Saturday, October 12, 2013
Saturday, September 28, 2013
Big mechanics changes
There were some flaws and some of the design features in the first draft did not fit the design goals for the game itself. One of my friends and colleagues helped to work out the knots in the mechanics.
Now, the main concepts explained in the blog haven't changed dramatically, but there have been significant changes to the printed dice mechanics and character creation since the first draft.
Character creation has been dramatically simplified, while keeping the main elements of point buy in place. One physical stat has been removed, and three rethemed. Two resources have been combined, another two redesigned entirely. The entire concept of 'Force' has been removed from the game entirely, removing a layer of unnecessary complexity. To allow for power scaling, more than two hits (stitches) may count, unlike before, but now each extra stitch adds an increasing risk to the action afterward.
This continues the design goal of allowing for simple strategic choice on how to deal with a dice pool, and also keeps optimization in check by adding significantly more risk with each stitch used in a success, keeping player power levels more in balance with one another.
This simplifies the way skills will react to successes, and does mean major overhauls of nearly every aspect to the original draft, but in a positive way. It has the added benefit of moving it further from typical game mechanics, eliminating possibly some confusion or assumptions made on similarities with other tabletop RPG systems.
Things are looking up overall, and progress has started again on getting Dreamcatcher into a playable shape.
Now, the main concepts explained in the blog haven't changed dramatically, but there have been significant changes to the printed dice mechanics and character creation since the first draft.
Character creation has been dramatically simplified, while keeping the main elements of point buy in place. One physical stat has been removed, and three rethemed. Two resources have been combined, another two redesigned entirely. The entire concept of 'Force' has been removed from the game entirely, removing a layer of unnecessary complexity. To allow for power scaling, more than two hits (stitches) may count, unlike before, but now each extra stitch adds an increasing risk to the action afterward.
This continues the design goal of allowing for simple strategic choice on how to deal with a dice pool, and also keeps optimization in check by adding significantly more risk with each stitch used in a success, keeping player power levels more in balance with one another.
This simplifies the way skills will react to successes, and does mean major overhauls of nearly every aspect to the original draft, but in a positive way. It has the added benefit of moving it further from typical game mechanics, eliminating possibly some confusion or assumptions made on similarities with other tabletop RPG systems.
Things are looking up overall, and progress has started again on getting Dreamcatcher into a playable shape.
Thursday, September 5, 2013
All Quiet on the Western Front
Current Draft: 2nd
The blog has gone quiet for a couple weeks since the first draft was completed. The author has taken a mental break for a bit of recovery after the long process, before the hefty revision work begins. Some major mechanics changes are happening that will affect balance of numbers, though nothing systematic on the dice front, most relating to character creation to bring it more in line with design goals.
Some very limited playtesting has occured, though nothing of significant consequence.
The first large piece for Dreamcatcher has been commissioned, contract will be signed tommorrow delivering a nice two page spread for the book involving Entropy, the artist's choice for most interesting thing in the book to illustrate that fit her tastes and style.
http://hanmonster.deviantart.com/ is the artist, she's very talented and great with color and mood, but this is one of the more dramatic and complex commissions she's had to do.
This artwork is a pretty penny, and hopefully will be made back up in kickstarter, but it'll be great for promotional material for the kickstarter campaign.
The blog has gone quiet for a couple weeks since the first draft was completed. The author has taken a mental break for a bit of recovery after the long process, before the hefty revision work begins. Some major mechanics changes are happening that will affect balance of numbers, though nothing systematic on the dice front, most relating to character creation to bring it more in line with design goals.
Some very limited playtesting has occured, though nothing of significant consequence.
The first large piece for Dreamcatcher has been commissioned, contract will be signed tommorrow delivering a nice two page spread for the book involving Entropy, the artist's choice for most interesting thing in the book to illustrate that fit her tastes and style.
http://hanmonster.deviantart.com/ is the artist, she's very talented and great with color and mood, but this is one of the more dramatic and complex commissions she's had to do.
