Guilt and Conflict

I guess I'm not finished with the subject of the last post.  That is suggested reading before begining this one.

Ultimately, the conflict series I proposed some years ago now failed because the consequences for the players actions were not dear enough to contain their willingness to exploit the system.  As I have said before, the cards were used as a "charm person," in that if the roll succeeded and the defender lacked fortitude to resist, the players could have their way with said person.  This wasn't a problem with the first group of people I played with, but it became one as the system was better understood.

So I took it down, with the understanding that I would have to think about the system to determine a meaningful solution.  It had not occurred to me at that time that success could, in fact, be a deterrent.

As I explained in the earlier post, it might be.

Putting aside concerns about evil characters at the moment (and acknowledging that the decision to "be evil" should not necessarily be seen as an immunity to guilt), I'm only looking for a system that gives players pause.  The goal is to suspent players from simply saying, "Gosh, aren't I well-spoken and attractive; mind if you lend me all your money and the use of your house while I'm in town?"  We could create a system that would cause the charismatic individual to feel some remorse afterwards for making the request, especially if the request was accepted.

It would make the DM the arbiter of bad behaviour, however ~ something I always see as a problem.  A best-case scenario would be to create a list of anti-social behaviours ... but such a list would be extravagant and most likely incomplete, no matter how much work was put into it.  Humans are terrifically gifted at finding new ways to be anti-social.  A better strategy would be to framework anti-social behaviours so that if something new came up, it could be judged fairly not only by the DM, but also by the players.

Anti-social behaviours are those that harm or cause lack of consideration for the well-being of others; intentional acts of aggression; covert and overt hostility; and effectively contempt for others.  This certainly describes murder-hobos, as we well know, but it also describes talking a guard out of doing his job and letting the party past, a favorite example of "smart role-playing" in order to avoid combat.  We give experience for this.

Now, before anyone panics, and assumes I'm rushing to impose a morality on D&D, please keep calm.  I'm merely digging a hole for the foundations.  I'm not digging a grave here.

We have to acknowledge that the so-called "heroes" of many a campaign, particularly those on line, practice an awful lot of this sort of behaviour.  For example, this infamous bit.  I have little to no problem with the choices made by the party than I have with the constant identification of these persons as heroes.

But ... there are always multiple justifications for all the anti-social behaviours listed above.  Those orcs we slaughtered in that dungeon were evil.  Yeah.  That's what they certainly were.  And the children too.  That guard is an employee of evil ... he ought to know better than to defend such horrible, awful people, who are protecting that stone they absolutely have no right to possess.  We're not thieves if we're in the employ of Our King, who doesn't happen to have any actual jurisdiction in this country, but that is really, really not important, is it?  Etcetera.

Francis Drake wasn't a pirate, he was a British patriot.  George Custer wasn't a murderer of women and children, he was an American Hero.  Christopher Columbus wasn't a dick in every sense of the word, he was an entrepreneur and a legal representative of Spain.  Anti-socialism is a question of what social system you defend and which you denegrate.

I have a lot of faith in parties being able to justify their murder-hobo intentions; I don't want to put an end to them.  All I want is to codify it, so that my party can feel content marching into a dungeon to slaughter the inhabitants for the good of the kingdom and the state, and the wellbeing of the surrounding peasant folk ... just so long as they then don't decide to burn a peasant's house down the next day because the peasant wasn't sufficiently grateful.

I don't want morality to impose its absolute will on the party ... but I would like the party to at least acknowledge that there is such a thing and that it's a little important to the fabric and structure of all this goodness and heroism they purport to defend.

You kick that beggar.  You kick him as hard as you want.
Because you have moral superiority.

In that line of thought, along with cards for discussing with persons using reason, status, money and intimidation, we might talk about cards that offer "rationalization," "vindication," "excuse," "legal privilege" and "sadistic indifference," equally based on a player's ability stats, relationship with the crown, local authority, cause or right of revenge.  These cards would then be available in short supply and ONLY at specific times ... and could create a dynamic in which the first part of going off to slaughter all the denizens in the castle would be to get the card granting the legal or moral authority to do it.

And getting that card would have to be done legitimately also, if the consequences of lowered endurance, emotional wellbeing and stomach-churning, weakness-inducing guilt were not things to be managed while killing women and children in the castle 'just for fun."

Once again, I'm mindful that this is NOT your D&D.  Got it.  Think of it as a thought experiment, the imposition of another hurdle that has to be overcome or a guard rail against player misbehaviour in the extreme ... which, I admit, does not seem to be considered a problem around a lot of tables that are definitely not MY D&D.

This could be a thing.  Still needs some more thought.

Conflict is not Dead

So.  Taking some time to reflect upon an old bugbear.  I proposed the idea of cards to resolve conflicts a little more than seven years ago.  Strange to think how enthusiastic I was about the idea at the time ... and how soon it was after starting this blog. The concept did not survive the online campaign; yet I shall try to paraphrase the idea, as I think of it now.

The plan was to provide the characters with different methods of changing an NPC's mind, with the concomitant idea that the NPC would be able to similarly lock down the player's decision making process, precisely in the way that combat functioned.  Just as a player could force an NPC to adopt an action or opinion, the NPC could do likewise to the player.

The "methods" were based upon the speaker's class, background, previous successes, means and ability stats.  Characters could therefore "reason" if they were intelligent enough, "torture" if they were an assassin, "seduce" if they had a high enough charisma and so on.  Logically, as more methods for changing minds were imagined, the system could be expanded.

Resisting this, a speaker would have various resistances to having their minds changed; wisdom imposed fortitude against arguments, while stupidity defeated arguments by lack of comprehension.  Thus, as the first speaker imposed a method for changing the second speaker's mind, the second speaker had a means of being bullheaded and stuck in their ways.

Fair enough.  Where the system failed ... and continues to fail in my thoughts, revolved around this problem: what change of mind was permissible?

Could I, for example, impose upon an NPC to force them to give me all his property?  His daughter?  His life?  What, exactly, kept the "convince person A to change his mind" from becoming, "mindfuck person A into being my mental slave"?

Players bent on getting the most out of the system saw it as a kind of suggestion spell.  This was never the intention.  My ideal was a system that the players could use to inveigle information out of a suspect, or subvert the loyalty of a person against their employer.  Players viewed it as a way to get free drinks out of a bartender, "just because."

Do understand. We need to draw a line.  But that line is very pernicious.  There's no reason in the world why a bartender would give free drinks to strangers; particularly when we consider everyone in the world would have this power to convince every other person, since no interactive mechanic can be built to serve the players alone.  Logically, a bartender, and a lot of other vendors beside, ought to have a get-out-of-jail-free card for such attempted abuses.

But say a character, charismatic, stumbles out of the woods and produces a monumentally believable reason for why they must have your horse, and right now?  They show a rolled up bit of paper bound with a ribbon, they're wearing the King's livery, they're carrying a saddle to the horse that has just been killed from under them and the message must be taken to the King immediately!  "And no, you can't take it, you're not an official messenger.  So I'll have your horse now, sir, if you please."  A die is rolled; the player makes an argument; the messenger counter-argues ... and the player loses, handing over their horse.

Could happen.  But what if it is all a scam?

As I say, it is a difficult line to draw.  Clearly, the problem here is not the method by which we ask [as I built the system to answer], but what we're allowed to ask FOR.

I think, maybe, that is the answer: a list of potential asks, which can expand as ideas for requests are realized, that characters are allowed to request ~ once again, dependent upon their level, status, specific reputations, ability stats and such ~ ranked from somewhat miserable requests to outlandish demands.

A character might, for example, be allowed to ask for a discount on anything, in their home town or in their home county ~ 10% off, say ~ at first level, because they are a cleric or because they have a high charisma.  Or because they have a particular ability [or feat, whichever system you play].  A low-level character might be able to intercede in fights; or distract a guard; or buy their way into a card game ... but they couldn't just ask to talk to the king.  They couldn't ask that a guardhouse be opened up so they could free a prisoner.  They couldn't just demand any damned thing they pleased, as if they were lords of the earth.

This would firmly confine the expectations of the players to specific possibilities ... and then, the possibilities would have to be gambled for, in the way the cards were supposed to work originally.  That is, just because your gambler thief could buy his way into a card game, doesn't mean he does.  It only means that he can try for it.

