Antediluvian Earth

[Tom Fitzgerald]

Hey all,
I've been working on a game (bet you didn't see that coming) and it's shaping up to be pretty nifty.It's a diceless storygame. I do not make any pretenses at innovation (but I've tried to conceal my plagiarism somewhat) and I do not intend to publish it (save p'raps as a freebie on the web if I feel so inclined). I just want something simple and self-contained I can play with my friends and to realize one of the several dozen game ideas that I have floating around in my head.
What I need is motivation and ideas, so any feedback is much appreciated.

The game is one of epic heroic narrative. Scope is broad. The focus is not on details and description, Just people and their actions. Think the Bible or the Silmarillion or the epics of Beowulf or Gilgamesh. Mythology paints with broad strokes, Archetypes and Symbolism. The players are recounting the deeds of forgotten heroes from some distant epoch, irrelevancies are swept aside.

This is a very emulative approach. I strive throughout the design process to adhere to the conventions of the genre; Broad scope, minimal description, minimal dialogue, third person past-tense narrative etc. so that there is nothing in the game that detracts from the epic flavour, any assistance/comments/criticism in this regard would be most welcome.

on to the nitty gritty;

PREMISE: "Rage against the dying of the light"

No, seriously it's something like that, p'raps better put as; The players recount the stories of Forgotten Heroes from Lost Civilisations as they struggle against the forces of Imminent Doom.

Or,

The characters stomp enemies and snatch treasure to gain rewards which translate to ever increasing levels of power and ability to stomp enemies.

That sounds very original.

But then they die and you have to make new characters.

Kewl!

It's all very bleak really, the end is nigh. The Cataclysm was foretold
seven generations hence (an arbitrary number really) and each generation did face three great perils but into each generation were heroes born that they might shield their legacy 'gainst the encroaching night...
... and thence pass into the Uttermost West.(?!)

My idea is that they knew the Deluge (Milesians, Ragnarok, Armageddon, Bell-Beaker people etc.) was coming but were incapable of preventing it. The only hope is that the heroes, through mighty deeds of Mythical Legendry, may preserve some remnants of the Glory that Was agaist the nescient tides of doom, an Ark as it were, or an Exodus to Tir nan Og (or is it Tir na Nog) or Hy Breasil, p'raps a cultural rebirth among the invading people. A slender hope for some form of consolation for the civilisation, For the Heroes, mortality is imminent, they burn with the Hero Light during their wondrous lives on Earth but are doomed to fall or die or fade from the world.

Does there not need to be a possibility of winning? This is something I have been considering, but I like the bittersweet pessimism of the northern European imagination. The theme that proved to be the most inspirational to me in writing this project is the Long Defeat, The fading of Tolkien's elves, a theme that is prevalent thru much of western mythology. Typified by;

The remnant of our people
Sweeping westward, wild and woeful
Like the cloud-wrack of a tempest
Like the withered leaves of Autumn

-Tain Bo Cuilagne -4th Century


No, really, what does my character do?

Um, er, this is kinda difficult to explain at this stage. My idea revolves around a definite story structure. A railroading technique if you will- Face your destiny or fade from memory. Each game session represents the tale of a single generation of heroes in their struggle against prophesied peril.
Something a little like this;

-The Civilisation is doomed to Fall

-The Player's Heroes are prophecied to face three great perils in their life

By peril I mean a threat to the civilisation, taken loosely it could mean anything, an invading army, a great plague, The First Herald of the Dragon Star, The Construction of The Dark and Loathly Dreadful Deathly Dark Tower of Doom by Lord Darkdeath Doom XIII.

I'd like to codify this a little more. I intend for there to be a stage at the beginning of the game where the prophecies/omens/portents/auguries are revealed By the GM and are open to interpretation by the players. They may also be open to in-game manipulation by the heroes (as related by the players of course)

-Following this the heroes set out to face perils and overcome adversity or are subject to diminishment. The Player describes his heroes' progress thru life freely... If a player tells you Thurglebraxan the Mighty destroyed a small army of Grailites ere he arrived at the Cerulean City then that's just what he did.

