[To Playtest] Colonization of Qek
Sam!:
Here we go with a bunch of answers. Got to get this done, before I forget it all.
Quote from: Eero Tuovinen
Did you find that getting lost delayed or frustrated play, or was it an interesting constraint and source of danger?
More frustrating, I'd say. My character's skill in Jungle Travelling was 2, so I pretty much cleared it everytime. However, I was required to make a check everytime my character moved along a path or straight to a knot, so I rolled a lot (like getting to meet my character's mother-in-law required one roll to get to Eagle Cliffs, another to follow the path to her own parents' home and another to follow the path to get to meet the mother-in-law). The idea behind was probably just to make me check until I'd fail, so that the SG could toss me to some ungodly place. Sure, the possibility of failing at any time you move through the jungle makes the place feel a bit dangerous, but it wasn't too rewarding.
Quote from: Eero Tuovinen
Did you require characters to always find their way to a discrete "place" in the jungle if they wanted to do something specific? How did you determine whether some activity required traveling the jungle as opposed to staying put? Your example about gathering cocoa beans seems like a sort of liminal case to me
Yes, there was a situation, when I needed to do some First Aid check and supported it with Herb Lore. So essentially my character just searched healing herbs from nearby her home. We did discuss the fictional rarity of cocoa and also about how easy it would be to collect (like how many doses can you get with one check). As I mentioned earlier, there are many possibilities why we ended up with the search for a cocoa valley.
Quote from: Eero Tuovinen
Would you say that the mechanics would flow better if you got more knots per Advance? Or would it be a better solution to create stories where individual knots were more important? Did you get to use your knots for anything else apart from travel? Did you find individual knots frustrating, useless and difficult to learn?
Yeah, I'd say that the problem with knots was mostly that they were useless. Or in other words, we didn't know how to use them efficiently. In either case, compare to Secrets: it's easy to say what a given Secret can do. But what's with a single knot? It's just a light house in the pitch-black jungle: a guide for travellers. They become more efficient when you have three of them - and even then you have to use another Secret (and pool points) to turn them into an area. Knots weren't too hard to obtain in the fiction: several NPCs were willing to teach their stuff (even if their stuff was pretty non-dramatic, like relatives' homes or Gathering grounds or Tiger glade). I just couldn't produce enough xp to keep on going.
It's like... without knots your character's world is just plain empty. So you need to get knots just to have places where your character can go to. In order to actually benefit from knots, you need to gather several of them and then knit them together into a web. This, however, is extremely slow (expensive in experience points) process. And even then I'd say that they are less useful than same amount of Three-Corner Secrets: less combinations, less mechanical effectiveness. Just knowing (or finding) stuff is different from being able to do stuff.
Or maybe my approach was just wrong. Just having a knot for home and another for Diamond Mountain and third for some place familiar to Ammenis would have everything a dramatic set would need. I just went for "let's explore the jungle by knowing a lot of knots" -plan.
Eero Tuovinen:
Quite so. I find it believable that knots might be overpriced as is - I can see how to make them work, but it'd require the SG to specifically lean on the system in a holistic manner to make it worthwhile. This might very well be a case of outdated mechanics - I hadn't developed the Effects rules and such when I wrote the knot stuff, so it's originally made for a bit different environment.
One option would be to make knots into Effects, but that doesn't capture them correctly in the fiction. It seems that what I need to do is to make knots somehow usable even for characters who don't know them and allow characters to use paths without Ability checks. That should cut down on the unnecessary pressure. Perhaps add to the usefulness of individual knots by tying some second-order effects into them that help characters navigate the jungle. Have to think about it.
oliof:
What about a quick change to the rules that you pay for Areas as secrets, but can use knots and paths before that, and get XP in the relevant Keys for knots still? It's a bit of an overhead, but I'd argue that knots and paths are just some kind of (very specialized) equipment that you can use for good synergistic effects when spending an Advance to make them an Area.
oliof:
I played a really short adventure in the 'colonization of qek' setting. It was good, but very Ammeni-centric due to the way I set it up. The whole game had a touch of Roanoke (as far as I can say, I don't own the game) as it centered on the way the colony reacted to the influx of new settlers and a power mad ammenite Inquisitor. We had great drama in the end when Leonce Phol attacked his son Qem Phol, the Inquisitor, to save his love from certain and the new settlers from uncertain doom.
More details will follow when I finish writing up my prep notes for public consumption.
shadowcourt:
I can certainly add that while I love the way the knot and path system has made me excited about the Qek jungles, I've been worried about its cost in Secrets being prohibitive. There aren't a lot of other situations where you end up paying a Secret cost for game information or ordinary gear, at least in the way the groups I've played in have worked. No one's had to pay a Secret for owning a home, working in a tavern, or even owning weapons or a horse if they had a Scrapping or Riding ability.
