[The Valley] Concept Notes

[jknevitt]

So, I've had an idea kicking around in my head for a rules-lite, genre-vague game set in and called, simply, The Valley. What is The Valley? It's exactly that -- a secluded valley of undetermined size, where a small community lives simple lives (like the village in The Village).

The Valley is being besieged from outside, by a Force That Must Not Be Allowed In. My original concept was that it was some kind of zombie-trope, but recently I've had another idea kicking around in my head. The Valley is the last known hotspot of a terribly virulent disease. Everyone in the Valley has it, and everyone knows it. It kills slowly and indiscriminately, with a 100% mortality rate.

The disease affects different people in different ways. I imagine it to go through different stages, and with each stage, it impacts negatively on someone. However, the onset of each stage is punctuated by a change in the physiology of the sufferers. Some become dull, witless and near-vegetative, but find newfound physical strength. Others take the opposite tack, and instead seem to grow weak and sickly but gain terrible, beautiful insight into their suffering and that of the people around them.

This game has no character advancement, and ultimately is about the exact opposite. You get weaker and weaker, and you eventually die. There is no cure, save that of those outside the Valley with their flamethrowers and hazmat suits.

You, as an inhabitant of the Valley, have one saving grace. While there is no cure, and the disease WILL kill you, each generation suffers less than the last. Perhaps, just perhaps, if you can hold on long enough to raise your family right, and see them have children of their own, you might just be able to keep the Valley alive for one more generation -- a generation that might not suffer at all.

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The Valley will ideally be a system that's ultra-lite. I'm thinking possibly four stats, one of which will be a disease-related stat that tracks the course of your own illness. I'm very fond of non-traditional stats (MLwM is a good example). I'm loathe to use a physical/mental/social style of stat distribution, although two will probably end up being Community and Disease.

Every stat is fluid, and can change from sesion to session. Disease will probably increase every session until it maxes out, at which point you're done. Community would change based on how you help (or hinder) the survival prospects of The Valley.

As for mechanics, I'm torn between dice and diceless. Diceless has the advantage of no real randomness, but people like dice. A dice system would ideally be a one die system, probably D6, since they're easy for people to get hold of. I don't imagine pages of rules. I don't want The Valley to be choked with combat modifiers and special circumstantial rules -- I want the person runinng the game to say "okay, roll X" and a player to be able to roll and respond in (at most) 3 seconds.

The next issue is more of a long term thing. While I love this idea, I'm having a hard time coming up with justification for long-term play. You can hold off the "intruders" Half Life-style for only so long before it gets boring. There is the option of making it more like the Mountain Witch, where you have a set goal, and the fun comes from how you achieve it.

That's it for the time being. I'd appreciate input on anything I've mentioned above.

[jknevitt]

Further thoughts.

Each character is defined by four stats (Competence, Community, Disease, Faith), with further clarification or explanation on the part of the player. The player decides a focus for each stat.

Competence is a fairly generalized measure of how well you do things.
Sample Foci: Farmhand, Notary, Fixing Things, Teaching Children

Community is a measure of your dedication to the people of the Valley.
Sample Foci: Raising Children Right, Helping the Elderly, Reluctant Helper, Young Leader

Disease is representative of the disease's effects on your body, mind and soul.
Sample Foci: Painful Joints, Constant Headaches, Injuries Heal Slowly, Sick All the Time

Faith represents a sense of determination and (sometimes) optimism which may or may not be rooted in religious belief.
Sample Foci: The Good Book, Things Will Be Okay, Be Strong For Those I Love, Too Bitter to Die

Each stat is measured from 1 to 10. As regular citizens of the Valley, characters have 14 points to distribute however they see fit amonf Competence, Community and Faith. Disease starts at 1. For every two points of Disease at character creation, the character has an additional three points to distribute among the other three stats.

Example:
I like the idea of Jacob, an older man who isn't all that smart, but is good with his hands. He reads the Bible every day, and thinks that the Valley has been cursed by God for its sins. He looks something like this...

Competence (Fixing Things) 6
Community (Not One of the Sinners) 3
Faith (Salvation through Disease) 8
Disease (Racking Cough) 3*

* Note that Jacob's disease is 3. I increased his Disease by two (as above), and allocated the extra three points to Faith.

At the end of every session, Disease increases by one for all characters. If a character begins a session with 10 Disease, they will succumb to the sickness during that session.

When characters gain a point of Disease during gameplay, they have the option of re-allocating their stat points as they see fit, at the expense of losing three from their overall pool. This represents the strange effect the disease has on people.

Task resolution is handled like this. Spend a point of an appropriate stat (except Disease most of the time), and roll 1d10. If you get under your stat (including the spent point), you succeed at the task. If you get over your stat, you don't necessarily fail; the opposite of change is the status quo. If you succeed, you get two points back on your stat.

That's about it really.

Thoughts?

[Thunder_God]

Well, you can increase if you Risk 1 and can Gain 2. In fact, you are more likely to grow stronger than grow weaker as game progresses!

