Mythic RPG: Ideas and Addendums 5a: Simplified Villain and Factional growth

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I have read a lot of factional systems, but they have been, on the whole, for GMs running games for player groups. Soloist need something that is quick, easy, and immediate.

I spent two hours this morning writing and rewriting a procedure to determine a way to track the growth of a villain or faction. Then it hit me that I had missed the very spirit of Mythic in my attempts to be overly thorough. So, here is the simplest villain and factional growth system I could devise and find satisfying.

First, how much do you really care? Is this villain important enough that you seek out rumors about them, or is it just a character in your list that is a thorn in your side when you happen to encounter them.

Lets assume the first situation: Rumors. 

You, and any underlings you drag around with you, have been in deep wilderness for a month. You make it back to town bruised, bloodied and with busticated equipment. You also come back either a little richer, a little wiser, or both. You hit the healers hut, rent a nice room, and go out for a beer. While you are there you seek out rumors about Boss Noggin, a particularly violent and successful bandit you have been hearing about. 

I would suggest asking the Oracle they simple binary question "Are there rumors about Boss Noggin?", and based the chances on his level of notoriety. If he is a big deal then it is almost certain there are. If he is small fry to everyone but you, the chances will be rather poor. In the case of a Yes, generate an inspirational word pair from the list of your choice and spin a rumor out from it. If the answer is No, then there is nothing to hear. If the you get a Exceptional Yes roll several times and create an outrageous rumor about him (don't worry about whether it is true or not). If the answer is an Extreme No then he seems to have fallen out of public attention for some reason, demands, perhaps, an investigation of its own (that is your call).

Now we move on to the more important part: Encounters.

Having heard Boss Noggin has been recruiting bandits, monsters, and nar'dowells to his camp you gather your forces to shut down this problem before it gets worse. You travel some days to his not so secret hide-away, and you are ready to cross words and swords with your nemesis. 

It is unlikely he has been doing nothing all the time you have been leveling up, gaining wealth, and acquiring magical do-dads.  There is no reason in the world he wouldn't be doing the same thing. 

So, as you square off with this would be bandit king ask your oracle "Has the villain gained any advantages?". Should he be known to be a successful bandit lord the probability is high. Should he just have gotten broken free from the gaol the chances are very low. 

In the case of a Yes, roll an inspirational word pair to account for his new advantage. Should it be Exceptionally Yes, give him several advantages. Should the answer be No, there is no change. Should the answer be and Exceptional No assume he has had a set back and let an inspirational word pair breath life into his loss. 

While, I had fun devising a complicated point based sliding scale of success and loss, it always depended too much on interpreting on the spot of the encounter specifics from vagaries that have been building up over time. This simpler system saves time and effort and asks much less complex improve mid scene. 

I believe I will keep working on a more evolving system, but this one keeps the ball rolling.

Mythic RPG: Ideas and Addendums 4: Mythic RPG and Archetypical Characters

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Mythic is a wonderful classless generic game. It has solid rules that are simple to use, and nearly any setting and character can be modeled from it. With that said though there are games in which certain character abilities really highlight a specific skill and talent set, and it maybe hard, even in a freeform (as opposed to point buy) game to cover them all with a few Abilities. It would be much easier to just keep up with one.

With a freeform character you can always have a look at the character summary and extrapolate out skills at a certain level, justified by the description, and as well you should. Now, I am going to offer below another system for developing a set of  Root Archetype Abilities that will suit a wide range of characters from the fantasy and cyberpunk genres. Use these as inspiration for developing your own Archetype Abilities.

The inspiration for this work came from Mythic RPG itself. The Toughness Attribute is an average of your Strength and Willpower. That got me thinking of what other Attribute combinations would lead to, but instead of more core Attributes it lead to the idea of Root Archetype Abilities. 

A quick refresher on the Attributes native to Mythic RPG: Strength, Agility, Reaction, IQ, Intuition, and Willpower. 

Fantasy
It has never been my attitude to save the best for last. Whether fantasy is the best or not is a matter of opinion, but it is certainly the most popular.  So, here are some Root Archetype Abilities for fantasy characters.

Classic Warrior. A Classic Warrior is a frontline fighter. There strengths lie in knowing a wide variety of weapons, armor, shields, and tactics (the last frequently neglected). Here I suggest combining Strength and Intuition into a Ability Prowess. This would be used for any melee or thrown weapon, all kinds of armors and shields, and any close quarters battlefield feats, as well as impressive acts of athletics. The use of equipment should be self explanatory, but if they wish to add a rider to the attack, such as a disarm, attacking a shield to damage it or pull wrench it out of a useful position, or sneak a trip attack into there flurry of quarterstaff blows, they should be able to attempt to do so, with a 0-3RS penalty. When setting the difficulty, think about the type of weapon and how they are suggesting employing it. The first time any feat is attempted, you will be playing it by ear, but as you get a list of them you could build a Scaling Box (Mythic RPG pg. 85) to better judge the difficulty of the task. 

Classic Thief. The roll of thief in fantasy precedes any RPG by years (thank you Fritz Lieber), but over time in RPGs they have come to represent a type of infiltration and exploration specialist. Here a combination of Agility and IQ will give you Larceny, which could have myriad uses. Stealth, acrobatics, picking pockets, a near sixth sense towards oncoming trouble, and a gift for opening locks and traps. Other key skills of the Thief may not fit exactly into the Larcenous Ability, but should still be available with a standard -2RS. Examples could be trying a little magic from a device (such as a scroll) deciphering a coded message from a familiarity with such codes, and speaking that unique patois of common and exotic phrases that allow the Larcenous to talk in the plain view of others in there own private Thieve's Cant. Putting all of that down on an Ability chart would take up so much space and there are so many skills they would never be able to improve them, under the umbrella term of Larceny, we know that the gestalt is greater than the individual skill. Let them shine.

Classic Wizard. the Classic Wizard goes back further than Gandalf or Ged. These are folk who understand the deeper, and some would say sinister, secrets of the world. Mythology and Folklore agree that these are persons of knowledge and power, so a combination of IQ and Willpower would serve well to grant Wizardry. Probably of all the Root Abilities this will require the most adjudication when it comes to the casting of magics, but it can also be a stand in for all kinds of esoteric knowledge, such as identifying monsters and there abilities, deciphering an ancient script, and knowledge of the belief systems of people all over the world. Let your wizards shine, don't leave them shackled to raising this skill or that at the expense of there role in the world. Maybe their magic is a subtle thing but there knowledge should be broad and expansive.

Cyberpunk
Lets flip over now to one of my other favorite genre: Cyberpunk. Through the decades, since games were designed for this genre a number of fan favorites have solidified into discernible archetypes through games such as Cyberpunk 2020, Cyberpunk Red, and Shadowrun (of the million incarnations). Some of the most popular of these archetypes have to do with combat, cyber space, and (my own favorite) drone control. 

Though there are infinite varieties of combatant available in a Cyberpunk game the quintessential Street Samurai  out shines them all. Whether she is a razor girl, a Ronin melee expert, or a master of gun-fu, the thing they all seem to have in common is lightening fast reflexes, that put them first into the fray and may well end it before it has truly begun. This Edge could well be quantified as an average of Reflex and Intuition. Though Edge would certainly put the Street Sammy first in combat the Intuition portion could give them a leg up in taking in the battlefield before the combat begins (allowing them to maximize the usefulness of cover, terrain, and hazardous obstacles), but also get a gut feeling about the capabilities of those they face. Edge should also default as a fighting score for nearly any source of damage, but as its true focus in speed and instinct it would suffer the typical -2RS penalty if used in place of a combat Ability.

From frontlines lets talk backup, and there is no better back up than a flying drone with a camera and a chain gun. This brings use to Drone Jockeys. While your cyber enhanced Street Samurai may be the first combatant you think of when you think cyberpunk, no one has more battlefield versatility, than a Drone Jockey with a high expense account. They also excel at recon, and if your team of infiltrators is very unlucky manually controlling a buildings automated defenses. This is also the team mate most likely able to fix a cyber arm or repair your armored troop transport, but those are secondary to the task of actually jumping into a the drone and using it as a second body. Reflex and Willpower are the necessary ingredients  for the Pilot ability. For all other listed purposes repair and design would be more useful but Pilot would work in a pinch at a -2RS.

