Shapeshifting in Mysteries of the Yokai

Shapeshifting, illusion and body altering are all very iconic abilities in any kind of mystic lore. Every mythos has it’s tricksters, not just the East. Being able to alter one’s body is a powerful ability, both in terms of options it provides the character, and the impact the character makes on the reader/viewer/player/etc. Illusions, when used right, can be one of the most powerful forms of magic, tricking others into believing things that would require unbelievable amounts of power to perform otherwise.

It was important to us to make sure players could use the various kinds of abilities usually associated with shapeshifting. In the lore of Mysteries of the Yokai, there are countless Yokai and Yokai-kin that can change their own bodies; the famous Kitsune and Tanuki among those probably most familiar. But there are many beings out there who can perform a sort of shapeshifting that doesn’t quite match up to the physical-mass-reconstruction of traditional lycanthropes and body-shifters. Many of these beings are able to trick viewers into thinking things are not as they seem. This might be a visual illusion of a fake object, making themselves or objects invisible to make things “disappear”, or even a con-game so convincing, the victim tricks themselves into believing things are not the way they are. In still other cases, a shapeshifter may not have the ability to turn into anything or any specific person, but could alter only parts of their body; for example, taking on the claws, wings, or tough skin of another creature.

We’ve included the “Shapeshifting” ability list from the game rules in the PDF link below. Please note that currently the Potential costs for these abilities are in the testing stage, and are very likely to increase before the final game release. We want players to be able to take these abilities in order to test them, without significantly crippling their ability to have other abilities on their character. These powers however, are significantly strong, and are currently red flagged for point costs.

 

Shapeshifting(PDF)

Mysterious Lore: Discover the New Islands

Nippon-Diagram

The world of Mysteries of the Yokai sets itself apart from the real world in many ways. Most notable of these differences is the existence of magic and the supernatural. Mysteries of the Yokai represents Japan in a way that’s informed by history, folklore, and mythological tales. But there are important changes that we have written into the canonical setting. This series of posts is meant to highlight and discuss the reasonings for these changes, giving me a platform to also discuss the fascinating tidbits of Japanese culture and history.


Welcome to the first article in the Mysterious Lore series where we discuss differences between the world of Mysteries of the Yokai and the real world. Today I’m going to talk about one such difference you might have noticed from looking at our map, the existence of new islands. Most notable of these is Hazama, the largest of the fictional islands. If Hazama existed in the real world, it would be the second largest island in the Japanese Archipelago. It is the home of the Emperor’s throne in the city of Miwa and the setting for many of the adventures we’ll write for our players.

The name Hazama is spelled using the kanji, 羽 (wings, feathers) and 間 (interval, space). The shape of the Japanese archipelago in ancient times has been likened to that of a dragonfly. If Japan is a dragonfly, then the island of Hazama would form its wings. As such, dragonflies, wings, and feathers are a common motif in the names of places on the island. The dragonfly is a recurring symbol in Mysteries of the Yokai and it happens to be one that has deep meaning in Japan too. The dragonfly is an auspicious symbol, carved onto protection charms and on samurai armor. All its meanings and appearances are too many to be discussed in this post, I’ll make sure to go into more detail at another time.

Continue reading


Captain Nakajima, Fox Officer

Notice how his Haori has a collar that makes it look like a trenchcoat?

The weary fox captain is one of The Bureau’s foremost field agents and investigators. He’s not smoking a cigarette, it’s actually incense instead. The incense smoke reveals hidden spiritual activity nearby. He’s not wearing a trenchcoat, it’s a modified Haori (that happens to look like one :P), underneath he’s wearing the standard uniform of a field officer.

Goes by: Captain Nakajima, friends call him Tatsu (Family: Tama-chan)
Male, 32 (Human form appears 47)
6ft 2 (Human)/4ft (standing fox)

A weary, no-nonsense fox who works with the Bureau of Spiritual Affairs as a captain of supernatural law enforcement. He was originally ranked as the Commissioner General of the Ministry of Justice. After 10 years of dedicated service, Tatsuma was demoted to captain. He had risen through the ranks using a human form. When he revealed himself as a transformed yokai, his honesty was met with resentment. Tatsuma’s confession damaged the reputation of the Ministry of Justice.  In the ensuing controversy, the Ministry responded with harsh demotions to his rank. He soon requested a transfer to The Bureau, hoping his experience and abilities would be of service to the newly remade agency.

