Category: Roleplaying

One important feature of personae is their relationship to the jinja. Kannagara assumes that all personae have a close relationship with a particular jinja, just as Ars Magica assumes that all characters have a close relationship with a particular covenant, and the stories develop around that jinja. There are several different close relationships that a…

Character creation is an important part of any roleplaying game. While it is sometimes thought of as part of preparing to play, it is part of the game in many cases, most notoriously in the original Traveller, where your character could die before character creation finished. For new players, however, character creation often does not…

The development of personae is a very important part of Kannagara. Personae get better at what they do, and gain new abilities. Sometimes, they even transform into something other than what they were. Because this is such an important part of the game, there is an important principle that I want to respect. Any persona,…

The elements of a creation are the concrete features that the players know about, and that allow them to describe the creation in the game world. The elements will, obviously, vary depending on what is being created, but their game-mechanical role will be more constant, and so can be described here. Concepts and embodiments include…

Once you have the inspiration, it is time for the perspiration. Embodying the idea seems to work well as a single action, with the result being compared to the difficulty of the creation. Now, I want revision to be a normal part of creation, so the first result should generally not be high enough to…

What would make good mechanics for creation? The first point is that it is important to make it possible for several personae to cooperate. In the real world, a lot of creation is done by individuals working alone, but even then, not all, or even most, of it. In a game, you must give as…

The products of creation are an important part of the game, so their description does not need to be particularly simple. They are, for example, as important as characters, if a little less important than personae, and so their description could certainly be as complex as a character’s description. In particular, a creation need not…

What rules enable the personae to create matsuri, or indeed anything else? Creation is a central part of the game, so it should not be resolved by a single roll. That would not give it enough emphasis in play. In addition, if creation were represented by a single roll, it would be difficult for players…

Matsuri are the fundamental activity in Shinto. Indeed, a book recently published as an introductory text for people training for the priesthood is called “Jinja and Matsuri”. In contemporary Shinto, most matsuri are extremely ritualised and solemn, but some involve mobs of people running around the town with a giant wooden penis. There is a…

The third possibility for the success or failure of a single action is the creation of options. Success on one action might make it possible to take a further action, while that action is not possible if the first action fails. For example, if a persona convinces a character to talk to her, she then…