[Wasteland] A modernist RPG

[ed_keer]

I've got an idea for an RPG based on modernist literature. This would be my first RPG and I admit I have never played an indie game. Oh, and I'm new the Forge. That said...

The setting would be urban, modern. I assume the real world since I don't want to have people spend too much time on "world creation". So like New York, Paris, etc. The theme might be the alientation of the individual within a broken, fractured society. Or maybe grace in the face of an unimaginable future. I also want to encourage, or maybe require, a tragic ending.

My ideas is to have a single protagonist, since that is key to the genre. The rest of the players would play the world (more like a traditional GM role). I like the idea of structuring the other roles like in a play. Maybe delineating roles like "foil" or "antagonist", so that each of the other players get a character that fills one of these specific roles.

I'm also thinking the story framework should be developed collectively. The protagonist would have some main goal--say a drive to create art or a need to live 'truthfully'. The role of the other players would be to thwart or help the protagonist.

Finally, randomness would need to be central to the game play. So conflict resolution and even maybe plot development.

I would love to get feedback on this. Especially if there are games out there that are similar that might be worth looking at.

Ed

[Eric Provost]

Hiya Ed.  Welcome to the Forge.

I'm interested in what you've got so far.  Seems very interesting.  But, I don't know a thing about modernist literature.  So how would you describe what this RPG would be about to someone like me?  Someone who doesn't know what modernist literature is.

-Eric

[Wood]

DH Lawrence?
TS Eliot?
Joseph Conrad?
Virginia Woolf?

[Troy_Costisick]

Heya,

I would consider anything from Ibsen to Samuel Beckett to be "modern literature" and fair game for your idea.  What specifics about Modern Literature do you really want to explore?

Peace,

-Troy

[Nathan P.]

Hi there Ed,

There's two things that come to mind that you may want to look at:

Guy Shalev's Cranium Rats, which has the players playing metaphysical concepts as they wrangle over the protagonist, and

Michael S. Miller's Discernment, which is in the Nopress RPG Anthology, along with 7 other awesome games. In it, you have one player playing a character and all of the other players take on GM roles as they attempt to discover the characters Soul Quality.

I'd like to see your answer to Eric's question as well.

Hope some of that helps.

[ed_keer]

Hiya Ed.  Welcome to the Forge.

I'm interested in what you've got so far.  Seems very interesting.  But, I don't know a thing about modernist literature.  So how would you describe what this RPG would be about to someone like me?  Someone who doesn't know what modernist literature is.

-Eric

Thanks, for the welcome. That's a tough question, but one I imagine I need to answer if I want to get anywhere with this...

This game would have players explore what it means to be an individual in the modern world. Meaning, how does the individual cope with a mass-produced world; courage in the face of death. Does that help?

[TroyLovesRPG]

Hello Ed,

Along with fantasy and sci-fi, I like modernist literature. I can only read so much because it can be bleak and depressing. It conjures too much loneliness and self-esteem issues. However, its great when you're with a group and you can see how if affects the others. Everyone brings a little bit of themselves into every game they play.

So, emphasizing the struggle of the individual within a fractured society in an urban setting may not get a lot of response. Having the players gang up on one usually never works. Creating teams and having no referee is favorable. Each team could possibly play the society and an individual. The goal would be to make the individual function or resolve an issue in the other team's society.

I imagine this game could be very narrative with the focus on identifying necessary ideas to forward the struggle. It could also be pure strategy colored with terms from the modernist theme. Picture 25K pyramid: the things are those that invoke simple or complex emotions, ideas, responses, events, etc. Funeral, death, sickness, divorce, war: things that make you grieve. This could definitely be a card game. Just paint everything black and white. Now try this: silent phone, empty mailbox, strangers, closed sign, long stretch of road, one chair, no photographs, office cubicle, microwave dinner.

Good luck,

Troy

[Eric Provost]

This game would have players explore what it means to be an individual in the modern world. Meaning, how does the individual cope with a mass-produced world; courage in the face of death. Does that help?

Well, maybe.  Maybe I have an idea about what you're aiming at and maybe the idea I've got is off the mark. 

Now, it occurs to me that I could totally do some online research, figure out what modernist literature is, then come back here and discuss how I think one could design that into a game.  But!  What I think will be one hundred times more awesome is if I keep myself ignorant on the subject and let you educate me by way of discussing your game design.  Are you up for that?

[tonyd]

This game would have players explore what it means to be an individual in the modern world. Meaning, how does the individual cope with a mass-produced world; courage in the face of death.

hmm... OK, to my thinking that brings up Kafka, Camus, Dostoyevsky, and Haruki Murakami. A game that offers these as options would be pretty interesting to me.

[ed_keer]

Now, it occurs to me that I could totally do some online research, figure out what modernist literature is, then come back here and discuss how I think one could design that into a game.  But!  What I think will be one hundred times more awesome is if I keep myself ignorant on the subject and let you educate me by way of discussing your game design.  Are you up for that?

Certainly. Like I said, I need to think this through. Right now it's only the germ of an idea. I don't have a complete grasp of modernism myself, despite several misspent undergrad years as an English major.

What I want to accomplish is a narrative game where the players create a modernist story--which explores the themes of modernism. Basically, I feel that there are a lot of games based on genre literature or film. But there didn't seem to me to be any based on "highbrow" sources. Maybe there are, and I don't know about them (see below). I'd love to be enlightened.

Since one of the things modernism stresses is the individual versus society, I thought it would be really cool to invert the standard RPG format of one GM and several players. So it would be one player and several GMs. Now, that clearly needs to be balanced so it's not a bunch of people ganging up on one person.

