[Cold] Ghosts, Scams and The Biggest Douche Bag in the World

[FruitSmack!]

Hey all!

So I was up last night writing on my (potential) mini-supplement and I had the TV on in the background.  It was tuned into John Edward's Crossing Over (which I can't stand, BTW).  Well, as I was drowning out his yap and getting to a point where I could finish a sentence and turn over the channel, a though struck me.  I *need* to use the idea of greedy ass mediums in a game.

So here it is.  It's very rough right now, but the basic idea is that when you die, you either go to a Heaven of your own desire while alive or you are doomed to an eternity of Limbo.  You get into Heaven by accumulating Karma during your lifetime by doing honestly humane things for your brother man.  Like Gandhi or Mother Theresa or that guy that played Mr. Rodgers.  Needless to say it's a pretty exclusive place.  Most people never make it.  

That's where the PCs come in.  They are Mediums in a modern day setting.  They've come to the realization that there is no way in hell they are ever going to get to Heaven with their life of deceptions, so they do what anybody would.  They cheat.  In this, ghosts stuck in Limbo still have Karma.  They also have a desire to communicate with the living world.  This is where the Mediums take advantage of the Ghosts and run cons, do jobs, scam and deal with them for their now useless Karma.  Once the Mediums have enough collected they can happily live out their lives knowing that when they die, they have their own personal Heaven waiting for them.  And you though Silvia Browne slipped off the map because she became unpopular...   ;)

I envisioned games being something like Matchstick Men, crossed with a Tarantino flick and big spoonful of Elmore Leonard

So there you have it, the PCs are dirt bags trying to cheat the system.  I came up with the system tonight and the setting the night before, so its still pretty raw and missing some bits (scores are the big one), but...

Specific questions:

1.) Do you think the system (I'm sure it'll need more tweaking) can/is fitting for the game?
2.) Any potential problems that stick out and make the game unplayable?
3.) Any thing setting and/or system wise that doesn't make sense (excluding Scores which I haven't written yet but are explained below)?
4.)  Any thing that should be explained more/at all (once again excluding Scores which are below, sort of)?

What still needs to be done:

Scores.  I envisioned them basically similar to Kickers from Sorcerer in structure, but they are actually designed by someone else.  I've got a list of guidelines for what a Score is and isn't.  Basically, when you need a score, you do a Reading similar to a Cold reading like John Edwards and Co. do (obviously this would be much simpler and "gamified" for maximum fun).  Any player at the table could take the part of the person being read and from that reading you would have your Score.  Then its off to mayhem and chaos hoping this will be the Big Retirement Score (and of course it won't be, but the ride'll be fun :D ).

Heavy Editing.  I suck as a writer.  ;)

Aaron Brown

[TonyLB]

Well, the only thing that sticks out for me is that I was constantly waiting for the mechanical reinforcement of the whole "scuzzy slime-bag" thing.  It's such a huge deal in the description that I figured it would make its presence known through the rules.

But I didn't see it.  The rules would just as well have supported Travis describing his actions as talking the girl into coming with him willingly, and then arguing the yard-ape into submission.

Now I totally accept that people on-board with your concept will flock to the slime aspect without much prompting.  But will they be able to stay there when other, gentler, more socially acceptable ways of doing services for the ghosts have the same outcome and less risk?

[FruitSmack!]

Well, the only thing that sticks out for me is that I was constantly waiting for the mechanical reinforcement of the whole "scuzzy slime-bag" thing.  It's such a huge deal in the description that I figured it would make its presence known through the rules.

But I didn't see it.  The rules would just as well have supported Travis describing his actions as talking the girl into coming with him willingly, and then arguing the yard-ape into submission.

Now I totally accept that people on-board with your concept will flock to the slime aspect without much prompting.  But will they be able to stay there when other, gentler, more socially acceptable ways of doing services for the ghosts have the same outcome and less risk?

Thats because it aint there for a reason.  ;)

I figured at least one person would bring that up.  Once I got everything down that I wanted before I forgot it all, I thought the same thing to myself.  What I ended up with in the end was that I really didnt like the idea of a mechanic reinforcing that the players *have* to be total Assholes, just that their "occupation" consists of and is mostly run by people like that.  I sat down and though of a bunch of diffrent "sessions" and how they would play out and realized that forcing people to be scummy wont work.  Instead, I looked to a lot of the other inspiration that I had for this, namely Caper films and crime movies shown from the criminal's point of view.  When I sat down and imagined how a session of this game would go, two things kept coming up in my mind.  

Firstly, that most often than not, even if the characters arnt scumbags, they will be dealing with seedy, slimy and down right unplessant individuals.  Sure they could try going the straight and narrow (or at very least less out and out cheat) and heck the sessions could be just as fun, but the rest of the "world" is still going to try to fuck with them.  They are in a seedy buisness and *everyone* gets some dirt on em.  That whole "you sleep with dogs, your bound to get fleas" thing.  Im sure some people wouldnt enjoy having their characters getting drug into the seedy side when they are trying to be good, but in that case this probably isnt the game for them.  However, I see no reason that the game couldn't be played with a bunch of guys trying to do the right thing, only to be messed with by the others that are in their chosen "profession".  That brings me to...

Number two.  The more times I ran through sessions in my mind the more I saw the game encroaching on the Caper genre.  One of the stories in my head had the characters just trying to "break even" half way through the story.  Kind of like, as an example, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.  In that movie, the characters are doing damage control after their crafty little scheam starts coming unwired both from their own fuckups and from concidential ones caused by others.  Finally at the end (I wont ruin the end compleatly in detail in case someone hasn't seen it) they have nothing to show for their troubles because everything got so messed up, but they at least survived with all their body parts intact.  I love caper/crime movies, so I wanted a mechanic to do that, thus the complications that the loser of a test can put on the winner.  Sense thats what I was going for, Scumbagery or stories of Scumbagery just seem to lend themselves well to the idea.