This artwork is a pretty penny, and hopefully will be made back up in kickstarter, but it'll be great for promotional material for the kickstarter campaign.
Monday, August 12, 2013
Design Discussion
One problem with the traditional tabletop game is the inaccessibility of it. While game systems have always existed on both ends of the spectrum of heavy math, and light math, the popular and successful ones that a majority of people play have some fundamental flaws with the design of the system that make it difficult for a few critical things.
Game Masters are necessary and fundamental in design for the success of a tabletop game, and the feasibility of a system without one is quite limited. But the GM position in a game can be quite stressful for new people to pick up, and most games aren't conducive to learning. Additionally, GM burnout in general is a factor, and games are always healthier when different people in the group take turns GMing, and understand what goes into the process. Healthy groups can last a very long time and be the source of friendship and socialization, and are one of the very best parts of tabletop gaming.
However, few systems on the market are really focused on encouraging that kind of development. It's sort of an accident of happenstance, or a sign of good friends when it does. Most systems are designed mechanically to reinforce the Game Master as an enemy. It encourages players to try to beat the GM, missions and plots and fights are about winning the game, rather than about telling story. A GM by nature, must be of a certain personality type to be willing to have that kind of control and in that environment only certain kinds of personalities will even have fun. Not every game will play like this, but the very base systems of D&D and Pathfinder very much treat the GM as the enemy.
World of Darkness did a great job with it's storyteller system of trying to focus on the storytelling aspect of the GM instead of the mechanical functions. It has a very light set of mechanics to reinforce story as the main aspect of the game, and it had plenty of thematic elements to back that up. WoD though requires an intense amount of plotting, and is very focused and limited with each separate module not being very compatible. In addition the thematic elements at the time of release made it difficult to appeal beyond a very niche audience. Furthermore, the underpinning mechanics that did exist where very broken and actually had problems with scaling backward, where the more dice one had, the more chance of catastrophic failure there was.
In both D&D 3.5/Pathfinder, and WoD, the GM has the added issue of having to fudge dice and re-balance the game on the fly. Due to Pathfinder's ridiculous class and system imbalances with many different rulebooks and synergies that scale exponentially, the power imbalance in a game of unequal skilled players means significant difficulty for a GM to balance encounters. With powerful players it can be a challenge to even present a moderate amount of difficulty without catastrophically wiping the party, or making less skilled players feel useless.
So what purpose does Dreamcatcher serve in this discussion? Many systems provide enough of a good experience that any existing tabletop group can have plenty to choose from. And newer systems have come out more recently to make the games more mechanically balanced that allow newer GMs to pick up the dungeon crawling portion of traditional tabletop, like D&D 4.0, but they miss the primary point. With the advent of video games it becomes a challenge for a tabletop game to offer the level of mechanical interest, and strategy found in video games. In addition, Massive Multiplayer games offer a few of the social elements that drew people to tabletop.
What is the primary unique factor that tabletop games cannot have replicated in video games? Collaborative storytelling. A common derogatory term for GMs who force a specific set of actions and plot on players as 'railroading', which is to say, the GM that does not adapt the story and seeks to tell a plot like a movie. This eliminates the largest part of the interaction in story for the players. Dreamcatcher seeks to mechanically offer a cooperative experience that while maintaining the model of GM and player, sets up the entire system mechanically and thematically to reinforce the players and GM on the same side.
Dreamcatcher calls the GM a Dreamweaver, for they help to navigate and inject plot, come up with situations to challenge the players, but the entire focus is different. There is no combative rolling in this system, rather the Dreamweaver does not roll dice against the players. Instead, players roll for both offensive, and defensive situations. It creates a unique dynamic compared to existing systems in play, and makes it immediately less combative on a subtle psychological level.
