Update: Getting Back on Track

I took a month off to get some school work done and because my baby decided to be born. She is as adorable as can be, but takes a lot of attention. Who knew, right?

Now I'm returning to this project and doing some much needed rewrites and condensing. Right now I'm working on a rewrite of the game's basic rules. While the last rewrite totally made over the game's central action resolution mechanic, this rewrite is more about clarity and presentation of information, reducing the amount of terms and apparent exceptions to rules, standardizing language across different types of rules, etc.

I've also been working on the magic system some more. Again, things are being simplified to run a bit smoother. Player choices about what kinds of magic they want to master are being made more significant, while the actual casting of magic is being made quicker and easier to explain.

Look for updates to the game's mechanics pages in the next couple weeks. I'll probably finish off the character professions and feats by the end of the month with the new rules and language in mind, then go back and revise the older profession and feat pages after that. August then will focus on character creation and progression, which leaves the rest of Fall for the writing of lore. The end of the year should bring complete play testing of the entire system from top to bottom as well as polishing and reorganization of the website. Within the first few months of next year I'll probably take a serious look at different ways of funding and publishing. My birthday is at the end of February, and I fully intend to give this complete game to myself as a present :)

Update: Magic System Beginnings

As I'm still making my way through classes and character creation, I've spent a little bit of time to lay down the foundations of The Way of the Earth's magic system. Magic is an essential part of The Way of the Earth. The vaishineph player characters are defined by their ability to Whisper, that is, to harness the manna in their veins to produce miraculous effects. I have always appreciated more open ended and free form magic systems in role-playing games, and I wanted to follow suit in the development of The Way of the Earth's magic system. I also wanted to give a nod to people who appreciated skill based role-playing games over class based role-playing games. The magic in The Way of the Earth is designed to provide the a la carte utility and potential for specialization that skill based games offer.

The heart of The Way of the Earth's magic system is a thing called The Naming Wheel, which is featured in the center of the character sheet. Each of the twelve words on The Naming Wheel is an invocation. Invocations form the foundations of every Whisper, or spell-like ability cast in The Way of the Earth (you can see a rough draft of the twelve invocations here). Each is a kind of magical verb, that produces a generic class of effects. Player characters in The Way of the Earth begin with the ability to use three invocations, Foretell, and two others. High level player characters can use up to six or seven. Invocations can be combined with modifying effects called evocations, which act like adverbs in the magical grammar of a Whisper. Evocations alter an invocations effect, either empowering it if its cast under certain conditions, or adding a new effect when it is successful. Lastly, there are convocations, the nouns of the magical grammar, which transform the caster themselves or their surroundings as they cast a Whisper. Each Whisper can be made up of multiple invocations and evocations, and up to one convocation. Mixing and matching these effects, along with the natural diversity within the effects, allows player characters to produce a wide range of "spells" using their creativity.

Different player characters will come to learn different invocations, evocations, and convocations, and so be able to specialize in their own sorts of magic. The kinds of magic a player character specializes in is totally independent of their race, class, attributes, and other skills, and so they have a lot of freedom in how they pursue their own magical agenda.

- ABH

Update: Conflicts Without Damage

Damage and the iconic "damage roll" are staples of many popular role-playing games. As The Way of the Earth has undergone its latest round of updates, damage, as it is traditionally conceived, has essentially been removed from the game. The new Judge Two system has a lot of nuance built into it, enough that I felt like "damage" or "points of damage" was no longer really necessary to meaningfully differentiate between weapons. I want to keep the action fast and the math light, and damage wasn't really helping either of those goals.

As it stands now, conventional weapons are simply either bashing or lethal. There is no "damage" difference among the types. All bashing weapons impose penalties to certain actions and build up to knocking someone out. All lethal weapons impose limitations to a character's movement and built up to killing them. Otherwise, weapons within a damage type are equally "powerful." A peasant's hatchet is a lethal weapon. An Atrian royal guard's dual headed crescent axe is a lethal weapon. Both can kill a character.

The Way of the Earth encourages players to see weapons in a utilitarian fashion. Many role-playing games have characters specialize in the use of particular types of weapons and then gives them stronger and stronger versions of that weapon as they level up. In The Way of the Earth, weapons are tools, and best used in certain situations. Combat orientated character will want to have several weapons with them at any given time, and choose the best one for the occasion when opponents reveal themselves. So instead of weapons being differentiated by damage rolls, weapons in The Way of the Earth are differentiated by attack bonuses.

Every weapon in The Way of the Earth has one or more edges, which is a situational attack bonus most commonly applicable to a certain kind of opponent. A weapon might have an edge for attacking heavily armored targets, or shielded targets, or unshielded targets, or slow moving targets, or weakened targets, or grappling targets, or ranged targets, or defending targets, or targets without cover, or targets that are also attacking, etc, etc. The strength of a weapon is dictated by how many edges it has and how many situations they are applicable in. So, for example, the hatchet above is equally as lethal as the crescent axe, but the hatchet's edge grants +1 to attacks against wounded targets. Not bad, but not really great until the action's already underway. It doesn't help you make good on your first swing. Whereas the crescent axe has three edges, granting +1 against groups of targets, +1 against unarmored targets, and +1 against a target previously attacked. The edges add to one another, allowing the crescent axe to achieve a +3 attack bonus in the ideal situation. The edges also encourage use against certain kinds of opponents. Against a single, heavily armored opponent who catches a character off guard, the crescent axe is the same as the simple hatchet. But against a group of unarmored opponents, and with the opportunity to attack more than once, the crescent axe becomes an instrument of death.

I'll likely spend the next few updates going over some of the changes from the recent overhaul before moving back to talking about characters and professions. After characters and professions, it will be on to the magic system in earnest, which is the aspect of The Way of the Earth I am most excited to unveil.

- ABH

Update: Oh Boy, New Mechanics

As discussed on Wednesday, The Way of the Earth's central game mechanics underwent a massive overhaul this week as I labored to simplify the system, respond to early play-test feedback, and incorporate some new ideas I had been experimenting with. The first fruits of the this overhaul are complete and have been posted under the mechanics page. 

The Judge Two System has been changed so that there are advantages (called innocence) and disadvantages (called guilt) on every roll, eliminating the neutral roll results possible with the older system. Players no longer spend one die to raise the other, rather, they simply choose one die to be Truth (and decide innocence or guilt) and one die to be Light (and determine action success or failure).

The Way of the Earth's health and damage mechanics have been overhauled and simplified. There is no longer any damage, any hit points, or any stamina and poise dice. Now, anything that would cause damage or adversely effect a character contributes to a single pool called risk. By itself, risk does nothing, but it increases the chances that characters take on conditions, which are The Way of the Earth's new wound based health system.

Time and Place has been updated to reflect the fact that things like initiative and rounds are gone. Now, every roll's Truth die, through innocence or guilt, determines who acts next in a conflict. This can impose an interesting choice on players, who may find themselves having to decide between succeeding on an important attack but allowing an enemy to act next, or failing that attack and allowing an ally to come to the rescue.

The Resolving Actions page has taken the place of the old action description page and the old simple actions page and now covers a lot more information in a much more concise fashion. The language around actions has become much more consistent and focused. What used to be contested ends are now broken into tiers called takes, marks, and checks, which better use the new risk system and incentivize strategy and teamwork in conflicts.

Whew!

This next week I will be taking the new mechanics out for some more tests and doing a few passes over the other pages, including the character pages, to make sure class abilities reflect the new mechanics.

Update: Massive Overhauls Coming Soon

TWE is done enough that I can get quality feedback on its many moving parts. And in response to some feedback and as a result of some simplifying and experimenting I've been doing, the mechanics of the game are going to be changing. A lot. There's going to be massive rewrites of practically every mechanics page, and retuning of all the completed feats and traits.

It's a big step to take, but an important one I think.

The soul of the game isn't changing. It will be a faster, more responsive, and more dramatic version of itself. It will really allow the game's biggest strengths and most unique features to shine, and trim the fat off things that don't need to be in the spotlight. Characters aren't really changing, and neither are the magic system, progression system, or resource system.

Listed below are some of the big changes that will be happening, along with some of the goals of those changes.

1. The Judge Two System is becoming simpler and innocent rolls as they used to exist are gone.

2. Attributes and target numbers/power numbers are being scaled down a bit.

3. Health is moving over to a pure wound system

4. A simple mechanic called Risk is being put in, in place of Stamina/Poise, to make conflicts become increasingly consequential.

5. Weapons, armor, and other conflict boons are being simplified while retaining some unique stats.

6. The calls systems (open/round/power) is being thrown out for a turn system dictated by the simplified Judge Two System.

7. Guilts and Glories (now called Guilt and Innocence) are now guaranteed on every roll, and their effects have been streamlined to propel the action forward rather than merely providing bonuses.

8. Scripts are being tied to class.

9. Contested Ends are being placed in two tiers, accessible with rolls that earn certain degree of success.

10. The language of contested actions is changing to better fit how contested ends, guilts, innocence, and boons work now.

It's a lot. Fo sho. But at the end of it all I think it will be a concentrated version of what was working before. The next couple updates will be unveiling some of these rewrites as I finish and test them. I likely won't put up the new pages until most are done, but you'll be able to see their progress in the weekly updates.