The Effects rules might be a much better placement for this, I agree, Eero, particularly in that Effect dice are so easily passed back and forth to other players. Maintaining multiple knots and paths might be somewhat prohibitive in terms of total pool cost, though, correct? Perhaps a variation on your Secret of the Home Turf might be helpful in bridging that situation where a group of regularly used knots need to be upgraded from Effects to something more permanent?
I guess one of the questions that circulates around this is: are tsafari and others forced to constantly maintain the paths and knots, lest they atrophy, and the ever-growing jungle consume them? This effectively has the techniques of a verdant jungle which is constantly changing and growing-over paths and concealing cool sites. But it also puts a lot of heavy lifting on people who are maintaining these Effects, doesn't it? For instance, the beautiful knot map in this thread has a total of 14 knots, though granted not all of them are actively linked with paths. That seems a lot of pool expenditure for characters, particularly when some of these map nodes are really places where the Ammeni and Qek families are just hanging out, doing their thing. If we're representing the jungle's tendency for growth, then maybe knots and paths are sometimes just maintained by regular use, which can take some of the effect cost off of the tsafari, and make the Effects they maintain really special?
In that case, maybe the Secrets could run more like this:
Anyone with Jungle Survival can:
Establish or maintain a knot just by inhabiting an area. A knot is a relatively safe area where you can trust that your provisions won't be automatically befouled by the jungle or stolen by scavengers, and you can have shelter and safety. Knots are ideal locations for refresh scenes. Establishing or maintaining a knot means taking care of a camp site, scaring off animals and clearing out new vegetation from the quick-growing jungle. Anyone can leave a site unattended for several days without losing the knot that's there, but this requires a Jungle Survival Effect, with each effect die maintaining it an additional day.Maintain a path between two established knots by making a Jungle Survival (R) check once per day, which involves walking the path and clearing it. So long as a path is maintained on the map, it is usable by anyone else who walks it in that day, travelling from knot A to knot B. A path can be maintained for several days after its use, but this requires a Jungle Survival Effect, with each effect die maintaining it an additional day.Maintain an area (a space defined by three or more knots). This requires awareness that all three knots are maintained, which is done either by visiting them yourself, maintaining a path effect, or receiving word via messengers from the other knots (allowing them to maintain the path). Thus areas tend to be collaborative regions which are maintained by a small cluster of Families, who have to make some show of mutual reliance on each other. An area is a place where you can hunt, gather, and perform other actions in the jungle with relative safety and assurance of a minimum of wild animals and intruders. Jungle Survival checks allow you to know when there are dangers present in the area, and are instrumental in realizing that one or more paths or knots aren't being maintained, and the area is atrophying to just a "V" formed by three knots and two paths, or even just three isolated knots.Try and find a knot without a path. The difficulty/opposition of the check is determined by distance, difficulty of journey, and Storyguide fiat. Failure equals immediate danger for the person wandering the untamed jungle. A knot which is inside an area but not linked via a path (see the Clear Pool example in the map on the previous page) is substantially easier to find than one which is free floating in the world (the Ape Cliffs or Old Ruins).
Characters who don't have Jungle Survival--outlanders and invaders and such--are forced to use Woodscraft or other abilities, but they're out of their element to start. This should have a minimum effect of a penalty die on all checks, which should particularly stack nastily with trying to find knots without paths.
This also means your trusty jungle guide is immediately way more useful, even if all he's done is take a Qek cultural ability (which he might've grabbed through some sort of nifty Secret if he's an outlander).
As to the Secrets which actually play with knots and paths and such:
Secret of the Tsafari
You are talented at recognizing and finding "knots", marking places in the jungle, and establishing safe paths between them. You receive a bonus die on any Jungle Survival check to find a knot without using a path, or to notice that an area is atrophying because its paths or knots aren't maintained. Once a day, you can make a Jungle Survival check without spending a point of Reason to establish and maintain knot and path Effects, maintaining the knots and paths you know by either actively keeping them clear or else anticipating the growth of the jungle so that the minor atrophy which these sites go through all the time doesn't obscure them from your discovery and use.
Secret of Knot Attunement (or some other appropriate name...?)