Lastly, for navigating the world of data you can't beat the Console Cowboy(girl). With there trusted cyber deck, modified with brilliantly complex IC breakers, and data probes the C.C. can ferret out the deepest secrets of the best buried data-base, if the rest of the party can just get them close enough to interface. IQ is the Attribute that lets them customize their programs and hardware to the specifications of a particular run, and Reaction (along with some very advanced DNI (Direct Neuro Interface) technology) can make them masters of cyberspace, if they can fight, side step, or dupe the Black IC between them and the data they need. The average of those Attributes gives you Cyber Infiltration. This skill will also, with the standard -2RL shift allow them to code from scratch, modify electronics, and fix a busticated cyberdeck (at least long enough to hack an Amazon delivery for the newest Sony model). Good Luck Cowgirl, you are going to need it.

There are infinitely more popular archetypes for various high adventure games, but with the examples above you should be able to come up with the right parring to emulate the core talent of any Archetype adventurer.

Mythic RPG: Ideas and Addendums 3: Setting Designers and Tools that Love them

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Mythic RPG provides an emergent world building experience, that is fun and simple, but for long time GMs like myself, or anyone who is very much into setting design, putting a few set pieces in place can be of great value. 

Of course, if you are between scenes and decide to head to a pub, that can be generated on the spot, and all the details can flow from the moment you walk in the door. That is emergent game play at its best, but there are Soloist who enjoy the GM hat as much as the do the Player hat, and for such Soloist, this article may be of some help.

I still strongly suggest you start by making a character you want to play. In doing so you will have to make a number of decisions. You will pick a genre, for instance, decide the scope of the game (neighborhood to intergalactic), get a list of things you are good and bad at, and maybe as part of your Strengths and Weaknesses section generate a few NPCs that are needful for your character roll. 

(Actually, if you are so inclined you can make several characters, and let each additional one give you a few more setting chunks as long as they don't clash with the character that came before it. For me, exploring a few characters makes for a more well grounded game setting).

Now that you have your character(s), extrapolate them out. If they have special contacts (Strengths) or enemies (Weakness) you have a head start, but there is so much more on your character sheet you can pull off to make setting and character seeds.  Start with the character summary. It should explain who your character is and to some degree how they got to the point they are at as game begins.  For Spider Bella the genre is clearly cyberpunk, she has a grudge against the corporation she was born into (an entity and hook),  she has a fixer of some excellent connections (character and perhaps an organization(?)), she is fostered with a family (yet more characters all with potential connections of there own). Those are all good hooks, fleshing them out a little will get you well on your way to a setting, but hold off on finalizing their details while we explore a couple more tools, but there is yet more. If you have an exceptional ability how did you get it. If you re really awful at some sort of task what consequences has that had. I don't suggest cluttering our character sheet with a full character history, but in answering these questions (maybe on an attachment), you get to see the people, places and things that made your character who it is. Now, that we have mined the character for what it is worth, lets use some other tools.

I suggest starting with issue 49's article "The Society Crafter". Now this has a strong leaning towards creating societies randomly, but each section of it gives a categorization of a piece of information that can help ground the character's home district into a real place. Its broad topics are "Beginning, Productivity, Flourishing, Covenants (think of them as formal or informal treaties), Defenses, Culture, and Society Events. Every one of these things, besides making a very real feeling location, also are rich in game hooks. What is more, should you draw a blank on any of these, the random tables could well be useful.

The set of useful categories, combined with what I know about the character, gave me a nice little neighborhood with some light background and a lot of flavor. I started to get a feel where the known NPC come in, and I could see some necessary NPCs that would be needed to make the crafted society work. 

Now,  that I have a feel for the neighbor hood I want places in it. Using the context from the character and the society, I turn to MM16 "Location Crafting Random Cities".  My technique for using tools like this can be found in earlier blog articles, but in short I generate all the randomized categories, then do a character walk through to experience them. As I do, the world becomes populated with food vendors, little shops, gangs, policing agencies, other adventures, market places, and probably most importantly the characters home. 

This is enough details for a dozen games, but I suggest one more tool: MM38, "Solo Setting and World Creation System". This article gives you an opportunity to generate both micro and macro histories that build on one another. Before rolling for the history fill out the genre, tone, and context sections, to set in wet concrete (if not stone) the details you have already established, and the limits you wish to put on the setting.  Then jump in there and follow is history crafting procedures (you can find blank fillable PDFs of the World Building sheet here), it it will give you cornucopia of ideas for organizations, problems to solve, plot hooks of many kinds, and a feeling of history about your setting. 

That should be enough for you to launch a campaign.

Now, prepopulate your lists a bit and get to playing!

Mythic RPG: Ideas and Addendums 2: The Unexpected NPC, Using the One Page Character Crafter With Mythic RPG Ranks

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So, you have made a character (last blog post) and you have picked a setting (first blog post for this project). Now, you are ready to launch into play. Or maybe you want a little more of the world around you before you do your Adventure Setup (MRPG Chapter 8)  and First Scene (MRPG Chapter 7). Either way you are going to need NPCs.  If you are like me and want a little setting detail, maybe a few things on your list before you begin, your character summary probably mentions some individual or organizations that the character is familiar with. 

Fortunately you don't have to fly blind, there is a good resource for generating NPC's to be found  in Mythic Magazine (MM) Vol. 45 on pages 3-7, "The One-Page Character Crafter". 

For most NPCs, you probably won't need stats at all. The shop keeper or corner side rent-a-cop may have a couple of personality traits to improve the RP experience (which the 1-PCC provides), but unless that rent-a-cop or some entry level ganger, goes for a weapon, it is all just talk. 

For named NPCs that will be around longer, you will probably want and need more detail. 

The 1-PCC gives you an excellent idea who a person is. That is pretty much its job, but if you peek up into the right hand corner you will see there is a box for adjusting the power level of the NPC.

Here is a list of ranks for Mythic RPG Characters: Minuscule, Weak, Low, Below Average, Average, Above Average, High, Exceptional, Incredible, Awesome, and Superhuman. As one would expect most people will be Average, with a very large minority being Blow and Above Average. 

As you encounter an important NPC (or develop one that is needful for the setting), think of the NPCs primary life function. Not necessarily as it relates to your character, but as it relates to their life. Assign this Attribute or Ability a score of Above Average. Next roll on the NPC Statistics Chart in the top right corner. 

Next, pick something that someone maybe bad at. Set it to Below Average and again roll on the NPC Statistics Chart. 

Should the result be 4-7, "Use the value you Expect" well you already nailed it. Good job. Should it come up 2-3, "Weaken the value a little" lower the rating by -1RS. Should it come up 1, "Weaken the Value a lot", drop the value by -2RS. 

In the same vein should it come up 8-9 increase the value +1RS, and should it come up 10 increase the Value 2RS. 

Now you have two mechanical facts about the character. From there follow the procedures given in 1-PCC but keep in mind there strengths and weaknesses as you do. 

This will give you two facts about the NPCs Attributes or Abilities. Knowing just two things that are interesting or outstanding about the character you have a core to build around. 

So lets do a very quick example. Spider Bella, just Bell to her adopted family and few friends lives in a foster home, as she is very new to the sprawl. Her Fixer (to be established later), has arranged a kind and soothing environment (or as close as you can get in the Fringe) for his neurotic new talent. Most household around here have a matriarch, as violence amid men on the fringe can be appalling. 

Enter Jubilee Swanson, a kind woman who doesn't mind keeping an eye on a girl new to the neighborhood especially as it comes with a couple hundred cred a week. She is a known factor to the Fixer, but she isn't to us, so let pick up a couple characteristics. I would say we should start with Willpower, as she is keeping a family more or less (for the Fringe) on the straight and narrow. Our initial Assumption is that she will be Above Average.... roiling the die we get a 4 "As expected". She is a little more stick to her guns than most. But maybe old age and infirmity are catching up with her (MRPG Chapter 10) so we can assume Her toughness may have taken a blow... rolling the die we get an 8 "Slightly Higher than Expected", bring her up to Average. Not bad for an old woman.

From here we just fill in details from the article. Identity Descriptor: Science, so maybe she is a off researcher in one of the Black lab found in the fringe: Mind Descriptor: Professional, this will certainly help describe her attitude towards Bell; Body Descriptor: Endurance, so she take her fitness seriously; Talent Descriptor: Elite, this says to me she doesn't work for a black lab, but perhaps runs one. I would add some Ability set at High to reflect this, maybe cyberware? Or perhaps a High for IQ. 

And just like that we have a valuable and interesting NPC ready to interact with our nervous Ms. Bell.

Should anyone else want to contribute suggestions for NPC generation hit me up below, in the Mythic Patreon, or  the Mythic Discord, under Mythic RPG. 

