Belief and Characters (In Game)

[AMFV]

I'm curious if anybody knows of any other systems where a characters beliefs or fundamental precepts can have in-game effect on the character. I'm familiar with WoD, and TRoS, and the TBW. But I'd be interested to see if there are any others like this. I think the idea of having characters whose morality affects the game is really fascinating to me. So are there any other such systems?

Edit: Realized this sounds really a real world morality thing so I'm altering the title to fit better with the in-game nature of this question.

[Rhynn]

Pendragon, sort of; it's more about your personality traits and passions, but your character's faith is also important.

HeroQuest, kind of, although it's not as explicitly supported, but the setting is big on belief (on a large scale).

[Actana]

Oh, oh! I know! The Riddle of Ste-

TRoS

Bah.

Fate can do beliefs in this way through aspects, but given that "belief" aspects work pretty much the same as any other aspects, it's not that interesting of an example.

Burning Wheel's two sister games, Mouse Guard and Torchbearer are also pretty big on beliefs, but I'd count those alongside Burning Wheel and not as separate entities.

[Airk]

Burning Wheel's two sister games, Mouse Guard and Torchbearer are also pretty big on beliefs, but I'd count those alongside Burning Wheel and not as separate entities.

I'd be inclined to agree with counting the siblings as part of the same game for this purpose.

Tenra Bansho Zero also does something like Beliefs with it's 'Fates' system. While a fate can be something like 'Misfortune: Loss of your most precious thing' they can also be "Emotion: Hatred of Kuga the Bloody" or "Taboo: Fighting." So they're actually broader than just things your character 'believes', per se, and are instead just "things your character is deeply invested in."

[Grinner]

Unknown Armies is big on this.

The character creation chapter opens with the header "Who Are You?", followed by a description of Obsessions which then flows into Passions. Your character's Obsession is the one thing he's born to do. It's the thing teenagers spend years trying to find, according to modern psychology. Each character also has three Passions: a Noble Passion, a Fear Passion, and a Rage Passion. These Passions are what the character intimately cares about. They're the things he loves, the things he fears, the things he hates. Only after these aspects are defined does the book ask what the character can do.

They also have some mechanical effects.

There's more to this though. Unknown Armies was designed around the concept of hope. It's the antithesis of Call of Cthulhu. Where investigators in CoC are inevitably doomed to insanity, the people of Unknown Armies can make a difference, but they have to walk a long, treacherous road to do it. To do that, they need to believe in something. When night falls and the wolves bare their teeth, that's going to be what sees you through to daybreak.

Take care that you master your dreams though, rather than let your dreams master you. Sure you get kewl powerz from it, but you'll be left a broken, inhuman husk. You'll probably also go to Hell.

[Geostationary]

Nobilis and Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine do something along these lines, though they aren't necessarily beliefs.

What they have are these things called Bonds and Afflictions. Both are true statements about the character, but they do different things and are true in different ways. Bonds generally indicate what the character strongly believes in or otherwise greatly cares about, though this isn't always the case. They can be invoked by the player in the face of relevant opposition to help them power through said opposition by gaining certain mechanical benefits. They can also be used in situations of legitimate death to sustain themselves on their passions indefinitely, but this doesn't often come up and is rather unhealthy.

Afflictions are axiomatic truths about the character, be they "I never tell a lie" or "My touch burns the wicked". They are under the control of the DM/HG/ST/etc. and are true, logic be damned. They are useful in the way axiomatic truths are useful, and have built-in defenses against people trying to change or fight them. It is useful to note that Bonds are the best tool against Afflictions and similarly defended things.

Both can gain you in-game resources if they become problems- your inability to lie or your devotion to Heaven may become a liability when negotiating with demons. Similarly, if a Bond or Affliction is made to be contradictory, it can break, harming you and gaining you the same resources as before. Breaking can only really happen with the consent of the player, and there are subtle differences between a Bond or an Affliction breaking. Additionally, people can and do set out to pervert and break these as a method of indirect conflict.

