[GroupDesign] - System and Setting brainstorm.

[Sydney Freedberg]

if I was looking for a best system, I would want something that encouraged player involvment in the world building and running...

Amen. The dual-layer game (playing countries one week and individuals the next) would be hard to do, but cool. And any kind of campaign can benefit from shared world design, especially if there are modular building blocks (Thomas's idea, I believe?) for gaming groups to choose among.

As for aliens -- I do worry about games where the player characters are inherently Not Human. The problem of roleplaying someone who's truly alien is a daunting one. Hence the appeal of Archivists, werewolves, vampires, superheroes, Jedi -- all of which have more than human powers but are basically human beings and thus comprehensible.

[Doug Ruff]

OK, here's another (longish) take on the Alien invasion theme:

Characters are Alien Invaders From Another Planet (TM), or AIs for short.

The AIs have limited telepathic powers, including the ability to transfer their consciousness between different host bodies, but this only works over a short distance.

They have access to slower-than light starship technology. They also have access to a jump-gate device which allows them instantaneous intergalactic travel but only if there is a gate at both ends of the journey.

Finally, they have developed a Super Consciousness Projector (TM) that enables them to enhance their ability to transfer consciousness massively.

Both the jump-gate and Projector require huge machinery and energy to operate.

The only way the AIs can expand their empire is to invade other inhabited worlds. They do this by:

1) Using the Projector to send special operatives to the target world, possessing native lifeforms.

2) Take over the world by using their superior intelligence and cunning.

3) Use the target planet's resources to build a jump-gate.

4) Bring in the starships.

This plan has been highly successful in the past, and the AIs now have their sights trained on a rather unexceptional planet orbiting a yellow star somewhere in the Milky Way...

However, Something Goes Wrong. The new hosts aren't fully compatible, the AIs aren't able to fully possess these strange 'human' creatures. Human society and mentality is more complex than expected. Without a jump-gate or another Projection device, this is a one-way trip...

End Result: a team of screwed-up alien/human personalities who have to balance World Domination with Holding Down a Day Job, Keeping Their Significant Other Happy etc etc...

Even worse, some of the humans have partially dominated their alien 'possessors' - they now know that There Is Something Unfriendly Out There and they want to stop it!

Players could either be the AIs (fighing against their newly-acquired human priorities) or humans (battling against the Invader Within) or could cross-over roles.

Great opportunities for comedy here, but could also be played 'straight'. Hope you like it.

Doug
(Tetsuki)

[Sydney Freedberg]

...a team of screwed-up alien/human personalities who have to balance World Domination with Holding Down a Day Job, Keeping Their Significant Other Happy etc etc...

I think the real potential here is in the struggle between the player-character's "human-ness" and "alien-ness" (see my points above about giving players basically human characters they can get into). Perhaps the split incentives system people have tossed around for Archivists & Hosts might apply to create properly discordant behaviour? Or perhaps the more "alien" you get, the easier it is to access your Funky Alien Mind Powers -- but the harder it is to hide from the humans hunting you.

The most appealing variant of this to me is having the aliens be sympathetic (either benign and here to help us, or comically inept at conquest) and the humans be nasty, narrow-minded, and paranoiac.

P.S.: That said, I still think this is yet another concept that with a little tweaking could fit into the Archivist concept as one kind of campaign or adventure (instead of "psychic aliens get stuck in human bodies," just read "Archivists get stuck in host bodies"). And the Archivist meta-framework is just newer and cooler than simply "aliens."

P.P.S.: But I'll shut up about Archivists now.

[Doug Ruff]

I think the real potential here is in the struggle between the player-character's "human-ness" and "alien-ness" (see my points above about giving players basically human characters they can get into).

Definitely - I think this is a key concept. It represents a major moral decision for the players.

Perhaps the split incentives system people have tossed around for Archivists & Hosts might apply to create properly discordant behaviour? Or perhaps the more "alien" you get, the easier it is to access your Funky Alien Mind Powers -- but the harder it is to hide from the humans hunting you.

Yes, yes, oh yes. (I am also assuming here that the players can't just decide to 'go human' or 'go alien' on a whim.)

The most appealing variant of this to me is having the aliens be sympathetic (either benign and here to help us, or comically inept at conquest) and the humans be nasty, narrow-minded, and paranoiac.

