Mechanical framework for TV Medical Drama Game

[pete_darby]

Yes, after the vague promises and grand hyperbole, I've spent some time getting together ideas for the mechanics of it, and I've got the bare bones of it here for constructive destruction.

Please note, It's very early days, I've not even got the cellophane of the cards yet, so show no mercy... I'd hang around for feedback, but it's past one here, and I've got to be up for 6 tomorrow... I'll fill out details tomorrow if there's any interest.

DustHeroImproSaga card system.
Or Prime Time, if you must...

Equipment:

Pens
Paper
Poker Deck[/list:u]

Most important rule...

All card play and changes to character sheets MUST BE JUSTIFIED NARRATIVELY! If you can't justify a card play, the card is lost, discarded out of the hand without effect. Unjustified changes to character sheets are reversed, and the player must discard a card.

The group is first court of decision on this: if there is a hung decision, or the players feels it's sufficiently ambiguous, the contesting parties have a show down, one card from the hand, highest card wins and is discarded, other cards returned to their hands.

Characters
Characters have four Aspects...

Clubs:   Learning
Diamonds:   Institutional standing.
Hearts:   Social Aptitude
Spades:   Force of Will[/list:u]

These are "place holders" for the Medical Drama game... all open to change!

Each represents resources, rather than pure personal ability with that aspect.

Each character has a 1-10 rating in each.

Each character has a stressor and a reliever: one situation that they dislike, and one that they like.

Each character has a maximum hand rating, rangin from 3-6, representing experience, resourcefulness, creativity, etc.

How this is all created and balanced... who knows at the moment, frankly.
Maybe we'll even get skills and proper personality traits in there, but I doubt it...

Play
Each player dealt hand of cards at outset of session equal to maximum hand size.

Play is generally broken up into a series of dramatic crises, their nature depending on the dramatic genre. While only one player gages with the crisis in each round, each player  can affect every character through play of stress and relief cards.

Each crisis has a suit, rating (1-10, reflecting the complexity and "resourcefulness" of the crisis), and size (reflecting the severity of the crisis, 10 points being relatively minor, 40 being "this man is bleeding to death NOW!").

OPTION ("What I really want to do is direct..."):
a player may elect to sit their PC out of a crisis altogether, and assume the identity of the crisis: in this case, the volunteering player gets a card for their personal hand, which is then set aside. They are then dealt a hand of cards equal to the size of the crisis divided by 5. If the crisis is unopposed on any round, the crisis player may draw a new card for their hand... the crisis has no maximum hand size. No stress or relief cards may be played on the crisis player's character while they are playing the crisis.
Please note: exercising this option makes the crisis a fair degree more powerful...[/list:u]

Crisis Turn Sequence

1.Turn card from top of deck, add to rating. If matches the crisis suit, turn another (trump) and add. Repeat until no trump. This is the total effect of the crisis this round

a)Picture cards count as 5: Jokers count as 5 and count as trump.[/list:u]

2.Group narrates effects based on cards.
3.Players decide which character is to be active for this round. The active PC may not play or remove stress or relief cards this round.

a)If no character is activated, the size of the crisis increases by the value of the card played. Each time the size of the crisis increases by it's original size, increase the crisis rating by one.[/list:u]
4.Active Player chooses ability to use.

a)Inappropriate abilities suffer a -3 penalty, or may be disallowed by the group.[/list:u]
5.Player plays card from her hand (with same trump mechanism, turn another if matches aspect used).

a)Picture cards count as 5 with additional effects.
Jacks generate a stress card from the top of the deck, to be placed at the active player's discretion
Queens generate a relief card from the top of the deck, to be placed at the active player's discretion
Kings generate one stress and one relief card, to be placed at the active player's discretion
Jokers count as trump.[/list:u]
6. This is added to the ability used to generate the player's total.
7.Any played cards are replenished.
8.Higher total wins.

a)Losing crisis removes difference between totals from size
b)Losing player loses points worth in card value (no change given!). These cards are NOT replenished.[/list:u]
9.If a crisis is driven to neg points, it is "dealt with." Degree of "dealing" depends on how far it is driven negative.

a)Any players whose characters had been active in the crisis receive a number of cards equal to the number of points below zero the crisis had been driven, minus the number of stress cards the character has, plus the number of relief cards, to a minimum of zero. Players discard their choice of cards to get down to their maximum hand size.

