Rock Bottom

[Ancient History]

Random idea for a fantasy RPG. Requesting feedback.

You're broke. Homeless. Addicted. Hurt. Sick. Through crime and betrayal, your family and friends have disowned you or been driven away. Your karma well and truly sucks. You owe money to the orc mob. You've sold everything you own or could steal for one more hit. Even Hell has a lien on your soul.

It's a magical world and you've hit rock bottom.

But once you're there...at the very end of your tether, contemplating suicide as the only escape from your life...you step back from the edge. You look around you with fresh eyes, and laugh. Life sucks. You're still in debt to your eyeballs, the craving is gonna come back again. But you're there, rock bottom. There's nowhere else for you to go but up.

Like-minded souls drift together, and form a contract, the simplest and most powerful act of blood magic. It's all you have left, and it's your last shot, but it is a shot. You're part of a group of down-and-outers determined to get your shit back together, pooling your luck, making the opportunities happen. It's dangerous and it's not guaranteed to work. The magic might burn you all out, leave you to die and fall into whatever hell will claim you. But if you work together, stick things out...well, life can't get any worse.

Setting is dungeonpunk, system I'm playing with but working on a sort of collaborative pool system for the basic blood magic angle - the idea being that everybody in the group has X number of points to contribute to the pool, and everyone can draw on those points. When the points run out, people can volunteer hit points, the blood in their bodies literally burning out to power the magic.

[Username17]

Seems to me that there are a couple of ways it could go, and you'd want to codify going those places.

• You Become an Antipaladin Lots of people actually think they want to do this anyway, and a substantially smaller (but still significant) number of people actually do. When you tell people their character has hit rock bottom, a fair amount of people think of moral bottom as well. Once there's nothing to lose, a significant number of people say "Fuck it, let's eat babies!" Indeed, if you talk to fundamentalist Christians, they tend to think that everyone thinks this way.
• You Clear Your Name Certainly one can respond to the "everyone hates you" plotline by saving the day and paying off the mob and getting your life back together. Many players would look at this as a challenge to dig themselves out of their hole.
• You Save The World: Everyone Still Hates You Many people are drawn to The Dark Knight, because it is fucking awesome. The whole "He's not the hero we want, but he's the hero we need" thing is totally fucking sweet. And some people would obviously want to do that.
• You Conquer The World You know who doesn't have to pay back the Orc Mob? The guy who just stabbed the chief in the face and took over, that's who! Becoming a Dark Lord is totally not the same as becoming a Blackguard, and it appeals to a very different person.

-Username17

[TheFlatline]

Interesting. Yeah you could take it in a few different directions. I'd almost want to run a game sort of like Fiasco at that point. Not necessarily the system, but a story akin to A Simple Plan.

The party gets some power, decides to use it in a novel approach to give them one big break to "make it", and the rest of the story is how horrible things can fuck up.

[Midnight_v]

Seems to me that there are a couple of ways it could go, and you'd want to codify going those places.

• You Become an Antipaladin Lots of people actually think they want to do this anyway, and a substantially smaller (but still significant) number of people actually do. When you tell people their character has hit rock bottom, a fair amount of people think of moral bottom as well. Once there's nothing to lose, a significant number of people say "Fuck it, let's eat babies!" Indeed, if you talk to fundamentalist Christians, they tend to think that everyone thinks this way.
• You Clear Your Name Certainly one can respond to the "everyone hates you" plotline by saving the day and paying off the mob and getting your life back together. Many players would look at this as a challenge to dig themselves out of their hole.
• You Save The World: Everyone Still Hates You Many people are drawn to The Dark Knight, because it is fucking awesome. The whole "He's not the hero we want, but he's the hero we need" thing is totally fucking sweet. And some people would obviously want to do that.
• You Conquer The World You know who doesn't have to pay back the Orc Mob? The guy who just stabbed the chief in the face and took over, that's who! Becoming a Dark Lord is totally not the same as becoming a Blackguard, and it appeals to a very different person.

-Username17

Damn Frank... you're gonna have to run out of brilliance eventually, I theorize your monopoly is dwindling the resource pool.

[Zinegata]

Random idea for a fantasy RPG. Requesting feedback.

You're broke. Homeless. Addicted. Hurt. Sick. Through crime and betrayal, your family and friends have disowned you or been driven away. Your karma well and truly sucks. You owe money to the orc mob. You've sold everything you own or could steal for one more hit. Even Hell has a lien on your soul.

It's a magical world and you've hit rock bottom.

But once you're there...at the very end of your tether, contemplating suicide as the only escape from your life...you step back from the edge. You look around you with fresh eyes, and laugh. Life sucks. You're still in debt to your eyeballs, the craving is gonna come back again. But you're there, rock bottom. There's nowhere else for you to go but up.

