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      Wind in the Flowers: Re-inventing a Game

    Dynamic Nobilis

*R. Sean Borgstrom*

February 20, 2002

James Wallis requested that I help kick off the new *Nobilis* line by

creating live-action rules. These should appear in the first 2002

supplement. Right now, we call these rules *Dynamic Nobilis*. They may

see print as *Nobilis LARP* or *Live-Action Nobilis*. This decision

boils down to "pretentious and different" or "boring, awkward, and

clear". I am a pretentious person. I adore clarity. I admit to indecision.

To translate *Nobilis* into a live-action context, I had to remove the

system's dependence on the Hollyhock God -- the person running the game.

Running *Nobilis* involves a fair number of judgment calls. To allow

players to resolve disputes and use their abilities without an HG on

hand required removing most of these judgment calls from the game.

One of the major judgment calls comes when one player uses a low-level

effect to indirectly block a high-level effect. One character strikes

another with lightning. Rather than dodge, that character transforms

themselves to rubber -- a substance lightning spirits find too

distasteful to maul. The first player argues that divinely cast

lightning should damage other characters regardless of their material

composition. The second player argues that rubber is not conductive, and

would at most suffer a minor wound. The HG can't arbitrate this if

they're not there.

Replacing the notion of arbitration, therefore, Dynamic Nobilis uses the

concept of degrees of success and failure. Turning to rubber does not

negate the attack, nor is it useless; rather, because of the

transformation, the attack succeeds to a smaller degree. Instead of the

damage associated with a major success, the lightning induces the damage

associated with a minor success. Conflict resolution then passes this

result normally to the damage system.

The effect of a miracle ranges from /misery/ -- the character cannot

even begin to accomplish their desire -- to /triumph/, a total and

absolute success. Environmental factors, Gifts, and miscellaneous

miracles affect this result in a straightforward and standardized

manner. Since this is a deterministic system, players that think about

the rules hardly ever suffer /misery/. They can calculate before

attempting an action whether they would fail. This works out in the end.

The characters are half divine and generally certain of their abilities

in the tabletop system as well.

Having defined the basic system, I moved on to converting individual

abilities into this system. This is harder than it sounds, because

*Nobilis* miracles are not single-purpose abilities. Each type of

miracle has thousands of distinct applications. The main rules define,

for example, two forms of "creation miracle"; these suffice to create

cars, mountains, fire, storms, heat, cities, people, new species, and

radio signals. A rigorous system for creation miracles that does not

require arbitration was in itself a challenge -- and this was only one

miracle type.

Providing a solid conversion of miraculous abilities quickly became the

core of the Dynamic Nobilis project. I felt that this component of the

system deserved great effort, as it offered an alluring possibility. A

high-quality system for exactly defining miraculous effects would help

/tabletop/ Hollyhock Gods arbitrate the use of miracles. (Incidentally,

this is the first time the phrase "tabletop Hollyhock Gods" has appeared

in the English language.) I wanted Dynamic Nobilis to provide value to

readers, whether or not they ever stood up to play a live-action

*Nobilis* game.

I'm not sure I have anything to say about the individual miracle

conversions. Rather, they represent a methodical exploration of the

principles underlying the examples in the original rules. For example,

splashing someone with created water and burning them with created fire

both use the same miracle -- a lesser creation miracle. One miracle is

harmful; the other makes one wet. To distinguish these, one must

recognize that /creating/ fire and /burning someone/ with that fire are

conceptually separate actions, even if they occur in the same instant.

Thus, players resolve this use of fire or water as two miracles in a

row. First, they verify that the creation of fire or water succeeds. If

it succeeds, they then determine the effect of the attack. Here, in this

second phase, using a deadly weapon like fire increases the attacker's

level of success -- making it more likely they will do meaningful

damage. If not intended as a weapon, the water does no damage at all. If

the watermaker tries to spray their victim hard and leave bruises, it's

still less effective than fire.

In addition to this general project, designed to make life easier for

both tabletop and live-action groups, certain live-action issues

required specific attention. In particular, *Nobilis* effects have a

high communication overhead. If someone fills a region with white mice

and leaves, other characters should not walk in a few minutes later and

have a picnic. If someone shoots down the sun, other characters should

not lie around elsewhere sunbathing. Making a live-action game with

*Nobilis'* power level work meant finding ways to spread information

about the uses of characters' powers.

Dynamic Nobilis makes heavy use of /region clipboards/. I expect other

people have come up with this idea before. Region clipboards sit on a

table in the various areas of the LARP. People write important things on

these clipboards, such as "A miracle filled this region with weasels" or

"the mortals in this museum have turned into statues." This allows

literate players to quickly identify the prevailing conditions.

/Lazy notification/ is a more unusual device. The concept is simple.

Since time in the setting runs on mythic rather than causal lines, we

make no great sacrifices to ensure that events happen in the proper

order. Suppose that someone does something that affects the whole game

-- turns day into night or floods the setting with seawater. This

happens "instantly" in the setting, but this sense of instantaneity is

not scientific.

Basically, the event reaches each region of the game just before the

first player character or NPC that knows about the event enters the

region. The player comes into the room, notifies other players, writes

the information on the region clipboard, and then permits their

character to arrive.

This temporal structure can yield some odd events -- miraculous night

might last for hours for one character and minutes for another -- but

that's what you'd expect in a mythic universe. True paradoxes hardly

ever happen, and one never has to suspend game play to go tell people

about an event. Lazy notification makes a lot of sense in the setting,

but I'll save the details of the in-character justification for another

forum.

It is my hope that, through these devices and rules, Dynamic Nobilis

allows fun live-action play at the power level and power flexibility

found in *Nobilis*. R. Sean

      What do you think? <http://www.rpg.net/pf/list.php?f=88>

Go to forum! <http://www.rpg.net/pf/list.php?f=88>

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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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