Let's talk about Roll Playing Part 5

Why is Annalow fun?

Why is Improvisation fun?

Why is Roll Playing in general fun?

Even in the more tactical games, like 4th Eddision, there's still entertainment in story telling. People who play miniature battles or, for that matter, shoots and ladders has some form of improvising story. Annalow as a setting aspires to be colorful and conflict oriented, granting each player their own tale. I'd love for Annalow to be a setting for romances, mysteries, political dramas, or comedies. Even tragedy is welcome as long as the player could walk away and say "You gotta hear what happened to me last night."

I guess that's the point of any roll playing experience, the story telling. Boring is the sin of any game and with lack of dice, more emphasis on resource management, Active Exploits is the perfect system for an intellectual approach to roll playing, in my humble opinion. That's why I picked it for the Annalow setting.

Why is it fun?

I hope it's fun because it's a good way for friend to come together and tell a good story. The GM sets the stage, the players gather round, and everybody has a beer (or Mountain Dew) while they work toward saving or damning a city under Mandra's watch.

The Wild Effee's will try and free Tame Effees who don't want to leave. The Ixxar and the Church will butt heads. All the while Merchants and travelers from far lands come through town for a cut of profit. The Felfs will question what it's all about and the Crynt will sit back and watch. There's a lot of stories to be told in Annalow.

I hope I won't be the only one having all the fun.

Let's talk about Roll Playing Part 4

How do you encourage to players to be philosophical explorers?

I was talking with my wife about this and sort of discovered two things. It's not really philosophy that I want the game based on, it's just good story telling and I think the best way to achieve that is to HAVE clashing philosophies. It really falls to the GM or the adventure module to come up with hard questions the player would need to answer, as I can't think of a way to build that into a game itself. This means staying in character should be paramount for the game. This isn't exactly for hack-n-slashers.

As such, we set a standard when the character is being created. Pick a race, then pick an archetype. If the archetype fits with in the race, you start with a set amount effort points you can spend. Call it, Attunement. Then pick a philosophy or creed to follow. A strong belief of the character. A god? A way of life? A faction? We can come up with this list later on. Players are rewarded 1 point of Attunement for good roll playing and staying with in their archetype or philosophy against strong opposition. "Sticking to their guns," as it were. Lastly, players should pick a long term desire. Something the character really wants. If it clashes with their internal belief system, all the better.

Attunement can be spent as non-free effort in place of experience, but the sum of experience and attunement players use cannot exceed 3 per task, just like experience. Attunement isn't experience and can't be used to upgrade the character, so what is it for? Well, if you spend Attunement as a resource, you free up experience used for upgrading the characters later on.

I'm breaking the rule here, because I'm changing the foundation in order to stay within the spirit of Annalow. If we want to talk about philosophy and belief in a Roll Playing Game, it would have to be by example, and not arguing philosophy verbally. That would just tie up the game and that's no fun. Instead, the philosophy will have to be made manifest int he factions alone.

A note: Tho Experience points may be given out for completing challenging tasks, It should be noted that points would never be given out for winning a battle. The benefit from battle would be surviving to the next day.

Let's talk about Roll Playing Part 3

Why is your game about Exploration and Philosophy?

I have to keep reminding myself that this is the setting for a game and not the game itself. I've made games in the past, none with any success, and I'm done trying. So what we have control over isn't the mechanics of the game, but the setting, and Annalow is ripe for this for two reasons.

Alpha: Because we can apply differing, even opposing philosophies to the races, themselves.

Beta: Because we can have differing factions within and around the city hold opposing yet valid views.

Mandra's totally on the same page with me on this. Great opposing philosophy makes for great conflict and growth that comes from within that. The exploration of the city is easy enough, with the Marf Catacombs in the plateau and the districts on the surface and in the docks. Let's start, then, with the nine races by basing them on some basic personality archetypes for flavor:

Borcs (Bear Kin): Wariors. Champions of hard work and brave in the face of all conflicts. Oversimplifying, but honorable.

Crynt (Crow Kin): Wise Men. Fill a mind with knowledge as a canvas with paint. There is so much truth to learn, but the biggest surprise is how everything is part of one thing.

Dryads (Tree Kin): Mothers. The planet suffers because the Anaviated work against the natural cycle of life and death. They must nurture and protect life. (Ironically the protection of Death)

Felfs (Fox Kin): Scholars. Curious and exploring the nature of time, truth, life, and the crevices of the world. These are the born philosophers that ask that enduring question: Why?

Ixxar (Dragon Kin): Fathers. Stern and stubborn, believing their way is the most beneficial. They know what's best for everyone's prosperity so they should be in charge because they're clearly smarter than everyone else. Worse yet, they might be right.

Marfs (Mole Kin): Soldiers. Tho ugly and misunderstood, they work in terms of duty. The rules are already set and following them is more important than their morality. Without law or duty, the world would fall apart. Slow and enduring, like tectonic shifts.

Moblin (Mouse Kin): Tricksters. Liars and deceivers (not the same thing). There is no truth of the world because the world is wholly subjective. Might as well have fun teaching everyone this.