Reverse Lifepaths: How to Create a Character Backwards

The vaishineph player characters in The Way of the Earth are created in a very similar way to characters in other role-playing games. Players roll for their character's attributes, make choices about their kind, class, and abilities, and then furnish their characters with a starting set of equipment. One major differences about characters in The Way of the Earth is that a character's background and personal history is not fleshed out during character creation. These elements, as crucial as they are, are left vague to begin with. This is because the vaishineph characters themselves remember little of their former lives upon being resurrected by their aihalan. They lived lives prior to their death and resurrection, but aside from some lingering emotions, and broken bits of memory, they have no access to that part. Access comes eventually though. As the player characters adventure through the world of Chaesharin and increase in experience, they gradually unlock more and more of these crucial memories, and with the memories comes more knowledge of who the character was in the past and how this might shape their future aspirations, as well as more power and skill in the present.

As a role-playing game player and now designer, I was very affected by the Burning Wheel's lifepath system. In Burning Wheel, players create well developed histories for their characters by going through a series of major events, professions, and journeys in their character's past. All of these things contribute to the player character's starting skills and abilities, and gives them a well defined identity for when the player begins the game with them. 

In a way, The Way of the Earth is like Burning Wheel's lifepath system in reverse. When a character is created, their entire past is defined by a few elements. They have a class, which represents the profession they had in their mortal lives. They have a single key memory, which is their first major clue as to what the character desires atonement for. And they have a writhing, which is a prejudice so deeply ingrained into their bones that not even death and resurrection could get rid of it. Along with a astrological sign, that describes the fundamentals of the character's personality, these are the only pieces of the puzzle that player characters begin The Way of the Earth with. But each time a character levels up, not only are their mechanical aspects improved (better attributes, more skills and abilities, etc.) but they gain a new piece of their character's puzzle. For the first five levels of a character's progression, these puzzle pieces are additional key memories. When put together, these key memories explain what tragedy or horror in the character's life they desire to atone for and who is ultimately responsible for their death. As characters continue to level up from levels six through ten, they unlock the pieces of the character's unique Axis of Atonement, which is the character arc they will take to atone for their mortal lives, find justice, and make peace with what happened to them.

Leveling up in The Way of the Earth then is about more than increasing numbers and increasing power. Although this happens, leveling up is more profoundly about learning more about a character's past, and how that past sets the path towards the future. Since these puzzle pieces only fall into place over time, as the characters progress, it provides unique opportunities for story-telling. Player characters can discover that allies in their present lives were enemies in their past mortal lives, or the other way around. Player characters can come to find that they knew each other in their former lives, and perhaps had relationships with one another before. Player characters can fit newly encountered NPCs into their histories, or incorporate present events into their past. Since the histories are created retrospectively, they are free to playfully incorporate all of these elements and more.

I'm hoping that allowing player character pasts to be fluid things provides players with a unique opportunity for story-telling.

- ABH

Update: Of Death Spirals and Choices

I've realized that my past few weekly updates have been really long and I end up spending more time writing them than I do working on the actual game. Which doesn't seem very good for my long term productivity. So from now on, Wednesday and Sunday updates will be a bit shorter, and aim at giving outlines of some of my design thoughts and quicker descriptions of TWE's progress.

This week I'm mainly working on TWE's classes and thinking up fun and mechanically interesting abilities to put into players' hands. A nice thing about classes in TWE is that they don't have to carry the full weight of character customization and progression, because they are only one source of a character's power and advancement. I can really focus class abilities, called feats, on giving players tricks to use in conflicts of various kinds. Since characters primarily progress through traits, and since every character has a bunch of magic at their disposal with Whispers, classes can have more flavoral and niche benefits than in many other rpgs.

But as I'm working on classes and feats, I'm also implementing some feedback I've gotten from friends and play-testers and kind commentators.

One bit of feedback just involves cleaning up some of the language around conflicts to make sure that TWE's conflict resolution system is as effortlessly applicable to all kinds of conflicts as possible. Part of this is ensuring that social conflicts in particular get enough attention. Players of rpgs are much more familiar with martial conflicts, how they work, and what their consequences are than social conflicts, and so I added some extra clarity on pages touching on social conflicts to better communicate what the stakes of social conflicts are and what limitations are involved.

A second bit of feedback involves TWE's health and damage mechanics. TWE has a version of hit points at its heart. Characters have two pools of hit points, one physical and one psychological, that can be lost or recovered independently. Losing a certain amount of either involves some small penalties. This reminds many rpg players of "death spiral" style mechanics, where taking even a little damage starts a character down an irrevocable path toward death as their consequences and penalties begin to pile up. This is something I wanted to avoid and so I have clarified some of the consequences of taking damage. Although there are penalties for taking damage, because of the way TWE's other mechanics work, they are not debilitating. And a character's ability to Whisper, that is, to use magic, is never impacted by injury of any kind. So even if a character's physical abilities are diminished somewhat by damage, it only means that Whispering becomes an increasingly attractive option.

I've also outright added a few new options related to health and taking damage. Previously, when characters ran out of hit points, they had consequences imposed upon them by the rules. Now, there are several opportunities for players to make choices about how they take damage and what consequences they suffer when they do. A couple examples: Before, when a character got knocked out, they were just knocked out. Now, a character can make a kind of last stand, by taking a serious wound and remaining conscious. Before, when a character took lethal damage they simply began the process of dying. Now, if a character takes a small amount of lethal damage, they can ignore the damage entirely in exchange for taking a serious wound. Before, when a character was manipulated by an NPC, they simply had to deal with the consequences. Now, the character can opt to take a mental wound in exchange for having a say in what kind of effect the NPC has on them. These options should allow players to feel more in control of their characters, even as their characters are being beaten or defeated.

I think these additions are a significant improvement over the situation before, and I think they work elegantly with the pre-existing mechanics. They don't really add any complexity. The rules already existed. It's just that now players are presented with choices rather than being forced down certain paths of consequences.

Anyway, back to working on the classes! See everyone Sunday for the next update.

- ABH

Satisfying and Subverting Class Expectations

The classes that a role-playing game offers tend to be one of the most compelling aspects of character creation and progression. It can be exciting to pick up a brand new role-playing game, flip straight to the class list, and start devouring all of the information there about abilities and advancement options. Character classes often play an integral role in how a role-playing game chooses to tell its stories because a class often represents a piece of a game’s lore put directly into the players’ hands. Classes offer ways for players to differentiate themselves from one another in hard mechanical terms, and when certain classes excel I certain areas, classes are a way to encourage players to rely on one another in the face of conflicts and challenges. But classes can also be unnecessarily restrictive, limiting player character potential from both a mechanical and a story-telling perspective. Some players avoid class based games entirely in favor of skill or magic based systems that are more open ended and allow player characters to partake of a buffet of abilities, advancement options, and bits of lore. As with many elements of The Way of the Earth, the goal here is to preserve as many advantages of class based games as possible, while avoiding as many of the disadvantages as possible. So, for this Sunday update, and for the next two or three Sunday updates, I want to spend a little time talking about how classes work in The Way of the Earth and how I am using of some of the game mechanics related to class to tell unique stories of subversion and redemption in a dark fantasy world.

In The Way of the Earth the players take on the role of vaishineph, returned souls, individuals who lived mortal lives, died, and then are resurrected by the power of a minor deity called an aihalan. The aihalan imbues the vaishineph with supernatural powers and tasks them with tearing apart the military and ideological strength of the five oppressive kingdoms who dominate the land and the royal cults who stand at their head. The vaishineph, however, remember next to nothing of their former lives, and only slowly reclaim these memories over time. The life of a vaishineph is lived as a wandering servant of their aihalan in the shadows of society, working and plotting with other vaishineph, striking at targets of opportunity before fading away, and fighting for the liberation of the common folk in everything they do.

In The Way of the Earth a character’s class represents the profession they had in their moral life. A class grants a character their starting equipment and resources, bonus attributes and knowledge, and their initial resolve and willpower which dictates how many physical and mental hit points they have. A class also grants four feats that the character learns over time which enhances the character’s abilities in certain kinds of conflicts. Finally, a class grants a skill, which is a unique ability that a character can perform with a few minutes time and concentration that contributes some options and utility to their group. All told, classes in The Way of the Earth are much lighter sorts of things than classes in other role-playing games. These handful of class based abilities can be compared to a package of skills in a skill based game, and are, by design, much more open ended in terms of their mechanical benefits than the kinds of abilities awarded in other class based games.

• The Fortune Teller’s feat, Ruinous Omen, allows them to multiply the negative consequences of opponent failures in any kind of conflict, be that high seas naval warfare or high stakes political negotiation.

• The Overseer’s feat, Painful Demonstration, allows them to deal extra fear damage to all nearby opponents when they land a successful attack, be that a martial attack or social attack, making them equally effective with a giant crescent axe or intimidating words.

