Clandestine: Memetic Roleplaying

[Wormwood]

I am currently working on developing a game I've been calling Clandestine. Originally the game was to center on playing conspiracies, but in the design process it seems to ahve grown in scope.

Basic Features

Characters:

Characters are constructed of three elements:

First, random memetic qualties, which in some contexts function loosely like D&D characteristics, but for the most part define the basic features of the meme which is the character.

Second, point purchased bodies. This includes purchasing organ systems to allow each body to act, resist, and otherwise interact with the world. Bodies are in some contexts treated as physical entities, and in some contexts treated as groups of people, usually conspiracies.

Third, secrets. Secrets are selected, with the oppurtunity to purchase further secrets in exchange for dark or negative secrets. In either case a secret is a fundamental game world truth, which permits one arcane action to be performed with certainty. Dark secrets are dangerous for the weilder, and negative secrets are secrets which only (and adversely) affect the character who purchases them.

A little bit more on secrets as a magic system can be found at:
http://www.actionroll.com/node.php?id=18

Layers:

The way I have envisioned game play is with four main layers of reality layed on top of each other. Actions occurs in all four layers simulatenously, but at any given point in the narration one is chosen.

Layer 01 - Physical reality: the world as humans experience it, bodies represent large organizations, and qualities represent the allure and power of an idea. Scene's played out in this world are simply decribed, acting as vingettes of the larger conflicts.

Layer 02 - Occult reality: literally the realm of hidden connections that lie within the physical world. Here bodies act as small groups, each organ being personified as a single person or entity.  Actions here tend to take a politcal bent, with direct action being difficult to deliver.

Layer 03 - Abstract reality: the realm of abstractions, where each body is present in it's full sense. Here is the stopping grounds of gods and governments.

Layer 04 - Ideal reality: the realm were memes are unmasked, and walk freely. There are no bodies in this realm, all that matters are the memetic qualities of an idea.

Layer 05 - Ineffable: what lies beyond, not even the memes know. Necessitated by the Rule of Fives.


Request for Comments:

Well, here are the basics, what do you think? I'm looking for comments, critiques, and the occasional pat on the back. But mostly I'm wondering if this is something people would actually play. The four tiers of accesible reality makes for an interesting, but I suspect, difficult to grasp game play.


   -Mendel S.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello Mendel,

As you've anticipated, your presentation is opaque (to me anyway) in terms of game play. But it's very intriguing.

Specific vocabulary aside, the first part of your post reads to me like, "Generate attributes randomly, pick skills with skill points, and come up with a Dark Secret," which strikes me as quite basic role-playing design. That's not a criticism, and I'm sure it will work fine, but I don't see much to comment upon.

The second part of your post offers lots more. I really like the idea of any action or scene happening in all four ways or layers at once, but only one of them receiving narration; that works for me instantly, and it's cool. Now my questions are all concerned with how this is implemented. So ... how does that happen, among the humans who are playing, during play itself? Can you give me a hypothetical example of a few people playing, kind of a Suzy-says John-says sort of thing, which would illustrate how it would work?

Best,
Ron

[Wormwood]

Ron,

Well, memetic qualities are essentially attributes. After all the innate power of an idea is fairly static, and unpredictable.

On the otherhand, the bodies purchasing is most like one of the point based organization building schemes. Of course one big difference is that you can have multiple bodies per character.

The secrets are rather different. They are perhaps better described as narrative equations. Provide some set of requirments and the results occur. No mechanic gets in the way. Secrets also are the only aspect of the game which work equivalently through all realities. More on that later.

I'll post in a little while some more detail on these.

Now onto the real meat of things, the game play.

Quincey is playing the fruit bat, his two bodies being the Esteemed Order of the Celestial Fruit Bat and the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Diurnal Aerial Mammals. Among his secrets is that he can over hear any thing said by someone he has kissed, until the sun sets.

Tess is playing political absurdism, including such bodies as the Apolitical Party, the Pauper's Party, and the Zen Masters Party. Among her secrets are a sentence that will cause any woman who has not born a child to feel intense remorse for a moment, and the ability to see through objects of the colour green.

Quincey has just discovered, that political absurdism has been stealing from his banana patch (abstract) / a recruit from his most recent recruitment meeting (occult) / a small splinter sect of scientology (physical).

Quincey has his Esteemed Order sensory Organ, a.k.a. the Public Event's secretary and her staff, try to detect the theivery.

He's decided to do this on the abstract level. Fortunately that's where the game is currently focused. His Order's Sensory Organ is at rating 2 (~ 5 or so people). The fruit bat simply sends that body out, to try to find what happened.

Quincey: My Order is going to try to locate the nefarious thief. It's got sensory at level 2.

This is more than enough to detect Tess, but she decides to make things more difficult She spends a Memetic Strength to push the narrative level down to Occult. Then she orders her special operations man, i.e. her Affective organ, to interfere with the search.

Tess: First, I'm changing the level to occult, then I'm bringing Jacque in.
"What is it?" "The esteemed order has finally caught wind of one of our actions, I want you to make sure they don't catch anything else. Understood?" "Yes, sir. The Pauper's party is on the job."

