Jim’s Brain Online

Posted by Jim at November 13th, 2005

I’m working on my next campaign. Uncharacteristically, I decided to test out the rules I’m going to be using a little bit before running the campaign.

And so I inflicted making characters on my friends… And I learned something. I learned that I’d screwed up in making the character backgrounds.

Here’s how:
I created three character backgrounds. The players would be staffing Earth’s embassy to a star spanning empire. Owing to the fact that psionic abilities are a given in this empire, Earth only sends people who have them into space. Of course, people from Earth don’t naturally have psionic abilities so they undergo a fairly intense bout of drug taking and gene therapy to gain them.

So here are the backgrounds:
Exceptionally gifted: Someone who’s a true genetic freak with regards to psionics.
Academy Trained: Someone who’s well trained at psi as well as some other specialty–a soldier, diplomat or whatever.
Barely Trained: Just gifted enough in psi that they are allowed to leave the planet. Probably pushed through rapidly so that they can get on with whatever else they need to do. Someone with good connections or a necessary skill for the embassy.

Well guess what? Of three people who wanted to make characters, every single one chose the exceptionally gifted background.

After a bit of thought I figured out why.

In the campaign a person’s psychic abilities are within one of four stages of growth. Each stage is exponentially better than the one just below it.

Most people stop growing at stage one. At this point a person’s abilities are totally unreliable and remarkably weak. At stage two (all players rate stage two), abilities become reliable and you’re capable of doing most of the things psychics can do in books and stories. At stage three, a person is even more powerful. At stage four, a person is so powerful that they lose interest in human affairs and disappear from human society, sometimes making brief appearances thousands of years later.

I allowed people in the exponentially gifted category to have one ability at the third stage despite the fact that all their other abilities are in the second stage. In short, they’re just on the cusp of moving up into the third stage if they can only figure out how.

In short, the nice little additions to traits and additional relationship dice that I gave the other backgrounds do not in any way equal having one ability at a level that’s exponentially greater than anyone else in the campaign.

Oops.

How is stage two different from stage three? In teleportation for example, a stage two person can teleport up to one hundred miles. In stage three, a person can teleport to another planet and up to an hour (or so) in time.

That’s a difference.

I’m thinking that I’ll add bigger dice to the other two backgrounds’ traits and make one other modification to exceptionally gifted characters’ destinies. Each character is supposed to put 5 dice into describing that character’s future destiny. They can use these dice to affect any action in the game, but the price is that they must explain how it moves their character toward the destiny in question.

I’m thinking that for the exceptionally gifted character two of those five dice will automatically assigned to being hunted down and executed by the Clade or possibly by stage four psychics. I’m not sure which. Perhaps it might be nice of me to give the player a choice.

I’m also thinking that I might up the number of dice that the “Academy trained” people have in their psionic attributes. That way even though they don’t have access to the same level of ability, they do have access to the same number of dice in psi abilities as well as greater traits and relationship dice.

Anyway, that’s what I’m thinking. Suggestions are always appreciated.

Posted by Jim at November 9th, 2005

Sid and Marty Krofft provided some of the more surreal entertainment of my childhood. Beyond their involvement with the Donny and Marie Osmond show, and the Barbara Mandrell show, they created a number of shows that were purely fiction. Apparently these are now out on DVD. As a general rule their shows were fantasy/science fiction (well, sort of science fiction) and generally included a cast of puppets and human beings.

It is hard to describe what the shows were like.

For example: “The Bugaloos” was about people dressed in bee costumes who flew and were a rock band. They were opposed by a witch with a rat chauffer.

Here’s another: “Sigmund,” the story of a sea monster who wants to stay away from his very messed up family and thus stays with humans.

Also: “The Wonderbug.” It’s about a dune buggy that turns from a junky dune buggy to a flying, talking dune buggy when you toot it’s magic horn. Did I mention that the owners fight crime? Yes, they do.

