Mechanics/System Choice for Virtual Sim Game

[WiredNavi]

I'm working on a campaign involving characters who are themselves players in an advanced, online virtual reality MMORPG, set in the near future to provide for things like neural shunts and widespread use of virtual reality equipment for personal use.  It is inspired a great deal by works like Williams' Otherland, McKiernan's Caverns of Socrates, and the anime .hack//SIGN.  The game is primarily Simulationist; what Gamism there is takes place within the Sim framework of the online game, and what Narrativism takes place should mostly be with the characters' response to the concerns of the 'real world' and the 'game world'.

I've pretty much decided to use D&D3.5 as the system for the online fantasy world where most of the campaign will take place.  It's a well-known system among my prospective players and provides just the sort of crunchy-yet-unrealistic tactical simulation and traditional pop-fantasy setting that it ought to.  Since most MMORPGs are, at heart, fantasy heartbreakers, I think it's perfectly appropriate.  If anyone has a better idea, I'd be happy to hear it, but I think it fits the bill.

As far as the 'real world' characters, I've been leaning towards Over The Edge, which ought to be capable of the kind of freeform action and modeling of reasonably normal people which I'm looking for.  I want a system that is:
- Capable of modeling flexible characters.
- Capable of modeling a range of 'real world' people from the average to the exceptional, with most being 'average'.
- System-light for ease of use, as most of the action which requires system will take place online and thus under the auspices of the MMORPG-ish system.
OTE seems to hit all of these, but if there's a better system out there for this, I'd love to hear about it.

One thing which I'd like to include is a method of determining how good a character is at, quite simply, playing the online game.  In an OTE framework, this would involve requiring that one of every character's OTE dice pools be 'Gamer' or something equivalent, and giving bonuses to the D&D character creation (or possibly something like the d20 Modern Fate Points) based on how high that pool is.  The tradeoff would be that obviously spending more dice on that pool would mean that the character would have fewer resources with which to deal with the outside world, fewer ways of getting information on real-world issues which might impact the campaign, and just in general be less capable offline.

I'm also looking to implement an attribute or dice pool called 'Immersion', which would represent the characters' ability to 'bend the rules' of the system, causing their characters to do things which would otherwise difficult or impossible.  While being an expert gamer would allow one to exhibit excellence within the framework of the MMORPG, a high Immersion would allow one to exceed the framework completely, causing their online persona to do things which are simply unaccounted for within the system.  Brainstorming as to what potential downsides (or specific upsides or capabilities) this might have and any ideas on how to create a system for allowing it to increase or decrease when appropriate decisions are made would be welcome.

Come to think of it, a heavily modified Sorcerer might work, with the online characters represented as Demons and Humanity becoming Immersion...  However, I'm not that familiar with Sorcerer, so I may be talking out of my rear.

Any comments or advice is more than welcome - that's why I'm posting here!  Ideas, ideas, ideas...

[ADGBoss]

Jinx

One thing I might suggest is ejecting the concept of D&D 3.5 as the basis for the "Online" Fantasy System.  In fact you already have 2 Mechanics, Gamer & Immersion which deal with the online world. These should be sufficient depending on what your agenda is.

From the way you have described it, it sounds more like the Online world is more real or has extra-physical possibilities that even most Virtual worlds do not have.  So it seems more important in many ways then the real world.  

Are the players exploring the lives of Gamers, living in both worlds, or are they exploring this GAME, having to occasionally surface for air where they are vulnerable to the mundanity of the outside world.  Like Diesel Subs in WWII.

One system you might consider is FUDGE.

Hope this helps...


Sean

[John Kim]

I'm working on a campaign involving characters who are themselves players in an advanced, online virtual reality MMORPG, set in the near future to provide for things like neural shunts and widespread use of virtual reality equipment for personal use.  It is inspired a great deal by works like Williams' Otherland, McKiernan's Caverns of Socrates, and the anime .hack//SIGN.  The game is primarily Simulationist; what Gamism there is takes place within the Sim framework of the online game, and what Narrativism takes place should mostly be with the characters' response to the concerns of the 'real world' and the 'game world'.

Could you talk a little more about what you expect the campaign to consist of?  I'm not familiar with any of the works you mentioned, unfortunately.  I guess that there will be stretches of play which are "online" where you are essentially playing out a fantasy adventure -- but where the players have dual roles (i.e. the real players are playing sci-fi gamers who are playing fantasy characters).  

What is the offline play going to be like?  

As a suggestion, I think an interesting twist would be to have ratings and events based on how they play things in the game.  i.e. The PCs have an audience outside the game who they are playing to, which their in-game actions will influence.  You might want to look at some of the thoughts which I had for my Conan convention game (cf. http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=11633">Conan Test Run Results).  I had a similar idea there about giving the combat a little more depth because they were judged on how sexy they looked during the fight.  

Similarly, you might have PCs vying for popularity amongst each other, or intentionally doing stunts in order to boost the overall audience for their games.  For example, two of the characters might decide to pretend to have a rivalry in the fantasy game in order to make the adventures more exciting.  

But there should be some sort of device to have meaningful action outside of the online fantasy game which is still related to the game.

[Mr. Sluagh]

Well, it doesn't sound like the portion of the game set in the real world will include any magic or combat or anything, so does it really need a system?  I can't see how it's necessary to give characters more stats than, say, Savvy (to represent how good they are with computers; high levels might allow intricate computer hacking, while lower levels would be useful for finding glitches in the system, etc.) and Life (to represent how strongly you're connected to the real world.  In the higher ranges, the game is just a passing hobby, at rock bottom, you think it is the real world.).  Even those two aren't entirely necessary, IMHO.

