So, I'm writing a game. When discussing games, people often mention that Game X handles Thing Y very well, but it seems like many games stop at one gimmick. I want to build a game where every part of the system is a gimmick; an inspiring character generation system à la Burning Wheel, a system for character development like in The Shadow of Yesterday, a compelling system for mental health and madness like in Unknown Armies, an engaging combat system like in The Riddle of Steel, etc, etc.
So, right now, I've got
- A fairly innovative and fitting basic resolution and plot point system (based on a tarot deck)
- A belief/goal/character development system which is basically a mish-mash of Burning Wheel's Beliefs and The Shadow of Yesterday's Keys
- A martial combat system which isn't heavily inspired by one specific source, but which I'm fairly confident about.
I've noticed that I don't often buy games with the intent of playing them anymore; I buy them primarily so I can extract plot ideas, system ideas.. Basically so I can use parts of them in whatever campaign I happen to be running.
So, what I want you, fellow gamers, to do, is recommend me some games which contain exceptionally good or innovative ways of handling:
- Social combat. I've seen what Burning Wheel has to say on the matter, but are there other games which you feel has got the Duel of Wits-style scenes really nailed down?
- Madness. I've seen what Nemesis/UA does, but which other games handle madness in a convincing manner? I'm using something similar to Nemesis' Madness Meters, as it is tied-in with the combat system, but I'm looking for a system where a character evolves by being subjected to various stimuli; not a downward spiral like in WoD or CoC, but more... Well, I guess, systems which are similar to Nemesis, but is a little more gamist (as what really bothers me about the mental health system I'm using now, is that I can't seem to make it balanced but at the same time make it make sense).
- Naval combat. Well, not naval combat per se, but the way space combat works in my setting is kind of similar to how it works in Transhuman Space (that is, no fighters), and I'm trying to make a system where space combat is fun and exciting despite most of the characters being bridge-officers who just follow the commander's orders.
- Societal development. The game I'm writing has a fairly large setting (large as in, there are many different supported campaign types), but in most types of campaigns, the PCs are likely to sooner or later end up running a frontier town, a space station, a city or even a nation. I've heard that Underground from Mayfair Games has a system for handling the PCs impact on their society, but I'm wondering if you have any other games to recommend.
- A system for making beliefs/keys/goals/whatever an integral part of most actions; a way of making characters more likely to succeed at a task, if they really care about it. I mean, I could easily just give a character +X on an action if it furthers his goals, but it seems a little... I don't know, bland.
- Close combat. I've got a system which works just fine, but it doesn't really feel like... Well, it doesn't feel special. I'm not saying that it needs to be really, really unorthodox, but if you know of a game where close combat is handled in an especially believable way, by all means try to sell me on it.
- Quick NPC-generation; a game with tables or somesuch to make the bog-standard innkeeper who's not goint to be a major NPC, a little more intersting. That kind of thing.
Thanks in advance :)
It sounds like you owe (or share) a lot to/with
Burning Wheel - a system that tries to do lots of different, even distinct, things, but doesn't really need them all unless you want them. Which, admittedly, is what the game says to do, but I'd just as soon not pay for complicated Resource mechanics AND complex combat rules. One is fine, and I think designers should pick what they're shooting for, especially if they have Narrativist ambitions.
If you're writing this game to prove a point about gimmicks, you could change your tone to match and then go all out as a sort of parody. If not, what's your focus? When you say
Quoteit seems like many games stop at one gimmick
I think you might be taking the toolbox approach to game design a little too far. Unless you're going for a sort of catch-all Sim-enabling system, in which the past, mental health, and fighting tactics are all fully and "correctly" realized, I would actually recommend that you yourself stick to one gimmick.
Tarot decks, heavy beliefs/goals/etc., and a combat system that somehow brings these all together, well - -
Ogre Battle incorporates Tarot cards into its combat, for instance, so it can be done in one medium or another. I'd work on tying together what you have more tightly, rather than trying to be all things to all people - that's a red herring of design left over from crunchy, high-Sim games of the 1980s.
The reason I want to include a gimmicky element to most parts of the system really boils down to the setting being a pretty broad one. So far, we've played foreign legionnaires on Mars (and the crew of the destroyer providing air/space-support), post-apocalyptic wanderers in the ruins of Las Vegas, movers and shakers in the kingdom of Elysium (again on Mars), and the serenity-esque crew of a scavanger ship in the Trojan asteroids. As the setting contains lots of different playstyles, I want the rules to support most of them. I guess I'm aiming for something like Burning Wheel, where you can use the rules to flesh out any given part of actual play, but you're not forced to use complicated rules for anything you don't want to. If you're going to play a Band of Brothers-style war campaign, you're going to want a wholly different set of tools than if you were to play a campaign focused on courtly intrigue, or investigation, or whatever.
The system isn't meant to be focused, but rather meant to be able to be focused, if you want it to. And I mean, most of the stuff I mention, are things which many traditional games contain. Look at Shadowrun, for example, or WotC's Star Wars. I'm not saying that these games are what I'm striving for, but they are solid games which people enjoy, and they have just as much of an unfocused ruleset as I do. They can handle a wide variety of issues, and that's what I want to be able to do with my system - just with a bit more oomph. I just want to see which games handle these things more elegantly, so that I might learn from them. Burning Wheel proves that even resource management can be done better than counting coins, and TSoY shows how you can make character development a part of the system.
So, basically: Yeah, my aim is to tie all the components together. But to accomplish that, I need to have the basic workings of every component fleshed out (so that I have something to work with). As there are alot of non-traditional games that handle traditional issues in really elegant ways, I was hoping for someone to point me towards games that handle the stuff mentioned in the first post well.
The thing to be wary of here is that you don't want to generate a game that's just a hodge-podge of systems with no coherency.
If a game does one thing well, then it does another thing well, but it doesn't do the two of them in tandem, then that's a failure on both sides.
Just my opinion.
V