Social Interruption/Conflict RPG (Not even to a power 19)

[tombowings]

Hello everyone, I'm pretty new to RPG design, so bare with me here. I don't have much to show off and I've hit a bit of a roadblock.

Here's the basis of what I have so far:

Each character has a number of weaknesses decided at the beginning of play, usually between 3 and 5. Those weaknesses are exploitable. During the game you must showcase your character's weaknesses without letting the other players catch on to what, specifically, those weaknesses are. For each weakness the character has a reaction that occurs when someone discovers that weakness.

Additionally, each character has a set of goals (maybe all the same goal) that they want to accomplish. These goals should directly conflict with your character's weaknesses in some fashion.

Here is what I need some help with:

1) I'm looking for a game premiss based around player interaction where players will be able to make pointed comments and lies about each other. However, the player's should not be in direct competition with each other (if one player accomplishes his or her goals, the other players don't lose).

2) How could I go about determining if a playing has showcased a weakness without a GM.

[Paul Czege]

Hey Tom,

I like the idea.

1. High school girls competing via gossip for status and boys? The Council of Nicaea?. Some galactic congressional negotiations where every species has secrets (atrocities in their past that they covered up, etc.)?

2. A player claims a token from the table when he thinks he's hinted at his secret. Every player knows the secret of one other player. The player that knows your secret can tell you to put the token back if he thinks you didn't actually hint at your secret. The player that knows your secret can't reveal it or be the one who triggers your reaction.

Paul

[tombowings]

Thanks for the input.

1) Hm, I like the council idea. Maybe all of the player's are advisers trying to win over their ruler's favor? More to come on this point.

2)I like the idea about other player's knowing each other's weaknesses.

Ok, so here is what I have based on that:

Each character begins play knowing something (either a weakness and/or a goal) of at least one other players. These are determined at random. The players with those weaknesses or goals may not directly state what they are, but may try and use them to achieve their own.

Any other responses welcome.

[Paul Czege]

Hey Tom,

Have you read The Mote In God's Eye? (Along with -ahem- the council scenes in Phantom Menace) it's what inspired my suggestion of the galactic negotiation; the Moties have something to hide. So, some kind of trade route negotiation, or criteria for apportioning electoral votes to constituent systems, where no one's an overall "winner" but there are very real consequences if you don't do well in the negotiations.

Ferry Bazelmans' game SOAP has mechanics where you have to hint at your character's secret. But when we played it we had trouble adjudicating whether what a player had done was a good enough hint. The mechanic I threw to you is something I've been mulling as a way of fixing the hinting mechanics in SOAP. So I'm glad you like it.

Paul

[tombowings]

Hey Tom,

Have you read The Mote In God's Eye? (Along with -ahem- the council scenes in Phantom Menace) it's what inspired my suggestion of the galactic negotiation; the Moties have something to hide. So, some kind of trade route negotiation, or criteria for apportioning electoral votes to constituent systems, where no one's an overall "winner" but there are very real consequences if you don't do well in the negotiations.

Ferry Bazelmans' game SOAP has mechanics where you have to hint at your character's secret. But when we played it we had trouble adjudicating whether what a player had done was a good enough hint. The mechanic I threw to you is something I've been mulling as a way of fixing the hinting mechanics in SOAP. So I'm glad you like it.

Paul

Thanks again, Paul. I'll have to check out The Mote In God's Eye.

Well, this galactic council idea is really starting to pin. In addition to each character having weaknesses and goals, they belong to a party of which they are a representative of. While at the same time as they accomplish their own goals they have to promote the agenda of their selected.

There would be two phases of the game: Council Meetings and Recessions. Council Meetings are more based around their parties agenda, while Recessions are times for the players to mingle with one another and accomplish their own goals. Some time during the recession, an event (such as an urgent message arriving) will trigger another Council Meeting, at which point the process would begin again.

Points (or some kind of karma mechanic) would be awarded for accomplishing your goals or promoting your party's agenda.

[Paul Czege]

I like where you're headed with it. Be careful not to go too broad and have it be about ongoing council business.

Having the game be about a specific council of trade route negotiations, for instance, rather than about ongoing, endless council business, lets the game challenge players with the temptations and threats of explicitly articulated outcomes. So, based on the negotations, does my character get voted out by the constituency? What happens to the revenue from tourism we were counting on? What happens if our species' secret is revealed? Are we shunned? Traveller has mechanics for articulating the attributes of a system, but none for managing change to those attributes. Does my system slip to backwater status based on the new trade routes? Does our form of goverment shift? Does my character lose his high status mate? Fun.

