Design Flowsheet: Black Forest

[Username17]

Something like that might work. You definitely want situations where Peter Rabbit can escape simply because he can run into a thicket or get through a hole in the fence and the farmer or dogs chasing him cannot.

edit to add: You want a system that provides gradiation between what a talking fox can slip through, what a human child can slip through, and what an adult can slip through, but the results need to be binary. Either you can fit, or you cannot.

The possibility of getting snagged on a root or jagged rock should somehow be separate from whether or not you can pass through the space in question. Maybe in a "if this happens can you free yourself in time" manner?

The things that I think need to happen are:

• The Ogre can get through the house, but only by slowly squeezing through, not by running.
• The grown man can walk through the forest where the kids can run.
• The table requires the man or the ogre to crawl under, but the talking fox or the child can run under it.
• The chair requires the child to crawl under it, but the talking fox can run.

This makes me think that there are two concerns:

• There are absolute size limits, like from low ceilings. And if you are bigger than the size limits, you crawl slowly or just give up.
• There are relative size limits, like forests, crowds, or pillars. And for those there is a sliding scale of how quickly you can move through depending upon how big you are.

So imagine that your choice of movement mode gave you a number called something like Inertia or Momentum. This number, like size, would be ambiguous. It would make it harder for people to push you, but it would also make it easier for people to nail you by setting for a charge and make it harder to move through crowded areas.

So in this model, an Ogre has to move slowly and carefully through a house because it has a Cramp that is numerically close to his Size, so only low Inertia movements will get him through. An Ogre can't crawl under the table at all because the absolute size limit of that area is less than his size. The man has to walk in the forest because the Cramp is numerically close to his size.

What I'm not sure of is whether we need different values for Cramp and Limit. If we do, we can have things like tables where the Crap is very much larger than the Limit, so people who don't have to crawl can pretty much run around freely. On the other hand, it's an extra number to keep track of.

Meanwhile, the Wolf continues forward to end up pushing Taran over even though Taran stabs it into incapacitation on the way in because the same Inertia number than makes Taran's set for charge attack so effective also makes Taran's push to keep the wolf from crashing into him less effective.

-Username17

[MartinHarper]

If a child is running and a horseman is walking, and they're going at the same speed, do they have the same Inertia? So they would be about as easy to push, about as vulnerable to setting for a charge, and about as manoeuvrable. If so, that might simplify this bit of the system.

When they sneak into the clearing, Jan is suspicious of the strange items hanging from branches, so he jumps into Seer and takes Spot Magic - a fact that reveals that the gold and jewels are inert but that the battered tinderbox is a powerful artifact.

If possible, I'd like a Foreshadowing mechanic. If you want to advance into Seer as your next class, you are encouraged to have strange dreams or be touched by fairies first, before you pick up Spot Magical Bling.

[CatharzGodfoot]

If possible, I'd like a Foreshadowing mechanic. If you want to advance into Seer as your next class, you are encouraged to have strange dreams or be touched by fairies first, before you pick up Spot Magical Bling.

Although that's a good idea, the leveling system actually does it decently well already. First you pick up a level of Seer, then you start acting like a seer (having visions, etc), and then finally you gain one of the Seer abilities when you so choose. Which makes sense. After all, if you're having visions you're already a Seer by definition.

The problem with foreshadowing before you've actually gained something is that you might end up not gaining it after all.

[Grek]

What I'm not sure of is whether we need different values for Cramp and Limit. If we do, we can have things like tables where the Crap is very much larger than the Limit, so people who don't have to crawl can pretty much run around freely. On the other hand, it's an extra number to keep track of.

- Use one number per object which represents the amount of Space there is.
- A player's Size attribute represents their relative size while standing.
- Each move has a Maneuver value. If the player's Size+Maneuver is greater than the Space available, that move cannot be done in that location.
- Walking has a Maneuver of 0 and moves you at a normal rate.
- Running and riding horses have a Maneuver which is >0 and move you quickly.
- Crawling has a Maneuver which is a negative number, but is slow. You can crawl in locations where you cannot stand or walk.
- It is totally valid for a place to have a Space of -6 or whatever if it's really tiny like an mousehole or something. It would be a pretty neat adventure if a Magic Ring was stolen by a mouse and the PCs shrunk themselves to chase after it armed with sewing needles and thimble helmets.

