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Foxwarrior
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### Equality World

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Post by Foxwarrior » Fri Jun 28, 2013 3:24 am

* World doesn't fully embrace the part where its resolution system sacrifices predictability (and, by extension, meaningful tactics or strategy) in favor of maximizing the number of amusing twists.
It also uses a GM for some reason, despite the GM role being an inconvenience that should be gotten rid of when removing it is sufficiently easy.
To solve both of these problems, I present to you:
EQUALITY WORLD
Turn Order:
A turn consists of describing the consequences of the previous player's Player Move, and then making a Player Move. If the previous player rolled a 9 or less, the consequences of their move include an MC Move.
IRL Mode: At the end of your turn, spin the Talking Stick at least one full revolution, and whoever it's pointing to takes a turn. If the Talking Stick is pointing at you, spin again until it isn't.
PbP Mode: After a player takes a turn, any other player may take a turn, using one post. Act fast!
Principles:
Make Sense: Make moves that are consistent with what's already been established.
Imply a Vast Plot: When introducing new elements, strongly consider connecting them to elements that appeared earlier in the campaign.
Explain Yourself: Actions usually have unforeseen consequences, but once the consequences happen the other players should have some idea how the actions caused them.
This is Schrodinger's Reality: Nothing necessarily exists in the fiction until it's been described in a Move. Revise your image of the game world frequently.
The Characters are Real: Make the characters act in a reasonable and believable fashion. They're supposed to be people, with their own hopes and dreams.
Chill Out: It's just a game. Don't get too mad when your character, who you attempt to roleplay as a real person, is humiliated or defeated.
MC Moves:
Introduce an Opponent: Make the attempted actions of the previous player lead to a new enemy attacking or environmental problem somehow. Perhaps firing wide springs a leak in the boat. Maybe saying the wrong word too many times in conversation summons a Word Demon.
Make an Opponent Do Something: Make an existing creature or obstacle cause problems. Perhaps the boat sinks or splits in half. Maybe the Word Demon starts spreading rumors about a player in order to get people to say its word more often.
Use Up Their Resources: Make the previous player lose some item or temporarily neutralize one of their powers. Perhaps the archer runs out of arrows. Maybe the room the wizard entered was actually a null magic zone.
Player Moves:
Player Moves are actions performed by or about a player's character. When making a Player Move, roll 2d6 and add some bonus (default +0). On a 10 or greater, the Move succeeds. On a 7-9, either the Move succeeds but the next person makes an MC Move, or the next person may have the Move only partially succeed. On a 6 or less, the Move fails and the next person makes an MC Move.
Player Characters:
Each player gets a character, with a number of attributes.
Basic Moves: All characters can do these moves, normally with a bonus of -1.
Reveal Connection: The character turns out to have some previously unmentioned connection to something or someone in the scene, which helps them in some way.
Convince: The character tries to persuade someone to do something. The next player is obliged to explain why that someone is convinced, if there is doubt.
Ordinary Physical Motion: The character attempts to do things a normal person could sometimes succeed at.
Name and Description: Player characters have at least one of the following: Name, gender, height, weight, age, blood type, species.
Character Features: Each player character gets two of these. For each feature, they get a +2 bonus in one of the gained moves, a +0 in another gained move, and a -1 in the third move, if there is one.
If an Feature gives a bonus in a move the character already has, use whichever bonus is better, do not add them together.
Total Badass: The Total Badass is really good at stuff.
:Kill Things: The Total Badass defeats a dangerous creature, or small army of lesser creatures.
:Ordinary Physical Motion: The Total Badass can be better than normal at this.
:Convince: Some Total Badasses talk good.
Amnesiac: The Amnesiac is very involved in the plot. However, the Amnesiac character does not remember why.
:Reveal Connection: The Amnesiac is just as surprised about this connection as you are.
:Ordinary Physical Motion: The Amnesiac may have been some sort of secret agent in the past.
Lucky Guy: The Lucky Guy is totally unprepared for this.
:Contrived Solution: The Lucky Guy gets out of a problem in an arbitrary and improbable way.
:Convince: Lucky Guys are often pretty chill.
Wizard: Doing it is the Wizard's favorite thing.
:Cast Spell: The Wizard solves a problem with magic. If a Cast Spell fails, the next player is obliged to ascribe the failure to some restriction about using magic. If it succeeds in solving a particularly major problem (as determined by a majority of the players), the next player gets to make an MC Move even on a roll of 10 or higher.
:Know Things: The Wizard uses some obscure knowledge about a problem to find a solution (the player makes up this knowledge).
Pyromancer: Fire solves all problems.
:Burn Things: The Pyromancer solves a problem by creating fire.
:Feel the Burn: The Pyromancer solves a problem by communicating with fire.
Vampire: Drink much?
:Arbitrary Power: The Vampire solves a problem with a new or established Vampire power. If it fails, the next player is permitted to ascribe the failure to a new or established Vampire weakness.
:Convince: People get tricked by Vampires for some reason.
Beastie: Like a Manticore or Space Whale or something. Beasties cannot Convince.
:Arbitrary Power: The Beastie solves a problem with a new or established power appropriate for a beast of its type. If it fails, the next player is permitted to ascribe the failure to a new or established weakness.
:Ordinary Physical Motion: Beasties are often pretty fast and strong, or winged or something.
Backstory: Each player character starts with a 100-300 word backstory, which the other players are obligated to read.
Last edited by Foxwarrior on Fri Jun 28, 2013 3:25 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Foxwarrior
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Post by Foxwarrior » Fri Jun 28, 2013 3:38 am

