Once Upon A Time

[Monkeys]

Hi,

I recently bought a card game called Once Upon A Time (although the game itself was released in 1995).

There's an article on it at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Once_Upon_A_Time_(game). However the basic idea is as follows:

There's a small deck of cards, each of which has a fairy tale ending on it (for example "and then he forgave them and they were married."). Each player is dealt one of these cards, and the rest of this deck plays no further part in the game.

There's a larger deck of cards, each of which contains a *plot element* from fairy tales (for example 'a trap', 'betrayal', 'this animal can talk'). Everyone has a hand of these cards.

One player at a time is a narrator, and tells a story, discarding a card whenever they mention an element that matches one of their cards. They're aiming to get rid of all their cards, then end the story with their ending card.

People can take over the story in various circumstances, usually when they have a card that matches something in the story.

Now, playing it, it struck me that it seems like with a bit of tweaking it could make a pretty good RPG.

One obvious change would be to make the elements more fantasy-RPG like, adding things like dragons and hobbits and removing a few things (most of the elements could stay actually).

However I'm not sure how to deal with the differences between the game as it is, and how RPGs are usually played.

Firstly, in the game one player at a time controls the entire 'world' of the story, and the main conflict is between players trying to acheive this control - whereas in an RPG usually each player controls their character, with the exception of the GM who controls everything else, and conflicts are usually supposed to be between the *characters* and the world.

Secondly, and related to that, the GM usually has the final say when a conflict occurs, and the result, although with very strong guidelines (mostly in the form of rules) and random chance (again guided strongly by the rules) - whereas in the game whoever's controlling the story at the time decides on conflicts, with no input from other players.

Should I have a GM?
Should players have their own character/s? If so, what would controlling the story mean? Would it mean being the GM? If so, what happens to the player's character?
What would be the most appropriate way to resolve conflicts?
How would the 'endings' work? Should they be understood to be motivations of the characters, or (as they are in the game) aims for the players that aren't related to the characters in the story?
Should the story entirely come from the cards (as in the game), or should there be expected to be a pre-prepared 'adventure', with the cards acting as a randomising device? If a pre-prepared adventure, who prepares it?

[Elizabeth P.]

I love the idea of a games story based on drawn cards, and having certain cards means influencing the story differently.  It appeals to my need for the occasional randomly generated character, instead of the same old character types I'm always creating.  In a system like this (converting the idea to an RPG) I wouldn't see the need specifically for a GM type person.  Just because a lot of RPGs are played that way doesn't mean they all have to be.  This would also mean that there wouldn't really need to be a lot of preparation required. 

Conversely, I could also see a great idea for having a GM with a list of randomly generated ideas.  The players could influence what happens at certain points, but the GM would be able to interject new pieces to the story by selecting new cards.  This would rely less on everyone choosing cards, and more on a deck specific to the GM. 

Both ideas are appealing to me, not just in the random story sort of way, but also from the idea of preservation of a story after it's ended.  The idea that you can stack the cards during the game in the order they're played in order to review them once the game is over is an interesting thought.  It'd be like taking game notes, except without the actual note taking.

[Eero Tuovinen]

Once Upon a Time has been around for nearly fifteen years and it's pretty well-known, so there are all kinds of variants and fixes to the game available. The idea itself is directly drawn from roleplaying, too: all kinds of randomizing flavor cards were in circulation in mid-80s, and at the end of the decade Lion Rampant officially published the better known brand, Whimsy Cards. Another example of a roleplaying implementation is, of course, Everway.

Other than that, I have no idea how you should proceed with your own OUT-rpg. The game is it's own thing, and just wanting to change it into a rpg without a clearer idea of why or in what manner seems a tad counterproductive to me. I could imagine all answers producing good games (in fact, better games than OUT is, being that it's as frail in execution as it is).

If you're interested in roleplaying games with perhaps some similarity to how OUT handles it's fiction, you might want to check out Universalis, Shab Al-Hiri Roach and Dead of Night. They all have facets that might give ideas for a direction one might take with Once Upon a Time.

[Vulpinoid]

I fondly remember playing this game a few times at conventions years ago...

I've noted a default answer that a lot of people give around here when you ask the "GM or No GM" question. That answer tends to be "Universalis doesn't use a GM".

I think the main answer you'd need to consider when tweaking this concept for an RPG is whether you're after co-operative play or competitive play. The game as it stands is fairly competitive, a set of ground-rules is established and each player attempt to take the opportunity to control the world, a GM in this format is less necessary. If the game is co-operative, then an outside adversary becomes more necessary, whether this be determined by the draw of cards or a GM.

The old collectable card game "Arcadia: the Wild Hunt" came with two types of packs, character packs and story packs, each containing a random assortment of cards that either helped to generate a character or contributed a part to a story. Each player only required one of each to play the game. You basically laid out tiles that formed a game world and players wandered around it with their card based characters facing monsters and other faerie perils.

I'm not saying to generate a CCG, but you could work off a similar concept with two decks of cards, one of which gives a character a specific trait, while the other provides a storyline element. I'd generate a deck of 52 cards for each of these (with rank and suit like regular playing cards). The character cards having a generic archetype character, and some kind of special trait associated with it. The story cards having a generic plot line, and also some kind of special trait. In a GM-less game, you could give everyone a card or two to generate their character, then have each player take five story cards like "Once apon a time". Play could go around in a circular manner with each character getting the chance to face dilemmas on their road to a fairy-tale ending. Other players would get the chance to cause dilemmas to the active character by applying their story cards (maybe you need to apply a card with similar traits to the active character). If the active player overcomes the obstacle they get a point toward achieving their goal, if they fail the storyline element becomes available to other characters when they become active (they might even get two points for accomplishing another character's unresolved story element). Once a storyline element gets resolved it might apply a new trait to the character ("making them a Knight", "giving the a Magical Sword", etc.) failing a storyline element might do the same thing ("inflicting a Curse", etc.)