Mechanics-wise it sounds fine. But the above is a bit of a problem.

"Rock bottom" honestly sounds more like a campaign or even character schtick as opposed to something you can build an entire RPG around. It may be too specific to gain much appeal.

[Parthenon]

I'm with Zinegata on this one. I like the idea of the whole party sharing a pool of points, but the rock bottom part is a specific situation that the PCs are in, not a game.

To be honest, it sounds more like a cooperative board game. Otherwise, every time you play it sounds a similar hassle coming up with a set of problems causing you to be at rock bottom. In a board game everyone accepts that you start off there and can have some random antagonists you owe money to/random crimes you committed or are accused of. Its just silly as an RPG.

Its like having a fantasy game where you always start off as villagers whose village got burnt down and you are tracking down and beating up the guys who did it.

[Ancient History]

Part of my intention is to have an analog of starting off at first level. Except instead of starting off there because you're a newb, you're starting at the bottom because you're clawing your way back up. The difference is, natch, that you don't have skill and power caps. You could totally be an ex-professional soldier paraplegic or a badass necromancer too hooked to sniffing powdered pixie wings to do more than reanimate a dead cockroach. For those type of characters, part of the game is reclaiming their power, influence, and reputation.

I agree that it is a concept-based game rather than a setting-based game, because that provides (in my opinion) a reason for the players to come together and a purpose to their existence, motivation toward an ultimate goal built into the game from square one.

Many games have a limited premise for the characters, if they have one at all. In Shadowrun, the player characters are shadowrunners, they go shadowrunning. In D&D, the player characters are adventurers, they go adventuring. In CoC, the player characters are investigators, they investigate. Vampire et al. ... the PCs are vampires, they sit around and wank about their characters. I was hoping the idea of a common situation and goal would provide focus that other games lacked.

[Maj]

For those type of characters, part of the game is reclaiming their power, influence, and reputation.

It almost sounds like these would be the stats/attributes for the game, then. That might be rather interesting.

I was hoping the idea of a common situation and goal would provide focus that other games lacked.

I think they do. It's essentially giving the characters a motivation to be together. There are a thousand and one reasons why someone's hit rock bottom.

Creatively speaking, I see no difference between a specific circumstance, and a specific setting.

[K]

While you could do this as a setting or just a campaign, I can think of some ways to make it a unique game:

1. Basic statting out of what you used to have, and have the system unlock them as you get them back. Everything from castles to contacts to powers. You use this as pre-made rewards and adventure hooks so players know exactly what they are fighting for.

2. Specialized mechanics for what took you down. So Pixie Wing Addiction will have it's own weaknesses and be different from Tied To A Cross or Cursed By The Gods.

3. Some asymetric and limited power outside their current range but within their old range. So a former badass necromancer may still be able to use a high-level powers like Balefire every few days as opposed to a high-level Necromancer who can do it at will to kill off lowbies.

4. A notoriety system for locations. So when the failed Paladin enters a new town peasants throw rotten fruit at him, but after he saves the town they stop tossing fruit (but are still unwilling to let him hang out too long since he's well-known for his powerful enemies).

5. A redemption/corruption system. So out failed paladin might start getting Blackguard powers instead of his old Paladin powers, even though he is still trying to get his castle and lady love back.

[Username17]

5. A redemption/corruption system. So out failed paladin might start getting Blackguard powers instead of his old Paladin powers, even though he is still trying to get his castle and lady love back.

Oh hell yes. More than that though, the idea is that when you "buy back" an ability with dark side points you get the dark side version of it. When you buy it back with light side points, you get the light side version of it. But here's the thing: it doesn't matter whether your character supposedly had the light side or dark side version of the power "before". Failed darklords are just as playable as failed heroes, even in the same party. It would be entirely appropriate to have a team be composed of defeated villains and the fallen heroes who destroyed themselves to defeat them in the first place. The team wizard is bereft of magic because he tied his power into the Dread Orb of Sham'razh, and the team paladin is a broken man because he was soul flayed by chopping the Dread Orb in half.

Fundamentally it doesn't really matter if no one will talk to you because you used up all your credibility with team evil putting together a demon army that made a failed bid for world conquest and team good hates you because of the whole demon army thing; or because you've used up all your credibility with team good by busting a dam over a populated village to stop the demon army and team evil hates you because you destroyed their perfectly good demon army. Your abilities can get the redeemed or corrupted buy-in regardless of whether you have the backstory that they used to be the good or evil version.

-Username17

[K]

You know, I wasn't so hot on this idea but it's growing on me.

[Ancient History]

I like the idea of dark side XP and light side XP, but I'm still on the fence about how to apply them, both mechanically and within the context of the game's setting. I don't want a straight rip of the D&D alignment system with "evil & chaos" in one corner and "law & order" in another. I'm thinking of something where the majority of supernatural powers derive from following entities and/or paths of philosophical enlightenment and practice, and that each path/entity has a dualistic nature with associated set or scale of values.

