~ Entropy ~

The Entropy system was inspired by FATE, the Window, Nobilis, Amber, and other sorts of systems where the players expressly have a good deal of control over the game and the world, and the mechanics are primarily designed to help guide the narrative flow (and determine who has a say in what) as the group creates a story together. My own Asura system, which itself has similar goals, also contributed ideas. It was also inspired by discussions I had on IRC about the ongoing forum games here, which got me thinking about how I, personally, would try to balance a rules-light game based around politics, diplomacy, scheming, and creating a shared story. The approach I have taken in Entropy is a rather generic and open one. Its mechanics are not focused on accurately simulating anything, as the actual events that transpire are part of the narrative the players and GM are free to create. This game is not really about "winning," and playing it to "win" is either trivially easy or impossible, depending on your definition of winning. Rather, the rules and mechanics of Entropy deal with who has the authority at any given time to create the narrative that moves things forward. Of course, in the spirit of being shared and fair, not everyone will have the spotlight all the time. Players will have to make choices where to push their agenda, and where to back off and let someone else push theirs. The GM is tasked, of course, with creating NPCs that push back, and facilitating the development of interesting plot. The game mechanics are designed to facilitate frequent plot twists and other interesting developments. However, the players have a good deal of agency, and the GM is also encouraged to frequently back off and just let them create-- railroading will not lead anywhere good in a game like this.

Key Concept #1

Let's see what happens. This is a shared story, so everyone should contribute.

Entities
An Entity is a discrete "thing we care about." It should be something that is capable of being influenced-- and, to keep things interesting, most Entities should also be capable of exerting some influence themselves. Perhaps not a whole lot, because an individual Entity shouldn't possess much power, but, in groups, Entities can be significant forces to be reckoned with. In many games, the 'standard' Entity is one person, but this is by no means required. If it's a game where characters are all queen bees running their hives, then an Entity is an individual bee. If it's a game about vast interstellar empires or something similarly grandiose, an Entity might be a whole planet.

Key Concept #2

Entities are the "nouns" of the Entropy system.

A "group" varies depending on what an Entity is, referring to around 50 people, or something equivalent. If we're talking about planets, it might be a star system.

Resources
A Resource is handed basically like an Entity, but it is a valuable asset or something else that has become an important plot point. Resources are not placed into groups, and are always handled individually; each Resource has an association with a given Sphere and a value, which reflects how much Influence has gone into (or is possible to get out of) it.

Influence
Influence is the standard "currency" of Entropy. In-setting, it might mean power, votes, money, equipment, magic or whatever-- the real idea behind Influence is that it allows a player to exert narrative control. Players start with 6 Influence, which refreshes to be spent anew every turn, but this number, too, can vary depending on the specific game. What tools the character uses to exert that control are governed by the character's Aspects and Spheres, what makes narrative sense, and, really, however the player feels like describing it. By declaring an Action and spending sufficient Influence to overcome the difficulty of the Action, that player has declared something that has happened in the story. In other words, What Influence says, goes. This hands players a good deal of power, and it is up to them to use it responsibly and in-character. As such, the only time this rule shouldn't hold is when the Action directly and utterly contradicts the GM's and everyone else's concept for how the world should be, in which case the GM should immediately veto the action. However, the GM is strongly encouraged to veto only the most egregious violations of consistency, and use increased difficulty (see below) for most other things.

Key Concept #3

When sufficient Influence is brought to bear to match an Action's difficulty, then the results of that Action are considered "canon." Players use Influence to exert narrative control over what is important to them.

Aspects
Aspects shape what someone or something is, usually an Entity, but they might also be assigned to a location or ephemerally apply to the situation as a whole.
There are three types of Aspects:

Permanent Aspects are the core qualities of what an Entity is. For a person, it's likely to be a core belief or physical trait.
Major Aspects are often part of the core identity of an Entity, but are more mutable than a Permanent Aspect. For a person, it could be career choice, body physique, or a strong opinion.
Minor Aspects are ephemeral. Entities can gain or lose them easily, and they do not last any significant amount of game time. For a person, it could be a passing fad, a minor injury, or a short-term temporary job. It could also be a more permanent thing that remains in the back of someone's mind, such as support or dislike for a particular individual or an opinion on a single random topic.

Key Concept #4

To continue the grammar analogy, if Entities are nouns, then Aspects are adjectives.

