I've been toying with the idea of having the seven deadly sins and the seven virtues as mechanics for one of my games.

You get penalized with corruption points when you sin and you get rewarded virtue points when you act following one of the virtues.

Now, I think you should also get some mechanical effect when you reach X ammount of points and then every time you double the points.

There should also be some way to get your corruption points erased, maybe by doing something in line with the opposing virtue?

Thoughts? Do you know of any game with a similar mechanic?

Quote from: GeekyBugle on July 13, 2023, 01:58:47 AM
I've been toying with the idea of having the seven deadly sins and the seven virtues as mechanics for one of my games.

You get penalized with corruption points when you sin and you get rewarded virtue points when you act following one of the virtues.

Now, I think you should also get some mechanical effect when you reach X ammount of points and then every time you double the points.

There should also be some way to get your corruption points erased, maybe by doing something in line with the opposing virtue?

Thoughts? Do you know of any game with a similar mechanic?

Shadow of the Demon Lord has corruption points.  You get them for explicitly evil acts (like murder) or by casting certain evil spells.  At a certain amount of them, you get physical and mental manifestations of them on your character.  There are atonement rituals you can undertake to reduce your corruption.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on July 13, 2023, 01:58:47 AM
I've been toying with the idea of having the seven deadly sins and the seven virtues as mechanics for one of my games.

You get penalized with corruption points when you sin and you get rewarded virtue points when you act following one of the virtues.

Now, I think you should also get some mechanical effect when you reach X ammount of points and then every time you double the points.

There should also be some way to get your corruption points erased, maybe by doing something in line with the opposing virtue?

Thoughts? Do you know of any game with a similar mechanic?

I am working on a game where the characters are in purgatory and working off their sins (the more sins they have the bigger their skill rank pool, but that comes with the need to purify each of the sins and each sin reduces your Virtue rating which is pretty important during the game). I have been having each sin go away with acts or redemption that relate to the sin itself.

I think going with the corresponding virtue can work.

It isn't strictly related but the Ravenloft Powers check system worked pretty well as a corruption mechanic.

Lee Gold's Lands of Adventure had a Piety score which could be positive or negative and was used to invoke miracles.  One aspect of the rule I liked was that a character with negative piety had to do tasks for the offended god to by it off.  Nine labours and so forth.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on July 13, 2023, 01:58:47 AM
Do you know of any game with a similar mechanic?

Geeky,

True 20 (OGL) has a great Corruption system:

Corruption Rating

Your Corruption rating (CR) ranges from 0 to 10. If it exceeds 10, your character becomes an NPC. Your CR can increase if you perform one of the following corrupt acts:

•   Kill in a corrupt place.
•   Perform a transgression listed on the table below.
•   Succumb to your vice nature in a corrupt place or in contact with a corrupt item.
•   Summon a creature from beyond the void.
•   Use a power in a corrupt place or in contact with a corrupt item.
•   Use a power to directly control someone, read someone's mind, or take a life.
•   Use a necromancy power.

Gaining Corruption

If you commit a corrupt act, make a CHA saving throw (DN 10 plus half the rank of the power used, or according to the table below). If you fail the save, your CR increases by 1 point.

DN   Act   Example
10   Minor Transgression    Lying, petty theft
15   Significant Transgression    Deliberately hurtful actions
20   Major Transgression    Murder, rape, torture
30   Mortal Transgression    Conscious betrayal of companion, murder of innocents

Effects of Corruption

Corruption manifests as physical symptoms (fatigue, weakness, nausea, gnawing hunger, etc.) which apply to CON, or mental symptoms (fear, anger, paranoia, etc.) which apply to WIS.

As your CR increases, you lose control over your Vice nature. When presented with an opportunity to regain CP by acting in accordance with your Vice, you must succeed on a Will save (DN 10 + total CR) or follow your Vice nature for the scene. If your WIS is greater than 0, you can spend one CP to automatically overcome this urge. A victim of Corruption whose WIS is debilitated goes completely mad in accordance with his or her Vice nature.

Corrupt Places

Some places (houses where multiple murders occurred, apartments of serial killers, graveyards where dark rituals took place, etc.) can spread their evil to those who spend their time there. If your CR is 1 or more, you temporarily add the places' CR to your CR.