Happy Gaming
Wizard Dad 


P.S.
There will of course be some NPCs whose power level you will not necessarily want to randomize, especially if it will wreck there point in the campaign. Spider Bella's adopting family can all be wild cards, but her fixer should at least be above average at Fixer related skill. Even then though I strongly suggest, though you affix some few abilities in stone, randomly roll for some of there Attributes or Abilities (maybe using the the technique in the last blog article) so you get a feeling of a person shaped by the bumps and scrapes of the world, rather than just a puppet that you have crafted. 

W.D.

Mythic RPG: Ideas and Addendums 1, an Alternative Character Creation

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When it comes to character creation, I am forced to admit, that I stink at coming up with a character Summary (the first step in the Mythic RPG character creation process) off the cuff. Oh I have a million ideas for characters, but when it comes down to the moment I draw a blank. This can be blamed directly on the fact that I played and ran various D&D style games for more than 30 years, and though there were other games scattered into that time frame, the habit of 3 decades is hard to buck, fortunately Ms. Pigeon, the author,  hasn't made that necessary. 

If you check out Chapter 11 in Mythic RPG there is a brief but wonderful set of rules for converting characters to Mythic. And one of the options there is a 3d6 to Mythic Ranks conversion. 

Putting the Cart before the Horse
I am sure you can see where this is going, but lets go through the steps and make a character. For years now I have started by rolling Abilities, taking a good hard look at them, and let the numbers inspire the kind of character that would have what trait, talents, and personality. The randomization process can make some scores very high and some very low, but low scores and high scores each suggest some kind of background that made them what they are. 

For example, I rolled up a perfectly enjoyable character that had a Below Average Willpower but an Incredible Intuition. Those two traits spoke to me, and I was inspired to make a Medium whom was constantly plagued by Ghosts to the point he was  nervous wreck. From there, I had further inspiration to make a specific plaguing spirit that would some times possess the Medium and his mental skills, and very difficult personality would be dominant for the rest of the scene. It was the combination of the flaw and the outstanding high score that suggested the character. 

Lets go through the process fresh and see what we come up with. 

This is not going to be a point buy character, though  the number of points that would have been used is useful scaling the type of game the character would be suited for.

Starting with the six basic Attributes we get the following set of starting stats.
Strength 12; Agility 17; Reaction 10; IQ 9; Intuition 11, Willpower 11. Checking against the Scaling Chart on page  99 of Chapter 11, it comes out like this

Strength Average
Agility Incredible
Reaction Average
IQ Below Average
Intuition Average
Willpower Average  
Toughness Average

Toughness is a derived stat falling between Strength and Willpower, but as they are both Average there wasn't much calculation to go on.

If we jump back to Chapter 2 Character creation on pg. 21 we see a Cost Per Word chart. Tallying everything up this would be a 54 point character, putting it in range between "gritty real world" and "action adventure" genre expectations. It also suggest around 35 points of Abilities would be reasonable for the character. As this is not a point buy character, we don't have to strictly stick to that number, but it does suggest a couple of strong skills or one skill that is truly over the top. 

Looking at the two outlier Attributes makes me thinking of a sports that require high degrees of agility, but at the expense of developing there mind. Perhaps someone who was in at special training program, perhaps even something like the Olympics (adjusted to the setting of course). With those bits of information I can write a Summary.

Summary
Spider Bella is an up and coming infiltration talent. She got her start as an athlete for a mega-corp propaganda division, but due to sabotage during her training she was left "unsuitable" for propaganda tridios. She was moved to train for more clandestine work. 

After an infiltration snafu for the parent (corp), in which she was left for dead, circumstances moved her into the Shadows. She is a bit insecure in her new social status as a non-entity Fringer, but her Fixer makes sure her talents go to profitable use, and the family that houses her is well paid to see to her well being. She is a gifted spider (physical infiltrator) with the skills for getting in and getting out of physical securities. Her Fixer makes sure she has the equipment needed of more technological obstacles. 

Putting the Horse back in Front.
Now that the summary is in place, lets have a look back at the character Attributes and see if anything needs changing, because the initial rolls were specifically for inspiration.

I want to leave the high Agility and low IQ alone. Those are basic building blocks for the character. I think an average Willpower is right for a former corporate operative. But her Intuition and Reactions are weak for her role. So, I will raise those to Above Average.

Attributes
Strength Average
Agility Incredible
Reaction Above Average
IQ Below Average
Intuition Above Average
Willpower Average
Toughness Average

Abilities (for this portion we just mine the summary for details, and keep a loose eye on the 35 point cap for an Action Adventure type game)

Acrobatics High (this is the same as her Agility -2RS, but it makes a good base to raise it higher)
Athletics Average (Some Athletic that are nearly pure agility, like pole-vaulting would default to her Agility -2RS making them High)  
Dance Average (This also could default to her Agility -2RS giving her a roll of High. It is here mainly as flavor)
Infiltration  Incredible (This is her primary skill and includes stealth, B&E, and other specialized mechanical infiltration skills)
Martial Arts Average (This could default to Agility and be High, but that wouldn't work for locks and holds, just for strikes and kicks)


(while this is more points than the suggestion allotted for they do make since for the character, and a number of them will be paid off in Weaknesses below)

Strengths and Weaknesses

• Secret Identity +1RS on remaining concealed when off the job, on the job she wears a mask that conceals her features from physical observation. She has no visible tattoos or scars. The bonus is for a changed affectation of cold professionalism when she is "working". This is a remnant from her corporate training.
• Foster family at a cost -1RS. On the Fringe nothing is free, but then again in the Corps nothing was either, so Bell feels both an emotional and financial debt to her foster family.
• Fear of Abandonment -1RS to mental actions when suddenly left alone.
• Gullible -1RS to resist subtle trickery or flattery
• Holds a Grudge -1RS when socially dealing directly with corporate representatives
• Enhanced visual memory and vision +2RS when recalling visual details (such as blueprints and floor plans). This is also a remnant of her corporate training and visual implants. One hour of recording and multi spectrum vision that allows for both night vision and seeing invisible laser and radio frequencies.
• Outside Life -1RS for dealing with pressures brought on by non work conflicts (typical teen superhero drama)
  
• Fixer- Bob the Guy +1RS - Bob can find work for Spider Bela when she requests it, but it tends to be easy low pay work that both he and his foster family get a cut of. 
• Debt to Bob the Guy -3RS Bell is a very moral young woman (burglary and corporate espionage is just a job). She feels an amazing debt to the Fixer that dragged her back from the brink. That impacts every interaction she has with him, and the Fixer is very good at reading character and knows it. 
• Facial scarring from a bent doctor taking a bribe to give her a faulty vaccine -1RS when beauty is a factor.

In the end we have a young adult woman, slightly stunted by the conflicts in her life. She can be a cold calculating infiltration specialist, but that is a mask over a vulnerable and sensitive fish out of water who feels a great debt of gratitude, and a large amount caring for her foster "family".  How long can she manage both "lives" before they lead to a breakdown. That is up to Mythic to decide. 

Mythic Musings 5: Mythic RPG Project 2; Ideas and Addendums

While I absolutely loved doing a deep dive into the Mythic RPG, and I very much appreciate the readers who checked in on it, the point of doing it was two fold. The first was to make sure I really knew what I was playing, and when I pontificated on it I wasn't giving people inaccurate information. The other reason though was to break it up into its constituent pieces to then start applying Mythic Variations, Magazine articles, and genre specific house rules to the corpus of the work. 

Ideas and Addendums will be just that. I am starting a Magic meets Machine dystopian game that is inspired by a very popular IP. I don't actually plan to convert that game into Mythic. In fact its dice system (a d6 dice pool) doesn't line up at all with the conversions given in Chapter 11 of Mythic RPG. The point on picking that game for inspiration is variety. It has room for fantasy stories, sci-fi stories, survival stories, different types dungeon crawl scenarios, horror story, and of course heists, which it is best known for. With that much variety, it can be a setting for all seasons. 

For this series of test scenarios, I am going to use one tiny bit of setting as a base point, but probably a wide variety of characters to highlight different aspects of the game. If the primary character of the day is a drone pilot, it will be very hard to test magic systems with them. 

As has become my normal procedure, I will link all articles to a table of contents below, and put return links on all the articles. I think this will be fun on a couple of levels. One we (I would love some input from you folks) we will be getting to do deep dives into various Mythic Magazine articles. Secondly we will get a chance flex our own brains with unique ideas. 

I hope you all will join me for this second ambitious project. 

W.D. 

