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Archive => Indie Game Design => Topic started by: Jonathan Walton on October 22, 2002, 11:19:58 AM

Title: Quixote & Coyote: A Game Concept
Post by: Jonathan Walton on October 22, 2002, 11:19:58 AM
[Just so you know, I envision the title being pronounced "Kee-oh-tay & Kai-oat," just to keep it from being too silly]

This game concept is inspired both by Willows' Torchbearer concepts and the things Pale Fire's trying to do with his recent Ygg developments.  Basically, they're trying to do similar things, creating a way for humans to do mythic over-the-top things without resorting to the zany wuxia of Exalted or the everything-is-a-miracle mechanics of Nobilis.  Other important inspirational sources include Daniel Quinn's writings (most notably Ishmael, The Story of B, and Beyond Civilization), which deal with systems thinking and humanity being trapped in the myths that we've created for ourselves.

The title comes from two important characters and the concepts they represent.  First, Don Quixote's delusions of being in an adventure much more interesting than actual reality is a key element.  We will definitely be tilting at windmills.  The second, Coyote, in the myths of the Native American peoples, was a trickster and storyteller, intermixing straight-up lies with more subtle fantasies.  Exploring the distinction between lies and story is the second main component here.

As for Daniel Quinn, one of his main points is that humanity needs to find "a new story to be in," that is, a new mythology about how humans relate to the world.  His point is that our current myths are not all that helpful or fulfilling, and it is by creating new myths that our society (and the lives of the individuals within it) can really be changed.

So those are the concepts.  Here's how it might work:

QuotePLAYER: Okay, I'm going to put on my coat and leave the apartment, heading downstairs and outside.

GM:  Sure.  You stumble downstairs into the freshness of a chilly winter morning.  There's some traffic congested on the street in front of your building and-

PLAYER (interrupting): That's not a street.  It's a river.

GM:  Really?  That's what I thought I said.  Oh well.  The river in front of your building is clogged with the vast number of boats trying to force their way upstream.

PLAYER:  I draw my sword and leap onto the prow of one of the boats.  Screaming with rage, I take a swing at the captain.

[some conflict resolution]

GM: You cut a thin gash across the captain's cheek.  He screams at you, "F--k, man!  What the hell you do that for?!  Crazy mutherf--ker!"

PLAYER:  "You thought you could escape me, Baron Von Dark!  But thanks to Fate you have once again been delivered into my hands.  Prepare to die!"

GM: Von Dark turns to his chief retainer, who hands him a gold-handled rapier.  He smiles wickedly, "I hope you are prepared as well, my dear enemy, for if I fall today... I will not be the only one!"

[conflict continues]

Basically, I envision a system (maybe the "dice cache" rules I developed for The Pale Continent, or maybe something like Universalis) that allows the various players (and the GM, if I end up even having one) to take Author Stance and redefine parts of the existing story environment.  In effect, the players would be constantly involved in making the story more interesting, adding flavor and strangeness.

However, when a certain random-but-regularly-occuring event took place (say, a player rolled a "1" or met other conditions), the players would be forced back into the real world and have to decide what was REALLY happening underneath all their fantasies.  Were they assulting random strangers on the street?  Were they scaling up the sides of office buildings?  Were they street surfing on the tops of mac trucks?  Then, in all likelihood, the characters are going to have to rebuild their fantasy (or create a new one) in order to get them out of the situation they're in.

In some ways, I'm also drawing on elements of Power Kill, playing with social responsibility and the interaction between fantasy and reality.  In effect, the characters could be a delusional pack of LARPers descending on a city.  However, it's certainly true that the characters' belief in the myth they are living empowers them to do things not normally possible.  It's doubtful that they'd normally get very far if they tried to scale an office building.  Still, living the story allows them to succeed in an abnormal fashion.

This concept is still in its infancy though, so I'm not completely sure where I'm going to go with it.  Maybe it would be better as a Universalis variant than as a full-blown game of its own.  What do people think?

Later.
Jonathan
Title: Quixote & Coyote: A Game Concept
Post by: szilard on October 22, 2002, 11:30:53 AM
Jonathan -

QuoteHowever, when a certain random-but-regularly-occuring event took place (say, a player rolled a "1" or met other conditions), the players would be forced back into the real world and have to decide what was REALLY happening underneath all their fantasies.

Would the player who was thrust back into reality decide this for him or her self? It might be interesting to limit the players ability to take the Author Stance to their fantasies. I suppose it would depend upon the tone you are going for here. I was envisioning something like Gilliam's The Fisher King in which there were almost certainly reasons for the characters to avoid a grim reality that they couldn't shape.

~szilard[/quote]
Title: Quixote & Coyote: A Game Concept
Post by: Valamir on October 22, 2002, 11:53:00 AM
Interestingly, I've long said that the entire movie of Monty Python and the Holy Grail is best explained by EXACTLY the type of thing you describe above...
Title: Quixote & Coyote: A Game Concept
Post by: Jonathan Walton on October 22, 2002, 12:04:44 PM
Quote from: szilardWould the player who was thrust back into reality decide this for him or her self? It might be interesting to limit the players ability to take the Author Stance to their fantasies.