[Berenger]

Most of the time, I don't find alignments useful at all.

If such a label mechanic is necessary (because "Detect This" or "Smite That" exist) I prefer Allegiances (http://www.d20resources.com/modern.d...llegiances.php). This way I can label the demon from hell als "chaotic" and "evil" if I wish to do so, but the "typical roman soldier" gets an allegiance of "IX. Legion" (or "IX. Legion | Wife & Children | Mithras" for multiple allegiances) instead of some arbitrary alignment of "Lawful Neutral".

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[Zavoniki]

Eclipse Phase has motivations which are expressed as a statement and then a + or - (I agree or disagree with this statement). You use them to regain Moxie. It's a minor part of the system but can be very helpful player characters(Moxie is really powerful).

Wild Talents has Passions and Loyalties which affect your Willpower. You can spend Willpower to get benefits and losing all your Willpower has really really bad effects on a character.

I think GUMSHOE systems also do this, but I'm not too clear on the details.

[AMFV]

Most of the time, I don't find alignments useful at all.

If such a label mechanic is necessary (because "Detect This" or "Smite That" exist) I prefer Allegiances (http://www.d20resources.com/modern.d...llegiances.php). This way I can label the demon from hell als "chaotic" and "evil" if I wish to do so, but the "typical roman soldier" gets an allegiance of "IX. Legion" (or "IX. Legion | Wife & Children | Mithras" for multiple allegiances) instead of some arbitrary alignment of "Lawful Neutral".

Do the allegiances have any in-game affect though outside of the bonus to diplomacy checks? And is there a benefit for playing true to your allegiances?

Eclipse Phase has motivations which are expressed as a statement and then a + or - (I agree or disagree with this statement). You use them to regain Moxie. It's a minor part of the system but can be very helpful player characters(Moxie is really powerful).

Wild Talents has Passions and Loyalties which affect your Willpower. You can spend Willpower to get benefits and losing all your Willpower has really really bad effects on a character.

I think GUMSHOE systems also do this, but I'm not too clear on the details.

This seems to be a common theme, you get the equivalent of "karma" or "edge" for your beliefs, that or added experience are common ways of dealing with that.

As a tangential question, of the two which do you guys prefer, if either.

[Mr. Mask]

Would you count DnD's domains for clerics? They don't take it very far, but the god(s) you worship had some effect.

[NichG]

In my current campaign, there's something kinda similar, but instead of beliefs its memories. What your character remembers is true, regardless of the current apparent status of reality. If memory and reality get in eachother's way, memory wins and reality reconfigures to make the memory self-consistent.

It helps of course that the PCs (and most everyone in the world) are amnesiacs, and only remember bits and pieces of things. Whenever a character would regain a lost memory, the player has a choice about some (but not all) of the details of the memory - this is presented in the form of something like 'Betrayal of a Friend, Loyalty from an Unexpected Quarter, An Affirmation of Beliefs - pick one', with the choice being semi-in-character (its something that characters can learn over time to exercise control over by consciously focusing on certain details as the memory unfolds. These rememberings can actually influence fundamental truths about the ordering of the world - last game one of the characters basically 'remembered' on behalf of an NPC by stealing their memories, and as a result caused something that NPC had believed to become factually true.

So its not quite beliefs, but it is related.

[AMFV]

Would you count DnD's domains for clerics? They don't take it very far, but the god(s) you worship had some effect.

I don't think I would, personally that's not really getting a benefit from your beliefs, but from a kind of nebulous relationship. You don't have to make any kind of beliefs or dogmas regarding travel to benefit from the travel domain. Or spend any effort on Knowledge to benefit from the knowledge domain. Now with that sort of thing as a houserule you could call it that, but as it is, it's only very slightly a reflection of character belief. At least to my thinking.