The rules themselves are designed to inherently discourage the traditional optimization of games in numerous ways, that don't inhibit design of character, or fun or flexibility. There is logarithmic scaling instead of exponential scaling of power, allowing for characters who dabble to still have use. Skills are flexible and broad in use, so creative players may be more effective by thinking through how to solve a situation rather than picking attacks or skills from a list in front of them. That isn't to say the system is without mechanics, as there have been many that have come out before to strip a system bare to focus entirely on storytelling. But rules play a roll in helping new players learn how the world works, and a robust system can help in allowing shy players to be eased into role playing instead of just being thrown in.
What strategy exists in Dreamcatcher was carefully selected. The three fundamental sources of strategy this rule set incorporates are: Resource Management, Luck and Risk Management, and Problem Solving. Resource management is something pretty much anyone who has ever played a game instantly grasps and is able to understand and use. This game features different resource pools to manage during the course of play.
All resources recharge after periodic breaks, in this case taking inspiration from one of the better design elements of D&D 4.0, the rest system. While many games have used 'days', or 'sessions', to describe the period in which things recharge, both are arbitrary, and harder for players to understand on a mechanical level, and neither element is within the control of players. Long rests as defined in Dreamcatcher are periods of rest or break, long enough to have a full eight hours of sleep uninterrupted. When players choose to do this, is under their control instead of the Dreamweaver, so they can retain they can plan how they use their resources based on when they know they will be able to recharge. In addition, there are short rests, which allow for some resources to recharge during a break or breather. This adds another element of depth, choosing when to use these resources so that recharge is not wasted. Spending a lot of resources in one encounter, may prove problematic later down the road as the resources that do recharge do so slowly.
Resources include three separate pools of Fortitude, each of which represent a different part of a players well being. Physical, Mental and Spiritual Fortitude are calculated differently, and expended on failure or occasionally consumed on use of certain abilities. A character is only as strong as their weakest Fortitude, as if any should hit zero, they become Vulnerable. The reason for the different health pools is it discourages optimization by design, as a character is only as strong as their weakest Fortitude.
Another major resource is Destiny. Destiny is a stat that lets players write their own story. They may expend Destiny in order to override dice, assure successes, or replicate any function they need to. They are very powerful, and if spent together can stack up to create game changing actions. Destiny is the single most powerful effect a player can have in storytelling, allowing them to determine the outcome of a situation, but being a resource they must be careful to decide how they use it.
The next big element of strategy is Luck and Risk Management. This is presented in some ways with the Destiny resource, but also applies to the fundamental dice system. Many games in the past feature little thought beyond rolling a dice or dice on the player's end and seeing what falls. As described in a previous chapter, Dreamcatcher features a mechanic called Fraying, which is secondary consequences to an action. While failure and success are the two primary measures most consider in an action, consequence is far less considered in design in most systems. Consequence is expressed in the form of Frayed Actions, situations in which a Fray goes through that may occur regardless of an actions success. When players roll, a specific number called Fraying determines what dice that come up count as Frays. Frays may be removed from a roll by any other non fray dice. This means that excess dice may be used to cancel frays out. However, there will be situations where a player must choose between success while leaving a Fray in the action, or failure, or between a huge success with a fray or a minor success. These considerations are up to the player, who has the choice of deciding between the options and determining how the action concludes.
The dice don't determine what consequences are though, and the system leaves enough flexibility to make it sensible rather than mechanical. A Dreamweaver may use one of the many Frayed Conditions to represent a story element, or may come up with far more elaborate consequences for the frayed action, but regardless it becomes a choice the player makes that integrates them with the story being told.
The last big source of strategy in the system is problem solving. The game does not differentiate combat with any other form of encounter. It treats every system by design as a skill challenge, or puzzle to solve regardless of the conditions. It is mandatory that a Dreamweaver present multiple paths to conclusion for players, and is given tools in encounter design to allow for creating these multiple paths and determining conclusion in a mechanical way that will reinforce the storytelling.
