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Been involved with about 12 projects the past month or so. Incarnate is still one of those projects, I just haven't gotten around to updating anything yet. There will be more updates very soon.
Chris
Chris
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Skull-Carpet Memoirs
Incarnate: The Role-Playing Game of Stolen Lives
28 December 2007 @ 12:09 pm
The Road of the Dead
Fragments are made up of soul-matter, that is they are not corporeal and thus not limited to physical reality as we are. Therefore, it is possible for them to step outside of normal time and space, though it is dangerous and difficult to do. There are three locations (so far) that they may visit I will post each of these locations in a separate post.
In this post, I will talk about the The Road of the Dead.
The Road of the Dead is where a soul ascends to after death. It is actually a chaotic and turbulent Sea of Souls that wisp around in all directions, broken up by rocky masses of unknown origins that float freely within. Orbiting the sea are "The Two Shores": One an unbearably bright light, the other an unimaginably dark void. The souls that make up the sea are pulled towards one shore or the other, both physically and emotionally. Fragments may travel this sea freely, but are unable to ever reach either Shore.
On the aforementioned rocky masses (known simply as Islands), many souls refuse the calling of The Shores by anchoring themselves to these islands and setting up communes. These communes are usually based around a central theme, motif, ideology, or philosophy. Here you find a very Dante-like existence, with souls often banding together based on shared virtues or sins. There are religious missions, where one hopes to find redemption for ones sins through the studies of virtue. Likewise, there are self-created damnation, for those who hope to achieve redemption through penance. There are even those who refuse death altogether, setting up entirely new lives, denying that their lives have ended at all, but rather rationalizing that they have only taken on a new existence in hopes of forgetting the old. Regardless of their reasoning, the pull of The Shores is strong, and no soul can deny it for long, without anchoring itself through the bonds of raw emotion.
To a complete soul, emotion burns like a perpetual candle. It will burn consistently, but over time, the wax will dwindle, the flame eventually snuffed. When the flame can burn no more, the soul can no longer find firm footing on the Island and will eventually tumble back into the Sea. In order to prevent this, and prolong their new-found existence within a commune, the soul must seek out new sources of emotion to revitalize the bond that anchors them to the Island. This is done through a a rather nasty and brutal process where the emotions of another are physically ripped from their soul matter and consumed by the needing soul. This is excruciatingly painful, both physically and psychologically, to the victim, and leads to a constant state of fear and paranoia amongst the inhabitants. To a Fragment visiting The Road, it is a terrifying consideration, since emotion is what a Fragment uses to power their knowledge and abilities. Furthermore, since a Fragment is denied access to The Two Shores, if it should lose it's entire reserve of emotional energy, it becomes an empty husk, free-floating The Sea until the others of its group can locate enough emotional charge to perform an Exodus back into the time-stream.
Like other aspects of the afterlife, The Quantum Exodus does not work in the same way as it does in normal time and space. A Fragment can only perform a Quantum Exodus when the Bright Shore is directly overhead and the Dark Shore is directly beneath them. In perspective of our understanding of time, this gives them a window of about thirty to sixty seconds every twenty-four hours in which the Exodus may be performed. If they miss this window, they must remain on The Road for another "day" until The Shores line up properly again. This can make for a very dangerous day to those who hold a lot of emotional energy within themselves.
Fragments are rare on The Road of the Dead, and they tend to stand out. A Fragment with no Tangibility rating will appear as a smooth, featureless humanoid. As the rating increases so will the quantity and solidity of the features. Often these features will be a melding of past hosts, especially those from which the Fragments had harvested their emotions from. But even the most tangible Fragment seems a bit "off" to the souls who dwell there, and they will often attract quite a bit of attention. It is important to note, however, that most souls have no knowledge of Fragments or their existence, so many have no idea what it is that unnerves them. Still, the hunger for emotional energy is strong, and they sense this energy in the Fragments, much like a wolf senses its prey. Most souls are just as clever or blatant as they were in life, so they use any means at their disposal to obtain this energy. This can range from a blatant attack to carefully calculated subterfuge.
The Road of the Dead is included in Incarnate in order to allow the characters to catch a glimpse of what the inevitable true destiny of their existence is. Once they complete their final Exodus and reunite as a True Soul, they are born into the world as a single entity. But what happens once that entity has lived out its entire life? Is this where it ends up? Will it pass on into The Shores, or will it anchor itself here to a commune? The Fragments, and thus the players, may never know, but a trip on The Road should bring up some chilling possibilities.
My other reason for including The Road of the Dead is to give the Fragments a story where they are separated from their most important resource: Their hosts. Without access to a hosts knowledge or emotions, the Fragments have only what they bring with them to draw from. A story on The Road should serve as a reminder of how fragile a Fragment's existence is and how reliant they are on their their hosts. It also serves as a nice kick in the rear if the Fragments, or their players, have been taking advantage of or been reckless with their hosts.
There will be some detailed info on The Road of the Dead in the core book, which may be expanded on in future supplements. However, Incarnate is not a game about the dead, but rather one of consequences, with death being only one in a vastness of possibilities. Therefore, The Road of the Dead is far from a staple location of the game, and should be used only to explore those themes.
23 December 2007 @ 08:09 pm
I wanted to design a system that was quick, easy, interchangeable with any time period or location, and could be resolved with a single roll of a single die. The reason I wanted to do it in this way is because I want the game to focus more on story and character than stats and die-rolls. So the system I have is very basic, very simple, very flexible, and will be considered very weak to those who love crunch.
The basic system is this:
If 1D6 < or = (skill /-Modifiers) then the player is successful. Otherwise player has failed.
Skills will be rated from 1 to 6 and modifiers will vary based on skill/conditions/GM.
If the player is successful, the difference between (skill /- modifiers) and the d6 will give the success rate.
Likewise, if the player failes the difference between d6 and (skill /- modifiers) will give the failure rate.
Note: A character with (skill /- modifiers) that is 6 or above will automatically succeed, though a roll will still be needed in order to determine the success rate. Likewise, a character whose (skill /- modifier) is below 1 will automatically fail, but a roll is needed to determine the failure rate. I have spoken to some good folks over at places like The Forge who like the idea of the automatic success or failure and others who do not. My defense of the mechanic is the idea that someone who is masterfully skilled in an area will always succeed in his or her area of expertise, assuming that there is no outside factors that will make the task more challenging. Likewise, a character that knows nothing of a particular skill , will almost always fail unless he or she is aided by some outside factors that lessen the challenge. In the first instance, a world-class surgeon may have no problems removing a splinter from someone's finger, but removing that same splinter in a hurricane with a set of bar-b-q tongs is a whole other story. In the second instance, a character who has no medical training other than a first aid badge in boy scouts thirty years ago would fail at performing a tracheotomy, unless the world-class surgeon from the first instance was on the vid-phone walking him through the procedure step by step. Granted, I still wouldn't want to be the guy getting the tracheotomy, but my chances of living through the ordeal are better than before, albeit slightly.
That's the basic system. I wanted something that could determine success or failure and the degree of success and failure with a single roll. I went with d6 because those dice most readily available and accessible to most people, though I am considering the possible use of d10. Same system, but the chance of success or failure based on each point in the skill roll with drop from 14% to 10%.
Modifiers work in a couple different ways. There are the GM modifiers, which are the modifiers we all know and love. These would be the the rainstorms to make tasks more challenging or the great bits of equipment to lessen the difficulty of the task, etc. Typical RPG stuff.
