It's been a long time since the last post, but today I want to talk again about the game I'm working on, The Promised Ones, and how the resolution system will work in it.
But first I have to go back a bit to the setting because my goal is that the system and setting are intertwined and help each other (which I guess is a good goal when designing a game).
As I have already told you, the game is set in a world where a gigantic spire was discovered.
This spire allowed people to empower matter with magic, which started a war for the control of the spire, which ended with the shattering of it in numerous shards.
Each of these shards, called obelisks, has a great spirit attached to them, and are the epicenter of different aspects of reality, causing reality to change and behave strangely around them.
And this is when the promised ones appeared into the picture because their progenitors took the favor of these great spirits and paid for them by pledging their unborn child. Players will take the role of these children, when they have already reached adolescence or adulthood.
And now let's talk about the resolution system:
The resolution system uses a d6 dice pool system, plus a d8 die, which I call the essence die.
The idea of the system is simple; you choose one of four essences (they work as attributes) to do what you want to do, then you take one d8 (the essence die), plus a number of d6’s (determined by any skill you could use, and by expending a “meta-currency” call Will).
You roll your dice and if on any dice (including the d8) you get a 6+, you succeed. If not, you fail.
But here is where I tried to push the setting into the system.
The d8 defines who will narrate the outcome, if your d8 is equal to or higher than your essence score, you, the player, narrate the outcome, but if you roll under your essence score, then the referee, representing the great spirit to whom you belong, narrates the “how”.
So in summary, the basis of the system is: d8 + some d6, get at least one die with a 6+ then you succeed and the d8 defines who tells the “how”.
If you care about statistics, these are the basic statistics for success in this game, depending on the size of the d6 pool:
On top of this, if in the essence die (d8) you get a 1, then you lose a point in that essence (these point can be recovered by expending Will). If you deplete an essence you get a condition, and in any roll invoking that essence you will have to roll 2d8 and choose the worst result (rolling with disadvantage)
Simple enough ¿no?
What I wanted to convey with this system is that the essences of the characters are a measurement of their resilience and of the strength of their connection to the great spirit to whom they are promised to.
This means that a higher essence score will imply that the great spirit has more influence on “how” the character does things. However, a low essence score makes the character prone to deplete their essence faster, and therefore to roll at a disadvantage.
The resolution system also allows to act together and to act in opposition:
By expending 1 will, two or more players can act together. Here, the dice pool that dictates the outcome is the one with the highest d8.
To act on opposition, two or more players have to roll their dice in secret, then at each “turn”, each one of them reveals their highest hidden die on the table. The referee then reads the dice and uses their values to narrate the struggle of the competition.
Then, players have the opportunity to expend Will to roll extra d6’s and expand their pool of hidden dice.
When one player is out of dice, the opposition roll ends, and the player whose last die on the table is the highest wins the match.
The idea of this system is to remove turns of the equation, to give with each comparison a prompt to the referee to narrate the struggle of the competition and the different sub-actions driving the global scene, and to give to opposition rolls enough flexibility to represent a chase, a cook-off, a fight, or any kind of competition.
As you could notice, I have been using repeatedly the word Will, and that's because in this game I want to represent at every important moment (when a roll is required) the struggle between the will of the character to decide how things happen and the will of the great spirit to whom they belong.
So in these crucial moments characters will expend their Will, and use it to either have the upper hand by adding extra d6 to their pool, or to be them who narrate the “how” by increasing the value of the essence-die (1 will → d8 increase in 1).
This is the resolution mechanics of the game, but there is more to the system to tell you about. In the next post, I really want to show you all the updated character sheet, and the different aspects of the setting that are intertwined in it and in the system.
I would like to know what you think in the comments, I am very interested to know your feelings and thoughts on these ideas.
Have a lovely weekend!