lost vikings rpg?

[BrunoDeLaBomba]

hey again.

i was just thinking, are there any rps'g that realy focus on a group or team and how they (in lack of better words) complete each other. i mean like in lost vikings were you would have one viking with a shield and one with a sword and a third one that could jump, if you lost one of these you were totaly screwed and realy had to try again.

my idea is that you would play as a "team leader" or something and your own skills are very limited, but you might have like 3 companions that make up for your own lack of skill. (well maybe you could have one or two skills that you would realy kick ass in, but that's it)

i understand that this would'nt be that great of a game if that was all there was, but perhaps if you mix in a trust or loyalty mechanic and a secret flaw or agenda that your companions might have, i think it could work.


my questions are:

any ideas how this trust or loyalty mechanic could work?
any obvious flaw that im missing?
are there any other game with a simular consept?

[Vulpinoid]

Isn't this what 4e D&D does?

Forcing characters into a role of attacker, defender, support or leader...

I'm not 100% on this, I haven't played it...I've only heard the numerous complaints of others.

V

[Abkajud]

Mike, I thought of 3:16 in regards to controlling a troupe of characters with differing abilities. But yeah, D&D would work, too.

Bruno, the phrase "they ... complete each other" stuck in my mind. What if we're talking about lovers, or brothers? What if they were totally screwed because of how much they care about each other, or how important they are in one another's lives? Hey, now... this could take adventuring-party play in a different direction. What if some king were dead, and his sons were on the run across the world? You could decide on-the-go what they're up against and where they're going now. Awesome. I know you were talking about abilities and the like, but this is another take on the "interdependence" idea.

Bruno, man, you have got to do that idea! Wow!

Or, um, let me ^_^ soon as I'm done with this other one.

[BrunoDeLaBomba]

Isn't this what 4e D&D does?

Forcing characters into a role of attacker, defender, support or leader...

yes i belive that's right. but i was more talking about each player controling a group, sort of like you play as the guy who play lost vikings, but also you controll a leader that the different vikings could interact with.

Bruno, the phrase "they ... complete each other" stuck in my mind. What if we're talking about lovers, or brothers? .
...

I know you were talking about abilities and the like, but this is another take on the "interdependence" idea.

Abkajud you big kidder! of course i meant that they completed each other emotionaly! a dwarf, a thief and a fighter deeply involved with a central character that you...would..control....wow, that could actualy be alot of fun..

that could work! i imagine a big "karma's-out-to-get-you/shakepsearian romance/comedy" thing when you mention it. but that's just my interpitation of what you wrote .feel free to do whatever you want, to me it's just a hobby anyway, no trademarks attached.

[Luke]

Okay, each player plays a group of vikings. What do the players do? Is this about raiding in Ireland? Is this about sailing up the Vistula? Is this about discovering New Foundland? Is this about the politics of homesteading in Norway? Is this about resisting (or accepting) the insinuation of Christianity into the culture?

What do you want the players to do in the game?
What behavior are you trying to encourage?

You build mechanics for trust, loyalty and secret agendas because the premise of the game demands them, not because you think that a group of vikings should have them.

Also, The Mountain Witch, out of print,  I think, has trust mechanics, but players play individuals. 3:16 has not-so-secret agendas for a squad of soldiers, but again, each player plays an individual. I can't think of any roleplaying games in which each player is playing a group. Reign has something called "company mechanics" which allow the individual players to dictate the actions of larger groups, but you're still playing a single character in that game.

[David Artman]

I should think that capturing the feel of The Lost Vikings is more along the lines of puzzle-solving, with a "web" of puzzles, each of which only one member of the troupe can complete. So you have to know where to put Guy A so that Girl B can pull a lever for Guy C, who can hold the door open for them all to get through.

Now, replace "puzzle," "put," "lever," and "door" with whatever emo shit you want... or with actual competitive play (which player can solve the puzzle web in the fewest steps and back-tracks)... or with some kind of mercantile/raiding game a la Civ and its tech tree.

