A few messages ago, I posted a 5-page article that showed why I believe that there is no such thing as an ideal game system. That's right. It took me five pages to tell everyone that there is no ideal game system.
In that article, I stated that the design of a game system is dependent on the milieu for which it will run. Hence, a system may be excellent for a particular game world but inappropriate for another milieu.
I also came up with an application of the Pareto rule in selecting the skills to model. The Pareto rule (also known as the 80-20 rule) states that 20% of one's operations accounts for 80% of one's returns. The remaining 80% of one's operations accounts for a mere 20% of one's returns. Hence, if you want to make a big impact, rank your operations according to how much returns they yield and concentrate on improving the top 20% of these operations.
If we are to apply this principle to selecting the skills to model, I suggested that we determine the top 20% of the activities that characters do to achieve victory conditions in a particular game world and from these derive 80% of the skills that the characters may acquire. This means that if you have identified 50 skills in your game system, 40 of these skills should be the ones that characters generally use to achieve victory.
As far as defining skills is concerned, there is no need to throw in everything, including the kitchen sink. Simply define the most important subset of all possible skills; namely, the skills most important to achieve the usual victory conditions in a game.
After I posted this article, Dariel replied by showing how victory conditions and themes may converge to form "arenas." An arena represents a situation in which players, like gladiators, must prevail under challenging conditions. Dariel identified several arenas, which I list below:
1. Combat
2. Subterfuge - sneaking, breaking and entering,
3. Diplomacy - negotiation, supplication, befriending, intimidating
4. Performance - practice of a performing art like singing or oratory
5. Investigation
6. Puzzle-solving
7. Romance - <cough! cough! blechh! ack!>
8. Tests of Integrity - dilemmas that test the character's values and ability to adhere to themPlease note that Combat is just one out of eight identified arenas.
After meditating on what Dariel and I have written in our separate posts, a realization struck me like lightning!
What activity do characters engage in the most?
Is it combat? Nope. While combat is a fun element in any game, only first-generation type adventures put combat at the pinnacle of gaming activities.
Is it dungeon-crawling? No, this is another first-generation type of activity.
Is it bending bars and lifting gates? Good heavens, no!
All right, what is this activity, then?
The answer is a four-letter synonym for the word "intercourse" - TALK.
That's right. Most of the time, characters talk with one another or with the NPCs in a game. And I don't mean the "I hit the dwarf with my war hammer" kind of talk. I mean regular character-to-character conversation.
What I'm saying is that we should have detailed rules for resolving conversation in a game.
RULES? YOU WANT RULES TO HANDLE TALKING?
I can almost hear the outbursts of indignation. "We don't need rules to resolve conversation. We just talk. That's it. The GM is more than capable of resolving conversation without dice. This article is full of paradigm sh-t!"
Wait! Don't delete this message from your inbox just yet. Think about it for a moment. Many gamers would be shocked if their GM were to declare that rules are no longer necessary to resolve combat because the GM can resolve it faster by using his subjective judgment. Nevertheless nobody bats an eyelash when the GM uses his subjective judgment to resolve all character-to-character conversation. Considering that a number of potential arenas lie within the realm of conversation, the lack of a good gaming model to resolve conversation renders most systems terribly inadequate.
Some of you may object by saying, "Of course we resolve combat with dice, and conversation with actual conversation. If we resolve combat by dishing it out with each other, we'll wind up with blood and carved human flesh all over the living room. I mean, who's gonna clean up the mess?"
Ah, but that's not my point. I'm saying that resolving conversation should be as objective as resolving combat. I'm not insisting that we use dice. The truth is that there are now diceless, cardless game systems in which the GM and the players resolve combat by looking at the characters' stats and agreeing as to who would win in a particular confrontation.
For example, the GM might say, "Your character is armed with a crowbar, and you're wrestling with my NPC, Steve Austin. Since Austin is a lot stronger and faster than your character, I'd say that he easily overpowers you and yanks the crowbar from your feeble grasp. Wouldn't you agree?" And being the mature person that he is, the player would say, "Oh, absolutely. It makes perfect sense to me. Steve Austin can kick my butt every time, no doubt about it."
Implicit in the above example is a set of rules to resolve combat. While many of us shun freeform, randomless combat rules, the fact remains that these systems do have rules based on comparing character stats. Nevertheless every role-playing system that I have seen lacks rules as well defined as even this to resolve conversation. Consequently, the personalities of the NPCs that a player encounters in a GM's universe can only be as diverse as the GM is multi-faceted. I once played a game where every NPC I met was mean and sarcastic. Can you tell what the GM's personality was like? I'll give you three guesses...
