[Flash In The Pan] Lyric-Based Character Creation?

[Chris Capps]

(Long time reader, first time poster, yada yada yada)

I've begun brainstorming a game that I'm currently referring to as Flash In The Pan. It takes place in a modern, half-real world based more on the recurring imagery of rock music than any sort of published fiction. In it, the PCs play (metaphorically) faceless Archetypes that are defined only by a collection of lines from songs -  the goal being more related to exploring recurring themes in such music than to the telling of concrete stories of specific people. Conflict resolution would be based on the relevance of those lines to the PC's current situation.

Firstly, is this even doable?
Secondly, would there be any kind of appeal for such a game?
Finally, would such a collection of lyrics (and, of course, the actions of the PC's) add enough individuality to the characters to make them worth differentiating?

Any other ideas or comments would also, of course, be appreciated.

[ethan_greer]

Hello Chris, and welcome!

First, of course it's doable.
Second, what do you care? If you are jazzed about the idea, that's all the enthusiasm you need.  Seriously.
Finally, hell yes.  Think about the song, "Yummy Yummy Yummy" by Ohio Express.  Then think about the song "Killing In The Name" by Rage Against The Machine.  (A fist fight between two characters with these lyrics would be pretty ugly.)

So yeah, absolutely go for it.  The concept is intriguing, and I'm interested in seeing what you can do with it.  Come up with some mechanics and get back to us, 'k?

Oh, and your title is cool.

[scobie]

Sounds interesting to me.  Might be a good vehicle to tell short stories that involve different characters/set-ups but revolve around thematically consistent ideas.   Sort of Raymond Carver or Flannery O'Connor or something...

Not sure what this could turn into, but I would like to think it could be a way of freeing stories from the tyranny of 'my character' and 'the party' who re-occur week in, week out.  I tried to do something with soundtracks as themes in Casefile: ZODIAC, but ultimately stuck with the old 'player character' as a stable formula element.   It would be great to see the idea be expressed more fully.

>>>>Think about the song, "Yummy Yummy Yummy" by Ohio Express.

I'd rather not.

Scobie

[Bryant]

Seems doable to me. I've had a similar concept that I'll never do anything with: characters defined by a specific CD. Five players. You put the CDs in a CD changer, hit random play, and use the music playing at any given time for task resolution. "Hm, that action fits the song's mood..."

[Daniel Solis]

This concept reminds me of the Aqua Teen Hunger Force where Carl had a magic belt with "all the powers of seventies supergroup Foreigner!" If you recited a bit of Foreigner lyric a related effect would occur to an intended target. "You're cool as ice!" "You've got double vision!"

Players would probably have to be well-versed (ha!) in their chosen songs but it would be tons of fun :)

[The_Confessor]

Greetings and Welcome Chris,

   I must say first off, I love this concept. A lyrical based character creation (and I presume mechanic) lends itself wonderfully to quick, yet deep and personal character concepts.

   I, personally, would like to see alot more on this setting and system. If you want suggestions or help, let me know. I'd love to assist in such an original idea!

[Chris Capps]

Not sure what this could turn into, but I would like to think it could be a way of freeing stories from the tyranny of 'my character' and 'the party' who re-occur week in, week out.  I tried to do something with soundtracks as themes in Casefile: ZODIAC, but ultimately stuck with the old 'player character' as a stable formula element.   It would be great to see the idea be expressed more fully.

That's exactly what i was thinking of! The idea being to be the opposite of a character-centric game - the characters are just Archetypes , not people, and the idea isn't to explore the characters interior, but their interactions with the world around them.

Seems doable to me. I've had a similar concept that I'll never do anything with: characters defined by a specific CD. Five players. You put the CDs in a CD changer, hit random play, and use the music playing at any given time for task resolution. "Hm, that action fits the song's mood..."

I was thinking of something like that - character sheets would end up looking like tracklistings to a mixtape than anything else, and players would be encouraged to actually make those tapes/cds, and maybe incorporating that into play somehow.. put the cds in a changer on shuffle, and if one of your character's songs are playing they situation is more favorable to them?

