Design Journal: Crescendo's Beliefs

There is no mechanic I love more than Beliefs. Pioneered by Luke Crane's Burning Wheel, Beliefs are a subjective statement made entirely by the players. They're used to determine scenarios in the game, making the story tailor-made to what the players want it to be about. The sheer utility of this mechanic can't be understated. Players get to write what they want. The GM gets a statement they get to interpret. Inherently creative, Beliefs give back far more than what are put into them.

There is no mechanic that is even close to a Belief. 

Period.

This is a blog post about how I almost gave up on Beliefs for my game, Crescendo.

Two (Necessary?) Asides

As a quick aside, there's a saying in the art world: don't make portraits of those you love. I love the works of Gene Wolfe. I am trying to capture the feeling I get when I read his books. This is objectively not a good idea at any point. It's a harder project for my emotional attachment. Things that should be obvious can't be. More time is spent is because I can't have an objective view of this design.

As an additional aside, there's a large elephant in the room: Burning Wheel. Anyone who reads more than a few posts of this blog is going to discover that Burning Wheel is my favorite game. Beliefs are my favorite mechanic in gaming. A lot of my thoughts on designing Crescendo are, inevitably, going to be about taking Beliefs and adapting it to my vision. Which means that Burning Wheel is going to come up a lot.  Crescendo isn't a hack of Burning Wheel, but it would be stupid to pretend that Crescendo doesn't owe a lot to it. A great deal of time has been spent repurposing Beliefs from the ground up, (usually) to the confusion and (sometimes) delight of my playtesters.

What is Crescendo?

Crescendo's central conceit isn’t a simple one: as character changes so should setting and vice versa. The game is principally based on the works of Gene Wolfe, which are intensely subjective, mythological, and cosmic. If you're going to do a Gene Wolfe game you have to have an intense subjectivity and soaring scale, which form each other. This is Crescnedo's by-line, its mission statement, is:

Belief Has Consequences

Okay, that's nice, but what does it feel like to play Crescendo? That's all very pie in the sky, but what am I going for?

Excellent question! Crescendo feels like this:

One movement causes a series of ripples in a pattern that nobody understands... until they pull back and see the full implications. Players each create a Hero whose Beliefs create consequences and the Lore Weaver (LW) creates a Setting for the Heroes' consequences to play out upon. These consequences are unknown even to the LW beforehand. Nobody knows where the ship is going. All you can do is ask "Well, what do you believe? And should that change?"

Heroes have Beliefs, Traits, and Scruples. Beliefs are what drive the Hero, Traits are how the Hero acts, and Scruples are hidden doubts/obligations that mess them up. The Setting has NPCs with simpler Beliefs, Locales and Histories that chronicle recent events, and Conflicts which rage across the Setting. 

The Journal

All participants have a journal, where they log their history and events of the session. The journals are used in a mechanic called Hitting the Books: everyone opens to a random line in their journals, closes their eyes, puts their finger down, and reads aloud their selection. The LW interprets these randomly picked prompts into whatever piece of information that's needed, primarily plot twists. And then everyone writes their interpretation of whatever the LW just said into their journals.

I cannot understate how much Hitting the Books impacts play. No one is driving. The Lore Weaver isn't called a Game Master because he's not in control of where things are going. He's given prompts and says "Well, this seems like a good idea right now". Nobody is driving. If there is a single way that Crescendo has genuinely changed the face of roleplaying games, Hitting the Books is it. 

There's various triggers throughout the game to record more lines in your journal. Once you record enough lines you can advance, gaining/ improving a skill or a relationship with an NPC.

The only thing even comparable are FFG's narrative dice, except Hitting the Books is cheaper and more creative. The dice are only marginally faster. Hitting the Books is also qualitative: success and failure aren't really a part of it, but bring in completely unexpected elements from past recordings. The more you play, the more eerily coherent the experience becomes, as past events factor into the present, creating more lines to choose from in the future. Hitting the Books sets up play loops that can last for tens of sessions before closing with a snap... creating a new loop.

Or, as one of the playtesters commented: "Reintegration is one hell of a drug".

Beliefs

The first thing I tried to do was to provide incentives for interacting with Beliefs, Burning Wheel style. And that would be reasonable for me to try! I'm a Burning Wheel vet! People will do what they're rewarded for. Right? Well, hold up. Burning Wheel's by-line and mission statement is

Fight For What You Believe

So, if you cause trouble for what you believe, you will be rewarded. This change at the core has been the hardest thing for me to navigate. Crescendo, if it's to stand on its own two legs, has to be its own thing from the ground up. Beliefs in Crescendo have to be fundamentally different from what they are in Burning Wheel.

Two and a half years have been spent trying a lot of different things with Beliefs, to the point where I was advised by some to just torch the Beliefs, outright!

Well, I did that, Robby, and that game's called Brick!, which I'll release as well. Probably first. We'll see. 

The problem, of course, is that Crescendo is about Belief and Setting in the style of Gene Wolfe. And I am going to see that through.  NPC Beliefs are based off the players'. 

But is that really enough? Heck no.

Belief is Perception

But that wasn't enough for me. It didn't feel Wolfe enough. And I really was about to just pitch them. Robby could be right. It hurt my pride, but I had to admit he might be right. Humility's good! It's fine! Fine...

Ironically enough Herbert came to my rescue.

In Children of Dune Herbert writes that information comes in two parts: Trivia and Message. Trivia was the base information that was in the world. The Message was what the recipient interpretated the Trivia into.

The lightning flash that lit up the interior darkness can't be understated.