Hmm.  So you're suggesting that the GM should step in and take Author stance for the real world?  That would make sense.  It would also set the GM up in a somewhat adversarial relationship with the players, which could be good or bad, depending on the framework.

In fact, your response brought up another rather interesting question: what happens if individual players (and not the entire group) was forced back into reality for a while?

I guess I was assuming (though I didn't say this) that the whole group would move in and out of their fantasies together, so that no one would really know, for instance, how they managed to get to the top of the skyscraper or get out of that mental institution, because they would have all experienced the same fantasy.  Still that wouldn't be the only way to do it.

Still, having individual characters trapped in "normality" and watching the other players to zany and rididulous things somewhat ruins the atmosphere of magic and mystery, at least a little bit.  Is there another way to solve this problem, besides forcing the characters to share a group fantasy that waxes and wanes?

QuoteI suppose it would depend upon the tone you are going for here. I was envisioning something like Gilliam's The Fisher King in which there were almost certainly reasons for the characters to avoid a grim reality that they couldn't shape.

Something else to think about.  I'm not sure (at least at this point) whether I want to describe a distinct tone or whether I should offer a list of options for why-things-work-the-way-they-do.  For instance, a few possibilities might be:

1) A situation similar to Changeling or Mage, where the characters have the power to transcend the oppressive reality of the banal.

2) The characters are really insane, and are escaping into their delusions because of some dark things in their past.

3) Think "Fight Club."  The characters refused to be limited by the restrains of post-modern society and do whatever the hell they please.  In this kind of game, the fantasies might be believably realistic, but still amazingly coincidental and unthinkable (like stealing fat from a liposuction clinic).

And there are probably others too.  Would leaving the background of the story openended weaken what I was trying to do?  Maybe.  But it would also allow different groups to tailor things to their tastes.  Perhaps I could include a list of different types of "stories to be in," and the players could decide, as part of the initial social contract, what the limits of their character's delusions would be (the coincidental, the bizarre, Tim-Burton-style weirdly-dark fantasy, Neil-Gaiman-style mythic reality, superheroics, high adventure, reality-bending godlike narcissism, etc.).

Later.
Jonathan
Title: Quixote & Coyote: A Game Concept
Post by: Jonathan Walton on October 22, 2002, 12:09:56 PM
Quote from: ValamirInterestingly, I've long said that the entire movie of Monty Python and the Holy Grail is best explained by EXACTLY the type of thing you describe above...

Hmm.  I hadn't considered that before, but this DOES have a lot in common with improvizational theater or comedy, in that the various characters would be playing off each other's delusions, continuing them and altering them without simply rejecting them.

Players would be banned from saying "No, that doesn't happen," and this fact alone leads to a kind of mismatched cooperative Authorship.  Very much like the way Monty Python worked, I imagine ("Hey, let's do a song about manly lumberjacks!"  "Even better, let's do a song about girly lumberjacks!").

Nice point.

Later.
Jonathan
Title: Quixote & Coyote: A Game Concept
Post by: szilard on October 22, 2002, 12:35:22 PM
Quote from: Jonathan Walton

In fact, your response brought up another rather interesting question: what happens if individual players (and not the entire group) was forced back into reality for a while?

I guess I was assuming (though I didn't say this) that the whole group would move in and out of their fantasies together, so that no one would really know, for instance, how they managed to get to the top of the skyscraper or get out of that mental institution, because they would have all experienced the same fantasy.  Still that wouldn't be the only way to do it.

Still, having individual characters trapped in "normality" and watching the other players to zany and rididulous things somewhat ruins the atmosphere of magic and mystery, at least a little bit.  Is there another way to solve this problem, besides forcing the characters to share a group fantasy that waxes and wanes?

Well, if the fantasy is a group fantasy, one individual falling out of it might reasonably disrupt it for the rest to some greater or lesser degree.

If it was only a partial disruption, you could have the others try to pull the particular individual back into the fantasy. If it was a full disruption, then you don't really have to worry about it. I think it might make sense to make the level of disruption somewhat variable here.

You mentioned the Changeling analogy. It might be interesting to introduce something akin to Banality here. If an individual falls out of the fantasy and is horrified by his actions and, thus, tries to shun the fantasy, it might become increasingly difficult to reenter the fantasy.

~szilard
Title: Quixote & Coyote: A Game Concept
Post by: lumpley on October 22, 2002, 12:40:45 PM
Hey Jonathan!

Also read Jack Vance's "Eyes of the Overworld," if you haven't, although it's on the "having individual characters trapped in 'normality' and watching the other players do zany and rididulous things" side.

-Vincent
Title: Quixote & Coyote: A Game Concept
Post by: Shreyas Sampat on October 22, 2002, 12:58:02 PM
Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, though not explicitly about a shared delusion, certainly seems to have some of the feel you describe here.

"Hey! Look at that girl being chased by rats!  Haha!"
"You fool, she's their entourage, not their snack bar.  Respect the rat speaker."
Title: Quixote & Coyote: A Game Concept
Post by: Paul Czege on October 22, 2002, 01:01:08 PM
Jonathan,

First off, very nice presentation in your post opening this thread. The "where I'm coming from" text plus the pseudo example of play is a quite powerful combination for initiating design conversation.

...what happens if individual players (and not the entire group) was forced back into reality for a while?

