Walking in a Western Winter-Land

[Chainsaw Aardvark]

As you may have heard, the mid-west United States got hit with a fairly intense blizzard Tuesday night. My home is surrounded by two or three feet of snow in most places. A few areas got drifts of even higher - notably the front door (due to the U shape of the house), and in in back some drifts are only inches away from the top of the five-foot fence.

I had come up with an idea for a 24-hour a few years ago while in a restaurant for lunch. Out of habit I jotted down the concepts so I wouldn't forget them while eating. but by the time the food arrived, I had too much preparation for a 24 hour game, so it just ended up languishing in my journals for a few years.

With all the aforementioned snow, going anywhere was out of the question. So I decided to give one of my old ideas a bit of work, and experiment with "Google documents" while I was at it. So - let me present:



Obviously, this is not even a completed first draft, and since I'm a bit less than impressed with the online word processor (intermittent internet and limited formatting options) it will probably end up transferred to open Office Eventually.

At the moment, I'm looking for some feedback to keep me focused - otherwise I'm going to end up spending the next few days looking for free cowboy clip art and reading about the frontier rather than writing. There are a few specific questions though.

Is six skills per character enough? I was originally thinking eight out of a list of twenty-four. But the numbers five and six are running motifs in the game- so six skills seemed appropriate, while 5x6=30 seemed like a powerful cut-off for the list. ideas for what skills should be added or removed would be appreciated. I'm still thinking about would unskilled attempts should involve.

How combat and initiative should be resolved are still up in the air. The most basic concept is Reality+Roll. with points then a declare stage, and a resolve stage, with interrupts allowing one to change actions, but costing legend/Fate. However, reusing the speed tic idea from "LaGrange Grunge" (never finished) where each round has X number of tics, actions take y number of tics to ready, and fast characters get a bonus start point has an appeal.

To clarify that: the round is numbered from -5 to 10. Actions normally start at one, and count up. So for example drawing a sword takes two (act on 2) then a quick slash is three (act on 5). But a trained knight has a two bonus, so they begin their actions two tics earlier, so the draw is from -2 to zero, and then the attack is on 3.

Yes, this latter system is a bit more confusing, but in LaGrange, everyone is on a space station with thin walls, so guns are a bad idea. Hence lots of martial arts, and the need for a system that lets people chain together katas and shift around timing due to throws and pins.

Back to the West, there are some other miscellaneous systems under development. One is to trade off spending Fate/Legend/Reality. You're trying to create the biggest legend possible, but if the other attributes hit zero the character is dead or retired. There is potentially a major XP bonus for the player with the highest legend at the end of a session to encourage some competition.

All this started with just the idea on page two and the concept of 1d5+fanning.

[Groffa]

I really like the introduction, it's a great mood-setter.

My only problem with the skills is the value of zero. When I read the example of Mr Horn, and see that his Clergy skill is at zero, I interpret that as "He has no clergy-skills whatsoever", even though I've just read the rules and know that skill value zero means "Basic introductory instruction" and not "Don't know anything". I guess it's nitpicking, but that's how I read it.

I like the concept of tics in combat. I presume that gun duels are lethal, are therefore would be over rather quick (game mechanics wise); one hit, and you're done for? If so, the "complication" of tics (i.e. they may take some time to resolve if many are involved) isn't that big of a hassle since the fights aren't that long.

[Onix]

I like the attribute and skill balance for character creation.

I don't think I understand the Reality points, is it a way of controlling the action with a plan?

How do the points regenerate? or do they?

[Onix]

You got my cogs turning and this is what I came up with

The mechanic I used isn't really important, it's changing the contest from aim/dodge to the speed that the character can train their gun and how play would occur.

[Chainsaw Aardvark]

Thanks for the link.

Zero Level Skills:
The idea based on gun 1-5+0 has always been a part of how the dice are read. But how they're rolled changed several times. "

Zero Level skills" are an artifact of a die pool mechanic. There was a possibility of making the system being "Roll dice equal to attribute, re-roll (or possibly keep) dice equal to skill. So you could have dice to roll, but be forced to keep your initial roll. However, as I recall there already is a Western game that uses this system - "Deadlands" (And "Legend of the Five Rings" which would be a similar time period).

