[Shaped] A Player Character Driven Improvisational Dramatic Game

[Ian Mclean]

 Shaped is the provisional name that I have given to my Live Action Roleplaying Game project.

It takes influence from most of the games that I have played, of course, and even some major influence from one I haven't really had the pleasure to play, but has what I consider sound theory.

The major influences are World of Darkness: Mind's Eye Theater by White Wolf, and Universalis by Ramshead Publishing. Though the popular media, and other game inspirations are too numerous to note here, though all are important.

The dramatic structure of Shape is much like that of "the House of Leaves". In that the structure is like that of a book, or collection of books. Infact games, maybe referred to as Collections (D&D Campaigns), Chronicals (D&D Adventures, MET Chronicals), Chapters, Pages, Paragraphs, and Sentences.

The scope of the game is such that it should scale from 8 people to as many as 250+ and from two hours (about 8 Paragraphs) to as many as 16 years (about 2 Collections). I am intent on designing a game that is meant to be played with people coming, staying, and going; actively or passively participating. I am intent on design a game that is meant to be played with a smooth power distribution. I wish to place a more equal amount of power into the hands of the players themselves, rather than rely upon a model of despotism (Game Mastering).

Now, I realize what I want to accomplish is ambitious, and difficult. However to quote a past president "We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too." -JFK.

I am at current uncertain how I want to go about discussing this. So I introduce this idea to the people of this forum, for consideration, examination, and feedback. I am looking for questions and comments. I will seek to wait to add more to the discussion until the majority of the feedback has been heard and replied to.

So to start, I ask, where do we start?

[Simon C]

Hi! I think you'll likely get the best results from this forum by asking very specific questions.  Right now it's very hard to get an idea of what your game is about, beyond the fact that it's similar to MET and Universalis (which sounds interesting), and that it's meant to be very flexible.  Does your game have a specific genre focus? What kinds of things can characters do in your game? Why play your game and not some other one? (That's not meant as a hostile question, but rather as a way of focussing your design.  Tell me what your game does that other games don't). 

Perhaps it would help if I asked some questions to get the ball rolling?

One problem I've encountered with LARPs is finding and maintaining a large enough base of players, and keeping a story running while dealing with the reality that people can't always commit to 100% involvement all the time.  You mention your game deals with this problem.  Tell me more!

Another problem I've had with LARPS is that they place a lot of work in the hands of GMs, resolving conflicts and dealing with character actions outside the play space, as well as dealing with all the organisational issues of the real-life people.  DOes your game adress this issue? If so, how?

[Ian Mclean]

The dramatic premise of the game is that the characters are self-contained stories, given the form of dreams. My inspiration comes from the Sandman stories by Neil Gaiman, Dawn by Joseph Michael Linsner, and a number of philosophical and religious writtings, the core of which I draw from Taoism and Buddhism.

From this, I am working on devising a system by which the players may tell portions of the collective story. Given that the characters are the personal story, a single plot line controlled mostly by the player, the collection of characters are then the social story, the one which all players are seeking to be both actor and audience in.

For the system, the major source of inspiration, and research has come from my examinations of Universalis of which I think some of the core concepts, terminology, and structures have merit for a LARP system.

Like with Mind's Eye Theater, the setting of the game would be that of the modern world. Characters would originate from one of two possible sides of existence. The Waking, Samsara, and the Dreaming, Sandland (got a better name, I'm all ears). The basic Idea is that all characters have the potential to affect change upon the world, to literally shape reality about them. Even minor characters, and non-supernaturals.

The two worlds, like the umbra and earth of the World of Darkness, are seperated from one another, and to a degree isolated. Why this is, I do not rightfully know, though it is one of the things I would like to hear ideas on.

The premise of play is that the characters need creativity and social reckonition to continuosly sustain their existence. The players would via for control of the story, the medium of control would be the very thing that the characters themselves need to survive.

In order to generate the creativity they need, characters must insight change and/or stasis, and the general form of change and/or stasis is conflict and resolution. In order to generate social reckonition they need, characters must interact with one another.

Character types would vary from the mundane to the fantastic. Crossing the gamut from diety to mortal sapiens.

That's all I have time for today. I would Strong urge readers and viewers to ask questions and make comments. I have allot of information to go through and I am unsure as to where to start, and what to convey first. So feel free to post your thoughts.

TO: Simon C
I've read your post, but I do not have time to reply specificly at current, I will start on my reply tomorrow, thank you for the questions.

