Words Mean Things
JonSetanta wrote: ↑Fri Jul 26, 2024 5:01 am
A lot is missing in this post but this is just an excerpt.
Excerpts by definition exclude content. But if an excerpt is missing something it needs to make its point, then it is by definition a failed excerpt.
The gap gap
A Rank in Domain is equal to a 5-level gap.
Levels of what? Equal in what way? What range of ranks and levels can coexist on what sort of character or record sheet. Gap? Is it relative? to what? Your own level or the oposition? What if you have 1 Rank and are level 10? Do you get "Net Level" of 5 or 15 or actually 7 because its based on your level 2 target? What the fuck even is that sentence supposed to inform us of?
Word not meaning what you think it does
Rank-based Totals
...The sub heading. IS WRONG. That is NOT how you use the word "Total".
All the more so for Trust, which is a fucking LIST that you rather clearly should NOT be adding together and deriving a Total. from.
The Trust is lacking
Trust - Built by cooperative deeds and Quests, drained by spending it to manipulate or lie to people that share a Trust stat with you. You can not do either malicious deed to a person or group that doesn't trust you.
When first encountering anyone that is Aware of you or your allies, the Storyteller rolls 1d6-1 or chooses an amount of Trust usually inverse to the Rank you encounter. That number goes up and down from there.
Also never trust anyone completely, that's a serious warning.
A social currency system. The most bog standard didn't think it through bog standard endless list of how much everyone and everything likes you. With the usual totally undefined values for what is worth what and does what.
With how many Ranks? Well you recently dropped hints elsewhere there are 5. Just 5. So if you apply the minimum increment somehow, you are never more than 5 away from maximum benefits. Oh look the fucking DEFINITION of the apple stacking problem.
Starting Trust is INSANE. Either totally random, or inverse to Rank? RANK in what? Trust? Also, wow, level 0 Goblin world is one of total mutual love and understanding from and among all Rank 0 beings? And every high ranked guy in the world is paranoid towards not just everyone, but all those level 0 Goblins which everyone knows have nothing in their hearts but love and trust, how DARE they do that to those pure and naive beings!
Unless someone rolled a dice, but NOT if someone made an arbitrary contextual decision based on personality or story context. THAT would be CRAZY!
You CANNOT lie to or manipulate people who do not trust you PERIOD? Can you even give them ANY information? How does ANYONE tell the Trust 0 King ANYTHING. Every time a loving selfless level 0 messenger boy enters the throne room with information the King shoots him between the eyes with a crossbow and says "Probably all lies anyway, the world is a hallucination!".
And the never trust anyone completely line? What sort of poncing nonsense do you think that is? That's not a rule, that's not helping, that's lame ass life advice from/for edgy 13 year olds. We don't even know IF your system covers absolute trust, you didn't describe its effects or limits, I'm assuming it Maxes out at 5 which you CAN reach and alre4ady hold with any non-random Rank 0 peasant and farm animal in the world, but as far as your rule actually states, you can start at 5 Trust AND go up from there, so the sky might be the god damn limit.
Oh look the d20 Modern abstracted wealth system BUT WORSE
Resource - Equal to Rank as a stat that refreshes after you go on each Quest or spend 7 days “downtime” working or crafting to gain new items, each item has a Rank at which it is able to be made or acquired by crafting, or buying something, temporarily drains Resource by an amount equal to the Rank of the item.
The exception to spending Resource pool is items 2 Ranks or more lower than your current Rank are all free but still need time invested.
Resources may also be spent for favors or hire help.
By spending one resource, a player may increase Trust by 1 to an individual or group.
WHICH RANK IS RESOURCE EQUAL TO?
After you go on a Quest, not return, also success? Yes/no? Whatever? Where you end up doesn't matter? Actual time passed and actual access to your primary assets or income streams means nothing?
Unless you spend 7 days downtime. So one week of pottering in the garden shed IS literally equal to slaying a dragon, or rather SAYING you are GOING to go on a Quest to slay a dragon, maybe taking a few steps in that direction.
Which is worth one item of the same Rank as... er... Rank. Which is really not much. Or infinite items of -2 Rank. which is... way too many.
Also hey free infinite items. Also no mention of selling items. You know you just recreated part of the D20 Modern infinite abstract wealth loop right there right? You would NEVER give players resource in return for selling things right? Cause you do know where that now goes right?
No wait FUCKING HELL you can sell a 1 Resource for 1 Trust? Even to a Group? I'm 5 daggers away from (maybe) complete trust with the entire kingdom, and the same again for every group I can define and hand a 1 Resource dagger to? AND I'M RANK 3 (whatever that means) and have INFINITE DAGGERS?
And what sort of items does the council of gold dragons give me at 5 Trust?
FFS.
And before you try and argue that you can only earn Trust with the actual expenditure of the abstract Resource point itself, that items themselves have NO value in Resource and also NO value in Trust, that the level -2 Resource costs are free rule,
doesn't count for buying Trust.
Well your rule does not at all say that, if it did, it would be a stupid thing to say, it has its own massively broken implications and is equally insane.
Wait what REGULAR CURRENCY MECHANICS? HOW???
Currency types
Physical
1 Gold
10 Silver
100 Copper
1 Bank note
Gems worth hundreds to thousands of gold
Steel (roughly
What is this?
No really fucking what is it?
IS IT a list of types telling us nothing, which is worthless.
