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Wondering about the extent to which character creation could be changed from a pre-game to an in-game activity, if you'll forgive me the terminology, I developed the outline of a game which I currently call Shades. It is a game of tragedy (not quite in the classic Greek sense, but close), of memory, and of healing ancient wounds. In terms of GNS, the game is supposed to facilitate Narrativism almost exclusively.

What I'd like to hear from you is:
(1) Is Shades incredibly original, has this been done countless times before and in fact much better, or - most likely - something in between? The sheer number of RPGs out there makes it hard for a relative newcomer like me to judge the originality of a game. :) And there is, of course, little real use in re-inventing the wheel.
(2) Does Shades strike you as interesting, or as inherently and irredeemably boring?
(3) Any constructive comments are, of course, very welcome. These include pointing out glaring omissions or inadequate mechanics, and reading suggestions.
Thanks in advance. The game is outlined below. I apologise for the fact that now and then 'game text' and 'designer rant' are hard to tell apart.



Introduction

First, the situation is introduced, which provides a framework for both setting and characters. All the player characters are 'shades', incorporeal beings which can observe the external world but cannot influence it (not easily, anyway). Once they were human beings, but they died and their minds receded in a darkness where there is no thought. Now - seconds, years, centuries later? - they find consciousness stirring again. They hardly know what it is to be an individual, to think, to feel; they no longer know who they were, how they lived their lives, etcetera. We - the players - know that they were all part of a tragic series of events which took place in the building (or ship, or village, or whatever it may turn out to be) where they find themselves. The stories of their lives form a twisted, tale of pain and grief, visited upon each other and themselves; the past holds only tragedy. The shades are bound to this world because of the unhealed wounds their history has left in their souls. So, the shades start out knowing not even their own name and sex, much less that of the others. But as they explore the world, they find places and objects, perhaps people, which stir memories deep within. As these memories slowly accumulate their own self is reconstructed, they remember the others, and the tragic tale becomes clear for all to see. The processes of discovery for the shades and for the players happen parallel. Once the story has been made clear, the shades must try and find a resolution for the tragedy in the present, using the limited resources they have to influence the present. Whether they will succeed or not is unclear until the last moment, but the possibility of a release must be formulated, and it must be either chosen or rejected by the shades in a dramatic final scene.


Narrative structure

The narrative structure of a game of Shades is the following.
* The initial Premisse is "How is it possible that people we can relate to inflict upon each other excessive amounts of pain and suffering?"
* This Premisse is adressed in the creation of the Tragedy through the narration of memories. This adressing leads to a theme, e.g.: "Pride makes one forget love, which leads to acts of cruelty." (A possible interpretation of Euripides' Medea.)
* The second Premisse is a natural consequence of the first theme: "Can the wounds caused by such acts be healed?" (In our example: "Can the wounds of a pride that eclipsed all love be healed?")
* This Premisse is adressed by an attempt by the shades to heal the wounds in a specific way. This specific way, together with the outcome of the attempt at healing, determine the final Theme. (To continue our example: "The remembrance of first love's purity allows one to shed the shackles of pride", if the players sought to resolve the tragedy by having Jason and Medea remember their first times together, and this softened up the shades' pride enough for them to find reconciliation. Or "The sweet moments of the past are poisened by contemporary hate", if they tried the same, but the memories got twisted by the intrusion of later grievances.)

The aim of players in Shades is to create a story with this narrative structure; it is important that all understand beforehand what the game's narrative structure is.


