Considering Spiritual Games

This Division – Spiritual Games revolve around polar concepts – a decision between two notional ideals.  When a spiritual game is played the Players choose the spiritual ideal that each wants to exemplify the Thesis – the Referee chooses another- not necessarily opposite – but situationally relevant ideal – the Antithesis.  Then each player ascribes a value – between 2 & 19 to their Thesis.  Thereafter during the encounter, the players must roll under their number in order to succeed, spiritually using their Thesis.  Meanwhile rolls over that number indicate that the Referee’s Antithesis is the succeeding factor.  If the number is rolled on the nose then chaotic things occur & there is a mingling of the ideals leading to a Synthesis – which brings the encounter to its conclusion. 

While the options for spiritual ideals are innumerable – the suggested poles are based upon the alignment system present throughout the game.  Situations may arise in which the suggested ideals aren’t the right fit, though, so any alterations to these divisions should be expected. 

       AUDACITY Daring, verve, cleverness & boldness            8             

       CREATION Invention, artistry, whimsy & vision 2            

       DEVOTION      Intensity, certainty, focus & faith      7            

       EMPATHY Kindness, compassion & civility                    1            

       HOSTILITY      Contempt, nerve, wrath & brutality  5           

       WHIMSY  Dreams, hopes, fantasy & mysticism 4     

       MASTERY Skill, talent, innate & learned                        3            

       NOBILITY Sincerity, courage & propriety                       6           

       POSSESSIONS   Material, gain & acquisitions             0           

       REALITY  Pragmatism, sense & caution                         9           

These provide some default options for players & referees to use during spiritual encounters.  If you are playing in a game where players tally their deeds or associate one or more of these virtues for some purpose – such as In The Ruins – the referee may indicate that the player’s number for each of these is equal to the number they have achieved in that virtue. 

An example of a spiritual encounter: 

The valiant knight Farsipal seeks a divine vision through prayerful meditation upon the ideal of Purity.  The Referee deigns to propose Insolence as the opposing ideal.  Farsipal gives his number as 8.  As he encounters mythopoetic concepts within his meditation he rolls to interact with them.  At the outset he is tested by the vision of his own dying mother, afflicted by plague commanding him to ‘curse god and die’.   Farsipal rolls & gets a 4.  He renounces this vision & adheres to purity & lifts the disease from his mother, beatifying her in her final moments, giving peace.  The redemption of his mother on her deathbed changes Farsipal’s number – it becomes 6-8. 

Thereafter Farsipal crosses a river of broken glass in aid of this he encounters the steel boatman – an armored steer that navigates the flow.  Farsipal attempts to lure the boatman to his side of the river.  Rolling again he gets a 12.  He is overcome by insolence and defiantly crosses the river insensible to the billion cuts he endures along the way.  These cuts become infested with the dross of the river & Farsipal’s number changes – it becomes 6-10. 

At the final segment of his vision-journey Farsipal comes to the court of the King Unbidden who grips his shoulders & leers in his face – the vile adversary tries to tempt Farsipal with illicit pleasures.  Farsipal rolls to confront this adversary & gets an 8.  He now has Insolent-Purity.  This gives him the wherewithal to overcome the wicked king unbidden through overwhelming force of personal agency.  Farsipal leaves the meditation having gained a greater sense of self & of his internal power.  The encounter is ended. 

Had Farsipal rolled an 8 on his first test – he would have gained no Purity nor any Defiance – but would have overcome the encounter & gained the experience.  However, because he gained both Purity & Insolence he comes through the experience, not unchanged – but with both ideals more firmly established within his character. 

Had he failed to have any purity – never rolling below his number, he would emerge from the experience far more Impudent but no less pure.

Pattern for Spiritual Games  –

&       The Encounter is initiated & declared as a spiritual encounter.

&       Players each declare the ideal with which they will encounter the divine

&       The Referee declares the ideal that they must struggle with

&       The Referee narrates the scene & prompts players for their actions

&       The Players take turns rolling their dice to determine how they narrate their own actions. 

&       As the spread of numbers increases based upon going over or under the number the players achieve Synthesis – as they do so they drop out of the encounter. 

&       When all players have achieved Synthesis the encounter ends & the referee disburses the consequences. 