[Mr. Mask]

I think that has more to do with the staleness of DnD religion than it does with the mechanic.

[AMFV]

I think that has more to do with the staleness of DnD religion than it does with the mechanic.

I agree in some respects, I think that if the mechanic where more based on actual belief, or if that was more enforced then it would be something similar to what I'm discussing and a pretty interesting example actually. Without tweaking it wouldn't work for that, but with a little tweaking it might.

[Rhynn]

I think GUMSHOE systems also do this, but I'm not too clear on the details.

Oh, I entirely forgot!

In the GUMSHOE-based Trail of Cthulhu, you have a Drive: something that compels you to do the stupid things necessary to be/become a protagonist in a Mythos adventure. They include Antiquarianism, Arrogance, Bad Luck, Curiosity, and In the Blood. Resisting your Drive costs you Stability ("temporary sanity"), but following your Drive refreshes your Stability pool.

Some are very simple: Antiquarianism, Curiosity, Scholarship, and Thirst for Knowledge could all lead you to study forbidden tomes or explore an old, empty manor-house for what lies within.

Some are more complex or abstract (narrativist, you might say): if you have Bad Luck, the GM just makes bad things (but ones that advance the story/adventure/investigation) happen to you. In the Blood is a sinister, inexplicable drive to explore unwholesome things.

Stability is pretty essential: you use it a lot, and if you run out, you start getting penalties, can't use Investigative abilities, and eventualy go temporarily insane and finally kill yourself (or, at your option, just go catatonic for the rest of your miserable, blasted life).

There's also the concept of anagnorisis, for use in Purist games (particularly character-driven story-focused ones): the anagnorisis is "the big reveal" that exposes the folly or worthlessness of your drive (e.g. the realization that the past is fundamentally horrifying and humans have no idea, or that you are descended from inhuman monsters, or whatever). It leads to either suicide, catatonia, or a permanent retirement (if you were lucky enough to get away with some Stability remaining).


Perhaps more pertinently to the topic, there are Pillars of Sanity: things that you believe in. You have one for every 3 points of Sanity pool. These are explicit beliefs that you hold dear and have the highest trust in: religious faith, family, human dignity and value, scientific progress and human intellect, physical laws and scientific reality, the goodness of Nature, moral principles, love of your home town, et cetera. These exist for two reasons: for the Keeper to attack and shatter in the course of play, and for the player to "crumble from within" to avoid Sanity loss.

On the story level, Lovecraftian gaming is about the folly of all humanity holds dear - all those Pillars of Sanity. So, during the course of a story, Mythos revelations can and will shatter PCs' Pillars of Sanity. PCs can also lose faith (the player decides the Pillar "crumbles from within") to avoid the Sanity loss of having it shattered, but this can't be done in response to the shattering revelation: it has to be done "on your own time" (after having lost 3+ Sanity already). PCs with a higher Sanity rating have more Pillars of Sanity.

Incidentally, Trail of Cthulhu sanity mechanics also include denial and fainting: you can elect to faint when confronted by Sanity Loss, avoiding the worst of it (only losing 1 Sanity) but being out of commission for the rest of the scene. You can also go into denial, but this requires destroying all proof of what happened, roleplaying the denial, and only lets you recover 1 point of Sanity. (Still, that's a whole precious point - Sanity doesn't come back unless you're using some of the optional pulp rules).

[Grinner]

I agree in some respects, I think that if the mechanic where more based on actual belief, or if that was more enforced then it would be something similar to what I'm discussing and a pretty interesting example actually. Without tweaking it wouldn't work for that, but with a little tweaking it might.

It would help if the religions were actually defined. As it stands, they consist of a god: a name, an alignment, and a collection of powers. On occasion, there's a bit of history thrown in for good measure, but there's nothing that actually describes the religions.

They're brands, not entities unto themselves.

