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 :)
Sunday, July 10, 2016
Wednesday, June 1, 2016
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
Wednesday, May 18, 2016
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
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
Sunday, May 15, 2016
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.
Wednesday, May 11, 2016
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.
Monday, May 9, 2016
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
Thursday, May 5, 2016
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
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
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