Alternative Character Creation
Building Mythic RPG NPC with the One Page Character Crafter
Setting Designers and Tools that Love Them
Mythic RPG and Archetypical Characters
Simplified Villain and Factional Growth

Mythic RPG Project: Chapter 11 through 13 and Backmatter

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Though the last chapter wraps up the mechanics of the Mythic RPG, there are three chapters and some backmatter that are worth mentioning.

Chapter 11: Converting to Mythic
This chapter was of great use to me when I started playing Mythic RPG. It has some very interesting Scaling Boxes that convert common Attribute scores from other mechanical system into Mythic Ranks. 

Amid them are the ubiquitous 3d6 used in D&D, GURPS, HERO, and the last two decades outpouring of OSR material. The "5 dot" attribute system used in White Wolf, and later Onyx Path game systems, and also % scales used in Chaosium game systems. From these examples, you could build a 2d6 system, transfer the Fate Core scale, or even take a crack at the various dice pool games that have popped up over the last 30 years of the hobby. There are further scaling boxes for transferring dice based damage (more or less that found in D&D and various OSR games), into resistance difficulties for  Toughness rolls. There isn't quite enough material here to justify an entire essay, but if you want to bring a character from one of those systems into your Mythic table play, it is very good to have guidelines to do it.

Chapter 12: Notes and Suggestions
In the first part of the chapter we find some common questions about Solo Roleplaying and some specific questions about the book and choices made in design and presentation. It is an interesting read, and a sort of snap shot of gaming history, considering the important roll this game and the Mythic GM Emulator to follow had on solo gaming.

Tips for better play, the second half of the chapter, is still chocked full of useful information. I particularly like the "Frankenstein's Game section" suggestions, as it is pretty much my play style to a "T".

Chapter 13: Extended Example
This is a must read, because it shows the entire system in action. As it plays out you see every sheet used and every rule employed (excepting full Character creation). It also plays out as an interesting story, as we all hope our games will. See if you can spot the classic fantasy hero that is getting a glow up in the example.

Backmatter
Past the last chapter, and before the index is an area you will want to toss some bookmarks in. Every useful chart from character creation through combat is here (though the page numbers run out it starts on pg. 121). There are also useful filled in useful Resolution Tables for Character advancement and combat, combat modifier charts, Random event charts, and finally blank printable Resolution Charts, Scaling Boxes, Adventure Worksheets, Character and NPC Sheets, and other goodies. As the author is crazy about examples you find a few more of them tucked in as we slide towards the index, which is useful and detailed, but I find rarely necessary as the book is very well laid out.

Final thoughts
Well, it seems I have run out of book. I did this deep dive, because I love this game and because I wanted to grind all the details home. Do I play it exactly as it is written. No. I am a game tinkerer, and this one is no exception, but I will say I have changed very little for my home games. A little customization here and there to match the mood of the settings. I think Ms Pigeon would approve. 

If this product interests you consider picking up a copy at DriveThruRPG, the link is on the project first page, just and the link at the top of this page will take you to it. Mythic was well supported with two books of optional rules (Variations 1 and Variations 2) in its first edition, and a second is on the way, but I say why wait. For less than 10 dollars and one or two days of reading (if you don't just use these articles as a jump start) you could be wandering any world you can conceive of, whether it is well know to you or a fabulous world that you and Mythic make together, and when the 2nd edition does hit the press, you will be ahead of the curve. 

If you got this far thanks for reading,
Wizard Dad. 

Mythic RPG Project: Chapter 10b: ... and Decline

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What goes up, must come down, and Mythic RPG has rules for that as well. Starting on page 93 there is a discussion of what happens when old age catches up to a character as well as the attrition that comes from letting yourself get a bit rusty over time from not using an Attribute or Ability. While most games probably wouldn't be played over a long enough period to start recording physical and mental decline, this RPG is very complete. 

Effects of Aging
"The impact aging has on a character can be difficult to judge. The following guidelines are very general, and you should feel free to either ignore them completely or modify them as you see fit." pg. 93

Page 93 also has a Resolution Table that summarizes the procedure for aging, including the potential for additional complications besides the loss of  Attribute points, in the form of a Health Crisis, which is outlined on page 94. 

This is essentially a systemic health problem that could be potentially lethal. For a slice of life game this would be particularly appropriate (even for NPCs). Fortunately for normal humans these checks are only made every 10 years against the Toughness Attribute. Though over the years the checks get harder and harder to make.

This should of course be modified to suit your game. Different species or perhaps hyper-tech treatments may hold off the effects of aging nearly indefinitely. Let your context be the guideline for this aspect of the game, or if you don't wish to bother with it at all, give it a pass. With that said playing an aging hero in his declining years could very well make for a poignant RP experience. As the author does, I do so as well, leave that in your hands to decide. The same can be said for....

Effects of Disuse
"A character can also decline from lack of activity. If you don’t use it, you lose it, as the saying goes. The impact of lack of use of an ability or attribute is less damaging than from age, however." pg. 95

This check, made yearly for unused abilities is summarized on the Resolution Table on page 95. This level of realism in a game may have mixed reception, but it speaks to the thoroughness of the system whether it is used or not. 

The procedure is a simple Fate question against the Attribute or Ability in question with a -1RS for every year the Attribute or Ability hasn't been put to use. 

Mythic RPG Project: Chapter 10a: Character Advancement...

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Mythic RPG has the most holistic character advancement rules I have ever read. Advancing a character not only can be done by several methods, but all of those methods are clear and logical, and flow out of the narrative of the emergent story, guided of course by the soloist questions. 

This adherence to a holistic approach also means character Attributes and Abilities and decline over time do to the wear of old age or the slump of retirement. The attachment to the story should please most narrative favoring roleplayers, and the realistic approach should please most simulationist. 

Strewn throughout the chapter are useful Resolution Tables that are filled out to provide examples of how the process is to work. Though I will do my best to summarize the procedures, this is a must read chapter to get the fullness of the system.

When to Check for Advancement?

In most RPGs characters gain either some equivalent of experience points, an abstraction of achievement that brings on a raise of level or some other power increase, or the get some sort of point pool for purchasing new or higher abilities. Mythic  has neither of these mechanics. Instead it continues the use of the Fate Chart to determine what improves when. These Fate Chart checks are made when certain "growth" criteria have been reached. This can be done from an extraordinary success, at the end of a period of training, or after a certain duration when any person living the lifestyle of the character would naturally improve. 

Experience

"At the conclusion of an adventure, you should look your character over and see if there were any abilities or attributes that came into play during the adventure where the character did something extraordinary." pg.89

This is the closest that Mythic RPG character advancement gets to other RPGs. If you do something so well that you end up remembering the end of the session and go "WOW", it is probably worth an Advancement Check. The experience should be a success that went beyond the norm and had an impact on the session. Naturally, these will get less common the more accomplished a character becomes, but do to the random nature of Fate Rolls, and your own creative ingenuity in overcoming or circumventing the challenges that a narrative sends your way, it will probably happen more often than you would think.

Training
"Training is the most common way characters learn and grow, just like us." pg. 90

Training is typically how we learn a skill, whether it is in some formal setting, an informal tutor, or just grinding it out on your own, we learn by learning. Well so can your character. Training cost down time and character effort, so while training there are limited other things you can do. To make this less confusing there are training guidelines that can be summarized as follows

• Training can only be done between Adventures. Your character will have to be out of the hurly-burly to focus on the training.
• The effect (Ability or Attribute) being trained for must be explicitly stated.
• The amount of training time must be stated in advance, and will take longer for scores that are already high than it would for those that are low. It takes little time to make little gains, but bigger gains demand more time and effort. This of course should be tailored to the Ability or Attribute in question.

Time
"Even if a character is not actively training, and isn’t having any major experiences, the simple process of time can advance a character. In a sense, this is the same as training, except it takes place over a longer period. For instance, a man of 40 can be expected to have a broader range of knowledge than a man of 20, simply by virtue of having lived longer." pg.90

This does make a remarkable amount of sense, as we make our on travel on the river of time we learn things that are part of our daily lives. Sometimes these maybe small hobbies picked up but never taken to a professional level, or the maybe the natural growth that takes place as your experience enriches in a job.  Fortunately this too has a series of guidelines so we won't be groping around for when we should make the next check.

• What is to be raised must be clearly stated.
• There must be a clearly stated reason why the passage of time would increase the Attribute or Ability.
• A reasonable amount of time must have passed to warrant the check.
• Lastly, the check cannot have been improved in any other way during the passage of that time.
  

What can be Advanced?

Technically speaking anything can be advanced, but some are trickier than others. Because this part of the game requires a narrative reason for advancement, as well as a check you will usually have to find a narrative reason to make the check. 