Finally: “Land of the Lost,” the show I remember best and liked most. It was the story of a family stuck in prehistoric times (well, sort of… dinosaurs, apemen and some sort of intelligent technological race called the sleestak coexisted). Looking over the list of writers for that show, I know why I liked it… Ben Bova, Walter Koenig (Star Trek’s Chekov), Larry Niven, Norman Spinrad, and Theodore Sturgeon handled some of the writing.

This is far from a complete list of their shows. For example, I didn’t even mention “H. R. Pufnstuf.”

Here’s the NPR story.

Posted by Jim at October 13th, 2005

I watched Schultze Gets the Blues last weekend.

It is a good film–though not a “hollywood blockbuster” sort of film. It’s a German independent film about a retired miner who’s also an accordian player. As he’s adjusting to retirement, he develops an interest in Zydeco music and Cajun culture, surprising his friends and the people in the small village he lives in.

It’s not slow moving, but it’s filled with pauses, shots of unmoving objects, and shots of Schultze traveling down the Mississippi in a boat. There’s no noticeable soundtrack. There are no car chases. There are plenty of scenes in which Schultze encounters things that are new and strange to him. There’s also a lot of quiet.

Thematically, the movie plays with the idea that it’s never too late to change and enjoy your life. It does a good job at that, making an interesting contrast between Schultze (an old man who’s life is changing) and a younger man who reads poetry while tediously operating a gate at a bridge or railroad crossing (I can’t remember which).

It’s the theme that dictates the ending. It’s exactly the right ending, but there are some things about it I disliked. Alas, I can’t write about them without spoiling the ending of the film.

The thing is though, they still bug me enough that I want to write about them. Thus, I’m going to do so. Those of you who might want to watch the film and are bothered by spoilers should consider yourselves warned.

Here goes:

When I took courses in creative writing, my writing profs would encourage us to spot points in the story at which things didn’t make sense. Stories are better when they don’t have glaring plot holes.

Near the end of the movie, Schultze dies. He’s in Louisiana on the Mississippi Delta. He’s visiting a women and her daughter on their houseboat. While with them, he goes to a dance. A Zydeco band there plays the song that started Schultze’s interest in Zydeco. While dancing, he slumps.

Here’s where the problem comes in: Rather than taking him to a hospital (or even referencing a visit), the woman takes him home and puts him in a chair on the top deck of her houseboat, covering him with a blanket. He is dead by morning.

Apparently this woman is the only woman in the United States who doesn’t look at an older, overweight, slumping man and think, “Heart attack!” That or Louisiana has no hospitals, something that also seems unlikely.

I’m aware that the scene of Schultze drifting into death on the deck of a houseboat fits the feel of the movie better than a trip to the hospital, lots of doctors, and machines with blinking lights would have.

Still, I can’t imagine anyone who actually lives on a river in the US leaving anyone out on the deck of a houseboat at night. Beyond the question of hospitals, there are mosquitos. They’re very unpleasant and last I heard, they live near water.

Anyway, the death seemed gratuitous to me. I couldn’t help but think that it happened just so that they could have the funeral scene in which a German brass band does it’s best to play a New Orleans style funeral (somber music on the way to the grave, joyful music as they leave it). It is the straightest, most German Zydeco you will ever hear.

It’s cool in that it allows Schultze’s life to affect his friends and village, but I’d have rather seen him come back to Germany (or choose not to) and get some hint of what comes next.

In short, I’d rather see people live with change than die just after having one.

Don’t get the impression that I disliked the movie from this. I enjoyed it and I can see what the director/writer made the choices he did. I’m just making some observations.

Posted by Jim at October 4th, 2005

On the off chance that Phil and Kaja Foglio’s Girl Genius comic has not been plugged enough, I figure I’ll mention it here. It’s a great comic.

There are two forms of it available online. First, Girl Genius 101 which is issues 1-13 of the printed comic, reprinted on the web. Second, there’s Girl Genius Advanced Class which takes up where Girl Genius 101 leaves off. The difference is that everything in the Advanced Class is appearing for the first time. I’m not completely sure why they chose to do it this way, but I’m going to guess that it involves money. Specifically, I’m betting that they’re likely to make more of it if they sell printed graphic novels as opposed to individual issues. Plus, they’re likely to expose themselves to more potential buyers online than in comic stores.