Classes are also not the only way that player characters define themselves in The Way of the Earth. While each player character has a class, representing their life prior to their resurrection, each player character also has a calling, representing their life after their resurrection. A calling is like a second class. Instead of improving a character’s mortal skills and abilities, a calling grants evocations which enhance a player character’s Whispers. A Whisper is like a spell in another fantasy setting, and every vaishineph player character can use The Way of the Earth’s open ended magic system to Whisper with a variety of effects. But each calling also provides a number of unique evocations which modify these Whispers, acting like adverbs to the Whisper’s verbs, and empowering the Whispers to achieve new things.

• The Hand calling grants the evocation “…from the violent edge” causing a Whisper modified with the evocation to channel its power through a readied weapon and multiply its effectiveness against a target struck by it.

• The Voice calling grants the evocation “…with a halted moment” causing a Whisper modified with the evocation to slow time in the caster’s favor, allowing themselves or an ally to get in an extra action before any opponent can react.

The role that a player character in The Way of the Earth adopts for their group is defined by a combination of their class and calling choices, which work together to create a unique path of character advancement.

With that in mind, here are four briefly stated goals that The Way of the Earth’s class mechanics hope to achieve.

1. Satisfy the archetype desires of those drawn to the biblical setting

The Way of the Earth’s Chaesharin and actual history’s 8th-6th century BC Levant are very similar in many regards. The geography and cultures, people groups and languages, levels of technology and religious mythology all have points of immediate and intentional comparison. Many of the major events and characters in the biblical books between Exodus and 2nd Kings have reflections in Chaesharin’s history. There is a Moses figure and an exodus type event, there is a Joshua figure and conquest period, there is David figure and a rising monarchy, and there is a group of foreign invaders and the shadow of exile on the horizon. No doubt many of the people interested in The Way of the Earth will be interested in part because of its dark and mythic biblical setting. And many of these people will come to the table with certain biblically inspired expectations about what kinds of characters they will want to play. To a certain degree, as a designer, it would be irresponsible to not find a way to accommodate these expectations, at least in part, even if The Way of the Earth has a large number of unique setting elements. As a result, one goal of the class system in The Way of the Earth is to satisfy these expectations. The game would be doing a disservice to its player base if there was not some way to play some of the biblical narratives’ most iconic characters, like Moses and Joshua, like David and Goliath, and like Samson and Delilah. The Way of the Earth’s twenty classes strive to hit most of these major archetypes. On the other side of the coin, there is no class in The Way of the Earth that does not have some point of resonance with the biblical narratives, be that an explicit character that the class is related to, or a specific event that the class embodies. For every class you can point to a verse or chapter and say, there, this is where it comes from, even if the inspiration is heavily dramatized.

2. Satisfy the archetype desires of experienced role-players

There are some role-players with deeply ingrained preferences when it comes to the characters they play and the roles they prefer to adopt. Some people always play the brash wizard and look for the most dangerous and most colorful spells they can. Some people always play the charming thief and try to smooth talk their way out of every situation. Some people always play the tanky fighter with the largest weapons and armor that gold coins and blood can buy. For these players, different settings are just different coats of paint for their time tested roles. No doubt some of the people interested in The Way of the Earth will simply know that it is a somewhat unique fantasy setting, and a place where they can swing new kinds of swords and sling new kinds of spells. And again, many of these people will come to the table with certain role-playing game conventions in mind about what kinds of characters and roles they will want to play. One goal of The Way of the Earth’s class system is to satisfy these players as well and this is where the game’s callings really shine. There are five callings in The Way of the Earth, and, while a bit simplistic, it can be helpful to think of the callings as roughly corresponding to traditional fantasy character tropes. The Eye calling, for example, lends itself to being played as a sneaky, roguish type, whereas the Hand calling lends itself to being played as the aggressive fighter or ranger type. The Way of the Earth’s system allows these callings to be chosen independently of a character’s class, so that players can use the callings to focus in on a traditional adventuring party role that they like while their class can give expression to role-playing desires or utility skills.

3. Satisfy at least some of the desires of those who enjoy skill based games

Some people who play role-playing games have long given up on class based games. It could be a result of simply preference, or because of the number of legitimate critiques that can often be brought to bear against class based games. In many role-playing games, a class is chosen at the beginning of the game and it locks the player character into a rather narrow path of customization and advancement. While a player character’s class and calling are indeed chosen at the beginning of the game in The Way of the Earth, the feats awarded by classes and the evocations awarded by callings are both more flexible than class abilities in other games. Additionally, player characters in The Way of the Earth also progress in other ways that players are free to choose later in their character’s development. Player characters gain trait points that they use to improve attributes and develop special skills according to their choice of kind. Player characters deepen their relationships with the various in game factions, which gets them access to new items and information. And player characters master their own choices of Whispers, which not only improve those Whispers, but also unlock access to other magic components out of which they can build and cast even more Whispers. So while it would incorrect to call The Way of the Earth a skill based game, its diverse systems of customization and advancement mimic many of the advantages of skill based games while attempting to avoid some of the limiting pitfalls of class based games.

4. Subvert and transform all of these desires for a dark fantasy setting

The fourth and final goal of The Way of the Earth’s class mechanics is to subvert and transform the desires players bring in to the game. The Way of the Earth is a fantasy setting, and it is a fantasy setting based in a biblically inspired world, but at its heart, The Way of the Earth is also a dark game about personal tragedy and redemption. Chaesharin is terrifying and oppressive. Characters are trapped between the violence and poverty inflicted by decadent regimes and the unthinkable alien horror of demons and other supernal beings. There are opportunities for heroism, but they are costly, painful, and leave deep and abiding scars on bodies and souls. No character class in The Way of the Earth is a towering beacon of martial prowess and righteous victory. That confidence and assurance is never offered to players in the game. The Way of the Earth’s character classes reflect relatively mundane professions that everyday sorts of folk would have. No one was an adventurer or champion in their mortal lives. No one begins their resurrected life fully prepared for the trials and tribulations they will face. A class in The Way of the Earth represents the rather desperate and hasty process of transforming a past life’s skills into weapons the vaishineph can use to survive in their resurrected lives. Players all of backgrounds will find that the classes and roles that they imagined playing are more complex than they had imagined. Classes sometimes offer unexpected abilities that seem to go against their primary purpose, or other abilities that reflect deep insecurities and fears that might come with the profession. Classes are frequently effective beyond their stereotypical scope, and weak in areas where an archetype might suggest strength. In the end, classes are less about heroic progression, and more as a means of keeping characters alive long enough to learn more about themselves and why the world around them is so broken and haunted.

Next Sunday I will be writing about character progression, and how classes, callings, and levels tie in to the player characters’ road to personal redemption in this broken world.

- ABH

Update: Conflicts, Feedback, and Moving Toward Character Creation

This week the Conflicts in Action, Part 1 page has been finished. Originally there was only going to be a single page dedicated to working out conflicts, but for clarity's sake I decided to create a part 2. Part 1 focuses on individual level conflicts, martial and social battles. Part 2 focuses on large scale conflicts, called command conflicts and command actions in TWE. Wars and naval engagements fall into this category. The part 2 page will also have guidelines for handling miscellaneous forms of conflicts. None of these mechanics are particularly new. Everything is still using the Judge Two System and the rules for contested actions found on the Action Descriptions page, the guidelines here simply explain how to relate those same gameplay mechanics to new situations. I also did some simplifying of the social conflict mechanics to emphasize what was unique about the system while downplaying some of its crunchier elements. There are still significant analogies between martial conflict and social conflict, and between all conflicts for that matter, but mechanically, social conflicts now involve fewer bonuses and penalties from circumstantial sources than the other kinds of conflict. I think this helps to keep the conflict focused on the actual conversations and less on the moment to moment game-y tools at everyone's disposal.

With the conflict mechanics wrapping up, the "hard" part of the game design is nearing its end. Most of my efforts will be moving toward character creation and advancement for the next few weeks. The outlines of the Atrian kind page is up, which will give people some idea of what a race in TWE looks like, and my next few Sunday updates will be talking about the five kinds, five callings, and twenty character classes available in TWE. The first up this Sunday will be on classes since I recently made a rather radical (and I think fun) decision to reboot the classes from their original forms into something more unique. All of the classes in TWE are now unheroically heroic. That is to say, TWE does not have any of the conventional adventuring, military, or magic wielding classes that most fantasy rpgs have. In a sense, the classes are more mundane, in that they are sorts of professions an average person might come to have. In another sense, the classes are more exotic, since they are more about transforming mundane skills into the sort of epic adventuring skills that players will recognize from other fantasy settings. There is no "fighter" but there is a former acrobat who dances beside a giant pole-arm that they can cleave their foes with. There is no "assassin" but there is a former physician whose blows can cripple and paralyze an opponent's vital points. There is no "wizard" but there is a former fortune teller who can predict an opponent's movements and hypnotize people with a snap of the fingers. Classes in TWE are about putting the skills of one's former life to use in a new life, a life of action, intrigue, and danger.

I am looking forward to putting the details on the classes together, and exploring how the character classes in TWE interact with other aspects of character design to give players a whole host of customization and advancement options.

