Bad Juju (Ebon Grove) Design Flowsheet

[TarkisFlux]

Might be time to make up new words for your archetypes, or label the more easily confused as Follower of <Some historic figure>, Disciple of <Somebody else>, etc. It lets you avoid all of the baggage of standard terms, and I can't think of any standard terms that really describe the Soldier or Wizard you're building here without also bringing in extra junk that is wrong.

Off the top of my head (so I make no claims of quality)...

Wizard -> Pact Maker
Solider -> Freesword

[Orion]

Archetypes:

Diplomat

Blademaster

Ebon Mage

Royal

Shaman

Ranger

[zeruslord]

I'd avoid Royal as an archetype specifically associated with one cultural group. Keep Oathsworn or move to something else.

How much leeway is there in the kinds of oaths binding the Fair Ones? For example, could one be bound to a movable object, a nation, or even a royal house?

You say that the Fair Ones have control of their element across the entire continent, but there are also Kami for every element. Is there one Fair One for each element or can there be multiple?

[Orion]

There's one fair one per portfolio.

Most of them are bound to places, but we have some room to get creative...

[Orion]

So, I want characters to specialize in thematic schools of magic. Some characters should be good at air and wood magic, others at earth and water, or whatever. This could either be accomplished by making people pick up skills in a particular element, or simply by a set of political factions.

[Orion]

So what basic stats do I want here?

aWoD standard?

Strength -- damage resistance and melee damage, this seems undervalued, unless some charms are melee attacks?
Dexterity -- this would be the prime physical combat stat, used for dodging and aiming charms
Charisma -- Offensive social combat? Miracle use?
Willpower -- Defensive social combat? Different kinds of social combat? maybe required to make pacts?
Logic -- this is presumably the prerequisite for making charms
Intuition -- initiative, perception? Maybe some magical role?

[CatharzGodfoot]

What do you want attributes for, if not archtypes?

Attributes:

Diplomat

Blademaster

Ebon Mage

Royal

Shaman

Ranger

[zeruslord]

I think we need to flesh out the magic and social combat systems somewhat first and work backwards from derived stats. It looks to me like you want to have at least one reasonably sophisticated social combat system, possibly more.

What do the spell and sorcery systems look like in terms of what rolls are made?

[Orion]

Hmm...

Using a spell on a hostile spell or spirit would look something like:

Casting Roll (Stat+Skill)

Resistance (maybe a resistance roll, maybe just subtract a static number -- based on Soul [overall strength of spirit]+appropriate stat)

Apply effects based on net hits

Add one to "spells used" tally

---

Using a spell to enchant an object would look like

Calculate base enchanting time

Roll stat+skill, subtracting net hits from required time

Increase "spells used" by one

---

Many utility spells, on the other hand, would just work -- detect magic or even call or aid probably don't use a roll, they just work, and add one to your "spells used."

[Orion]

Using sorcery probably looks almost exactly like shadowrun spellcasting, drain roll and all...

[zeruslord]

What does the Spells Used tally do and when is it wiped? Unless it does something major, I think I would prefer a Drain roll as a limitation.

[Orion]

Honestly, I'm not *sure* that we need to limit *spell* use at all. Charms will have their own limits, expressed in a limited number of charms one creator can have in existence at once. (Possibly also some kind of limit on charm usage, to avoid the PCs simply buying charms).

I didn't want a drain roll because in my experience it adds rather a lot to adjudication time of a spell, when generally there ends up being no drain anyway. The spells used tally was going to generate fatigue penalties or something.

If I move to unlimited spellcasting, I should consider putting some kind of limitation on miracles, though whether by spirit or by human I'm not sure.

[Grek]

Spells: handle all of the things which are currently spells with "diplomacy with spirits" skill checks. No real game balance reason to limit on how many times per day you can use these, as far as I can tell.

Miracles: Social combat on the spirit. If you win, you (or your party as a whole) get a number of miracles from that specific spirit inside it's domain, which are expended by using miracles. What you have to give the spirit for this and what you get in return is based on the results.

Charms: Charms work the same way as miracles, but can be used from the item allowing you to hoard lots of them and use them wherever. For game balance, miracles should get in better effect/stuff done for spirit than items.

Pacts: Social combat with a Fair One. Results decide how many benifets you get and how many rules you need to follow to keep them.

[zeruslord]

I would separate out unopposed spells that you don't care about from opposed spells and ones that have significant effects. Hand out cantrips, the essentially minor spells, with real spells or in large, cheap groups. Separate out spells that request a spirit's presence in a particular spot on its home turf from ones that compel it to come. Also, if the power of a single spell is dependent on something other than the stat that determines whether it is cast or not, then there is a major separation between sorcerers, who always care about the power of their spells, and magicians, who typically don't.