Now, some readers will be a step or two ahead of others at this point ... just as I am building to the key point here.  Some will realize that I've already been building up a system that guarantees the player can do a large variety of small, skill-based things, which I call my sage system.  I might have already created a "gambling" ability that included "being able to buy into a game."

Suppose that the varying sage abilities (and I find, from moving them to the new wiki, that there are 182 sage abilities so far) serve as a template for what a character ~ any character ~ can ask for.  Studies like Sure-footedness, which gives a lot of benefits to sneaking around and into things, wouldn't bring much in the way of, "What can I ask for?"  But a study like Politics, which offers nothing in the way of physically empowering a character, would bring lots and lots of potential things that could be asked for.

As ever, it could be a lot of work ... but it IS a solution to something that has denied reason for a long time.  An ordinary character couldn't go into a guard room and demand a room for the night, but many different kinds of functionary could.  And many more things besides.  An ordinary character couldn't demand a free beer, but many bards with a Performance ability could talk a bartender into one.  It is simply a matter of assigning potential asks to existing abilities, as the player or DM invents the process by precedent.

The player looks at their sage abilities, and asks, "Could my player ..."

The DM answers, I think that's rational, given you have an ability that fits that request, of that particular NPC.

Then someone writes down the request so that it can be looked up later.  Easy peasy.

The reason I never came up with this before is that I didn't have the sage abilities conceived of, in this form, when I was making the conflict system.  And the only reason why I put the two of them together now, is that I'm moving the whole damn wiki.  Ideas, being jumbled, tend to bump against one another.

Misbegotten Children

Despite the failure of my conflict cards, I still receive requests to send the card images to individuals who are anxious to . . . I have no idea what these people mean to do.  I suppose that someone is entitled to make them useful as a system, if it can be done at all.  Still, it is a pain in my side.

I had put all the images up on the old Same Universe Wiki, long gone now.  To satisfy the curious, I've added the conflict card images to the New Wiki, Tao at Wikispaces.  The card sheets I used to print up the cards before slicing are there, with hash marks so that if anyone wants to take them to a printer, the paper stock can be cut by that printer also.

Cost me, I think, something like $75 when I did it.

For the record, let me know if you find any links on this blog that don't work - particularly links that were supposed to go to the Same Universe wiki.

Conflict No. 6: Card Templates

The visual templates for all the cards are available here.  I'm afraid that it will be up to the reader to print them.  Best of luck.

See notes in the previous post.

Conflict No. 5: Special Cards

From what I hear, the jury is out until this weekend or the next, when people actually try the system.  At present, it hasn't exactly stunned the D&D blogger world.  People have given me some considerate praise (thanks all around to everyone, I mean that sincerely), but if I were to judge the response in terms of market surveying, then yes, I made the right decision in not putting money behind this thing.

It might be a grass roots thing, with people getting interested once they test it ... who knows?  To that aim, however, I am pushing myself to get a printable set of cards up today, hopefully by 6 PM Eastern Time.  Then if anyone wants to get the set printed (there will be 19 pages, or 171 cards, suitable for a typical party of five players) tonight or tomorrow, they can.  Card stock is best, 100-110 weight.  It'll cost a pretty penny if you have someone else do it, so shop around.  The lowest price I found was $1.10 a page, but that's a shop I know in Montreal, and the quality is about 80% of very good.  (I got the cut for free, too, since I'm a friend, but it has to be mailed out to me).

A note about that (something I should probably say again, but I might forget): I wouldn't exactly say the cards are "publication ready."  I hurried a little this week, so there might be a spelling error or something worse.  I'd have a look at the cards if you can, if you're going to have someone else print them.  Let me know and I'll fix them ASAP and get the corrected copy up.  People, if you love your D&D brothers and sisters, you might want to help me by checking them yourself.  (Incidentally, the word 'defence' on the images below has been fixed already).

On to a quick discussion of the more unusual cards, then.

These cards were created to compensate for those characters who find they have a low charisma or intelligence, and are therefore short on action cards.  Its not to suggest a character can't "lie" if they don't have the card, but if they want a bonus for lying, they have to sacrifice a defence card.  Since you need action cards to pile up modifiers, it pushes people without high natural stats into a less upstanding manner of discourse ... which I think works for me in the game.

Sex doesn't generally mix with D&D, but my players loved this card as soon as they saw it.  The notes at the bottom are compressed for space.  It means generally that the greater your success with the card, the more expectation your listener will have.  If you try to seduce and you roll an 11 against resistance (and there are no modifiers), then your listener is going to want to go neck somewhere.  If you roll a 12, your listener will want you to go find somewhere private for fifteen or thirty minutes.  And if you roll a 13, well, the rest of the party just won't see you until tomorrow morning.

Of course the listener might want to reduce what they expect of you by the use of defence cards, but the DM might not want to have them do that.

One element you might want to impose is that the card is only effective against the opposite sex, or - alternately - against the same sex when the proclivity is there.  Otherwise you might want to impose an immediate insulted & violent response ... this is up to how you run your world.

This card was never intended as the sort of thing that would be used in ordinary discourse ... indeed, it is here to open the player's mind to the possibility of others interactive rules for specific circumstances.  Here, the effect of a bard upon a room full of relaxed people.  This, too, can be a conflict, if the audience doesn't like strangers and the bard has to win them over.

The tendency would be to think that the bard should get extra bonuses as the bard increases in level, but I would argue that what makes an artist better is not combat level, but experience levels.  The gaining of experiences, and therefore modifiers, would compensate for the bard's increased ability with game play.  For example, once the bard had taken steps to join a guild, that would prove an increase in the bard's play and thus a better result when telling a story to the bar.

In answer to the query about the the number of cards indicated.  The notes here are just to say that an individual with an 18 wisdom should have 3 cards for use.  It does not mean that when the card is played the user should get three more.  Players with higher wisdoms, therefore, are more likely able to quell others when they get insulted or violent.

This has to be my favorite card.  The means in which it is gained requires that the player must be trying to convince at least two listeners; that in rolling 2d6 that box cars are rolled twice in succession (that is, a 12 once, and then once again), and that both rolls result in overcoming the listener's resistance.

The chance of rolling 12 twice in a row on 2d6 in 1 in 1296.  It would really suck if one of the listeners were able to pull out the necessary resistance cards to spoil the player winning the card.

Where it says that any die roll may be re-rolled, that means anywhere on the table (I had intended it with regards to the combat system only ... but a DM might rule otherwise).  The re-roll only affects one die, however, and not both dice.  Thus, if an opponent rolled a '1' and a '6,' the 6 could be discarded in favor of another roll.  Also, the roll need not be against the holder of the luck card.  It can be any die that is played in the luck holder's company ... a friend's die against someone else, or an opponents die against a friend could be re-rolled also.

The card works particularly well in conjunction with pretending to be a member of the guard or some such (see the 'Heraldic Sign' card), since any '3' that was rolled could be mitigated by the luck card.

The key element for both these cards is that, upon choosing to do so, the defender can simply throw out the successful roll of an opponent altogether.  I included these cards because I wanted there to be the possibility of such stubbornness on the part of the listener that they would need to be succeeded against twice.  This would make it difficult to win a conflict with a high official, a noble, a general and so on, since they'd have a high resistance to begin with ... and when that resistance failed, you'd have blown your best modifier/action combination by having it just dismissed out of hand.

The equivalent ability in the hands of someone with a low intelligence just seemed obvious.  And I do understand the irony of associating someone who is very stubborn and intelligent with someone who is very stupid.  Neither are inclined to listen.

This card sticks out like a sore thumb, since it is used neither to influence nor intimidate others.  It is designed solely for use in situations where the individual might want to get one round's advantage against an opponent.  It is the equivalent of pointing over your enemies shoulder and shouting, "What on earth is that?", whereupon your enemy looks and you take off running; or attempt to surprise by attacking; or shove him off a cliff; or whatever use you can make of it.

The card can be modified as other cards.  It's effect is fleeting at best - only one round.  It too is here to suggest that a wider set of cards could be developed for use in special circumstances.

So, that's what I see that obviously needs discussion.  Are there any other cards I've missed?

Conflict No. 4: Cards

At this point it would be a good idea to include a list of the cards I've developed for use with the game.  I am working on creating sheets which the reader could use for producing hard versions of the cards, but I don't quite have that yet.  What I do have is a complete list of the cards, with the various elements of the cards recorded on that list.

