This was an idea I had, literally moments ago.

What if the basis for interaction within a game was your initial interaction with the other party?

GM: The room is filled with Goons...

PC1: I talk to them!

PC2: What?

GM: Roll Pacifism and try and beat their Mindlessly Follow Orders Roll!

PC1: I make it!

GM: They sit and listen to you. What do you say?

PC1: Lads! Let's not be hasty. I'm sure we can clear this all up with a quick word, eh? Now, I know I don't want to get hurt...

PC2: What?

PC3: I sneak round behind the Goons to get to the door...

GM: Roll Sneaky Bastard against Mike's Waffle skill!

PC1/3: Yes! [Look at each other] Uh oh.

Anyway, I riffed on that a bit. Basically, at a theoretical level, could such a game work? Where whatever you tried had a chance of working, and you could ride that possibility for a while, and then see what came of it?

By the way, I put it here rather than Game Design because I was curious as to the implications for design. Power falls quite firmly into the players camp, but I've no real idea how within the GNS model, and I've no idea what it would do to player/player interaction.

drew

erithromycin wrote:
This was an idea I had, literally moments ago.

What if the basis for interaction within a game was your initial interaction with the other party?

Forgive me, I was somewhere else. Basically,

Condition exists.

Player responds to condition.

Nature of response determines how condition will react.

A player sees a group of orcs, and, rather than attack them, attempts to parley. If he does well, they'll just leave him alone. If he does badly, their primary response [violence] kicks in.

A player wants to get through a door. Rather than pick the lock, he smacks it one. If he does badly, it responds in kind, by means of a trap or something. If he does well, it is opened.

So, how someone acts towards something and how well they do at some above task level determines how it responds. What I was trying to figure out was what that would do to player/player interaction, particularly as it sticks the initiative [as regards game action] with them, really. If they want a slugfest, it'll be one. I'm having trouble looking at that in GNS and stuff, which made it a theory issue. I think.

I'm sorry I wasn't clear. I'm trying to talk to too many people at once, and, unfortunately, one of the ones I needed to be clear on suffered.

My bad. Is it clearer now?

By the way Jared, I had this idea for a game based on English Canal Operators, that had this neat mechanic called Sediment. No, really.

drew

erithromycin wrote:
A player sees a group of orcs, and, rather than attack them, attempts to parley. If he does well, they'll just leave him alone. If he does badly, their primary response [violence] kicks in.

A player wants to get through a door. Rather than pick the lock, he smacks it one. If he does badly, it responds in kind, by means of a trap or something. If he does well, it is opened.

By the way Jared, I had this idea for a game based on English Canal Operators, that had this neat mechanic called Sediment. No, really.

I think he's meaning a system where every NPC response is driven by a PC die roll. i.e. the NPCs don't have an agenda until the PC's give them one by interacting with them.

So its not a question of:

Player: I want to parley with the Orks
GM: The orks are hostile to you so you're at Nearly Impossible difficulty.

Its more a matter of:

Player: I want to parley with the Orks
GM: Ok roll.

The success or failure of the PCs roll then drives the Orks behavior.

Basically like old NPC "Reaction Rolls" taken to an extreme level and based not on a random table, but on PC skill rolls.


Sort of like in Donjon Krawl how if you successfully check for Traps you'll find one...without there ever having been a trap put into the scenario before you made the roll, only with personal relationships instead.

Least that's how I understand it.

Val, that's what I meant.

Hmm. I seem to have made myself redundant by having a Donjon Krawl thought and not realising it. Gah. I can only apologise folks. I'm trying to do this and discuss moral/legal relativism at the same time.

What actually started this all off was this:

What if we only had to follow the rules that others followed with regards to us?

I was trying to figure out a way to convert that into something that would work, but, in the process, clearly forgot how to convert it into something I could explain.