One solution would be that scenes involving multiple player characters are always consensual fantasy, and that any mechanics that thrust a character out of the fantasy also necessarily separate the character from the group. It seems to me that some of the thematic power of stories with protagonists who are sometimes lost in fantasy realities comes from scenes where they are the isolated emissaries of the fantasy reality in the real world. The Fisher King is a very good example of this.

Something else you might consider, is the Brazil effect, in which the imagery of the fantasy reality, and the ability of the character to be significant in the fantasy reality, is a reflection of the character's struggles in the real world. Translated: failures in the real world translate to weakness and confusion in the fantasy reality. The real world crushes your spirit. But if you somehow can transcend that damage as it manifests itself in the fantasy world, your power in the real world is almost mystical-seeming in its ability to affect others.

Would leaving the background of the story open ended weaken what I was trying to do?

In my opinion, it would be a huge mistake to invent an in-game pseudo-rationale. I think you already have a better answer to this question. It's the text in your opening post about the significance of new myths, prior to the example of play. You don't need to create suspension of disbelief for the game buyer by giving them a fictionalized rationale. You only need reveal to the buyer your notions of how the game (and your eventual mechanics for it) might deliver meaningful thematic narrative, just like you did in the opening of your first post.

Paul
Title: Quixote & Coyote: A Game Concept
Post by: Jonathan Walton on October 22, 2002, 02:23:01 PM
You guys rock.  Let me tackle your comments in order...

Quote from: szilardWell, if the fantasy is a group fantasy, one individual falling out of it might reasonably disrupt it for the rest to some greater or lesser degree. If it was only a partial disruption, you could have the others try to pull the particular individual back into the fantasy. If it was a full disruption, then you don't really have to worry about it.

Good thoughts.  If I combined this with some of Pauls suggestions, I think I might have a working system.

Minor disruptions would destroy bits and pieces of the individual's fantasy, but the larger concepts of the collective fantasy would still exist.  This might even explain why the characters form collective fantasies in the first place, because they'd be sturdier and more stable than the ones they could build on their own.

Of course, if major attacks were made on the collective fantasy, it could drive the entire group back into reality.  Also, certain types of assaults might might cut individuals off from the group, causing members to drop back into reality and weaking the collective one by one.

In this way, the game would really start being about the collective and how to build fantasies as a group, which, I think, is a great metaphor for roleplaying itself.  Sweet :)

QuoteIf an individual falls out of the fantasy and is horrified by his actions and, thus, tries to shun the fantasy, it might become increasingly difficult to reenter the fantasy.

Your and Paul's suggestions are really running on parallel tracks, but they're coming from slightly different perspectives.  I think it's definitely true that the more the characters are involved with reality and the more they allow themselves to be governed by its rules and limitations, the harder it is to re-enter a state of fantasy.

Hmm.  I'll have to be careful to not let "Q&C" cover too much of the same ground as DeadpanBob/Jason's "Incarnate" concept, though "Incarnate" is more of a Mage-style empowered-manipulators-of-reality concept, while "Q&C" seems to be more about fantasy/reality distinctions.

Quote from: lumpleyAlso read Jack Vance's "Eyes of the Overworld," if you haven't

I've been meaning to read some Vance, so I might just start with that one.

Quote from: four willows weepingNeil Gaiman's Neverwhere, though not explicitly about a shared delusion, certainly seems to have some of the feel you describe here.

Very true.  Neverwhere is what would happen if there was a clear dividing line between the shared fantasy and reality, and you had to be on one side or the other.  Neverwhere also definitely gets points for being a somewhat "subtle" fantasy (clearly based on things that actually exist) and not world-altering insanity.

Quote from: Paul CzegeOne solution would be that scenes involving multiple player characters are always consensual fantasy, and that any mechanics that thrust a character out of the fantasy also necessarily separate the character from the group.

Sweet concept.  Then you really would get the feeling of being "alone in the normal," while all your friends were off having zany adventures.  Actually, it kinda reminds me of how Richard feels at the end of Neverwhere (*spoiler warning*), wanting to be a part of the fantasy world again, but not knowing how to find the others.

QuoteTranslated: failures in the real world translate to weakness and confusion in the fantasy reality. The real world crushes your spirit. But if you somehow can transcend that damage as it manifests itself in the fantasy world, your power in the real world is almost mystical-seeming in its ability to affect others.

Expanding on this a little bit, and working backwards, you could begin to see how the characters might go about building fantasies:

1) Life in the normal world.  Boring.  Seemingly random.  You win some, you lose some.  That's the way things are.

2) Something happens that makes you believe there's something more to it.  Perhaps you succeed surprisingly well at something trivial.  Perhaps you see something that inspires your imagination.  Whatever.

3) You extrapolate from what you've experienced.  You begin to believe that you will always succeed at that trivial action, because you are a master of it.  You think you actually can do kung fu like those people in "The Matrix."

4) If you try and fail, reality smacks you back down, preventing your fantasy from coming to fruition and burying you in normality.  However, if you try and SUCCEED, you have now entered into a fantasy and can proceed from there.

How does that work as an outline?

