Reincarnation based game with plenty of downtime (1st post)

[Burrito]

Hallo

(This is my first time posting - please be gentle)

I've been toying with an idea for some time about a series of one-shot scenarios roughly connected on the premis of reincarnation.  Since I joined the military and left my old gaming group behind I'd like some kind of meta-campaign that could be played once, twice a year over the course of a few years to reach it's conclusion - something my vacation schedual would allow. 

Seeking this, I was thinking about something along the line of prefabricated characters, thrown together by pre-planned endevor or fate, assumed by the players.  Each character's "Soul", that part of him defined in style by the player and in mechanics by "Soul Points", influences the body it is in.  "SP" could be spent to gain additional skills or grant a guaranteed success during gameplay.  Every character would have a series of objectives, "major" and "ideal", which if brought to fruition through the arch of the story would grant permenant "SP". (One point for major success, two points for ideal success.) While Soul Points are "spent" at character creation (and possibly untapped "SP"'s spent throughout the story on successes) they never go away- next session the new lives of the Souls manifest their aquired motivations in new ways, spending the mass sum of all the "SP"s thus far gained anew.

A simple conflict resolution seems best - a D10 rolled against a GM-decreed difficulty rating, with "skills" granting a bonus to the roll.  Player vs Player/NPC conflict settled by opposing D10 rolls, plus any modifiers. Very heavily reliant on GM-discression, but the idea is to make it as universal as possible so as to be able to set the different chapters of the over-all story arch in vastly different places with vastly different player characters.

Naturally, after a number of sessions the resources available to the players could grow seemingly out of control, but bear in mind this system is being devised to be used maybe a dozen times before the "endgame."

I was toying with the following as a chart for spending "SP"
-3 points to aquire a new skill
-2 points to aquire a skill the soul had in a past life
-1 point to gain a single guaranteed successful action



I've developed a short scenario featuring a would-be producer pretending to run a bed-and-breakfast so as to shoot a new style of reality show - Survival against false threats.  In this case, zombies.  Below is an example of the kind of character sheet the GM would give to a player (in this case a week or so before the game, preferably with a detailed sketch of the farm mentioned)

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Clive Brouder (The Director) - Clive is an aging want-to-be director who's thrown what remains of his life savings into a low-budget reality show he hopes to sell to a major television network.  A week ago he temporarily procured a farm and farmhouse a few miles outside of a sleepy New England hamlet which has been rigged throughout with hidden microphones and video cameras.  Two dozen work-for-rent vagabonds have been costumed as zombies and wait in the woods around the farm, along with three professional stuntmen who are charged with all the "dramatic" action - and who have signed hold-unaccountable agreements with Mr. Brouder. 
Clive has invited a number of people to the opening of "New England's newest Bed and Breakfast."  His hope is to record the hardship of a group of strangers forced together during a "zombie outbreak" and later edit it into a full season series.

Skills : Fast Talk (+4) : Leaves NPCs agreeing with Clive without giving due consideration to what's being said
Dramatics/Theatrics (+4) : Can inflate situation to make things seem more extreme than they really are
Sneaky (+4) : Good both at going unnoticed and at hiding his agenda

Inventory : Hidden Mike X 4 - While the whole building (and the farm and porch outside) are rigged with microphones these hidden mikes perform better.  They can be placed in a room or worn on a person.
Cell phone - Complete with pre-programed numbers for his crew outside.

Conditions for Major Success : Must string the experiment out over at least one solid day (preferably longer, as long as a week), and have at least five "High Tension" moments (Zombies breach the house, fistfight between survivors, someone charges the horde for some philanthopitic endevor, etc).  Survivors must not discover the ruse until those conditions are met.  Non-stunt zombies must not get hurt.  Nobody dies.

Ideal Success :
-At least 5 "High Tension" moments
-At least three nights of being under seige
-Nobody dies
-Nobody injured
-No legal difficulties afterwards : Convince survivors not to press charges, etc...

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So, for example, if the player assigned the role above and (s)he had 3 Soul Points to expend (s)he might decide to take a skill called "False Persona" to better pretend to be a Bed and Breakfast propriator.

...


