My game: Invasion (working title): Dice Mechanics (long)

[Paganini]

But instead of just saying "generic bad" help me out with some examples of what you're talking about so I can avoid genericity (is that a word? Generiticism? Generatrix? *grin*).

I was thinking that I wasn't incredibly clear - and therefore not particularly helpfull - in my last post. It *does* pretty much say "generic = bad!"

The thing is, there are two different flavors of (how about genereicism? :) that I'm aware of.

Some games (FUDGE for example) are what Ron calls unfocused games. They aren't devoted to a particular setting, but neither are they devoted to anything else. They have to be drifted before they'll work with any particular group.

Other games (Universalis for example) aren't focused on a particular setting, but they are focused on a *specific set of play goals.* I don't think you could call Universalis "generic," even though it is setting non-specific.

A lot of the games I like are of the settingless variety. But they're all devoted to serving some particular set of game-play goals.

So, the first step in answering your question above is to find out what your exact game-play goals are. What do you want a session of your game to look like? How do you want the players to interract with the GM? Will you even HAVE the player / GM distinction? What do you want the various participants to spend most of their time doing?

[Henry Fitch]

Brian - First, don't let anybody tell you that you should use a published game unless your own is way different. People, stop telling each other that.

I like the proposed mechanic. It took me a minute to figure out, but now it's simple and intuitive. It's important to remember that this is just a resolution mechanic, not a system; I presume you'll be adding in bits to make it more game-specific. Not that you have to; I, for one, think this could work fine as-is. It'd just place a lot of burden on players and GM to tell the story, as the system doesn't tell you as much as, say, TRoS. Nothing wrong with that.

As for making it more body-snatcher focused: How about giving each character a pool of, I dunno, Invasion Points, instead of Karma? They're something that can actually exist in the setting; when the aliens make progress in their invasion, they get some Invasion Points (they'd call it energy or will or something) as a reward. These could be spent to improve rolls somehow (think of something clever), or they might be lost if the characters act against the alien cause. If they went negative that way, maybe the negative points could be called Treason Points or the like, and they'd be just as beneficial as the Invasion Points. That way, you'd probably end up with a split group, as players would be encouraged to either follow orders or switch sides to humanity.

Maybe not exactly that, but you get the idea. Even in a sim game, you want something that'll get the players involved and acting in accordance with the premise.

[Brian Leybourne]

I like the proposed mechanic. It took me a minute to figure out, but now it's simple and intuitive. It's important to remember that this is just a resolution mechanic, not a system; I presume you'll be adding in bits to make it more game-specific. Not that you have to; I, for one, think this could work fine as-is. It'd just place a lot of burden on players and GM to tell the story, as the system doesn't tell you as much as, say, TRoS. Nothing wrong with that.

Cheers, that little refocus helped me, well, refocus. I started off talking about the resolution mechanic and everyone started shouting "system" and I kind of got lost there for a while. Not to suggest that all of the advice has not been good, but you're right - system specific flavor was something I was going to ADD to the basic xd6 mechanic.

As for making it more body-snatcher focused: How about giving each character a pool of, I dunno, Invasion Points, instead of Karma? They're something that can actually exist in the setting; when the aliens make progress in their invasion, they get some Invasion Points (they'd call it energy or will or something) as a reward. These could be spent to improve rolls somehow (think of something clever), or they might be lost if the characters act against the alien cause. If they went negative that way, maybe the negative points could be called Treason Points or the like, and they'd be just as beneficial as the Invasion Points. That way, you'd probably end up with a split group, as players would be encouraged to either follow orders or switch sides to humanity.

That's a really good idea. You're really talking about a meta-game mechanic though, which kind of works in a narrative sense, but is hard to explain away in a simulationist sense. Not that fate/karma/whatever is any better, but you can explain to mostly-sim players that they have some minor control over their fate, but if I start explaining treason and invasion points they're going to say "that doesn't make sense". I guess what I'm saying is, how do you justify this kind of meta-game mechanic in a simulationist sense, or do you not even bother trying?

Maybe the problem is I'm not 100% sure yet if I'm gunning for a simulationist or narritivist focus (or even gamist I guess).

Brian.

[Henry Fitch]

I was thinking that Invasion Points represented a concrete form of energy, or some other kind of aid, that gets beamed to the PCs from the
Mothership as a reward for good behavior. Treason points are harder to justify...

Yeah, I was assuming this is a Sim design, but it might work pretty well for Narr too. Wonder what the Premise could be... something about identity, maybe, or the ethics of colonialism :o)

[Eric J.]

If the focus is going to be on the PCs changing bodies to accomplish their goals, wouldn't you want to put an emphasis on hte host being temporary?  Rewriting your physical attributes 1-3+ times a game session seems rediculous if the physical attributes are only there to make the system more generic.  I would like the PC to equal the host and the statistics centered on mental skills and the ability to manipulate humans etc.  Mabee even to the point where you have to "bond" with your host and that imposes a set of restrictions and bonuses.  Greator speed but less control etc.