QuoteYou don't need to create suspension of disbelief for the game buyer by giving them a fictionalized rationale. You only need reveal to the buyer your notions of how the game (and your eventual mechanics for it) might deliver meaningful thematic narrative, just like you did in the opening of your first post.

I think I'd rather leave things open-ended anyway.  After all, it doesn't really matter HOW the players enter into the shared fantasy (whether they take mind-altering drugs or are insane or can manipulate reality or whatever) because the EFFECTS in all cases will be exactly the same.  The players are free to invent their own thoeries or simply be agnostic about the whole fantasy process.

I think a good overarching goal of the characters in general might be to expand their collective fantasy to reach all of reality, therefor affecting reality itself.  In fact, it might be hinted at that what we call "reality" is just, in fact, the shared fantasy of humanity (what Daniel Quinn calls "Mother Culture").  By trying to build a new fantasy with the restraints of reality, they would be using the system to change the system.

How does that sound?

Later.
Jonathan
Title: Quixote & Coyote: A Game Concept
Post by: Paul Czege on October 22, 2002, 02:41:48 PM
Jonathan,

Life in the normal world. Boring. Seemingly random. You win some, you lose some...

That seems like a very workable progression to me. Although my preference for the starting point isn't so much a boring normal world, but a somewhat more hostile one. Beautiful things are destroyed. Comfort is encroached upon: "Bothered by unsightly ducts?" Decency and meaningful human interaction are compromised by procedures and policy. Wondrousness is absent.

By trying to build a new fantasy with the restraints of reality, they would be using the system to change the system.

Exactly right. But it's important to note that it's a very grass roots, one-on-one notion of change, not at all on any kind of larger scale.

Honestly, I think it's a terrific genre to be working in. There are so many films, that potential players should be able to grasp the conventions easily. Joe Versus the Volcano is one: "These lights give me a headache. If they don't give you a headache, you must be dead!" The normal world makes you dead. The genre is about struggling to be "alive" and what it's like to be alive in a world of the "dead."

Paul
Title: Quixote & Coyote: A Game Concept
Post by: Jonathan Walton on October 22, 2002, 03:03:17 PM
Quote from: Paul Czege"Bothered by unsightly ducts?"

:)

Point taken.  But I do want to avoid retreading the old WoD "gothic-punk" staple of "this world is like the real world except darker and more depressing."  My point is that the real world IS dark and depressing, it's just that people don't realize it or look at it in the proper light.  You're so used to having your freedoms taken away, that you don't even notice anymore.

The world really isn't out to get you, but it is out to socialize you.  It wants to put your behavior in a nice little box.  Reality doesn't like it when you scale office buildings or go street surfing, and wants to keep you from doing that by making you believe it's wrong or illegal or that people will resent you if you do those kinds of things.  But when you break out of reality's collective fantasy by doing things that are beyond the pale, you enter into a whole new realm of possibility (i.e. your own fantasy).

Of course, individuals groups could decide just how bad reality would treat them.  A neat idea would be playing characters that are more marginalized than the players: inmates, drug addicts, homeless people, minorities, the poor, and other people with less choices than your typical middle-class gamer (who has extra cash to blow on RPGs).  This would also enforce the point that society=reality, and those who are outcasts from society are more likely to become the outcasts of reality.

QuoteHonestly, I think it's a terrific genre to be working in. There are so many films, that potential players should be able to grasp the conventions easily.

A perfectly example that just struck me is C.S. Lewis' Narnia Stories, where the kids are occasionally escaping into this shared fantasy world (their fantasy would begin when they entered the wardrobe).  Other would be Edward Scissorhands (making suburbia stranger and stranger, Beetlejuice (showing how you could use the horror genre), or a whole ton of Roald Dahl books like James & the Giant Peach, The Witches, etc.  In fact, the entire Young Adult Fiction genre seems tailor made for these kind of stories, where reality and fantasy mix together.

Later.
Jonathan
Title: Other inspiration
Post by: Torrent on October 22, 2002, 04:41:46 PM
First off, I really like this kind of idea.  The one thing that came to my mind in reading the premise was the MTV cartoon of the Maxx.  It was an animation of a comic book of the same name.  Essentially this guy gets trapped between the real world and a fantasy Outback, and has some wierd mental trips about the whole thing.  

There is a great scene where he is sitting on a little mountain in the Outback and "wakes back" into reality perched on a postbox.  Just the kind of thing you described.  His antagonist is really the only character that knows of both worlds as being seperate but complete.

The other thought for inspiration is actually the comic strip of Calvin and Hobbes.  A little different in that Calvin lives in both his own world and the reality simultaneously.  Note that Hobbes is alive to him but a stuffed toy to everyone else.  

I like the idea that certain rolls (bad ones or just randomly) cause reality to set in.  You would need some way to allow characters to 'get back' into the fantasy.  And decide what, if anything had changed.  Like, if they are climbing a mountain and wake up to find themselves on the side of a building.  If they went up the elevator and 'reentered' fantasy would they have made it to the top of the mountian.  If that is the case, do you want players to be able to do that.  If not, and I would say not, you might need some mechanics or guidelines to deal with that.

Just thoughts.  

