Someone Had to Have Had This Idea

[Filip Luszczyk]

Ok, the setting/situation idea is cool. It's interesting how the mask reminds me of Mage's paradigm.

As for the auction, although it sounds interesting (I like how you envision things escalating), it kind of strikes me how arbitrary the GM is. Basically, it all hinges on a fiat of one person, and no person is impartial. (In my Mage heartbreaker game, where I use token bidding mechanics, I finally gave a specific budget to the GM, and it's all about "how strongly do you believe your idea will be evaluated as good? / how possible/impossible you want to make this thing for the player to achieve?")

Btw, what's your name?

[CommonDialog]

Ok, the setting/situation idea is cool. It's interesting how the mask reminds me of Mage's paradigm.

Yeah, I need to reread Mage I guess.  It's been a while.  I was not a big fan of the system for basically the reason you all have pointed.  A powerful enough mage can do just about anything.

Btw, what's your name?

My name is CommonDialog, my parents were hippies who worked for IBM.  It was very strange...

Actually, my name is Chris Perrin.  I always forget that I signup as CommonDialog on everything which since I always do it means that I should remember.  :)

I was thinking some more about keeping the mask vs. trying for enlightenment.  And I got to thinking.  The easy answer is that for those with high mask (in other words they are very tied to their previous reality) to have higher resistance to the effects of powers used in the pocket.  I didn't find that very satisfying since belief in the All-Thing does not make it any less or more real.  In fact, the All-Thing is the truest reality, everything else is just swimming in its energy.  So what I was thinking was that the higher the mask, the more gross power you have.  Conversely, the less tied you are to your old reality, the greater your fine control is.  Basically those with a higher mask have to spend more points than those with lower masks (say a person with 10 mask out of 10 must spend at least 20 power points per roll as an example.)  Those with one mask can spend a fraction of a point.  Basically, the way I justify that is to my mind it is more likely that aliens will invade the Earth than I'll be walking along and suddenly pull a lightsaber out of my belt.  It's more likely that the government has a illegal cloning chambers than I have super jumping ability.  Basically, wholesale changes forcing a reality's paradigm to change is  actually easier than making minor, less believeable changes.

Sort of like Paradox, in reverse.

[CommonDialog]

Another idea I was tinkering with is that instead of using an auction system which would basically make this game diceless, have the amount of points that you spend go into some stats for the item.  For instance, if you spend 100 points, you could put 50 points into defense and 50 into offense or something like that.  It makes things more abstract, but it does allow a 50 point Battlestar Galatica (Lorne Green commanding) have a chance against a 300 point Death Star.  I figure the only way this works is if the creator gets to define what attributes the created thing has.  For instance, a 50 point Battlestar Galactica could have a 10 point crew (good for 10D on all crew-based roles), 10 fighters with 1D of attack and 1D of armor, and 10D each of armor and 10D of weapons.

It's pretty ambiguous, but I was thinking that there would be a common set of attributes including attack power, armor or hit points, resistance, crew, subunits (like the fighters on Galactica) for ships and vessels.  Maybe attack power, sturdiness (how much damage the item could take.  This would be very high for shields.), damage type, shield points, resistance for equipment.

Resisance in the above example means that certain types of damage would not cause a loss of armor/hit points.  This would reflect that an AT-AT walker's armor is too thick for blasters (thereby necessitating the need for Rogue Group to use harpoons and go for the legs, it was their only hope.  Poor Dak.)

It's another thought I had.

[David Berg]

Hi Chris,

I'm getting the impression that you want play to be about interesting choices for "what I can do with my finite points" on a grandiose scale.  I am guessing that you intend these choices to be about strategic effectiveness, rather than, say, humor value, character development, reinforcement of some particular aesthetic.  Is all that correct?

If so, I'd think that three things will make or break the game:
1) the list of options to buy that you offer
2) the costs you assign to these
and especially
3) the way you enable players to add to the list of options and determine the new options' costs

[CommonDialog]

Hi Chris,

I'm getting the impression that you want play to be about interesting choices for "what I can do with my finite points" on a grandiose scale.  I am guessing that you intend these choices to be about strategic effectiveness, rather than, say, humor value, character development, reinforcement of some particular aesthetic.  Is all that correct?

David,

I think you hit the nail on the head.  The mask/pocket/All-Thing is really the setting for the larger question of resource management and strategy.  I may have only expressed that subconciously.  Though I don't want to lose the idea that there is pain, isolation, and loneliness in shedding one's former belief system which makes the fighting necessary/an easy way out.

I worry about providing a list of options to buy except in the way of examples.  Originally the idea came from me having just finished Hunters of Dune and thinking about the Battlestar Galactica when suddenly I realized how the RTG could use some axlotl tanks so I don't want to lose the idea that because people are in a pocket of near-reality, they can do *anything*.  I don't want to lose that.  So I see that the #2 is the important one.  I see that all objects will have a class (ship, person, equipment) and each class has attributes that people pay for.