Transforming Characters

One of the core tenets of Untold's underlying design is flexibility. When we conceived the game and were in the throes of creating its design, one of the goals that were central to our efforts was the ability to create characters that were at once robust and as variable as any other RPG on the planet, while at the same time, flexible enough to change at a moment's notice. As anyone who has ever played any of the well-known arrays of RPGs can tell you: this is no small order. However, we've always let the more elegant solution drive the train here at WMS, and as such, the concept of distilling every part of an RPG down to its "core essence" was born during the creation of Untold. At every step, we asked ourselves if the mechanic we'd come up with was at once elegant enough and boiled down to the bones of what that mechanic was; if we could not answer "yes" to both of those questions, we scrapped the idea and kept on digging.

One such mechanic came originally in the form of what I will call here our attribute cards: originally, Untold closely mimicked other RPGs: we had Race Cards (much the same as today), Path Cards (which were analogous to Classes or Paths in other RPGs), and of course Power Cards (which were not so as all-encompassing as the Power cards of today, as you will soon see) and last but certainly not least, we had ABS Cards. ABS was an acronym that stood for "Ability-Based Skills". We'd decided pretty early on against moving towards a stats based design for character creation but we knew that we would need a way to gauge how proficient Character X was at doing task Y as opposed to Character A doing the same thing. That solution was a pretty inventive and elegant solution: Skill Cards, tied to an inherent Ability that "fueled" said ability. There were six cards: Strong, Wise, Smart, Agile, etc... Each card had a value and a list of associated skills that the card could amplify; and yes, Boosting was there as well, but in a much different form than what we know today. We knew in our hearts that the ABS card were a little clunky and it was not until we did some play testing with some super awesome folks at KWAKCON (thanks Nan; thanks guys!!!) that we realized just how clunky they were.

That's an entire article and a half right there, folks - that story alone.

At any rate, the long and the short of it is that we decided to re-tool things and the result of said re-tooling are the wonderful Aspect Cards that we all know and love today. It is this Aspect Cards that bring me to the crux of this article: the way that Aspect Cards allow for an infinite amount of flexibility in Untold. Aspect Cards provide the player or GM with a really easy way to add entirely new elements into their Characters, even in the midst of game play. You can use the addition (or subtraction) of these cards to transform your Characters right before your very eyes. An excellent example of this can be provided with a short tale from one of my Beta Play test games. If you'll allow me to wax sentimental for a moment:

John, while relatively new to RPGs in general, took to Untold like a fish in water. He not only grooved on the cool, easy-to-learn mechanics, but also began showing signs of a "true blue" gamer. He began writing side stories about his Apoc High-bred Character, Stigs, and each week would return to the gaming session with even more of Stigs’ background fleshed out. As the GM, (and the game's co-creator) I was thrilled, but even more so to see John really getting into his Character and pushing it to grow, mature and become something more than just a collection of stats and information. John's basic premise for Stigs was that as a High-bred, Stigs only believed in things he could see, hear, taste, smell or touch. Things like magic and monsters were not real and he would not accept them as being so, not matter what stories he'd heard. John played the Character to a "T", too (which was really exciting for me and the other players) and it went a long way into building up the gaming group and helping them "congeal" as a unit.

Now, during the course of the adventure, the Characters (including Stigs) found themselves on the L'na home world of Ai. Ai is a place where magic is analogous to sunlight on our world - every element of life is founded upon magic - there is no life on Ai without it; as you might expect, this had a profound impact on Stigs. For the first time in his life, he was seeing with his own eyes all of the strange things he'd heard tales about: magic, mythical creatures, unusual powers that could not be explained via physics or any natural law that Stigs was aware of. John new that his character had a large Swap Buffer that he'd really not been using, so he decided to use one of Untold's core mechanics right in the middle of a role-playing encounter and attempt to transform his Character. He asked me if he could add a Soul 2 Aspect Card to his Character Deck, along with a couple of magical Power Cards that were unclaimed. I asked him for a story, and he hit me.

"Basically, for his whole life, Stigs has only believed in what he could see, what he could experience with his own senses. He's never wavered - if he can personally verify something as being real, then he believes in it with his whole being. As such, it should follow that now that he's seeing magic - for real - that he would accept it as real as well, and I'd like to begin progressing Stigs with some spell Power Cards as he begins exploring this strange new field of knowledge."

As a GM, how could I *NOT* agree with an awesome story like that? Suffice it to say, I agreed, and John was able to IMMEDIATELY drop a Soul Aspect Card into his Character Deck and add a couple of new "magical" Power Cards, which he literally used on his next initiative!

That, my friends, is just one of the many stories of how powerful, flexible and enabling Untold can be to your game. In just about any other RPG out there, this either could not happen at all (without a Character gaining a level, selecting a new Class/Path/etc) or an enormous amount of re-work. Further, the effect it had on the collective story and John's fellow players was very cool to watch. Stigs began creating friendships with L'na Characters (whom he had severely mistrusted before) and seeking to become another magic-wielding Character's pupil. Of course, later on, the love of this new "magical power" pulled Stigs into darker realms and he eventually betrayed his fellow party members to evil Outsiders in exchange for greater magical power.

While that's another story altogether, the fact serves to show that Stigs' progression as a Character took the game in an entirely new direction that I, as the GM, had never even considered before! In summary, if you want to enable your characters to help drive the collective story that happens around the table; if you want to instantly reward your players for coming up with something cool; if you'd like to see more cohesive game play amongst your group; and/or if you want to witness true Character transformation, give Untold a try!

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Let me know below what you thought of the article and let me know if you have any suggestions for the next one and I'll see what I can do! :)