I've been trying lately to come up with a task resolution mechanic - I want to use d6's, for two reasons:

1) It returns a relatively low range of results, keeping with the sense of extremity that I want the game to have.

2) Everyone has them, and since this game is (relatively) free of geek-centric setting and genre, maybe it could reach non-gamers.

But i'm still failing to come up with how exactly to run it. I know that I want to deal with as few numbers as possible during gameplay, and that includes words-hiding-as-numbers ala Fudge. I want rolling the dice to be a giant deal, spawning monumental success or terrible failure. I don't want there to be an in-between - either things don't matter at all, or they're practically life and death. Above all, I really want to emphasize an overwhelming sense of extremity.

Here's my current idea:
Most actions require no roll, but when you do roll, just roll a single d6. If the task directly relates to one of your lyrics, success is rolling 4 or under. If the task is only marginally related to one of your lyrics, success is rolling 3 or under. if the task has nothing to do with one of your lyrics, success is 2 or under.

Any ideas? Comments?

[Daniel Solis]

Most actions require no roll, but when you do roll, just roll a single d6. If the task directly relates to one of your lyrics, success is rolling 4 or under. If the task is only marginally related to one of your lyrics, success is rolling 3 or under. if the task has nothing to do with one of your lyrics, success is 2 or under.

Any ideas? Comments?

This is pretty cool. I'm playing around with CD covers as character sheets for PUNK as well as relevance-driven task resolution systems. One problem that I ran into, and you might want to handle yourself, is actually defining the levels of relevance when performing a particular task. What is the border between directly related and marginally related?

Direct relation could be using a song's actual lyrics to be able to do something. Like with Foreigner, saying "You've got double-vision" could actually cause someone to get double-vision. It'd certainly make song selection a very careful process. I can easily see a sadistic combat-player taking adding a melancholy R.E.M. song to his mixtape just so he can say "everybody hurts!" Oooh. That's some good stuff.

Marginal relation could be defined by simply doing something befitting the mood of the song currently being played, without consideration for the lyrics. This would be fun for songs whose mood and tempo are incongruous with their lyrical subject matter. When taking that into consideration, Nena's "99 Luftballoons" would likely be the single most powerful song in the game: You could get everyone to dance happily or send a volley of nuclear missiles across the planet.

If I were playing, I'd have some fun throwing in some Bowie into the mix so I can shout "let's dance!" and make everyone dance. Yup.

Y'know, this almost makes me think of some kind of crazy Moulin Rouge role-playing game. Hm.

[Chris Capps]

That's a really good point - the rules will have to be very specific about what is and isn't "directly related"..

So, maybe:

4 for using your actual lyric to perform an action
3 for when your lyric relates to the action
2 when your lyric has no relation to the action

+1 to all that when the GM decides the song playing relates to the action?

That might be too player-skewed, though..

[Lxndr]

Are you choosing whole songs, or lyrics?  In other words, is the character a mix tape, or a single song that's a medley?

I'd be more tempted to have the latter.  In that case, you could ensure that each /line/ of a song (any song!) is listed individually on the character sheet, you have less information flying about, and it's the LINE that's important, rather than a whole bunch of songs.  Character advancement, such that it'd exist, could be through adding additional song lyrics.

Then, characters roll one die base.  They add one for each lyric they can justify including in the situation.  More lyrics, the better.  Then they roll.  Whee!

GM characters can be like this too, without much fuss.

[Daniel Solis]

I'd be more tempted to have the latter.  In that case, you could ensure that each /line/ of a song (any song!) is listed individually on the character sheet, you have less information flying about, and it's the LINE that's important, rather than a whole bunch of songs.  Character advancement, such that it'd exist, could be through adding additional song lyrics.

Shameless, yet marginally relevant plug: Check out the Gears & Spears thread if you want to see a type of lyric/poem character creation currently in development. It's epic mythology rather than pop song lyrics, but the basic concept is the same.

[Chris Capps]

Are you choosing whole songs, or lyrics?  In other words, is the character a mix tape, or a single song that's a medley?