I think having a set of tenets and a code similar to that of the paladin would be a good start. I wouldn't trust that to Monte Cook or any of WotC's usual stable of writers, however. While they may be well-qualified game designers, I think their critical thinking ability where abstract thought is concerned leaves something to be desired.

[Mr. Mask]

Even very simple ideas: Priests of the god of travel may not remain under the same roof for longer than a year.

That'd say a lot about people who become part of that religious order and that religious order. It could also have a lot of interesting interpretations (from people who move next door yearly then move back the next year, to those who take short holidays to neighbouring places, to constantly travelling vagabonds).

Of course, that goes against the idea of the thread, where your specific belief has an effect.

[Rhynn]

Oh, I guess Artesia: Adventures in the Known World also sort of qualifies.

There's Bindings that represent connections and attitudes to the world around you, and can compel actions (and can be discerned and then intentionally triggered by other characters, by and in both PCs and NPCs), ranging from the obvious and directed (Hatred, Love) to the abstract (Despair, Ennui).

Perhaps more significantly, a lot of ways to gain Arcana Points (the equivalent of experience points, used to improve skills, attributes, gifts, etc., and get rid of bindings) are about internal processes, beliefs, and developments. Some of these conditions (each of which grants a set number of Arcana in that "category," based on the Major Arcana of the Tarot; each Arcana can be used to improve specific listed abilities):

• Find True Love.
• Convince someone else to stick to tradition.
• Take a decisive action on your own.
• Set a goal for yourself.
• Hold an opinion in the face of evidence to the contrary.
• Refuse to accept a defeat.
• Forgive someone who has harmed you.
• Mourn and grieve for a loved one.
• Seek harmony in your relations with others.
• Refuse to chnge, even when change is in your interest.
• Make a judgment about yourself.
• Discover a hidden secret about yourself.
• Decide your Destiny for yourself.

This all mechanically strongly incentivizes roleplay and making external and explicit the internal processes and thoughts of your character, creating a fairly unconventional style of play.

Also, the game has Mysteries that you are Illuminated to: there are game mechanics involving them, but Mysteries are, at the core, a belief that becomes personal truth for you. Being magical, they can be true for you: the world behaves differently, perhaps in subtle ways, if you know its Mysteries.

[Ring_of_Gyges]

In Nomine is a fantastic Steve Jackson Games game where players (typically) play angels and demons.

All celestials are free willed, but if they act against their nature they get weirder and weirder and eventually the strain is too much and they fall (if angels) or redeem themselves (if demons). The "get weirder and weirder" can involve stigmata, paranoia, obsession, etc... basically spiritual, mental, and physical deformities of all sorts as they rebel against their nature.

[AMFV]

Oh, I guess Artesia: Adventures in the Known World also sort of qualifies.

There's Bindings that represent connections and attitudes to the world around you, and can compel actions (and can be discerned and then intentionally triggered by other characters, by and in both PCs and NPCs), ranging from the obvious and directed (Hatred, Love) to the abstract (Despair, Ennui).

Perhaps more significantly, a lot of ways to gain Arcana Points (the equivalent of experience points, used to improve skills, attributes, gifts, etc., and get rid of bindings) are about internal processes, beliefs, and developments. Some of these conditions (each of which grants a set number of Arcana in that "category," based on the Major Arcana of the Tarot; each Arcana can be used to improve specific listed abilities):

• Find True Love.
• Convince someone else to stick to tradition.
• Take a decisive action on your own.
• Set a goal for yourself.
• Hold an opinion in the face of evidence to the contrary.
• Refuse to accept a defeat.
• Forgive someone who has harmed you.
• Mourn and grieve for a loved one.
• Seek harmony in your relations with others.
• Refuse to chnge, even when change is in your interest.
• Make a judgment about yourself.
• Discover a hidden secret about yourself.
• Decide your Destiny for yourself.

This all mechanically strongly incentivizes roleplay and making external and explicit the internal processes and thoughts of your character, creating a fairly unconventional style of play.

