The refs in Breaking Worlds are present IC as Guides - inscrutable figures who embody part of the natural order of the universe and serve as bridges to the spirit world. The Guides can be spoken to by PCs, but they are under no obligation to answer and are well-known to remain aloof from most mortal concerns. On rare occasions they may “help fate along” by giving particular advice to a character or group.
This is intended to reduce the level of OOC intrusion on the game by rationalising OOC constraints as IC ones. For instance, sacrifices and evocations need a Guide because only they can pass the offering or message to the spirits. Different forms of this approach have been shown to work well at Odyssey, Falling Down, and other systems and in my view can be adapted successfully to CLS.
The options for character background are intended to enrich the setting and give some choice to players while keeping physrep requirements within reasonable bounds and discouraging powergaming. (CUTT players will remember the terrifying power of kender subterfugers - I consider it a lesson in not letting people stack up sources of flange.)
The fay are a shameless rip-off of Empire’s lineage. They exist to add a degree of diversity, with no particular mechanical effect but a distinct appearance (make-up in a particular colour and pattern), a leaning toward a particular temperament, and several implications for IC politics. Being fay will attract favour from spirits of the same element and suspicion from those of the opposing two. It is also stereotypically aristocratic, although it’s known IC that the trait is not hereditary but acquired.
Wights serve a number of purposes in the game and setting design. The fact that people can now return from the dead is a major plot point - as well as being creepy it has led to a lot of difficulties for the hereditary nobility. Equally importantly, having a single shot at resurrection also allows a linear to end in a TPK without being completely brutal on the players, and lets traumatically-minded players (of which CLS has a few) torment people and play tragic monsters. To counterbalance this, wights suffer from IC prejudice due to being gruesome walking corpses, and it will be reasonably easy IC to prevent resurrection and make sure people stay dead.
Offworlder PCs are a logical consequence of the planar rifts, but they are also designed to give new players an accessible starting point. At the cost of not being able to start with faction membership or evocation skills, they will have a fairly open costume brief and no social expectation of being familiar with the setting. As they get used to the game OOC the characters can adapt and ‘go native’ IC.
The factions are designed to provide a driver for plot and for a measure of PVP. The three main ones - Noble Houses, Armies, and Reformists - all support the nation, but have very different ideas of how this should be achieved, and the nobility and Reformists in particular are strongly opposed to each other’s ideologies.
It will be possible for PCs to join the priesthood, giving them a smaller parcel of benefits but fewer responsibilities, and it will be possible for this to overlap with membership of one of the three main factions. Remaining unaligned will also be an option and freelancers will enjoy a great deal of choice in who they work for.
The small number of factions and their distinct styles of play are intended to provide a stronger sense of identity and allow for internal as well as inter-group politics. At the same time each faction is fairly diverse, giving players freedom to create their own stories.
Faction membership will be tied to a skill costing some XP, and will come with an IC means of identification (for example a deed of enfeoffment, commission, or committee membership card). Players will be able to generate characters already belonging to a faction; characters may alternatively gain membership in play, though they will still need to spend XP.
The default starting point for a character is one in a minor position of responsibility - this is a landed knight or retainer for the nobility, an ensign or sergeant in the Armies, or an activist for the Reformists. Characters who are already members of a faction will be able to acquire greater status through IC action, in the form of a larger estate, a more senior commission, or a more influential revolutionary following.
Each faction will have an income that is shared between all the members who appear at an interactive, representing the income from estates, crown funds, or donations. These incomes will start off the same - but sufficiently impressive player action can change that, as will player failure to deal with a threat.
The intention of this is to encourage nominal IC allies to work together towards the same goal, but to discourage everyone from playing in the same faction.
The spirits, elemental and ancestral, are a key part of the setting. Mechanically they also serve to provide a constant source of plot and encounters, both combat and non-combat, and to add flexibility to PCs’ builds.
Spirits can be summoned with skills from the Evocation tree. These are rituals ranging from fairly minor to enormous depending on the power of the spirit sought - it is intentional that more powerful spirits will be summoned more rarely as they will have a greater impact on plot and mechanics.
Each spirit, whether physrepped or not, has a lammie to represent its essence.
The weakest spirits are essentially mindless, and summoning them is expected to be relatively routine. They will simply appear (perhaps just as lammies) when called and are considered to be willing or unresisting in most circumstances - so they can be bound with a minimum of ref intervention.
More powerful spirits will be NPCs in their own right, and will be more intelligent and demanding. They may set limits on whom they will serve or what purpose they are put to, and may insist on other things such as a code of conduct to be followed or a sacrifice to be made. In particular, spirits are likely to insist on a test of some kind before they consent to be bound. This may be a duel, a test of riddles, a gift, a game such as dice or blackjack (playing into the trope of “dice with the devil”), or something else; in most cases anyone assisting with the ritual will be able to participate and help achieve a favourable result.
As well as major spirits acting as both NPCs and rewards, many human NPCs will have bound spirits, and this is intended to be a source of plot. For instance, someone might have bound a spirit that grants impressive powers but demands a high cost for these services, and come to the PCs for help resolving the issue...
I believe no character should be able to do everything, but every character should be able to do something regardless of the situation.
CUTT had (and its relatives still have!) a system of character creation that encouraged strong identities, but suffered from excessive complexity that taxed a lot of people’s memories. NFNC has a much simpler and more accessible system and is much easy to play, but the way skills are bought combined with the metaphysics has led to remarks that it lacks flavour. My goal is to develop mechanics with the help of more experienced refs, that will achieve a “golden mean” between these two.
Here are some of the principles I want to follow: