More Brain-diahrrea on an Animist Storytelling Game

Animist RPG

Make stories that connect to place, beginning with one's local watershed. A place where you can actually GO, you know? Where you can take other folks and tell "What happened here" that mattered. This game will differ from others in that way - keying off of a map of your area, you pick places you can actually go, and tell stories of what happened THERE. In fact, maybe a player can call bullshit on another player by saying "can I go there?" and then the story-telling player has to take the group there to prove it exists.

These places would hold stories in a 'dream time' sense - that either within human memory, or directly observably, one can find aspects of the landscape that one looks for.

In fact, maybe the story arc of animist RPG would have several basic scenarios, one based on reclaiming EMPATHY with the land (a 'forgiveness/gratittude' quest), one based on reclaiming family with the land (a 'coming home' quest), one based on choosing human family over false success (a 'ohana' type quest). A funeral, a birth, a wedding, a reunion. Maybe all these would go in a random-generator 'oracle', like In A Wicked Age?

Yeah, the story arc would go from one to another, escalating stakes, combining the everyday family drama with demonic and spirt courting of the local land relatives/gods, and also struggling with the local Machine agents (civilization).

The bottleneck of trying to make it through this last little time before the end decades of collapse, keeping the land alive and appreciated, plugging leaks and balancing out forces as best as possible.

HUGE REALIZATION

To wit: it could work like the In A Wicked Age Anthology machine, but each series of location, character, etc. would come from the festivals, feasts, and worthwhile events of the Neogypsy life. Thus the demonic adversaries would come from that too.

I want to avoid players playing the Dark Machine side, but maybe they have to, to make a good story? Does the GM have to? Eh?!

Players receive "fan mail" for good role playing, which they can put towards building new connections/relationships with humans or wights.

CONCRETELY

Stats/traits distributed on character sheet, shaped like tree: family and friends hang like fruit from the branches, one's land the trunk of the tree, one's ancestors the roots.

A bandanna = one's characer sheet = spirit bundle = assortment of objects that underscore relationships = mobile nature museum = bundles w/in bundles

each object adds coins to one's 'spare change' coffer (tiny box/cup that holds your change)

You play yourself
-your traits
-you step through the 'doorway to the land of 1,000 Kings/the game gives you permission to tell story this way
Fanmail = stuff you can't use yourself, but that you can offer to other players to help them (scavenger hunt for objects that will count as fanmail - the harder the hunt, the higher tracking level needed and/or developed)

Objects that come from Real Places on the Land. Soil from where your mother birthed you.

Spare Change random resolution: penny, nickel, dime, quarter.

You 'take damage' by losing coins in relationships. Once you go down to zero, that relationship turns into a Demon, and starts gaining power. Your opponent picks where to injure you.

Key words that create a conflict Demon. Trust, Grief, Anger, Self-doubt, Addiction, Entitlement. You start out with one conflict Demon. You claim it by telling a story from your own life when you struggled with this "demon'. Every time you lose a conflict involving this demon it gains one coin. If you win twice in a row, it reduces a coin.

A player can heal Demons only with the help of another player.

The focus of the game revolves around keeping the Land 'alive'. It's 'spiritual health' goes up or down (starting in a place the players choose), depending on the connection of the players to it, how well they court it and tend to it. Once it goes to zero, the Land gives up in grief, shrugs off her children, and starts over (or dies...). Once it gets to ten, the present cycle ends a new one begins.

You can raise coins in relationships by courting them. Whoever you have a relationship with has the same size coin in a relationship with you.

Coins go in circles on character sheet tree. Concentric rings with 4 sizes of circles. Blood, Bond, Trade, Introduced.

Quarters = Blood
Dimes = Bonds
Nickels = Trade
Pennies = Introduced

Relationships used once per game, unless refreshed by a courting scene. Relationships used go up a coin size between games, plus the amounts of time you refreshed it during the game.

Sets: home turf. You have relationships with certain places, and then a larger relationship with the Land itself. On your home turf you have more coins to throw, in essence.

Players can offer one bonus coin per scene to another player. Bonus coins/fanmail come from Scavenger hunt items that the GM rewards with one of the four coins, according to the item and the story behind it (the player sells it, telling the best tall tale full of travails and successes they can). They also can come from a story that you know of another player, in real life, that shows they have experienced a (distantly) similar situation.

Conflict Escalation and Taking the Blow:
Talking reduces die in Family and Friends
Physical reduces die in Land
Cursing reduces die in Ancestors
Praising raises die in Family and Friends
Dancing raises die in Land
Blessing raises die in Ancestors

Or...
Talking, Physical, Killing/Cursing.

or..
You can only use each relationship once per game.


All the rules on the character sheet, in an envelope, in the bundle.

Start the game by lighting a candle with a bowdrill fire, and everyone gets one bonus coin.

Baskets, bundles, boxes, and pots: four different bundles.

Teaching the Game:
The game has many levels of play. You start out at the simplest level. Each session adds a level of rules, until finally you have the whole ruleset in play.

Killling someone adds a Demon to your character sheet. Your family all share demons.

CONFLICTS

Look at their relationship map. Each branch represents an in-group. Conflict one branch's goals with another's. Conflict one person's goals with another's of the same branch. Etc. Conflict what an ancestor wants with what your brother wants.

Put your family members down as your first relationships, including immediate family (uncles, aunts, grandparents). If you have a pet, put them down. They all start at a penny. Put down your favorite animal, tree, plant, bird, fish.

If someone else has the same relationship (with the same being) as you, your coin there falls a level each time you conflict with them, at the end of the scene. You also can't use that relationship against them.

NEW RULE

When you 'take the blow', and lose a coin, you lose that coin until you set a special scene to court it back, or at the end of the session. Every time you use lose a relationship coin, it goes up in size between games.

Stakes determine whether or not you die (if you've staked your life on it!), how you get injured, consequences and such.

If you die, you become an ancestor, which means you still participate in the game, but instead of 'killing' you 'curse'.

Relationships to:

Skills, objects, family (IRL), friends(IRL), non-humans, places (personal sets) on the land, pets (IRL). Physical objects (proofs), held in a bundle, raise the coin level one. A photo of a grandma or a friend, a wristwatch, a leaf or piece of bark, a whisker, etc.

Conflicts with people with the same relationship as you cause you to lose that coin for the game. This of course will raise it up one size for the next game.

ESCALATION/BACK AND FORTH

Dogs in the Vineyard seems to most powerful parallel the rhythm I want, of call-and-response. What a genius. I wonder if you could do that with cards?

low stakes, because, like you said, otherwise they won't hesitate for a second

big bad raises, because those'll make them want to escalate