Roleplaying Magic Items II

If there was an issue with WIELD: Chronicles of the Vatcha, the latest design from John Wick, the designer of Legend of the Five Rings and Houses of the Blooded, it was that the RPG lacked an actual background or setting. WIELD: Chronicles of the Vatcha is a game in which valiant heroes wield great swords, ambitious men command the powers of ancient rings, mighty kings crown themselves with bejewelled coronets to control the fates of others, and potent mages brandish arcane staves to draw upon the forces of magic and manipulate creation itself… Whilst this would appear to be inspired by the One Ring from Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings or the sword Stormbringer in Michael Moorcock’s Elric novels, yet in WIELD, the players do not roleplay these heroes, Frodo Baggins in the case of the One Ring or Elric in the case of Stormbringer, but rather they primarily roleplay the artefacts themselves; and the heroes? Well, they do roleplay the heroes, but heroes who are wielding artefacts played by other players. For despite the power and the ambitions of these powerful artefacts, not a single one can apply its great abilities, for it takes a great ‘hero’—or ‘pawn’ as the Vatcha call them to wield the powers of a Vatcha, for they are but a means to an end to bring about the destinies of the ‘Vatcha’ or ‘wilful weapons’…

Despite not having an actual setting, there is at least an implied genre in WIELD—that of the fantasy genre. This though was not enough and what both it and the lack of a setting meant was that WIELD: Chronicles of the Vatcha at least felt incomplete if it was not ‘actually’ incomplete. This issue is no longer a problem, as part of the successful Kickstarter campaign, John Wick also published the WIELD Companion. This supplement contains not only new fiction, but also a host of new Domains—aspects or elements from which a Vacha draws its powers, such as Air, Insight, and Shadow, as well as eight settings that take Vacha to medieval Japan, a London of Victoriana, way out West, and more. In the process it does Science Fiction, Fantasy, and the Fantastic, encompassing a gamut of genres, in turn giving yet more Domains and the much needed settings that serve to showcase just what WIELD: Chronicles of the Vatcha can do.

Topping and tailing the WIELD Companion is a set of paired pieces of fiction. Aping the Swords & Sorcery genre this is a Conan-esque tales that nicely depicts the insidious influence of the Vatcha and their ambitions. The first mechanical element presented in the WIELD Companion are all of the Domains and their associated Powers from WIELD: Chronicles of the Vatcha. This may seem like a waste of space, but their reprint serves as a handy reference for Fate—as the GM is known in WIELD—and players alike. With this list out of the way, the supplement gets down to the first of the eight settings. This is ‘Dark Chrome’, a Cyberpunk setting in which cyberware have begun to suffer Glitches that are reputedly supposed to cause those it is installed in to go crazy and enough damage to level city blocks. As a result, the five major cyberware companies have formed the Cyberware Conventions to investigate and prevent further incidents. The truth is that these pieces of Glitched cyberware are actually Vatcha that have  become sentient. The Domains are designed around Acquisitions such as Hammer Hand or Double Barrel Laser, Athletics such as Cybernetic Strength, and so on. The other change is that each Wielder begins with all of the dice in any Control Risk, and for each item of Cyberware installed gives up these dice to the Vatcha. Written by Alan Venables, Ro Watts, and Gillian Fraser, this effectively reverses the control relationship between Vatcha and Wielder, but neatly models the effect of cyberware seen in other genre RPGs.

‘Old Japan’ is the second setting, one which will familiar to its author, Ben Woerner, the designer of the RPG, A World of Dew. In the world of Old Japan, the Kami have long helped mankind to survive and prosper, many also bonding permanently with parts of the world around them or manmade items. These are the Yorishiro, known for their spiritual purity and dedication to combating the Oni, the bonding between dark Kami and evil men. Although the Dark Tenno Lord, the First of the Oni, has been imprisoned, Old Japan continues to be plagued by Oni, and as one of the Yorishio, the player characters have sworn to guide mankind and defend him against the Oni. Each Yorishiro consists of a vessel—such as a tea cup, an item of jewellery, a pet, or even a walking castle or hut—and a Kami heritage, like Wind, Insects, Justice, or the Seven Fortunes. The number of Domains a Kami holds sway over depends on its age, one if a Summer Kami, two if an Autumn Kami, and three if a Winter Kami. There are fewer Domains to choose from than in standard WIELD and the geis—or geas—that can be placed upon a player by Fate varies according to the time of day. During the day, as Lady Sun, Fate will demand that a character help another, save a village, or go on a quest, whilst at night, as Lord Moon, Fate will demand that the hero stand aside and let something terrible happen, kill someone, or end the suffering of a great and injured kami beast lord. Where Lord Moon is cold and calculating, Lady Sun is compassionate and impulsive.