[Gelare]

You guys need to come up with a different name for maneuver or switch the sign from positive to negative. When I hear maneuver, I think maneuverability, and something with a high maneuverability is more, not less, maneuverable than something with low maneuverability. Maneuver.

[Manxome]

Example:
the attacker hits with 2 successes. The defender has 3 defenses: jump back for 1 AP, Climb up something for 2 AP, or through the legs for 3 AP. Jump back is not powerful enough to defend successfully so the player will have use to either climb up something or use through the legs.

Assuming that 1 AP defenses negate 1 success attacks, 2 AP for 2 success and 3 for 3, your best bet mechanically would be to use exactly as many as you need to negate the hit, no more, no less. That would be sort of boring. I would suggest some sort of bonus for using more AP than strictly neccasary. ie., using through the legs against a 2 AP attack gets you 1 point worth of escaping the ghoul that wants to eat you.

Or you declare defenses before attack rolls are resolved, so going for 3AP through the legs makes you more likely to not get hit than the 2AP Climb up something.

The names suggest to me that the defenses might negate the attack and do something else. So maybe using through the legs is overkill in the sense that you're spending more AP than strictly necessary, but choosing it causes you to end up behind your attacker, so it may still be worth it, depending on the situation. Jump back causes you to become farther away, duck behind something lets you redirect the attack to a sufficiently-large object in range (like a table or pillar), etc.

If you wanted to make this a major focus of the system, you could have a sizable list of defenses with different costs, effectiveness, side effects, and restrictions on use (for example, through the legs might only work against sufficiently large opponents), and I think there could be some very interesting tactical trade-offs involved. Of course, you want to budget your complexity...

You guys need to come up with a different name for maneuver or switch the sign from positive to negative.

Frank already did, Grek just didn't pick it up.

So imagine that your choice of movement mode gave you a number called something like Inertia or Momentum.

[Username17]

So it's probably time to talk about metaphysics, because frankly having the GM just make shit up by pulling stuff out of his recollections of childhood fairy stories would be a confusing acid trip.

True Names

True names aren't something that you can haphazardly add in at the last minute or by surprise. It's either part of the world or it's not. And with Rumpelstiltskin and the three golden children in the house, it seems likely that the answer is that people want to have true true names running around in this setting.

For true names to function properly, they can't just be a weakness. Because if they are, then there's nothing in it for players to even remember that they have one, let alone allow an opponent to learn it. So true names should be advantageous as well. Some of it should be minorly helpful like "you can find someone and get a vague status report by using their true name" and some of it should be more elaborate - magical healing and such triggers on naming conventions.

But beyond that, being unnamed can be a disadvantage. Babies for example, don't have names yet. And that's why changelings happen, because if someone hasn't been given a true name yet there is stuff you can do to change their nature. This makes the childhood naming ritual a big deal.

-Username17

[MartinHarper]

A classic element of fairy stories is that mundane children get pulled into a magical world. When Sally and Jim, the mundane accountant's children, first experience the magic, their true names can't just be Sally and Jim. So, options might be:
1) They don't have true names yet. They are given them later on in the adventure by friendly fairy folks.
2) Their true names are their full names, including middle names.
3) Only fairy folks have true names. Mundane people just have mundane names.

[Jacob_Orlove]

I thought babies didn't get names because the infant mortality rate was so high.

Anyway, while some people would want to keep their true names secret, others would not. I think a good mechanic for this would be giving people "mundane" bonuses for swearing oaths by their True Name, and "magical" bonuses for keeping their true name secret. Knights would be throwing their True Names around all over the place when they charge off to fight dragons, while Little Red Riding Hood vs Wicked Witch might turn on either one finding out the other's real name.

Now, for kids without a combat shtick, the mundane/magic split might be more of a diplomacy/sneaky divide, I dunno.

