Indulge me...

So MI:666 popped back up again as I finally had the lightbulb moment about mechanics.

OK, so you have paired sins and virtues, as has been suggested. - e.g. Lust/Chastity. Each of these will have a value and ala Pendragon, they will be linked and the value of the sin/virtue will be reflected as a dice pool. So, for example, you could have Lust (4)/ Chastity (3). When acting lustfully, you roll 4d6, when acting chastely, you roll 3d6.

When you make an action within the game that falls into the realm of a sin or a virtue (Almost all actions can be stuck into one of them. A combat situation is Wrath. A chase scene is Pride. Stealth is Sloth, Social skills are Lust, Endurance style situations are Gluttony, Medical can be Envy (its more like Kindness, the virtue). Still struggling a little for Greed) you roll your dice against a target number. Roll over, win etc.

The trick comes when the GM takes the role of the Tempting Devil. In any action, the GM can offer you extra dice, but will cost you points from your virtue. So, for example, the GM might off you an extra +2d6 on your roll, at a cost of 1 point of virtue. You stand a better chance of succeeding if you move towards the 'dark side'.

I'm also looking at having the difficulty numbers being ... fluid ... so that the more infernal influence there is in an area, the higher the difficulty numbers are - so you may have to be tempted or risk the horrors of probability.

The final arm of this mechanic would be that whenever you are successful tempted 'Hell' gets a point to their total and this would eventually move Hell towards an endgame. And yes, this would get to a point where the agents might well tip the scales and start that endgame.

Now, this is about the vaguest representation I can think of, and as usual my initial mechanics for games tend to rotate around some sort of bluff, barter, game-theoryable mechanic.

I would appreciate your thoughts on whether this is madness!

The Idea That Will Not Die...

MI:666

It just won't go away. Every time I have a lull in my thoughts about Duty & Honour, MI:666 raises its ugly head and tries desperately to persuade me to pay it some attention. I think I may have to put it to bed in some way just to stop these interruptions!

The premise, for those not familiar with it, is that Christian Hell exists and the only people that know about it are the British Government. They have to keep the existance secret to stop the world falling down around them and the people that protect the Worlds Biggest Secret are MI:666, a covert branch of the security service.

Why would the world fall down around them? Well, the problem is two fold. The problem is simply that the existence of Hell implies the existence of Heaven, Biblical Heaven. If this fact was ever to get out the explosion of religious fundamentalism and warfare would destroy the world! Therefore the secret has to be maintained, even though the effects of Hell are now being realised around the globe.

Last night, in a fit of creativity, I thought I would try to sketch a set of rules of the game. I decided that rather than look for something mechanical, I would go for something a little more esoteric. I thought about the seven deadly sins (Lust, Envy, Greed, Wrath, Sloth, Gluttony and Pride). The idea being that the characters are fighting a battle against the forces of Hell who are trying to corrupt them through these sins. So, if you lost your temper and beat up a suspect, you would be weaker in Wrath. If you shagged a colleague, you are nearer to being tempted over in Lust. If you insist that you should lead the investigation, its Pride etc.

I'd want the mechanic to work so that the GM could tempt you with something, like a whispering voice in your head. This could work something like the Fate Points and Compels in SotC. There would have to be consequences, but thats for later.

The vibe I want to recreate is a sort of pseudo-religious version of TV shows like Silent Witness (the new one), CSI, Fringe etc. Investigations but powerful character pieces as well.

More later, maybe.