So, something like the bastard child of WoD's old Path/Road lists of sins and Paladin leveling. Everyone that is dedicated as a Paladin dedicated Ahura Mazda is also and at the same time open to the influence and powers of Ahriman, and a given paladin can possess powers from both ethos based on their actions - although the coolest powers require sole dedication to one extreme or the other. It's like a Grey Jedi that can use light and darkside abilities. Entities associated with an opposing side can tempt paladins with greater than normal points for doing an act in favor of their extreme.

Also debating if the Blood Magic Pool works a bit like Spawn's original counter - i.e. the blood magic provides an immediate, relatively large amount of points, but once they're exhausted they're gone forever (and all the people involved in the pool can never reincarnate again, their souls extinguished, game over, thanks for playing).

[A Man In Black]

Also debating if the Blood Magic Pool works a bit like Spawn's original counter - i.e. the blood magic provides an immediate, relatively large amount of points, but once they're exhausted they're gone forever (and all the people involved in the pool can never reincarnate again, their souls extinguished, game over, thanks for playing).

This risks running into the exact same problem that Spawn ran into, you know.

[Vebyast]

I like this. As such, I'm going to throw out a completely random suggestion.

It sounds like a modified Flags alignment system might work for this system.

Basically, you have some Flags, which represent arbitrary ideas and which describe your alignment. These flags like some things and dislike other things, and each has a good/evil ratio. Whenever you do something that's worth XP, you dedicate it to one of your flags (or, if absolutely necessary, to some completely different flag at a penalty). You get some modified amount of XP based on how much that flag likes the act you dedicated to it, and then the XP gets split into good XP and evil XP based on that flag's good/evil ratio.

For example, let's build James Bond. James's flags are "The United Kingdom", "Snappy One-Liners", and "Being Sneaky". The UK is .7 good/.3 evil, and likes royalty, proper etiquette, and imperialism. Snappy One-Liners is .5g/.5e and likes anything you follow with a snappy one-liner. Being Sneaky is .3g/.7e, and likes it when you do things sneakily, and the more sneaky the better. James acts in a way that lets him dedicate most of his combat XP to "Being Sneaky", most of his diplomacy XP to "The UK", and everything else to "Snappy One-Liners", so he ends up with roughly even mix of good and evil abilities ("nonlethal neck chop" is the good equivalent of "silenced handgun to the back of the head", "massive explosions everywhere" is the evil equivalent of "carefully sabotage something so you don't kill any of the innocent bystanders").

[Ancient History]

This risks running into the exact same problem that Spawn ran into, you know.

I sort of like the idea of an RPG with a built-in limitation beyond TPK, a natural clock or ending-point that can be arrived at based on the actions of the characters. I also like the idea that player characters will start out with some credible advantage and sort of police themselves if any member starts to abuse it - since it's everyone's ass in the sling if they spend all their mojo early on in the game.

If you look at early Spawn - with the counter - it's interesting because while Spawn has some tremendous powers, he learns early on that if he wants to make the most of things he has to learn to use his other abilities and put up with minor inconveniences. So he shepherds his strength, learns to use his costume, gets a big cache of guns, and when somebody blows a hole in his chest he doesn't heal it because - hey, fuckit, he's dead anyway. When Spawn did finally blow his last ticks, so to speak, it's because MC dangled the right plot bait in front of him and he figured it was worth it. That kind of resourcefulness and attitude would, I think, work well for players in this kind of game.

[Vnonymous]

Why split up XP at all?

You buy the ability and decide whether or not it is the good or bad one when you buy it.

Don't have to worry about codifying evil or black hats that way.

[Ancient History]

Good and evil would be subjective, the idea is that a character's actions directly reflect some of the abilities they can develop - instead of every Paladin having set powers that they develop as they massacre their way from kobolds to demons.

It allows systems where, say, instead of a wizard needing to kill X number of creatures to improve his or her abilities, they might need to perform a rite that further binds them to the mystic forces and requires rare component Y or more common but decidedly opposed component Z. The focus of the adventure then shifts from "kill everything and loot their corpses" to "accomplish the mission and loot anything it is reasonable to loot as a nice bonus." The abilities develop depend on which choice the character ultimately made, and how they carried out the adventure.

[Molochio]

This sounds... Depressing.

[DoNotFeedTheHipsters]

It sounds very much like an awesome Fantasy RPG version of Breaking Bad.

A show whose moral is that, when you're over the hill, without dignity, self-respect, money, relevance, or power, are in general a loser, and also have terminal lung cancer, well, things can always get worse. And when you have a MacGuyver-like command of the sciences and a whole lot of angry, those worse things can make great TV.

