Game of the gods

[Demring]

This is an idea for a play-by-post (forum) story game. I hope it's not too far outside the scope the Forge. If it is, I would greatly appreciate suggestions to where else I can go to.

The idea is that all players participates in creating a game world and story, partly from a birds eye view and partly from the inside of 'little stories' created along the way. Anything can be conjured into existence by all players, with very little rules of restraint. Therefore, the players should be ones with some sense and interest for literary tastefulness and balance.

The gameplay is not without structure: the players are gods -- gods affiliated with particular sides in a conflict. This conflict may be between nations, cities, battleships in outer space or something else entirely. It is meant to be a creative conflict rather than a destructive one, that is, its not about winning, but about fighting in an interesting or grandiose or amusing way. Exactly what the setting is for the story, is of course for the players to decide during the setup of the game. It is also possible to experiment with various degrees of realism, or limiting the game to one particular style of prose, etc.

I will explain further by talking about a hypothetical game played by players A, B and C, with corresponding god-names Anu, Baal and Castor. The setting I've chosen for them is national conflict in a fantasy genre.

The first round of posts is for presentations. Each player presents his/her god and nation. One may describe races, architecture, sewage systems, the national library, the king's melancholy, local hair salon gossip, a military installation or whatever one would like to stand as mirroring the personality of one's god. A has decided his god (Anu) is defined by being really angry, so he uses his presentation post to describe several things associated with an angry god: vast pit fields of incarceration, some unsafe fire rituals performed in the wooden temple of Anu, a clubman named Eric maiming bears in a local forest. B would like to be more philosophical, so he lets Baal present himself through a lecture given by his disgusting archbishop: "Baal is the continual will to self-overcoming which streches from the bacterial sludge of the beginning of time to the bacterial sludges of today. And now, the sacrament: bacterial sludge to cure all of your motivational problems." C might be more interested in economics, making Castor the god of gold and glass beads. His presentational post might map the complexities of fantasy markets in some brilliant way that the other players don't fully comprehend.

After the players have gotten to know the personalities of eachother's gods and have gotten an overview of how the world looks, normal posting can begin. Normal posting can include bird's eye view narrative like in the presentation round, narratives that interacts with the domain of other gods, and 'little stories'. Little stories are focused on individual persons or details of some situation. They are given a title, and may be picked up by other gods. Here is an example of a little story (with player A as the author):

Wrong-righting Eric the clubman
"Commerce is the source of pestilence", sounds a decree from the high priests of Anu. Eric the clubman was caught by surprise. He had made a deal selling bearskins to Castorian merchants who made costumes for the great Castorian 'Festival of the Barbarians', but this was now all of a sudden a sin? Eric was not the kind of barbarian to be consumed with guilty conscience. He was the roaring, indiscriminately violent kind, and knew what he had to do: Eric promptly made his way into the Castorian Hotel in the local village. He was going to maim someone. He had done something wrong, and the only way he knew how to make right with Anu was to sacrifice the foreigners indirectly involved in his sin. Eric went up to the counter in the lobby and asked politely where the 'merchants of pestilence' lived. "Second floor", replied the hostess. Eric maimed the counter to try to get a bit angrier before he walked upstairs, roaring. [I'm leaving it at that, to give C a chance to twist the story out of Erics fist.]

One way for other gods to interact with this little story is to take control over just one character, as if it was a regular roleplaying situation. B, who doesn't really have anything to do with the example story above, may pitch in with a couple of sentences from the point of view of the poor hostess. If this is how he wants to play, he must write the title of the little story 'enter' it. He might do it like this:

Wrong-righting Eric the clubman [I'm taking control of the hostess!]
"These Anunites are disgusting. I bet they don't even wash their hands after excreting". Mary the hotel hostess was looking straight at a monsterous man approaching. "Can I help you, sir?" she said through a disdainful smile copied from a portrait of some Castorian royal person on the wall. The man was now only a meter away. She could feel the wind of his breath. He looked (and smelled) like he had made his clothes from random things found in the forest. All in all, a very uncomfortable situation. His eyebrows bobbed a bit up and down, which probably meant that he was thinking. "Tell Eric where are foreign sickness merchants" he pronounced. Mary was becoming accustomed to moronic nonsense, and actually understood who it was Eric was referring to. She decided that this beast of a man might just endanger her customers, so it was best to throw him off until they could be notified of what was going on. "Second floor", she replied with a grin. When he all of a sudden smashed her beautiful marble counter, she completely forgot about notifying the merchants sitting in the bar next door. She was first paralyzed with fear, then fled the building, looking for armed authorities, p.

Notice that B would have no other reason to get involved than the fun of it. I hope this will be normal behaviour.

The posts should be of limited length. I guess there's room for two 'little story' episodes, with some birds eye view on things unrelated on top of that. Players should post weekly, in a set order: Player A can to try to post sunday or monday, B tuesday, wednesday or thursday and C friday or saturday or something like that. I think 3-4 players is the best number, but I have yet to get anyone to test the game with me on the norwegian forums that I frequent, so I don't actually know.

The only rule I think is necessary, is that every player may veto every other player, so that excessively silly or petty things may be annulled. A veto can be vetoed, but if it comes to that, your group should have a long talk about the premises of the game or just dissolve it.