However, there are also what are (tentatively) known as emotional modifiers. When a Fragment enters a host, he has access to the host's skills and emotions. If the Fragment can tie one of the hosts emotions to the task at hand, he can burn some of these emotions off, gaining a modifier on the skill roll on a point for point basis as long as the player can justify the emotional tie to the GM.
So, if the Host has the emotions of Love 3 and Hate 2, with a Melee Fighting Skill of 2, and the Fragment is trying to stop a madman from pushing the hosts fiance out of a window, the Fragment may burn off these points as long as the player can justify the emotional tie to the GM. So the player may say that the host:
1) fueled by hatred (going for broke and burning all 2 points of Hate) for the man who would harm his fiance, grabs the nearest make-shift weapon (which happens to be a chair) and swings it at the assailant. ( 2 to the skill).
or
2)Overcome by love for his fiance, the host will do anything in his power to save her (burning 2 points of Love, the Fragment holding back a single point, fearing it may need it later.) Without even a thought, he grabs the nearest item (again with the chair) and swings with all his might, refusing to stop until the love of his life is safe.
In both cases the formula would work as follows:
Skill (melee 2) /- Modifiers (love/hate 2) =4
So the player would have to roll a 4 or under on a d6 in order to be successful.
For the sake of clarity, let's go with the Hate example. But let's say the GM is feeling particularly dramatic, and due to a storm that is raging, the power cuts out as the Host grabs hold of the chair. Since there is some light from the outside from the window, and the host has a pretty good idea of the layout of the room, the GM declares this to be only a -1 modifier.
So the new formula would be:
Skill (melee 2) Hatred 2 - darkness 1=3 (2 2-1=3)
The player would need to roll a 3 or under (50%) in order to be successful.
The "negatives" of using these emotional modifiers is two-fold:
1) First off, the actions must represent the emotion being used. So hitting someone with a chair out of hatred is a whole different thing than hitting someone to protect the one you love. While both are damaging (and in mechanics the same), getting a chair raked across your teeth out of hatred, or having it broke across your back out of trying to protect the one you are endangering are two different images, and may drastically alter the repercussions of these actions.
2) When a Fragment uses an emotion in this way, the emotion is burned out of the Host, becoming a sort of metaphysical vapor which is absorbed and ingested by the Fragment. When a Fragment absorbs (tentatively) 10 points of a single emotion, this emotion becomes a permanent part of the Fragment and is unable to be removed by usual means. As the Fragment absorbs these emotions, its personality begins to shift in order accommodate these new feelings the Fragment has taken on. Too much of any emotion, even love or compassion, can lead to erratic, strange, and sometimes dangerous behaviors.
The upside to these modifiers is that it does require a sense of role-playing. By having to justify the use of emotions, the player (and thus the character) must rationalize the use of these emotions, but is limiting enough to require some thought of long term strategy. If Incarnate is about one single theme it would have to be that of consequence, and by laying out the use of emotions in this way, there is always a consequence for using another's emotions to your own ends.
This is a very basic overview of the system. I'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feelings on it. I know it isn't deep, crunchy, or even all that realistic, but it seems simple, fast, and easy. Then again, it really hasn't been playtested, so I can't say for sure if it's any of the above.
The basic system is this:
If 1D6 < or = (skill /-Modifiers) then the player is successful. Otherwise player has failed.
Skills will be rated from 1 to 6 and modifiers will vary based on skill/conditions/GM.
If the player is successful, the difference between (skill /- modifiers) and the d6 will give the success rate.
Likewise, if the player failes the difference between d6 and (skill /- modifiers) will give the failure rate.
Note: A character with (skill /- modifiers) that is 6 or above will automatically succeed, though a roll will still be needed in order to determine the success rate. Likewise, a character whose (skill /- modifier) is below 1 will automatically fail, but a roll is needed to determine the failure rate. I have spoken to some good folks over at places like The Forge who like the idea of the automatic success or failure and others who do not. My defense of the mechanic is the idea that someone who is masterfully skilled in an area will always succeed in his or her area of expertise, assuming that there is no outside factors that will make the task more challenging. Likewise, a character that knows nothing of a particular skill , will almost always fail unless he or she is aided by some outside factors that lessen the challenge. In the first instance, a world-class surgeon may have no problems removing a splinter from someone's finger, but removing that same splinter in a hurricane with a set of bar-b-q tongs is a whole other story. In the second instance, a character who has no medical training other than a first aid badge in boy scouts thirty years ago would fail at performing a tracheotomy, unless the world-class surgeon from the first instance was on the vid-phone walking him through the procedure step by step. Granted, I still wouldn't want to be the guy getting the tracheotomy, but my chances of living through the ordeal are better than before, albeit slightly.
That's the basic system. I wanted something that could determine success or failure and the degree of success and failure with a single roll. I went with d6 because those dice most readily available and accessible to most people, though I am considering the possible use of d10. Same system, but the chance of success or failure based on each point in the skill roll with drop from 14% to 10%.
Modifiers work in a couple different ways. There are the GM modifiers, which are the modifiers we all know and love. These would be the the rainstorms to make tasks more challenging or the great bits of equipment to lessen the difficulty of the task, etc. Typical RPG stuff.
However, there are also what are (tentatively) known as emotional modifiers. When a Fragment enters a host, he has access to the host's skills and emotions. If the Fragment can tie one of the hosts emotions to the task at hand, he can burn some of these emotions off, gaining a modifier on the skill roll on a point for point basis as long as the player can justify the emotional tie to the GM.
So, if the Host has the emotions of Love 3 and Hate 2, with a Melee Fighting Skill of 2, and the Fragment is trying to stop a madman from pushing the hosts fiance out of a window, the Fragment may burn off these points as long as the player can justify the emotional tie to the GM. So the player may say that the host:
1) fueled by hatred (going for broke and burning all 2 points of Hate) for the man who would harm his fiance, grabs the nearest make-shift weapon (which happens to be a chair) and swings it at the assailant. ( 2 to the skill).
or
2)Overcome by love for his fiance, the host will do anything in his power to save her (burning 2 points of Love, the Fragment holding back a single point, fearing it may need it later.) Without even a thought, he grabs the nearest item (again with the chair) and swings with all his might, refusing to stop until the love of his life is safe.
In both cases the formula would work as follows:
Skill (melee 2) /- Modifiers (love/hate 2) =4
So the player would have to roll a 4 or under on a d6 in order to be successful.
For the sake of clarity, let's go with the Hate example. But let's say the GM is feeling particularly dramatic, and due to a storm that is raging, the power cuts out as the Host grabs hold of the chair. Since there is some light from the outside from the window, and the host has a pretty good idea of the layout of the room, the GM declares this to be only a -1 modifier.
So the new formula would be:
Skill (melee 2) Hatred 2 - darkness 1=3 (2 2-1=3)
The player would need to roll a 3 or under (50%) in order to be successful.
The "negatives" of using these emotional modifiers is two-fold:
1) First off, the actions must represent the emotion being used. So hitting someone with a chair out of hatred is a whole different thing than hitting someone to protect the one you love. While both are damaging (and in mechanics the same), getting a chair raked across your teeth out of hatred, or having it broke across your back out of trying to protect the one you are endangering are two different images, and may drastically alter the repercussions of these actions.
