The rules should support gamist play, with emphasis on political and social challenges, with some amount of resource and responsibility management as well.

The game should support a variety of different settings, such as Modern, Renaissance Italy, Hanseatic League, or even Stone-Age Tribal, as well as any number of fictitious settings of any technological or social level of complexity.

The game rules should support long-term progressive campaign-style play, allowing for growth and development of characters and their power base, and providing for balanced opportunities of play for all players. As such, while the game does not need to cater to a player character party style of play, it is also not meant to support player-vs-player win-loose competition.

The mechanics of Project Senate are not meant to model the complete layout of the political human being, nor all possible outcomes of all possible actions. It’s been said that, in a political environment, anyone can accomplish anything, provided they are willing to pay the price. As such, at any given time, success or failure for a player character should be measured not by whether they actually perform a given task, but rather, by how much they have actually gained or lost by it.

Game Structure

Player Roles

Project Senate is organized much like a traditional RPG, in that it separates one player from the rest, assigning to her the duties of Game Master. Generally, the Game Master is responsible for managing the world and providing the challenge framework.

The rest of the players are the Character Players, or simply, the Players. Each of these takes on one character, namely their Player Character. Generally, the Players are responsible for managing their characters’ reactions and initiatives, within the tenets of the game world setting and the provided challenge framework.

The scope and limitations of each role are detailed below.

Character Players And Player Characters

A Player is responsible for the actions and reactions of his Character, including their thoughts, emotions, likes and dislikes, and even general physical condition. As such, and because the Player Characters are central to the game, the Players are largely responsible for driving the story, within the framework provided by the Game Master.

Generally, a Player has no say in the actions or attitudes of any other characters, including Player Characters of other Players, and other non-player characters. However, within the scope of the conflict resolution system, Players are sometimes allowed to dictate the attitudes and desires of non-player characters with whom they are interacting at the moment.

Finally, Players are expected to cooperate with the Game Master, at her request and subject to her fiat, in providing descriptions of the physical, social or cultural environment, especially with regard to such details as may be irrelevant to the particular challenges at hand, but vital for maintaining the continuity of the game world fabric.

The Game Master And The Challenge Framework

The Game Master is responsible for managing the world, providing the Player Characters with a game world context in which to act and interact. She is free to ask the Players for assistance in building and describing the game world, but she is final judge and master of what is or is not included.

She is also responsible for building and managing the challenge framework, and delivering it to the Player Characters through in-game events and the actions and attitudes of non-player characters, while maintaining the logic and causality of those actions and attitudes.

The challenge framework consists of the set of in-game circumstances, relationships and events that delivers political, social and personal challenges to the Players, which they may overcome through the actions and attitudes of their Characters. Furthermore, a good challenge framework should also provide a context for Player-generated self-challenges or even cross-challenges.

Whenever possible, the game master should limit the opportunities for negative- or zero-sum player-vs-player conflict in the challenge framework. Because this is not always possible without undue game world manipulation or breaks in continuity or causality, she is expected to use the framework to provide an out for the involved players, namely by adding external factors to the conflict which break the zero sum.

Outside the game world, the Game Master is responsible for managing Player Character protagonism, defined as the importance that each Character has to the story at any given moment. It is her job to ensure that all players are presented with equal challenge opportunities as the game progresses, and to allot screen time to each player, proportional to his demand of it.

Finally, the Game Master is responsible for managing the application of the game rules, and for interpreting and arbitrating the results of the conflict resolution system.

Elements Of The Game World

The game consists of nothing more than the setting and the character that dwell therein.

Before a campaign begins, one session should be devoted to defining the setting and building the Player Characters.

Defining The Setting

Project Senate supports a great variety of settings, imaginary or real, from stone-age tribal societies to the modern day corporate world, including ancient Rome, classic Greece, renaissance Italy, and the German Hanseatic League.

The chosen setting should provide opportunities for creating characters appropriate to the game. These characters are the movers and shakers of the game world, though they do not necessarily represent the top of the power pyramid.

The setting definition should be completed by specifying the following details:

· Social and political ranks and stations

· The nature of each resource

See the section below on defining a character for definitions of the game resources.

Game Setting Example: Ancient Rome

In the time of the ancient Roman Republic, senators and consuls vied for power and influence both overtly and covertly. From hollow rhetoric to outright murder, it was all they could do to maintain their status while increasing their wealth and their power base.

Characters in this setting could be the senators themselves or their direct aides, or perhaps military generals making a bid for political power, or even the imperial throne.

Wealth consists mainly of estates like vineyards and farms, although large quantities of gold and jewelry can always come in handy. Sesterces come and go, but sapphires are forever.