Raised by loving human parents, he grew up aspiring to protect innocents as a law enforcer. This has forced him to learn to take a more convincing human form. Tatsuma descends from a clan of powerful shape-shifting foxes. Yet, his talents with shape-shifting are actually quite poor for a fox. Tatsuma’s semi-human form is the only one he is able to use for extended periods of time. He relates so much with humanity, that this identity has become part of him. For the captain, changing to this form is effortless despite him being unable to shift to much else.  It is so rooted in his identity that even if knocked unconscious while using this form, he will maintain it by default.

As human as he looks, Tatsuma’s appearance still draws attention. The captain’s hair is the amber color of his fur instead of the dark colors of regular citizens. His two fox tails cast themselves upon his shadow regardless of form. When the captain is flustered or relaxed, both of these tails might even appear. When needed, Tatsuma can force himself to look completely human, right down to every detail save his shadow. It is quite taxing on him, often distracting his thoughts. He cannot maintain it for more than a day without good rest.

The captain has faced discrimination from both sides of his upbringing. He has seen the worst of his blood kin and the human society that raised him. But he has seen the best that humanity has to offer in his parents. These hardships have motivated him to work wholeheartedly towards spirit-human relations and law enforcement. His views can be earnest though, if not a bit overzealous. He believes that if humans and spirits want to live together, everyone must learn follow the law.


Business with the Bureau

You might have heard here or there about the “Bureau Files.” While it’s something that we’ve been working on for a while, I’m here to give a formal introduction today. Bureau Files are a series of small episodic scenarios designed to provide a snapshot of the complications that arise as the cultures of spirits and mortals collide. We designed them to be small enough for one or two sessions. This gives players a chance to try things out and see the kinds of stories that can arise in our setting.

Bureau File stories focus on jobs handed out by the reformed ‘Bureau of Spiritual Affairs’. Charged with maintaining the peace between spirits and people, The Bureau’s responsibilities are overwhelming. We write Bureau Files as if they were segments of an episodic show. Each one has its own conflicts, places and characters. Each Bureau File is completely self contained, even if there might be events and links in common between stories.

The colors of the petals represent each of the departments within the Bureau.

The Mon Emblem representing the Bureau of Spirituall Affairs.

Their smaller size gives them a great deal of flexibility, which allows role-players to plug them into almost any story. Because of this, they are also quite friendly to guest writers and it’s easy for our fans take part in their creation.

While we’ve already got a couple written, it’s always nice to know which ones people want to see first. That’s why we have this nifty survey here for you guys to tell us what you want to see. True to the episodes that inspired them, we’re presenting The Bureau Files here as pitches with short summaries. Vote on your favorites now!

Vote on our Bureau Files survey here to tell us which short scenarios you want to see most: http://goo.gl/forms/uDYOFkyHLL


Skills to pay bills

We have an updated Skill list for you to check out today. This update brings a lot of changes with it. The first is some simple format upgrades to make things a little easier on the eyes. Nothing super impressive, but it gives the whole list a nice pine-fresh spring clean feel.

skillspreview

In terms of mechanics, you’ll find a lot of skills have been upgraded to include uses and examples for both combat and non-combat. Many of the ‘talky’ skills now have specific Actions you can perform in conflict situations. We wanted to show more on how you can resolve conflicts of the not-stab-you-with-sharp-things nature. Our full rulebook will have plenty of information for players and game masters on using the Tide and Morale system to resolve things like investigations and political negotiations, but we felt it was important to bake some of that into the mechanics of skills so the overall system doesn’t feel hand-wavey.

You’ll find some new skills in the list, like “Weapons – Body” which models martial arts, or lets you fight with natural weapons like claws and fangs. Some skills have changed to make them more useful, such as the Profession skill, which now lets you count as having rolled a certain minimum number when you perform checks, based on how much Potential you invest in it. And, sadly, some skills have been rolled into others; fan favorites like Boating and Sake were deemed too specific and didn’t make the team this year. You can find their use in other skills. For example, parts of Boating are now rolled into Navigation, which also allows you to use the same skill with land-based travel.

