Iterations, cycles, and retreading the same paths.

The SNAFU system (the evolution of the FUBAR game which can be found here) works well. As an engine for storytelling it does what it needs to  and dozens of playtests with about 20 different people have shown some consistency in it's outcomes.

Of course that's where the 3-way tension in my TTRPG theory suggests something problematic. If the three things pulling on a narrative are the GM/Narrator, the Players, and the Rules, then every time I've tested the system, there have been 2-out-of-3 consistent elements in the testing process, and only the players have changed. It seem that what I'm really testing is the only variable in the sequence... the players. If I'm planning to sell a game, I'm not selling myself as a part of the package, so I really need to make sure it all still works with different Players AND different GMs/Narrators. Blind playtesting is key. 

Part of the SNAFU system takes the idea of character occupations and flips it upside down. Indtead of choosing an occupation, and having it give you a range of abilities and skills, SNAFU says that characters have a range of abilities and skills, and possessing these gives a character the opportunity to pursue an occupation or career. This bit was modified from Warhammer Fantasy RPG. In the Walkabout version of the system, I designed a range of starting cultures to reflect the communities in the setting. This was to help provide context regarding a strange new world. Cultures are picked up in childhood, as a lifepath system develops rich characters that are thoroughly integrated to the communities around them. Occupations are picked up on adolescence, and are often linked to those cultures... but after character creation, someone needs a few skills linked to a new occupation before they can select it. It's a bit like a job interview requiring certain characteristics before a interviewee is considered viable for a job opportunity. For simplicity, it usually doesn't matter which skills an applicant possesses, as long as they don't have to be trained from the ground up in everything. (In SNAFU, each occupation has 7 abilities associated with it, and a character may choose to follow this occupation if they have 3 of the 7 abilities, 2 of the 7 abilities and a minimum attribute of some type, or 2 abilities and some kind of storyline element achieved).

Familiar isn't an exotic world that needs contextual grounding. It is intended to look like our world on the surface, maybe a little darker, maybe a little more fantastic, but to the majority of the world's inhabitants the world's would look the same. Trying to create "cultures" for our world runs into all sorts of problematic issues of racism, ethnocentrism, and stereotyping, so for this game, that won't work. Walkabout addresses issues of tribalism, so it's a part of the narrative to include them there. Familiar is also a game where the mortal characters are less important than the familiars themselves. The mortal mystics are fragile vessels for transforming the world. The characters need to be quick and easy to produce (because there's a good chance they'll die a spectacular death if the magic backfires, or if they confront the wrong opponents directly), but still feel like a part of their world. The story goes on with the familiars.

I wrote a character generation program (for both familiars and their mystics), a couple of years ago, and found it on a hard drive a few days ago. The back end was getting convoluted at the time, a couple of erratic glitches kept randomly showing up, and it needs updating based on new ideas for the system that have evolved through the Walkabout iteration of things. 

So, time to restructure some things...again.