This War Of Mine - A Chronicle of Survival (INTEREST CHECK / RECRUITING)

" For Soldiers, War is about Victory. For us, it was about getting food."



So one more idea I've been wanting to explore. Basics as follows.

WHAT: A game using the Storyteller System (New World of Darkness / Chronicles of Darkness) to explore the themes of the 11-Bit Studios video game, This War Of Mine, a game about non-combatants trapped in the midst of a conflict with no choice but to try and survive (heavily based on the Siege of Sarajevo during the Bosnian War, 1992-1995).

WHO: 5 Characters from different stripes of life, trying desperately to stay alive until such time as they can escape or, hopefully, the war ends. It is important to keep in mind that these characters, while possibly possessing heroic strengths and virtues, are not heroes: they are mortal human beings, with human flaws and vices, whom can suffer greatly and be killed easily. This is not a story that will be a power-fantasy, but rather a much more slower-paced exploration of character development and psyche. Your characters will face awful circumstances and situations. They will see and perform choices that may be decidedly less-than-moral. They will see the consequences of such decisions, one way or the other.

WHERE: A fictional analog for an Eastern-European nation. Literally going to be honest and possibly set this in the Strangereal Universe of Ace Combat, for those familiar with it, just for ease of not setting this in the real world.

WHEN: The early 1990s. With a setting that is a little behind-the-times and also in a warzone, this means that things like Computers are probably kinda rare, as are cell phones, but you can assume most modern conveniences are at least known, if not present.

WHY: Because I like character drama just as much as I like High Adventure and Sorcery. I realize that this is not exactly a popular idea: we'd literally be exploring the slow death of a group of people who maybe, maybe might make it out of this alive, but I feel that games are good for exploring these things. This is not a story where the PCs will end the war, or save all the people, or do all the good deeds and "win". Winning is survival, winning is bringing home food or finally getting power to the Safehouse you're holed up in. Though I am normally a very lenient and happy DM, I plan on running this one a little more brutally, hence using the Storyteller System: bullets hurt, disease can cripple and kill, starvation and weather are things that will be some of your worst enemies.

While the characters themselves will be rather powerless in the grand scheme of the setting, they will also have the ability to make a difference in small ways. If this is something some people are willing to explore, I am more than ready to launch into this.

So to wrap-up:

- Slower-paced game set more on Character Development than any Quest & Reward system
- Entire Chronicle will be spent trapped inside a city under siege
- You are powerless in the grand-scale but powerful in the smaller scope
- In War, Not Everyone is a Soldier

I'm in if you'll have me!

I love stuff like this.

Character Concept (likely going to be the first to die) - A disabled social worker with Multiple Sclerosis. She currently walks with special crutches but was going to end up in a wheelchair in a few months most likely. She's American and in the country as part of a UN mission helping disabled kids in this country get access to treatment and care. She is also queer, with a local lover, though they keep their relationship closeted.

Man, talk about going in with an arm tied behind your back, but hey, welcome aboard! The idea of a foreigner being trapped whilst on a humanitarian assignment is some pretty powerful stuff to work with, I like the idea. Just for me to ponder on, would her lover be played by yourself (from a Mechanics perspective, taken as a Merit, someone you can wholly rely on), or would you prefer that I do so throughout the development of the story and their relationship?

I was thinking the lover might be a macguffin even, barely on screen. My character is at work when things go sour and my character desperately wants to find her or something like that. Barring that, I'd prefer she be a full NPC in her own right (or a PC if anyone is interested).

If not taken up by a PC, I dig the idea of the lover being a goal of your character: find her and get the hell out of Dodge. Keep her presence in things like rumors from other survivors and like checkpoint detainee lists and such.

As for your Social Worker, I'm heavily assuming she focuses far more on emotional healing than physical medicine? Mechanically, more points to Social attributes and skills than Mental ones?

Yes, with a flaw (sorry I don't have the newer Chronicles of Darkness book so I don't know the exact rules) that limits her physical attributes or is otherwise an impairment.

Not a worry, converting between NWoD and CoD is pretty simple enough.

Instead of Flaws, we have Conditions: things that affect you and when they either come up or get resolved, you get a Beat (Story Beats are the new measure of XP).

For your character, the Disabled Condition is pretty fitting: you need an aid to walk or a wheelchair, with your speed basically equal to your Strength to move around. We'd mark it as Persistent (it isn't going away by itself), and your character would gain beats whenever her inability to move quickly affects the drama of a scene.

