Keeper of the Accord

Tom's Blog for Making RPGs. He/Him.

[untitled-writing-projects]

Willowtree Special Southbound

The shape spoke. “You ever hear the one about the wolf and the lamb?” Her fangs and eyes shone in the minimal light that spilled in from the door. She waited for a moment before continuing. “Lamb’s living in a nice fenced in farm on the outskirts of the village, right near the woods. One day a wolf comes in and slaughters some sheep. Then more, then more, even the farmer with his shotgun can’t stop the attacks. The sheep tell the lamb that there’s nothing to be done, that this is the way of the world, but the lamb disagrees.”

Her form was tall and broad. She had a relaxed posture. “Breaks out one day, goes up the mountain, and demands the wolf teach it how to be powerful and ruthless and monstrous.” A flash of light from outside illuminated her wedge-like muzzle. “Lamb trains for years, growing up to become this twisted monster with horns like railroad spikes and jaws that could crush bones even if it couldn’t digest the meat. Wolf tells the lamb that the training is done and they’re going to go together to the sheep pen to hunt.”

Her uniform came into view. Old, without pins or flags, sewn and patched until little beneath remained. “Lamb walks behind wolf. Wolf doesn’t so much as turn around to see the lamb drive its horns into the big dog. Lamb slaughters the wolf in front of all the sheep then says ‘I’ve saved you, we don’t have to live in fear anymore.’ But the rest of the sheep are terrified. The lamb is a monster. The lamb broke the laws of nature. They don’t even recognize their kin anymore. The lamb walks off into the woods and that’s the last the sheep ever hear of it. Soon enough, the ‘laws of nature’ return back to how they once were.”

Ladd Waters, decorated counter-intelligence operative and veteran of two wars, coughed and glared at her. His top half had not yet received the message that his bottom half was exsanguinated on the floor of the boxcar.

“Now imagine that the sheep were able to recognize their kinship with the one who went through hell trying to save them, that maybe she was a monster but she was still as deserving of love and affection and community as the rest of them.” Her eyes were alight, and shining with tears. “I don’t just destroy, I deconstruct. And I live with people who can build something better from what I do.” She took a step forward and growled the last words. “So there’s not a force on this planet strong enough to stop me from protecting them.”

The train moved out from a copse of trees to reveal the warm buttery skies of twilight. The sun was out of view and the purple and pink brushtrokes over the clouds looked like fingers reaching out.

“Seems I’ve been rambling a bit. Sorry about that.” She produced her gun and pointed it at him. “Still, hell of a final view, huh?”

Her eyes moved across the skies. She didn’t bother to look at him while pulling the trigger.

[razortouched]

Currently looking through some Men and Masculinities theory that address transmasculinity, particularly in relation to male privilege.

Its fascinating because, in this academic field, its regarded as pretty much obvious that while some trans men may conditionally benefit from advantages associated with male privilge, that these advantages are contingent on adherence to Western hegemonic constructs of masculinity and manhood. And that the further they stray from these constructs, the less access they have to any benefits associated with manhood.

I find that male privilege can be gained, lost, and maintained, that the degree of male privilege one benefits from is dependent on visible or assumable characteristics that conflict with Western hegemonic masculinity, and that domination works both internally (men having privilege relative to other men) and externally (men having privilege relative to other genders).

"And now I have male privilege": transgender accounts of the precarity of privilege

This also goes for other marginalized men as well. I find this interesting because, it is so much more nuanced than how people address this subject online. People treat male privilge as a zero sum game, you either have it or you don't. But to academics who actually study the material evidence, there very obviously exists a spectrum of privileges, and that transmasculine people in particular only have precarious access to this at best.

Moreover, they only have access to the interpersonal benefits of male privilege, while simultaneously still experiencing oppression on a systemic scale.

Masculinity is a culturally defined construct of norms and social practices required for achieving manhood. In Western individualistic societies, masculinity requires male gender assignment at birth, heterosexuality, and behavioral characteristics that include traditional gender role norms of “success and status, toughness and independence, aggressiveness and dominance”.

Masculinities are not singular and monolithic, but rather elusive and tenuous, requiring public demonstration and evaluation. As such, masculinity has been referred to as precarious manhood.

Other social identities that may shape experiences of male privilege include sexual identities, class/economic status, and age. Male privilege may be experienced differently by individuals depending on these and other identities and the social power that is assigned (or denied) based on these identities.