Adjudicating Spiritual Games – A Guide for the Referee –

As with other encounters a spiritual encounter has no truly fixed outcome & as with other encounters a clear objective is in place when it is declared.  For this reason you’ll want to place your spiritual encounters into your stories where they’ll have some relevance to the plot or the schemes of the players – vague goals aren’t a great fit for spiritual encounters – but questions meant to disassemble the vagueness within the story do make for good encounters.  Examples –

&       What do we do next? 

&       Who is the real enemy in this situation?

&       Why is this *specific thing* happening? 

If the players want to engage with the divine it should be for a specific goal. 

&       Help to expel a diabolical presence

&       Vanquish or drive out a ghost

&       Gain a vital insight into the mind of god

The Rewards for this type of encounter are thus defined by the objectives of the players – since they know what they’re seeking they determine what success in the encounter looks like.

These types of encounter shouldn’t be merely narrative advancement though.  There are consequences – both good & bad for the player when they engage in these sorts of games.  The consequences largely derive from the events of the game rather than the final outcome – since the game continues until Synthesis occurs, this sort of game will always end with players getting something.  But what they get is colored by the Synthesis of Thesis & Antithesis. 

If Players have it all their way – rolling under their number & sticking to their Thesis – they are rewarded by having that Thesis reinforced – grant a boon based upon the thesis that triggers when the ideal comes up in other encounters. 

If Players are unlucky & the Antithesis is dominant in the game – then this should affect them.  If they champion goodness against evil & evil holds sway – then they should be tainted, overwhelmed by darkness & thwarted.  Let them suffer disillusion. 

If the Synthesis is easily arrived at – the players are consequently comfortable with the Thesis & Antithesis – they will see these as complimentary rather than adversarial. 

In all these cases the players agency is a bit under stress – since you’re putting thoughts into their character’s heads – since this isn’t always agreeable to players it should be stressed at the outset of a spiritual game that the consequences are often a change in perspective & personality. 

Specific Rewards -

Here are a few specific gifts that may be granted to a character based upon their interaction with the game: 

&       A new prayer or religious spell

&       An enhanced ability in specific circumstances i.e.: a blessing

&       Important or valuable information

&       Liberation from a curse or condition

&       Status within an organization i.e.: an anointing

&       Pacification of an adversary

&       Warding or sanctification of an area

&       Desecration or decommissioning of an area

&       Charming an object or infusing a relic with holy power

&       Access to prior lives or incarnations

&       A boon or wish from an immortal being

&       The ability to access other dimensions i.e.: transcendence

&       The rescue of a soul i.e.: resurrection

Player Acquired Modifications to this Game -

&       Firmly Held – your belief in a specific ideal allows you to use it in any spiritual game.  You need no other devotion.  7

&       Unwavering – You declare a range of numbers rather than a single number when you begin.  You declare one ideal for which this holds true when gaining the ability.  6

&       Open-Minded – You are amenable to the persuasion of the antithesis & can add a number to your rolls allowing you to explore Synthesis more easily.  1

&       Deep-Thinker – You may gain more than one reward & achieve Synthesis more than once in such a game – allowing you to continue beyond the ordinary ending.  3

&       Unquestioning – You can deduct a number from your roll when you play this game, helping you to cleave more closely to your spiritual core.  2

&       Holy-Place – You can reduce the size of the die when playing a spiritual game in a sanctified location.  9

&       Diabolical Presence – The die size increases when the encounter occurs in a place of strong antithetical power, but you can ignore this.  8

&       Relic of Virtues – You may sacrifice a possession to allow a reroll of the dice.  0

&       Witch-Hunter – If you roll your Thesis number or lower you can manifest the Antithesis & fight them physically. 5

&       Deep Lore – You always gain added information or a prayer when you gain Synthesis.  4

Ripped From the Headlines!

Ysod - the mise en scène

If I didn't tell stories I probably wouldn't do this thing.  This game about telling stories with friends - I assume that it's got, at its heart, an interest in storytelling generally.  So I like to tell stories.  When I was young & feckless I didn't - not as much - since I tried to live it up & do things that were story-worthy.  Now, I'm aged & sensible so I tell stories about the bygone time of my reckless youth to my kid, saying They Were the Best of Times & Also They Sucked A Lot Too. 

When you tell tales, especially as time goes by - so fast now - You end up seeking out context - what was going on in at the time.  "Well, that summer I lived on couches & sometimes the sidewalk - It was a hot summer in a college town & I was a ridiculous mess for most of it.  I remember, I couldn't stop listening to that first Liz Phair record & everyone was sad when Jerry Garcia died." 