But why has it got numbers. Sometimes. And this one time a description that ends one word in.
Because those numbers would EITHER suggest a god damn inventory, OR is it a list of amounts of different things worth the same value?
If it's comparative values, it is the product of VERY lazy and somewhat innumerate mind.
Gems right, Gems worth hundreds of thousands of gold, do not go on the same equal value list as 1 Gold. Something explicitly worth hundreds of thousands of gold, is not worth 1 Gold.
And 1 Bank note is worth 1 Gold? I don't think you understand bank notes. Do you think I don't know, that a fixed value of 1 Gold is somehow the only thing they could be, because one thing for sure, its not a super fucking useful value for a fantasy RPG.
And "Steel (roughly"... Chefs kiss. Almost no one does this sort of work like you. Pure art.
But back to first principles. Didn't you JUST FUCKING NOW define an abstracted wealth and item acquisition mechanic? WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS WITH AMOUNTS OF COPPER COINS?
Do you even know WHAT you were phasing out there? Did you just do it because all the cool kids were? What the hell sort of system has you count your copper coins AND give you infinite Resource 1 value daggers at Rank3?
Magical
Arcastones
Astrolana (sending someone an amount of Mana directly)
Faith
Another untitled undescribed list of nonsense. Yes, you said things were missing. But, maybe sometimes when THAT MUCH is missing perhaps MORE needs to be missing. If I do not know how Arcastones related to Astrolana or even what value of mana goes where how in order to be "Astrolana" or how fair, which appears to be a Rank Total, can be a currency like actual physical exchangeable magic rocks, which despite being exchangable like gems, which can be worth hundreds of thousands of gold, are not on the same list. WHICH MEANS NOTHING! Since the lists just... EXIST.
So maybe, in that context, this list doesn't need to be included until it actually means anything.
Social
Trust
Favors
What does this tell us about Favors? What does this tell us about Trust? NOTHING They are both "Social Currency". What does that even mean in this context? Are we still under the main heading of "Rank-Based Totals"? We can't be right? Because 100 Copper Coins would be under that main heading at it was on a currency list before we even got here. But then... Trust appears on the Social Currency list and IT is a "Rank Based Total". But Resource does NOT appear on any currency lists, but IS a "Rank Based Total" too!
BUT THEN we finish up with a definition of "Faith" which LOOKS the hell like a "Rank Based Total" even though it APPEARED ON THE MAGIC CURRENCY LIST, presumably to describe how it is in some way the same as magic rocks you can hold or a mana potion you can send someone by some sort of Gig economy bike courier.
SOMETHING about your Faith sure as hell disturbs me
Faith - Choose a devotion, dedicated to a religion or localized deity or The First aka The Creator God Aurean, or even an archetype diaspora to venerate. Faith begins at 0 and goes up to 5, spent to cast Holy, Psychic, and Utility Spells as a renewable stat refreshed completely after each deed or Quest dedicated to an individual, group, religion, or ethos is finished. As by Storyteller option a Dark God Druja may be worshipped but the only spell granted is Umbral.
And what do the spells do? They do not drain Mana and must be verbally bargained for with the Storyteller acting as deity or deity’s messenger, and must align with the ethics and goals of that devotion or the request is ignored. Slander against an ethos either verbally or physically desecrates yourself and drops your Faith to 0 until you perform an aligned deed for either the same devotion (refreshing all Faith to that cause) or you may switch to another devotion.
...FFS
You actual wrote this down?
Did you... then read it? You should try that.
OK. So we know the Rank this starts at. We know it can go up, we are never told HOW.
THIS Rank, JUST THIS ONE, has a maximum of 5.
We know how to "Refresh" it after it is spent.
But the closest thing we get to knowing how it is spent is Slander ANY ethos verbally... or... physically? You instantly drop to Faith 0. Until you do a thing FOR THAT ETHOS (which again, could be ANY ethos, even one your actual Faith choice is diametrically opposed to). But WHEN YOU DO THAT you can switch your faith choice.
So you choose the flower goddess, slander the herbicide goddess, murder every flower in the forest as an apology, and now your Faith is restored... in the Volcano Demonlord.
Got it. Great.
But... WHAT DOES FAITH DO? Yeah yeah, three spells unless its one spell which is "Umbral" which spends... never mentioned amounts on ??? But then you negotiate with the GM in a prayer negotiation with the gods who are asking you what THEY get out of it which has WHAT FUCKING RELATION TO RANK OR EXPENDITURE?
But spells don't drain Mana! Just Faith... somehow...
But mana, not on the lists, not really the same thing as faith. UNLESS YOU POST IT TO SOMEONE.
IMPLIED RULES
OK so when you write rules even deeply, deliberately?, certainly insanely incomplete rules. You sometimes create other rules you leave unwritten. You imply their existence, you maybe even define them entirely, but indirectly, in other rules.
YOU kept mentioning
Deeds and
Quests.
We know these are DIFFERENT things, but... they mostly do the same things.
We know they earn you MORE Trust, only when
Finished REFRESH your Faith, can let you CHANGE your
Devotion in your Faith, (by performing a deed/quest for not necessarily the faith you are joining but the one you offended which you may never have joined). But just "Going on" a Quest refreshes your Resource, right away, no quest finishing required, just "going".
I'm pretty sure these emergent terms combine with your Resource/Trust total breakage to also rope Faith into it. But does it even matter at this point?
ZERO FUCKING EFFORT.
NO STARS.
