About the Mythic GM Emulator

Now the rubber meets the road. I've got a character, and a module, and it's time to apply the Mythic GM Emulator. Being me, I'll write out what I'm doing.

The core of MGE is the fate chart. It works like this...

Formulate a question: Does Ilse know who she really loves? Does Indy speak Jovito? Is Saulot in another castle?

Then assign it some odds, ranging from "impossible" through "no way", "very likely", and so on, through 50/50, to "somewhat likely", "near sure thing", and all the way to "has to be".

Now, roll 1d100 and check the chart row for the odds you selected. There's a number there, ranging from (at the outset) 5 for "impossible" up through 95 for "has to be". If you roll that number or below, the answer is yes. If your roll less than one-fifth the required number—like 10 if you're checking a 50/50 kind of question, where the target number is 50—you get an exceptional yes, and if you roll the upper fifth of the failure range, you get an exceptional no. As a gracious service to those of us who are slow on math, those fringe numbers also appear on the chart.

There's an interesting complication here. In addition to the likelihood of the question you're asking, you consider the chaos factor. This is a number from 1 to 9 reflecting the overall weirdness and unpredictability of things. The higher the chaos rank, the more likely it is that answers will be "yes" and that random stuff in general will turn up. Take 50/50 questions. At the outset of an adventure, the chaos rank is 5, and there's a 50% chance that 50/50 questions will get the answer "yes".  At chaos rank 4, the chance drops to 35%, and all the way down to 10% at rank 1; at rank 6 it's 65%, up to 95% at rank 9.  Likewise with all the other probabilities.

You adjust the chaos rank at the end of each scene, applying the sensible standard of whether things got more or less chaotic. Did the characters achieve goals and establish order? Knock the rank down. Did surprises happen and things run amok? Raise it. And so on.

There's also some neat charts for random events. Anytime you roll doubles—11, 22, 33, etc.—and the first digit is equal to or lower than the chaos factor, something random happens. A chart suggests a variety of possibilities for event focus: a remote event that has or will bear on the course of play, a new NPC comes into play, there's significant progress toward or away from one of the character's ongoing goals, and so on. Each comes with a neat discussion, and there are examples, to show ways you might apply this unexpected stimulus.

Then there's the event itself. Way back when, Lee Gold wrote up how she used a thousand-character kanji dictionary as a source of gaming input—roll d1000 twice, look up the two characters, and try to construct a connection. Voila, gaming input. I know Lee didn't invent that kind of technique, but I always associate it with her anyway. So when I say "MGE has a Lee-like pair of charts", I'm only explaining an association in my mind. This is my mind, and welcome to it. Anyway, there are two 1-100 charts, one for actions, and one for subjects. Let me break out the dice and make a few rolls...

78 for action, 25 for subject. That's "cruelty" and "friendship". A friend turns cruel? The character is cruel to a friend, intentionally or otherwise? The character befriends someone who's been cruel?

57 for action, 91 for subject. That's "create" and "weapons". Possibilities abound, particularly for a pacifist like Deepleaper.

One more. 34 for action, 83 for subject. That's "lie" and "riches". A wealthy liar? Someone lying in hopes of riches? Someone lying to a rich person, or on behalf of one?

MGE recommends some record-keeping. In particular

#1. A list of NPCs, both those who've actually appeared and those who've been mentioned. It doesn't have to be exhaustive—"a bunch of farmers" is entirely sufficient for many purposes. It's just to make sure that potential hooks are there for you to see and remember them whenever it might be handy. Major NPCs naturally get more length and detail about who they are and what they've done.

#2. A record of the chaos rank, discussed above.

#3. Threads. This is MGE's label for all the ongoing plot elements. "Get the thing" might be the opening of a thread, with successive scenes including elements like "ask X where the thing probably is" and "recruit Y to help get the thing" and finally "got the thing". You should keep track of open threads even if they haven't been acted on in a while, so that they don't get forgotten, and then note when they're closed—successfully or otherwise, brought to a definite end—so that they might provide fodder for sequels.

Now, folks with MGE experience often comment that it's not always the best tool for running preexisting plots. There are several reasons. one is the really neat bit coming up.

At the start of each scene, you have a short sense of what it's going to be about, with a starting hook. But before going on, you roll a d10, and if it's equal to or less than the chaos rank of the moment, it gets transmogrified. Depending on the particular roll, it might be an altered scene or an interrupt scene.

Altered scenes are just what they sound like. You go to meet with your client, but he's been kidnapped, and you might be able to catch up with the abductors if you hurry. You climb over the final pass to the meadow you seek, only to find that the river from the glacier above is in flood, and your way is blocked. You start laying out the surprise party for your friend, but she comes home unexpectedly early. Your goal is still there, but there's something surprising in the way between you and it.

Interrupt scenes revolve around complications out of left field. The random event charts described above provide an intrusion that has nothing to do with the character's goals but have to be dealt with anyway. Strangers who must be dealt with, disasters, orders from the authorities, all kinds of things can take the character away from existing goals and to another matter, for a little while or a long time.

Once you know the general framework of what's going on, then you resolve things with the rest of this system and whatever other rules you're using. (I haven't looked in any detail of the rest of the Mythic system because I know I want to use HeroQuest right now, but on skimming it looks very narrative-friendly and I may try it out later.) At the end of it, you have a short set of notes to yourself about what happened, who was involved, what the chaos rank is now, and like that.

There's more in the book, including compact, excellent advice on things to consider in building worlds and adventures, and a really wonderful extended example of play that includes both continuity and chaos as ongoing elements, demonstrating the kinds of surprises the system can generate and ways that the human element of the game can take them and surprise right back.

I suspect it wouldn't be a lot of work to adapt this whole thing to HeroQuest, shifting from percentages to difficulties and masteries and all, but I don't feel up to that when I have, you know, paying work needing my attention. I'll use it as is for now in combination with HQ and see how it goes.

Oh, yes, to answer the three questions early on...

Exceptional no: No, Ilse doesn't know who she really loves, and both yearns and fears to let herself ask the question and find out for sure. Her ambivalence and shifting internal allegiances will be a major driver of character in Casablanca.

No: Dr. Jones doesn't know Jovito, and therefore Belloq can get away with his heisting of what Indy's snatched from a tomb at the start of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Exceptional yes: Not only is Saulot in another castle—the Vienna chantry—but he's in Tremere. Boy is the clan in for surprises, come the Final Nights.