Also, the game has Mysteries that you are Illuminated to: there are game mechanics involving them, but Mysteries are, at the core, a belief that becomes personal truth for you. Being magical, they can be true for you: the world behaves differently, perhaps in subtle ways, if you know its Mysteries.

This sounds like almost exactly what I was looking for, it sounds like an excellent system, how is it in other respects?

In Nomine is a fantastic Steve Jackson Games game where players (typically) play angels and demons.

All celestials are free willed, but if they act against their nature they get weirder and weirder and eventually the strain is too much and they fall (if angels) or redeem themselves (if demons). The "get weirder and weirder" can involve stigmata, paranoia, obsession, etc... basically spiritual, mental, and physical deformities of all sorts as they rebel against their nature.

That's pretty interesting as well, I like the idea of strain on beliefs as a game mechanic as well.

It would help if the religions were actually defined. As it stands, they consist of a god: a name, an alignment, and a collection of powers. On occasion, there's a bit of history thrown in for good measure, but there's nothing that actually describes the religions.

They're brands, not entities unto themselves.

I think having a set of tenets and a code similar to that of the paladin would be a good start. I wouldn't trust that to Monte Cook or any of WotC's usual stable of writers, however. While they may be well-qualified game designers, I think their critical thinking ability where abstract thought is concerned leaves something to be desired.

I think that it could be a really interesting system if you worked a more belief based system into D&D, it would require a complete reworking of the alignments though. So you could have opposed ideals that could be smitten, the Paladin's codes would vary greatly. You could have for example a Rossau Paladin facing off against a Hobbs Paladin. (Those are mildly real world, but I'd rather not discuss the actual mechanics of it, since those are an examples)

[Mr. Mask]

If you're interested in Artesia, I think you won't be disappointed. I've heard it lauded as being among the best combat and magic systems available in an RPG. Its lore/fluff/background/setting/yada is among the best of RPGs, and the art could be argued to be the best. It also has a pretty good comic series.

[Rhynn]

This sounds like almost exactly what I was looking for, it sounds like an excellent system, how is it in other respects?

Great on balance, but with some quirks.

Artesia: Adventures in the Known World is a Fuzion RPG and has sort of got Cyberpunk 2020's problem with target numbers: you're rolling 1d10 + attribute + skill + modifiers against a target number, so frequently you have a very clear idea about your chances of success. (Since it's a Fuzion system it should actually be pretty easy to re-write it for 3d6 rolls by changing the list of 6 standard target numbers; just increase all static TNs by 5.) I don't care so much about the standard target numbers, because with this game I rarely feel a need to roll the dice unless a PC is actively opposed by someone (in which case it'll be roll vs. roll).

The combat system is quite simple but realistic enough: it accounts, without too much detail, for weapon reach, and it has a relatively realistic damage and armor system. There's a small hickup: it's way too easy to delay your attack and make an aimed attack at your opponent's unarmored locations (usually the face) with a higher chance to hit than if you weren't delaying and aiming. (The aiming bonuses from delaying, which is required for called attacks, are greater than the penalties for hit locations.) The delaying is irrelevant: a lot of the time, you can still act before your opponent. You probably have to come up with a solution for this, but it's not a big deal.

The magic system has a quirk: for whatever reason, Smylie didn't realize how powerful unshaped spells (True Forms) are. I advise against giving them to PCs ever. Make them work as an apprentice to a magician, during play, for 5 years or something, to get a single True Form, and don't let them get True Form Enchantment Ritual. With Enchantment Rituals, PCs can stack 2-3 times their magic skill on all combat rolls, for instance, making their actual skills irrelevant. My players quickly picked up on this, and in future campaigns, I will not give out any True Form spells.