Manpower in large quantities is usually only available through access to the legions of the Roman Army.

Clout is quite directly a measure of independent political power and is usually the ultimate goal for any self-respecting senator.

Reputation is a measure of respectability, social propriety and ultimately, the appearance that associating with the character is probably a good thing.

Game Setting Example: SuperCorp

In the future, the world will be in the hands of a few mega-corporations, warring between themselves for resources and market share, and writing their own laws. These corporations, much like any other large human organization, suffer heavily from infighting and politicking, the elimination of which would constitute a drastic, if utopian, competitive advantage.

Characters in this setting would likely be top ranking officers in one or a number of rival corporations, nominally performing their duties, all the while striving for promotions and pay raises.

Wealth comes in two forms, either the character’s personal fortune or his departmental budget. Of course, no self-respecting vice-president would be caught dead using his department’s budget for his own personal purposes, but neither would they think twice about doing it and not getting caught.

Manpower is the straightforward application of the masses of underpaid, overworked wage slaves that work for the character’s department.

Clout is quite simply the character’s rank in the corporation. If multiple corporations are involved, clout could possibly also be tied to each corp’s relative power.

Reputation is the character’s perceived loyalty to the company. Should he be caught putting his own interests ahead of the corporation’s once too often, he would soon find himself out on the street.

Defining A Character

A Player Character is defined by who he knows and what resources he can bring to bear on any given problem.

Resources

Resources accessible to each character fall into four basic categories:

· Wealth

· Manpower

· Clout

· Reputation

Each resource ranges from zero to an arbitrarily high amount.

Wealth and reputation are critical resources for the characters. Should any one of them reach zero, the character is out of the game.

As shown in the previous section, the exact nature of each resource is setting-specific. However, these loose definitions will probably always apply:

Wealth

Wealth is, basically, money. Material resources such as ores, foodstuffs, or even real-estate are also included. Human resources are specifically excluded. Characters that reach zero wealth are bankrupt and out of the game.

Manpower

Manpower is the amount and quality of hirelings available to the character. This includes any non-descript assistants, organized military forces, and any and all persons whose obedience or cooperation can be taken for granted. Depending on the setting, characters that reach zero manpower may find themselves severely paralyzed until such a time as the situation can be rectified.

Clout

Clout is a measure of the character’s global importance. While not equivalent, it is tightly connected to the character’s political rank or social station. Depending on the setting, characters that reach zero clout will probably find themselves severely paralyzed until such a time as the situation can be rectified.

Reputation

Reputation is a measure of the reliability, trustworthiness and general likeability of the character. Characters that reach zero reputation are cast out, ostracized, and out of the game.

Relationships

Characters have relationships to other characters, typically non-player characters, or to groups of characters. Each relationship is defined by the following set of parameters:

· Attachment

· Alignment

· Availability

· Background

· Resource mix

These parameters are, again, loosely defined as follows:

Attachment

Attachment measures how much the counterpart likes or dislikes your character. This can range from high positive values for a strong affection to high negative values for a deep dislike or resentment.

Alignment

Alignment measures whether the counterpart’s interests and circles of influence are the same as your character’s. Again, this number can be either strongly positive or strongly negative.

Availability

Availability measures your character’s ability to access and deal successfully with the counterpart. This includes factors as diverse as physical proximity, possible language barriers, cultural factors, and even the actual inertial mass of the counterpart. Availability will generally be positive, and while zero means literally no availability, a negative value can signal a situation where a number of hurdles have to be overcome before the counterpart can even be contacted.

Background

Background measures the amount of common history you share with the counterpart. Background is always positive and never decreases.

Resource Mix

Finally, a relationship’s resource mix determines the counterpart’s ability to directly affect your resources. Resource sources will have a positive value, whereas resource sinks will have a negative value. The resource mix is inherent to the counterpart itself, and will usually not vary even if the nature of the relationship changes, although it may vary during the natural course of play.

Fig. 1 – A relationship block in the character sheet

Relationship Levels

The absolute level of a relationship measures its contribution to the character’s power base and is determined by adding together all of its parameters. The relative level of a relationship measures its importance to the character and is determined by adding together the absolute values of all of its parameters.

What Does All This Mean

Relationship Parameters

A highly personal relationship, such as a close friend or relative, or a loved one, can be modeled by a high attachment and possibly a high background. Availability will probably be a direct factor of distance at any given time. Alignment can vary widely, as can the resource mix.

A relationship with an enemy or opponent will be signaled by either a strongly negative attachment or a strongly negative alignment, and very probably a very low or even negative availability. Background will depend on accreted relationship history, and the resource mix will probably be either negative or simply irrelevant.