"Next year things got more sensible but also more boring, for me.  The houses all broke up, people were moving around & I couldn't tell you what I was going to do with myself.  I remember that that there was a cult of Star  Trek fans that killed themselves because of this comet that appeared in the sky for a good part of the year.  I ended up finding a girlfriend after dating a lot & then going back to college & doing better that time."

Nostalgia for the middle 1990's aside-  there's a context to your experiences that sets them in a place & time.  A lot of the time, in the moment, in the game, it happens that the players aren't living with any context - there's a dragon menacing the town & it needs slaying.  There's a Cult of vampires in the woods scaring the village.  And those are stories, probably cool ones - but there's just a dash of verisimilitude that would make these stories a little bit more punchy - a little more interesting to be a part of. 

As I work through my scheme of building a world through imitation of a mythic conception of reality - I've come to regard this verisimilitude as having a truly essential role.  Building up place, setting the scene - I relate these to the Kabbalistic Ysod - the foundation.

Soon...  Soon.

Naturally - I assume that real-life has no purpose nor any guiding principles or intention - and so to replicate that at the table, I've started building some random charts. 

Currently - we are playing In The Ruins - the next-best-thing, a variant of GotN linked deeply to its own setting.  Soon, playtesting will be complete, but as it continues I'm working up my own line of gazetteers.  The old D&D ones were my favorite supplements, so I'm happy I can make my own. 

For verisimilitude & random chance to prevail I've been putting together some tables, to reflect life in Sword of the West (that prince of cities) & I started out with headlines.  What's afoot in the city?  What's the news they're all talking about out in the streets? 

Depicted Here:  My lack of interest in sports...

 

The Thing as a Fight: Crafts as a Party

Fashioned at last into an arrowy shape, and welded by Perth to the shank, the steel soon pointed the end of the iron; and as the blacksmith was about giving the barbs their final heat, prior to tempering them, he cried to Ahab to place the water-cask near.
"No, no – no water for that; I want it of the true death-temper. Ahoy, there! Tashtego, Queequeg, Daggoo! What say ye, pagans! Will ye give me as much blood as will cover this barb?" holding it high up. A cluster of dark nods replied, Yes. Three punctures were made in the heathen flesh, and the White Whale’s barbs were then tempered.
"Ego non baptizo te in nomine patris, sed in nomine diaboli!" deliriously howled Ahab, as the malignant iron scorchingly devoured the baptismal blood. 

As a kid this scene from Moby Dick always spoke to me.  The blood, the curses - the hate.  In magical traditions & tango there's a concept of intention a sensibility that guides you from the essential core of the self.  It's not something you can fake or pretend to have - it's something that projects from out of your self.  Ahab's got all kinds of intention, and he binds the rest of the crew to his mad purpose.

There's another influence from my youth that speaks in the same tone of voice.




The team gathering together to create something as a solution to the immanent crisis is an interesting trope to work with.  Building it into the system to create a Game-Within-The Game then becomes an interesting challenge.

Based upon my deconstruction of the basic Game-Within-The Game  I'd like to create a mechanical system that allows everyone to participate in a kind of building-montage.  In order to create a bounded scene with full-participation we need to look at the requisite features of a proper encounter.

It must have a clear boundary - something analogous to Initiative.

It must have an implicit objective - something similar to the win & loss conditions of a melee

It must have opportunities - a chance for each player to participate using their distinct abilities

It must have a time frame - a sequence of phases in which each player can interact with the task.

In the Moby Dick passage Perth is creating the harpoon's head but Ahab filibusters & insists on making it participatory for more of the crew.  In the A-Team example everyone is busy constructing a different component of the battle-jitney and even those bringing little to the task at hand are able to contribute in some way.

So we want to establish a system that is recognizable from its inception as a Crafting-Game with its own internal framework & opportunities for player agency to be respected.

Initiative is highly focused & a crafting game needs for a similar mechanic.  In the Game of the North we can consider Initiative not merely as the order of combat - but use the first definition of initiative & reflect the individual's desire to initiate action.  Do the PCs spontaneously begin creating something?  Does one lead the project?  There's no reason we can't repurpose the initiative score encompass the larger meaning - saying that the character's innate drive & alacrity sets the terms of their participation.  So one system for creating a Game that encompasses the crafting montage would be to simply call an initiative roll - giving everyone participating a place in the order of things, allowing them to put the thing together.