[eeuuugh]

If we go the Narnia route of having separate mundane and magical worlds, then those from the Narnia side should have true names, and those from Edwardian England shouldn't. But IMO that takes the setting too far from the Brothers Grimm, which I vastly prefer. I'd rather map the named/unnamed dichotomy to goblins and humans, respectively... though the difference between a goblin childhood and a human childhood is undefined, presumably you can be a human ragpicker or a goblin merchant's child.

---

Here's what I'm thinking about as inspirations.
The Brothers Grimm
Mother Goose
The Narnia part of Narnia
The Dark is Rising series, the structure and dynamics of the first few books and then the goings-on after Will is fully under the mountain in the last few.
His Dark Materials, but about a hundred years before the story takes place. I don't think the steampunky stuff fits Black Forest... maybe the first expansion.

Here's a list of classes already mentioned, plus some others I came up with. I left out Lago's... Boy and his X, Sidekick, and Stand User seem like excuses to shoehorn combat ability into a kids' party, Dojo Urchin and Burgeoning Chemist don't fit the setting, and Little Professor is more or less schoolchild/curious kid here. Sorry dude.

Apprentices...
...Blacksmith (metal)
...Carpenter (wood)
...Mason (stone)
...Merchant (money [math])
...Tinker (devices)
Beggar
Cabin Boy
Chimney Sweep
Curious Child
Feral Child
Grifter
Milkmaid
Ostler
Pigkeeper
Ragpicker
Ratcatcher
Schoolchild
Scullery Maid
Shepherd
Singer
Sneakthief
Spoiled Brat
Strange Kid
Trapper
Traveler
Villein's Child/Thug's child
Woodcutter/Charcoal Burner

Possible issues:

1. So far only one of these (strange kid as described by Frank) interacts with magic. I thought about apprentice alchemist, sorcerer, or witch, but I can't imagine trying to balance these against ragpickers and scullery maids.

2. Most of these are profession classes.

Now a very real solution to that might be to have a lot of child classes that are seemingly independent of what you are nominally being trained to do when you grow up. If a lot of the classes are things like Singer, Talkative Kid, Bully, and Dreamer, then people can just usually conform to the stereotype of taking one "job" class and a couple of "descriptor" classes.

This list doesn't do this.

Possible solutions:

1. In a Grimm Brothers setting, everyone should eventually interact with magic. Witches, wizards, alchemists, and sorcerers are only interested in teaching children already shown to be exceptional. Mandate that the second or third class of the childhood tier has to be a magical class, whether as an apprentice, a changeling, or someone who ate a mushroom which unlocked their shamanic perceptions.

2. Magic requires years of study to be used, and those who've mastered it are very careful about teaching it. Alchemists' apprentices have advancement options that beggars don't, but can't do much more. And balancing an alchemist-alchemist-alchemist PC versus a beggar-singer-jester shouldn't be too awful.

Besides goblin/human, classes could also be divided into inside kid/outside kid (I like this one), city kid/country kid, and have/have-not. I also like the dog person/cat person divide Judging Eagle threw in but I'm not sure what to do with it.

---

Here also is a list of abilities already mentioned in the thread, along with some I came up with. These are narrative abilities, which means that instead of giving bonuses to a roll, they just let you do something. They're also simply named. I suggest that in class descriptions they be treated like keywords, so for instance, a Milkmaid might have a cleverly named trait, with a description mentioning cowpox, and a ragpicker might have a cleverly named trait with a description of boiling the clothes pulled plague-carts, and both boil down to "this character is germy".

