Shattered Spirits

[MachMoth]

Hey, everyone miss me?  Well, of course not.  Anyways, I'm back from holidays, and dropping my latest project on ya'll, Shattered Spirits (No not the movie about the boozer).  Players play the part of the main character's shattered soul.  Each fragment is it's own entity, inhabiting him.  They have no physical form, but plenty of potent powers to make up for it.  High-end magic-esque zaniness, shared player narration, and anything but normal politics are the order of the day.  

Anyways, I'll shut my yap, and let you look at it for yourself.  As always, the Cracked RPG Experiment can be found at:
http://machmoth.tripod.com/rpg

[Mike Holmes]

Reminds me some of both Kaotic, and Psychosis (?).

What about it do you want to discuss?

Mike

[MachMoth]

Well, I was really shooting for anything that just didn't make sense.  I wander in my literary tendancies, and sometimes I just write really stupid things, that make sense only to me.  I hadn't considered the next philisophical level.  

If I had to pick something to mull over, it would be the acquiring and usage of weight.  As in any economic resource, some tweaking will no doubt be needed.  But on a larger level, is there anything I seem to be over looking?  I originally wanted the acquisition of weight to be goal-based, but went with the success-based system for symplicity and balance.  Do you think it lacks/gains anything for it?

ADDITION:
Another thing that's been dancing in my head, Outside World Rules.  Currently, no rules exist to govern how things happen in the real world.  The idea behind this, initially, was that the real world is an abstract concept to the fragments, and helps to facilitate the seperation between the fragments and the Real World.  However, this may become an issue during, say, possessions.  Anyways, the question, stick to the vision and leave it, or give in and write simple rules for this "material interaction?"

[Andrew Martin]

Unlike traditional Role Playing Games, you're character sheet will consist of nothing more than a grid. This is your Aspect Matrix. Any kind of large graph paper will do. As long as you have room to write a little information in each square. Each square represents one skill your character is capable of.

The above sentences gave me an idea for a unique RPG system. Each character has one sheet of grid paper to describe them on. The descriptive text fills up the sheet and coincidentally occupies cells on the sheet. These filled in cells equate to the number of dice the character's player can roll to achieve narrative power over a scene's resolution. A small description, like "bushy mustache" might fill two or three cells giving the player two or three dice to roll in scene's where the character's moustache might apply. A longer description like, "Rudolpho is known for his clumsiness and general ability to make things go wrong. In short, he's a klutz." might fill up 10 to 12 cells so giving the player 10-12 dice to roll.

The above mechanic rewards written character description, and gives equal power to all players. Unimportant characters could be written on 1/2, 1/4 or 1/8 of each sheet.

[MachMoth]

That could be interesting.  The original idea behind Spirit Chronicles' Aspect Matrix, was that the placement of skills said just as much about a character as what the skills were.  A character that places a persuasion skill next to good-looks, is much different than one who places it next to his sword.  I suppose that's the same idea, from a different angle.  If any of my 'less finished' creations spark some conversation, I'll gladly split it off into another topic.  (Food for thought:  The Aspect Matrix was both a Web, and a Venn Diagram, before I settled on the much simpler 'grid.')

[Ben Morgan]

I seem to remember a very tongue-in-cheek variant on this idea, called Everyone is John, or something like that.

John has multiple personality disorder. The players each one of John's personalities. They are all vying for control of John's body.

Typical adventures would be: John Goes Grocery Shopping, John Goes on a Date, etc.

-- Ben

[Edit: PS: This, in turn, brings to mind that old Fox show Herman's Head.]

[Mike Holmes]

That's a Mike Gentry game, isn't it? And isn't it Duane? Or is that another game?

The matrix concept reminds me of the diagram on the back of the  Sorcerer character sheet. I've beem thinking along these lines myself (did we talk about this on Indie Netgaming?), but haven't been able to make it work yet. So good luck.

On weight, I think it relates to game length. How long is this supposed to play?

Mike

[MachMoth]

Never played Everyone is John.  Just goes to prove it's hard to be original.

I'm sure I rambled about the Aspect Matrix once or twice on ING.  The more detailed applications of it had me stumped then, and still kind of do.  I keep telling myself I'm going to rewrite it as a core mechanic, and toss it out as Open Content.  Then it can be other people's headache.

I'm still not sure on how long of a game it caters to.  I imagine it could be used for a nice continuing series, but I don't think I'd want to play it that long.  Would probably lose it's novelty.  I guess that's something for a playtest.

[Harlequin]

It's not an RPG, but I strongly commend Interactives Ink's fabulous boardgame Hamlet for a riff on the same idea.  Collectively, you play Shakespeare, writing the play.  Competitively, you're trying to get the play to end the way you want it to (random secret victory conditions like 'Et Tu, Polonius' and 'Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Alive and Well and Living in England'), while preventing the other players from achieving their goals.  It is brilliantly done and hugely replayable - especially given that in many games, NO ONE has ever actually won with my set (though it's been very close almost every time, down to a die roll or a single wayward action like Laertes bopping off to France at just the wrong moment).  Not even the "everybody wins, everybody loses" ending, which reads "Claudius: Dead.  Hamlet: Dead.  Ophelia: Dead. Laertes: Dead." and so on...

Great fun.  Love to see an RPG do this well.

- Eric