Playing the game

Play consists of turns. It is always one player's turn, and when someone has finished his turn, it's the turn of the person sitting on the left of him. In a turn a player can:
* Move about in the present, as a shade. Shades are rather insensitive to their surroundings; most of it is blurry and vague to them, including the precise physical distances and relative positions of different rooms. Objects, people or places which remind them of their past stand out in clear contrast to the rest of the world, and immediately make a memory surface. The shade is thus in a dreamlike state, centred on its own thoughts and feelings without much attention to the real world, until a memory-provoking location or thing is reached.
* Relive a memory, usually but not necessarily triggered by a place or object encountered. The player narrates an episode from the past, or just a feeling, a general state of mind, etcetera - anything which he remembers from his past. The player is encouraged to make his memories (a) open ended, so that they leave some uncertain and allow the Tragedy or the Resolution to materialise slowly, with everyone having a say in it, (b) integrative, tying loose ends from other memories (possibly the memories of others) together, and (c) themetically interesting, adressing the Premise.
* Have an influence on the Present, such as appearing to a living person, playing a piano, talking to another shade, etcetera. This costs one Credit. (More about Credits later.) You may only influence the present if you believe it works towards the Resolution.
A turn should take not much more than 5 minutes (in our world; it may span years in the remembered past). (Perhaps an extra five minutes can be bought by giving one Credit to the person on your right. The exact times are not such a big deal at this stage of design.)

There are several ways in which other characters can become involved in youre memories. First, another character can indirectly play a role in your memory. (Medea remembers how she sat in her father's palace, madly in love with Jason, and suddenly decided to risk her all for him.) The character is not acting in the memory, but he is thought about, spoken of, etcetera. Second, another character can directly play a role in your memory. (Medea remembers her first kiss with Jason.) Both are allowed, but you should not introduce new information about the other character with a lot of impact, unless you have asked the character's player leave to do so. (Jason's player should not remember Medea killing her children without explicit approval by the player of Medea. However, if it has already been stated that Medea killed her children, or if it has been hinted at very strongly, the information is no longer new; in that case Jason's player can go right ahead.)

If another character plays a role in your memory, you may choose to invite that player to participate in the narration of your memory. From that point on, you both describe the actions of your own characters. However, the memory remains that of the remembering character. Nothing should be narrated that is not part of this memory. This explicitely includes the thoughts and feelings of any character but the remembering one. (Medea's player remembers the first kiss of Jason and Medea. He invites Jason's player to participate in the scene. The invitation is accepted, and Jason is now played by his own player. [Note that new, shocking information about Jason's behaviour can now be revealed in Medea's memory, because Jason's actions are narrated by his own player.] Jason's player may not describe what jason feels or thinks, because that cannot be a part of Jason's memory.)

Once a memory is ended, other players may give you a Credit in order to tell a Follow-up Memory. They have 5 minutes to relate a memory which is intimately tied to the one previously narrated. Other players may be invited to participate in a Follow-up memory normally, but there cannot be further Follow-ups. The most important use which can be made of Follow-up memories is presenting different sides of the same story. (After the kissing-memory has been narrated, Jason's player gives a Credit to Medea's. He now narrates the same event from the perspective of Jason, telling how Jason enters the scene tortured by the idea that he must rely on the help of a woman, an affront to his pride, but how Medea's tender kisses remove these questions from his mind and leave only love. Remember, tragic irony is your friend!)



Rewards mechanics

About Credits. (These really need a better name, obviously.) Every player starts with a few Credits (I'm thinking 2 or 3). They have four uses:
* You can buy a Follow-Up memory by giving a credit to the player whose turn it is.
* You can buy extra narration time by giving a credit to the player on your right. (Or perhaps to the player with the least credits, or a player of your choice?)
* You can give a Credit to any player whose narration struck you as particularly brilliant, theme-developping or inspiring. Do this often; it's the group's way to reward good playing. Good playing should be judged relative to a player's normal playing.
* You can use a credit to influence the Present. This credit is taken from the game and can never be returned. You may not spend Credits in this way if there are no more Credits than players remaining.


[These Credits are the reward mechanism of Shades. You get them for developing the theme, telling brilliant memories, inspiring others, and narrating memories which other find interesting enough to continue with a follow-up. You can spend them for more narrating time and for showing your appreciation of other's inventions.

Why do you need to diminish the (already preciously few) Credits if you wish to influence the Present? It ensures that there are few of these influencings, and gives them a very heavy emphasis. It also strongly presses the player not to influence the Present in the first stages of the game. Remember too that you may only influence the Present if this carries the Resolution forward. The mechanics thus ensure that the carrying out of the Resolution has the narrative emphasis it deserves, is clearly perceived by every player, and is left till the end of the game.]



