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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>

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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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