The Evil swept across the land, laying claim to all we hold dear. We few stood together to face it. But we were unprepared. It is too late for us now, our fates sealed the moment we entered into its domain. We never stood a chance…but the ones after us might. All we can do now is to confront this Evil, uncover the weaknesses within it, and pass on the knowledge we’ve gained for the heroes after us before we perish.
We will fall, but we are not the end.
That’s the pitch anyway. Prequel (that’s the working title of the game), is a tabletop roleplaying game of heroic sacrifices that is designed to be played a single session and tell the story of a group of heroes that are fighting a great Evil, only to discover that this Evil far outmatches them and there is no hope of victory. Their objective instead is to fight the Evil, uncover its weaknesses, and preserve this information so that it can be used by the next heroes…all before they die.
The Genesis of the Game
The idea for this game came out of my love for playing characters that are self-sacrificing and aim to go out in a “blaze of glory.” I gravitate towards this playstyle because it creates strong relationships between characters and it lets you have your moment in the spotlight while also being a fan of the friends at the table. Your spectacular sacrifice removes any seemingly unsurmountable obstacle to allow your allies to do what they wanted to do. The death guarantees change, impact, and significance.
It also stems from my experience playing and running in one-shots, where I noticed that players tend to take more risks, both narratively and mechanically, and in general have a more enjoyable time, when they know on the outset that the game has a defined and soon-to-arrive endpoint.
I want to make a game that encourages the behaviors above and create memorable stories that have the potential to set up long-term campaigns that could explore the implications of the sacrifices made in the one-shot.
The Design Objectives
Based on the concept, the objectives of the design of the game are boiled down to the following:
- A TTRPG designed to be played in a one-shot
- Tactical combat based. The climax of the game is the character’s battle against this Evil. Players need to decide how to spend their turns to: harm the Evil (to possibly create a new weakness), uncover weaknesses, or preserve the information uncovered. Oh, and stay long enough to do all three.
- Doomed to die. The idea is that the characters will all die at the end and that the Evil can’t be killed right now because some of the weaknesses can’t be addressed at the moment. Example: The EVIL can only be slain by a blade dipped in the fountain of youth, and well…we didn’t do that…BUT we better tell the next folks to that somehow. Maybe a prophecy written in the star? A song carried on the wind?
- Encourage sacrifices by having narrative and mechanical weight. This can be accomplished a few ways.
- Sacrifice weapons/attacks so that you have better chances of doing what you want to promote the “this is it” mentality. For instance you could say, “this is my last arrow” and that gives you a benefit to your next attack, but that means you can’t use that attack anymore.
- Use what I’m calling Legacy moves, where if a character accumulates enough of a resource, they can spend it on a Legacy move that will preserve the information uncovered but at such a cost it pulls the character out of the game. I’m thinking something like taking the hit so that an ally can send a crucial message, or locking your soul away in a magical weapon so that someone can find it later so you can guide them, or gazing into the face of the God of Fate so that you may craft a prophecy to select the Chosen One. This is similar to Death Moves as discussed on this post by @drakeanddice, or Heroic Sacrifice Moves on this post by @bleongambetta.
The Design Challenges
On the outset, I knew that to make this game fun to play, I would need to address the following:
- Make death enticing, but not too enticing. If the idea is to go out in a blaze of glory, what is stopping all the characters from doing so immediately? There needs to be a balance between wanting to stay alive and wanting to go out spectacularly. It needs to be fun throughout!
- I’m dead, now what? Similarly, what is a player to do once their character dies? Do they just watch their friends play the remainder of the game? If so, that may disincentivize any sacrificial behavior.
- Rules simple enough to learn quickly, but complex enough to offer tactical depth.
- What’s the win condition? We know all the Heroes will die, so what is the condition that makes the players still feel like they won?
The System
When I first conceived of the game, I originally intended to create a new system that centered around the use of a resource called Resolve points. You gain Resolve points by playing to your character’s archetype and bonds/flaws, and you spend Resolve points to do cool abilities including uncovering weaknesses and using your Legacy move. I debated whether to introduce dice into the game, because well…I like rolling dice, but I was leaning towards not using dice for simplicity.
I then came across GilaRPG’s game, HUNT. HUNT is a game where you play as doomed knights that face challenges and ultimately fight a beast to determine the fate of their knightly order. It’s meant to be played as a one-shot, and it uses the LUMEN 2.0 system which “eschews the use of dice, focusing on collaborate storytelling, and puzzle-like combat.” Perfect! Furthermore, GilaRPG is running a game jam for HUNT, which I am using as a self-imposed deadline to get a minimum viable product of my game done (this game won’t be eligible for the HUNT jam since it’s not meant to be played directly with the game, but it is definitely an “Illuminated by LUMEN 2.0” game).
So my goal is to hack HUNT, using its LUMEN 2.0 system, one-session framework of a few small challenges leading up to a big fight, and tying actions to narrative and doom-themed consequences, to create this game!