For player characters, Permanent Aspects also help to shape how one exerts Influence. A brutal warlord will have Aspects that speak of his ferocity, prowess in battle, and skill marshaling and commanding forces, whereas a suave diplomat will have Aspects that describe her acumen in negotiations and her ability to find an almost instant rapport with nearly anyone. On the other hand, it can also be fun and realistic to have one or two Aspects that have nothing to do with the core concept of the character, and instead branch off into a different direction: perhaps the warlord is truly an idealist who has become jaded by circumstances, or the diplomat is a secret student of the dark arts. Double-edged Aspects can also be good; characters are generally far from perfect, with their share of flaws as well. Less-than-savory Aspects can be useful in Debts. Player characters have Permanent Aspects equal to their Influence.

Spheres
Spheres determine where characters are best at exercising their Influence. There are four default Spheres in Entropy, named for the elements so as to be rather setting-neutral. The exact Actions within each Sphere are dependent on the game system, and the players and GM are both encouraged to be flexible when it comes to determining what Sphere an Action falls under. However, here are some general guidelines:

The Fire sphere governs the use of power in its most overt, blatant form. (Could also be known as Military, Power, etc.)
The Water sphere governs the use of more subtle forms of power. (Could also be known as Politics, Charisma, etc.)
The Earth sphere governs the material well-being of Entities. (Could also be known as Economics, Wealth, etc.)
The Air sphere governs the psychological and/or spiritual well-being of Entities. (Could also be known as Religion, Stability, etc.)

Characters get a rating of 1 in each Sphere automatically. They can then allocate points equal to their Influence to the Spheres, as they desire. The value for each Sphere reflects the maximum amount of Influence that the character can spend on any one Action in that Sphere. This limit is known as the Sphere limit.

~ Actions ~

Actions are the way Influence is spent, and the main means by which players create the game's narrative. To perform an action, the player picks the Action's type (explained below), chooses a Permanent Aspect through which that Action could appropriately be carried out, and allocates Influence to it up to the character's value in that Sphere. The player is then free to decide what happens as a result of that Action, within the limits provided by the Action. Only one Action may be carried out per Permanent Aspect per turn; this means that multiple related Actions can work together towards the same goal, if a character's Sphere value is low, at the expense of tying up more Aspects.

Key Concept #5

Actions are the verbs that link it all together. Actions tell how Entities and Aspects interact mechanically, allowing players to drive the story forward in a way that suits them.

If there is a conflict between the results described by two Actions, the winning Action is the one with more Influence spent. If these are equal as well, then the winning Action is determined by the roll of dice.

Control
A Control Action is the most basic and often the most useful. It is the Action by which the characters spend Influence in order to advance their agendas, and the story as a whole. The amount of Influence spent determines how much control the character is able to exert, according to the difficulty.

Resource
A Resource Action works similarly to a Control action, with the goal of gaining a Resource. Generally speaking, you trade Influence 1:1 for Resource value. The source of the Resource might be some natural resource, it might be holding a particular piece of land, or whatever. Typically, Entities are involved, and the cost of gaining the Resource is based on the ways the Entities must be influenced to gain control of the Resource, again, using the standard levels of difficulty. For example, to gain a Resource of an army, employing enough Entities to form it would be placing a Major Aspect on them, and the influence costs are calculated accordingly.

Defense
A Defense Action allows an Entity to resist a Control action. Without appropriate Defense, anyone could be subverted (or assassinated, even!) by simply spending one Influence, because that is all it takes to exert narrative control over a single Entity. Defense lets players defend their interests from the machinations of wily NPCs, not to mention the even more wily other players. By allocating Influence to a Defense Action, it raises difficulty by an equivalent amount. For example, allocating 2 Influence to the Defense of an Entity group means that placing a Major Aspect on that group now costs 3 Influence instead of just one.

Transfer
A character can transfer Influence, Entities or Aspects to the control of another player (or NPC), as part of an alliance, a trade, or whatever other deal. If Influence is part of the Transfer, the recipient must spend it on the next turn or it is lost. Influence that was received as part of a Transfer cannot itself again be transferred. It costs nothing to make a Transfer, but an appropriate Aspect must still be chosen for it to take place.

~ Difficulty ~

The difficulty of an Action determines how much Influence must be used in order to carry it out. Spending one Influence allows nearly complete narrative control over a single Entity (including placing a Permanent Aspect), a Major Aspect on a small Entity group, or a Minor Aspect on five Entity groups. Each additional Influence roughly doubles the reach of the Influence.

Key Concept #6

Difficulty is set by the GM according to these rules, and determines how much Influence must be spent to carry out an Action.