I hope this all came out right. Please tell me what you think. So far, I've only played with myself as an imaginary interlocutor (like here), but I really think it's a lot of fun. I get the right kind of action right away. And the literary aspects are more in focus than war gaming or level progression or the technicalities of system etc. Also, one is not trapped inside just one character, but can make new ones anytime. Characters are made to be destroyed, for the tragic or comical effect. I don't yet know how games will end. Apocalypse and peace are the only two possibilities I guess, but there's a lot of ways that both can manifest.

Finally, I'd like to ask if anyone would like to playtest the game with me. I guess we'd have to go to another forum for that, but that can't be a problem.

[Eero Tuovinen]

Seems good for what it is, but doesn't that reduce to conch-passing, as far as the game part goes? It seems to me that the only motivation for "play" here is a wish to write shortish pieces of fiction within preordained constraints for a captive audience. Not that there's anything wrong with that, mind; it might just be that I don't get forum roleplaying, as that's not really something I've ever done.

Still, speaking for myself, something like this would either have to have more game elements or higher literary goals for me to get interested in playing. I'd participate in a split second if I got to participate in restarting Thieve's World with other serious writers intent on writing for publication, for example. Likewise, if the game had some procedural charm and activity apart from writing in turns, I could imagine playing it. But as it is, I have difficulty figuring out why I'd play this game instead of just concentrating on my writing work.

Perhaps you'd like to tell us more about why people play these forum games, and whether you think your game is representative of how they work in general. I for one would be interested, and perhaps something useful for the development of your game would surface.

[Demring]

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by conch-passing, but I suppose it's a graphic way of saying that a) there is too little interaction between the players/authors, and b) you'd like something more to motivate the players and drive the game forward. I disagree: In my view, the game is all about interaction. What god A creates, god B might distort, etc. And the antagonistic territorialism of the gods should be sufficient to motivate the players. (I hope.)

Two aspects of the game is particularly appealing to me:

• I get to create worlds, story elements, and all kinds of novelties -- directly and in a fast pace. I can throw ideas into the game without the fear that they wont be sustainable in the long haul, because the games doesn't need to last very many before they have become elaborate and memorable. By PbP standards, games will be relatively short (I guess around 10 rounds/weeks).
• Struggling to keep one's literary honor while waging war is my idea of a good time.

I simply love the idea of composing short bursts of speculative fiction on a weekly basis, in a game where the other players will pick up my creations and story fragments, only to manipulate them in unpredictable ways.

The reason I conceive this as a forum game is that this is a great medium for playing story games where the fiction is held to a slightly higher standard than what the spontaneity of live sessions allows for. One gets time to think things through. And if a first attempt is botched, you can do it all over.

Perhaps you'd like to tell us more about why people play these forum games, and whether you think your game is representative of how they work in general. I for one would be interested, and perhaps something useful for the development of your game would surface.

I think most forum games played are modified D&D. I've never seen a game like what I'm suggesting here, but then again I haven't exactly looked under every stone. I'm almost dead sure this game isnt representative for any broad category of forum games, but since the games that I've seen are slow and clumsy cousins of tabletop games, I think story games like what I'm suggesting should gain ground. I think it would be more fun for several kinds of players.

[Eero Tuovinen]

"Conch-passing" is one of the most basic storytelling games games the precede roleplaying: players sit in a ring with some kind of object that is passed around to signify whose turn it is to tell the story. One player starts with the conch and the story, telling to his fill. After he's satisfied, he passes the conch to another player, who continues the tale. In this way is a story cooperatively made. Conch-passing is a popular camp fire exercise in many parts of the western world, and it's also an important ingredient in many storytelling games.

Anyway, it seems that you're well aware of what you're trying to accomplish with the game. That is good, for too often it is not the case. My recommendation is for you to simply start field-testing the game to see how people react to it in practical play, as that will answer many questions: is there there need for some pre-play procedure for world creation; will players commit to grandiose conflict description without worrying about winning; will the game have any kind of story arc without resolution rules; and whatever else might come to be a problem.

In general, when you feel like your game is ready, it's probably a good time to start playtesting.

[Demring]

Lol, my guess was way off

Great expression though, conch-passing. It'll be very useful the next time I'm presenting the game, so thanks.

Yes, I actually think the game is ready for playtesting right away. But I really needed the feedback. My friends have been quite unresponsive, so I've worried that there was some fatal flaw to the concept. Your comments made me regain some confidence, and now I'd like to go straight to the testing.

Incidentally, and thankfully, I got a player today at the norwegian forum I'm at. We'll start a game soon. But I'd like to play in english as well. So far, the best place I've found is the Giant in the Playground forums. If anyone's interested, you're welcome there (when I get around to making a recruitment post). And if anyone has a suggestion as to other forums that might be good for this kind of non-standard story game, I will be very thankful.

I hope I didn't waste your time, Eero (being outside the scope of the Forge, as I now fully realize this is).

[Eero Tuovinen]

It's not that your game is outside the scope here, but just that most of us who hang out here don't play a lot of freeform or forum rpgs. Thus I, for instance, can't really comment much more on your game than I've already done - seems like you know what you're doing, but it doesn't look like anything I'd want to play. Nothing wrong with that, and I'll read with interest if you'll decide to write a playtest report for the playtest forum later on.

One thing that came to mind is that you might be interested in the New Gods of Mankind, which is a rather interesting traditional, rules-based roleplaying game about pretty much the same topic. I wrote a bit of a review about it at my blog a while back. Perhaps checking that out will provide some further inspiration.