Children of Rhyme and Reason

[LadyThief]

Historical Period: The Victorian Era

Ingredients:
Companion
Accuser
Invincible

Rules Limitation:
The resolution system uses colors.

It all started when Alexander Marcus married Elsbeth Coupe. Marcus was a brilliant mathematician and his wife was reputed (truly) to be a white witch. Elsbeth bore her husband two sons, Charles and Phillip, a pair of twins. Charles took after his father, and Phillip took after his mother. The founded what their mother called, in a fanciful moment, the House of Reason and the House of Rhyme, respectively.

It's been several generations since then, and things are becoming out of hand.

The descendants of the House of Reason are usually gifted scientists, academics, and inventors, with the odd explorer thrown in. The House of Rhyme, however, produces dreamers, romantics, authors, and artists. Also, the Children of Rhyme tend to be gifted in stranger areas.

The players are either Children of Rhyme or Children of Reason. Sometimes they work together. But outside forces are playing the Houses against each other; they have no real reason to fight, but they do. A storm is brewing, and the results will determine which clan will be forevermore dominant, and mold the world to their reality. The other clan will be no more.
This is an alternate reality Victorian Era: the history is slightly different than our own, and the future may change, depending on how the game goes. In our world, the Children of Reason took the last nexus point. Who knows what might happen if the Children of Rhyme won...

Ingredients:
Companion - A devoted servant, a loyal pet, or even a lover. Companions take many forms, human or animal. They are bound to the Children of Rhyme at birth. Each Child of Rhyme has a Companion somewhere in the world. The Companions are what allow them to use magic. However, this comes at cost: when a Companion dies, their counterpart dies as well.

Invincible - Sometimes, in fact rather often, Children of Reason go mad. Unfortunately, when they do, they gain great insight into the workings of the universe and discover how to make reality work according to thier own rules. A common result of this is the terrible Invincibles. Invincibles are clockwork monstrosities that sent out into the world to kill. Sometimes they hunt and destroy rivals. Sometimes it's Children of Rhyme or things of magic. Sometimes, it's just anyone unfortunate enough to get in the way.

Accuser - Some time ago, a Child of Rhyme was attacked by the horrific Invicincibles of a deranged Child of Reason. He was unaware of his abilities, and just barely survived. Unfortunately, he also had religious beliefs almost amounting to a mania. He went mad, and started what became known as the New Inquistion. To his mind, all unnatural things must be destroyed. He calls himself the Visionary. All others aware of his existence call him the Accuser. He means to destroy both Houses.

I'm still working on the system and things more specific. All I know for sure right now, is I'm going to try to work historical things in; for example, in this world, Jack the Ripper was an Invincible and Sherlock Holmes was a Child of Reason.

[LadyThief]

Random notes

Work up history of the Children. That'll be fun.
Most of the examples will be in the forms of stories, I think.

I know I need to work up the "outside forces" that are manipulating. Right now, the major ones I want to use are the Faery (supporting the Children of Rhyme), the Illuminati (either supporting the Children of Reason or playing both houses against the middle), various secret societies who know of the existance of the Children; I also think that there will be at least one nihilistic Lovecraftian doom cult trying to manipulate things to cause the Apocalypse. I also want to somehow use my immortal psychopath John Crowe, possibly supporting the Children or just out for his own gain.

I'm pondering making a variant where the players play as Companions. POssibly also as the Outside Forces. Thoughts?

I need to figure out what special abilities, if any, Children of Reason get, beyond the possible capability to create Invincibles

Characters start off unaware of their true natures and without any special abilities. Children of Rhyme usually don't start off with a Companion; some may never find theirs.

Playing with the possibility of having the conflict between the Children causing some problems. Big ones. Science and magic are meant to coexist, so god knows what will happen. Also suggests the idea that to get anywhere, get anything done, both groups will have to work together.