TBD: Some amount of starting scenario creation and basic setting establishment would probably be good.
Putting more restrictions on the arbitrary Character Features up front might be sensible.
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TarkisFlux
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Post by TarkisFlux » Fri Jun 28, 2013 4:42 am

I'm glad to see the talking stick made it in, and has been included as a randomizer even. Well played.
The wiki you should be linking to when you need a wiki link - http://www.dnd-wiki.org
Fectin: "Ant, what is best in life?"
Ant: "Ethically, a task well-completed for the good of the colony. Experientially, endorphins."
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Vebyast
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Post by Vebyast » Fri Jun 28, 2013 9:43 pm

:Cast Spell: and :Arbitrary Power: exhibit one of the more interesting character progression systems I've seen. The only problem I see is that, over a long game's series of failures, your character will turn into an incredibly baroque table of abilities and exceptions. Definitely a class for the rules lawyers and experienced players. I'd play one.

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Foxwarrior
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Post by Foxwarrior » Fri Jun 28, 2013 10:57 pm

I find it easy to imagine a campaign in this game where the super-Vampire's defeats can all be ascribed to their allergy to garlic.
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Miryafa
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Post by Miryafa » Fri Jun 28, 2013 11:49 pm

I really like how there isn't one person stuck with the MC job. The idea of making the person after you create a problem for you if you roll badly is just cool, though I'd perhaps be proven wrong in practice.
"Maybe the room the wizard entered was actually a null magic zone."
I suddenly imagined that there are patches of null magic zone all over the world, and that a wizard can accidentally walk or sail right into one. Edit: And I love that.
Also it seems like everything except the Player Characters section could fit right into a D&D/Tome game. That may not have been the intention (and as written it could be interesting too), but for us who get high off level gains, do you have any suggestions for applying this system?
Last edited by Miryafa on Sat Jun 29, 2013 6:57 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Foxwarrior
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Post by Foxwarrior » Sat Jun 29, 2013 12:34 am

I don't see how the Turn Order thing would work in a Tome game either, and without that then you need some completely different for deciding when to do MC Moves instead. Something more restricted, so that players could at least do encounter-scale tactical planning.
Adding leveling up to Equality World, on the other hand, wouldn't be too difficult. Edit: It probably wouldn't be a good idea though. I'd either need to impose scale restrictions above and beyond the Make Sense principle, or give people bonuses to their checks, and it doesn't really seem appropriate for people to encounter fewer complications as the campaign goes on.
Last edited by Foxwarrior on Sat Jun 29, 2013 12:50 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Foxwarrior
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Post by Foxwarrior » Sat Jun 29, 2013 2:52 am

Some more rules:
Dialogue and minor, inconsequential actions may be performed out of turn.
When creating a player character, the player may give their character any number of weaknesses and restrictions on their abilities.
Before character creation, when the campaign is in a preparation stage, at least one of the players works to create an intro scene.
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Miryafa
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Post by Miryafa » Sat Jun 29, 2013 6:59 am

Can this work for any kind of game story? To prevent this becoming a cooperative (read: boring) storytelling event, I imagine there would have to be some sort of competition, eg. the person who strikes the finishing blow on the dragon gets a trophy that also grants a wish or something, and that would have to apply to every adventure.
Edited for clarity.
Last edited by Miryafa on Sat Jun 29, 2013 10:33 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Whatever
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Post by Whatever » Sat Jun 29, 2013 2:59 pm

Let me see if I understand the mechanics:
Bob
Amnesiac Wizard
Cast Spell (+2)
Reveal Connection (+2)
Know Things (+0)
Ordinary Physical Motion (+0)
Convince (-1)
Backstory: Bob is a wizard. He doesn't remember anything, except when he does. Also, butts. Butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts butts.
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TarkisFlux
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Post by TarkisFlux » Sat Jun 29, 2013 3:24 pm

> Miryafa wrote:Can this work for any kind of game story? To prevent this becoming a cooperative (read: boring) storytelling event, I imagine there would have to be some sort of competition, eg. the person who strikes the finishing blow on the dragon gets a trophy that also grants a wish or something, and that would have to apply to every adventure.
> Edited for clarity.

