Mythos Homebrew Discussion III: Grievous Imbalance Is A Feature

[Kaje]

God I want the ophidian so much. Any class that can claim Carmen Sandiego and David Xanatos as reps has got to be amazing.

[Zale]

Hmm.

I love reading new systems. I like the crunchy feeling of clicking mechanics together.

So I will read and enjoy anything that gets made, especially, though, for this.

One of the things I love most in games, even non-tabletop games, is the interplay of story and mechanics. I like it when the mechanics uphold the story and genre in a graceful, elegant way; when the stated story is actually possible with the mechanics-

This is one of the things that D&D 3.5 consistently fails at. It presents classes and options with the understanding that they're powerful or equal, or talks a big game about them, but then they're completely underwhelming.

But, Xefas, you do a really good job of making evocative and thematic mechanics that resonate well with the stories they're trying to tell. Doing that with something as non-narrativist as 3.5 is an incredible feat.

It's something I've always enjoyed about your work here.

There's also the fact that your writing is fantastic and evocative ontop of the mechanics.


But, yes, onto mechanical things:

As far as traits that help enforce story roles go, have you looked into fate? The way aspects work sounds similar to that, in that you can be compelled to follow story traits in return for mechanical incentive.

Oh, and about health systems:

My personal favorite health system is from Chuubo's Marvelous Wish Granting Engine. In it, your health system is basically about how much control over your character's narrative you have.

It handles a lot of situations in the same way mechanical. Things like having a love spell cast on you, or someone persuading you to give them all your money, or someone dropping a mountain on you, or someone ripping your soul out and condemning it to hell.

Those are all things that health system can handle interchangeable. It's pretty amusing.

The only system where you can respond to someone decapitating you by sneering, "Nyeh-Nyeh, now I'm a ghost- good luck axe-murdering me again JERK."

[Valerem]

Ya know... I am so going to being stealing so many ideas during this discussion. I mean, I made my point clear. As much as I do want to support Xefras in this regard, and I really do believe that the Mythos system will benefit from taking a step away from 3.5 D&D, I’ll be sad that I won’t be able to see Mythos come to completion in 3,5 D&D, I mean. Expecting Xefras to work on Mythos both as an original concept, AND for 3.5 D&D is waaaaay too much of a stretch. However, actually having people talking about the issues in 3.5, and talking how they might be able to overcome them, is definitely going to benefit me greatly.

Like, the issue of health. Where one moment your fine, and the next moment you can’t do anything? That’s a well known Trope: Critical Existence Failure, and one that is relevant in a LOT of games. Of course, just because it’s relevant and happens often in a game, doesn’t mean it has to be accepted... complacency is bad. Innovation is good. But of course... this is in place, to help ensure there isn’t an Unstable Equilibrium, creating a downward spiral where if you get an early penalty, it soon swings entirely out of control. Which is exactly what you want to avoid Xefras, so it is a problem for sure. It’s an issue that I want to address, but I have almost no idea how to do so myself. So having a look at the suggestions here, and what you end up coming up with yourself Xefras, will really help me out.

Still, I hope there is a suggestion I can make that might get your interest. It was brought to my attention, that the reason why conditions are so powerful (and why everyone get’s so many immunities at higher levels), is because conditions like Paralysis, or Petrified are Binary. Yet they are almost as effective as Death is. But in order to kill someone, you have to reduce their health - which is Gradual. If you throw enough conditions at someone, eventually they will beat their binary defence of the saves, and give you a victory.

So, the best way to counter this, is make it so conditions are gradual as well. I’ve made it so Status effects can be downgraded to a less severe condition, at the cost of taking a stronger toll on your body. Health points represents your body’s ability to withstand blows and throw of poison and disease. Fortitude points represents your physical and mental stamina. Whenever this is reflected in dodging a fireball, throwing off a compulsion effect, or being attacked in a non-lethal manner, Fortitude reflects that all.

... Not sure I explained that very well honestly, but I hope you understand where I’m coming from in this regard. Of course, being that you ARE intending to make an entirely new system... you could just rework conditions entirely so you don’t need a two health-bar system...

[Xefas]

I'm reading all posts and taking them into consideration - just wanted to state that for the record. Normally, I would respond individually to them, but typing out long posts is already tedious with a phone, without adding multiple quotes and such. Suffice it to say, I appreciate all input and support.

In regards to mentioned systems - I'm passingly familiar with GURPS and Chuubo's (which doesn't mean much, as they both seem quite dense in their own way). I started playing Fate with the Dresden Files RPG, and kickstarted Fate Core. If all Fate based games were counted together, it's one of my most played systems, potentially surpassed only by D&D due to the ridiculous marathon sessions I had in middle/high school and college.

Anyway, the mechanic I'm contemplating today is space and movement. Mythopoeia will have to accommodate a wide range of forms and powers in a single party, but also across a character's development, so it may be trickier than it seems. Unavoidably, space will have to be represented more abstractly than a rigid scale grid - to see why, only imagine a party with a (roughly) human sized Teramach that can punt people miles at a time, a Kathodos in the form of a sapient hurricane, and a Jagannatha that has become a walking castle populated with a literal legion of demonic soldiers. Moving in little squares just isn't feasible.

I have some ideas, of course. But I'm open to suggestions.

