Redline

[Bankuei]

Here's some background and concept:

Redline

You will never own these streets.  These streets will own you till your grave.  But you are a willing slave, coursing through the city like blood through veins.  Anything for the rush, the blur, the moment.  You're about to Redline.

What is Redline?
   Redline is about Hyperpunk.  There is no such thing as over the top, too much or too far.  Extremes were meant to be shattered.  If cyberpunk was about corporate greed, corruption and losing individuality in the machine, hyperpunk  is the kharmic backlash.  The corps won, and now their ultimate result, the callous alienated human without compunction or conscience, is running wild and rampant.  And the holy machine is being ripped apart by its own product.  
   Redline is about racers.  You are the fastest, meanest, and best looking on these streets.  You are a winner.  You got the ride, the gear and the chicks.  The pushers eventually fall, the thugs dance the final waltz in bullets, and pimps get old and tired.  But the Redliners live fast, die young.  The Redliners have a glory no one will understand.
   

Inspiration
   Battle Angel Alita/Gunmu, Fast and the Furious, Driver, Kinetica, Jet Grind Radio, Rollerball, and of course, Road Warrior.  Add in John Woo, Tsui Hark, Jet Li, Chow Yun Fat, and Fist of the Northstar.  Now you got something.

Style:
   It can't go far enough, fast enough, hard enough, or wild enough.  There is NOTHING you fear.  You will do anything on a dare.  This isn't the game of tactical thinking, strategic movement, or cautiously looking around the corner.  You're going to die, so go in a blaze of glory.  Strap in, peel out, play chicken and lose, crawl out and shoot the gas tank.   Drive your bike off a 200 story building into your enemy's apartment laden with explosives.   No one lives forever, and most are sorry after 25 years anyway, so don't let it happen to you.

Who the hell are you?
   Redliners are defined by a few commmon traits; fearlessness, recklessness, ruthlessness, and finally lifelessness.  To sum up their attitude; a casual disregard for death. They view most people the same way you'd view a food wrapper or a videogame character.  Amoral, respect and loyalty is shown only to the few who've earned it in their crew.  
   In this world, there's only the desperate and the crazy.  And baby, the world ain't nothing but roses from where you're standing.

Redliners are defined by 6 traits:  Rep, Ride, Heat, Hustle, Beef, and Drama.

Redline will be using my system outlined in "Raising the Stakes" thread.  More to come later.

Chris

[xiombarg]

I like the sound of it. It sounds like the thematic opposite to my "Rise Again" game. And it sounds like a blast. I can't wait to see more.

[Bailywolf]

I mucked about with a semi-serious over the top rpg I was calling Terminal Velocity: the Extreme RPG.  The satire was intended to be fairly subtle, though.  

Your Redline sound much better fleshed.  Do you have any setting ideas?

[Mike Holmes]

I like the idea a lot.

I know you've been playing a lot of Dunjon lately. Is this an attempt to use similar Gamist principles to create a more serious game? Also, with the Gamist slant, what is the ultimate goal? Or is it just an existentialist experiment?

A potential problem is that I don't see any mechanics to support the "Extreme" part of your premise. The "Raise the Stakes" system promotes raises, etc, only when it's tactically sound. IOW, in certain cases the system will promote "playing it safe". Do you intend to alter the system some or add elements that will make the inteperetation of results seem more"extreme"? The thing I was thinking of particularly is the idea that you will eventually die. Is there any way we can make that a certainty? Perhaps give more Fate points and make thier loss permenant? Then getting to zero means death (probably due to Rapid Decelleration Trauma)?

What I'm getting at is that I'm not sure how the system supports the premise (the "live fast, die young" part, as I see it).

Another thing to think about is how the PC s will relate. I can see obvious room for competition; is that the intent? Otherwise, in a world where nobody cares much about anyone else, how are you going to have the characters team up? Or even explain their crossing paths regularly?

Oh, and you credited Akira in the System thread, but not in this one. I love Akira, and would not want to see it fail to get credited here (I may watch my copy this afternoon after thinking about this). Also, if I had made this game I would have had to credit Speed Racer. The ultimate Ride. And all about the existential race.

Just some thoughts,
Mike

[Ron Edwards]

Hey Chris,

Assuming that we're going mondo-Gamist (yay!) ...

Perhaps losing = dying old, fat, and sold-out
Perhaps winning = dying young, lean, popular, and top o' the charts

With a reward system to reflect that, you can avoid the "stay safe" tactic that Mike rightly points out might ensue.

Best,
Ron

[Bankuei]

On a quick note, there's two things that are reinforcing the "live fast, die young" motto, one is that rewards are only based on style and gutsy action, not on success or failure.  Second, any hero dice you have left over after you die can be put toward your next character, or any other PC that you want to give'em to.