Generally, difficulty works as follows:

1 Influence allows for narrative control over 1 Entity, placing a Major Aspect on 1 group, or placing a Minor Aspect on 5 groups.
2 Influence allows for narrative control over 2 Entities, placing a Major Aspect on 2 groups, or placing a Minor Aspect on 10 groups.
3 Influence allows for narrative control over 4-5 Entities, placing a Major Aspect on 4-5 groups, or placing a Minor Aspect on 20 groups.
4 Influence allows for narrative control over 5-10 Entities, placing a Major Aspect on 5-10 groups, or placing a Minor Aspect on 40-50 groups.
5 Influence allows for narrative control over 15-20 Entities, placing a Major Aspect on 15-20 groups, or placing a Minor Aspect on 50-100 groups.
6 Influence allows for narrative control over one group, placing a Major Aspect on 40-50 groups, or placing a Minor Aspect on 150-200 groups.
7 Influence allows for narrative control over 2 groups, placing a Major Aspect on 150-200 groups, or placing a Minor Aspect on 200-400 groups.

And so on...
When there are significant technological obstacles, the difficulty is increased. Character factions are normally assumed to be about the same approximate level of technology, but a large gap can increase the amount of Influence needed in order to carry anything out. This gap can be 1 or 2 for different levels of advancement in pre-industrial civilizations, but 3 or more when one side is industrialized and the other is not.

Rather than an outright veto of unrealistic Actions, the GM can instead assert that there is a sizable difficulty. This means that if players really want it, they can have it, but it's going to cost them.

~ Gathering Influence ~

Given that Influence is the way characters drive their agendas (and players drive the narrative) it stands to reason that players are going to want to gather as much of it as possible. However, by just spending their allotment every turn, they won't really be able to accomplish anything truly grandiose. For that, they'll need to stretch a bit, and gather up some more Influence. Fortunately, there are a few ways.

Invoking
Resources (or beneficial Aspects) can be turned back into Influence at the same rate that Control Actions allow a character to assert them. This process is called Invoking. This allows a character to, for example, raise an army and then use it to attack an enemy, "cashing out" the Influence to assert a victory over the enemy. As a reward for planning for the future, as long as the thing being Invoked has existed for longer than the current turn, the Influence used is in a separate pool equal to the Sphere limit, effectively doubling the character's ability to exert Influence. Additionally, once the Invoke has succeeded, roll (2d6 - 6). On a 0 or negative number, the Resource cannot be Invoked again, and Influence must be spent to assert it again. However, on a positive number, up to that amount worth of Influence is preserved, and can be Invoked again in the future.

Debts
A character can "Invoke" an appropriate Permanent Aspect to grant +1 to Influence available, creating a Debt. Used in this way, the Aspect cannot be linked to an Action in that turn. The exact nature of this Debt will depend on the Aspect, but it will always result in more trouble later on. The price is always high: whatever problem a Debt creates will have a difficulty equal to double the amount of Influence gained. The GM will often let Debts hang over players' heads for quite some time, and there is nothing they can do about this. Once incurred, a Debt cannot be paid off "at will," as the the player must wait for the trouble to strike and then deal with it.

Fate
Rarely is anything certain. People often simply have to do the best they can, and hope that circumstances will hand them a favorable outcome. Characters may declare part of their Action's Influence to be provided by Fate, as long as the character still provides at least half the Influence. This number is rounded down, so actions costing 1 Influence are "free," but they still require an Aspect, and can backfire. The player then decides the outcome of the Action as though everything had succeeded without any problems. When resolving the Action, the GM then rolls a number of d6's equal to amount of Influence the player has trusted to Fate. On a 4 or higher for each die, add +1 to the Influence. However, on a 1, subtract one Influence. If the goal was met, use the player's description. However, if it was not, the Action did not completely succeed, and it's up to the GM to decide what happened and what didn't. Use the rules for difficulty as a guideline, to determine how much of an effect the Action still had. The GM should have some drawback to Fate rolls that fell short-- it should never be in a player's interest to horribly overreach in hopes of getting a partial success. Good drawbacks include negative Minor Aspects or creating new Entities that may be sources of problems. In addition, the Results roll should have a -1 penalty for each Influence that was "missed," allowing for further blunders.

~ Results ~

In Entropy, players intentionally have a great deal of narrative control. By spending Influence and taking Actions, they can drive their narrative agenda (and their character's political agenda) forward. However, sometimes, this can often lead to a certain flat predictability to the game. Each turn, the GM should pick two Actions for each character-- perhaps it's the character's most significant Actions, or perhaps just Actions that caught the GM's eye due to the wide range of possibilities. If nothing stands out, use the Actions in which the most Influence was spent. Then, roll a d6 for each one, and follow the Results table:

1 = The Action went far worse than expected! Add a caveat to the player's narrative, that imposes a harmful Major Aspect, gives a Resource to the enemy, or other situational penalty.
2-4 = The Action was what it was. Make no special changes.
6 = The Action went far better than expected! Add an unexpected bonus to the player's narrative, that grants an additional beneficial Major Aspect, Resource, or other appropriate situational reward.