Stages of the game

In the first stage of the game, the Shade is hardly an individual at all, and has no coherent thoughts or perecptions. Roleplay this well, ensuring that all memories of the Past and perception of the Present are vague and inconclusive. Slowly raise both coherence and clarity. This will ensure that the game world, the characters and the Tragedy take form slowly, so that all players have time to get used to it and adept themselves at a comfortable rate.

As the general setting, personalities and theme begin to materialise, the group should move on to making them interesting, coherent and rich. The characters have to be people you can relate to. You do not have to love them, but you must be able to understand them and the choices they made. The setting is important as a collection of cues for memories, but fleshing it out should not be you top priority; remember that Shades hardly notice their surroundings unless it reminds them of the Past. The Theme is extremely important: the groups' goal must be to formulate not only a way in which Tragedy can come about at the specific level of the story, but also at a more abstract level. (This is the difference between explaining the specific case of Jason and Medea, and telling that pride can make people forget love.)

The first Theme should have been formulated by the time the Tragedy has taken on a definite shape. You know who the characters are, what their tragic tale is, and what deep fact about human nature (or whatever) lies behind it. Now, you must go looking for a Resolution. (This may, but does have to, mean that the Shades themselves start looking for a Resolution.) Use memories and a limited number of infuencings of the Present to develop, together, an adequate way in which the participants of the tragedy could be redeemed, forgive each other, or some such thing. (To return once again to Medea, narrating memories of their first love, and of the way this destroyed the walls of pride around their hearts, may make clear that the wounds might be healed by remembering love long past; "Can remembered love defeat pride?")

When the attempted Resolution is clear, a player may announce his wish to move on to the Final Scene. If everyone agrees that the time has indeed come, a scene in which everyone has narration rights. All Credits are removed from the game, and everyone has a right to influence the Present. This may simply mean that all Shades can talk to each other, but the Resolution might also take a more material form. Ensure that every Shade has to make an important decision in this scene. Make it a dramatic climax that nails the final Theme well into place. Your characters may, depending on the outcome, heal their founds and finally find rest; be cursed to remain Shades forevermore, locked in an eternal cycle of grief and pain, with no hope of release; or anything in between. Not all characters need to suffer the same eventual fate. (Jason and Medea finally speak to each other, in ghostly form, and in a dramatic scene are moved to forgive each other through their shared memories; they find rest. Or, these memories are poisened as they recall them, poisoned by their hate, and the resolution fails; they shall exist as bitter shades for evermore. Both are legitimate outcomes expressing different Themes.)



Understanding each other

If you are to create Theme together, you must understand what you are all working towards. In the ideal case, the narrations give all the players enough clues to find out what the others are thinking of, and allow them to coordinate their efforts without any 'out of character' discussions. But if the case is not ideal, and you do not understand what is happening, and you do not think insight is waiting just around the corner of the next turn, do the only logical thing. Ask. Ask the other player(s) what their memories are supposed to add, thematically, to the story; or in what direction they are looking for the theme. It may not be as elegant as creating Theme purely in-game, but its a lot better than running off in completely different directions and screwing up the entire game.[/b]

First, creating a character in play is sometimes refered to as Developed In Play (or DIP). Few games incorporate it as a normal way to play. However, a few recent ones have. Actually a few games that I've designed have incorporated the idea. Maybe more importantly, Hero Quest has as one of the three methods presented for chargen as a DIP method.

That said, even fewer of the games that do this do so as an important part of play. Interestingly there was a game that did something very similar to what you're proposing called Le Mon Mouri. It, too is about being dead and discovering your memories. That said, it's also substantively different in some ways, so don't worry too much about the similarities.

Anyhow, these games all work well, so I'd encourage you to go with it. What you have so far seems promising.

What in particular do you want to discuss in regards to your system and chargen?

Mike

Hello Mike, thanks for your reply. I'm glad to hear that I'm not redoing someone else's work. Nevertheless, I'd be interested in taking a look at Le Mon Mouri, but I seem to be unable to find it on the net - one site referred me to Memento Mori Theatrix, but there is no Le mon Mouri there. A search on the Forge brought me to a link, but that was broken. Would you know if it is still obtainable?

