Allegiance for Honour: Magic World for an "Oriental" game

[NickMiddleton]

So, I'm noodling away at a Magic World powered game with highly honorable warrior nobles, clans and the like - influences are Robert Shea's Shike books (which I read as a teenager and adored); Eric Van Lustbader's Sunset Warrior sequence (ditto) ; but most importantly Peter Morwood's Horse Lord / Demon Lord / Dragon Lord / Warlord's Domain sequence. Oh, and I played some L5R 4e recently.

I'm specifically crafting a unique setting, because I DON'T want to get caught up in details of historical Japanese culture (nor the "Orientalism" and cultural appropriation such things can be prone to), and I want to import some of the distinctly NON-Japanese ideas from Rokugan (L5R setting) and the Alban clans (Morwood).

But I DO want Honour to be an important driving force in character actions; I want it to both be an aid to the PC's and to be a source of difficulty. And I don't really want to add too much in the way of additional rules on top of basic Magic World, plus Deep Magic from Advanced Sorcery.

So I'm wondering about using Allegiance as the basis for my "Honour" / following the Warriors Code. I quite like the threefold split in MW's basic allegiance - and I quite like the idea of "balance" as the ultimate ideal. Less sure about "Light and Shadow"  as the "flanking" forces, and I'm wondering about ways Alleigance can pressure / encourage a character's decision making. But, again, I don't want to add too much in the way of rules complexity.

Any suggestions / ideas?

Cheers,

Nick

[tooley1chris]

You're a veteran and I'm a noob, so I doubt I have ideas you haven't thought of but this is what comes to mind:

Replace Allegiance names with

Ambition

Honor

Corruption

Use allegiance like a renown status. The higher the allegiance the more recognizable the character is to the public.

Use honor to drive/enhance social skills. The higher the Honor allegiance the more that character perhaps gets a bonus to social skills. An inn owner may recognize the character and be "honored" to have such a citizen in his place of business giving him a free meal or nights stay in a room.

You could call for an Honor roll to make the social skill (bargain in the above case) an easy roll, or just use narrative, if that's too much additional rolling. 

Edited December 9, 2015 by tooley1chris

[soltakss]

I agree with both. Allegiance fits as an Honour perfectly and you can use it pretty much as it is in the book. You can also expand it to other areas, as Chris says, with Ambition/Corruption/Renown/Whatever.

 

 

[SDLeary]

3 hours ago, tooley1chris said:

You're a veteran and I'm a noob, so I doubt I have ideas you haven't thought of but this is what comes to mind:

Replace Allegiance names with

Ambition

Honor

Corruption

Use allegiance like a renown status. The higher the allegiance the more recognizable the character is to the public.

Use honor to drive/enhance social skills. The higher the Honor allegiance the more that character perhaps gets a bonus to social skills. An inn owner may recognize the character and be "honored" to have such a citizen in his place of business giving him a free meal or nights stay in a room.

You could call for an Honor roll to make the social skill (bargain in the above case) an easy roll, or just use narrative, if that's too much additional rolling. 

Ambition can be a Corruption, so they are somewhat on the same side of Honor.

SDLeary

[SDLeary]

I would suggest an Absolute Value kind of stat.

Honor, opposed by Infamy. The sum of these being Renown, the higher of the two values providing the favorable or unfavorable outlook.

I'm not sure that Balance would be of use in this situation, because Honor often requires action outside what one would consider Balance. If you want to go this route, perhaps Honor, Balance, Notoriety, then as above. Or, you could go OldSchool and use Law, Neutrality, Chaos. 

SDLeary

[tooley1chris]

19 minutes ago, SDLeary said:

Ambtion can be a Corruption, so they are somewhat on the same side of Honor.

SDLeary

I suppose people could use corrupt Practices to further their ambitious goals but that hardly makes them synonymous. People do inherently evil acts in the name of good but that doesnt make them the same.

[tooley1chris]

25 minutes ago, SDLeary said:

Ambtion can be a Corruption, so they are somewhat on the same side of Honor.

SDLeary

I suppose people could use corrupt Practices to further their ambitious goals but that hardly makes them synonymous. People do inherently evil acts in the name of good but that doesnt make them the same.

For a simple game mchanic

Ambitious people do "the right thing" to further their goals.

honorable people do the right thing because its the right thing.

Corrupt people do wrong things to others to achieve their goal.

Edited December 9, 2015 by tooley1chris

[Sunwolfe]

A stray thought across the bow...I know you are looking for less historical troupes, however, I can't help but consider samurai type bushido. Now, I am no expert so forgive me if I err and don't hesitate to set me right, but doesn't a lot depend on the definition of honor used in the game? 