What ‘Old Japan’ does not detail is whether not there will ever be the need for a Control Risk between Yorishiro and wielder, but given the benevolent outlook of the Yorishiro, this seems unlikely. ‘Old Japan’ does feel like it moves WIELD away from its player to player confrontation and towards a traditional roleplaying game.

John Wick and Gillian Fraser’s ‘Old Smoke’ presents a setting in which rampant Victoriana crashes into the Victorian Age to make both the fiction and the history a reality… Aleister Crowley is the Wickedest Man in the World, Professor Moriarty the ‘Napoleon of Crime’, Jack the Ripper a fiend hell-bent on performing an ancient blood ritual to make himself into a god, and Mycroft Holmes the greatest detective ever to sit in an armchair. Just as these facts are true, so is the feared existence of conspiracies and secret societies—the Rosicrucians, the Freemasons, the Brotherhood of the Yellow Sign, and more—whose sole aim is the capture and control of the ‘synesthesiactical fineins’, as vatcha are known in the ‘Old Smoke’, and thus the powers they grant. All wielders are part of one of these conspiracies, whilst the domains granted by the vatcha are subtler and more insidious, including Control, Fear, Illusion, Necromancy, Sex, and Shadow amongst others. Membership of certain conspiracies does grant some protection, the Brotherhood of the Yellow Sign against fear for example. ‘Old Smoke’ is a conspiratorial free-for-all that feels as if it is going to develop ultimately into a player versus player contest for dominance, whilst the darker nature of its Domains make it more of an adult game.

‘Princesses of Ellysial’ by Charlotte Bethel and Gillian Fraser is another Japanese setting, but one drawn from the ‘magical girl’ genre of manga or anime. Vatcha are an item of jewellery—a Princess, or a flower—a prince. A female wielder can only use the jewellery, a male wielder only the flower. The Domains—Beauty, Crystal, Friendship, Justice, Love, Mercy, Spirit, and Stardust—are inherently positive and can only be fully used when a wielder has transformed. This transformation is a theme, decided upon before play begins, and can be school uniforms, fantasy armour, sailor suits, and so on. Perhaps the most radical change in comparison to the default player versus player set-up in WIELD, is that in ‘Princesses of Ellysial’ the players are a team—in the setting described the team is combatting the Shadow Witch Uorusa. Like ‘Old Japan’, ‘Princesses of Ellysial’ is a more positive setting and it would be suitable for play with younger players.

Japan is again the inspiration for the fifth setting, ‘Sentient Frames’ by Alan Venable. Here the Vatcha are artificial intelligences that help Frame Pilots compete in Mecha Game matches. Unfortunately, as a Frame Pilot seeks to upgrade his Frame, he becomes increasingly addicted to the AI, forcing him into melancholia, anger, jealousy, and finally stability—the latter where AI has achieved ‘Bliss’ with the Pilot. The Domains in ‘Sentient Frames’ are enhancements to the Frame, such as Ballistic, Bots, Command, Force Fields, Melee, and so on. ‘Sentient Frames’ reverses the standard control structure of WIELD—a Vatcha gaining more control the more powers it grants to the wielder rather than giving it up. ‘Sentient Frames’ benefits from more background information and thus feels more developed than the other settings in the WIELD Companion.

Alan Venable and Gillian Fraser’s ‘The Big Dust’ throws down the Vatcha into the lawless, ruthless lands of the Wild West where they are firearms—derringers, pistols, revolver, and rifles; tools—such as saddles, shovels, stagecoaches, and so on; or trinkets—like hats, deputy badges, pocket watches, or poker chips. The Vatcha notably collect and absorb the Destinies of their wielders and if left unfulfilled will drive future wielders to complete them—even if this involves multiple destinies. They are also only wielded by the incomers to the Wild West—the Natives of the Big Dust will not wield or attack a wielder, although they do know how to destroy the Vatcha. ‘The Big Dust’ includes some excellent Domains, such as Gunslingin’, Preachin’, and Wranglin’, but as strongly thematic as it feels, it is underdeveloped and some advice on handling multiple destinies would not have been amiss.