Side note: Are there mind tricks in this setting? If so, are they spells, charms, or pacts?

[Orion]

Re: "Cantrips"

The fact that *resolving* a given spells isn't interesting doesn't mean we don't care about it. The spells which allow you to see incorporeal spirits or protect yourself from the Fairest probably don't need any die rolls, but they're still important.

[Grek]

Physical attributes should use a seprate pool from social attributes.

Physical Attributes:
Strength - Raises how much damage you do upon hitting with fists/weapons/arrows
Agility - Raises the number of times your weapons/fists/arrows makes contact with the enemy per round and lowers the number of times you can get him by them.
Toughness - How much you can get hit with weapons/fists/arrows without becoming dead and the number of times you can strike without becoming tired. Total health is equal to toughness.

Social Attributes:
Charisma - How positively the things you say during conversations effect the listener. Works like strength does.
Glibness - Makes you say the right things to get people to listen and makes the listener less likely to respond negatively. Works like agility does.
Patience - How much of of the other guy's nonsense you can put up without loosing your cool and how long you can go on talking without getting fed up with them. Works like toughness does.

To resolve a basic physical combat action:

1. If the attacker is the first to make a physical attack on the defender this round, the defender rolls agility+skill in d6. Count hits. This is how many times the defender can defend against an physical attack this round verus all physical attackers.
2. The attacker rolls agility+skill in d6. Count hits. This is how many times the attacker get to attack them with this action.
3. The defends chooses how many of this attacker's attacks, if any, to stop using defense hits.
4. The attacker, if he has any attacks left, rolls strength+skill in d6 for every attack remaining. Count hits. This is how much damage they do to the defender before soak.
5. The defender rolls toughness in d6. Count hits. Subtract this number from damage before soak. Subtract result, if still positive, from defender's health.
6. Attacker rolls toughness in d6. Count hits. If this number is greater than the number of continuous rounds that the attacker has attacked or rolled toughness for soak in physical combat, 1 from the attacker's health.

[Orion]

A tentative list of Fair Ones -- note that this is *not* necessarily the list of game-mechanical "elements" --for instance the goddess of ice and the goddess of water probably grant most of the same spell effects.

-- Ice
-- Oceans

-- Winds

--Stone
-- Soil

-- Volcanic Fire (imprisoned)
-- Iron (deceased)

-- Flowers
-- Trees

[Orion]

Physical attributes should use a seprate pool from social attributes.

Physical Attributes:
Strength - Raises how much damage you do upon hitting with fists/weapons/arrows
Agility - Raises the number of times your weapons/fists/arrows makes contact with the enemy per round and lowers the number of times you can get him by them.
Toughness - How much you can get hit with weapons/fists/arrows without becoming dead and the number of times you can strike without becoming tired. Total health is equal to toughness.

I'm not convinced the Strength/Toughness distinction does anything we care about: convince me.

-- I don't particularly *want* humans to be able to "tank" hits without supernatural powers
-- Physical combat is not that big a part of the game, so it probably doesn't need that much granularity
-- When combat does go down, it's going to involve a lot of projectiles, which makes Agility way more important than Strength.

Social Attributes:
Charisma - How positively the things you say during conversations effect the listener. Works like strength does.
Glibness - Makes you say the right things to get people to listen and makes the listener less likely to respond negatively. Works like agility does.
Patience - How much of of the other guy's nonsense you can put up without loosing your cool and how long you can go on talking without getting fed up with them. Works like toughness does.

Again, not certain what the Charisma/Glibness split does for me-- I'm not opposed, but maybe you could explain where you're going with this? I think having a number of social attributes is a good idea. But I'm not sure from this reading what the difference conceptually, or even mechanically, is supposed to be between a charismatic character and a glib one.

To resolve a basic physical combat action:

1. If the attacker is the first to make a physical attack on the defender this round, the defender rolls agility+skill in d6. Count hits. This is how many times the defender can defend against an physical attack this round verus all physical attackers.

Wow, that's a pretty harsh gangbanging for fighting multiple enemies. That's not necessarily a terrible thing -- I want a good fighting character to be essentially assured of beating one or two guards/raiders, but unable to fight a dozen. Still, PCs are suposed to take out groups when they throw mojo around, which makes big fights absurdly swingy -- if the fireball shooting guy get mobbed, it's all over.

Maybe I can fix this by putting in powerful defensive spells.