The premise?  Well, I don't really know.  I really don't know how interesting you can make an invasion to conqer humans.  I mean, they would have to know about the invasion in some form or something wouldn't they?  Or else it isn't interesting.  Otherwise the only opponents that won't be shining their flashlight and shouting "Whose there?" like in conventional horror movies will be the PCs that take on the humans' side.  And then what happens?  You have to trust that half of each group will side with the humans every time.  Even then, it turns into PVP.  This could be really interesting, agree, but only once.  

-JMHP

[Steve Dustin]

Hey, Brian --

I think your core mechanic is fine, not that I'm a brillant mechanic guy. I like the fact your game idea seems 1) original and 2) easy to comprehend on face value, but am having difficulties on what a game session as a "mind parasite" would look like.

First off, I'm not sure what the dramatic payoff would be. Here's the deal -- in all those movies you mentioned, the tension is because you don't know who the alien is -- the alien is us, it's destroying us from within. I mean Invasion of Body Snatchers was McCarthyism all over. I did see one "mind parasite invader movie" that played kind of like Slackers where we followed the alien while jumping from person to person (I think it was called The Borrower), but I don't remember much focus on who, what or why about the the alien, but just the gory ways it killed people.

I'm not seeing the flipside very well. What kinds of stories am I expect to play out here? What are the details of this alien race? Is it a hive mind? What's its physical make-up?  Why's it invading? And what if the invasion fails? What happens if it succeeds? Who are the parasites' enemies?

And this gets into the other problem I've got -- playing aliens on Earth. Players will know Earth inside and out, but will have to discover what their own alien PCs are about as the game progresses. First, will players have to "pretend" they don't know Earth? What's stopping them from heading straight to Washington, infecting the President and the Joint Chiefs, and then using the American military to take over the world? Do you think players can "forget" what Earth is about, and then "pretend" to know their alien culture, while learning it on the fly? Is this just going to be "technological advanced super-beings" kicking ass, or are players really play like "aliens?"

So here are my suggestions about your system: 1) it should tie itself really tightly with the alien culture and 2) it should emulate the level of "Earth-savviness" the aliens are going to have.

Take care,
Steve Dustin

[Henry Fitch]

Personally, I was seeing it as a mostly strategic premise: granted the ability to take over the bodies of humans, how do you gain the most earthly power while keeping yourself from being discovered? Lots of politics, research, subterfuge... seems like a source of good stories to me.

For it to be really rewarding, though, there'd have to be some setting element to make the aliens into "good guys." It's a bit hard to empathize with someone who wants to take over your world from your species.

[Brian Leybourne]

Personally, I was seeing it as a mostly strategic premise: granted the ability to take over the bodies of humans, how do you gain the most earthly power while keeping yourself from being discovered? Lots of politics, research, subterfuge... seems like a source of good stories to me..

That was the idea, but some of the other comments have been making me doubt the validity of the premise, I must admit. You've all been making some very good points about the on-going replayability and sustainability of the game.

For it to be really rewarding, though, there'd have to be some setting element to make the aliens into "good guys." It's a bit hard to empathize with someone who wants to take over your world from your species.

Oh, I don't know. White Wolf managed it with Vampire :-)

Hrm.. maybe I need to go away and rethink the basic premise of the game. I still think it's a nifty idea (and pretty unique) but you guys are right that I may be spending a lot of time thinking about a game that might end up only being playable once or twice before a group has "been there, done that", and that would be somewhat of a waste of time.

Thanks for all the comments and advice all, it's truly said that the forge is a good sounding board.

Brian.

[contracycle]

I like the snatchers idea.

Another reference for rationalisation beyond Vamp might be the Greys in ConX.  They have a serious problem its difficult not to sympathise with.  They are a very psychic species, but humans produce a kinda psychic "static"; this intereferes with the Greys reproduction.  Therefore, they feel that the only prospect for their own survival is the elimination of humans.

I have one quiblle regarding the mechanic.  2d6 + dice is good, the comparison to a fixed table is not.  It's not crippling, but the table of result levels is non-intuitive.  A flat statement of "better than 7 to succeed" would be smoother, IMO, although not necessarily the same.

[Brian Leybourne]

It boils down to the same thing really.. more than seven = good, less than seven is bad. Given that there's 5 possible numbers each way, you could even make it like the number of successes present in many games. So a roll of 10 is three higher than seven, or a +3 successes result, while a roll of 4 is a -3 bad result, etc.