This update also marks the first version of point-costing. You’ll notice it now takes different levels of Potential to reach bonuses in different skills. These values are still very much for playtesting purposes; we’re working more on finding the levels of Potential we want to give players to use, rather than locking in final numbers for balance purposes. Please let us know how you feel about the relative usefulness of Skills. Does one skill seem far more or less useful than another with the same Potential costs? Do any of the skills feel too weak, or like they’re missing the ability to do something you think should be included? We’d love to hear what you think.

You can grab the updated Skill document on our downloads page:
https://www.mysteriesoftheyokai.com/downloads/

Or download it directly here


Modeling Alternate Kinds of Conflicts – Football!

The big game is tomorrow, and being here in the Seattle area, we’re extra excited. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean we get the weekend off, so I thought ‘Why not write a post about playing football in Yokai?’

Our conflict rules are designed to work similarly for not only physical combat, but things like social debates and investigations. In the coming weeks we’ll have examples how you can use the same rules for playing out all kinds of conflicts without needing differently functioning systems. But tonight, I’ll show you how you can make up your own content for the rules in the book to play out any kind of contested event between groups.

Football In Yokai

Let’s start with the basics of both games. In Football, you’re trying to move the ball towards the endzone, and the opponent is trying to stop you. In Yokai, you make contested Checks (3D6 + relevant modifiers) to see how well you do against someone else. You also get a +1 modifier of ‘success’ for every 3 points your total is greater than the character you rolled against. Those are over-simplifications, of course, but when you’re designing mechanics, it helps to start with figuring out what exactly players are trying to do, and how they go about doing it.

So, at the very basic level, if a GM didn’t want to do too much, you could simply have the running back make a contested roll against the Offensive Line, say Agility or Strength versus Strength or Endurance. And for every MoS (Margin of Success, or 3 points, as described above), the RB gains 1 yard. Pretty simple, if a bit boring. For a pass play, you could have the Quarterback and Receiver make an Assisted Skill Roll (both characters roll, take the highest roll, and +1 if the other character succeeded), and again, give 1 yard gain for each MoS.

If you were just doing a quick pickup match in the middle of another story, this would be fine. Our combat rules are intended to help the story flow, and if no one at the table is too interested in bogging down play with more depth of ‘combat’ for a simulation of Football, these rules would at least let you move the ball around the field. Add a quick Morale value for each team, set the Tide bars to 10 each (each 10 yards on the field), and you’re all set to go.

But what if you wanted more complex rules? For example, what if you were playing an entire campaign based around Football? Sure, you probably aren’t likely to play American Football in Ancient Japan, but it’s a good example of how a Game Master can set up skills and associated abilities to focus their games on whatever they want.

Teams

First, let’s talk about teams, since one of the most important mechanics in Mysteries of the Yokai is how the player characters work together. We use the Morale and Tide bars to simulate how a group wins or loses together, even when a specific individual may not be ‘hurt’ by the opponents. If this isn’t a metaphor for Football as well, I’m a Dallas fan (that means it is an apt metaphor, for the non-NFL fans among you, dear readers). In Football, a star player may make the memorable plays, but no one player wins or loses a game; it’s a team effort.

Basics of Football Conflicts

Action starts in both games at the line; the line of scrimmage, and the line between both Close zones in combat. In a Yokai Football game, the offensive line is trying to protect the opponents from getting in to their friendly Medium and Far zones, where the quarterback, running backs, and receivers are going to be making skill checks from. Unless your playgroup really wants to have 22 characters to track in combat, you’ll probably want to have a single ‘character’ for each line.

In Football, the Offense has 4 Downs to move the ball 10 yards. In this case, we’ll simulate this by allowing the Offense 4 Downs to break the Tide bar, which will be set to a size of 10 on each side for these conflicts. If you’re looking for even more realism, you can implement rules for penalties and alter the Tide bar even more, but we’ll keep it more simple for example purposes.

