hey again.

i was just thinking, are there any rps'g that realy focus on a group or team and how they (in lack of better words) complete each other. i mean like in lost vikings were you would have one viking with a shield and one with a sword and a third one that could jump, if you lost one of these you were totaly screwed and realy had to try again.

my idea is that you would play as a "team leader" or something and your own skills are very limited, but you might have like 3 companions that make up for your own lack of skill. (well maybe you could have one or two skills that you would realy kick ass in, but that's it)

i understand that this would'nt be that great of a game if that was all there was, but perhaps if you mix in a trust or loyalty mechanic and a secret flaw or agenda that your companions might have, i think it could work.

my questions are:

any ideas how this trust or loyalty mechanic could work?
any obvious flaw that im missing?
are there any other game with a simular consept?

Isn't this what 4e D&D does?

Forcing characters into a role of attacker, defender, support or leader...

I'm not 100% on this, I haven't played it...I've only heard the numerous complaints of others.

V

Mike, I thought of 3:16 in regards to controlling a troupe of characters with differing abilities. But yeah, D&D would work, too.

Bruno, the phrase "they ... complete each other" stuck in my mind. What if we're talking about lovers, or brothers? What if they were totally screwed because of how much they care about each other, or how important they are in one another's lives? Hey, now... this could take adventuring-party play in a different direction. What if some king were dead, and his sons were on the run across the world? You could decide on-the-go what they're up against and where they're going now. Awesome. I know you were talking about abilities and the like, but this is another take on the "interdependence" idea.

Bruno, man, you have got to do that idea! Wow!

Or, um, let me ^_^ soon as I'm done with this other one.

Vulpinoid wrote:
Isn't this what 4e D&D does?

Forcing characters into a role of attacker, defender, support or leader...

Abkajud wrote:

Bruno, the phrase "they ... complete each other" stuck in my mind. What if we're talking about lovers, or brothers? .
...

I know you were talking about abilities and the like, but this is another take on the "interdependence" idea.

Okay, each player plays a group of vikings. What do the players do? Is this about raiding in Ireland? Is this about sailing up the Vistula? Is this about discovering New Foundland? Is this about the politics of homesteading in Norway? Is this about resisting (or accepting) the insinuation of Christianity into the culture?

What do you want the players to do in the game?
What behavior are you trying to encourage?

You build mechanics for trust, loyalty and secret agendas because the premise of the game demands them, not because you think that a group of vikings should have them.

Also, The Mountain Witch, out of print,  I think, has trust mechanics, but players play individuals. 3:16 has not-so-secret agendas for a squad of soldiers, but again, each player plays an individual. I can't think of any roleplaying games in which each player is playing a group. Reign has something called "company mechanics" which allow the individual players to dictate the actions of larger groups, but you're still playing a single character in that game.

I should think that capturing the feel of The Lost Vikings is more along the lines of puzzle-solving, with a "web" of puzzles, each of which only one member of the troupe can complete. So you have to know where to put Guy A so that Girl B can pull a lever for Guy C, who can hold the door open for them all to get through.

Now, replace "puzzle," "put," "lever," and "door" with whatever emo shit you want... or with actual competitive play (which player can solve the puzzle web in the fewest steps and back-tracks)... or with some kind of mercantile/raiding game a la Civ and its tech tree.

I guess my only point is that the "wow" factor of The Lost Vikings--and what I read as the point of the OP--is this interdependence and exclusivity of capability, facing a myriad of paths, only one (or few) of which can be passed, if done in the right order. Run with that, for a Lost Vikings feel.

  Amber the diceless rpg had stat rating of 1st best, 2nd best, and 3rd best to indicate who in the party was best at something. You could pick specific things like, fighter, rouge, ranger, and have every one be better at specific things. This could be scalable as well so depending one the number of players the category would be more specific.
  If your going for a semi diceless set up you could look to have players invest a certain amount into a scene and depending on the degrees of investment the players have more or less of their specific skill needed. If you wanted to get competitive you could make this a currency so players could try to continue and dominate challenges to acquire more and more of the spotlight.
Regards, Seth

Reading through this thread a couple of times, I've also been struck by the concept of characters completing one another. Since I've also been thinking about a character's links to those around them, it got me thinking.

Here's an idea...

A character is defined by one or two skills when they work alone, but they get additional skills in the presence of specific others.

Let's go back to the lost vikings example...

