Seeking ideas for some divine terminology

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GMCorvius
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Seeking ideas for some divine terminology

Post by GMCorvius »

Hey everyone,

For a while now, I've been working on a world-building game built using Cortex Prime. For those unfamiliar with the system, it uses a dice pool, roll and keep, roll over mechanic, where each die is sourced from a trait on your character sheet. If any of the dice in the pool result in a 1, it's called a hitch, and is not included in the total. Instead, the GM can choose to use buy your hitch with a plot point to give you a complication, which is a hindrance that works against you in future rolls. In addition, sometimes you can spend a plot point and/or another die to create an asset, which can aid you in future rolls.

Anyway, I'm having trouble settling on setting-appropriate words to replace the default game terminology for these items, so I thought I would request some feedback. For a little context, the basic premise of the game is that your character is a godschild, basically a demigod, descended from a deity (lineage) and sent to a primordial world to create landscapes, life, culture, and lore that will somehow benefit their lineage. So these terms would basically be representative of interactions between the lineage and the godschild.

Here's what my brainstorming has yielded so far:
  • Plot Point: Grace, Mercy, Indulgence, Faith, Piety
  • Hitch: Sacrifice, Offering, Fault, Transgression
  • Complication: Penance, Atonement
  • Asset: Favor, Gift, Boon, Reward
  • Effect Die: This might not require a different term, although “effect die,” or even just “effect,” seem a little immersion-breaking to me.
Thanks for any and all of your ideas!

Edited to add a little additional context for the game. It is designed to create locations, species, cultures, legends, icons, and other lore to feed into a high fantasy setting. Every location/item/etc that you create will have a die rating which it carries with it into the fantasy setting, where it can be used in gameplay. Additionally, the characters of this world-building game are meant to be somewhat short-lived -- there is a Heroic-Tragic "Destiny" spectrum you are constantly playing on, and when you pop off either end of the spectrum, your character is done/retired. You have agency over which direction your character is heading during gameplay, as well as over your character's final destiny once you go off the spectrum. The destiny is basically how the lore of the fantasy world reflects your character's life, deeds, and final fate.
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RobAbrazado
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Re: Seeking ideas for some divine terminology

Post by RobAbrazado »

This sounds like a cool premise! For me, effective use of evocative terms is halfway coming up with setting-appropriate words, but it's also half taking advantage of connotations to reinforce the in-game "meaning" of the mechanics. Here are some of my thoughts...
GMCorvius wrote: Wed Nov 24, 2021 7:08 pm Plot Point: Grace, Mercy, Indulgence, Faith, Piety
Of these, I like Grace the best, with Piety second. I think Mercy and Indulgence each cast a particular shade on the relationship between lineage and godschild (Mercy implies the default attitude of the deity is dominating, and Indulgence implies the default attitude is withholding), and I, myself, try to avoid "Faith" and suchlike when the existence or relevance of a deity isn't in question (you don't need Faith when something is real and, like, your parent. :D ) I think Grace implies a flow of power from the deity to the child, while Piety makes me think more of something that's up to the child, so I think Grace is a better reflection.
GMCorvius wrote: Wed Nov 24, 2021 7:08 pm Hitch: Sacrifice, Offering, Fault, Transgression
Similar to Piety, I feel like all of these are things that imply responsibility on the part of the godschild, when mechanically it's random chance that the Hitch comes up. Maybe something like Test or Trial for Hitch? This would be in contrast to Asset and Complication, which feel more like intentionality from the deity. My first thought for Asset was something like Blessing, which naturally would lead to Curse for Complication, but that feels like a bit much. :D The idea of Penance or Atonement is an interesting one, though...the implication is that the godschild is making up for something they did wrong? Which makes sense in the light of a Hitch being a Transgression, but it feels strange to me to go that route if a Hitch occurs randomly. So...if a Hitch is something more like a Test, maybe a Complication becomes something more like a Judgment?

Anyway, this is just some off-the-cuff reactions. I'm definitely not looking to shoehorn in anything that wasn't intentional design-wise; I'll be first to admit maybe I'm reading too much into things. :lol: But to me what's interesting here is the idea that the fictional impact of the mechanics is changing. Default Cortex is using the mechanisms to reflect or impose these narrative structures, right? But the idea is that a story is being formed by forces outside the "universe" of the fiction; the player rolls a die and reads a result or exchanges some narrative currency while to the character, things happen without in-fiction "reason." By changing the game terms in this particular setting, the implication may be that to the character, things happen because the deities will it. Like if a Hitch is a Transgression, the player has rolled a 1 on the die, but the character may also know they've sinned somehow...and a Penance is due. Does that make sense? So that's where I'm getting the idea that a Transgression/Penance model has different implications to the setting than a Test/Judgment model.