Corrupt Items

A corrupt item is much like a corrupt place, except it only affects individuals in contact with the item. Anyone carrying a corrupt item is subject to Corruption checks. Some corrupt items bestow benefits to their possessor, which makes them darkly attractive.

Corrupt NPCs

An NPC consumed by Corruption gains the following benefits: The NPC no longer suffers any CON or WIS penalties from accumulated Corruption. Cure powers cast by a non-corrupt healer have no effect on a corrupt NPC. A corrupt NPC adept changes the key attributes of all their powers to their CR. The maximum Corruption for player characters is 10, but NPC's are not subject to this limit.

Corrupt Powers

If a GM wants to limit the effectiveness of a certain power, he or she can specify that the adept's CR increases by 1 each time a corrupting power is used. Or the GM could require an adept to have a minimum amount of Corruption to use a corrupting power.

Redemption

It takes 10 Conviction Points to reduce your CR by one rank. You may use CP regained each day and CP earned by embracing your virtue, but not those earned by succumbing to your vice. Note that your CR can still increase while you work toward eliminating it. You may be in need of additional CP on occasion, using a CP rather than applying it toward redemption. This will slow, but not interrupt, the process.

Quote from: Aglondir on July 13, 2023, 03:12:27 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on July 13, 2023, 01:58:47 AM
Do you know of any game with a similar mechanic?

Geeky,

True 20 (OGL) has a great Corruption system:

SNIP

That's ALMOST what I want.

Quote from: David Johansen on July 13, 2023, 01:55:05 PM
Lee Gold's Lands of Adventure had a Piety score which could be positive or negative and was used to invoke miracles.  One aspect of the rule I liked was that a character with negative piety had to do tasks for the offended god to by it off.  Nine labours and so forth.

A shame I can't find it or buy it anywhere.

Quote from: Eirikrautha on July 13, 2023, 08:32:48 AM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on July 13, 2023, 01:58:47 AM
I've been toying with the idea of having the seven deadly sins and the seven virtues as mechanics for one of my games.

You get penalized with corruption points when you sin and you get rewarded virtue points when you act following one of the virtues.

Now, I think you should also get some mechanical effect when you reach X ammount of points and then every time you double the points.

There should also be some way to get your corruption points erased, maybe by doing something in line with the opposing virtue?

Thoughts? Do you know of any game with a similar mechanic?

Shadow of the Demon Lord has corruption points.  You get them for explicitly evil acts (like murder) or by casting certain evil spells.  At a certain amount of them, you get physical and mental manifestations of them on your character.  There are atonement rituals you can undertake to reduce your corruption.

A friend gifted me the game, I haven't read it tho, will do so now (at least THAT part).

Quote from: Bedrockbrendan on July 13, 2023, 10:27:32 AM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on July 13, 2023, 01:58:47 AM
I've been toying with the idea of having the seven deadly sins and the seven virtues as mechanics for one of my games.

You get penalized with corruption points when you sin and you get rewarded virtue points when you act following one of the virtues.

Now, I think you should also get some mechanical effect when you reach X ammount of points and then every time you double the points.

There should also be some way to get your corruption points erased, maybe by doing something in line with the opposing virtue?

Thoughts? Do you know of any game with a similar mechanic?

I am working on a game where the characters are in purgatory and working off their sins (the more sins they have the bigger their skill rank pool, but that comes with the need to purify each of the sins and each sin reduces your Virtue rating which is pretty important during the game). I have been having each sin go away with acts or redemption that relate to the sin itself.

I think going with the corresponding virtue can work.

It isn't strictly related but the Ravenloft Powers check system worked pretty well as a corruption mechanic.

Seems like we thought almost the same.

Ravenloft huh? Will have to give it a once over because I haven't played it ever.

Helveczia has a system very much like this:



There's a couple things I think are good about this system:

It doesn't mechanically punish players for a low morality score. I prefer this approach, since it opens the game up a bit more role-playing wise. It's also not very virtuous to act nice just because it makes you more powerful. I would prefer if there was a mechanical benefit to being in the middle as well, though.

Virtuous or sinful acts are tracked individually. This seems like a lot of work, but I think it would also make a character's history more relevant as the campaign goes on. It also hedges against players committing big sins while safe in the knowledge that they can commit lots of tiny acts of charity and preserve their score. The idea seems to be that if major sins can only be removed if you do big penance, which seems more morally consistent.

