Learning about Poetry (part 7): "Dream Flows" poem and comparison of Poetry to Myths or Fables

While the urge to do something with "go" rhyming words, I want to take several of my freewriting sentence words and create something simple by altering it. I also want to do something by making some phrases little more descriptive.

This will be my first entirely original rhyming poem.

Dream Flows

©2020 by Ken Wickham

All rights reserved.

This urgent hope could go. 

Where do peaceful dreams flow. 

You're not my mortal foe. 

In the moment will never know. 

So, I add this new simple 4 line rhyming poem to that one that I created through imitation several posts ago. Here is that first imitation poem for comparison.

Plague Across the Land

©2020 by Ken Wickham based on Emily Dickenson's "Hope is a thing with feathers"

All rights reserved.

I've seen across the entire land,

All victims of the plague,

In a world looking strange and vague,

No, I don't want to beg.

I now have 2 poems written: "Dream Flows" and "Plague Across the Land".

Poetry writing it is fairly strange and unfamiliar. In 2nd grade, I remember doing a few poems for classroom activity, but those are now long forgotten to time.

Writing these poems are as unfamiliar to me as creating those 2 myths and 1 fable back in 2017 in the mythology series. It does give me a greater sense of breadth with writing styles although my skill level with poetry is only beginning.

Poetry is the art of sharing experience. In these two brief and little poems, it does feel like "Dream Flows" and "Plague Across the Land" do share some sort of experience. The mythology was more of a fictional creating experience than when I created "Blood and Water - Begin", "From them all become", and "Bird takes Snake to the Moons". Very little of me are included in those myths and fable. Instead of including any emotion or evaluations, my myths were more logically constructed.

Aioskoru part 3 : Experience Points award

Aioskoru website
Aioskoru Adventure seeds
ABS12 System

Continued from this Aioskoru Story Series
Aioskoru part 1 : "Wild Horses"
Aioskoru part 2 : "Friendly Centaur"

Here are the stats for my two main characters.

Madi the amateur magic user is PL1.

Species

Life

Spd

Def

Def Type

BP

Damage

D Type

Mag

Sc/Tc

BP

Verb

Adj/Adv

BP

Verb

Adj/Adv

Cost

Magic User

2

2

3

Cloth

2

1d12/6

Staff

4

5

Fireball S

1d12/2

3

Net S

3

15

Andelin the amateur fighter is PL1

Fighter

4

3

6

Plate

4

1d12/3

Sword

2

Rescue

2

2

Tracking/hunting

2

15

Before I start, I want to test the new experience points for the two characters for the prior two scenes.

EP per Scene Goal reached - scene 1 - meet centaurs, scene 2 - find out more info
Madi - scene 1: yes; scene 2: no = 1 EP
Andelin - scene 1: yes; scene 2: yes = 2 EP

Character true to it's concept
Madi - scene 1: yes; scene 2: unkown = 1 EP
Andelin - scene 1: yes; scene 2: yes = 2 EP

Conflict with opposition

Madi - scene 1: yes; scene 2: unknown = 1 EP

Andelin - scene 1: yes; scene 2: no = 1 EP

New Awareness about something important

Madi - scene 1: yes; scene 2: unkown = 1 EP

Andelin - scene 1 unknown; scene 2 yes = 1 EP

Total EP for "Wild Horses" and "Friendly Centaur."

Madi = 4 EP

Andelin = 6 EP

I will test out 10 EP = 1 Power Level increase for now. I tried to make it 3 scenes per level. If that is too little then I will switch it to 20 or 30.

I'll try doing a scene just for Madi in the future like I did for Andelin in "Friendly Centaur" to help balance the points out.

ABS12 Experience System Changes

All the changes from this page will be added to the complete master game page at A Basic System 12 (ABS12).

When I set the first version of exp points, kills and skills were the focus of my initial framework. I haven't used that system yet in my test plays. And I don't think that I want to.

I will change the experience point system to something else. Something based on scenes, acts, and story rewards. Rather than worrying about kills and skills, I will focus more on scene goals, staying true to the character, and facing conflict. In addition, points for completing each part of the story will be given.

This system focuses on the overall story, rather than actual specific results. It doesn't judge success over failure. It only judges if the story is being done

Experience
EP per Scene Goal reached
Characters receive 1 experience point if the purpose of a scene is completed. Does the scene add anything to the plot of the story? If so, award 1EP. If not, next time try to create scenes that add to the story. They can be beginnings, middle, or end type scenes that introduce, present, or finish conflict or the plot.

Experience

Per Scene
EP per Scene Goal reached
Characters receive 1 experience point if the purpose of a scene is completed. Does the scene add anything to the plot of the story? If so, award 1EP. If not, next time try to create scenes that adds to the story. The scenes can be beginnings, middle, or end type scenes that introduce, present, or finish conflict or the plot.