I will show you how the lack of rules for conversation can be a problem by describing one arena that Dariel identified. The arena that I choose is... ROMANCE (yechh... pweh!).
A SAMPLE ARENA
In the nearby fiefdom of Dolrim is the daughter of Baron Bravewinde, an honorable man who once sailed away to fight in the name of the king and has never been heard from since. Seven years have passed since the good lord left his barony to the care of his kind but inept brother Mauritius. Elysia, Bravewinde's daughter, has grown into a lovely if forlorn woman, and Mauritius wishes her to be wed.
Unfortunately, Elysia has spurned all suitors out of sadness for her father's disappearance. Without a strong and wise ruler, the fiefdom has fallen into evil times. The crops are scarce, the militia is all but gone, and the nearby barons have decided that if they cannot marry Elysia and thereby acquire her lands, they shall take both by force. Woe is the blood of Bravewinde! Where is the man who can melt Elysia's heart and defend the fiefdom from its greedy neighbors?
WAYS TO FIND LOVE (IN THE MOST UNLIKELY PLACES)
Plainly put, the victory condition in this particular arena is to marry the baron's daughter. Assuming that there is a sufficiently motivated player, how does his character succeed in the game?
One way to do this is to role-play the act of courtship. Unfortunately, the results would then be completely subject to the whim of the GM. Can you imagine role-playing combat without stats and randomizers? If you think that resolving combat by describing to each other how you dish out damage does not make for a good game, then the same holds for resolving courtship by just role-playing it.
Another way to resolve romantic attempts is to define some skill, such as "Courtly Love" or "Seduction," and to have the player roll dice against that skill. Personally, I find this to be about as much fun as having a one-on-one swordfight with a kobold. If I cannot use my brains to achieve victory, I will find this whole exercise unchallenging at best. Let me put it to you another way. Suppose I tell you, "Roll a 6-sided die. If you roll a 1 or 2, you win." Would you consider my offer to be a fun game? Would you like to play it over and over? No? I didn't think so.
A third way is to make puzzle-solving a prerequisite to getting the girl. This is the strategy that many computer adventure games would adopt. Consider the following addition to our arena:
-----It is said that the great seer Telegnostika has seen into Elysia's heart and knows that the man who can win her must be a hero who can do three things:
1. Recover her incarcerated father from the dungeons of Grimmliche the Warlock
2. Defend Elysia from the machinations of the greedy barons Vortigern, Siegurd, and Englebert.
3. Woo her with words that match only the bard Willomyr's poetry in sweetness.Alas, the great bard has already passed away, but Telegnostika knows where the gates of Hades may be found. Perhaps the bard's shade may still be of help.
-----
As we can see, each victory condition outlined above can itself be a sub-arena with its own victory conditions. What we have here is the basis for a potential epic. While it is possible to write a series of combat-oriented adventures based on this outline, I submit that it is equally possible to write one that requires only puzzles to win.
The use of a series of puzzles to achieve victory is superior to relying solely on the results of a few die rolls because it brings a much-needed element into any game: the human mind. Let us face it. Without an intellectual challenge, there is no game. RPGs, after all, are not like sports, where players can test the limits of their physical attributes. Unfortunately, I have two objections to the use of puzzles for most, if not all, non-combat arenas.
1. Puzzles of the adventure game variety rely on the real-life intelligence of a player, not on some attribute of his character. If your games will feature only these puzzles, you might as well tell your players to throw away their character sheets because they won't need them to solve your puzzles.
2. Puzzles have a very limited set of solutions to them. In fact, most computer adventure games have only one solution to each puzzle. The number of possible solutions to a puzzle is limited to how creative and intelligent the GM is in devising the puzzles and their solutions.
If the GM accepts only the solutions that he devises, he might veto any other solution that a player may attempt, however valid that solution may be. This limited viewpoint does not encourage lateral thinking.
I believe that a better way to handle this arena is to come up with a number of principles (rules, in other words) that players may apply in a variety of ways to achieve a victory. If comprehensive enough, this set of rules can very well be part of a non-combat role-playing game system. By adding combat rules, you have a powerful game system that covers most of the activities that characters are likely to pursue.
A CHALLENGE TO GAME SYSTEM DESIGNERS
Game system designers, I appeal to you to give us a good set of rules to handle conversation. The objective should be to come up with a way to make the achievement of victory conditions through conversation a viable gaming experience.
Words are highly potent. They can sting, persuade, heal, or repel. They can rouse an army to fight, fill the heart with rapture, or bring a soul to despair. Why, then, do we have no system that successfully models this tremendous power?
