Game designing is infectious

[Seth L. Blumberg]

You people are like a disease, you know that? I never wanted to be a game designer, and now here I am designing games in my sleep.  Literally.

Last night I had a dream about a Narrativist high fantasy RPG with a Premise something like "What do you do when you have more responsibilities than you can fulfill?" Now the idea won't leave me alone, and I may have to write the damn thing just to get it out of my head.

(Unfortunately, while I dreamed of a System and Setting, the Setting was fragmentary and the System was nonsensical.  Dreams are bad that way.)

[Zak Arntson]

There you go: Write some kind of Narrativist game with concrete Character & Situation. Allow for rules of shifting Setting (or even System)!

You even have your Premise nailed down. And it's a good one! I'd say work on this further in this thread. Just air your thoughts and we can all help you hammer it out.

(And you're not alone with rpg-related dreams, from a recent one, though yours is more inspirational: I stumble across a shelf filled with old pulp novels. Further down the shelf, there's a bunch of crappy old roleplaying games. I picked up a beaten boxed set, a game called "Lann," and opened it up. There was a quasi-D&D character sheet (already pencilled in), and some players/dm's guides and stuff. They were blue, and the box was purple (I think).)

[Seth L. Blumberg]

Okay.  A little more thought about this idea before I sign off and go get breakfast.

The obvious way to address this Premise would be in a superhero game (where themes such as "There is so much evil and suffering in the world, and I could stop any of it, but I can't stop all of it" are fairly common).  I don't want to do it that way, partly because the dream used a fantasy Setting, partly because I've never really "gotten" the superhero genre (having been comic-deprived as a child), and partly because I'm a stubborn bastard.

The Setting will be a fairly small but wealthy nation, with a few lukewarm allies and several significant enemies.  The government of this nation will be at least vaguely related to Plato's Republic (note to self: must re-read Plato's Republic).  PCs will be young members of the ruling class, having been selected in infancy for superior genetic aptitudes (not that such language is used in-game) by magical means, then trained and tested throughout childhood and adolescence to determine their fitness to rule.  Thus, they start off with a lot of advantages compared to the average game-world individual, but have correspondingly greater responsibilities.

I have some serious thinking to do about System.  One thing that is immediately clear is that character advancement is a central issue.  The characters need to grow rapidly in effectiveness, though the challenges they face will grow slightly faster.  The only way that occurs to me to mechanize the constantly escalating challenges is to steal Donjon's system of facts-as-currency, and I need to decide whether to abandon Vanilla Narrativism before I can settle on that approach.

This is going to be a pretty punishing game to play.  By definition, the characters will face problems with no good solution; identifying emotionally with your character will tend to lead to a sense of escalating panic.  Selling that to a player group will probably not be easy.

[Valamir]

How about an Advantage/Disadvantage system, only instead of "+3 character points for bad vision", Disadvantages are (suitably renamed) all responsibilities, duties, and obligations.

to Family
to Government
to "the people"
to "the church"
to a faction
to friends
to lovers
to fellows in the graduating class
to a position / office

Each of these would grant the character "abilities" such as contacts, resources, appropriate skill packages, whatever.  And also "duty points" or some such thing which could function similiarly to Orkworld Trouble.

Building an "adventure" would involve coming up with the major "villain" (nieghboring power trying to preassure the government into granting trade concessions...etc) the resolution of which should be such that each PC has something to contribute.  Then scan down the character sheet to see all of the "Trouble" sources the character has, and start heaping them on.

You may even want to concider a very formulated turn structure ala En Guard where each turn represents a week's time and players have to outline their character's activities during each week of the month.  

The King could really use your support and expertise of water bourne trade at the summit meeting, unfortuneately one of the locks has just burst, a village is flooded, and canal traffic is backed up for miles.  Time to don your "Minister of Canals" hat and try to sort out the mess in time for the summit.

That kind of what you're going for?

[Seth L. Blumberg]

How about an Advantage/Disadvantage system, only instead of "+3 character points for bad vision", Disadvantages are (suitably renamed) all responsibilities, duties, and obligations.

Mmm...interesting idea, Ralph, but it doesn't quite fit with the Republic-inspired governmental structure I have in mind, where day-to-day affairs are managed by the "Silver" caste, while the "Gold" caste (our heroes) do whatever they, in their wisdom, think needs to be done for the good of the state.  Also, I don't want the players to be able to choose their levels of responsibility: every PC has as much responsibility as they can possibly handle, plus 10%, and that's just to start.  Lastly, handing out character points in dribs and drabs doesn't accurately reflect the heroic stature that I envision for the PCs.

I see the PCs as a cross between sages, troubleshooters and knights errant.  They're all brilliant, charismatic, intuitive, healthy, fast, strong, tough, handsome, skilled in every craft, knowledgeable on every subject, deadly with any weapon, gifted sorcerors--they have every possible advantage...and it's not enough.  Their nation needs them, and it'll eat them alive, the poor dears--or else they'll hold something back, fail to give their utmost, and thus betray everyone and everything they care about.