Character skills are expansive, and designed around a guideline of potential, but leaving open the option of using skills in ways not quantified within the book. The skills allowplayers to think outside the box and approach encounters in ways that aren't prescribed directly by the rules if they make sense from a story perspective. The design does not inhibit the story, but reinforces it.
That is the most fundamental part of Dreamcatcher, rules that are simple enough to grasp, have good depth but reinforce the story instead of limiting it. It is the hope in the long run that more people get to experience role playing, and GMing and creates an inclusive experience for both experienced and newer players.
Game Masters are necessary and fundamental in design for the success of a tabletop game, and the feasibility of a system without one is quite limited. But the GM position in a game can be quite stressful for new people to pick up, and most games aren't conducive to learning. Additionally, GM burnout in general is a factor, and games are always healthier when different people in the group take turns GMing, and understand what goes into the process. Healthy groups can last a very long time and be the source of friendship and socialization, and are one of the very best parts of tabletop gaming.
However, few systems on the market are really focused on encouraging that kind of development. It's sort of an accident of happenstance, or a sign of good friends when it does. Most systems are designed mechanically to reinforce the Game Master as an enemy. It encourages players to try to beat the GM, missions and plots and fights are about winning the game, rather than about telling story. A GM by nature, must be of a certain personality type to be willing to have that kind of control and in that environment only certain kinds of personalities will even have fun. Not every game will play like this, but the very base systems of D&D and Pathfinder very much treat the GM as the enemy.
World of Darkness did a great job with it's storyteller system of trying to focus on the storytelling aspect of the GM instead of the mechanical functions. It has a very light set of mechanics to reinforce story as the main aspect of the game, and it had plenty of thematic elements to back that up. WoD though requires an intense amount of plotting, and is very focused and limited with each separate module not being very compatible. In addition the thematic elements at the time of release made it difficult to appeal beyond a very niche audience. Furthermore, the underpinning mechanics that did exist where very broken and actually had problems with scaling backward, where the more dice one had, the more chance of catastrophic failure there was.
In both D&D 3.5/Pathfinder, and WoD, the GM has the added issue of having to fudge dice and re-balance the game on the fly. Due to Pathfinder's ridiculous class and system imbalances with many different rulebooks and synergies that scale exponentially, the power imbalance in a game of unequal skilled players means significant difficulty for a GM to balance encounters. With powerful players it can be a challenge to even present a moderate amount of difficulty without catastrophically wiping the party, or making less skilled players feel useless.
So what purpose does Dreamcatcher serve in this discussion? Many systems provide enough of a good experience that any existing tabletop group can have plenty to choose from. And newer systems have come out more recently to make the games more mechanically balanced that allow newer GMs to pick up the dungeon crawling portion of traditional tabletop, like D&D 4.0, but they miss the primary point. With the advent of video games it becomes a challenge for a tabletop game to offer the level of mechanical interest, and strategy found in video games. In addition, Massive Multiplayer games offer a few of the social elements that drew people to tabletop.
What is the primary unique factor that tabletop games cannot have replicated in video games? Collaborative storytelling. A common derogatory term for GMs who force a specific set of actions and plot on players as 'railroading', which is to say, the GM that does not adapt the story and seeks to tell a plot like a movie. This eliminates the largest part of the interaction in story for the players. Dreamcatcher seeks to mechanically offer a cooperative experience that while maintaining the model of GM and player, sets up the entire system mechanically and thematically to reinforce the players and GM on the same side.
Dreamcatcher calls the GM a Dreamweaver, for they help to navigate and inject plot, come up with situations to challenge the players, but the entire focus is different. There is no combative rolling in this system, rather the Dreamweaver does not roll dice against the players. Instead, players roll for both offensive, and defensive situations. It creates a unique dynamic compared to existing systems in play, and makes it immediately less combative on a subtle psychological level.