Attributes such as Strength, Agility, and Reflexes, could arguably be increased with an exercise regiment. The same argument can be made for IQ if you, the player, can be creative, but what exercise will increase Intuition or Willpower. Like the author I will leave that up to you, but if you can make an argument that will please yourself then I say go for it. It is your solo game.

Abilities are usually skills, and thus there is a framework for building them up. Want to be a better boxer, get an instructor and hit the sand bag. Want to be a better Actor, sign up for local productions and get some experience. 

Other Abilities, like psychic powers, or super powers, may be harder to justify, but if you can come up with a creative training regiment, or if during the game you have a breakthrough Experience these two can be raised. 

Strengths and Weaknesses the author suggest will be the hardest to buy up, or buy off. Strengths usually reflect an internal knack, not shared by others, and thus finding teacher will be more than a little challenging. Also Strengths are not rolled in and of themselves, but are roll modifiers on the whole.

Weaknesses of some sorts can make since to buy off, but the narrative of them is extremely important. If you want to get rid off a characters alcohol ism then you are looking a them finding extensive therapy and resisting a lot of temptation (mind if the succeed, perhaps they can use that as a reason to increase Willpower), but no amount of counseling will bring back a severed hand. At least not in most games. 

Advancement Fate Check
After the appropriate amount of time has passed, and all other criteria met it is time to ask the Advancement Question. This is like any other Fate Question, it has 4 possible outcomes and at the end of it you will have a definitive answer. It is an odds check and it will be modified by the quality of that time and effort put into it, how high the skill already is, and any other factors you can think of. But at the end of it all it is a Fate Check like any other. (see pg. 92 for excellent examples).

Other Forms of Advancement
With all of that said, increasing the little block on a character sheet full of numbers is only one kind of character advancement.  The other kinds are gained in the narrative as well, but are more story and less stat. These could include, getting an object that is more powerful (in a fantasy or high tech game... or just a bigger gun in a modern game), getting a job that dribbles or pumps in income, making friends in the right places, or earning some sort of social status. All of that could grow out of roleplaying and a good Fate Chart check. If the gain is not temporary and will stick around (unlike a piece of equipment that may break or get used up), you should probably confirm it with a Fate check and make a note of it on your character sheet. 

Mythic RPG Project: Chapter 9: World Creation

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This is one of the shortest chapters in the book. It spans pages 85-88 and two pages of that are examples. There is a very good reason for the brevity. If you have been following chapter by chapter you already have all the tools you need for World Creation. This chapter just gives you a nudge into how to use them. 

The author starts with Where to begin, and so will I.

Where to Begin?

You can begin with as much detail or as little as you like. If you already have a setting in mind then you have a strong head start, but that doesn't mean there isn't work to be done. If you don't have any thing except a genre direction a character (Chapter 5), a Scene Setup (Chapter 6), and an Adventure Setup (Chapter 7), you are still ready to play. The difference in starting with some degree of predetermined setting and starting "from scratch" all comes down to the number of Fate Questions about the setting you will need to ask.

"Whether you start detailed or with a blank slate, if you are running a Mythic adventure, the key word to keep in mind is “evolution.” Since the Mythic adventure engine is guiding the progress of the adventure, there is no telling what details about the game world this will reveal. Players could begin with their characters in a very generalized concept of a game world and, by the end of their first adventure, have a much more concrete picture of where it is their characters live." pg. 85

The focus on Evolution, makes this a masters class in emergent setting design.

Evolution of  a Setting

"Everything from setting details to adventure specific rules will evolve out of a gaming session." pg. 85

If you know a few or maybe even a books worth of setting details, or if you are coming tabula rasa you are going to still have a lot of questions. In the case of a game set in the bucolic woods of "Wind in the Willows", you already know a lot of the characters, and there attitudes, and some of the comings and goings at the River and beyond, but you don't know what is going on in this very moment. That is what inspiration rolls on the Action/Subject Tables and Specific Fate questions will tell you. If you only know that you want to play a science fiction game on an alien world with fabulous but poorly understood ancient technology, though that is a good start, you will still need to ask many Fate and inspirational questions. As you do either the life on the River or the Alien World will start to take on a more and more definite shape. Even if you just start with your character, decide to add a bit of  action, such as they are in a speeding car at night, and currently in a state of fright, that is enough that you can start narrowing down the infinite possibilities, one scene at a time, and in the process building up a list of facts about the evolving world your character has found themselves in. With that said their are still some tools and guidelines that will make the task both easier and feel actualized. 

Issues of Control

"If playing without a GM, the situation is more controlled by Mythic. Still, the course of the adventure is largely shaped by the questions the players ask and the scene ideas they generate." pg. 85

If you are flying with no map, you still have a lot of control over your game. Do you want to play in a game with some form of magic, or hyper tech? If you do, forgo asking if it exist. As a solo player you only have to please yourself. Let your setting have the goodies you want to play around with. Instead start asking specifics about the magic. Or if you want to play a police officer who works in a particular department, don't ask if you do are a police officer in that department. Ask instead if your boss is a hard ass, if you have a partner, and whether you have any open cases. The presupposition on your part is more than fine, it means you will have the game you want, but your questions will steer the bits that need steering. Of course, you you want to go out on the high wire, with absolutely no presuppositions, that will work fine too, because Mythic will still answer any question you have right down to how gravity works. The world will be defined with a yes or a no to any particular question. So, when world building pick your questions with an eye towards creating. 

Tools of the Trade

As you can see with the Fate Questions you ask about the world, you already had that tool in your pocket since Chapter 3. Well the other tools you need for world creation are already in your pack as well.  These are the Resolution Tables and the Scaling Box.

"Notes are crucially important for keeping track of this evolving game world." pg.85

By filling out these two forms (go ahead and have a stack of them) you can keep track of the mechanical aspects of your unfolding world. With the Resolution Table, you can make game specific rules, covering things like Magic, Hyper Tech, the effects of the use of special Abilities, etc. With the Scaling Box you can create baselines, that you will refer back to with some regularity. Even if you can't copy off the exact form, it quite easy to take legal pad and construct a pile of them. 

As for general world details, a few copies of the Adventure Worksheet, and a couple of legal pads will see that  you don't lose track of any important facts, people, or events.

And question by question and scene by scene your world will become rich with detail. 

Global Questions

"Everyone, even the least educated, knows something

about the society and world they live in. Even if you begin

an adventure knowing nothing about the campaign world,

your characters know more than you do. It is fair to ask fate

questions that reflect general knowledge. For instance, if

players are adventuring in a generic sci-fi universe, which

they know nothing about, some questions they might ask

right away are: Is faster than light travel possible? Are

aliens common? Does everyone speak the same language?" pg. 86

Your first few sessions will probably focus on global questions. More if you are working from scratch and less if you have a more established setting. Even you are playing Mythic in a well known fictional or historical world there will be things you need to figure out as a precursor to other questions. For example if your game is set during the Hundred Years War, maybe you don't know what part of it you are currently in, or whether it is one of the many lulls in the conflict. Even if you decide you are in the thick of things from go, you will want to know what side currently holds the advantage. If you just know you are on a desert planet in a far future, there will be many Global Questions that will come to mind. It is ok if you start with some assumptions (gravity pulls you towards the center of the Earth), but it is equally ok for you to ask about the basic mechanics of physics. A yes or no answer, depending on the question can create a truly unique gaming environment. 

An important factor about Global Questions is that your character already knows the answers, even if the player is just learning them. Global Questions reflect the basic truths of the setting. Your character probably doesn't know how gravity works as a fundamental force of nature (I sure don't'), but they will know it keeps there feet on the ground... or they may not know such a thing at all, and be able to move freely through three dimensional space unhampered. The point is, though, that they know these things for the very basic reason of being alive in this setting. 

Ok, you have your sheets, and scrap paper, a character sheet. Ready to ask a few Global Questions, make an Adventure Setup, and Scene Setup. You are pretty much ready to play Mythic RPG. 

Go ahead and start playing, the next chapter is Character Advancement, so you probably want to be ready for it.

Mythic RPG Project: Chapter 8: GM Emulator

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As it just so happens, the bulk of what you need to know to be your own soloist GM is covered in the prior chapters. If you have done a few sample scenes with the entire scene procedure you have already been GMing your self. 

What this chapter mainly gives you one useful tool, Scaling Boxes, and some good advice about how to start and maintain interesting adventures.

First, lets look at the tool, and then we will look at the advice.  

The tool is the scaling box.

