Author: Matt Trussell

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.