Or skills might have been how many dice you can fan/add to the roll with something else mitigating zeroes.

Initially there wasn't going to be an unskilled attempts rule. So 0 is how to tell show you know a skill, but aren't good, compared to not having a skill and thus can't try at all. I suppose I could go to "all start at 1" like the attributes. That would still keep the 1-5 motif.

Point regeneration:
I'm thinking of having the game run in scenes and chapters with a chance spend points and some regeneration between each. Also, adding good descriptions surpassing set difficulties by a wide margin - IE doing it in a legendary way - earns points. So players are encouraged to take risks and fan the gun even when its unnecessary, because that may pay-off more.

Like a movie, I'm thinking that scenes get longer and longer as the game goes on, so your points become more limited and the drama goes up.

Reality:
Reality was only added yesterday, I'm still working out how it should behave. It will play a roll in determining initiative. However, i also want to work in something where a reality rating affects when a character shows weakness. Probably something like "you can go X scenes" before you need to sit one out because even cowboys need to sleep. It might also be used to soak up injuries like the other metrics.

Despite the fact that I'm shooting for some more historical accurate settings than a "Spaghetti Western" mismatch, the games is a bit like running a movie. A bad reality rating means its too boring/unbelievable, No gate means the character is killed off, and no legend means no star power.

Combat
Its a bit hard to gauge combat lethality at the moment. Most damages is from 1-4 points, so it might go on a round or two before people die or escape. On the other hand, all the Story elements can be used to soak hits, and those don't have an upper limit.

[Danielman]

Veary cool I like it keep adding

[Chainsaw Aardvark]

Welcome to 1km1kt.net and thanks for the vote of confidence. I'll get back to this project soon enough, it just had to be put on hold for a major revision to one of my other games. Is there anything in particular you like or want to see in this game?

[Evil Scientist]

I really like how a simple thing just sets the game straight on. A concept built around something missing... And the title is quite metaphorical too (the legend is the place of the six bullet - you either fill it in or not). And the fact that you are not going for the pulp effect with it is actually great!

I see you have one skill left empty: how about Street-wise? Used to determine who you know, net of contacts, etc. The name needs to be westernized, though.


I'd like to see the elements of the trinity Fate - Legend - Reality getting connected to each other somehow - maybe even limiting each other. E.g. the maximum amount of Fate you can use in the given scene equals 10-Legend (at the beginning of the scene). Because you can only tempt Fate for so long, can add to the grittiness of the game. A character with a Legend of 6 can only use 4 Fate points during the scene (even if he has 7).

[Chainsaw Aardvark]

Good suggestions. Streetwise (perhaps as "In the know" or "Low Connections") is going to be added to the skill list.

How to connect the three story elements has been vexing me for a while. In part because they evolved hap-haphazardly. Originally, there was only fate - standing in as wounds/hit-points (you can only avoid it for so long). Then legend popped up as kind of a goal oriented attribute opposed to it. In turn, reality is a limitation on earning legend.

As such, its gone from straight HP and normal story telling to a competitive story game. Each player wants to acquire the most legend, but reality is how many turns you can scenes you can act in before you need to take a break, and fate is when you're written out of the movie.

Involving them in a rock-paper-scissors trade off sounds like an excellent way to balance these elements. Possibly as: reality controls legend, legend controls fate, and fate/injury controls reality. Or else, some effect that kicks in where there is too much disparity between the elements.

I would like to ask how you define the pulp effect. Anything from the 19th century is somewhat by definition pulp - its where literacy and thus entertainment for the masses took off,(Wurthering Heights is a Victorian version of "All My Children" and not much more) aided by gas-lamps allowing the utilization of free time after dark. In fact that at least some figures of the West survived long enough to share their stories on the radio and early movies - embellishing it all the while. (Ah, the joys of knowing the history of the novel as an art form)

So technically, anything with cowboys and guns is a re-imagining of how things were, I just try to be different by focusing on semi-historical eras that don't involve Colt Peacemakers.