The Forge Reference Project

 

Topic: [Heist] Dark comedy of dirty deeds and desperate men
Started by: daMoose_Neo
Started on: 10/13/2004
Board: Indie Game Design


On 10/13/2004 at 8:33pm, daMoose_Neo wrote:
[Heist] Dark comedy of dirty deeds and desperate men

I laughed my azz off while watching Ladykillers last night and went to sleep thinking about all the different ways things went off and woke up this morning with a game! Gawd, I love how my mind works~
Anywho, here's the skeleton of draft one written at work. Glazed over alot of the 'pretty' text to get the ideas out~ Use a lot of examples based on the movie to make my life easy at the moment, detailed and more original version to follow.

Intro (read to players):
An older lady walks into the Police station to file a report. The sherrif, busy, dismisses her until she mentions "That missing money", at which point he's all ears- the local (bank, casino, w/e) just had 1 Million disappear and no one knows how! She explains these men stayed at her house, pretending to be (Band, Actors, w/e), but really robbed the place and all of the money is sitting in her basement. Not believeing her, the Sherriff tells her after a moment just to keep it.

Five Days Prior! The game picks up-

The players (4-5) are a band of misfits who come together via a cryptic ad posted by the Mastermind for a brilliant, flawless crime. The players create characters using descriptions for the most part, needs depending on what the break in requires.

Requirements:
- One player will need to be the Mastermind, originator of the plan
- One player will need to be the Man Inside, the contact inside the agency

Everyone chooses a name, profession, and writes up a basic description of their character. They then choose two abilities, one based on profession, one on description.
Each player recieves 7 dice to split between the abilities as they see fit, preferably splitting as even as possible but favoring what they are likely to use the most.
Players then recieve Traits- additional descriptors which work a little like abilities. Each player chooses one for themselves and then the group chooses the second.

*Abilities and Traits are player-created. It might help to include a description of what each does exactly so everyone knows the limitations*
*Points are dice the players get to roll over the course of the adventure. To make a roll, they need to spend 1 point per die desired*

The group then creates the Little Old Lady and adds as much detail to her as possible. This harmless old woman lives near the institution the group wants to break into, which they will do by going through her house somehow. The Old Lady has no actual stats or points, just details and character traits.

The Heist -
The Mastermind gets the duty of creating details about the Heist the group is going to pull. They have 4 days to pull it off.
During the course of carrying this out, the group will encounter challenges, either from the Old Woman being nosey, the target agency changing something etc. These will require rolls and narrating on the part of the player, rolling against challenges introduced by the GM.
*Rolls will generally be D6 +/- a couple points*
Success earns the player 1-3 points, spendable to replenish their ability points or for Story Tokens.
Story Tokens are used by the player to:
1) Introduce challenges or additional elements ("Oh, by the way, my girlfriend is helping out with this part..." - "Are you nuts?! We agreed, just us four!")
2) "Activating" a player's trait as a way to stab them in the back or help out in an unexpected situation. The player whose trait was activated however must narrate and handle all actual details (IE Player A has irritable bowl syndrome, Player B sees a chance to turn the scene to gain himself some points and spends a point to activate Player A's IBS, forcing him to find a bathroom ASAP, with Player B's help of course)
3) Primarily used AFTER the heist during the Death Scenes.

Story Tokens are generally used to manipulate the Story.

Death Scenes -
The players WILL somehow pull off the heist and make it back with all of their loot. And then the little old lady catches them red handed! Agreeing that something must be done about her, the group decides its best to silence her...though no one wants to do it.
At this point, the group all starts dropping like flies- they draw straws to see who's going to try to kill her, but something will always go wrong!
Once a player has drawn a straw, it is his or her turn to die. The deaths are narrated by the player whose character does die, but everyone else gets to add their own elements-
1) The PC picks a death, "break my neck"
2) The other players can start spending tokens to add details to the scene:
"You trip over her cat!"
"You fall down the stairs!"
"You get surprised!"
"You swallow your cigerette and start gaging!"

3) After everyone has contributed (and everyone must at least once if they have any Tokens), the dying player narrates his or her death scene:
"I stand outside her room in the middle of the night and make sure she's sleeping. I neatly tuck my cigerette into my mouth and open the door, gently tip toeing up to her sleeping form...just as I'm standing over her body, ready to strangle her, the coocoo clock sounds off startling me! I jump, accidently swallowing my cigerette, which is burning on its way down!! Panicing I grab a glass of water near the bedstand and gulp it down...only to see the glass is holding her dentures!! Grossed out and gagging I race out of the room and into the hallway, tripping over the cat who is standing at the edge of the stairs! I lose my balance, trip down the stairs, hit my head on the wall and crack my neck as I slide down the last few stairs".

All the players take turns drawing straws or attemting to leave the sitation, but each of them meets with a gastly end of some kind.

- Players may NOT spend Tokens on their own death- though they may choose the ultimate end (Shooting, drowning, broken neck/back, poisoning etc) but no Tokens may be spent.
- Details used in the scene can be provided only in connection with the details provided by the other players (Swallowing cig -> Gulping denture water -> gagging)
- Dead Players still play by contributing details to the other player's demises. Players may also try to draw others into their own deaths (Player B shoots Player C)
- All players must end up dead at the end of the game

Its just a quick little game in my mind, playable in a couple of hours from start to end.
More details to follow.

Message 13060#139449

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