not just what you want, but who to do it

[Paul Czege]

One of the common thread-starts in online game forums is someone describing a concept they wish had been made into a game. Often the idea is for the game realization of a film, novel or comic book...but not always. Sometimes they're totally original. The one universal is that they generally aren't something the person wants to design himself...but a game they really want to play. So, here's the Forge Birthday indie design variant: What entirely unrealized game do you wish existed, because you want to play it, and who do you want to design it for you? The only restriction is that it cannot be an idea the designer has previously associated himself with.

Mine?

I really, really need a Christ-less Narrativist alternate history game where the player characters are self-styled messiahs and religious zealots in and around Galilee during the early A.D. years. And for some reason, I want Sean Demory to write it.

You?

Paul

[Brian Leybourne]

Does the designer actually have to be a game designer normally? Do they have to be alive still?

I would love to have J.R.R.Tolkien design some kind of fantasy game for me. I would love to have Jon Nolan (the guy who wrote Memento) make a mystery/investigation type of game for me. Etc. OK, they probably couldn't make an actual RPG to save their lives, but at least I know the setting would be cool :-)

Brian.

[Paul Czege]

Does the designer actually have to be a game designer normally? Do they have to be alive still?

Well...if not an actual designer, I'd personally try to limit myself to living folks who'd at least made a passing attempt at designing a game at some point in their lives. The idea is to provoke a, "Yeah, that would be cool," rather than a "That couldn't happen."

But this is a party...

Paul

[Valamir]

The game I really really want to see and can't design myself is Second Edition Sorcerer, though I'm having trouble thinking of who we could get to design it...

<ducks for cover, while donning NBC garb borrowed from the 3rd Infantry>

[Clinton R. Nixon]

I want Ron Edwards to write a game about modern dopplegangers - empty metamorphing shells of people who feed on emotion and take on the identity of others by having sex with them. I think a good theme for the game would be finding out who you want to be and then trying to become that. Wait - I think I'd actually like Ron's version and a version by Vincent Baker to write this, actually.

[C. Edwards]

I want Jabberwocky the RPG.  Ideally it would be designed as a collaboration between Lewis Caroll and Chuck Palahniuk (author of such wonderful books as Fight Club and Choke).  

Since we apparently need living writers and actual game designers I suppose that Jared Sorensen could supervise the project.

-Chris

[xiombarg]

I want a LARP where characters play platonic ideals in the realm of ideas. Characters politic among themselves, exchanging sub-ideas -- memetic atoms -- as a sort of currency. In a sense, each idea "builds" itself through an exchange of memetic atoms.

In the real world, each PC has an avatar -- a human being who does what they want in order to spread the idea. They decide what they want this avatar to do, submit it to the GMs, and when they come to the next session of the LARP, they see how well their avatar did -- and how the spread of the idea has mutated them, and changed their inventory of memetic atoms.

It doesn't have to be a LARP but I like the idea of a large amount of people wandering around, handing pieces of ideas to each other and talking to each other in little groups.

I would love to see this game designed by Jared Sorensen or Mike Holmes. It'd probably be a completely different game depending on the author.

[jburneko]

The game I really really want to see and can't design myself is Second Edition Sorcerer, though I'm having trouble thinking of who we could get to design it...

I also want it to be about 500 pages long with really only the last 100 pages or so describing the actual game.  The first 400 pages begin with: Chapter 1: Unlearning Everything You Think You Know About Role-Playing.

Jesse

[xiombarg]

And because I'm greedy, another couple:

A fantasy game, where the kingdom is literally an exension of the sovereign, through a form of magickal linking -- as above, so below. PCs are all rulers, or, in some sense, kingdoms.

The game focuses on the politics between the rulers, and the grand sweep of war and peace between rules, and would be a sort of Narrativist wargame.

This would be designed by Ron Edwards, I think.