HIGH STRESS OPTION:
Remove the minimum of zero from the above paragraph... any character ending a marginal crisis with a lot of stress will LOSE cards once the adrenalin of the crisis wears off and their messy lives come back into focus...[/list:u]
b)If a crisis is driven below -10 points, the last active pc also acquires new reliever based on the resolution of the crisis, or may remove a stressor related to the crisis[/list:u]
10.If pc's remaining cards total value is below level of difference, player must discard remaining cards, bow out of crisis, next action for that character MUST be relief, not crisis or stress.

a)If all remaining players are out of cards, the crisis "wins" (patient dies, wife divorces, board decides to close the unit): the last active pc acquires new stressor related to the crisis, or may remove a reliever related to the crisis, or may elect to lose one card from their maximum hand size.[/list:u]

Background elements: Stress and Relief
Creation:
A player may add a stress or relief card once a round, provided they are not running the active PC or the crisis.

Creating a stress card for another character costs a card (discard a card from hand, draw card from deck and place to left of target character).
Creating a stress card for your own character returns a card (drawn from deck, draw another card an place to left of target character)
Creating a relief card for another character returns a card (from top of deck, draw a second to place to right of  target character)
Creating a relief card for your own character costs a card (discard, draw card and place to right of target character).[/list:u]
On creation, the stress or relief MUST be narratively related to one of the target PC's stressors or relievers respectively.

Handling (removal of stress and relief)
The active pc and the crisis player  in a round CANNOT deal with stress or relief in that round.

Removing a stress card for your own character costs a card of equal value.
Dealing a relief card for your own character gives that card to your hand[/list:u]

Too Much Relief...
A character with a number of relief cards played on them equal to their maximum hand size cannot have another relief played on them.

If you don't master your life, your life will master you...
When the number of stress cards to the left of the character exceed their max hand size, they must drop out of the current scene, discarding all cards. The following scene must be a crisis scene relating to one of the stressors introduced by the cards; the rating of the crisis is the value of the highest card, which also gives the crisis it's trump suit (and narrative theme), the size of the crisis is the sum of the cards values.

The stressed PC fills his hand to the maximum hand size.

In a stress crisis, the stressed PC cannot trump.

The stressed PC must be the first active character; other characters may become involved, but the major benefits and risks of the stress contest are borne by the stressed player only.
No new stress or relief cards may be played on the stressed character in a stress crisis, though the stressed character may gain from previously played relief cards.
If the stressed player loses a stress crisis, they must lose one card from their maximum hand size, or two relievers from their character sheet, in addition to any normal penalties for losing a crisis.
Any character reaching hand size of 2 or lower is removed from the game ("You're all washed up, Doc... you can't hack it").
If the stressed player wins a stress crisis, they get the normal benefits of winning a crisis: additionally, they may discard a number of relief cards equal to their current maximum hand size in order to increase maximum hand by one: this is normally related as "enjoying {the relievers} now the stress is dealt with" to learn and grow from the crisis.
Any character reaching a hand size of 7 or more is retired from the game ("With your expertise, I like to offer you a professorship..." and your own spin off series...)

Version 0.1
Untested.
Inspired by:
   Hero Wars (Robin Laws)
   Saga System (Mike Selinker)
   Dust Devils (Matt Snyder)
   Impro (Keith Johnstone)

[Mike Holmes]

Wow, that's very rigorous. I like it a lot.

How this is all created and balanced... who knows at the moment, frankly.
Maybe we'll even get skills and proper personality traits in there, but I doubt it...

I'm seeing all the players sitting around as "writers" making up the characters by consensus. Then, once the characters are written, the players should have to "try out" for the roles, with the other players as casting directors. Something like that.

Mike

[pete_darby]

Wow, that's very rigorous. I like it a lot.

How this is all created and balanced... who knows at the moment, frankly.
Maybe we'll even get skills and proper personality traits in there, but I doubt it...

I'm seeing all the players sitting around as "writers" making up the characters by consensus. Then, once the characters are written, the players should have to "try out" for the roles, with the other players as casting directors. Something like that.

Mike

Thanks... the results of three weeks "public transport" thinking and three hours nailed to a keyboard.

The casting idea is wonderful, a perfect extension of the troupe style of play. There's even a precedent in TV shows "Tonight, Miss Ellie will be played by..."

I was struggling with how to implement the character and institution creation at the outset: I'm having ideas about an opening session metagame of "series bible" creation....

I'll probably post back in 3 hours!

[pete_darby]

In reply to a couple of questions, a rambling apologia and summary...

