I'd like to check in too :)

I'm notorious for not finishing anything, but it would be great if I could change this. Also I'm not a native english speaker, but I'll try to give my best!

At first sight SET B (Setting: pirate/western.+Theme: search-for-identity/splatterpunk story.) is the most sympathetic.

My first thoughts regarding this SET:

Setting:
One thing is sure, I need pirates and I need cowboys (I hope they will do for western). Pirates can be found on ships and ships can be found in water... or they can be found in space, so ships in space = pirates in space. :) Cowboys are the gunslinger guys... bandits, bounty hunters and stuff... but wait, bounty hunters and gunslinger could live on some spaceships too (just like Spike Spiegel and friends from the series Cowboy Bebop). So my setting is centered around space cowboys, space pirates and space ships/stations.

Theme:
Splatterpunk: I need a brutal sociopath... A serial killer on the loot... What loot? Personality marks...
Search-for-Identity: I have a serial killer with personality marks collected. What to do with him? Yes, he collects these marks, because he lacks on them and is jealous on their owners. He knows only one way to get these marks: to kill the owner.   

Now I have some space cowboys, space pirates and a serial killer who hunts for personality marks but I don't have any idea on how to bind them.

The players could be the owners of some personality marks, or they could be killers. I'd like to mix these two possibilities, so one player will be the hunter and all others are potential prey.
OR
They could be all hunters and the game could be a competition: Who collects the most/best/etc. personality marks? (just like collecting scalps - another western component)
OR
anything else, but just now I have no other ideas... :)

Mechanics:
I want to use some auction based mechanics with a fixed amount of resources, but I don't know if something like this will fit the setting. I don't want this game to be about resource management, but I also don't want to use dices. 

So much for now. Could something like this work?

Space pirates, smart :)

Maybe the pirates are the sociopaths, raiding planets and stations for those marks, and cowboys/bounty hunters are there to stop them?

But I'm afraid I don't have any good idea for non-random mechanic that wouldn't involve resource management. You could use cards somehow - they would fit the western component well. Maybe the auction involves bidding cards from hand, or maybe it's all simply based on poker?

I have an idea for a one shot, where pirates and cowboys are trapped alike in a space station. The cowboys are hunting the pirates. The pirates want to get away (they need to find some fittings for their ship before they can move on). And if this all wouldn't be bad enough one of the pirates/bounty-hunters is a psychopath, who now being under high pressure wants to complete his life's goal: to acquire those personality marks which can change him/her to a person he would like to be. The game could end with all the envied personality marks acquired by the psychopath or in case he dies somehow, with one group's goal achieved.

I'm not sure I want to go with this idea, but until now this is the most complete one. :)     

Oh yes I forgot this:

I want to add some rock-and-roll stuff to the game (this should strengthen the splatterpunk side). Some Alice Cooper titles or lyrics or ...

It is sure that from now on I will have an eye open for the unlikely savior and the elvis challenge because the ideas there could be a great source for inspiration. :) So guys - if you are reading this, or even if not - start workin'! :)

Cool stuff.

How about making it a three player game? You wanted to mix up the killers and hunters, so why not have one killer, one pirate, and one cowboy? And then they're all intertwined and compete. So the cowboy (law and order representative) is hunting the killer (sociopath) and the pirate (anarchist/criminal). The pirate tries to get rid of the cowboy and seeks vengeance on the killer. And the killer just wants to gain as many kills as possible.

Interesting idea...

3 players, no GM, card and auction based mechanics (this is not sure) and one winner at the end... wow... I never played an RPG like this, so it would be a real challenge to design it. I like the on-shot idea more (or at least it would be more comfortable to work on it), but this challenge won't let me rest. :)

So Dear SIC Participants I need your help. Any idea or reference is welcome!

Perhaps it can be a struggle with the cowboy/pirate memes.

The today's general view of pirates is is by and large established by "Treasure Island" and the movies based there on. In real life, many cargoes were taken without a shot fired, and piracy was just a built in premium on insurance statements.

Similarly, what we think of cowboys is quite wrong. Cap and ball pistols would still be used even in the height of what the US populace thinks as the wild west, and even the newer guns were unreliable.

So perhaps we have the cowboys/pirates attempting to hunt down a murderous rouge that is impinging on their good name so to speak. Either the players want to establish the movie reality of their existence to the population at large, or they are sick of it and want to prove they are more than stereotypes.

For that matter, what does a do these people do in space? Hunting ships on the open ocean is hard enough. In open space its nearly impossible. A literally infinite horizon means you can't sneak up on the target, and the cosmos is too vast to just patrol. Nor are there cattle to graze etc. Kind of a struggle to identify yourself/find purpose when floating in a vacuum without the standard backdrop to your character.