Quincey is getting a bit worried, he decides to spend s Memetic strength of his own, to run the scene when the Pauper's party people show up at the public events secretary's office.  He does this by shifting the narration down to the Physical level.

Quincey: I'm going to shift the level down to Physical. Let's see what happens when your people show up.

(Tess and Quincey banter for a while)

Quincey seems to be doing well, until.

Tess: Freddy (the quiet guy in back) walks up to Lucy (the secretary) and whispers something in her ear. She suddenly is overcome with sorrow.

Tess has used a secret, which means Freddy is part of her Transcendental organ, which is the organ type that handles secrets.

Quincey: She starts to blurt out what her people are looking for, and gives you the phone number of her superior for an explaination. She places her head on the desk and begins to sob quietly.

(and so on ...)

I haven't yet defined what Memetic Strength is, but I think an expended resource fits best for narrative shifts of this sort.

Well, I hope that answers the questions,

    -Mendel S.

[talysman]

hi, wormwood. I had a question about your use of the word "meme". are you using this in the standard sense of the word (established by Richard Dawkins,) or do you have a special definition of "meme" for this game?

the reason I ask is because I'm not certain what the memes would be in the example characters you describe. is Quincy's meme "choose `fruit bat' when randomly selecting an animal name"? and what's the meme (or group of memes) included in "political absurdism"?

also, there is a (real-world) meme "sing the second line of the chorus of bruce springsteen's `blinded by the light' as `wracked up like a dooche in the rubber in the night'" ... and another real-world meme "say `infer' in place of `imply'". how would these memes be played in the game you are describing? to take the first meme, would it be something like:

John is playing "sing the second line of the chorus of bruce springsteen's `blinded by the light' as `wracked up like a dooche in the rubber in the night'"; his bodies are the Bruce Springsteen Semi-Fan Club and the Karaoke Singers of America.

also, am I to understand that this would play something like Illuminati! (the Steve Jackson Games card game) but with a wider range of conspiracies?

[Wormwood]

talysman,

Well succintly the answer is yes and no. I am using the word meme to describe an infectious idea. On the otherhand I don't just mean any infectious idea, I mean one's that start conspiracies. Otherwise the meme's are disembodied, and can't do too much. On the otherhand I also do not expect players to develop their own infective memes, just interesting but weird ideas to "tag" their meme. Then they build the conspiracies.

Funny you should mention Illuminati, I just finished an RPG conversion of it this morning, which is more in line with what you mention.

//52pickup.actionroll.com/UpandComing/UpandComing.html

well, I hope that answers your question,

  -Mendel S.

[talysman]

Well succintly the answer is yes and no. I am using the word meme to describe an infectious idea. On the otherhand I don't just mean any infectious idea, I mean one's that start conspiracies. Otherwise the meme's are disembodied, and can't do too much. On the otherhand I also do not expect players to develop their own infective memes, just interesting but weird ideas to "tag" their meme. Then they build the conspiracies.

Funny you should mention Illuminati, I just finished an RPG conversion of it this morning, which is more in line with what you mention.

//52pickup.actionroll.com/UpandComing/UpandComing.html

well, I hope that answers your question,

indeed it does. thanx!

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

Do I understand correctly that the primary source of fun in play is competing strategy among the players? If so, then we are indeed looking at a kind of postmodern Illuminati, and a pretty clever one at that. I'm not sure whether the medium of role-playing is the best one for it - perhaps cards or some interesting computer interface seems more appropriate, at least at my current understanding.

That understanding is still pretty primitive; for example, only with your latest post did I grasp that a player can purchase multiple bodies. Again, this is consistent with the realm of play being fairly "high" or abstract, which suits a strategic goal. And, again, I'm not sure if I'm right in perceiving that goal about that the game, from your example, so let me know.

Best,
Ron

[Wormwood]

Ron,

While there is a sense of competition that can be developed between player memes, it need not be the entirety of the game. There is significant room to explore, intrigue, and combat the more potent memes of the setting. The player cooperation is likely to be a small fish working together sense, rather than a stronger cohesion, so some internal conflict is expected. I simply wanted to use a simple example, and well, I had Illuminati on my brain that day.

However, the fundamental sense of the game, is playing the personification of a conspiracy. It's just that in order to support such personifications, it becomes relatively easy to extend the idea to non-conspiracy memes. In some way this game is meant to be anti-Nobilis. It's not diceless, and instead of taking unknowable things and giving them human roots, I'm taking unknowable things, and using the environment to allow comprehension.

Some interesting elements spring from that. For example, memes don't percieve, they remember. They acquire information by encountering (or reencountering) it, and thus it's a matter of drawing on their connections.

In the interest of throwing more fuel on the fire:

Memetic Qualities:

(physical meaning / idea-space meaning)

Adaptability - used to apply to new circumstances / cunning
Persistance - used to, well, persist / memory (like perception)

Insidiousness - used to infiltrate / Subterfuge
Accesibility - used to gather the interested / Charisma

Passify - used to prevent action / Resistance
Impassion - used to cause action / Force (like strength)

Focus - used to form groups / Dexterity
Disperse - used to break groups up / Agility

How you roll them:

Take 13 d6, and at least 2 to each pair. For each pair pick one as high and one as low. Roll the dice, the high quality is equal to the highest value rolled, the low is equal to the lowest value rolled.