2. The attacker rolls agility+skill in d6. Count hits. This is how many times the attacker get to attack them with this action.
3. The defends chooses how many of this attacker's attacks, if any, to stop using defense hits.
4. The attacker, if he has any attacks left, rolls strength+skill in d6 for every attack remaining. Count hits. This is how much damage they do to the defender before soak.
5. The defender rolls toughness in d6. Count hits. Subtract this number from damage before soak. Subtract result, if still positive, from defender's health.
6. Attacker rolls toughness in d6. Count hits. If this number is greater than the number of continuous rounds that the attacker has attacked or rolled toughness for soak in physical combat, 1 from the attacker's health.

Does Soak apply once to each hit, or once to each flurry?

[Orion]

What spells can do: (complete)

-- summon and banish incorporeal beings
-- detect and analyze magical effects
-- prepare an item to become a charm
-- activate a charm
-- alter the someone's aura, giving him subtypes some effects interact
with
-- read auras, gathering information about objects and people physically present

What charms can do (partial)
-- heal wounds and afflictions
--create terrain
--change the state of a substance
--temporarily create a substance...
--and shoot it at people
--and shield someone with it
--and use it as equipment
--temporarily change the properties of something

What charms can NOT do

--create permanent objects
--summon independent beings
--permanently buff creatures
--teleport anything
--manipulate time
--raise the dead


What miracles can do

Anything charms can do, plus

--create stuff
--create permanent, immobile, magical effects

What pacts can do

--not sure yet

Stuff I don't know how to handle

--mind control
--illusions

[Grek]

I'm not convinced the Strength/Toughness distinction does anything we care about: convince me.

-- I don't particularly *want* humans to be able to "tank" hits without supernatural powers

If that's the way you want to go for that, folding strength and toughness into one stat and then giving everyone a fixed number of health would be the way to go. I was working on the assumption that without really heavy armour, toughness hits+magic would be alot less than strength hits+skill hits+magic and things would get pretty deadly.

-- When combat does go down, it's going to involve a lot of projectiles, which makes Agility way more important than Strength.

Under the above system, non-magical damage for arrows is strength based just like any other attack. Not agility, like most other systems.

Again, not certain what the Charisma/Glibness split does for me-- I'm not opposed, but maybe you could explain where you're going with this? I think having a number of social attributes is a good idea. But I'm not sure from this reading what the difference conceptually, or even mechanically, is supposed to be between a charismatic character and a glib one.

I'll write up what I'm proposing for the social combat system at the end of the post.

Does Soak apply once to each hit, or once to each flurry?

You get a soak for every hit. Should have been more clear on that.

-----

0. Both parties agree to haggle with eachother.
1. The listener rolls glibness+skill in d6. Count hits. This is how many times the listener can speak this round.
2. The speaker rolls glibness+skill in d6. Count hits. This is how many times the speaker get to speak this round.
3. The one with the lower value rolls willpower in d6. Count hits. They can remove up to that number in attacks from both sides through clever wordplay and cunning counterarguements.
5. The speaker, if he has any attacks left, rolls charisma+skill in d6 for every attack remaining. Count hits. This is how much the speaker gets in favors from this round.
6. The listener, if he has any attacks left, rolls charisma+skill in d6 for every attack remaining. Count hits. This is how much the listener gets in favors from this round.
7. The one who got the least from this round of conversation rolls willpower in d6. Count hits. If this number is greater than the number of continuous rounds that the conversation has been going on, they are done haggling and the coversation is over. Tally up wins and loses and decide who asks for what.

Each charm, miracle, pact effect, etc. has a price. That's how many favors you need to give the spirit to get it. Let's say you got 15 favors with a spirit and owe 12. You can get 3 favors worth of spells right now, out of pure wheedling and begging. If you want some of the other 12, you have to give the spirit some of the 12 favors worth of things it wants. This could take the form of preventing a tree from getting cut down, an agreement to paint yourself blue before battle or giving it some rice cakes. Or whatever it is that you decide that spirits/fair ones want.

[Orion]

Again: Why would I want to have a high Glibness? Why would I want to have a high Charisma? Why wouldn't everyone just raise them both equally?

[Orion]

I think Mind Control is right out -- social combat is supposed to be the way to get magic, so using magic to win social combat is backwards.

Edit: I want certain magic-user to have thematic specializations -- one does water magic, one does air magic kind of thing. How do I do that?

Make the skills/spells elementally themed? Or create a faction system where friendship with one camp of spirits alienates the other? Or both?

[Orion]

This weekend hopefully I'll get write-ups on some of the regions.

The West is a bunch of warring city-states dominated by the wizards of the Ebon Grove.

The Eastern Empire is ruled by the dynasty which helped destroy the Ivory Tower; they're fantastically wealthy and populous, and allied with the ebon grove, but they have a magical plague destroying their southern holding.