A purely professional relationship will probably be based on moderately high alignment and high availability, whereas background and attachment can be virtually any value. The resource mix will generally be positive overall, although the details may vary.

A relationship of convenience will either be based on very high availability or a highly positive resource mix. Attachment and alignment will probably both be very close to a neutral zero, whereas background can be arbitrarily high or low.

A relationship of habit can be modeled by a high background and at least moderately high availability, a low attachment and low or even negative alignment, with a resource mix probably, though not necessarily, close to neutral.

A relationship with a group of people or any collective entity in general can cover much the same spectrum as a relationship with an individual. On average, it will have a lower availability, and the resource mix, whether positive or negative, will have a higher magnitude.

Resource Mix Examples

General Caius Gallus commands a legion responsible for keeping the order in Rome. This affords him a comfortable political position, and what’s more, a high readiness fighting force, ready to intervene at a moment’s notice. Of course, this war machine is not without its costs, which the general is expected to address. The legion is a clout and manpower source and a wealth sink.

The general’s personal friend, Senator Gracchus, is a wealthy and respected man, a patron of the arts and one of Rome’s most accomplished statesmen. General Gallus has profited greatly from his relationship with the senator, borrowing from him respectability and social access that does not always come easy for a military man. Conversely, the senator has taken his own profit from the relationship, as the general and his legion have kept the senator’s enemies in check. The senator is a reputation source and a manpower sink.

Mister Abrams is vice-president of marketing of SuperCorp. He went to school with the CEO’s nephew, whose bombastic night life and peculiar sexual habits bring in no end of trouble. Of course, the nephew stands to inherit a large share of the corporation, and so Mister Abrams is willing to provide the occasional excuse and take on part of the embarrassment, in order to profit from the nephew’s friendship and influence. The nephew is a clout source and a reputation sink.

Mister Williamson is SuperCorp’s CFO and Mister Abram’s nemesis. His interventions at SuperCorp’s executive meetings continually undermine the importance of the marketing department. Unfortunately for Mister Abrams, Mister Williamson is responsible for his department’s budget. The CFO is a wealth source and a clout sink.

Game Play

Building A Character

A new Character begins play at a relatively high power level in the game world, but with plenty of room for improvement and expansion of his power base.

Building a new character is done in a series of steps:

· Character concept

· Relationships

· Shared relationships

· Initial resources

· Fleshing out the concept

Character Concept

Character concept is nothing more than answering the question “who am I” in no more than one or two sentences.

Some players like to write a full-fledged history of their character before answering their question, while others are satisfied with answering “I’m a power dude”. Regardless of personal taste, by the end of this step, players should know enough about their characters to be able to specify their relationships.

Relationships

Characters begin play with one high-level relationship, three mid-level relationships and five low-level relationships. One mid- and two low-level relationships should be with a collective entity.

Low-level relationships have levels between 1 and 3. Mid-level relationships have levels between 4 and 6. High-level relationships have levels between 7 and 10. The sum total of all relationship levels for a starting character is 30.

During this step, players should leave a number of low- and mid-level relationships undefined. The actual number of undefined relationships should be between one and four, and it should not exceed the number of other Character Players at the table.

Building a relationship is a straightforward process of naming the counterpart, describing the nature of the relationship, and distributing the level among the various relationship parameters, within the following limits:

· Background cannot be negative

· Availability has a lower cap at 2

· All other values have a lower cap at -5

Relationships with collective entities have the following limits:

· Background cannot be negative

· Availability has a lower cap at 0

· Resource mix values have a lower cap at -6 and cannot take the values of ±1 or ±2

· All other values have a lower cap at -5

Shared Relationships

Characters should make their character sheets available to each other at this point, in order to define those relationships they left undefined in the previous step.

In order to define a shared relationship, a player should follow the following steps and limits:

· Copy the name and the resource mix

· Describe the nature of the relationship, which may be entirely unrelated to the nature of the source relationship

· Assign a level and specify the remaining relationship parameters

· Background cannot be negative

· Availability cannot be negative for individuals and is capped at -1 for collective entities

· Attachment and alignment are capped at -3

During the course of play, a shared relationship’s resource mix parameters may vary. Those changes do not propagate to the other Characters’ relationships, however.

Initial Resources

Players should calculate the initial value for each resource by adding together the various contributions from each relationship.

If necessary, players should adjust the character’s relationships in order to make sure that each resource is valued at zero, at the least.

Once everything has been adjusted, players should add 1 to each resource.