Another Language
A Sheep's Worst Enemy
is another sheep. Know when something's wrong.
Attentive
able to learn, and accomplish boring tasks, even though they're boring.
Bad with Animals
Animals prefer not to touch you or have anything to do with you.
Big
Brave
Bug-catcher
Climb
Cooties/Creepy
People prefer not to touch you or have anything to do with you.
Familiar with...
Devices
Metal
Wood
Stone
Money (math)
Find food (City/Country)
First Aid
Full Pockets
You have string, a flint, or maybe some chalk.
Germy
Disease resistant.
Good with Animals
Hear
Herb Gathering
Hide
Household
Ignored
You are innocuous. People assume you won't do anything bad/wrong.
Inspire Hope
Sheep don't want to live, unless you're around. Others too.
It's quite harmless...
...unless it happens to lie down on you. Good against big things.
Knots
Know Nature
Know Facts
You know the names of 200 different types of sharks or pixies.
Liar
Mean (intimidate)
Medicinal Lore
Nimble
Pet
You have a pet that understands you and vice-versa.
Pickpocket
Pyro
You know about fire. But you're not a dead cripple, so you're also not an idiot about it.
Quick
Read
See Dead People
Sneak
Strong
Swim
Talk to Adults
You're not scared to talk to adults, and for some reason (your dad is rich, they owe money to your master the carpenter, they respect you) they take you seriously.
Talk to Animals

[Grek]

Bedtime stories
As a child, you were told alot of stories, read to out of books and perhaps saw a travelling minstral show. As a result, you heard a supprising amount about giants and dragons and cheese-making pixies. You are able to identify mythical creatures and tell people a little bit about them.

Ghost stories
As a child, you always getting into trouble and your parents told you stories about great big monsters that eat bad children who steal cookies, in an attempt to scare you straight. You are able to scare smaller children into doing what you want by recounting those stories.

Musical childhood
As a child, you were given piano lessons. Or harp lessons. Or you sang in the church choir. Either way, you know how to hold a tune and can play music that does not sound like a cat being beat with a stick.

Tree Climber
As a child, you climbed alot of trees. You are very good at climbing trees and can climb up trees and anything tree-shaped with ease. You can also swing between trees, if you have vines or rope.

Tree Fort
At some point, you built a tree fort, or found a cave, or some other hideout for you and your friends. It's still there, and you can go there and have a neat secret base if you're close by.

[Username17]

If we go the Narnia route of having separate mundane and magical worlds, then those from the Narnia side should have true names, and those from Edwardian England shouldn't. But IMO that takes the setting too far from the Brothers Grimm, which I vastly prefer. I'd rather map the named/unnamed dichotomy to goblins and humans, respectively... though the difference between a goblin childhood and a human childhood is undefined, presumably you can be a human ragpicker or a goblin merchant's child.

Absolutely agree. The goal is to make characters who are Little Red Riding Hood, not the main character from Time Bandits. The characters should all be characters from the world. A character from out of genre would be, by very definition, out of genre.

But on the names thing, the question comes up about Changelings. That is, elves and possibly goblins steal children who haven't been Named yet. And they might replace them with elfin children, or possibly just with statues or rocks. The point is that this is something that happens in the Black Forest setting. Why exactly they do that is up in the air, but I think the whole changeling thing is a given. Sometimes fairies break into the homes of new mothers and steal children who don't have true names yet.

I left out Lago's... Boy and his X, Sidekick, and Stand User seem like excuses to shoehorn combat ability into a kids' party, Dojo Urchin and Burgeoning Chemist don't fit the setting, and Little Professor is more or less schoolchild/curious kid here. Sorry dude.

Agree.

So far only one of these (strange kid as described by Frank) interacts with magic. I thought about apprentice alchemist, sorcerer, or witch, but I can't imagine trying to balance these against ragpickers and scullery maids.

I don't think that's entirely true. The Singer, for example, can talk to birds. That's magical, and could easily bring in a number of other magical talents appropriate for a Disney Princess.

But the other thing is that being the girl from Sleepy Hollow doesn't seem amazingly more potent than being a carpenter, honestly. I think there's room for several positions where you can do a few magical rituals. Being able to purify water with magic isn't game breaking next to another character who can trap rabbits. Herbalism is useful, but not especially more so than being able to make a horse shoe.

-Username17

[Username17]

So... races. People have made compelling arguments for four of them.

Humans

The pervasive idea is that humans don't need discussions. This is wrong. Humans in this setting are medieval people. That means that they are not Edwardians. They are not modern people.

