Dungeons and Discourse
Posted: Tue Jun 05, 2007 11:45 pm
OK, here's part of something I'm working on. It'll probably use the SAME system, and of course it was inspired by Dresden Kodak.
Dungeons and Discourse
The wisdom of nations lies in their proverbs, which are brief and pithy.
Dungeons and Discourse is a role playing game where the players each assume the role of a powerful magician who has adventures in a fictional world.
Path and Alignment
Alignments
Dungeons and Discourse
The wisdom of nations lies in their proverbs, which are brief and pithy.
Dungeons and Discourse is a role playing game where the players each assume the role of a powerful magician who has adventures in a fictional world.
Path and Alignment
Alignments
- Empirical
" All credibility, all good conscience, all evidence of truth come only from the senses."
Those of an Empirical alignment believe that knowledge comes from experience. Holding that the initial state of the mind is a white piece of paper, the Empiricist relies upon sensory data to fill that paper and draw conclusions about the world.
Empirical characters are vulnerable to Causal damage, and have their Causal resistance reduced by 4.
Empirical characters are resistant to Psychological damage, and have their Psychological resistance increased by 4.
Empiricists are the traditional enemies of Rationalists. - Evangelical
" All human evil comes from a single cause: man's inability to sit still in a room."
Belief in axioms is endemic amongst magicians, but to those of an Evangelical alignment all one's knowledge is axiomatic in nature. With the core of one's being ascribed to faith, certainty can be had without outward investigation. Indeed, because of this, outward investigation is considered highly suspect.
Evangelical characters are vulnerable to Factual damage, and have their Factual resistance reduced by 4.
Evangelical characters are resistant to Traditional damage, and have their Traditional resistance increased by 4.
Evangelicals are the traditional enemies of Realists - Existential
" Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you. "
Those of an Existential alignment believe that they have full responsibility for the creation of meaning for their own lives, just as you have that same responsibility for your life. Existentialism demands the acceptance of the world that one is born into and further demands that control is taken of one's own future in the face of this world.
Existential characters are vulnerable to Traditional damage, and have their Traditional resistance reduced by 4.
Existential characters are resistant to Indescribable damage, and have their Indescribable resistance increased by 4.
Existentialists are the traditional enemies of Evangelicals - Pragmatic
" Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does. "
Those of Pragmatic alignment hold that the truth or importance of an idea or course of action is held only in its observable practical consequences. The Pragmatist rejects epistemic virtues of all kinds, not on the grounds that he feels that one is right or wrong, but simply that epistemic investigations are inherently worthless regardless of the outcome. Truth can be selected by the utility an idea presents, not with correlation with mathematical principles or an external world.
Pragmatic characters are vulnerable to Emotional damage, and have their Emotional resistance reduced by 4.
Pragmatic characters are resistant to Factual damage, and have their Factual resistance increased by 4.
Pragmatists are the traditional enemies of Skeptics - Rational
" There is nothing higher than reason."
Rationalists appeal to Reason as a source, even the primary source of knowledge. Relying upon a minimal number of axioms, those of Rational alignment seek knowledge deductively. Reliance upon sensory data is viewed by the Rationalist to be at best sub-optimal and possibly actively harmful.
Rational characters are vulnerable to Psychological damage, and have their Psychological resistance reduced by 4.
Rational characters are resistant to Progressive damage, and have their Progressive resistance increased by 4.
Rationalists are the traditional enemies of Existentialists
- Realistic
" Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. "
Those of a Realistic alignment believe in and adhere to a reality that exists independently of the minds or opinions of others. Realists tend to embrace what they believe is actually real, despite how unattractive reality itself may be. Realists believe that their own beliefs are merely approximations of an externally verifiable Truth and are willing to adapt or abandon those beliefs given evidence.
Realistic characters are vulnerable to Indescribable damage, and have their Indescribable resistance reduced by 4.
Realistic characters are resistant to Emotional damage, and have their Emotional resistance increased by 4.
Realists are the traditional enemies of Pragmatists. - Skeptical
"You cannot know anything."
Everyone of Skeptical alignment doubts things. Ever mindful of epistemic limitations, the Skeptic doubts things. The Skeptical alignment to some degree or another rejects not just the truths that others lay claim to, but also the ability to know truth in general. Skeptics do not take things for granted, clinging only to a core tenet of Doubt.
Skeptical characters are vulnerable to Progressive damage, and have their Progressive resistance reduced by 4.
Skeptical characters are resistant to Causal damage, and have their Causal resistance increased by 4.
Skeptics are traditional enemies of Empiricists.
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Anyway, all attacks are Rhetorical or Analytic - this equates roughly to Bludgeoning or Slashing. Damage is of course Factual, Causal, Indescribable, Psychological, Emotional, Traditional, or Progressive.
People get a number of powers, which are all Declarations which work kind of like "strikes", Stances which work kind of like "stances", and Invocations which work kind of like "counters". You can grab these powers off of your alignment, class, or racial lists. Races are ethnicities, and being Greek makes you vulnerable to Pederasty. What are you going to do?
I can easily expand the system of course, but I'm looking to limit things at least initially to about 3 classes per Alignment (and yes, every class has an alignment restriction).
So for example, an Evangelical or French character can make "Pascal's Wager" which costs absolutely nothing and gives a small chance of a large reward. On the flip side, some spells are very restricted - it's not enough to be a Rationalist to throw Monads around you actually have to be a Liebnitzian.
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But while it's actually really easy to throw in additional spells like "The Invocation of the Man of Straw" (it conjures a scarecrow that comes in to change your opponent's stances) or of course "Declaration of Zeno's Paradox" (it prevents ranged attacks from reaching their target); I'm actually kind of scrambling for basic mechanics. Here are some possibilities:- Multiple Damage Tracts. Here's a weird idea: four damage tracts. One is Factual or Causal, one is Psychological or Emotional, one is Traditional or Progressive, and the fourth is Indescribable. In this model, if you take Progressive Damage while you already have Traditional damage, the Progressive Damage heals the Traditional Damage before it does any damage at all. Indescribable is thus harder to heal but also the least useful because it can't be used to heal people. Not sure if that flies.
- Mana as Damage The idea here is that you just have a tract of damage that doesn't actually do anything to you until it fills up. Once it does that though, it starts spilling in as normal damage. When you use your magic, you resist damage on this track and hopefully go about your business. I'm not sure if this works with the other idea though.
So also, who's everyone's favorite Existentialist? There's way more than 3, but do people really want to be a Camouian? Nihilist is spoken for, of course, but Sartrian? I don't know - the goal here is actually to reduce things to starting classes in each of the seven alignments such that they all play differently and have a bit of name recognition.
-Username17