Of course I'd love to hear anything you'd have to say about anything I've written or any ideas or critisms you might have, but I'm specifically struggling with:

The Endgame - A campaign featuring the players as the souls themselves, rather than as embodied beings?  What kind of quest or goals would be fitting such a long buildup?  I'd certainly hate to reach the point of saying "Sorry, buddy, but you missed the cutoff point by... two soul points" or "You rolled a one?  Guess you go to hell. Ah, better luck next time!" Maybe a better ending would be a kind of redemption - rejecting their given goals (and thus future advantage) to "do the right thing" could mark the victory of the player's soul over the chain of life it's been tied to? That feels right but stands to alienate the remaining players - if they know the goal is to be "selfless" there's no real contest (anyone can pretend to be a saint in an RPG).

Guaranteed success - Is this too powerful?  Would it be best replaced with a "+5 to one d10 roll" or something similar?

Anyone know of a similar game out there? I don't mind re-inventing the wheel to personalize this for my play group if need be but I'm sure there are tonnes of useful ideas and suggestions out there.


Thanks for reading!

- Sean

[Simons]

Hello Sean, and welcome to the Forge,

I must say, I think your idea of a reincarnation game is quite interesting.  It seems to be a good solution to the problem of "What do I do if I only see my friends irregularly?"  (I know I went through that when I left for college and my gaming group stayed behind).  In thinking about it this morning, all kinds of random tangents of what you could do with that system have popped into my head, although since you seem to have a pretty clear idea of what you want, I'll get to your questions (although, if you do want a few random ideas thrown at you, let me know).

Personally, I can't think of a similar game out there, though I'm still somewhat new to the world of indie RPGs.

In terms of a guaranteed success, it's powerful, but it sounds like a big sacrifice to make.  Personally if the choice was between a brand new ability and 2 or 3 free passes, there's a good chance I'd take the former.  I mean, how many SPs does a character get?  If it's not many, then they really do need to be saved.  However, the game-breaking paranoid side of me says, well, what happens if this is a truly story-altering check?  I would assume that such checks would happen every now and then, and so I guess the question is are you okay with the story being majorly altered by a few well-timed SPs?

In terms of endgame, that's a good question.  Is your idea, say, that you'll get together with your friends 3 times a year, each time playing a different campaign, and then after 2 or 3 years end it for everyone at once with a bang?  Either way it probably depends a lot on the structure of your world.  If yes, then I guess my question is, well, what do you want the players to accomplish in that time?  Maybe it's a character gets 9 lives then poofs out of existence.  Maybe at the end of 9 lives, the soul has to account for what it did in its life (good vs bad acts, difficult decisions, bravery, or maybe just success), and some great divine being tells it whether it's going to heaven or hell (or some options like that).  And, I mean, saying you need to have 10 SPs by the end, well, it would certainly make it interesting, and set a goal for the characters, though I see your point about it maybe being anti-climactic. 

If the same collection of souls don't have to remain from game to game, you have some other interesting options.  What if, for a soul to earn another life, it has to be good (or successful, or something like that) in this life?  If a player truly fails at life in one game, then their soul is destroyed, and for the next game he has a new soul.  Or, what about the opposite, that the purpose of life is to escape it, and that once a player has been successful enough for enough games, her soul transcends, and for the next session she gets a new soul?  (kind of the Buddhist mentality)  And I do agree that it needs to be something not easily attainable, so that player's don't just throw their character's lives away, because that's what they're rewarded for.  I mean, the Greeks (if I'm remembering correctly) worshiped greatness, and that was the way to good things after you died.  How about something like that?  Or maybe it's to figure out the secret of the universe (something that the character slowly learns more and more about as time goes on), or that there could be some common theme like that which runs throughout all of your campaigns.  I guess the only problem with these though is that there isn't a real endgame, no real closure, instead players just keep cycling through souls. 

I mean, I guess to be more help, here's my question: in the abstract, what do you picture your endgame being like?  All at once?  Heaven/Hell or something else?  And if so, can every player get into heaven?

I guess my last question about the world is, well, what kind of world is it (real I'm assuming), and how do the religions and sciences of the world deal with reincarnation?  Is it even the same world from game to game?

Hope that helps, or at least that it gets you started thinking.  And I hope it was gentle enough.