Laying out the Pieces
Since the focus is on producing a minimum viable product that I can refine later, I wanted to keep as much as I can from HUNT as my starting point. So here’s what I’m going with so far, keeping in mind this is all nebulous and could change at moment’s notice:
Approaches and Complications
I’ll be keeping the three approach structure of HUNT, but likely renaming Valor into something like Bravery to convey less of the “knight” theme and more of the “fantasy hero” theme.
- Bravery. Use when taking actions related to strength or resolve of will and determination.
- Haste. Use when taking actions related to speed or reaction.
- Guile. Use when taking actions related to wits and cleverness.
HUNT has every knight start with a score of 5 for each Approach. I think for this game, I’m going to assign starting Approach scores depending on the archetype/class chosen.
I don’t anticipate changing the Complications and their resolutions – the major/minor complications seems to be to be an elegant way to handle challenges in a diceless game.
Heroes
I conceived this game as a stereotypical power fantasy game that played on tropes to easily convey the tone and what each Hero archetype is. (Also, labeling the antagonist as just THE EVIL leaves little room for nuance…but that’s how a lot of fantasy stories start). This also meshes with the “this game is the prequel to the actual story” that is found in many fantasy stories. HUNT uses the selection of an Oath and a Weapon to fill out a character’s abilities (narrative things you can do all the time, sometimes at a narrative cost) and Powers (mechanical things you can do only during the final fight). The Weapon also has prompts in the form of Questions to narratively flesh out a Knight, and Quests that are narrative goals that have mechanical consequences should they not be accomplished in time.
For this game, I’m thinking of doing a similar “Chose one from two categories” approach to give players some semblance of character customization. But instead of Oath and Weapon, I think I’m going with something like Origin and Class (definitely not in love with these names). Some ideas of both include the following:
Origins. Origins will include an Ability, a Bond that allows a character to regain Approaches (the current thought is that to uncover a Weakness, you need to be able to use up multiple Approaches), and possibly a Power/Legacy Power.
- The Noble. Ability to Pull Rank, Bonded to reputation, Legacy Power related to Bloodlines/successors.
- The Outcast. Ability to pathfind, Bonded to animal/plant, Legacy Power?
- The Crooked. Ability to detect secrets, Bonded to self, Legacy Power chance of surviving the fight to pass on information, but you are punished for your cowardice by society.
- The Vengeful. Ability to sense Evil’s mark, Bonded to ?, Legacy Power?
- The Devout. Ability to sanctify objects/locations, Bonded to Deity, Legacy Power related to Martyrdom/Prophecy making.
Classes. Classes will include one Ability and more Powers. Possible ideas I’m throwing around:
- The Sentinel. Abilities and Powers focusing on protection. Legacy Power to protect an ally?
- The Blade. Abilities and Powers on damage. Legacy Power to trap own soul in weapon.
- The Mage. Abilities and Power on crowd control. Legacy Power to?
- The Bard. Abilities and Power on buffing. Legacy power to immortalize the fight in song?
Hopefully this gives you an idea of what Origins and Classes can be. I like the naming convention because you can easily sum up your character with the Origin + Class. There’s going to be an identifiable difference between a Vengeful Noble and a Vengeful Bard.
The Hunt
I’m going to keep the same multi-scene structure as HUNT, but I may actually reduce it to 2-scenes with more challenges within each for a more three-act structure (2 scenes + 1 final battle). The scenes could either be areas within the EVIL’s domain as the players overcome challenges/traps/minions, or more of a montage of scenes throughout the Heroes’ quest that help flesh out the relationship of the Heroes, the stakes, and their journey from their start to now.
The Final Fight
The final fight remains pretty much the same. The new mechanics I need to figure out is Identifying a Weakness, and Preserving the Information. At first, I’m thinking that Identifying a Weakness would be accomplished by either A) dealing enough damage (i.e., after dealing 2 Harm, the EVIL laughs and says something like, “Only the blade forged of starmetal can kill me”), or B) spending Approaches (i.e., to locate the weak spot in the dragon’s scales, you need to spend 3 Guile). Preserving the information will likely require spending Approaches, or using your Legacy Power. All these actions will come with narrative costs as well.
The Evil
The Evil will be chosen at the beginning of the game, and flavors the challenges during the Hunt portion. Fighting a Fallen Angel in a desecrated temple will be different than fighting an ice dragon at the top of a snowy peak. However, I don’t think I’m going to be keeping the Quest mechanic from HUNT, so the Evil won’t get harder with failed Quests. Instead, the Evil will change in power level based on number of Heroes fighting it, and the win condition will likely be successfully locating and preserving the information of X+2 weaknesses, where X is the number of Heroes.
Stay Tuned
That’s all for now. My next goal is to hone in on the weaknesses mechanic and then come up with some fleshed out Origins and Classes. Stay tuned for the next design diary!