2) When a Fragment uses an emotion in this way, the emotion is burned out of the Host, becoming a sort of metaphysical vapor which is absorbed and ingested by the Fragment. When a Fragment absorbs (tentatively) 10 points of a single emotion, this emotion becomes a permanent part of the Fragment and is unable to be removed by usual means. As the Fragment absorbs these emotions, its personality begins to shift in order accommodate these new feelings the Fragment has taken on. Too much of any emotion, even love or compassion, can lead to erratic, strange, and sometimes dangerous behaviors.
The upside to these modifiers is that it does require a sense of role-playing. By having to justify the use of emotions, the player (and thus the character) must rationalize the use of these emotions, but is limiting enough to require some thought of long term strategy. If Incarnate is about one single theme it would have to be that of consequence, and by laying out the use of emotions in this way, there is always a consequence for using another's emotions to your own ends.
This is a very basic overview of the system. I'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feelings on it. I know it isn't deep, crunchy, or even all that realistic, but it seems simple, fast, and easy. Then again, it really hasn't been playtested, so I can't say for sure if it's any of the above.
20 December 2007 @ 11:23 pm
Two posts ago, I raised three issues with time travel. In my last post, I actually answered issues 1 and 3. I left number 2 alone because it's actually the hardest to answer. The question was basically this:
If Fragments can travel through time, what is to stop them from messing with the past (like assassinating Hitler or saving Abe Lincoln)?
Answer: Nothing.
I know that's not really an answer, but it's at least honest. But hear me out...
Since Fragments can indeed travel just about anywhere in the past, and since they have control (albeit limited) control over their hosts, and due to my aversion to Dues Ex mechanics (Paradox, Time Spirits, Temporal Justice and Fixer-up League, IRS, etc.) there really is nothing (within the concept of game mechanics) that I could institute to stop this. However, this sort of act is all contingent on the fact that the Fragment would want to do such a thing in the first place.
Remember, Fragments are born without memories, feelings, or knowledge (read skills). As they progress they gain and develop these things, but because of how they go about this, there minds are set up much different than ours. A visual of a Fragment's mind would look a whole lot like those mosaics you see at the mall. You know what I'm talking about, the one's that look like Yoda, but when you get closer you find it's actually like 300 stills from The Empire Strikes Back. Well think of all those Empire frames being memories, emotions, and knowledge the Fragment possesses. Under close examination, it looks like a bunch of disjointed, unrelated stills from a movie, but from a distance it's an ancient Jedi Master. Much like the picture becomes Yoda from the right distance, the Fragments do develop personalities, goals, interests, etc. based on these memories, but if you could actually peek inside their minds, you'd find them to be a bunch of still frames, with only a framework of reference to tie them all together.
To take this a step further, Fragments are conceived outside of normal time and space, and because of this, they have no firm reference point of their place on our time line, especially in the beginning of their journey. To them, time is only relative to the Absolute Present and the Dawn of Man respectively. They know they are somewhere after man first appears and before the progression of time has stopped. They must actually focus to perceive our most mundane concepts of time, such as yesterday, tomorrow, three weeks ago, etc. To them, 40 years ago is no more relevant to their present state than two seconds ago. They are only concerned with their present location, time, and host, as well as the conflicts they must conquer to progress on their journey.
While we tend to look at knowledge as something that is learned through experience the Fragment sees this as something that is experienced through existence. That is to say, while we often feel that earn our knowledge, the Fragments feel that they earn their progression on their journey through obtaining it.
So what does this have to do with Time Travel and killing Hitler and stuff? Quite a lot. Chances are, a Fragment probably would not even consider assassinating Hitler unless it was going to aid in the progress towards uniting with the other Fragments, and this progression is usually only earned by solving the conflicts of its current host. The Fragment's Host would have to be in the proper mindset, as well be a place that is accessible to committing such an act. Otherwise, the Fragment probably wouldn't have a proper frame of reference to understand the repercussions of allowing Hitler to live.
However, this, like everything else in role-playing, works best in a perfect world of perfect circumstances. In the above example, anyone who was in the proper proximity of Hitler, and wasn't one of his folks who were just as sick and twisted as he was, probably had at least one moment of time where their mind at least mulled over the possibilities of taking him out for the greater good. In a case such as this, the Fragment, may very well act to assassinate him. However, also keep in mind that the conflict must be resolved, not necessarily be resolved positively.
So what's a GM to do?
Well, for starters, don't put the players in a position where they would be able to do such a thing. It's one thing if the guy in 1211 starts speaking about nuclear submarines to a crowd of people in the hollow, but it's a whole different bag of worms should he kill an important historical figure. The easiest way around this is to not allow them access in the first place. Is this strong-arming? Kind of. But it's also protecting the integrity of the game. Remember, Doctor Who has a staff of writers who make sure the Doc doesn't kill Hitler. Sure, he might babble endlessly about how it probably should be done, but he'd have some sci-fi, alternate-history excuse why he doesn't. The real reason he doesn't is because it would destroy the credibility of the series.
Also, Incarnate is about the stories of the little guy or gal. The Fragments are epic in scope, while their generally are not. By shifting the focus to epics possessing epics, the game becomes top-heavy, and topples into a whole different genre.
However, an occasional rubbing shoulders with the epic figures of our past can make for a cool and memorable session. It can be done, and it can be effective as long as it
A) Is not overused
and
B) the players are mature enough to handle it.
So you have this cool concept where the players meet up with Joe History-Maker. You thought the players were mature enough to handle it, but it turns out that PlayerGuyA is still upset over you stealing his girlfriend back in 7th grade, and is going to take his revenge by destroying your campaign. So he does everything in his (and thus his Fragment's) power to kill Joe History-Maker before his time.
Okay, time to get clever. Obviously, you cannot let this happen. However, as PlayerGuyA snidely points out, the Fragments have no clue that Joe H is anyone of significance, so they would not push to stop someone from killing him. So, yes, you may have to do some strong-arming, but be very careful. Just because PlayerGuyA is being a jerk, PlayerGirl, and PlayerguyB shouldn't have to suffer, and they still want to believe in the credibility of your game. SO...
You just have to be clever in the way that things pan out in order to keep Joe H. alive.
There was an episode of Quantum Leap where Sam ended up in the body of Lee Harvey Oswald. He did everything he could to stop himself from assassinating JFK. At the very last second he was able to leap into a secret service agent and try to save Kennedy, but was too late...or so he thought.
Yes, JFK died, but it turned out originally, so did Jackie. Sams actions saved the life of Jackie and since it happened before he was born, he had no memory of the original incident where she died.
The idea here is that while Sam succeeded in changing history, the change he made was unknown even to him because he had changed it in a time before he had existed. Since the Fragments have no such relative present from which to understand this, in the same situation, it's unlikely that the changes to history would be known or relevant to the Fragments. However, it would be known and relative to the players (who are investing their time and creativity to enjoy the game) and can make for a really cool ending in their eyes. However, keep in mind, that Quantum Leap, like Doctor Who, had predetermined outcome. A session of Incarnate may have some predetermined events, and even hypothesized resolutions, but once you add players to the mix it is very difficult to keep things on track. Also using "predetermined outcomes" goes against the very concept of role-playing(at that point it becomes a play with slight elements of improv) so one should tread lightly in these situations.
Overall, I guess the players and the GMs require a certain level of understanding and maturity from one another. When dealing with time travel, the GM cannot allow the players to do anything, without the possibility of messing up the time line. However, players do not like to be strong-armed by their GM, as it takes away the credibility and intensity of the role-playing experience. To keep a happy medium, the GM and the players need to understand that doing something drastic to history is not only likely to be out-of-character for the Fragments, but it also damages the credibility of the game.
