[CSI Games] Competitive RPGs, a New Project

[Thunder_God]

So, I've decided to begin a new project, a personal outgrowth of my ideas regarding RPGs and games in general.
This project is called(at least for now) CSI Games, which stands for Competitive(/Cooperative) Story Interaction(/Isolation) Games.
This is basically about Competitive RPGs, and ones which attempt to bring back the "Game" portion.

Whereas the Forge and other communities give you a place to share your designs and get feedback.
And whereas Socratic Design and other blogs give you tools to build your design.
I come to give you a direction for your game. Most likely, you'll already have your design direction, and when your direction will align with mine I will hopefully give you points to consider.

If you want to see more of "What (and Why)" look here. If you want to see my mission statement of sorts, and see further "Why" this is needed and "How" I hope to accomplish it then look here.
Our games are different enough that if we won't help one another develop them, they won't get made. We do not yet have a body of knowledge regarding these games, and we need to make one.

I plan to write a thorough "What is a CSI Game" shortly, which hopefully people will be able to use or build from in their books. I hope to get an artist to do a (pro bono) logo for CSI Games, an imprint that anyone could use, to mark his game as belonging to this group.
I have a PBWiki for this topic, not yet full of anything that will hopefully go live within a week or two.
I use my CSI Games Blog as the spear-head of my project.

I plan this to be a project where we contribute and help one another, I only try to get it up and running, once it does, it may very well be hands-off, unless we decide it needs someone to keep it on track.

If you have a game that you think fits the CSI Game, post it here, and I will compile a list. I will also help anyone who makes a CSI Game with its design, design goals and whatever else I could.
For those who do not make CSI Games, I will still try to suggest the competitive mode, or at least present it as a viable option("...But I'm afraid it'd make things competitive..." is not something that should be said without considering the other option as well).

Cheers,
Guy Shalev.

[Paul Czege]

Hey Guy,

So, the idea is that in some roleplaying games the other players are a source of setbacks and/or aid at the mechanics-regulated metagame/creative level of play, within an economy that forces trade-offs, which makes these roleplaying games more "game like"? I can see that. Have you read Bacchanal?

Paul

[Thunder_God]

Hey Guy,

So, the idea is that in some roleplaying games the other players are a source of setbacks and/or aid at the mechanics-regulated metagame/creative level of play, within an economy that forces trade-offs, which makes these roleplaying games more "game like"? I can see that. Have you read Bacchanal?

Paul

That's a very short and very "jargon"-full way to put it, mostly.
Trade-offs are not compulsory, but they help(if you mean between players), if you mean between resources, like Life equals Time in Magic, then yes, most definitely.
Last, the other players don't give you set-backs in order to give you set-backs, they do it in order to stop you from "Winning". There can be only one, and damned if they'll let you be that one.
Need to give some more thought to competition for its own sake.

I'm not sure I follow you on the Metagame/Creative level bit though. They're giving you setbacks on a purely game level, mechanics. Creatively players usually work together.

And it doesn't work for "Roleplaying-games", it's mostly prevalent in board/card/war games, I'm trying to make it more prevalent within "RPGs".
I did not read Bacchanal(it's available in its 24 hour rpg format, no?), for the same reason I don't have Breaking the Ice or It Was a Mutual Decision, I tend to stay away from the personal relationship type of games, since it's not where I derive my pleasure from.

And so, do you wish to add Bacchanal to the "CSI Game" list? Though I'll put down "Hard definitions" sometime this week(probably tomorrow, 'natch).

[Paul Czege]

Hey Guy,

Yes, I wrote Bacchanal for last year's Game Chef as "M. Paul Buja". You can download it from the archives here:

http://www.1km1kt.net/rpg/Bacchanal.php

I'm not sure I'd characterize it as a "personal relationship type of game" myself.

Paul

[Thunder_God]

A game with sex as a premise falls under that umbrella for me.
I'll try to look over it over the weekend. :)

Threads by Filip and Gnostigmata are also games whose creators agree, more or less, with the CSI Games idea.
Sydney Freedberg I suspect does too, but I don't want to put words in his mouth.
There are some other games I list on my blog, most of them fit, though a couple are more of "Games" like Conflict Erdinai and less Competitive between players.