Simon

[Burrito]

I'll get to your questions (although, if you do want a few random ideas thrown at you, let me know)

Of course!

I mean, how many SPs does a character get? ... what happens if this is a truly story-altering check?

Zero SPs to start, with a possible two added every session.  Remember that those SPs are never "spent", just "used."
And I can forsee the "Breaking (Other player's character) head open with a wrench" roll needing to be an actual ROLL, not an assumed act.  I think I'll go with a +5 modifier instead of the assumed success.

Is your idea, say, that you'll get together with your friends 3 times a year, each time playing a different campaign, and then after 2 or 3 years end it for everyone at once with a bang?

Yup.  You got the exact idea.
Thanks for the ideas about end-game.  I never thought of having a built-in time limit or number of "resurrections."  That warrants consideration...

What if, for a soul to earn another life, it has to be good (or successful, or something like that) in this life?  If a player truly fails at life in one game, then their soul is destroyed, and for the next game he has a new soul.  Or, what about the opposite, that the purpose of life is to escape it, and that once a player has been successful enough for enough games, her soul transcends, and for the next session she gets a new soul?

For the sake of conflict I've envisioned player characters going after goals that may be, at least superficially, counter to another player's goals.  By setting a "morality" I limit the kinds of characters I can throw into the conflicts and the kind of conflicts I can set up.  But, at the same time, being "successful" may involve (as in my example character) deception and betrayal, or some other kind of behavior one doesn't typically associate with an individual's inner peace or as being part of the path to Nirvania.

I mean, I guess to be more help, here's my question: in the abstract, what do you picture your endgame being like?  All at once?  Heaven/Hell or something else?  And if so, can every player get into heaven?

I was toying with the idea of the final chapter taking place in the afterlife, with the souls unattached to a physical body. (But, for the sake of understanding, everything is explained in physical terms as if they had mass - shouldn't take too long to grow accustomed to.) No pre-fabed characters - let the players build from scratch, using their SPs.  They'd all reach ... judgement?... at the same time.  Maybe some kind of journey they have to undertake, beset on all sides by deception and treachery, horrors and distractions.  Naturally I'd have a while to flesh it out : - )

I guess my last question about the world is, well, what kind of world is it (real I'm assuming), and how do the religions and sciences of the world deal with reincarnation?  Is it even the same world from game to game?

Since I'm envisioning these short-stories taking place on a local level.  No global epics - just a handful of people facing some kind of localized struggle.  I don't see the opinions of the "outside world" coming into play, but since this is essentially set in our world (albeit at different periods in time), so I can fall back on that if it comes to it. 
There's no reason why the world couldn't be different from session to session.

And I hope it was gentle enough.

No damage done!

-Sean

[Simons]

In terms of ideas, the big thing I had would be less based around a realistic world, and more a fantasy world.  I mean, given that characters *are* actually reincarnated, and that there seems to be a lot of evidence showing it, I could see entire worlds based around reincarnation religions.  It could be one, it could be several, but everyone would have it in their head that this is not their last life (probably), and have some guidance on what it takes to come back.  Also, you could make it kind of a puzzle or mystery, such that characters have 9 lives (or whatever it is) to figure out something profound about life.  Also, since the game is about coming back from death, you could make it that at the end of each gaming session, most (if not all) characters die.  I mean, that is a thing of beauty about your system, that if a character dies, it sucks for that session, but the player will have a brand new one next time you get together. 

I feel like I had more, but that's what I can remember.  And I'm sure most of those were counter to what you wanted, I guess it just shows how versitle your original idea is. 

So, I guess realize that just because the game is based upon reincarnation, it doesn't necessarily mean that you need to go the Hindu route of people searching for inner peace and morality.  Although, I do think it is a really cool idea putting the character's goals and player's goals in conflict.  Would the players know they are in conflict, or need to figure it out for themselves?

Neat idea for an endgame.  I don't know, I guess I'd just keep it in mind as you send the players on various advantures, just so you have some idea what they should be going for (or, you could make it up at the end when you see what they have been doing).

Other than that, you sound like you've really thought this out, and it sounds quite cool.  Good luck with it!

