@geostatonary relocating the conversation out of the replies 'cause the discussion is getting longform and multimedia XD
I went to check out Chancel Aleph and was exceedingly pleased to encounter this little gem:
I believe this is precisely what I am attempting to capture in my chart, although Jim Henley and I have used different words to describe the same concept (he using "dignity" and I using "competence", both meaning "how cool you are doing it"). The only actual difference is that he starts the improvement cycle at level 0 and considers level 9 to be it's own remarkable category, whereas I separate out level 0 and start the improvement cycle at level 1. (Check below the cut if you want to see me get really in the weeds about this).
I actually had a bit of a hard time parsing what he said after similar to how I had a hard time parsing the original sourcebook, even though I think at the end we come to the exact same conclusion in terms of "Intention guarantees certain qualities of the outcome". I think it's an aesthetics thing, and part of why I wrote the PHB in the first place: there are certain mechanics in the game where, by dint of how it is written, you are either vibing on the same wavelength as the author and it makes sense, or you aren't and it doesn't. The change to the Intentions chart is my attempt to remove that vibe barrier with explicit description of what the guarantees are.
For comparison, this is the original 3rd edition Intentions chart:
0 or less: attempt to do things, but only make things worse
1: make yourself happy
2: accomplish a task; have a tangible impact on the world
3: do something “correctly;” impress people around you
4: do something effective—something that moves you closer to your goals
5: do something productive—something that makes your life better
6: do something that looks damn good—impressive, dramatic, and cool
7: do something really effective, moving you a lot closer to your goals
8: do something really productive—it will make your life a lot better
9 or more: do the right thing, for some fuzzy definition of right
And this is my version:
0 or less: You work on a basic task but only make things worse
1: You work on a basic task with everyday competency
2: You get through a situation with everyday competency
3: You get through a situation with professional competency
4: You get through a situation with professional competency
and move one step towards your goals
5: You accomplish a serious undertaking with professional competency and move one step towards your goals
6: You accomplish a serious undertaking with flair and style
and move one step towards your goals
7: You accomplish a serious undertaking with flair and style
and move a lot closer to your goals
8: You accomplish something life-changing with flair and style
and move a lot closer towards your goals
9 or more: You accomplish something life-changing with perfection
and move a lot closer towards your goals
Jim's assertion (and honestly Dr Moran's as well) is that level 9 represents a special tier of success, one that includes, as he puts it, "moral guarantee". In other words, what the sourcebook calls "doing the right thing" and what I call "perfection" is characterized by the somewhat-objective moral content of the outcomes of your actions. The consequence of this view is that Intentions of levels 0-2 all guarantee the same level of dignity/competence, which by the explicit phrasing of the level 0 effect is disgraceful.
My assertion is that level 0 represents the only prescriptive fail-state in the Intentions chart; ie with a level 0 Intention you must fail at making things better (for yourself as well). Based on this premise, I take "everyday competency" to be the baseline success mode of dignity/competence, increase it to "professional competency" at level 3, "with flair and style" at level 6, and "perfection" at level 9 I read as being less about the morality of the actions (I have difficulty believing a mortal can guarantee that given their general lack of karmic agency and the squishiness of morality), and more about the transcendent nature of how you did the thing. In my reading "doing the right thing" doesn't mean "doing the morally correct thing", it means "performing the perfect, platonic ideal of whatever action you were undertaking".
Now, worth noting, I don't actually mind if an Intention achieves the morally right thing, especially at those higher levels; and actually, I think including "and do it in a morally correct way" as part of an Intention is a cool character choice. But I'm not quite willing to grant moral certitude as a guarantee based solely on the amount of Will exerted.
i just shared your nobilis sheets and guide with my nobilis campaign group. it took us something like 3-4 one on one zoom calls to do our sheets back when we started playing and i feel like it permanently altered my brain chemistry. to this day we all say "everything is nobilis" when something weird happens. so i gotta ask, did getting that deep into the game do something similar for you?
Absolutely. As just one example, when my understanding of Nobilis shifted from "the most important part of the character sheet is how powerful your Miracles are" to "the most important part of the character sheet is your Bonds and Afflictions" my actual real world understanding of how agency and identity are related also shifted, which has had cascading effects on how I think about free will.
Nobilis also turned me into the single human being on planet Earth who likes the Marvel movie Eternals.
you're so welcome! it's such a deeply weird but truly inspiring game. i'd read all about that shift in how you think about agency & identity now if you ever felt like writing it.
TL;DR free will exists but in a narrower band than Satre's absolute freedom would posit.