The rules themselves are designed to inherently discourage the traditional optimization of games in numerous ways, that don't inhibit design of character, or fun or flexibility. There is logarithmic scaling instead of exponential scaling of power, allowing for characters who dabble to still have use. Skills are flexible and broad in use, so creative players may be more effective by thinking through how to solve a situation rather than picking attacks or skills from a list in front of them. That isn't to say the system is without mechanics, as there have been many that have come out before to strip a system bare to focus entirely on storytelling. But rules play a roll in helping new players learn how the world works, and a robust system can help in allowing shy players to be eased into role playing instead of just being thrown in.
What strategy exists in Dreamcatcher was carefully selected. The three fundamental sources of strategy this rule set incorporates are: Resource Management, Luck and Risk Management, and Problem Solving. Resource management is something pretty much anyone who has ever played a game instantly grasps and is able to understand and use. This game features different resource pools to manage during the course of play.
All resources recharge after periodic breaks, in this case taking inspiration from one of the better design elements of D&D 4.0, the rest system. While many games have used 'days', or 'sessions', to describe the period in which things recharge, both are arbitrary, and harder for players to understand on a mechanical level, and neither element is within the control of players. Long rests as defined in Dreamcatcher are periods of rest or break, long enough to have a full eight hours of sleep uninterrupted. When players choose to do this, is under their control instead of the Dreamweaver, so they can retain they can plan how they use their resources based on when they know they will be able to recharge. In addition, there are short rests, which allow for some resources to recharge during a break or breather. This adds another element of depth, choosing when to use these resources so that recharge is not wasted. Spending a lot of resources in one encounter, may prove problematic later down the road as the resources that do recharge do so slowly.
Resources include three separate pools of Fortitude, each of which represent a different part of a players well being. Physical, Mental and Spiritual Fortitude are calculated differently, and expended on failure or occasionally consumed on use of certain abilities. A character is only as strong as their weakest Fortitude, as if any should hit zero, they become Vulnerable. The reason for the different health pools is it discourages optimization by design, as a character is only as strong as their weakest Fortitude.
Another major resource is Destiny. Destiny is a stat that lets players write their own story. They may expend Destiny in order to override dice, assure successes, or replicate any function they need to. They are very powerful, and if spent together can stack up to create game changing actions. Destiny is the single most powerful effect a player can have in storytelling, allowing them to determine the outcome of a situation, but being a resource they must be careful to decide how they use it.
The next big element of strategy is Luck and Risk Management. This is presented in some ways with the Destiny resource, but also applies to the fundamental dice system. Many games in the past feature little thought beyond rolling a dice or dice on the player's end and seeing what falls. As described in a previous chapter, Dreamcatcher features a mechanic called Fraying, which is secondary consequences to an action. While failure and success are the two primary measures most consider in an action, consequence is far less considered in design in most systems. Consequence is expressed in the form of Frayed Actions, situations in which a Fray goes through that may occur regardless of an actions success. When players roll, a specific number called Fraying determines what dice that come up count as Frays. Frays may be removed from a roll by any other non fray dice. This means that excess dice may be used to cancel frays out. However, there will be situations where a player must choose between success while leaving a Fray in the action, or failure, or between a huge success with a fray or a minor success. These considerations are up to the player, who has the choice of deciding between the options and determining how the action concludes.
The dice don't determine what consequences are though, and the system leaves enough flexibility to make it sensible rather than mechanical. A Dreamweaver may use one of the many Frayed Conditions to represent a story element, or may come up with far more elaborate consequences for the frayed action, but regardless it becomes a choice the player makes that integrates them with the story being told.
The last big source of strategy in the system is problem solving. The game does not differentiate combat with any other form of encounter. It treats every system by design as a skill challenge, or puzzle to solve regardless of the conditions. It is mandatory that a Dreamweaver present multiple paths to conclusion for players, and is given tools in encounter design to allow for creating these multiple paths and determining conclusion in a mechanical way that will reinforce the storytelling.
Character skills are expansive, and designed around a guideline of potential, but leaving open the option of using skills in ways not quantified within the book. The skills allowplayers to think outside the box and approach encounters in ways that aren't prescribed directly by the rules if they make sense from a story perspective. The design does not inhibit the story, but reinforces it.
