So after a few years I finally started playing Beyond the Wall again. Those character creation tables are amazing, I'd forgotten just how brilliant they are! But the gameplay just... it still doesn't really work for me. It's fine as a simulation, I suppose, but everyone just plays out an adventure and either win or lose or whatever. For a coming of age story, where you finally decide who you are, it really doesn't do much. Part of being an adult is being secure in who you are, at least enough to go out and change the world as you can. The rules do not guide toward this type of story. Here's some initial thoughts on how to hack it to where it does. These rules are untested. Obviously I intend to test them.
The central question of being an adult, near as I can tell, is about how interiorly secure you are in your relation to your location. Players have two additional attributes: Self and Community. To simulate this players will roll one additional d6: if you rolled higher than the table number you are at (early childhood is table 1, etc) the event is seen by your character as a positive experience with his community: increase the Community score by 1d2. If you roll equal to or lower than the table number increase the Self score by 1d3.
When you are done rolling up your events and adding NPCs and locations to the map each person write two statements, one for the Community and the other for the Self scores. For the score that's higher write why you are more comfortable with it. For the lower one write a wish about being more connected to that aspect. It is essential that these statements are tied into the town. Don't just write "I want to be more connected to people", write something more like "Yngvar rejected me as town guardian. I will make myself useful". These are not wishy washy statements: they need to be statements of action, something that will inherently make trouble. If you can implicate a fellow player character in the mess so much the better.
Get rid of Fortune Points. Community and Self values are pools of dice. Community points can be spent to heal 1d6 per point spent as well as grant d20 re-rolls as someone from the community intervenes in the situation. Self pools let you add 1d6 to a d20 roll, as well as automatically succeeding at a check by spending a Self Point. Keep track of the points spent.
At the end of the session note how many points were spent. If your Self spent value is equal to or greater than your Community spent value you leave the town; if your Community spent value was greater than your Self spent value you stay with the town. The higher spent value is your Path. The lower spent value is your Corruption. Regardless, roll a number of d6s equal to each spent pool and compare their total values. If your Path rolled higher your ending is one of integration and peace, even if it's not a cheerful one. If your Corruption rolled higher then your ending is one of violence, betrayal, and despair.
Regardless of which rolled higher narrate a short vignette for your players about what your character did and why, whether or not they stayed in touch with the people who were there when you started your path, and ask anyone if they want to have a particular role in your ending. This is where you get to name your epic deeds and everyone else gets to tell you how they feel about them, in character. The player who rolled the highest Self Path gets to narrate first. Narrate clockwise from them.
If you try these rules let me know! I'll be reporting back, assuming my players even want to use these rules in the first place. We'll see.
No comments:
Post a Comment