The last and seventh setting in the WIELD Companion is ‘Whispering Shadows’ by Gillian Fraser in which the vatcha are spirits that have escaped to this side of the mirror to possess members of humanity and turn them into monsters. Whether Blood Spirits, Buried Spirits, Deep Spirits, and so on, their collective aim is to destroy the Guardian of the Sun or ‘the Warden’ who sends creatures to hunt down the vatcha spirits and in destroying them, seeks to restore the peace of the world. In ‘Whispering Shadows’ a vatcha’s Domains are determined by his Spirit type and a vatcha gains more rather than loses control by giving its powers away. Again, this is a darker setting for WIELD with more insidious powers—plus the fact that wielders exude an aura of fear. There is also the aspect that the vatcha are lying to their wielders, claiming that they are protecting humanity against the minions of ‘the Warden’. Yet again, it feels under-developed, there being no discussion of how the vatchas’ enemy can be destroyed and no suggestion as to his minions.

Rounding out the WIELD Companion is Mark Diaz Truman’s ‘Vatcha in Fate’, a guide to using vatcha in Evil Hat Games’ Fate Core. Two means are provided, one described as safe, the other not. The first method again casts the vatcha as the key player characters, each vatcha possessing Domains as well as Aspects tied to its Goal, Connections to the other player character vatcha, and lastly to its means of Destruction. Each vatcha has a single skill, Control, rolled to overcome its current wielder. Some agreement will need to be made to cover how each power from the Domains works in Fate Core as converting them all would require another book. The wielders also need to be created, but they are relatively weak, being mere pawns. Another advantage that the vatcha have over these pawns is that only they get Fate Points, but are restricted to spending them via their current wielder—change wielder and any excess Fate Points earned under the previous wielder are lost. The second method is in some ways more interesting—it adds vatcha to Fate Core as NPCs. The players create characters as they would normally and get to wield the vatcha, but the GM controls and plays each of the vatcha. The danger is that this sets up a potential ‘player versus GM’ situation in a game, but this does not mean that the situation is without potential.

Physically, the WIELD Companion is decently presented. Although there is no index, the list of contents at the front of the book makes up for it, especially when looking for a particular Domain or power. The supplement is very lightly illustrated, but the artwork is decent.

There are some excellent settings in the WIELD Companion and there is no denying that the supplement does solid job of showcasing the potential in the concept and mechanics presented in WIELD: Chronicles of the Vatcha. Unfortunately, some of the seven settings do feel under-developed and could have benefited with more background or more detail. Perhaps if one of these settings had been presented in the core rules, then there might have been space here for the extra material. Nevertheless, the WIELD Companion is worth reading for its development of the WIELD concept and the numerous new Domains that come with the seven settings—and some of the settings are good too.

Roleplaying Magic Items

The latest RPG from John Wick, the designer of Legend of the Five Rings and Houses of the Blooded, is WIELD: Chronicles of the Vatcha. This is an RPG in which the destinies and histories of great and powerful artefacts are told. It is a game in which valiant heroes wield great swords, ambitious men command the powers of ancient rings, mighty kings crown themselves with bejewelled coronets to control the fates of others, and potent mages brandish arcane staves to draw upon the forces of magic and manipulate creation itself… The obvious inspiration for WIELD then, is the One Ring from Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings or the sword Stormbringer in Michael Moorcock’s Elric novels. Yet in WIELD, the players do not roleplay these heroes, Frodo Baggins in the case of the One Ring or Elric in the case of Stormbringer, but rather they roleplay the artefacts themselves; and the heroes? For despite the power and the ambitions of these powerful artefacts, not a single one can apply its great abilities, for it takes a great ‘hero’—or ‘pawn’ as the Vatcha call them to wield the powers of a Vatcha, for they are but a means to an end to bring about the destinies of the ‘Vatcha’ or ‘wilful weapons’…

Actually, in WIELD, the players not only roleplay the Vatcha, they do play the heroes who wield them. Except that whilst a player roleplays a Vatcha, he does not roleplay the hero wielding that Vatcha, but roleplays a hero wielding another player’s Vacha! Now this reminiscent of another design by John Wick, the RPG Enemy Gods, in which each player took on the role of a hero during the Bronze Age whose destiny would be influenced by the gods—gods roleplayed by all of the players. Further, the idea behind WIELD: Chronicles of the Vatcha is also reminiscent of Bloodlust, the French sword and sorcery role-playing game originally published by Asmodée Éditions which is yet to see an English language translation. In that RPG, the players take on the roles of living god-weapons that fell from the stars and are wielded by mighty thewed warriors who hew across an ancient jungle continent that looks not unlike Antarctica. WIELD though, has no such setting and much like Enemy Gods—though it should be noted that Enemy Gods did include sample settings—its setting is implied, being an archetypal fantasy setting of some kind.