“Male Privilege Doesn’t Lift the Social Status of All Men in the Same Way”: Trans Masculine Individuals’ Lived Experiences of Male Privilege in the United States

Furthermore, these studies address how intersections of race can actively negate male privilege in situations that one would expect male privilege to manifest.

Additionally, trans men of Color reported discriminatory experiences that contrasted with experiences of White trans men. For example, an Asian male participant reported being stereotyped as passive and denied promotions at work. A Black male participant reported that his co-workers and supervisors interpreted his expression of frustration about a new policy as threatening, which resulted in a written complaint in his personnel file. Since trans masculine individuals’ racial identity and other social identities may affect their experiences of masculinity and maleness it is important to consider these identity intersections.

Interestingly, some academic definitions of male privilege will state that trans people ubiquitously do not experience male privilege.

Male privilege refers to the structural differentiations within a patriarchal society wherein males are conferred societal entitlements and advantages that are denied to those who identify as female, transgender, or gender nonconforming.

Male Privilege

There is still a lot more academic work to be done studying the lived experiences of transmasculine people. Particularly, I would love to see more works addressing the spectrum of privilege and how some people may simultaneously experience interpersonal benefits while also being systemically oppressed.

In my eyes, male privilege is primarily defined by whether or not one is benefitted on a systemic level, but I still think its important to talk about the more nuanced, individual experiences of advantage and benefit. That seems to be the purpose of a lot of these studies, to create a more thorough understanding of how more complex gendered dynamics come into play, and complicate the simpler analyses of privilege.

[khanartist]

when you fail all the skill checks at the tribunal

[teaboot]

No, actually, I don't think my indoor cat would be happier if he could free-roam. For one thing, the feather-toys inside have never died on him mid-playtime, and I feel like that might be a disappointment

[teaboot]

As though predetermined by fate I awoke this morning to Ollie standing on top of my chest, fur slightly-damp, and when I went downstairs to investigate whatever shenanigans he had somehow gotten into I found that the back door had somehow blown open in the night.

He has never had unsupervised access to the outdoors before but it appears he stepped outside, found it to be raining slightly, and decided "fuck this shit, I'm getting Dad"

[teaboot]

I love my fragile son

[kolibriisme]

commission work I did

[untitled-writing-projects]

-A Few Hundred Ordinary Lives-

Her hat, coat, and handgun lay strewn in a pile on the floor next to the corpse of the ship’s political officer. Rain poured in through the broken window of the bridge. Her eyes were mad, fiery. Her cruiser’s guns swung to face the enormous flagship, so close it blotted out half the horizon.

Her sneer widened until her fangs were bared and shining. She gripped the radio microphone like his neck. “As someone once told my mother, ruthlessness is pure. Ruthlessness is simple. Ruthlessness is seeing the line between points and walking it.”

“You–” His voice shook with rage.

The angry sea twisted under the pair of ships amidst the chaos of a horribly failed maneuver. A swell heeled over the flagship, the bright red underbelly flashing in her vision for a mere moment.

Like greedy fingers under a girl’s skirt, as you so eloquently put it.

Her world rocked with the sound and sight of 15 years of rage exploding alongside eight 9-inch cannons.

[lordmonbodo]

Dev Diary 12 - Talking Things Out

Heyo, we're back and talking about the second big mechanic: Council. I've touched on it before, but we're going to go over it in detail this time. As a recap, this mechanic involves persuading others in a group setting.

Part of the reason I've made Council one of the main mechanics of the game is that I can't expect every player to read and remember every detail about the Valley and its people. If I want to immerse players within the game world, I have to make their actual actions teach them about the world. So let's do that.

Meeting in Council is a tradition held by all the Kin of the Valley, and even some of the non-kin. It's understood that just about anything worth talking about or deciding should be done as a group! Sometimes these are small, informal get-togethers. Sometimes they are meetings of a whole community or several communities gathering together.

Regardless, every Council begins with a feast. A) That's just good manners. B) It gives players things to do leading up to the main event. C) Mechanically, every interested party should have no less than 10 tokens saved up for the rounds of debate. This ensures that players don't have to scrimp and save just to win people over. (I haven't fully worked out the token economy, but that's what tests are for.)

After the feast, the GM identifies at least 3 interested parties that can interact with each other during the Council. In its simplest form that would look like:

Group 1 arguing for Position A.

Group 2 arguing for Position B.

Group 3 which is neutral and can be swayed either way.

