[Wish Boom] First Draft Ideas

[Gamskee]

I wanted make a game about transformation and change, where the characters and their environment are in flux and they have to deal with the consequences of their new lives, but it mutated when I realized I needed an engine to make these changes go and a solid scenario for them to take place in. From that I came up with wish fulfillment, and from that I got Wish Boom.

Wish Boom is about imperfect wish fulfillment. In Wish Boom you play humans with the power of a genie thrust upon them, without the skill to fully control it. As the game is played, wishes will compete, collide, combine, and crash to form reality around the characters.

Character creation: Starts with coming up with the normal human being who gains the power, then prioritizing three traits: Wish Boom, Wish Grant, and Self Control.

-Wish Boom is the moment that one is granted the powers of the genie. For a moment they have unlimited power, but quickly limit themselves lest they accidentally destroy the universe. This defines the power of the Heart Wish, the wish that the character first makes that will change his entire life.

-Wish Grant is the active use of the power to grant wishes, both for ones self and others.

-Self Control is the measure to which a person truly consciously controls themselves.

The three priorities to be assigned are conscious, sub-conscious, and unconscious.

-Conscious actions are determined by the player.
-Subconscious answers are generated by the players at the table except the one acting. He must choose from among these choices.
-Unconscious action are decided by everyone but the acting player. They must agree on the action he is to take.

So, depending on how prioritized, the character will have a certain amount of ability to control themselves, their life, and the world. An unconscious Wish boom means that the characters life will be entirely re-written by the other players, an unconscious wish grant is a random reality warp, and an unconscious self control will seem a person possessed.

So, we have this goofy little game where players are flawed godlike entities, struggling with their new powers and themselves to find out if they can get what they want, and if what they want will make them happy.

The mechanics necessitate that they give up control to fellow players a good portion of the time and I think that there should be a reward system for the different stances (no reward for conscious actions, reward to the player whose subconscious action is chosen, reward for taking an unconscious action), but I am unsure what this reward should be.  It could be experience to raise these traits, or perhaps a token that is spent to shift them by one for a given action (unconscious to sub, sub to conscious), but I am unsure what an appropriate award for this game would be.

I am pretty sure this game could run fine without a traditional Gamemaster, but I do not know if the game will need more structure to move forward beyond a game of bickering and confused godlings. A general break down of stages of play seemed appropriate in my mind at first (roughly mimicking the heroes journey model), with a raising of traits as play progressed until an end game is reached, but it felt clunky.

So, I ask
              1) Whether or not this game seems it would benefit or lose something by having defined periods of play (Wish  Boom, Middle, Evolution) or perhaps a traditional Gamemaster?

              2) Does a reward mechanic to (temporarily?) alleviate the flawed unconscious and sub-conscious states seem appropriate?

[Adam Dray]

I think the game needs some more structure. Though you spell out what characters are, you don't really explain what they do. Or, really, you say they can do anything they want but offer no structure to guide creativity. I personally find those games harder to play.

A GM might help, but I think even with a GM, the group will be at a loss as to how to start. Some more structure would be helpful. At least offer some guidance about how the group itself can lay down those structural elements. Universalis does this as does Prime Time Adventures.

I totally don't follow your second question. You want to reward player behavior that drives the game forward in the direction that you, the designer, desire. I would guess you want to reward active, creative exploration and you want to reward the sharing of control.  You say, "the mechanics necessitate that they give up control to fellow players a good portion of the time." You want to reward that behavior.

What do you use as a reward? Whatever gives them more control over the game. Something that, when they use it, they have opportunities to gain more rewards. A cyclic system that drives the game ever forward.

[Gamskee]

I think the game needs some more structure. 

1) At least offer some guidance about how the group itself can lay down those structural elements.

2) What do you use as a reward? Whatever gives them more control over the game. Something that, when they use it, they have opportunities to gain more rewards. A cyclic system that drives the game ever forward.

1) I agree. There are a few mechanics I am adding that should create a setting around the characters based on their Heart Wish, which is basically an outline of their ideal life. There is also going to be some limits employed for the wishes they can make, specific areas of expertise that will have to be prioritized(Body, Mind, Prop, Scene, and Event at this time).
When characters are created they think of their ideal life and write it down based on these five areas. If their Wish Boom is conscious, this is their setting in the beginning of the game, but if it is subconscious or unconscious, the other players reinterpret it based on intent.

ex) Darren's perfect life is one where his body is enormous and muscular(Body). He will be mentally able to come up with answers to global problems like world hunger(Mind).  Will have fortress on a mountain so that he is only occasionally bothered(Scene). Will have an unlimited supply of food (Prop). Will be visited whenever there is great trouble(Event).

This is what Darren's players heart wish is, but it will be reinterpreted by intent by the other players if his Wish Boom isn't conscious.

For instance, the other players reinterpret Darren's Mind wish as a need to be seen as important or to be worshipped. Instead of being able to come up with solutions to world problems, he becomes extremely charismatic, his solutions being listened to even if he doesn't have the real answers.