From this point forward, those sensitive to spoilers should stop reading. I’m reading both comics simultaneously and for the first time and don’t get bothered by that at all. As such, I don’t feel like pretending not to know stuff. Thus, spoilers likely start in the very next paragraph. Be warned.

Here’s the gist of it: Agatha Clay lives in a version of Europe in which mechanical engineering dominates technology. Thus, mechanical robot servants follow people’s commands, but there’s no plastic, no transistors, and no computers. At the same time, there are people traveling by horse and carriage. In short, technology seems to have passed by the majority of people, being mostly used by the nobility, some of whom are “sparks.”

Sparks are people with an almost magical ability to create/fix machines.

Agatha begins the story living with her guardians and going to Transylvania Polygnostic University. Unfortunately for her, Baron Wulfenbach (ruler and uniter of numerous germanic kingdoms) visits the place causing a series of events that ultimately result in her being expelled from the university, taken captive at Wulfenbach’s castle, and learning that she’s really a great deal more significant than she thought she was. She’s a spark, of course (and a fairly major one), but also descended from some popular but mysteriously vanished heroes.

Hence she’s got not only the ability to defend herself, but also good reason to fear for her life.

There’s more going on than just this, but I don’t want to make this an extremely long post. I just thought I’d mention it since it’s one of the comics I look forward to these days.

P.S. I love the Jagermonsters (artificially constructed soldiers). They’re hilarious. Also, they have a lot of teeth.

P.P.S. Apparently Phil and Kaja are working on a Girl Genius GURPS supplement. I’d love to buy it–even if I end up ignoring GURPS and just using the supplement as source material for my own game.

UPDATE: All Katja’s changed to Kaja in an effort to be accurate…

Posted by Jim at September 25th, 2005

On Friday night, Kristen and I watched the movie Saved!

The story:
After discovering that her boyfriend is gay, Mary, a senior at American Eagle Christian High School, attempts to save him by having sex with him. Despite this, he’s committed to an institution for “de-gayification” and she spends the year attempting to hide her pregnancy from the rest of the school. Despite the fact that her pregnancy isn’t known, circumstances related to it manage to alienate her from a friend, the school’s “queen bee” Hillary Fae.

Things get crazier from there, of course. Some things that amused me:
–The white school principal/local pastor attempting to connect with the kids by using ebonics. As in “God is in da house!”
–The massive “Jesus” sign next to the school parking lot.
–Macauley Culkin does well in a role that doesn’t require him to be under 10 and cute.
–Hillary Fae’s attempt to exorcise Mary

In Case You Remember the Controversy:
Despite what some Christians seemed to believe when the film was relesed, the film does not relentlessly mock Christianity. I’d say that all the characters, even the “villain” of the piece, get treated with sympathy and affection. If anything, the film mocks self-centered zealotry as opposed to religion.

As someone who went to a Christian school himself, I found familar elements within the film. Of course, the film concentrates the piety, the Godtalk, and the sillier aspects of evangelical teen culture to a level not seen in a real school. It is a comedy after all. That’s how you get a laugh.

And I laughed a lot while watching it, so it seems worth it.

Posted by Jim at September 20th, 2005

After hearing a story about it on NPR, I was curious about the film What the Bleep Do We Know? I never got around to seeing in the theater (it may never have come to Grand Rapids), but as it happens my sister bought it for me for my birthday.

So I watched it and overall I enjoyed it. It hit some topics that interest me such as quantum mechanics and biology as well as religion and spirituality. This is okay as one of my favorite professors in seminary had two doctorates, one in physics (dissertation on cosmic dust) and one in theology (dissertation on the Desert Fathers). Most of his theology classes included an interesting conversation between science and religion–more interesting, I might add, than the question of evolution vs. seven day creation argument which is endlessly rehashed everywhere.