Andy
Title: Quixote & Coyote: A Game Concept
Post by: talysman on October 23, 2002, 12:25:38 AM
Quote from: Jonathan Walton
Expanding on this a little bit, and working backwards, you could begin to see how the characters might go about building fantasies:

1) Life in the normal world.  Boring.  Seemingly random.  You win some, you lose some.  That's the way things are.

2) Something happens that makes you believe there's something more to it.  Perhaps you succeed surprisingly well at something trivial.  Perhaps you see something that inspires your imagination.  Whatever.

3) You extrapolate from what you've experienced.  You begin to believe that you will always succeed at that trivial action, because you are a master of it.  You think you actually can do kung fu like those people in "The Matrix."

4) If you try and fail, reality smacks you back down, preventing your fantasy from coming to fruition and burying you in normality.  However, if you try and SUCCEED, you have now entered into a fantasy and can proceed from there.

How does that work as an outline?

nice game concept, Jonathan. something you said in your outline suggested a strange idea to me... from the way you have been describing the game so far, it sounds like it will be somewhat rules-light, mostly concentrating on how to shift who holds Author stance. this contrasts it sharply with "realistic" games, which tend to have task resolution instead of conflict resolution, ability scores that translate into real-world numbers, strict time keeping, and so on...

what if you were to make the real world "realistic" and keep the fantasy world "rules-light"?

while stuck in the real world, players would roll for each task. tasks would be completed incrementally. this would help simulate the day-to-day drudgery.

then, when one of the players is able to slip into fantasy, everything becomes easier. if they're rolling dice at all, it's to resolve entire conflicts or to see how much they can bend the fantasy to their liking. great distances could be crossed, battles won.

with that kind of arrangement, players are going to want to get into the fantasy as often as possible, even to reolve issues in the real world. if you're late for work, dealing with the problem in the real world would require movement rolls to reach the bus stop in time, another roll to check for loose change, rolls to see how well the traffic is doing... in other words, you will be late. slip into fantasy instead, make a running leap onto the back of a waiting horse, and charge across the plains, firing your six-guns at the banditos following you. you charge into the fort just before the gates close... and punch your timecard, just in the nick of time.
Title: Quixote & Coyote: A Game Concept
Post by: Shreyas Sampat on October 23, 2002, 12:49:47 AM
Quote from: talysmanwhat if you were to make the real world "realistic" and keep the fantasy world "rules-light"?

while stuck in the real world, players would roll for each task. tasks would be completed incrementally. this would help simulate the day-to-day drudgery.

then, when one of the players is able to slip into fantasy, everything becomes easier. if they're rolling dice at all, it's to resolve entire conflicts or to see how much they can bend the fantasy to their liking. great distances could be crossed, battles won.

I worry that this idea would lead to a painfully complex design, but in concept - the Real World provides us with complications for which Fantasy cares not - is excellent.

Maybe instead of a layered mechanic, one could represent the difficulty of Reality in another way - maybe every conflict in Reality has some base level of difficulty, while the Story has a sliding scale of 'resistance' to the characters based on the stability of the shared fantasy.  As the Story falls apart, it starts becoming more and more antagonistic to the characters, and finally it shatters, as maintaining the Fantasy in the face of this unsatisfying, maybe even painful, Story becomes too difficult.
Title: Quixote & Coyote: A Game Concept
Post by: Jeremy Cole on October 23, 2002, 02:51:44 AM
I love this is idea.

Any thought that the fantasy world represents the growth and development of the characters?  The conflicts in the two worlds would mirror each other in a lot of ways.  If the players, as children, are being terrorised by local bullies, they might move into a fantasy world with villains who must be overcome, and they eventually do this with bravery.  Then, returning to 'reality', they can defeat the bullies with a lot of 'bravery' stat boosts.  Almost every 'reality with fantasy elements' film uses this technique to some extent.

If both stories were plotted out, very loosely, with matchng scenes, then I don't think the problem of switching between worlds would be a problem.  A scene's conclusion would be obvious, and the GM would jump in and describe the sudden appearance elsewhere.

Any thoughts?

Jeremy
Title: Quixote & Coyote: A Game Concept
Post by: Jonathan Walton on October 23, 2002, 10:50:25 AM
Ah.  Another day, another slew of great advice.  I love the Forge.

Quote from: TorrentThe one thing that came to my mind in reading the premise was the MTV cartoon of the Maxx.

Hells yeah!  The cartoon was good, but the original comics were amazing.  Great parallel too.  I may have to go find some "Maxx" graphic novels to see if they can inspire some cool ideas out of me.  Your "Calvin and Hobbes" connection is nice too.  There's a textbook example of what individual fantasies would be like, especially the adventures of Spaceman Spiff.

QuoteI like the idea that certain rolls (bad ones or just randomly) cause reality to set in. You would need some way to allow characters to 'get back' into the fantasy. And decide what, if anything had changed.

I guess I was thinking that (without other people in a collective fantasy to haul them back in), you'd just have to build your fantasy from scratch, either recreating what was lost or starting a completely new one.  If the characters did take the elevator to the top of the building, they could imagine that they'd reached the summit if they like, but they could also imagine they were stepping out onto the surface of an alien planet.  It would really be completely up to them.