I guess my only point is that the "wow" factor of The Lost Vikings--and what I read as the point of the OP--is this interdependence and exclusivity of capability, facing a myriad of paths, only one (or few) of which can be passed, if done in the right order. Run with that, for a Lost Vikings feel.

[Seth M. Drebitko]

  Amber the diceless rpg had stat rating of 1st best, 2nd best, and 3rd best to indicate who in the party was best at something. You could pick specific things like, fighter, rouge, ranger, and have every one be better at specific things. This could be scalable as well so depending one the number of players the category would be more specific.
  If your going for a semi diceless set up you could look to have players invest a certain amount into a scene and depending on the degrees of investment the players have more or less of their specific skill needed. If you wanted to get competitive you could make this a currency so players could try to continue and dominate challenges to acquire more and more of the spotlight.
Regards, Seth

[Vulpinoid]

Reading through this thread a couple of times, I've also been struck by the concept of characters completing one another. Since I've also been thinking about a character's links to those around them, it got me thinking.

Here's an idea...

A character is defined by one or two skills when they work alone, but they get additional skills in the presence of specific others.

Let's go back to the lost vikings example...

The guy with the shield may not be able to jump, when when he's with the guy who can jump, he improves the distance of that jump. Similarly, he may not be able to strike at enemies, but he can offer the swordsman a better defence.

There's two ways that come to mind that can be used for this.

Firstly, the jumping guy has an "athletic" trait, the guy with the shield has a "strong" trait. One of the aspects of the "athletic" trait says that when he's working with someone who's "strong", they get a skill bonus. The trait might get different types of bonuses depending on the types of people they are working with.

Different traits work symbiotically with other traits. But in this method, it's the person who has the trait initially that gets the bonus from the people around them.

The opposite way of looking at it is that a character doesn't get bonuses from the people around them, but instead gives bonuses.

The character with "Strong" gives everyone a bonus if they are co-operating in a strength related action. The character never gains this bonus for themselves, it only comes into effect when they are working with others. On the other hand, when this character is working with others, he'll get some kind of bonus from them.

Just some ideas...

V

[Callan S.]

Hi Bruno,

if you lost one of these you were totaly screwed and realy had to try again.

I'd just point out that it's 'being screwed and having to start again' that makes each character important.

If their not completely screwed upon losing one, then they don't complete each other. Because hey! They don't need each other at all. They aren't screwed! You only get the 'complete each other' because of the screwed situation. You can't just have the 'complete each other' (unless your going to just have a game where the players simply pretend the characters need each other).

Most RPG's don't support being screwed (not even the supposedly gamist 3&4 edition D&D games). What happens when everyone dies in a video game? You pop up at the last save point and have to try again. What happens in an RPG? Everyone stays dead.

The 'screwed' is pivotal to them actually needing each other to be complete. And that 'screwed' takes more thought than most RPG designers have given it.

Speaking of video games, if you can find it I'd recommend buying 'Army of Two'. Great two player cover using battle, where the other player is always pivotal to your own action. Also great, cause you yell at each other, creating a mild imagined space between you, characterised by your desperate calls!

[BrunoDeLaBomba]

Most RPG's don't support being screwed (not even the supposedly gamist 3&4 edition D&D games). What happens when everyone dies in a video game? You pop up at the last save point and have to try again. What happens in an RPG? Everyone stays dead.

well, lost vikings takes place in an alien mothership or something, maybe you could have like "save points" or somethinh hidden all around the map, and these save points are like pods were the vikings DNA and brain pattern are stored and recreated (at a cost- maybe the mothership's halfway back to it's home galaxy when they wake up or something) or maybe you could let time travell be possible, like if everyone dies you take on the role of the samegroup as vikings in a different time before they face what killed them, or maybe the same vikings but with there dying experience still with them. by leting these "save points" come with a penalty, ether in the plot or in the mechanic, the players would be forced to realy try and stay alive but also be alowed to try the "trial and error" thing in some degree.