So the big shift came about in conjunction with a lecture I attended by a rabbi who was discussing ideas around judging others' morality, and how we can't know someone's life circumstances or interiority and therefore are never in a position to judge a person's moral standing in relation to God.
He used two case studies: a person who spends all day every day at home playing video games, and a person who stringently observes the laws of the sabbath. He pointed out that by actions, we would say that the first person is acting like a lazy bum and that the second person is acting in a deeply righteous manner. But for the video game player, it is entirely possible that they are a deeply mentally unwell person with an obsessive murderous psychosis who is using video games to drown out their violent urges, and so by playing video games this person is, in fact, doing something both difficult for them and also hugely beneficial to the world. In other words, this supposedly lazy person is, at all times, maximally invoking their free will by doing nothing for the benefit of others.
In the second case of the sabbath-observing Jew, he actually pointed to himself as the case study. "I'm not God, but I'm almost certain that I don't earn merit in the eyes of heaven for observing Shabbat; not because it's a meritless act, but because I've literally done it since I was a child and at this point I don't know if I could not observe Shabbat even if I tried to will myself to do so." In other words, even doing something deeply righteous that involves a ton of work did not involve any act of free will.
So with this interesting new idea rattling around in my brain, the next time I sat down to think about Bonds and Afflictions all that lecture came bounding back and for some reasons thinking about the limits of free will as applied to fictional game construct Powers clicked much more than thinking about it as applied to real people but in such a way that I could retrofit the insight onto people; about how there are things we straight up can't do just because of the nature of who we are, even if Absolute Freedom suggests otherwise.
Now obviously the hard part of launching a land invasion of Heaven will figuring out where they hid the hole. Finding the miniscule aperture, the hole in physical reality to which all souls are translocated at the moment of death, and then jamming something sturdy in there, getting it in reallll good and working it around until it's big enough to fit some guys with guns through. But the nice part is that the nature of Heaven means that, one, not many people get in in the first place, and two, none of them are good at fighting, because people who're good at fighting mostly don't go to heaven. Except us, when we find the hole. The point is that once we're in there's not much they're gonna be able to do. Pretty much we'll have free run of the place
i just shared your nobilis sheets and guide with my nobilis campaign group. it took us something like 3-4 one on one zoom calls to do our sheets back when we started playing and i feel like it permanently altered my brain chemistry. to this day we all say "everything is nobilis" when something weird happens. so i gotta ask, did getting that deep into the game do something similar for you?
Absolutely. As just one example, when my understanding of Nobilis shifted from "the most important part of the character sheet is how powerful your Miracles are" to "the most important part of the character sheet is your Bonds and Afflictions" my actual real world understanding of how agency and identity are related also shifted, which has had cascading effects on how I think about free will.
Nobilis also turned me into the single human being on planet Earth who likes the Marvel movie Eternals.
i just shared your nobilis sheets and guide with my nobilis campaign group. it took us something like 3-4 one on one zoom calls to do our sheets back when we started playing and i feel like it permanently altered my brain chemistry. to this day we all say "everything is nobilis" when something weird happens. so i gotta ask, did getting that deep into the game do something similar for you?
Absolutely. As just one example, when my understanding of Nobilis shifted from "the most important part of the character sheet is how powerful your Miracles are" to "the most important part of the character sheet is your Bonds and Afflictions" my actual real world understanding of how agency and identity are related also shifted, which has had cascading effects on how I think about free will.
Nobilis also turned me into the single human being on planet Earth who likes the Marvel movie Eternals.
I want to make this clear: I love the Nobilis 3e sourcebook. I own both the original and the 2022 "modern" edition. As a sit-down, read-it-through experience I think it's incredible and I still reread it for creative inspiration.
It is not well configured to get a new player playing the game quickly.
This Player's Handbook is my attempt to do that. It is written with a rules-and-mechanics-first approach, aiming for clarity rather than imaginative stimulation, although I have done my best to use creative examples to demonstrate the possibilities within the system.
Additionally provided is an automated character sheet/character creation tool that I have developed.
I humbly submit them to the internet for critique and to provide what use they may to those who have need of them. You may feel free to share them as widely as you feel inspired. For those kind souls who choose to examine them, I beg feedback in the form of corrections, criticisms, and questions, either left as comments in the documents themselves or sent to me here via Asks.
Seriously for real I have been working on these for literal years if they spark even a small amount of joy please tell me so I know someone has at least seen them.
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
turnnoffyourmind
gracieabrams
gummygunk