[clehrich]

Brian,

Before you entirely rethink your concept, I would urge you to think about the multiple ways in which the invasion could be handled.  You've emphasized, I think, that there are numerous different teams out there, working for different queens, and they don't particularly get along.  So it seems to me that one primary source of tension will be precisely where it lies in Body Snatchers: not knowing whether the guy you're talking to is actually an alien in disguise.  The fact that you're one too only makes the consequences of getting found out more severe.

So I think it might make sense to have the PCs, as an elite team, given very concrete goals that are specifically oriented around the presence of other alien parasites.  For example, you're sent into a big aerospace company with defense contracts and whatnot, because your guys know that the place is hiding a significant force of infiltrators from the other queen.  If you fail, of course, the bad guys have control over building a bunch of nuclear weapons or whatever, but the thing is that if you succeed fully, you will have control likewise.  The goal isn't thus to wipe out the bad guys per se, but rather to do so in a way that leaves you in place instead.  Your team can then be "swapped out" for a bunch of other aliens on your side who know more about nuclear weapons and engineering, but are less good at the infiltration and so forth.

By this logic, PC teams would tend to be elite strike forces, trying to achieve specific goals on home orders without ever being noticed.  So the idea is sort of like Unknown Armies, in the sense that you're having a big secret war but nobody wants to Wake The Tiger.

Incidentally, I think the "elite" part would solve a lot of the problems mentioned before, that the PCs don't know much about humans but the players do.  Well, these PCs have been living among us for a while now, and currently hold down various minor "day jobs."  Which will have to be dropped when the orders come in, of course, but then they'll just go get new ones (clerk, CPA, janitor --- the guy you never notice).

You might want to have each character have some thing or things which he really likes and something he really hates about humans (as opposed to aliens), and maybe also something he really doesn't get about humans and something that fascinates him.  That may be too many, but a few of these would provide opportunities for (1) PC obsessions that are alien-driven, (2) PCs to act in ways that make them "not like other people," in the sense that these confusions or obsessions are likely to get them noticed ("Gee, Clem, that feller sure did talk about that there candy see-lection." "Yup." "Seems lahk a reel weird-o."  "Yup."  "What say we open up a can of whoop-ass?"  "Yup.").

I think the premise is very workable, both for one-shots and for longer campaigns.  The problem with the longer things is going to be character development: how do they "power up" when their bodies change and if they buy down their allienness, they get boring?

Other campaign ideas would include:
- Factionalism in the home hive means that you get conflicting orders, and have to decide which to follow.  A variant would be that some other queen's agents have hacked in on your Red Phone (tm).
- You're the guys in place at Microsoft (explains a lot, doesn't it? ;>), and you get told that some enemy agents are going to take you out.  But how?  Who are they?
- You're told to take out an alien cadre at Roswell, but it turns out it's a completely different bunch of aliens --- and they're not concerned about the Tiger problem, so if you get too close, people may notice that you're an alien.
- You're doing whatever job it is, but then these guys pull up in a big black car, wearing black suits and sunglasses....

[szilard]

A quick die mechanic note.

Instead of this being an "attribute+skill" roll, how about making it a "parasite+host" roll?

Stuart

[szilard]

Thoughts on the game setting/concept itself:

Do you see this as a mission-based (Shadowrunesque) game - where the PCs have a specific mission to, say, take over the police station?

If so, what happens when they accomplish said mission? Do they just stay there using those bodies as puppets forever? That seems anticlimatic, so I hope not.

Also, are all the "queens" on the same (vague) team? Do some want to control Earth for different reasons than others? If so, you may be able to provide characters with some sort of at least vaguely heroic motivation (which may not be a priority of yours, but people seem to like it).

Why do the invaders need human bodies, anyway? I mean, sure, it is convenient if you want to use the already-built infrastructure, but it makes the whole invasion thing a pain. One possibility is that the invaders have no bodies of their own and the ones they use for space travel and whatnot are incompatible with the Earth's ecosystem. This means that the invaders really can't do anything physically without a body, which might have some interesting ramifications. Or not. Ymmv.

Stuart

[Brian Leybourne]

Clehrich and Szilard, those are some very useful and thought-provoking posts, thanks.

What I'm going to do is go away and have a serious rethink about the game concept. I think it should be workable (and everyone on this board has raised great points to help me) but there may need to be a slight refocus from my original concept which, I think various posters have been right, isn't 100% workable in its current form.

But I will be back, soon, and asking for help again :-)

Thanks again all,
Brian.

[Brian Leybourne]

Clehrich and Szilard, those are some very useful and thought-provoking posts, thanks.

What I'm going to do is go away and have a serious rethink about the game concept. I think it should be workable (and everyone on this board has raised great points to help me) but there may need to be a slight refocus from my original concept which, I think various posters have been right, isn't 100% workable in its current form.

But I will be back, soon, and asking for help again :-)

Thanks again all,
Brian.