18 December 2007 @ 04:11 pm
Okay, so I'd done some thinking and writing on this. The following is an excerpt from the book, taken from the background chapter. The entire chapter reads as an essay written from a member of the Circle Temporal. The Circle Temporal is a clandestine organization (non-Fragment) that are able to send their consciousness back in time through a type of "astral projection." They cannot interact with the past, only observe. However, they are aware of the existence of Fragments, and have studied and tracked them as thoroughly as possible.
Here's the excerpt:
"The Wall of the True Present is a strange phenomenon that perplexes even the greatest minds among us. Even among The Circle Temporal, whose pride in our ability to manipulate time often borders on hubris, cannot comprehend the paradoxical existence of this barrier. For as we pride ourselves in our abilities to project ourselves into the past, there has never been one among us who has ever laid eyes upon the future. Yet, the Fragments, conceived in a place outside of relevant time and space, appear not to be constrained by these same limitations. They have walked in the distant past as well as our future. Still, even time is not infinite, circumscribing itself to an absolute present, at which the progression of time ends. This end of progression is fluid, however, forever pushing forward into an unborn future.
The Fragments refer to this barrier as The Wall of the True Present. The very existence of this wall proves time to be both a perception and a tangibility. For while it explains our inability to travel into future, it becomes paradoxical when one considers that we are able to return from the past. For if this wall is in place in our present, pushing forward into our future, is it not in place in the past in which we visit? This is especially perplexing when one considers that we have met both Fragments and members of our own order, visiting us from a time in the future. If this wall is present at our current location on the time line, how then can it limit us who exist now, yet does not limit those who are moving forward into our future? Is this to say that our present is but mere memories of the those in the True Present? Is our present existence nothing more than the history of an absolute future? Or is this barrier a perceived tangibility, its existence in time not set, but relevant to time frame of one's conception? If the latter is true, then one can only deduce that the Fragments, created outside of normal time and space, came into existence somewhere beyond The Wall, able to move freely along any point in our time line, as long as such a time has come into being."
*end excerpt*
Okay, our friend in the Circle seems to face the same problem wrapping his brain around the issue of True Present as well. However, he later theorizes that the True Present is based in relevance to when you were born. So to someone born in 1832, the True Present exists at that moment, progressing forward. However, to the time traveler, one cannot press past his or her present in relevance to his or herself. Therefore, a person can move freely back and forth through time, from the moment they left their present backwards. This then leads to the conclusion that Fragments are born at some point forward from our current present, and very likely beyond the "Wall of the True Present."
However, this distresses the author a bit, as he wrestles with the idea of what constitutes existence in the first place. After all, if one is visiting from the future, then the Wall has (or will) progressed at least that far ahead. If that is true, what is the relationship between the future and the past? If the future comes from beyond the current location of the Absolute Present and thus is uninhibited by the Wall, what does that say of the past? Is this past time any more than trivia, history, or memories of some future entity?
This is a cool (and chilling) consideration, and rather than answer it, I will leave it to the players to explore.
Also, I'm not sure I could answer it anyway, so pushing it off on the players seems the easiest option at this point. Thanks, George Lucas!
I'm pretty happy with this theory. It adds a sort of science to my completely unscientific premise, and opens up a few more questions that I don't need to answer.
I will touch upon the other two questions later tonight or tomorrow.
18 December 2007 @ 12:28 am
Time travel has always been a mess. I think this is mainly due to the fact that we are not meant to do it. After all, without a linear concept of time, our brains begin to hemorrhage. Ever sat and tried to think about infinity? You can't. Not really. We cannot conceive of something having no beginning or no end. Even those of us who believe in the concepts of eternal life, eternal damnation, eternal lines at the DMV (see eternal damnation), etc. don't get it. Not really. Yeah, we can pay it lip service, but a true grasp is beyond our comprehension.
No add to that pile of hemorrhage-inducing thought the idea that time may actually be a semi-tangible thing. It is theorized that a black hole is so powerful that it actually bends time. That means if you were to somehow manage to maintain an orbit around a black hole (good luck) for a year, a hundred year will have passed on Earth. Possibly good news if you had a high interest savings plan, really bad news for your credit card bills, though.
Then we come to paradox. We're all familiar with the "Grandfather Paradox", right? You go back in time and meet your grandfather when he was a young, single guy (basically before he put that bun in grandma's oven).
...
...
...
Hmm? Sorry, I was just giving you a moment to claw out your mind's eye after I antipathetically put that image of your grandma's oven in your head.
Anyway, so you meet your grandfather, and for whatever reason, you decide to push gramps down the stairs. He takes a tumble and dies. Since he's gone before helping to bring your father into the world (better?), your father no longer exists. And if dad doesn't exist, neither do you, buddy. (The moral of the story is that if you should find yourself in the past, try not to push any relatives down the stairs, no matter how horrible they end up being in the present. First of all, it isn't very nice to go around pushing people down the stairs anyway. Second, if you do so, you may very well put the entire space/time continuum at risk.) So now you don't exist. That should be that, right? Wrong. Because if you don't exist, then you never could have gone back in time and pushed grandpa down the stairs. If you didn't push grandpa down the stairs then he didn't die, dad was born, and so were you. But if you were born, then you did travel back in time push grandpa after all.
At this point, I can assume you get it, or I can utilize the cut and paste feature and keep filling pages until I just collapse at the keyboard. I think it would be in everyone's best interest (especially the interest of my 'control' and 'v' keys respectively) to assume that you got it.
Well, normally, this is the sort of thing I'd let Terrance Dicks figure out. (10 bonus points if you're a big enough geek to know who Terrance Dicks is) However, this is the type of issue that I face with Incarnate.
I will deal with the questions individually in future posts, but I am simple posting them here as some food for thought. I am also posting them here so that I don't forget to address them in the game itself.
Here are the issues (so far):
1. Fragments recognize the "True Present." This is where the progression of time ends. However, this Present continually moves forward, as each new second of reality eats into the great void of future possibility. There is a sort of barrier here, called the "Wall of Absolute Present." Most Fragments cannot pass through the wall, and the few that do, find themselves in a void of nothingness as reality has not been brought into existence yet. Even worse is the fact that passage through this wall is difficult in both directions, and by the time the Fragments can pass back into reality, they are usually completely out of their already...er...fragmented minds. (by the way, if you got the Terrance Dicks reference, you more than likely know where I mined this idea from)
But this isn't exactly the problem. If the Fragments travel back in time, then this wall exists at that time as well, being that it is the present to all those living there. How then could a Fragment travel forward in time from that point without facing the Wall?
2. Since Fragments can travel through time, what is to stop them from messing with the past (as we know it to be.) That is to say (as the Monkey King pointed out), what would stop them from preventing Lincolns assassination, or performing one on Hitler? If they did so successfully, what would be the repercussions? Could it cause a sort of paradox?
3. If Fragments come into being outside of conventional time and space, what determines the Absolute Present. And if the absolute Present is say right now, is the past but memories of those in the present? In the case of the Fragments, when they are actually standing in London during The Blitz, is this actually a reality, or rather an echo of a memory moving backwards from the present?
Those are the three issues that I'm dealing with now. What I don't want is some sort of Dues Ex Machina-type mechanism that fixes all the messes our time traveling Fragments make. Still, one must preserve the present, or else Incarnate will quickly become an "alternate universe" game.
