Estertor, Panegírico y Epitafio sigue avanzando. Estoy en su tercer borrador. En esta ocasión estoy reescribiendo gran parte del sistema, que demostró no escalar adecuadamente ni estar bien equilibrado.
Os recuerdo que en Drivethru podéis descargar gratuitamente la primera versión Alpha. Está obviamente ya muy anticuada, pero las ideas han permanecido, y debería servir para imaginar si es algo de vuestro interés.
I’ll start with the obvious. Why does this game need powers? Usually, people do not obtain special abilities when dealing with grief. That is true, but it is also true that this is still a game with a ghost, and I like the characters having special powers.
The real question is how to define those powers in such a way that they help to reinforce the themes of the game while still being fun to use. Why should they be fun to use? Again, because this is a game, and “having fun” is an implicit (well, explicit now) design objective.
First, I set two classes of powers. The first class exist and work only inside the game world, and are called Phantasmagorias. They are more or less “classical” RPG powers, obtained by the PCs and used by them when they want. The second class exist in the game world, but work from the real world, and upon the real world description of the game world, and they are called Death Defiances. They are narrative control capabilities in hands of the players (not the PCs), justified in-game as the ability of the player ghost to defy death and reality.
In Spanish, a ghost is called “fantasma”, and phantasmagoria is “fantasmagoría”. Yes, a phantasmagoria has nothing to do with ghosts, but I liked the word. Of course, having set on the name, I had to justify it: these ghostly powers bestowed upon the PCs work changing reality in a subtle way. Those who see them in use are not sure of what they are seeing, and tend to later think it was just a daydream or a hallucination. And that is the name justified.
Now, I had to decide about the powers themselves. I had the general organisation of the game in the five stages, so I chose to have the powers change based on the current stage of the PC. In each stage, the PC can manifest the nature of the stage of grief spending attribute points.
I also wanted narrative control capabilities, but not unlimited ones, for the players. Following the same basic scheme, depending on the stage of grief of the player ghost, the players can change the narration of the DM (Death Master) spending attribute points of the player ghost. This way, in the Denial phase they can just say “no” to a DM sentence, while in the bargaining phase they have to cut a deal for every change they want to introduce.
As explained in the previous design diary, I started with three attributes for the player characters: Death Rattle, Panegyric and Epitaph. PCs had points in each attribute, and spent them to fuel powers and overcome obstacles, and losing them caused advancing through the stages of grief, until they reached Acceptance and the game ended for them. This was a simple model, thought to be able to fit in a single page of paper. But it had several problems:
So I added a pool of points for each Stage of Grief. Now, players should try to lose points of the earlier Stages of Grief and win points of Acceptance, and should try to keep as many basic attribute points a possible, as they grant them the option to use powers and to overcome obstacles. And the stage of grief pools determine the order of the stages of grief, allowing for some back and forth between them.
But this was too simple: the pools needed to be related in some ways, to allow more interesting decisions.
Now the mechanical part of the game consists on balancing the attribute points and the stage of grief points, trying to change of stage in the right moment, trying not to win too many Depression points and a lot of Acceptance points, and not losing many attribute points to be able to use powers and overcome later obstacles.
Here it is, the first true design diary for my first full roleplaying game, Death Rattle, Panegyric and Epitaph. In this series of posts I want to tell you why I’m creating this game, how I’m creating this game, for who I’m creating this game, and why I’m creating this game the way I’m creating it. Where do I start?
I’ll start with the name. I’ve had the Spanish sentence «Estertor, panegírico y epitafio» (that is Death Rattle, panegyric and epitaph in Spanish) in my mind at least two years. I sincerely can’t remember where did I heard it, or when did I put those words together.
I was initially planning on using it as a title for a mystery novel involving three whodunits with the narrative frame of a conversation between three persons related with the stories and with only the given names of Estertor, Panegírico and Epitafio to keep in secret who they were in each story. I have not totally forsaken this idea, and the first of the whodunits is progressing (it will be called John Merridew is dead), but probably the details and the frame narrative will be different.
So, at the start of 2015 a new entry of the Rolero de Hierro (Iron Roleplayer) contest started. Rolero de Hierro is a mini rpg creation contest with a previously established theme and elements. In that occasion, the theme was death. I had the perfect title for a roleplaying game about death!
There were three categories of elements, with three options each. Each contestant had to pick at least one element from each category, and I chose the following elements:
I had the title and these elements. I decided the game would be about a recently deceased ghost looking for help from his or her living acquaintances. Any player would be able to act as the ghost in any moment (to fulfill the first element), and the ghost would grant narrative powers to the players to allow them to defy the DM (and fulfill the second element). To tie it all together, two additional ideas: there will be three characteristics, called as the game: Death Rattle, Panegyric, Epitaph; and the player characters and the ghost will be going through the five stages of grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance.
You can now get the alpha in-development version of Death Rattle, Panegyric and Epitaph from DrivethruRPG.!!!!
I’ll be updating it for some time while adding to the alpha until having a complete alpha version, with at least all the main systems in it.
Death Rattle, Panegyric and Epitaph is a game about death, about dealing with death, about getting through the grieving to keep on living.
In Death Rattle, Panegyric and Epitaph, a common acquittance of the players’ characters has just died, causing them great sadness. But they are contacted by the deceased and asked to finish some of his or her pending issues. Like, maybe, finding the killer. All the players together handle the dead one, known as the Player Ghost. The Player Ghost grants some power over the narrative to the players, and some powers in the game world to the players’ characters.
Through the game, the player characters and the player ghost will advance through the five stages of grief of the Kübler-Ross model. In each phase, the powers granted by the Player Ghost will vary.
The game uses a diceless system, and it can be used on top of other games to play a small side story after a significant death in many campaigns. It will be very adaptable, to adjust the ghost and the ghostly powers to the desired level.
Does all this sound interesting? You can download the first draft (in Spanish only, I’m afraid), written for and inspired by a mini-rpg contest (Rolero de Hierro 2015). It is published free here, under an open license, etc.
During the following weeks I’ll post a design diary of the game, trying to explain the system, and the thought process behind it.