Some people have found the Arcana experience system a bit cumbersome, but I find it great: at the end of each session, we have a 5-15 minute de-briefing where I go over the Arcana and the actions listed, and the players argue (in the good sense) for what they should get points for. If you play with jerks, this might not work great. Also, you have to be very careful not to be too generous: I was at the start, and my players got 100-200 points per session, advancing at enormous speed. The book does tell you that actions have to serve a story purpose or goal to qualify: killing a random person doesn't get you Death Arcana, but killing someone who is in your way, or someone you hate, does. This is less about the rules and more about how you use them, though, IMO.

But the good sides are enormous and numerous. The magic system is brilliant, other than the above caveat: you can enchant materials to get specific effects (e.g. an enchanted horse-hair plume on your helm makes you stronger and faster), and you can enchant herbs to create potions and poultices, and write and enchant runes. The Arcana system got roleplaying out of my players that no game ever in 20 years, has gotten out of any player of mine. The game has some general rules for relationships between characters, and (simple) rules covering life from conception to death and judgment. The Otherworlds are cool, although they need a lot of fleshing out by the GM.

The graphic design is brilliant - the book was written, laid out, and illustrated by Mark Smylie, the creator of the comic Artesia (and of Archaia Press, which publishes e.g. the Mouse Guard comic). Too bad he's not put out any more of the comic in years... it's one of the best I've read. (Be warned, though, there's full nudity and sex.)

The biggest problem, really, is that there's not enough of the game. It's so awesome that I hate that there's not much, much more of it.

[LibraryOgre]

Planescape had that as a setting feature, but I'm unsure of how much it was implemented.

[AMFV]

Planescape had that as a setting feature, but I'm unsure of how much it was implemented.

They did have those factions, I think that'd be an interesting way to resolve a lot of the alignment system issues, because you'd have an easier time of figuring what was "good" for a particular alignment path.

[Rhynn]

Planescape had that as a setting feature, but I'm unsure of how much it was implemented.

Not mechanically, IIRC. It was all fluff. But the fluff was great, and the Factions do, indeed, make it concrete. They're well-described philosophies, and PCs can actually really represent and embrace them.

[AMFV]

Not mechanically, IIRC. It was all fluff. But the fluff was great, and the Factions do, indeed, make it concrete. They're well-described philosophies, and PCs can actually really represent and embrace them.

Do you think it might be possible to work that into a mechanical system or would that be too unwieldy? I'm not as familiar with spelljammer or AD&D, so I'm not sure how that would work.

[Rhynn]

Do you think it might be possible to work that into a mechanical system or would that be too unwieldy? I'm not as familiar with spelljammer or AD&D, so I'm not sure how that would work.

Almost certainly, but there's so many ways. You could probably plug in how Instincts etc. work in Burning Wheel, and/or tie beliefs to earning XP, or other stuff. Sort of "meta-game" rules, that affect how you play the game rather than what happens in the game.

[LibraryOgre]

Do you think it might be possible to work that into a mechanical system or would that be too unwieldy? I'm not as familiar with spelljammer or AD&D, so I'm not sure how that would work.

I know that in Planescape: Torment, your Wisdom and Charisma was used to determine how much you could do.

[Knaight]

I'm curious if anybody knows of any other systems where a characters beliefs or fundamental precepts can have in-game effect on the character. I'm familiar with WoD, and TRoS, and the TBW. But I'd be interested to see if there are any others like this. I think the idea of having characters whose morality affects the game is really fascinating to me. So are there any other such systems?

REIGN does this. Basically, characters can have a Passion, a Duty, and a Craving. In short, something they are devoted to, something they are bound to do, and something they want. When directly pursuing these, they provide a 1 die bonus to rolls. When going against them, they provide a penalty. Where this gets interesting is that it is really easy for the three to contradict each other to some extent; there is also GM advice that basically says to go for this given the opportunity.

[Rhynn]

I know that in Planescape: Torment, your Wisdom and Charisma was used to determine how much you could do.

That's sort of a Black Isle RPG thing, mostly.