What Herbert stated, Wolfe does. Most of his works feature this translation of Trivia into Message, using their preconceptions. Anyone who has read even a page of Wolfe knows this to be true. But Wolfe doesn't stop there. Wolfe doesn't just transmit Trivia to Message. Wolfe Shades. When the Message is assembled, the assembler discovers additional Trivia that doesn't fit what they believe.  It sticks there, an unknown that can't be quantified. Sometimes that Shade is an aspect of the Problem they hadn't anticipated.

And sometimes it's the Lord God Himself, wanting to have a word.

Suddenly, I knew how it had to go. Two and a half years, going on three, and suddenly it clicked: Beliefs were a Player tool for helping create Problems with the LW. The LW could present Trivia, pieces of information that might imply a context, but that's it. The Players then use their Beliefs to turn the Trivia into Messages. And then the LW adds a Shade to each Message. The Player then gets to write this modified Message down as a Bullet Point in their Journal. The Players must make at least one Message, and may make up to three, one for each of their Beliefs.

Putting it Together

All that's well and good, but what does it look like?

Hey everyone, meet Sir Mal, one of the example characters in Crescendo! He's the bastard street rat of a noble, found and restored to his place as a knight. Here's what you need to know about Sir Mal to understand what I'm writing:

Sir Mal

Beliefs

Beliefs are what Sir Mal uses to help construct Problems and are so used by the LW  to further complicate Sir Mal's life. Beliefs are what Sir Mal is willing to burn the whole world down for.

 

1. My father knighted me as he lay injured on the battlefield. I didn’t need his recognition to known honor and bravery are their own reward.

2. Once I came into manhood, I realized that no woman, even the queen, could resist me long. If she lifts her skirts, she’s fair game.

3. One day a knight, Sir Alain, came into the slums where I picked pockets, and told me that he was my father. To this day I’ve never met a kinder man.

 

Scruple

A Scruple is a hidden reservation or taboo a character has which holds them back. They're used to add Shades to Problems and to trip up Heroes during play.

You cannot trust the other nobles to do the right thing.

Traits

Traits are aspects of a Hero that either make you more powerful for acting on them or which make you weaker for ignoring them.

Charming, Nihilistic, Impulsive

Climbing a Tower to Get Royally Laid

Sir Mal has decided to deflower Princess Genevieve, for a multitude of reasons. He's climbed the tower where she lives and finally gotten in through the open window.

Paul the LW tells Alex, Sir Mal's player, that the Trivia for the current Problem are the soft candlelight in Princess Genevieve's room, Princess Genevieve just pulling a shift over her head, offering the briefest glimpse of perfection etched in flesh, and the open window Sir Mal just crawled through.

Alex's first Message is that Princess Genevieve has seen him before, as she was there for his formal knighting, from his first Belief! She's a bit shocked to find that he's climbed into her window, but she's not scared. Paul adds that Princess Genevieve isn't just not scared, she's calm, her pulse doesn't look like it's budged even a little bit. Alex writes "Princess Genevieve isn't even shocked to see me. This will be a fun night!" as a Bullet Point in his journal.

Alex's second Message is that his charming smile has never not made a woman weak in the knees, and that's definitely what's happening right now. Paul adds that Princess Genevieve lightly brushes a pendant of Elpida, The Most Holy Flame (wait did it glow slightly? Gotta be a trick of the light), but she doesn't break eye contact with Sir Mal. But yes, she looks very happy to see him. Alex writes "Princess Genevieve has one of those purity necklaces. But I can tell from just a glance she's mine."

Alex's third Message is that he leaves the window open, and in fact he doesn't really get off the windowsill, causing Princess Genevieve to relax even further. Paul adds that there's the sound of King Julian ranting and raving just outside Princess Genevieve's door... which she locks, factoring in Sir Mal's Scruple. Alex writes "King Julian really has lost his mind, and Princess Genevieve seems to think it's more sane to be locked in with me than out there with him. Excellent."

Remember...

All those Bullet Points can now come up again. There's always going to be fallout from constructing this Problem, regardless of how it's resolved. It might be next session, it might be forty sessions from now, but these Bullet Points always have a chance on forming the current situation.

Here's the Rope

Someone is going to point out that, even if Crescendo is just for one to three Players, things can get overcomplicated quickly! If three Players do this once per Belief  that's nine Bullet Points that everyone has to record. Not only could that take forever but that would be a very thorny, if not outright unwieldable, Problem.

And you're right.

So what?

If Players want to go overboard, whose fault is that? The designer? Or the player? I can't stop people from doing stupid stuff. I've found that people stop when they want to stop. If you approach the game in the way intended it's not a problem. Pretending that I can make someone approach the game in a healthy way is.. well.. laughable.  It would take so much work to construct a Problem in an unhealthy manner that I don't particularly feel that I need to safeguard it much. Journaling takes a bit of work. If you're playing the game, it's because you want to. So you'll automatically know when to stop.

In Conclusion

It's been a journey, but I finally got the Beliefs done! You use Beliefs to construct Problems with the Lore Weaver. The LW uses them to further challenge the Players by putting them in ethical trolley problems. And when the Players change their Beliefs, it sends ripples across The Setting, causing truly unexpected changes to the story. There's this amazing interplay between the subjective nature of the Beliefs and the incredibly bonkers changes in the world and the plot. You say what you are willing to burn the world down for and the world just convulses in response, mashing the incredibly person and epic together.

If any of this sounds amazing to you, come and join us the Die Young Games Discord Server! Crescendo is in its last stages of editing. There's sessions of it running. The people are great. So come on over!