Speaking of God...
The New Inquisition, headed by the Accuser. Psuedo-religious, surface resemblance to Catholicism, although mostly comprised of homicidal lunatics. They have "improved" on methods used by the original Inquisiton; avoid. What are the opinions of actual religious organizations of all groups that matter? TBD

Spot the references! Just for my own personal amusement, I'm going to keep track of how many references to things I make, and to what. I'm making it an open challenge to see who can spot the most. Just because.

Merf. That's all for now; more to come tomorrow.

[jmstar]

[Anomaly]

[LadyThief]

I guess you could consider this an overlay game. There are people who exist in both the real world and my game history, and some other things. But also, fictional characters are sometimes real in this world. As for the ingredients, I tend to approach things from a character or plot based perspective, as opposed to a mechanics perspective.
The stories aren't particularly hard, but they are time consuming, so they may be cut. Or some of them, anyway.

Now, adding the base stock of mechanics.

There are three basic ability scores: Physical, Mental, and Social. Each has two skills associated with it: Phyiscal - Athletics and Toughness, Mental - Academics and Magic, and Social - Deception and Diplomacy.

Each character has ten points to spend at character creation on abilities. Each ability rank costs one point, and you have to have a minimum of one rank in each ability. You can max ranks out at six. To determine skill ranks, multiply the associated ability by two. Each skill rank costs one point. Skill descriptions will eventually follow.

There are also special stats, particular to the different types of Children, which start off at zero at character creation. Children of Rhyme have access to the Companions trait, which is what determines thieir abillity to cast magic. The Children of Reason's counterpart trait is probably going to be something knowledge related, maybe Studies. I think it will determine their ability to use Academics.

Resolution: The players and GM need a set of ten marbles (paint chips, beads, crayons, whatever) each. They need ten different colors, as close to matching the other sets as possible. Whenever something comes up that needs to be resolved, like a skill check or combat or whatever, the GM decides how many successes are needed. Then they draw or select that many marbles (still trying to decide if I want it totally random, or if I want people to be able to pick; may include both.) Then the player draws X number of marbles, X being determined by the stats. The idea is to pick the same colors the GM did.
The number of marbles players get to draw is equal to half the ability score plus the full skill score (so you can only ever draw nine marbles at a given time.) If no skill applies, then you use the full ability score instead.

Magic can only be used by Children of Rhyme with a Companions score of one or more. If I go with what I've got now, then Academics can only be used by Children of Reason with Studies scores of one or more, still deciding.

There are wound levels, which I'm still working on how to determine. I do know that there are ten wound levels. There are also madness levels. This isn't a nice world for the most part, and it's very easy to experience things that may drive a character insane. There are also ten madness levels. Taking all ten levels of damage is bad; ten wounds means you die; ten madness means that you're permanently insane and become an NPC. Right now, I'm playing with the idea of drawing for damage, using white and black marbles. You draw however many marbles as determined by something I have yet to decide. A white marble means you're okay, a black one means you take a level of the relevant damage.


Random Thoughts:

I might end up having special abilities, haven't decided yet. If I do, I don't know if I'll be using the same list for both Houses or if I'll have separate lists.

Wondering if I should include weaknesses or dirty secrets or things like that. I'm leaning towards yes, but who knows?

Merf. So, I have one story almost finished, and a good idea for one of my example characters. I don't know if this story will be an example, or an introduction, or what. I'll decide later.

There's also a fair chance that I may decided that the Children of Reason aren't playable characters. I'm coming up with so much good stuff for the Children of Rhyme, and I'm having trouble balancing the two.

I've just realized that with the color based system, particularly if it involves drawing marbles (also might make color cards, just because), this is a game that could be played at times when dice are impractical. Like in a car. A definite plus, to my mind.

[LadyThief]

[PlotDevice]

[LadyThief]

[LadyThief]

Well, I guess as was fairly obvious, I wasn't able to finish my entry. But I still intend to finish it, and work it up in a more complete form than I would have been able to as an entry. I'll post something here when it gets finished.
This particulart session of Game Chef did not go as planned for me, for which I am sorry.

But next time...!

[Jason Petrasko]