I will sleep on these (not literally) tonight and see if I can't post some ideas tomorrow. If you have any theories, ideas, or would like to point out where I'm wrong about the whole black hole thing, feel free to post a response. I'm interested in hearing your views.
Take care,
Chris
P.S. Sorry again about the whole grandma/oven thing. Please don't take it out on me by posting frightening pictures in your responses.
Current Mood: 
weird
weirdCurrent Music: The Residents-Duck Stab
14 December 2007 @ 02:44 am
To say that I am without religion would be a lie. I'm actually a pretty religious guy. That being said, I respect others views and takes, offer my opinion when asked for it, and believe that one's belief in matters supernal are a personal matter. Therefore, I seld bring the matter up, unless the discussion has already entered that arena. If a discussion goes there, I will not argue on these matters. I see no point. After all, my own faith is strong enough not to be shattered by contradiction, as I hope everyone's faith is. Faith is just that: Faith. It is a belief in something. When dealing with beliefs as strong as religion (or denial of religion at all), I feel it is best to listen to others, weigh it in against your own, and move about your business.
So why then have a spent an entire paragraph (so far) rambling on about such matters? Because Incarnate, by its very nature, has brought me there. It is nearly impossible to create any work dealing with the concept of "souls" without the topic of religion attached. Yet, with Incarnate, the only thoughts on these matters that I ask is that one believes in the possibility of a soul. So, how then can I approach a game about souls, especially ones seeking a sort of "becoming", rebirth, or redemption? This is something that I've struggled with for awhile, and I hope that my purpose here makes sense.
I believe (there's that word again) that it is difficult, if not impossible, to bring up the subject of "the soul" without bringing several preconceptions along for the ride. Nearly every religion believes in some variation of the soul, and even science, the so-called anti-religion has its go at it with the Law of Conservation:
"Energy cannot be created or destroyed; it can only be converted from one form to another."
Now each of these beliefs can mean different things to different people, and I am not here to convert anyone to any of these beliefs, nor is this the purpose of Incarnate. Honestly, if you are finding your faith swayed one way or the other due to a game, then perhaps you need to put the dice away for a little while and give some serious consideration to a different hobby. Games should be enjoyable (I tend to shy from the word 'fun' as there are plenty of ways to enjoy one's self that don't really play nice with the word fun. I'd have to use "Pan's Labyrinth" as an example of this concept: Great Movie, enjoyed my time in the theater immensely, but I'm not quite sure I'd use the "fun" to describe my experience), and part of the enjoyment from Role-Playing games to explore certain themes and ideas that one doesnt tend to get to do in an average lifetime. While I've seen (and played) RPGs that allowed me to explore life as a vampire, a wizard, and a post-apocalyptic masked-wrestler, I have yet to run across one that takes you through life as a mailman on route in a lazy suburban town. If I every found myself playing such a character, I would have to expect some horror from beyond the stars suck away his sanity due to the accidental reading of a passage in a moldy old book he was supposed to have delivered.
So will Incarnate be compatible with Christianity? Yes.
How about Judaism? Yep.
Buddhism? Right again.
Atheism?...probably. You just have to accept the possibility of the soul. But this is no more difficult than me accepting the possibility of masked-wrestlers in a post-apocalyptic southwest. Or the possibility of alien races, dragons, hyperspace, or honest politicians. We may never run into these things in real-life, but for that time at the gaming table, why not? It makes a good story, and if we can lose ourselves for a few hours in the story, and those few hours are enjoyable, then there's no reason not to.
So I decided to approach Incarnate with a monomythical perception in mind. Many of you have probably read (or at least skimmed through) Joseph Campbell's "Hero with a Thousand Faces", but for those of you who have not, the concept of the monomyth (as described by Wikipedia) is this:
"The monomyth (often referred to as "the hero's journey") is a description of a basic pattern found in many narratives from around the world. This universal pattern was described by Joseph Campbell in his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949).[1] A noted scholar of novelist James Joyce, Campbell borrowed the term monomyth from Joyce's Finnegans Wake.
Campbell's insight was that important myths from around the world which have survived for thousands of years, all share a fundamental structure. This fundamental structure contains a number of stages, which includes:
- A call to adventure, which the hero has to accept or decline
- A road of trials, regarding which the hero succeeds or fails
- Achieving the goal or "boon", which often results in important self-knowledge
- A return to the ordinary world, again as to which the hero can succeed or fail
- Applying the boon, in which what the hero has gained can be used to improve the world"
In Incarnate, a series (campaign) follows Campbell's model as follows:
- A call to adventure: This is the shattering of the soul, and the yearning for it to reunite.
- A road of trials: These are the Quantum Exoduses, where the Fragments must solve their hosts' conflicts.
- Achieving the goal or "boon": Eventually the Fragments gain enough power through Knowledge and Emotions to reunite into the True Soul.
- A return to the ordinary world: The True Soul is born into a body on Earth.
- Applying the boon: The final stage where the players use "combined storytelling" to work through their True Souls life on Earth from birth until death.
Upon death, do the souls go to Heaven? Nirvana? Heaven's Gate? Become heat-energy?
Who knows? I'm sure we all have our ideas...but where ever it is I go when I'm gone, I don't have particularly high expectations of returning here to tell anyone about it.
In a nutshell, while Incarnate definitely has spiritual themes, I am leaving any one particular religion's take on these themes out. There are nods to reincarnation, nod to Paradise, Damnation, and even Limbo. But these are simply there to help the story. If someone wants to run a strictly "Christian" or strictly "Buddhist"-based Incarnate game, it can be done with very little change to the story or background. As a monomyth, Incarnate is compatible with nearly every belief system as long as one believes in the possibility of storytelling.
Current Mood: 
dorky
dorky12 December 2007 @ 09:55 pm
Since I set out to design an RPG, I figured the best thing to do is to set up some design goals. I have a pretty deep and realized background, and a firm grasp on the mood and tone I hope to convey through the material. But there's a lot there in the background, and I want to be sure I can keep it all under control. So here's my list (definitely not exhaustive) of design goals.
- Incarnate should focus more on characters and story above all else: I believe that characters are what makes a decent game session great. It is also why I am more fond of "classless" systems. When one has a "class" this immediately puts into place various stereotypes. A Fighter, a wizard, a space marine, etc. This can be confining, though not always if the player is willing to put the effort into creating a unique background. Personally, I'd rather the character starts unique from the get-go.
However, Incarnate differs from the "Standard" RPG-fare in that the players create their characters by playing their characters. In the beginning the Fragments will barely differ from the hosts they inhabit. As time goes on, not only will they be entering the host armed with skills and personality, but these things can and probably will change based on the actions the characters make while inhabiting the host. In this, I hope to make dynamic characters actually part of the game system, rather than characters who can be dynamic through the system.
This brings up an interesting problem, though. The GM already has a vast amount of control in this game. The Fragments have little to no choice in their Exodus or their hosts. It is the GM who sets these up, and Fragments (especially in the earlier/weaker stages of their journey may feel like prisoners to their destiny. The paradox here is that while that is definitely what I want The Fragments to feel, it is not what I want the PLAYERS to feel. I want the PLAYERS to feel that their choices make a difference, and those differences can be long-lasting.