[Filip Luszczyk]

I think Final Stand fits in the profile. It focuses on competition, but also introduces some story-building elements. These may be too sim oriented, though. And so, the question - do you consider narrativist qualities of the story important for CSI Games, or does pastiche still fit?

The project is interesting - it may help to promote gamist-focused designs with supplementar story-building tools in the community. In a similar way focused nar designs were promoted by the existence of the Forge itself. People who want this kind of game will instantly know what to reach for.

I'm not sure I'd characterize it as a "personal relationship type of game" myself.

Heh :)

I have to look closer at your game. I remember skimming it some months ago, yet I did't give it much attention because I'm generally not interested in introducing that level of erotism to my sessions. Looks like I should give it another glance ;)

[Thunder_God]

I consider the story element important, so long it fits the other criteria, it is in.

Who is the maker of Final Stand, what is its home-page, etc? I tend not to click on direct-PDF downloads.

I have just posted The Definition of CSI Games. Sometime this week, perhaps as soon as tomorrow, I'd post how you review a CSI Game(give it a "CSI Game Score"), after which the basic building blocks of this project would all be in place and it'd be able to exist and evolve even if I dropped off of the face of the earth.

This definition post is also the place where you may argue for a different name, for those who had suggested so till now.

[Filip Luszczyk]

Who is the maker of Final Stand, what is its home-page, etc? I tend not to click on direct-PDF downloads.

Tim Denee. You can find his site here: http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/timdenee/index.html

But there is no link to Final Stand on the site it seems - I've found it through rpg.net review. The game is 5 years old, too.

This definition post is also the place where you may argue for a different name, for those who had suggested so till now.

Well, not much to argue for now. The only thing is that I'm not convinced if this "isolation" stuff is actually required there.

Also, I have a feeling that many old games belong there - if not because of designer's focus, then because of actual applications.

And after a second glance at Bachannal I have some doubts about the competition element in there. But I'm not sure if I picture the gameplay correctly. Well, another game which I have to see in AP in order to get how it works exactly.

[Thunder_God]

Isolation is indeed not really needed there, it's included as part of me being a completist.
As you can see CSI Game stands for Competitive(/Cooperative) Story Interaction Game, with no actual mention of Isolation.

I'm going to have a slider along with definitions, I'd put "Old skool DnD" where you have the party acting as The Black Hand from KoDT on 1-2 out of 10, with most games on a solid 0 score.

[Adam Kleizer]

If you have a game that you think fits the CSI Game, post it here, and I will compile a list. I will also help anyone who makes a CSI Game with its design, design goals and whatever else I could.

Hey Guy,

I just drop a reply (first post on these forums, so greetings all!) to let you know I'm working on a game that's much like what you describe as a CSI game.

I was participating in this years Game Chef with a game named The Dynasty (http://www.1km1kt.net/rpg/The_Dynasty.php). It's really just a basic bidding system I'm trying to extend now with a Mafia setting (thanks to Graham Walmsley for the wonderful idea), and some elements I think should be in such a game. The family will have a shared goal but the players will compete to be the Godfather. We had an early playtest with my friends where it really worked like a CSI game: it was competitive, we've built a story around the families shared goal and the bidding system gave a nice way to interact with each other.

I'll make posts in the first thoughts and playtesting forums in the near future with some more details.

[Thunder_God]

That sounds interesting Adam, I'll look into it :)

I have a question or two to Adam and other people who are standing a couple of steps along this route:

1) Do you "get" anything out of the current posts on CSI Games blog?

2) What kind of tools/topics do you wish were covered?

Cheers,
Guy.

[Ron Edwards]

All further discussion of this topic needs to go elsewhere. This is a Connections thread which has served its purpose by opening lines of communication.

Best, Ron

[Ron Edwards]

Guy PMed me with the valid question of whether this thread is still open for people to list games that fall into the category he's interested in. The answer is "yes." So it's not closed and should still serve its basic purpose. However, for discussion, shift to email or similar.

Best, Ron

[Joe J Prince]

I like where Guy is going with this.

I think my 3rd Ronnies entry The Dragon vs The Gun fits into this category. It's undergoing a pretty extensive re-write at the mo, but the 24hr version is still available.

[Thunder_God]

The last basic(as in, forming the base of) post regarding CSI Games had been posted here.

The above questions and any thoughts you may have regarding the project(aside from its name which is discussed on another post) should be directed there.