[Towerlands] Identities
It dawned on me the other day that my Towerlands project is a classic fantasy heartbreaker. I mean, I've known this all along, but it had not occurred to me what that meant for my game design.
Basically, I want to create a game with many of the usual trappings of D&D but without the cutthroat mentality, without the meaningless combats, without the level treadmill. I want to replace all that stuff with mechanics that support intense sociopolitical play and that make players make tough choices, and not the "do I kill it with a fireball or save my 3rd level spell for the boss" variety.
So that makes me wonder, which "usual trappings of D&D" do I want? How should I model them in the game?
I don't want classes and levels but I do want niche protection. That is, a player should be able to create a character and feel that he will have something unique to bring to the game with that character. In a D&D game, a niche is a tactical thing. You choose to be a wizard and hope no one else does because you want to be the guy in the back with the cool offensive and battleground-changing spells. You choose to be a fighter with a broadsword specialization because you want to be the guy in front in heavy armor, beating down the enemy with massive damage. In Towerlands, niche means something different. It's about a story role, not a set of tactical options. You choose to be the wizard because you want your stories to be about magic and how it affects society. You choose to be the fighter because you want your stories to be about the use of violence to achieve goals. Those things are a type of character identity.
Recall that Towerlands characters are defined by their connections to other things. So to be a wizard, you create something magical that is external to your character and connect yourself to it. Say, you create The Infinite Spire -- a real place in the fiction and, moreover, the popular identity of a group of likeminded magical researchers who live there -- and you connect your character. Perhaps you're a member in good standing, but maybe you're an outcast. Or instead of an organization, you could could create a tradition like The Many-Branching Path of Arcane Science. Your connection to it is that you study it, believe it, and strive to advance it -- or maybe you want to disprove it and replace it with your own tradition.
In D&D, core classes are defined as a pretty boring name ("fighter," "cleric," "wizard"), some descriptive text, and a set of abilities that your character gets (or can attain). All characters have hit points, but barbarians have lots of them (1d12 per level) and wizards have few of them (1d4 per level). All characters have skills, but rogues can take "open locks" as a class skill, while most other classes have to pay double for it as a cross-class skill. Then there are special abilities that make the classes unique. Clerics can turn undead and cast divine spells. Wizards can learn to make magic items and can cast arcane spells. Rogues can roll out of the way of massive damage-causing effects. Barbarians rage. That kind of thing.
In Towerlands, I want the feel of this kind of customization but without the structure. When you write down an identity like "The Infinite Spire," what does this mean in game terms? What does it let you do? Can you use powerful spells to see the hues of the souls in a being? If so, how can a player make sure that his Adept of the Infinite Spire can do this, and Bob's Ranger of the Widow Wood can't? If any player can suddenly suggest that his character can do that really cool thing that you thought of, it reduces your character's specialness. Your niche has been violated. It's "deprotagonizing." I think my solution is that when a player creates an identity like "The Infinite Spire" or the "Rangers of the Widow Wood," she creates an index card that describes that identity. On that card, she gets to write one or two things about that identity that are unique to it: "Niche: The ritual of Gaia allows practitioners of Adept rank or better to see the hues of the souls within any sentient being." Then no one else can trod on that ground, though they may trod near it, and the rules ought to reward the original player for inspiring similar ideas in her friend-players.
What about the very basic stuff? Like, I want my Ranger to use a bow and I don't want everyone else using a bow. I say too bad. It's too generic. Think of something clever your identity lets you do with your bow, add it to the identity card, then you have access. Writing "Niche: Can use a bow" is foul play. Really, why not allow any player to cry foul on any niche. Just require unanimous approval from the player group for all niches. If you want to write "Use bows" on the card, that's fine, but it's just color, not a niche. Instead, write, "Niche: Know how to make widow wood bows, which are stronger and shoot further than normal bows," or something like that. The rules need to discourage "boring."
Yes, players have lots of power to create setting in character generation and during play. That's a design goal. I know a lot of players who want to skim a source book and pick stuff, though, so Towerlands will come with a default setting of a kind. I plan for it to be little chunks of setting that can be used together, or pulled into a player-generated setting easily. In other words, you don't have to use all of the setting or even any of it, but it's there as an aid to those who want help. None of the setting counts till it gets written on a card, anyway.