Fleshing Out The Concept

This is the final stage of the character creation process. During this stage, players should calculate the relative level of each relationship, and answer whatever questions remain to be answered about their characters, using the numbers in the relationship boxes as a guide.

Some players like to detail as much as they can about their character before they begin play, while others like to define and develop their character during play. Though this matter is largely left to personal taste, players should at least strive to answer any specific questions that the Game Master may want to ask them about their characters and relationships.

Defining A Challenge

Throughout life, people, whether VIPs, grunts or in between, are faced with a number of challenges. However, for the purposes of Project Senate, the only challenges of interest are those that put the Character at stake, by affecting either the Character’s resource pool or the Character’s relationships.

Some challenges carry with them positive consequences for success while others imply negative consequences for failure. Some challenges may carry both sorts of consequences. Also, sometimes, challenges will have a time limit, a deadline by which the challenge must be addressed. For details on the type of challenges that Project Senate handles, see the chapter on Reward and Character Development below.

It should be noted that the Game Master is under no obligation to be truthful to the Players regarding the exact deadline, or even the presence or absence of a time limit. However, challenging the Players by forcing them to guess is not recommended, so the Game Master should provide at least an approximation of the level of urgency in case.

Game Mechanics

Project Senate game mechanics cover the following major areas:

· Achieving goals

· Conducting negotiations

All these mechanics hinge on a basic dice rolling mechanic.

Dice Rolls

Project Senate uses percentile dice and a results chart to generate a bell-curve-like open-ended result, as follows:

Fig. 2 – Dice Rolls Results Chart

For example, if the dice come up 76, the final result will be +3; if the dice come up 93 and the reroll comes up 63, the final result will be +6+4 = +10; if the dice come up 12, the reroll comes up 98 and the second reroll comes up 20, the final result will be -6-9-0 = -15.

Achieving Goals

Resources and their usage is the core of Project Senate, as Characters achieve their goals through the commitment and expenditure of those resources. The goal achievement process is as follows:

· Statement of intent and resource budgeting

· Resource tapping and commitment

· Resolution and paying the price

· Collecting the reward

Intent and Budget

As Players come across various challenges and advance possible resolution strategies, the Game Master will assign a resource budget and time cost for each strategy. Resources are assumed to be renewable, which means these costs are met by committing them, rather than actually expending them.

Resource budgets consist of two numbers for each involved resource, namely, a required amount and an estimated amount. Required resources must be available to the Player before the resolution phase is attempted. As for estimated resources, Players are free to commit more or less than the stated amount, which will modify the resolution roll.

Generally, it is recommended that budgets include exactly two resources. Very simple ideas or intermediate goals might require only one resource, whereas elaborate plans or major achievements might require three. Budgets that include all four resources should be reserved for extremely rare campaign altering events.

Time costs also consist of two numbers, namely preparation time and estimated execution time. Preparation time is the time that must elapse before committed resources are in place. Estimated execution time is a measure of the time that must elapse before committed resources become available again.

Budgeting a goal is the major process through which the Game Master can balance the game challenges with the Characters’ capacities. It is also her primary mechanism for exposing the inner fabric of the game world, by signaling clever plans with low budgets and blocking idiotic ramblings with high budgets.

Furthermore, it should also be noted that budgeting is tied to the Players’ plan, not to the problem itself. When building the challenge framework, Game Masters should avoid preconceived notions of how much overcoming a certain challenge will cost.

Lastly, care must be taken in assigning time costs in the presence of any deadlines. If the deadline is too tight, success or failure will become highly dependent on the final dice roll, so this device should be reserved for major challenges along the campaign.

Resource Tapping And Commitment

In trying to meet the budget for a goal, Players have two ways of tapping resources, namely, their own resource pool and their relationships’ resource mix parameters. Players are free to commit their own uncommitted resources to anything at any time, but accessing their relationships’ resources requires conducting negotiations with those relationships, as outlined below.

Players don’t need to actually commit their own resources to a problem until the resolution phase. However, resources procured from relationships are committed from the time the negotiation is successfully concluded until after the resolution phase.

Resolution And Paying The Price

Players can enter the resolution phase any time they want, provided they have committed at least the minimum required resources. Preparation time counts from the moment that players enter the resolution phase. From this moment on, no more resources may be committed to the problem.

Goal achievement resolution consists of rolling the dice, then adding the total difference between committed resources and estimated resources. A non-negative final value is a success. A negative value is a possible failure.

Success often comes with its own price. Possible failures can be transformed into successes by permanently spending committed resources, either from the Character’s resource pool or from the resource mix of involved relationships. The amount of each resource spent should be equal to 10% of the original required resource value per point of result below 0, rounded nearest. Spending resources from a relationship’s resource mix has consequences. See the section below on Paying The Price in Conducting Negotiations for details.

