[Mechanics] Triad System

[beejazz]

On incentives to hold out rather than spend health... consider using something other than health. "Heroism" or something that can be spent on other things, or which determines the power level of other things. What these things are would vary with a character's abilities. Alternately, they could work the same for all players... kinda like action poins.

In either case, it isn't just some other penalty being accrued, but a resource being spent.

And I agree on the name vitality, over health. Especially if it is used as a resource for other things than just stalling wounds.

[Lmns Crn]

So, I've been trying to visualize how this would work when actually played, and I think it would lend itself well to a minimal apparatus of cards and tokens. I say this because I appreciate having something tactile to work with (I think it's more useful and satisfying than crossing off marks on a sheet of paper), and because I think it seems to mesh well with the way actions and Focus work.

For an example, let's use Dassan (from Salacious's "Dystopian Dramatis Personae" post, above.) Dassan's player might have an index card that says "Speed: 3", another that says "Wits: 4", another that says "Style: 2", and so on, for all his Qualities and Specialties. He might also have a number of tokens for Vitality, Focus, and Will.

For maximal suspense, let us imagine that Dassan is trying to sail his ship safely through a terrible storm, at night, avoiding the nearby jagged rocks. Also, he and his crew are fending off an attack by horrible sea-beasts.

Dassan's player decides to pull the ship hard to port, in an attempt to avoid the deadly shoals. He uses Vision (to spot rocks in time to avoid them), Wits (to anticipate and compensate for the roiling waves), and Brawn (to make the rudder bend to his will.) Dassan's player tosses those cards from his hand down upon the playing surface and makes his roll. [note=Yeah okay]I need to figure out how this works, exactly[/note]The cards will stay there, temporarily inaccessible, until {the end of the turn/the action they're used for is over/something.}

Just then, a wave breaks over the side of the ship, carrying several cruelly-armed creatures with it. They writhe across the surface of the deck on malformed tentacles, moving to attack the crew. One heads straight for Dassan, who tries to defend himself (while still manning the helm and steering the ship away from harm, we hope.)

Now, Dassan's options are limited, because he's already in the middle of steering the ship (and consequently, because some of his cards are already on the table.) Using some of the remaining cards still in his hand, Dassan's player devises a reaction. He uses Vision (to notice his assailant with enough time to react), Lore (he knows the tactics these monsters use, since he's fought them before), and Speed (to get out of the way of the first blow, just in the nick of time.) He can use Vision, even though he just used it in the ship-steering roll, because it's a Specialty.

Brawn and Wits might have been useful against the monster, but they're on the table at the moment. At any time, Dassan's player could cash in a Focus token to pick up all his cards that are on the table (and if any more catastrophes happen right now, he may have to.) He currently has five cards on the table: Brawn, Speed, Wits, Lore, and Vision. Whether or not he spends a Focus point first, he will get to pick them back up at the start of the next {turn/scene/something I haven't figured out yet.}

The various props aren't necessary, of course. But they're uncomplicated, and I think they make complex actions (e.g., combat) easier to understand.

[Lmns Crn]

A Victim of Circumstance
Temporary conditions make conflict fun!

Let's face it-- the world is unpredictable. Sometimes fate seems to conspire against us, and keep us from success we know we might otherwise have reached. We look back and say to ourselves, "If only the sun hadn't been in my eyes that day, if only I hadn't been off-balance for that split second, if only my confidence hadn't been so terribly shaken... I would certainly have succeeded."

Likewise, sometimes events seem to arrange themselves so precisely, so perfectly, that we succeed at things we would have thought impossible.

Here is my attempt to create such a potential in Triad System.

Circumstances - Temporary Attributes

[note=This Is Very Hard]I am pretty sure this concept has potential, but is in serious need of refinement. Please rip it to shreds for me, 'kay? I will build a giant robot from aforementioned shreds.[/note]Circumstances are temporary labels that can be applied to a character. Creative players may use them for boon or for bane, but most are not inherently helpful or harmful. Narrator oversight is recommended to ensure Circumstances don't spiral out of control, but players are encouraged to use them creatively.

Adding a Circumstance

The Narrator should always be the final arbiter of when a circumstance gets added, and how it works. Many Circumstances are added to characters by the Narrator directly-- for example, if players are on the deck of a storm-tossed ship as an enormous wave impacts the starboard rail, the Narrator might give the characters a Circumstance like "Off-Balance" for a turn or two. Sometimes, characters give Circumstances to each other-- a clever dueling fencer might succeed at giving his rival a Circumstance such as "Overconfident," "Tired Out," or even "Disarmed."

In general, a Circumstance should be something temporary and not debilitating, and players should often have potential to use even "harmful" labels to their advantage-- making the best of bad Circumstances.

