Entry: Stained Glass [Tentative]

[14thWarrior]

The following is what I'm thinking of for an entry into the 2006 Game-Chef competition. I've marked the subject with "[Tentative]" because I'm not entirely sure I'll be able to complete the game by the deadline; I'm very close to moving from my apartment to a house my wife and I just bought and the move is demanding a lot of my time.

In any case, without further ado, here's my idea.

STAINED GLASS

Chosen Ingredients: Glass, Committee, and Emotion
Chosen Time Theme: Any number of sessions totalling 8 hours.

Premise: What are the ideals of behaviour? Is staunch adherence to religious doctrine better than abstract and/or dynamic morals?

Setting: The characters are veteran knights (read crusaders) in a religious order. Every year, for a period of 8 hours, the Council of the Divine descends from the heavens to interview and select those knights that are worthy of sainthood. The Council of the Divine is a committee of clerics/priests whose bodies are inhabited by divine beings for only eight hours, to pass judgement on the prospective saints.

Play: The eight hour session begins with character creation. All players make a knight. The knights' stats are given in terms of emotions. (This is as far as I gotten with character creation. I'm thinking the stats need values of some kind, but whether the stats are just emotions, or whether or not some kind of event or description is attached to the emotion, I haven't figured out yet. I'm leaning towards this latter option though.)

At this point I would mention that this religious order would have a code by which the knights supposedly behave. The code would be intentionally vague or paradoxical to provide good fodder for debate.

Character creation should be an interactive process, with players suggesting things for other characters. It should go quickly, probably a half hour or less in total (this would be part of the design).

Once character creation is complete, the remaining time would be divided equally among the characters. Each character has that much time, in real time, to convince the Council of the Divine. Each player, in turn, comes before the committee, played by all the other players, and relates the tale of his one greatest exploit to the committee; it is on this exploit that the committee judges the knight's worthiness.

Here's where is gets a little fuzzy... each player character has X amount of time, in real time as determined just shortly after character creation, to successfully petition the Council of the Divine. The character, in presenting his exploit, extolls his virtuous behaviour; while doing so, the player brings forth glass beads as dictated by the mechanics and his character's stats. the glass beads represent the glass with which the character's stained glass likeness will be made. The Council of the Divine get to be critical of the petitioner's actions. Successful criticisms remove glass beads from the tally. To successfully petition for sainthood, the character must amass a specific number of glass beads within his alloted time.

Among the ideas I'm entertaining for this game is a resolution system by which the character presents an event, which gets developed through an 'exchange of emotions', where each committee member may find criticism of the event via an emotional complication.

Ok, that's the concept in a nutshell.

Some things I haven't figured out yet, but need to do, are:

- Figure out the order's knightly code.
- Figure out the specifics of how stats will work.
- Figure out how to structure (if at all), the character's greatest exploit.
- Figure out the mechanics of the 'Emotional Exchange' resolution system.

Any feedback is welcome and appreciated.

[Doug Ruff]

[quote="14thWarrior"]The character, in presenting his exploit, extolls his virtuous behaviour]

Awesome.

Re: stats, how about having emotions that are also virtues? Example, Love, Compassion, maybe even (righteous) Fury. Each such emotion is a different colour of glass.

Presumably, the greatest exploit would be made into a stained glass scene, using the colours of glass won by the player.

[Mark Bravura]

The player brings forth glass beads [are they being "spent" or earned]? In successful criticisms removing glass beads from the tally; what is the mechanism to gain them?

M.B.

[14thWarrior]

[Mark Bravura]

[14thWarrior]

[14thWarrior]

New developments...

Here's a first draft of 'The Code' by which the knights are to have lived. It's intentionally vague, and subject to interpretation.

A Knight is sworn to Courage
His Heart knows only Love
His Blade defends Honor
His Wrath undoes the Faithless

Feel free to offer suggestions for amendments to the Code.

Still working on the mechanics. They're a challenge for me, because they're a major departure from the style of mechanics I'm used to working with, and designing for.

[Mark Bravura]

Good Day to the 14th Warior-

Over coffee this morning, I kicked The Code around a bit....

A Knight is sworn to Courage
His Courage knows only Heart
His Heaart knows only Love
His Love defends by Blade
His Blade defends Honor
His Honor is Wrath undoing the Faithless
His Faith abides in Truth
His search for Truth knows no Bounds

M.B.

[14thWarrior]

[14thWarrior]

I guess I should add that it is expected that during an exchange, it is expected that the narration during Advancing and Engaging would be relevant to the Emotion/Stat/Tenet of the Code in question.

Also, the exchange process is very interactive; everyone in the group is free, and even encouraged to suggest possible narration for advancing or engaging, or what have you, for anyone, regardless of what role they're currently playing. For example, a committee member who is not the Chair could provide suggestions to the PC, even though, technically, they play opposed roles.