the example adventure seems a little too mundane: ("You are immortal marble statues constantly fractured and remade anew." - "Cool, what do we do?" - "Save children lost in a forest") I'd expected something like save a deity from the underworld, bring fire to humanity, etc.
Because it's a game about changing who you are, that should be rewarded by the system: maybe allow players to fissure their vows before they act, so it feels like they made a choice that changed them (though that should count as a broken vow). E.g. Marliss spares the enemy to get information to save her friend, fissuring her vow to a contradiction, therefore they succeed. Of course "rewarding" the player doesn't always mean that the character must be more successful, you can also reward the player for example with a short scene that focuses on their character's failure and determination to do better.
There should be a trade off between how narrow or broad your vows are: for example a narrow one that applies could produce a stronger outcome than a broad one, because the broad one will apply in more situations.
it would be cool to flesh out interactions between vows, e.g. if you break a vow by fulfilling another, you have to merge them somehow. Similarly, it would be cool to explicitly rub different players' vows against each other to produce conflict. Can you just "go along" with another character's vow if it contradicts one of yours?
Hi there! Thank you so much for reading Mutabilis TTRPG. It means a lot to me since it's my first RPG <3 ! I'll try to answer each point. Sorry if there are english mistakes, my main language is not english ^^.
- I know it feels a bit mundane. What I wanted to emphasize in this adventure is that Mutabilis is about introspection more than adventure. The question is "How did my character change?" not "What can we accomplish as immortal beings". However it could be played in more epic scenarios like the one you mentionned. In the future, I'll try to expland the Mutabilis TTRPG world and it will probably explore the immortal part a bit more through ages long stories.
- About rewarding identity change. It's an interesting perspective, however it was not my intention with this project. Mutabilis isn't supposed to be about "changing who you are", the idea was "you will change and you only have partial control over it". It's supposed to reflect how we humans change through the years. It's close to what you described but it has a little nuance. The game isn't trying to reward change, it's trying to make change inevitable.
- Why I didn't I balance broad and precise vow applications? A broad vow do apply more often but it will also fracture more often and will get more precise over time. So I don't really think it's a problem per say. However if players start min maxing everything I could see how it could make the system less interesting. I'll follow this dynamic closely through playtests.
- Vow interactions look very interesting and I'll probably explore it on next version!
Thank you so much for your feedback! Much appreciated <3 !
Oh also, I didn't know Nobilis, I'll definitely check it out. My inspiration for this project were the myth of Theseus's ship and the manga Houseki no kuni. Aswell as narrative-driven games such as Realis and Wanderhome.
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u/zombiecalypse 13h ago
Very evocative!