I am thinking of having the possibility for "trademark" fantasies, reoccuring delusions that have special meaning for a character and are easier to manifest.  For instance, they could have a trademark identity (Spaceman Spiff) or imaginary companion (Hobbes), or trademark enemies, or trademark powers ("I'm Spider-Man!"), or a trademark environment (mars, London Below, etc.), or whatever else.  Since the group are building a collective fantasy, it's most likely that the trademarks would be along the same lines, but that's not necessarily the case.  It's just less consistant if they mix genres like knights and superheroes.

Quote from: talysmanwhat if you were to make the real world "realistic" and keep the fantasy world "rules-light"?

Whoa, cool idea alert!  But I'll go you one better...

What if, within their own fantasy, the characters can determine what rules they want to follow?  If we're already passing Author Stance around, there's no reason we also couldn't pass "Game Designer Stance" with it.

So say, in the real world, we've come up with a simple-but-uninteresting game mechanic: for every action, you roll 1dF (a Fudge die).  On a minus, you fail horribly.  On a blank, something boringly "normal" happens.  Only on a plus do you actually have any success.  However, after a plus you roll another die.  A negative cancels out the success, a blank makes your success only mediocre (and still somewhat depressing), and a plus continues the chain (and you get to roll another die).  This is used for every action, so you'll be rolling dice all the time in the real world.

So, almost 90% of the time, you're going to end up with depressing results.  Even if your first die succeeds, you second die will probably fail.

However, you'd build fantasies by building strings of pluses.  Maybe, to escape the basic drudgery of the real world, you'd need 3-4 successes in a row.  Perhaps initially, you'd need 5, but as you got better at this fantasy stuff, the number would go down.  So you'd be constaly rolling on little tiny things, hoping to eck out enough success in the real world to escape it's boundaries.

However, once in the fantasy, things are different.  You could decide what you wanted to roll for.  You'd probably only need rolls to dramatically increase the level of fantasy or to change existing components.  If you wanted to move from London Below (slightly fantastic) to Camelot (very fantastic, at least, when you're coming from the modern world), you'd need to roll.  If you character, who knows nothing about martial arts, wanted to suddenly break out some kung fu, that would take a roll.  However, once the bar had been raised, you could do anything you wanted within those limits.

Also, once in the fantasy, blanks become slightly-positive outcomes and only minuses would damage the fantasy (and you'd have to roll a bunch of them, over a period of time, to destroy the fantasy completely).  You could also decide how many dice you wanted to roll.  Lots of Fudge dice tend to cancel each other out (forming a bell curve), so you'd have a much stronger chance of gaining success.

How's that for a basic system?  I just came up with it, so it's definitely open to tweaking and completely different suggestions.

Quote from: four weeping willowsI worry that this idea would lead to a painfully complex design, but in concept - the Real World provides us with complications for which Fantasy cares not - is excellent.

Right now it doesn't look that complex, but I guess I wasn't really aiming for a "realistic" depiction of the real world.  If we want to emphasize the point that the real world sucks, I think we can do that with a pretty simple mechanic and just repeat it all the time (to imitate the drugery and petty failure that reality excells at).

QuoteMaybe instead of a layered mechanic, one could represent the difficulty of Reality in another way - maybe every conflict in Reality has some base level of difficulty, while the Story has a sliding scale of 'resistance' to the characters based on the stability of the shared fantasy. As the Story falls apart, it starts becoming more and more antagonistic to the characters, and finally it shatters, as maintaining the Fantasy in the face of this unsatisfying, maybe even painful, Story becomes too difficult.

I like the idea, but I have a hard time imagining exactly what you're describing.  Let me take a shot at it, though:

We're rolling D10s.  Reality has a basic difficulty of 7 (hello, Storyteller!).  The shared fantasy serves as a modifier to this difficulty, subtracting difficulty points depending on various things (the number fo people in the fantasy, the level of "unrealness," the length of the fantasy's existence, the general level of belief in the fantasy, etc.)  Your typical roll in reality serves to arbitrate a single event.  However, rolls in the fantasy world, which are much easier, arbitrate entire scenes.

Is that more like what you were getting at?

Quote from: nipfipgip...dipIf the players, as children, are being terrorised by local bullies, they might move into a fantasy world with villains who must be overcome, and they eventually do this with bravery.  Then, returning to 'reality', they can defeat the bullies with a lot of 'bravery' stat boosts.

Hmm.  I do like the concept that your fantasies empower you, but I don't know how much I want to emphasize the characters' ability to do things in the real world.  If they simply use their fantasies as a way to strengthen what they can actually do, the fantasy becomes a means to an end.  I think I'd rather have the fantasy be the end in itself.  The characters are losing connection with the real world because their lives suck.  They don't particularly want to go back and "make things right" there.  They just want to stay in the fantasy world as long as they can.

Still, perhaps there's a way to integrate these concepts together, one that I'm just not seeing at the moment.


Thanks so much for all your help.  Keep this stuff coming!  Rip into the two dice mechanics and see what you can do...

Later.
Jonathan
Title: Quixote & Coyote: A Game Concept
Post by: Blake Hutchins on October 23, 2002, 12:53:58 PM
Sounds sorta Fisher King.  Cool.

Best,

Blake
Title: Quixote & Coyote: A Game Concept
Post by: talysman on October 23, 2002, 02:33:48 PM
Quote from: Jonathan Walton
Quote from: talysmanwhat if you were to make the real world "realistic" and keep the fantasy world "rules-light"?