I'd be more tempted to have the latter.  In that case, you could ensure that each /line/ of a song (any song!) is listed individually on the character sheet, you have less information flying about, and it's the LINE that's important, rather than a whole bunch of songs.  Character advancement, such that it'd exist, could be through adding additional song lyrics.

Yeah, that was the idea - having entire songs would get too vague, I think. With individual lyrics, you'd have a very specific idea about what your character is. i just didnt thing of the medley analogy.

That's a wonderful idea for character advancement. Over time, the character wouldn't get more powerful, he'd just become better defined.

I really like that die mechanic.  There could be a target number to meet or roll over set by the GM depending on the difficulty of the task with a difficulty defaulting at 5. Subtract one from the difficulty if the song playing is related to the action, perhaps?

[Chris Capps]

Shameless, yet marginally relevant plug: Check out the Gears & Spears thread if you want to see a type of lyric/poem character creation currently in development. It's epic mythology rather than pop song lyrics, but the basic concept is the same.

Actually, Gears & Spears was partly the inspiration for my idea to have the characters be sets of lyrics - it's a brilliant game concept and i can't wait until I have the oppurtunity to try and convince my group to play it, and for them to tell me that they don't get it.

[Daniel Solis]

Yeah, that was the idea - having entire songs would get too vague, I think. With individual lyrics, you'd have a very specific idea about what your character is. i just didnt thing of the medley analogy.

That's a wonderful idea for character advancement. Over time, the character wouldn't get more powerful, he'd just become better defined.

Would you provide opportunities for changes to a character's established lyrics? Are there predetermined restrictions on the types of songs from which a player can draw his lyrics? ("Heavy Metal," "Power ballads," "Beatles songs," "1-hit Wonders")

Another consideration: At a certain point, a character will have garnered so many song lyrics that there'll scarcely be a situation where anything he'd do isn't directly relevant. I reached that conclusion while working on PUNK. My solution was to have the traits' positive or negative mechanical value dependent on the type of dramatic relevance.

Say you've got a Queen lyric: "I have no rival." You use that lyric to make friends, allies and generally have your way in a social situation. However, you've got another Queen lyric: "Born to be kings." Your GM interprets this to mean that while you're a sole heir to a throne, without a rival to that station, that doesn't mean others in the royal family are without their enemies.

Now you're trying to carouse with the commoners at a local pub. You buy round after round after round of drinks for the entire house, more than any ever before you in the history of the pub. It's closing time now and you make your way back to the royal mansion in a drunken stupor only to be kidnapped by a band of thugs. They regretfully inform you that you'll be held for ransom in some half-baked caper they cooked up a week ago.

Er... I'm rambling here. Hm. There was a point.. ah yes, there it is.

PUNK translated over to your concept would be something like this: If you have a lyric that's positively relevant, it's good. If you have a trait that's negatively relevant, that's bad. A lyric has no intrinsic value of its own, only that which applies to the drama of the situation.

"Born to be kings" is good if you're politicking your way to the throne. It's bad if you've let down your guard in a rough part of town. "I have no rival" is good when you're in a competition. However, it's no guarantee that people will actually like you.

Actually, Gears & Spears was partly the inspiration for my idea to have the characters be sets of lyrics - it's a brilliant game concept and i can't wait until I have the oppurtunity to try and convince my group to play it, and for them to tell me that they don't get it.

Shucks. #^_^#

[Chris Capps]

Thinking about it more, there isn't a direct need for character advancement in Flash In The Pan. In rock music, there certainly isn't any. There's change, but very rarely growth - and when there is some sort of redemtion, its always very final.

Instead, maybe players could just be given the option to replace one lyric with another one, or (ooh!) have a growing pool of lyrics that they can assign to their character at the beginning of every gaming session, but they can only assign a fixed number of them.

This could be hinged on dramatic relevance, too.

Say a character is playing an archetypal Martyr with no control over their destiny. They might (drawing lyric examples from Bright Eyes, since i have the lyric book in front of me) have the lyric "My actions are orchestrated from above," that could be used in situations where they don't have control.  During a session, the character goes through a traumatic experience in which they suddenly are forced to contol things themselves. The lyric "There is only you, and what you make the truth" could be added to their pool, and when appropriate for the character, used in lieu of the other one.