I'm encouraged by the fact that DIP has been done before with success. Now my main worry about my game idea is whether it provides the players enough support to actually carry out the task of creating and resolving a tragedy in the way described in the game rules. I wonder if they strike anyone as definitely too unsupportive, given the very broad scope a development of the initial premisse might take. But I suppose that is a question which has to be answered mainly through playtesting a somewhat more developed version. It's back to work for me. :)

(I'm still interested in people telling me what they do or do not like about the current sketch, if anything comes to mind.)

Hi again Victor, and interesting, this is...

I was worried a bit about the difficulty for shades to have physical objects to interact with, if centuries had passed, but you solve that elegantly with shades really only encountering things that are significant to them.

What is a bit difficult for me to understand is how long you expect certain phases to last, and how you'll measure whether there's enough establishment of Theme or Second Premise (for instance) to go forward. I would be a bit at a loss, as a player, with what we've seen so far, as to where we were. All that might be solved with hands-on-experience, though.

There's a few similarities to Ideal Holiday (on this forum as well), but that's only because I made it and I can see some of your thinking along the same lines. In IH you just play each step as long as it's fun - but IHs geared towards casual party play - this seems more involved (which is also good). Careful selection of the credits mechanism might be enough to make readily apparent to the players how long a game will last, though.

If you're worried about Credit-spending to affect physical reality in the early game, you might as well rule that a shade is too weak to affect reality untill a certain 'solidity' has been achieved (x normal and follow-up narrations about the shade).

The game was made by Sean Demory, who's still a member here, technically. You might be able to find out about it by contacting him.

Josh, do you know where Le Mon Mouri can be found? Jared did host it for a while, but it seems to have disappeared now. Jared?

Mike

Hello Tobias; you make some good points. Purely speaking in terms of playing time, I expect the first phase (creation of tragedy and accompanying theme) to last anywhere between 1.5 and 3 hours, depending on the number of players; the second phase (resolution) about half as long. But these are very raw estimates; play-testing will hopefully put this in better focus.

Apart from matters of time, it is of course important for the player to recognise when a certain phase has been completed. (There are two real phases: the one in which the first premisse is adressed: construction of the Tragedy; and the one in which the second premisse is adressed: Resolution. Establishing the premisses is automoatic - the first is given, the second emerges from the first phase.) Is the tragedy already in place? Are we already trying to find the resolution? You rightfully point to a lack of help to the player in my current sketch; only the dramatic end-scene receives a treatment. I'm thinking about several options:
* Leave it as it is, with the idea that this will be clear enough for people playing the game. Basically what is done now. Elegant, leaves open the option of merging them into one (gradual shift of focus); but the least clear of all the possibilities, and that may be too great a weakness.
* Set a number of rounds or a time limit within which the players ought to complete a certain phase. Unelegant, perhaps too restrictive, but clear and objective.
* Give each player some sign which they can put on the table when they think the current phase is drawing to a close. Once everyone has displayed their sign, the stage is finished. Any player who doesn't understand why the others are revealing their signs can easily ask for an explanation. Quite elegant, based on player's perception instead of an insensitive criterion, intermediate clarity.
* The same as above, plus between the first and the second phase the players actually discuss what they believe the Theme - and thus the next Premise - to be. This will get them al ready to go on to the next phase. Not as elegant as some other solutions, but with maximal thematic clarity amongst the players. This is the option I'm leaning towards.
Tell me what you think.

Actually, I'm not worried about early Credit-spending. I probably did not make it clear, but the increasing solidity of the Shades is to be the explanation of their early inability to manipulate the world. The rarity of Credits is meant to enhance this setting-element by making it detrimental to the group's freedom to go against it. I don't really like the idea of setting up a measurable limit of narrations for achieving this solidity; it will depend too much on the speed of a particular game whether this limit is any good. I might restrict the spending to the second phase of the game, however, if I indeed decide to formalise the phases.

I'd lean towards the same option you're leaning to (out of the 4 bullets).

The best thing to do would be to playtest it once with your own group - your player's questions will show where there's holes you need to fill. Then, toss it out to a group you're not in - to see if you've managed to do that well.