[WiredNavi]

In fact you already have 2 Mechanics, Gamer & Immersion which deal with the online world. These should be sufficient depending on what your agenda is.

Do you think so?  Those are mostly mechanics for the interaction between the 'offline' character and the 'online' character, rather than mechanics for the online world itself.

Could you talk a little more about what you expect the campaign to consist of? I'm not familiar with any of the works you mentioned, unfortunately. I guess that there will be stretches of play which are "online" where you are essentially playing out a fantasy adventure -- but where the players have dual roles (i.e. the real players are playing sci-fi gamers who are playing fantasy characters).

Otherland:  ~2050 AD or so.  A consortium of powerful people decide to create a virtual world which will enable them to live on after death as, essentially, uploaded personalities.  A group of people whose friends/relations have been harmed by the weird experimental VR system gets trapped online in the Otherland system and has to explore/deal with the simulation.
.hack//SIGN:  ~2010 AD.  Several players of the popular MMORPG 'The World' encounter Tsukasa, a player who seems very confused and apparrently cannot log off.  They set out to try to help him, investigating the company offline and trying to hack the computer system from within.
Caverns:  ~2030 AD?  A group of virtual reality roleplayers participate in an experimental VR roleplaying system test where an artificial intelligence creates the world and essentially acts as the traditional Game Master.  Frankenstinian problems ensue.

So yes, what I'm aiming for is that the online portion of the game will be the greater and possibly more interesting part, but that events online will have relevance to the 'real world', and the characters will be working to accomplish goals which are relevant to their offline lives and/or offline personae through the medium of an online fantasy game.

Are the players exploring the lives of Gamers, living in both worlds, or are they exploring this GAME, having to occasionally surface for air where they are vulnerable to the mundanity of the outside world. Like Diesel Subs in WWII.

More the latter.  Through the medium of the online game, they will (hopefully) eventually uncover some disturbing facts about the 'real world' and if they want to do something about it their main method of interacting with the problem will be through the game itself.

Well, it doesn't sound like the portion of the game set in the real world will include any magic or combat or anything, so does it really need a system?

The reason for picking OTE as the 'real world' system is precicely that - I just want a simple 'what are you good at' mechanic and an equally simple dice vs. target number success mechanic.  The offline portions of the game should be pretty streamlined and systemless.  Much of what they'll want to do offline will probably involve information-gathering; if they get into combat (which I can hardly imagine happening) then they're going to be in enormous amounts of trouble already.

Thanks for the ideas!

[M. J. Young]

This discussion has brought back to mind a thread we had on Hackmaster some time back; the concept of it as a post-modern game was being highlighted.

In general, the idea is that the rule book for Hackmaster is not the game, but a prop for the game. In the actual game, players are playing characters who are somewhat stereotypical players in a role playing game; Hackmaster is the game that their characters are playing. At first blush, it would appear that the "outer" game is entirely free-form; but there are mechanics built into the "inner" game that are really about the outer game--such as giving the "inner" character experience points if the "outer" character catches the referee in a rules violation.

It might be worth examining for these functions.

--M. J. Young

[Doctor Xero]

One thing which I'd like to include is a method of determining how good a character is at, quite simply, playing the online game.  In an OTE framework, this would involve requiring that one of every character's OTE dice pools be 'Gamer' or something equivalent, and giving bonuses to the D&D character creation (or possibly something like the d20 Modern Fate Points) based on how high that pool is.  The tradeoff would be that obviously spending more dice on that pool would mean that the character would have fewer resources with which to deal with the outside world, fewer ways of getting information on real-world issues which might impact the campaign, and just in general be less capable offline.

I don't know if you've ever met any of those poor souls who are addicted to online or face-to-face gaming in the same general fashion that other people might be addicted to heroin, alcohol, or cocaine, but they would be well replicated by a system in which a significantly high online skill comes at a cost in offline ability.

Since your system focuses (like .hack//SIGN) on the gaming world as primary and the "real world" outside the game as secondary, why not reflect that in your game system?  In most game systems with an astral realm (or "umbra"), player-characters have a primary existence in the campaign world but perhaps a secondary existence in the astral realm.  Just as World of Darkness mages and changelings are expected to go into the WoD equivalent of the astral realm to obtain resources which help them in their primary "real world" existences, so your gamer characters are expected to go into the offline world to help them obtain resources which help them in their primary online existences.  So why not treat the offline world in your game the same way that most games treat the astral realm?

Doctor Xero

[WiredNavi]

Just as World of Darkness mages and changelings are expected to go into the WoD equivalent of the astral realm to obtain resources which help them in their primary "real world" existences, so your gamer characters are expected to go into the offline world to help them obtain resources which help them in their primary online existences. So why not treat the offline world in your game the same way that most games treat the astral realm?

Hmm.  This idea has a lot going for it, in more ways than one.  I don't know if I want to use it exactly, but it's certainly possible that almost all of the 'offline' actions that they want to take could be resolved without breaking the narrative out of the 'online' game.  The characters go to sleep, and while they sleep, their players learn about things that they're investigating.
The key to that would be to limit the interaction of the 'real' character personae to the online realm.

In general, the idea is that the rule book for Hackmaster is not the game, but a prop for the game. In the actual game, players are playing characters who are somewhat stereotypical players in a role playing game; Hackmaster is the game that their characters are playing. At first blush, it would appear that the "outer" game is entirely free-form; but there are mechanics built into the "inner" game that are really about the outer game--such as giving the "inner" character experience points if the "outer" character catches the referee in a rules violation.

This not only makes me want to check it out for ideas, but furthermore to check it out as a game I might want to play.

Thanks!