My first attempt at game design

[Ricky Donato]

I've never seriously tried to design a game from top to bottom before, but I've had this idea kicking around in my head for a while and I thought I would give it a try. The name of the game is Machiavelli. I'll start by taking my own advice in the Rules for the First Thoughts forum and tackling the Big 3.

1. What is your game about?
Machiavelli is about politics and intrigue in Renaissance Italy. The goal of play is to accumulate political power through any means necessary.

2. What do the characters do?
The characters are called Principi (Princes). Each Principe controls a Principato (Principality), and is trying to gain more power than the other Principi by making and breaking alliances, raising money through taxation, adding territory to his Principato through warfare, and making both citizens and nobles fear and admire him.

3. What do the players do?
Each player portrays a Principe and the players compete with each other for power. They make deals with and screw over their opponents. Players are encouraged to lie, break promises, and commit evil acts if these are necessary to bring power to the Principe.

Each player also portrays one opponent's Consigliere (Counselor). The role of the Consigliere is two-fold: 1) He informs his Principe of changes to the Principato. 2) He provides advice to his Principe. If he provides good advice ("good" is not yet defined), the Consigliere is rewarded. In other words, player A (as a Principe) is competing against his opponent B, but if A (as Consigliere to B) gives good advice to B, A is rewarded - and A can use that reward as a Principe to hurt B.

I have 2 questions:

1) Does everything above makes sense? And have I covered everything?
2) Assuming the answer to #1 is yes, what is my next step? I'm assuming the power 19.

[Adam Dray]

This sounds really cool. So far, it's a game I'd want to play!

To make sure I understand, it's intended to be a cutthroat, player-vs-player game?  Don't smack me too hard, but tell me why this should be a role-playing game and not a strategy board game.  I'm sure you have a good answer.

I wouldn't go and post answers to the Power 19 just yet. If you're antsy to talk about your game, answer one or two of them (in order) and let us ask questions. The Power 19 is just a bit much to digest as a reader.

[dindenver]

Hi!
  How is this power measured, or what does it represent? My guess would be:
The Church
Military Power
Money in the bank
Influence over whatever guilds and unions that exist
Influence over social trends (e.g., nobody wears powdered wigs since Prince Inigo declared them foppish)
Influence over cultural values (e.g., people's faith in the church has gone up since you commisioned hat symphony proclaiming the glory of God)
Inluence over NPC Princes
Influence over NPC foreign powers
Influence over the higher-up (Emperors, Kings?) of your country

  I know that this is a sort of long, convoluted list, but, I think if you add some depth  like this to the tools that  players have available. Then you can make it obvious why this is an  RPG and really promote some variety and replay value. For instance, with this list you could have some sort  of crazy, monster, nine-player game where  every player was working towards a different power base and that the game for them would be more about how their power interacted then who won and who lost, you know?

  Also, you will need ways to manage intrigue. Spying, sabotage, assassination and propoganda need to be valuable tools in this kind of setting, no?

  Work up the mechanics that will both encourage players to forge alliances and break them. I find that the tricky part with diplomacy between players in a pvp game is that there is either no incentive to forge an alliance or there is no incentive to break one. I think this is a good idea and it sounds like you know what you want from this game. So, go for it!

[Adam Dray]

I respectfully submit that you could answer all those questions and still have a game more like Diplomacy or another strategy game than a traditional RPG...

[Ricky Donato]

To make sure I understand, it's intended to be a cutthroat, player-vs-player game?

Yes, absolutely.

Don't smack me too hard, but tell me why this should be a role-playing game and not a strategy board game.  I'm sure you have a good answer.

No, I don't! In fact, this exact point has been giving me trouble for the last week. I'm sure that if I don't answer it, my design will suffer.

Dave's point about variety has some value to it, but it isn't enough. I think that the imaginative content offers the unique possibility to narrate a player's successes and losses. That implies that the narration should be a major selling point: narration has to feel enjoyable.

Dave, I will respond to your thoughts in a separate post.

[Adam Dray]

One way to look at it is via Creative Agenda. There are at least three commonly recognized ways that people like to play RPGs. There's Gamism (kick ass and do a victory dance),  Narrativism (make a point and talk about it later), and Simulationism (build/extend a universe and test it). Machiavelli could be any of these, or it could be something else.

If you want it to support Gamism, then it needs to have a way for players to kick ass and do a victory dance. It doesn't have to be competitive, as in player vs. player, but that's one obvious route to take. There are interesting ways to make it cooperative AND competitive.

