I'm in the initial stages (read: a couple days, a couple premise sketches) of hashing out this game idea, but it's a rather tightly encapsulated and pre-ordained plot+game package, and I'm worried that there may not be enough latitude in story possibilities to make it a playable/replayable game.

Of course, any other comments are more than welcome.

A more detailed (I hesitate to say 'thorough') look at the concept can be found in this LiveJournal post - http://fleb.livejournal.com/96830.html#cutid1 if you're interested.

Glass and Steel

The game's storyline is made up of two separate layers. There is the forestory, which consists of the immediate events directly happening to the players, and there is the backstory, which is the underlying "truth" of the situation, parts of which are handled in mechanics, and narrative parts of which are not overtly revealed to the players until the end, if at all, but are the rails that the forestory rides on.

Forestory

PCs start in the office building where they work. They are dropped mid-sentence into the middle of a humdrum day at the office, none of them actually knowing how they got there. Things proceed monotonously normally for a modestly long period of time (this becomes strategically useful later on), until, all of a sudden, an explosion rocks the building and the scene is thrown into chaos. They fight their way out through the collapsing building, when...

...everything fades away...
...and they find themselves...
...back in the office building where they work, dropped mid-sentence into the middle of a humdrum day at the office...

Backstory

(Two) years ago, the PCs were in the ___ office building when someone detonated a truck filled with explosives, killing hundreds. The PCs all got out alive, except one, and were attending a memorial dedication on the site when (for some reason, supernatural, perhaps just unknown) they were thrust back into the scene two years ago. The repetitive cycle is synchronized with the dedication ceremony, and parts of one reality "bleed through" to the other.

Conflict and Premise

PCs maintain no recollection of why they are there, or what is about to happen (there may be a mechanism for "uncanny foresight"), although when the scene replays, they retain all knowledge of previous go-'rounds. They also do not recall who of them did not survive the "actual" event, and this is the major conflict point in the game. In order for the characters to escape the cycle, the person who had died in the actual event must die here, even to the point of being sacrificed or murdered by the other characters. Players, however, do not know which of them is the "fated", and to die in the repetition is finally fatal-- if the character is completely dead when the cycle resets, they do not return, and die back in "real life" (through, again, a supernatural and T.B.A. mechanism).

Fatedness and Deja Vu Cards

As mentioned, the player whose character is "fated" to die does not know that from the outset. Their finding out is handled through Deja Vu cards. In preparation, the GM makes lists of "memories", one list for each attending player. At the beginning of the game, players randomly pick one of these lists of memories for their character. After each cycle, players have a chance have one of these memories revealed to them (via dice-roll chance, most likely). If they succeed, the memory is written on a "Deja Vu Card" and given to them. The memories do not outright tell the fatedness of the player, although they hint to it, with the exception of one doubly-difficult card to get which spells out the character's fatedness.

Players are not required to share this information, so the person who is fated to die may use misdirection to try and put off their demise. This constructs a suspicious cooperative/adversarial dynamic which I believe will keep the story driven and interesting.

Concerns

I am worried that the single entry and exit points to the story will hurt playability, replayability, and narrative depth by making all efforts outside of the single given exit-point (kill off the fated player) inherently fruitless. Is the inter-player conflict enough to sustain this game interestingly, should considerations for other "exit possibilities" be made available, or is the whole concept too well-sealed-up to be sustainable?

Hi Rudy,

This is a bit off topic in terms of your questions, but I can't help feeling there's something particular your digging at here. I'm wondering if it is the sense of meaningless in the wake of randomly living through destruction. Ie, if you survive such an attack, it's just chance, nothing to do with your choices - and that haunts, as in no matter what you do with your life after, or how big an accomplishment you make, it's not based on your choices, but on pure chance (that you would survive). When you live on, can you say anything good that happens to you after is because you live a good, strong life? When it all hinged on pure chance?

I'm wondering if its actually digging at reclaiming ones life and destiny after surviving by chance?

On the actual question - again, a bit wide of your question - perhaps play isn't about the other players trying to exit the loop, but the fated one internalising acceptance their own fated demise. The other players facilitate that acceptance - might be through sympathy, or the fated one can only accept death like a viking - killed whist fighting! That's up to the fated player, I'd naturally think. Could be a whole bunch of ways. Would be.