- ABH

Ancient Combat vs. Medieval Combat

The Way of the Earth is set in a dark and mythic version of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. Although it is a fictional setting with wildly dramatized elements, it nevertheless roughly approximates cultures and levels of technology that existed in the historical 9th to 7th centuries BC. This is significantly different from the common medieval European backdrop that is the classical default for many fantasy settings. With a time difference of 1500-2000 years, and an incalculable difference in philosophies and worldviews, it is important when creating an ancient setting like the one in the Way of the Earth to take several opportunities to clearly differentiate it from what people might explicitly or implicitly expect out of a fantasy setting. Many of these differences will be communicated in upcoming lore and fiction entries, which will discuss aspects of The Way of the Earth’s cultures and technologies in some detail. But for this weekly update, as I am actively working on the game mechanics related to conflicts and combat, I wanted to take the opportunity to discuss three ways that the Way of the Earth makes the difference between the ancient and the medieval time periods visible in its combat mechanics.

1. Melee Weapons are Disposable

Although the Iron Age had been in full swing for several hundred years by the 9th to 7th century BC in the ancient Near East, the massive expense of iron working infrastructure and technologies combined with the difficulty in mining and extracting the ore in the eastern Mediterranean, led to it being a somewhat uncommon occurrence on ancient battlefields. When it did appear in any significant amount, it was a dominating force in combat. Unlike in the medieval period where iron and steel formed the bulk of weapons and armor, in the ancient period, bronze was the most common material seen in martial equipment. Bronze’s constituent elements were much easier to work and less costly to shape and maintain, and while bronze could be made to form a lethal edge, the relative softness of the metal meant that it could easily blunt and chip in sustained combat. This weakness was exacerbated on contact with iron which was all together superior for martial purposes. Iron blades could cleave bronze and leather armor in two, turning what would have been wounding blows into killing ones. Iron spears could puncture straight through bronze shields, tearing holes in shielded formations with a thrust. Iron shields repelled bronze tipped arrows effortlessly, and bronze weapons could shatter when put against them. This led to an arms race, as competing empires fought to lay claim to as much iron technology as possible. It was an arms race that the biblical Israelites almost always lost, leading to immense difficulties in their military ventures.

The Way of the Earth captures these historical realities in a few ways. First, martial equipment of common quality is extremely disposable. Common quality weapons and shields can be broken with a single roll; either a bad roll where an item is broken accidentally, or a good roll where an opponent’s item is destroyed in a maneuver. Superior quality items are immune to this danger, and have better offensive and defensive attributes across the board, but are relatively difficult to find and expensive to acquire.

Second, while nothing is more iconic for traditional fantasy than a knight in shining plate armor wielding a long sword, metals in general were much more rare in ancient times. The spear was therefore a much more common weapon, as it required less metal, less smithing expertise, and less training to wield effectively. There are few sword-like weapons in The Way of the Earth, while there are a variety of spear type weapons. Heavy metal armors are present, but again, they are exorbitantly expensive and difficult to come by.

Third, as a way of helping players adapt to the disposability of weaponry, weapons in The Way of the Earth receive various bonuses when fighting against certain types of enemies; bonuses against unarmored opponents, or shield using opponents, or opponents with short weapons, or opponents who are slow, or opponents who are wounded, etc. This encourages players to be more utilitarian about their weapon choices, bringing a few with them and choosing which to use on the basis of the job at hand, and helping players to not feel overly attached to any one in their possession. Many role-playing games encourage players to equip themselves with one or two signature weapons that they use for every occasion, but The Way of the Earth treats weapons as tools best used for specific purposes.

Fourth, and continuing on from the theme of the third, weapons and shields are relatively easy to disarm and pickup in comparison to other role-playing games. If a player’s weapon breaks, they can disarm their opponents to be on equal footing, or steal an adversary’s and turn it against them. In one skirmishing playtest, a player with nothing but a meager short sword was facing down a mounted soldier armed with a shield and spear. With a single roll, the player grabbed hold of the soldier’s spear, threw him from horseback, split the soldier’s shield in two at the cost of his own short sword, and stole away the spear. The drastic reversal in equipment is characteristic of the vicious combat in The Way of the Earth and the general disposability of weaponry that it adopts as a historical theme.

Fifth and finally, The Way of the Earth’s ancient setting allows a few other less common weapons to shine. The sling, for example, plays practically no role in games based on medieval forms of combat, but is a strong contender in The Way of the Earth. Having a range on par with longbows, and being one of the few ranged weapons that can be used with a shield, the sling has a niche where it can excel in combat. There are legendary stories of what slingers could accomplish with their weapons, and records from across the ancient Near East contain references to units of expert slingers deployed with great success in war. Short swords and knives are also weapons that sometimes get pushed into the backdrop of fantasy settings, in deference to the larger and more exciting looking long swords. But light infantry dual wielding short swords or knives could be powerful forces on ancient battlefields, especially when deployed against spearmen. Although spears can thrust from range, the two short swords allows a combatant to parry a spear thrust in either direction, then move in close where a spear loses all effectiveness for the kill. The concealability of short swords also allows them to be used in assassination, something the vaishineph player characters in The Way of the Earth’s setting will likely find themselves attempting. The biblical story of Ehud’s assassination of King Eglan, described so vividly in Judges 3, dramatizes such an incident.

2. Chariots are King on Land

The chariot was an ancient super weapon. The immense cost of fielding chariots combined with the devastation they could cause in charges and as mobile archery platforms, led them to be the premier tool of warfare in much of the ancient Near East. Chariots were considered so invincible that accounts like Judges 1 indicate that without divine intervention, they would be impossible to overcome. The actual effectiveness of chariots in ancient warfare is somewhat less glamorous. Chariots could only be used on a limited amount of terrain and were susceptible to all sorts of maintenance issues, but their psychological value was unparalleled even if their actual value left something to be desired.

The Way of the Earth places chariots on a pedestal, less because of their historical power, and more because of the mythic hold they had on the ancient imagination. Chariots are, in a mechanical sense, intentionally overpowered in The Way of the Earth, not because they were actually invincible in the ancient world, but because they had the feel of invincibility to many soldiers who fought against them. Chariots are in The Way of the Earth are the smallest epic damage unit in the game. Epic damage is a type of damage typically dealt and received by entire armies, naval ships, siege engines, and the most powerful magical Whispers and supernal creatures. It is a type of damage an entire order of magnitude above the more common lethal and bashing damage dealt by weapons. Epic damage units cannot normally be harmed by lethal and bashing damage, and a single point of epic damage counts as ten points of lethal damage when applied to a mere mortal. This makes chariots tank-like in The Way of the Earth’s combat mechanics, and forces players who try to bring them down to employ cautious and creative strategies.

3. Naval Combat is Close and Personal

When someone thinks of pre-modern naval combat they likely think of broadside cannon fire on the high seas. But The Way of the Earth’s historical setting takes place thousands of years before such technology would be prevalent. The ancient world still had furious naval combat, especially in the Mediterranean Sea, which was absolutely essential for ancient economies and aspiring empires. But naval combat had a very different look and feel than the pirate ships and man-o-wars of the 17th -18th centuries. In ancient times, naval combat was up close and personal. The ram rather than the cannon was the primary weapon of war making vessels. Bireme vessels, with doubled layers of oarsman rowing with all their strength, propelled massive ships of wood and metal through the water like a spear. Naval combat was all about positioning, maneuverability, judging distance and the waves, and lining up ramming runs aimed at the sides of enemy ships. A clean shot could cut a vessel in half, while grazing blows might cripple a ship’s structure or kill enough of its oarsman to put it dead in the water. Large scale naval warfare turned into a dizzying dance of darting ships, as enemy forces tried time and again to skewer one another on the raging seas.

Ramming was assisted by onboard archers, firing both conventional arrows and ones of an incendiary variety, to fell oarsman and commanders and set fire to wood, rigging, and sails. Small catapults, and arrow launchers that preceded the roman ballistae, also provided covering fire and could be used to siege cities near the sea. Grappling hooks and spiked bridges could be thrown out once ships drew near one another for boarding, at which point the fighting turned to close quarters combat with the fate of both vessels on the line. Not many role-playing games attempt to do naval combat, but The Way of the Earth makes it a key part of its historical lore and its gameplay, and attempts to bring the unique, visceral experience of ramming ships to the table with care and historical fidelity.

Wrapping Up

Those are just a few ways that The Way of the Earth tries to bring the look, feel, and historical realities of the ancient world to life its combat mechanics.

See something you like here? Let me know! See something you think is missing? Let me know and I'll get it put in :)

- ABH

Update: Combat Beginnings

With this weekly update to The Way of the Earth’s progress, the conflict resolution system is nearly complete. The pages still need to be tweaked for conceptual clarity and consistency of language but the foundations are finally going down for how conflicts are resolved in The Way of the Earth. This is a big step for the game, as conflicts, especially of the martial variety, are centerpieces of fantasy action role-playing and often one of the most interesting and iconic elements of a pen and paper role-playing game. While it is worth pointing out that both the Health and Damage page and the Time and Distance page are nearing completion, I want to spend most of this weekly update talking about five of the key elements and goals of  The Way of the Earth’s combat system.

1. The primary inspiration for The Way of the Earth’s combat comes from Legend of the Five Rings and the Powered by the Apocalypse games.