Quote from: ForgottenF on July 13, 2023, 05:39:22 PM
Helveczia has a system very much like this:

There's a couple things I think are good about this system:

It doesn't mechanically punish players for a low morality score. I prefer this approach, since it opens the game up a bit more role-playing wise. It's also not very virtuous to act nice just because it makes you more powerful. I would prefer if there was a mechanical benefit to being in the middle as well, though.

Virtuous or sinful acts are tracked individually. This seems like a lot of work, but I think it would also make a character's history more relevant as the campaign goes on. It also hedges against players committing big sins while safe in the knowledge that they can commit lots of tiny acts of charity and preserve their score. The idea seems to be that if major sins can only be removed if you do big penance, which seems more morally consistent.

Well, that's pretty much what I was thinking except the sins have possitive outcomes. IMHO any possitive outcome of a sin must be eclipsed by the negatives, it should also increase the chances of demonic possesion.

No, many tiny acts of charity won't cleanse a major sin, the act must be conmesurate with the sin. Kinda like a Paladin having to go on a quest to regain the favor from it's god after losing his way.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on July 13, 2023, 04:41:41 PM

Quote from: Bedrockbrendan on July 13, 2023, 10:27:32 AM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on July 13, 2023, 01:58:47 AM
I've been toying with the idea of having the seven deadly sins and the seven virtues as mechanics for one of my games.

You get penalized with corruption points when you sin and you get rewarded virtue points when you act following one of the virtues.

Now, I think you should also get some mechanical effect when you reach X ammount of points and then every time you double the points.

There should also be some way to get your corruption points erased, maybe by doing something in line with the opposing virtue?

Thoughts? Do you know of any game with a similar mechanic?

I am working on a game where the characters are in purgatory and working off their sins (the more sins they have the bigger their skill rank pool, but that comes with the need to purify each of the sins and each sin reduces your Virtue rating which is pretty important during the game). I have been having each sin go away with acts or redemption that relate to the sin itself.

I think going with the corresponding virtue can work.

It isn't strictly related but the Ravenloft Powers check system worked pretty well as a corruption mechanic.

Seems like we thought almost the same.

Ravenloft huh? Will have to give it a once over because I haven't played it ever.

Another way it comes up in the game is you can deal with a sin by defeating a monster who represents that sin. Because it is sin though it is not as simple as killing it, often it is more about laying the creature to rest or ending its curse

Quote from: GeekyBugle on July 13, 2023, 04:38:50 PM

Quote from: David Johansen on July 13, 2023, 01:55:05 PM
Lee Gold's Lands of Adventure had a Piety score which could be positive or negative and was used to invoke miracles.  One aspect of the rule I liked was that a character with negative piety had to do tasks for the offended god to by it off.  Nine labours and so forth.

A shame I can't find it or buy it anywhere.

It was published by Fantasy Games Unlimited.  The Sentry Box in Calgary used to have a copy on the shelf but the last time I was there a lot of the rpg stuff had been culled.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on July 13, 2023, 06:32:41 PM

Quote from: ForgottenF on July 13, 2023, 05:39:22 PM
Helveczia has a system very much like this:

There's a couple things I think are good about this system:

It doesn't mechanically punish players for a low morality score. I prefer this approach, since it opens the game up a bit more role-playing wise. It's also not very virtuous to act nice just because it makes you more powerful. I would prefer if there was a mechanical benefit to being in the middle as well, though.

Well, that's pretty much what I was thinking except the sins have possitive outcomes. IMHO any possitive outcome of a sin must be eclipsed by the negatives, it should also increase the chances of demonic possesion.

That's a just a question of how much you want to enforce good behavior on your players, since gamers tend to go in whatever direction the mechanics reward. Personally, I think that if you're not going to keep the moral groups on at least rough mechanical parity, then if anything, corruption ought to make you more powerful. That makes more narrative sense to me. People fall to evil because it's an easy path to power, however transient.  "The dark side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities...blah blah blah."

Some time ago, I started writing a campaign setting for Shadow of the Demon Lord, which I may or may not ever finish. That game includes both "corruption" and "insanity" scores, so my plan was to tie them to two separate kinds of evil, Demons and Lovecraftian Horrors respectively.

I took a bit of inspiration from this quote by Terry Pratchett.