When the Narrator adds a Circumstance as part of a scene, it's as simple as making a statement. In some cases, players might get a roll to try and avoid it. (For example, in the storm-tossed ship example above, players on deck might avoid becoming "Off-Balance" with successful rolls to demonstrate their agility and bloody-mindedness, or a Narrator might decide that a character with a Specialization like "Seafaring" doesn't need to worry about the big wave at all.)

When characters try to add Circumstances to each other, common sense and an opposed roll are involved. In the case of the dueling swordsmen, one combatant might spend an action feigning ineptitude to cause his foe to become Overconfident. Pending Narrator approval and a successful opposed roll (perhaps Wits+Charm+Grace vs. Wits+Lore+Swashbuckling?), the Circumstance is applied.

[note=Favorable Circumstances]Safeguard clause to prevent ludicrous scenes such as the players preparing for a tough challenge by "buffing" themselves with as many nice Circumstances as they can think of, via shallow compliments, cheesy pep-talks, and the Power of Positive Thinking.[/note]Really favorable Circumstances (the kind that players don't contest) should rarely be applied by other players. They arise by magic, by powerful scenes, or almost by chance-- when an innocuous action has unexpected beneficial consequences. (In fact, the Narrator can reward exceptional storytelling among his players by tying positive Circumstances to some of their most noteworthy actions.) A dying mentor's last words might give a disciple a Circumstance like "Determined to Avenge John", or a fair damsel's smile might grace a young knight with a Circumstance like "Inspired." (Then again, if the damsel is false and cruel and the knight is naive and trusting, maybe "Distracted.")

Using Circumstances

Circumstances themselves aren't inherently bad or good (though some might be thornier than others) -- it's all in how you use them. Players can use their own Circumstances in rolls, or can call on opponents' Circumstances to hinder opponents' rolls, provided they can make the Circumstance fit the action at hand.

When using your own Circumstances favorably, you combine them in rolls just like Qualities and Specialties. [note]I am still unsure about this mechanic. Oh, well.[/note] Circumstances don't have numbers attached to them, but using a Circumstance lets you reroll your lowest die once-- after all, relying on Circumstance involves trusting fortune more than personal skill.

For example, the abovementioned knight jousting for his beloved's honor might charge into battle with Brawn, Guts, and Wits (rolling 3 + 4 + 3 + 3d6), Or he might use Brawn, Guts, and his Inspired status (rolling 3 + 4 + 3d6, but rerolling the lowest.) Like Specialties, Circumstances can be used as often as they are relevant (handy, since they are usually quite ephemeral.)

Likewise, a fencer who has been given a Circumstance such as "Knocked Down" by his opponent might still use the situation to his advantage. Even though his opponent knocked him down in an attempt to make him lose the fight, a clever and tenacious combatant might try a roll like Charm+Speed+Knocked Down to sneakily sweep his adversary's feet out from under him. (Then they might both be Knocked Down. How amusing!)

Your Opponent's Circumstances

Circumstances can be harmful as well as beneficial, and it is up to a character's Player opponents or Narrator opponents to call them into play to hinder actions when they are relevant. When used in this way, a Circumstance effectively blocks one of a character's Qualities or Specialties, making it unusable for certain actions.

For example, a player who is Tangled Up in rope or underbrush might be unable to use his Speed (and will be more wary in the future in situations involving fighting in dense jungles or around coiled lines on the decks of ships.) Likewise, a guard who is Distracted might find Wits is off-limits for noticing intruders, or a lawyer who is Nervous might not be able to benefit from his Style. In more general cases, such as the Overconfident fencer, a Narrator might decide that the highest relevant stat is off-limits, but the Overconfidence disappears as soon as it causes a serious mistake. On the other hand, a Disarmed swordsman might have his Swordplay specialty off-limits until he gets his weapon back-- which might take a while.

Doing Away with Circumstances

Sometimes, when you're Demoralized, Disenfranchised, Crestfallen, Unlucky, Jinxed, Hexed, and On Fire, there's nothing you'd rather do than get rid of your negative Circumstances. The way to do so depends on the situation.

Deal with it directly: If you're Starving, eat. If you're Disarmed, recover your sidearm. If you're On Fire, stop, drop, and roll. Sometimes the easiest solution is simply to put a stop to the problem at the source.

Use an action and an appropriate point. You might spend a point of Vitality to recover if you're Fatigued, Off-Balance, Nauseated, or Numbed. A point of Focus might cure a character who is Confused, Distracted, Fuzzy-Headed, or even Hung Over, while a point of Will might do the trick if you're Crestfallen, Nervous, Despairing or Despondent.

Alternately, if you got such a status because you failed a roll, you might take a turn to re-roll that challenge in an attempt to shake off the resulting Circumstance.