Funded via Kickstarter, WIELD has been brought to print with surprising speed in comparison with some Kickstarter projects. Unfortunately, this has meant that the book feels rough and incomplete in places. Had there been an editor involved then the reader might not have needed to make several obvious assumptions. Now this does not mean that WIELD is either incomprehensible or unplayable. It just feels rushed.

The set-up in WIELD is simple. Each player controls a Vatcha, a wilful weapon, which will grant its great powers to a hero, who will in return act as the Vatcha’s agent in bringing about the Vacha’s destiny because the Vacha cannot wield its own power—only a hero can. The hero who wields the Vatcha is not controlled by the same player, but the player sat next to him. Further, since a Vatcha must grant some of its power to its wielder there is plenty of potential for tension between Vatcha and hero and for storytelling as the last thing that a Vatcha wants to do is give its hero too much power and become subservient to him.

To create a Vatcha a player selects an item, which can be anything from a sword, boots, or a chair to a coin, item of luggage, or Police Box!* Each Vatcha has one, two, or three Dominions over which it has power, including elements like Air, Earth, Fire, and Water, or Creation, Destruction, Life, and so on. Every Vatcha has a goal, for example, ‘Become the true ruler of Kuritana’ or ‘Destroy the Dark Blade’, the latter another Vatcha. For every goal there are four steps that need to be defined. Then a history for the Vatcha is created by building connections with those of the other players. Penultimately, a player needs to decide how his Vatcha can be destroyed—this should be epic, but not impossible—and decide on a name.

*The latter two are simply included on the list. WIELD has nothing whatsoever to do with either the Discworld or Doctor Who, but their inclusion both suggests possibilities and hints at the relationships between Rincewind and the Luggage and the Doctor and the TARDIS.

Gauntlet of Life
Domains: Creation, Life, Light
Goal: Restore the Theocracy of the White God
Identify the Pietist of the White God
Bear witness to a miracle of the Pietist of the White God
Keep the Pietist of the White God alive against heresy
Proselytise the Piety of the White God
Connections: Singe, the Shotel of the Ashes (Helped rescue the Gauntlet from Foice the Sheer, Black Ice Demon); Lyre of the Bard Lord (Worn by the same wielder); The Ring of Fire (A previous wielder attempted to destroy the Gauntlet of Life); The Golden Veil of Houri (Co-operated together to hobble Menorenth the Bloody)
Means of Destruction: Worn by Black Ice Demon for a 100 years and then burnt in a hellforge

Then Fate—as the GM is known in WIELD—steps in and creates the Heroes that will wield the Vatcha. This includes the Hero’s name, Background (what the hero was doing before picking up the Vatcha), Destiny (what Fate had in mind for the hero before he picked up the Vatcha), personality traits, and any equipment. It is implied that Fate should create a deck of Heroes and assign them randomly and then assign a Vatcha a new one when the previous Hero dies. The dead Hero is shuffled back into the deck. Each time a Hero is draw and assigned to a Vatcha, the Hero acquires a new personality trait.

Verinor the Sailor
Destiny: Sail to the ends of the world and return
Personality Trait: Charming
Wounds: (1) (2) (3)
Equipment: Sword, coil of rope

Lastly, the Vatcha’s player assigns some of his powers to the Hero. These come from the Domains selected during the Vatcha’s creation. There is a limit to how many Powers a Vatcha can bestow; too few and the Hero cannot do great things, but too many and the Hero may wrest control of over all of the Vatcha’s powers and the Vatcha itself. A Vatcha has ten points of Control to assign and the more Powers he assigns, the more Control he loses… A quarter of WIELD: Chronicles of the Vatcha is devoted to listing the powers Domain by Domain.

It should be noted that like most storytelling roleplaying games, the only form of progression in WIELD is narrative based—there is no form of mechanical progression, such as Experience Points. Thus progression solely rests on the Goal of the Vatcha and the Destiny of one Hero after another.

To undertake an action, a player has to ‘take a chance’. This involves rolling two six-sided dice and adding the result to beat a target—‘Easy’ (no roll required), ‘Hard’ (six or more), ‘Heroic’ (twelve or more), ‘Epic’ (eighteen or more), and ‘Impossible’ (twenty-five or more). Bonus dice can be added to the pool for a Hero’s Background, for any of a Hero’s Personality Traits, if the action furthers his Destiny, and if any of his equipment is pertinent. Even if the player rolls the dice and fails to beat the target, he does not necessarily fail at the task. Rather, he succeeds with Complications, one for every target threshold missed.