Whoa, cool idea alert!  But I'll go you one better...

What if, within their own fantasy, the characters can determine what rules they want to follow?  If we're already passing Author Stance around, there's no reason we also couldn't pass "Game Designer Stance" with it.

So say, in the real world, we've come up with a simple-but-uninteresting game mechanic: for every action, you roll 1dF (a Fudge die).  On a minus, you fail horribly.  On a blank, something boringly "normal" happens.  Only on a plus do you actually have any success.  However, after a plus you roll another die.  A negative cancels out the success, a blank makes your success only mediocre (and still somewhat depressing), and a plus continues the chain (and you get to roll another die).  This is used for every action, so you'll be rolling dice all the time in the real world.

So, almost 90% of the time, you're going to end up with depressing results.  Even if your first die succeeds, you second die will probably fail.

However, you'd build fantasies by building strings of pluses.  Maybe, to escape the basic drudgery of the real world, you'd need 3-4 successes in a row.  Perhaps initially, you'd need 5, but as you got better at this fantasy stuff, the number would go down.  So you'd be constaly rolling on little tiny things, hoping to eck out enough success in the real world to escape it's boundaries.

However, once in the fantasy, things are different.  You could decide what you wanted to roll for.  You'd probably only need rolls to dramatically increase the level of fantasy or to change existing components.  If you wanted to move from London Below (slightly fantastic) to Camelot (very fantastic, at least, when you're coming from the modern world), you'd need to roll.  If you character, who knows nothing about martial arts, wanted to suddenly break out some kung fu, that would take a roll.  However, once the bar had been raised, you could do anything you wanted within those limits.

Also, once in the fantasy, blanks become slightly-positive outcomes and only minuses would damage the fantasy (and you'd have to roll a bunch of them, over a period of time, to destroy the fantasy completely).  You could also decide how many dice you wanted to roll.  Lots of Fudge dice tend to cancel each other out (forming a bell curve), so you'd have a much stronger chance of gaining success.

How's that for a basic system?  I just came up with it, so it's definitely open to tweaking and completely different suggestions.

Quote from: four weeping willowsI worry that this idea would lead to a painfully complex design, but in concept - the Real World provides us with complications for which Fantasy cares not - is excellent.

Right now it doesn't look that complex, but I guess I wasn't really aiming for a "realistic" depiction of the real world.  If we want to emphasize the point that the real world sucks, I think we can do that with a pretty simple mechanic and just repeat it all the time (to imitate the drugery and petty failure that reality excells at).

that's sort of what I was thinking about, too, when I made my earlier suggestion. no complexity in the die rolls, but the Real World requires task-based resolution and is measured in 3.14 second rounds or something. and maybe all rolls should be opposed in the Real World, versus unopposed rolls in the fantasy. in fact, maybe the first opposed roll after dropping out of fantasy gets extra opposing dice based on how long the fantasy lasted?
Title: Quixote & Coyote: A Game Concept
Post by: Jonathan Walton on October 23, 2002, 03:07:21 PM
Quote from: talysmanin fact, maybe the first opposed roll after dropping out of fantasy gets extra opposing dice based on how long the fantasy lasted?

Oooooh, there's a stealable mechanic.  Check this out:

You know how I said (in the first system attempt) how you'd need a string of "+" to build a fantasy?  Well, how many "+" you need could be based on your current situation.

-- If you're sitting behind your desk in the office, daydreaming of being somewhere else, you're going to need at least a "+++++" to get the hell out of Dodge.

-- If you've just watched a really great, fantastical movie that makes you feel empowered, you might just need "++++" to get out.

-- If you've just come from playing a LARP, where you and your friends imagined that you were doing all sorts of crazy things, you might just need "+++".

-- If you've already got a bunch of friends in a collective fantasy, ready to pull you in, you only need "++".

-- If you're still somewhat caught-up in the collective fantasy, but something is trying to cut you out of it or crush your dreams, you only need a single "+" to maintain tenative contact with the fantasy.

-- If you've just been cut out of a fantasy or were part of a fantasy that crashed & burned, reality hates you and wants to get even.  No matter what tricks you try to pull, you're going to need an additional "+++" to free yourself, even if a bunch of friends start building a fantasy around you.  This is in addition to whatever the current conditions are (office boy would now need "++++++++").  This penalty wears off if the character engages in "socialization," showing up for work on time, picking up the kids from school, going to high school reunions, whatever.  Reality will start trusting them again.

I still need to do some more thinking (and I like Taly's idea of opposed rolls against reality and unopposed against the fantasy), but that's at last a model of where this could be going.

Later.
Jonathan
Title: Flipflop?
Post by: Torrent on October 23, 2002, 04:36:07 PM
Maybe I just don't get the rationale behind it, but it seems like requiring good rolls to get into fantasy and bending reality against good rolls goes against the theme of the game.  I would think that the downtrodden and unhappy ones would be more likely to go into fantasy than those that are happy in reality.  