No system exists at present for adequately handling this experience. The time to make a difference is now. Devise such a system, and you will revolutionize the art of gaming.
Frank Perez, the wordless savage, creator of 5-page articles
Dariel Quiogue wrote:
Hey Frank, this is really interesting! Got my cogs turning again ...
BTW, I'll be collating this series of posts, beginning with your seed article on "What is my ideal system" and then put it up on the AEGIS web page; both Adrian and I feel that this discussion is turning into something gamers at large may benefit from. In other words, I'll be asking you to pull out all the stops and pour everything in your brain pan into this, if that's what you feel like doing ...
frank_s_perez@hotmail.com wrote:
MY DESIGNS ARE INADEQUATE, AND SO ARE YOURS
A total shock. These are the only words I have to describe how I felt when I combined Dariel's concept of arenas and my use of the Pareto rule in choosing skills. I now realize that every RPG system created since the dawn of civilization has been woefully inadequate. Hell, my own pathetic attempts at game system design have been sorely lacking. If you've been thinking the way I had, then your own designs must be inadequate, too.
This is one of the realities that I acknowledge as gospel truth; there is no such thing as a simulation that is capable of modeling reality to everyone's satisfaction for one outstanding reason - it IS but a simulation. (Once in a while I have to beat my ego down with the thought). And since it is a simulation, an artificiality, a game system will always bear the stamp of its makers and their pattern of thought at the time of creation.
This is the reason why every game, even those that advertise themselves as "generic," has a distinctive feel all its own. In fact I think that this is what made AD&D such a monstrosity; the version of AD&D we all know (and either love or hate) is actually a collation of a LOT of patched-together mechanics that were not necessarily made to mesh with each other. You'll see how true this is just by taking a look at any issue of Dragon magazine and leafing through the Sage Advice column; about 75% of it is the columnist making judgment calls on rules conflicts and then pronouncing these as "canon". There was simply no central guiding theme as such; each supplement writer was working at his own objectives, like a sled dog pulling in any direction but that which the other dogs were taking. Had AD&D been kept to its original design, it would have remained much better as a game.
In other words, a game system is no more than a compilation of the various aspects of reality (or myth) that the designer wants to model; if the designer was a grognard, you'll get Rolemaster's Arms Law; if the designer wanted to represent chivalry, you'll get something like Pendragon. Is there an ideal "middle path?" I don't think so. There's a good reason why each person thinks the way he or she does, and to try to write anything, much less a complex simulation such as an RPG, in any other mode of thought but one's own is to do both oneself and one's work an injustice (dammit, Jim, I'm beginning to sound like Adrian!!! HELP!!!!).
In the end analysis, I find myself restating my goals as a would-be game designer; not to make "the game that will replace every other system in existence," but to make "the game that satisfies MY craving for a system that allows me to weave a GOOD STORY with the participation of my friends."
A tall order, but a worthy challenge, no?
Ah, but that's not my point. I'm saying that resolving conversation should be as objective as resolving combat.
Agreed. How? Not the definitive answer, I'm sure, but I've got the glimmerings of an idea ...
The actual speech delivered by a character should never be replaced by a die roll. Otherwise we might as well call it a Dramatic Simulation Game instead of a Roleplaying Game. Besides, I personally enjoy being a ham. So do most gamers that I know. The impact of a character's speech, however, and why it has that impact ... these we can represent with numbers.
I have always believed that speaking in character should be encouraged for its great entertainment value. To encourage a behavior, one offers incentives. But we don't always have the time or inclination to speak in character; as in written fiction, sometimes the story is better served by straight narrative rather than going into dialogue mode. So, let's assume the default mode for a player is to speak OOC: we should then reward the dramatically appropriate instances that he speaks in-character with better chances of achieving what the character was trying to achieve by so speaking.
In an L5R game we had, for example, Doji Nekoashidori (Adrian's character) was challenged to compose a poem. Dennis Ching, our GM, ruled that if he (Adrian) were to actually compose a haiku and recite it on the spot, he would give a bonus based on how we, the other players, rated the poem. The poem turned out pretty good, and thus Doji Neko's roll was much improved, to the point that he won Glory points for that poem. And we, the players, all enjoyed this very much for the extra bit of authenticity it lent the game.
The example above is a good illustration of how the GM can make a difference with an impromptu ruling.