As was mentioned in Chapter 1 all things have a Mythic rank to describe them. The Scaling box allows you to keep track of  your baselines. They can be used for any describe Attributes unique to your setting, Abilities of any sort, object hardness or complexity. Of course, you can do this off the cuff, but the scaling box provides a useful anchor so that contextual logic is preserved scene to scene and, in the case of a campaign, adventure to adventure. 

Page 80 has four sample scaling boxes covering Telekinetic power,  Occult Power, High Tech Weapons, and different Wealth levels. In my own private cyberpunk themed game I will be using the scaling box to delineate what you can do at various levels of Drone Design, and with Remote Drive. If you try to crack a safe, how hard is it? If you are trying to punch through a wall how hard is it? How big a group can your mystical bard entrance, what does increased skill as a swords master mean besides higher rate to hit? 

In many games there are progressive powers that are tied to Levels of achievement. Do you want emulate that in Mythic, well Miniscule ranked Brother of the Black Robe, probably has barely perceptible powers, but an Awesome ranked Brother has learned a cornucopia of dark magics. 

Anything you can slap a rank on can fit somewhere in a Scaling Box, and there be preserved. 

Now, lets talk tips. The first tip is about getting that first scene rolling. 

Adventure Setup

"You can come to the gaming table armed with only your character and nothing else. In fact, it’s often best if you don’t have any clear ideas for an adventure. The only thing you need to get started is an adventure setup and a setup for the first scene; there has to be some kicker to get the ball rolling." pg. 81

So, what is an Adventure Setup? It the opening lines generally given by the GM at the start of a game.  The author uses several examples such as being called in by law enforcement because your character is an expert of some sort; waking up with no memory in a room but a few "clues" scattered about; and the classic "You are in a tavern drinking when you are approached by a man, who drops a bag of coins on your table...". All of these could be considered the precursor that sets the stage, before the first scene shouts "Action".

(You could also have a more detailed start in mind, that will freeze a few game world facts and anchor your game around some central themes, but that is probably covered better in World Building, which is in the next chapter)

Where to go from here?
Well the next step is the first scene, as was covered in Chapter 7, but with the extra boost from the Adventure set up. As you play update the various sheets (Adventure sheet, Scaling sheets,) and as you learn more about the world around you just keep some notes scene outcome, and update your lists. I wouldn't say the start is the "hard part" but a solid start and good upkeep, mean that the rest of the Adventure will run smoother and a smoother game leave the imagination free to roam. 

We are closing in finishing the book. The next chapter is World Building, a process I am endlessly fascinated by. 

Mythic RPG Project: Chapter 7b: Chaos Factor, Running Scenes, Altered Scenes, Interrupt Scenes, and Scene wrap up.

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The next section is what really makes the Mythic RPG stand out from all other solo games: Chaos Factor, Altered Scenes, and Interrupt Scenes.

Chaos Factor

Besides being a valuable memory aid Lists play a crucial role in Random Events, and Chaos Factor plays a crucial role in when you will have Random Events. 

Chaos Factor is essentially just a number 1-9, that shifts up or down depending on how "in control" you feel the scene was at the time of its conclusion. Chaos factor starts at the beginning of an adventure at 5. If the events of the scene are hectic, unpredictable, or overwhelming during the next scene you raise it by a +1. If the events of the scene were well managed, under control, or ended with a strong character advantage you lower it by a -1. 

"Chaos in an adventure has a way of building like a

snowball. In the beginning of the adventure there may be

little chaos and few random events. But as the scenes roll

on, the chaos factor will likely jump, which will encourage

more chaotic scenes, increasing the factor higher and so on

until the adventure comes to its climactic end." pg. 71

If you pull up your Fate Chart, you will see a row of numbers along the bottom ranging 1-9 and under them, Difficulty Rank/Chaos. When asking a yes or no question you start with the Chaos number that is current for your Scene (Chaos doesn't change mid scene), then pair it with the Odds along the right side. Where the two intersect is your chance of a Yes answer to any question asked during the scene. As you can see at 5 there is no weight to one side or the other, but as your Chaos Factor (number) decreases the chance of a Yes answer does as well. As the Chaos Factor (CF) increases so does your chance of a Yes answer. These changes can have a strong effect on the Odds questions asked during the Scene. If you are at CF 3 and ask a 50/50 chance question you only have a 25% chance of a Yes. If you were at CF 5 then your chance would be 50%, but if your CF were an 8 your chance of a Yes would be 85%.

Now before you start thinking that a high Chaos Factor indicates greater chance of success, think about how you naturally ask questions. For example when you come to a door you may ask if it is locked or if it is unlocked. Go with which ever one comes to mind first, don't game it for your advantage, but if you suspect that the growling in the room is possibly a guard dog, you would probably ask "Is the growling a guard dog". In that case that 85% Yes is probably not working in your favor.  (Editor: I have found that I tend to seesaw between a 3 and 7 and only the wildest adventures reach 8 or 9. Could you cheat the Chaos Factor by carefully wording your questions. Certainly. I have found that by sticking with the first phrasing of a question that comes to mind is the best way not to take advantage of this tool).

The point of this up and down scale of CF is that it shows the growing hectic nature of adventure, and the seesaw nature of events. There is a tendency as adventures grow more intense to drift towards those higher Chaos Factors, but as you duck out and cool off (assuming your adventure can allow for that) the CF will frequently cool off as well. Chaos Factor plays a very large part in Our next topic, so lets jump straight into it.

Running Scenes

"You’ve got your first scene setup. Now its time to say

“Action!” An entire Mythic adventure is nothing more than

a series of scenes which the characters travel through one at a

time. Each scene leads to the next, until you reach the very

last scene where the central conflict of the adventure is

resolved." pg. 72

There is no way I could have better worded that, but let me toss in some insights from playing. An adventure, and the conflict within it, doesn't have to be violent or fantastic. The adventure just needs to be dramatic and draw your character in, and the conflict has to matter to the character. I have played everything from fighting off pirate attacks to how a date went between two fantasy adventures (very well by the way, until the ninja attack). In the pirate attack driving away the pirates was the central conflict. In the date the central conflict was convincing the suspicious partner that of my I wasn't interested in her just for her wealth and fame. Both scenes were fun and full of tension, and both used the same rules for resolution. 

There are several steps to running a scene, but after a few sessions they will be second nature.

1. Setting the Scene

We have already went over setting the starting scene. The scenes that follow will build on the context of that first scene. If the scene ended with urgency to go in a particular direction (First Scene witness a crime, following Scene talking to the police) follow your instincts, and set up the appropriate scene based on that context. If there is no immediately necessary follow up scene, then consider what to do next based on the context of the character, the setting and the outcome of the first scene. 

Modify the Scene (if necessary)

"You’ve got your scene setup, but don’t jump into the scene

just yet. After a scene setup has been floated, it’s time to see if

that idea is modified. Roll 1D10. If you roll chaos factor or

less then the scene is modified. If you roll higher, then the

scene begins just as expected." pg. 72

Here we see the second use of the Chaos Factor. The lower it is the more likely you are going to have the next scene turn out as expected, but when rolling a single d10, every roll is as likely to be a 10 as a 1, so don't go into too much detail on that Expected Scene until you know it is what you are playing out.

"If you rolled an odd value number (1,3,5,7,9) then the

scene setup is modified into an altered scene. If you rolled an

even number (2,4,6,8) then it’s an interrupt scene." pg. 73

Altered Scenes play out much like the expected scene, excepting that some detail is changed. It could be the persons involved, the location it happens in, some variation on the intended activity. Using the previous example of having witnessed a crime and expecting next to talk to the police, maybe instead you are first approached by the building security for a statement, or if you took an action during the crime to attempt to prevent it you are instead approached by the victim. The core concept, talk about the crime, remains the same, but who you speak to first is changed, and in doing so it changes the whole scene.

When Altering a Scene it is frequently useful to go with the first thing that comes to mind, as long as the changed detail doesn't completely rewrite the scene (that is more of a Interrupt Scene as we will see momentarily), but if your stumped, you can ask a few Fate Chart Questions to narrow down your options or get a selection of prompts from the Subject and Action charts and see if that trips an idea.

In an Interrupt Scene the next scene takes you off in a new direction all together. It is assumed you were moving towards (figuratively or literally) your Intended Scene, but something happens to "interrupt" your arrival. To simulate this entire unexpected event you roll up a Random Event (see Chapter 6) which totally replaces your Intended Scene. The outcome of this Interrupt Scene may send you off in an entirely new direction. 

2. Play out the Scene

"This is the heart of the adventure, where all the action

unfolds. The scene has been determined. Now what

happens?