Note: Qualities can only be changed when a meme undergoes a significant change, i.e. there is not gradual change, ideas tend to stay mostly static and then jump to the next level as it were.

What do you think?

  -Mendel S.

[Ron Edwards]

H'm,

Well, given that stated goal or interest of play, the experience seems to approach being an "exercise" oriented toward "what it's like," or a relatively clinical interest/enjoyment in the outcome. That's not a criticism (any more than my perception of competition was); it's a feature.

From my perspective, what you'll need to attract interest in that exercise is ... (wince) kewlness. That is, the conspiracies and available memes and so forth would have lots & lots of neat and funky details, stuff that's hilarious or insightful on first exposure, unexpected impact on the arena of interaction from unlikely sources, and so on. The fruitbat-meets-political-absurdism seems to fit the bill to me, but I'm admittedly a rotten case study, and perhaps some more input from Folks 'Round & About would be a good idea, to develop in-game content or options with maximum grab potential.

One more question: based on your example of play, I'm seeing everyone in the game as being essentially an equal partner for contributing events, adversity, interactions, and so forth. Am I reading it correctly to infer that no central GM-type role is involved? I'm asking this because in your latest post, you refer to interacting with and combating "more potent memes," and I'm wondering where these come from if not from one another as players.

Also, and related, what do you see as a climactic or maximally-satisfying moment of play? How does (say) the first or early stages of interaction among memes/etc differ from what we'd expect from later or developed stages of interaction?

Best,
Ron

[Wormwood]

Ron,

I rather agree, the main appeal of this game will be in a somewhat more detached sense than most RPGs. As far as the "kewlness" factor, I am working on developing details in each reality, such as the Market Place of Ideas and various elements inspired by Promethea. Likewise, the idea of creating your own mythic bodies will be steeped in a doing things that are truly fantastic, such as, numerous arms, legs, and heads, beast related parts, and more unusual things. A strong sense of allegory is meant to hold each character together, with the sharp hawk's eyes of the abstract body, being a hawkish master spy in the occult reality, perhaps being the name of the directory of the group in the physical reality. It's these connections, while ultimately color, which make the game enjoyable and interesting.

One other element, and one which seems to be the most difficult from the design perspective, is the secret generation rules. It's very easy to naively make secrets that are too powerful, or simply not mysterious, which ruins the whole tone of secrets and takes one more element of the conspiratorial nature out of the game. It's admittedly hard for rules to produce mystery, but in this context I figure there may be general guidlines and restrictions which make things more clear. I think that a well developed method for this will make the game interesting as well.

As to the question of GM or no GM. I'm leaning on the GM side, with the more dynamic sense of play not requiring a GM if players generally trust each other. The problem is actually one of arbitration in that case, as it may be easy for a player to abuse the narrative freedom of a Physical Reality scene. Likewise, there is a significant amount of strategy in choosing your level. After all if Quincey had a high Persistence, he could simply recall that Tess's body stole the radishes, and there's not much tess could do unless she likewise had a high Insidiousness.

The use of more potent memes is an option for play, and it makes sense. There are clearly weaker memes as well, mostly disembodied. It seems this game would be quite some fun to GM as well, and so I'd rather keep a GM around. That's usually my criteria for removing the role, I like to GM, so unless it would be no fun at all I keep it around. On a side note, GM's make pith-less, and even low pith bodies easier to handle, since they function on a more instinctive level.

I'm not very worried about the scope of players interested in playing Clandestine since this is going up on my actionroll page once completed. It'll be sitting with a variety of other games, so it's more important to me that it fufills it's niche role well, and has novel and interesting design features, after all that's what my page is all about.

The most climactic element of Clandestine is combat, pure and simple. Of course it's really only necessarilly combat in the Idea-space sense, otherwise it is politics, manipulation, sub rosa warfare, and cunning application of secrets. In true dragon ball Z style idea-space combats could run multiple sessions, since metaphorically speaking each punch could be described in incredible detail as, on the physical level, months and years could pass during these fights. Player memes may rise as the newest fad, fending off the last king of that hill, or become entrenched in academia or the like. Ultimately the game is about territory, and there's never enough. How you get it, on the other hand, is quite varied.

I generally feel that early player memes are allied in their struggles, as the little fish of the pond. They often will need to concentrate on survival as much as anything else. However, as time goes on they gain bodies and memetic strength they begin to interfere, often without trying. And sometimes allies of old come into conflict over new territory. As they become better entrenched there is more reason to risk conflicts with each other. Alternatively at higher levels the memes can have a significant effect on the world, and that can be an interesting avenue to explore. Exploration is a theme either can explore, as the different levels each have their own frontiers, and sometimes there truly are dragons there.

I hope that answers your questions,
 
   -Mendel S.