On Unnamed Horizons: 2018

Thursday, December 27, 2018

Attacking the Sheet & The Prestige

Over the course of my winter break between semesters, I've been going back and putting on a movie while I do work- something which either doesn't require a lot of brainpower or is something I've seen before. In this case, the film was a rewatch of The Prestige. While chock full of readily game-able material, one specific element of the plot jumped out at me for non-conventional usage. As a without-context spoiler, the film features a teleportation device straight out of a philosophical problem: the device creates a perfect duplicate at a different destination while destroying the original. This of course raises questions regarding the continuation of consciousness and other existentialist weights which would be great to throw at players.

The only problem is doing so lacks a certain weight to it. Just describing to a player "your character is dead, you are now playing a perfect copy of your character" is something which'd probably be quickly overlooked; unless accompanied by some doppelganger fight or sanity mechanic, which even then may feel a bit forced. After a bit of stewing though, I defaulted to coming at it with a design principle offered up by Arnold Kemp of Goblin Punch: "attacking every part of the character sheet." While almost always a useful principle, the only issue in application here is that by it's nature this shouldn't affect a character sheet at all. For the weight and feeling of this to land, the character should be completely unchanged aside from their potentially duplicate nature. That's when it hit me to take the principle literally.

I've never had a GM rip up a character sheet in my face- and personally I find the idea in it's usual context often rude- but such an act has weight to it. People grow attached to certain characters of theirs, and to a certain extent they grow attached to the sheets of those characters as well- to the point where they hold on to ratty old sheets without replacing them or they retire a dead character's sheet and hold onto it as a memento. So it'd be fair to say this action, ripping up the actual sheet the character is written on and replacing it with an exact duplicate, has impact while ultimately having no effect on the game beyond the description that comes with it and having a new piece of paper. It does something despite doing nothing.

Well... it may do something. This may be more another neat idea and less a useful tool in practice, as admittedly this idea does come with a lot of caveats and baggage which may make it have a lot less mileage. If your games involve turning over character sheets a lot more often or your players aren't the sentimental type, then it'll probably be neat but not phase them much. Not to mention that the whole sort of "act" probably requires a bit of theatrics and a lot of preparation, including quickly replacing player's character sheets after turning them into confetti. You'd also probably have to have duplicates ready by your own hand, as having players copy them down would save on effort but deflate this down to being a big tax and waste of everybody's time.

Friday, September 28, 2018

Regarding Papers & Pencil's Magic Words

I first got into tabletop role-playing via the twilight years of 4E D&D, and almost nearly gave up the hobby as a result. While I can enjoy a good tactical game, the rigidity and tedious combat just didn't fill that niche I was looking to fill. Eventually the beta for 5E rolled around, which while more engaging, still had its frustrations for me- leading me toward looking online for solutions, leading me to a lot of wonderful blogs listed on the sidebar there, leading me to try and modify 5E to my own ends, until finally a year or so ago leading me to start developing my own tabletop system. It's still a ramshackle and unpresentable thing- a hobby project strewn about thirty or forty constantly updating separate documents- but it's something which suits my usage.

The inspiration I had for the use of magic was the excellent +Beloch Shrike's original post on Magic Words over at Papers & Pencils . So, in light of Magic Words 2, I thought I'd share some elements of my system which work towards the similar ends of a creative and engaging magic system

__________

Magic words each occupy one of three different roles: Modifier, Effect, and Target. This mostly breaks along a words usage:
- most adjectives, adverbs, and so forth are Modifier words, like Fiery, Silent, or Illusory
- Effect words mostly are verbs, such as Manipulate, Damage, or Create
- nouns and the like constitute most Target words, like Humanoid, Earth, or Weapon

So one might simply move the earth around them via casting Manipulate-Earth, or they may cast Illusory-Manipulate-Earth to cast an illusion of appearing to move the earth. As casters grow in power they not only obtain more words, they also may use more Modifier words within a single spell (via a sort of spell point system which I won't get into here).

A lot of these words then can modify the power of a spell without being straight +1's. For example: casting Fiery-Damage-Humanoid may be throwing a spark of fire at an enemy, while a Deadly-Mass-Fiery-Damage-Humanoid is closer to a traditional casting of fireball. The upper end of this limit does create long and dangerous spells like Timed-Silent-Invisible-Deadly-Mass-Fiery-Damage-Humanoid, but as a whole this creates the chance for more intricate and unique-to-caster spells depending on lexicon rather then just strictly more powerful choices.

Essentially: each Word is a modular component of the final spell. In addition to this, each Word was originally well defined in operation- however upon further testing and some ideas from Magic Words 2 I'm heavily leaning towards dropping this for two reasons: referencing a big bulky list is what I was trying to get away from, and the edge cases are too awkward and hard to process. After all, how does one "Fiery-Damage-Sadness"? A more free-form description system suits it all better.

Upon gaining the ability to cast spells, either at character creation or during play, the method of obtaining Words is selected of three modes:

- The character has a large list of related Words (eg all words related to fiery destruction, all words related to animals, etc), which they randomly roll on to permanently gain new spells when they level. They require no additional effort or research, as this method is meant to reflect the spontaneous and innate use of magic. Inspired by Brendan of Necropraxis and parts of their work Wonders & Wickedness.

- The player must choose to either forgo all but one Target word of their choice, or all but one Effect word of their choice. They can effectively learn an unlimited number of words through whatever spell research rules you favor otherwise, but one of these categories is only ever limited to one Word. This method creates magic users who are extremely specialized to a field (eg a magic user who can only effect things by putting them to sleep, can only cast spells on or related to snakes, etc). Inspired by trying to sort of emulate Stands from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and Arnold Kemp of Goblin Punch's amazing wizards but failing spectacularly.

- The character has a large list of Words, which they do not permanently know. Instead each day they must prepare and select a set number of words off this list as appropriate for their level. This method is meant to reflect more prepared sorts of magic, such as prayer or alchemical concoctions. Inspired by the usual sort of magic bobbins.

Each set of benefits and limitations, along with an already highly variable approach to spell implementation, hopefully creates unique fun casters.

Friday, September 21, 2018

Genesis is Pointless

Excerpt from The Holy Dialogues of Pazuk, Volume 134, Page 12.

When the sun never set and before man grew old and died, a student once asked the Wise Pazuk about the nature of the universe. Holy Pazuk, in their wisdom, walked with the student through the monastery- taking them to the unassuming and humble kitchen. Many students sat, making the simple bread which sustained them. To this, the student began protesting Pazuk's apparent refusal to answer their question. Why had Pazuk brought them for chores instead of providing cosmic truths?

Blessed Pazuk, rifled through the firewood. The student was silenced as Pazuk withdrew two pieces of lumber, and asked the student to examine them. The student began to study the wood, realizing that this may hold some hidden wisdom for their question. The student performed every analysis they could think of. After the span of a few hours, the student became dejected. They had failed their lesson. Finally, they asked Pazuk what was the meaning of this wood. Slowly and with the greatest mindfulness, Pazuk lifted one of the pieces in their hands- before promptly beating the student to death. As their body lay on the floor, the other students in the kitchen looked on.

With saintly reverence, Divine Pazuk turned to his remaining students and uttered his third holy law: "Do not disrespect your masters by asking stupid questions."