Thinking about a Metagame mechanic.

[Simon C]

So this isn't so much a new game idea as an idea that could be used in otherwise traditional style games, to mix up the game authorship in a way that players might feel more comfortable with.  This is inspired by my thinking about Zak's D&D thread, and his trouble introducing this kind of thing to his group, which are clearly more interested in a more traditional game.  I'm posting it as a seperate topic to avoid diverting his thread.

Zak described how he tried to introduce his players to the concept of laying out the scenes ahead of time, and having them choose how they would encounter them, with an eye to having them eventually introduce their own scenes.  This wasn't greeted enthusiastically by the players.  This was probably for many reasons, but one may have been because it removes one of the primary sources of enjoyment for many players: discovery.  It's fun to not know what's coming up.  This seems to directly contraindicate player input into story events, outside of the actions of their own characters.

But then I had a thought.

So, I was thinking about the Theatre Sports game, where suggestions from the audience are written on pieces of paper, and then the actors must incorporate these lines into their performance.  Initially I thought this could be a way of introducing some randomness/crazyness into a game.  But then I got to thinking about how it could be used as a tool to introduce player driven ideas into the story.

What if, before the start of each game session, the players wrote suggestions on pieces of paper, and these were put into a "hat".  The suggestions ccould be anything from "Gnolls riding Dire Hyenas", to "My evil half brother who is plotting for the crown", or even locations, such as "a haunted pirate ship", or fully statted out NPCs. 

The key would be creating a "hat" of (for example) two suggestions per player, and then drawing out a smaller number (say, one per player), before (or during, for a challenge) the game.  The GM must incorporate the suggestion into the events of the game (without revealing the drawn suggestion to the players).  For example, "Gnolls riding Dire Hyenas bust in through the door", or "You follow the footprints to a long abandoned part of the wharf.  They lead up the gangplank of a half derelict, rotting ship".  Or more subtly: "You recieve a message nailed to your door by a stilleto blade: "I have the Prince held captive... ...he dies at midnight unless the Queen agrees to be my bride!"  At the end of each session, the "hat" would be replenished with more suggestions.  This could form part of a reward mechanic, as long as the number of suggestions in the hat always exceeded the number drawn at the start of the next game.

The key advantage of this over the method Zak attempted is that, while the players would be able to introduce their own desires into the game, they wouldn't be able to anticipate how or when they would be incorporated.  Ideally, the incorporation of these things would allow the players to have more of what they want in the game, without breaking the "illusion" of character/player knowledge seperation.  Also, it's relatively non-demanding on players who aren't interested.  They can always suggest "more goblins".

Potentially, though, this could be a powerful technique for "adressing premise" in a game that otherwise doesn't support this.  It can remind a GM that what a player really wants is to be interacting with his character's long lost sibling.  Or that they want to be challenged by morally ambiguous foes.  You could even allow suggestions about other people's character (providing there was the right level of inter-group trust) "The King's Guard finally catch up with Rodrigo" or "The Prince falls for Alex".

So what do you think?  Can you forsee potential problems? Is there a way of making this work even better? Do you need explicit rules about suggestions, or would "anything goes" work?  Do you think it would work best for the GM to read suggestions before the game, during the game, or after the previous game?  Would this produce coherant stories?

I think that this idea would be best served by playtesting.  I'm not really in a position to do that at the moment, but I'd love to hear from anyone who's tried something similar, or who wants to try this idea.

[Troy_Costisick]

Heya,

So what do you think?  Can you forsee potential problems?

-I think this looks like a lot of fun!  I could even see a whole game based on the idea.  The only problem I could see would be one where consecutive scenes don't make much sense.  For instance, if you drew "The princes falls in love with ____________." followed by "The were-rats hoarde the wizard's treasure in the cave."  It would take come narrational acrobatics to make them relate to each other.  But even then, I think it would provide a fun and unique play experience.  How far do you think you might pursue this?

Peace,

-Troy

[crowyhead]

My GM actually makes use of a very similar technique.  Frequently at the start of a session, he passes out cards.  We write down scene ideas, things we would like to see, etc. -- everything from "I want to have a scene where my PC professes her true love for such-and-such NPC" to "Tentacle monsters!!" to "What ever happened to so-and-so NPC?  Is he going to show up again soon?" to "Hey, how come I haven't had a chance to use my Barge Pilot ability?"

Of course, the way we do it tends to be less randomized than your idea, since it's ultimately up to the GM whether he uses the suggestions or not, and he receives all of the suggestions pretty much at the beginning of the session (although sometimes if someone can't come up with anything write away, they pass him the card partway through the session).  It's fun though, because like you said, you never know how he's going to work the suggestions into the plot.

Kirsten

[Narf the Mouse]

'The princess has fallen in love with the Wizard Tristan, but wererats have looted his tower while he was away courting her and he has lost many precious items, including proof of his noble blood.'