Interwoven stories on a related topic

[Dave Cleaver]

Last night I was struck with an idea. I want to build a game that helps the players to build stories around a common topic. I'm inspired by movies like Love Actually. My initial thought was to borrow a page from Shock: for doing setup. The players brainstorm a single topic that they would like to address and write this at the top of the grid. On the left hand side they write ideas about the different aspects of the topic that could be highlighted. My example comes from Love Actually, the topic would be Love and example aspects that are highlighted would be the love of a father and son, the love of a brother and sister, and unrequited love. Characters as in Shock: would be built to address these different aspects.

I'm stuck on exactly how play proceeds after that.

I do know that I want to support reincorporation and stories that cross and I'm curious to know if there are any games out there that encourage reincorporation. The few times that I've seen it come up in play, it was because as players we wanted to do it, not because the game encouraged it.

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

Why don't you play it as Shock: then change the parts that are busted?  I guarantee quite a lot will be, but it'll help you figure out where to go.

CR in Shock: isn't tightly related to the Grid in a serious way, though authority is. You might want to try a CR system that uses a more personable approach than Shock: does; a story about people in love with each other is going to get shoveled under with Shock: resolution.

... uh, hey, you know, like I said in chat, I don't know this movie at all. Can you describe the parts that you like?

[Dave Cleaver]

I have a pretty good idea of what would be broken playing with Shock:. I mostly only get online/convention play right now, so I think I want to have a more fleshed out idea before playing. Even though I know any first draft will be broken.

I agree that the CR in Shock: is too harsh for the feeling that I want to have. Not that I want to say that things can't be harsh, just that they aren't that way by design.

The Love Actually bits that I like related to this idea are:

• several stories outlining different types of love
• the stories interrelate and cross in interesting ways: a character in one story is friends with one in another or a sibling

I think another example might help. Let's say we want a game about theft. It's not as warm and fuzzy as love. So we generate several ideas and you end up playing a guy who steals because he likes the rush, and I'm playing a father who steals to feed his family. Maybe we cross stories because they end up in the same jail cell, or the same cop chases us down.

I feel like the whole idea is a little wishy-washy at this stage. I really want to focus it a bit more since it has a sort of "universal system" vibe.