But if you think about the standard RPG format (my experience is literally limited to D&D and Traveller*), the GM is responsible for laying the groundwork of the story, and the players bring the characters. So instead, it would be the GM brings the character and the players create the story--conflicts, setting, etc.

Another thing that modernism stresses is meaninglessness. And that seems like a perfect reason to include lots of randomization.

*I know, I know, I need to start playing other games. But in my defense I only recently returned to RPGs after many years hiatus.

[Thunder_God]

Hm. I'd say that meaningless is only meaningful if it was meaningfully chosen.

That is to say. Stories that lead to meaningless as a Theme are all sorts of cool, but if you have it forced upon you and can't choose it? I'm not so sure. But then again, I'll be curious to see it work, even if it's not my personal cup of tea.

[joepub]

Ed, welcome to The Forge.
I must say - I'm amazingly keen on this idea in general.
My games (and writings and everything else I've done in my life) all seem to really come back toward this kind of theme.

First of all, have you heard of Perfect?

It's a game about people who live in such a repressed and clockwork society that crime becomes their only way to achieve their goals and cling hold to their identity. They commit crimes in an attempt to stay truly human.
The world about them is cold and suspicious, and Inspectors line the streets waiting to take them into conditioning.
Victoriana feel to the society.

1984 meets Clockwork Orange meets Bronte meets Paranoia.
It's my game, but I think NOW is a very relevant time to bring it up. check it out here.
Red-Rimmed Eyes, a free PDF I wrote, also relates to some of the themes: meaningless and isolation, and remorse for the person you have become. It also has an owlbear in it, which is unmistakeably cool.

Check out Guy's game Cranium Rats.
Guy is also known as Thunder_God, who posted just before me.
In his game, players represent different parts of a single person's psyche.

Picture 25K pyramid: the things are those that invoke simple or complex emotions, ideas, responses, events, etc. Funeral, death, sickness, divorce, war: things that make you grieve. This could definitely be a card game. Just paint everything black and white. Now try this: silent phone, empty mailbox, strangers, closed sign, long stretch of road, one chair, no photographs, office cubicle, microwave dinner.

Troy, can you tell me what you're talking about here? I'm lost, personally.

Having the players gang up on one usually never works. Creating teams and having no referee is favorable. Each team could possibly play the society and an individual. The goal would be to make the individual function or resolve an issue in the other team's society.

On this note:
Guy's Cranium Rats does the several-people-compose-a-character thing.

Ron Edward's It Was a Mutual Decision might have some lessons to share with you: It's a game of a breakup gone horribly wrong. Half of the players play The Guy, and half of the players play The Girl.
So... it would be useful to read if you were doing the whole breaking-into-teams thing.

But if you think about the standard RPG format (my experience is literally limited to D&D and Traveller*), the GM is responsible for laying the groundwork of the story, and the players bring the characters. So instead, it would be the GM brings the character and the players create the story--conflicts, setting, etc.

Um...
I suggest getting out there and reading. A lot.
A lot of the RPGs that The Forge has lent a hand in developing, and has championed, are very progressive and completely different than the process/setup of d&d and Traveller.

Go to www.1km1kt.net
Read a bunch of the free Game Chef submissions on there.
Game Chef is a yearly game-creation contest...
I suggest there as a starting place because:
a.) There are some really fascinating and new concepts being introduced in many of the games.
b.) They are free and easily accessible.
c.) They are easily digestible, usually much smaller than a print-published book.

[ed_keer]

Um...
I suggest getting out there and reading. A lot.
A lot of the RPGs that The Forge has lent a hand in developing, and has championed, are very progressive and completely different than the process/setup of d&d and Traveller.

Go to www.1km1kt.net
Read a bunch of the free Game Chef submissions on there.
Game Chef is a yearly game-creation contest...
I suggest there as a starting place because:
a.) There are some really fascinating and new concepts being introduced in many of the games.
b.) They are free and easily accessible.
c.) They are easily digestible, usually much smaller than a print-published book.

Thanks for your long post! I will have to take some time to digest it. But I did want to reassure you that I'm aware of my shortcomings on this front. So, one of my first tasks is really to do a lot of reading. I'd also really like to play more too, but that's another issue... Thanks for the link though! That will be a great starting point.

[Eric Provost]

Since one of the things modernism stresses is the individual versus society, I thought it would be really cool to invert the standard RPG format of one GM and several players.

Cool.  So, if I get you right, could I play the GM of um... Consumerism?  Like, as the GM of Consumerism, I'm going to do everything I can to get the protagonist to buy shit for the sake of buying shit.  Maybe by way of brining in NPCs that are founts of consumerism.  I could totally see cool scenes and conflicts coming out of that. 

And if that's something that I could do, then what other kinds of GM-Hats could I wear?

-Eric

[joepub]

Eric, I like your idea.

Running with it in a few directions:

a.) A player (Let's stop calling it GM, k?) contols Consumerism. Another controls Isolation. Another controls Workplace Animosity.

Each player controls an Element which Stresses the Protagonist.
The elements should funnel the protagonist toward either acting against them, or bleakly accepting them.

b.) A player controls Consumerism. Another controls The Weather. Another controls The Alley Cat that Bothers You.

Each player controls a Force which somehow affects the Protagonist.
Some give crutches, occassionally. Some can be trusted. Some can't.
In the end, nothing is really there to support the Protagonist, though, and those crutches get kicked out.

c.) A player controls Mona, the Girl At the Coffee Shop. Another Plays The Woman in Red I Always See on the Bus. Another plays Boris, The Manager Who Tries To Connect with His Workers.

Each player controls a character, someone who the Protagonist comes into contact with a lot.
They should be quirky and outlandish at times, and each representing one of the facets of The Big Reason that the protagonist is so alone.

I'm thinking along the lines of the characters in Albert Camus' The Outsider.