Of course, there's nothing saying that all three groups can't each have their own argument, or that there can't be more parties, but anything less than three is too small for a Council. Typically, the players will be or be supporting one of these groups, but it also leaves the possibility that the players must make up their mind as play progresses (subject to testing).

Once the positions on an issue are established, the Council is resolved in rounds of discussion. In character, this represents speeches being given, negotiations between groups, etc. Mechanically, it's represented by wagering secret amounts of tokens to bid for influence.

[lordmonbodo]

Dev Diary 11 - Ironing Out the Core

Hey! As you may have noticed, this isn't Friday. To recover from my negligence of last week, I'm doing two diaries this week. One today, and another on Friday as usual.

Two things that came up during the playtest I ran were that investigations could get very chaotic, and the GM had fewer ways to influence things than they should. I do want to reduce the central role of the GM in my game, but I do want to keep the story focused in people start going too far off the rails.

Aside from rewording most of the abilities I've created, I'm adding a step to the beginning of an investigation where the GM is able to set up some background assumptions and add a couple starting secrets. In theory, this isn't really distinct from the roleplaying that should lead up to the Investigation, but I think codifying it will help players understand how they can start building the mystery without pre-planning the outcome.

In addition, I'm adding more detail to traveling through Dream. The plan is now to categorize how the players respond to adversity, with Boldness, Cunning, etc, to inform the outcome of the quest. I still need to work on what form those outcomes take, but I feel that this adds potential for a lot of unique items and blessings that can only be obtained through specific methods.

That's all for right now. I should have more updates for the Council mechanic next time!

[lordmonbodo]

Dev Diary 10 - First Test!

I’m back! I’ve been on a break for the last week but I ran my first short playtest of the game, mostly trying out the Investigation mechanic.

I’ll post more thoughts and feedback from the test next week, but in short it was fun if very rough. The token economy needs to be completely rebalanced, but the core game loop seems to still be worthwhile.

So, as it stands, out of 9 potential bespoke mechanics: one is nearly feature complete and just needs further testing, two are about 50-60% written, the others only have cursory details. The lore of the world is maybe 10% written at best. I haven’t started any art for the book yet.

My plan for the upcoming weeks is to tweek the Investigation mechanic and finish/test the Council mechanic. I also want to flesh out more of the mythos so I can work more on the some planned GM mechanics. If work proceeds smoothly on that front, I want to make the environment tokens more impactful. Right now, they have limited impact on the players but ideally I want it to be a focal point.

[lordmonbodo]

Dev Diary 9 - Keeping Things Simple

Hello again!

Today's diary is fairly short, but work is still continuing in a good way. The last week was devoted to continuing to clean up the most important mechanics and also returning to character creation. Specifically, I've focused on character choices that directly pertain to the core mechanics (and a few that just have cool vibes). I have one week left before I take a week off, and I'm still planning to have something I can throw at people for a playtest during that time.

As a result, I've also been cooking up the pre-gen archetypes I'll put in front of players. The final flavor will likely be very different, (I've been bouncing between calling them cults, lodges, and prenticeships) but here are a couple examples:

Gardener: When you plant seeds or prune the land with blade or fire, you may add a token to the environment from the pool without using any of your own. You know how to speak without offending trees.

Dragon-Seeker: You have walked the paths of the monasteries in the high peaks at the edge of the Valley and learned secrets about yourself. Once per session, you may reverse the mechanics of the game, rolling dice for a token action and using tokens for Mortal Peril. You must do EACH of these actions exactly once. They do not need to be in a particular order, and they do not need to be immediate, but you must do the other before the end of the session.

Next week I'll do a summary of the state of the game as it enters playtesting and talk a bit about what else I hope to work on next but first, a teaser of things to come. Dreaming: A journey into the Realm of Dream. Reenact a story from your people or follow the thread of a dream you had to obtain mythic results. In Dream, token costs may only be paid with tokens from someone else, either shared from community support, or by companions protecting one another on the quest. If a token cannot or will not be paid (or if the gods demand it), the dreamer must make a wager: either something of narrative significance must be sacrificed or the dreamer must face Mortal Peril...

[lordmonbodo]

Dev Diary 8 - Back to Basics

Hello! I'm back after a really tough week with some actual progress. Rather than picking up with the continuation of the story I started last time, I'd like to talk about process again.

Among other problems, I think in the last month I began to get very lost in the weeds trying to make sure different elements were just right. The result was that I was getting very little actually written and getting farther away from my goal of having a basic playtest ready by the end of August.

