Perverted Intentions, just traits and hubris

[Jasper Flick]

What if the next player decides your character's fate?
I woke up with that questions today, and this was my answer:

Perverted Intentions

I did WHAT?
Well at least I failed miserably.

The Story

You're a group of dungeon delvers, ok?

Characters

Everyone has a character. A character is a bunch of traits and full of hubris. That's it. No name, no background, just a list of traits. Don't you dare write down or say anything else about your character!

Traits

Every character gets the following boring generic traits for free:

I'm a greedy bastard.
I'm a compulsive cheat.
I'm a remorseless killer.

Now give your character three real traits. A trait looks like this:

Although/Despite <something>, I <something else>.

The first trait can be anything you like. All subsequent traits should logically follow from the previous trait, more or less. Don't use the same idea more than twice, that's cheap! Alternate between starting with Although and Despite, to keep things varied. For example:

Although I'm called Jack the Lame, I'm quite nimble.

That teaches us three things: the character's name is Jack the Lame, it's probably a guy, and he's quite nimble. But check out the next trait:

Despite my name, I'm a drop-dead gorgeous babe.

Ooooh-kay! And the last trait:

Although I'm a blonde, I am very smart.

Sure, defy the stereotype!

Hubris

Your character starts with five points of hubris. You're full of it. You can never have more than five.

Dungeons

Go sit around a table, someone starts the dungeon. You take turns clockwise. Or whatever, just use a fixed turn order.

Ok, so you all enter the dungeon!

If you're the first player

Describe the room you all entered, inhabitants and everything. Keep it short and sweet!

Now decide what your character wants to accomplish in this room. State your goal very briefly, choose two traits to use, and how much hubris you want to gamble.

Stop! Your turn ends here.

If you're the next player

You're going to find out how the previous player's character succeeds or fails. Roll 1d6 plus one 1d6 for each point of hubris gambled.

Is there a one showing? It's a succes!
Otherwise, it's a failure!
If it's a failure and there's a six showing, the characterd fails miserably!

Describe the outcome, using what you know of the character. Pay special attention to the traits and amount of hubris used. Really hose the character in case of a miserable failure, this is very important! However, don't eliminate a player's character unless I say so.

If any hubris was gambled, it is lost in case of a failure. If it was a miserable failure, the character's player instead restores all hubris and adds a new trait. The trait should logically follow from the failure. Something like:

Despite wetting my pants when seeing a dragon, I'm really brave.

Now that that's over with, it's your turn to state your goal in this room, and so on.

If you've come full circle

This means that whoever started the room just described the last player's action. You don't get to act again, this room is finished! Everyone somehow gets into the next room. Your turn is over, and the next player starts the new room.

Pay attention! The order in which people act is now reversed! However, the order in which people start rooms remains the same.

If the last player starts a room

This is the final room, the lair of the Big Bad! Make it grand and deadly!

Play as normal, with the following changes:

The Big Bad cannot be permanently eliminated, except by the last character to act. In fact, if the last character succeeds, the Big Bad is killed.

Whenever someone fails, it means death. Whenever someone fails miserably, it means greusome irreversible painful death.

If the last character to act succeeds, everyone still alive lives and the Big Bad doesn't.
In case of a failure, everyone dies while the Big Bad doesn't.
In case of a miserable failure, everyone dies except the character of the current narrator (the one to act first this round), who betrays them all. If that character was already presumed dead, it turned out to be a clever ruse.

Congratulations, you finished the dungeon! Let someone else start a new one.

Death

Suck it up. Sit out the current room while making a new character. That character shows up in the next room. How is totally up to the player describing the room. If your character died in the last room, simply start the next dungeon with a new character.

Joining a game in progress

Why not? Act as if your character just died.

The End

Obviously there's a lot of influence from other games at work here. The fairly recent discussions between Ron and Markus about traits was probably the most significant factor though, as well as my private mulling about workable GM-less PbP play.

Basically the whole game is about traits, hubris, and failing miserably. So, what do you think? Is this playable as a story engine for parody dungeon crawling? Would it be easy to get it, despite the bare-bones text? Is it obvious what the traits are for?

[whiteknife]

I liked it, personally. I'm a fan of parodies, and I thought the text did a good job of getting the message across. I got what the traits were for, and I think they'd be easy to get in geenral but I'm not sure. Overall, I like it!

[Jasper Flick]

Cool!

Someone pointed out the Death rules are pointless. It's true that you can only die in the last room (I added that later), so that needs some rewriting.

Death

It's part of life. Too bad! Simply start the next dungeon with a new character.

Joining a game in progress

Why not? Sit out the current room while making a new character. That character shows up in the next room. How is totally up to the player describing the room, unless it's a new dungeon.

[Jasper Flick]

I was curious about the probability of success, so here's the table. It's basically the same table as for TQB, only smaller. I like how you might be gunning for a miserable failure here, which is the most elusive. Also, at full hubris it's either a hit or total screwup, with only 9% chance of a regular failure, which feels quite right.

H  Succ   Fail   MF
0  16.7%  66.7%  16.7%
1  30.6%  44.4%  25.0%
2  42.1%  29.6%  28.2%
3  51.8%  19.8%  28.5%
4  59.8%  13.2%  27.0%
5  66.5%  08.8%  24.7%

I've been wondering about something that's not being used yet. The total score rolled. The range of values is like this:

H  Succ     Fail     MF
0  01 - 01  02 - 05  06 - 06
1  02 - 07  04 - 10  08 - 12
2  03 - 13  06 - 15  10 - 18
3  04 - 19  08 - 20  12 - 24
4  05 - 25  10 - 25  14 - 30
5  06 - 31  12 - 30  16 - 36

Perhaps a low total score is good for something? It eats up a resource, like fatigue? That might be a counter for rolling max dice each time. I don't know if that's needed here, but I'll certainly keep it in mind for other game ideas.

[Bossy]

Maybe the narration order should be clarified with an example. Say we have four players A, B, C and D who are sitting around a table in this order clockwise. There will be four rooms:

Room 1:
  A gambles, B rolls
  B gambles, C rolls
  C gambles, D rolls
  D gambles, A rolls

Room 2, B starts but players narrate counterclockwise:
  B gambles, A rolls
  A gambles, D rolls
  D gambles, C rolls
  C gambles, B rolls

Room 3, narration back to clockwise:
  C gambles, D rolls
  D gambles, A rolls
  A gambles, B rolls
  B gambles, C rolls

Big Boss room:
  D gambles, C rolls
  C gambles, B rolls
  B gambles, A rolls
  A gambles, D rolls

Am I right?

[Jasper Flick]

Yes, you're right!
Adding an example is a good idea. Perhaps one with three players would suffice?

I also found it is necessary to point out that this game is silly. Some people definitely took it too serious. They thought the point was to survive the dungeon.

So it would need an introduction like this:

What is this game about?

This game is satire. It's silly. Absurd. It celebrates the idiocy of the dungeon crawler concept.
If you want to maintain a shred of decency, do not play this game!
If you want to care for you character, stay away!
If you want to play to survive or win, get the hell out of here!
If you desire a futile simulation of some kind of reality, you're a fool!
If you are full of hubris, do play! Please do!
If you want your character to act moronic, selfish, and murderous, before meeting inevitable gruesome death, play right now!
If you want to hose other characters and their players, getting hosed in return, then what are you waiting for?

Play with this mindset and you'll have a blast. With any other mindset, don't bother.