I think the human side of the character should be sympathetic as well - otherwise there is no difficult moral choice. However, I like the idea of the human 'authorities' being very unpleasant and corrupt (just think X-Files...) If the players end up working for Humanity, who's going to believe them? Also remember that they have the blueprint for the alien technology (Projectors, jump-gates) in their minds. If this fell into the wrong (human) hands....

P.S.: That said, I still think this is yet another concept that with a little tweaking could fit into the Archivist concept as one kind of campaign or adventure (instead of "psychic aliens get stuck in human bodies," just read "Archivists get stuck in host bodies"). And the Archivist meta-framework is just newer and cooler than simply "aliens."

I think that's because the Archivists are just another type of alien, except that they have benign motives and no corporeality of their own. It's all a question of motivation.

Perhaps that's also why the focus has shifted from 'Archivists' to 'Aliens'? I'm ging to drop this theme for a bit and look into the 'meme' idea - see you later.

Doug

[LordSmerf]

Yes, yes, oh yes. (I am also assuming here that the players can't just decide to 'go human' or 'go alien' on a whim.)

Some sort of sliding scale? maybe 5,4,3,2,1,0,1,2,3,4,5 with Human at one end and Alien at the other.  You can do "human" type things with humanity and take a penalty to "alien" type things, and the reverse.  I am sure this has been done somewhere i just can not remember where...

Thomas

[Tobias]

Allright, this is your friendly Foot trampling on all you've written.

I've cut-n-pasted all the stuff that's been floating around on the several differing options for the game, and, as will be no surprise to you, there are very many themes recurring throughout the different alternatives. These generally are the concepts of 'Alien' thought and agenda vs. human thought and agenda; brain- or host-hopping; mistaken intentions; surrealism/abstractness; promotion of a long-term concept or faction with serial short-term incarnations.

Many of these themes are spin-offs of some of the initial things I mentioned, for which I am naturally thankful. However, while we will certainly be returning to them, right now I would like from every participant a short description of the one coolest game they've ever played which is TOTALLY OPPOSITE to all these concepts (and the fact they're mentioned in context of an RPG). Don't worry about being correct, or eloquent - this is just about placing all these ideas in some context.

I'll kick it off - one game I'm thinking of is a racing game where you actually have a physical track with rails around some sections and no rails on other sections. You have two cars (small shufflepuck like tiles) and get to give two 'flicks' (2 on 1 car, or 1 on each car) in each of your turns. Very concrete imaginary space, physical props, physical performance important, clear goal, clear contest.

[LordSmerf]

The first thing that comes to mind is not even an RPG.  Let me explain how i got here...  I thought real-world skill playing a role in resolution, skill and randomization simultaneously, Diceland! (you can check out the Diceland games over at Cheapass Games)  Basically it uses oversized, heavy pasteboard D8s that have customized facings representing stats for a character/tank/ship whatever.  There are rules for changing faces and all that and rules for tossing your dice at opponent's dice in order to change their faces.

So, some sort of resolution system in which you can change your opponent's result when you get your own randomize (perhaps something as simple as trying to hit their dice with your dice when you roll...)

Thomas

[Thor]

Based on a description of John Kim's Vikings and Skraelings, the rissus Vikings of the Caribian, and a review of FVLMINATA,  I played a great game of Sheep and Chicken stealing Vikings in the new world edging in on territory of a Roman Colony south of Virginia. The Romans had Guns and Airships and the sheep stealers found something new to poach. I don't know if this is the most different to what we were discussing (Any good english major could findcould map a dozen similarities) but the game was infinitely less cerebral and spooky.  The chicken raids were positively slapstick. big strapping warriors chasing chickens around a barnyard so they can feed their families is a ton of fun.

[LordSmerf]

The chicken raids were positively slapstick. big strapping warriors chasing chickens around a barnyard so they can feed their families is a ton of fun.

This sparked an interesting idea for resolution.  For a humorous comedy game thing...  You never roll dice to see if you succeed in a task, you will always succeed eventually.  You roll dice to see how long it takes you, and what hilarity ensues in the interim.  Here is a brief sketch of what i am thinking:

-Use a 1d6 roll whenever someone has to resolve something.
-If they roll a 6 they get to narrate their success however they wish.
-If they roll anything but a 6 they must narrate their failure.  This is a temporary failure since as soon as they are done they will be rolling again... and again... and again... until the get a 6 and succeed.  So there is never true risk of failure.