Plays in Football are generally broken down into either Runs or Passes. So, the side playing Offense will need to decide before the round starts, what kind of play they will do. The Offense should write down or otherwise tell the GM in some way which kind of play they will be performing before the down starts. If you are doing a standard “players on one side, NPCs on the other”, there’s nothing to worry about, but if you’re doing something where there are players on both sides, you’ll want to keep it secret. Similarly, the Defense needs to tell the GM whether they intend to protect against run or pass. Again, if you’re looking for more realism and options in play, you could have all kinds of passes and runs, zone or man defenses, etc.

Taking Actions

For Football, you’ll need to have some slightly different Initiative rules. While Yokai does simulate an abstract combat round where people are constantly moving and attacking, it focuses more on one character acting, followed by another. In a Football simulation, everyones actions would be happening more simultaneously, at least at the start of each play. So, for these rules, the first two characters to act each new Round would be the Offensive Line and Defensive Line. Have the characters make an opposed check. This could be as simple as Strength vs Strength, but if you’re using expanded homemade skills, this would be something like a Line Skill test and better players would have skills to use. Keep note of whoever wins this Line test and by how much, since it will affect the rest of the Round.

Next, each character on the defense side will declare their actions. Here are two basic actions that should always be available, but a football focused campaign would likely want to have more than these.

  • Blitz: This is an opposed Check between the Defense character and the Offensive Line character. This action does Tide damage if it succeeds (this simulates hurrying the quarterback or tacking the running back).
  • Cover: Choose a receiver or running back. If that character makes a Run or Receive Check (see below), you get to make an Opposed Check to stop them.

Next, the Offense should declare. Again, the order only really matters when players are going against each other, otherwise the GM should just ask players what their side is doing. Offense players take their actions based on the position they play at.

  • Quarterback: A QB will either pass the ball to a receiver, or hand it to a running back
  • Receiver: A Receiver will first attempt to get open, then can attempt to catch the ball if the QB throws to them
  • Running Back: An RB will make a Run action if they QB hands the ball to them.

Everything starts with the Quarterback, since they get the ball at the snap. From the start, the QB is going to modify their rolls by the MoS of the Line. If the Defense won the check, the QB takes a penalty to any checks they make equal to the MoS, but if the Offense won, the QB adds the MoS as a bonus.

Example: During the Line Check, the Defense rolls a total of 15, while the Offense rolls a total of 19. Since the Offense won by four points, the QB gets a +1 to any check for the rest of the Round.

The Blitz

Next, any Defense characters who are taking a Blitz action get to go. Have each of them make their Check vs the Offensive Line character. Successful checks inflict Tide damage, as noted above. If the total of this damage breaks the Tide Bar, they have sacked the quarterback or tackled the running back for a loss. Inflict the point of Morale damage, and then end the Round and advance the Down by 1.

Offense Actions

If the Defense doesn’t break the Morale bar as noted above, the Offense now takes their actions.

  • Receiver: Each Receiver character will make a Check to get open. Any defender taking the Cover Action can choose to make an opposed check against one receiver of their choice. Otherwise the receiver is only opposed by a straight 3D6 rolled by the opponent’s side, just as if they were making an attack against a target that took no defensive action. If the receiver loses the opposed check, they are not open for a QB this Round, but can try again next round.
  • Quarterback
    • Pass: This action is declared before the Receivers make their rolls, but resolved after they finish. The QB waits until each Receiver has resolved their Check to get open, then chooses one open receiver. If there are no open receivers, the QB can either wait until next Round, or attempt to make a Run action as if they were a running back (see below).
    • Hand Off: Choose one running back in the same zone as you. Make an Agility Check versus difficulty 8 (modified by the Line MoS, as described previously). If the check fails, the round ends (players and GMs looking for more realism may want to use more in depth rules for fumbles). If the check succeeds, the chosen RB can make a Run action.
  • Running Back: Once a RB receives a hand off as described above, they can make a Run action. This is an opposed check using either the RB’s Strength or Agility, versus the Defensive Line’s Strength or Agility. The Defensive Line receives a -1 penalty to this roll for every defensive player that Blitzed.

