Applied Design II: The False World

[Shreyas Sampat]

In many fictions (Snow Crash, Otherland, The Matrix, the .hack series, to give some examples), there is a virtual world layered on top of, or intependent from, the real world; the virtual world is often described as having programmed physical laws which can be circumvented by the protagonists (depending on the fiction, this is either inexplicable or through virtuosic hacking/programming expertise). In today's Applied Design, we simulate this, using three games. Yes, you heard that right, three! (You can also accomplish this in less clumsy ways, but this is the way it came to me in the dream, so...)

First we need to choose a physics model, a fairly mechanistic system that lacks a resource pool for players to override results (Willpower in the Storyteller system or Hero Points in HQ are examples of such resources). Alternatively, you can excise the resource from a game that doesn't make a big issue of it (D&D3e is an example of a game you can just throw in whole-cloth; you would need to tool around a bit with HQ).

Now, we'll use Shadows as our override mechanic! Whenever you want to override the mechanics of the substrate game, you call on a Shadows conflict roll, with "Override" and "Don't override" as the possible results. You're only allowed to do this in the virtual world.

If you do succeed in overriding, then you can use your character's Ghost Light (or similar) abilities in whatever way they operate, in the place of the substrate system. This may allow you to circumvent some major challenge utterly. Good for you!

Alternative ways to do this:
In TRoS, you can only use SAs in the virtual world.
In HQ, you have a category of Abilities that represent your hacxpertise; you may only use them after activating them through a mini-contest.
Etc.

[timfire]

Are you asking for other examples or other ways this can work?

I, personally, like Steve D's Matrix game. For any conflict, the player rolls 2d6 - one d6 for their "normal" skill and another for their Matrix-fu. A success on their normal die means the task was won by normal means. A success on the Matrix die means the task was won by overriding the virtual system. A success on both means something extraordinary happened (bullet time!). Tasks that are totally outside the realm of normal ability require at least a Matrix success. When rolling opposed rolls, Matrix rolls beat normal rolls, and Matrix+normal beats Matrix alone.

[Shreyas Sampat]

Tim, this is a thing that's been rolling around in my head awhile; a lot of games have a kind of meta-authority thing, but in almost every case I can think of, it's a resource that one spends to straightforwardly manipulate results. See Storyteller, HQ, rerolls in Trollbabe, and so on.

This thread serves the dual purpose of working toward a non-resource-based authority mechanic and being a part of my intermittent Applied Design series, where I recombine existing mechanics to produce specific effects.

[neelk]

Tim, this is a thing that's been rolling around in my head awhile; a lot of games have a kind of meta-authority thing, but in almost every case I can think of, it's a resource that one spends to straightforwardly manipulate results. See Storyteller, HQ, rerolls in Trollbabe, and so on. This thread serves the dual purpose of working toward a non-resource-based authority mechanic and being a part of my intermittent Applied Design series, where I recombine existing mechanics to produce specific effects.

You might want to look to Ars Magica, here. That game emphasized troupe style play, in which different players GM'd every week or every story.

There's a similar thing in Theatrix. If a player's character has a particular Descriptor, then the player is the authority on that subject. For example, a PC with a "Gun Bunny" descriptor means that the player of that PC is, by default, the "expert" on how guns work in that game.  The other players (including the GM!) should defer to that player on how the facet of the story the descriptor represents works. (IIRC, the GM may also ask the player to spend a plot point to activate the descriptor if the PC is present in the scene, so this is kind of a hybrid.)