If I had to describe The Way of the Earth to an experienced player of role-playing games with a single phrase, I would say that the Way of the Earth is to the Old Testament as the Legend of the Five Rings is to medieval Japan. The Way of the Earth is a fantastical, high action, high drama version of a historical period, in much the same way that The Legend of the Five Rings is. The Way of the Earth revels in the wider mythology and iconic themes of the biblical material, while still taking seriously the histories, cultures, and religions that flourished at that time. Astute readers of the Old Testament will find numerous parallels, mirrored characters, and subtly reimagined events in the Way of the Earth, like astute readers of Japanese history and mythology could for the Legend of the Five Rings. A compelling and sometimes under-appreciated design element of the Legend of the Five Rings is that it listens very earnestly to its source material to inform its game mechanics. The rings and the attributes, the honor and the glory, the swordsmanship schools, void points, and insight based character advancement are all heavily attuned to a fictional setting in mythic Japan. This leads to a profound continuity between setting and mechanics that is absent in many generic role-playing game systems. The Way of the Earth strives to treat its setting and its game mechanics with comparable care and wisdom.

In terms of combat, The Way of the Earth shares the Legend of the Five Rings lethality. While a single blow is unlikely to kill a player character outright, two very well could, and three almost certainly will. Combat is dangerous, and heroism in the face of overwhelming odds should be earned. While the vaishineph player characters in the Way of the Earth are naturally superior to many common foes, and can skillfully dispatch entire groups of foot-soldiers in a single action, there are a wide variety of supernatural antagonists available in The Way of the Earth who will make the player characters fear the game’s lethal system. On top of lethality, The Way of the Earth has feats, granted by a unique set of character classes, which award benefits comparable to the techniques of the Legend of the Five Rings swordsmanship schools. The Way of the Earth also uses a risk vs. reward bidding system, where higher bids can lead to more impressive results, although this system is only used for the casting of spell-like Whispers.

There are also two game mechanic themes in The Way of the Earth that are inspired by the Powered by the Apocalypse system, though modified and dressed in a light layer of fried crunch. The first is the idea of player driven action. In The Way of the Earth, like in several modern role-playing games (Powered by the Apocalypse games among them), the players are the only ones who roll dice to resolve actions. For combat, this means that when a player character attacks a non-player character, the player rolls to attack. When a non-player character attacks a player character, the player rolls to defend. The Powered by the Apocalypse games, especially Dungeon World, moved away from the idea of a “miss” being the only result on a roll. Something should always happen with a roll, good or bad. The Way of the Earth takes this principle to heart. When an attack fails in the Way of the Earth, more often than not, the target of the attack gets to counter attack in some fashion. Counter attacks are rarely as potent as normal attacks, but they still involve character agency and threat in a conflict. These two game mechanic themes combine in The Way of the Earth so that even when it is not the player characters’ turn, they are still rolling and making choices in response to non-player character actions. This means more opportunity for strategic choices and felt drama, and less opportunity for idle boredom.

2. Initiative in The Way of the Earth is narrative driven and sides go back and forth taking turns.

Instead of initiative and action order being determined by dice rolls or attributes, the initial initiative in a combat scene is determined by a narrative claim made by the players. The players position themselves in the environment and explain why they deserve the initiative over their opponents, with the gamemaster having the final say. But initiative only determines which side of a conflict goes first. When it is a side’s turn, the side can choose any of its characters to take one action. Once the chosen character acts, it is the other side’s turn, and the other side can choose any of its characters to act. The initiative then goes back and forth until all the characters on one side have taken an action, keeping in mind that no one character can act twice. When one side has chosen all of its characters to act, the other side can then take consecutive turns to finish off its remaining characters. Once every character has acted once, the players make another narrative claim to initiative, and another round of back and forth actions take place.

The system is simple, cuts down on rolling, and forces the player characters to make interesting compromises and strategic choices. Although it is somewhat beyond the scope of this short write up to discuss, there are also mechanics that allow two player characters to act simultaneously, or for opponent actions to be interrupted, or for large bonuses to be given to players willing to go first.

3. Successful attacks apply one of eight effects, and damage is only one.

An “attack” in The Way of the Earth is any maneuver which attempts to overcome a target opponent’s defenses. Characters do not choose the effects of their attacks until they have rolled them, though certain effects can only be chosen with certain weapons or when in certain situations. A successful attack allows one of eight basic effects (called ends) to be applied to the target. Blocking knocks a target back, deals minor damage, and raises the attacker’s defenses. Chasing corners and taunts a target, forcing them to engage or attempt to escape. Damaging deals a weapon’s full damage. Exploiting penalizes a target’s defenses for their allies. Hiding vanishes from the target’s sight and allows sneak attacks. Pushing manipulates the target into a harmful or compromised position. Snaring deals minor damage and entangles with the target in a grapple, forcing them to fight back or attempt to escape. And unarming deprives a target of one of its weapons or tools. Feats and magical Whispers provide even more strategic options on top of these, allowing players to carefully weigh their choices and produce a wide variety of outcomes from the same attack roll.

4.  The math is light and simple, weapons are standardized and fall into easy patterns.

Weapons, mounts, armor, and shields are all classified as light, full, or heavy. All weapons of the same class deal the same damage, all mounts of the same class provide the same advantages, all armor of the same class resists the same amount of damage, and all shields of the same class provide the same defensive benefit. There are small benefits unique to each individual item, but generally speaking, gear sticks to the same patterns of benefits as the other items in its class. Damage also matters a bit less than in other role-playing games. Even a weapon with low damage can be powerful because it can help earn any of the other seven effects or ends described above. A masterwork dagger might not have the heft of a giant spear, but it might tear through an opponent’s defenses or set up sneak attacks with exceptional ferocity.

The classifications used for martial conflicts are mirrored in other types of conflicts too. There are social “weapons,” “shields,” and “armor” as well. They are also classified as light, full, and heavy, and they also provide the same pattern of benefits. Large scale military units and naval vessels also have analogous “weapons,” “shields,” and “armor.” Again, they are also classified as light, full, and heavy, and again, they provide the same pattern of benefits.

And this brings us to the final of the five points.

5. The Way of the Earth’s combat system is also its social conflict system and its large scale battle system and its naval combat system and its chase system and its…

Since an “attack” can be anything that attempts to overcome an opponent’s defenses, and since the effects or ends that a successful attack can apply are generalized and applicable to any kind of conflict, the Way of the Earth’s “combat” system is the same system for resolving any kind of conflict.

To give an example, let me describe three quick scenarios.

An assassin executes an intricate flourish, stripping a guard of their weapon.

A princess tells a slanderous joke, shaming a courtier for her gaudy outfit.

A line of spearmen crash into the side of a cavalry unit, unhorsing and scattering many among them.

In many role-playing games, these three actions and outcomes would use entirely different sets of game mechanics. In the Way of the Earth, all of these are simply successful attacks with unarming ends. All of them are resolved with the same, single roll, using the same conflict system. The only thing that really differs is the narrative drama surrounding them, the role-playing choices that lead to them, and the names of the tools involved. The assassin fights with a small, concealable weapon. But a small, concealable weapon is really just a light class conflict tool with many of the same advantages as other light class conflict tools. A slanderous joke and a spearmen's charge are also light class conflict tools. They deal different types of damage, appropriate to their individual arenas, but numerically, the damage, advantages, and mechanics for resolving the actions with the tools are the same.

Hopefully this gives the interested reader a brief look at some of the things going on under the hood in the Way of the Earth. I am very happy with the way the game’s mechanics are shaping up. With the foundations laid, it will not be much longer until the game is ready for mechanical play testing. Running simple conflict scenarios over and over again in search of bugs and other issues is an important step in the game’s development that I am very much looking forward to.

- ABH

Adapting Biblical Prophets for a Dark Fantasy Setting

In 2 Samuel 12, the prophet Nathan appears before King David in his royal court and tells him a story. Nathan explains that there was a rich man who stole a precious sheep from a poor man, so that he did not have to slaughter any of his own sheep to feed his guests. Nathan explains in heart wrenching detail how much the poor man had cared for his sheep, feeding it and sleeping with it as if it were a member of his own family. Nathan asks the king to pass judgment on the situation, as was the king’s duty. David is enraged that such an injustice could take place in his land and he demands that the rich man pay fourfold for the harm that he has caused. Nathan, no doubt with a grim smile on his face, tells David that he is in fact the man. Nathan says that David did the same thing when he stole the beloved wife of one of his most elite and trusted soldiers, and then had the soldier killed unceremoniously to cover up their affair and resulting pregnancy. Nathan pronounces a reversal of the Davidic promise that was given only a few chapters before. Instead of a divine promise that one of David’s heirs will sit on the throne in Jerusalem forever, Nathan says that it will be strife and violence that will plague the king’s house forever. Readers familiar with the rest of David’s life know that his judgement on the rich man, a fourfold punishment, will in fact befall him. Internal discord, incestuous rape, revenge killings, and civil war mark the rest of David’s days, and he loses four of his sons in the tide of bloodshed.