That is the most fundamental part of Dreamcatcher, rules that are simple enough to grasp, have good depth but reinforce the story instead of limiting it. It is the hope in the long run that more people get to experience role playing, and GMing and creates an inclusive experience for both experienced and newer players.
Thursday, August 8, 2013
First Draft Get
Draft #1 is officially completed. An arbitrary designation, as there is still original content to write, and some sections already been revised pretty heavily, but none-the-less this is a milestone. Play-testing will begin soon, and alpha players are rolling up characters, though honestly a significant and major overhaul to the way character creation works is already being designed for draft #2, to bring the unnecessarily complex and intimidating process down to something far more manageable without losing flexibility. This is not a small change, but a complete and total overhaul of the character creation process that brings the design goals far closer to a reality. This should not be overwhelming or intimidating for new players, unlike the current design.
The first draft was 138,500 words, without either of the unfinished vignettes, though there may be additional content written in the forms of Dreamcatchers, Traits and Flaws as character creation happens during play.
What does this mean? Dreamcatcher is on track still for a December or January Kickstarter still, and hopefully will not slide too far, though the art portion of the equation must be to a certain point first. In addition the author must hire a lawyer to help with art contracts so that progress on artwork can happen, and needs to start working on simple Layout design in order to assist with draft #2's structuring process.
Even so, its good news for anyone who is interested in the project.
The first draft was 138,500 words, without either of the unfinished vignettes, though there may be additional content written in the forms of Dreamcatchers, Traits and Flaws as character creation happens during play.
What does this mean? Dreamcatcher is on track still for a December or January Kickstarter still, and hopefully will not slide too far, though the art portion of the equation must be to a certain point first. In addition the author must hire a lawyer to help with art contracts so that progress on artwork can happen, and needs to start working on simple Layout design in order to assist with draft #2's structuring process.
Even so, its good news for anyone who is interested in the project.
Saturday, August 3, 2013
Current Progress
Draft: 1st
Current Word Count: 138,000 + 2800 Unfinished Vignette
The progress in the last month has been unfortunately slow, though I am this last week making some much better progress. I've settled some campaign matters, written some more functional things and finished making examples for significant thematic aspects to the game to give a better idea and guideline for creating more, and visualizing the concepts within the setting.
I invested a lot of time on an important vignette sequel I've been struggling to finish, but it's almost done at the very least. The first draft is getting ever closer to being completed, after which playtesting shall begin.
Completed -
8 Vignettes
31 Contracts
3 Godstones, 19 Minor Dreamcatchers, 13 Major Dreamcatchers, and 10 Oracle Coins
150 Traits and Flaws
30 Husks
5 Common Runewords 9 Rare Runewords
6 Penumbra Examples
3 Wild Examples
12 Dreamtime Examples
18 Metropolises
4 Pathways
6 Crossroads
Character creation
Character growth
Setting history
Skills thoroughly created, expanded, detailed
To do list -
Two more vignettes
More Minor Dreamcatchers
Guidelines for Husk creation
More Husks
More Pathway examples
Mock Play Sessions
Pregenerated characters with stories
Sunday, July 28, 2013
Rules to Play By: Tapestries
The mechanics of this game are intentionally designed to remain robust while attempting a level of simplicity that new players can pick up. Most importantly, the game is focused on storytelling so the mechanics support, rather then provide a distraction from the story.
This post will discuss the three key controlling factors of the game's dice rules. Each named for the concept of creating a fabric, or tapestry of a story or plot. They help to decide the luck factor in fate, instead of leaving the judgement entirely up to the Dreamweaver.
Weaving -
The first number describes the process or skill in weaving threads. The number represents knowledge, experience, innate ability and influence from other parties on a character's capability. This number is determined by a character's stat, and the skill rank associated with the task they are trying to complete, plus a possible bonus from a Dreamcatcher, or Contract. Weaving is generally static for each skill, only rarely featuring temporary modifiers. The player may determine this number on their player sheet while not in play, giving them opportunity to not need to do math on the fly.