-Each Peril takes the form of several tests of escalating danger levels which are resolved with a simple diceless system- The idea here is that it should fit seamlessly into the narrative without game terms being used.

-When successful at a test the player may describe the results as they see fit (within limits) success against great danger gets rewards in the form of Essence or Story Points.

-Following the first peril is a period of rest and consolation when the players can describe their character actions as they see fit. As this may represent decades of game time a lot can happen but it is generally glossed over unless it concerns the ramifications of the first peril. Character development can continue during this time.

-Again a great peril threatens the world and the characters are drawn in to face even greater danger than before, with greater reward.

-Again with the rest and consolation, by this time the characters will probably have changed quite a lot and may well be advanced in age. But they must prepare for their greatest peril

-The final peril will lay waste to the world, and most likely kill all the characters. It doesn't matter who wins because everyone loses.Even those who survive to collect the greatest reward gain small consolation because even if they were not conquered, their tale has ended and usually they are much diminished so they die or pass into the west or under the hills. Whatever happens they pass beyond mortal memory

The cycle is complete.

The cycle begins again the next generation, or seven generations hence or among the conquering civilisation in another age. With new heroes (p'raps the reincarnation of the original heroes, maybe their heirs).
After seven generations or seven ages or whatever it is-Seven sessions of game play- the world of the heroes comes to an end in some marvelous climax,the Deluge or whatever.

Re-iterating:

-Prophecy
-1st Peril
-Consolation/Development
-2nd Peril
-Consolation/Development
-3rd Peril
-Diminishment/Exodus

My intention with this rather rigid structure is actually to free up the imagination. The amusement comes from creating imaginative permutations and improvising within the structure. The player has (almost) total narrative control over his character but that character is bound to do certain things or diminish in power. Likewise the perils are a completely abstract concept it is up to the GM to apply narrative flesh to the bare bones of game mechanics.

What game mechanics?

There are game mechanics.

What can my character do?


GAME MECHANICS

The resolution system is based on tokens - game currency-
At the moment I'm calling these tokens Essence. It's all very simple really.
You need so many points of essense to succeed at something -abilities give free essence points to spend in certain areas-. Either you spend all the necessary essence and succeed, or you don't and fail. There are a coupla little nifties that alter things but this is the basics.

Abilities: Characters are heroes and heroes can do stuff. Indeed, possession of one of theses abilities means a character is about as effective in that field as the most powerful mortal and abilities can be taken multiple times. I've tried to cover most everything heroes can do with a minimum of redundancy. The ability names are written el blando generico to make them as neutral as possibles (they get much more interesting later).

COMBAT:- Smiting, Melee, Destruction etc. -inflicting harm from up close

MISSILE:- Archery, Shooting, Blasting etc. -inflicting harm from afar

DEFENCE:- Armour, protection, resistance, evasion -preventing physical damage

RECONAISSANCE:- Perception, scrying, scouting, -Information gathering*

LORE:- Knowledge, Information, Intelligence - General Information*

PERSUASION:- Intimidation, Seduction, Leadership- imposing influence

MOVEMENT:- Speed, travel, transport - Initiative, Pursuit, Evasion

LABOUR:- Toil, Strength, Endurance -Feats of Power/Stamina

CRAFT:- Creativity, Ingenuity -Creation of objects to supplement other abilities

HEALING:- Preservation, Rejuvenation, -Healing Essence Loss

ATHLETICISM??:- Agility, acrobatics, Leaping, climbing -Feats of Coordination

SUBTERFUGE:- Obfuscation, Stealth, Trickery - Avoiding perception

WILL:- Courage, Motivation, Tenacity - Resisting Persuasion

*possible redundancy


Charaters either have an ability or they don't. It is possible to take an ability multiple times- Each ability needs its own explanation.
I intend for each hero to have about seven points to spend on abilities.Those that are not spent are retained as essence points to alter the course of events during a story and as a measure of the heroes' power.

