Unreleased Draft from [3-26-15]: Personality Modifier Items

Personality Modifier Items

In continuance of that last post for the Personality Traits, magical items can have modifiers for personality. Spells can also modify personality.

Example. Imagine finding a treasure in some adventure dungeon. Inside is a sword, which you might take particular interest in. It might give some bonuses to stats or life or something, along with some magical aura effect such as " a blue mist emanates from the blade" on command.  However, along with the benefits, it causes Opposite Extroversion score, or maybe random roll. The character must roll play their character now according to the altered score, if they want to use that sword.

Powers and spells can do likewise.

[2/29/20 Note on this previously unreleased blog post:
This blog post had been writing directly after 3-19-15 post on Personality Traits. If I remember correctly, I had intended to write maybe a game mechanic for this thought related to personality traits, but never did get around to it.]

Maybe will start releasing unreleased drafts from this blog.

Today, I was looking at the number of blog posts I've written for this blog.

Specifically, I was looking at all of the unpublished draft posts that were never published (43 drafts). I may start to publish some of these draft documents—if they might still be helpful at this time period.

If I do, I might have to label them differently and add side notes or such.

If they are unfinished, I might add a note why I think it was never finished, and or why I don't want to finish it now.

[update: I just scheduled 3 releases, starting today, for 3 posts in a row. Today is Personality Modifier Items. Tomorrow is Linguistic Basics. And the next day is ABS12 Description paragraphs–incomplete but will publish finally–9 professions or classes that were going to be in the system.]

Seemingly unimportant dialogue into more dramatic dialogue.

This concerns the FRPG6 Dialogue Engine.

Side note about the name FRPG6
By the way, the FRPG6 means that it was once a part of Flash Fiction. Yes, my original document was to create something that would generate both story and dialogue. The original title of that working document wasn't called Flash RPG. It wont say what it formerly was, in case I want to reuse that name, I'll leave it blank. It was … RPG 1d6.

So after I extracted the game into parts, FRPG means Flash RPG. So, technically I think the dialogue engine, behavior engine, flash RPG, three conflict chain, and deep dive engine all came from that original single document.

While later material dropped the FRPG6 from the title, the original source was one single document.

Anyway, to the main thrust of this blog post.

A comment about the dialogue engine was something like roughly, what happens when in the middle of action a player rolls up "Nice weather."

This comes from rolling a #1 on the friendly conversation mood column.

Here is #1's content from FRPG6 Dialogue Engine, page 6, on the Dialogue Mood and Topic engine which is the main engine for Dialogue Engine.

Casual conversation. See
Fact Generator = a current
sensory, emotional, and / or
cognitive experience. AKA
weather talk.

And after this, which was expanded to 12 moods in Relationship Engine, the friendly mood is the following, which requires a Fact Generator sensory roll.

Engaging casual topics

To me, this isn't a waste of a roll. Rather it is an opportunity for irony.

Imagine the battle scenes you may have scene that whenever in the height of battle, some confident person stops to enjoy the beauty of something–unfazed by the chaos or drama surrounding.

She stopped the running charge—and for a brief moment looked towards the heavens. 

"I love it when the sun shines down upon my victory," she said with a half-smile. She screamed a mighty roar and leapt into the fray.

That is a nice weather dialogue.

Does it make the dialogue worse?

To me, it only adds distinct flavor and a little bit of spunk.

Update Notes and turned it into a blog article

The notes that I posted February 2nd are now updated with added commentary.

It is now named "Adventure Creation notes from Wizard article applied to solo gaming"

Much of the content is now my opinion or my content except for the bold titles which remain. Some of the details that were posted are removed because I have no comment on that material. This new blog page represents my interpretation of those prior notes as it applies to my solo RPG gaming.

Enrironmental Mechanism creations

Today I want to spend a bit of time working with the Environmental Mechanisms book, which is the collection of setting tools created over the past two years.

Environmental Mechanisms
This book contains 21 game tools.

Also the ABS12 Solo Game Engine 2e will be used to answer yes and no questions.