Also, what reason would characters have to go against the Community? While Jacob would look down on them for being sinners(technically, so is he), what is the conflict there?
I'd add some hard-material internal strife, perhaps you know someone is working with the Beseiging Threat.

[jknevitt]

Determining conflict in this game will be tricky, and I'm still undecided on the Risk/Reward mechanic and the "disease reshuffle" idea.

Instead of dice, I'm thinking of another way of resolving tasks.

When a character wants to perform a task, every other player and the GM votes to "allow" the action or to "disallow" it. A majority of votes means the task succeeds. A split vote can be overcome by the acting character gaining 1 Disease.

The previous succeeding character gets the following options, after all other votes:
a) Abstain
b) 2 Votes
c) Call a Goal or Stumble (below). Calling a Goal doubles positive votes. Calling a Stumble doubles all negative votes. Using this option gains the previous succeeding character 1 Disease.

Goals and Stumbles are positive and negative things players choose for their character. Goals are things to strive for, and Stumbles are things that get in the way. A sample Goal would be "Raise my daughter right". A sample Stumble would be "alcoholic".

[jknevitt]

Well, you can increase if you Risk 1 and can Gain 2. In fact, you are more likely to grow stronger than grow weaker as game progresses!

Also, what reason would characters have to go against the Community? While Jacob would look down on them for being sinners(technically, so is he), what is the conflict there?
I'd add some hard-material internal strife, perhaps you know someone is working with the Beseiging Threat.

I'm tinkering with the idea that the Valley is split into two camps -- the Isolationists and the (other people). The Isolationsists want to be cut off from the outside as much as possible, while the (other people) want to make contact, possibly looking fora cure and a peaceful resolution.

[Chad]

Hiya,

I like it. And I wouldn't worry about the long term playability thing. What you want, in my opinion,  is that the couple of games that people do play are really good. And as you have the built in mortality thing (everyone is dying) so the fact that time is running out is what makes it interesting. That to me is a very exciting concept. Like those films that begin at the ending, and the rest of the film is about 'why' it happened. So everyone knows they are dying, the plot about getting to the 'why'. It makes sense that there is no overt character advancement, in the conventional sense.

Perhaps a resource system, based on a dramatic device would be an option to consider. The vote system might generate problems (although I myself am not familiar with resolution of this type, so cant say for sure).

Cheers,
C

[jknevitt]

More ideas:

* Character's Goals should be short term -- something they can (potentially) achieve before kicking it
* There is a limited supply of equipment, etc in the Valley. A list should be provided.
* The Elimination scenario should come into play, wherein everyone must agree on one person achieving something (perhaps recieving a cure?), or they all suffer.


* This could be adapted to other locales. I imagine The Island would be more popular than The Valley (and will become the default, I think), since the Outside Adversary is remoteness itself. A plague-ridden Island? Wrecked survivors of a scientific expedition trying to find the last dose of vaccine on the island?

[David Berg]

If my GM said, "Hey, tonight we're playing a game set in a quarantined zone where everyone is dying, including all the PCs," I'd say, "Cool!  But, uh, what do we do?"

I didn't find an answer to that in your posts, so I made one up:

There is some sort of tipping point that will eventually be reached, causing something that almost everyone in the Valley believes to be bad.  It's believed that this will one day come. 

Let's say it's believed because of a prophecy (though scientific evidence could work), the tipping point is a certain mutation of the disease (or it could be an airstrike), the bad fate is the total extinction of everyone in the Valley.

Then we fill the Valley with individuals and factions with various takes on these.  The prophecy is/isn't true.  The disease will/won't mutate into a more contagious, faster-acting form.  The signs of mutation are/aren't x-colored boils.  Mutation will/won't guarantee extinction.  Extinction of our wretched clan is/isn't a bad thing.

Then you establish whatever resources you want to be at the PCs' disposal.  Outside the Valley: contact w/ HazMat dudes, internet, radio, system of signal flares, antidotes, means to make an antidote, stuff thrown into the Valley by known or unknown outsiders...?  Inside the Valley: wood, coal, guns, bullets, gunpowder, horses, food, swords, knives, goods or materials wanted by the outside world, scientific equipment, pathology studies, disease samples, ingredients for an antidote, HazMat suits...?

Then you kick off the game with first signs of the apocalypse, have the Valley factions react in different ways, and let the PCs pick their orientation and plan a course of action.  A campaign could end with the Valley's inhabitants being exterminated, or saved from extermination, or the prophecy being revealed as a scam, or the first signs not actually indicating the apocalypse, or whatever, depending on how long you want to keep playing.

I like the idea that an antidote could be created by combining something inside the Valley with something outside the Valley...

If this isn't remotely in the direction you envisioned, feel free to strip-mine it for parts anyway...

-Dave

[Jason Morningstar]

There definitely needs to be a ratcheting up of pressure as conflicts between personal and community goals are laid bare.  Because that's fun.  I'm all over games that force you to make difficult choices, and I am so all over games that are all about dying well. 

[jknevitt]

<snip super-cool ideas>

That's for the great ideas, David. Consider them freely strip-mined. :)

[jknevitt]

There definitely needs to be a ratcheting up of pressure as conflicts between personal and community goals are laid bare.  Because that's fun.  I'm all over games that force you to make difficult choices, and I am so all over games that are all about dying well. 