The guy with the shield may not be able to jump, when when he's with the guy who can jump, he improves the distance of that jump. Similarly, he may not be able to strike at enemies, but he can offer the swordsman a better defence.

There's two ways that come to mind that can be used for this.

Firstly, the jumping guy has an "athletic" trait, the guy with the shield has a "strong" trait. One of the aspects of the "athletic" trait says that when he's working with someone who's "strong", they get a skill bonus. The trait might get different types of bonuses depending on the types of people they are working with.

Different traits work symbiotically with other traits. But in this method, it's the person who has the trait initially that gets the bonus from the people around them.

The opposite way of looking at it is that a character doesn't get bonuses from the people around them, but instead gives bonuses.

The character with "Strong" gives everyone a bonus if they are co-operating in a strength related action. The character never gains this bonus for themselves, it only comes into effect when they are working with others. On the other hand, when this character is working with others, he'll get some kind of bonus from them.

Just some ideas...

V

Hi Bruno,

BrunoDeLaBomba wrote: if you lost one of these you were totaly screwed and realy had to try again.

Callan wrote:

Most RPG's don't support being screwed (not even the supposedly gamist 3&4 edition D&D games). What happens when everyone dies in a video game? You pop up at the last save point and have to try again. What happens in an RPG? Everyone stays dead.

Vulpinoid wrote:

A character is defined by one or two skills when they work alone, but they get additional skills in the presence of specific others.

Well, you could just go for a literary device - they die, then the text prompts you to say something like "Well, that's what we would have done, but when we planned it we realised we'd die, so..." cue some player made arguing amongst vikings over who screwed up with that plan, then onto the next attempt (which again becomes a plan if they die). Just an idea. Never seen something like that used in an RPG yet :)

I'm not sure why your adding a penalty if they die when the video game doesn't have one?

Callan wrote:
Well, you could just go for a literary device - they die, then the text prompts you to say something like "Well, that's what we would have done, but when we planned it we realised we'd die, so..."

Falling out with each other is a heartbreaking contrast to completing each other, I would certainly say!

I'm still not sure why you have a penalty, when in the video game there was none (I played the demo years ago) and the video game worked fine? I mean, you played it, so clearly it worked for you already without a penalty?

Are you actually interested in exploring the moral and emotional level, and just using the gamist puzzle play as the arena for that sort of emotional examination? Gamism tends to bleed into narrativism with just a few twists and dial turns, if one is so inclined.

Well, I probably shouldn't use the N word. But puzzling life and death situations do lend themselves to moral and emotional drama. That's why you get the old spiderman save Mary Jane or save the bus load of kids comic story line. And why was she called Mary Jane, was it a drug reference? Was Peter on really on the choof? Oh wait, I digress...

yes the game worked just fine, but it's just not gonna work like an rpg consept , you need to have sometihing at stake, atleast that what i think, i know alot of guys that would go totaly crazy over the "and that was the plan, until we figured out it would most likly kill us" and abuse it until all the comedy and humor was washed away like it was hit by the niagra fall or something. and that would ruin the game for me.

Callan wrote:
Are you actually interested in exploring the moral and emotional level, and just using the gamist puzzle play as the arena for that sort of emotional examination? Gamism tends to bleed into narrativism with just a few twists and dial turns, if one is so inclined.

BrunoDeLaBomba wrote:
and narrativism is about taking the story forward without the mechanic right? more like storytelling? i think that a game taht's intended to be gamist shouldn't encourage narratism, like DnD...it feels to forced you know.

I'm regretting using the N word. I'm pulling my head in on that one!

BrunoDeLaBomba wrote:
yes the game worked just fine, but it's just not gonna work like an rpg consept , you need to have sometihing at stake, atleast that what i think, i know alot of guys that would go totaly crazy over the "and that was the plan, until we figured out it would most likly kill us" and abuse it until all the comedy and humor was washed away like it was hit by the niagra fall or something. and that would ruin the game for me.

but i intend those emotions to be funny, like midly anoyed, cowardly and such.(i mean we are talking about a group of vikings IN SPACE) and to have those respones actulay mean something in the mechanics. like certane bonuses or something.

Luke wrote:
This is incorrect. Narrativism rests as much on mechanics as gamism does. They are kissing cousin concepts. Gamism uses mechanics to win or improve. Narrativism engages mechanics to forward the story or play out an emotional response.

This is not the thread to discuss this, though. This site is piled high with iterations of exactly this discussion! Plenty of homework to do if you want it.