[Ian Mclean]

 The questions that you have asked, Simon, are both of the same type and problem. They are both questions of power organization within a game.

I intend to develop a framework for organizing a game based on consensus. The tools that I will utilize to do this are that of a constitutional based central authority. Rather than placing the ultimate authority into the hands of a limited number of people, I am placing it in a document.

This document I refer to as the Social Contract. The Social Contract will be made up of a number of portions, functionally departmentalized. The most important portion of the Social Contract, in my opinion, is that of the Character Sheet. Which serves as a kind of player-character control system that the player assents to volentarily. The rest of the document will be in the form of the Core (Canonical) Rule book and the House Rules.

In my framework I recongize four major entities The Public, The Law, The Participants, and The Social Contract. The Law sits above all whom are concerned. The Public are people whom maybe affected by the game's operation but are not functionally part of it. The Participants are those people whom volentarily enter into the Social Contract, and chose to play the game, thus becoming a part of it.

Participants are Players, Arbitration staff, Administration staff, Writters, and other people whom freely associate with the game. All participants hold ownership in the game. All participants get say in the Social Contract. Thus Changes to the Social Contract can only be made by the participants, and not by singular authority.

Players, Arbitration Staff, Administrators, and Writters all have powers and responsibilities afforded to them by the Social Contract. Arbitration staff, and Administrators (GMs, Storytellers, Narrators) can be thought of as management of the game. By the Social Contract they are given Operational Prerogative. They are allowed to make everyday management descissions, and in arbitration, the arbiters are allowed to make interpertations of the Social Contract, though this is only necessary if the players themselves can not come to agreement about the resolution of the game.

The players themselves, as part of the premise of drama and of play, are afforded the privillage to arbitrate, and narrate the game. In fact, that is a major part of the game. The objective of the game is for players to either tell a story or direct a story. The players, as part of the premise of play, both co-operate and compete for control of the plot line(s).

That all is more or less weighted more towards your second question.

Your first question actually requires more thought regarding the explaination. For now I will say that it has to do with how the game is played, itself, that helps alleviate the problem of player attendence and story continuity. Part of the game is the existence of subrealms, and various jobs and other things. In-game. For the Ephemeral dreams (like Djinni), they, the character, are represented by more than just the person you see. They are also represented, and controlled by the realm they inhabit. If they don't show up that day of play then their importance in the overall story might decrease. If it decreases sufficiently they might Fade Out.

That is all I have time for at the moment. I hope that helps, and please keep asking questions.

[Ian Mclean]

I've been reading through material on site and off, and I am now working on filling out the power 19 (or something similar), which I will post shortly, in the hopes that will generate feedback.

Also, I thought I had linked to it already but I have not. Shaped originates from my first thread here, and it's first look. This iteration of Shaped is the result of examination, deliberation, research and development over months of time. The orignial thread is The art of Zen, Tao, and the Matrix. I have since gone about modifying the mechanics of character creation heavily and the structure of the character itself, as I realized that the character sheet type I was developing was weighted towards statistical analysis and not psycho-sociological analysis. Wrong tool for the job.

The concepts however remain the same. The idea is that all people Shape their own reality. All people have this power and responsibility. In definition, I still consider their to be five major dimensions to a character. However my emphasis has become unequal. I emphasize the Identity (Spiritual), Emotional, and Social dimensions over the Mental and Physical dimensions.

A natural question to ask at this point, is there a better way to go about the Character Sheet Design? Is there relevant information about designing Character Creation Systems than educated guess? What resources are available on this topic? I've read most of the articles on this site, though not much of the posts in the forums. To much information, and I don't know what to look at and what to ignore.

In asking "where do I start"? I am also asking, as part of the connotation of the question, how do I structure this? When one opens a book, one sees the table of contents which tells you where everything is, and the form of the book natually lends itself to linear progression. You know where page one is and you know that one turns the page to get to the next part. Well, Given that this is my first design, I am confused as to how to structure the game. Do I start with Character Creation (my inclination from being a player all these years is to start with that.) or do I start with Story Creation (also refered to as Storyteller information, or the GM section)?

[Simon C]

The power 19 is a very good tool for working out for yourself what your design goals are, but it's not such a good tool for generating comments here.  The best way to get useful feedback is to ask specific questions.  Your question about "where to start" is a good one.  My feeling is that once you've done a "Power 19", or something similar, you'll start to get an idea of what's cool and exciting about your game.  What are you most excited about, right now? This should be the core of your game.  Start with that, and make everything flow on from there.  How you present that information later on isn't nearly as important as getting the ideas down now.  You say that the characters in this game are fractured parts of stories.  How does that come through in actual play? What do these story fragments do? What do the players do?

