Magazine & Catalog

[Eric Provost]

Ok, so in the past few weeks I've been hammering a set of mechanics for a 'new' game for my friends and I.  Now, I really have no intention of ever attempting to publish it, but for some reason the process of trying to put an easy to read game together for my friends naturally led me to imagine what it would look like published.  Inspired to these thoughts from several threads here at The Forge, including Visual Aids, Atkins-Friendly RPGs (Shooting Cows Part II), and Does art matter (split from older thread), from the way Shadowrun used to publish it's supplimental material, and from a certain scene in Fight Club I came up with the idea of the Magazine & Catalog.

If you will, imagine a rules-light game mechanic.  Something that could probably be printed in, oh let's say a dozen pages or less.  A game where the Places You Can Go, the People You Can Meet, and the Stuff You Can Buy really define the setting.

I imagine the Core Rules book looking similar to a thick magazine.  Something that would look like it was produced by the businesses of the area, and left in hotels to encourage visitors to go out eating, shopping, etc.  Something like "Welcome to MegaCity!" would be printed in sweeping letters over the cover, just above a picture of the fictional city at night.  Inside, one would find the core bits of the rules scattered from place to place.  Perhaps the core mechanic is subtily placed so as to mimmic a page written by the Mayor of MegaCity, but would quickly digress into a welcome from the writer of the game, and then jump into the mechanic.  

Articles on the Famous People of the city, and even Fashion Articles and Ads for Clothing Stores could contain the game mechanics for socializing, while simultaniously giving the player the feel for people they might meet, and the fashions their characters may wear.

Now, the game I'm writing that inspired this Magazine & Catalog idea is a Cyberpunk(ish) future setting, so I imagine a section in the Core Rules that appears as an article on how Cyberware is better designed in MegaCity than anywhere else in the world (basically the Look How Kewl Our City Is! type stuff one would find in such a publication), but right after the little self-gratifying article would be the core rules on how to adjudicate Cyberware.  I'd impliment this kind of Rules Mimmicing Articles theory throughout the book.

Furthermore, the game is one of those that includes the idea of Buying Stuff.  So, instead of endless lists of weapons, gear, and stuff with occational pictures of one or two common pieces, the gamer is treated to several pages of 'photographs' of the gear available for purchase in the city, all of which are set up as advertisements targeting the fictional consumers of the fictional city.

Following the same train of thought, I came to consider flyers from Walmart.  You know those little 4-color newsprint sales flyers you get in the mail, or are stuck in your Sunday newspaper?  What if you published up a bunch of those flyers with Additional Rules, or just Stuff to Buy?  Leave the game mechanics statistics in the fine print, like the regular Lawer-Type you'd normally find on such things?  Then you take those flyers and maybe just stick one in with the main rules.  Or perhaps, an expantion to the set could include one or more of these items?

Well, I suppose that about sums up my idea.  I'd had more specific thoughts as to what could be included, but I think you get the idea.  Heavy on the subtle aspects of the setting, immersion for the players, and a niftly little gimmic to get consumers to look at your work on the shelf.  I'm looking forward to hearing what you all think of this.  While I haven't any intention of actually publishing any of my own game mechanics, I really didn't want what I consider to be a neat idea to just go to waste.

Thanks for reading,

Eric