There is a movie called Oblivion (see a review athttp://www.badmovies.org/movies/oblivion/index.html) which is essentially a western set on another planet. Might the game begin the cowboys peacefully grazing their two headed cattle until some pirates pull into the space port? Rangers holding off the scum of the universe until the Calvary arrives. Conversly, it could be a group of raiders  who want to keep their base a secret trying to scare off homesteaders and ranchers.

If the game is about stereotypes, then players can gain points to bid by either acting with or against type. (Depending on if you want to take the foster the myth or escape the lies angle) Both memes have elements of honor - "The code of the west"/"Parlay" and thus trust can be literally put on the line.

Resources available for bids:
Booty/Cattle (riches)
Oxygen/Fuel (its in space)
Honor
Hit points/Willpower
Icons (Spurs, hat, eye patch, parrots - miscellaneous elements of the meme/myth)

You mentioned you were not a native English speaker. Where are you from, and what are the local perceptions of these characters? Obviously, I'm working from the stories of USA wild west and Caribbean pirates.

Heh, and I was about to suggest something similar to Christian's idea :)

Now, there are different possible ways to approach a design without central GM, but generally you need to consider what the GM would do in the game if there was one, and distribute these tasks among the group somehow. One rather easy way that I think would fit here would be to actually have a GM-player, but rotating with every scene.

For example, cowboy's (or pirate's or killer's) player is the GM in the first scene - and it's up creates a scene in which the pirate confronts the killer somehow (not necessarily combat scene, but some conflicted situation between the two). Then, pirate's player takes over, and creates a scene to pit cowboy against killer. Then, killer's player takes GM function, and creates a cowboy vs. pirate scene. And so on, and on. If one of the players gets eliminated, he could either play another character from the crew (if pirate or bounty hunter), or take the role of the GM for the rest of the game. Something in these lines :)

First of all thanks for the comments and ideas. You all are a great help to me! (... this is a lie. reading the comments and all the other games I find so many awesome ideas and possibilities, I can't decide what to use and this fact makes everything a lot harder :))

Aardvark:
I'm from Transilvania and a cowboy here is a cowboy seen in well known western movies and a pirate is a someone from the Carribean or perhaps an english or french captain who hunts the ships at the open sea. (or a hacker maybe...)

Eventually I could give the setting a local flavor by changing a bit the cowboys and/or the pirates but I have problems including the splatterpunk as theme.   

I'm really tired now and tomorrow will be a hard day, so I don't know if I'll be able to work on my game, but I'll be back as soon as possible.

Filip wrote:

One rather easy way that I think would fit here would be to actually have a GM-player, but rotating with every scene.

Have problem with splatter part? Cowboy Bebop/Alien/Friday 13th mix will do this all!
Also you can always go for space western style or some Dark Angel(the film with
Dolph Lubdgren).

I'll try to sum up the ideas which I want to use:

a game for 3 players
GM change for every scene
Scenes:

• cowboys and pirates
• cowboys and psychopath
• pirates and psychopath

character/crew generation process should be placed in the first no-combat-involved scenes

Questions:
Should the players controlling the cowboy(s) and pirate(s) direct just a single character, or the whole crew? What are the difficulties if they are controlling the whole crew? I would like them to control the crew because in this case the killer has more potential victims… or the victims could be some NPCs played by the actual GM, so there would be no need for directing more characters (or one with more followers).

What should happen in scenes which don’t involve fighting? The game needs such scenes, so the killer can picture his future victims. Besides this, I want the first no-combat-involved scenes to serve as character/crew generation process.

It seems that, contrary to the original concept I’m the one with the questions… :)   

no game yet, but I found a title that could suit this thread/game more than the actual one: Disguised by Borrowed Plumes

Any opinion?

Hmm, I'm not sure if I like the title.

Anyway, consider this: pirate/cowboy players could control their whole crews, but play only one crew member at a time. The rest of the crew wouldn't have to have any impact on the scene, other than serving as "HP meter" and color. Mostly red, I suppose :)

ok, then still working on the title :)

Compared to most other participants, I’m seemingly stuck with my idea… no system… no solid concept... but I’m working hard on it :)

A splinter of today’s produce:
I want to use cards for character generation, so there would be 8 attributes – two for spades, hearts etc. The cards containing numbers are standing for the firs 4 attributes like strength, dexterity etc. and the jack, king, queen and ace are symbolizing four personality marks.

Every player gets randomly a numbered card for the 4 attributes of his actual character, and he gets, also randomly, a single card of jack, queen etc. Based on these cards the plazer now knows the numerical attributes of his char and the most exciting side of the characters personality.