Simon

[David Berg]

Sean,

My experience with running and playing short or intermittent campaigns has taught me (or tried to; I often ignore it) to keep goals modest and simple.  Sometimes it's better to reach the endgame a tad earlier than you thought you might than to never get there because someone couldn't make it to the only session you had planned that month.

One possibility along these lines would be to have the inital character creation include a decision on an endgame goal.  Kind of a, "I'll keep getting reincarnated until I finally achieve X".  Of course, this couldn't be done half-assed; players would have to be genuinely stoked about achieving X or there'd be no payoff.  With that in place, each incarnation becomes an attempt at progress toward the goal.  "Will I make progress that I can use in my next life?  Will I actually achieve the goal this time?  Or will I get killed quickly and go back to square one?"  Not sure if this example suits your purposes... just presenting an alternative to "major goal, then ideal goal, then endgame scenario"...

Now, a slew of questions:
Is coming back in a different body (as opposed to just digging out a year-old character sheet) supposed to be cool in itself, or just sort of a novel and utilitarian way to resume play after long breaks ("I don't remember my old character well and don't care to play him again")?  If it's suppose to be cool in itself (and I see no reason why that shouldn't be achievable), wherein do you imagine the fun?  Will it be:

• Adjusting to a new time and place, and new opportunities for action ("Moscow, 1937!  Perfect for my quest!")?
• Adjusting to new bodies and capabilities ("Why am I so strong and what are these 'rifle' things?")? 
• Remembering your previous lives instantly / gradually / not at all?  (Also: are you born normally?)
• etc

If you haven't thought about these yet, you might want to; and if you want more feedback here, posting these might help.

Random idea:
A friend of mine ran a game where he didn't tell the players about reincarnation, he just said there'd be multiple quests with different characters.  At the end of quest 1, everyone died.  Quest 2 began with some sort of sudden awakening, and all the Quest 2 characters slowly discovered odd & unique things about themselves -- things the players recognized as constituting the characters from Quest 1!  This enjoyable process of realization was enabled (I think) by the fact that the GM had swapped players and characters -- so now I'm playing the reincarnation of Fred's character, Fred's playing the reincarnation of Doug's character, and Doug's playing the reincarnation of my character!

[Burrito]

Thanks guys! Lots to think about...

Simons :

So, I guess realize that just because the game is based upon reincarnation, it doesn't necessarily mean that you need to go the Hindu route of people searching for inner peace and morality.  Although, I do think it is a really cool idea putting the character's goals and player's goals in conflict.  Would the players know they are in conflict, or need to figure it out for themselves?

Abandon the idea of inner peace/morality.... more on that in a bit. 

Simons :

Neat idea for an endgame.  I don't know, I guess I'd just keep it in mind as you send the players on various advantures, just so you have some idea what they should be going for (or, you could make it up at the end when you see what they have been doing).

Maybe the "endgame" stands to restrict the flexibility of the sessions... again, more on that later.

David :

My experience with running and playing short or intermittent campaigns has taught me (or tried to; I often ignore it) to keep goals modest and simple.  Sometimes it's better to reach the endgame a tad earlier than you thought you might than to never get there because someone couldn't make it to the only session you had planned that month.

Probably a prudent observation.  I remember GMing a campaign of "Heavy Ordnance", a free sci-fi story and system about a middle-school after a horrible "nuclear meatloaf" incident that released "demons from hell", spirits who would possess and transform normal post-pubescent people into twisted monsters.  It was fun (two eight year olds driving a truck, one at the wheel one on the floor manipulating the pedels, with another in the bed firing off a mini-gun : A seven year old driving a chainsaw through the bodyarmor of the Army's rescue team's leader who, along with his men naturally just ended up as possessed monsters with M16s : etc... ), but the pacing fell apart in the later half of the campaign and the end felt tacked on, even though it had been planned out from the begining. I think if it hadn't dragged out so long there'd have been less pressure to perform at the end.