Also, I think it'd be interesting if some players knew who the fated one was, while some don't (use cards/whatever to determine who). Those who don't have issues they need to accept as well - those who know the fated one help both fated and unfated ones to accept their issues. Some players will find their character probably internalising and making peace with their issue, thinking it is the end, only to find they are destined to live on even having made peace with the reaper, so to speak.

I only have two things to contribute to this at the moment, so this will be a pretty brief post:

1.) AWESOME!!!!1!!!1!1!1!1one!!1!!!! Seriously, this is so freakin' cool.

2.) Check out My Life with Master (Halfmeme Press, Paul Czege's imprint) as an example of pretty constricted and formulaic plots that work. It's a game about minions who work for an evil master, feel self-loathing, and eventually find love in the community that they are picking on. One will eventually develop the inner strength to throw off their evil master.

Callan--

No need for off-topic apologies... Really, the only reason I whittled it down to a question is because I've seen the deafening silence that results from "whaddaya think" posts. :)

Thanks. The internal struggles of the fated person is an angle that I really hadn't considered, and one that I'll have to work in more. Honestly, the deep thought processes that led to this game idea-- via one scrapped RPG concept and one Interactive Fiction that I still might write-- amounted to: "I'd like to stage a game in an office building". Add in my natural tendencies toward more pedestrian disasters interspersed with metaphysical oddity, and I ended up where I am.

Really, I was seeing it more as a "Clue" style (I think... never played Clue) clue-gathering on a character-interaction background of suspicion-versus-camaraderie (the PCs should, in a stock playthrough, be considered friends). Now that you mention it, though, the final decisions of the fated person add a new angle to the game which does help to expand the "latitude" of the game beyond what I was seeing.

About the Fated player playing the Viking hero-death... That's actually an angle that, the more I think about it, I think I could bring forth through the game structure and guide materials. I was originally going to make the PCs the only people that had any degree of "permanence" in the situation-- if they die they're gone, and they remember past incarnations. The original idea (in my mind) really placed the PCs in a predetermined setting, where even the NPCs were part of the scenery. I'm thinking, though, that if I make other characters have permanence as well, it would really expand the possible plots and conflicts.

Although I'd leave it up to the GM to determine NPCs' permanence of memory (whether they remember past cycles), and honestly, I'm thinking implementing NPC permanence of presence (they die in a cycle, they don't come back) could add a lot to the game. Now, I couldn't have presence-permanence for everyone-- three or four explosions and the building would be empty from the start.

However (and I am rambling-on-paper here), the current idea (again, to my mind) is that that the PCs are central and the situation is only a setting, and their ties are what keeps their permanence. Therefore, the permanence determination could be based on the NPCs strength of ties to the PCs (along with a little chance to keep it interesting). Thus, if an NPC becomes "fleshed out" to a certain degree, by virtue of their interactions with the PCs, they all-of-a-sudden become vulnerable. Once the PCs catch on to this, new problems arise. Do they just avert their eyes and try not to doom anyone else by interacting? Even to the point of ignoring someone's pleas and letting them die in this 'round so they might "come back" again?

And what if you make permanence with the bomber? (( dramatic chord ))

...

I think the Deja Vu card system could take care of other players' knowledge just as well as knowledge about themselves. Although I may provide some examples, I'm not going to pre-make the Deja Vu, but I think I will put a mention in the materials about also including memories that give insights into other players' destinies, like "You never went to ___'s funeral... it was all just too much."

And joepub,

1.) Honestly, that's good to hear. I'm a bit fresh at all this, and to dip my toes into this seasoned crowd... well, I know that by all rights it shouldn't be, but it's imposing waters. If you're interested, I'll try to keep you posted... and keep posting.

2.) Yes, yes... once the personal finances sort out, I intend to stop just drooling over things and go on an indie-RPG buying spree the likes of which... well... the world has probably seen before, but still it'll be pretty big by my standards. That one's on my list ever since I listened to the whole "My Life with Santa" playthrough over on rpgmp3.com