If you want it to support Narrativism, then it needs to have a way for players to make a personal point, probably about their worldview. What a great way to say something about the nature of politics or sovereignty or some other bit of life. You'd want such a game to have ways for the GM or other players to draw these points of view out of one another.

If you want it to support Simulationism, then it needs to have a way for players to develop the setting and the characters and the situation and all the cool stuff of play and even the system itself. It also needs some procedure for testing all of play against that shared view of things and saying "no, that isn't it." I can see a version of Machiavelli where the players strive to create a "realistic" 1556 Venice and bring in their personal knowledge and research of the time period.

There are lots of options and you can use those three things for a helpful hand in leading you towards one style of play. In my experience, it's dangerous to say "I want to support all of those things!" If you do that, you'll probably end up creating a game that might support all of them but gets a group of players doing different things at the same time and bumping their heads together as they try to wrestle the game in three different directions. Not fun!

[Ricky Donato]

How is this power measured, or what does it represent? My guess would be:
The Church
Military Power
Money in the bank

No question about these three.

Influence over whatever guilds and unions that exist
Influence over social trends (e.g., nobody wears powdered wigs since Prince Inigo declared them foppish)
Influence over cultural values (e.g., people's faith in the church has gone up since you commissioned that symphony proclaiming the glory of God)
Influence over NPC Princes
Influence over NPC foreign powers
Influence over the higher-up (Emperors, Kings?) of your country

The first three tie together as Influence with the Citizens, and the second three tie together as Influence with Nobles. Right now, I don't see a benefit separating them out more than that, but I will think about this further as the design progresses.

So right now, each Prince has 5 measurements of power:
Money: financial power
Military: military power
Church: religious support
Citizen: support from citizens
Noble: support from (non-PC) nobles

So chargen needs to generate these 5 attributes, and I need to define victory using these 5 measurements.

Also, you will need ways to manage intrigue. Spying, sabotage, assassination and propaganda need to be valuable tools in this kind of setting, no?

Absolutely, with the caveat that assassination of a player's Prince is a bad idea. It implies that, if the assassination succeeds, the player can no longer play.

Work up the mechanics that will both encourage players to forge alliances and break them. I find that the tricky part with diplomacy between players in a pvp game is that there is either no incentive to forge an alliance or there is no incentive to break one.

Agreed.

I respectfully submit that you could answer all those questions and still have a game more like Diplomacy or another strategy game than a traditional RPG...

Not only could you, but someone has; I just learned of the existence of a board game called Machiavelli that is a variant of Diplomacy.

I'm familiar with CA and I definitely want a Gamist game here. Your point about "I want to support all of those things!" is well-taken and I definitely don't want to try it. So what supports Gamist RPGing? A well-defined Situation, and a solid reward system that is both overt and frequently invoked. So that means:

• Conflict must arise between players easily. This is partly provided by the Gamism; if the text clearly states that the players are competing to win, the players will naturally do so. But I have to add much more potential for conflict.
• The system has to provide reward frequently and clearly for being Machiavellian.

[Adam Dray]

So what supports Gamist RPGing? A well-defined Situation, and a solid reward system that is both overt and frequently invoked. So that means:

• Conflict must arise between players easily. This is partly provided by the Gamism; if the text clearly states that the players are competing to win, the players will naturally do so. But I have to add much more potential for conflict.
• The system has to provide reward frequently and clearly for being Machiavellian.

Yep! You should do more than create potential for conflict. In a player vs. player game, you probably want to front-load character generation in such a way that people enter play ready to tear each other's heads off. That is, don't let them out of chargen till one of the other players is on their shit list in some well-defined game way. ;)

If you don't do that, then use the play procedure to create conflict situations.

[sean2099]

It sounds like an interesting game.  I am going to throw in an idea or two for you to use or discard.

1.  In the spirit of the game, I don't think all of the information should be in one book.  Perhaps you could have one book that tells the chagren and other basic rules while publishing codexes for each group.  I just thought that particular way of publishing fit thematically into the game although it could cause problems of its own.  In a way, I guess I am asking if you want all players to have access to all information in the book and in play?

2.  Would it have to be a literal "prince?"  With the Medici's and other powerful merchant families, there is at least one group that may have direct control over any one land but influence throughout the region.  I am sure there are other groups who would work in similar ways.

I hope these help in some small way.

Sean

[Ricky Donato]

1.  In the spirit of the game, I don't think all of the information should be in one book.  Perhaps you could have one book that tells the chagren and other basic rules while publishing codexes for each group.  I just thought that particular way of publishing fit thematically into the game although it could cause problems of its own.  In a way, I guess I am asking if you want all players to have access to all information in the book and in play?

I absolutely want all the players to have access to all the ruletext at all times. I see no benefit and a lot of problems if I do otherwise.