Offensive Tide Damage

In the case where either the RB succeeded at their Run Action or a Receiver caught the ball from a QB performing a Pass Action, the offense inflicts Tide Damage equal to 2D6 + the MoS of the action. End the Round and advance the Down by 1. If the Offense breaks the Tide Bar, reset the Down to 1. If the Down goes over 4, the side playing defense gets the ball, and goes on Offense.

(Example: A QB throws to an open receiver. The receiver rolls a total of 18, and the defense rolls a total of 9. This is succeeds by 9, so the offense will add +3 to their tide damage. The Offense rolls 2D6 and gets ‘1’ and ‘3’, so the tide damage is 1+3+3 = 7 damage.)

Incomplete Passes

The above rules abstract incomplete passes out of the game to speed up gameplay. However, players looking for a more realistic ruleset can use the following rules.

A QB can throw to a receiver that failed their roll to get open. In this case, the receiver receives a penalty to catch the ball equal to the defensive characters’s Agility Modifier. If the receiver wins the check, they catch the ball and inflict Tide Damage as described above. If the defender wins the roll with a MoS equal to or greater than twice the receivers Agility Modifier, they have intercepted the ball, the round immediately ends, and the sides switch offense and defense. If the defender wins the check, but by less than enough to intercept, the pass is incomplete. Immediately end the round and advance the Down by 1. Astute readers may notice the play ends, and big defense fans may want to houserule in ‘pick 6’ rules.

Playing An Actual Football Game

So far, we’ve only talked about modeling actions of Football, not actually playing a full game. Afterall, what does it mean to score a touchdown when you’re already inflicting Morale damage? How do punting and kickoffs work? Unfortunately these rules are even longer than the above, and the point of this article isn’t actually to write a Football supplement, but to get you thinking about how you can adapt your own conflicts to rules you can use in Yokai. If people actually want to see more about Football in Yokai, feel free to leave comments and we’ll see about putting together a quick little supplement book. Otherwise, we hope this has got you thinking. Even if you’re not familiar with the rules of Football, a look at these rules can get you going in the right direction for other activities. The basics of performing actions in Yokai is always about Checks, and most conflicts are going to be about opposed checks between sides. Players wanting to model something unique should think about what the characters are trying to achieve, and build actions that perform checks to do those actions. Any action that helps your side overall should inflict Tide Damage to the enemy. Want to stat out a heist? You’re probably going to want rules not only for safe cracking and security hacking, but for the distraction high-stakes Poker game going on above the vault.

 


Midnight Madness – New Setting guidebook and Sample scenario

Hey there Yokai fans, we’ve got some special treats for you today!

By now you’ve probably looked over our rules and are excited to start running your own campaigns in the world of Mysteries of the Yokai. But how do you start? Our rulebook gave a very basic overview of the setting so those of you not familiar with Japanese mythology might be hurting for some extra inspiration.

Have no fear, the Setting Guidebook is here! This new book is jam packed with all the lore and setting information you need to start planning your own campaigns. Want to know all the political factions struggling for control of the countries? From Shoguns to Clans, we got you covered. Need more info on Yokai? Magic? Ki? All right here.

“But WC” you ask. “what do you have for the working gamer who doesn’t have time to plan out a whole campaign?”. Well for those of you who just can’t wait to start playing, we have our first sample scenario “Three days ’till Midnight“.

cave-kidnapper_big

Kidnapped by a mysterious figure and thrown in a cave filled with demons while cryptic prophecies that foretell the destruction of Japan. Can you unravel the mysteries and prevent the catastrophe before the time is up?

This is a scenario for 4 players plus a game master that should take a 1-2 sessions of about 3-5 hours to complete. It comes with premade characters, enemies, and puzzles so you can get started without spending ages preparing all those things yourself. If you like you can even extend the scenario into the start of a weekly campaign, what better origin story than one you get to play?

Muo Long

As always. you can get the new books along with our rulebook on our downloads page.


First Playable Rulebook now available!

 

Tsukimono-suji2After a lot of hard work from all of us and our playtesters, Warding Circle is proud to present Mysteries of the Yokai v0.1! This new rulebook is our “first playable” version. That means that although the game is far from complete, you can finally read up on nearly every system and play through complete campaigns with just one book.

 

You can get the new version on our download page. Please take a look and feel free to send us questions, comments, and complaints at feedback(at)mysteriesoftheyokai.com or on our facebook or twitter.