Blogger isn't so great for posting tables like this, but thankfully I have the SU Wiki.  The table can therefore be viewed here.

I would suggest a careful inspection of the cards.  Several have unique properties, the play of which may not be self-evident from the table.  I will be taking that up soon (I wouldn't mind suggestions for which cards I might discuss more in depth).

In the meantime, I've posted a few cards on the blog here, and I'd like to take this opportunity to present a breakdown of what the various parts on each card are called and how they apply:

I worked with a bunch of templates for separating the various descriptions into separate boxes and frankly, it all looked very busy and crappy.  My original mockup included a box at the bottom which designated the modifiers, but I found that during play no one ever looked over their cards like they would a poker hand.  Since there's no need to conceal the cards in the game, at all, all players I took note preferred to spread the cards out in front of them, so they could see them all and pick out what they wanted.  Therefore it only required that the modifier be placed in a central location on the card where it could be easily seen.

Well, the cards themselves should keep the reader busy for awhile, so I'll sign off on this post.

Hurm.  As an afterthought, I wanted to say that I knew back in January that if I didn't get a jump on the general idea before revealing it to anyone there'd be nothing but arguments about what would make 'appropriate' cards.  D&D players tend to be very oriented on the same pellets-for-pressing-the-bar, and not generally open to a new set of rewards.  Most would tend to think the cards ought to be somehow based upon level or class.  I have made a few cards that apply to certain classes that have social characteristics .... but I would not encourage a card for fighters, or a card for mages, etc.  A strong element here is that the reward system - gaining new cards - is NOT based predominantly on class or level, but upon active achievement of GOALS.  Status is far and away the most fluid possible gain for most players, and the goals there are about social influence and gain.  I recommend to any DM making use of the system, and inventing their own modifiers/cards, that they should generate cards according to individual success, and not the standard D&D mileposts.

Conflict No. 3: Crowds

I knew the system was good when it started solving problems for me, without my having to come up with additional stop-gaps and fixes.  Yesterday, shlominus proposed a problem that I must admit had me scratching my own head for awhile.  That question is essentially this: If you address enough people at one time, won't the odds ensure results right across the board?  If, for example, I stand up in a street square and speak to 36 persons, with a 1 in 36 chance that one of those persons will fanatically change sides in my favor, doesn't that guarantee that I can walk away from every like situation with friends, followers and fanatics?

As I said, that worried me.  And then I realized I was looking at the world as a static entity, as though the players were the only participants in it.  Generally, D&D is presented as though the world were made up of a bunch of cardboard figures that only come alive when the party speaks to them.  It's a habit that's been exacerbated over many years of poor design.

Any crowd I speak to is already going to be friends, followers or fanatics of someone else!  I began this description two days ago by saying that the system cannot compel anyone to do anything they would not be willing to do.  That is because the interactive is not a charm person spell.  And I have been making the point that all of the interactive results are temporary.  In other words, the guard in the previous post who might have become infatuated with the party, or that 1 in 36 person in the crowd, might, for the space of five minutes, become infatuated with your character as he or she speaks openly in the square.  And then they'll remember that they have a wife, or kids, or that their mother wouldn't like it.

The point being that the interactive cards are not designed to just randomly influence people walking by on the street.  The cards are there to resolve conflicts.  The party can create a conflict by stopping people and then insisting those people do something the party wants instead of their own agenda, and while they are in the presence of the party they may acquiesce.  But given a chance to be alone, and to remember their actual obligations, they will probably just run away.  They have to be given a real reason to stay - like pay, good treatment, a recognition of their needs and so on - to make them want to stay and obey.

Emotions are fluid things, and what one feels watching a big tough adventurer speak eloquently to the crowd can cause infatuation.  But unless it is done with a lot of modifiers, it will also cause many of the people in the crowd to get angry, and throw things.  Let me point something out that may not be recognized.

Let us say that Caleb puts his modifiers together and, using Jest, decides to amuse a crowd as a comedian.  As before, he gets his +4 and he speaks to the 36 people as mentioned.

We'll say the dice fall exactly according to the odds, so that he rolls a 2 against one person in the crowd, and a 3 against two others.  The 3 becomes a 7 with his modifier, but ... if those persons have any bonuses to their resistance, they can at will drop that 7 back to a 6, and they will be angry too.  And if any of the three people Caleb rolls a modified 8 against has a +2 resistance, well they will be angry too.

It is a mistake to think that Caleb will simply need to roll modified 10's for every person in the crowd.  Chances are that most of the people will have a +1 or a +2 resistance for various reasons, and Caleb will have to roll modified 11s and 12s just to get some of the crowd accepting of his humour.  Something near to half the crowd won't be that impressed, and chances are someone in that crowd is going to have just as many Purpose cards (actions and modifiers) as Caleb.  A deacon, say, or a town official.  One that already knows everyone in that town, and who has already gotten a +1 or +2 bonus with them, just as Caleb might have gotten with Danielle two posts ago.

Thus, that Deacon is going to be able to turn back a lot of the people Caleb influenced, reducing them to non-entities in the conversation, which will become a back and forth between Caleb and the Deacon ... which is exactly what happens in real life.  Most people listening in a crowd will take no part and have no influence whatsoever.  Anytime you try to convince a crowd of people, you always wind up arguing with just one or two ... the ones who don't like you.

Tackling a crowd without a lot of cards and modifiers is a dangerous thing.  You're more likely to make enemies, and those enemies are more likely to stir a strange crowd against you than you against them.  Sure, there might be one or two in the crowd who really like you, but they are likely to be the ones with the least resistance, and therefore those who have little or no power to influence anyone else.  In other words, you'll pick up the easily swayed, while the hard-biters will eat you for lunch.

As ChicagoWiz pointed out, players will have to be a lot more cautious around NPCs.  Jumping up and calling attention to yourself may not be a good idea ... at least not until you know a lot of the crowd too, and you have the cards to back your play.

The next stage in this process is to get a round idea of the cards that are available, and that will take me some time yet.  I will ask the reader to please bear with me.  I meant to have something up last night, but I let myself get distracted for some hours.  I propose to have a list of cards up later today.

Conflict No. 2: Small Groups

Hopefully it will have occurred to the gentle reader by now that there are reasons why Caleb, from the previous post, might want to hold back the number of modifier cards he uses to affect his chosen actions.  This is part of the game strategy - is it better to pile all the cards together in one hit, which if it fails will leave you with no more gas, or it is it better to carefully reserve your cards so that you have a number of lesser tries, each of which might produce a result.

Of course, this has to be weighed against Danielle's response, when it comes.  I did not go into great detail about that response on the last post, but she might have had enough to dissuade Caleb completely when her round comes ... in which case Caleb would not get to use his carefully reserved cards, since he'd be driven away from the scene by Danielle's play.  This too is part of the strategy.

An important reason to use 2d6 instead of, say, 1d12 is that the pair of dice produce odds that first ascend as one uses actions and modifiers, and afterwards descends once the roll needed to succeed drops below 7, or the average of the two dice.  The player has to calculate whether his use of a particular card now is better for his odds of winning than it would be later on, when played on its own or in conjunction with other cards.  This element allows for greater strategy than just piling up all the cards you have.  Remember that a pile of action and modifier cards has to face a pile of defense cards in the long run.  You may have a +7 or a +8 modifier to your die roll, but that doesn't help if your opponent has +5 resistance and on your first roll you goof and roll less than a 6.

I wrote once about the success/fail problem where it came to devising interactive systems.  This I believe solves that problem.

Very well, let's consider a wider scenario.  Let's suppose that Caleb has friends.  We'll call them Charles and Clement.  And instead of Danielle, we'll introduce three guards, Edward, Eric and Ethan.  The conflict might be anything, but we'll pick something D&D-like:  Caleb and his friends wish to cross a bridge, and Edward and his friends are there to stop them.  Who knows the reason?  I leave that up to the game's referee.  For the sake of the example, we will suppose first of all that Caleb and his friends are the Player Characters.  We'll also give them the initiative.

Choosing what to say has changed.  Caleb is no longer limited to his own resources.  He has friends, and if they have a better chance of convincing the guards, he can rely on them.  It must be understood that not everyone can speak at the same time and expect themselves to be heard.  Caleb, Charles and Clement have a talk among themselves as they approach the bridge, and decide that it would probably be best if Caleb used his charismatic cards and went first.