I'd keep the suits and ranks on the cards to allow special effects like having the active player randomly drawing a card to see if they overcome the difficulty of the challenge they are facing. With a higher difficulty challenge giving a better reward.

Characters could even pair up to overcome truly fearsome storyline elements. One player might get the point for the victory while the other gets the extra trait benefit from the card being overcome.

Once a character achieves a predetermined number of story goals, they might get their happily ever after.

Certain character types might gain bonus points for acheiving certain traits during play (the poor farmer's son might get a bonus point for "climbing the beanstalk" or "killing the giant").

These are just some ideas that would need a bit more work to make a functional game, but it would be possible. It would even be possible to generate a game with only a few pages of rules and most of the other details presented on the cards.

Just some ideas, I'm sure there's plenty of others out there.

V

[Monkeys]

Thanks for the replies. Here's a slightly more solid model, for further criticism and feedback:

There's no GM, but players will take turns having the GM role.

Players aren't expected to come up with an adventure before playing, as a GM would usually do - rather, they're expected to respond to the cards.

Each player generates a character before playing, as is normal for RPGs.

There is a rule system, and a system for using the cards. The two are independent, so the rules can be used for a more normal RPG, and the cards can be combined with another game system.

There are two decks: a 'beginnings' deck, and an 'elements' deck. Both decks are shuffled. The top card of both decks are turned over. The 'beginning' card reveals how the adventure starts (eg 'the characters have been hired to escort a diplomat through dangerous ruins').

The 'elements' deck plays an ongoing role in the game, whereas the 'beginnings' deck isn't used after the adventure has started.

The GM role is initially assigned randomly.

The GM role always passes to the left (eg).

The GM describes what happens as normal, but must work in whatever's showing on the 'element' card [BIG QUESTION: how to ensure that they do this? what penalties for not doing it? Should the element be secret, only revealed when the GM integrates it into the story?]

The GM still controls their character. However, the GM's character can't make saves. If the GM's character wants to make a save, they have to pass the GM role to their left [BIG QUESTION: how else does it get passed? is there a limit? How to stop the GM having a conversation with themselves? Time limits? One encounter/scene per GM?]

other questions: could the cards be random tables instead, which would be cheaper? Or at least the beginnings?

what kind of elements? broad, general ones or specific, evocative ones ( as eg my 'adventure ideas generator' - http://www.apolitical.info/webgame/ideas.php - which is itself largely compiled from other sources)

other ideas - elements may appear as obstacles, goals or aids (a la the 'Adventure Funnel' method of RPG creation) - randomly? GMs choice? One of each kind of element present at a time? Maybe one of each per encounter/scene?

[Monkeys]

The old collectable card game "Arcadia: the Wild Hunt" came with two types of packs, character packs and story packs, each containing a random assortment of cards that either helped to generate a character or contributed a part to a story. Each player only required one of each to play the game. You basically laid out tiles that formed a game world and players wandered around it with their card based characters facing monsters and other faerie perils.

I've been looking at The Sorcerer's Cave, an old (1978) card game which used a similar system. I'd like to make a game like that, but I think it'd be at the opposite extreme of a 'Once Upon A Time style RPG' - ie the first would be a total dungeon crawl, really a game with RPG-style elements rather than an RPG (although you could say the same thing about a lot of 'computer RPGs'), the second would be very much about improvising a story.

[Moreno R.]

Hi,... Monkeys(?)   (sorry, there is a very strong tradition of calling people with their real name at the Forge, so much that it feel strange using a internet nickname here. It feels "un-forgey". The usual advice is putting the real name in the signature if you want to use a internet handle)

I second Eero advice. Some of the assumptions in your first post about "how a rpg is" were very successfully questioned by a lot of game designed by this community (and by others), so much that much of what it seems (at least, from your first message) revolutionary to you it's almost "old" by Forge standards.

This DOESN'T mean that you can't do a really revoluzionary game, with innovative techniques, but it would be better if you acquainted yourself with some of this game design to avoid reinventing the wheel (of, by the other hand, you could find that some techniques used in these games do exactly what you want and you could lift them avoiding yourself a lot of work)

The list of games given to you by Eero is really good, because each one of them show a way you could go. If you want to read other examples, there are really a lot of GM-less games, or game that, even with a GM, give the players a lot of power over the elements of play outside of their characters (you could want to read the definition of "Director''s stance" in the Provisional Glossary in the article section) that we could give you, but if you only read three, read the one he listed.

[Monkeys]

Other than that, I have no idea how you should proceed with your own OUT-rpg. The game is it's own thing, and just wanting to change it into a rpg without a clearer idea of why or in what manner seems a tad counterproductive to me. I could imagine all answers producing good games (in fact, better games than OUT is, being that it's as frail in execution as it is).

OK, two main reasons:

i) I noticed, contrary to what I thought would happen, that there wasn't any problem in coming up with a story - so it seems to have the potential to overcome one of the main problems in organising RPGs, ie the preparation time.

ii) However, the fact that each story is self-contained, and that there's no 'my character' (and in fact that characters can drop out very quickly), is a disadvantage compared to an RPG campaign.

So those are the two things I'm trying to get in the one game; Once Upon A Time - style ease of creating a story, and RPG-style ability to have identifiaction with a character, and a coherent campaign.

[Justin Nichol - BFG]

Have you ever checked out Everway. I mention it because you might want to have an RPG with a card aspect that pushes forward the story and plays on the plot more than other games have in the past.