The actual execution time depends on the resolution result. For negative results, and assuming the Player pays the price for success, the actual execution time will be increased by 10% of the estimate for each point below 0. For positive results, or if the Player chooses not to pay the price for success, the actual time is the estimate divided by 1 plus 1/10 of the absolute value of the result.

Naturally, if there was a time limit, success is dependent on actual execution time elapsing before the challenge deadline.

Collecting The Reward

Collecting the reward assumes that the Player either achieved or paid for success during resolution. Positive consequences for this success can be accrued only at the time that committed resources become available again, namely, after the actual execution time elapses.

Negative consequences of failure for a challenge are immediately averted as soon as success is achieved, provided that any deadline had not yet expired. The Game Master is free to continue to withhold any information regarding any actual deadline until such a time as success is readily apparent for the Players, in order to foster a sense of suspense.

Conducting Negotiations

Conducting negotiations is the process through which a character accesses his relationships, most likely for the purpose of tapping into their resource mix.

It consists of the following steps:

· Contacting The Counterpart

· Presenting The Case

· Trading Favors

· Making Counter-Offers

· Paying The Price

Conducting negotiations in Project Senate uses a modified Fortune-In-The-Middle resolution, governed by the following sequence:

· Intent: The Player declares his intention and frames the nature of his efforts.

· Initiation: The dice are rolled and the result is determined.

· Execution: The Player has the opportunity to either decline the action or alter the result through resource commitment.

· Effect: The Game Master describes the final outcome.

The costs and exact consequences of resource commitment vary according to what is being attempted, but in the general, the following principles apply:

· Players can commit any number of different resources at any stage of the negotiation.

· Players can commit resources from their own pool or from the resource mix of relationships with which they have successfully conducted negotiations.

· The Actual Investment Value for each resource committed is calculated by subtracting the corresponding relationship resource mix parameter from the value originally committed.

· Players cannot commit resources for which the corresponding parameter is exactly zero.

· Once committed, resources become unavailable until such a time as the purpose of the negotiation is achieved. Players can release the resources ahead of time, but this, in effect, aborts the negotiation.

Contacting The Counterpart

The procedure for contacting a relationship counterpart is as follows:

· Intent: The Player states the manner and reason for contacting the counterpart. The Player is under no obligation to be truthful about the reason.

· Initiation: The player rolls the dice and adds the relationship availability. The final result is the Contact Value.

· Execution: Triple the value of any Actual Investment Value before adding it to the Contact Value. Note, however, that this component does not carry over to the following stages of the negotiation.

· Effect: A non-negative final Contact Value means contact has been made. If the Player declines the contact, the Game Master describes the reason why the attempt failed. Otherwise, she describes the manner in which it succeeded.

If the contact is successful, the final Contact Value, minus any component from the investment of resources, should be saved for the duration of the negotiation.

It should be noted that successful contact may or may not result in direct or even indirect conversation with the counterpart. For instance, contact with a hostile counterpart might mean that the Player has acquired leverage over that counterpart which might be used without them ever suspecting the Player’s Character is the one behind the scenes.

Presenting The Case

There are generally three factors why a counterpart would accept to aid the Character:

· Because they like the Character, i.e. Attachment

· Because they think what the Character wants is a good idea, i.e. Alignment

· For reasons tied to the past, such as being blackmailed or simply old times’ sake, i.e. Background

Usually, these factors determine not only a yes or no answer, but also, and more importantly, what the counterpart asks for in return, if anything. One and only one of these factors will be used to determine the final outcome. Which parameter is used depends on how the Character chooses to present the case.

The procedure for presenting the case to a counterpart is as follows:

· Intent: The Player states what he wants from the counterpart and how he is presenting his case.

· Initiation: The player rolls the dice and adds the final Contact Value and the selected relationship parameter.

· Execution: Resources committed during this phase are directly related to whether the counterpart asks for anything in return, and are not actually considered committed until that return favor is provided.

· Effect: Once the negotiation is completed, the counterpart will make their positive resource mix parameters available to the character, up to a maximum of the final result. If the relationship has any parameters below zero, including any parameters in the resource mix, lower the total by the absolute value of the most negative parameter.

Trading Favors

If the Player committed resources to bump the result, the counterpart will ask for a return favor from the Character. Providing this return favor becomes a nested goal, which the Character must achieve before the counterpart will release the resources the Player needs.