So Caleb pulls out his Persuade card, adds his Beauty, his Able-body and his Land like before, which like before gives him a +4 modifier.

Aha, but there's a difference.  Caleb is now standing next to Charles, who is a cleric.  And as he is a cleric of the same religion as the guards, and as he is standing next to Caleb, the guards cannot help giving Caleb a bit more respect than they might otherwise.  It is up to Charles if he wishes to use his 'Piety' card (see below) to lend Caleb this respect (he could, if he wished, conceal for the moment his clericism, or even stand a bit off so that it's not clear to the guards that Charles supports Caleb's desire).  Note that Charles' modifier is one of status:

We'll say that Charles stands next to Caleb smiling and slightly bowing as Caleb speaks, lending an additional +1 modifier to Caleb's argument.  Caleb therefore has +5 overall.  He opens his mouth and he says, "Good sirs, please stand aside and let us pass.  We have important business upon the other side, and you would be the best of gentlemen if you could allow us to be on our way."  After which, he rolls against each guard individually.

They are, after all, each listening to Caleb with their own ears.  They are not one person, and so they do not respond as one person.  They can all hear and see Caleb, so they all have an equal chance of being affected by Caleb's appearance, his manliness, his obvious confidence and his persuasive tongue (which may be more persuasive than the player who runs Caleb).  What's more, the cleric is standing right there.

Caleb rolls three times, therefore, against Ethan, Eric and Edward.  Counting the modifier, he rolls a '9,' a '12' and a '14.'  Thus Ethan is indifferent, Eric is accepting and Edward is friendly.

As it happens, each of the guards has a +1 resistance (which will be explained in a moment) because they are, after all, 'guards' ... they are trained to resist people.  If one of the guards was a sargeant, he'd have a resistance of +2, being specially trained to keep his head while others were losing theirs.  In this case, however, they're just ordinary guards.  And in all three cases, none of them has any reason to use their +1 resistance (since it won't make a difference anywhere), so they don't.  They keep those cards close and we get to move on.

Now, in the framework of the conflict, Ethan is indifferent to Caleb's argument, but he ISN'T indifferent to his duty as a guard.  He will not at the moment release the bridge.  Eric may be accepting of Caleb's argument, but he isn't friendly or accommodating, so within the framework of the conflict, he has become a non-entity ... having been influenced by Caleb into acceptance, he is taken right out of the conflict and is no longer considered a participant.  He is therefore put to one side.

Edward, on the other hand, is friendly ... and what this means for the Conflict is that Edward has effectively 'switched sides.'  At this point, he is more apt to argue in favor of Caleb's group than to oppose them.  What this means is that Ethan now stands alone against four others, Edward included.  Eric is unimportant.  He will go along with whomever wins the Conflict.

Ethan has limited resources at his beck and call.  He hasn't much of an intelligence, he isn't all that great to look at and in the great scheme of things he's only a guard.  He has two cards.  He's 'Able-bodied,' just as Caleb is, having also once delivered a great blow to an enemy, and he's able to 'Bellow,' as shown below.

As you can see, the card can be used either as a defense card (+1 resistance, as mentioned above) or as an aggressive action.  As an action, Ethan can put it together with his able-bodied modifier and gain a +2 to his die roll.  He shouts, "No one is getting across this bridge.  We are under orders by the town council and we shall obey those orders!"

Ethan then rolls against all FOUR of those standing opposed to him.  With the modifier included, he rolls an 8 against Caleb, a 6 against Charles, a 12 against Clement and an 11 against his compatriot Edward.

Edward can use his own +1 bellow card but it doesn't help.  He falls into the 'fearful' category (remember, Ethan is using an aggressive action, and is therefore intimidating the others, not influencing them), and like Eric becomes a non-entity.  Clement, too, might have a +2 resistance, but that's not good enough.  His character is considered to have been bullied by Ethan, and therefore fearful.  He no longer has the heart to continue this.  He backs down, and he too ceases to matter in the Conflict.

This is an important element to the overall system, as for the first time a player character's freedom to palaver is limited by circumstance and the die roll, just as if Clement had been struck down with a sword and was now no longer able to fight back.  He is cowed, he experiences a weakening of spirit, he no longer feels this is the right course of action and so on.  Perhaps in a bit, once the situation is resolved, he might feel better ... but in the framework of the game, this would be as if Clement afterwards said to his friends, "I wanted to stand by you fellas, but I found myself looking at his uniform and thinking, 'what are we doing!?'  I just lost my nerve."

The idea of a player having 'nerve' or being able to lose it has long been considered undesirable or even impossible by any system ... but I think it incorporates a reality to the game that also serves as a motivator.  Clement has every reason thereafter to go out and adventure not just for money and experience, but to have the GUTS to stand up to guards like Ethan.  A few hard-bitten adventures and Clement will begin to mass cards which give him greater resistance, and he won't go down to a lucky roll from some minor guard.

Now, the reader will take note that Ethan rolled a 6 against Charles, which engenders the Insulted reaction.  Here the system is a bit of a one-way street.  Charles may feel insulted, but as a player character Charles does not have to respond the way that an NPC would.  If the situation were reversed, Ethan - being the insulted party - might slowly draw his sword and threaten with it, to wave the party off.  But in this case Charles the player character can decide to react however he likes ... it is treated as Charles being unconvinced.

However, if we suppose that the player were to choose to draw his weapon at this point, what would happen?

First and foremost, if the reader will remember the previous post, we have to ask ourselves, does Ethan have a fortitude card?  If he does, then he will be able to play it, and Charles will have to resheath his sword and resist using it.  Yes, that's right, Charles the player character will be convinced not to overreact at just this moment, just as a player could force an NPC to do likewise.  The force would remain in effect only for Charles' next round ... but he would be restrained from taking a combat action for that one round.

But let's suppose that Ethan doesn't have a fortitude card?  What then?

Well, combat of course.  Initiative had already been determined previously and Caleb and his friends had chosen to use it for talking, so initiative does not need to be used again.  Charles simply draws his weapon and attacks.  Caleb takes his cue from Charles and he attacks also.

Clement, however, cannot.  For one round, the fear he experienced from Ethan's warning will keep him from joining into combat.  The following round, when he sees his friends in trouble, the fear will dissipate and he will be able to take action then.  But he's lost the first round.

Ethan's friends, however, were not intimidated, they were merely influenced.  As soon as they are attacked, all three will return the fight, just as though any ordinary D&D combat were going on.  Once again, the interactive mechanic is designed to work seamlessly with the combat mechanic.

Very well, but what if Edward had not been turned back by Ethan, but had remained friends with the party?  In that case, Edward like Clement would have found himself hesistating for one round about what to do ... he'd want to help his compatriots, but for that round he'd find himself wanting not to hurt these people he quite liked.  It would be similar to losing his nerve, but for different reasons.  After one round, however, his loyalties would reassert themselves and Edward would join in on the side of Ethan and Eric.

Okay, but what if at the beginning Edward had not been made friendly, but had been made accommodating?  Caleb could have managed that, if he'd rolled an 11 or a 12 in the first place.  Ah, then in this case Edward would not fight, but he would use his next round to shout at everyone to stop fighting and listen to him, using his measly +1 bellow card to intimidate both sides.

Unfortunately for him - and this is VERY important - once combat is broken out, the situation becomes a confusion.  The card is an intimidation action, and therefore Ethan would only be able to speak to one person at a time, hopefully cowing them into fear before moving on.  He would still be able to use his card against each person (it can't be used twice against the same person - but using it for person A does not preclude using it for person B), but it would take one round for each person to do so.

Edward could decide not to use the card, but to instead influence everyone without any bonuses ... in this case, he could affect everyone at the same time.  This is equivalent to shouting out loud for everyone to calm down!  And if he could roll a 10 or more on 2d6, and if no defense cards for additional resistance came into play, every person Edward affected in this manner would stop fighting ... for one round.  They would pull back and listen ... foolishly, perhaps, as they would then be attacked by someone who did not listen.  But then this is what happens when your resistance to authority or a call for peace is overcome.