Humans live a dangerous frontier existence where scary magic shit threatens to wipe their little villages all the time. They don't have nations, they have kingdoms. And those kingdoms are based on the classic Southern German Kingdoms, which means that they are small, inconstant, and perplexing. An area might be ruled over by an elected council with an immediate neighbor being a hereditary principality.

Humans have to deal with becoming the living dead. It's a severe problem, to the point where there are lots of ways to become undead and the different types are codified. Which means that it's like crazy common. Proper body disposal, which may well require (or at least be assisted by) the use of a person's True Name can prevent re-rising. But the living dead are contagious and there is a constant rain of magical effects that restart spawn uprisings. Recognized undead forms are:

• Ghouls
• Vampires
• Werewolves
• Wraiths
• Zombies

Needless to say, this is a more destabilizing influence on the humans in the area than the French Crown ever was. Human settlements have developed the over-shot water mill and the cannon, but not the rifle. Therefore the queen the battlefield is still the armored knight.

Remember, these humans are mythic humans. So some of them just grow up to be 4 meters tall. That's seriously just something that happens. Any human more than 2m tall is called an Ogre. And not all Ogres are stupid.

Goblins

Goblins are very humanish and often live near or even in human settlements. And vice versa. So while Goblins recognize a different political landscape based on having a different set of goblin nobles and kings than the human versions, they really are a lot like us.

The main inspiration for the goblin people is of course Outside, Over There. Which is an awesome book that they ended up making into a movie called Labyrinth. But the Red Caps, the Hobs, and a myriad of other goblin myths can and should inform them.

As a rule, I think these guys should end up being a lot more like D&D Hobgoblins than Goblins or Bugbears. But like with humans they can just grow really big or small sometimes. A goblin who gets passed 2m is called a Troll. Left to my own devices, I would make them much less hairy than humans, and give them sharper teeth in multiple rows that grow throughout their life.

Fairies

As anyone who remembers the Dead Man's Hand spirit-punk setting can tell you, "fairies" is a really big category. Now these guys are mostly being included because there is a strong desire to access Tom Thumb, Tinkerbell, and other "extremely small" characters that could not be reasonably explained as humans. Possibly with wings. But elves in source stories are pretty much any person with magic powers, so we could seriously fill a monster manual just with variants of the fey theme. But fuck that, because it's too complicated.

But the question of how many variants to put in is to my mind an open one. It would be nice if there could be some that could at least grow to human size so that you can get bride stealing, green knights, and wild hunts. But beyond that, I don't really have strong opinions.

Fairies do not come back from the dead as vampires or any of that. They do something awesome like turn to wood when they die, and then that's that.

Talking Animals

OK, we have Hans Hedgehog, Puss n' Boots, the Three Bears, the Bremen Musicians, Fox and Hare, and of course: Big Bad Wolf. We need talking animals. But they also present a huge set of problems.

If we have anthromorphics, we're going to end up covered in furry porn. I regard that as a bad thing. But on the other hand, an actual fox or rabbit is really not going to be able to get anywhere in a pair of shoes whether he can talk or not. I mean, if they can't work door knobs I don't know how good they can be to anyone.

One way or another I think it obvious that the talking animals have even less of a national structure than humans do. Like seriously, a wandering animal carnival is about as coherent as their "society" gets.

-Username17

[CatharzGodfoot]

Can werewolves and big bad wolves really coexist in the same story? It could make more sense to make the boundary fluid, where a werewolf is a human cursed to be a wolf, just a a fairy might be a person cursed to be really small. Some animals can look like people (with tells), and some faeries can seem as big as people (with tells).

If we want to tell stories where a boy is kidnapped and made to marry a goblin princess, their children will all be goblins, because otherwise what's the point? If a woman marries a bear, that can work out as well. They have cubs. If a seal marries a fisherman, they have human children. How they live (culture) is the important part.
On the other hand, a child kidnapped by faeries stays human (which is why they want her; she's big), and a goblin changeling is still a goblin (even if whatever changeling magic makes it harder to tell).

For some people there may be some 'ick' factor, but these stories really are integral to the folklore.