Here are my current views on this:
First of all, while the GM sets up the Time Period and Location the Exodus takes place, as well the Hosts and their conflicts, it is important that the GM leaves these conflicts vague enough that the players make all the decisions on how to go about resolving those issues. While the GM may have a set time-table on how the conflicts would have played out should the Fragments have never arrived, the very fact that they did arrive should null and void that time table. The moment The Fragments make their first action, then they have strayed from that time table, and the story should shift more in control of the players.
Second, Incarnate offers a fairly unique opportunity for role-playing as the characters must maintain a simultaneous duel-existence. On one hand, they have their Fragment character, with its own set of skills and feelings (both of which are probably rather new and awkward for the Fragment), and on the other, they have the host, desperately trying to overcome some conflict that is weighing heavy on their very soul. Being that these hosts may be anything from a soldier in WWII to the cleaning staff at a retirement home in 1987, the volume of unique conflicts and experiences are great. Players should take the time to explore these characters, gain their own insight into what makes these folks tick, all through the (often skewed) eyes of their Fragments. - An Epic in a small package: The plight of the Fragments is Epic in scope. Beings outside of normal space and time, dropping in at various and random points of our existence, helping souls to overcome conflicts so that they too may become a complete soul themselves. However, I designed the background and the motif to reflect the Fragments themselves. Consider the True Soul to be an Epic. This soul (epic) shatters, sending its shards (Fragments) across time and space. They now face the trials like any hero of an epic, yet the Fragments are not rescuing princesses, saving kingdoms, or slaying hydra. Rather these "shards" of the epic are helping doctors, lawyers, medevil peasants, bankers, conflicted roman centurions, hobos of the Great Depression, or recently unemployed cab drivers. This is not to say that any of the people I mentioned above are not great in their own time and way, but they are seldom the focus of an Epic. However, by putting these shards of an Epic into the souls of the everyman, one creates an Epic on a level playing ground for the rest of us.
With time travel, there is always the possibility of rubbing shoulders with history's elite. If they find themselves in the right place and time, there's nothing stopping Fragments from running into George Washington, Edgar Allen Poe, Bob Hope, Alfred Hitchcock, Abraham Lincoln, Jeffery Dahlmer, or Hunter S. Thompson. These types of historical cameos are what can make a tale of time travel fun and exciting. However, I do not encourage this to happen too often, as it can kill the whole Epic in a Small Package motif that is the heart of Incarnate. If one wants to throw in the occasional historical figure, I would suggest having the Fragments interact with that character from a perception they are not used to. It might be cool to me Thomas Jefferson, but imagine meeting him embodied in one of his slaves.
That being said, Incarnate can and should be played however the players and GM want to play it. The system in place (as it stands) was designed to facilitate the Epic in Small Package theme, but it would not take much to tinker with it to suite the needs of any play-style the group enjoys. - Rules-Light System: Never liked big clunky "crunchy" systems. Some people just love 'em. You see them at the sessions, sitting with their worn-out, smudged, copy of the rules, compelled to flip through them before and after every roll. After all, "how can you realistically expect to fire an arrow with the wind blowing like that from the east, and the increase of air pressure due to the oncoming storm, while the ground shakes due to the charging dragon makes it difficult for you to keep the balance required for you to aim that crossbow in the manner you just claimed?"
Personally, I'd like to shove those worn-out smudgy rule books right up their...I digress. I hate "crunchy" systems, because inevitably "crunchy systems" create or attract "crunchy players", whom I feel get in the way of telling some really cool stories. Since I am often GM, I can't tell you how obnoxious it is to have to argue with a player over the rules even if that player is right ("right here on page 73, dude. See?"). It is my philosophy that the GMs primary purpose to keep the story moving when the players stop moving it themselves. The game octaNe has some great advice on this matter, and if you haven't seen or played this game yet, you really need to check it out. Way fun. Way rules-light. And the stories the thing. But I guess I should get back to my game, huh?
(Note: If you are a GM and you suffer each session because of one of these players, I recommend running a few sessions of Paranoia. If you haven't played Paranoia before, trust me on this one. The look on that player's face when his character is executed for knowing information (i.e. the rules) above his security clearance is priceless.)
With a game like Incarnate, with such an incredibly large setting (from the dawn of man until now, anywhere in the world), and the ability to change skills from story to story, I want a system that is quick, simple, and keeps the game rolling. I am working on a system that consists of a single d6 role. It is not the most realistic system in the world, but it gets the job done. As I stated before, I'm hoping Incarnate is a game that is about the stories created around the characters. - A game with a definite end, but still maintains re-playability: In the mainstream , most RPGs are "open-ended." You just keep playing until you're all tired of playing, and you either move on to another game, or the disenchanted group stops playing altogether. Occasionally, you will run across someone who has been playing the same campaign every Sunday afternoon for the past 22 years, and now have a Level 2223 Paladin/Cleric/Druid, but those people scare me, and I try to avoid them.
In less mainstream games, I've come across a few that have definitive endings. These games often center around a single conspiracy or storyline, and the players move through them at their own pace. Often these games are choked full of enough side-plots and/or quirky characters to keep everyone busy for awhile, but when they finally reach the end...it's over. Some folks who are phenomenal role-players can go back through it again, pretending that they, "the player" don't remember anything. But the truth is, they do, and I doubt they have as much fun the second time around.
In the indie-world (which I am still faily new to) there is a wide range of variations. There are games that are designed to simply be one-shots. There are those that have no plot what-so-ever, but more or less a theme fit into a system. Hey, like I said, I love RPGs, and any and all of these variants are fine. I've played lots of them. But, due to my own attention deficit issues, I want the game have a definite ending. Yet, I want a game that people can play more than once, without the need of phenomenally "forgetting" what you really do know.
To facilitate this, there is a definite end to the Fragments (other than death, of course). The Fragments can, and hopefully, will reunite and become the True Soul they long to be. Because of this, I also am working out a system where the players then walk this soul through its life on Earth, in order to A)see the fruits of their labor and B)bring closure to the game.
However, there is definitely more than one True Soul, and many of them shatter (theories on this to come). So the players can pick up another game whenever they want, starting over with "fresh" Fragments, and ending their journey in a whole new place.
That being said, Incarnate can not be played as a "pick-up game." I am working on some rules "alternatives" to speed up the game to reach an end in a few sessions. Since all the Fragments are required to exist in order to exist individually, there is the issue of players who drop out, hate the game, move away, go to prison, etc. Since Fragments are fluid by their nature, a new player taking over an old character will not be as jarring as it may be in other games, but what if there is no new player to replace the old? One option is to use the "accelerated rules" to finish the game, and start over with new (and less) Fragments. This is all in the works as I write this. Rich background without the Meta-plot: Meta-plots can be neat. I like them, really. However, they also can limit you, and quite often they end up being expensive. "If Dr. X escapes during the scuffle, he will return to his lab and unleash his creation upon humanity. This scenario is covered in detail in MetaGame Book 3: Rabid Spidermonkies: Hair-Pulling Atrocities! available online or at you local hobby/comic shop" Also, Metaplots can also bring about an end you may not like. I wont mention a certain gaming line brought to an end by doing away with their vampires, mages, and werewolves (oh my!). You don't have to follow the meta-plot, of course, but good luck finding any new material post-ending. (of course, in the example I just mentioned, I went out and bought all the NEW books concerning Vampires, mages, and werewolves (oh my!), so I guess I just have myself to blame.)
While I feel I have developed a rich and deep background for my game, the actual stories themselves and the resolution of these stories are wide open. One book is all you need. I may offer supplements in the future (and will definitely encourage player-made supplements), but these will be optional and not required to play the game.