[Lanth Sor]

I did do a stamina system which was like a fatigue rework the party was rather concerned it would be cumbersome but it turned out really smooth.

[VoodooPaladin]

space will have to be represented more abstractly than a rigid scale grid - to see why, only imagine a party with a (roughly) human sized Teramach that can punt people miles at a time, a Kathodos in the form of a sapient hurricane, and a Jagannatha that has become a walking castle populated with a literal legion of demonic soldiers

Honestly, it's kind of hard to imagine how combat works at that level of complexity and variation. Trying to keep things straightforward and simple is a challenge at this point - it sounds like Mythopeoia's concept of movement is more of a relative question of 'can you actually affect this thing with your power' than it is a matter of sensible, round-by-round accounting of location.

Maybe some kind of Engage roll, which is complicated by any effect that would make you hard for chump farmers with pitchforks to stab to death? Hitting Godzilla doesn't work unless you're flying, or climbing up his limbs, or piloting a giant robot, or so on. Trying to stab a hurricane requires you have some power that would enable you to break its control over its wind patterns, whether that be magic weapons that cleave souls, opening gas pockets by splitting mile-wide canyons in vacant earth, or just being so big that punching it moves a few million foot-tons of force directly into its everything.

...that might not help much, but its kind of the best I've got right now.

[manwithaplan]

Anyway, the mechanic I'm contemplating today is space and movement. Mythopoeia will have to accommodate a wide range of forms and powers in a single party, but also across a character's development, so it may be trickier than it seems. Unavoidably, space will have to be represented more abstractly than a rigid scale grid - to see why, only imagine a party with a (roughly) human sized Teramach that can punt people miles at a time, a Kathodos in the form of a sapient hurricane, and a Jagannatha that has become a walking castle populated with a literal legion of demonic soldiers. Moving in little squares just isn't feasible.

I have some ideas, of course. But I'm open to suggestions.

You ever played Mutants and Masterminds? It's certainly built at least somewhat for human-sized individuals that can punt people four miles, sapient hurricanes, and...populated walking castles? I suppose.

It works in Distance. Facing doesn't matter, grids don't matter, everything is Distance. And the Distance Ranks double at each row. So your ordinary guy moves Distance Rank 0, or 30 Feet, with his Move Action. But if you put a point into your Speed, now you move 60. Another point and it goes up to 120 Feet, or Distance Rank 2. Then you have superheroes with Strength 10, and when they throw you, they throw you to Distance Rank 10 - 4 Miles. And if you get thrown, but you're the Teleporter, you might be able to travel Distance Rank 15 - 120 miles. So you pop back.

And for every fight between Speedsters punching each other while they run across the planet, people who move at normal speed can still get into a room together, take Move Actions to get close to each other, and have a bit of a tactical element to it. Like most of Mutants & Masterminds, while it lacks a strong feel for anything specific, it's versatile and can cover everything.

[Xefas]

The last few days, I've been doing some fluff writing. Right now, however, I'm looking at Skills. Here, I'm using Skills as a very general term for "The numbers that determine if you succeed/fail." [edit: I'm not going to be using a binary succeed/fail system, just to clarify.] So, in D&D, I would count all the skills in the skill system, but also stuff like attack bonus, fortitude, reflex, will, armor class, and ability scores. The fact that these are handled so differently in D&D is something I want to avoid. Constitution and Fortitude both measure the same quality of the character so, ideally, we don't want the player to have to handle completely different bonuses, uses, modes of progression, derived statistics and so on. Dexterity might be the biggest offender - what exactly does a character with Dexterity 3, Reflex +20, no ranks in Dex skills, and the Run feat look like? He wanders out of a bar, slips and falls on a pile of vomit, then does a flying backflip from prone thirty feet through the air to dodge a lightning bolt from the sky, then a drunk comes at him with a bottle and he's powerless to get out of the way while he's beaten utterly senseless, then he drops into a 20mph dead sprint into the night. (To note, the Player's Handbook describes a Dexterity of 3 as being similar in agility to a fungus.)

But condensing Skills too far can have its own problems. Dungeon World, for example, uses only D&D's six ability scores for Skills. An average Dexterity score means you're average in all those things mentioned - tests of speed, reflexes, balance, acrobatics, and so on. The reason this occasionally irks me is that it means that my street urchin Rogue who's great at lying to fences and bribing guards (high Charisma) is also great at delivering political speeches and singing. Similarly, a Grizzled Old Janitor in FAE that raises their Quick score simultaneously becomes better at running, gunfighting, disarming bombs, dancing, driving boats, piloting mecha, noticing tripwires - and so on forever - provided that speed matters.

On the other hand, maybe I'm okay with highly applicable general competencies for Mythos characters, with focuses provided by their class. I consider Exalted, where my deicidal legionary can literally duel the God Of Spears, using a spear, and win - but if he tries to throw that spear, he can't hit the broad side of a barn, and if he tries to throw a punch, he's liable to embarrass himself - and I'm trying to think of situations where I would want a particular Mythos character to be embarrassingly bad at something (for those of you that have actually built/played one - how many times did you put skill points in Swim?), and the only times I can think of are a result of a class ability (like a Teramach being embarrassingly bad at doing calculus while raging).