Marsh

Name

First, a name which I will base off of the English words dread and marsh. Then those words will be translated into my Aioskoru Common language (which at this time is only released in the Aioskoru World Guide).

Dreadmarsh = neredhos mareskos

Map

Now that I have a name and everything that comes with this name, such as the implication that it contains something dreadful, It's time to create a quick hex map.  

Focusing on one portion of this marshland might help start to world build this area.

Okay, focusing on the north shore, this area has dead forest mountains to the north of the ocean bay, sandy hills, and a dead forest marsh leading to living marsh in between.

Minimalist Description of Wetlands (marsh)

Let me use the Minimalist Descriptive Wetlands tool found in Environmental Mechanisms (EM) book to roll for a brief description of the dead forest marsh area—which is constantly flooded by at least one water source.

Current weather = rolled a 1. It is sunny and clear.

Type of wetland = marsh, which I don't have to roll since the map already dictates a dead forest marsh

Dominant Life type = rolled a 5. Insect or fish will be the dominant type depending on another roll. A roll of 2 means that an insect is the dominant life form in this dead forest marshy area.

Usual wetland? = rolled 6 = unusual wetland; roll for unusual nature = roll 6 = war torn

The Neredhos Mareskos is a war-torn dead forest marsh.

On a clear and sunny day, the characters enter Neredhos Mareskos—a war-torn dead forest marshy area located between dead forest mountains and sandy hills.

Insect feature indicated by the Minimalist Descriptive Wetlands

Neredhos Mareskos Insect detail using Animal Generator tool.

Animal Generator rolls a 5 = offense = pounce, stamp, ram, slam

This insect sounds large.

Using table E in ABS12 Solo Game Engine 2e and with a very likely +35 d100 roll, I ask "Is this a huge insect?" 

A 99 roll +35 roll = 134 which is much higher than the 91 to 100 range for a Yes, also result.

Yes the insect is huge, also giant even.

let me roll for a color using the Color Generator & Wheel tool also found in EM.

Roll = 5, a pink; and 2 = pale violet red.

Pale violet red is this color.

So the pale violet huge insect which attacks with a pounce, stamp, ram, and/or slam.

To me, this sounds like a giant beetle-like creature.

So, this Neredhos Mareskos Giant Pale Violet Red Beetle inhabits the dead forest marsh.

Certainly, this can explain one reason why this marsh might be dreadful.

So, on a clear and sunny day, the characters would enter this dead forest swamp in habited by ever dangerous Neredhos Moreskos Giant Pale Violet Red Beetles.

Rolling for a sound using Sound Generator tool found in EM = 4, 2 = creak!

The characters hear creaking!

What do the characters sense?

Fact Generator roll for sensory fact. Roll = 8 an hourglass related; roll 10 = present.

Something in the present time is very important.

Are the beetles attacking something? (half and half); Roll = 93 Yes, also... the are attacking an alligator.

A small swarm of Meroedhos Mareskos Giant Pale Violet Red Beetles are attacking a swamp alligator. A creaking sound is heard echoing across the war-torn, dead forest marsh.

Adventure Creation notes from Wizard article applied to solo gaming

Here are my notes from the article series by Wolfgang Baur found at http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ab/20060728a

[This page has been revised on 2/27/20 to inject massive amounts of notes and comments. It no longer is just notes. It is now "applied to solo gaming". References to my game engine and fact generator, which are also found in this blog or are part of my RPG tool series, are also referenced.] 

Material attributed to the website is center indented and bold.

I want to add my own notes to a select number of ideas.

This amount is from group encounters. I'm not sure if for solo encounters this would work. A standard group has 4 characters. Maybe dividing these numbers by 4 might make a more doable 1 person game.

Treasure

Ken's revised number of encounters for solo gamers based on the article.