Lastly, the question arises, what if somehow Edward had been made infatuated with Caleb at the beginning.  The answer should be obvious ... he would turncoat against his original compatriots and throw in with the party.  Obviously, these are much better people than the ordinary guards.  Since this is a very unlikely option, and will tend to occur only once a party has reached a sufficient level of power, and will usually only affect persons who in turn have very little power, the rule really only manifests as a powerful individual causing minions to change their allegiance.  This did happen occasionally, as when the fickle mob turned against Pompey in favor of Caesar.

But let us set that all aside and assume that Charles does not draw his weapon.  We now find that he and Caleb stand alone against Ethan.  Caleb has used his main cards.  Again, he has only his Jest card left.  Charles has a high wisdom, and we will suppose he had two unused Fortitude cards.  He had the status card for his clericism, but that has been used for Caleb's attempt.  If he is a first level, this might be all he has going for him.  We will give him an additional modifier, the fact that he is middle aged:

This card, too, can be used either as a modifier to an action or as a means to resist the arguments of others.  As a modifier, it gives Charles a +1 ... which isn't any better than Caleb's Jest card.

However, either Charles or Caleb could decide to buy an action ... that is, a Bribe.

I have four levels of bribes, deliberately designed to make the highest level very undesirable to use by players.  My intention has been to leave the exact amount of coin off the card, so that it could be tailored to the game referee's individual world, with a suggestion for the size of the bribe in the rulebook I was writing (I much prefer the easy style here, where I can discuss more than what would appear in the rules - the various strategies and outcomes as well).

Bribes are either 'small,' 'large,' 'huge' or 'great.'  A small bribe would be 10 g.p. for each person who would need to be bribed.  If Charles or Caleb took Ethan to one side, on the quiet - and the referee ruled that Ethan were willing to go - they could offer the money to Ethan alone.  But if they were to do so openly, both Edward and Eric would immediately be insulted AND angry, regardless of their previous accepting condition.  Of course, Charles could dispel this with a fortitude card (it would use both his cards), assuring them that he felt certain Ethan would share.  The sharing would then become something that wasn't the party's problem.

A small bribe would give a +1 to the die roll.  A large bribe, equal to 100 g.p. per person, would give +2 to the die.  A huge bribe, being 1,000 g.p. per person, would bring +3, and a great bribe, being 10,000 g.p. per person, would bring +4.  Obviously, if you're going to really, really bribe someone, you've got to get them alone, so that no one else knows about it.  The increasing scale of the various bribes is there to discourage, as I said, the constant use of bribes to achieve everything.  Once a party has massed a large amount of money, it becomes too easy to simply pay one's way.

Of course, the problem with even private bribes is that others learn about them, and then approach the party for a bit of their own.  Refusal once again creates the insulted and angry response, which the Fortitude card might be able to quell for the moment ... but the party will have gained an enemy and the interactive system is useless against someone who distantly maintains a grudge, and cannot be spoken to or convinced.  The game referee would be free to allow that insulted person to continue to be insulted for as long as they did not receive their share of the money.  This is still D&D.

But let's say that Charles buys the bribe, gives it to only Ethan, plays his two Fortitude cards to quell the other guards and rolls the die.  Maybe not the brightest move, but Charles feels confident.  He rolls an 8 on the two dice, and his bonus increases this to a 10.  Ethan has no more resistance card, since he used it to intimidate, and he accepts the bribe.  The party crosses the bridge and the conflict is over.

On several occasions during the playtesting both sides completely ran out of cards ... which of course did not end the argument.  It went back and forth after that, like two people shouting at each other, "ISN'T!"  "IS!"  until one of them back down.  The original plan was for the base resistance to be higher, and this resulted in more of these exchanges.  Funny as they are, by lowering the resistance one point they are more rare, but still potentially possible.  Rolling a 10 or greater on 2d6 is only a 1 in 6 chance, and that could go on for awhile if both sides were unlucky.

From this point I plan to start posting lists of cards.  I'll need to do some clean-up on the card design that will take a day or two, but nevertheless I hope to have templates for the card sets up by the weekend.  I believe I might tone down the color a might.  I had brightened them up from the originals, but I may have done that too much, and I'd like to play with it a bit.

Meanwhile, I'll spend some time talking about specific cards and the special rules behind them, which may take several posts.  Eventually, all in good time.

Several of my readers have suggested that it is a mistake to take this course of action, that the system is too valuable to just give away and so on.  I understand that point of view, but I'd like to take a moment to explain my position.  It has been discussed at length between the principles of my operation on my end (my wife and my daughter), and it comes down to this:

I have not chosen 'sales' as a profession for a reason.  I am actually an excellent salesperson.  I can do it because, well, I can lie with proficiency and I generally know what people want to hear.  However, I don't like being put in a position where I have to say what people want to hear.  I would much rather have a profession where I can say what I want to say.  I know this is virtually impossible, but the closer I am to it, the happier I am.

I have had many people say, "Just be a salesman until you're wealthy, and then say whatever you want."  The be-unhappy-now so you can be-happy-later plan.  Unfortunately, while you are unhappy you wind up attacking and destroying everything you love, including yourself, until you've gotten so in the habit of lying to people you can't remember what you would have said if you'd been free enough to say it.  Thanks, but no thanks.  I'll be happy now.

Now, to sell this system effectively, I will have to spend the next years of my life in what amounts to a trade show circuit.  I know that many readers get anxiously excited about conventions and such, but to me they are just trade shows where I might go to do what I don't need a trade show to do: play D&D.  Sure, I might get the chance to play with people I don't know.  But I wouldn't get that chance if I were sincere about selling at the trade show, now would I?  Every second that I wasn't selling would be money out of my pocket, and if I had the attitude that it didn't matter, then what would I be doing at a trade show in the first place?  All or nothing, that's my position on it.  I'm not going to be hundreds of miles from friends and family selling a product only to blow my time on not selling the product.  And friends, I don't want to sell this product.  I don't want to sell anything.

If I did want to sell for a living, I'd be selling something BIG ... like cars, or real estate, or electronics, appliances or furniture.  That's where you get the bigger buck for your bang.  Any other kind of sales is wasting your time ... unless you love sales more than you love money.  That's common, by the way.  People get a terrific rush from making a sale, or from pleasing a customer, or otherwise being of service.  Small level sales is a kind of servile occupation, like waitering, where the happiness of your client brings you happiness.  I understand that kind of life, but I don't want to live it.  I, unfortunately, tend to be happiest when I am happy.  And I am happy when I am writing and creating, not when I am serving others.

Now, I love this D&D game.  And I love creating ideas and rules for this game, along with devising the world behind it.  Five months and three ago I didn't have this rule system in my head.  Then it all hit me, at a go, pretty much as I've described over this and the last post.  I talked to Carl on the phone about it, the Carl who comments here regularly, and he can assure all of you that when I described it I was on fire.  But I told him then, as we talked about keeping it quiet and not letting others know, that this would NOT be the last idea I ever had.  And it won't be.

So next time it comes, I may change my mind.  I doubt it.  I'd much rather sell a book.  That would mean sales, too, and it would mean trade shows.  But somehow, I don't think I would mind sitting around and pitching my book all day and all night to people.  I suppose when I get down to it, writing is a religion for me, and D&D is just fun.  They both make me happy.  But I could conceive giving up D&D for writing.  I will never give up writing.

Conflict No. 1: One on One

I shall begin by saying that all the material that follows in this post, the comments of this post, and additional posts written on this subject, are copyrighted according to the law. All the necessary actions have been taken to ensure this. While I myself have no intentions at this time to turn a profit from this, I should like to give warning to others that if you wish to lift this material for the purposes of selling it, you do so at your own risk.

Secondly, I’d like to say that while I could probably explain this system well enough for the reader to play it in ten minutes, it is harder to explain everything that applies in text. The system is easy to play, and fairly easy to understand ... but there are a number of ins and outs that make it complex enough that it takes time to fully explain.

What’s more, the order in how to explain it has baffled me for many weeks. I had not entirely worked it out to my satisfaction in attempting to create a rule book. Thankfully, the blog is more fluid a medium, with the opportunity to answer questions and make clearer matters where they are unclear, than static text. So I think we shall do fairly well.

Next, I wish to point out that the system was intended to be used in association with original Dungeons and Dragons and AD&D, particularly with regards to ability stats equalling from 3 to 18, classes and ‘name-level.’ I have no doubt that the modifiers could be very easily changed to appropriately fit other systems, even non-D&D systems such as Traveller or the Masquerade ... but as they stand now, they have been tailored for D&D.

