Towerlands Design Notes

From AdamWiki

Design notes for the Towerlands RPG. See also Towerlands' Power 19 for more design thoughts.

These Towerlands Rules are the real rules. Anything else below or whatever are ideas that were considered and abandoned, or notes that were incorporated into the rules.

Contents 1 Design Principles 2 To-Do List 3 Random Thoughts 4 Longer thoughts

Design Principles

• Give players tools, via the character sheet and game procedures, that let them do cool fantasy things. [Not directly addressed.]
• Focus play on balancing the needs and wants of forces external to the player character. [Incorporated as a core mechanic.]
• Characters start out awesome. [Not directly addressed, but certainly possible. Need to add to core rules.]

To-Do List

The rules are in an almost-playable form but I'd like to add some content yet:

• Create a character sheet with sections for five domains and their burdens, plus sections for recording different types of boons (Loyalties, Friends and Foes, Kingdom, Spiritbonds, Oaths, Paths and Traditions, Fetishes).
• Figure out how to use a pool of pre-rolled results as Fates.
• Write soliloquy rules using a three-minute sand timer.
• Write a fan-mail mechanism.
• Make sure characters start awesome.
• Write notes about using magic and taking burdens.
• Consider using pools of d20s instead of d10s.
• Integrate the Towerlands as the core default setting. [1]
• Create strong rules for the GM so he knows how many dice his encounters get. Base this on the card elements somehow.
• Tie the risk mechanics directly to the reward mechanics.
• How do characters all end up together? Talk about crosses, bobs, weaves, etc.
• Make character generation rules that create characters with a certain number of boons and burdens.
• Put strengths on boons. You can use the boon at its default value or reroll it (and the result becomes the boon's new value).
• Write up rules for specific kinds of boons and their use.
• Talk about different kinds of authority.
• Consider voluntary burdens to reroll (or perhaps discard?) opponent dice.
• The game needs clearer "at stake" rules to make conflicts relevant to what the player wants and a way to "give" to avoid a burden.
• Write rules for death, generically as increasing the stakes for more dice.
• Mention that when an element grants a boon to a character, the element takes on the character as a burden. Systematize this.
• Create an advancement system that gives players points to spend unchecking used boons, buying new boons, and removing burdens.

Random Thoughts

• Players can create fictional content for their character, but the GM gets to place a cost on it. (And vice versa?) [Made unnecessary. Players can create fictional content for the entire setting, and linking to it is part of play and the reward system.]
• Players can draw from their bonds in different ways depending on the circumstance. When acting with plenipotentiary power in the interests of the faction, the character draws directly on the strengths of the faction. When using the faction's sway for personal gain, this has a reduced power and further binds the character to the faction (it's more painful for them to leave). [Incorporated as a core mechanic, boons.]
• Sometimes, factions can compel a character to do something (they get some kind of resistance roll). The player gets no say in this case. Most times, the player chooses: do what the faction wants or suffer some (pre-stated) consequence. [Revised. The GM will have the factions ask characters for things. If the characters refuse, they can lose their boons.]
• The GM has much power to bribe a player into hooking up with powerful factions that can make their character's life miserable (and make the player's life fun). The GM can't force bonds in most cases. [Built into boons.]
• Characters face tests, which force them to make character-defining choices. Once they make such a decision, it becomes a trait and essentially forces the player down a path. For example, a character is starving in the wilderness. Along comes a mouse. Does she smash it with a rock to survive or continue starving? Make this a test. Let's say she smashes the mouse with a rock and eats it. She gains the trait, 'Kills cute animals for food in desperate situations.' [Abandoned. A flavor of this exists in damage taken as burdens.]

Longer thoughts

From my blog on November 26, 2006 [2]:

Okay, a bit ago I was talking about the character sheet and how bland it is and how I need to redesign the game so that the sheet is cool and evocative. I'm including the character sheet in what I think of as the "player interface." Really, all the rules are player interface, but I mean something a little more specific than "system":

• the character sheet
• dice and how they work
• representing various fast-moving currencies with beads or other tokens
• or representing them with dice
• cards or other sheets to represent "shareable" resources like NPCs
• maps and other "props" that draw a player into the setting or situation
• other props that serve as signaling devices (e.g., a big red d20 that is passed to the player who in the spotlight)

I'm not saying games need these things. I'm saying I want Towerlands to have a lot of these things. I want the game to have a very hands-on, tactile feel. At the same time, I want to be able to record the game's "state" on paper quickly so it can be stored "between sessions" or whatever. [Setting is recorded on note cards, one setting element per card.]

Here are some ideas (I'm brainstorming here on the spot):

• The character sheet contains hooks to suggest to the player to utilize the cool parts of the game system. Loyalties, Friends and Foes, Kingdom, Spiritbonds, Traditions, Fetishes (in the old sense, not the sexual sense) [incorporated as boons and connections]. Wells (extra dice) [incorporated, after a fashion, as the control dice pool]. Burdens (damage in the form of traits) [incorporated directly].
• Players accumulate Fates, a pool of dice that sit in front of them. They can use these bonus dice whenever they like, in the order rolled. That is, the dice are already rolled and the values are available, like 6 20 15 9 12 (you have to use the 6 before you can get to the 20). [Still like this; should figure out how to use it. The face-value rules are used in the burden system, sorta.]
• There's a sheet that is cut into 4 identical cards, each useful for recording the basics about an NPC, kingdom, faction, magic item, and so on. These are shared on the table. Any player can fill one out and make up something cool in the setting on a whim but it's up to the other players / GM to use it. [Essentially, this is what the setting cards are. I will include a set of sheets a group can photocopy.]
• There's some kind of device on the table, perhaps a candle, that signals a Soliloquoy, during which you can't be interrupted for a short time while you-as-character say something. This isn't a chance to narrate as a player. This is a chance to talk as your character without being interrupted by other people who want to say stuff. [Will suggest a rule for this, using a 3-minute sand timer.]
• You get to roll piles of d20's but you're really only concerned with the highest rolls. [It's piles of d10s right now. I still like d20's but people don't have piles of them.]
• There are cards you fill out with your flags on them. These contain lists of your traits that you want to use in the game, and this tells the GM to put certain opportunities into the game. When you actually use those flagged traits for dice, the GM earns bonus dice to use in the next conflict. (More or less borrowed from Verge 1.0. I had to scrap the flagging idea and I missed it.) [Abandoned again.]
• Perhaps some kind of relationship map shared on the table. Maybe this replaces the faction cards. Write the faction and its basic stats somewhere on the big-ass piece of paper on the table. Write your character name on the paper. Connect them with a line. This tells everyone who is loyal to whom. [Sounds like Verge! Abandoned for Towerlands, though.]
• Players reward each other with glass beads (Jewels) when they do something cool. These can be cashed in for bonus dice. [Some kind of fan-mail mechanism would be cool, but it needs to be economically "closed."]
• Magic represented as some kind of physical thing. I was thinking beads again, but really, I want to use water. Imagine having to pay a tablespoon of water for each extra die you wanted. Too gimmicky, perhaps, and certainly a pain at the table, but so evocative. Probably should just go right to having a special pool of d20's representing your magic, so it translates directly into play (pick up a magic d20 and roll it into your pool). Should probably make the same optimization for Jewels, at the cost of the coolness of the gems (grumble). [Abandoned. Limited magic doesn't make for an awesome character. Need rules for magic and Spiritual burdens though!]