For a samurai, honor was in the complete and utter service to his or her lord which in turn was a reflection on one's family and ancestors.. Which is why being a ronin was considered a less than desireable state. Service to a daimyo was all. It seems to me, however, that a samurai couln't not also have a sense of personal honor that embraced his prowes, acumen, and status.

With that in mind, could honor then be set in place of neutrality as the ultimate desired state with service to a lord (law) on one side and service to the self (chaos) on the other. A perfect balance between the two would reflect both faithful service to a lord/kingdom/cause/ideal and a healthy regard for one's self in terms of reputation/status/living/ambition. This of course, would only have meaning if the concept of honor embraced this balancing act as a definition.

Mindless speculation...it's been a long day; I dosed off twice while writing...LOL!

[NickMiddleton]

Sunwolfe - actually that speaks EXACTLY to one of the things I DO want to address - the "code of conduct" that binds a suban, of the lowest rank or close kin to the Child of Heaven on the Amber Throne them self, to act and often in ways which serve neither personal self interest nor those of ones lord.

I need a framework, probably modeled quite closely on fictional versions of bushido, that will put the suban in a potentially constantly conflicted position, balancing world obligations, personal aspirations and spiritual well being.

Hmm - need to re-read the sections on bushido in various RPG's...

cheers,

Nick

[Chaot]

You could also take a page from Pendragon.  Honorable/Dishonorable.

[Sunwolfe]

Nick, I don't want to assume anything here, so do you have a copy of RQ3's Land of Ninja? There is an interesting section therein on Honor as a characteristic which might offer some insights.

Cheers

[NickMiddleton]

Err, two copies actually - the contents of the AH boxed set (but no box) and a copy of the GW book. Both in storage at present but on my list to dig out to read.

cheers,

Nick

[Sunwolfe]

Heh, roger that, but if your storage is even remotely like my "storage" that could mean anything from the need to mount an expedition complete with porters and a weeks worth of food or trying to best-guess the lost half of a treasure map blindfolded . Here are the highlights. It might save you a trip or a dreaded case of Whileyeratit-itis.

Honor

• Honor is a characteristic (HON) and is, in a very real sense, analogous to reputation
• Every character starts at ‘0’
• It may not be trained or researched

 Positive HON

• + or positive honor represents the esteem of society
• Positive honor is won/awarded by/for personal success, that is something a character does that is particularly worthy: e.g. upholding his lord’s reputation in dire circumstances, completing a vendetta, defeating multiple opponents, etc., not for good rolls or mechanical or minor accomplishment.
• NPC’s respond to positive honor with, “…good will and respect…” (44).

 Negative HON

• - or negative honor represent the disdain of society
• Negative honor is awarded for stupidity, public displays of rudeness, excessive violence/cruelty, failed vows, obvious abrogation of the honor code, etc.
• NPC’s respond to negative honor with, “…fear and intimidation…            (44).

 Acquisition

• HON is gained or lost due to actions that would change the way another PC/NPC views the character
• No witnesses need see a PC act to gain negative or positive HON
• When a PC does something significant either way, they roll a D20
• If the results exceed the character’s present HON or is a ‘20’, HON is altered
• It is important to note that in the above operation, “+” and “-“ are ignored and a simple HON score is considered, i.e. if the character has a +10 honor, for the sake of the roll it is considered only as a “10”.
• If the experience was honorable, the character adds a point of honor; if the experience was dishonorable a point is subtracted.

 Recognition

• HON is used for social interaction between NPCs and PCs.
• Characters from the same caste/rank multiply HON by 5 and roll on D100, success means the NPC has heard of the PC
• Characters of different castes multiply HON by 3, etc.

 Influence

• HON may be use to gain favor or consideration
• The HON multiplier varies according to whom or for what influence is being exerted: the skills of a master craftsman: x5; acceptance by a master teacher: x4, etc.
• A Social Influence Table from Emperor to Untouchables is included. Each step above the petitioner is –1 from their HON modifier, dealing with anyone below them is a +1.

Cheers!

[Questbird]

Celestial Empire is also worth a read for status and its effects. Basically once your 'honour' drops below a certain level you can only exist as an outlaw. In a Japanese style culture you might even be required to kill yourself if your honour drops too low (kind of like your SAN dropping to 0 in Call of Cthulhu). That should help impress on your players the importance of honour in your setting!

Mechanically, I reckon using Allegiance is fine. Have 2 scores: Honour and Dishonour. Problems start when Dishonour is higher than Honour. Societal benefits happen when Honour is 20 points higher than Dishonour. Asking favours from your superiors costs you Honour points (like 'face'); you could even trade Honour points in this way.

 

[Simlasa]

On 12/14/2015 at 4:54 PM, Questbird said:

Celestial Empire is also worth a read for status and its effects. Basically once your 'honour' drops below a certain level you can only exist as an outlaw. In a Japanese style culture you might even be required to kill yourself if your honour drops too low (kind of like your SAN dropping to 0 in Call of Cthulhu). That should help impress on your players the importance of honour in your setting!