This tense dynamic, between a singular prophet on the one hand, and a king at the height of his power on the other, is one of the most interesting and dangerous dynamics in the Hebrew Bible. For much of the biblical text however this dynamic did not exist. In the earliest parts of the Bible the civil and military leader of Israel was also the prophetic leader. That is to say, the one who led the people and its armies was also the one who had privileged access to the divine will. Abraham, Moses, Joshua, all the many judges, and Samuel himself, are all examples of these two offices being united in one person. But in 1st Samuel 8, these two offices are permanently sundered. Israel asks for a king to lead them, and, reluctantly, God is said to agree. Thereafter the civil and military leader will be the king, but the one who has privileged access to the divine will is someone else. This latter figure is usually a prophet, a single person who roams the land dispensing the word of God and performing miracles. But the prophets words and their miracles are almost always antagonistic toward the king, chiding him for this or that failure. Further complicating this relationship is that there is still a priesthood and a large number of professional court prophets, all loyal to the king, who are all supposed to speak for the divine. Yet it is the prophet rather than the official institutional devotees who are consistently shown to have real divine authority on their side.

The relationship between prophet and state often manifests as persecution and violence but also as one of competition. One of the most dramatic examples of this can be found in 1 Kings 22, where the prophet Micaiah is called before the kings of both southern Judah and northern Israel to bless their joint military venture. The king of Israel explains that his hundreds of professional court prophets have already expressed full confidence in the campaign but asks what Micaiah has to say. Micaiah goes on to say something very interesting. He says that not only is the military campaign doomed to failure, but he has had a vision that the king’s professional prophets have all been deceived by a lying spirit sent by God to mislead the king into going to his death in battle. The king is furious and throws Micaiah in prison. The king then departs to engage in his military campaign, but not without taking extra precautions to keep himself safe in the battles to follow. Regardless, true to Micaiah’s word, the king is killed by a stray arrow. The story illustrates not only how powerless the professional prophets are, but also how the deity they thought they were prophesying for had actually intentionally misled them to kill off their king.

The conflict between the renegade prophet and the state cult was the primary inspiration for The Way of the Earth, and for the vaishineph characters that players create and roleplay. The vaishineph are resurrected by divine beings that the royal cults say are illegitimate and impotent. The vaishineph commune with these beings and are directed by them to undermine the ideological and military power of the five great kingdoms and their royal cults. The royal cults insist that it is they who have true access to the divine, and that when they speak it is the divine will that speaks through them. The royal cults bolster their claims of authority with apparently miraculous powers and mysterious relics. True to biblical form, the relationship between the royal cults and the vaishineph is marked by violence and persecution. The royal cults are massive, wealthy, and organized. The royal cults have the nobility in their pockets and the common folk under their domination. But also true to biblical form, the vaishineph have powers of their own, and though they are vastly outnumbered and overpowered at every turn, the spark of the divine they carry is authentic and cannot be easily extinguished. In a dark fantasy setting, the tension between kings and prophets becomes all the more horrific, desperate, and fantastical. The royal cults contract with demons, employ mercenary sorcerers, exploit the poor and the powerless, and unleash devastating relics in an attempt to annihilate the vaishineph and their unique claim to a divine relationship. The vaishineph have to draw upon all of their resources and their divinely gifted powers in order to fight back.

The magic of the vaishineph is called Whispering. Where the royal cults proclaim and declare the word of their gods, the vaishineph whisper with a small but powerful voice. Whispering can produce a wide variety of effects. Practically every biblical miracle, from smiting enemies to splitting seas, from darkening skies to summoning plagues, can be achieved with the right combination of Whispers. But the defining power of the vaishineph is foresight. Like the biblical prophets, the vaishineph have a limited ability to see possible futures and they can use this insight to gain unparalleled control over the present. Since actual foresight would be difficult to fake in the context of a roleplaying game, the vaishineph’s signature power happens a bit differently in terms of game mechanics. When a vaishineph Whispers the power of foresight, it allows them to perform actions in the past, as though they saw the current present ahead of time and prepared for it. Through foresight, a vaishineph can equip themselves with weapons or tools in the present by explaining that they saw the need for it beforehand. Through foresight, a vaishineph can cast defensive Whispers over themselves and their allies in the present by explaining that they saw some emerging threat beforehand. Through foresight, a vaishineph can retry failed persuasion attempts in the present by explaining that they saw the best approach beforehand. Foresight is a powerful tool in the vaishineph’s arsenal, and one that comes directly from the stories of biblical prophets that inspired The Way of the Earth’s dark fantasy world.

- ABH

Update: Attributes, Actions, and the Progress Bar

Two big updates for this week; attributes and actions.

The first of the character pages, dealing with the nine player character attributes and what they represent in TWE, has been completed. Attributes in TWE are the main numbered facet of a player character's abilities. They are the things that determine what a character can do consistently and what they can only attempt to do in the most extreme circumstances. They help define a character's strengths and weaknesses and they are the main numbers that get bigger over time as a character increases in level. Many of TWE's attriubtes are fairly conventional in terms of what they represent. People familiar with roleplaying games probably will not see many surprises with what you can do with things like strength, beauty, wisdom, etc. But there a couple things that break from the conventional mold.

The first are things called knowledges. Each of a player character's three greater attributes in TWE not only represents an affinity for a certain type of action, but it also represents proficiency with certain kinds of skills. The beauty attribute, which is the primary social attribute, also represents a character's affinity with the many languages in Chaesharin. Strength determines a character's proficiency with weapons, and wisdom determines a character's proficiency with various trade skills. This is a bit of a simplification in comparison to other systems, which tend to create a distinction between attributes and these sorts of skills. But creating a bit of a simpler mechanic here allows more room for other mechanics more important to TWE's setting and unique vaishineph player characters. While weapons and languages and trade skills can play important parts in TWE's many stories, TWE is primarily about magick and supernal powers. And that is the second thing that breaks with gaming conventions.

There are three supernal attributes in TWE. Each of these attributes represents a character's ability to harness a magick substance. The vaishineph player characters wield miraculous spell-like abilities called Whispers, but the power source of these Whispers is determined by the players. Each of these supernal attributes corresponds to one of these power sources. Whenever a player character casts a Whisper they choose one of these magick substances to give their Whisper its potency. Some substances are more readily available than others, and player characters will be stronger with some more than others. Whispers are powerful and dangerous things to use. The consequences of failing a Whisper are determined by the source a player chooses. This allows players to pick their poison. The player gets to decide what they risk when they cast. Are they risking their sanity? Their memories? Their bodies? Should they choose their strongest attribute or the safest for the task at hand? Some substances can put allies in danger. What do they think of the player's choice? The goal in giving the players a few options is to raise interesting questions like this. 

The second major update is the actions page, which, while not rules heavy, nevertheless establishes some of the central gameplay concepts at work in TWE, and lays the groundwork for the game's unified conflict resolution system. In TWE, there really is no mechanical difference between a combat scene and an argument, or between a large scale battle and a chase scene. All conflicts in TWE run on the same hardware, so to speak, a system which uses contested actions and a set list of possible consequences, each with enough narrative room to describe in a wide variety of ways. Exploiting gaps in an opponent's defense, for example, has the same mechanical outcome whether it is a feint in a sword fight, a shocking revelation in an argument, or a sudden cavalry charge on a battlefield. TWE's system allows the ultimate goals of a conflict to differ (to defeat an opponent, to persuade a character, to route an army, to escape a battle, etc, etc.) while keeping the mechanics of how those goals are reached consistent across different types of scenes.

I also added a progress bar which sits next to the links for the main content pages. It's very, very approximate. But given that I've created roughly 40 pages and have completed roughly 8, twenty percent at present seems like a pretty good estimate. I have a lot of material in rough draft form, and some more only in outline form, but now that I am getting the hang of writing and updating things for the blog format I think stuff will start happening a bit faster. Of course, once the progress bar fills up it will be time to start play-testing in earnest, and readers of the blog can expect to see opportunities to get in on that in various ways. 

Last but not least, there is now a glossary page, which was requested by a reader of the blog and which I was happy to put together. It features the most common in setting language terms. I think the tactile feel of a language can go a long way toward seasoning a world's flavor. The most common spoken language in TWE is called Redevin and it is heavily influenced by biblical Hebrew. In the future, when I get some more time, I will do a full write up on adapting biblical languages and etymologies for a fantasy setting, because it provides a lot of fun and interesting ways to communicate story and theme in a very sneaky sort of way.

- ABH

Social Constructs as Social Weapons

In an honor and shame culture, shame can be as sharp of a weapon as anything forged from iron. Shame can kill a person’s social face and standing. Shame can drive a person from their community and out into a dangerous wilderness. Shame can revoke a person’s legal protection and expose them to justified violence and capital punishment. Shame can force a person to draw a weapon and seek recompense through combat. The social world of the ancient Near East is built on a foundation of honor and shame which occupy opposite ends of a single spectrum. Varying degrees of honor are necessarily varying degrees of shame when compared to one another, for anything less honorable is also more shameful. Giving honor to one’s countrymen, to a masculine ideal, or to elder nobility, necessarily involves a degree of shame for the foreigner, for the less masculine and more feminine, or for the youthful poor.

