Greetings, true believers! It’s been a long, hard path to Sardonyx.
The Genesis of a System
The Storyteller/Storytelling Systems are built towards a fairly specific end – that is, horror gaming. Many games using those systems do cinematic action (Exalted, for example), and do it very well, but the primary focus of the games is on the consequences and deadliness of violence (see the upcoming nWoD supplement Hurt Locker).
From the start, Rich – our fearless pioneer on the Onyx Path – realized that the Scion and Trinity lines had very similar needs. Both involved distinct “tiers” of PC power, both involved characters who were literally superhuman, and both needed a system capable of handling that involvement.
Furthermore, both games were fundamentally derived from a pulp or action-oriented origin: literal pulp, for Adventure!, but superheroics in Aberrant and high-octane space opera for Trinity (now Aeon once more). Scion, by contrast, called back to the cinematic action of high-budget movies and the mythic action of yore, the kind seen in the Twelve Labors of Hercules or the Kurukshetra War described in the Indian epic Mahabharata. (Also, one Scion book noted you could throw an aircraft carrier straight into orbit.) So rather than try to hack one system that was originally created for horror gaming into three separate tiers of power, Rich asked us to come up with something that scales properly to all three, and was built with an action focus in mind.
The History of a System
Those of you who’ve walked the Onyx Path with us since 2012 will recall references to early builds of the system at the beginning of the next year. Until the system was built, a lot of development for both games was necessarily put on hold. Sadly, we system writers repeatedly suffered financial and medical difficulties, and the system went through four iterations – far longer than anyone thought it would take – before three developers took over in September 2014, a triumvirate consisting of myself, Stew Wilson, and Dave Brookshaw.
Around the fourth iteration, I decided the system needed a better name than Onyx Path System, so we came up with Sardonyx. This isn’t the final name of the system, just a codename placeholder, though a remnant might remain in the red and black pools.
But, hey. Now it’s done. Right now, we’ve been getting feedback from various developers and doing internal playtesting, and we’re moving forward on system development for both Scion and Trinity. We’re almost – almost! – ready for full open development and open playtesting.
It’s worth talking about our system’s goals, though. We had a number of system goals set down from Rich, and from there I developed a number of playstyle goals. You might recall some of these elements from the Mage Chronicler’s Guide for Mage: the Awakening, and since it had one of the best summations of an action-oriented D10 system, I stole from it. Stole liberally!
System Goals:
- Legacy: Evoke a legacy feeling in our fans and retaining attractive features of the prior systems used by Scion and Trinity – newbie-friendliness, ease-of-use, and a largely in-universe palette of traits.
- Scaling: A clearly defined dice resolution system capable of handling man on the street to god in the sky. The system must be capable of handling mortals, demigods, and deity battles in a largely conceptual realm. More appropriately, the ability to tailor a large number of game and game styles off of this structure.
Playstyle Goals:
- Bonding: Action is about bringing characters together in the face of danger. Others may fall apart, but the players’ band/team builds common morale with each challenge. Scions progress from bands of disparate heroes to godlings to potentially full pantheons. Scions have different Pantheons, Daredevils have social clubs, Psions have different Orders, Novas are all over the map in terms of interests and groups. There must be ties to keep the player troupe together and interested in one another as characters, and the system must aid in that (at the very least, not inhibit it, and make the GM and players’ job harder for them).
- Competence: The characters are good fighters or clever enough to make their way through combat – or whatever challenge they’re forced into confronting. They’re also at little general risk of failing in their area of expertise without significant or equal opposition. Trinity daredevils and psions are tough and highly capable, while Scions and various other divine by-blows are (often literally) blessed by the gods.
- Interesting Fights: Characters take advantage of their surroundings. Combat is tactically challenging, providing a high-action narrative-heavy focus for players.
- Pacing: Wall to wall violence and epic conflict gets pretty dull. Non-action events reinforce the establishment of the world setting, providing clues to the next action set piece, and tell the protagonists how to beat their enemies. This breaks up action scenes to keep them from getting boring; every scene is accompanied by dramatic justification.
Those were what we started with; however, as the system developed, our goals changed slightly. I’ll detail how in future teasers.