Sounds good to me.

Now that I've been pulled back into this forum, I might be interested in adding to this story. The setting presents a lot of unique challenges that you normally wouldn't face in traditional game settings. I love Kiraya's ideas

Awesome!

In the meantime, a few other changes that are pretty key to character development:

[sblock=1.) Every character now has Aspirations.] I'd be asking each player to have 2 Short-Term Aspirations, and 1 Long-Term one. These are essentially things you, as a player, want to have happen to your character to help drive the narrative forward. Fulfilling these gives you a Beat, and every time you fulfill one, you get to take a new one in its place. The only real rule here is that Aspirations must be active achievements or accomplishments, they're not a passive avoidance. "Don't start smoking" is not a real Aspiration (in the game's terms), but "Show restraint when tempted" is more appropriate: it is an action, it is something your character must do, or at least consciously confront.

Short-Term aspirations in a game like this are those you can reasonably achieve in short-order, or at least without expending a massive amount of effort.
- Find food for the night
- Help a wounded person
- Put myself into mortal danger
- Start a backyard garden
- Acquire a means of protection
- Get past the Military Checkpoint
- Find a working TV
- Binge on alcohol to numb myself
- Repair the door to our building
- Refuse help to a stranger

Etcetera. Generally, I'm not going to let people take the same Aspiration over and over: "Find Food" is pretty much always going to be on the list, so if it's chosen, once it's done, it's done. These are your means of driving the story forward, of telling myself and your fellow players what you hope to see and explore in the setting: this is how you progress the game, achieving your Aspirations and then getting new ones. It's the screenwriter moment of "So they accomplish X. Now what?"

Long-Term Aspirations may be a little trickier, as these are things you should know are going to be much more difficult to do, things that will take a lot of your time and effort. For your character, Kiraya, this is definitely where the "Find where my girlfriend is" comes into play: it's something your character desperately wants to accomplish but knows that there is a lot of steps towards getting there.[/sblock]


[sblock=2.) Virtues and Vices work differently] Instead of The Seven Holy Virtues and Seven Deadly Sins as per old NWoD, now these are up for you to personally decide what counts as your characters emotional strength and weakness. As before, fulfilling a Virtue gives back all of your spent Willpower, while fulfilling a Vice gives back 1 point of Willpower.

As before, your Virtue is the best thing about you. It's what you cling to when all the chips are down, when things are at their worst, you will not renege on this aspect of yourself. This is your higher calling, and it should be difficult to hold onto in a setting like this. If you realized this part of yourself every day, it's not really a special part of your being, after all. That, or it's just not strong enough to be a Virtue. This, again, can literally be anything you think makes a good emotional strength for your character. Some of the examples they give are:

- Hopeful
- Loving
- Honest
- Humble
- Trustworthy
- Ambitious
- Just
- Loyal
- Peaceful
- Generous
- Patient

And so on. Again, in a war-torn city like our setting, I expect literally no one to always be able to be Generous or Just. You need those antibiotics, and sure the woman at your door claims she needs them too for her sick child at home, but can you really afford to give them up? What if she's lying and she has no sick daughter at all, what if she's intending to sell your hard-earned medicine on the black market just to make a buck? And yes, you may have a sense of moral justice and righteousness, but when you see a soldier and their buddies commit a despicable crime, are you really going to try and stop them? You have a pocket knife you managed to find in a garage, whereas they are in full combat gear and are carrying assault rifles. They could kill you in a fraction of a second, they will do so if you try and interfere. You've seen it before.

Your Virtue is looking at these situations and going "I'd still do it". You give the medicine to that woman and you don't think twice about it. You throw a rock at those soldiers to get their attention and stop them, and you run like your life depends upon it, and you may be shot or worse but you still tried.


If Virtues are the best of you, Vices are the worst. When push comes to shove, you fold and give in to your chosen coping method. In some ways, depending upon how you use it, your Vice may actually be someone else's Virtue: their Ambition drives them to do great things but yours makes you hyper competitive, demanding advancement at the sake of others. While someone else's sense of Righteousness makes them fight against corruption no matter the circumstances, yours makes you so self-assured of your own morality that you use it to harshly criticize and judge others, berating them with your own "superiority".

