Greetings all.

This is a proof of concept idea in response to this thread http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=20334.0 by Callan. I didn't want to bog down that thread but the concept intrigued me so I wanted to create a proof of it. If I understand the thrust of the idea, Callan wanted to see if a mechanic could be created to work in a roleplaying game that ran along the same lines as a drinking game: ie the players can only lose or draw even but losing is essentially its own reward and entertaining.

The idea is called Echos. It needs to be played with a group of friends who know each other relatively well. To cut down on rambling I will simply list the order of play.

1. Each player draws a card from a deck. The person with the lowest card is considered to have died on the spot or later on that day. The become an Echo - a ghost bound to the mortal coil.

2. The Echo is dealt 10 cards face down. This is their Ascendance pile. Once they have used up all 10 cards they have Ascended to wherever it is they go in the afterlife and can no longer touch the mortal coil.

3. The Echo must then travel around the mortal coil and put their affairs in order. They may want to tell people they love them, or make sure their will is found, or even track down their killer and bring them to justice. The other players play the people the Echo wants to interact with (which may be themselves).

4. In order to directly affect the mortal coil the Echo must spend card/s from their Ascendance pile. They can choose how many cards they want to spend on an action and then flip those cards face up. The player they are trying to interact with then flips the top card of the normal deck. If the Echo has the highest card their action succeeds as they narrated and the cards they spent are removed from their Ascendance pile. If the Echo has the lowest card, their action failed and they must remove the cards they spent +1.

5. The Echo is trying to get all their affairs in order before they Ascend. They want to Ascend but they want to do it only after they have resolved everything. So by winning an action they are Ascending at the rate they have chosen. By losing they are still ascending by they are doing it at a faster rate and they might not get everything done before they do.

6. The game ends when the Echo Ascends.

Notes: There will probably be a heck of a lot of emotion flying around with this concept but I think it would be an interesting game to play at least once. If it is too close to home, it could perhaps be used in conjunction with another rpg when a character dies. It then gives the players a chance to see the ramifications of that character's death from a slightly different perspective and give the deceased a chance to affect the world after their demise. 10 cards might be too few so the number could be changed to create a longer or shorter game depending on the desires of the players.

Questions:
1. Does this game support/enforce the "drinking game" feeling of play?
2. Could you see your group playing this game or does it cross "that line"?
3. Is the mechanic deep enough or would you prefer that Echo's had different measures of ability such as "Manifesting", "Dreaming", "Telekinesis", "Empathy" etc - and each ability was rated with the maximum number of cards you could play when using it?

Thank you for reading. Comments and criticism are most welcome.

Phil V

Hello!

I didn't read the previous thread, so I don't think I can answer question number one. Still, I find your game interesting so I have a few suggestions to make.

I get the general structure of the game and I like it a lot!
Concerning question 2, I think we could play that game comfortably. The players would only get as far into emotional stuff as they feel like.

I like the structure of the mechanic in a general sense. I certainly wouldn't want any "powers" to be taken into account, I'd rather have the players do what they think is appropriate based upon their liking of ghost stories.

Now, I think you could go a few steps further with the very same card mechanic, so as to make the game easier to play.

For example, how do I know where to start if I'm the Echo? I want to have some clues so as to be able to start immediately.
This is where the cards drawn by the other players could come in handy. Each card could be a certain goal the ghost wants to achieve. Thus you'd generate a relationship web automatically from the start, giving the player a choice where to start too.
The obvious association is that a heart card would be an affective relationship to a character, played by the person who drew the card. You might want to check Clinton R. Nixon's Face of Angels or Matt Snyder's Nine Worlds for ideas of how to use card colour and values as cues for play.

Rule number 4 sounds a bit whiffy to me. The Echo player has no idea how effective he could be in overcoming the challenge, making this more a game of luck than a game where the player can show how much he cares for a given affair. If I come up with something I'll let you know.

Rule number 5 is all good, but I'd like to know how to measure the Echo's success in Ascendance. By the reading of your rules, I could spend all my ten cards on the first affair, succeed (or not) and be considered having ascended at the proper rate.
How about having a fixed number of affairs to deal with (the obvious answer would be one per other player), and dealing out a number of cards proportional to that, so the player can manage his ressources strategically?

I'd also like to know what the other players can do while the Echo player and the current affair player are dealing with their stuff. Do they get to play minor characters? Can they link their affair to the current one? Can they affect the outcome of the current affair in any way? If yes, what are the advantages and the risks the players take?
I think it's important to get the other players involved as well.

Hi Artanis

Thanks for the reply. Your concerns and questions are all very valid and I will deal with each in turn.

Concerning question 2, I think we could play that game comfortably. The players would only get as far into emotional stuff as they feel like.

For example, how do I know where to start if I'm the Echo? I want to have some clues so as to be able to start immediately.

