[GroupDesign] - System and Setting brainstorm.

[Tobias]

Another take on the Archivist idea. The archivists are there to witness only, like the Watchers in the Marvel Universe, and are forbiden to interact or change the outcome. Catch 22 like, however, the host is likely to take sides in the situation when they see what is happening and try to be involved. This would be a better layout for two players rather than one, having completely different objectives and capacities. If the host get's too involved the Archivist must jump to a new host or risk being involved in the changing of the situation, something which could drain a lot of the Archivists power, and find a new host. The host meanwhile would loose the powers that they have had and might suffer some other trauma. the biggest problem with this is that you might find yourself needing a new bunch of hosts on short notice. But there could be some fun trying to stop your Host from being involved when there is a chance to do good or make lots of money based on the knowledge.

A bit like the 'prime directive' or 'scientists cannot experiment without influencing the results'.

This leads me to think. What if Archivist-type creatures cannot directly influence the Host's actions or thoughts or activate powers for him - but only use some of the energy that's in the Host for External effects (letters being delivers, doors opening, 'random' things turning out differently)? Then each Player could be a (series of Hosts) and (one or more related or unrelated) Archivists, without undue influence or control on each other. The only connection between Host and Archivist would be that the Host gets tired as the Archivist used up his energy - but without using his powers, the Host might never get to the right place.

[Tobias]

Heh...yeah. What if there was only one character, but each player was a separate personality?

Or turning it around - what if there was only one personality (ideal, driving force), and each character would try to live up to / support / strive for that goal the best? To become the best incarnation of, so to speak? Maybe you're one of X clones of an original subject that died and is now being restored - but since the clones are imperfect, they'll take the closest match - so you better become the closest match.

(Interesting for all those games that have cloning in them as a cheat-death option too)

[LordSmerf]

Heh...yeah. What if there was only one character, but each player was a separate personality?

Or turning it around - what if there was only one personality (ideal, driving force), and each character would try to live up to / support / strive for that goal the best? To become the best incarnation of, so to speak? Maybe you're one of X clones of an original subject that died and is now being restored - but since the clones are imperfect, they'll take the closest match - so you better become the closest match.

(Interesting for all those games that have cloning in them as a cheat-death option too)

I think that this has a lot of potential for creating a really good Gamist focused game (There Can Be Only One!).

While i am thinking about it: Is there any sort of preference/feeling/inuition about what Creative Agendas we should be trying to focus on or avoid?  Or are we still at a point where that is yet to be decided.

Thomas

[Andrew Morris]

While i am thinking about it: Is there any sort of preference/feeling/inuition about what Creative Agendas we should be trying to focus on or avoid?  Or are we still at a point where that is yet to be decided.

My feeling is that it's a bit too early to start worrying about that right now. Let's get the concept first. Once we do that, it'll probably become obvious what CA it would support. If not, and we care to do so, we can make that call and support it with the proper mechanics and maybe some tweaking of the setting.

[Andrew Morris]

Okay, Tobias has asked me to post a summary of the ideas so far. Here are the four concepts we've come up with:

The Archivists
Powerful, disembodied beings controlling humans througout time and space, working to counter the efforts of an equally powerful enemy.
We've probably got way more than we need on this one, so let's table this concept for now and focus on the others for a while.

Alien Invasion/Covert Ops
PCs are aliens imitating/controlling humans in order to achieve their objectives, which include taking over nations in preparation for an invasion force. The aliens are "some new type of evil" that we have to come up with.
Some ideas on this new type of evil would be cool to see.

Multiple Personality Disorder
The players take the roles of distinct personalities vying for control of a single person. Alternately, PCs are all MPD and the players trade control of the characters between themselves.
Any thoughts on how to make this work?

Meme
No real details on this one yet, other than that the players might be something along the line of an intelligent, self-aware computer virus.
For those unfamiliar with the term, a meme is an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture. That might give a jumping-off point.

First one to come up with a cool new concept to add to this list wins the Andrew Morris Fire Monkey Award for Creativity.