The film is a combination of story and documentary illustrating its points with events in the life of the protagonist. The story moves forward with experts in science, medicine, and religion interrupting the scene to lecture. These people aren’t part of the story, but excerpts of interviews with them appear throughout the movie.

The animations that illustrate science are generally pretty good and often funny. They’re worth watching.

So that’s the good part of the movie. It tries to engage a person on the topic of what quantum mechanics and current science of the brain say about reality and it does it well. I enjoyed watching it and found myself thinking about it later.

And that brings us to the bad points of the movie. It does a good job of communicating and once you’re done watching it, you know what it’s trying to say. The trouble is, what happens if you disagree with what it’s trying to say, and, feel like the movie makers are arranging the science to support their views of spirituality?

A major point of the movie is that the way you think about your world has effects on your brain, keeping certain connections between neurons and letting the connection between other ideas drift away. Thus, you can potentially change yourself to a degree.

That’s true–even inspiring–if you feel that your life needs changing.

The trouble is that the film goes further than that, seeming to claim that your thoughts can affect reality. It cites a study that indicated that thoughts affect the shape of a water molecule. In addition, one of the interviewed experts claimed that a group of people meditating affected the homicide rate in Washington D.C.. Other bits of the movie seem to imply that you can mold reality itself to your liking.

That’s not something I can accept without a lot more evidence than this movie provides. Can the cited studies findings be reproduced? When scientists look at them, do they think that the research says what the movie implies it says? You don’t get any of that. You just get the claims. Believe them (or not) as you will.

The movie seems to jump from evidence to claims that sound good on the surface, but might not be true. For example, even if you can somehow affect the crystalization of a water molecule with your mind, you can’t necessarily affect anything else at all.

This brings us to the experts used. Most of them look pretty good. In fact pretty much all of them appear to be capable, intelligent people–even the wackier ones. For example, the expert who claimed that meditation lowered D.C.’s crime rate appears to be a decent physicist. On the other hand, he works for the Maharishi University of Management and was the Natural Law party’s candidate for president at one point. In short, he’s into Transcendental Meditation. Bearing in mind that they argue that meditation is the cure for all social ills, I take his assertion with the same grain of salt I use when Microsoft comes out with a study showing Linux to be inferior to Microsoft Windows Server 2003. I just don’t believe that he can be objective on this issue.

Similarly, I also have huge reservations about including Ramtha in the film. Ramtha is a spirit “channeled” by a woman named J. Z. Knight. J. Z. Knight appears throughout the movie just like the various physicists and doctors, commenting on reality in an odd accent. Though they don’t mention it in the movie, Ramtha ruled Atlantis at one point, making that accent an Atlantean accent. Personally, I see no reason to believe that Ramtha exists. As such, I question the judgement of anyone who regards J. Z. Knight to be an expert in anything other than marketing.

The bottom line? Watch the film, it is entertaining. Most of the experts actually seem to be experts on the topics that they are talking about and even Ramtha will at least keep your attention. If you’re looking for spiritual guidence or trying to understand the sociology or pschology of belief, however, look elsewhere,

Posted by Jim at September 17th, 2005

A couple weeks ago, I noticed Topher writing about his sole experience of playing role playing games. It was in the comments of someone else’s post about Top Secret. Basically what happened is that he died only minutes into the game and ended up entertaining himself for the next 2 hours while the other people played on.

It reminded me of one of my formative moments in playing games. In high school, a local computer store turned into a bit of a hangout for the people who regularly called a local BBS (run by the owner of the store). Eventually we ended up playing RPG’s at the store on Saturday afternoons.

During one of these sessions, I made a character only to have him destroyed minutes into the game. I spent the next three hours on the BBS, fuming slightly and waiting for the game to end.

Unlike Topher, it was not my first time playing so I didn’t end up leaving with the impression that this was what happened every time. Like Topher, I left with the impression that I had not had a good time. This impression wasn’t at all mollified by the GM explaining the reason for letting it happen. Basically, it fit with the mood he was trying to create and letting my character just get hurt or allowing me to come in with a new character wouldn’t have fit with the mood he was trying to create.