Building a Character From Concept: Katashi the Emperor’s Peace-maker

Today we’ll take a look at building a character with Paths. I’m going to focus on a character idea from early playtesting, Katashi the ‘Diplomat’. Katashi is not at all what most people think of when they think Diplomat. I decided that he is a special-problem-solver for the Emperor, tasked with resolving peace between Lords who are likely to go to battle. Instead of being directly dispatched to courts to soothe offended pride, Katashi takes a more direct, hands on approach to ensuring peace. This can be anything from bribing a Lord’s counsel to advise that war is too costly, to manipulating bandit raids on the borders that will keep a province from feeling comfortable declaring war on their neighbors. I liked this concept because it gave my character reasons to go almost anywhere in the game world. He would have something to pursue for his own goals, as well as useful abilities to contribute to the party. It also lets me play a non-combat focused character without having to be all talky and social (which I suck at).

Although we have a Diplomat Path internally, I’m going to make Katashi with just the Paths currently in the Introductory Rules. I was immediately drawn to Merchant, who has a lot of skills for making deals. Even if the Merchant is generally seen as dealing with money and goods, I picture Katashi as using the same principles, but with promises and information.

Merchant Path

Discipline, Intelligence, Perception and Resolve all fit perfectly with my concept of Katashi, and Wisdom is useful, though Katashi would find himself hesitant to rely on hunches and ‘gut instincts’. Appraise will let him size up political situations, while Bargaining and Deception fulfill his more standard Diplomatic skillset requirements. He doesn’t have Etiquette yet, which means he would struggle in more traditional court settings.

At this point, I decide to find ways to make him not have to get into those court politics. I’m going to take a page from Garak from Deep Space Nine, a character I’ve always really enjoyed. Garak basically manipulated Star Fleet command by getting it’s junior officers to make his arguments for him. In this case, Katashi is going to need a cover, a way to make contacts and move around without raising suspicion. Since I have already taken some Merchant skills, I decide to go along that route. Katashi will be a traveling peddler, so he’ll need something worth selling. I put 40 Potential into Craft: Figurines (and note to myself that we need to include a good discount option for people who want crafting in our playtest options). Figurines are a really good trade skill. He could pick up a piece of wood and whittle cheap trinkets for children when there’s nothing else available, or he could craft the finest jade animals for nobility. 40 Potential is a lot, especially for a skill that’s essentially a cover, but I think I will make the figurines part of his character. Perhaps it’s his way of feeling better after his jobs are done. In a world where he may have to do ugly things in the name of peace, he finds some redemption in creating beauty as well. I now have +3 to Craft Roll, and choose to base it on Perception (he builds subtractively, by observing animals in real life and recreating them). Since I already have 15 Potential in Perception from my Merchant Path, I decide it’s probably best to take the Path a second time. Almost everything in the Path is directly useful to my concept, and the discount covers the things I don’t want. I note down double the benefits on my character sheet, and that I’ve spent a total of 240 Potential between the Paths and my Craft skill.

Taking the Path twice has given me 30 Potential in Perception, Bargaining, and Profession: Merchant. Since 40 Potential gives me a +3 to checks instead of a +2, I decide that Perception and Bargaining are very important, and spend 10 Potential on each, increasing them to 40. I now have +3 to Perception Checks, and a total of +6 to my Craft Skill. Katashi should be able to make figures he can sell almost anywhere. And with Bargaining and his Profession: Merchant Skill, he’s likely to make a good profit. I have spent a total of 260 Potential.

Now that Katashi’s cover is well established, it’s time to get back to his true goal of ‘black ops for peace’. Diplomacy will be important, even if Katashi doesn’t spend time in court, so I put 20 Potential there for a +2 modifier, leaving me 20 points remaining. I think it’s important to invest in Katashi’s Intelligence, so I spend my last 20 to raise it to 40, giving it a +3 Modifier.