If we use the Moby Dick passage as a template - Perth has taken the initiative while Ahab follows & is in turn followed by Queequeg et.al.  Then Perth finishes & then Ahab offers his diabolical benediction.  There's no necessary order to the creation - rather its designed after the initiation.

So let's consider the path here - One person is committing the muscle & the skill - creating the object itself.  Another person is affecting this initial plan by devising a complicated ritual surrounding it.  The three pagan participants are offering their blood to the project & the mastermind of the enterprise consecrates (or desecrates) the whole project. This is interesting in relation to basic framework which demands the inclusion of an objective - but I'm not exactly certain what to make of it mechanically. 

Compare to action economy in The Game of the North & in other games. 

In Game of the North – players have a movement capacity – they can move a number of spaces or meters equal to their Movement statistic.  All players can move – so we want to carry over this mechanic – say that players can range as far as they need to to make the thing.  The distance they travel then sets the timetable for the rounds & turns structure that the system prefers.  If they must travel around the world to get the things - the project may be a months or years long process.  This in turn sets the parameters of what can be used to make the object.  Say that the PCs have an afternoon to rig their van into an ersatz tank.  This limits the scope & means the PCs may only be able to deal with the materials they have on hand.  

Start with the basic elements -

Move- everyone can do it if not prevented & they have unlimited choices.  Giving everyone a universal capacity for movement makes time the abstraction & the amount of movement required sets the abstracted time.  I need to run all over the city to make this = hours or days of construction. I need to run all over the territory = days or weeks & etc… We look at the distances traveled to gather materials to set the time frame.

Turns – establishing a series of turns that don’t coincide with the time-scale of the combat – everyone has a chance to participate in the making.  Actions on your turn:

-          Make a Stat check

-          Supply materials

-          Use a piece of equipment

We want for players to have options here & for each player to be able to participate - even in a small way.  So bloodletting by making a CON check or carrying the ammo crate by making a STR check.  This type of action can be easily included but not intensely planned out.   

Rounds – The whole project can be considered as a Round

-          Use a skill check to plan the construction

-          Use an ability like magic or tinkering

In a combat encounter the round encompasses everyone's turns - so the round here must be all the turns of the characters involved - certain actions should require the complete round - these are the main activities in the creation-game, the guiding activities.  

Objectives – So there's a basic objective-  build something.  But in a fight there's an opposing side with an opposing objective.  Here the Players are just rolling dice & narrating - which is amusing, sure, but it falls short of being a Game.  This is another area where I've got competing notions of how to execute this.  First, I'm thinking of Hit Points - HP is best when used abstractly - in my opinion to indicate the vitality & willingness to fight of an opponent - rather than the actual integrity of their corporeal form.  So it's an abstract quantity that sets a goal that the team of players must whittle down to zero in order to win.  It's almost dirty, when you put it that way, but it's also true.  It seems that this is a portable mechanic - something that could be used in this crafting game.  Perhaps there's a secret value - held by the Referee who considers the item's ultimate value in say - Silver Pieces.  Each action could add to this value & when the value is reached the thing is created. 

That's not a terrible way to go - it has the virtue of including the unfortunate anti-climax all players know about.  How many times have you stood, poised to unleash your best & most useful move only to have the player whose turn strikes before yours end the battle.  You're left with nothing to do as the game crosses out of initiative.  So Imagine the harpoon being made before Ahab even speaks up, in the example from Moby Dick.  I like the potential for this in any given system - surprises & disorientation focus attention.  

But what about opposition.  In the Combat Game the players can be hurt, can be killed themselves by an opposing side.  What about here - what's the opposition?  So here, maybe the Referee can oppose with a series of approximate NPCs.  Have you ever heard of the Person From Porlock?  Having your efforts to create things spoiled by random intrusions is something every creator knows about - why should PCs be denied the pleasure of thwarted dreams?  

So - If we consider the crafting game as a series of activities aiming at completing a task - we can look at the things that oppose or hinder that as effective counterattacks.  In the combat-parodying system above the idea then is to include these on separate turns.  This would mean that hindering events would need to be treated as NPCs or environmental effects.  This is...  Actually Fine.  Perfect in fact - but an idea that needs more development prior to presenting (I work through ideas here, I work through concepts with the intention of figuring out how I'd like to create a game - so this is me having an epiphany).  