And my last one:

A game where the players don't play characters, but entired species who have just gained the ability to travel between the stars. Grand space opera. Again, a sort of Narrativist wargame.

I have no idea who'd design this one... Mike Holmes, maybe. Or maybe Seth Ben-Ezra.

[Valamir]

Lets see, ok...the games I'd really love to see.

A HISTORICAL medieval RPG set in the time of Richard the Lionheart (but not limited to England or the Crusades and largely ignoring the Robin Hood cliche) with no otherworldly supernatural stuff, mythical magic, or Fae...just raw history and soldiering designed by a collaboration of Greg Stafford and Jake Norwood.

An RPG based on the Runelord Series of books (particularly the first one, the rest got progressively lame) designed by Matt Forbeck.

An RPG based on Fred Saberhagens Swords series designed by Robin Laws.

[Spooky Fanboy]

Along that riff:

I want a Narrativist version of Last Exodus, the rpg where you (and quite a few others) are the son/daughter of God (either True God or Demiurge.) The apocalypse is coming up, so you decide who to save and who to damn. If you're Demiurge-spawn, you get to decide who takes over and gets to stripmine Eden for it's wealth and beauty. I liked the game, but the system seemed clunky (especially the merits/flaws sections) and Eden was never fully realized. But oh, was there a lot of good stuff in that game!

For rewrites, I dunno. Robin D. Laws has a proven track record, as does Greg Stolze. But I think I'd like to make this one a collaboration between Matt Snyder and Jason L. Blair. Jason's currently working on Wyrd is Bond, a mix of street and magic (which Last Exodus tried for and succeeded somewhat erratically,) and Matt loves card mechanics (which the original Last Exodus included) and his current musings on power and responsibility in Nine Worlds should leave him primed and ready to tackle that issue.  I trust these guys to cut the dross out of the system and leave the gold behind.

(Although now that I think about it, Ron Edward's Trollbabe mechanics, with a touch of tweaking, could do this system quite nicely... Hmmm.)

But that would be my wishlist: for an active, thriving Last Exodus with the clunk taken out and the sense of urgency focused. Oh, and of course, with the full background on Eden and soul-powers included.

There was a game that could have been...

[jburneko]

On a more serious note...

Anyone remember my brief foray into game design with this?

http://www.geocities.com/devil_bunnys/Isolation.htm

I want Paul, Ron and Ralph all to get together look at my intent behind that game and then design me a set of LARP rules that pulls off that intent.

I so want to be able to run Isolation LARP at cons.

Jesse

[kregmosier]

mmm...

I'd like to see a game that's as gonzo as Octane that details the modern-day exploits of a group of homeless people fighting to save the world against nameless, faceless entities from beyond.

In my perfect world, i think you'd need a weird combination of Ron Edwards, Jason Blair, Lumpley, Jared Sorenson and Joe R. Lansdale, just for good measure.

[Valamir]

On a more serious note...

Anyone remember my brief foray into game design with this?

http://www.geocities.com/devil_bunnys/Isolation.htm

I want Paul, Ron and Ralph all to get together look at my intent behind that game and then design me a set of LARP rules that pulls off that intent.

I so want to be able to run Isolation LARP at cons.

Jesse

Dude I loved that concept.
Don't know how to make a LARP out of it though.  Outside of making fun of the wierdos in costume ;-) my only experience LARPing turned out to be little more than SJ's Killer wrapped up in vampire trappings.

[Gordon C. Landis]

I want John Tynes to do another puppet game - one driven by Mr. Roger's Neighborhood instead of Punch & Judy.  Where it's not that the world is such a bad place, filled with villians or anything like that - it's just that it could be so much BETTER . . .

And - you know how we've got some deliciously, mind-numbingly *twisted* games here?  Le Mon Mori, kpfs, Violence Future, etc.  I want each of those designers to write a  contrasting game.  Like the Tynes' "Neighborhood" game contrasts with Puppetland.

Well, you asked . . .

Gordon