Playing a 'new' character every time is more about not requiring a great commitment to any given character than anything else.  If the past is any indicator we'd definately lose at least half of the character sheets between sessions.  (The last D&D campaign I DMed involved one character being rebuilt from scratch as close as memory could dictate and one character just being left for dead [A great way to immediately ruin half of the DM's plans for a session])  It's not uncommon for us to start level three of four characters who never make it to level five or six and are traded for new characters in new places and situations (that's surely just lazy adventure designing on the part of myself and the group's other DM/GM).  I'll play to my strengths and take the opportunity to circumvent that particular weakness.
... So novelity of characters and settings is a major component of the reincarnation "bit" as well as a "utilitarian way to resume play after long breaks".

How's this : It's a little trite, but the very first session starts with the "heros", characters I'll have the players design based on themselves, in a bar.  Maybe a fellow they meet there asks them to "do him a favor" and deliver an important message for him, for which he'll "pay them handsomly", a role-playing standard used as a red herring to get the flow going.  The main thing is, after leaving the bar they hit some guy (actually one of their college professors) with their car and kill him. Enter the conflict : They just, in the eyes of the law, commited vehicular manslaughter (being over the limit).  Jail time for everyone. (Maybe they'll turn against the driver.  That might be interesting.) Do they hide the evidence?  Where?  How?  Turn themselves in? I'd have to work up an idea about how a pair of NPC cops, local boys almost but not quite in over their heads, would investigate, as well as a courtroom-drama-lite for if they get caught/turn themselves in.  Should be good for a few hours. 
Starting with the second session (where the players are given new characters, SPs from the first "adventure", etc) there'll be a post-game accounting.  Either a post-death scene or a dream sequence, depending of the outcome of the session.  A voice in the darkness asks if they've make atonement for what they've done, and how. After their the judge makes his ruling (always something semi-cryptic, short, and in refrence to the man they killed) the characters find themselves admidst "Fire, Brimstone and Burning Rubber".  (That's not bad... might make a good title) 
And when time comes for endgame an opportunity to actually make amends presents itself.  Maybe a chance to stop their previous selves. Maybe a chance to save the professor's son from some horrible fate. 
That would draw the players in more, trying to make up for something they did rather than trying to figure out a way to "sneak into heaven" or make some abstract moral progression... right?

[Ken]

The Endgame - A campaign featuring the players as the souls themselves, rather than as embodied beings?  What kind of quest or goals would be fitting such a long buildup?  I'd certainly hate to reach the point of saying "Sorry, buddy, but you missed the cutoff point by... two soul points" or "You rolled a one?  Guess you go to hell. Ah, better luck next time!" Maybe a better ending would be a kind of redemption - rejecting their given goals (and thus future advantage) to "do the right thing" could mark the victory of the player's soul over the chain of life it's been tied to? That feels right but stands to alienate the remaining players - if they know the goal is to be "selfless" there's no real contest (anyone can pretend to be a saint in an RPG).

Just a thought here, but maybe at the endgame everyone has to switch characters and run the pure soul with the core traits and characteristics as perceived by the fellow players. There is really no reason for this put shake things up a bit and run the last stretch of the race in unfamiliar shoes. Players wouldn't have a home team advantage to overcoming their flaws if they're playing them for the first time.

As for endgame conditions, maybe there is no more life on earth, and this is they're last at final peace (after, of course, wading through countless pissed-off souls that will never find it). Or, maybe there is just one couple left (the woman is pregnant), and the winning soul gets to be the baby. Just spit-balling here.

Good luck, and take care,

Ken

[David Berg]

How's this : It's a little trite, but the very first session starts with the "heros", characters I'll have the players design based on themselves, in a bar. 

emphasis mine.

This is a really significant decision.  For your purposes, I suspect it's a good one, but make sure you talk it through with your players.  Playing essentially yourself makes it very easy to "get back into character" after long breaks, and to remember your character's goals and prespectives, but can clash with some players' roleplaying goals on a very basic (i.e. potentially fun-ruining) level.

Some players might love the idea of playing literally themselves, exactly as they really are (but in different situations), while others might prefer to play their own personalities but with different capabilities (e.g. taller, stronger, better at fighting, etc.); and of course some might want to be "not like me at all".  It might be fine to mix and match.  My suggestion is just to figure out what benefits you wish to reap from "play yourselves" and see if you can all agree on something that provides those benefits and leaves everyone with characters they want to play.

If all that sounded stupidly obvious to you, then, uh, sorry.  But a lot of gaming groups don't communicate well about such stuff.