The Southern Desert is Sahara-style desert where the sorcerers are hiding out.

The Northern Kingdom fell some time ago, and now it's a bunch of roving tribes.

In the middle, you have the southlands, which are a bunch of jungle/river/island communities run by local priesthoods. Not important enough for anyone to care about.

Between Ebon Grove and the Eastern Empire is the Middle Kingdom, a mountainous land enriched by the rare plants that grow on their mountaintops. They used to be the military power in the region and have a bunch of vassal states. Their patriarchs were recently overthrown by a matriarchal coup aided by some renegade wizards. Now they're a woman-led society with the most feared army anywhere, since their soldiers are all trained in basic charm use. They also have the only wizard schools approximating the quality of the Ebon Grove that aren't loyal to the Western Order.

[Orion]

I'd avoid Royal as an archetype specifically associated with one cultural group. Keep Oathsworn or move to something else.

How much leeway is there in the kinds of oaths binding the Fair Ones? For example, could one be bound to a movable object, a nation, or even a royal house?

Not all the Fair Ones are bound by location, no. The God of Oceans, for instance, can appear anywhere on the Ocean, so he'd have some other limiter on how and when he intervenes.

You say that the Fair Ones have control of their element across the entire continent, but there are also Kami for every element. Is there one Fair One for each element or can there be multiple?

Each Fair One has a unique portfolio is concept; there's only one ice goddess, one god of oceans, etc. However, in terms of the game mechanical system, there probably is overlap. Both probably has a number of the same charm effects available, and both might fall under the same element when/if we codify an elemental system.

[Orion]

1.) What is your game about?

Negotiation, Logistics, Awe

2.) What do the characters do?

Make bargains, form political alliances, travel, and duel.

3.) What do the players (including the GM if there is one) do?

Not sure what this means?

4.) How does your setting (or lack thereof) reinforce what your game is about?


Animism and Diplomacy are the central conceits. Therefore, every culture is going to be run on magic and dependent on foreign trade. The magic system will be tied in to political affiliations to make them relevant. Travel and communication will be difficult enough to make the PCs valuable and autonomous.

5.) How does the Character Creation of your game reinforce what your game is about?

Character creation should be a relatively fast process, with a focus on social and mental traits. Most of a characters cool abilities will be based on relationships, and mutable during play.

6.) What types of behaviors/styles of play does your game reward (and punish if necessary)?

We want to reward players for talking first, shooting later, even against "BBEG" types. We want to reward players for avoiding confrontation when possible. We want to reward players for paying attention to and forming attachments to various NPCs.

7.) How are behaviors and styles of play rewarded or punished in your game?

Every fight will use resources which are not easily replaced. Enemies will be unable to quickly kill the players, or players can easily defend themselves while talking.

8.) How are the responsibilities of narration and credibility divided in your game?

I don't understand what "credibility" means in this context. Players should
be able to participate in crafting their surroundings. When a player says, "I look for goblins/thunderbirds/nixies," he should find them.

9.) What does your game do to command the players' attention, engagement, and participation? (i.e. What does the game do to make them care?)

Vivid descriptions is a big one-- also, the players should be able to fill in the details of their surroundings. Reward players for good dialogue.

10.) What are the resolution mechanics of your game like?

Probably dice pools, maybe a bell curved die roll with bonuses. Most thigns should involve as few rolls as possible.

11.) How do the resolution mechanics reinforce what your game is about?

Well, we're going to have detailed mechanics for things we want the players to care about: social combat, mass combat, mage duels. Simple mechanics for things we don't want them to focus on, like squad-level combat.

12.) Do characters in your game advance? If so, how?

I had been going to go with a simple "get XP, spend on skills/spells system." XP gain would come from story awards and possibly as actual rewards from powerful in-game spirits.

13.) How does the character advancement (or lack thereof) reinforce what your game is about?

Not sure; this could use more attention.

14.) What sort of product or effect do you want your game to produce in or for the players?

An intellectual challenge and a chance to practice performance skills.

15.) What areas of your game receive extra attention and color? Why?

Landscapes and Economy,to emphasize the animistic nature of the setting.

16.) Which part of your game are you most excited about or interested in? Why?

Not sure yet.

17.) Where does your game take the players that other games can’t, don’t, or won’t?

Ideally, it should give players a unique experience in terms of effect events on a large scale while still feeling like small people in a big world.

18.) What are your publishing goals for your game?

None really.

19.) Who is your target audience?

People who want to explore the consequences of the powerful abilities D&D wizards and Solar Exalts have in a setting where they aren't used quite so casually. People who want to roleplay interactions with NPCs more powerful than them. People who want a fantasy game less focused on combat.