So I’m toying with some corruption mechanic ideas for a PbtA game and have a few ideas I’m floating between:
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When corruption befalls you, roll plus steady. On a 10+, you weather its pollution and emerge unscathed. On a 7-9, its darkness lingers – take 1 corruption for your these deeds. On a miss, its poison leaches into your heart, and finds a hold there – take 2 corruption for this act.
When corruption befalls you, roll 1d6 per point of the corruption in question. Each 6 rolled adds 1 corruption. If you reach 5 corruption, you are altered. If you reach 8 corruption, you are consumed.
When corruption befalls you, roll plus that corruption. On a 10+, its poison leaches into your heart, and finds a hold there – increase that corruption by 1. On a 7-9, its darkness lingers – roll again when the world player asks. On a 6 or less, you weather its pollution and emerge unscathed.
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I’m curious as to whether resisting corruption should depend on a main character stat (the first option), or the corruption itself (the second 2). I like #3 for its simplicity, but I’m afraid of ending up with a whole second set of stats for the various corruptions possible (different corruptions have different effects). I’m wary of creating a corruption design that becomes overly complicated and turns into rampant bookkeeping, so I might end up tossing the whole “multiple corruptions” at all, but it is very setting appropriate.
Additionally, while the corruption is a part of the setting, I also don’t want to design a “don’t fuck up your you’ll get corrupted!” sort of game that places a punitive moral authority on the player’s actions. I’m thought about creating some incentives in corruption to counter this, but this seems like a patch-job fix.
Thoughts?
What is corruption in this game? How does it befall you? What happens (fictionally)as it grows?
In my head right now…
1. Corruption is what makes normal people become monsters.
2. It can befall you by acting upon or suffering certain actions, such as savage violence or terrible squalor. (a missed roll can trigger it befalling you I imagine)
3. Good question. I came up with some AW:DW inspired “health lines” for it, but other then that I’m not sure. The idea emerged spontaneously in the designing around the setting, and I need to figure out if the implications of such a mechanic are worth pursuing…
I’m also toying with the idea of tossing corruption keeping all together and letting it be an NPC issue (and perhaps an “on-the-way-out” advancement for PCs).
Have you seen Urban Shadows? Probably my favorite take on corruption. Basically it’s a second XP track that you can use to buy corruption moves, which are more potent but which also generate more corruption. Get enough if them and your PC retires to become a threat.
But if the 3 you have, I prefer the 3rd one.
If corruption is a bad thing I would invert the roll so that a 10+ is the favorable outcome. Start with “humanity” =3
When you (whaterver corrupts you) roll+ humanity.
On 10+ nothing happens. On 7-9 take -1 ongoing to humanity until you rest / are exorcised / etc.
On a fail humanity = humanity – 1permanently.
When you act under duress, and your humanity < 2 roll+ humanity.
On 10+ you are ok.
On 7-9 you are ok, but you sprout tentacles from your face / show your corruption to others / etc
On a fail you turn into a monster until you rest / are exorcised / etc.
Jeremy Strandberg, I looked into Urban Shadow’s design. It looks fun, but I’m not sure that “powering up” is the idea behind this corruption. I’m shooting for more of a “live is hard, and it can change you” sort o thing, but again, I’m desperately trying to avoid mechanic that secretly say “be good or I’ll punish you”.
Wynand Louw the first move their reminds me of Polaris’s zeal/weariness setup. I like to that corruption can manifest during points of duress. I think it might be easier to have it be a MC move after a failed roll though – less bookkeeping.
Again, I’m very curious as to the implications of having a corruption mechanic in your game at all. Polaris is specifically about playing through a tragic story arch. Call of Cthulhu is about the truth of the world making you go insane. My initial inspiration for the corruption mechanic was that in this world, people subjected to or who commit terrible things sometimes become terrible – literally becoming monsters. Question is, should this be something the players see, or should it be something they are threatened by as well?
Ok, a couple things you could try…
1) Give the PCs keys that generate XP when they act a certain way. Tag each as noble, common, hard, and dark. Start with keys of your choice, but when you get X corruption, you must trade out one of your keys for one that darker. So I might start with “Sacrifice (noble): mark XP when you suffer so that another doesn’t have to.” But after I get 5 corruption, I have to trade that for a non-noble key like “Fraternity (common): stick up for or make excuses for your brethren.” If the keys serve as a major XP source, corruption will change the characters’ behavior for the worse.
2) Apply conditions that themselves unlock MC moves. Like:
When a PC is paranoid, you can…
– Present something in the worse possible light
– Ask them whom they distrust and why
– Present a danger that isn’t there
– Make them act under fire to be patient or remain calm, even when there’s no apparent stress
Come up with a relatively small list of conditions and good MC moves for each. This can also work for non-corruption conditions, like Injured.
Jeremy Strandberg, that first option really strikes me. I like the chosen keys for experience. I’m imagining player chose 1 or 2 keys for each tier (noble, common, and hard). Hitting a noble key removes corruption, while hitting a dark key adds to it… not sure what common would do.
The only concern here is that again, specified experience keys could serve as a quiet enforcer of social norms, and limit the range of behavior for a character by only rewarding certain actions. Hmm…