2.  Would it have to be a literal "prince?"  With the Medici's and other powerful merchant families, there is at least one group that may have direct control over any one land but influence throughout the region.  I am sure there are other groups who would work in similar ways.

No, I could easily see characters as being powers behind the throne or something. I will still refer to them as Princes for clarity.

You should do more than create potential for conflict. In a player vs. player game, you probably want to front-load character generation in such a way that people enter play ready to tear each other's heads off. That is, don't let them out of chargen till one of the other players is on their shit list in some well-defined game way. ;)

Hmmm...what if every Prince is created with a starting Enemy Prince? This Enemy Prince represents someone who is more vulnerable to that Prince, and the Prince gets a bonus to attack his Enemy, but only in the first round or something. This sounds like a variant on Kickers.

I'll tackle questions 4 & 5 from the Power 19 tomorrow or Friday.

[dindenver]

Hi!
  One thing that comes to my mind is in a gamist style game like this, the arenas of conflict should be pretty well defined. And, you want to provide a bonus for escalating and maybe even an incentive to de-escalate. I mean after all, "all out war" was not the lingua franca of these little princes...
  Maybe some sort of poker-style bidding system where if players fold, they don't lose as much if they were bluffing the whole time. I really think there needs to be a logical incentive for players to keep it from escalating, you know?
  I think, maye the trick is to use multiple goals for victory, like in Illuminati. If you have not played the card game, consider checking it out. It is unique in the fact that it is one of the few games where I have seen players competing against one another still cooperate in real and meaningful ways.

[David Artman]

In the spirit of directing you to other games to ponder, allow me to suggest Pendragon. Few of the traditional RPGs that I have read so closely couple the culture to the characters (it even has a "Knight Character Sheet" and a "Woman Character Sheet," which are meaningfully different!). It will show you how, for instance, a character's traits can be pinged mechanically by the setting and situation, which then drives further spurs to action (fixing the un-knightly imbalance) or characterization (acting).

David

[contracycle]

No, I could easily see characters as being powers behind the throne or something. I will still refer to them as Princes for clarity.

A prince is an independant Power.  A king rules over princes; the heir of a king is a prince because he holds his own lands and has his own retinue.  An emperor rules over kings.  A duke can have the power of a prince, the difference is mainly legitimacy, but frex the Duke of Savoy was Prince because he held territory in his own right.  Hence, Machiavelli's book of the same name is addressed to any sovereign ruler of any magnitude.  The Medici's were princes once they assumed formal political power.

[Ricky Donato]

4a. What is your setting?

• The setting is historical Renaissance Italy. It is historically accurate: muskets and swords, not lasers or fireballs; oxen, not dragons; humans, not aliens or elves.
• The country is not politically unified; there are rulers scattered across the countryside, scheming against each other to gain more power. Foreign powers like France and Spain are constantly eyeing Italy for conquest.
• Italy is very economically powerful. It trades goods between the rest of Europe and the Middle East, enriching itself in the process. Banking is invented, and banks begin lending money out at interest. The Church decries this practice as sinful.
• The church is challenged again and again, by Galileo's heliocentric view of the universe, by Martin Luther's condemnation of papal indulgences, and by nobles who fight back against papal political power.
• The country is undergoing a social and cultural revolution. Bankers and tradesmen earn so much money that they might equal or surpass the wealth of nobles, radically altering the social strata. Artists, financed by the wealthy, create magnificent works such as the Sistine Chapel and the Mona Lisa. The power of the church diminishes as appreciation for ancient philosophy and humanism grows.

4b. How does your setting reinforce what your game is about?
The country is very volatile politically, economically, and culturally: power changes hands fast, alliances are made and broken easily, money fluctuates, and the influence of the church changes dramatically. There are many opportunities, in many different venues, for a Prince to gain and lose power, friends, and enemies in these fast-changing times.

[Doug Ruff]

In the spirit of directing you to other games to ponder, allow me to suggest Pendragon. Few of the traditional RPGs that I have read so closely couple the culture to the characters (it even has a "Knight Character Sheet" and a "Woman Character Sheet," which are meaningfully different!). It will show you how, for instance, a character's traits can be pinged mechanically by the setting and situation, which then drives further spurs to action (fixing the un-knightly imbalance) or characterization (acting).

David

May I suggest another game, Best Friends by Gregor Hutton? A free version is available at 1km1kt.net

"I hate Niccolo because he is better-connected than me. I hate Salvatore because he is more pious than me." and so on, would make great system for setting people up - but you'd need a different system to resolve conflict.

Regards,

Doug