Tribute- an Effects-Based RPG based on Kabbalah. (under development)

[RSKennan]

I've been working on Tribute -my holy grail game- for years, but it's only within the past few months that its finally begun to come together. A few years back I hit on the idea that I wanted an Effects-Based system that allowed you to build your own effects from scratch. It would have to be more "atomic" than games like Mutants and Masterminds, GURPS or Hero when it came to Powers and Effects. What I mean by that is that rather than choosing the power of Mind Control off the rack, you might build it as follows:

ATTACK "Mind" { ANNEX FORCE of "Mind" [8]. }​

The value "8" is a placeholder, and stands for the potency of the ANNEX Effect's ability to overcome obstacles in its attempt to link the two minds and overpower the target character's mind. Believe it or not, all of the rules of this version of mind control are covered in shorthand in the "Tribute Expression" above. Such an expression can fit on a character sheet.

Another Example is the power of Flight:

MANEUVER "Body" { RELAY "Body" via CHANNEL ("Air") [10]. }​

In this example, 10 represents the speed of the RELAY effect, while CHANNEL ("Air") represents the medium through which the Effect is achieved. Simply by changing the CHANNEL you can convert flight into burrowing, swimming, or movement through any other medium (such as mirrors or shadows...) These CHANNELS aren't just arbitrary words; each is defined as needed, determining the side effects of using it.

Anyway, those words in all caps are called "Elements" in Tribute. Each Element is a word that is simultaneously a noun and a verb so it can be used as either in an Expression. Elements have a page or so of rules attached to them that determine how they can be used, but once you know those rules you shouldn't need to refer to them in play.

As you can see, it looks a lot like a syntactic magic system from games like Ars Magica, except it is expanded to cover every type of effect that a generic game needs.

So far there are about 29 Elements (and some useful non-element words), but aside from the dice mechanics, those will be all the rules in the game. A lot of elements do many things; the RELAY element above covers any form of motion in the game, from moving as described above, to throwing a rock to shooting a gun.

As for the Kabbalah connection, it's a long story, and I cover it in my Design Blog. I will say that I'm not pushing an agenda of faith or mysticism with the game- I'm an agnostic and it just turned out that the system of classifying phenomena in Kabbalah worked for my needs. Additionally, I mean no disrespect to anyone who does have faith.

Anyway, thanks for reading, and I hope you drop by the blog. There are about 7 articles, giving a full overview of the Elements. I can answer any questions you might have here as well, of course.

 

[Andor]

Well. I've read through it, but I doubt very much I understand it. I see glimmers of real cleverness there, and obviously you've put a lot of thought, research and effort into this.

With what's been presented so far however I'm left with very little idea about how any of it may be used. I'm under the impression that the system would be very strong for campaigns centered on personal interaction, relationships and perhaps investigation and enterprise as well.

However I'm afraid it's basically incomprehensible to me, even for the purposes of intelligent feedback without some samples of Worlds, games, characters, items and some examples of play.

 

[RSKennan]

Yeah, I ll get there. it's a very different approach to RPG design, so I understand that it won't be immediately comprehensible.

I do plan to write the next post about putting all of the concepts together with some examples of how to use the system. I know the first posts were a huge info dump, but I had to get any readers onto the same page. The notes about Kabbalah may be confusing the issue, but it's a design blog and I figured it might be of interest. I'm doing my best to segregate those sections from the rules discussions.

Thanks for reading, and hopefully you'll bear with me as I find my sea legs. I've only done a slight bit of blogging before, and the design blog is as much about helping me clarify my ideas for the playtest document as it is about sharing.

Do you have any advice about how I might make it more comprehensible? Should I start with a very brief overview (element names only) followed by examples of use?

 

[RSKennan]

I've completely rewritten the articles on Frames, Powers, and Functions for clarity. For the most part I cut the cruft and tried to be more direct. I've given examples of things you'd want them for, as well.

In addition, I've written an in-depth example of creating a magic item.

Thanks for reading.