Paul

[tombowings]

I agree, if the idea gets to broad, the premiss suffers. I'm thinking the game is based on one specific issue, however, at points the issue will expand.

For example, you might be discussing trade routes and decides that establishing a trade route between you and Cambria would be in the Council's best interest. However, during Recession  you get a memo from the Cambrian ambassador stating that the proposed route is highly prone to pirate attacks. The Council would then go back in session and discuss weather to stop the raids or establish another trade route (or even to trade with Cambria at all).

However, character's personal issues will get in the way of major decisions. Of one character is trying to woo another an one of his goal, he will be inclined to vote in her favor even though it may not necessarily be in accordance with his party's agenda. However, if that goal is publicly exposed, he will lose favor with his party and may, if he has a record for such things, be taken out of office.

[Paul Czege]

Sounds great. My apologies for not assuming you had the concept well in hand. Carry on

Paul

[tombowings]

At the beginning I didn't. I really needed to talk my thoughts out with someone to get them straitened out, so thank you.

[dindenver]

Tom,
  I wonder if MLwM or Shadow might have some inspiration for you. I envision MLwM where everyone is both servant and a Master of another char. This sort of represents the "dirt" they have on another player. I hear Wraith has interesting mechanics for one player playing the alter-ego of another player's character and there is a sort of battle of wills that happens.
  Are you familiar with any of these?
  I think if you put some mechanical oomph behind these weaknesses and reduce the hand waving, you might have a real winner.
  What do you think?

[tombowings]

Thank you.

I'm not familiar with either of them, I'm not particularly knowledgeable about too many RPG. However, I would love to check them out.

I'm not sure how the mechanics of everything are going to work, but I would like the weaknesses to reinforced by the rules.

[dindenver]

Hi!
  Hope this helps:
The first is very simple
Shadows: http://www.harlekin-maus.com/games/shadows/shadows.html
But it has an interesting mechanic where the player has to decide what they want the character to do and what the character's shadow wants them to do. Then you roll to decide who wins.
Wraith is a commercial product from White Wolf. From what I hear its a very cerebral game that is basically about a ghost who has to constantly decide to do good and slowly die or cause suffering and grow stronger. And each character is essentially played by two players. The main player who plays the good side and the player next to them who plays that character's dark side. I am not sure how well the mechanics backs this up, but it sounds like it would be fun to play with the right group.
And MLwM is short for My Life with Master, Paul's game. I haven't played it, but the premise is the GM plays one character, the Master. The other players define who/what the master is and then play all of his servants. And every time the master gives a character a mission they have to decide between doing what they are told (something awful for that character) and refusing and suffering. I think if you want to amp the weakness into something you could blackmail the character form, it might be a good mechanic to borrow for your game...

[tombowings]

Hi!
  Hope this helps:
The first is very simple
Shadows: http://www.harlekin-maus.com/games/shadows/shadows.html
But it has an interesting mechanic where the player has to decide what they want the character to do and what the character's shadow wants them to do. Then you roll to decide who wins.
Wraith is a commercial product from White Wolf. From what I hear its a very cerebral game that is basically about a ghost who has to constantly decide to do good and slowly die or cause suffering and grow stronger. And each character is essentially played by two players. The main player who plays the good side and the player next to them who plays that character's dark side. I am not sure how well the mechanics backs this up, but it sounds like it would be fun to play with the right group.
And MLwM is short for My Life with Master, Paul's game. I haven't played it, but the premise is the GM plays one character, the Master. The other players define who/what the master is and then play all of his servants. And every time the master gives a character a mission they have to decide between doing what they are told (something awful for that character) and refusing and suffering. I think if you want to amp the weakness into something you could blackmail the character form, it might be a good mechanic to borrow for your game...

Yes, blackmailing definitely something I could foresee happening in certain situations, I'll have to look into that. I'm not sure how I want the mechanics to reinforce their weaknesses, but I will definitely look into those games for inspiration.

I think I have a strong enough idea to do a power 19 now. I'll have it up later tonight (hopefully).

[tombowings]

Ok, it will be up tomorrow.