The Game Master should use this device to further characterize the nature of the relationship between the Character and the counterpart. For instance, openly hostile counterparts may demand favors that are, in fact, totally opposed to what the character is trying to achieve.

The actual request should be strongly tied to the announced resource commitment. However, the actual budget for granting the favor may actually turn out to be quite different, if the Player manages to come up with a clever resolution strategy for the new nested goal. In this case, the resources committed will be those for the actual strategy used, not those which were originally announced.

If the Player achieved success without committing resources to bump the result, the counterpart may still ask for a return favor. This should be considered an integral part of the challenge framework and may develop into a goal unto itself, but it will not condition the development of the current negotiation.

Making Counter-Offers

If the Player so desires, he may present counter-offers to replace the original result. The procedure for doing so is roughly the same as for presenting the case, with the following differences:

· Players cannot present a counter-offer along the same angle as an offer already on the table. In effect, this limits a negotiation to one original offer and two counter-offers.

· In order for any counter-offer to be valid, the final result obtained during resolution must exceed the result obtained during the original plea or any previous counter-offer.

As before, the Player is free to decline the result of the counter-offer and either accept an earlier result or abort the negotiation altogether.

Paying The Price

Paying the price refers to updating the relationship parameters at the successful conclusion of a negotiation. Paying the price applies only if the deal goes through.

Negotiation can result in growth for the relationship, but it can also strain it. The actual consequences vary according to the angle the Player chose for presenting the case, whether the selected parameter was the highest of the relationship and whether resources were committed by the Player or not. The parameter which applies is the one actually used in an agreed negotiation, regardless of whether it was the original offer or a subsequent counter-offer.

If the Player chose to go with Attachment, apply the following modifications:

· If Attachment was higher than Alignment, decrease Attachment by 1

· If Attachment was lower than Alignment, increase Attachment by 1

· If the Player committed resources, decrease Attachment by 1

· Increase Background by 1

If the Player chose to go with Alignment, apply the following modifications:

· If Alignment was lower than Attachment, increase Alignment by 1

· If Alignment was higher than Attachment, decrease Alignment by 2

· If the Player committed resources, increase Alignment by 1

· Increase Background by 1

If the Player chose to go with Background, apply the following modifications:

· If Background was higher than Attachment, decrease Attachment by 1

· If Background was higher than Alignment, decrease Alignment by 1

· If resources were committed, decrease Alignment and Attachment by 1

· Decrease Availability by 1

Furthermore, there is a subsequent price to be paid if the Player buys success in a goal by permanently expending resources from the relationship’s resource mix. For each point of resource reduction, decrease a point from Attachment, Alignment or Availability, at the Player’s choice.

Player Interaction

There are a number of circumstances where Players may need to interact with each other:

· Because one Player may want or need the help of other Players in addressing a certain challenge

· Because several Players may simultaneously need the resources of a shared relationship

· Because Players may be working on congruent goals

· Because Players may be working on opposing goals

· Because a Player wants to collect on a broken promise

Player Cooperation

When addressing a goal, Players may ask for other Players’ cooperation in the form of access to their resource pool. Unless the other Player has his own related goal to work on, this cooperation is strictly voluntary and comes with no implicit reward and no cost other than the fact that those resources will be committed to the asking Player’s goal, and thus unavailable to the cooperating Player until released.

Because Players are sole masters of their Characters’ needs, wants and likes, negotiations between Players are generally unregulated. Trades between Players are limited to the swapping of favors or promises, however. Characters may not transfer resources between each other in any sort of permanent fashion, nor may they gain any sort of permanent direct access to other Characters’ relationships, except as noted in the chapter on Character Development below.

Promises and deals are made between Characters, not Players. Making promises to other Characters is real in the game world. As such, the involved Players should make sure that the Game Master is in the know on any deals that are made.

When permanently spending resources to buy success in a goal, Players are not allowed to expend from other Characters’ resource pools.

Shared Relationships

A shared relationship cannot make resources from their resource mix available to more than one Character at a time. As such, a Player who needs to access resources from a busy shared relationship has no recourse but to ask the first Player to release those resources. As before, Players are free to negotiate among themselves, limited to the swapping of promises and favors.

It may also happen that two Players try to negotiate with a shared relationship at the same time. If the Players involved do not come to an agreement in which one of them backs off, and assuming both achieve success in their negotiations, the relationship will cede their resources to the Player that achieved the greatest success.