A character is defined by one or two skills when they work alone, but they get additional skills in the presence of specific others.

yeah that could be fun, that could work ether like in DnD were each player gives the other bonuses, but it could also work in a "troupe" kind of game were every player controlls a group of characters.
is'nt it in "Zantabulous Zorcerer of Zo " were you can lose skills and abilitys instead of Hit points. this could work in a simular way, only each one of these "skill and ability buffs" could walk around and do stuff on there own, and have a personality. i think it sounds like ALOT of fun. thanks for the idea!

[Callan S.]

Well, you could just go for a literary device - they die, then the text prompts you to say something like "Well, that's what we would have done, but when we planned it we realised we'd die, so..." cue some player made arguing amongst vikings over who screwed up with that plan, then onto the next attempt (which again becomes a plan if they die). Just an idea. Never seen something like that used in an RPG yet

I'm not sure why your adding a penalty if they die when the video game doesn't have one?

[BrunoDeLaBomba]

Well, you could just go for a literary device - they die, then the text prompts you to say something like "Well, that's what we would have done, but when we planned it we realised we'd die, so..."

yes! that's even funnier!

the only problem i can see is that this would eliminate the fun of facing real danger, maybe if you only give the players a set numbers of times they can pull the "planing card", say like 5 or something then there would actualy be something that motivated them to not die all the time.

that's why i thought that a penalty could work btw.

maybe the planing stage could have a moral penalty or something, the vikings getting more and more tierd of each other the more they argue for a good plan. so every time that they fail to overcome an obsticle they get more demoralised and pissed off at each other. it kind of sounds like the archetype of a viking doesn't it?

[Callan S.]

Falling out with each other is a heartbreaking contrast to completing each other, I would certainly say!

I'm still not sure why you have a penalty, when in the video game there was none (I played the demo years ago) and the video game worked fine? I mean, you played it, so clearly it worked for you already without a penalty?

Are you actually interested in exploring the moral and emotional level, and just using the gamist puzzle play as the arena for that sort of emotional examination? Gamism tends to bleed into narrativism with just a few twists and dial turns, if one is so inclined.

Well, I probably shouldn't use the N word. But puzzling life and death situations do lend themselves to moral and emotional drama. That's why you get the old spiderman save Mary Jane or save the bus load of kids comic story line. And why was she called Mary Jane, was it a drug reference? Was Peter on really on the choof? Oh wait, I digress...

[BrunoDeLaBomba]

yes the game worked just fine, but it's just not gonna work like an rpg consept , you need to have sometihing at stake, atleast that what i think, i know alot of guys that would go totaly crazy over the "and that was the plan, until we figured out it would most likly kill us" and abuse it until all the comedy and humor was washed away like it was hit by the niagra fall or something. and that would ruin the game for me.

Are you actually interested in exploring the moral and emotional level, and just using the gamist puzzle play as the arena for that sort of emotional examination? Gamism tends to bleed into narrativism with just a few twists and dial turns, if one is so inclined.

hm..well maybe, im not sure that i understand you completly, you went kind of crazy with the jargong and all but if i understand you correctly you ask if i'm going to include a mechanical driven emotional response to everything that happens? did i get it right? if that's you question then, yes, that's the main idea, but i intend those emotions to be funny, like midly anoyed, cowardly and such.(i mean we are talking about a group of vikings IN SPACE) and to have those respones actulay mean something in the mechanics. like certane bonuses or something.

and narrativism is about taking the story forward without the mechanic right? more like storytelling? i think that a game taht's intended to be gamist shouldn't encourage narratism, like DnD...it feels to forced you know.

and by the way, everybody knows that the reason for mary janes name are the same as green goblins...the same thing he loves bare a common name as one of his archnemesisses....wow, i just blew my mind.

[Luke]

and narrativism is about taking the story forward without the mechanic right? more like storytelling? i think that a game taht's intended to be gamist shouldn't encourage narratism, like DnD...it feels to forced you know.

This is incorrect. Narrativism rests as much on mechanics as gamism does. They are kissing cousin concepts. Gamism uses mechanics to win or improve. Narrativism engages mechanics to forward the story or play out an emotional response.

This is not the thread to discuss this, though. This site is piled high with iterations of exactly this discussion! Plenty of homework to do if you want it.