But then I start thinking of problems; like a character becoming just a hat worn by their class, as there may not be enough to distinguish them mechanically otherwise. There's a reason that Powered By The Apocalypse games limit you to one of each class in a party; two Gunluggers (Apocalypse World) are going to end up being relatively interchangeable. One has a shotgun and one has an assault rifle, but they mostly work the same, and they both maxed Hard (the AW stat for smashing/shooting stuff) because all their class features work off of it, and they both once had one other party member leave them bleeding out in a gutter somewhere in their backstory (which is part of the class).

Anyway, I could go back and forth forever. I'm open to any thoughts you all might have on the subject, and I hold none of my opinions as particularly sacred at the moment.

[Valerem]

You know, reading these posts, talking about the issues of various game designs is making me more and more aware of just how difficult making your own game actually IS... especially as there are so many issues that I honestly did not take into account. >.>

Maybe I should put a cap on Reflex Saves or something? But that could be an issue... Nrph... >.<

Regardless, I do think I can contribute. One of the issues I have with D&D and Pathfinder is that the skills are all grouped together, and dictated by intelligence... which, makes me go ??? Why can a nerdy, frail Wizard, be better at jumping, swimming and climbing than a big, strong fighter? (I guess it’s kinda linked to the very first problem you brought up yourself). Stuff like Diplomacy and Disable Device make sense to some degree, as their more about learning how to talk to people, or how to disable traps without setting them off. But the physical stuff? That makes zero sense.

So, I’m gonna split them.

Mental skills like Diplomacy, Disable Device, and Sense Motive are going to in one section, and the Class+Int dictates how many points you get. Whilst Physical skills such as Tumble, Spot and Listen, are going to be in a different category, and they are dictated by Class+Str. After all, Str isn’t just a measure of Upper body strength, even though that is what it reflects nine times out of ten. But the general strength of their body. If a monk kicks a dude, they're using lower body strength, but Str applies all the same as if they punched the dude.

This way, classes that traditionally have very low skill points, and reason to get intelligence (such as Paladin, Fighter and Barbarian). Can have skill points that let them BE the peak of physical performance that you see in the ability scores. Whilst classes that have low physical scores, but high intelligence like the Wizard, can’t jump, tumble and swim as easily as the martial classes can.

Of course, this also comes with the issue of making sure those skills are more relevant in the game than they are now... and it also brings up a question I’m not sure how to answer. Should the Knowledge Skills, such as... Knowledge, as well as maybe Disable Device and definitely Handle Animal, be their own section, or would that complicate things too much?

[VoodooPaladin]

Right now, however, I'm looking at Skills.

So you've butt your head against the nigh-apocalyptic design barrier that is Action Resolution, eh? I'm impressed: most never ask such questions of the game they play, even while they're carving it up and frankensteining it back together in their own image. I hope my advice is helpful to you, but you'll have my support regardless.

I think Ability Scores work fine, if well-implemented. No one minds a character that's big and tough being able to climb and take hits well. No one minds a character that's great with words being able to deliver a stirring speech and entice an amicable stranger. Though I don't believe it can be perfect, ability scores do an excellent job rendering 'general competence', which is basically needed for an action resolution system to hold together in play.

Since Mythic characters each have a singular Mythical power source, then characters being defined significantly by their classes sounds helpful for reigning in design theories. (I'm thinking of Fire Emblem's classes, and how different stats and characterization actually do make them feel different.) In 4e, skills were simplified to suit the class-focused design: as part of your class, you became trained in 3~5 skills, which were each more general in their purview than 3e skills were. Being trained in a skill gave you a level-based bonus and that's about it.

Would that help in establishing a clear starting point? I assume the top-level functions would have to be described on a case-by-case basis, and the difficult part would be adjudicating how unrelated Mythos and such - possibly written many years and authors apart - would function when one's ruleset says Can't and the other Do Anyway. But that's a long way away, and probably can't be built in perfectly on principle.

(this is pure theorycraft, but if each skill is more like 2~4 skills in 3.5 terms, what if being trained in a skill was what let you access the more impressive things you could do with them, as a rule? further, if training is such a simple toggle, adding and replacing skills trained could be a natural thing at later levels, which clears up a lot of build culture pains and groaning)

[Xefas]

One possible skill configuration I'm looking at, which I'm beginning to like, is so:

• The White Art of Leading Men to Glory
  --Used to run organizations and lead military units. You might roll to have your spy network acquire a particular piece of information, or to bolster morale before your mob of peasants crashes into the oncoming horde of zombies.
  
  
• The Red Art of Dividing Flesh and Life
  --Used for all kinds of combat stuff. Swinging a sword, shooting a bow, parrying a sword, catching an arrow, Captain America'ing ten fools with a shield. Whatever.
  
  
• The Saffron Art of Self Perfection
  --Measures physical health. Used for running, jumping, lifting buildings over your head, resisting poison, and so on. Adds to hit points and has some combat overlap with the Red Art, in that it can also be used to dodge attacks and while it isn't rolled to hit someone, it can be used to, say, strike the earth and send a shockwave that leaves someone hurdling through the air.
  
  
• The Golden Art of Making Known the Righteous Word
  --The skill for making people feel things, and then using those feelings to get them to do stuff. Make someone angry, then get them to attack you in combat instead of your allies. Make someone scared, then get them to flee the area. Make someone grieve, and then get them to start a war. You can't actually make someone believe something, or change the way they think, but you can get them to act on their emotions instead of their reason.
  