Simplified:  

On initiative turn 20 - The environment intervenes.  Rain?  Hurricane?  Power outages?  Earthquakes?  These are things that should be randomly decided & then resisted through Saving Throws.  Failures increase the final cost of the thing.

On initiative turn 10 - NPC interventions.  People come around to pester you about your insurance situation, neighborhood kids come to watch & ask too many questions.  A wandering monster appears on site & attacks...  This is something that needs to be beaten through a Social test or a combat encounter (although - probably you shouldn't beat up some neighborhood kids for being curious).  Failing means that the thing is set back - maybe considerably.  Maybe the NPC intervention is a robber who steals what's already been made, for example.

On initiative turn 5 - Moment of Truth - Here's where the project enters its proving phase.  It's all well and good to bolt armor to your custom van - but what if it's too heavy & it pops all the tires?  What if your blood-soaked harpoon deforms under stress?   This should be worked out as a single check made by the initiating player.  Let them devise their response to the proving of the work & then have them make the check - aided or assisted by the other players as they're able, of course.  A failure here sets the project back considerably - but doesn't thwart it utterly - work can resume, but it's almost a back-to-the-drawing-board scenario.  

What's left then is to quantify the respective values.  How much does a skill check remove from the target value?  How much does a failed NPC interaction deduct from the Player's accumulated points?  How many of these abstract points need to be accumulated in order to create the object in question?  

Finally - how does creating the object affect play going forward?  What good does making the battle-jitney do you?  Does it allow you to defeat a specific encounter without a combat?  That's not a terrible conclusion to come to.  Does it allow for a single, ruthless, magical attack upon a single, ruthless, magical enemy?  From here - at the end of this effort to work through the ideas - I think that the effectiveness of the thing being made should be built into the initiative declared when creating the thing.  So - when Ahab plans that the harpoon be a cursed weapon of Moby Dick slaying - that is where the desired effect is being declared & the value of the object must be adjudicated by the Ref.  When B.A. starts customizing the van to allow a bloodless defeat of the impending mook-wave - that sets the target.  

Good.  Good...  Work cut out for me, objectives defined, I must begin making all of my rolls to accomplish the crafting of a rulebook.  

The Mystic Art Of Game-Mastery - or - The Lightning Path To Sublime Refereeing

Now friend, you might ask & I will answer (I’m taking this in a more conversational route because we’re friends.  You’re a Ref, I’m a Ref – We Make Worlds – that’s a lot for us to have in common, so I say we’re friends) – aren’t you taking something mystical & maybe a bit sacred and making it into something… not those things?  You’re looking at my modification of the tree of life thinking – are you a crazy person?  Just wicked? 

Well, let’s get right down to it friend.  See, we make worlds.  The tree of life, in the minds of the ancient people who devised it, was meant to be a map to understanding the mind of their creator.  Well, here we are.  Creating.  Creating rather a lot.  You might be running your game, building your setting and get the idea that really, you need to rewrite the laws of physics for your setting.  You wouldn’t be the first.  This Thing We Do is an act of vast creativity, and maybe, in our way, in our imaginations we are like gods.  Don’t let it go to your head though – you need players and they’re good at subverting your will – you’re a creator of place & scene & people, but this Thing We Do – it’s still an act of supreme creation & I realized that the map of understanding it from the perspective of those who wanted to understand the mind of the creator was a good place to start at mapping a path toward accomplishing This Thing We Do.  The idea isn’t to subvert anyone’s mystical or religious practice – rather, it’s to co-opt it whole cloth and use it as I see fit. 

Magicians & priests talked about the different sefirot – the different sections of the tree of life as aspects of the world and they devised a path through all of them to achieve the mind of god by passing from the bottom to the top.  Discussed here is the journey from the top to the bottom – it’s a method & a style for running your game that covers all the elements at work & that creates a journey of creation, just for you. 

