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      Wind in the Flowers: Re-inventing a Game

    How to be a Hollyhock God

*R. Sean Borgstrom*

March 13, 2002

As mentioned in passing a few columns ago, *Nobilis* has its own unique

term for the person running the game, to wit, the Hollyhock God.

Historically, there have been endless variations on the language of

flowers; in the game's dictionary of floral symbolism, the Hollyhock

stands for ambition, glory, imagination, and perhaps a little touch of

vanity. A Hollyhock God, then, has decided that to build a new Creation

from their own imagination and share it with their players. I approve.

Since James wanted a significant amount of advice on how to run the

game, I set out to provide it. As in the Pharos Press edition, it's

narrated in character. Some of this is just me: I don't feel comfortable

telling people, as me, how to run their games. However, there's a more

important reason.

This is the section of the book most directly aimed at the reader. It is

not just presenting information; it's talking to the prospective

Hollyhock God, presenting directed advice on how they---the

reader---should proceed. In my head, this leads to a large section of

the book that breaks suspension of disbelief. Not that I expect people

to /believe/ *Nobilis*, but I do expect them to see the world as they read.

The character creation rules are written carefully to promote this, to

show the players how the subject matter plays out in the setting. The

setting material, of course, presents something to visualize directly.

Spending too much time talking about how to run the game, however,

breaks the vision and makes the reader think about /gaming/, not

*Nobilis'* Creation. Narrating it in character helps avoid this. It's a

character from the game world talking, and that reminder of how the game

world works is always there.

The advice in this book is much more detailed than in the previous

edition. Accordingly, I chose a narrator, Ianthe, with a relatively

unintrusive voice. Readers can concentrate on absorbing the material,

with Ianthe's presence as a grace note---but an important grace note.

Ianthe's advice comes in nine parts. Six cover a basic introduction,

genre, play contracts, rules interpretation, characters, and stories.

All of these are heavily optimized for games of *Nobilis*. Some of these

are interesting from the design perspective.

I've never actually been in a game that had a formal play contract,

covering how the game handles sensitive topics, describing the level of

control players have over their characters, and laying out rules for

player conduct. However, like any sane person would, I want *Nobilis* to

reach a large market that includes huge numbers of gamers and a

substantial number of previous non-gamers. I also know that its subject

matter can be fairly extreme. There is no sexual violence in the book,

because of /my/ personal hot buttons, and perhaps two uses of foul

language.

But there's some torture, some murder and maiming, a lot of moral

corruption, some horrible curses and massively ugly images, plus a huge

amount of blasphemy. This is a game of wonder and horror, and the horror

includes just about every kind that /isn't/ one of my personal hot

buttons. Resolving the conflict between "a game for everyone" and "a

game of intense wonder and horror" isn't easy; the best solution I can

find is to recommend that the players and HG (Hollyhock God) sit down

before the game and figure out what's in bounds and what's out of bounds.

Besides, think how many RPG horror stories this kind of thing avoids.

Playtesters rightly pointed out that most of the rules interpretations

in the section on rules interpretation could have gone into the rules

themselves. I'm still not sure whether I was right to leave things as

they were. My concern was fairly straightforward: first, I integrate

these into the rules, and then I write a new section of rules

interpretations; and then I integrate /those/ into the rules, and so

forth, until I find myself with a set of rules optimized for /my/

running the game instead of the average HG. Opinions on this are

welcome, although I'm not able to change it now.

The section on characters represents a detailed guide to the entities of

the *Nobilis* world, a discussion of typical social relationships

therewith, and advice to the HG on building and exploiting those

relationships. This was not so much design choice as organic evolution;

as I wrote about each of those three things, I found myself wanting to

define the other two more.

To finish up this column, I'll discuss the three remaining sections of

Ianthe's advice, all wholly *Nobilis*-specific. They cover, in order,

what Nobilis do all day, how they solve their problems, and what makes

their lives difficult. In my head, these are probably the most important

sections of the book, since they spell out so precisely how Noble lives

work.

The Pharos edition represents early work of mine, when my tendencies

towards vagary, imprecision, and hinting rather than defining were

operating at full force. I've learned better since then, and a great

deal of the new material represents me nailing down things that might

otherwise have rattled in the wind.

The first of these sections, on typical Noble activities, had one

primary purpose: free the players to act, rather than restricting them.

Working from this principle, I included a large subsection on the

personal projects of the Nobilis---their extracurricular activities, as

it were---and made an effort to make these as extreme and varied as

possible. Examples of this sort of project include freeing the souls in

Hell or sleeping with every man, woman, or adult human in general before

they die.

I stretched this idea a little bit with subsections on more dutiful

projects that nevertheless had a unique and personal character. One of

these subsections, for example, included a depiction of the Power of

Chaos' typical activities in service to the Chaos in his soul, which

include sowing disaster and trouble throughout the world, gambling, and

studying mathematics and quantum theory. There were discussions of

relatively standard activities as well.

The second of these sections discussed how Nobles solve their problems.