  
• The Green Art of Cultivating the Spirit Through Knowing The World
  --A skill representing how well traveled a character is or, rather, if they have taken wisdom from their travels. It handles knowledge of foreign lands, wilderness survival skills, and it can be rolled upon going to a new place to establish that a character has been there before, and what kind of reputation they have.
  
  
• The Blue Art of Seeing Past the Veil
  --The skill rolled to see past deceptions, whether lies or illusions, and to measure the intentions, motivations, and emotional states of other characters. This insight also allows a character to resist the Golden Art by seeing past the emotional facade of an argument to its true merit, and can be used to see to the heart of a riddle or logic puzzle.
  
  
• The Indigo Art of Finding Lost and Hidden Things
  --The skill rolled for the senses. Seeing an ambush before it hits you, eavesdropping on a conversation, smelling a poison in your drink, finding a hidden lever, discerning that one splatter of blood is incongruent with the pattern left by the rest and therefore it must belong to the murderer and not the victim and so the party Teramach just needs to bloodhound that one back to the source to solve the case. (I'm thinking of giving Teramachs either smell powers or blood powers. Or both.)
  
  
• The Violet Art of Knowing
  --The knowledge skill. Occult knowledge like spirits and undead and gods and such, but also mundane stuff like math, physics, and medicine. I'm thinking cultural knowledge and history will be rolled under the Green Art instead, but it might instead be an overlap.
  
  
• The Black Art of False Faces and Ill Intent
  --Rogue: The Skill. Lie, cheat, steal, pickpocket, skulk, safecrack, bluff, conceal objects, feint, disguise, hide your true character from the Blue Art, and so on.

So, what's missing? What situations are there where no skill seems applicable? I've got hooks for physical conflict, a kind of social conflict, organization-level (political?) conflict, dungeon adventures, urban adventures, wilderness adventures... I think it's good. And I like the color theme.

[VoodooPaladin]

One possible skill configuration I'm looking at, which I'm beginning to like, is so:

Quick question, before I begin? What would you figure the baseline for 'normal people' would be, in this system? In fluff or crunch terms, either way would help.

I like this so far - I actually kind of like that each figurative sector of character competence is composed of two or three skills which partially overlap, but are otherwise distinct. I haven't tested anything, but it looks good to build off of.

Side note: I just noticed is that Black is like 80% composed of messing with what other colors do - lies for Gold, disguise for Green, feint for Red, con game for Blue, and so on. That's so MTG it hurts - I love it!

[Xefas]

Quick question, before I begin? What would you figure the baseline for 'normal people' would be, in this system? In fluff or crunch terms, either way would help.

I'm looking at a few different classifications of being. Mortals are the every day rank and file background mooks of Mythopoeia. They're just grain in the grinding wheels of the gods, and they're confined to 'realism'; no size of modifier or lucky roll will allow them to sprint across the surface of a lake or hide from a room full of guards inside someone's shadow. And instead of using Arts, I'd like to have some very simple numbers a GM can plug in for the brief roles a Mortal might play in the life of a PC. The town apothecary has a very narrow specialty; he has +X when identifying herbs and making poultices, but doesn't have the Violet Art of Knowing - he can't necessarily tell you how to build a catapult. And because he'll likely never fulfill a role beyond that, the GM doesn't really need to worry what his other numbers are, but they're probably +0 or quite low.

Heroes are one Tier up and include Anthols and Sorcerers. They use the Arts, with Anthols also having Mythos and being able to go up further Tiers. Sorcerers get their own weird magic progression stuff without going up further Tiers like Anthols, Deities, Archons (Servants of the Gods), and Titans do. But most of the world's Heroes are neither Anthol nor Sorcerer, and they're stuck at this level, which lets lets them do Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon type wirefu acrobatics and Sherlock Holmes esque unreasonable logical leaps and such, with the Arts, which makes them potential rivals and allies of weaker Anthols, and worthy subordinates to powerful ones, but they'll never punch a mountain in half.

In a way, you could think of it as:

Mortal -> Fighter
Hero -> Warblade
Anthol -> Bellator

I don't want to commit to any exact numbers yet, but ideally a newly minted combat-capable Anthol should be able to give a few dozen mortal soldiers a good fight, and at the upper end of standard Anthol character progression, they should be able to square off against well-trained mortal armies with competent Heroic leadership behind them.

I like this so far - I actually kind of like that each figurative sector of character competence is composed of two or three skills which partially overlap, but are otherwise distinct. I haven't tested anything, but it looks good to build off of.

Side note: I just noticed is that Black is like 80% composed of messing with what other colors do - lies for Gold, disguise for Green, feint for Red, con game for Blue, and so on. That's so MTG it hurts - I love it!

Yeah, I think the colors worked out surprisingly well thematically. Hot colors are flashier and more proactive, cool colors are more subtle and reactive. Although I am concerned with the possibility that using the names of the Arts on a character sheet and in mechanical descriptions might not be as easy for the reader as if the Black Art was just 'Guile' or something more generic like that, and the Saffron Art was just 'Body' and so on.

I recall reading Legends of the Wulin long ago, and there being stuff about dice in your River and Lake, and dice Flowing down the River, and Flooding the River, and creating Ripples in other peoples Lakes and... stuff. After some perusing, I believe that I got it down, but I felt like it would be a nightmare trying to teach new players as opposed to just being able to say "Roll these dice to hit a guy."

