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