I've mentioned my game here before, but only briefly, so I'll recap, and then ask my question.

Whispers is a game where the players take control of pieces of some person's mind. Specifically, all players being pieces of one person's mind. Then, by hook or by crook, these pieces can take control and dictate what the collective body is actually doing in any number of situations.

I don't feel the need to actually publish this widely in any fancy and everlasting form, but mostly to write a game which I can play with my friends and enjoy, hopefully without much of the hassle that goes with playing other people's games, sometimes.

What I'm wondering about has to do with the character creation idea and a resolution mechanic that goes with it. Originally, it was very different from this, but I think this idea might fit the premise of the game better, and possibly reduce the need for a GM, though the idea isn't fully fleshed out yet.

So here goes.

For character creation, each player writes approximately a single page (typing this might be very helpful) about the nature of the piece they're playing. Personality, means, goals, so on and so forth. Then, after they're finished, they highlight all nouns and adverbs they used in their description (a noun here also includes adjectives associated with it, so a "little red dress" would be just that, and not simply "dress").

After all of the players have done this, they collaboratively (in some fashion or another) produce a similar page of text for the body they're inhabiting. Alternately, this could be provided with a setting, or by the GM, if the need for structure is so great, but I'd rather not have it go this route except maybe for example's sake & ease of play (initially). This page of text should detail people this person interacts with, things they own, things they do, and their general, default personality. Then, highlight this sheet as the others.

As for how to resolve any sort of Conflict, the players involved would bid to decide who gets to narrate the resolution. The numbers bid in this case would be equal to the number of highlited terms which must be included in the narration. Highlighted terms from the group's body's sheet could also be used freely in the narration, counting against the number which must be used.


The issues I'm having with this idea are twofold.

1) I think it should be possible for a character to interrupt the narration of another, and then begin narrating on their own, if they don't like how the thread of narration is going. However, I'm not sure how best to handle this. I think possibly some penalty like not being able to narrate for the next hour of play time might work well. Or possibly allow an interjection, but only if the character is willing to use all of their highlighted terms (without necessarily using all of the terms for the shared body) in the subsequent narration. This also might cause some extra consideration with issue number 2.

2) How to limit narration? It seems to me that some people might just end up with easier to narrate words for a given scenario (which is probably how it should be), but I don't want them to be completely able to dominate the game. The way I figure it might work is that, whenever a term is used, it is marked. Any marked terms may not be counted against the total words used for subsequent narrations until <some amount of playtime> has passed. However, I'm concerned about using playtime as the yardstick, because the game might play, in specific cases, much too fast or too slow to have this be a good way to ensure that all of the players have some chance of narrating. Though, if I decide to base the timing on scenic elements in the flow of the story, it might require more official arbitration than I'd really like it to need.

Alternately, it might be that for every narration session that happens, each player may un-mark a number of words, allowing them to use them again relatively quickly, but not for at least a single bout of narration afterwards.

Any thoughts about these issues, or others which might have popped into your head while reading this summary?

Hmm. The idea is very interesting. Let me ask some questions:

1) What are the players going to do, aside form competing over the body? Is there a certain overall setting to it, or a goal, or is it like a simulation of MPD that can be played in any setting?

2) What do you do if a player bids high and then doesn't deliver?

A suggestion that jumped into my mind, taken indirectly from a system I am working on: Give players some actual currency. They can bid that and lose it if they win narration. Then they can win back some currency by using keywords, as you mentioned. Now put in a way that players who lost the bidding earn some points as well, and the game will even itself out after a while, avoiding the dominance problem that you mentioned.

You could give interruption a certain cost, such as the original bid, but the already narrating player gets to keep the points s/he already earned by using keywords thus far.

As for question number one, I'd rather have player created scenes than specifically package up scenes with a setting. However, the possibility exists to do the latter if necessary (or as an introductory scenario which could help people learn the game), though it would probably involve packaging up a central character with it as well.

As for how to accomplish this, I think the way to do it best would probably be to have the players, in a round robin fashion, use some of their words to describe a scenario which in some way (hopefully) involves their goals (which ought to be on their character already...). This way everyone has something at stake in the scene. Of course, then there needs to be some definition of how the scene is actually finally resolved, but that'd probably be agreed upon during the creation of the scene. But, of course, this means that the players need to be able to obtain some benefit for actually participating in such a scene. This actually suggests an advancement mechanism. Possibly, after a scene, each player crafts a sentence describing their successes or failures during the scene. Each player must craft a sentence which the rest of the group approves of, and then add it to their character, adding the appropriate words as resources. Possibly, players could add more words, or more sentences, based on how many times they narrated, or how effectively they advanced their goals. Ideally this should either revolve around group approval, or be purely mechanical based upon the events of the scene.

The biggest issue I can see with this is that it would require a relatively mature group of players who wouldn't just throw a fit and refuse to acknowledge anyone's sentences for addition. Though democracy could probably handle this adequately well.





As for players who narrate, and fail to use the words they specify, hmm...

Well, if they get interrupted, that's not their fault, so that ought not incur a penalty.

If they just can't use the words (which hopefully won't happen, but you're right, it might)... narration probably gets bid on again.

However, this time, when you win narration, you have to use the number of words you bid, plus the remaining words off of their character (you get to pick the words), costing them what they bid, and more so, because you get to choose which words they've used.



Actually, failing to use all of your words in narration suggests a mechanic for interruption which should be relatively simple.

Based on the bid to win narration, interruption has a certain numerical cost. You then put a number equal to this into a central bank of some sort (with some way of telling that they come from you). Then, you have some set number of words to narrate your interruption. At any other time, while someone else is narrating, they may get rid of one of your tokens from that central bank, and use one of your words instead of one of theirs.

If I do that, then interruption and failing to properly narrate have the same mechanical structure, which is nice.



But then should I keep track of how many words you've used vs how many you have, such that if you have tokens in the bank, they'll always be usable by other players? I think not. I think if you can properly narrate away all of your words before the last of your tokens are gone from the bank, then it's the other players' issue, because they didn't stop you from narrating, basically meaning that they're just letting your character walk all over the scene. Though I'm not sure if that's the best way to handle that.