In fairness, he was right about it not fitting the mood, but, I decided immediately that whatever my artistic intentions with regard to role playing games, I would have to do it without killing characters. People come to these games to game and not to sit for 3 hours doing nothing.

Since then I’ve come to realize that this rule doesn’t fit all situations. In fact, I’d argue that as a result I’ve made some mistakes as a GM.

An Example: Top Secret
It’s the end of a summer long Top Secret campaign. The players have made it to the secret underwater lair of an organization that has been trying to start nuclear war. The leader has a device in his hand that will (if he but presses a button) rain nuclear destruction on certain carefully chosen cities and will probably end civilization since the US and USSR will inevitably retaliate against each other. Trouble is, blowing him away will likely result in everyone’s death since gunfire will cause a leak.

The obvious solution is to wrestle with him for control of the device. The problem is that he can press the button long before they cross the room to him.

At this point, there is a problem and it partially results from my GM’ing style. I tend to set up situations that seem interesting to me and give no thought at all to the solutions. When you think it through they’ve got a choice: save the world and probably die themselves or die and save the world.

At any rate, that’s the most obvious choice. Some players were all for dying. Some were against. Play came to a stop as people debated what would happen next and play ground to a complete halt with at least one player appealling to me to provide a solution.

In an effort to get play moving again without automatically killing everyone, I had one of the non-player characters with them (who had an outrageous accuracy with a particular pistol) shoot the device. Figuring that hitting the device slowed the bullet down enough to not instantly destroy the integrity of the base’s walls, we went on from there.

Even now, I’m not particularly happy with that one.

Another Example: Magus
It’s the second to the last episode of a Magus campaign. This one is set at a university in northern Michigan where contemporary mages are trained (for the curious, the campaign idea predates Harry Potter).

It’s summer break and as with each summer break in the campaign, I’ve had the characters do a longer story arc off campus. In the tradition of Dante and C. S. Lewis (but minus the quality of either), this story arc ended up in Hell.

Gabriel attacked an enemy of his family in a way that could have resulted in his death. In fact, Joe, Gabriel’s player, explained to me that he was totally okay with that and it would be an appropriate end to the character. I wasn’t sure what to do. Here’s why:

1. Having him die would leave Joe without a character for the last game of the campaign, something that just seemed wrong.
2. Major metaphysical issues that I hadn’t thought through. If you’re alive, can you die in Hell? I hadn’t thought out that particular rule of the universe and it seemed too big an issue for me to decide just then.

Here’s what happened: Gabriel survived the destruction going on around him. That was okay, but dramatically it would have been a lot better to have him die and I regret that. Probably what I should have done is cut off the episode just at the moment of Gabriel’s action, thereby stalling for time, allowing me to hopefully come to a better conclusion. It would have been a great cliffhanger for one and, generally speaking, time allows me to come to the better choice than the spur of the moment.

I’m pretty sure that Joe wrote about this incident on a blog at one point, but I wasn’t able to find it anywhere (Joe, if you’re reading, feel free to point me to a link).

Conclusions
I don’t have any particularly novel conclusions about this issue. My bias continues to be that characters shouldn’t be killed thoughtlessly. In general, it should only happen if the player’s okay with it, but doing it well is determined by the details of the situation.

All I know for sure is that it’s something that I’ll need to work on in the future.

Posted by Jim at September 5th, 2005

So, as mentioned earlier, I’m hoping to run a campaign one of these days. The premise is simply that the players are among the staff of Earth’s embassy to a massive, star-spanning empire. The story will hopefully include psi abilities, archeaology, revenge for past wrongs, and the aftereffects of using power.

If the life of a civilization were likened to a long day at the bar, this campaign would begin just before the bartender begins to kick everyone out and end soon after everyone’s walked out the door.

I’m not interested in game design as much as I am in creating an interesting story. Despite this, I am curious about game design and decided I wanted to use some variation of Dogs conflict resolution system in my next campaign.