So, I decided to revisit exactly what I needed done by the end of the month. I had already identified what activities I wanted to have bespoke mechanics, so I chose 3 of them to hone in on as the most important to the game. Those three ended up being: Investigation, Council, and Dreaming.

At its core, the main thing the PCs will do is detective work. While the job of a Keeper is multi-faceted, one of the biggest dramatic hooks is that something has gone wrong and you need to find out what has happened. Investigation will be relevant to just about every part of play, from diagnosing the illness of an ancient tree, to solving a murder, to discovering why a god has become hostile. Right now, it's also the mechanic that I've put the most work into finalizing and I'm fairly happy with what I have so far. An Investigation starts a sequence in which the PCs state what they are trying to learn and what they suspect the answer is. The GM gives them a time pressure that will force them to wrap up their investigation and the group gets a number of scenes equal to the number of players to pursue answers. Each scene they chose an approach, such as Examine the Site or Speak to Witnesses, each of which can only be chosen once but which offer different advantages and risks. The key aspect is that the mystery is never pre-written or only created by one person. The group collectively builds it as they go. The GM does have tools exercise more authority over the details, but these require either spending tokens or for the PCs to have taken risks which didn't pay off.

All of this culminates in a scene where the final pieces of the puzzle are put together and the truth is revealed, although sometimes not by the PCs. The group is able to use resources and clues they've gathered along with elements the GM has introduced to find out what happened and potentially shift to another type of play like Healing, Council, Dreaming, or Mortal Peril.

Council, meanwhile, is all about talking through issues with other people. It's intended for slightly larger groups, there should be at least three interested parties including the PCs, and involves rounds of swaying and politicking. This needs more work before the end of the month, but my goal is to make this a mechanic where the PCs are not always trying to have their way. There will be strong mechanical incentives to maintaining social cohesion and giving generously, and likewise consequences for approaching it too transactionally.

Dreaming depends heavily on lore I haven't properly introduced yet, so I'll likely need to go into it more later. Suffice to say, Dream underlies the totality of the world for the people of the valley and the knowledge of how to connect with it provides many of the "magical" gifts that the people use. The gods dwell deep within Dream and Dreaming mechanics will cover the PCs making journeys into Dream itself, where they will face grand trials and receive equally grand boons.

That's all for now. Hopefully, I will have more to report next week as we get closer to a real playtest.

[lordmonbodo]

Dev Diary Postponed

sorry. Not doing great this week, will hopefully be more up to it next week.

[lordmonbodo]

Dev Diary 7 - Myth and Dream

Folk tell the stories different in every part of the Valley. Some just tell it in their own way, or as they were taught long ago. Others know secret knowledge, parts of stories they share only with some or new tales outright. I hear beyond the edge of the mountains they tell similar stories but that they grow ever stranger as you travel away from the Heartspring.

And why shouldn’t they? Even the sun may not stare at everyone at once. No one can claim mastery over all, not even a god. It’s only right that places have their own gods to look out for them. Moreover, anyone who knows Dreaming will tell you that nothing is fixed there. It is a river winding back upon itself with a clear surface. It seems eternal but is always in motion.

I will not tell you the Lay of Creation yet. That is a song for certain times of year. Maybe when winter ends. I will tell you of the Coming to the Valley through.

A long time past, before any soul living today can remember, the Kin lived far from here. It was a vast forest around a place where many lakes came together and we made our camps and raised our halls there.

Some of our gods were kept in that time, but we had two we no longer sing of: The Master of Still Waters and the Tree Woman. Those days were hard because the Kin were always at war with the world around them, either on behalf of one god or another or to protect themselves.

So it continued for some time that the people rejected that the world around them lived and felt as they did, and they cut with a cruel knife and were cut in turn….

I wanted to get into a bit of lore this time, but ended up meandering a bit. Next week I’ll post the second half of the myth and bring up a few other aspects of the lore.

[lordmonbodo]

Dev Diary 6 - Lore/Knowledge/Character Creation

Hi, all. Late as heck Dev Diary again but I decided rather than overthinking this one and being frustrated by progress, or lack there of, I'd just show a few examples of some of the elements of character creation I'm working on. In a previous diary I touched very briefly on some of my ideas for abilities and progression, but to refresh, I currently have most selections both during and after creation tied to Knowledge (Name pending).