Well, it is just a thought.

Thomas

[Andrew Morris]

Okay, the opposite, huh? Hmm... All right, how about this: it's the humans who are invading the alien planet. Unlike those primitive, barely civilized savages, we've got the advanced tech and we need those natural resources. Those stupid aliens aren't even using theirs, and they'll probably just kill themselves off in a few generations, anyway -- they've just developed nuclear weapons and obviously aren't mature enough as a species to handle them.

No? Okay. Another concept then. It's finals time at the university, but only one student can be valedictorian. How will you stop your classmates from beating you out for the coveted spot? Dirty, nasty foul play, of course. Will you rip out that crucial page from the key text? Crazy glue their notebook shut? Lock them in their dorm room? All's fair in the race to the top, after all. This could be sort of like a comical version of Scarlet Wake, with the players taking turns as protagonist and antagonist, without a GM. Could work as for a corporate office setting, as well, instead of college. Who's gonna get the promotion?

Eh, it's early, still, and that's the best I can do at the moment.

[Doug Ruff]

Allright, this is your friendly Foot trampling on all you've written.

<squish> Eeeew, I've been Pythoned! Not that I mind, I was struggling with the 'meme' project...

Very concrete imaginary space, physical props, physical performance important, clear goal, clear contest.

How about Table Football? The table isn't a real football pitch, so I'm guessing that's just as imaginary as your racetrack... and there is a literal 'goal.' Whether it's 'cool' or not is debatable though (I had fun playing!)

By the way, where's this idea going? I'm intrigued....

Doug

[Thor]

Lord Smerf wrote

-Use a 1d6 roll whenever someone has to resolve something.
-If they roll a 6 they get to narrate their success however they wish.
-If they roll anything but a 6 they must narrate their failure. This is a temporary failure since as soon as they are done they will be rolling again... and again... and again... until the get a 6 and succeed. So there is never true risk of failure.

This is something I have also been dealing with in a spy game. In Mission Impossible the characters all have an infinite amount of ability, and being a scripted event they only screw up if they need to for the story, but, in RPGs, the whiff factor is often so high that you freak out at all of the bad rolls you make, even if you are narrating the outcomes, you just begin to feel bad for the guy.

What if everything that the character could do is possible and the player gets points for making the inevitable interesting. The more interesting the narration the more points you get to buy narration in the next scene or something like that. If the other players voted on the points awarded for every narration the flow would be miserable but the reward would be for the actions that the group were looking for. I can imagine a "who line is it" "the-points-mean-nothing" version of this being played with beverages and gusto, but the desire to have a system that doesn't get in the way is allways a desire.

[Jediblack]

I liked so much Lone Wolf gamebooks... I think you all know what they are... books with multiple choices. I think they're beautiful!

[Sydney Freedberg]

What if everything that the character could do is possible and the player gets points for making the inevitable interesting.

Or perhaps -- for all the possession ideas we've been tossing around and aren't supposed to discuss, but hey -- the possessor (Archivist, Alien, whatever) can choose to accomplish any effect they want, narrating whatever they desire: Instead of trying to roll some target number, the player simply states what numerical level of success the character achieves. ("Hmm, I feel like a 20." "Okay, narrate it.")

The catch of course is that there's some level of effect that burns out the host (presumably in stages, from nausea to insanity to smoking corpse), and only the GM knows it (it varies from host to host). So what you get is a non-random version of Blackjack, where you try to go as high as you can without going over a set limit -- the uncertainty being provided not by dice or cards but by not knowing the exact limit.

This gets to the ideas of bluffing mechanics and avoiding dice (and Fortune in general) that people posted early on in the thread.

P.S.: I'll shut up about Archivists now, really.

[Andrew Morris]

Sydney, without referring back to the topic we're not talking about, that mechanic is awesome. I really like it. The more I think about it, the more I can imagine developing it into a very elegant system. But since we're still looking for new ideas right now, I won't go any further. I will, however, ask Tobias if now is a good time to end brainstorming, select a concept, and flesh it out.