But, on the other hand, I've been listening to a Dresden Files Actual Play podcast recently, and the generic names of the skills are constantly leading to them being misused by the group playing. For example, in the last episode I listened to, they used Investigate (which is basically D&D's Search skill) to find a safe house to hide a sensitive person in, because having a safe place to hide out sounded like something a private investigator would be able to do. Therefore, Investigate*.

So maybe having fancier names might emphasize that the Arts are meant for specific things.

(*edit: I realize that this might just be a failing of this particular group. My own groups have never had such a problem with the Dresden Files or Fate in general, but I feel like it would be a mistake not to take into account the behavior of other groups when designing a system, as it needs to be able to go out into the world and be able to function without its creator.)

[CowardlyPaladin]

hey I feel like a noob but what exactly is Mythos? All of the links in the opening post all seem to be referring to something else, what exactly is mythic games, is it a whole new mechanical system?

[SirBellias]

Hey y'all. From what I've seen of the system being made (or the ideas behind it, at least), it looks pretty great. Just saying.

As for the skills, I think you should leave the names as they are. They feel right when looking at the Mythos and what they are, and are giving off a serious Kill Six Billion Demons vibe, which is glorious. It shouldn't be too hard to explain a solid nine skills, and the color theme helps to make them easier to justify. Red for blood, gold for honeyed words, and so on.

There doesn't seem to be anything missing from the skill list, either. Seems fairly rounded out to me.

Keep it up! I'm afraid I am not too savvy when it comes to game design, so I won't weigh in too often on mechanical stuff. But this concept is a great one, and I'll try to give my opinion when it matters.

There is a new mechanical system being made here, but it started out as a bunch of upper tier classes and fluff for D&D.

[VoodooPaladin]

hey I feel like a noob but what exactly is Mythos? All of the links in the opening post all seem to be referring to something else, what exactly is mythic games, is it a whole new mechanical system?

Mythos is a descriptor used to refer to one of two things: a series of homebrew D&D classes built around strong fluff presentation and high-op power levels, and the Exalted-inspired setting used to describe their more exotic aspects and implications.

It all began with the Teramach, which is accordingly a fine place to start in understanding what Mythos are. Most importantly, it's really fun to read and I would recommend it to just about anyone.

[CowardlyPaladin]

Mythos is a descriptor used to refer to one of two things: a series of homebrew D&D classes built around strong fluff presentation and high-op power levels, and the Exalted-inspired setting used to describe their more exotic aspects and implications.

It all began with the Teramach, which is accordingly a fine place to start in understanding what Mythos are. Most importantly, it's really fun to read and I would recommend it to just about anyone.

So if I start there I can get a better understanding of the larger system and move on? cause this seems really elaborate i'm kinda curious

[Xefas]

Doing some fluff writing again tonight. I'm thinking the fluff chapter will be first, with the first section containing information about the different classes of being that exist in Mythopoeia, then the topography of the universe and its five realms, then a history of how the world came to be. Somewhere, I want to include information about what "the average peasant on the street" knows about the world, which is full of ignorance, misconceptions, and divine propaganda. That's just something I've occasionally wanted when running games like Exalted or Planescape that have big cosmologies.

Anyway, this is my second draft for the fluff chapter's introduction, before going into the nature of gods and titans, and the Anthols that players will take control over to change the world. I want it to set a dark tone, point out to the prospective reader that the game involves a fantasy setting with swords and magic, and be intriguing enough to get someone to do the pdf equivalent of turning the page.

Spoiler

Show

Mythopoeia is the secret name of the world, a place of tragedy and injustice, where death is false and eternity is the selfish concoction of evil gods. Since time immemorial, humanity has labored in meaningless toil, scratching out an existence they know not the purpose of, sowing and reaping their food from harsh lands, living short, brutal lives plagued with disease and demonic creatures that surface from the places of the world without light to cause terror and suffering. And when a man's life is through, he suffers the falsehood of ending, and his soul is reborn to the world in another life to toil again.

Mythopoeia is a world of stagnancy, ignorance, and cowardice. Invention and progress died in their womb long ago, and no ideas advance past the sword and iron plow. Superstition rules from the backwaters to the cities, as avatars of distant, real deities descend to earth to bring capricious vagaries in place of enlightenment. Right and wrong vary with each mile from tribe to tribe and town to town, and the ensuing xenophobia and intolerance only drag the eyes of mankind further downward and away from their masters.

Mythopoeia has seen many heroes. Since the beginning, there have been a rare few humans with a touch of real power, for Hero is not a word for the good, but a title for the mighty, and each has in their time used that power to shape the world to their liking - but the world resists change, and in the march of ages, their kingdoms crumble and their names are forgotten. None in the heavens take notice of these petty kings, for they know that in time even a hero will pass and return again to the cycle, whatever fleeting pleasures they might steal from above their mortal station.

What is not known to any but the Gods themselves is that Mythopoeia is itself a vast mechanism, and all of its misery is by design. It is an engine of perfection that produces but does not consume. It recycles life, it introduces pain, and draws forth faithful pleas, and it is those prayers the Gods consume to sustain their minds. Each tragedy is a calculation, each moment of hope or happiness an ingredient on the scales to extract the optimal amount of belief over infinite lifetimes.