You could also make people write up their own "victory" conditions for the story (or a condition for someone else to try for), so that they try to steer the game in a specific direction that is possibly opposed to others at the table. They should be written in private and not shared with the oher players until table time, in order to allow / encourage opposing story influences. Whether the condition is public knowledge or only confirmed by one other player (preferably a different player per condition) is somewhat unimportant, but they should probably not be completely private.
It's sort of reminiscent of Once Upon A Time, but so is the rest of the game (in a good way).
The wiki you should be linking to when you need a wiki link - http://www.dnd-wiki.org
Fectin: "Ant, what is best in life?"
Ant: "Ethically, a task well-completed for the good of the colony. Experientially, endorphins."
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Foxwarrior
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Post by Foxwarrior » Sun Jun 30, 2013 4:38 am

Tarkisflux and Miryafa: You're right, I definitely need to make this game more competitive. Okay, two possible scoring methods:
Apples Against Humanity: When a player describes the consequences of a Player Move, the player two steps previous decides whether the consequence description or the Move itself was "better", and awards one point. A point can be spent after any roll by any player to give +1 or -1 to the roll.
Once Upon A Time: Each player has a randomly determined situation that they want the player to their left to get into, and only the player to the right knows about it. Potential situations could be:
_____ has regained their rightful place as ruler.
_____ has become an enemy of the state.
_____ owes a life-debt to you.
You owe a life-debt to ____.
When you successfully achieve this situation, rerandomize the player seating and desired situations for everyone, and your character gets a new Character Feature (Some changes may need to be made to make Arbitrary Power (TARDIS) still interesting when you have Arbitrary Power (Sonic Screwdriver)).
Whatever: Your character is wrong. Amnesiacs don't remember anything, but often other people remember things about them.
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Miryafa
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Post by Miryafa » Sun Jun 30, 2013 3:08 pm

Ooh, I really like Tarkus's "everyone picks a major goal for someone else" idea. I like the idea that I could make another player's goal "become king" and someone else might make my character's goal "kill the player whose goal I wrote" just to be a dick, and someone else might get the goal "plant apple trees all over the world," or something like that. I think it would make for an interesting and dramatic campaign, although players should probably get veto powers on their own goal if it's something they don't want to do, like the aforementioned "kill another player". Or maybe Tarkus meant short-term goals for this session. Either way, it sounds like fun. Is that what Once Upon A Time is for? I'm not totally clear on that. And what does Apples vs Humanity stand for? I don't get the reference.
Foxwarrior you've got me all hyped up about eliminating the MC now and making a game where everyone can play The only thing we need now is maps and encounters (which is where I came up with D&D - restrict it to equal-CR encounters and you're good to go) prepared by someone.
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TarkisFlux
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Post by TarkisFlux » Sun Jun 30, 2013 4:05 pm

Once Upon A Time is a card game where you tell a story with the elements on your card, or steal the story from someone else when the story they're telling uses an element on one of your cards (or they play a card that you can interrupt). The goal is to tell a story that makes sense with your cards and eventually end the story in a way that matches a randomly drawn ending card.
Apples Against Humanity is a mashup of Apples to Apples and Cards Against Humanity. Both are card games where someone draws a topic card and everyone else plays cards from their hands to try to answer the topic (relevantly or otherwise). The person with the topic card then picks a winner from among those presented, based on whatever the fuck they feel like judging on at the time.
The wiki you should be linking to when you need a wiki link - http://www.dnd-wiki.org
Fectin: "Ant, what is best in life?"
Ant: "Ethically, a task well-completed for the good of the colony. Experientially, endorphins."
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Miryafa
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Post by Miryafa » Sun Jun 30, 2013 4:35 pm

Just followed that Cards Against Humanity link and it looks awesome. And the Apples against Humanity rule seems like an interesting mechanic for the game.
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Whatever
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Post by Whatever » Mon Jul 01, 2013 1:22 am

> Foxwarrior wrote:Whatever: Your character is wrong. Amnesiacs don't remember anything, but often other people remember things about them.