Your Vice should be much easier to fulfill than your Virtue. When angry, when upset, when stressed or sad, you give in heartily to this. Some of the listed examples are:

- Pessimistic
- Hateful
- Deceitful
- Arrogant
- Untrustworthy
- Treacherous
- Cruel
- Ambitious
- Violent
- Greedy
- Cowardly

You get the idea. The Cowardly character forces another to go into the hospital to get some meds and painkillers because he's terrified he'll be killed by the soldiers that patrol it. The Cruel character doesn't steal from the unfortunate person she comes across, she holds them at gunpoint and forces them to strip off their clothes and hand them over as well, sending the poor survivor off into the winter with not a chance in hell of avoiding frostbite and death. Your Vice is always going to be the worst part about you, the part you wish you wouldn't show but also the part you might reluctantly admit may keep you alive.[/sblock]


[sblock=3.) Morality is now Integrity.] Instead of being just a measure of "How much of an abstract-good person are you", Integrity is literally how well you're keeping yourself together. Instead of "sins", characters have "Breaking Points", where something intrinsic about their world view is shattered and they must find a way to cope with it. Generally, a Breaking Point occurs when:
- Your character does something that breaks their own moral code or that is unacceptable within society
- Your character witnesses or is the victim of something traumatic, terrifying, or that rattles their understanding of the world.
(There is also one for supernatural things, but we are not playing with the supernatural)

Granted, Breaking Points for characters are definitely different. A homicide detective with 30 ears of experience on the force probably isn't going to be too rattled by seeing a dead body, but a sheltered, suburban student who is on his first foray outside of his town would more than likely be traumatized when confronting an actual victim of murder. The important part is that a Breaking Point is not necessarily "Something my character considers wrong". Your character may be that same detective and be forced to shoot (and kill) a murderer, one who was attacking them with lethal intent. A clear case of self-defense, and the detective (and player) may consider this morally justified, but taking a life is still taking a life. "Actions take a toll on the Psyche, regardless of whether the actions were Righteous".

To help determine your character's personal breaking points, all players should answer these questions.

- What is the Worst Thing your Character has ever done?
In this regards, this is what your Character thinks is the worst thing they've ever done. Our Homicide Detective may have accidentally shot an innocent person, whereas our suburban student may have stolen from a friend. Likewise, the Detective may have accepted a bribe, and the student had severely injured someone in a car accident. It's what the character considers is the worst thing. Your Breaking Point here is related to this: the first Detective and second student may have one of "Harm an Innocent", while the first student and second detective may have "Abuse someone's trust in me".

- What is the Worst Thing your Character can imagine themselves doing?
Similar to the above, this is not something the character has done (yet), but certainly something they considered or toyed with. These are the moments a character would never forgive themselves for if they actually went to this level. The mother who wonders if she would take money for sex to feed her children. The athlete who wonders if maybe he should take steroids because he's starting to lose his edge. The soldier who wonders if she would use her authority and force to get something she wanted from those she's to protect. The breaking point is related to the act: the mother would have "Resort to Prostitution for survival", the athlete has "Use illegal substances during a competition", the soldier has "Abuse those I protect for self interest".

- What is the Worst Thing your Character can imagine someone else doing?
This may not have have happened to your Character, but certainly this is something they couldn't possibly ever consider themselves doing. This is the worst depravity they can imagine, and is of course flavored by who they are. Our Homicide Detective has definitely seen some things in her day: she probably knows that humans are capable of some awful, awful things, but maybe even she couldn't possibly ever come to terms with people doing those things to children. Our student, however, might just consider murder in the 1st degree as the worst possible thing, the intentional taking of someone's life. This one will definitely be based upon the character and their experiences. The Breaking Point is witnessing the act in question: if our Detective could not take the thought of someone killing a child, seeing someone do exactly that is her Breaking Point.

- What is the most Traumatic Thing that has ever happened to your Character?
Again, pretty self-explanatory. This is, again, what your character considers to be the most traumatic thing. Our drunk driving student may not consider the wreck, but instead everything that came afterwards to be the traumatic part: facing the victim's parents, being arrested and jailed, going through the court system. Violence, sexual assault, emotional abuse, situations where characters were made to feel powerless or weak in some way, these are the moments to explore here. It may be when a friend betrayed the character, or a time of abandonment. Dig deep here.[/sblock]


Aaaand apparently I wrote a book ._.
Digest at your leisure.