Well, there you have it. My design goals. If anyone should have any suggestions, criticisms, etc. feel free to let me know.
Later
Chris
*with apologies for type-o's, spelling errors, and grammatical nightmares. It is late, my dogs need to go out, and I am working on a laptop with a keyboard that is going out. I'll run this bad-boy through a spell-check tomorrow.
12 December 2007 @ 12:26 pm
As I stated in my first post, Incarnate is a table-top RPG where the players play the role of "Fragments", beings who are slivers of a shattered soul, who travel through time, absorbing memories, skills, and emotions from those which they possess. The Fragments long to reunite, to once again become a complete soul, by which they can can be born into the world as a true being.
That's an extremely basic and blunt overview of what Incarnate is about. It's a pretty intense background and can almost seem convoluted at times, so I'll try to explain it more in detail here. In my next post, I'll go over my design goals, a list what it is I hope to accomplish by making Incarnate.
The "setting":
It begins with a soul. A complete soul. The "True Soul."
The "True Soul" is new, void of experience or memory. It is a blank slate of possibilities.
For reasons unknown, this soul shatters. What was once a complete entity of potential, is now several shards of yearning. These shards have no thoughts, feelings, or understanding. They have only an instinctual need to survive, a need that drives them to reunite as whole. However, the shattering has left them weak, unable to reweave that which has been unwoven. It is this weakness that forces them into the Quantum Exodus.
By an innate ability the Fragments find themselves thrown into time and space, their destination unknown and uncontrolled. When they awake, they inhabit the completed souls of others. They are parasites, existing in our reality only through hosts. These hosts can be from anywhere and any time that mankind has existed. They can of any gender, age, ethinicity, or social class. They can be good, evil, or the greater shade of gray that occupies most of humanity. They may be strong or weak. Leader or follower. Destined or cursed. There is no limitation on whom the Fragments may find themselves part of, save one: The host of each individual Fragment must have an emotional bond to the hosts occupied by the others.
Fragments are shards of the same soul, and thus their bond to one another is unmatched. In essence, they are a fragmentation of the same being. Therefore they cannot seperate from one another for any great distance or time. Furthermore, what powers their very existence is the need of the True Soul to be one again. If any pieces of the whole were to become nonexistent, the True Soul can never be complete, thus the other Fragments no longer have reason to exist. To be blunt, should one Fragment meet its demise, so shall the remaining Fragments derived from the same True Soul.
It is this bond that finds the Fragments within emotionally-tied hosts. These emotional ties need not be positive in nature, only strong enough that the Fragments still feel bound to one another. For instance, one Fragment may find itself inside the soul of a lonely banker, his job being the closest he has to any family or friends. The other Fragments find themselves in the souls of the family sitting across from the banker, having just recieved the news that the bank is foreclosing on their house, and with nowhere to go, they will find themselves on the streets. There is definately strong emotions tieing the family to the banker, though it is doubtful these emotions are positive in nature.
Once inside of the host, a Fragment has access to all of that hosts memories, throughts, emotions, and skills. They fully understand and empathise with their host, slowly merging their presence with that of the host. Please note that in the beginning, Fragments have no such presence, so for the first couple Exoduses, it is likely that they become their hosts. However, hosts seldom know of the Fragment's existence, even when that Fragment is manipulating or controlling the host. (Have you ever done something and later wondered, "What was I thinking?" Perhaps you weren't thinking at all, but rather under the control of a visiting Fragment.)
Inside of their respective hosts, the Fragments will discover a conflict within that soul. This is a conflict that must be resolved before the Fragment may leave their host and continue on their path towards the uniting of the True Soul. Furthermore, because all pieces of the whole must travel the path together, the conflicts of every host must be resolved before a new Quantum Exodus can take place. Sometimes these conflicts are shared by several hosts (such as the 'family' in the above example), sometimes they are independent (perhaps the banker wants to leave his job and find true happiness), and sometimes they are in direct conflict of one another (the father of the family plans to kill the lonely banker in vengeance).
Though the Fragments merge with their hosts, they remain independent (sometimes by a very thin line). While Fragments can attempt to complete control their hosts, resembling 'possession' or mind-control, such vulgar displays of power are difficult and risky, the price of failure at such an attempt is steep for both the Host and Fragment alike. Rather, Fragments manipulate their hosts by pulling up memories, manipulating thoughts, and working the emotions they find there. This is not without its risks, but it is far easier on the mental stability of their host, and the cost of failure is much less extreme.
When the conflicts have been resolved, the Fragments can take a small memento with them before they go: Knowledge and/or Emotion. Through a process known as The Harvesting, Fragments are able to lift "images" of the skills and knowledge their host possessed. These travel with the Fragments on their next Exodus, and they may call upon them if needed with their next host. They must be cautious when doing so, however, as a peasant in medieval Britain who suddenly knows a great deal about Nuclear Physics will at best be looked upon as mad, and at worst be set on fire for trafficking with demons.
Emotion is a whole other issue. The Fragments use emotions to power their abilities, so their existence in the makeup of the Fragment is very important. However, unlike knowledge, the Fragments do not get to pick and choose as carefully which emotions they absorb along the way. Therefore, one must be careful of one's actions, as the result may be an influx of an emotion that can drastically alter the state of mind and overall personality of the recipient. A Fragment who has developed into a quiet thinker, who observes more than it acts may, in an act of desperation, participate in desperate measures that result in absorbing large amounts of anger and hatred. The result can turn this meek philosopher into a cold, calculated psychopath. When this Fragment lands in its next host, it brings these feelings along, leading to tragic possibilities in the life of the next host. Since the Fragments rely on the survival of the others to insure their own existence, they will need to protect and ultimately try to help their comrade.
With time, the Fragments will grow powerful enough to merge into one, reuniting the True Soul. When this happens, the characters, with all of their Skills and Emotions are merged, and the True Soul is born into humanity as a complete being. The True Soul suppresses all memories of the Fragments existence, but slowly through life, it will remember the various feelings and knowledge they had attained along the way. Science refers to this a "predisposition" or "genetic memory", but in reality it is only glimpses of memory provided to the True Soul by the Fragments journey.
At this time, the players will work through a systematic "shared storytelling" experience, walking this new being through the various stages of his or her life, from birth until death, thus completing the circle. When working through these stages, the Players will incorporate the various emotions and knowledge from the master character sheet, as the True Soul pushes to remember its fragmented past. When they are finished, players will have the life story of a person that they have created throughout time and space, and will know the fruits of the Fragment's labor.
That's an extremely basic and blunt overview of what Incarnate is about. It's a pretty intense background and can almost seem convoluted at times, so I'll try to explain it more in detail here. In my next post, I'll go over my design goals, a list what it is I hope to accomplish by making Incarnate.
The "setting":
It begins with a soul. A complete soul. The "True Soul."
The "True Soul" is new, void of experience or memory. It is a blank slate of possibilities.
For reasons unknown, this soul shatters. What was once a complete entity of potential, is now several shards of yearning. These shards have no thoughts, feelings, or understanding. They have only an instinctual need to survive, a need that drives them to reunite as whole. However, the shattering has left them weak, unable to reweave that which has been unwoven. It is this weakness that forces them into the Quantum Exodus.