[Sydney Freedberg]

This isn't quite a new idea as it is a reworking of Andrew's concepts (chiefly) about nobles-and-retainers and playing a nation through key leaders, with some inspiration from the history of the late Roman Republic and the old Avalon Hill game Kremlin:

Perfidy
The players are factions (heck, or patron gods; or memes) seeking to guide some political entity -- which should be nicely unstable, like Rome during much of its history -- towards their chosen goals -- which should be at least somewhat in conflict.
Players can only act through a character -- but no one player owns any one character. Instead there's a whole stable of characters, probably collaboratively created and constantly added to during play.
At any given time, each player can only act through one and only one character. But at any point, a player can "hop" to a newly-created character made up on the spot or to an existing character not currently being played by anyone else. If another player objects, the two players can bid metagame resources to determine who gets who.
Players gain metagame resources by playing their current character in keeping with his/her established traits (e.g. Centurion Lucius is a greedy coward; whenever you make him run away or take bribes, you get points). Players spend metagame resources to add new traits to existing characters or to create new characters (e.g. creating a bodyguard for some existing character just in time to thwart an assassination attempt). (N.B. It should be very expensive to create a new character who's got a lot of power to start with).*
There should be a constant tension between sticking with your current character -- who, remember, is invulnerable to takeover by other players as long as you stay with him/her -- vs. jumping to someone else who's in a better position for what you need to do right now.

Needless to say this is pretty hard-core Gamist....

* EDIT: Perhaps the best way to do this is to allow "free" traits to be gained in-game through play, at the GM's discretion. I.e. if Brutus is given command of a large army by vote of the Senate -- because players, as Senators, collectively decide the Senate does so -- and later defeats the barbarians in a great battle -- because whoever's playing Brutus outsmarts whoever's playing the barbarian leader -- then Brutus gains the traits "Commander of a Large Army" and "Hero of the War against the Barbarians" for free.

[Jediblack]

Hey guys, this is weird... listen!

PCs are teenagers (better if japanese then I'll explain) with many mental/social/nervous/eating disorders. Essentially they live, there's no a target, an objective to achive... er... yes, graduation at school, baseball matches, piano lessons are objective but they're only mere reality were teenagers live.

Interior worlds are the "real reality", the "if" world... "If I hadn't said that to Katsumi..." and so on.

When a teen undertakes an action if he wins ok all rest unchanged, but if he fails many XPs and more disturbs come!

Why this? I'm reading "Norwegian wood" by Haruki Murakami...

[Andrew Morris]

This is a neat idea, Sydney. Whether it's based on an earlier idea or not, I hereby award you the Fire Monkey Award for Creativity, just for sparking the discussion. Actually, come to think of it, it could tie in nicely with the Meme concept. {EDIT -- you get one too, Jedi}

Okay, now, here's what I've come up with:

For the Alien Invasion concept:
I couldn't think of any new types of evil, but something I haven't seen in an RPG before is the idea of manifest destiny. The aliens are technologically advanced, and don't feel the need to concern themselves with the primitive savages already here. In fact, they may feel they are "helping us better ourselves" by forcing us to adopt their culture. Sort of like the Europeans with the Native Americans.

For the MPD concept:
The players all vie for control of a single body. Most of the game would happen in the surreal world of the subconscious. "Adventures" could be as simple as going to the store for milk, attending a job interview, or paying the bills. I like the idea of one identity for multiple bodies, but I don't know how to make it work, as shown below.

For the Meme concept:
The characters are embodiments of certain concepts (war, peace, love, greed, etc.) striving to spread their concept as wide as possible across the world. They could all be working toward the same concept or perhaps allied concepts. This could be the driving force behind Sydney's concept about the political game.

By the way, if anyone's reading this thread but not posting, feel free to join in. I'd especially like to hear from some people who took part in the original thread, like Emily Care, jdrakeh, contracycle, and others.

[Sydney Freedberg]

Whoops, I keep on getting enthused about stuff and running ahead without covering all the bases.

there's a parallel brain-warming question about 'best' possible RPG.

