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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>
+ Go to Top <http://www.rpg.net/pf/list.php?f=88> | New Topic
+<http://www.rpg.net/pf/post.php?f=88> | View Threads
+<http://www.rpg.net/pf/list.php?f=88&collapse=0> | Search
+<http://www.rpg.net/pf/search.php?f=88>
+
+ 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
+
+ Go to Top <http://www.rpg.net/pf/list.php?f=88> | New Topic
+<http://www.rpg.net/pf/post.php?f=88> | View Threads
+<http://www.rpg.net/pf/list.php?f=88&collapse=0> | Search
+<http://www.rpg.net/pf/search.php?f=88>
+
+ Newer Messages
+<http://www.rpg.net/pf/list.php?f=88&t=81&a=1&> | Older Messages
+<http://www.rpg.net/pf/list.php?f=88&t=1&a=2&>
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+ * 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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