Maybe a good tool to get your own ideas in order would be to write a transcript of how you imagine a (very) short segment of play.  What do the players say? How do they act?　What props are they using? What does the GM (if there is one) do?  Focus on the kind of actual play experiences you want to elicit, and work out how to get there.

[TwoCrows]

Ian,

Being new around here may afford me the chance to be less technical, and narrow focused, and more willing to answer a general question. I have to agree, though, that specificity when seeking advice is a habit that returns the best results.

You very clearly have no problems in the creativity, or inspiration departments. What I hear you asking is "how do I make this idea into a playable game?" My short answer is through creativity, and testing.

Concerning where to start – I suggest you start right where you are, at the beginning. Remember that there is nowhere you can't get to from where you are now, in spite of what the gas station attendant told you the last time you asked for directions.

Consider that everyone's creative beginning is different. Everyone's creative process is different. Everyone's notion of what constitutes a completed work is a little different.

Successful results, however, all have something in common, common enough in fact that I think of it as a given. My personal notion of success is that it is my only required proof and validation, and that the criterion for success is set by nobody other than ME!

Consider, though, that creative people, generally speaking, have differing notions of success. Some view it in the exactitude of a finished work in comparison to the original vision, what game designers may refer to as "meeting design goals." Some see it as a published product. Some may in fact not think of their work as successful without the approval of others, or through generating a loyal fan base. None of this works for me.

For me success is simply creating something that appeals to me, something that I'm proud of whether anyone ever sees it at all.

Concerning GM Despotism – In my least humble opinion despotism in the capacity exhibited by Narrators, Storytellers, DMs, GMs, or any sort of game facilitator is a personal character flaw, and NOT a feature of good game design.

"Our Story," as opposed to "My Character" balance is a valid concern in game design, and what direction you take your game along that spectrum will yield very different end results. If you haven't already, I'd suggest reading the articles here, specifically "System Does Matter."

TC

[Ian Mclean]

In reading the replies it is obvious to me that I have miscommunicated.

I've already begun the development of a concept into a workable game system, and have read "System Does Matter", "GNS and Other Matters of Roleplaying Theory", and other articles on site and off.

My question as to where to start is a question of where to start in explaining the game. My game currently resides in a number of notes that have no particular arrangement.

So I ask, Where do I start in the explanation of the game that I have in development to the people of this forum?

What portion of a game do you, as a Player, GM, or Designer look at first? From this I ask "What part of my game would you then like to examine?"

Though I thank you for your input thus far.
-Ian

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Ian,

That's a question you'll have to judge for yourself, I think. Also, at this point, simply getting the procedural rules onto paper is probably the first priority for you. Final organization can be arrived at later, after you get an idea of what real people need to know about your game in order to play it, and in what order of presentation.

Best, Ron

[Ian Mclean]

Ok, perhaps if I give you categories to choose from, we can find a starting point for the presentation of the prototype. From their I hope to develop responces to initial reaction, and to develop percise questions. I know where my game is strong, it is the weaknessess that I have difficulty finding on my own.

I have the game broken out into five different portions.
Social Contract
Canonical Rule Base
Character Sheets
House Rules
Character
Origin and Backstory
Creation
Journey
Growth
Elimination
Drama
Premise
Character
Setting
Situation
Scene
Metagame
The Public, The Law and The Golden Rules
Organizational Framework
Participants
Administrators
Arbiters
Mechanics
Importance and Creativity
The Five Essences
The Five Elements
The Five Methods of Resolution
Words
Signitures
Economics

Each portion is to some degree self-referential and referential to each other part. This isn't fully my intention but that is simply the system dynamics of it. Each part's interdependence on each other part comes as a natural facet of the synthetic nature of games. As you can see each Major Category breaks out into several Minor Categories.

As you can see from even the abridged outline given above their is a wealth of information. I have listed them in the order of importance that I give them.

I encourage you the reader to ask questions. I will respond in kind and it will prompt me to ask those desired specific questions. I feel that all I can do at current is present the information, respond to it and then develop questions of my own with which to modify my information. It's something of a dialectical approach.

My basic premise is this system will work. My thesis is that these five categories are what is required to accurately describe my game.

Thank you for taking the time to read and respond,
-Ian