There are a couple things I like about the idea.
1. If I use someone else’s system, I don’t have to start from scratch: This is particularly useful when you don’t really know the Forge theory at all, are mildly curious, and are willing to watch things go horribly wrong due to changing what you don’t understand–and I am. Thus I’m taking things, modifying them only if they don’t fit, adding a couple things, and moving on from there.
2. There are some things I just like about the system: Escalation is among them. I’m neither for nor against the idea of fallout, but it works (and even seems necessary) within the system, so I’m not changing that either. The system also gives a lot of emphasis to the major attributes of the character and that fits with this campaign.

Changes and Modifications
The changes and modifications stem from some basic differences in the setting and personal preference. Dogs uses attributes as the base dice for any conflict resolution and traits as additional dice. Thus, if someone wants to shoot somebody, they role the combination of acuity and will. If they want to run after someone, they use a combination of heart and body.

Somewhere along the line though, I decided that I wanted to skip the conventional attributes found in role playing games (all variations on strength, intelligence, willpower, dexterity and endurance) and just have people’s psychic abilities be their attributes. My thoughts are that if they want to be exceptionally intelligent or exceptionally strong, let them take it as a trait.

Thus people’s attributes would be:
Telepathy: The ability to read, communicate with, and attack people directly mind to mind.
Telekinesis: The ability move objects with your mind. This can also include molecules, allowing a person to heat or cool objects
Clairvoyance: The ability to see things happening somewhere else. In this game, someone that can do clairvoyance can also see the past, future, and even obscure the same events for other clairvoyants.
Body: Control of the one’s body. This ranges from increased longevity and healing to the development of physical abilities like strength or eidetic memory.
Teleportation: Hard to do and not particularly dependable in this game, teleportation allows a person to instantaneously move from one point to another.

If I wanted to be consistent with the Dogs’ conflict resolution system, I’d have created a “psi” attribute and had all the psi abilities be traits instead. Because I didn’t, I’ve had to rethink some things.

Dogs uses escalation to create tension. Each conflict has the potential to move from words to hands to handheld weapons to guns. With each level comes a higher level of tension and a greater degree of damage if everything goes wrong. I like the idea. Unfortunately, each level comes with using a specific attribute combination and (for the setting) the progression from hands to guns is totally intuitive.

Since the setting I’ve got has a different style of attributes and a setting that is less intuitive than the Old West, I simply can’t do it that way.

What I’m doing instead is:
The person who starts the conflict chooses the attribute it’s based on by his/her actions. If it’s verbal, that makes it body plus the appropriate traits. If it’s a telepathic attack, that makes it telepathy plus the appropriate traits.

At any point, another person may escalate the situation by bringing in another attribute, forcing everyone to reroll from the beginning only now (for example) the attributes in use are telepathy and telekinesis. Also, the potential for fallout has gone from d4 to d6. Bring in another attribute and it goes up to a d8 and later a d10. By the time 4 attributes are involved, it’s gone up to d10 and no more attributes can be brought in. You’ve no choice but play out the hand or give.

Thus, people continually have to choose between bringing in their best abilities and suffering fallout. By the time any decent number of people are playing, you’ll have most abilities in use and the corresponding results will be unpredictable and potentially disastrous.

An Addition:
I’m adding something to the post conflict portion of things that I call “Bargain with Fate.” Basically, rather than actually take an outrageous amount of fallout, you’ve got the option of suggesting some task or action that pushes forward one of your destinies that you defined in character creation. Suggest something that works with the story so far, set a time limit (within X number of game sessions) and grab some dice out of the common pool for the task. I’m not sure how many dice are in the common pool, but I’m thinking that if you don’t even try to do the task, they disappear forever. If you do at least try, they go back into the pool. If you succeed, you add to them. I don’t know how much though. Still working on that.

Why add this? A couple reasons. Unlike Dogs, the basic unit for this game is a story arc and not an episode. This is a mechanic that may encourage characters to take action on their goals. It may also mean that an episode may be taken over by someone’s need to do something, but that’s okay. I can workaround it.