What weaving does is determine how many D10s are thrown when attempting the task, and the skill associated controls that weaving. Skills are designed to be flexible and accommodate the creativity of players, and at the same time it is highly discouraged for players to just use a skill mechanically. The actions should be decided based on the story, and the appropriate skill chosen. However, the skill list is descriptive, covering exact mechanics for many different ways of using the skill to give guidelines to both players and Dreamweavers on how to interpret the actions for each skill.
Weaving is the most static of each of the three base mechanics, and is the one character creation and the player has the most control of. The numbers may range from as low as 1 to as high as 15, meaning quite a few dice may be thrown during skill use.
Fraying -
The fraying number represents the number at which consequences may become part of an action. Any dice that rolls that matches the Fraying number or is lower than it counts as a fray in a roll. Frays can be problematic to any weave, but a skilled weaver can fix them without leaving permanent damage, though the few that do stick become a permanent part of the fabric.
All actions baseline start off with a Fraying of 2, though some traits may lower Fraying, and many flaws raise it. Umbral Effects, nasty environments of the penumbra often raise fraying or react directly frays that occur within them. Fraying is significantly more reactive than Weaving, altering throughout the course of an adventure for even the same skill.
Frays themselves don't determine success or failure of a weave, rather they are nasty side effects that carry on if not properly dealt with. Any dice that is not a fray, may be used to cancel a fray, so a character has control over eliminating them. The risk of a fray being part of a completed action is much lower under normal conditions, and far higher in nightmarish places and places of high stress.
When an action completes with a fray, a frayed condition may be placed on the character, or other unintended consequences of the action may happen. This is to say, someone may still strike with a weapon, but break their bone in the process of doing so. An unintended consequence while still succeeding at the primary action, as the two concepts are independent. Sometimes it might be better to fail an action outright than suffer a more lasting condition.
Below is an example of a more complex Frayed Condition, as currently described in the book. Not all frayed conditions are progressive or increasing, but many are problematic and hard to ignore, and they are not simple to remove.
Corruption -It might be slow, or it might be fast, but something is corrupting deep into the character’s psyche, affecting their moral decisions and perhaps even their physical shape. Long term exposure is more progressively effective and becomes more difficult to remove as the character begins to desire its effect. For each long rest with this effect in place, it requires an increasing number of successes to remove the effect. Story-wise it should suppress the character’s conscience if they have one, and push them away from the party’s intent. Mechanically, it adds a Stitch to checks to complete tasks that the party is trying to succeed at. For each long rest it adds +1 to the Stitch, up to +5, after which the corruption has fully taken effect and cannot be removed, and the character no longer wishes to work with the party, and may even become an antagonist.
Stitch -
The stitch represents the difficulty in completing a stitch on the fabric, and determines success and failure. The number is determined by the Dreamweaver, with guidance from the rulebook for suggestions on determining it. The number ranges from 6 to 10, though it may even go higher in the form of 10x2, 10x3 and so on. What the number means is each dice that hits that number or above counts as a success. 10x2 means the first success requires 2 10s in order to count, while 10x3 requires three 10s.
Weaving increases the likelihood of rolling a number that counts. Unlike some similar systems, frays do not negate successes on their own, though successes may be spend in order to eliminate frays just like any other, so there may be times where a player voluntarily chooses to fail rather than suffer nasty consequences. This is one core element to player decision making, a simple strategy that they may decide when they roll.
In the end, the stitch number is the Dreamweaver's primary input to the outcome of a roll. Their end of the bargain in determining the fate of a character. Each completed stitch adds up to tell the story of an encounter, and guide the storytelling and descriptions of what happens. Both players and the Dreamweaver are highly encouraged to use these numbers to reinforce how they describe each challenge and the conclusion to the action.
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