You're definitely right. I'd like to tie that kind of "conflict pressure" with how sick people get. People can be (sometimes irrationally)  passionate about things when they know they only have a little time left to live.

I'm fond of the voting mechanic I suggested simply because it causes conflict between members of the group, who at the same time are (theoretically) working towards a joint goal. I wouldn't be surprised if it came down to characters killing each other over very petty things, or perhaps for that last vial of serum.

Another thought re: Goals and Stumbles. I'm going to have each character have a "Secret" that involves another character in the group. Players could collaborate between themselves, but it's imperative that no more than 1/3 of the group share any one secret. Ideally these would be secrets that really expose the rotten core of everyone in the Valley (you know, like "your father didn't die in his sleep, I suffocated him" or "your sister made fun of me, so I paid some men in the Valley to rape her so she would be taught a lesson"). Real button-pushers. As the game progresses, these secrets would be revealed.

As a side note, my big inspirations for this are any 'quarantine' style movie, Lost, and Hitchcock's Lifeboat.

[sean2099]

Hi there,

Let me put my 2 cents in here.  Maybe as an option, there is something in the Valley that slows down the disease.  However, it is a very rare herb (or something other item there is only a little of.)  I think the addition of such an item would "stir up the pot" escalating tensions among the people as they stramble for the "herb."  It would simply subtract 1 from the disease stat while letting keep their +3 in other stats.  Depending on what you are after, perhaps there is..say...only one dose worth for one or two people. 

2 cents entered,

Sean

[jknevitt]

Hi there,

Let me put my 2 cents in here.  Maybe as an option, there is something in the Valley that slows down the disease.  However, it is a very rare herb (or something other item there is only a little of.)  I think the addition of such an item would "stir up the pot" escalating tensions among the people as they stramble for the "herb."  It would simply subtract 1 from the disease stat while letting keep their +3 in other stats.  Depending on what you are after, perhaps there is..say...only one dose worth for one or two people. 

2 cents entered,

Sean

An interesting idea. I would probably have that as the aforementioned "cure". Everyone knows there's not enough to go around, so there has to be choice -- one person gets the cure or nobody does.

[Clyde L. Rhoer]

Hi James,

I find the inverse of your idea to be more interesting. The Valley is clean and pure and Outsiders are diseased. Outsiders wouldn't know that The Valley was pure so they might be normal decent people that the players have to scare off, or maybe even kill. The valley being pure would seem to instill more paranoia as the people in The Valley would be hyper-vigilant in examining any sickness to the point of insanity.  Perhaps if you get too sick in The Valley, you don't die from a disease but a neighbor's shovel to your head in the middle of the night. This seems like it would let you do shorter play by focusing on the internal conflict right away (Think John Carpenter's movie, The Thing), or longer term play by starting with your focus on external things and then slowly bringing the internal conflict in. (Think Lost reversed)

"Did you just cough? How long you been hunting Outsiders in tha woods, boy?"

To support your present idea.... I wonder what makes these people so altruistic that they voluntarily quarantine themselves? Does the rest of the world know about the disease? If so why are the Valley folks still alive? Is there a fence staffed by guards? How long has The Valley been isolated?

[jknevitt]

Hi James,

I find the inverse of your idea to be more interesting. The Valley is clean and pure and Outsiders are diseased. Outsiders wouldn't know that The Valley was pure so they might be normal decent people that the players have to scare off, or maybe even kill. The valley being pure would seem to instill more paranoia as the people in The Valley would be hyper-vigilant in examining any sickness to the point of insanity.  Perhaps if you get too sick in The Valley, you don't die from a disease but a neighbor's shovel to your head in the middle of the night. This seems like it would let you do shorter play by focusing on the internal conflict right away (Think John Carpenter's movie, The Thing), or longer term play by starting with your focus on external things and then slowly bringing the internal conflict in. (Think Lost reversed)

"Did you just cough? How long you been hunting Outsiders in tha woods, boy?"

That briefly crossed my mind, but I felt that would simply become a very obvious "good = uninfected, bad = diseased" idea. I didn't want it to be too polarized one oway or the other. When you're the one that's "bad" in a sense, it makes things much more interesting.

To support your present idea.... I wonder what makes these people so altruistic that they voluntarily quarantine themselves? Does the rest of the world know about the disease? If so why are the Valley folks still alive? Is there a fence staffed by guards? How long has The Valley been isolated?

There's nothing altruistic about them. There's no self imposed quarantine. Anyone who wants to leave the Valley can do so, but that leaves them at the mercy of the men with hazmat suits and flamethrowers. Whatever happens to them, the residents of the Valley know that they don't come back.

Those questions are part of why I was thinking of making it an Island. Imagine a scientific expedition running aground (or their plane crashing) on an island that was once used for biological weapons testing. I think that makes it much more interesting than, say, a Valley in the middle of nowhere.

Hm. Is there any way I can change the thread title to "The Island" ? :)