Because this affects Player commitment of resources, a detailed order for resolving the phases of each negotiation needs to be enforced. One of the Players must present his case first, including any counter-offers and determination, though not resolution, of return favors. The following factors, in order, should be used to determine which:

· The Player with the lowest final Contact Value

· The Player whose relationship has the least Availability

· The Player whose relationship has the lowest absolute level

· Any Player randomly determined

Because this order affects Player commitment of resources during contact, one of the Players must make his contact attempt first. The following guidelines should be used to determine which:

· If the Game Master can comfortably establish an in-game chronological order for the contact attempts, the Player who initiated his contact first should resolve it first.

· If the Game Master can comfortably establish that both Players had equal access to screen time, the Player who spoke last should resolve first.

· If the Game Master feels that either of these guidelines would unduly favor one of the Characters, she is free to impose anti-screen-hogging and make a random determination for the order of resolution.

· If one of the Players has already resolved his contact phase, that result stands regardless of any other considerations.

Obviously, the Players are free to tap different resources from a relationship without conflict.

Congruent Goals

At the request of all involved Players, the Game Master may treat several Characters’ goals as congruent, provided this makes sense for the challenges in question. This has the following consequences:

· Players can now pool all their available resources, whether from their pool or from successful negotiations, and apply them to the various budgets at will.

· Goals must be resolved simultaneously, meaning that resources committed to one goal are not available to other for the other goals.

· Permanent resource spending for each goal can still only be applied to each Player’s available resources.

· Success for each goal is dependant on success for all other goals. Congruency is an all-or-nothing deal.

· Rewards for achieving the goals now apply to all the Characters involved, though similar rewards do not stack.

· Any Player may bail out of congruency at any time, but this implies immediate goal failure for the bailing Character. Remaining Players may continue to work congruently without penalty.

In effect, what this means is that congruent goals are harder to achieve because of the extra resolutions involved, but they provide more degrees of freedom because of resource pooling, and they are also proportionately more profitable.

In building the challenge framework, the Game Master may decide to present a challenge for a group of Characters to undertake. Treat Characters working on the same challenge as if they are working on their own separate challenge, except that all those challenges are automatically congruent.

Opposing Goals

While the Game Master should avoid aiming for these situations, it may happen that Players find themselves working at cross purposes. Again, Players may have their Characters negotiate with each other freely in order to defuse the situation themselves.

Resolution of Player-vs-Player conflict is heavily dependent on the specific details of the conflict, so the Game Master will have to exercise some judgment. A few possibilities follow:

· In racing-type conflicts, the Player that achieves success first, in effect, shuts out the other Players.

· In best-candidate-type conflicts, the Player that achieves the highest final resolution value wins. The Game Master should enforce event chronology tightly in these situations.

· In zero-sum conflicts, if a Player fails his resolution, he may grant automatic success to another Player.

Other possibilities exist, which the Game Master will have to resolve according to the specifics of the situation. Mainly, she should be alert for opportunities to transform the goals into opportunity for cooperation, although such outs should not be overly contrived as to break game world continuity and consistency.

Broken Promises

Just because a Character makes a promise does not mean that the Player will keep it. However, breaking promises is likely to bring consequences to the Character.

Whenever the Game Master judges that a Character is taking too long to fulfill a promise, she may commit a point of Reputation from the Character’s resource pool. This point will automatically be added to the budget for the promise fulfilling goal and will be released upon resolution of that goal.

If the Character continues to take too long to fulfill a promise, the Game Master may convert the penalty into a permanent loss of Reputation. In effect, this releases the character from the promise.

Application of these penalties is subject to the following guidelines:

· The Player should be given ample warning that his time is running out

· The Player should be given some leeway in the order in which he addresses his commitments

If the Player makes an honest attempt at delivering and fails, this does not get him off the hook. A bad rep for being a deal breaker is no different from a bad rep for being incompetent, whether deserved or not. Life is not fair. Of course, it may happen that the price of fulfilling a promise is higher than the one point of Reputation, in which case, the Player is simply faced with the choice of which hit to take.

Character Development And Evolution

Character development in Project Senate is directly tied to achieving goals. As Characters maneuver to obtain their objectives, presumably, these objectives bring with them tangible rewards in terms of wealth and manpower, reputation and clout. The Game Master’s ultimate purpose in building the challenge framework is to provide the Players with opportunities to use their resources and relationships in order to achieve these goals and improve their characters.

There are three major ways in which a Project Senate Character can improve:

· Increasing the resource pool

· Developing existing relationships

· Consolidating new relationships

In addition, there are specific resource conversion mechanics which allow a Player to tailor his Character’s development to his taste.