Anyway. I talk too much. :lol: It's a cool pitch, and I'm interested to hear more about the design intention and what the deities' involvement in the characters' world is meant to be like!
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GMCorvius
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Joined: Thu Dec 19, 2019 5:52 pm
Location: Seattle, WA, USA

Re: Seeking ideas for some divine terminology

Post by GMCorvius »

Thanks, Rob.Your comment was actually really helpful. For some reason, I was having trouble parsing what the different components and mechanics of the plot points meta currency in a way that could inform my word choices. Now I've been able to suss out what exactly I want these things to represent in the game (for now at least).

For plot points, I think I agree with you about Grace being the best of the words I listed. However, even though I had Favor listed as a possible word for an asset, I think it would be a slightly better fit here, in part because one of the things you can do with a plot point is create an asset. I'm not sure why, but Favor appeals more to me as something you would use for that specific purpose. So I think I'll go with favor.

Your comments about Tests or Trials as hitches really helped crystallize my thoughts about what exactly I was looking for. And in fact, I think Trial is a great term to replace complication. This flavors a complication to be something that can really help describe and define your relationship with your lineage. In this sense, a Trial is something you must consider, endure, and survive (or not!). It makes sense that it would have the mechanical weight of a complication behind it. If I'm being honest, I would prefer to use the word Test here instead of trial, but since "test" is a mechanics term in Cortex, I think it's best to avoid using it in the fiction.

Additionally, I think I'll replace asset with Boon. Your lineage has favored you, and grants you a boon in a time of need. Furthermore, additional favor can give the boon extra weight or longevity. I like it!

That brings us back to hitch. The way I've set terminology up at this point, a hitch could be thought of as a transgression of sorts that triggers a Trial, or it could simply be a moment when the lineage decides to present you with a Trial. In this iteration, it's a more player-facing moment, and I think the player would narrate what their godschild might have done to bring it about. On the other hand, I really like the idea of something more like an intercession, where the lineage chooses to interfere for their own reasons. It would make sense for this to me more GM-facing, but it wouldn't have to be. Normally in religious settings, an intercession is thought of as something positive, some kind of aid or blessing, or sometimes more neutrally as a mediation of sorts. In this case, it is a blessing in that it's an opportunity to prove yourself to your lineage by enduring a trial, and for enduring the trial, you are granted favor. I think I like the flavor of this better than the transgression; it fits the intended tone of the game better.

That leaves me with the effect die. Power would be a good fit here, but again, it's also a mechanic in Cortex. Although I'm not using powers as a trait set in this game, I'd still prefer to avoid the confusion. Might, force, and potency could all fit. But in this case it feels like I might be trying to hard, and maybe I don't need to shoehorn it into the fiction. I'lll give this one some more thought.

To summarize my current thinking: You assemble a die pool drawn from your various traits. You roll. In this situation, at least one die result is a 1. This represents an intercession by your lineage (for their own reason, suppose collaborative narration by player & gm). Your lineage presents you with a trial, and in exchange grants you favor. Later in the game, you can use your lineage's favor to do a number of things, including creating a boon that can be used to aid you on future rolls. One note about hitches (intercessions): I'm pretty sure that in at least some versions of Cortex Plus, the player could decline to accept the plot point that the GM offers in order to create a complication. I have not found this particular item in the Cortex Prime Game Handbook, but my initial playtests of the game will still include it. I don't want to take away this bit of player agency as a game default, because in my mind, it's really the players who are creating this world.

I'm hoping to get this to the table in a very casual way in the next few nights, and then again later next week. Wish me luck! And please let me know if you have any more ideas. Your spitballing and [perceived?] verbosity really helped spur my thought process.

On a final note, I'm glad you like the pitch. You might be amused to learn that my initial intention in designing this game was to avoid extra writing. I designed the mechanics of the high fantasy game first (game mechanics are my first love, I'm addicted to tweaking & tinkering). Then, I sat down to create the setting, and after a few pages, I just began to feel overwhelmed. So of course I thought, "You know what would be more fun? Playing a game to design the setting!" A couple friends recommended I check out Microscope, so I picked it up and it was interesting, but not quite what I was looking for. So I brainstormed my design a little bit, posted in a Cortex forum where folks were sharing their ideas, and someone recommended Gods and Monsters. I bought that and read it, and it was surprisingly close to what I was thinking of, but since I had already done some preliminary design I decided to move forward, rather than use two separate systems or adapt the Fate game to Cortex Prime. This way, the core mechanic of my two games is the same, even though the premise, power levels, and trait sets are not. So (theoretically) players should be able to transition easily from one to the other. In other words, I think it would be really cool to play some sessions of the world-building game, and later transition to the fantasy game, and possibly encounter setting elements (with mechanical weight) that you may have played a part in creating.

Anyway, after I do some playtesting and refine my terminology, I'll post more about the game in a separate thread. Having said that, if there are other thoughts or ideas out there about my terminology question, I'd still like to hear them, because at this point, everything is still pretty temporary and mutable.
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RobAbrazado
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Re: Seeking ideas for some divine terminology

Post by RobAbrazado »

That's awesome! Sounds like things are taking firmer shape! Best of luck with the playtesting and further development. I look forward to hearing more!
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