I guess this comes from my interpretation that it is more of the Quixote and Maxx like thing, where although the fantasy is 'real' it is based upon the mind of those in it.  Where Reality could really care less whether you live there or not.  Maybe that even gets into a theme or premise for the whole game, somehow give the players a reason to want to remain in reality, but bias the system toward having them in fantasy and making things easier there.  That gets back to the Changleing link, where fantasy is great and banality is bad, but too much fantasy leads to bedlam.  So the players have to balance between reality and fanasy.

Example: Calvin pops into fantasy usually when he is doing somethign he hates, homework, school, dinner... whatever.  And only gets slammed back usually when he hits a really hopeless situation in the fantasy.  So that, atleast in my mind, would say that a string of failures on either side would cause you to jump.  Just that the system in reality is more 'realistic' and prone to failures.

I still really like this concept.

Andy
Title: Re: Flipflop?
Post by: talysman on October 23, 2002, 04:48:21 PM
Quote from: TorrentMaybe I just don't get the rationale behind it, but it seems like requiring good rolls to get into fantasy and bending reality against good rolls goes against the theme of the game.  I would think that the downtrodden and unhappy ones would be more likely to go into fantasy than those that are happy in reality.  

more likely to want to go into fantasy, but maybe not more able. and although Reality could care less whether someone is living in a fantasy world or not, the conflict is really between the characters' fantasy and the characters' disgust with their real lives; thus, it's not really Reality that punishes the characters, but the characters themselves.

I could be wrong, but I think Jonathan is aiming for a game where the fantasy is the goal rather than success in the real world. the real world is the obstacle, it keeps dragging the characters back... character improvement in the game would allow the characters to stay longer and longer in the fantasy.

does that sound right, Jonathan?
Title: Re: Flipflop?
Post by: Jonathan Walton on October 23, 2002, 05:21:50 PM
Quote from: TorrentI would think that the downtrodden and unhappy ones would be more likely to go into fantasy than those that are happy in reality.

Quote from: talysmanmore likely to want to go into fantasy, but maybe not more able.

I think you're both right, in this case, and not really noticing it.  There's a couple points that might clarify this:

-- Rolling "+" on little everyday tasks doesn't necessarily mean a person is succeeding in life.  A homeless person living on the street could have a dream of his youth and then try really hard to recall memories of those days.  If he rolls some "+" and gets scraps of memory back, it could be enough to send him into a fantasy.

-- The "+" could be rolls for just about anything.  We're not talking significant tasks here.  Finding edible things in a can of garbage could count.  Just something interesting enough to pull the person out of the banality of the world and make them believe greater things are possible.  If constant failure drove people to fantasy, then reality would have a hard time being menacing, because if it did its job too well, its enemies would still escape.

-- The fact is, people who spent LARGE PORTIONS OF THEIR LIFE living in a fantasy world are going to have a hard time keeping a normal job, unless they're careful to make their escapades Narnian (i.e. however much time you spend in the dreamworld is like 5 minutes in reality).  Children could probably get away with it, but might not get the best grades in school.

-- Think of the ways there are to lessen the difficulty of entering a fantasy.  The easiest way is if you are on some serious drugs OR are certifiably insane OR are an artist.  The liklihood of any of these methods making you extremely wealthy are pretty slim.

-- Those who have less material and emotional attachment to reality should probably get bonuses to breaking away from it, because they have less to lose.  Reality, for the most part, is already ignoring them.  As in "Fight Club," a quick way to support your fantasy life would be to blow up your apartment.

Does that make sense?

Quotethe conflict is really between the characters' fantasy and the characters' disgust with their real lives; thus, it's not really Reality that punishes the characters, but the characters themselves.

Taly's right that this is more the tone I was going for.  The character's lives suck (though not as much as the characters in "kill puppies for satan").  If their lives were more interesting, they wouldn't feel the need to escape to a fantasy world.  They could just enjoy being alive.  Reality doesn't work for them, though it obviously works pretty well for some people (corperate execs, celebrities).  Instead of making their lives better (or because that would be close to impossible), they indulge in a little empowered escapism.

Quotethe real world is the obstacle, it keeps dragging the characters back... character improvement in the game would allow the characters to stay longer and longer in the fantasy.

Actually, no matter how powerful the characters are, I think I always want Reality to be a threat with teeth.  They'll never be able to escape it completely or even mostly.  After all, it's that tension that drives the game.  Eventually, they should be able to seriously extend their fantasy time, but not so much that they can just ignore everything else.

Advancement wouldn't just increase their DURATION of remaining in fantasy, but the SPEED at which they could build and rebuild fantasies.  They could gain new "trademark" components that could be popped in at will, they could go from Reality to Camelot or Space Opera or Looney Toons that much quicker, without all the intermediate steps of "that's not a road, it's a mag-lift."

At least, that's what I imagine at this point.

Later.
Jonathan
Title: Quixote & Coyote: A Game Concept
Post by: Jonathan Walton on October 25, 2002, 01:55:29 PM
In talking some with Willows and helping tweak the Torchbearer System, I think I've come to realize that those rules (with some slight modification) would lay a truly interesting foundation for what I'm trying to do with Q&C.  It sorta makes sense too, since Torchbearer was one of my original inspirations.

I'm going to start a new thread and see if I can sketch out how that might work.

Check it out here: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=38895#38895

Hope to see you on the new thread.

Later.
Jonathan