Midnight Movie Madness

[Caliban]

I've had this idea percolating in my head for sometime.
It would be a tabletop, easy rules role playing game where one person plays the Director (The GM) and the rest play protagonists.
I'm fiddling with the dice system and will post it later.
The protagonists must try and make it to the end of the of the session alive.
The themes of this game is the kind of B-movie or Cult films you see on late TV.

What do you think?

[Eero Tuovinen]

Sounds doable. There are already a bunch of games about emulating television, but that "make it to the end alive" challenge seems fresh. How serious are you about that? I mean, is that really the player goal, or is it actually subordinate to developing a deep character and doing pleasing dialogue, for example? And if you're serious about survival being the thing, then how would that be threatened?

[Caliban]

Dead serious. (Pun intended.) The players will design main protagonists who they should feel are important to them and the plot. If a protagonist dies during the beginning or middle of the game they can play an Extra, which is like a less powerful Protagonist. If the Protagonist dies later in the game, towards the end and climax, the player will describe features of the final fight between the remaining characters and the Monster(s).

For example: Jimmy's Protagonist Cop has died saving the rest of the Protagonist's from the Killer Centipede from Planet Zero. This is towards the end of the session and the Director is ready to finish the game with the Climax. When the Climax comes the Director describes a base setting then turns to Jimmy and asks him for a major set piece that could be pivotal to defeating the centipede. If more Protagonists had died they can also attribute to the final scene.

Also the player can accumulate Ticket Stubs throughout the game.

They can spend them in the following way:
1 stub = 2 extra dice on next roll.
2 stubs = 4 extra dice on next roll or a player can ask the Director about the setting or Monster(s) which will be answered in game.
3 stubs =6 extra dice on next roll or a minor event that skews the advantage toward the player, something unlikely bu possible happens.
4 stubs = Missing Reel: The  player who pays four stubs declares a missing reel then tells the players and Director what is seen in the following reel. This can have some pretty awesome effects. 

The Ticket Stubs help the Protagonists stay alive.

[Caliban]

I want there to be character development as well. Heartfelt conversations before the monster attacks. Confessions before dying. All the stuff that makes those B-Grade slasher and Midnight flicks so great.

[Caliban]

Ticket Stubs are rewarded for
*surviving plot points
*acting in character
*if they survive a death roll

And I need at least two more. I do like rewarding them for horrible deaths so maybe the Extras they play after they die can spend them. I do want their main protagonists to stay alive but terrible deaths are a must.

I have yet to make power stats and skills so the example one may change.

The dice system I'm thinking of using is a D6 system that works like this:

The player states his action. The Director sets a challenge difficulty, this is the amount of success the player needs. The player rolls an amount of D6 equal to the appropriate power stat plus skill. 4,5,6 are the standard numbers for success. That is, doing an action in a normal environment. If the environment or situation is stressful or has negative conditions (rain, fog, etc) the success get upgraded so the player must roll at least a 5 or 6 to have a success. If the situation is really negative and almost impossible the number for success is 6. This is to help the GM keep steady target numbers.

Depending on the action the player may keep trying to get success to get to the target number. Trying to knock down a door for example may take more then one roll to accumulate enough successes for the target number. For rolls that can only be done once, such as jumping

Example:Billy is trying to find his sister in a crowded rave in the forest. The Director sets the difficulty at 10. He rolls a mental Stat plus a skill that just so happens to be applicable to the action. We'll say he has five dice. The place is crowded and noisy the task becomes difficult and so he must roll a 5 or 6 to achieve successes.

I need to work out a combat mechanic as well.
I'm thinking of making skills something the player comes up with as opposed to giving out of the box skills that most RPGs do. Something along the lines of Dogs in the Vineyard.

As far as a narration roll goes I figure if the Monster/Slasher/whatever gets the character close to dying, last health box or something, they roll five dice where 5 and 6 are successes. The player needs to achieve three successes. If they do they describe how their character manages to get away just in the nick of time! If they get 2 or no successes then they have to describe the awful and brutal way their character gets killed. This is called the Death Roll.

I'm unsure it I want Ticket Stubs to effect the Death Roll or not.

Characters would act as the character would in the movie. So if they play the Jock, sure they'll be strong and what not but they probably won't have much in the mental department so investigating a howl in the woods without telling anyone may be what they do.

I'll post about making the perfect creature next.

What do you guys think?

[Eero Tuovinen]

You know, this works a bit along the lines of a great game Ron just reminded me of, Dead of Night. It has a very similar genre mandate, check out Ron's actual play report. Especially your sketch for the reward system reminds me of DoN, it has this sort of comprehensive reward resource - the same points are used in that game as experience points, hit points and hero points.