Got it. But it's rules-legal to force everyone else to read "butts" 87 times?
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Foxwarrior
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Post by Foxwarrior » Mon Jul 01, 2013 2:05 am

They don't have to read it out loud, and it's pretty easy to read all 87 of those words in a second or two by noticing that they are all the same.
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Foxwarrior
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Post by Foxwarrior » Mon Jul 01, 2013 7:12 pm

On maps and encounters:
Enemies can be things like Dalek: HP - A ridiculous amount, when shielded, Damage - If it shoots you, you die; good thing you're a main character, Instinct: To EXTERMINATE.
Maps can be generated during play, like this fight with a mobster in a cafe: "When the mobster opens the door, I smash it in his face to knock him unconscious, rolling a... 5 on Kill Things." "It's 2030 and you're in a retro hippie weed cafe in Oregon. Until you clear your head, you don't really want to kill things at all."
Last edited by Foxwarrior on Mon Jul 01, 2013 7:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Miryafa
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Post by Miryafa » Mon Jul 01, 2013 10:31 pm

> Foxwarrior wrote:"When the mobster opens the door, I smash it in his face to knock him unconscious, rolling a... 5 on Kill Things." "It's 2030 and you're in a retro hippie weed cafe in Oregon. Until you clear your head, you don't really want to kill things at all."

I like it. I like it a lot. It's simple, appears to contain everything needed for a game, and doesn't leave one person stuck with the work of creating maps and encounters and then describing enemy actions while players get all the fun of killing and bypassing things.
Actually, I just realized D&D could allow for competition between the players and DM by requiring the DM to stick to at most 4 equal-CR encounters per day/rest area. Winner take all. But that still leaves the DM with the job of coming up with the plot, and this doesn't, or not nearly as much.
Eg. "Yeah, so today we're met by a wealthy client who wants us to rescue his daughter from a vampire."
Edit: on a side note, what made you pick 2d6, and an outright success rate of 0.19, a partial success rate of 0.38, and a failure rate of 0.43?
I guess if someone's using their +2 skill, they get a 0.81 partial or complete success rate, so that's nice, but it seems like it's tough to really succeed at anything.
Last edited by Miryafa on Mon Jul 01, 2013 10:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Foxwarrior
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Post by Foxwarrior » Mon Jul 01, 2013 11:51 pm

In * World games, people usually roll somewhere from +2 to +0, and Equality World is no exception. I could probably bring up the secondary things from +0 to +1 if you ask nicely; the Character Features section does need changing before I'll declare it complete.
Speaking of ways to make the DM role easier, I once ran a two-session detective campaign in 3.5. In the first session, the Criminal player committed a crime, and in the second session, the Detective player attempted to bring them to justice. That meant that all I had to do, really, was create a building for the Criminal to burglarize, and keep track of all the things he did so I could determine what the Detective found using his various investigative techniques.
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TarkisFlux
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Post by TarkisFlux » Tue Jul 02, 2013 5:09 pm

Any chance of fitting in interrupts along the lines presented here? After the roll is made but before it is resolved by the next player seems like an ok fit, but saves backstabbing for when you've already succeeded to some degree and I'm not sure that's a good fit.
The wiki you should be linking to when you need a wiki link - http://www.dnd-wiki.org
Fectin: "Ant, what is best in life?"
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Foxwarrior
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Post by Foxwarrior » Tue Jul 02, 2013 6:11 pm

There's a small chance.
Interfering: After a player has declared their Player Move, but before they've rolled it, you may choose to interfere: roll a move, with a -1 penalty if it's not the same move as the original player's. On a 6 or less, the next player gets to make an additional MC Move, because you've made a terrible mistake. On a 7 or more, you may add or subtract 1 from the original player's roll.
If you interfere with a move, you may not be the next player, and you get a -1 penalty to your Player Move the next time it's your turn.
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TarkisFlux
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Post by TarkisFlux » Tue Jul 02, 2013 6:26 pm

Does that mean in pbp that the rolling is done by the person who resolves your action (the next poster), in order to allow for interfering?
The wiki you should be linking to when you need a wiki link - http://www.dnd-wiki.org
Fectin: "Ant, what is best in life?"
Ant: "Ethically, a task well-completed for the good of the colony. Experientially, endorphins."
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Foxwarrior
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Post by Foxwarrior » Tue Jul 02, 2013 7:03 pm

I suppose it has to.
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Foxwarrior
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Post by Foxwarrior » Sat Feb 08, 2014 4:24 am

Gloranthomancer: Other people apply Schrodinger's reality to characters and situations. You apply it to physics itself.
:Theorize: The Gloranthomancer solves a problem by reinterpreting the cause of a pattern seen in nature, and then exploiting a loophole in that interpretation. The reinterpretation becomes a universal physical law, replacing prior physics as necessary. On partial success, a loophole of that interpretation proves harmful to the Gloranthomancer.
:Rename: The Gloranthomancer uses the wrong noun to describe something, in order to utilize the thing as though it had properties of that wrong noun. As an unfortunate side effect, they can never refer to that thing by a correct name again.
I think something as fundamentally absurd as this might require revision.
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