Surprisingly enough Donjon hasn't been the cause of my gamist tendencies, but reminded me that sometimes gamism is one of the purest and most direct paths to "having fun" for me. :)   If you check out Fate & Tide, and some of the reward mechanics in Persona, I've been all about gamist influence in all my games...just here that I'm going to try to use it with a crazy ass setting and see what I get.

Oops, sorry about forgetting Akira.  It slipped my mind simply because the bike scene was too short :( and I've been playing tons of Jet Set Radio Future... :)  

Later,

Chris

[Jared A. Sorensen]

There was a killer animated short on Liquid Television about a racer on a race track, who KEEPS going after the race is over...it was really amazing.

I forget the name though.

[Bailywolf]

And speaking of Liquid Telivision... how the hell about 'Aeon Flux' for a inspiration source?  Even if your character DIES you play her in the next game session as if nothing happened before... totally discoherent sessions and stories...  The regular series was quite cool too.  Trevor Goodchilde...what marvelous bastard.

As for that racer thing, I believe you can find it on the NeoTokyo video/DVD (or was it called Megatokyo?).  Anywho..

[Rich Forest]

Who the hell are you?
Redliners are defined by a few commmon traits; fearlessness, recklessness, ruthlessness, and finally lifelessness.

Any chance these traits are getting worked into the system formally?  'Cause, I don't know about anyone else, but I think they're pretty cool...

Rich

[Jared A. Sorensen]

Who the hell are you?
Redliners are defined by a few commmon traits; fearlessness, recklessness, ruthlessness, and finally lifelessness.

Any chance these traits are getting worked into the system formally?  'Cause, I don't know about anyone else, but I think they're pretty cool...

Rich

Hmmm...

20  points divided amongst the following three traits:
Fear
Danger
Fair Play

The fourth trait is the Redline. It always starts at 0.

Using a d20, roll under a trait to live life in the fast lane. If you roll over, you're in the slow lane. When you're in the fast lane, you add a point to the Redline. When in the slow lane you drop it by a point. When you reach X points, the next time you make a Danger roll, you die. The next time you roll Fair Play, someone else dies as a result of your interference. The next time you roll Fear, then either one can happen (depending on the nature of the roll).

If you roll equal to the stat, then "something goes wrong." A minor character is killed, your car crashes, you sustain an injury, etc. You can alter this outcome by spending a point from your Redline (in which case the result changes to "Slow Lane") or by adding a point to your Redline (in which case the result changes to "Fast Lane").

Each player also has three flags which they can "give up" to effect the game.

Checkered Flag: Throw it in to change any die result from Slow Lane to Fast Lane without increasing/decreasing your Redline.

Green Flag: Throw it in to change any result to Fast Lane without adding a Redline point.

Yellow Flag: Throw it in to change any result to Slow Lane without losing a Redline point.

[Matt Steflik]

20  points divided amongst the following three traits:
Fear
Danger
Fair Play

The fourth trait is the Redline. It always starts at 0.

Using a d20, roll under a trait to live life in the fast lane. If you roll over, you're in the slow lane. When you're in the fast lane, you add a point to the Redline. When in the slow lane you drop it by a point. When you reach X points, the next time you make a Danger roll, you die. The next time you roll Fair Play, someone else dies as a result of your interference. The next time you roll Fear, then either one can happen (depending on the nature of the roll).

If you roll equal to the stat, then "something goes wrong." A minor character is killed, your car crashes, you sustain an injury, etc. You can alter this outcome by spending a point from your Redline (in which case the result changes to "Slow Lane") or by adding a point to your Redline (in which case the result changes to "Fast Lane").

The Redline could be represented by a spedometer, divided off into sections at 30, 60, 90, 120 "mph".  When you roll "in the fast lane" you "accelerate" a number of "mph" equal to the amount over your stat that you rolled.  When you roll "in the slow lane" you "brake" a number of mph equal to the amount under your stat (although rolling low to go fast and high to go slow seems counter-intuitive...what about low stats being better?).  Successfully "accelerating" to a section gets you a specific bonus for modifyng you roll.  This mod would be plus or minus depending upon whether or not mechanics-wise you wanted to roll lower or higher than your stat to "accelerate" (since this sounds like a "better to burn out than fade away" game, I'd say it isn't an option to use the mod to play it safe and "brake").  This mod must be used in its entirety (if its a +/- 4 mod, you must use all 4) and can only be used to make a failing roll successful - it can't be used to make a successful roll MORE successful (or not - perhaps this should be allowed...it would make for a faster endgame - lol).  Obviously, the more you use the bonus mod once you've got it, the "faster you're going to go" (speeding to the grave...but isn't that the point?):

0-29 no mod
30-59 +/- 2  
60-89 +/- 4
90-119 +/- 6
120 and up +/- 8

Each player also has three flags which they can "give up" to effect the game.

Checkered Flag: Throw it in to change any die result from Slow Lane to Fast Lane without increasing/decreasing your Redline.

Green Flag: Throw it in to change any result to Fast Lane without adding a Redline point.