I am debating the nomenclature, I may call Essence Renown, Fame, Memory, Might, Fate, Providence, Destiny etc. But I imagine Essence as untapped Potential. When you've got lots of Essence you're in the noontide of your Power. Essence loss denotes injury, fear, weariness, doubt, aging etc.
Combat, Missile and Persuasion abilities are all designed to inflict essence loss. Failure at certain kinds of tests will also cause essence loss according to the story.

That's it: I've got combat once and defence once and 3 Essence points, He has combat twice and two essence. I spend one Essence point to bump up my Combat by one and kill him. He dies but still hits me for one. Fairly simplistic down at the operating system level. The trick is translating this into the context of the Story, for which we have...

IMAGINATIVE TOOLS

Here we have the Style/Flavour Doohicky and the Aspect/Tale Thingummy to add narrative and kewlness to the bones.

STYLE/SOURCE
Why can my chracter do what she does?

Because she's heroic Dammit!!

No, really, each ability is explained by it's source. Why does a character have Healing or Reconaissance or Lore? There has to be some explanation...

such as;

TRAPPINGS: The character possesses all the associated paraphernalia and the ability to use it. e.g. Apothecary's herbs, salves and ointments (Healing Trappings), Footpad's Shabby Mantle and Stealthy slippers (Subterfuge Trappings)

TALISMAN: Quite similar to trappings. A single enchanted/miraculous item confers the ability. e.g. The Grey Sword of Guerthmeglor (Combat Talisman)

MASTERY: The character has developed the ability thru devoted study, experience and practise. e.g "the Greatest Archer in the World" (Missile Mastery)

GIFT: The character has inherited the ability from a divine ancestor, or it has appeared out of the blue. Wherever it came from, it is inherent. e.g.
Strong as an Ox (Labour Gift)

COMPANION: The character has a faithful retainer/disciple/familiar (possibly several) who confers the ability. e.g Mighty white charger (Movement Companion) Venruel Kheladian the Spy (Reconaissance Companion)


This is the next level, a nifty character generation tool to assist the imagination. Each style has exactly the same mechanical effect, it just helps us imagine HOW things are done. I am rather fond of this nifty and enjoy spending time imagining possible combinations. I think the finished game should be absolutely saturated with examples of how to translate game mechanics into mythical attributes.


ASPECT

Tale/Mark/Fragment

How the Attribute manifests in the world. Each ability, once paired with a style is ready for the final stage of preparation. The aspect may describe
-What the ability looks like in action
-Feats that have been performed with the ability, bearing testament to it's power
-Some history of how the ability was acquired
or a combination of these things

Exempli Gratia;

He bore the Grey Sword of Guerthmaglor, Twas said of that blade that it keened a mournful dirge as it cut through the air, and a thousand lives it drank on the field of Daleth-Mandru ere the setting of the sun.

(I know I should give more examples but I've spent well enough time writing this post anyway, I promise I'll give more later)


The idea is that the aspect should somehow be evoked or alluded to every time an ability comes into play. Thus, the ability itself need not be referred to, actual verbal reference to game terms should be avoided, the game should take place at a non-verbal level in the here and now, with the story taking place in the third-person-past-tense of the long ago and far away, each player should know what their characters are capable of and (hopefully, when things become a little clearer) be able to deal with the relatively simple mechanics without interrupting the story flow.

So instead of mentioning game mechanics a player will assess the situation and tell what happenened. I think it fits the genre for you to know before you set out pretty much what is going to happen,'tis foredoomed, and besides, all the events occurred in the distant past. Sure, trickery and strategy should help if it adds to the story.

There's more...

I've got to tinker with prophecy and the story structure, detail perils and tests and what exactly abilities can do (distinguish between what you can do in Perilous and Consolation phases) and generally buggerize aroung with the nomenclature and such.

Then there is the competitive idea.

And the 3 stages of life idea.

And whatever else I was just thinking before I forgot.

Soooo much more work to do.

[Tom Fitzgerald]

I'm working on a clearer conception of What the GM does. My idea is that The Story structure (fate/doom/wyrd) is arbitrary, maybe the Gm has a certain amount of Essence and his very own peril creation system (Mirroring the Heroes') with different Styles; Disaster, Horde, Plague, Domain to apply to tests, I'm thinking the GM should be required to abide by the same Aspect restriction i.e. You must invoke, evoke or allude to an ability's aspect in order to activate it . A narrative requirement involving codified information about the game mechanics underlying the story element.