That’s pretty much up to the players. The scene begins as

dictated by the setup or the modifications. But, that’s just

the beginning of the scene. Now it’s up to the players to

begin asking fate questions and resolving conflicts. Likely,

the first set of questions will involve clarifying details about

the beginning of the scene itself." pg. 74

This part of the scene is were the adventure takes place. Ask enough questions and use your context and random word pairs to set the details in your mind. Then find the conflict and resolve it.

This is where you as a solo player have get to live out your adventure. Take your time with it and relish the details, the drama, and the conflict. This maybe a short scene that transitions to a bigger scene or it could play out for a lengthy exchange. Most of that is up to you, but to keep things interesting during a scene there is always a chance of a Random Event popping up. 

Random Events happen during a scene when you are asking the Fate Chart questions or using it to resolve tasks and you get doubles on your percentile dice in which the digits are equal to or under the current Chaos Factor. For example if your CF is 7 a 77, 66, 55, 44, 33, 22, or 11 would all trigger the Random event, but an 88, 99, or 00 will not. These Random events fit within the context of the current scene, so if you are at a bar having a drink and get a random event, it will probably take place in the bar. If it involves an NPC, that isn't at the bar perhaps they walk through the door. Go through all the steps of all of the steps from Chapter 6, but keep the current context, that you are in the midst of playing, in mind as the Random event unfolds. 

When the drama and conflict of the scene have been as thoroughly wrung out of it as you like, it is time to move on to the next scene, but first...

3. End the Scene, update the Lists and Chaos Factor

Add any new Characters or Threads to their appropriate List. Next decide how out of control or in control the scene was. If you can't scope out the whole scene focus on how it ended, and adjust your Chaos Factor up or down accordingly. (If you feel pretty neutral about the scene then it probably would go down.) 

Lastly, award Favors (remember Favors are meta currency that effect d100 rolls on a 1/1 basis as noted in Character Creation) based on how well you feel you approached a goal in the scene. If you moved towards completing or did complete a minor thread, then the suggested Favor Award is around 10 points. If you made headway on or resolved a major thread 25 points would be reasonable. 

Afterwards
Assuming that the scene didn't resolve your Major Thread or goal of play for the session, go back to the beginning of this list and set up the next scene. The chain of scenes, one to the next, make up your adventure. 

And there you have it. All the major mechanical parts of Playing Mythic RPG. There is plenty more to the book though, and we will explore it all. 

Next up, Chapter 8: GM Emulation, where we switch hats from Solo Player to partner with Mythic to form a full gaming experience.

Mythic RPG Project: Chapter 7a: The Adventure: Scenes and Lists

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Over the last 14 blog post we have explored basic concepts, character creation, the use of the Fate Chart, some resolution rules and combat rules, with an example here or there. Today and tomorrow, we add the few remaining rules, and we show how everything fits into a complete system.

"The structure outlined in this chapter is designed to generate a dynamic, and improvised, adventure." pg.67

"Improvised means “free-form,” right? Not necessarily. Mythic is designed to move the adventure along based on improvised ideas, but it provides a structured framework to guide and shape those ideas. This isn’t “making it up as you go along” so much as hopping from one idea to the next with rules to navigate the way. The current idea is the current scene, the action of the moment. You may have some clue as to what the next idea is, but you won’t know what happens for sure until you get there." pg.67


This chapter covers a lot of topics. 

• Scene Setup 
• Lists
• Running Scenes
• Chaos Factor
• Altered Scenes and Interrupt Scenes
• Playing and wrapping up Scenes
• Book Keeping (it is minimal I promise)
• Favor Awards
• Example of play in Action. 
  

(Editor: This overview is the "Cliff's Notes" of the Mythic RPG. Useful to have around, or so I hope, but in no way a replacement for the game. So, if by the end of this blog post you are thinking this is for you then use the link at the top of the page to zip back to the project intro where you will find a link to purchase the game. It is an investment of less than 10 dollars for potentially endless hours of play. I think by now I have paid about 10 cents an hour of game play.)

Before we jump into Scene Setup, lets make sure we are all on the same page. There is a lot of overlap in RPG terms game to game. So lets sure your Scene and my Scene line up. In Mythic RPG a Scene is the basic unit of game play. Within it you could find further granulation of individual actions, but the purpose of those actions is to explore, interact with, or experience the Scene. 

While Mythic RPG is a solo game, and yours to do with as you wish, it has more of a cinematic feel than a simulationist feel. Thus, like a movie scene begins when something interesting happens and it ends when the interesting thing comes to some resolution.

What sorts of interesting things are we talking about? Anything interesting to you. While Mythic can be a GM tool, or a GM free group tool, I am writing this body of essays for soloist. As a soloist you can pursue your game from Scene to Scene following what ever drives you. The GM Emulator (which we will get to in the next Chapter) will make sure that your game has a diversity of Thread (plots), and fun weird things happen with some regularity, but it is your interest as the sole player that ultimately defines what you play.

With that bit of proselytizing aside, lets get to the specifics. A scene typical starts with something a Player Character (PC) wants to accomplish. This usually involves moving to the place you wish to accomplish it, whether that is another room in the PC mansion or on the other side of the city (I feel if you want to go to the other side of a continent, I say throw some adventure in there, but that is up to you). When you arrive (assuming the Chaos Factor hasn't thrown a monkey wrench in the work) there you start the Scene. You follow a Scene through its actions, reacting in character to the events that unfold, and when the action (whether is it is fighting a super villain or laying in field of wild flowers recharging your emotional battery) is resolved you wrap the Scene and move on to the next one. The next scene may be suggested by the ending of the current scene, or you may take the adventure down a different avenue. That is up to you.

"The simplest way to move from scene to scene is for the characters themselves to physically move. However, they don’t have to. Time can pass and move characters to the next scene while they remain in the same physical location. For instance, characters travelling through the woods make camp for the night. They rest up, and the scene ends. The next scene takes place in the morning as they get up and prepare for the day." pg.67-68.

Now lets move from generalities to specifics.

The Setup

"The first thing to do is to come up with scene number one. As with any movie, TV show or book, the very first scene of the production is vitally important. It sets the tone for everything that will follow. Chances are, the first scene will give the characters whatever “mission” that they will follow through for the rest of the adventure.... You’ve got two options in this department: make something up, or roll something up." pg. 69

The two choices here largely depend on your intent when you sit down to play. If you have a specific scenario in mind by all means start with that as as your first scene. Understand that along the way the Mythic system will alter things so they will never just be you typing out a story, but if you launch the game you want to play, and pursue your scene changes in that direction you will largely get the experience you are aiming for. More on that in a bit.

"If you make it up, keep in mind that the scene does not have to be very complex. You don’t need to take all week to create a multi-layered plot. Mythic is all about improvisational role-playing. Just take a few minutes to concoct an interesting concept, or even just a few interesting ideas for a starting scene." pg.69

If you just have a character and a setting and want to just let it fly you can roll up your first scene and let it set the stage for the flavor of the adventure to come. You still have some steering available by way of picking scenes and asking questions, but the starting scene will set the stage for the adventure. The expert advice for starting randomly is generate a Random Event (see last blog post or Chapter 6). Here is the expert advice on the subject.

"If you are truly playing off the cuff, and want to be

surprised from the get-go, use a random event to set up

the initial scene. Generate a random event... and use this as the setup for the

scene. Since you are generating a random event out of

thin air, without any context or other events to compare

it with, you will have a wide range of interpretations to

make. I suggest you aim for the most exciting

interpretation you can." pg.69 (bold highlight from the editor)

An important note about your opening scene, and to a lesser degree the scenes that follow, "Keep in mind that the setup should establish a goal for the characters to attain". pg.69

After generating your opening Scene jump into playing it out. Use the Odds questions and the  Action and Subjects charts to fill in the details. Use the Task Resolution and Combat rules to handle any action in the scene. The Chaos Factor (see below) may throw you some curve balls, but that is good. That adds an element of the unknow to any scene and transforms it from 20 questions to a vibrant and exciting RPG experience. When you have concluded the Scene and are ready to move on to the next you will need to do one more step, which is updating your Lists.

Lists

Lists are essential for keeping track of people and on going plot lines. Fortunately, they are simple to build. Simply use a printed or hand made copy of the adventure sheet found on pg. 69 to fill in the details of who you met (Characters column) and what plot hooks you discovered (Threads column). I highly suggest that you use the Scene Setup boxes as well. They will be valuable memory aids as your game continues to unfold. 