Basically, I want to create a game with many of the usual trappings of D&D but without the cutthroat mentality, without the meaningless combats, without the level treadmill. I want to replace all that stuff with mechanics that support intense sociopolitical play and that make players make tough choices, and not the "do I kill it with a fireball or save my 3rd level spell for the boss" variety.
So that makes me wonder, which "usual trappings of D&D" do I want? How should I model them in the game?
I don't want classes and levels but I do want niche protection. That is, a player should be able to create a character and feel that he will have something unique to bring to the game with that character. In a D&D game, a niche is a tactical thing. You choose to be a wizard and hope no one else does because you want to be the guy in the back with the cool offensive and battleground-changing spells. You choose to be a fighter with a broadsword specialization because you want to be the guy in front in heavy armor, beating down the enemy with massive damage. In Towerlands, niche means something different. It's about a story role, not a set of tactical options. You choose to be the wizard because you want your stories to be about magic and how it affects society. You choose to be the fighter because you want your stories to be about the use of violence to achieve goals. Those things are a type of character identity.
Recall that Towerlands characters are defined by their connections to other things. So to be a wizard, you create something magical that is external to your character and connect yourself to it. Say, you create The Infinite Spire -- a real place in the fiction and, moreover, the popular identity of a group of likeminded magical researchers who live there -- and you connect your character. Perhaps you're a member in good standing, but maybe you're an outcast. Or instead of an organization, you could could create a tradition like The Many-Branching Path of Arcane Science. Your connection to it is that you study it, believe it, and strive to advance it -- or maybe you want to disprove it and replace it with your own tradition.
In D&D, core classes are defined as a pretty boring name ("fighter," "cleric," "wizard"), some descriptive text, and a set of abilities that your character gets (or can attain). All characters have hit points, but barbarians have lots of them (1d12 per level) and wizards have few of them (1d4 per level). All characters have skills, but rogues can take "open locks" as a class skill, while most other classes have to pay double for it as a cross-class skill. Then there are special abilities that make the classes unique. Clerics can turn undead and cast divine spells. Wizards can learn to make magic items and can cast arcane spells. Rogues can roll out of the way of massive damage-causing effects. Barbarians rage. That kind of thing.
In Towerlands, I want the feel of this kind of customization but without the structure. When you write down an identity like "The Infinite Spire," what does this mean in game terms? What does it let you do? Can you use powerful spells to see the hues of the souls in a being? If so, how can a player make sure that his Adept of the Infinite Spire can do this, and Bob's Ranger of the Widow Wood can't? If any player can suddenly suggest that his character can do that really cool thing that you thought of, it reduces your character's specialness. Your niche has been violated. It's "deprotagonizing." I think my solution is that when a player creates an identity like "The Infinite Spire" or the "Rangers of the Widow Wood," she creates an index card that describes that identity. On that card, she gets to write one or two things about that identity that are unique to it: "Niche: The ritual of Gaia allows practitioners of Adept rank or better to see the hues of the souls within any sentient being." Then no one else can trod on that ground, though they may trod near it, and the rules ought to reward the original player for inspiring similar ideas in her friend-players.
What about the very basic stuff? Like, I want my Ranger to use a bow and I don't want everyone else using a bow. I say too bad. It's too generic. Think of something clever your identity lets you do with your bow, add it to the identity card, then you have access. Writing "Niche: Can use a bow" is foul play. Really, why not allow any player to cry foul on any niche. Just require unanimous approval from the player group for all niches. If you want to write "Use bows" on the card, that's fine, but it's just color, not a niche. Instead, write, "Niche: Know how to make widow wood bows, which are stronger and shoot further than normal bows," or something like that. The rules need to discourage "boring."
Yes, players have lots of power to create setting in character generation and during play. That's a design goal. I know a lot of players who want to skim a source book and pick stuff, though, so Towerlands will come with a default setting of a kind. I plan for it to be little chunks of setting that can be used together, or pulled into a player-generated setting easily. In other words, you don't have to use all of the setting or even any of it, but it's there as an aid to those who want help. None of the setting counts till it gets written on a card, anyway.