Quote from: Terry Pratchett
"Rincewind stared, and knew that there were far worse things than Evil.  All the demons of Hell would torture your very soul, but that was precisely because they valued souls very highly; evil would always try to steal the universe, but at least it considered the universe worth stealing. But the grey world behind those empty eyes would trample and destroy without even according its victims the dignity of hatred.  It wouldn't even notice them."

So Demons essentially represent the corrupting influence of passion and self-centered-ness. Corruption is acquired by sadism, decadence or selfish behavior, and reduced by acts of compassion. They're human vice run wild. Star-spawn conversely represent the impulse towards nihilism and apathy. They're purely anti-human. Insanity would be acquired by callousness and exposing yourself (especially willingly) to the unnatural, and is reduced by simple and wholesome activities. 

At the max level of either stat (10 IIRC) the PC physically transforms into an avatar of the specific flavor of evil they've succumbed to, either a demon or a soulless eldritch horror. Along the way, I've toyed with the idea of mechanical effects, but I would probably make them trade-offs. So maybe at a certain level of Insanity the PC loses their ability to feel either pleasure or pain. They become immune to torture or fear effects, but suffer a penalty to other saving throws (as they no longer instinctively flinch away from danger) and might be immune to certain healing effects. Something like that, anyway. 

No one mentioned Pendragon? It is worth a look.

From wikipedia:
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Personal Traits
These are thirteen opposing values that represent a character's personality. The Traits are: Chaste / Lustful, Energetic / Lazy, Forgiving / Vengeful, Generous / Selfish, Honest / Deceitful, Just / Arbitrary, Merciful / Cruel, Modest / Proud, Pious / Worldly, Prudent / Reckless, Temperate / Indulgent, Trusting / Suspicious, and Valorous / Cowardly. The values on the left side are Virtues and the values on the right are Vices. The Traits are 1-20 points split between the opposing values (e.g., 10/10, 14/6, 5/15). For every point above 10 on a Virtue, a point must be placed below 10 on another Virtue. Characters start during character creation with a base of 15/5 in Valorous/Cowardly (because they are heroes), a base of 13/7 in their Religious Virtues (because they are the good guys) and a base score of 10/10 in the remaining values.

A d20 roll is made to use a Virtue (e.g., Merciful to show mercy towards a captive mortal enemy) or resist a Vice (e.g., Deceitful to deceive a friend). If the roll is at or below the value, it Succeeds and the desired result occurs. If the roll exceeds the value, it is a Failure and the opposite result occurs. If a Virtue or Vice is rated at 20, the opposite is rated at 0; any roll on this trait is automatically successful (e.g., an Energetic character's attempt to persist in a difficult or arduous task) or automatically unsuccessful (e.g., an Indulgent character who must use Temperate to resist gluttony or intoxication). This is congruent with Arthurian legend, in which a hero's weaknesses are his downfall (like Lancelot's lust for Guenevere) or a villain has a moment of nobility (like King Uriens of Gore showing mercy to Prince Arthur rather than striking him down).

The Chivalric Virtues are: Energetic, Generous, Forgiving, Just, Modest, Temperate, and Valorous. Characters possessing point values in these seven Virtues totaling above 80 are granted a bonus to Chivalry rolls.

The Chivalric Vices are: Lazy, Selfish, Vengeful, Arbitrary, Cruel, Proud, and Cowardly. Characters possessing point values in these seven Vices totaling above 80 suffer a penalty to Chivalry rolls.

The Christian Religious Virtues are: Chaste, Forgiving, Merciful, Modest, and Temperate. Christian Characters possessing one or more of these traits at a value of 16+ gain a Religious bonus.

The Romantic Virtues are: Forgiving, Generous, Honest, Just, Merciful, and Trusting. Characters possessing point values in these six Virtues totaling above 65 are granted a bonus to Romance rolls.

Later on, other cultures were added for players who wanted to play a non-Christian character.

The Heathen Religious Virtues are Vengeful, Honest, Arbitrary, Proud, and Worldly. This covers Saracens and Picts.

The Pagan Religious Virtues are Lustful, Energetic, Generous, Honest, and Proud. This covers British and Welsh pagans.

The Wotanic Religious Virtues are Generous, Honest, Proud, Worldly, Reckless and Indulgent. This covers Germanic and Scandinavian pagans.

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Also some "Wretched" RPG (from Red Room) had something similar IIRC.

EDIT: one thing worth noticing is that "lazy" is a terrible vice for PCs and NPCs; and players are not likely to indulge in it.