Challenges, Rewards And Consequences

Challenges in the game are naturally divided into three groups:

· Opportunities – Chances for a Character to gain something positive

· Dangers – Possibilities for a Character to avoid something negative

· Crises – A combination of the other two

Opportunity Examples

General Gallus gets word that the Republic is planning a new invasion. It occurs to him that if he plays his cards right, he be appointed to lead the operation. The Game Master informs the general’s Player that he stands to gain 1 point of Manpower if he is appointed for the invasion and 1 point of Reputation if he is successful.

SuperCorp’s top competitor is about to launch a new product. Though it’s unlikely that it will do well, if Mister Abrams plays his cards right, he’ll be able to convince the executive committee that the threat is real and he needs a special budget for the situation. The Game Master informs the marketing executive’s Player that he stands to gain 2 points of Wealth if successful.

Danger Examples

A young and charismatic centurion has obtained significant victories in campaigns abroad. As part of his promotion to general, he has requested to be stationed in Rome, to perhaps take over part of the divisions defending the city. Unless the general can avoid this, his legion stands to loose a great deal of manpower and some availability.

The CEO’s nephew is at it again, and this time, there is a dead body in the scene. Mister Abrams finds himself in a predicament. Unless he can disassociate himself, he stands to loose at least 3 points of Reputation. And unless he can clear the nephew’s name, the nephew will loose most of his clout and availability.

Crisis Examples

Rome is under attack and the general Gallus’s estates are directly threatened. As things stand, the general could loose as much as 3 points of Wealth. If he can deal with the situation successfully, however, his Reputation will increase by at least 2 points and he might even be granted a promotion, for an extra point of Clout.

SuperCorp is about to launch a new division and they are looking for someone to run it. The CEO is considering Mister Abrams. It would be a step down for him, but if he could put a puppet at the head of the new division, he would stand to gain access to a great deal of new resources. If Mister Abrams is appointed, he will loose a great deal of Wealth, Clout and Reputation. If he puts someone else there, he stands to gain a new relationship with positive Manpower and Clout and negative Wealth.

Resource Conversion Mechanics

Resources can be used in one of three ways:

· Conversion into other resources

· Developing existing relationships

· Consolidating new relationships

Resource Swaps

Provided Players can come up with a reasonable in-game rationale for the swap, the following swap operations are permissible:

· Wealth can buy anything, including Manpower, Clout or Reputation

· Manpower can be permanently assigned to Clout or Reputation tasks

· Clout can be forsaken in favor of Reputation

A resource swap operation is a challenge like any other. The Player’s in-game rationale should be treated as a resolution strategy, and a successful goal resolution is necessary before the swap can take place.

The Game Master should assign a budget and time costs for this operation, just as she would with any other challenge. At the very least, this budget must include whichever resources the Player wants to swap. On the other hand, the permanent spending of the swapped resource from the Player’s own pool does count towards the goal resolution mechanic.

Relationship Development

Players can increase a relationship’s Attachment, Alignment or Availability by swapping any resource from their pool for which the corresponding relationship resource mix parameter is negative. This increase is limited to the absolute value of that resource mix parameter. Like a straightforward resource swap, this operation should be justified in-game and treated as a challenge like any other.

This swap represents a permanent investment into the counterpart’s own resources. As such, the corresponding resource parameter from the relationship’s resource mix will increase by the same amount as the swap.

The only way to reduce relationship parameters is as a consequence of permanent resource spending during a goal resolution phase.

New Relationships

A new relationship brings to a Character a new source of challenges and goals, and it affords him more degrees of freedom in dealing with those challenges. As such, allowing a Character to gain a new relationship is a good way for the Game Master to reward the Player for good in-game play.

The process for gaining a new relationship depends on whether the counterpart is an individual or a collective entity.

For individuals, all that is necessary is an opportunity for the Character to meet or be introduced to the counterpart. In the Game Master’s judgment, the Character must have had a reasonable chance to understand what this individual might do for him, thus granting the Player ability to negotiate for the corresponding resource mix.

For collective entities, the process of gaining access to their resource mix is significantly more complex, probably involving a whole separate challenge.

Determining the initial relationship parameters is done as follows:

· Make an unmodified roll on the dice rolling chart for the initial value of Attachment

· Make an unmodified roll on the dice rolling chart for the initial value of Alignment

· Availability begins at 1 if either Attachment or Alignment are higher than zero, and it begins at zero otherwise

· Background always begins at zero

Determining the initial resource mix depends on the source of the new relationship. There are two possibilities:

· Another Character’s relationships, not yet shared between the two

· A new entity altogether

In the first case, simply copy the resource mix parameters from the existing relationship. Should more than one version of the counterpart be available to the Character, the Game Master chooses which one to use.

In the second case, it is the Game Master’s job to design the new relationship according to the role she sees the counterpart playing in the challenge framework.