Highschool Automatons.

[sirogit]

I just came up with this today so it's kind've sketchy. It's more or less a weird, arty one-shot game that I thought would have a neat aesthetic. It's one of those games that you're not sure anyone would actually enjoy playing, but it seems to have potential for being intereasting.

The basic premise is, You're in highschool. Over the course of the week, you learn that the school isn't real, but some bizarre facade, one that seems increasingly fake as time goes by.

In the first day, everything seems normal. Everything seems just like real-life.

By the second day, there's weird little glitches around you. The other people in hall ways talking to each other aren't really making any noise under close inpsection. Your friend's locker is painted on.

By the fourth day, none of the school's painted anymore, it's all white. Other student's eyes look like glass, they're hair is like film reels and their elbows have balls in them like marionettes.

By the seventh day, the school is a void with a box that says "locker" on it next to a paper door. But the player characters are expected to be gone by this point.

All the students have a named Identity, which also has a number attached to it. They raise this number by chasing after Status Symbols of their Identity. The score of one's identity is an extremely usefull traits, as it's how your character -exists-. When it hits 0 your character is no longer able to continue going to school. It's the only stat in the game. With every passing day as the semblances of reality fade away, it's gets harder and harder to raise Idenity, and easier and easier to lower it.

So, we're given the situations that Identity:
1)Is only usefull in the context of this fake world.
2)Which is going to end in less than seven days, no matter what you do.
3)Will rewards less and demand more effort as the week comes closer to the end.  

So the question is "What is being a part of this world worth, anyway?" And maybe by the end, it's absurdly unrewarding. But maybe in the beginning, the small effort to upkeep one's Identity is worth being in this world, maybe in a week you can accomplish something meaningfull.

--------

Though it wasn't really -inspiration-, halfway through coming up with the game Robots & Rapiers, which did some similar ideas, and did them extremely well.

[Doctor Xero]

Excellent!

This sounds like a narrativist (with simulationist elements) approach to the existential question of what if anything is worthwhile and/or meaningful in a finite and mortal universe.

I've read/viewed works by philosophers/artists throughout the centuries dealing with this question, and personally I've yet to encounter a definitive response which trumps all other meditations on the matter.

A suggestion : change the setting from a high school to a corporate office building.  You would still have the arbitrary authority figures, the cliques, and the locker/cubicle dwellings -- however, high school students are still approaching life in media res whereas adults are at that point in their lives at which the gnawing existential questions can no longer be deferred.  (The High School Student: "What am I going to do with my life?  How do I choose among all the possibilities?" versus The Adult: "What am I doing with my life?  What is still possible?")

Doctor Xero

[Jasper]

I agree, interesting concept.  And I think the corporate alternative would also work, but so would a variety of other settings.  Imagine swtiching to an oil rig in the middle of nowhere.  Suddenly a bit more perilous right from the start...


The world is definitely going to end, but is there perhaps some way for the characters to escape it?  Maybe, as it fades away, the real reality is revealed beneath, and if the characters are strong enough, they'll survive there for more than an instant -- maybe a prelude to further role-playing of a different style?


Regarding Identity: it's useful in some way...and it seems like an obvious choice for potentially losing it would be to spend it to avert some sort of peril.  But losign identity seems to be the greatest peril around. So either:

[list=1][*]Character's don't know that identity is the most important thing, and have some compelling reason to use it -- to think they need to,
[*]You can't spend identity but use it in some other way (see below), or
[*]There's something more immediately pressing then identity in some cases.  Is there a threat of violence from the strangely morphing people around the characters?  Maybe discovernig exactly what's going on takes sacrifices...and the characters have to gamble on using just enough Identity to discover something without it becoming useless as they fade away too.[/list:o]

The alternative is for Identity not to be spent but invovled in some other kind of mechanic.  Maybe, as above, the characters are searchign for answers.  Searching inherently will involve interacting with the automatons around them -- or trying too -- but in doing so they must lower themselves to the automaton level, and thereby risk Identity.  

Just some thoughts.

[sirogit]

I was gonna post something alot longer but I accidently closed the window so it'll have to wait, but thanks for your intereast off the start.

Right now I'm kind've leaning towards a generic place to set it in, having considered the corporate alternative myself. The reason I chose against a corporate setting was that I figured most of the Identity's would be too similar and based on chasing material Status Symbols, and therefore the premise would kind of lose it's focus.

I'm intrigued about your propisistion about this real world -- paticularly because it's alot like a response towards the existential side of the premise. It answers the idea with the concept of outer hope, such that is found in religions. But I can't help but feel it runs against the spirit of what the game is about that the game's situation as given wouldn't be compatible with it. I'd have to give it more thought.

While I'm an extraordinarily pessimistic person, I've had bad expiereinces with attempted-pessimism as a game atomsphere so I can see where it'd be nice to just insert a limited optimism into the game.

[Tobias]

I'm getting a bit of a langoliers vibe from this. You might want to check it out, if you haven't already.

[Jasper]

While I'm an extraordinarily pessimistic person, I've had bad expiereinces with attempted-pessimism as a game atomsphere so I can see where it'd be nice to just insert a limited optimism into the game.

I think you have probably have to have some form of optimism.  If not, and everything is absolutely hopeless, why do anything?  Why exist?  The rational choice might just be for all the characters to commit suicide in the first scene ;)  Watching a basically hopeless scenario play out can be etnertaining, but there still has to be someting to shoot for (for the characters), if only "how long can I hold out?"


I definitely see the langoliers thing...thought I hate likening it to that per se, since the whole idea came straight from a Twilight Zone episode as far as I can tell.

[sergeant_x]

My son played this game but only made it to the eighth grade. Seems once a player realizes that 'Identity' is only useful in the facade of a disappearing world, putting up with gym class and pep rallies is just too much to bear.

Is this a cry for help?  :)