(Speaking of "having every possible advantage," I'm thinking of calling the attribute scores or whatever "Advantages" as a play on words.  Every PC has every Advantage, and they start at a notch above human average and go up.)

And also "duty points" or some such thing which could function similiarly to Orkworld Trouble.

I was already thinking about a mechanic not entirely unlike Orkworld's Trouble, where players can buy extra dice on any roll by accepting penalty dice to be inflicted on them in future.  Duty is a very good name for it--thanks! "Death is lighter than a feather, duty heavier than a mountain."

Why am I up this late? Good night.

[Zak Arntson]

I can't help but picture this as a Greek-era low-powered Supers game with the problems your PCs face being fit for legendary heroes, like Hercules or Achilles. Problem is, the PCs only have a tiny hint of a demigod's power.

Or do you picture a more political environment?

[Paganini]

You people are like a disease, you know that? I never wanted to be a game designer, and now here I am designing games in my sleep.  Literally.

Last night I had a dream about a Narrativist high fantasy RPG with a Premise something like "What do you do when you have more responsibilities than you can fulfill?" Now the idea won't leave me alone, and I may have to write the damn thing just to get it out of my head.

Dang and sheesh! I wish I had dreams like that!

This is going to be a pretty punishing game to play. By definition, the characters will face problems with no good solution; identifying emotionally with your character will tend to lead to a sense of escalating panic. Selling that to a player group will probably not be easy.

It sounds to me that the system you want is the Self System by Mike and JB. We're doing a playtest of it in PBEM right now. It would be perfect for the premise you describe. Changing characters and dealing with problems is a big part of the game.

[Seth L. Blumberg]

I can't help but picture this as a Greek-era low-powered Supers game....

As I said, this Premise would lend itself readily to a supers game, but I refuse to go there. The characters are not demigods, they're just exemplary mortals, more like Odysseus than Achilles or Hercules.

And yes, I envision politics (or, more precisely, diplomacy) as being a frequent element of the PCs' duties.

It sounds to me that the system you want is the Self System by Mike and JB.

Where can I find such a beast?

[Zak Arntson]

Seth, sorry I wasn't very clear. By low-powered, I mean Bruce Lee/Kasparov ability. So yeah, Odysseus rather than Achilles. Only their problems are fit for the legendary heroes. The PCs then have to cope with their uphill battle.

[J B Bell]

It sounds to me that the system you want is the Self System by Mike and JB. We're doing a playtest of it in PBEM right now. It would be perfect for the premise you describe. Changing characters and dealing with problems is a big part of the game.

Actually, Seth's proposed system seems narrowly focussed enough to make Self System maybe not so appropriate, though since it will be distributed with a GNU-style license, anyone will be allowed to use portions of it (with the caveat that any changes to Self System go back to the "commons" of that game's mechanics--I still need to write the license).

Sorry about the teasing (though I'm pleased Nathan already feels the system worth plugging here).  The Self System will have an official release announcement tomorrow AM and then you'll all be able to pick over it.

--JB

[Seth L. Blumberg]

Only their problems are fit for the legendary heroes. The PCs then have to cope with their uphill battle.

My intended emphasis is not so much on the scale of the problems faced by the characters as on the consequences of failure. Some problems will be big, some small (though a lot of small problems all at once can be worse than a single big problem), but each and every one of them must be handled to avoid disaster, and the pace accelerates.

I have a clearly-defined campaign structure in mind here. In the early parts of the campaign, as much play time is spend on the PCs' R&R between missions (establishing that the characters actually have a life other than Struggling Against Impossible Odds, and hopefully promoting player investment in the people and the culture that the PCs are working to preserve); by the end of the campaign, there's no time for R&R, because everyone older and more experienced than the PCs is dead or disappeared, and new problems are appearing faster than old ones can be dealt with. Ultimately it turns out that everything that's been going wrong lately is due to the evil machinations of the Master Villain, and the PCs have to sacrifice themselves to stop him.

[Tim Gray]

I see the PCs as a cross between sages, troubleshooters and knights errant.  They're all brilliant, charismatic, intuitive, healthy, fast, strong, tough, handsome, skilled in every craft, knowledgeable on every subject, deadly with any weapon, gifted sorcerors--they have every possible advantage...and it's not enough.  Their nation needs them, and it'll eat them alive, the poor dears--or else they'll hold something back, fail to give their utmost, and thus betray everyone and everything they care about.

(Speaking of "having every possible advantage," I'm thinking of calling the attribute scores or whatever "Advantages" as a play on words.  Every PC has every Advantage, and they start at a notch above human average and go up.)

I know you said the power level was wrong, but this really made me think of Nobilis.

[Seth L. Blumberg]

I'm sure the dream was partly inspired by having just finished reading Nobilis, so I'm not surprised the premise reminds you of it. One could certainly attack the same themes using Nobilis.

[Tim Gray]

One could certainly attack the same themes using Nobilis.

"Your way is blocked by a pack of slavering themes."

"We have to get through - let's take them out!"