So in Sardonyx, you’ll see nine Attributes, and a number of accompanying Skills. You’ll see Edges – analogous to Merits in Storytelling – that define how characters are tied into the setting. You’ll see Paths, avenues of development in the character’s past and future that further define their ties into the setting, and can be improved via experience. You’ll see experience, at that: a linear cost to progressing the character’s capabilities.
Thanks, guys! See you next week!
…just kidding. Here’s a link to the Google Doc with a summation of the core mechanic, Consolation, and Momentum, written by White Wolf and OPP veteran Malcolm Sheppard.
Judge it kindly – it’s a piecemeal view of the system for now, but you’ve all waited long enough, so I thought I’d share the basic core mechanic of the game, without the bells and whistles of complex or multiple actions. Right now, I’ve restricted it to Mundane and Daredevil Tiers, until you see the full Scaling and Tier system; after that gets spoiled, I’ll add those elements back in.
Comments
61 responses to “[Codename: Sardonyx] Teaser the First”
I really like what I’m seeing here. The core dice mechanics seem really solid.
I’m going to be terribly poor by the end of the year. I can just feel it.
Goddamnit Ian, stop distracting me while I’m trying to read Beast.
My thoughts precisely! By god, I can’t read one and read the other!
Oh, the nightmare of drowning in utter mechanical goodness!
Neall posted this, not me.
Ah, yes, “Neall.” A beleaguered freelancer who’s written multiple books for different Onyx Path properties. We have dismissed that claim.
I am assuming direct control.
I, for one, welcome our new master.
Is the Red Pool used to create Complications? There don’t seem to be any Director centric momentum uses listed in that preview, and also no info on how Complications are put into play, they seem like a natural fit.
Interested to see what Focus and Dramatic Editing actually mean too. Looks like a solid core though.
Well i don’t dislike it on initial contact, which looks like its got a lot of room to mill about and adapt.
The give your friend momentum mechanic reminds me of Numenera’s interrupt (without the love of having to give someone else xp).
All in all it gives a good push to keep moving and even a failed action brings some level of profit besides standing there and considering your turn “wasted”.
Im curious to see how the tiers get further distinguished.
How about calling them “fortune” and “trouble” instead of “black” and “red”?
I’m assuming that the reason why the maximum size of the black pool shrinks as the tier goes up is that players are expected to spend it more frequently?
Overall, I really like this, and am looking forward to seeing more of this system. Bear in mind that I have a record of being critical when reviewing game system material, on the theory that the authors will find criticism more useful than “attaboy!” comments; so the fact that my critique is so light should say something.
This is getting so very exciting.
Wow!I really love what you did with the rules! Fixed dice pools, fixed target number, 10s always count double, … I love that.
I am really confident that this might become my favorite variant of the storytelling games.
Very intrigued to see where this goes, my daughter and I love playing Scion.
Thank you for this update!
First of all, I love the working title/name for the system. It sounds exciting yet there is a slight ring of impending doom to it. Please keep it!
Regarding the system itself, it looks very solid so far, though I have to agree with Dataweaver’s comments.
Regarding the pool names,I would change the names of the black and red pools. Dataweaver offered the solutions of “Fortune” and “Trouble”, though I would consider “Fortune” and “Dread”. “Fortune” as a pool name implies luck and Good Things, while the name “Dread” implies Bad Things the players might fear.
Will you be doing the same as for nWoD again, so you’ll publish a Core Book for mundane humans, and specific system books for Scion and the other systems where you apply the special template later on during character creation? This will free up word count for the specific books, and many players will want to start out as a human and become (aware of their potential as) a Scion/Superhero/What have you later on. Starting at tier zero as it were.
I guess I’ll have to start increasing my Wife Faction again…
Will you be doing the same as for nWoD again, so you’ll publish a Core Book for mundane humans, and specific system books for Scion and the other systems where you apply the special template later on during character creation? This will free up word count for the specific books, and many players will want to start out as a human and become (aware of their potential as) a Scion/Superhero/What have you later on. Starting at tier zero as it were.
They’re doing something similar, but not quite like that. Scion and Trinity will both have mortal corebooks, rather than there being a single universal mortal corebook – both games use the same core system, but with their own particular widgets applied from the ground up.
Pretty much this, yes. I designed Sardonyx as a framework; it won’t go by itself into a book, but it’s meant to have a lot of systems hanging off it and setting integration from the get-go. You’ll see Scion: Origins and Trinity Continuum, not a generic core.