Time Cures All Things. Sometimes Circumstances have to simply work themselves out, and an afflicted character has few options but to sit tight and wait for that to happen. It just might take a tragic mistake to cure an Overconfident person, or concrete evidence to stop someone from being Duped By Lies. The way to remove an Ancient Voodoo Curse might be tricky indeed, but perhaps a simple kind word from an unexpected quarter might end Broken-Heartedness.

The Big Idea

The point of this is to make the game more interesting, and to encourage players to get creative in their tactics, and in their ways of interacting with other characters and their environments. Circumstances open up the field quite wide in combat situations, turn social cattery into a move/countermove chess tournament, and give players some more colorful ways to affect things-- always a desirable goal.

[ooc]Thoughts? Opinions?[/ooc]

[SA]

First things first, I'm a little concerned about the clarity and distinctiveness of the Qualities, in particular Style, Grace and Wisdom.  The first two don't seem to be as explicit in their purpose as the others: Charm, for example, is basically your straight up persuasiveness, while Grace and Style seem to be reflections of each other (Grace helps you look like you belong, Style helps you look like you belong at the top).  They both make sense, but I'm not sure if they're as clear as Brawn or Lore.  Grace could be construed as a kind of "intuitive social lore", encompassing an understanding of rules of deportment, courtesy, timing, vernacular, and so on, which would help solidify its status as a Quality.  Style, however, seems to share a lot in common with Charm.  What does it do that Charm cannot, and vice versa?

I was almost sure what Wisdom was for, but then I reread Wits, and noticed that it encompassed solving a Wizard's riddles, something that seemed to come under the purview of Wisdom: "a person with high Wits might be able to notice hidden clues, but sometimes only a person with high Wisdom can figure out what all the clues mean."

A clarification of that would be nice.

Also, I propose an alternative function for Focus.  Seeing as it is the representation of a character's all-round social ability, would it not make sense for it to augment social actions?  So a character uses Focus (which would be terribly named for this purpose) in order to tell egregious falsehoods, the likes of which no-one would otherwise believe, or to persuade foes hell bent on skinning them alive.

In a more general vein, all three Core Qualities could be restricted to the domain of their constituents.  You can only use Will to succeed against psychological adversity (perhaps to stay awake for three nights straight scouring ancient texts without effect), and Vitality/Health/whatever for feats of physical prowess.

It might also be a good idea to have two representations of the Core Quality.  One represents its relative health - how much physical/social/mental damage you can take; the other represents its relative power - how much awesomeness it can dish out.  So the core physical quality is Health (passive) and Vitality (active): the former identifies resistance to punishment, the latter identifies one's inner physical reserve.

Both the passive and active core qualities could be equal to the lowest of its constituent  Qualities (or the average, depending on who you agree with), or the active could be equal to the lowest while the passive is equal to the total of all three.  For example, Leoshe has Brawn 2, Speed 4 and Guts 3.  Her Vitality is 2 (or 3) and her Health is 9.

Now, on to task resolution.  The idea of using different abilities for different tasks but expressing it in a single roll is a good one, but it also results in a failed roll defeating all of the efforts encompassed in that roll.  So the effectiveness of this system is dependent upon what actions can be grouped together in an action.  For example, Leoshe watches a trio of raiders riding through the rocky valley, and moves to intercept them as they pass her.  From her vantage on a rocky outcrop, she plans to leap from the rocks, utilising her Speed (to get there in time), her Strength (for the necessary force to knock a rider from his mount), and her Acrobatics to augment the action.  If she were to fail, would she not jump far enough, miss the rider or hit him with insufficient force?  Or does the GM arbitrate that?  If she had used Wits (being the expression of general all-round attentiveness) would she have further improved the likelihood of the action's success, or simply altered the narrative outcome of a potential success or failure?

I'll post my thoughts on the physical props when my computer starts being nice to me...

[Lmns Crn]

First things first, I'm a little concerned about the clarity and distinctiveness of the Qualities, in particular Style, Grace and Wisdom.  The first two don't seem to be as explicit in their purpose as the others: Charm, for example, is basically your straight up persuasiveness, while Grace and Style seem to be reflections of each other (Grace helps you look like you belong, Style helps you look like you belong at the top).  They both make sense, but I'm not sure if they're as clear as Brawn or Lore.  Grace could be construed as a kind of "intuitive social lore", encompassing an understanding of rules of deportment, courtesy, timing, vernacular, and so on, which would help solidify its status as a Quality.  Style, however, seems to share a lot in common with Charm.  What does it do that Charm cannot, and vice versa?

I was almost sure what Wisdom was for, but then I reread Wits, and noticed that it encompassed solving a Wizard's riddles, something that seemed to come under the purview of Wisdom: "a person with high Wits might be able to notice hidden clues, but sometimes only a person with high Wisdom can figure out what all the clues mean."