The top of the tree is called Keter & it’s meant, in kabbalah to be the very peak, the Crown – which is what I’ve positioned there.  The Crown.  In the description of sub-games previously the crown was shown to indicate the Duel.  In this case, for your purposes – it’s a bit of both.  Here, you’re devising your villain.  The villain may seem like a weird place to start, so let’s clarify.  This is the Conflict.  There’s no story without a conflict & creating one is what you’ll have to do to invent the story.  In many cases what you’re creating is not your players enemy – but a slate of potential enemies – a conflict in the game that guides the events of the setting.  This conflict will draw sides & your PC’s will chose one or the other or all sides or none-  all of these are choices & they’re forced, in some way, by the existence of the conflict to make a choice. 

The lightning path that goes from the top to the bottom – the path we’re looking at follows from the crown of Keter to the scepter of Chokhma.  Here we have the spiritual component of the game.  For the players this means vision quests & battles of identity – it’s all very high level, in terms of play.  Not all players are up to this kind of transcendent thinking at the table.  Insofar as you, the Referee are concerned this is the motivation.  Villains exist, conflicts exist – but why are they opposed & what is the threat that they pose to the setting & the players thereby?  This is where you put together the villains ideals, their ambitions & plans.  What’s the thinking that is the basis behind their schemes?  Knowing this, knowing the rationale behind the conflicts allows you to really sell the conflicts as concerns – things that the players can grasp & understand & get involved in.  You’re creating an ethos here – competing ones  - and this creates a spiritual, ethical axis that the PCs are forced to put themselves on – somewhere.  Is this a battle between good & evil?  Where do the PC’s lie on this spectrum?  They’ll have to decide  - you’re just creating the relevant options here. 

From Chokhma we travel over to Binah – the spider.  We’re doing away with Kabbalistic approximation here to address the spider & its web.  The spider is your conflicting forces – they exist, so what then are their manipulations?  Who are their minions, where are they set up?  You’ve got to establish mini-bosses, hierarchies or orders – networks through which the villains & their plans interact with each other & the rest of the setting.  If you’re pitting the gods of Law against demons of Chaos – here’s where you’ll create the churches of Law & the cults of Chaos. 

Now, on to magic.  The sefirot Da’at is the unity of all the other sefira & is also knowledge.  Here we have it as magic & it is your magic, as the referee.  Here you’re combining all you know of what you’ve created to concentrate – to tell the story as it will happen – as it will unfold without the intervention of the players.  This is you, moving your pieces on the board, playing chess against yourself – this is you communing with your creation to really understand it, what forces are in motion & what will become of the world.  You’re creating a future here, predicting it from the hints you’ve placed.  This is the whole of your invention – you’ll return here often, but for now, on the path we are taking – you’ll be consider the conflict you’ve invented, its cause & the groups & forces that work to create that future.  Should good & evil be in collision, should their Templars & Anti-Popes be battling it out – you’ll have to know, in your planning – what will happen if the PCs don’t get involved.   

   

The journey from this introspection flows to Chesod – to love, in Kabbalah – for us it is the talking game – the social game.  Here you’re going to conceive of allies & friends - helpful contacts & allied NPCs for your PCs.  They needn’t love the PCs, they could very well hate them – but you, you should love these characters you’re creating because you are going to portray them.  Create NPCs that you’d have as friends, lavish as much thought & attention as you’re able onto these characters.  The richer they are, the more likable they are – the more the PCs will respond, the more they’ll attempt to protect or serve or help them. 

Now to Gevurah – to the element of fire & to the fight.  Here’s where you need to put together some confrontations.  You’ll run any number of fights in your campaign – some may be completely incidental, those aren’t what we’re thinking of here.  Here we are planning out large encounters, important & pivotal ones.  These are the milestones of the character’s struggles – the points of articulation where the campaign’s secrets will be revealed through some confrontation.  Confrontations can be battles – big, interesting fight scenes with all sorts of embellishment – fighting atop a collapsing, burning castle – or aboard a sinking ship in a whirlwind – anything you wish – but just make it a pivotal scene – something where great matters are decided.  You want to have these scenes in your mind far in advance of them ever being fought out at the table. 

Now on to Tiferet – the adornment, decoration.  Now you’ve got the big ideals, their resultant thematic allies, friends for the PCs and big scenes for them to chew – now you’re into the biggest job – the most rigorous of your tasks – now you’re building the world.  The balance here is the balance between effort & reward & that balance is always in your favor.  This is where you, the referee – can lose yourself into the deep wells of conlang & cryptozoology – you can spend a lifetime on a world, figuring out every type of tree in every woodland and every continent.  This is the place where you are thinking up the details that comprise your world.  It is an endless task but its own reward.  The other aspect of balance here is determining how much detail you can present to players, how much is too much is a very difficult question to answer & it really is something each player determines for themselves – but you can’t even ask the question until you’ve created something for them to seek or ignore.  Good luck.      