As mentioned, not a single generic core book, exactly.
Scion gets Scion: Origins, which will include Scions just awakening to their divine heritage as well as other playable mythological creatures, like dryads. So it’s not just a book about humans.
The Trinity Continuum gets the Trinity Continuum rulebook, which includes rules on Talents (the modern term for Adventure!’s daredevils). So again, not just baseline humans.
We want to give everyone a decent amount of bang for their buck, so you get non-baseline character types and settings to explore in addition to just the rules.
Beast, Sardonyx and apparently Ex3 is close to being done as well… where am I going to find the time? Why does Onyx Path torment me so? 2015: the year of RPG overdose.
Going by the first couple of pages, this looks awesome. Now I’ll go and actually read it all the way through.
I will explode with glee now.
Gleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Seriously, I will be very interested to see Sardonyx and Exalted 3rd ed running side by side if there are significant differences in tone beyond a simple focus on high powered gameplay that can to be rooted in mechanics. As it stands for me, even most moderately mechanically heavy systems out there now feel like they shy away high power levels leaving only very mechanically light systems like FATE and blessed Nobilis to fill the void.
Gleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
First of all, I’m really excited to hear that Trinity is moving forward.
Overall, I like the new d10 system, except on 2 points:
1) Botching: is this really necessary? It adds needless complication and I do not see the benefits other than punishing players for bad luck on dice. If you absolutely must keep it, at least have it tied to character capability (for example, must have 0 successes AND 1’s equal to skill rating to botch).
2) Momentum. This seems needlessly complicated and requires a great number of dice to keep track of. I also feel that the red/black pools are unnecessary and create too much out-of-character meta-game language that is jarring from an immersion standpoint. I don’t think the momentum idea is bad though—but needs to be simple. Changing the options to Director offer of Consolotion OR Immediate Aid is enough. If you really want to keep momentum, I would suggest simplifying it. For example, when you fail/botch, gain 1/2 tokens for yourself or give them to another player. Each can be spent to add an Enhancement Success.
Yeah, you and me both on the Trinity front. As to your comments –
1) I don’t think it’s punishing the player overly much for ill luck, considering they get Momentum for the botch, but…
2) A big part of Momentum is providing the feeling of ebb and flow over the course of several rounds of a tense situation (not just combat!), and changing it from a pool to an immediate bonus would negate that. I don’t feel it’s needlessly complicated, especially if you use physical aids (literal black or red dice, or poker chips, or M&Ms) for the pool. However, like everything else in this system, I’m interested to hear how it works in play and how to streamline if the system turns out to be complicated to the point of impeding play.
I commented in another post about my reservations on these parts too (momentum). You’ve brought up something in your comment that I wanted to pick up on quickly. A lot of my gaming has been over Google hangouts and I don’t bother with virtual gaming tables (I haven’t mapped anything in years). Having visual aids like poker chips etc is entirely cumbersome to the verge of being pointless in my experience in this kind of scenario. Just FYI in case that hadn’t been considered.
Yeah, I do most of my gaming over Skype and Hangouts these days. It’s something that was indeed considered, but I usually kept a manual count of the pools in the side chat in our internal plays. Then again, just because I found it fine doesn’t mean much, so I’m interested to hear how it turns out. Once the playtest gets going, I’d be happy to share some of my online insights with you, so your play goes smooth (and hey, it’s more techniques fodder for the eventual GM chapter).
Interesting 🙂 I’ve found the side chat isn’t really a great place for in-game admin. Then again, I’m not one for tokens / tracking pools etc – they’re a big turn-off for me. Just a personal preference.
Momentum’s basic design principle is, “What if we took a common gambler’s fallacy and made it real?”
We want failure to be both meaningful and contribute to an ongoing story. Many games have fail-forward systems that do this and we give a nod to them, but the real function of failure is pacing and tension building. Failing forward sometimes hinders this by providing a constant trickle of changes and progressions, when we want stories to hit highs and lows. Momentum encourages you to take the lows and st up for the highs. You don’t *have* to–you can manipulate it in small bits of you want–but it’s there so that there’s a solution for blowing a bajillion rolls in an evening that is more than “There there, have a little something anyway.” The option is there (Consolation) but the toolbox is bigger than that.