A clarification of that would be nice.[/quote]a la[/i] Einstein, truly understand another human being, and other difficult feats of comprehension. Wisdom is what lets an old farmer know his fields, his crops, his weather, though he may not be able to articulate how. Wisdom is how a painter understands the nuances of color, though he may never have had an art lesson in his life. Wits, on the other hand, is mental agility. It's wordplay, attentiveness, perception of detail, and logic. Wisdom helps you solve a zen koan, Wits helps you solve your daily Sudoku puzzle.

I guess that to correctly revisit the flawed "riddle" example, Wisdom would help a person arrive at the correct solution, while Wits would help a person realize it was a trick question from the beginning.

I suspect that there will always be a bit of overlap between them, between all mental qualities, just as there will be overlap between the social and mental ones. It's more noticeable in the mental and social ones, I think, because we're all more used to differentiating physical action and prowess into strong/tough/fast already.

Also, I propose an alternative function for Focus.  Seeing as it is the representation of a character's all-round social ability, would it not make sense for it to augment social actions?  So a character uses Focus (which would be terribly named for this purpose) in order to tell egregious falsehoods, the likes of which no-one would otherwise believe, or to persuade foes hell bent on skinning them alive.

In a more general vein, all three Core Qualities could be restricted to the domain of their constituents.  You can only use Will to succeed against psychological adversity (perhaps to stay awake for three nights straight scouring ancient texts without effect), and Vitality/Health/whatever for feats of physical prowess.[/quote]It might also be a good idea to have two representations of the Core Quality.  One represents its relative health - how much physical/social/mental damage you can take; the other represents its relative power - how much awesomeness it can dish out.  So the core physical quality is Health (passive) and Vitality (active): the former identifies resistance to punishment, the latter identifies one's inner physical reserve.

Both the passive and active core qualities could be equal to the lowest of its constituent  Qualities (or the average, depending on who you agree with), or the active could be equal to the lowest while the passive is equal to the total of all three.  For example, Leoshe has Brawn 2, Speed 4 and Guts 3.  Her Vitality is 2 (or 3) and her Health is 9.[/quote]Now, on to task resolution.  The idea of using different abilities for different tasks but expressing it in a single roll is a good one, but it also results in a failed roll defeating all of the efforts encompassed in that roll.  So the effectiveness of this system is dependent upon what actions can be grouped together in an action.  For example, Leoshe watches a trio of raiders riding through the rocky valley, and moves to intercept them as they pass her.  From her vantage on a rocky outcrop, she plans to leap from the rocks, utilising her Speed (to get there in time), her Strength (for the necessary force to knock a rider from his mount), and her Acrobatics to augment the action.  If she were to fail, would she not jump far enough, miss the rider or hit him with insufficient force?  Or does the GM arbitrate that?  If she had used Wits (being the expression of general all-round attentiveness) would she have further improved the likelihood of the action's success, or simply altered the narrative outcome of a potential success or failure?[/quote]I'll post my thoughts on the physical props when my computer starts being nice to me...[/quote]As for those, and the Circumstances, and a bevy of other things, I'm very conflicted about them. I feel very conflicted between the extremes of "simple but less useful" and "flexible but overcomplicated."

[SA]

I think you may be confusing Focus and Will here. Focus is the mental quality, Will is the social one.

The function of Will already involves spending Will to reroll or auto-succeed failed attempts, so I don't know what else you may be referring to.[/quote]I'm really wary about having things provide bonuses to rolls without testing how much it alters the math. I'm wary of situations where a Will point would give me a 95% chance to thoroughly convince my fiancée that I am actually the Pope's evil twin, returned from my exile in outer space. Spending something like a point of Will should represent a superior effort backed by huge determination and a lot of luck, but the results ought to still be believable (though awesome and super-impressive.) Maybe I'm just a little paranoid.[/quote]This, I'm not so sure about. To me, one of the strong points of appeal for this system has been the ease with which mental and social prowess can augment physical exertions (and so on.) I think it's rather charming that physical endurance might assist a scholar studying for three nights without rest in the ancient library, or that mental acuity might help a warrior deal with threats on a turbulent battlefield. Here as in all cases, oversight should prevent the ridiculous justifications ("My bulging biceps help me know more trivia!")[/quote]
Once again, I agree.  Tying into the idea of dual-purpose core qualities, I am however wondering what the "active" role of "Vitality" would be.  We know what ends Focus and Will can be applied toward, but so far the physical core quality only exists in a passive capacity.

As to the passive purpose of the social and mental, I imagine that damaging a person's Will diminishes their long term confidence and sense of identity.  Perhaps a considerable blow to one's Will in the right context could diminish their social standing (or conversely, an attack on one's power base could diminish their will).  Maybe every character has certain dutes, objects or people they care about.  Attacking those things attacks their Will.

A diminished Focus can cause a reality disconnect; forgetfulness, paranoia... (I'm not really sure what it'd do, actually, just a few examples pulled out of nowhere)