[Draco_Argentum]

If we have anthromorphics, we're going to end up covered in furry porn.

You obviously don't know furry porn very well. Theres plenty of porn for non-morphic intelligent animals. If you don't want furry porn you can't have anything with fur (or scales etc) talk. Worrying about someone rule 34ing an rpg element is a waste of time, there is mind flayer porn and displacer beast porn. Just ignore it.

[Grek]

Another story I think should be drawn on is the Fisher King. Probably not the part of it relating to the grail and the christian symbolism and whatnot, but the basic idea of a kingdom being effected by supernatural (or even mundane) stuff happening to its king is a good one. The version with Bran the Blessed is more like what is going on here.

[Username17]

If we want to tell stories where a boy is kidnapped and made to marry a goblin princess, their children will all be goblins, because otherwise what's the point? If a woman marries a bear, that can work out as well. They have cubs. If a seal marries a fisherman, they have human children. How they live (culture) is the important part.

Good point. This is a setting where you seriously can raise a badger as your child and have them grow up to be a human man. And that's fine.

You obviously don't know furry porn very well. Theres plenty of porn for non-morphic intelligent animals. If you don't want furry porn you can't have anything with fur (or scales etc) talk. Worrying about someone rule 34ing an rpg element is a waste of time, there is mind flayer porn and displacer beast porn. Just ignore it.

Probably true. So Skaven and TMNT then?

Another story I think should be drawn on is the Fisher King. Probably not the part of it relating to the grail and the christian symbolism and whatnot, but the basic idea of a kingdom being effected by supernatural (or even mundane) stuff happening to its king is a good one. The version with Bran the Blessed is more like what is going on here.

To an extent, yes. This is a setting where the power of the king pretty much goes 20 kilometers from wherever they happen to be standing. Anything farther than a day's march from the empire is pretty much not in it. This does mean that you can have individual buildings that are nominally and in fact actually subject to the laws of two different lands if the castles are close enough. For what difference it makes, it's not really important if he local leader is a burgermeister, a baron, a king, or an emperor.

I think that between fairy trods and wild hunts that the Elfin Queen exerts rather more imperial control on fey barons than any human or goblin king. They probably have a more advanced feudalism like the Russian Czar, where the local nobility can do whatever they want, but that the Elfin Queen can call on them to do shit at infrequent intervals.

Can werewolves and big bad wolves really coexist in the same story?

I think so. Although it's possible that werewolfism is spread by getting killed by big bad wolves. Which would lend an interesting twist to Little Red coming back to life after the big bad wolf was killed. Like Ginger Snaps. Only hopefully less lame.

-Username17

[Draco_Argentum]

Probably true. So Skaven and TMNT then?

I can see Skaven fitting right in since they're designed to live under a pseudo germanic empire with a tech level only a little higher than Black Forest. TMNT not so much, the industrial accident leading to morphic turtles eating pizza and speaking like they wish they were cool doesn't seem to fit.

[Edit]When you say you can raise a badger and have it grow up to be a human man do you mean that literally or in the sense that you get a badger that acts like a human man?[/Edit]

[Username17]

I can see Skaven fitting right in since they're designed to live under a pseudo germanic empire with a tech level only a little higher than Black Forest. TMNT not so much, the industrial accident leading to morphic turtles eating pizza and speaking like they wish they were cool doesn't seem to fit.

Heh. We're talking body shape, not culture. If you've played the old TMNT game, we're talking Hands + Posture, but not human appearance.

[Edit]When you say you can raise a badger and have it grow up to be a human man do you mean that literally or in the sense that you get a badger that acts like a human man?[/Edit]

I mean literally you can make an actual badger grow into a human being.
I'm not kidding. That shit totally happens in this setting.

You can just give birth to a pig or a mouse or something. And you can find a crab or a cow and raise it as a human and it will fucking turn into a human on reaching puberty.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Donkey_(fairy_tale)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Raven_(Brothers_Grimm)

-Username17

[MartinHarper]

I mean, if they can't work door knobs I don't know how good they can be to anyone.