~ 2 to 3 equal level encounters per level

~4 to 5 equal level encounters per level

or 5 to 6 lower level encounters per level

or 8 to 10 marathon session encounters

limit backstory

How can solo gamers use "limit backstory" technique. The action. By getting straight to exploratory action, with minimal expository explanations, the player can begin to immerse through the eyes a character into the game world.

start quick

If backstory is needed, even a brief paragraph may do.

limit random encounters

The limit random encounter is to try and keep the story related and flowing with more unified content. Doing so is railroading, rather than sandboxing

keep backstory relevant and recent

I don't have to explain what happened before the recent memory. However, I can put in subtle clues or hints of the distance past. Relevant to me means that whatever is written can be used for this gamestory or as a fork into a different story.

[gamestory= a term I use to differ a fictional novel-like story and a game story] 

start with hook related action

See my backstory comment. In a sandbox or open world RPG, hints and clues lead to a direction of a gamestory. These hints may be based on images, words, questions, or character/story reactions.

clues built in to the design

The main thrust behind this idea, I think, is that a perception or awareness check shouldn't exclude major story clues. Rather, those types of checks are primarily for bonus clues leading to other rewards.

coherent encounters

Encounters should probably be thematically related. Even a swarm of bats, should make sense in the setting context.

What other encounter gain instead of combat encounter

entrance to somewhere

An encounter can lead the character to somewhere. Traditionally maybe the "person in the inn" type informants use this method. However, a person anywhere could lead a character anywhere.

information

What information is most important to players? Well, that depends on the player, rather than the character. The information might need to catered to different types of player enjoyment, possibly leading to different types of adventures within a similar story.

For me, perhaps one option is to create a four pronged adventure information for the four archetype learning preferences that the Character Generator revealed.

resource

What does a solo gamer need? food, water, weapons, maps, keys, books, tokens

avoid combat

Combat isn't always fun for solo gaming. I've taken to "summary fighting" for insignificant impediments in my story writing.

suspicious or lying encounter

I haven't thought about using fake or false information or instructions much in solo gaming. This is built into my Twist Generator primarily.

Comparing recommended Treasure amounts to the Solo Game Engine results

about half or 1-out-of-two = little or no treasure

I'm not sure of predictable alternating no-treasure would really work. But a 50/50 roll would work great for a "treasure check" for solo gaming, maybe.

For my ABS12 Solo Game Engine (ASGE), this would mean a No, Unless or lower for d100, which is 50 or lower.

20% half treasure

Maybe a narrative version of this is mundane objects. This might be stuff that has little or no particular value, except within story context.

For my ASGE, this is the Maybe, If and Only If range of probability.

20% standard treasure

For my ASGE, this is the Yes probability – which for d100 is 15%.

10% double treasure

5% hoard, 10X

My ASGE has Yes, Also at 10%. I think a hoard would only come after a main boss-type encounter and is less likely randomly generated.

Plots

chronological

This is the order-in-time series of events. In a sandbox game, it might require multiple questions to generate different parts in a series or multiple actions to generate different flows within time.

geographical

Primarily a function of maps, geographical means that the area only becomes active in the story if the character actually moves to that location. The main issue with geographical located plots is that maybe the character never goes to that location. All of that preparation is meaningless.

Story Flow

inciting incident (hook)

The player character needs something to interrupt everyday life.

reversal

Twists are fun, if used sparingly.

finale

Goal accomplished and the story is resolved...for now.

Comments on terrain

hazards and terrain

I think this is the most common terrain in solo gaming. I'm not sure if trap mechanics might not need improving for solo gaming–if doing so is even possible.

surprise terrain

Surprises are things unexpected. In my Fact Generator, sensory information is the main method of noticing important details. While using the FG the last few years, details emerged from thinking up the different sensory data has created surprises even for me.

drama terrain

To me, drama = conflict. Conflict = tension, fighting, argument, and stuff. For solo - sandbox gaming, an interesting mechanic might be that conflict might occasionally create changes in terrain or reveal dramatic terrain features.

luring terrain

Ah, the lure of wealth, beauty, and majesty. Though some prefer dark, grim, and imposing. Whichever one's preference, luring terrain might draw a character towards those locations.