By an innate ability the Fragments find themselves thrown into time and space, their destination unknown and uncontrolled. When they awake, they inhabit the completed souls of others. They are parasites, existing in our reality only through hosts. These hosts can be from anywhere and any time that mankind has existed. They can of any gender, age, ethinicity, or social class. They can be good, evil, or the greater shade of gray that occupies most of humanity. They may be strong or weak. Leader or follower. Destined or cursed. There is no limitation on whom the Fragments may find themselves part of, save one: The host of each individual Fragment must have an emotional bond to the hosts occupied by the others.
Fragments are shards of the same soul, and thus their bond to one another is unmatched. In essence, they are a fragmentation of the same being. Therefore they cannot seperate from one another for any great distance or time. Furthermore, what powers their very existence is the need of the True Soul to be one again. If any pieces of the whole were to become nonexistent, the True Soul can never be complete, thus the other Fragments no longer have reason to exist. To be blunt, should one Fragment meet its demise, so shall the remaining Fragments derived from the same True Soul.
It is this bond that finds the Fragments within emotionally-tied hosts. These emotional ties need not be positive in nature, only strong enough that the Fragments still feel bound to one another. For instance, one Fragment may find itself inside the soul of a lonely banker, his job being the closest he has to any family or friends. The other Fragments find themselves in the souls of the family sitting across from the banker, having just recieved the news that the bank is foreclosing on their house, and with nowhere to go, they will find themselves on the streets. There is definately strong emotions tieing the family to the banker, though it is doubtful these emotions are positive in nature.
Once inside of the host, a Fragment has access to all of that hosts memories, throughts, emotions, and skills. They fully understand and empathise with their host, slowly merging their presence with that of the host. Please note that in the beginning, Fragments have no such presence, so for the first couple Exoduses, it is likely that they become their hosts. However, hosts seldom know of the Fragment's existence, even when that Fragment is manipulating or controlling the host. (Have you ever done something and later wondered, "What was I thinking?" Perhaps you weren't thinking at all, but rather under the control of a visiting Fragment.)
Inside of their respective hosts, the Fragments will discover a conflict within that soul. This is a conflict that must be resolved before the Fragment may leave their host and continue on their path towards the uniting of the True Soul. Furthermore, because all pieces of the whole must travel the path together, the conflicts of every host must be resolved before a new Quantum Exodus can take place. Sometimes these conflicts are shared by several hosts (such as the 'family' in the above example), sometimes they are independent (perhaps the banker wants to leave his job and find true happiness), and sometimes they are in direct conflict of one another (the father of the family plans to kill the lonely banker in vengeance).
Though the Fragments merge with their hosts, they remain independent (sometimes by a very thin line). While Fragments can attempt to complete control their hosts, resembling 'possession' or mind-control, such vulgar displays of power are difficult and risky, the price of failure at such an attempt is steep for both the Host and Fragment alike. Rather, Fragments manipulate their hosts by pulling up memories, manipulating thoughts, and working the emotions they find there. This is not without its risks, but it is far easier on the mental stability of their host, and the cost of failure is much less extreme.
When the conflicts have been resolved, the Fragments can take a small memento with them before they go: Knowledge and/or Emotion. Through a process known as The Harvesting, Fragments are able to lift "images" of the skills and knowledge their host possessed. These travel with the Fragments on their next Exodus, and they may call upon them if needed with their next host. They must be cautious when doing so, however, as a peasant in medieval Britain who suddenly knows a great deal about Nuclear Physics will at best be looked upon as mad, and at worst be set on fire for trafficking with demons.
Emotion is a whole other issue. The Fragments use emotions to power their abilities, so their existence in the makeup of the Fragment is very important. However, unlike knowledge, the Fragments do not get to pick and choose as carefully which emotions they absorb along the way. Therefore, one must be careful of one's actions, as the result may be an influx of an emotion that can drastically alter the state of mind and overall personality of the recipient. A Fragment who has developed into a quiet thinker, who observes more than it acts may, in an act of desperation, participate in desperate measures that result in absorbing large amounts of anger and hatred. The result can turn this meek philosopher into a cold, calculated psychopath. When this Fragment lands in its next host, it brings these feelings along, leading to tragic possibilities in the life of the next host. Since the Fragments rely on the survival of the others to insure their own existence, they will need to protect and ultimately try to help their comrade.
With time, the Fragments will grow powerful enough to merge into one, reuniting the True Soul. When this happens, the characters, with all of their Skills and Emotions are merged, and the True Soul is born into humanity as a complete being. The True Soul suppresses all memories of the Fragments existence, but slowly through life, it will remember the various feelings and knowledge they had attained along the way. Science refers to this a "predisposition" or "genetic memory", but in reality it is only glimpses of memory provided to the True Soul by the Fragments journey.
At this time, the players will work through a systematic "shared storytelling" experience, walking this new being through the various stages of his or her life, from birth until death, thus completing the circle. When working through these stages, the Players will incorporate the various emotions and knowledge from the master character sheet, as the True Soul pushes to remember its fragmented past. When they are finished, players will have the life story of a person that they have created throughout time and space, and will know the fruits of the Fragment's labor.
Current Mood: 
creative
creative11 December 2007 @ 06:29 pm
This is the LiveJournal home of Earwig Media, and our first publication, Incarnate. (as soon as it's finished, that is.)
Incarnate is something that I've been meaning to do for some time. If I had to guess, I would imagine it is somewhere in the ballpark of twenty years coming.
Let me back up a second...
Incarnate is a "table-top" role-playing game. I've been playing RPGs since I was about 14 years old and I probably got my start as many of you did: The red box with the two softcover books, a handful of funny-looking dice, and a crayon to color the numbers in. But I didn't stay satisfied with the box very long. So, instead of moving on and putting this whole mess behind me, I opted, rather, to move up...to upgrade.
About twenty hardcover books later, it occurred to me that maybe I just wasn't into the whole fantasy as much as I thought. (I'd always been more of a sci-fi guy) Again, I had an opportunity to maybe sidestep this whole role-playing geekdom, and maybe take up a hobby that might score me some chicks.
But I didn't.
I went out and bought another box with some softcover books in it. This time instead of a menacing dragon in a dungeon, there was a spaceship surrounded by an insect-looking guy, a ball of play-dough in a space suit, some guy yelling into some sort of communicator, and a hot redhead with a laser gun!
So I played that awhile. Soon after I found myself jumping to other games. When I found one based on Lovecraft, I was hooked...too bad no one else in my little geek posse was.
The point is, I LOVED rpgs, but I never loved them for long. Not because the games are bad, but because I was more interested in the games themselves than actually spending much time playing them.
I avoided the whole PDF thing for a long time. But on whim, I bought a game called "Dead Inside" and was introduced to a whole new kind of game: The Indie RPG.
octaNe followed. Then Cold City. Then Don't Rest Your Head.
I was amazed at the innovationsof these games. I was also impressed with the fact that these folks were creating and publishing games on their own terms. Role-Playing Games had made another big leap in my mind..
Someone was kind enough to point me in the direction of The Forge. There I watched these indie RPGs take shape. These guys didn't exist is a vacuum, there was a whole community out there. A rather helpful and supportive one at that.
I decided that I was going to make a RPG.
Thus, Incarnate.
So I opened up this journal in order to get down my progress as I work through my first RPG. Though the folks at The Forge have been most helpful, it is my hope that by posting my progress here, I might come across some guidence, advice, flames, hatred, and camaraderie amongst those who are already down the road I've just started down.
Current Mood: 
optimistic
optimistic