What is not known to any thing but one, and certainly not to the Gods, is that the mechanism is not as perfect as it seems. There is a flaw, of which half an eternity passed to reveal, and something small has now broken. The world produces heroes as it always has, but a long forgotten flame has poisoned them. The flame called chaos subverts their intended purpose, and now fragile Mythopoeia, which is held together with the clockwork strata of stagnant order, will change.

We play to find out how.

[VoodooPaladin]

Although I am concerned with the possibility that using the names of the Arts on a character sheet and in mechanical descriptions might not be as easy for the reader as if the Black Art was just 'Guile' or something more generic like that, and the Saffron Art was just 'Body' and so on.

If mortals don't have access to the Arts, then giving them ordinary-sounding names is a recipe for cognitive dissonance. If you remember to say clearly what each Art actually allows you to do in practice - your descriptions of Red and Black are good examples of this, your descriptions of Green and Gold are less so - then I expect it will play out fine more often than not.

dice in your River and Lake, and dice Flowing down the River, and Flooding the River, and creating Ripples in other peoples Lakes and...

That sounds like subsystem bloat. The use of Arts as a grouping of general skills based around a character trait isn't necessarily worse than the one we all put up with from D&D. A 9-stat system isn't really worse than a 6-stat one, especially if the extra up-front complexity keeps it from later installing a ton of hidden complexity and derived statistics. What matters is that the in-game use of the Arts to do "stuff" remains simple to explain and use.

The town apothecary has a very narrow specialty; he has +X when identifying herbs and making poultices, but doesn't have the Violet Art of Knowing - he can't necessarily tell you how to build a catapult.

Ah, thank you. That sounds pretty straightforward in practice. After all, if the game is focused on impressive things, and mortals can't do those no matter how big their bonuses get, then they can get rather high bonuses for consistency purposes and it won't break anything. It even sounds like a respectable backup system for Arts; if invoking mortal competency was incompatible with Arts (and still limited by the glass ceiling, even in the hands of Anthols), then it could be used to allow characters to hold a presence in a scene without absolutely needing to constantly contrive opportunities to use their focus stat(s).

Mythopoeia is the secret name of the world

I like it. Dark, and concisely so. It's not a world of heroes - at least, not real ones. But it certainly is a world in need of some.

[PeacefulOak]

This has some of the feel of Spira and Cocoon/Grand Pulse. I like a lot of what you have down so far.

I'm curious, are you intending on having different tiers of play, with different rules and rule interactions, or is t likely to be all anthols and sorcerers?

[Xefas]

I like it. Dark, and concisely so. It's not a world of heroes - at least, not real ones. But it certainly is a world in need of some.

Writing it actually gave me an idea for a little subsystem to represent the player characters as agents of change.

So, everywhere in the world has problems, but some are bigger than others. When the players come to a new city-state, for example, the GM might throw out that its big problems are Tyranny, Drought, and Rejection of Medicine. There's a dictator that rules with an iron fist, water is in short supply, and the average commoner thinks that bathing makes you sick and raw pork is the only cure. These three things are not altogether unrelated.

(For contrast, the next city-state over might instead have a Lethargic Government, where the ruling council won't pass laws and regulations even when they're sorely needed, Marauding Bands of Ogres, which is self explanatory, and Crippling Xenophobia to the point where they won't even trade with other nearby city-states for things they really need.)

Whenever the PCs do something big in a given area, really throwing around their superhuman power, they either contribute to breaking down an existing problem, or creating a new one (or sometimes both?). If they roll into a town under the city-state's influence and take a bunch of supplies and kill the guards that try to stop them, they contribute to Mass Fear, or Lawlessness, or whatever the GM thinks is fair. If they, however, publicly decry the mandate of the tyrannical government and run the king's men out of town, and declare that the people are now under their protection, then they damage Tyranny. Once they damage Tyranny enough - for example, if they crusade through enough towns, the people will rise up, throw off their shackles, guillotine the dictator and install a new government, or if they go to the city proper and burn down the palace with everyone in it - the Tyranny problem goes away. Possibly replaced with a positive attribute instead ("Benevolent Republic" or whatever).

Before Mythopoeia had broken, if a band of Heroes were to do these things, what would invariably happen would be that one of the Heroes takes the reins and becomes the new tyrant. Or they rule justly and fairly for a little while before being assassinated and replaced by a new tyrant. The situation would not actually progress at all, getting any better or any worse.

But Anthols can actually ruin or fix things, as they see fit. And this system might scale up, such that if enough cities and kingdoms are changed, the nature of an entire region of the world could be damaged and then shift. This might be a good trigger for the forces of heaven to really start taking notice and responding.

Then again, this might be something that doesn't need to be mechanized. It's just something I'm thinking about.

I'm curious, are you intending on having different tiers of play, with different rules and rule interactions, or is t likely to be all anthols and sorcerers?

I'm not sure what you mean? Do you mean rules for playing as mortals or generic Heroes? I wasn't planning on it.

Actually, I wasn't really planning on supporting PC Sorcerers. At least not initially. Just doing the dozens of types of Anthols is a big enough task for now. Sorcerers should make fun enemies and allies, though, with how I envision magic working.

[PeacefulOak]

Writing it actually gave me an idea for a little subsystem to represent the player characters as agents of change.