Another reason is that thematically this game tries to be a starspanning, bomb throwing epic. When you’ve got a few characters with big visions, you’ve got a dynamic between a person’s vision and the effects of that vision on everyone else. Having people grab dice from a common pool means that you can take common property and lose it, add to it, or at minimum make it temporarily unavailable. It makes what’s true on a large level true on a personal one as well. Whether it’s a good idea is still open. Can’t know till I try it…

Posted by Jim at August 21st, 2005

I don’t generally get to see the movies I’m interested in while they’re in the theaters, but I generally at least know that they’re in theaters. In this case I didn’t know Stage Beauty had even been filmed.

Stage Beauty tells the story of Ned Kynaston, an actor during the 1660’s when women’s roles were played by men. Those who have read Neal Stephenson’s Baroque Trilogy will be familiar with the setting.

When the king decrees that women can now play women and that men cannot, Ned goes from being one of the most celebrated actors of woman’s roles in London to a virtual nobody. In the meantime, his dresser becomes one of the first actresses and a friend of the king’s mistress.

I’d write more about the story, but if anyone’s tempted to see it on my recommendation I don’t want to spoil anything.

A couple things I will mention though:
–I’d heard that acting during that period was more formal and did not try to be as “realistic” as modern acting does. If that’s true (and I may have heard wrong), then these characters step toward modern acting in the course of this film. I don’t know whether that reflects history or not. Someone who actually knows something about the history of acting might be capable of critiquing that.
–As someone who’s done a little bit of work in the sociology of gender, I couldn’t help but note that the film played around with notions of gender and sexuality. Some people may find that interesting.

In any case, I recommend it.

Posted by Jim at August 10th, 2005

What I enjoy about role playing games is the opportunity to create a story, specifically the background and situation in which the story takes place. I don’t get any particular joy out of creating rules. When I do it, I do it solely in order to support the feel of the game I’m running.

More to the point, I generally try to avoid creating rules if I have the option of using other people’s. That being said, I haven’t used a commercially published rules system in a game I’ve run since the mid 90’s. Even before then I had a tendency to modify games.

So now that I’ve recently been introduced to some of the ideas used at the Forge, I’ve felt an urge to use them in one of my campaigns. Having looked over the rules of a few different game systems that come out of there, I’m inclined to borrow the core of Vincent Baker’s conflict resolution rules from “Dogs in the Vineyard.”

They require some modification to work though. I’m sure I could use them without modification, but there’s a reason to modify. Dogs in the Vineyard’s conflict resolution rules encourage a person to reflect on how far they are willing to go to win a conflict.

A conflict can move from words to fists to gunplay, but at every point there’s clear point of demarcation, making it clear to the player that each escalation to a higher level of conflict represents a choice on their part.

While cool, Dogs is about the use and misuse of authority. My campaign isn’t about that so the slow, building escalation might not quite fit.

Thematically then, what is the game I’m working on about? Primarily about a person’s destiny. My goal is to have the game have a bit of the feel of Babylon 5. Those of you who watched it may remember Londo Mollari’s struggle with his future. Despite having choices, his own ambition brought him toward a rather grim future. By the time he realized what that destiny would really be like, it was too late to turn back. By contrast, another character (Sheridan) also had choices. Though his led him to a future that wasn’t entirely happy either, he knew he’d done the right thing.

I’m trying to create a game in which players can deliberately give their characters destinies to choose from. Mind you, they can also choose a destiny that affects very few people as opposed to one that changes the course of history. The question really is what they’re willing to do to get there.

I’ve got a mechanism for this in the game. During character creation each player gets 5d6. The dice can be applied to one destiny or several (up to 5)–player’s choice. During the game, these dice can be applied to any conflict. The player just has to explain how this conflict moves the character toward his/her destiny.

I’m not sure that the theme of the game needs to affect conflict resolution any more than that.

That being said, conflict resolution should create a feeling supportive of the game as a whole. That’s something I’m still messing with in my head.