Maybe a fellow they meet there asks them to "do him a favor" and deliver an important message for him, for which he'll "pay them handsomly", a role-playing standard used as a red herring to get the flow going.  The main thing is, after leaving the bar they hit some guy (actually one of their college professors) with their car and kill him.

Your destination is great, but I'd skip the trip.  If you start the game with:

"You're all in a car.  Which of you has a car?  Okay, Fred.  You're all in Fred's car and Fred is driving.  You're on some errand where time of the essence.  Fred, the streets look pretty empty, how are you driving?  (Fred responds however he responds.)  Okay.  All of a sudden, BAM!  The car hits something!"

have you really lost anything?  To me, that sounds preferable to actually making the players go through the motions in a scenario where the GM must have them wind up in a certain spot.

If you really think your players will enjoy having a red herring, and won't be frustrated by having to abort whatever mission they're on to deal with a situation they would have rather (at the time) avoided, then, well, good luck...

Do they hide the evidence?  Where?  How?  Turn themselves in? . . . Should be good for a few hours. 

Starting with the second session . . . a post-death scene or a dream sequence . . . A voice in the darkness asks if they've make atonement . . . the characters find themselves admidst "Fire, Brimstone and Burning Rubber".

And when time comes for endgame an opportunity to actually make amends presents itself.

Sounds like fun to me!  As long as it's clear to everyone that whether this is really about moral atonement and guilt they're supposed to feel, or about simply strategizing and achieving the desired outcome.  If you have some players who focus on one and some players who focus on the other, it may be hard to satisfy both at the same time.

BTW, I have no idea what it means to find yourself amidst "Fire, Brimstone and Burning Rubber"...

Maybe a chance to stop their previous selves.
Maybe a chance to save the professor's son from some horrible fate.

Both sound cool to me!

That would draw the players in more, trying to make up for something they did

Well, if you ensure that they hit the guy, then it's not something they did (or at least it won't feel that way); it'll be more a situation they had to deal with.

I think this proposal lends itself much more to strategizing than moralizing; hell, they might as well be falsely accused of running over someone, it would create the same fun options.  If you want to provoke ethical concern, you'd need to put the players in a situation where they choose to run over the guy.

[Burrito]

Giving it thought, I believe you've got an extremely valid point.  If I declare (or if random dice rolling dictates) that they've run over a man it doesn't give any emotional attachment to the act.   A choice is nessicary. I suppose if I wanted to be cheap about it I could say that they have a friend in the car with them at the introduction - a split second decision must be made wether to hit the man who appears in the middle of the road or go off-road, where an accident and some fudged dice rolling kills the friend (and hopefully no players).  But that does seem cheap.  I'd need a situation dictating a hard, immediate choice, which they could all be held at least partly accountable for (which is why I like the idea of being slightly drunk - any one of them could have, by volunteering to be a designated driver, theoretically prevented an auto accident), and which could be argued as a great wrong-doing no matter how the situation is addressed.  In short I need to force them to damn themselves. Without obvious railroad-ery or forced action. 
Suggestions greatly appreciated.

The group I play with seems a strange bunch - there's very little min/maxing when we play D&D, and it's common for our characters to do something the player knows to be self-defeating or detrimental simply because it's "in character", or "the way my character would act", but with the rapid abandoning of characters and changing of game-worlds I fear we haven't got a healthy sense of concern for our character's emotional wellbeing.  I think we'd volunteer to have a mental breakdown because the situation seems to dictate it, but we wouldn't "feel for" our characters. Which I guess is why playing "themselves" seems so tempting. I suppose it would be important to make sure that that is acceptable to the players, though, before I get so "close to home."

I'm ordering "My Life With Master" - from what I've read it's excellent at making the goals and setbacks of the minions seem personal. Maybe I'll learn something.

"Fire, Brimstone and Burning Rubber" was an attempt at being clever (a failed one it seems).  It's a reference both to hell (fire, brimstone, and the knashing of teeth) and an auto accident (the squeal and smell of the tires coming from together, smearing the road with melted rubber skid-marks).

Thanks for the excellent posts, guys.  While I think this idea is workable it's becoming clearer how it could be molded together. And how to avoid having it fall apart.

- Sean