Morality, a true cornerstone in the VI·VIII·X KUP RPG

During the summer break I wanted to analyse the aspect of the Alignments in D&D in order to understand what has been the rationale in the definition by the D&D authors.

I started finding this very interesting post: in here I got the confirmation that beyond any different definition/label, the concept of morality was aiming to profile a character's sense of ethic. I'd like to outline that this sense is not only focusing towards third parties but even towards ourselves. 

Or, this is at least my interpretation and rationale for the Morality concept and game mechanics.

I was so intrigued by this topic that I started a discussion on the DF boards here: I wanted to enlarge the discussion to old gamers so that they could address me to other interesting readings or topics. I was hopefully right: I just wondered why this feature in an RPG had been always treated in a subtle way... It has never been approached in a "strong" way with clear and crisp game mechanics... 

I got a first feedback: it is a very subjective and delicate topic that it has often been skipped in the main focus of a game development... it is easy to understand also because of the tons of topics written on RPGs boards which brought to arguments, fires, and even worse ending.

Then a very concrete hint came: a fellow on DF addressed me to an article by Gygax himself in the Strategic Review #6: "The Meaning of Law and Chaos In Dungeons & Dragons"... well, it is incredible how I missed it (I own all the SR issues but read only a part of them) and it is even more incredible than that the contents of this article! It is like Gygax himself drew the baseline of my way to manage morality nearly 50 years ago! 

I have to admit that I am very proud and happy to have such a giant of the industry confirming me that I could have found the right direction for such a topic... what I deployed in the game is, however, a bit more interlaced with the other game features like the stats which defines a character. The morality is not only a "definition" a player should keep in mind for any behavior of his character, it is a parameter which generates impacts on the character and the events by means of rules which define the boundaries of the character's ethic. This assessment seems very arrogant, but trust me that I feel close to have found a good solution for such a feature: the traditional RPGs usually consider morality a sub-feature, not worth to be considered as important as strength for instance... No offense intended, but to my eyes, Morality is the most important stat of a character and I tried to translate it in the VI·VIII·X core rules! (I have written a couple of posts where this aspect is stressed out, in particular this one)

Well, I only have to say thanks to bargle (on DF boards) and, useless to say, to E.G.Gygax for the confirmation that his contribution to my fantasy is always well ahead of me and he will always be surprising me!


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The concept of KUP RPG (part 1)

As promised, let us focus on an oustanding detail of my project: the KUP RPG.  Several years ago I started thinking of a game model where only the GM uses the dice and makes any action required to determine the events of the game. I talked about this idea with a friend who convinced me that this would have been a failure for sure in terms of interest and playability. I must admit that the discussion didn't last so much: the explanation he gave was solid... Gamers want to toss dice and ideally make 20! That's one of the keys for the success of the RPGs! I then set aside this idea and tried to elaborate something different which brings to the same result and found a solution that now I call KUP: Keep Uneducated Players. Before any further detail I need to explain the reasons that led me to rethink the current game model: one (and it is not the only!) aspect I dislike is the complete disclosure of any detail of the game mechanics to the players. First of all if you look at a moder...
Follow the white rabbit...

The concept of KUP RPG (part 2)

Once it is clear the background, my vision and the main idea, let us try to figure out some more details of the KUP model. The first main feature is that the rules are for GMs only. They need to learn and use them: I wrote "use" and not "apply"; despite the fact that in the majority of the traditional RPGs the "rule 0" is invoked (i.e. the rules in the book are subject to changes upon decision of the GM), I have tried to leave the rules open to the application of the GM (whenever it is possible of course). Therefore the GM has to learn the rules and then define how he wants to use them. The players do not need (or better have not to) read the rules, in particular those referred to the game mechanics. The second main feature is that some rules work on pieces of information that are known to the GM only; among these you can find that even some PC stats are not known to the players, they do not need to know these info (I called these unknown stats US, the acr...
Follow the white rabbit...

Core Rules: what is under the hood

After some days spent on DriveThru in order to understand how tricky is the preparation of a title over there, I am back to the real matter, the game. Let me only say: yes, I will likely put on DriveThru my stuff and as soon as the Core Rules will be ready, I will start a communication campaign. Now, what is in the rulebook: this book has 9 chapters, I will provide you with a summary of each of them here below. Ch.I - Introduction to the VI·VIII·X KUP RPG game; here you will read what is the KUP concept, what is the underlying rationale and how the rulebook is built. Let me add a detail: for this book I decided to write the rules in a (hopefully) easy to read way; short explanations, some examples and many many links to other related or recalled rules; in order to help the reader I outlined keyword or concepts in bold (now, with the formatting, I lost this feature but I will insert it in the printed version).  Ch.II - Character's definition: in this chapter all the main stats ...
Follow the white rabbit...