.......................

Just a quick note in passing about using a standard deck: the clue is in the word "standard"... I'm looking to eventually, at most, publish as a PDF, I ain't in the "publish adeck of cards" business. Like cheapass games, I like to use equipment everyone has around their homes, rather than force them to buy or print new stuff.

The idea was to get a system pitched about the same level as Rob Laws "pantheon," but more "gamey." As i wrote, the role of GM got lesser and lesser... I can see the GM role be eliminated, taken over by the group as a whole.

From a post over on the forge, character and "base" (in the hospital drama example, department) creation could well become a communal effort, with players choosing to play a role for that session only.

The mechanics grew out of experience with the Saga system, that the control given to players to choose which card to play was great, but opportunties to help or hinder other players were as limited as in standrd dice based RPG's. Experience with games like Universalis, Dust Devils and Pantheon pushed me towards more player co-operation in content creation, but in many games I found there was a great disjoint between parcelling out discrete blocks of content creation (narration rights in Dust devils, for example) and the general play of the game. In others, I found there was less player identification with character (Universalis had this for me) than in conventional RPG's. My system looks to provide a middle ground, where to give your player a tactical advantage, you can choose how to affect other players.

The game has more in common during play with Once Upon A Time or Baron Munchausen but with more character identification, than, say, a typical Exalted session.

I don't see it as taking time out of rp to play cards: the Rp and the card play are far more tightly bound than that. From a gamist point of view, there's no advantage in RP without the card play, and the system rewards card play that re-inforces melodramatic narrative. To have my GNS cake and eat it, I now claim that this idea that each play of a card reinforces character through stress and relief, it simulates TV drama, where any line that doesn't advance character plots shouldn't make it to the screen...

OK, an overview is probably in order:

In this game, each player takes on the role of a character in a TV hospital drama. While each character is rated by resources and experience, probably the most important traits are their Stressors and Relievers. These are short descriptions of situations, people or events that tend to either increase that character's stress, or make them feel better about themselves.

For example, the cliche'd "Well Meaning New Graduate" could have stressors of "Dealing with senior staff," "Lack of personal finances" or "lack of confidence," with relievers of "flirting with nurses," "demonstrating cleverness" or "actually curing people" (notice how few "experienced" medics in TV drama have this...)

Meanwhile, "The Machine" would have relievers of "shouting at junior staff", "demonstrating genius" or "insulting patients", with stressor of, well, "being nice to ANYBODY."

Cards are used during play much as dice rolls are in most RPG's... but they also represent what you've got left, your options to deal with a situation. And when your options run out, sometimes you've got to take a bit more stress...

Apart from your hand, you've got two piles of cards, one for stress cards, one for relief cards. These represent elementts in the background of the character's story that aren't being dealt with, but can appear in the foreground at any time.

If you need a card for your hand, you can name a new stress situation in your characters background, and you get a card from the deck... and another card from the deck on your stress card pile.

(eg The Machine's player, running low on cards, declares that he gets a phone call from his wife to let him know the in-laws are coming to saty for a month... one card for the hand, one card for the stress pile).

You can also spend a card from your hand to buy a relief card, naming a relief situation in the characters background. Think of it as an investment.

If you play a situation that relates to one of your characters relievers, you get to take a card from your relief pile. If you play a situation that involves one of your stress situations, you can get rid of one of your stress cards.

(eg The Machine's player declares in a subsequent round that he's had a blazing row with the in-laws, and they've left in outrage. If he can play a card equal to one of his stress cards, he get rid of both cards and draw a new card for his hand form the deck)

You can also gain cards by playing a relief card for another player... or spend cards to give them more stress. Underhanded, but an option. In both cases, it gives you an opportunity to add to another players' backstory.

If the stress gets too much, your character is driven into a stress crisis. This can be as bad as it sounds; think of Dr Green in ER. At one time he was having at least one of these each episode, where his whole life was crashing around him and it was sink or swim time. Your character can lose a lot in these, but they're also the best times to get some real personal growth, and excorcise a demon or two.


Hope that helps... thanks for the questions!

[note: x-posting to the Forge]

[Daniel Solis]

This sounds very, very promising. I like the GM-less aspect to this system because it really does work well for the setting. What's cool is that this is something different than the legal drama game posted a few weeks ago on rpg.net. Presumedly similar sources of inspiration creating two very different tratments. Hmm... perhaps I should work up that police drama game after all. :)