Many will be assigned based on where and how the character is raised, ie, the culture and communities they grew up in. These will let players pick some broad profiles of different kinds of knowledge but I also have some choices for individual pieces of knowledge representing their specific interests. This is all still a bit shaky but I thought I'd include a few fun examples I've written and hint at some of the other sub-systems of the game I have in mind.

Respect and Understanding: You have learned how to let another into your life and love them without losing yourself. You value their wants and needs, sometimes sensing them before even they do. If you are in an intimate relationship with another, Tension only arises from your deliberate actions and Great Dramas. You are aware if your partner(s) have this Lore or if they do not. Know your own worth. 

Logical Argument: You are practiced in constructing well-reasoned arguments in debate. When you attempt to persuade others in Council, outline your argument and ask the table if it’s bullshit. As long as it isn’t bullshit, you may spend one less token to press your issue in the council.

Side Note: It isn't written yet but there will absolutely be a counterpart knowledge about bullshitting and making poetry on the fly.

Judgement: You have internalized the belief that some acts are so unacceptable that, even if not done to you or yours, those who engage in them are no longer worthy of life. When you take this, specify which social breaches are worthy of death. You may now kill someone for committing them, so long as your character believes it to be true. The list of breaches may be amended if the group allows. You have opened a door which cannot be closed.

That's all for this week (Unless I actually post on time this time).

[a-s-fischer]

If you want a good object lesson about what we can and can't know about the past, we don't know Ea-Nasir was a dishonest merchant selling shoddy goods.

What we know is we have found a cache of complaint tablets about him selling low quality copper as high quality, in a site that was probably his own residence. We know multiple people complained he was a cheat. It's entirely possible they were right. It's also entirely possible that he kept these complaint letters as records of people he would no longer do business with, because they had made accusations and threats in order to bully him into giving them free copper. That is an equally valid interpretation of the evidence.

My point is not that we have maligned Ea-Nasir, my point is that thousands of years later, we do not and cannot know.

[kindigo]

Actually he wrote all the complaints himself with various sock puppet accounts to drum up sympathy subscribers to his Claytreon

[lordmonbodo]

Dev Diary 5 - ADHD Sucks

So this dev diary is extremely late. Keen eyed readers will note that I haven’t posted an update the last two weeks. Not much progress has happened on the game in that time, partially due to the joys of mental health.

Long story short, I was beginning to overwhelm myself without concrete plans to get everything done, both development wise and household chores wise. I also neglected to get my meds refilled in a timely manner and spent half a week in an unfocused spiral.

The good news from all that is that I am starting to bounce back a bit. Having meds helps, and I’ve had a few good therapy sessions. My wife is always extremely patient with me, even when she has literally no patience left, and helped me prioritize some tasks that let me get get caught up on the house while I took a few days off from game dev.

Finally, I’m merging my game Trello board with my list of chores for the day. I realized that there was no reason not to have all of my tasks in one single place to stay on track.

All that to say, I’m planning to actually make progress again this week and there WILL be an on-time diary this Friday with real game tidbits.

[lordmonbodo]

Dev Diary 4 - Should Violence Exist?

So this week’s dev diary is very late and also seemingly disconnected from my previous topic as I’ve been writing aspects of character creation this past week. I haven’t settled on the name for them yet, I keep bouncing between Traits and Knowledge, but I want the majority of the mechanical building blocks of character creation to take the form of short blurbs that unlock different things a character can do.

One of the categories I’ve been putting thought into is the idea of violence. Keepers isn’t free from violence by any means. Everything, from hunting or foraging for food to honoring the gods is a violent act in some way to something. Part of the goal of the game is to help players consider that idea during play. However, what about violence between humans?

On the one hand, I don’t want to rule it out entirely. Part of the Valley’s ideology is that all things have some personhood. To make violence against humans impossible would be to create some kind of separation between them and everything else in their world. It would also paint the people of the Valley as more of a utopia than I intend. I want to make them societies that can be admirable for many reasons, but ones filled with people and problems.

My answer has been to shamelessly steal an idea that Fede Sohns of Araukana Media tweeted out ages ago: make combat progression about your ability to dehumanize your enemy rather than about skill with weapons or magic. This means that one category of traits relates to beliefs about when it is acceptable to kill, starting from Necessity and Self-Defense and slowly encompassing larger ideas of Warrior Ethos, Greater Good, and Judgement.

It needs some tweaking. I want the progression to feel that it makes sense within the context of the Valley, but also be something that most people never learn. Either way, I think I need to see it in practice in order to adjust them further.