Sorry if I made more grammar or spelling mistakes than usual, but I'm very tired and can't concentrate right now.

Heh, don't sweat it with the title, if you like it as it is :)

Why two attributes for each suit?

Because I think, I need 2 kind of attributes. One for deciding if the character's action was successful or not, and the second one as a registry on the character's personality. Was this an answer, or did I just said the same thing as in my previous post?

This is just an idea. Is there a problem with separating the suits this way? (the first 9 cards to measure the attributes of the first group / the last 4 cards for the character's personality)

Hehe i really love it, im in the process of creating one such gm less game, where i revolve the narrative constantly.

People already said all the things i thought of when i read your idea for system ( in fact they are all way better at systems than i am, just trying to duck under ) So im just going to say the following, perhaps you could use a poker hand for the start? five card draw replace any given number of cards? dont know if it works for you, but it would fit the western theme.

Concerning the Personality marks and the sociopath, one thing came to mind. What if the sociopath thought that pirates where somehow able to steal his personality marks, or rather, what if they actually could?

Chris

Oh, ok, now the way you want to use cards makes sense to me. I misinterpreted it initially.

ok, I'll try to work with the poker hand idea. in this case the characters will have the personality marks but no other attributes. The cards with the numbers will give the amount of points a player can spend on auctions.
 

… and I want to use community cards (just like the texas hold’em) because in this case the difference between the players “wealth” can’t be so big as in draw poker. If any personality-mark-card will be dealt face up, then every character will have that pmark. The community cards won’t change during the game, but at the beginning of every scene (GM change) the GM deals two new cards for every player.

At the end of the every scene the players will lose any unspent, not-pmark cards.

Does this make any sense? 

Mechanics:

As I already said, the game uses auction based mechanics. It will be something like betting in poker.

Every hindrance has a difficulty value assigned by the GM, if the player wants to overcome the hindrance, the GM opens the bet (opening value=difficulty value) and the players bet has to equal the opening.

If the player aims at harming the other players char or one of his crew members, he has to make the opening and to announce his action. The attacked player has to bet the same amount of points (call) as the attacker to neutralize the action and he has to narrate what happens to his char. If he wants to counterattack or to do anything else besides neutralizing the action, he has to bet at least twice as much as his enemy’s previous bet (rise), and so on…

Example:
The Killer wants to backstab the last member of the Cowboy’s crew in a dark alley.

The Killer opens the bet: I backstab him; 5 points.
The Cowboy makes a call: The Killer backstabs my char, but he hits only an Alice Cooper CD, that I stole from the museum last night and hid it in my secret pocket on the back of my coat, so do wound is far from being deadly; 5 points. 

I forgot to ask (I really miss the Edit option), do you have any ideas how to use the All In option?

All in is a tough one, to convert to the mechanics i think, especially if you decide to hold on the three players max?

Perhaps you could use the all in function as a way of diminishing the impact of the antagonists action.

example.

Killer: im waiting in the shadow, until the thieving no good critter(pirate) is in front of me, and then i cleave him in two. bet 5
Pirate( only has 3 points ):at the dumbest luck i trimble as the blade slices the air, causing the blade to bide down into the back of my shoulder, cutting the muscle. bet all in. Which would make all in a pretty much last defense kind of thing.

Nah think i would scrap the all in idea ( will think further though )

Scenes:

Each player will have an Introduction Scene, where he/she is playing his/her own character, another one will be the GM and the last one directs the NPCs.

After the Introduction Scenes begins the real game. :) One player takes the seat of the GM and the two other players will play their characters. Every scene lasts until two of the players (including the GM) have lost their possibility to win an auction.

Goal of the scenes: in every scene, after the dealing, the two players who have their chars  playing, will chose an objective (and write it down without showing it to the GM or the other player) based on their personality marks and on the happenings of the previous scenes. If both (or none) of them completes his objective nothing will happen, but if just one player completes the objective, then he gets some bonuses (at the beginning of the next scene he can change his new cards, or he can change one card from his hand to one from the community cards… or something like these, any ideas are welcome – just as usual)

If a player has no pmark cards, he can’t set any objective for the next scene.
If the GM deals a pmark card to one of the players, and the player wants to use that card, in the next scene he has to play his character accordingly to that mark.

Example:

One of the new cards in the Pirates hand is a card showing a high value of recklessness. He wants to use that card, so in this scene he has to take a lot of unnecessary risks.     

I'm not perfectly sure about it, but maybe it could be more interesting if the objectives were open, or if the player was given an objective from someone else (the GM, probably)?

I've tried to work out a poker based system for a while.

Rarely with much luck though.

Keep trying, I'd like to see where this goes.

V