Finally, if I could ask the reader to please take note that many things which may occur to the reader as alternatives are most likely things which were tried and discarded once it was seen not to work in play. May I please emphasize that more than thirty players, many of them long-time players, have had an opportunity to put in their two cents. No part of what follows has not been arranged haphazardly or without due consideration. I suggest that you consider first the system as a whole before rushing to make changes to it.

I am fairly confident I won’t be able to complete the whole description with one post written at one sitting, so expect further posts along these lines as I write them. I shall write as many posts daily as necessary to completely reveal the whole system.

WHAT PURPOSE DOES IT SERVE?

Conflict is a turn-based system, organized according to the ‘round’ system in D&D. In any given round, a speaker relates his purpose to one or more listeners, which the expectation of causing them to yield to the speaker’s position. The purpose might be anything: who gets the larger piece of cake, who should stand aside and let the speaker pass, who should join the speaker to go attack the goblins, who should give the speaker a few coins out of charity, who should offer the speaker a lift and so on. In any situation where the speaker’s purpose works in opposition to the listener’s purpose, a conflict results and the system comes into play.

The system is intentionally flexible and open to interpretation, both by the players and the DM. The spirit of the system should be adhered to, but losers are not magically compelled to obey the winners. For example, the speaker cannot go up to a listener, demand a thousand gold pieces, roll a die and expect to have it handed over. In the first case, the listener probably does not have a thousand gold pieces, and even if the listener were ready at just that moment to go get it, after a few minutes the effect of the system would wear off and the listener would come to his or her senses.

As a general guideline, the listener is willing to accept the speaker’s purpose provided that the speaker’s purpose does not seriously tax the listener’s life, liberty or happiness. Asking someone on the street for a few coppers is hardly a risk to the listener’s happiness. A thousand gold pieces would be. I believe that most referees would be capable of drawing the appropriate line for their campaign, and that they do not need to be delivered into a straightjacket.

What is more important about the system is not what the player can force others to do, but what others can force the players to do. D&D does suffer from player-immunity to the trials and tribulations of life. Players are not forcefully affected by the sad eyes of little children, they are not affected by patriotic fervour for a kingdom’s well-being and they are not intimidated by things like class, loyalty, privilege and so on. Players can normally scoff at such things and throw them off without a moment’s hesitation, when of course their characters would have great reason to recognize their responsibilities or their fears of other persons than themselves. More than anything, the system is intended as a hazard to play, to restrain low-level characters from having anything they want, while rewarding play and adventures undertaken by the players in the course of a campaign.

AN EXAMPLE OF PLAY

I think the best approach would be to provide an example of play and then to later go back and explain the various elements, one by one. This way the big picture can be understood, so that the individual details can be fitted in and understood as well.

Let us therefore imagine two persons having a disagreement. Let’s call them Caleb and Danielle. The might both be players, they might both be NPCs. It does not matter.

Both have a group of cards which have come to them according to various exploits they have accomplished, or characteristics they possess. We shall come to this in time. Both wish to make the other understand. Like any D&D combat, they roll initiative to determine who speaks first.

Let’s say that it is Caleb. He has, altogether, five ‘Purpose’ cards. Two of these cards are ‘Action’ cards, and three are ‘Modifier’ cards. He must choose from what he has in order to change Danielle’s mind.

For the sake of the example, Caleb’s action cards are ‘Persuade’ and ‘Jest.’ He can attempt to persuade Danielle to his point of view, or he can make jokes, cause her to laugh and thus give in out of consideration.

Caleb cannot both persuade and jest at the same time. In any particular round, he cannot use more than one action card at a time. He must choose between them, or choose not to use an action at all (bear with me). Whichever action card he does choose, however, he can adjust that card with one, two or all of his modifier cards.

For the sake of the example, Caleb’s modifier cards are ‘Beauty,’ ‘Able-Bodied’ and ‘Land.’ Rather than explaining specifically how Caleb obtained these cards, let’s have a look at them.

Please, forgive the image’s bleed. I couldn’t get rid of it for blogger.

We can tell something about Caleb’s personality. To begin with, his charisma has to be 12 or higher in order for him to possess the first three cards. Secondly, at some point he got into combat and successfully caused 12 damage or more to a foe. Finally, he’s a free landowner.

Let me pause here and point out that there are five kinds of Purpose cards in the game: the two kinds shown here, ‘Charismatic’ (supposed to be purple, but looks awful pink on blogger) and ‘Status’ (blue); and three others, those being ‘Intelligent’ (yellow), ‘Aggressive’ (grey) and ‘Wealth’ (orange). There are both action and modifier cards in every category.

The reader will please note that if Caleb’s charisma is 12 (and we’ll say that it is), either his jest or his persuade cards will give him a +1, as will his Beauty card. He would get more from them if his charisma were higher. If his charisma were only 10 or 11, he would only possess the persuade card. If his charisma were less than 10, he would have none of these cards.

I will break down the cards later. For the moment, note that either action card will ‘Influence’ others. This is to say that the card may be used to positively (non-aggressively) convince listeners to fall in line with the Speaker’s desires.

Going back then, Caleb may decide to use either of his action cards. He may then choose to use 1, 2 or all of his modifier cards to increase the bonus he receives when beginning his attempt to resolve his conflict with Danielle.

There are reasons not to use all his cards, but let us say that he does. He wants Danielle to go walking along the lane with him, and so he uses his persuade action modified by his attractiveness, his able body and his material wealth. In the roleplaying sense, Caleb would say, “Oh, Danielle, don’t you think it would be just a great good time (persuasion) if you spent time with a good looking guy like me (beauty) along the road near my property (land)? I’ve got some wood chopping to do (able-bodied) and I could use the company.”
I could be more subtle here, but I’m making a point so the last thing I want to be is subtle. Hopefully, the reader gets the idea.

Now, Caleb has to roll against Danielle’s RESISTANCE. This is something everyone has to hold up against the arguments and propositions actioned by other people. For the purpose of the Conflict game, EVERYONE has a resistance of 10, regardless of their circumstance, abilities, level or any other imagined superiority. Resistance is 10, no more, no less.

Caleb rolls 2d6 against Danielle’s resistance, with +4 on his die roll. He compares the result against the following table:

This is a fairly simple table, and is made simple on purpose. No attempt has been made to assign a specific response to a specific number, because the exact response should be left open to the referee’s discretion. For example, it would be possible to describe grades of ‘insulted’ to the various numbers between 2 and 6, but this would then straightjacket Danielle’s possible responses. If Caleb were to roll a 2 on 2d6, indicating the insulted response, then the referee should then be allowed to have Danielle’s response fit the actual suggestion of Caleb’s words, where role-played above.

Before I can cover the possible responses, I must address a word towards the ‘Intimidate’ column. While influencing is soft peddling, intimidation is out-and-out threatening, throwing one’s weight around and so on. Caleb has no action cards that give him bonuses to intimidate, but it is still possible for him to do so. Intimidation is the negative, flip side of Influence. If you will remember, I stated above that Caleb could choose not to use either of his actions. He could, instead, choose to express himself in any way that he wishes, waving his arms about and yelling at Danielle – only he will not receive bonuses for that. Still, he could wish to frighten her for some unforeseen reason.

IF he did not want to use an action card, he could still use one of his modifier cards. However, the rule is that if Caleb does not use an action card, he cannot piggyback multiple modifier cards together. He can only use one of them.

The reader will please take note. It is not required for Caleb to use any of his cards. He can still, in that event, roll 2d6 with the intention of either influencing or intimidating Danielle. This is very, very important, as will be recognized later on.

Very well. Let’s go back to the Response Table.

An ‘Insulted’ reaction can vary from relatively passive aggressive responses such an unwillingness to answer or simply walking away, to loud and violent responses such as shouting, brandishing weapons, threatening the speaker if the speaker does not go away and so on. A character who fails awfully with a monk in a monastery should expect a different insulted reaction than a guard defending a fortress.

The Insulted reaction is, in any case, the complete refusal of the listener to listen any further to anything the speaker has to say from that point forward. The speaker has only one recourse – and that is the employment of a very specific Defence card: ‘Fortitude.’