Hmmm... Is the GM a GM or just an evil player? The Enemy?

I need to think.

I should also clarify what each ability could do. So that it is clear what should be applied to a given situation.
So that this "Unspoken Mechanics" will work. Of course you could use tokens and gesticulations when you play to indicate numbers. Abstract numbers is what I want to avoid. I really think lots of examples are necessary to clarify stuff.

I'll give more examples when I have more time.

[Tom Fitzgerald]

I'm thinking of creating this game as a kind of Storytelling competition. The GM (for want of a better word) Could represent the Threat, the conquering civilisation or whatever. There could be a certain series of restrictions governing his activities as with the other players. Each prophesied peril is dealt with as if it was a character in that it possesses abilities to test the abilities of characters.

Everything neatly categorised so it plays out.

Just how it plays out is the fun.

[Theophage]

You should check out Unheilig's game "Primeval" here:

http://www.target-audience.org/unheilig/unheilig.html

And Scott Knipe's game "Wyrd" here:

http://speardanes.homestead.com/main.html

For games with similar genres...

[Tom Fitzgerald]

A fairly major inspration for my game
I'm interested in story-based mechanics that give the players a nice chunk of responsibility and freedom usually delegated to the GM. It is just a problem defining exactly what a character may be capable of...

I'm veering towards codification of story based mechanics as the answer. It is still somewhat wargame derivative but I believe the paradigm is shifting slightly.

BTW I may be some kind of Dunce but I can't find Unheilig's Primeval, the art is pretty nifty and Unheilig seems like a fairly clever fellow but Alas, I canna find it.

Could someone please post a URL or Link?

Much appreciated :confused:

[Tom Fitzgerald]

I must attempt to clarify the abilities. If they are to be subject to resolution by the individual then their effects must be encapsulated within a reasonable set of limits in order to promote dramatic tension. I am leaning in favour of a competitive style of game, a tournament of tale-telling as it were. A paradigm in which the game is balanced and structured in such a way as to play itself out. I think tension could be maintained thru game balance rather than the whim of the GM.

Plot balance is something that is necessary for drama, there needs to be at least the illusion of opposing forces that both (or all) possess the ability to prevail. Dramatic tension is further heightened when the good guys are (apparently) the underdogs.

As such it is my intention to tinker with numbers 'til I can find a numerical engine that can sustain that tension -a mathematical script. This rigid structuralisation is seemingly counter-intuitive and represents a vast change from the freeform fanatic I was several days ago but I'm running with it.

Methinks it may just work.

Abilities: I'm considering Dumping redundant abilities i.e those that perform mechanical functions similar to other abilities.

As such Combat, Missile and Defense could be combined into Warfare as superior power in each of these abilities are means to the same end and at a mechanical level the ends are all that matter. The means are dealt with in the story layer. Craft seems redundant in that it ain't central to the story, My intention with craft was that it would be a means of creating talisman abilities to augment yer skills. I'm wond'ring p'raps if it wouldn't be better if Craft and Healing were available options conferred by the setting (The Kindom or whatever, kinda like a Covenant from Ars Magica, a shared character if you will) during consolation phases. Indeed a whole host of things could hinge on this. The kingdom is the thing the characters must strive to protect from annihilation. If the characters fail a test the Kingdom suffers.
Thus, beyond any personal ramifications the character may suffer from his failure, he suffers a diminishment of fame and prestige that diminishes his being (which translates into a loss of essence points).

But I'm not so sure.

In that case I could reduce the number of attributes quite dramatically to;

Warfare- Remove Essence from opponent thru combat
Lore/Reconaissance- Discover advantage, reveal subterfuge
Toil-Labour- Overcoming obstacles, Destroying stuff
Movement/Athleticism- Pursuit, Race against Time, Overcoming obstacles
Persuasion- Remove essence from opponent thru intimidation, seduction, trickery etc.
Subterfuge- Evasion, Resisting detection (is this heroic?)
Will- Courage, Faith-Resisting Essence loss from persuasion
Preservation- Defense/Healing Resisting Essence loss in Combat

Now I have three opposing pairs of abilities; Warfare/Preservation,
Persuasion/Will and Lore/Subterfuge and a coupla abilities that do similar things, Toil and Movement, Which seem appropriate to the setting but may be difficult to deal with.