Hmm. I can see the reasoning, but it still feels like momentum is a solution looking for a problem. I’m not sure mechanics of the scope provided are needed for most of this, and could just get in the way – especially if the plan for the various games is to modify / extend these principles. That has the added complication of potentially making it more difficult to ignore it completely out of the box). As I said in another post, proof will be in the playtesting 🙂
Great to see some hard information on the new system, congrats for getting to this stage everyone! 🙂
It looks interesting, some great items in there such as tiers changing difficulty for example, double successes, fixed target numbers etc. Really liking these points.
I have reservations that some of the options may slow play down a little (steps 4-6 in the core mechanics procedure need some play-testing before I can really judge – at first glance it appears a little cumbersome).
Also, I’m not yet convinced about the ‘never really failing’ concept of momentum / consolation mechanics – my preference is to fail or succeed and move on quickly. So this part of what I’ve read just doesn’t do it for me at first glance – it just feels unnecessary to me.
But, I’ll hold on to see how this plays out in the play-testing as its just too early to really judge that part right now.
Again, congratulations on getting to this stage everyone, its a great achievement 😀
It’s less failing-forward and more encouragement to come back fiercely. There’s an element of risk and reward involved. But yes, I really want to get the playtest materials finished so we can take a thousand hammers to this system and see how it holds up.
Ok, that makes sense in terms of your intent – although I’m of the mind that you don’t need a mechanics process for ‘encouragement to come back fiercely’. Definitely looking forward to some play-test documentation 😀
In the ST system — geared primarily for horror games — failure is meaningful in and of itself. If you trip and fall, the axe murderer gets close and may catch you. Trying to stay up all night to avoid the world of living nightmares, you fail and fall asleep.
In the sorts of stories we’re emulating, “failure” is a usually a temporary setback or a hurdle. It builds dramatic tension, but we know our plucky heroes will most likely save the day by the end of the episode. I think Sardonyx handles that well.
However, in the ST system there’s nothing stopping you getting back up and having another go. And for what its worth failure can (and arguably should) be meaningful in any game. So I’m not really sure how the ‘setback’ thing is that much of an issue.
I guess I’ve never had that problem as a player or GM, certainly not enough to warrant a process at a games mechanics level to grant a measure of success when there is failure.
I like to see some failure. Breeds character 😉
Joking aside, my main point is that I think having mechanics of any real complexity in place for this actually get in the way. Add that up with all the other components presented and I’m concerned about speed of play based solely on the (granted, limited) preview.
Can’t remember how Storyteller does it (it’s been a long, long time) but in Storytelling repeat attempts incur dice penalties – you’re less likely to succeed with subsequent attempts.
This system makes you *more* likely to succeed with subsequent attempts.
Possibly – If it did I never used it, so never had that problem. In any event that doesn’t address a preference for less mechanics mid combat, not more. I’m still not convinced failure needs to be compensated for at a mechanics level anyway 🙂
I really dig what the momentum is attempting to achieve, although I do have reservations on the efficiency at the table. As many have said, let’s see it in test. Hope it succeeds! 😀
Sorta feels like having a limit break in FFVII. A game changer that you never quite know when you’ll get it. Sounds fun.
Excellent work and High Kudos for you. I went through the document and found the dramatic tension system to be workable. Not knowing how its going to impact other bolt on mechanics makes judgements at this point difficult. That being said, as a person who has had several successful scion stories and a few great exposures to the trinity universe.
That being said, a brief reminder from a group of devoted fans. There has been some concern from our group about trying to tie the scaling mechanics of Scion and Trinity together. While both are highly cinematic and very powerful, Scion represents operating in the universe (or overworld) on a scale that dwarfs trinity in this 2nd and third phase. I just want to pass along a reminder that we although we love your stuff, we don’t want EpicD10 to become another MCU (Marvel Cinematics Universe) where gods and heroes have to have about the same level of power so they can play together.
So keep doing what your doing, I like where the momentum swing is going (kinda reminds me of spending chips in old school deadlands) and its definitely going to incentive more outlandish stunts. Just a reminder that simmilar seeds often grow in different ways and sizes and that’s ok. We deeply appreciate your work and look forward to seeing its progress in the future *SCION 2016!!!!
The two game-lines are not tied together other than by both starting with the same base system that won’t break at the upper tiers. The additional rules covering the specific games will cover your concerns, I think. Thanks!