But this is a group game. Br'er Rabbit doesn't need to be able to open doors, because Sally or Tinkerbell or Splurch can open the door. "Has opposable thumbs" is a required party role, but since three out of four races have it, it's not an onerous one.

[virgil]

I thing I noticed in all of those stories, they're all animals that have the ability to take off their skin to become human. From what I recall, there are other tales of animals living alone as adults that take off their skin to bathe or something, and a human takes their skin to force obedience (such as marriage).

[Draco_Argentum]

Heh. We're talking body shape, not culture. If you've played the old TMNT game, we're talking Hands + Posture, but not human appearance.

Oh, never mind me then.

You can just give birth to a pig or a mouse or something. And you can find a crab or a cow and raise it as a human and it will fucking turn into a human on reaching puberty.

Heh, and you were worried about furry porn, those stories are officially weirder than most furry stuff.

[NoDot]

Anyway, while some people would want to keep their true names secret, others would not. I think a good mechanic for this would be giving people "mundane" bonuses for swearing oaths by their True Name, and "magical" bonuses for keeping their true name secret. Knights would be throwing their True Names around all over the place when they charge off to fight dragons, while Little Red Riding Hood vs Wicked Witch might turn on either one finding out the other's real name.

Now, for kids without a combat shtick, the mundane/magic split might be more of a diplomacy/sneaky divide, I dunno.

Am I the only one who likes this idea?

[Orion]

Anyway, while some people would want to keep their true names secret, others would not. I think a good mechanic for this would be giving people "mundane" bonuses for swearing oaths by their True Name, and "magical" bonuses for keeping their true name secret. Knights would be throwing their True Names around all over the place when they charge off to fight dragons, while Little Red Riding Hood vs Wicked Witch might turn on either one finding out the other's real name.

Now, for kids without a combat shtick, the mundane/magic split might be more of a diplomacy/sneaky divide, I dunno.

Am I the only one who likes this idea?

No, although my first instinct was the opposite. Magic-users have to trade their true names to dark spirits, pronounce them aloud to consecrate ground and create enchantments, and so on. Mundanes get to keep theirs secret, and so are less vulnerable to being fucked up the occult.

The difficulty with my model though is the same with any dangerous/unpleasant magic system. Players will do it anyway, consequences be damned, and as a result the whole game becomes about magic. Having bad magic shit happen to you isn't really a downside if the rubric of success is "what % of session time is about me?"

[Grek]

No reason not to do both, if we are going to use the whole fisher-king deal.

Landed mundane people swear on their Truename to get mundane bonuses. They are fine with goblins and humans knowing their truename because, due to the fisher-king deal, cursing them makes milk within a one mile radius go sour and ensures that people stub their toes when going to the outhouse. They do not reveal them in Faustian pacts with some kind of evil spirit, because milk going sour within a one mile radius and having people stub their toe on the way to the outhouse is what those evil spirits want and they would totally curse the king if they got half a chance.

Unlanded magic users do the whole Faustian pact with a devil thing, because the evil spirts have no reason to curse the wizard. All that will do is piss the wizard off/kill him and then they can't trick him into letting them do mischief. Magic users will not, however, give out their truename to other magic users because the fisher-king "I don't want cursed" protection does not apply if you are not actually king of somewhere and cursing you will not actually make the cursing wizard's toes get stubbed.

Normal mundane people do not give out their truenames to anyone and only want to have one because it keeps the elves from running off with them.

The Witch King of Snake Mountain, who is both a temporal ruler of somewhere and a magic user who used his magic powers to become temporal ruler of somewhere is somewhat boned by this deal. Chances are the people that actually live on snake mountain are more boned, though. Whatever evil spirits he gave his truename too will be cursing the Witch King, his country and the people in it. It's quite possible they all fall into everlasting sleep or turn into zombies or something.

The fact that using magic to take over a country means that you get cursed and get a country full of zombies and roving bands of were-trolls means that only the very ambitious, the very reckless or the very foolish will try to take over a kingdom with magic instead of knights and men with swords. I think that is a good thing for the setting.