Characters and Threads while also useful as memory aids, are essential for Random Events, so don't hesitate to add anything interesting to the list. A character can be any individual that you meet, but it could also be anything with personality, such as a group, a place, or an organization. Threads are plot hooks, mysteries, unanswered questions, quests, or anything you want to pursue that arises from a scene. 

As mentioned above, you update your list after a scene. As a rule of thumb, add Characters that are important and Threads you want to follow up. Important doesn't necessarily mean powerful. If your character was talking to a family member or had an encounter with an interesting neighbor, and you would like those characters to stay in your growing adventure go ahead and include them. If you rush to your car just as the meter authority is putting a ticket on your windshield, you probably don't need to record the meter reader in your list of characters. 

(Editor: Here is also where you can do some of your adventure shaping. If you meet a crazy mad scientist, but don't want that to be a focus of the game, you can choose not to add him to the character list, sometimes there are people and plots in RPGs that just aren't followed up and that is OK). 

While making Character and Thread list updates is typically done after a scene, feel free to pre-populate a few Characters that are essential to your starting scene (assuming you are not spontaneously generating it). As Mythic can be used to play anything, that could include a story that you already know the start to, and the opening scene is where your players join the story. In such a case pre-populating a few Characters or a Thread or two, make perfect sense.

"In between adventures, a player can change his list,

adding characters he has met from an adventure who may

stick around and removing any who have left." pg. 71

(Editor: In the next blog post we will finally cover Chaos Factor, Altered Scenes, Interrupt Scenes, and Scene wrap up.)

Mythic RPG Project: Chapter 6: Randomness

Link to ToC

"Logic is poor at one thing: coming up with surprises. Taking this into account, Mythic builds random events into the adventure so everything doesn’t make too much sense. In an adventure that is guided by players’ questions and expectations, randomness will add extra dimension to the action, spinning plot twists you may never have thought of before." pg.59

I couldn't think of a better lead into this topic than the first paragraph of the chapter. It explains the why, now we will dig into the how.

There are two opportunities to introduce randomness built into the system. The first is a check between scenes to see if the scene goes as expected. Should that check indicate an interjection of randomness it could make a small Alteration to the scene or it could be and interruption between one scene and the presumed next scene by way of a Random Event. This is determined by a random roll between scenes to see how the next scene starts. It is heavily dependent on the current Chaos Factor. Chaos Factor will get its own discussion in the next chapter Adventures.

The other manner it which random events can take place is mid-scene, by way of a Fate Chart generated Random Event. These tend to be the most common kinds of Random Event and are generated by rolling doubles on your percentile check (11, 22, 33, etc.). If the digit that is rolled is equal to or less than the current Chaos Factor, it will generate a random event. What we are going to focus on here is how to build a Random Event, once one is determined to take place. 

Random Events

So fate has decreed that your adventure is going to go differently than you planned. So what is next? Well there are three components that must be determined to build the Random Event: Context, Focus, and Meaning.

Event Context
Context is a culmination of the setting style, background, adventure thus far, and your current situation.

"The random event isn’t happening in a vacuum; all that has already occurred is the stage on which this new event takes place." pg. 59

There is no special rule to generate context content, you have been doing it all along as you play, or even before you played if you came to the game with a certain setting, adventure theme, or goal. The main point here is to keep the context in the forefront of your mind as the random event unfolds, so that it fits into the narrative of the game you have been playing/building.

Event Focus
If you look on pg. 60 of the Mythic RPG you will find a chart on the page with a number of focus topics. Some of them are pretty self explanatory (such as PC Positive or NPC Negative), but we are going to tackle some of the less obvious. 

Remote Event
A remote event is a relevant situation that occurs, but not at the PC location, but the PCs do learn of it in this scene. They maybe informed by an NPC, see it on the front page of a news paper, find evidence indicating an event took place, etc. The point is that the event is non trivial and the PCs are informed about it. 

NPC Action
In this random event a Non Player Character (NPC) takes some significant action. Later on in the Adventure chapter we will be discussing Character Lists. The NPC actor is drawn from that list randomly then the context and the Meaning will dictate the action it takes. Considering the randomness of the who with the context and the meaning and you may find someone you feel your character knows quite well taking completely unexpected actions. This could reflect a different aspect of their personality you were not aware of, or there could be an underpinning motivator that your character isn't aware of. But whatever the reason it will fit within the Context of the game. 

Move Towards a Thread; Move Away from a Thread; Close a Thread
Threads, while explained in the next chapter better, are, in short, the various plots going on in the game. Usually your character will be pursuing the Thread of there choice or need in the adventure at hand, but that doesn't mean that the world isn't still going on around them. 

When you roll Moving Towards a thread you will get a clue, item, advice, or insight that will help move you in the direction of a Thread. It may not be the current thread you are on, because in adventure surprises can come in from screen right at any point.

When you roll Move Away from a Thread it indicates some obstacle or setback to one of your Threads. Again this may not be the Thread you are currently pursing. 

For example in a fantasy adventure I was recently playing my character rolled Move Away From a Thread while on an urban adventure. Rolling on my Threads List I got "Marry my Fiancée'". Taking the context, she was also an adventurer and worked for a powerful patron, and the Meaning (we will get to this soon), I determined her patron had sent her on a secret mission, thus forcing the delay of the marriage. He found this out by way of a note delivered by a messenger, thus there was yet another obstacle to the upcoming nuptials.

When you roll close a thread it means one of your threads falls off your list. This is probably the strongest indicator that the world around you is active and not in the PC (or necessarily the solo players) control. Depending on the Meaning this could happen in any number of ways. It can even lead to new threads. 

Imagine your character is currently on a quest to quell bandit activity in a fantasy kingdom. That thread maybe suddenly closed when you get to the bandit camp and find no bandits at all, and no sign of them leaving in mass. Well you can't quell what isn't there, but you may have a new thread opened along the lines of "What happened to the bandits of grizzly wood?" (Editor: If the thread that you roll to close is the central theme of the adventure that you wish to be following, or the one you find the most fun, reroll the Event Focus or just treat it as "Move Away from a Thread. Don't let one random dice roll ruin your campaign) 

Ambiguous Event
This maybe the hardest  or easiest type of Random Event. An Ambiguous Event doesn't tie to a Thread or Character or change the current circumstances. It is just an element of the setting that is interesting enough to arrest the movement for its own little scene. It could be used to show the largeness or strangeness of the world your PC is moving through. This isn't to say it isn't something you can interact with, but it isn't about your character or there adventures.

Imagine you are travelling through a fairy tale wood and you encounter a number of animals around a large round table enjoying a meal and company. When you approach the resume the actions of wild animals and dart into the wood. This isn't tied to your NPC or your Threads, it is just a thing that happened. It does inform you of the larger world though, and if you chose to you could add the event to the Character or Threads list, or just take it at face value and continue your quest.

Event Meaning and Interpreting the Random Event

Now we reach the third element that makes up a Random Event. If you flip to page 64 you will find two tables: Event Meaning: Action and Event Meaning: Subject. Roll one word from each table and combine them. Then think about the Context of your game and the type of Random Event you rolled, and apply the Meaning Action and Subject to those other factors. Don't over think this, it isn't a rule, but an inspiration. Just take a few moments and let the details percolate in your mind then interpret the Random Event with the first idea that encapsulates the three parts.  

Page 66 has many excellent examples of building Random Events, but lets do one now just demonstrate the process. 

For Context we will use the Cyberpunk Setting and Character (Mr. Quin) we have used through out these examples. To set the scene Mr. Quin is currently remote piloting a drone from the top of a neighboring building, doing a little snooping for fun and profit. He is in the Fringe, and recently was involved with a nasty accident that left several hostile gang members very dead. He has a few mini drones around him keeping guard and is ready to run if he feels he is in any danger. With the stage set let see what sort of randomness Mr. Q will have to endure.

The Event Focus is PC Negative. Considering his luck lately I am not surprised. 

Lastly we need to add some Meaning, to see what sort of hot water Mr. Q is getting into: Action: Punish, Subject The Intellectual. 

Putting it all together I think Mr. Q isn't as smart as he thinks he is, and even though he is surrounded by his little helper drones that are keeping watch, they do little good when someone drops a signal scrambler grenade right next to his control rig. Suddenly, all the drones are off line. And then the roof door opens and a brute nearly the size of Gnasher ducks through it with a club in his hands. 

Randomness can help your character, harm your character, and sometimes just be weird things along the way, but what it isn't is predictable, and that keeps the game fresh and makes the difference between a game and a story. 

Next Chapter The Adventure, where we add all the rest of the elements, such as Lists and Chaos Factor, that run the the Mythic RPG engine, and allow you to play whatever it is you can imagine.