It seems uncannily appropriate to this game since Walter (the protagonist) eventually does acquire the power and wealth he sought when he takes the wolf by the ears, but his insane roll-the-dice-and-hope-for-sixes gambit, even when it pays off, just leads to more problems as the consequences of his actions spiral out of control and keep driving the plot. And unlike most RPGs, it wouldn't be particularly hard to get players to follow the philosophy of the game since, well, most of his short-sighted, crazily dangerous, and amoral actions would absolutely not be out-of-character for most of the characters that already populate RPGs.

So kind of like Fiasco, but the characters aren't let off the hook for their actions by dying so quickly.

[Zinegata]

1. Basic statting out of what you used to have, and have the system unlock them as you get them back. Everything from castles to contacts to powers. You use this as pre-made rewards and adventure hooks so players know exactly what they are fighting for.

&

5. A redemption/corruption system. So out failed paladin might start getting Blackguard powers instead of his old Paladin powers, even though he is still trying to get his castle and lady love back.

Yeah, these are actually very interesting and could be broad enough to make the setting have enough appeal to be workable.

Essentially, instead of starting at level 1 and working your way up, you start with a level 20 character with most of his abilities locked. Which you gain back by adventuring.

The problem I foresee is that this will require relatively experienced players who are adept at visualizing what their high-level dude used to be.

[cthulhu]

I love the idea of unlocking lightside / darkside powers, and Veyasts proposed system isn't a bad idea.

The problem I foresee is that this will require relatively experienced players who are adept at visualizing what their high-level dude used to be.

Just have some classes with a bunch of options at each level.

[Username17]

A big part of the game would be extemporizing your previous great deeds. It might even have the exact mechanism from Münchhausen, where other characters are expected in character to say "that's not how I remember it, I think it happened something like this..."

So the MC would introduce some new character who wanted to kill some or all of the PCs, and then the players would have a conversation. And it would be "Who is this guy in the red armor and why does he want to kill us?" And whichever story of daring-do and betrayal was judged the best, would become the backstory that explained who that character was and why they wanted them dead.

Over the course of the game you would introduce two main potential significant others for each character: their original betrothed (who abandoned them because they were a loser), and some member of the faction they used to oppose (like the princess they had captured or the son of the Hobgoblin Khan). And depending on how things worked out, they could end up with either one or neither.

-Username17

[K]

I don't think you have to competing stories for any new antagonist. I mean, since the premise of the game is that there are high-level people around then there is no reason why one or more of the PCs wouldn't have pissed off the same guy. The Red Knight may hate the ex-prince of thieves because of some stuff he stole and may hate the necromancer because of some battle and may hate the former paladin over a girl.

I also think that you need more than two contacts. You need a whole cast of people who still talk to you and remind you of what you used to be. Maybe they are still willing to do some limited stuff for you, like the drow priestess who didn't want to be romantically involved with a pixie-wing junkie, but is willing to cast the occasional divination for you.

Now, that cast doesn't need to be on stage all at the same time, but the background of things you lost needs to be on your character sheet.

[Prak]

5. A redemption/corruption system. So out failed paladin might start getting Blackguard powers instead of his old Paladin powers, even though he is still trying to get his castle and lady love back.

Oh hell yes. More than that though, the idea is that when you "buy back" an ability with dark side points you get the dark side version of it. When you buy it back with light side points, you get the light side version of it. But here's the thing: it doesn't matter whether your character supposedly had the light side or dark side version of the power "before". Failed darklords are just as playable as failed heroes, even in the same party. It would be entirely appropriate to have a team be composed of defeated villains and the fallen heroes who destroyed themselves to defeat them in the first place. The team wizard is bereft of magic because he tied his power into the Dread Orb of Sham'razh, and the team paladin is a broken man because he was soul flayed by chopping the Dread Orb in half.

Fundamentally it doesn't really matter if no one will talk to you because you used up all your credibility with team evil putting together a demon army that made a failed bid for world conquest and team good hates you because of the whole demon army thing; or because you've used up all your credibility with team good by busting a dam over a populated village to stop the demon army and team evil hates you because you destroyed their perfectly good demon army. Your abilities can get the redeemed or corrupted buy-in regardless of whether you have the backstory that they used to be the good or evil version.

-Username17

So basically a more playable version of Demon the Fallen?

I'm on board for this....

[Zinegata]

I love the idea of unlocking lightside / darkside powers, and Veyasts proposed system isn't a bad idea.

The problem I foresee is that this will require relatively experienced players who are adept at visualizing what their high-level dude used to be.

Just have some classes with a bunch of options at each level.

Examples would help. I just suspect that this sort of game will be harder to grok for most newbies. Experienced RPGers should have little problem.

It's a minor quibble, but I'm just pointing it out for completeness.