My thought:

The Best Possible RPG (BPRPG? ugh...) is one that has a strong core concept -- both in terms of mechanics and in terms of Situation, Character, and/or Premise -- and yet the flexibility to apply that concept to a wide variety of potential stories and settings. Yes, detailed and intricate settings are great (e.g. Lord of the Rings) but done well they're fiction that can be served by any number of systems, and done badly they're an impediment to imagination (see the discussion about the difficulties of roleplaying Star Wars in this thread). Hence I loved the first few chapters of Unknown Armies , because they opened lots of doors, and got annoyed with the final sections explaining "What It's All Really About," because it closed all the doors but one. Likewise endless White Wolf-style or D&D-style  splatbooks and world supplements irritate mem becuase I want to make my own. So my ideal is something along the lines of Sorcerer: Simple, robust mechanics; very clear sense of who characters are and what they do (addressing Character, Setting, and Premise); but wide open in terms of setting and what kinds of stories you can tell.

[amiel]

Andrew Martin sez:
Alien Invasion/Covert Ops
PCs are aliens imitating/controlling humans in order to achieve their objectives, which include taking over nations in preparation for an invasion force. The aliens are "some new type of evil" that we have to come up with.
Some ideas on this new type of evil would be cool to see.

Or, what if you played the aliens as colonists who think they're saving these "clumsy primitive animals"?
-Jeremiah Davis

[Sydney Freedberg]

Or the aliens could be taking over the Earth as an art project.

They don't want power; they don't want resources; they don't want our women; they don't even want to implant bizarre monitoring devices in your butt. They just want to make the world a more aesthetically interesting place... by their very alien standards. Think performance art or Jackson Pollock splattering red paint on a planetary scale. ("And now, with just a few well-timed thermonuclear detonations, I will reshape the Chicago area into the Quongolian rune for 'love'.....").

This might end up being a little tonge in cheek. Especially if the aliens are not professional artists but from their equivalent of a gifted & talented high school program..... Fame meets Teenagers from Outer Space meets Invasion of the Body Snatchers meets X-Files.

[Andrew Martin]

Andrew Martin sez:
Alien Invasion/Covert Ops
PCs are aliens imitating/controlling humans in order to achieve their objectives, which include taking over nations in preparation for an invasion force. The aliens are "some new type of evil" that we have to come up with.
Some ideas on this new type of evil would be cool to see.

Or, what if you played the aliens as colonists who think they're saving these "clumsy primitive animals"?
-Jeremiah Davis

Uhm, that was "Andrew Morris" who wrote that. :) http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?p=133334#133334

[Tobias]

Or the aliens could be taking over the Earth as an art project.

They don't want power; they don't want resources; they don't want our women; they don't even want to implant bizarre monitoring devices in your butt. They just want to make the world a more aesthetically interesting place... by their very alien standards. Think performance art or Jackson Pollock splattering red paint on a planetary scale. ("And now, with just a few well-timed thermonuclear detonations, I will reshape the Chicago area into the Quongolian rune for 'love'.....").

This might end up being a little tonge in cheek. Especially if the aliens are not professional artists but from their equivalent of a gifted & talented high school program..... Fame meets Teenagers from Outer Space meets Invasion of the Body Snatchers meets X-Files.

Lol - this at least got a big laugh!

[Thor]

r.e. Best system

if I was looking for a best system, I would want something that encouraged player involvment in the world building and running. I have often dreamed of a game that opperated on more than one level. Each of the players would be a country in a risk like country to country level game, a leader of a secret society in the campaign operating across purposes and one or more characters in the role playing setting in an area that is in conflict in the above factions. The world woulld move around the characters and their factions would react to that and the players would react to the two above reactions. In many ways I would love to runn the world once a month the factions once a month and the characters every week or some such arrangement.

[Todd Bogenrief]

Alien Invasion/Covert Ops
PCs are aliens imitating/controlling humans in order to achieve their objectives, which include taking over nations in preparation for an invasion force. The aliens are "some new type of evil" that we have to come up with.
Some ideas on this new type of evil would be cool to see.

Just a thought, and a bit cliche, but what if the evil is humans and the guiding force is trying to subtly change the course of history (time travellers/aliens?) without disrupting too much, but guiding the humans onto a more peaceful path.  Unfortunately, the Illuminati (or other nebulous organization) has learned of this conspiracy because it is interfering with their plans and they are pissed.

I don't think I'm explaining myself well here, but kind of like a reverse X-Files.  The secret worldwide organization of dudes that smoke and wear suits is still the bad guy, but the players ARE the alien invasion that is trying to change/use/warp humanity for their own purposes.  Innocent FBI agents who "believe" could be mucking up the plans, too.