Everything below Tiferet – the balance – the Adornment of your setting is a specific aspect of the setting that you are adorning.  These are all deep wells of specificity that all relate to one another.  The first thing we get to is the materialist Sefirot – Netzach.  Netzach suggests permanence & here you’re filling in the blanks on what is, not permanent exactly, but what is permanent in human perception – institutions, symbols, material wealth, magic artifacts.  You’re creating the material culture of your setting – all that will remain for the archaeologists in all the centuries to come.  Corollary to this creation is the invention of material wealth for your players.  Treasures & relics – the wished for & wanted trappings of power & wealth that drive so many PCs. 

When working on Netzach you are creating your own mithril-silver, your own unobtanium & your own master-sword & your own great pyramids – you are making the materials that define your setting’s civilizations – and by doing so you’re implying its history & its likely futures. 

From Netzach we move on the lightning path to the entertainment Sefirot – Hod.  The Glory, the Splendor.  This is your performance – your ability to manifest the setting as a shared imaginary place between you and your players. 

There’s no end of the tricks & tips that have been offered to Referees for making all the player’s minds eyes focus into a single vision – your narrative vision.  Cues, including music, artworks, cast-lists – there’s a lot you can do to try and make the scenes pop out into shared existence. 

For us, at this moment though – for us the thing that really matters – that’s essential – is that this rests upon everything else, it’s caught in a net with the rest of the Sefirot & contextually, it can’t exist without the rest.  Really Refereeing well means being prepared.  You have to have all the rest of the setting, the world & its people well defined enough that you can produce, at will, any variants or improvised elements of that setting.  Should the players choose (as they are so often wont to do) to ignore a plot & to wander off in another direction – you must be prepared with interesting locations, people & events.  More than that you must know what occurs without the players’ actions.  Time must pass & urgent events must transpire whether or not the players intercede – this is a lot to do at the table, and it’s often a virtuoso performance for an audience of three or four – you must find the pleasure in the performance itself, for yourself. 

After Hod we find ourselves in Yesod – the foundation – the base.  This is matched to the survival, environmental game.  Here’s where you’re creating an environment – ecology & populations – maps & monster-lists.  You’re making the world all the more real through devising its rich substance.  Atlases of continents, maps of cities & travel guides – all the distances between all the rest of the things you’ve created comes up here – here you combine all you’ve made & apply it, like pigments to a canvas.  The map becomes the map of your setting, of your whole creation.  It is the reference document, as well, that will guide your players- as the world opens to them, as they experience more & more of it, the map is the graphical chart of the group’s progress through your imagination. 

And from there we find Malkuth – the kingdom – the world – or, in this construction – the Table.  The place where we do This Thing We Do Together.  Here, if all has gone well, if you’ve made the magic that’s needed to invent & populate a world of your own imagining – the game becomes transcendent, the players are moved by your cleverness & the peaks of this hobby rise above the peaks of other activities.  It’s also where the players roll dice, where they interject endlessly with comedy references, where they get distracted & confused – but.  But if you are on your game, if you’ve mastered all the Sefirot – you’ll find that you have an attentive audience, engaged players & a final outcome that is superior to the components that comprise it.

“Alright Methuselah.”  I hear you sighing.  Nice with the rapturous, breathless tone.  Nice work trying to get all mystical with something that should be easy.  Nice.  You clap slowly & smirk.  Well, maybe you’re not a sarcastic jerk, but you might be looking at all of this thinking – well, that’s not how I do it.  I start by making the map – after all, conflicts come from geography – not the other way around.  Or perhaps I start with the unobtainable treasure – the McGuffin – these other steps fall into place after. 

I hear you and understand.  I don’t present this map of creation as a strict system of storytelling grammar – I think of it more as a checklist – you need these things – all of these things – if you’re going to be the best Referee.  The order that I’ve outlined here is one that I suggest, and that is working for me after having made a few dozen pretty detailed settings.  That said- I think that it’s worth looking at the paths between these Sefirot.  The routes are sometimes overlooked – but the ways that the connect from one Sefirot to another does tend to give useful instruction.