[Self forfilling truth] Establishment of that which is meant to be

[Callan S.]

I'm thinking of making a small roleplay game, more like playing a fable than some sort of campaign thing.

Anyway, basically it's about a small village in some medieval age, that gets raided about once or twice a year by sea raiders. Their women raped, the stores plundered (causing starvation), houses burned and so on.

Part the idea being examined in play is how this is meant to happen - in a sort of food chain-esque way, like one animal preying on another, it's meant to happen. AND how someone in the village starts thinking that isn't how it's meant to be - even though it is how it is. Yet the examination will go onto other people in the village starting to believe that, and because of it forming together and destroying the raiders.

Now, in terms of starting off play and establishing the idea that those raids are meant to be, one idea that came to me in a rush of excitement is that play starts off going through each raid (one per year, lets say). Each one is an opposed roll - but the players only know part of their own villagers bonus and the range the raiders bonus can be. Now players can make a bet the raid will be repelled that year, where they get alot of some sort of currency (I have no idea what yet), but if they fail...hmmm, either they lose alot of currency, or their character dies. Perhaps it's random which happens. If I  include character death, I'll have to look at some character sketching out before this part of play, so they can feel what is being lost.

Anyway, players can bet, or they can just accept it happens and get a small amount of currency. Now the the pivotal point is: Play doesn't move onto the next step until every single player passes on making a bet for...say three years? Each year and raid is rapidly narrated by the GM - there's no real interaction here cept perchance player talk. I imagine it taking say five minutes per raid/year. The thing is the bet making and not being able to move on until everyones given up hope.

Okay, were not getting into the next step here, but with this first step: Basically it's highly unlikely that the raiders will be repelled, their bonus can and will be set pretty high. But it isn't a problem if the players grasp the system in advance and just don't bet in the first three years.

It's an egagement of enevitability that I want to get at. That the raids are meant to be. The player all have some characters, some thought to their characters perspective, and there's an environment of inevitability both at the character level and player level.

I like it, but is it too emulatory? Like, your just there riding a set rollercoaster? From a player level, it's fairly fixed, but casual consideration of characters feelings from each raid will have some variance I think. BTW, this isn't a game where you spend two hours making a character, or even where you roll stats. Whatever characters are made up at the start will get some random characterisation added like 'was starved as a child' or 'slowly killing himself with drink'. None of these are mechanical, their just windows to see the characters life through.

So, too emulatory? I think it's a rough start, but just rough, rather than just handling time with no payoff for that handling.