In total, my spent Potential has resulted in the following Attributes  and Skills

Katashi abilities

All in all, I’m pretty happy with Katashi’s Abilities. He’s definitely an able spy and manipulator, though not in the traditional sense, made from the Merchant Path (which provides him a great cover, as well a decent source of income!). As he gains Potential during play, I’ll probably want to put some points in Etiquette (there may be times he has to bite the bullet and make direct appearances) and Investigation (he can’t always pay others for information). I may also want to invest a little in Animal Handling so that he can study animals closer for his figurine references without scaring them away.

We hope that when you design your characters, you feel free to use the Paths and Katas as a guide, and as tools to help you, not something restrictive based on their names. For example, any noble, intelligent warrior can take the Samurai Path, even if the character isn’t actually a Samurai. You could also build a very good Samurai without taking the Samurai Path at all. If you wanted to play a peasant that rose to be a Samurai, you could base your character on on the Peasant Path and add some combat skills. Perhaps this character still lacks the court charms and struggles with their reading and writing lessons, but they are an undoubted leader on the battlefield, and a trusted agent of their Lord, who overlooks their struggles with social graces.


A World Without Hit Points?

Mysteries of the Yokai uses a pretty unique mechanic for damage tracking: The Morale and Tide bars.

In MOTY, the state of the battle for each of the sides is tracked by the Morale Bar. The players represent one side of the bar, and their foes are on the other side. As either side takes actions that affect the battle, they shift the Tide Bar, which tracks the individual actions of combatants. When enough Tide damage has been inflicted, that side suffers Morale damage. Each player and NPC has a Morale Threshold; the point at which they withdraw from battle because they can no longer fight (or choose not to).

Why abstract the Hit Points of individuals into a single tracker? Partly because the focus of MOTY is cooperative. The players are working together, and seeing a comrade taken out of battle can cause even brave warriors to reconsider the tactical situation (brave is not stupid).

In addition to building side fellowship, abstracting out Hit Points allows us to let players take all kinds of actions to shift the tide of battle. A character less invested in Combat but more in talking and interaction based abilities can now still be useful on the field of war. That character would have to wait for the right time (bellowing commands at the enemy works better when you’re already winning), but could use their way with words to demand the enemy retreat. If this demand was phrased in a way that reminds the foes that they are losing, but allows them to keep honor and face (a tempting prospect for many in the world, supernatural and human alike), it is likely to succeed.

In the same way, the Morale System is not just used for physical combat, but can be used by the Game Master for any situation when two sides are competing against each other. And by using the same overall system, we keep the ability for players to still be useful. That combat heavy character may generally not help much in delicate negotiations, but sometimes it doesn’t hurt to have a strong arm at the diplomacy table, especially if you’re talking to someone who respects strength.

We chose to go with the Morale System because we strongly feel that encouraging teamwork and allowing players to stay useful in any situation, is an exciting system that fits the heart of Mysteries of the Yokai. That said, we’re very aware that this system is a bit different than many players are used to, and has potential problems that have to be addressed to avoid frustration.

The first concern most players are likely to have is ‘Why am I getting ‘hurt’ just because another player is?’. After all, why should the brilliant tactician suffer just because his barbarian teammate runs headfirst in to combat?

We address this partly by giving each character their own threshold before they must leave combat. Brave characters need not flee combat simply because their cowardly thief ally took a mere 3 arrows in their limbs, and can fight on with a jolly bellow and brag about the 5 arrows they are sporting. Still, even if you’re keeping your head down while all these idiots are getting decorated with arrows, there comes a point where you have to decide to exercise the better part of valor.

Besides just having characters react to the values of the Morale Bar differently, we can take advantage of the same abstraction noted above to let players restore Morale without being restricted to traditional ‘healing’. The character who is more a student of ‘human interaction through talk’ instead of ‘poking with sharp things’ may not be able to mix healing balms in the midst of combat, but they could play on the fact that the barbarian and thief have a rivalry going. By playing on the thief’s pride, they may inspire the thief to fight on just a little longer, boosting their Morale to keep them in the battle.

All this may sound very high level and conceptual, but we’re building it around a simple mechanical framework that uses the same rules for all these situations. We want players to have to worry less about where to find the specific rules to do something, and more about telling the stories of their characters.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on these issues. We’re doing something new here, and that tends to lead to bumpy roads at first. We want to smooth things out for as many different play styles as we can.