Character true to it's concept
If the character stayed consistently within the concept of the character within the scene then award 1EP. The character should have it's own voice. Playing a character well means playing it according to it's own rules and logic. Know your character and do stuff that makes sense to that character.

Conflict with opposition
If the character faced opposition with some hindering force within the scene then award 1EP to the character, despite the resolution of the conflict - either success, draw, or fail. Conflict is important to the story. Failing and coming to a draw are just as important to the story as success - maybe even are more important.

New Awareness about something important
Did the character learn something new that is important for the story. If so, award 1EP. Even if the character doesn't face conflict, if they learn something important about them, someone else, or something important in the story then award 1EP. This helps to award character knowledge, rather than materials gained in the story.

Per Act
Act completion
If an entire act is completed then award 1 additional EP. Finishing an act means progression within the story.

Per Story
Story completion
Award 2EP if the story had come to a climax and been resolved. Completing a story is a significant event.

PL Progression
Every 10 EP award a Power Level (PL). Every two PL, the DL will increase by one.

For the PL list, for now I remove the EP since I'm making it a flat 10 per PL.

PL - Description Level
0 - no Description
1 - 1
2 -
3 - 2
4 -
5 - 3
6 -
7 - 4
8 -
9 - 5
10 -
11 - 6
12 -

A Basic System 12 (ABS12)
Index of my blog

ABS12: The anatomy of the combat numbers

All the changes from this page will be added to the complete master game page at A Basic System 12 (ABS12).

For this post, I wanted to look into what exactly the numbers in the formula mean. This is important to help determine how to describe actions.

Minor change

One other change I'm making is removing the PL from PL damage roll, PL Live, and PL defense, which don't seem to make sense anymore.

Verb Skill formula portions

1. Situation roll portion

The first roll 1d12, in every type of roll means the situation roll. Situations can vary from good to bad. The first random roll tells you how good current situation about the skill or combat.

Player should describe exactly how the character does something, not just what a character does. 

If a character uses a description verb to look for clues, then the player should explain exactly how the player will search for clues. Will they look through all the drawers and cupboards? Having explained how the character will search, the roll can then be performed to describe how lucky fate is with the character in performing the task.

Interpreting the numbers

A 1 is so bad that it's a fumble. A 12 is so good that it's a automatic success.

Describing the situation depends upon what type of action is being performed. Once you have that action in mind, you can describe the situation surrounding the action using adverbs and adjectives in similar degree to the the result rolled. The situation may be environmental. It may include actions of opposing characters. It may include the conditions of the character performing the action.

Above six becomes more positive.

Below six becomes more negative.

Here is a general adjective scale denoting quality and degree for the situation surrounding the how the action is performed.

If as in the prior example, if the character is looking through all the drawers and cupboards looking for clues, and the player roll a three - what does that mean?. A three is very bad. What could a very bad situation mean or look like when searching through cupboards and drawers? It might mean that the character rushes through the search doing a poor job of searching. It might also mean that despite ones great skill, something happens to be covering the thing that the character is trying to find. The first explanation is a more method based or quality of performance rational. Whereas the second one is luck based or quality of the environment. Either way, they both explain and describe a the situation that is very bad.

2. Learned description level and power level experience portion

Both the PL and DL portions are fixed. 

The PL represents experience as the character acquires more real world experience. Characters recognize patterns and appropriate methods just by watching life around them. The learn little tricks to help live even doing unskilled and untrained actions easier. They have life knowledge.

The DL represents learned skill. It represents actual study, practice, exploration, teachings, and education. They receive education formally or on the job.

The next portion of the formula appears in combat. It is a special kind of roll called the damage roll.

Offensive roll 1d12 + PL + DL + Damage roll

3. Why is the damage roll added to the offensive roll?

The damage roll represents how viscous and potentially damaging the attack, blow, or strike is. The damage roll is potential damage, rather than actual damage.It represents how deadly the strike could be - how much force and accurate the blow may be. Even with a little lesser luck, a very powerful attack my still do damage if the attack is powerful. Too much of a bad situation will make even a powerful attack miss. Yet a great situation might help a weak attack still hit and do damage depending on the defender's situation.

The lowest damage possible is 1. Even variable damage weapon will at least do 1 point of damage

In damages where even a roll of 1 is made out of 1d12/6, = is all one or the other. There is no fumble or automatic success from the damage roll. Your only trying to find the amount, in this case 1 or 2. It's either one or the 

Damage roll is countered with the armor value portion of the defense. The defender offsets the damage roll with their fixed defense which is made up of skill (DL) and experience(PL) plus any armor.

Damage Table

A Basic System 12 (ABS12)
Index of my blog