New Game Idea: Fitness

[wags076]

Hi,
New to these forums but thought this would be a great way to start gathering some feedback about an idea i've had sitting around for a while. I thought this would be a great place for the help.

What I would like to do is develop a role playing game around making your real world self physically fit.

I am currently studying the psychology of fitness and the motivation behind what makes people want work out. There are very few short term goals that allow people to remain focused and motiviated to continue to work out.

On the other hand...

I've seen people able to devote hours upon hours to a simple video game taxing their mind and hand-eye coordination in efforts of just achieving a high score or leveling up their virtual character.

I would like to create a system where there are these very short term goals (getting to the next exp. level etc...) combined with real world tasks to level up a real person physically.

That is the basic idea I have (welcome to any and all criticism). What I would like help in is developing the system to do this. For example x number of pushups = 30 exp... or something like that. Are there systems already out there ?

Thanks again for any and all help.

[Vulpinoid]

The closest I can think to stuff like that is the Nintendo Wii with some of it's components...

...no, actually you'd probably find it interesting to look at some of the mediaevil re-enactment groups, especially the full contact ones. In these groups fitness is an inherent part of the setting, and you simply can't learn a lot of the advanced techniques unless your body is up to the task.

I'm not sure if that the direction your heading though.

[wags076]

Thanks for your input but what I guess I am really looking for help on is building the system for which the "user" becomes physically fit.

Are there ratios and systems already out there that have the relationships between actions and experiences already figured out.
This game would revolve around 5 components Strength, Agility, Stamina, Flexibility, Nutrition, much like any other rpg where flexibility would be replaced with magic and nutrition with charisma or something like that.
I am interested in establishing a system where you do so many things in strength your strength level goes up, or if you eat healthy for 3 days in a row your nutrition would level up. What I am confused about is how to establish the ratios and distribute the experience between these 5 components.

I am gathering inspiration from Nintendo's titles like Brian Age, Wii Fit and Wii Sports.

[Will]

A few disjointed thoughts.

This seems to me to be more of a technology issue than a pen and paper issue. Some gym equipment is already adding in gamelike feedback by tracking data or even with actual gameplay (stationary bicycles with a biking game on a screen).

As I see it, the problem is one of making the game element require the physical element. The first thought was to add an online component where people could post their scores and compete. It would be incredibly easy to abuse though (no real reason to DO 100 pushups, if all you crave is a high score just say you did).

This could maybe be made the core of a sort of fitness club where all the measurement and gameplay is done in the presence of the group... but getting a group together interested in both fitness and gaming may be somewhat difficult

As for the direct correlation of activities to numbers... there used to be (and may still be) a presidential fitness test that gave students an overall score based on physical activity. Another thing to look for would be the royal canadian air force fitness program which had a similar quantification and is available online for free as a PDF as I recall.

[TempvsMortis]

Actually, the easiest comparison would be belts in the various martial arts. After a certain period of time, and gaining a certain set of skills, you go up one level. Something like that could work.

[Vulpinoid]

Actually, the easiest comparison would be belts in the various martial arts. After a certain period of time, and gaining a certain set of skills, you go up one level. Something like that could work.

Hence my comments about the Live Action groups and mediaevil re-enactors.

Why would most real world roleplayers want to do push-ups at the end of an RPG session just to gain XP for their character...especially when they play their character by sitting around a table and acting things out cerebrally.

The other way that you could look at this is that the military is an extended Live RPG scenario...boot camp is just the first level of it.

If you do more push ups than your companions you get status in the eyes of your instructor and a better chance of a decent role when you move to second level...ie going out into the field as a grunt.

How much realism are we looking at in this "fitness" paradigm?

Aren't we now verging on looking at roleplaying as a metaphor for reality?

V

[TempvsMortis]

What he's looking for is adding that "game" element to things (not as in video games, but basically harnessing the principals of a system so as to make exercise not "work"). Basically, that is in real life a motivator, but the advantage of things like rpgs is the instant (or fairly short term) reward, which generates addiction. Gaining visible results through exercise can be too long term for many people in the current world, so he's trying to make a way where people can get fairly instant behavior reinforcement, to increase his client-retention rate and whatnot. I think it's a reasonable quest.