The Fifth World Beta
by Jason GodeskyCross-posted from the Fifth World weblog.
The Mythos System Core Rulebook is now in a beta release. Corners have been cut and a lot of polish is still undone, but between this and the character sheet, you should have everything you need to actually play the Fifth World RPG! If you do, please let us know how it goes over on the forums; this is an open source project, so we’re relying heavily on the idea that lots of eyes makes bugs shallow.
Some of the interesting things in the beta:
- You don’t have an alignment; instead, you have an MBTI type.
- The Mythos system is designed to be light on the math, heavy on the story.
- It’s an open source system—meaning you can change the official rules, not just your house ones.
- First magic system in an RPG based on actual, ethnographic accounts of how magic is done in animistic societies, including shape-shifting, trance-dancing, and entheogens to enter the spirit world.
- The entire character creation and advancement system draws heavily from Jungian psychology.
- No classes, but there are tribes, clans, and secret societies you can belong to and advance in.
- More rules for hunting, cooking and tool-making than for combat
Now, as I mentioned, we did cut some corners. Here are the major ones:
- We know the character sheet is kinda ugly. We’ll be fixing that next week.
- The core rulebook should include at least two more chapters: “Art of the Storyteller” for storyteller techniques and considerations, and an example story for beginning characters.
- The “Emergence” chapter is going to be rewritten from scratch.
- The profiles of the sixteen MBTI types are going to be rewritten; we actually have a consultant for this, and no less than a trained psychologist from Emergent Associates, Howard Ditkoff, M.D.
- We started running out of time at the end, and skimped on the “Technology” chapter and cut some corners on the Anayok chapter. Both will get much more material than they currently have.
- I’m not sure how realistic most of the stats are. The TN’s for fire-starting given various woods comes from a table online provided by Thomas Elpel. The rest are total WAGs. Playtesting will help put those into a more reasonable range.
Most of these issues will be addressed over the next month, but none are so severe that they stop playtesting from beginning right away. This rulebook makes a lot of the previously published material on the wiki obsolete, so we’ll also be transferring the information from the PDF back into the wiki, and updating everything with the new information.
when will the “art of storytelling” be released?
Comment by Anonymous — 21 December 2006 @ 2:46 PM
First will be the new character sheet, so it isn’t so ugly, so playtesting can go a little easier.
Then comes the things that need rewritten, so the beta isn’t quite so embarrassing–the “Emergence” chapter and the MBTI profiles, particularly.
Then we’ll be adding the stuff that’s missing, starting with the “Art of the Storyteller” chapter–and yes, plenty of juicy tidbits on how to incorporate animist storytelling techniques into your GM’ing style. Then the sample story, expanded technology section, etc.
But none of this is even going to start until January, and much of January will be taken up with the challenge of the d20 Campaign Setting for IntWoCreMo.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 21 December 2006 @ 4:31 PM
[quote]so the beta isn’t quite so embarrassing–the “Emergence” chapter and the MBTI profiles, particularly[/quote]
Huh.
I didn’t think the MBTI profiles were that bad. I see room for improvement, but I wouldn’t call them embarassing…..
Comment by jhereg — 21 December 2006 @ 4:55 PM
It’s the “Emergence” chapter that’s embarrassing–the MBTI profiles were ripped off from some website.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 21 December 2006 @ 4:57 PM
Part of the difficulty there is in providing a suitable synopsis and framework without actually using recognizable characters. Otherwise you risk boring or confusing your readers.
You may want to think about breaking up the various sections a bit and insert a (very) short story highlighting a specific instance of each section at the head of the appropriate section.
You’ll probably have more success at both drawing the reader in and providing the desired context to “get” the rest of the material.
On the other hand, that’s a fairly daunting task.
Comment by jhereg — 21 December 2006 @ 5:10 PM
One thing I want to add is a list of real-life historical figures for each MBTI type to illustrate.
We’re eventually going to have flavor text in between all the chapters, but for the beta release, Giuli only had time to write the first part.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 21 December 2006 @ 5:15 PM
btw, [b]loved[/b] the intro! It’s got me really looking forward to Giulli’s novel!
Comment by jhereg — 21 December 2006 @ 5:24 PM
Just a quick note to let you know that in this article your link to the Mythos Character Sheet is incorrect. The wiki entry has a lower-case “c”, not an upper-case one.
Comment by dagnabit — 21 December 2006 @ 9:22 PM
Long, critical post. Bear with me. I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t think this was a fun idea to begin with
I found the introduction section that explains the world to be deadly tedious. This is bad- the world explanation needs to be the most totally engrossing and awesome 2-3 pages of the rulebook, since it is what people are going to skim before they decide to play the game, and it will, at large, set the tone for the entire book.
Probably what got me the most was the basic tone of what I was being told. It assumed that I had a certain viewpoint and understanding about civilization when I, as a prospective player, might not have arrived at that conclusion yet. The game also hammered me repeatedly with the idea that I was somehow being taught about the future, and that I had better be taking notes. This is the wrong tone for a rulebook to take. The gamemaster sets the game, and you are giving him a setting and tools to let him do so. A statement of purpose for the game system is important- but it is not what is going to get people to play the game. If you want people to come to a certain agreement about the gameworld, you have a lot of power to do so, but you have to do that through the setting and the world itself, not simply by telling people what your goals are.
Also, you may want to think harder about your conflict resolution system. I used to play Shadowrun, and your system is pretty similar- roll lots of dice toward a target number. While this is statistically sound, it really wrecks the moment. Either you have to buy twelve zillion dice (a problem even for a hardcore RPGamer) or you have to roll many times, writing down the result so you don’t screw it up. Dice are all about the fickle finger of fate coming in to wreck your plans- resolution needs to be swift and terrible. I found myself, as a Shadowrun GM, running a custom Hypercard application to roll dice for me and my players. This was completely awesome in the SR milieu (we even had a hypercard app for the decker to play so that he could resolve stuff in real time,) but would be wrong in this one. I picture the Fifth World being played around campfires and away from the civilization it abjures.
Comment by perianwyr — 22 December 2006 @ 1:14 PM
So, I printed and read it yesterday. Overall I thought it was pretty damn cool.
I do agree with perianwyr about the tone. when you do your rewrite, make it more of a story than a recitation of future facts.
I thought of tons of stuff to add, more totems, some dmage specs, more stuff like that.
pretty awesome. we’ll be playtesting all New Year’s weekend, so i will write a report.
Comment by Rory — 24 December 2006 @ 10:59 AM
Good points, perianwyr. That material might be better in the “Art of the Storyteller” chapter….
Comment by Jason Godesky — 2 January 2007 @ 10:53 AM