2) That was pretty much what I figured, but I wanted to make sure that others felt there should be a way to regain some control of the character. I think there will be tokens awarded for subconscious and unconscious actions that allow a trait to be temporarily shifted up by one, unconscious becoming subconscious, subconscious becoming conscious. Two tokens will be awarded to a player that takes an unconscious action, one token for a subconscious action with one being awarded to the player whose suggestion was taken as well.

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I think there may be more to do with the structure of the game. It may involve taking turns in order and narration rights to NPCs being handed off to specific players,  probably the one going immediately before or after you. Still, I'm starting to rethink self control... maybe there is a better trait that is more on par with the other two that could be included.

[Troy_Costisick]

Heya,

I still don't exactly see what the characters do.  I think you have clearly laid out what our game is about and what the players do, but the charcters seem still to vague at this point.

Here's a suggestion.  A reward should lead the characters toward something they want.  To me it seems the characters want their Heart Wish.  Therefore, the reward system should lead to that.  The Heart Wish should be the endgame, not the begining as you have it now.  As you said, the only person who can really interpret their Heart Wish correctly is the player of the character making that wish.  Let's say that the character can only make his wish come true by using his Self Control and making a Conscious Choice.  Therefore, I suggest this:

During character creation, each player creates the Body, Mind, Prop, Scene, and Event for his character in accordance to his Heart Wish.  Then, each of the other players is assigned 1 of those areas of expertise to define for that player-character.  It is then up to the PC to finagle his wishes in order to align his Body, Mind, Prop, Scene, and Event the way he wants.  That takes Self Control (points let's say) and a Consious Choice (token for instance)- both of which he begins with none of.  To earn a point of Self-Control he must make a Subconscious Choice.  To earn a token to make a Conscious Choice, he must make an Unconscious Choice.

The points and tokens go in a Bank.  He can use them to make a Conscious-Controlled Wish (cost = 1 point + 1 token) to change one of his expertises to align with his Heart Wish.  Or he can save them to avoid making really bad choices when he is forced into a Subconscious or Unconscious Choice.  This gives your game a nice Premise: "What are you willing to give up to get what you want?"

The other players should put the other players' chararcters in tough positions where they really have to address the premise.  Let's say that one of a character's potential choices is to rob a bank and go to jail.  That would take away his freedom, but allow him to wish his Body to be muscular.  Would he trade his freedom for a muscular body?  That's the kind of questions you game can force players to address and learn about themselves.

This is kinda hard to express in writing, so please ask me any questions about what I have said.  I'll be glad to answer them.

Peace,

-Troy

[TonyLB]

When you give people this much power (even somewhat uncontrolled) you pretty much have to figure out what style of adversity you want them to face.

You've thrown out "more powerful adversaries" by making them omnipotent.  Good for you.  More powerful adversaries have been done to death anyway.

You could still totally do "Choose, among these N things, which one you want most... then get screwed by all the others."  It's a classic.  Take a look at the cover art of Michael Miller's With Great Power... to see that evoked as masterfully as I've seen.  If that's what you want to do then you need to keep throwing high-urgency situations at them, so that the players can decide (under pressure) which things have priority (which is entirely different from urgency, actually... urgent things need to be dealt with (if they're dealt with at all) NOW.  Prioritized things actually need to be dealt with, whether they're urgent or not).

You can also do "Live with the consequences of your past failures (or worse, your ill-considered successes)," which is great for omnipotents.  The question is, who do you reward for bringing back those consequences:  Other players, for providing the adversity, or the causative player, for valuing his characters failings as well as his strengths?

Wow, that was rambling.  Did it help?

[Gamskee]

It all helps in a way. I wanted gameplay to sort of be that the Wishboom brings a certain amount of chaos into the characters lives. The characters become aware of one another and decide to work together, as they are not entirely omnipotent. As play progresses, about half the time more chaos will be introduced, which will keep things strange and interesting until everyones lives are in order, if not the order they expected them to be in. Which may never occur depending on how things go.

Some people I play tested character creation with kind of preferred this simpler game, where one had insane half controlled powers and putzed around with them to see what happened. I myself felt that game was interesting, but shallow.

I started to try and put a hero's journey model into the game, for its evolutionary and wisdom based results. The theme I was interested in was "Happiness and satisfaction.". Technically, you can get just about anything you want during play, even if it takes some work to get to, but when you get there, is that really going to make the character happy, especially with omnipotence lying just out of reach?

I've thought of perhaps having Dark Djinn, representing the players darker urges, acting inbetween stories to generate the next plot based on an inverse heart wish. Thing is, the Dark Djinn are there to provide adversity for a while, until... well, I have this vague idea of points of evolution for the characters on the path to either being gods or hanging up their lamp. Either way, I want to have a system that will allow me to explore the wisdom they gain or ignore...

I'm thinking, with some tweaking, I'll finish the shallow game, with less direction and theme but more wish fulfillment, then start putting together the more focused one.

Thanks for the responses though. I think when I post up my next version of this game it will be a lot tighter in its mechanics, and possibly more likely to do something.

[Graham W]

Gamskee, it's just an idea, but have you tried the advice in the "Structured Game Design" thread at the top of this forum?

Specifically, the idea of writing a "script" of how a perfect game session would run. That advice helped me a lot and it might help flesh out how you want the game to play.

Best of luck.

Graham