A complex hierarchy of social identities, always shifting with the currents of context, structures every interaction and every relationship in the ancient Near East. One of the major design elements of TWE was finding a way to make this honor and shame culture, so prominent in the biblical world, felt in the mechanics of TWE. Simultaneously, I wanted to provide opportunities for the rigidity and oppressive potential of an honor and shame system to be undermined by creative players. Below, I will discuss three aspects of adapting these complex social realities from the biblical world for the social conflict mechanics of TWE.

1. The Weapon Analogy

In order to understand how these social elements work in TWE, it can be helpful to understand how weapons work in TWE. Social identities, called scripts, function exactly the same as weapons, but for social conflicts and persuasion. Weapons are categorized by size and by range. The sizes are light, full, and heavy, and the ranges are melee and ranged. All weapons of the same size deal the same amount of damage. There are other, small differences between the sizes. Light weapons can be drawn and used in the same action, and can be dual wielded. Medium weapons can be used in one hand or two. Heavy weapons cannot be used while mounted and have a small penalty applied to their use. Melee weapons gain bonuses when attacking, reflecting their ease of use, and they can be used with any of the contested ends, which are TWE's strategic options, things like disarming opponents, knocking people down, cornering opponents, etc. Ranged weapons do not gain a bonus to attack, but can strike from a distance, and targets of ranged attacks cannot counterattack their attackers. Ranged weapons can be used with a limited number of contested ends, since it makes little sense to grapple or knock someone around with an arrow or slung stone.

Scripts are categorized by role and by centrality. The roles are ethnicity, gender, and class, which act like light, full, and heavy weapons. Scripts are also either dominant or marginal, which act like ranged or melee weapons. Although all scripts can be used against anyone within earshot (and so range is not really a concern), the dominant scripts cannot be counter attacked, like ranged weapons, reflecting the impossibility of directly opposing their air of authority. The dominant scripts are also less flexible, and can only be used with some of the contested ends. The marginal scripts gain bonuses when attacking with them, like melee weapons, and have access to the full range of contested ends because of their increased nuance and subversiveness.

There are six basic scripts total, one for each role/centrality combination. The ethnic scripts are high familiar (dominant) and low familiar (marginal). The gender scripts are high masculine (dominant) and low masculine (marginal). The class scripts are high wealth (dominant) and low wealth (marginal). A character in TWE can only use a script at any given time that accurately reflects their identity, but depending on the context in which they are acting, which scripts they can use will change. For example, depending on the kind of characters they are speaking to or the geographic location of where they are speaking, a character's ethnic role will change. While in one's country of birth, a character might use the high familiar script, but while travelling abroad, the low familiar script would be more accurate. Rather than the gender script being masculine and feminine, as one might expect, the script is either high masculine or low masculine. The gender script a character uses is relative to the gender presentation of those around them. A male character with a more traditionally masculine profession or personality would use the high masculine script when speaking to characters with less masculine traits, even if they are of the male gender. Female characters will often use low masculine script when speaking to male characters, but even this might change in certain situations. When several female characters converse, one of them may claim a high masculine script by taking on conventionally masculine social roles or styles of speaking. The class script too is relative, depending on the comparative wealth and status of the characters in conversation.

For example, here is how a couple weapons and scripts might look next to one another...

Soshae Long Knife
Light Melee / Damage: 4 Lethal / Attack Bonus: +2

Low Familiar Script
Marginal Ethnic / Damage: 4 Shaming / Attack Bonus: +2

Atrian War Bow
Heavy Ranged (Far) / Damage: 8 Lethal / Attack Bonus: -1

High Wealth Script
Dominant Class / Damage: 8 Shaming / Attack Bonus: -1

Players will need to carefully consider which of the six scripts they are allowed to use in any given situation, and then which one script they want to use for any given social action. A social script does not dictate everything that a character might say, but something within a character's comments should reflect the social script they are currently wielding. A character who appeals to another on the basis of kinship might use the high familiar script, while a character who bribes another might use the high wealth script, and still another character uses a gendered insult might use the appropriate corresponding gender script. Social attacks work much the same as physical attacks do, with the script in question determining bonuses to attack, the possibility of a counter attack, the amount of damage dealt, and the strategic options available to the wielder. TWE's conflict system is the same for both martial and social conflicts, and so characters exchange social attacks in an attempt to manipulate and persuade one another. Short term changes can be caused with single rolls, while long term changes require a character's control points to be fully depleted by social attacks, at which point more lasting influence can be achieved. TWE's system encourages players to see the social identities as tools to accomplishing these changes, and to be ready and willing to embrace their fluidity as a means of gaining advantage over their social opponents.

2. The "Heavy" Class

I debated for a long time which social roles would constitute the light, full, and heavy weapon analogies. The social roles determine the amount of shaming damage dealt by social attacks. With weapons, the larger and more powerful the weapon, the more damage it deals. With social roles, the connection is a bit less obvious, and a decision needed to be made about which social role went where. For quite a while, the "heavy" weapon analog was gender. My rationale was that, biblically speaking, gender is a powerful dividing line between people, both culturally and religiously. There are also a number of places in the biblical text where gender is used as a weapon of shame and manipulation, whether it was stories of seduction (like Tamar's seduction of her father-in-law), or sexual violence (like Absolom's public rape of his father's harem), or subversive reversals of gender (like Jael's assassination of Sisera).

Ultimately I decided on social class being the "heavy" weapon analog. One motivation was faithfulness to a running biblical theme, and another motivation was game play. The first motivation was to pay respect to the biblical prophets' constant cries for social justice and their harsh criticisms of greed and wealth inequality. Since TWE's vaishineph are roughly equivalent to the biblical prophets, and since the vaishineph are otherwise on the side of the poor and the oppressed in the war torn land of Chaesharin, it made sense of social class to have a profound impact on the way characters socialize and attempt to persuade one another. The second reason, the game play reason, was simply that I imagined the vaishineph player characters to not have much in the way of traditional wealth, and so to often find themselves on the marginal side of social class. While it is entirely possible for a vaishineph to accumulate a degree of wealth, vaishineph characters are not really socially positioned to be truly rich. This means that, if vaishineph characters wish to use their class based script in social conflicts, more often than not, they will be siding with the poor as they do so.

3. The Power of Marginality and Diversity

Life in Chaesharin is highly stratified and segregated, much like the biblical world. People of different kinds, classes, and genders do not routinely interact with one another in most of the five great kingdoms. The vaishineph and the rebel cults they form are in stark contrast to this. Vaishineph are called from every place and every walk of life and resurrected to work alongside one another in tightly knit groups. Vaishineph can have lingering prejudices deeply ingrained in their bones, and overcoming these prejudices in order to build strategic and emotional chemistry with their allies can become a challenge all its own.

TWE's social conflict system and scripts actually encourage diversity of characters. The greater the diversity of identities represented among the players' group, the more social scripts the group collectively has access to at any given time, and therefore, the more social strategies the group can employ. A group of hyper rich and hyper masculine characters will actually find themselves at a great disadvantage in many social scenes, for example.

Hopefully, this short piece gives the reader some insight into the goals and motivations underlying TWE's social conflict system and the way that social identities are put to use in the game's setting and mechanics. In many RPGs, differences in social identity are simply role played, and while there is nothing wrong with that, I wanted to formalize a way for these important elements of life to come to the fore and be supported by the game's mechanics. Role playing can still happen on top of this, certainly, but part of creating a game's mechanics is lifting up an aspect of the world for the player's serious consideration, and I wanted to make sure that social identity was one of those things.

- ABH

Update: The Judge Two System

The blog is up and running and I am starting to pull material out of my giant mess of a word document and get it formatted for presentation. I have created and organized a lot of the pages I will be using to show off TWE's world and mechanics and have started to fill in the blanks.

Perhaps the most important thing that went up this week is TWE's central game mechanic, called the Judge Two System. So for my inaugural weekly development post, I figured I would spend some time talking about system and its goals.

The central game mechanic in TWE is called the Judge Two System, so named because a player always rolls two dice and has to make a judgement call about how best to use the roll results. The Judge Two System is a product of two primary design goals that I will talk a little about below.

1. Create a game mechanic that seems to fit with, and emphasize, the fictional setting of the game

My first goal was to find a game mechanic that felt at home in the particular setting of TWE’s biblically inspired world. Although there are a number of successful game systems that are setting agnostic, and can be dropped in and out of practically whatever environment the players would like, I wanted a game mechanic that put something unique about the game’s setting into the players’ hands. This is not to say that the Judge Two System could not be adapted for another setting, but rather that the system can be thought of as a manifestation of something actually happening in the game world of TWE.

Close readers of the Hebrew Bible may be familiar with one of the Israelite priesthood’s method of divination, which involved two, dice-like stones called Urim and Thummim, of which there are scattered references beginning in the book of Exodus. The words roughly translate to "light" and "innocence" and were used to generate answers to a series of yes or no questions, usually having to do with the guilt or innocence of individuals. In a famous incident in 1 Samuel 14, God has apparently ceased to direct King Saul in his war efforts against the Philistines, preventing the army from taking divinely sanctioned actions. Saul employs the Urim and Thummin to determine whose fault it is that God has broken off in his revelations. The objects eventually convict his son, Jonathan, though he escapes judgement because of the popular acclaim of the army. The story is used to show the breakdown in Saul’s relationship with the divine and the disorder in his military campaign, which amounts to a justification of his eventual replacement by David. The story gives us scant details about the Urim and Thummim themselves, but that they are employed to coerce answers out of the divine even when God himself appears silent, and that they are entrusted to make decisions of national import, are both extremely interesting facets of the ancient worldview.