 

That was my initial thought... to run Honor somewhat like Sanity in Call of Cthulhu... or maybe the Madness Meter in Unknown Armies. But I agree with Sunwolfe that it requires a clear statement of what honor is... and isn't. My understanding of Bushido is that it had a lot more to do with keeping up appearances (orthopraxy), than it did any particular beliefs/motivations (orthodoxy). Samurai could be quite greedy and obsessed with riches... but would go out of their way to make it appear they were not concerned with such things.

Edited December 15, 2015 by Simlasa

[NickMiddleton]

Yeah, plus there's all that stuff about the conflict between giri and ninjō and how that interacts with bushido...

I'm roughing out a creation myth / origin story for the five species that make up the empire and trying to craft a code for the ruling elite somewhat analogous to bushido, but such that it will allow for a more diverse adventuring group. I then need a mechanism to encourage players to keep their characters conforming to that code, whilst frequently aware of the tension with it.

I THINK I'm leaning towards Honour as a SAN like skill, with Allegiance being to two fold (or possibly threefold) between Devotion to the Song of Silver & Gold (basically, the Laws of Heaven), Devotion to the Song of Night (basically, selfish, self serving opposite of Laws of Heaven) and POSSIBLY a Devotion to the Song of the Void (a path of true balance). I like the idea that the duality the Empire is obsessed with may not be the only path, albeit I may drop it as distracting form the main themes.

Need time to do some reading and thinking.

Nick

[Al.]

The strength of the allegiance system is in making us think about differences and similarities

In my day job one of my dullest and most common duties is persuading testosterone fuelled adolescents (and frankly some adults of both sexes) not to blow up and over react over imagined slights.

Which leads me to think that in a wider context there is an important difference between Pride and Honour

In any setting where character's actions are expected to be subservient to a) what they are told to do and b. what they think is the right thing to do without being told

 

So I'd suggest

Honour and Pride and Duty

[Mugen]

I'm not very keen on modeling Honour as points.

I would try to use the seven (or 8, depending on source) virtues of Bushido in the system.

A high value in one of the Virtue would allow the samurai to get a bonus with associated skills.

A failure to be true to a Bushido virtue would make the samurai unhonourable, losing all his bonus related to virtues. The higher the Virtue is, the bigger the impact on the character, and the harder the difficulty to atone and regain honourable status.

https://sites.google.com/site/projectsamurai1010/the-code-of-the-samurai
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushido#Eight_virtues_of_Bushid.C5.8D_.28as_envisioned_by_Nitobe_Inazo.29

Edited April 5, 2016 by Mugen

[TRose]

 One thing I would ask is how does that effect those that live outside the mainstream of society  like Etta, the Yakuza and of course Ninja?

[Mankcam]

Lawrence Whittaker did a book for MRQ called 'Land Of Samurai' (reprinted as 'Samurai Of Legend') which had a simple Honour system that was quite effective.

It just expressed the notion of Honour as a percentile. It was based more on the BRP Status system than the BRP Allegiance system. It didn't seem necessary to have an opposing trait like Dishonour - the more Honour your character accrued was indicative that your character was less likely to be perceived as being dishonourable.

Honour (called 'On') was used in place of Credit Rating or Status rolls, and it also provided a small bonus to all social rolls.

Besides these game mechanic benefits, the importance of Honour as a commodity was primarily due to the emphasis that was placed on it within the setting. The notion of how many coins or loot your character accrued was much more secondary to the measure of how much Honour your character had. Using it as the 'measuring stick' for success within the setting was very important to giving it a real sense of value.

It was accrued by honourable deeds, and was a fragile commodity, as it could be easily lost by failure to save face or by acting dishonourably. Sometimes the motivation of the scenario would be to prevent Honour loss. 

I thought it was a good system, and I was actually going to convert it for a Mythic Greece game I was tinkering with, calling it 'Glory' instead, and allow it to provide a bonus to social and combat skills. It could easily be converted to other settings as well, such as a 'Chivalry' system for feudal Knights, or a  'Renown' system for Vikings etc. I think the MRQ/Legend 'Pirates' book may have done something similar with the concept of 'Reputation'. In any case, the deeds would need to be tweaked slightly for each concept and setting, but the general notion would be similar.

Basically any game that the focus isn't on dungeon-crawling & loot-accrual could have a 'Status' system in place as the measuring stick for the character.

I think you could easily model it on a bunch of virtues and such, or use the BRP Allegiance system. However if you want a less complex approach, then replacing Status is the way to go. Then it is up to the GM to drive home how important the trait is within the setting.

 

Edited April 8, 2016 by Mankcam