I have not yet spoken about Defence cards. These are cards in the deck which serve either the situation described above (the ever-important Fortitude card) or which serve to  increase the Resistance of the listener. I will speak more about the second type soon. First of all, let’s have a look at the Fortitude card:

In effect, at the moment Caleb finds that he has insulted Danielle, he is able to ‘bring her back to the conversation’ by his perseverance. It is as though he made his suggestion, where upon she responded with, “What do you take me for!” Caleb would then answer with his Fortitude card (if he had one), saying, “No, no, please, you misunderstand me!” And Danielle would be mollified enough to continue the conversation. Otherwise, she would speak her piece and storm off, and the conversation would be over right then and there.

Now, from the Response Table, the ‘Indifferent’ response. This is nothing more than having neither succeeded nor endangered the ongoing discussion. The attempt to persuade (with Caleb’s three modifying cards) simply doesn’t work.

The ‘Accepting’ response is simple enough: Danielle agrees. She’s not necessarily overwhelmed by the suggestion, but she’s willing to at least walk along the road, as long as he doesn’t change the program along the way. If he does ... well, we’ll take that up later.

‘Friendly’ would mean that Danielle sincerely wants to go along with Caleb’s suggestion. The reaction itself suggests that the two of them have now become friends in fact, and that as long as Caleb doesn’t actively do something against Danielle’s continued existence, he can expect to receive a +1 bonus to all future conflicts with Danielle. Note that it does not mean that Danielle also gets a +1 ... she must earn that herself, when it is her turn to try to convince Caleb of something. So far, we are still in the first half of the first round of interaction between them.

‘Accommodating’ would mean that Danielle wants more than just a friendly walk; she has grown deeply attached to Caleb. Note that he has only a 1 in 36 chance of succeeding at this, and only IF he uses all his influence over her. The response indicates that he gains a +2 bonus with all future conflicts he has with Danielle (this is not cumulative with the +1 bonus from friendship).

Finally, ‘Infatuated’ would clearly mean that Danielle has fallen in love with Caleb. He can’t quite receive that yet, but perhaps by piling up a few other bonuses, and perhaps increasing something important about himself, he could ‘win’ her love at some future point. The bonus at this point would become +3.

If Caleb were to attempt to intimidate Danielle for some reason, threatening her if she did not come with him perhaps, then the responses are potentially different.

‘Insulted & Angry’ clearly means that a deeper, more violent response would be expected should this result occur. Spitting in Caleb’s face, perhaps, or striking at him. It is important to note that at this point in the conflict, a combat could immediately break out, as Danielle strikes him, rolling to hit and causing damage. This would be Danielle’s round, and Caleb would then be free to attack back ... or possibly step back and use his action card ‘Jest’ to break the tension. As such, an encounter could consist of combat and talking back and forth, depending on how each participant decided to play their actions and modifiers. The Conflict system is intended to work simpatico with the D&D Combat system, and not necessarily indifferently towards it.

‘Fearful’ would, again, indicate Danielle’s willingness to comply with Caleb’s wishes, only now she would be fearful and would likely attempt to run away at the first opportunity. In any case, Caleb would not receive any future bonuses with her, as she would not want to be in his company after this at all (though she might not be able to free herself, and she would be ‘fearful’ ... and therefore willing to let herself be led away).

‘Obsequious’ would, in this case, indicate that she wanted to please Caleb to keep him from hurting her, being too fearful to run away. She might try to speak with him to get her way (her turn is coming), but she would accept him in her life. A long-time obsequious person might ultimately become a toady, accepting their place in life – but that would be up to the discretion of the referee. Note that in a long-term relationship, with intimidation and influence, Caleb could conceivably build up both a +3 bonus in dealing with Danielle, in addition to her being both obsequious and loving towards him.

Hah! Show me the interactive mechanic that accounts for that!

Sorry, I’m starting to enjoy this.

Now, whatever the response, Caleb must temporarily discard the cards that he has used. He has achieved all the influence he can with them – if they did not work the first time, they won’t work in the future, and if they have worked, he has the result already. My standing rule is that he could use the same actions and modifiers with Danielle the next day, with regards to something else, but he must change something about himself, or with her circumstances (convincing her father, say, to speak to her, which would be a different Conflict), before he has any chance to roll again.

Now we can talk about the other kind of defence card. Let’s say that Caleb rolled a ‘6’; with his +4, this becomes a ‘10’, which would overcome Danielle’s resistance. Except for her defence card:

It so happened that as a young girl, Danielle nearly died of a disease, which was circumvented by the local physician arriving at the last hour, hurriedly throwing together the ingredients for a potion, and feeding it to Danielle as she started to slip away. There was perhaps a 1 in 20 chance at that point that she would survive ... but survive she did. And ever since she has always felt a certainty that she was spared for some great purpose. A greater purpose, in this case, than taking a walk with Caleb past his stupid land just to watch him chop wood.

Defence cards do NOT need to be played unless it is absolutely necessary ... that is, if it will actually apply in the listener’s favor. There would be no point in Danielle playing the card if Caleb had rolled a 4 on the dice, right? In this case, Danielle increases her resistance to 11 ... or to think about it in terms of the Response table, she forces Caleb’s roll down to a 9. She remains indifferent to him.

Caleb’s round is over. Danielle must also discard temporarily her ‘flirt with death’ card, as it has had as much influence over Caleb as it can. Danielle must now look over her cards and select an answer to Caleb.

Whatever those might be, let us put that all aside and assume that she has put together an action and modifiers for that action. We can imagine that she wishes to wheedle something out of him, or that she simply wants him to go away. But she has rolled her dice, and was unable to overcome Caleb’s resistance (which is, of course, also 10). She, too, got the indifferent result. Now we can return to Caleb’s situation.

He has used all his cards, now, except for his Jest card. He has no modifiers for it. It gives him a +1 modifier, which means at this point he will need a 9 rolled to overcome Danielle’s resistance. He tells her she’s cute when she’s all full of herself and everything (reference to her use of the defence card), and makes a silly face and does a quick funny dance. He rolls a 9, as it happens, which means that Danielle laughs. She shrugs, and says, “All right.” They’re not friends yet, but maybe the next day he can try again, offering to do a favor for her or some such (but not asking her for a walk). That’s how courting works, after all. He can always find a way to get another card, which would enable him to jest about different things, and that might win her heart.

END OF PART ONE

This is getting up past 3,500 words, and I am reaching my limitations for the day. I hope this begins to show the potential of the system. Tomorrow I will start by explaining how this system works among crowds of people, and following that I will start on a run-down of all the cards and how they are obtained.

Considering the various comments about money and sales that were put up on the previous post, I would hope the gentle reader could please keep such in mind over the next little while.  I have contacted those people who contributed money to the project thus far and have taken steps to return their money.  If you are someone who has not been reached, please contact me through email at alexiss1@telus.net or leave a comment.  If you have not made a contribution, but considered yourself willing to buy the game when it came out, I wouldn't mind a contribution / donation if you are willing.  I leave the matter in your hands.

Here I Am Right Now

Of late, I have been having a crisis of conscience.  Having my general view of the community, and watching the nonsense surrounding Raggi's latest venture, I am loathe myself to monetize my hobby, even if the concept of my Conflict! interactive system is worth real money.  I am experiencing a fairly common artistic emotion at present, that emotion that comes with being uncertain of the value of one's work, or even the interest in one's work.  Having conceived of the game system five months ago, I am now unconvinced that it is everything I believed it was when I first conceived of it.

In the first place, it did come together more or less as I imagined it would.  I structured the rules, I worked out the cards, I printed the cards and I began play-testing.  The play-tests went wonderfully and the few problems were resolved easily by simply eliminating things that were unnecessarily complicated.  I sat down to write out the rules and to put together the art for the production.

Unfortunately, I have come across something unforeseen.  The system was designed to resolve the mechanical problem of conflicts between players and non-player characters, so that the judgement call that usually fell on the DM's shoulders would be given defined limits.  Yes, the DM would still have to make a call on how an opponent responded to a particular argument or proposal by a player, but that call could not have the opponent react negatively when the system clearly dictated that the response would have to be a positive one.

Strangely, however, I am not certain this was ever a problem that I really needed to be solved.