One point that comes to fore is that what you describe so far doesn't really sound to me like it'd be very rewarding to try to keep my character alive. Are you sure that your goal is to get the players to compete against death? I could imagine this rules-stuff to encourage genre emulation, like the aforementioned Dead of Night does. In that game survival is only a priority insofar as the player character himself wants to survive - the player will certainly strive to make that happen, but he really doesn't have any genuine tools for it, and there's not social expectation that the player would keep his character alive if the story goes a different way.

Another thing is that if I'm understanding you right, the mechanics of the game would basically be engaged by character positioning in the fiction, which happens through narrating situations. Would you say that the GM controls the situations, and thus the conflicts, by framing scenes where the characters end up in trouble, or would it be more important for players to make choices that send the characters into trouble?

I'm not getting excited about the thought of combat rules, but then I rarely am. Why not just make normal skill checks or whatever until the monster has maneuvered the character into position for the kill, and then make the death roll?

[Caliban]

The players want their Protagonists to survive the night/week whatever while trying to defeat or get away from the killer(s) or monster(s). They strive against the constant threat of death.

The narration part of the game comes in the forms of the Death Roll, the Climax and the Stubs.

The Death Roll allows the player to escape doom and describe how they managed it while a failure means the player has to describe how gruesomely they were killed by the monster. The players can then take on the roll of Extras who are less powerful Protagonists.

The Climax allows players whose Protagonist has died to help narrate the final setting but adding in a set piece.

The Ticket Stubs allow for situations to be skewed in favor for the protagonists, giving them an advantage. The player narrates how the situation changes.

[Caliban]

The Power stats are:
Build: How strong you are, how fast you are. Your body and how athletic you are.
Personality: How great you can hold yourself in a social situation, how good looking you are.
Smarts: How smart you are. How well you know what your doing.
   
Skills are chosen for the character not from a skill tree but made up completely by the player. The player comes up with skills that relate to the Power Stat. Example skills are Punching for Body, Smooth Talking for Personality and Computers for Smarts. Players spend points for these. So if Jimmy has five points he can give himself the Body Skill of Running for a point and then put another point in it so the skill reads Running 2.

Players get 12 points to spend in skills plus their Smarts.
Health is determined by Body plus 2.
Starting props, items in the game, are determined by Personality.

The Creature follows the Body, Personality and Smarts of a character.
Their Health is equal to Body plus 2 plus Creature Features minus creature flaws.
Creatures get whatever props they need, which shouldn't be much.
The Creatures gains 8 Creature Feature points plus one for every protagonist.
The Creature must have 2 Creature Flaws plus one for every two protagonists rounded down.
The Creature can have up to 5 points to skills plus Creature Features minus Creature Flaws.

If there are several Creatures in the game make the Creature following the Creature creation rules then make another sheet with halved stats. If there is a king, queen, or leader of these monsters they use the full Creature stats that you made first. In the Climax against this lead Creature none of the minions, the halved stats creatures, may fight. It must be the Protagonists versus the monster.

Creature Features and Flaws will be chosen from a list. Different Features cost a different amount of points.                                           

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

I'd like to follow up on one of Eero's comments, about why it's fun (i.e. rewarding to the players) to keep their characters fighting to survive. I understand that the characters want to stay alive, sure. But what's the point in lasting longer than someone else? Is this intended to be a competitive game in some way?

If it's not, and if it's all about enjoying the genre, then character death is highly desirable in such games. It's the essence of what is probably a dozen B-slasher horror-monster often-zombie games that have been developed in the past ten years or so.

We have a lot of experience with these games' design and play. But it really matters whether you want (a) competition among players for survival, (b) enjoyment of the source material up to and including frequent character death, or (c) fairly intense personal drama about people under horrific pressure, with lots of open-ended decisions in play.

Let me know which seems like the direction you prefer for this one.

Best, Ron

[dindenver]

Cal,
  I think this idea is cool.
  I wonder if you can't tap into Horror Archetypes (the know-it-all who can't believe in the boogy man, etc.) and the Moralizing themes of these slasher films.
  Like maybe instead of Smarts, you use "Know-it-all" and the Creature targets the character with the highest Know-it-all stat?
  Also, maybe there should be a mechanic where there is a mechanical advantage to giving up (your next character gets more points or you get to change the stats of the Creature). But it makes you a more likely target of the creature. That seems to be a running theme of these kinds of stories. The last man standing is not usually the smartest, fastest or strongest. Its just a guy who cared about everyone in the story (and loses them all anyways) and never gave up.
  Or, maybe that is how you "hide" from the Creature. Not by making a "Stealth" roll, but by caring about another character in the story. Maybe the Creature targets the character that has the least number of connections on an R-Map. That character doesn't care about other the characters in the story, so he is obviously, the loner who bites it in the first scene, right?

  Of course, Ron is right if your goal is not about genre emulation/appreciation, these ideas may not suit you at all.

  Either way, good luck with your game man.