Yellow Flag: Throw it in to change any result to Slow Lane without losing a Redline point.

Each player also has a number (1-3?) of pit-stops which can be "given up" to affect other players (forcing them to "slow down").  A pit-stop is given to a player as they are about to make a trait roll.  That roll is effectively canceled and is considered a failure.  An amount of "mph" equal to the affected player's appropriate stat is subtracted from their Redline/spedometer.  If that seems too harsh you could have the pit-stop cancel any bonus available to the affected player for the roll.

[Bankuei]

Ok, so here we go, some more definition to this idea:

Redliners have these traits:  Rep, Ride, Heat, Hustle, Beef, and Drama.  

Rep- one or two words that describes how your 'liner is seen;  Pimp, Loked Out, Cold, Trippin, Fine as Hell, Freaky, etc.   Used in all social rolls.

Ride-What you roll in.  This can be anything from a quantum computer fly-by-wire upgrade to a 20th century sports car, to a nangineered  motor unicycle(see Venus Wars for example), to either a cybernetic body or exosuit equipped with wheels on the legs.  The rating in this trait doesn't represent how good of a ride it is, as much as how well you can handle it, or anything else.

"Normally, you'd be able to outrace those damn borg's any day, but they take the corners like nothing else, and then they hang on to your fender on the straightaways..."

Heat- What you're packing.  This can be basic firearms loaded with HESH/Hypervelocity rounds, railguns, a jagged metal bar, a grappling hook, or a giant Rocket Hammer.  Again, this is not only how nasty the weapon is, but how nasty you can make it...

"So he pulls this trick shot, right?  And the next thing you know, the rearview mirror goes into pieces, shards everywhere and the guy spins out.  Never gets back in the race.  He called it the 'broken mirror castration'...did it with a measly .22!"

Hustle-  This is what you do to makes your scrilla.  Favorites include: Chop-shop mechanic, hacker, pimp, nanochem pusher, spoiled brat, and occassionally pro-racer.  Each has its benefits.  You can make a roll each week to see how many 100's of credits you pull on the day job.  You can also use it to boost your other rolls when appropriate.  Pro-racer's only get cash from races tho.

"So I thought, he's only a computer geek, right?  Next thing you know, my Hondai catches 3 slugs from a shitty 9, right?  Last lap, the Nanovirus he dropped through my EM shield starts screwing with my steering and the brakes.  Now, with my artificial back, I'm afraid that he'll hack into that too..."

Beef-Everyone's got someone to be #1 on the hit list right?  Whoever you got beef against, you get a bonus against them.  This could be a singular person, or else a group(half bonus) like a gang.  

"Damn hacker..."

Drama-So you didn't just get into this for the hell of it...It's safer and more fun to play Netgames in your head all day and risk nothing but your precious "character".  What made you slide into hyperpunk mode?  Some good bits of drama include; On the run, Need that operation, Vengeance(always fun), Going to die soon as a champion, etc.

"So they finally ran my tribe off the Res.  We hopped on bikes and lived town to town, just hoping not to get caught.  Now we're still running, just making some cash redlinin' fools who get caught in our wake...One day we'll find Ghosthack and drop him the coordinates on the mainframe...one day..."

So you get 16 points to split between everything(except drama, that's just for description's sake).  These 16 points buy you dice in each trait at the trait squared(ex: 1 die=1 pt, 2 dice =4 pts, 3 dice=9 pts, etc)  You can choose to have 0 in any rank, although it's highly recommended that you put at least 2 or 3 dice in Ride(you're a racer, remember?).

Races
 Each track has a Hazard rating.  The more debris, the more traps/wreckage, etc, the higher the Hazard.  On a basic track, the Hazard is 1, on the most dangerous of tracks(loop de loops, holes in the ground, etc), its 4 dice.

You'll be rolling your Ride trait against the Hazard rating.  You need to beat it just to finish the race.  If you fail, the GM can take your Fate points as if it were a combat.

The highest Ride roll at the end of the race wins....but only at the end...

You get 3 actions in a Lap(most races go 1-3 laps).  Turns are taken in whatever order(clockwise, youngest to oldest, whatever) suits the group's fancy, one turn at a time.  

Options

You can choose to Raise the stakes on your racing, which you get to roll extra dice to increase your Ride roll, but so does the GM for the Hazard against you...

You can choose to eliminate the competition.  You can do this with a Ride or a Heat roll.  If you succeed, treat it as if it was combat.  Losers lose Fate and those who used Ride in the contest also lose successes for their Ride roll to finish the race.  Either player can choose to Raise.  The other player can Call or Raise more.  If you call, then you can choose to take the last raise in Hero dice instead of rolling them.

If anyone reaches 0 Fate, you can have them crash, stall out, explode, get shot, whatever.  Each racer taken out this way increases the Hazard rating of the track for everybody by 1 die...


Who's down to redline?

Chris