I'm working on a campaign involving characters who are themselves players in an advanced, online virtual reality MMORPG, set in the near future to provide for things like neural shunts and widespread use of virtual reality equipment for personal use. It is inspired a great deal by works like Williams' Otherland, McKiernan's Caverns of Socrates, and the anime .hack//SIGN. The game is primarily Simulationist; what Gamism there is takes place within the Sim framework of the online game, and what Narrativism takes place should mostly be with the characters' response to the concerns of the 'real world' and the 'game world'.

I've pretty much decided to use D&D3.5 as the system for the online fantasy world where most of the campaign will take place. It's a well-known system among my prospective players and provides just the sort of crunchy-yet-unrealistic tactical simulation and traditional pop-fantasy setting that it ought to. Since most MMORPGs are, at heart, fantasy heartbreakers, I think it's perfectly appropriate. If anyone has a better idea, I'd be happy to hear it, but I think it fits the bill.

As far as the 'real world' characters, I've been leaning towards Over The Edge, which ought to be capable of the kind of freeform action and modeling of reasonably normal people which I'm looking for. I want a system that is:
- Capable of modeling flexible characters.
- Capable of modeling a range of 'real world' people from the average to the exceptional, with most being 'average'.
- System-light for ease of use, as most of the action which requires system will take place online and thus under the auspices of the MMORPG-ish system.
OTE seems to hit all of these, but if there's a better system out there for this, I'd love to hear about it.

One thing which I'd like to include is a method of determining how good a character is at, quite simply, playing the online game. In an OTE framework, this would involve requiring that one of every character's OTE dice pools be 'Gamer' or something equivalent, and giving bonuses to the D&D character creation (or possibly something like the d20 Modern Fate Points) based on how high that pool is. The tradeoff would be that obviously spending more dice on that pool would mean that the character would have fewer resources with which to deal with the outside world, fewer ways of getting information on real-world issues which might impact the campaign, and just in general be less capable offline.

I'm also looking to implement an attribute or dice pool called 'Immersion', which would represent the characters' ability to 'bend the rules' of the system, causing their characters to do things which would otherwise difficult or impossible. While being an expert gamer would allow one to exhibit excellence within the framework of the MMORPG, a high Immersion would allow one to exceed the framework completely, causing their online persona to do things which are simply unaccounted for within the system. Brainstorming as to what potential downsides (or specific upsides or capabilities) this might have and any ideas on how to create a system for allowing it to increase or decrease when appropriate decisions are made would be welcome.

Come to think of it, a heavily modified Sorcerer might work, with the online characters represented as Demons and Humanity becoming Immersion... However, I'm not that familiar with Sorcerer, so I may be talking out of my rear.

Any comments or advice is more than welcome - that's why I'm posting here! Ideas, ideas, ideas...

Jinx

One thing I might suggest is ejecting the concept of D&D 3.5 as the basis for the "Online" Fantasy System. In fact you already have 2 Mechanics, Gamer & Immersion which deal with the online world. These should be sufficient depending on what your agenda is.

From the way you have described it, it sounds more like the Online world is more real or has extra-physical possibilities that even most Virtual worlds do not have. So it seems more important in many ways then the real world.

Are the players exploring the lives of Gamers, living in both worlds, or are they exploring this GAME, having to occasionally surface for air where they are vulnerable to the mundanity of the outside world. Like Diesel Subs in WWII.

One system you might consider is FUDGE.

Hope this helps...


Sean

Jinx wrote: I'm working on a campaign involving characters who are themselves players in an advanced, online virtual reality MMORPG, set in the near future to provide for things like neural shunts and widespread use of virtual reality equipment for personal use. It is inspired a great deal by works like Williams' Otherland, McKiernan's Caverns of Socrates, and the anime .hack//SIGN. The game is primarily Simulationist; what Gamism there is takes place within the Sim framework of the online game, and what Narrativism takes place should mostly be with the characters' response to the concerns of the 'real world' and the 'game world'.

Well, it doesn't sound like the portion of the game set in the real world will include any magic or combat or anything, so does it really need a system? I can't see how it's necessary to give characters more stats than, say, Savvy (to represent how good they are with computers; high levels might allow intricate computer hacking, while lower levels would be useful for finding glitches in the system, etc.) and Life (to represent how strongly you're connected to the real world. In the higher ranges, the game is just a passing hobby, at rock bottom, you think it is the real world.). Even those two aren't entirely necessary, IMHO.

In fact you already have 2 Mechanics, Gamer & Immersion which deal with the online world. These should be sufficient depending on what your agenda is.

Could you talk a little more about what you expect the campaign to consist of? I'm not familiar with any of the works you mentioned, unfortunately. I guess that there will be stretches of play which are "online" where you are essentially playing out a fantasy adventure -- but where the players have dual roles (i.e. the real players are playing sci-fi gamers who are playing fantasy characters).

Are the players exploring the lives of Gamers, living in both worlds, or are they exploring this GAME, having to occasionally surface for air where they are vulnerable to the mundanity of the outside world. Like Diesel Subs in WWII.

Well, it doesn't sound like the portion of the game set in the real world will include any magic or combat or anything, so does it really need a system?

This discussion has brought back to mind a thread we had on Hackmaster some time back; the concept of it as a post-modern game was being highlighted.

In general, the idea is that the rule book for Hackmaster is not the game, but a prop for the game. In the actual game, players are playing characters who are somewhat stereotypical players in a role playing game; Hackmaster is the game that their characters are playing. At first blush, it would appear that the "outer" game is entirely free-form; but there are mechanics built into the "inner" game that are really about the outer game--such as giving the "inner" character experience points if the "outer" character catches the referee in a rules violation.

It might be worth examining for these functions.

--M. J. Young

Jinx wrote: One thing which I'd like to include is a method of determining how good a character is at, quite simply, playing the online game. In an OTE framework, this would involve requiring that one of every character's OTE dice pools be 'Gamer' or something equivalent, and giving bonuses to the D&D character creation (or possibly something like the d20 Modern Fate Points) based on how high that pool is. The tradeoff would be that obviously spending more dice on that pool would mean that the character would have fewer resources with which to deal with the outside world, fewer ways of getting information on real-world issues which might impact the campaign, and just in general be less capable offline.

Just as World of Darkness mages and changelings are expected to go into the WoD equivalent of the astral realm to obtain resources which help them in their primary "real world" existences, so your gamer characters are expected to go into the offline world to help them obtain resources which help them in their primary online existences. So why not treat the offline world in your game the same way that most games treat the astral realm?

In general, the idea is that the rule book for Hackmaster is not the game, but a prop for the game. In the actual game, players are playing characters who are somewhat stereotypical players in a role playing game; Hackmaster is the game that their characters are playing. At first blush, it would appear that the "outer" game is entirely free-form; but there are mechanics built into the "inner" game that are really about the outer game--such as giving the "inner" character experience points if the "outer" character catches the referee in a rules violation.