Looks interesting. Definitely makes for a more dynamic game. Two things that stick out to me that I hope are addressed further:
Momentum pools seem like a tool that will be benefited by players biding their time, or by directors doing the same. Scion had a real problem with an arms race between how Dexterity effected both “to hit” and “DV” numbers. I hope that Momentum is not leaned on too heavily to help fix that dilemma.
I’m hoping that right off the bat some hard-fast numbers are being given as examples for Difficulty. Additionally, Difficulty needs rock hard numbers to point at in the books at higher tiers. Nothing is more frustrating than being told to “wing it” when it comes to difficulty. It causes players and directors to have two different preconceptions of what a character’s skills really are.
I know I may sound negative, but its only because I really love the Scion setting that I’m so extreme in my expectations.
I don’t know if it’ll make it into either corebook (being neither Ian nor Neall,) but the raw Sardonyx system includes a table of “how many dice, at what tier, do you need to have a 50% chance of beating difficulties”.
Also, I find that Storytelling is better and clearer about these things than Storyteller is – almost every nWoD player can tell you that you have a reasonable chance of success with three dice, and it’s because the games emphasize the point. But in Storytelling, difficulty is always done by dice-pool manipulation – one die hitting the TN is all you ever need. That works for a gritty horror game, but Sardonyx is an action-adventure engine, so needs to differentiate degrees of “success”.
I’m assuming that Daredevil is a higher tier than Mundane, so why do Daredevils get smaller black pools than Mundanes, and why is their Focus maximum lower?
Daredevils have a lower black pool because they have a power stat (Inspiration) that can Do Stuff. They’ve got options purely mundane characters don’t.
This is a trend that continues as characters grow more powerful.
I see. Thank you for the reply.
It looks really interesting and I cannot wait to see the new system for Scion, Trinity, Aberrant, and ( I think) Exalted3ed.
I am curious about one thing, the cinematic combat and adding of advantages reminds me of the system for Star Wars Edge of the Empire and Age of Rebellion. Were those systems an inspiration for this new system?
Sardonyx is an Onyx Path-specific system. Exalted is still a White Wolf property. It’s not using Sardonyx.
Currently only Scion and the Trinity Continuum games are using Sardonyx.
Oh well. *sad but philosophical shrug*
I thought the new exalted system also used a momentum mechanic to make combat more exciting. I am guessing there will be some similarities.
Maybe they do, but Exalted 3 and Sardonyx were made independently of one another. I don’t know that anyone on the Exalted team has looked at Sardonyx, or vice versa.
Yep, this Momentum & Consolation sound like the Threat/Advantage from Edge of the Empire, they differ in that they’re given by the director not by chance (of the dice) and only in failures, as i understand them.
But sounds pretty much positive rather than a Threat in Star Wars
They reminded me of the Plot Points and Trouble Pool (or Doom Pool or what have you) in various Cortex System games, but I’ve read those rules more than I’ve read the rules of the FFG SW games.
you should open source the core system
Do you hear that? No, well it was my wallet crying but i don’t care
Take my money Onyx Path
Just got though reading it. Do I detect influences form Marvel Heroic Role-playing? If so, Thank You, because MHR had some great ideas about how to handle the action-hero narrative (to quote a young Austin O’Brien ‘the hero only dies when the grosses go down’) and a lot of people will now never even get the chance to purchase it (and I will never be able to play as Shuma-Gorath in MvC3 🙁 ).
It’s good to know that MHR will live on in spirit.
Sorry, ninjad
The Target Number seems to be the same for Mundanes and Daredevils (8), is that a typo?
No. Higher Tiers get lower TNs.
Yay it’s named Aeon again!
So, can the TN also shift based on the Era you are in? I assume it is generally higher in the Adventure! Era than it is during the height of the Aberrant one, for example. Can your Power Stat or knacks/powers influence the TN?
May humbly make a request: All of these analogous concepts (Edges are like Merits) should be given the same name across all the systems.
For example, my troupe is playing a game including nWoD Changing Breeds, and the analogous concepts between it and WtF are all over the place with terminology.
Thanks for reading.
This isn’t Storyteller, and this isn’t a White Wolf thing. This is Onyx Path’s.
So we’re not going to jump to use the same names for everything that Storyteller used; in fact, we’d be more likely to push to use different terminology just to ensure we remain distinct.
And I’m just sitting here, waiting for Scion 2.0