So, everywhere in the world has problems, but some are bigger than others. When the players come to a new city-state, for example, the GM might throw out that its big problems are Tyranny, Drought, and Rejection of Medicine. There's a dictator that rules with an iron fist, water is in short supply, and the average commoner thinks that bathing makes you sick and raw pork is the only cure. These three things are not altogether unrelated.

(For contrast, the next city-state over might instead have a Lethargic Government, where the ruling council won't pass laws and regulations even when they're sorely needed, Marauding Bands of Ogres, which is self explanatory, and Crippling Xenophobia to the point where they won't even trade with other nearby city-states for things they really need.)

Whenever the PCs do something big in a given area, really throwing around their superhuman power, they either contribute to breaking down an existing problem, or creating a new one (or sometimes both?). If they roll into a town under the city-state's influence and take a bunch of supplies and kill the guards that try to stop them, they contribute to Mass Fear, or Lawlessness, or whatever the GM thinks is fair. If they, however, publicly decry the mandate of the tyrannical government and run the king's men out of town, and declare that the people are now under their protection, then they damage Tyranny. Once they damage Tyranny enough - for example, if they crusade through enough towns, the people will rise up, throw off their shackles, guillotine the dictator and install a new government, or if they go to the city proper and burn down the palace with everyone in it - the Tyranny problem goes away. Possibly replaced with a positive attribute instead ("Benevolent Republic" or whatever).

Before Mythopoeia had broken, if a band of Heroes were to do these things, what would invariably happen would be that one of the Heroes takes the reins and becomes the new tyrant. Or they rule justly and fairly for a little while before being assassinated and replaced by a new tyrant. The situation would not actually progress at all, getting any better or any worse.

But Anthols can actually ruin or fix things, as they see fit. And this system might scale up, such that if enough cities and kingdoms are changed, the nature of an entire region of the world could be damaged and then shift. This might be a good trigger for the forces of heaven to really start taking notice and responding.

Then again, this might be something that doesn't need to be mechanized. It's just something I'm thinking about.



I'm not sure what you mean? Do you mean rules for playing as mortals or generic Heroes? I wasn't planning on it.

Actually, I wasn't really planning on supporting PC Sorcerers. At least not initially. Just doing the dozens of types of Anthols is a big enough task for now. Sorcerers should make fun enemies and allies, though, with how I envision magic working.

For the part responding to me, yeah that's what I was looking at. I only asked because you mentioned the wire-fu Heroes like Warblades previously.

For the other part, a lot of what you are describing is part of what I think of as natural world-building which happens as part of a game, as the characters grow in power and influence. Depending on how much detailed world-building and city-planning you will be doing, having a GM set of guidelines on how to create a living breathing city-state within Mythopoiea on the fly.

[Xefas]

I met with some friends over the weekend. They helped me push the mechanical side of things forward a bit. I've also borrowed an ancient, derelict laptop that nevertheless does access the internet. I can start writing in Google Docs, which will help, and I do have one PC game that it can actually run - Sim City 2000, so hell yeah in that department.

Today, I'm working on the glossary of proper nouns, potentially to be placed at the beginning of the fluff chapter. Link. Commenting is enabled if, for whatever reason, someone wants to comment.

One term that I'm waffling on is the replacement for the Lawgivers; I wanted something more general, whereas Lawgiver is more of a political term. The Titans wouldn't call them that. Right now, I have them listed as the Eight Divinities (subject to change in number), but I also like Celestial and Celestine, the former of which plays off their (soon to be strengthened) star motif, and the latter a cursory google search tells me hasn't ever been used to refer to powerful beings, but is instead a kind of rock and a method by which one garnishes a dish with finely shredded pancakes. But I still think it sounds cool... despite the pancake thing.

[Fizban]

How do we feel about Mythos as its own setting with its own ruleset?

Something made for not-D&D is always going to be less popular than something made for D&D, I accept that, but in terms of quality, I think there are advantages in the relinquishing of baggage both mechanical and setting. Thoughts?

Indeed, a significant part of why I like Mythos stuff is that it has the gall to do what it does in DnD. There are plenty of other games that have more narrative mechanics, and plenty of ways you can try to graft narrative mechanics onto normal DnD classes. But Mythos classes do it the hard way by saying screw the rules and just doing it, stealing mechanics or making them up and generally flouting the normal design specs, and are usable alongside all the other 3.5 stuff I like. It's narratively designed classes through the lens of a mechanically focused game with lots of different stats for "realism," ignoring the rules or reality in a different way than magic (with its own rules) does.

A system designed from the ground up for Mythos stuff would lack the inherent screwing of the rules since the rules were written for it, and while I can appreciate other systems 3.5 is where I live. Of course if you don't want to write for it anymore then you don't want to and you might as well move on, it's not like any of the existing 3.5 Mythos stuff is going to disappear and I haven't even read it all yet. So yeah, go right ahead, I'll follow along when I see it about as I've been doing.


Regarding Investigate skills- that's because Investigate is a terrible choice for a skill name, because investigating requires a bunch of skills.