These Mechanics are starting to remind me of collectible card games. I wonder if that is not a good model to work off. CCG's take very simple mechanics and add layers of imaginative cleverness. I wonder if I, working on that principle, might not be able to make a storygame using similar principles. Take a very abstract set of mechanics and clothe it in pleasing narrative.

And I'm getting bogged down again.

I've gotta pay some attention to some of the more unusual conventions I intend to utilise; viz. accelerated timescale, third person past-tense narrative, possible competition, preordained structure,Reward system Foreshadowing....

Any suggestions?

[donalfall]

Can't help too much - but I have printed all this stuff out and will check it in my off hours. Also, I have a co-writer who I'll go over it with. Looks quite promising.

( Looks wary in anticipation of being beaten senseless ) Could also be the foundation of a great Card Game dynamic/rules set.
Gilgamesh : the CCG?:D

Sorry.

I think you should leave "warfare" as "smiting" ( on yet another frivolous note ). Smiting has such a pre - New Testament Classical Civillisatin feel to it.

donalfall

[Tom Fitzgerald]

Smiting is is then. Thanks for your interest. I must say I like smiting too. As for the card game idea, it has occurred to me too. I am a reasonably competent artist and actually have illustrated a couple of cards for the precursor to this game (Gigantomachia, the war against the Giants) but the illustration of an entire card game is tooo much for me at the moment,. However, there is , I think another way of doing it- track down uncopyrighted historical images, Paintings, carvings, friezes, bas reliefs etc. then design a nifty way of presenting game mechanics to fit them (or choose images to fit mechanics).
Publish it on the web in a format that can be printed out on business cards.

Easy.

[Deathlok]

I'm a little unclear on the metagame scope of these rules... (wow, that's as clear as mud; I'll try again) Is this game intended to be played as a series of (3 or so) adventures, a single long session, or a campaign? It seems to support all three, but I thought getting your intent might help me see where you're coming from. A campaign wherein you play the exploits of each of the 7 generations has the potential for a long-running (but not open-ended) campaign, but playing a single generation's heros could be done in a single session.

Also, the idea for a card game is an interesting one. I'd be very interested in hearing more about that (moreso than I am about RPG rules... I'm a rules wonk, and CG's have more potential for wonkage than RPGs).

Josh Morrow

[Tom Fitzgerald]

With regards to scope, it is my intention that each game session tells the whole story of a single generation of heroes. The Scope is that broad. Single actions might take seconds or minutes, but thet might take months or years and are (quite sensibly too) not dealt with at the nitty-gritty level.
Ideally a player assesses that a character can do a certain thing then describes what happens.
The threats to civilisation may occur at different stages in the character's life. In any case it is my intention that charater development can occur in between these stages. Additionally I am considering tailoring the risk level such that characters begin to diminish in might as they get older and their civilisation fades.

The generations thing is just a means of extending and connecting one-shot single session stories with different characters participating in the same history. To increase scope and such.

As for the card game, it wasn't anything particularly brilliant or new, just a non-collectible self-contained hybrid of magic, jyhad and that Middle earth card game. Players make a map during play by placing location cards on the table. Then they try and conquer or destroy the opposing player's territories.

The best thing about it is the Giants. They Smash villages, stomp crops, uproot trees, piss in reservoirs, eat herds, destroy entire armies and generally make a stupendous nuisance of themselves.

I must get back to that sometime.

[Deathlok]

I seem to remember a Groo card game from a while back... the players were building cities, and Groo wandered around causing trouble (as he is wont to do)... There were "Groo dice" that had various symbols on them. Each turn, the player rolled the Groo dice and used the symbols to pay for "Groo cards" that often resulted in the destruction of someone else's hard work. Your Giants reminded me of this...

Josh Morrow