For example, Verinor the Sailor is aboard his ship when it is caught in a ferocious storm and one of his passengers—who happens to be young and pretty—is swept overboard. He leaps to the rescue. Fate decides that this is a Epic action, setting the target at eighteen. Verinor’s player takes up two dice to which adds another die for his ‘Sailor’ Background and another for his equipment, the coil of rope. He rolls four dice, but only gets a result of fourteen, so fails the roll. This is enough to obtain a Heroic result, but not an Epic, so his player has to choose a Complication, which in this case is that the young passenger is betrothed to another man.

Alternatively, a Hero might offer a Fate a geis—or geas—so that he can automatically succeed at a challenge. This would require the Hero to undertake a particular action—or not, of course. A small geis might be not to look at another woman for a week, or a year for a large geis, or forever for a major geis. The exact terms of the geis is open to negotiation, but a geis cannot be offered if the Challenge is a conflict between the heroes. Breaking a geis allows Fate to force failures upon a Hero.

Combat is where WIELD gets odd. A Hero can either attack or defend—not both, or he can use a power. Each round Fate counts to five and if a Hero wants to attack, his player points to the intended target, holding out the number of fingers to indicate the amount of damage he wants to inflict. This can be against another Hero or Fate if fighting an NPC. Conversely, if a Hero wants to defend himself, his player holds a number of fingers against his chest to indicate how many wounds he wants his Hero to protect himself against. The number of fingers in either case corresponds to the five target levels—Easy, Hard, Heroic, Epic, and Impossible—that a Hero rolls against when taking a chance. If any Hero uses a Power, then it activates before any combat, but again the player needs to indicate the rank of the Power used using his fingers and with higher ranked Powers going before lower ranked Powers.

Apart from Powers taking effect first, combat is meant to be resolved simultaneously, but as a mechanic it feels rough and incomplete. It does not help that Fate also has to handle any NPCs, having to decide and note down what they are doing from turn to turn as this disrupts the physicality of the rest of the combat mechanic. Ultimately, this leaves WIELD too readily open to disagreement at the table and it will need Fate to have a very steady hand at the tiller if a game is not going awry…

Then is of course the tension at the heart of the game—that is, between a Hero and his Vatcha—or is it a Vatcha and his Hero?—and the players for each. A Hero is capable of free action, but his Vatcha is not, despite the Vatcha granting the Hero some of its Powers. There is of course, nothing to stop a Hero from doing what his Vatcha wants and if so, it is a simple matter of their respective players coming to an agreement. If a Hero does not want to do what a Vatcha wants, then the Vatcha can call for a Control Risk. This is an opposed roll, the winner deciding the course of an action.

Although WIELD includes guidelines for groups and monsters, and some notes for adjusting some of the game’s parameters, it feels rather light in terms of advice for the GM—or rather, Fate.  It also leaves Fate and his players to their own devices when it comes a setting, though the WIELD Companion does provide several, including a Cyberpunk setting and settings in both the Old West and Old Japan.

WIELD: Chronicles of the Vatcha is a game that almost does nothing except present challenges. The first is in the players having to portray two characters, one of which is not their own. Admittedly this will not present too much difficulty for anyone who has experience playing storytelling games, but having to differentiate between the two does not make it any easier—though it should be pointed out that solutions to this are discussed in the book. The second is overcoming the natural inclination for a player to make his current Hero his primary character, when in fact it is the Vatcha that is a player’s primary character. In fact, the Hero is the Vatcha’s tool (and Hit Points), not the other way around. The third challenge is set of rules that are underwritten, that feel rough and ready, and which are not helped by the slim advice for the GM or Fate. Lastly, WIELD leaves all of the challenge and effort of world building to Fate and his players—there is no advice in WIELD, no discussion of WIELD on other genres, and no example settings. Again neither will too much of a challenge to experienced players and players of storytelling games, but a page of advice devoted to each of the possible genres would have been reasonable inclusion.

Yet despite the challenges in WIELD, there is no denying that there is a gem of an idea at its heart and that gem is its greatest, and best, challenge, that of roleplaying two different characters with different agendas linked to separate players. It sets up tensions between the linked players that are rife with potential and playability. WIELD: Chronicles of the Vatcha is a great idea that is not as well supported or developed as it could have been.