[Lanth Sor]

Due to design concerns form people around the design of Agios's primary shield mythos I'm thinking of reworking it away form the % chance DR and going to abusing standard shield feats. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Spoiler: Current Set Up

Show

Ardent Aegis Bulwark
Prerequisite: -

Shields no longer grant a bonus to AC. You now gain a (20 + str mod + Shield bonus + Combat Expertise's AC bonus)% chance to block (class level+Str mod+Shield bonus) physical damage from incoming attack. While Fighting Defensively the chance is doubled. While performing Total Defense all incoming attacks are blocked. Using a tower shield increases the block chance by 10 and using a buckler decreases the block chance by 10.

Advanced
Insurmountable: Gain +1% block chance per enemy that threatens you.
Swift Redoubt Interception: Any charge in the agios's reach is treated as the agios for the purposes of Ardent Aegis Bulwark.
Righteous Thorns: When you block a melee attack the attacker takes 1d4+cha mod force damage.
Renewal: When you block an attack gain fast healing equal to your cha mod, not greater than level, until the end of your next turn.

With another mythos that can double % chance.

The concern is the tedium of checking and reducing each attack and the moment a bunch of people attack you or someone your protecting and you just say no.

Spoiler: Potential Change

Show

Ardent Aegis Bulwark
Prerequisite: -

Shield bonus to AC projects to all allies in the Agios' reach(min 5ft) and the agios gain Shield Focus and Shield Specialization. Additionally gain DR x/-

Advanced
Insurmountable: Gain +1 Shield bonus to AC per 2 enemies that threatens you.
Righteous Thorns: When a melee attack misses someone benefiting from your shield by an amount equal to your Shield bonus, the attacker takes 1d4+cha mod force damage.
Renewal: When attack misses someone benefiting from your shield by an amount equal to your Shield bonus, attacks target gains fast healing equal to your cha mod, not greater than level, until the end of your next turn.

[Xefas]

For those interested in Mythopoeia's setting, I've written some info for the first five of the Ten Hells, where the Titans reside in present day.

Just in case some high Tier player characters are crazy enough to try to rip a macguffin, or glean some lost lore, from the clutches of an ancient demiurge. Once stats are nailed down, there must also be stats for some of the Titanic souls contained therein (and environmental effects, like Setesh's fog). But, for now, I'm just looking for feedback on the fluff. Is it evocative and interesting? Does it conjure ideas for an adventure where the party has to go to a particular Hell to get or do X thing? Does it paint the Titans as dangerous, horrible things from before a stable reality, that nevertheless do not have the free will necessary to be blamed for being inhospitable towards the mortal world, and therefore it is still somewhat pitiable that they exist imprisoned, debased, and suffering for (ostensibly*) eternity?

_{*Pending player character malice or stupidity.}

[Zale]

I've been crunching over the Lawgiver alternate name, because I can feel something on the periphery of my mind.

It might be a thing from the Yoruba faith, in which the servants of Olodumare, the great high god, are called the Orisa, or the Divine Ministers.

But that might not be appropriate.

You could always call them Elohim, but that might be thematically dissonant.

Anyway, someone asked me (in a general sense) to post this here.

[Xefas]

I've been crunching over the Lawgiver alternate name, because I can feel something on the periphery of my mind.

It might be a thing from the Yoruba faith, in which the servants of Olodumare, the great high god, are called the Orisa, or the Divine Ministers.

But that might not be appropriate.

You could always call them Elohim, but that might be thematically dissonant.

Orisa probably isn't appropriate, as the Lawgivers are the head honchos (or they would be, if they were still conscious), not really analogous to Ministers. I do like Elohim, although it seems like it might be something of a broken parallel, as if we're using an Abrahamic lens, the Empyrean is the YHWH of the tale, and the Sun is the Adversary. Just, in this case, the Morningstar won the war, and cast his father into Hell to be broken and twisted, rather than the opposite.

Anyway, someone asked me (in a general sense) to post this here.

That's cool. I'm actually really interested in where God_of_Awesome heard of my stuff if he doesn't have a Giantitp account.

Also. C'mon, Zale. Why've you got a sweet Mottom avatar over there, but you're still using the generic Oots ranger avatar here?

[Zale]

Orisa probably isn't appropriate, as the Lawgivers are the head honchos (or they would be, if they were still conscious), not really analogous to Ministers. I do like Elohim, although it seems like it might be something of a broken parallel, as if we're using an Abrahamic lens, the Empyrean is the YHWH of the tale, and the Sun is the Adversary. Just, in this case, the Morningstar won the war, and cast his father into Hell to be broken and twisted, rather than the opposite.

Yeah. I'd probably give them a medium length title myself, like The Great And Terrible Radiances or something.

You could nab some terms from Zoroastrianism; call them the Amesha Spenta, or call them Ahura(s).

But that might not have the same resonance. I'm biased as I think they're cool.

That's cool. I'm actually really interested in where God_of_Awesome heard of my stuff if he doesn't have a Giantitp account.

Also. C'mon, Zale. Why've you got a sweet Mottom avatar over there, but you're still using the generic Oots ranger avatar here?

Well, I feel a small amount of visual dissonance when I use a non-stick figure avatar on this forum due to most people using them.

I may change it though. It's worth consideration.

[Inevitability]

Well, I feel a small amount of visual dissonance when I use a non-stick figure avatar on this forum due to most people using them.

I may change it though. It's worth consideration.

Nothing wrong with non-stick figure avatars!

Seriously though, nice to see more KSBD fans on here. The Incubus reveal was pretty nice, don't you agree?