I have been playing the last two months without the cards - a sort of alternative gametesting - and I am not feeling that my game is lacking, now that I have played both with and without.  Perhaps it is the players I play with ... they are not the sort who go out of their way to interact with others in my world, despite my attempts to instigate interactions.  They will typically ignore anyone who isn't dangerous, and they will typically listen to anyone - respectfully - who is willing to parlay and who clearly is dangerous.  It doesn't seem to occur to my party to attempt to bend anyone else's actions to the party's will by discourse, so if we don't play with the Conflict! system, we don't really miss the Conflict! system.

So I am out of sorts.  On the one hand, I don't feel I want to spend the next three years organizing games using this system, attending various conventions talking to people I'm not going to like, selling something I don't feel I need to use myself, in order to have myself identified 'til gawd knows when with this system.  And on the other hand, I'm not convinced any longer that the game really needs this system in the first place.  Perhaps the arguments between DMs and Players don't need a system to define limits - perhaps it's only that DMs have to stop "playing" and Players have to stop trying to get more than they deserve by "DMing."

I don't know.  My inclination at the moment is to talk to some people about this, hear some advice and quite probably just lay out the whole system here in the next couple of weeks.  This would get the monkey off my back and I could go back to trying to sell my books (hopeless project that that has been) like I ought to.  I am thinking I should make a quick edit of my latest novel and go the rounds again with publishers.  Right now, that feels like a better career path that selling cards to squawking children who are offended at nasty pictures.  Even if the latter is potentially worth a lot of money.

That's where I am at the moment.  I suppose if I decide to go forward, I'll have to delete this post and pretend I never wrote it.  But at least no one can accuse me of not being straightforward, open, vulnerable and self-explicit about my intentions, my commitment to this game and my life.

How Do I Make Them Do What I Want?

Today my elbow got seriously jogged by this post by James at A Dungeon Master's Tale.  I had been meaning to write on the subject proposed there, specifically the concern that a party could ask for something through an interactive mechanic which would be unreasonable to ask of an NPC.  The problem is similar to the ever-ongoing charm person debate, in which a spell designed to control the mind of an individual is consistently challenged in terms of "How much power do we dare give the caster?"

It is always presumed, of course, that you can't enchant an orc, wiggle your fingers and have the orc turn and march off a ledge.  This, it is generally agreed, is TOO MUCH POWER.

There are legends, of course, of powerful cult leaders ordering their followers to commit suicide on command without the need for any kind of spell whatsoever ... but although such legends have been in existence for thousands of years, we know them all to be completely false through the all-knowing brilliance of modern scholarship, which assures us that such legends were just made up to make non-European peoples look silly.  But then there's this story.

The question remains - for the game, mind, and not the real world - how much influence can you have over other peoples, how do you measure it, and where do you draw the limits for what a party is allowed to do?  It cannot simply be a question of right or wrong ... it must be a measure of degrees, whereby what you ask for must be measured against what is reasonable to get.

Concentrating on the game, it absolutely and must be possible to ask for someone to A) commit suicide or B) commit murder, or any other horrendous crime.  Obviously, from events surrounding the 20th century it is possible to take a perfectly normal person, give him or her a reasonable feeling of security and direct him or her to execute or see executed tens of thousands of people.  It is equally possible to encourage people of certain character to give away their own lives.

But it should be difficult!  The party cannot be wandering aimlessly through the city streets as the Wizards of Death, bending over and whispering a few words to passersby who immediately pull of their belts to be stuffed down their own throats in an orgy of self-destruction.  Therefore, I propose a scale that restricts how much can be expected ... but before I get onto that, a word about morale.

The 'scale' that would usually be invoked from D&D would be that of various sad - even pathetic - Loyalty Charts that have been created to go along with the game.  They are all very heavy on the "we've known you a long time" element, and are to some degree correct in putting a lot of emphasis on years of acquaintance.  But as any good salesman knows - the kind of salesman who can talk you into selling your house in an afternoon - time doesn't pass in monthly or yearly increments (the same must be said of confidence artists).  A week, or even a few days, can be enough to dupe even the brightest pennies in the box, if the circumstances have been set up just so.  What's more, being known by people and winning over their loyalty can prove to be rather appallingly easy.  Rules for that in D&D have always been based on followers and henchmen - they're not very practical for total strangers who are now going to bribe, persuade and lie their way right into the Sanctum Sanctorum.

The gentle reader can go on using these charts, them's the breaks - and after all, I haven't read any chart in existence, maybe there's a really brilliant one that you have.  But for the purpose of this post I'm going to scale the response of people according to four categories:  appreciation, friendship, admiration, and love.

Briefly:

Appreciation is what you feel when the person next to you just does what they have to do without making your life harder.  You'll back up and make room for them, but you don't really care what they do.  If you're a guard, you'll let them into the town, but only because there are other guards standing around the things in town where just anyone shouldn't enter.

Friendship is what you feel when you feel honest concern that the person next to you gets done what they need to do.  You'll lend a hand, just so long as it doesn't put your own needs on the line, like your job, your other relationships, your hard-earned money, etc.  If you're a guard, you'll help them get where they're going, so long as they don't want to go where they shouldn't.

Admiration is what you feel when you start to seriously question not doing what you're doing now in favor or doing something like what the person next to you is doing.  You'll ask questions, guage the consequences of changing your mind and starting a new life, and probably do so if you get the chance.  If you're a guard, you'll ask what they'd be willing to pay you.

Love is what you feel when you realize this person you've met is it, the real deal, the one person you've searched all your life to get next to.  You'll sacrifice, change yourself, brave dangers, whatever it takes.  If you're a guard, you'll walk them right through the town as far as you can, no matter what they wants to do.

Two points.

First off, every loyalty/reaction system I've seen seems to occur inside a vacuum where the character and the reactee are the only people in existence.  The tendency is to think that the party need only get the above-described love response, all from there on the rest is easy.  It is rarely taken into account that the guard described - or anyone else - has probably already fallen in love, or that they are already possessed of deep admiration for someone else.  Relationships are complication.  I may fall in love at first sight with that woman using the leaf blower to dry the ice off her car's doorhandle, but that doesn't mean I automatically forget that really marvelous woman I live with who has the black leather corset.  "Love," along with admiration, friendship and appreciation, can be very fleeting.  I am often in the situation where a girl gets on the bus wearing some rather attractive little ensemble that suggests her having a bit of sense, only to have her pull a self-help book out of her bag and destroy my appreciation.  A guard may fall in love with a member of the party upon letting them through the gate, and may follow along enfatuated as the party makes their way forward to assassinate the high mucky-muck, but chances are something or someone is going to pop up along the way to remind the guard that he loves said mucky-muck too, in that all-too-familiar "My God Isn't He Grand" sense.  And then the guard might vigorously encourage the party member to change their mind, and might fail, and might find himself standing helplessly in the street, unable to help or hinder the party's quest.  It really depends on how the DM wants to handle it.

And two, "Love" is not quite so blind as the above description.  Sacrificing or changing one's life is a circumstantial thing: "Okay, I understand, you want to kill Lord Roderick of Symposium, but does it have to be today?  The sun's out, there's a little fair being put on by the Baker's guild and maybe we could grab a blanket and take a walk out of town.  We could kill Rod of Symp tomorrow.  My brother's cousin who is the apprentice clerk to the town's water overseer says the junior deacon who regularly purifies the city's water supply predicted it would rain tomorrow.  Surely that would be better, no?"  There is usually plenty of room to make excuses, cajole, argue, discuss and otherwise drag feet where it comes to obeying the wishes even of the people we love.

But of course, if circumstances right now say that the guard's lady love is an inch from death right now, then the sacrifice comes off forthwith.  But how often is his lady love an inch from death?  I mean, actually?

Reconciling a conflict should be seen as billiard balls hitting and bouncing off ... sometimes scoring a point or two, knocking this ball to the other side of the table or rebounding back to the place where the cue ball started.  Eventually the perfect shot is lined up and the balls all fall in line just so; but the game is never won in one shot.

If the players want something easy and uncomplicated, the yes or no of getting it can be sorted out in one dialogue, yes.  But just because Urk the Ogre says "Fine, walk through my land" today doesn't mean he won't rethink that when he tells his wife Flawgurl a few hours later.  Nothing, where it comes to human interaction, is certain.  Just ask any salesman.  Close the deal, get the hell out of sight and don't let them find you.