Mumes (Mandra Kin): Artisans. Creative and expressive also emotional. The highs are really high and the lows are really low, but everyone can relate. Expresions must be perfect, even at the cost of practicality.

Tame Effee (Rabbit Kin): Servants. Like Marf, they have their loyalties, but work to make everyone happy. Everyone else is more important than them, which means someone needs to look after them.

Wild Effee (Rabbit Kin): Liberators. Anarchy and freedom. Not only should everyone be allowed to choose, they should be made to choose. DOWN WITH OPRESSION!

Worry not about stereotypes and being shoe horned into a certain race by personality. Jungian Archetypes have a tendency to shift and overlap like masks. Also, like dogs and cat, all races have room for individuality. After all, what about the Dryad who thinks the world owes them something? Or the no nonsense Mume who's big in accounting?

At least this is a start.

Let's talk about Roll Playing Part 2

Let's set a tone for the rest of the week. With Annalow as a game setting, it would become it's own game (sort of), so I will borrow the four questions of Game Making from John Wick. Those questions are:

What is your game about?

Why is your game about that?

What encourages your players to be about your game?

Why is it fun?

Woof. I have my work cut out for me.

What is your game about?

If we go by Amythra, the basis of the game is one of discovery, but through exploration and philosophy. No RPG I can think of covers Philosophy as a foundational game mechanic, so I'll try that one, and why not? (note: this is a temporary foundation until we can find something less vague) There's RPGs about Comedy, Drama, Adventure, Action, but where's the genre's Six-Degrees of Separation? Where's the Our Town? The introspective battle one alignments? Actually, these are as easy to find as Dungeons and Dragons, with their alignment system. Just ask a Planeswalker about the difference between devils and daemons.

Still, exploration of philosophy isn't D&D's approach, rather that's more about a player's rise to power and their use there of. I may need the help of a philosophy professor to truly grasp the meaning of this game premise, but we'll keep it as a base for now. I know Annalow is NOT about rise of power, even tho there's an obvious power struggle between the Ixxar and the Mumes over the city as well two factions of the Borc up north are waring.

The Mume and the Ixxar are an interesting struggle that makes sense. The Ixxar are vastly intelligent and are, in their minds, trying to right a wrong. The Mumes keep them at stalemate, having the creativity to continually innovate. The Ixxar seek the old way, one's with logic and reason while the Mumes radically grasp for the new and the expressive, making champion emotion and sensation. Similarly, in the north, the Union of Borc Nations that dominate the northern Hemisphere fight against the Borc Cross Militia who struggle to free their people, breaking them back into a city-state society. One big government versus individual governments. This sounds like a battle of philosophy to me. (Edit: Ideals, really)

As always, we may need to work on it, but let's keep Exploration and Philosophy as a foundation for now. This may change in the future as we discover Annalow's premise.

(Blank Map stolen from colorofinsanity.deviantart.com)

Mume Rules

For the Active Exploits Take Two Game.

Linky

Here are the starting abilities and aspects for Mume Race.

Fitness: 0

Awareness: 0

Creativity: 2

Reasoning: 0

Mental Magic: -1

Luck: 4

Discipline: 4

Spread 4 points among the above stats. You start with 4 Novice Skills, 3 Proficient, and 1 Expert skill.

Mumes are the stand in for Humans, but are not humans themselves. There is some variation to their look, but most have dark skin, bright eyes of any color (even strange colors like purple, gold, or pink), and dark blond to white hair. The Mumes in Jerrow and Annalow are used to tropical atmosphere, so tend to dress very lightly, choosing thin fabric or nothing. Traveling Mumes that have seen the world dress more practically.

Because of Annalow, Mash'ta tends to view Mumes with hesitant curiosity. The city was taken by force, it allows slavery, and it's citizens are rather promiscuous. So the default view of Mumes are that they are sex-crazed tyrannical slavers. Mumes rarely fit this image, usually being caught up in their own thoughts about fashion, style, or art. Mumes obsess over culture, you see.

Remember that only female mumes (womume) who are affiliated with the Church of the Living Goddess are trained to use Mental Magic, but all mumes have some small capacity. Because of how closely they guard it, however, the Mental Magic ability may not increase unless trained by the church. They are called "Heart Mage" as official name or "Sensate" in unofficial circles.

All magic requires physical contact to work. Here's a list of what Mental Magic is capable of and the difficulty for each act.

Diff- Effect

0/1- Sense of general emotions and sensations

2- Detailed readings of the target's thoughts

4- Limited Control over emotions and sensation of the target.

6- Control over Specific thoughts, but the effects do not last longer than 3 days

8- Permanent control over specific thoughts and emotions of the target.

A tricky note about all magic: There is no action without an equal and opposite reaction and that remains true of magic. There will be debates over what is lost from the heart mage when a target's mind is changed, or worse, what is added. An example is if a heart-mage wants to ease the pain of another, they would take the pain onto themselves. I foresee much argument in the future.

[Note: Crap, I forgot yesterday. Spent the day with my wife and it slipped my mind. 10 Days off left.]