This is where the cards drawn by the other players could come in handy. Each card could be a certain goal the ghost wants to achieve. Thus you'd generate a relationship web automatically from the start, giving the player a choice where to start too.

I'd also like to know what the other players can do while the Echo player and the current affair player are dealing with their stuff.

I like the concept of trying to get everything in order before you ascend. But playing in such an emotionally charged setting has some challenges - at least, if you're assuming people play themselves.

- What if, for example, I most of all wanted to put things right with my mom, but none of the other players even know her? How could I play out that issue?
- Playing yourself, and having other players portray parts of you, can very easily turn stupid or ugly. It requires a very high level of trust and respect.
- It seems a bit strange to have a more-or-less random strength for issues that the Echo player is probably very aware of. For example, if I know that the major obstacle between me and my mom is my stepdad, while the fact she lives far away doesn't really matter, it won't make sense if I have to overcome a score of, say, 3 for the first obstacle and 10 for the second.

Hi Matthijs thanks for the reply.

All very valid points, let me respond to each in turn.

What if, for example, I most of all wanted to put things right with my mom, but none of the other players even know her? How could I play out that issue?

Playing yourself, and having other players portray parts of you, can very easily turn stupid or ugly. It requires a very high level of trust and respect.

It seems a bit strange to have a more-or-less random strength for issues that the Echo player is probably very aware of.

Oh, you're supposed to play yourself? I didn't understand that from the start.
This would change my answers completely. Some of my friends wouldn't want to play such a game, especially if as Matthijs mentioned important aspects can get completely mangled.
As I understand it, the Echo's personality is completely defined by the affairs he has to resolve. This depends on how the other players go about with their description of their characters and as such the Echo's character is really a group creation, through play.

The simple way out is to play fictional characters. Players who want to explore what they would do can still do so, by the way.

Concerning the mechanics, I'm not too fond of drawing cards according to the number shown on the "affair card". This determines the importance of a conflict based on purely mechanical constraints, and I prefer going from the fiction to the mechanics, letting the player give it the importance they feel is appropriate, not the other way around. Of course, this is your project, don't worry about my preferences if they don't make sense to you.

How about something along those lines:
1. Each player draws a card. One player becomes the Echo, the others play characters the echo needs to deal with. The kind of relationship is determined by the card color (fr ex: heart - affective, clubs - enmity, diamonds - professional/political, spades - spiritual). The Echo is dealt a certain number of cards which he can see (let's call them the pool).
2. Each Other player defines a "challenge". For example: "ask for forgiveness". These player's goal is to make the challenge difficult (but they need limited ressources to represent that).
3. The Echo player chooses where he starts his journey and describes how the Echo attempts to do what he had in mind.
4. Goals are achieved (or not) in a mechanic similar to black jack, with the exception that the Echo player may use a card from his pool instead of drawing a random card. This allows a player to override the mechanic initially in the favor of the Echo's failure. Each drawing of a card is accompanied by some narration that cannot by itself resolve the challenge, but shows a way of getting there.
5. The Echo goes from character to character. His pool never replenishes.

The idea is that the mechanic resolves the challenge in an open number of "rounds" (contrary to black jack), letting the Echo player go as far as he wants. Since his pool does not refresh, spending it all on one challenge might yield success, but since the other challenges are all negotiated with his character in an unfavorable position to start off with (similar to blackjack), that might be really destructive for the rest of this affairs (actually, the pool could represent how much the Echo can push back the "time-out" before ascending).

I like the idea for the "inactive" players to represent sins. Or any other obstacle that could get in the way of the Echo's success (the mechanics would have to be tuned to take that into account of course).

There should be some kind of reward system for the other players. I don't have a sensible idea yet, but it should push them to play their challenges to the hilt.

Unused pool cards and whatever earnings from the reward system could then be used to narrate all the characters' epilogues, ending the story.

Hi Christoph

Some great ideas here I would like to discuss.

Oh, you're supposed to play yourself? I didn't understand that from the start.

There should be some kind of reward system for the other players. I don't have a sensible idea yet, but it should push them to play their challenges to the hilt.

Yes this has strayed quite a bit from you three initial questions, but to be fair, I answered two out of three before rambling about the mechanics.
I think you've got enough stuff to put together for a playtest document, what do you think?

At this stage, I'm not sure I could add anything intelligent to the discussion without testing what you already have. Which I should be able to do.

Yes this has strayed quite a bit from you three initial questions, but to be fair, I answered two out of three before rambling about the mechanics.

I think you've got enough stuff to put together for a playtest document, what do you think?

I should have put a smiley after my first sentence, I was just being silly, not trying to justify myself. :)

Well Phil, all I can say for the moment is that if you aren't taking this further, someone possibly will. I think you guessed who...
I'm just interested in the quick version of the game, though. Playing with a mere deck of cards and aiming at the 1-2 hours of play range.

If you go the full way, keep us posted!