But because not all GMs will be similarly inspired all the time, we must extend our quest to a universal mechanic for such situations. I offer a snippet from my own system as food for further thought (a euphemism for saying "hey, please react to my idea so I can pick your brains!"):
Personality traits are quantified and treated like abilities. They may be used as such at the player's discretion, adding to one's normal compendium of abilities that may be focused for the task, but at the price of raising that trait's level; this is not always a good thing, because there will be times when the charcter will not want to be motivated by that trait and a high level means greater difficulty to resist. For example, a character who uses the quality of vengefulness for bonuses in combat may find that he has become obsessed with it to the point that he will take stupid chances just to satisfy its promptings.
In real-life personal interactions, we tend to react positively to people who display traits we either have in common with them or admire; we are intimidated by people with traits or qualities that make us perceive them as superior; and we react negatively to people with traits we despise.
With this in mind, the procedure for handling interaction is:
1) GM sets up the situation and secretly determines the base difficulty to get the desired outcome
2) Player makes his spiel in character if he wishes
3) The GM may rule that the character passed or failed based on the player's speech alone, or call for a roll
4) GM adjusts the difficulty according to the player's performance
5) Player makes a roll adding any appropriate skills and traitsIn step 1, the GM will have to consider the nature of the person the PC is speaking to, and determine how the NPC will react given his or her own nature and the apparent nature of the PC.
Step 2 gives the player the chance to make the roll altogether unnecessary (good performance), or give him a bonus if a roll is called for. (Perhaps the GM may penalize the player if he has the character say something that is counter to the character's stated nature).
One way to do this is to role-play the act of courtship. Unfortunately, the results would then be completely subject to the whim of the GM. Can you imagine role-playing combat without stats and randomizers? If you think that resolving combat by describing to each other how you dish out damage does not make for a good game, then the same holds for resolving courtship by just role-playing it.
This is where quantifying, or at least identifying, the personality traits of both characters would be most useful. The very first test of a character, then, is to display those traits which he (or the player) thinks the princess would find desirable. The GM secretly knows what these are; it is up to the player/s to demonstrate by whatever means they feel is best, and the one who comes closest to the princess' ideal "wins" the round.
In one of the sessions of my Red Branch campaign, the PCs acquired a slavegirl who was actually a swanmay and the daughter of the god of birds himself. Because of her true nature, only a man with a "pure heart" could even look her in the eye; those who did not meet her standard felt very uncomfortable around her, and those who were the opposite of the desired quality found themselves in fear of her. To resolve this, I first had all the players of male characters make rolls to see if they would lust after the girl, then those who did, were asked again to check certain traits like honesty, compassion, justice, etc; only those who made all these checks could talk to her with any degree of comfort. (No mushy stuff ensued, however, because the only character who passed all the checks was happily married).
As we can see, each victory condition outlined above can itself be a sub-arena with its own victory conditions. What we have here is the basis for a potential epic. While it is possible to write a series of combat-oriented adventures based on this outline, I submit that it is equally possible to write one that requires only puzzles to win.
Right on! My "arenas" are meant to serve as points where a plot may branch out or be given further impetus in a certain direction. I like the way you illustrated how the initial problem could become the seed of a truly mythic tale.
Though it may be my fantasy bias speaking, I firmly believe that all our RPGs revolve around the "Hero's Journey" as their true theme, concealed though it might be in some games (such as V:tM). The best gift a GM could give me, as a player, is to give my character the chance to embark on this mythic quest in a manner that is both entertaining and illuminating.
"Illuminating," to me, is when a game vindicates a value I personally hold dear - crime does not pay, honesty is the best policy, do as you believe - or illustrates to me some truth in a whole new light - hm, Zen the RPG, anyone?
In our last session of Pendragon: Boy King, my character, a devotee of Herne the Hunter, was instrumental in the breaking of an ancient curse. Along with the other knights, my character uncovered the desecration of a tomb, used his knowledge of the druidic faith to find solution (get a druid! fast!), fought two terrible undead beings, and was able to control his battle-madness enough to keep himself from hurting his friends afterward. Then Adrian, our GM, described to me an apparition - a tall cloaked man with an antler-crowned head - Herne himself! The apparition then looked me straight in the eye and nodded as if in approval - and I knew, without any need for other words, that my character had done well. It was a private reward that was very satisfying and defined the whole game for me.
A CHALLENGE TO GAME SYSTEM DESIGNERS
Game system designers, I appeal to you to give us a good set of rules to handle conversation. The objective should be to come up with a way to make the achievement of victory conditions through conversation a viable gaming experience.
Words are highly potent. They can sting, persuade, heal, or repel. They can rouse an army to fight, fill the heart with rapture, or bring a soul to despair. Why, then, do we have no system that successfully models this tremendous power?
No system exists at present for adequately handling this experience. The time to make a difference is now. Devise such a system, and you will revolutionize the art of gaming.
I accept! Wish me luck!
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