This represents, in essence, a guide to playing either a PC or an NPC in

the *Nobilis* world. This sought to preserve two game conventions:

first, the notion that characters don't arbitrarily fail, and second,

the idea that violence is fairly rare.

To protect the first, I highlighted the ease with which the characters

can use casually excessive force---not just violence, but also extreme

mental, social, and miraculous solutions---against problems in the

mortal world.

To preserve the second idea, I then spent time building mechanisms by

which the Nobilis could manipulate or oppose one another without

engaging in all-out miraculous combat. (It honestly is supposed to be

rare, despite the Example of Play---it's just something that I had to

cover there.)

Finally, the third of these sections discusses the opposition---the ways

the Hollyhock God can deal with the high power level and flexible

abilities of the player characters. This section was fairly

straightforward; my only purpose was to create obstacles that would

remain fun for the players rather than frustrate them.

R. Sean

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 Topics 	Author  	Date 	Latest Reply

 James and the Small Caps

<http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=81&t=81> (2) new 	Kibo 

08-20-2002 16:29  	02-10-2003 01:23 new

 Art <http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=77&t=77> (1) new 	Lxndr 

04-26-2002 07:36  	04-26-2002 07:36 new

 The Original Nobilis Club

<http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=76&t=76> (3) new 	Bret Gillan 

04-17-2002 11:28  	03-17-2003 17:48 new

 Questions & Thoughts

<http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=64&t=64> (3) new 	Pyske 

03-20-2002 18:31  	05-01-2003 13:03 new

 Noble Buddhism?

<http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=61&t=61> (9) new 	Tlaloc 

03-20-2002 12:17  	12-10-2004 01:20 new

 Noble Suicide <http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=58&t=58> (9) new

Eric Christian Berg  	03-20-2002 07:43  	01-18-2005 16:27 new

 Art Notes <http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=54&t=54> (4) new 	R.

Sean Borgstrom  	03-14-2002 16:31  	03-21-2002 03:44 new

 Ack...you just lost my sale

<http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=45&t=45> (10) new 	SteveD 

03-14-2002 04:06  	03-15-2002 06:29 new

 Onomastikon working URL

<http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=36&t=36> (4) new 	Jorge

Hernández  	03-06-2002 12:51  	08-20-2002 16:10 new

 Why do angels change names ?

<http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=33&t=33> (10) new 	philippe

tromeur  	03-06-2002 10:13  	12-10-2004 01:34 new

 R. Sean, some examples?

<http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=32&t=32> (3) new 	Arref 

03-05-2002 08:17  	03-13-2002 20:28 new

 Sounds great, BUT...

<http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=28&t=28> (2) new 	Kane 

02-27-2002 16:43  	02-27-2002 17:30 new

 Sort of backwards?

<http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=21&t=21> (8) new 	Eric Finley 

02-20-2002 14:25  	02-28-2002 09:35 new

 Programmer nature slips out!

<http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=20&t=20> (2) new 	Sean

McCarthy  	02-20-2002 13:18  	02-21-2002 10:30 new

 Object Lesson Damage

<http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=15&t=15> (1) new 	Darren

Miguez  	02-13-2002 12:45  	02-13-2002 12:45 new

 How about this?

<http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=12&t=12> (2) new 	Kristian

Lund  	02-13-2002 11:30  	02-14-2002 01:17 new

 Now, this was strange!

<http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=9&t=9> (7) new 	access.denied 

02-13-2002 07:44  	02-16-2002 21:44 new

 Briefs on the other two?

<http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=5&t=5> (5) new 	Eric Finley 

01-31-2002 18:39  	02-13-2002 10:36 new

 Forum now works <http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=4&t=4> (1) new

Sandy Antunes  	01-31-2002 17:36  	01-31-2002 17:36 new

 limited series <http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=1&t=1> (2) new

Sandy Antunes  	01-21-2002 17:41  	01-31-2002 17:36 new

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------------------------------------------------------------------------

    * Editing, Development, and Production

      </news+reviews/columns/wind27mar02.html>

      March 27, 2002

    * Affiliations </news+reviews/columns/wind20mar02.html>

      March 20, 2002

    * How to be a Hollyhock God </news+reviews/columns/wind13mar02.html>

      March 13, 2002

    * Naming Conventions </news+reviews/columns/wind06mar02.html>

      March 6, 2002

    * Art Notes </news+reviews/columns/wind27feb02.html>

      February 27, 2002

    * Dynamic Nobilis </news+reviews/columns/wind20feb02.html>

      February 20, 2002

    * Systems Change </news+reviews/columns/wind13feb02.html>

      February 13, 2002

    * Treachery </news+reviews/columns/wind06feb02.html>

      February 6, 2002

    * The Emperor to Come </news+reviews/columns/wind31jan02.html>

      January 31, 2002

    * The Changing of the Guard </news+reviews/columns/wind21jan02.html>

      January 21, 2002 

      Other columns </news+reviews/columns.html> at RPGnet

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