Although the exact nature of the Urim and Thummim are unknown, I thought it was kind of fun to conceive of them as dice, and use them as an inspiration for TWE’s central game mechanic. The rolling of two dice to determine the fate of characters, and the naming of the dice as Light and Truth, and the results as innocent, guilty, and glorious, all come from this biblical origin.

2. Create a game mechanic that allows for a maximum amount of information to emerge from a minimum amount of rolling and math

I am not very good at math, as my PhD in some esoteric humanities subject evidences. Rolling a lot of dice and doing a lot of math can have benefits in a roleplaying game though. The more dice and math heavy a game is, the more nuance in action resolution you can easily model. If you are willing to roll three times and do some algebra for every attack roll, you can accommodate a whole host of combat related circumstances. The more dice and the more math, the more information you have available to you to tweak and to interpret and to plug into charts. On the other hand, roll and math light games have the advantage of speed of resolution, ease of interpretation, and absence of reference charts. If most of the players’ collective energy is spent calculating roll results, then the energy is not going to telling compelling stories. Unobtrusive game mechanics mean the flow of storytelling is never broken for long.

I wanted to design a game mechanic that allowed for a lot of information to be taken out of a minimum amount of rolling and math, to at least partially preserve some of the advantages of roll and math heavy games, while leaning towards the advantages of roll and math light games. The Judge Two System aims toward this balance. When the two dice, Truth and Light, are rolled in the Judge Two System, a lot of information is conveyed without much math at all. Can the action be successful? If yes, at what cost? If no cost, then what advantage is gained? If yes cost, then how much of one? If the action cannot be successful, then what can be salvaged from it? The best part is, it is the player who answers most of these questions. While the roll of the dice are important for action resolution in TWE, no action is truly resolved until a player makes a choice, a judgement, about how it will be resolved, and they make that choice on the basis of all the information that the dice convey.

A single die roll in TWE could communicate a player defending against an attack by half a dozen bandits and knocking them to the ground for an ally to finish off. The same single roll in TWE could communicate a player intimidating half a dozen bandits and compelling them to make way for the character. The same single roll in TWE could communicate a player at the head of a column of a thousand spearmen repelling the charge of a thousand bandits on horseback. Each of these rolls would involve choices and a range of possible outcomes for the players to narrate.

I wanted dice rolling in TWE to be something that revitalizes and propels the narrative forward, rather than something that pauses the narrative while math and abstract interpretations were done. Only time and copious playtesting will tell if that goal has been yet, but in the meantime, I am very happy with the system and cannot wait to share it with people.

- ABH

Biblical Ethnicity and Fantasy Race

We are not quite as racist as we used to be. There is still plenty of racism, both personal and systemic, both overt and implicit, both imperial and domestic. But even at our most racist today in the postmodern West, we cannot quite manage the sheer, concentrated xenophobia of the ancient world. As much as we might see those different from us as other, centuries of globalization and civil rights movements no longer permit us to view each other as truly and categorically alien. We might be able to convince ourselves that some people are less human, less valuable, less worthy, but we cannot quite convince ourselves anymore that some people are genuinely inhuman. At least, not on a collective cultural level. Not in a way where everyone will nod their heads without blinking an eye. There are still racist horrors aplenty in the present world, and some new forms of racism we have only recently invented, but some of the old forms we used to employ thousands of years ago have passed out of our imaginations. Some of these old forms are present in the biblical narratives, and so anyone grappling with these stories finds themselves face to face with forms of racism that no longer make quite the sense they used to.

When adapting the biblical world for TWE, I struggled with ways to evocatively communicate the absolute depth of the xenophobia occasionally expressed in those texts. To say that someone is of a different race, that they are strange or foreign, simply does not hold the same sharp and bitter bite that it used to. Moreover, some insults, like the Israelite slur of "uncircumcised" that they threw at the Philistines, no longer seems like something even worth commenting on, let alone a vicious, racialized attack, full of disgust and the curious fetishistic focus that accompanies it. So if the present world analogs of race and circumcision misfire, and no longer evoke the original world feelings, how best then to evoke those same feelings with different analogs?

Fortunately, the fantasy genre already has a ready made answer to this question: meta-human races. From Tolkien's elves, dwarves, orcs, and hobbits, to Dungeons and Dragon's gnomes and half orcs, Drow and Tiefling, the fantasy genre and its many games and settings have long incarnated differences in human ethnicities in the form of fantastical and sentient humanoid creatures. When a human being from a slightly different place with a slightly different language and skin color fails to have the desired punch of racial difference, try instead a humanoid being with an entirely different biology, psychology, lifespan, and culture. These meta-human races are often close enough to human that they share basic human needs, motivations, and physical and intellectual capabilities, but also different enough that their race is dramatically manifest as something otherworldly and truly non-human.

It was this train of thought that led me to include the different races, called kinds, in TWE. The Isstiliphi, the TWE equivalent of the Philistines, was the first kind I wrote. How do you evoke the feeling of a genital slur, like the one the Israelites used for the Philistines? By creating a humanoid race with a completely different anatomy. The Isstiliphi are serpent-like, tall and powerfully built, with soft scales in place of body hair, vertical black bars in place of irises, and skin in varying shades of olive. The Isstiliphi also reproduce orally, and have no genitals between their legs. Their men and women both wear veils over their mouths to protect their modesty, but feel no compunction about going otherwise nude, much to the combined disgust and fascination of the other kinds. The Deiyen, the TWE equivalent of southern Judah, call the Isstiliphi "paikusi," which means "mouth-breeder" in their language. Here, the slur can have its appropriate alien feel. How strange that these paikusi reproduce this way? How do they do it exactly? Is it not gross? These sorts of questions arise from Isstiliphi anatomy for the modern reader and player of TWE, just as they would have arisen from the Israelites as they confronted the Philistines.

Fantasy races can also be used to downplay or mitigate racial hostilities in other places as well. The Biblical Israelites conceived of themselves as categorically different in ethnicity and religious practice from the various Canaanite tribes and city states they came to displace, yet modern biblical scholars of a sociological inclination have long concluded that there was practically no difference in ethnicity between the Israelites and Canaanites at all. The difference is almost entirely artificial, a product of the religious imagination of the Israelite elite and scribal class, and even then, largely only in long, historical retrospect. Fantasy races could be used to create vast differences between the TWE Deiyen and Nacannit, and yet in this case, I have chosen to make them of roughly the same kind, with the only physical difference between them being eye color, the Deiyen having eyes in dark shades, and the Nacannit in light. This difference is trivial to the modern reader and player, and so when Deiyen and Nacannit characters express naked hostility toward one another on the basis of eye color, it feels appropriately strange and trivial.

A third thing that fantasy races could do in adapting the biblical material is make characters of mixed race obvious. Each of the kinds in TWE have distinctive physical differences from one another. Atrians have colorful feathers, the Deiyen have black manes and subtle striping in their skin color, the Lisraii have fiery hair colors and pointed ears, Isstiliphi have their serpentine attributes, and the Lockan have their curved horns. When children are born of mixed pairings these defining features mesh together and become exaggerated. This not only allows players to create inventive and exciting combinations of traits if they so desire, but it also makes it easy for gamemasters to quickly communicate complex racial differences between non-player characters.

It would have been simple to make the differences between the kinds in TWE more "realistic," but because we no longer perceive race and ethnicity in the same sorts of ways that ancient people did, this seems like a better alternative for capturing some of those alien themes and feelings, and provides some unique advantages for telling interesting stories in a fantasy setting.

- ABH

The Way of the Earth (RPG)

The Way of the Earth (TWE) is a pen and paper role playing game that I started working on at the beginning of 2016. I had dabbled in writing before, and had played many role playing games in middle and high school, but it was only recently that I discovered that there are not that many role playing games with settings inspired by biblical narratives or by ancient near eastern history and mythology more generally. I figured that combining my love of writing and role playing games, along with my studies of the Hebrew Bible, could be a fun and fruitful way to relax and burn up some creative energy.

TWE is a work in progress. Like a lot of amateur creative projects, once I started serious work on TWE, it seemed like the work could go on forever. I created this blog as a kind of virtual accountability partner for my progress, and as a way to easily share the game and its development. Someday long down the road I might look into commissioning art and trying to publish the game, but for the mean time and since this is almost entirely for my own personal enjoyment, I think posting the game to this blog will do. I intend to create pages for the game's mechanics and fiction, while periodically posting about my thoughts on role playing design and progress updates on the game.

Anyone who happens across this blog is more than welcome to read, though not steal ;), and share any feedback they have. I might eventually post results from play-testing sessions, or find ways to invite other people to try out aspects of the game. If it comes to it, this blog can serve as a way to communicate with people interested in the game and write about implementing people's feedback.

- ABH