So I guess to sum this up, I didnt want a mechanic that would force or reward players to have to be jerks nor put those that dont at a disadvantage.  What I did want was a mechanic that would have the "gas on the fire" effect that happens in stuff like Caper films.  Im sure I didnt come across strong enough on that point in the write up I did, but that is what I was going for.

Make sense?

You know, the more I think of it, the more I *might* ditch the setting compleatly and focus on the idea of the whole Caper thing...hrm...

Aaron Brown

[Walt Freitag]

Hi FS,

What confuses me about the current version with its psychic-medium focus is what you really have in mind for the exact nature of the scumbaggery.

You see, most people who believe that John Edwards and his ilk are scumbags (and I include myself in that group -- people-who-believe-etc, that is, not scumbags -- ok, perhaps both), do so because they believe that psychics cannot talk to the dead, and that all claims that they can do so are either self-delusions or lies.

In your world, the psychics really can receive messages from the dead and communicate those messages, as well as perform other services that really do bring some sort of comfort to the restless deceased. So they're not necessarily lying. Indeed, if dead people are seeking them out to relay messages and settle unresolved life issues, they don't really have much reason to use the typical deceptions we normally associate with psychics. So if they're scumbags, it's more likely because of scummy stuff they did before they became psychic mediums, and they became (genuine) mediums to try to wipe out the karmic debt they acquired beforehand. This makes them, in their current careers, at least a shade heroic.

I guess the problem comes down to the game apparently being based on portraying what scumbags J. Edwards et. al. are, but in doing so it negates the very thing that makes them scumbags in real life, which is that psychic powers are phony.

This is all actually a minor quibble, more with the presentation of the game than with the meat of the game design itself. Even so, a shift to caper fiction in general sounds promising. That would give it, I think, more flexibility and broader appeal (while still maintaining a good stylistic focus). A lot more could be examined in play than endless repetition of "look what scumbags these people are." (The Dortmunder novels by Westlake come especially to mind.)

- Walt

[FruitSmack!]

Hi FS,

What confuses me about the current version with its psychic-medium focus is what you really have in mind for the exact nature of the scumbaggery.

You see, most people who believe that John Edwards and his ilk are scumbags (and I include myself in that group -- people-who-believe-etc, that is, not scumbags -- ok, perhaps both), do so because they believe that psychics cannot talk to the dead, and that all claims that they can do so are either self-delusions or lies.

In your world, the psychics really can receive messages from the dead and communicate those messages, as well as perform other services that really do bring some sort of comfort to the restless deceased. So they're not necessarily lying. Indeed, if dead people are seeking them out to relay messages and settle unresolved life issues, they don't really have much reason to use the typical deceptions we normally associate with psychics. So if they're scumbags, it's more likely because of scummy stuff they did before they became psychic mediums, and they became (genuine) mediums to try to wipe out the karmic debt they acquired beforehand. This makes them, in their current careers, at least a shade heroic.

I guess the problem comes down to the game apparently being based on portraying what scumbags J. Edwards et. al. are, but in doing so it negates the very thing that makes them scumbags in real life, which is that psychic powers are phony.

This is all actually a minor quibble, more with the presentation of the game than with the meat of the game design itself. Even so, a shift to caper fiction in general sounds promising. That would give it, I think, more flexibility and broader appeal (while still maintaining a good stylistic focus). A lot more could be examined in play than endless repetition of "look what scumbags these people are." (The Dortmunder novels by Westlake come especially to mind.)

- Walt

See, this is why I love the Interweb Screen, opinions from others that I would have never though of.  Thanks TonyLB and Walt.  :)

I do think that my focus is leaning more to the idea of the caper lit RPG.  Today while cleaning my appartment I was trying over and over again to think the setting though and it just keeps coming back to the Caper flick.  The focus is there, the interest is there.  Perhaps Ill have to put the fake psychic idea on hold for another time.

Let me re-write this mess.  I do think I like the idea of focusing on the Caper idea more so.  I agree that there is so much more that could be done like that.

Here's me officially chucking the setting.  *chuck*  I'll repost the new and improved doc tomorrow.

aaron brown

[TonyLB]

I think you have a tremendous opportunity to portray people who get themselves into untenable situations while trying (in their own peculiar way) to do the best they can.

How?  Just make Dead the more interesting of the two attributes.  Deliberately.  Then people will crank up their Dead score at the expense of their Quick.  What's the result of a low Quick?  Debt-collecters knocking at your door, people whose relatives you've channelled calling you a hoax and wanting you dead, and problems with your girlfriend.  

In short, the very thing that sets these people apart is also (game-mechanically) the thing that will make their current lives filled with unresolved tension, and drive them to pursue change and risk.  They can talk to the dead and therefore they can't manage to live their lives without the help of the dead.

To change the emphasis on what working with the dead earns people, you'd just have to ditch the karma angle.  Make the dead canny enough to offer things that the living can use (but which they have passed beyond direct need for).  This links tightly with the whole concept of unfinished business that makes mediums such a powerful element in narrative.

Ferinstance, you could have a criminal who hid a fortune in stolen money that he wanted to get to his innocent daughter, and was then murdered by his scummy brothers in crime, who didn't realize until too late that they didn't know where the money was.  Right there you've got selfish motive for the medium (a cut of the take), a possible noble motive to live up to as the story progresses (fulfilling a desperate spirits generous if criminal wish) and a ready-made group of antagonists to act as a foil (the murderers).

Anyway, those are my late night thoughts.  If I'm tossing you ideas that don't fit with the things about the game that excite you I certainly won't be either surprised or offended to hear it.