Any knot you maintain through about two hours of work can be attuned to a specific task, aligned with the roho of the area for beneficial effects. Specify one ability when you maintain this knot which is appropriate to the area; the Storyguide may determine that specifying the First Aid ability is inappropriate to a viper den, or that Distillation does not work at a roaring waterfall (though it might just as well be exciting to say that the snakes' poison can serve as a useful ingredient in antivenom, and the rushing pure waters of a waterfall are essential for some concoctions). Anyone using the specified ability in the knot is considered to have the Secret of Ability Enhancement (and can spend unlimited pool points when using this Ability to gain bonus dice). Knots only stay attuned in this fashion for a day, but you can extend their duration the same way you would maintain any other knot, by spending Effect dice from a Jungle Survival check (one per day). You can use a Jungle Survival Effect pool to "cache" bonus dice for ths specified attuned ability at the knot, which you or other people you teach about the knot can access. This might represent special provisions you hide in the knot, or simply a sort of jungle "feng shui". Prerequisite: Secret of the Tsafari. Special: A knot may only be attuned to one ability at a time.
Secret of the Jungle's Bounty (a rework of the old Secret of the Stomping Ground)
When you are in an area you have helped to at least partially maintain (by maintaining one or more of its knots or paths), you can make a Jungle Survival check to locate anything appropriate to the area-- people, waterways, caves, animals, rare goods-- whatever could be found in the area on principle. You can look for something in specific (i.e. a lost child) or declare a general type of thing (i.e. travelers). The Storyguide creates the details. Unlikeliness may result in penalty dice on the Jungle Survival check. Prerequisite: Secret of the Tsafari. Cost: 2 points from an appropriate pool: Vigor for geographical features, Instinct for animals and plants, Reason for people-things.
Secret of the Knotworker
You can do much more with a knot than even other tsafari. You can make a Jungle Survival check to assess a knot, determining who has maintained it recently, recognizing an individual or a group you have encountered before, or determining some facts about them if you've never met them. You can also break any maintained knot or path (including the effects of an attuned knot), inviting the jungle's encroachment in once more, though this may require a contest against the person who maintained it. You can actively conceal your own signs of the knots and paths you maintain, requiring anyone who discovers them to make a Jungle Survival check to even realize that they have been established or maintained. Prerequisite: Secret of the Tsafari.
I'd say the Secret of the Hermit works alright as is in this version (I guess the idea behind that is that you're isolated in the jungle, so it might be hard to refresh Vigor and Reason without other people, but you can always hunt animals to get that Instinct back?).
Any thoughts or comments? With this system, you can hopefully maintain a bunch of pretty story-useful knots and paths just via having characters inhabit them. To refer to the knot map earlier in this thread, for instance, all of the Family knots are always maintained just by inhabiting them, as is the Ammeni Trading Post (so long as there are regularly traders there; otherwise, when the Ammenites come back after a week, they have to clear out kudzu and monkeys who are despoiling their little outpost). The paths between Family knots are maintained through walking them each day (a single Jungle Survival check) or walking them once every couple of days and establishing them as Effects. It doesn't take a true tsafari (jungle guide) to do this, but he does it cheaper than anyone else, thanks to his free Effect pool per day. So long as the Runti, Itzel, and Maxtla maintain their own knots (which is just standard work at the homestead each day) and keep their paths maintained (either daily travel or effects), the reap the rewards of their safe Moot Grounds area, and can even reach the Clear Pool knot without too much danger, despite the lack of a clear path. If one of those knots isn't maintained (a family gets attacked, is forced to relocate or travel) or a path isn't maintained, the entire area becomes vulnerable, and you can bet that the Clear Pool is going to be a more dangerous location (because wild animals might consider it their watering hole now).
Knots like the Runti Trapping Gorge and the Gem Flats require regular maintenance of the path or else the path deteriorates and they have to be searched for once more. They don't disappear off the map; they just become the equivalent of what the Ape Cliffs or Honey Trees are-- people talk about them, they just don't know how to get to them reliably and safely. The same is even possible for reliable paths which don't have to be maintained-- you could argue the Coastline is effectively a path that isn't going away in the near future, and that a mountain ridge could serve as a quasi-reliable path, if there were knots that were worth tying at either end. Otherwise, it's just a feature of the jungle, and doesn't help you get anywhere in particular. You go from being lost at one end to being lost at the other.
Authorship of an entirely new knot probably shouldn't be the province of a Secret, unless people are really dying to have it be such. I'm not sure I'd make it grounds for a Secret in Maldor or Zaru when you discovered some new hideout or useful place--instead, it's the focus of drama. Keeping it intact, and either keeping it secret or keeping paths maintained to it (or both, if you're greedy!) becomes an element to deal with in game tension, and is thus way less inert than a Secret is, which is often semi-inviolate.
So, that's a stab at it. Not sure if it's helpful, but it might at least be closer to what you were thinking these days, Eero.
-shadowcourt (aka Josh)
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