[ bleed_ ] A 24-hour game

[Daniel Solis]

The Adults in Wonderland thread got me thinking about the Maxx and a game idea I once had for an rpg about people's outbacks bleeding into reality. I started writing up a concept, then a history, then some system stuff and I was writing some more setting stuff when the midnight deadline snuck up on me.

The end was quite different from what I had in mind at the start. I wound up mixing the Maxx with the Matrix, .hack//SIGN, eXistenZ, and cannibalizing elements from some of my other games including Zombie: the Coil and Mindcrash, the psipunk setting for PUNK.

This was an interesting experience, I must say, though I don't know how "successful" I was since I didn't really define my ultimate goals of design until the later stages. In the end, I wanted to make a game where narrativist player-characters are trapped in simulationist worlds and tempted with gamist rewards. Considering that I haven't entirely wrapped my brain around GNS to my satisfaction, I doubt I could have executed such a lofty goal with any success.

I should also admit that I have way too many projects on my plate as it is, and I'll have to put this concept aside for the time being. Nevertheless, some input would be very welcome, particularly concerning how well the system suits the aforementioned goals of a GNS-blended setting.

Okay, enough yak. Here's bleed_

Here's the character sheet.

[Little_Rat]

Wow....so even all the poor children in some third world country are wired? 100 % of the population being 'wired' sounds a bit off...

but other than that...way mega cool!!

[Daniel Solis]

Hehe... yup. Even the poor kids. I didn't spend much time explaining that bit 'cause I was, well, lazy. And it's a 24-hour game so I was quickly running out of time to delve into those little details too much. Okay, specific question time:

Originally, I had in mind rebel characters using their talents of lucid dreaming to impose their reality on the game worlds. Does the "adding facts" ability do this well enough? (It's a total ripoff of Jared Sorensen, btw.)

I also wanted to do more with "outbacks," the concept explored in the Maxx. Essentially, a person's outback is the place to which their mind escapes when dreaming and during traumatic situations. Everyone's outback also has an anthropomorphic spirit animal guardian. I dunno if I'd go into the spirit animal stuff, but I'd like to incorporate outbacks a lot more, but I'm at a loss as to how to do this. Have other games tried to do it?

It just occured to me that bleeder characters could jump not only between game worlds within the setting, but to entirely different RPGs as well. So the bleeder character jumps into a D&D game, convinces the entire party that the world in which they exist is an illusion imposed by the angel of that realm. Then, all together, they jaunt to a game of DC Heroes, do the same to the party there, then move on to octaNe, Unknown Armies, Mage: the Ascension, yada yada yada. It would be kinda neat, though the mechanical difficulties would be rather mind-boggling.

[JimmyB]

What would really be interesting would be when the characters jumping between worlds actually get their hands on a GM, one of the guys who's been running their life all this time.

[garapata]

i would like to know what keeps them from doing GOD-LIKE WORLD CHANGING moves in the game.

[Daniel Solis]

What would really be interesting would be when the characters jumping between worlds actually get their hands on a GM, one of the guys who's been running their life all this time.

Poop. I knew I forgot something important. I had intended to do writeups on the angels of each world. The angel of Drake City is the noble police commissioner by day and a sadistic crime boss by night. The angel of starlift is the president of the Sol Combine. I hadn't quite worked out the angel of Age of Magic though.

Anyway, yeah, it would be interesting seeing rebels take on an angel head-on. It'd probably be very matrix thing like the Drake City commish calling in every S.W.A.T. team and Municipal Guardian in the DC area to take down the band of superpowered "terrorists" infiltrating city hall. It'd be really, really cool if the rebels somehow managed to awaken some of the heroes sent to attack them, thus gaining more allies in the war for freedom.

The real brain teaser is "what happens when an angel dies?" Who knows how much time has passed in the real world? Maybe everyone's bodies are long dead and to shut down a gameworld is to doom everyone in it to oblivion. Hm.

i would like to know what keeps them from doing GOD-LIKE WORLD CHANGING moves in the game.

Who's to say something should keep them from doing so? :) Seriously though, the only major world-changing ability they've got is "adding facts" to the game world.

You alter the nature of the game world. For example, if you're running across rooftops while being chased by one of the Angel's agents, you can add a fact like, "The Fluffy Bunny pillow factory always makes its shipment at this time." Then you jump off the roof, safely landing in an open-top truck hauling its new load of pillows.
        The danger in adding facts is that each time you do so; Angels get one more die to add to their attempts to find you. This die bonus lasts as long as the Angels don't repair the fact you added to their game world.
        So, in other words, when you add a fact, you better make it a big one. Something minor like a pillow factory shipment isn't going to bother Angels too much, and now you've got that much more heat bearing on you. However, if you add some crazy fact like gravity being reversed, cars being able to fly, or turning all tap water to vodka, you get that much more of a benefit. The Angels will be forced to repair the drastic aberration, thus losing their advantage in tracking your down.

The assumptions here are:

* Adding a fact adds a die bonus to angelic attempts to track you down.
* This bonus lasts until the aberration you created is repaired by the angels.
* Angels, ultimately, want to maintain the illusion as much as possible and at all costs.
* "Minor" facts are less likely to be repaired since they don't disturb the illusion so much. Now the rebel is stuck with that increased liklihood of being caught and reprimanded.
* "Major" facts are far more likely to be repaired quickly. So, while they may be incredibly powerful, they don't last as long. The angelic bonus to tracking the rebel doesn't last as long either. Win/Win[/list:u]
I had intended this mechanical quirkiness to

encourage major world-changing changes to the world since that's the ultimate form of rebellion against the angels. Unfortunately, I have no idea if this is successful.