I've had an idea for a setting that I've been trying to incorporate into a game.  Well, actually that's not exactly true.  I have incorporated the setting into various games that I've run, but I want to drill down focus onto one very particular part of it because in most of the games I've run, it really gets pushed to the side due to the focus being on other things.

Picture a world where the laws of physical reality are held in place by the labors of very tired, overworked angels instead of the real-life particles, interactions, etc.  So every time you flick a light switch on, there's some guy (or, more likely, a whole team) that's in charge of filling the room with light.  Every so often, something goes wrong with this, usually as a result of "human error" within the system. 

Maybe somebody's having a bad day.  Maybe an angel is asleep at the switch, quite literally.  Maybe someone's trying to make a statement.

When this kind of thing happens, you don't get your light.  Or maybe you don't get as much light as you should.  Or maybe you get the wrong color light.

Now let's add another variable to this.  The angelic workers in question are currently without a God directing them, watching over them, and correcting their mistakes, due to a kind of cosmic accident that's happened.  So when stuff goes wrong, it's up to them to try to fix it themselves.  Because of the lack of divine help, Heaven has tapped human governments for aid in cleaning up their affairs.

The game I'd like to design would put players into the center of all this.

Players play people from the "Department of Cooperative Logic," a government agency assisting the angels in locating, cataloging, and eventually fixing fuck ups like the above. 

But the governments responsible for this aren't always honest.  Sometimes, slip ups are in their best interest.  One of the conflicts I want to exist in play is one of, "who do you work for, first and foremost?"  Is your duty holding the world in some kind of consistent state, skewing it towards the state your government wants it in, or molding it into the way you want it for personal reasons?

I'd like it if this conflict spilled over into active conflict between player characters, as players make different choices about their ultimate goals.

I want the game to be structured around investigation.  Players should spend their time dealing with people and things in the areas where strange activity is reported, and eventually unlock the cause of it.  I want the process of the investigation to humanize the angels that are responsible for the problem, as much as, or even more so than the NPCs encountered along the way.

Do you think that this is a compelling premise?  I have some ideas on mechanics, but I'll hold off posting them until I get some feedback on my initial thoughts.

I like the basic premise.

I'm picturing investigating areas where angels are demanding particular ritualistic behaviour forming cults based around what ever has motivated the particular angels.

So that would be a yes to the basic premise :-)

Hi,

I'm not fond of setting, but then it hit a strong note of personal responsiblity (or the lack thereof, decided).

I'd like it if this conflict spilled over into active conflict between player characters, as players make different choices about their ultimate goals.

I want the game to be structured around investigation.  Players should spend their time dealing with people and things in the areas where strange activity is reported, and eventually unlock the cause of it.  I want the process of the investigation to humanize the angels that are responsible for the problem, as much as, or even more so than the NPCs encountered along the way.

I want the process of the investigation to humanize the angels that are responsible for the problem, as much as, or even more so than the NPCs encountered along the way.

Do you think that this is a compelling premise?

First off, thanks for the responses guys.

I'm not fond of setting, but then it hit a strong note of personal responsiblity (or the lack thereof, decided).

It's not really players making goals, right? I mean, players are basically authors - they might play out their character and go 'Shit, my character would feel X is is ultimate goal', but it's not like the players are really doing some strategic goal, right? Or am I wrong?

Or are they percieving the GM playing angels, in a new light

I think it could be done with a mundane premise.

let me see if I understand

there are people who live in a world that depend on angels to make everything happen
there are angels who make everything happen but sometimes screw up
the players are a different "race" responsible for making sure the angels do things right and fixing it if they don't

and we don't know who the players are responsible to and why

it sounds boring if there is not a higher purpose and interesting if there is.  I mean if it is just "a lightswitch did not work in sector 7, find out why" that's dull.

if it is "the light in sector 7 is getting brighter, we suspect the seraphim are behind it.  Incidence of harp playing is up 13%, we suspect the cherubim are behind out.  Find out who is doing this and why.  The humans are getting unsettled and worship has fallen 3% and tending toward unitarianism" that is intriguing

dugfromthearth wrote:
let me see if I understand

there are people who live in a world that depend on angels to make everything happen
there are angels who make everything happen but sometimes screw up
the players are a different "race" responsible for making sure the angels do things right and fixing it if they don't

and we don't know who the players are responsible to and why

it sounds boring if there is not a higher purpose and interesting if there is.  I mean if it is just "a lightswitch did not work in sector 7, find out why" that's dull.

if it is "the light in sector 7 is getting brighter, we suspect the seraphim are behind it.  Incidence of harp playing is up 13%, we suspect the cherubim are behind out.  Find out who is doing this and why.  The humans are getting unsettled and worship has fallen 3% and tending toward unitarianism" that is intriguing

Are you not fond of this setting, or just not fond of setting in general?  What specifically turns you off?

I think you’re understanding it here, but I’ll try to clarify.  The players are perceiving the personal struggles (and maybe even parts of personalities or histories) of the angels through investigating the phenomena that’s being produced in the area.  By the time you’ve “solved” (or not solved) the mystery of the phenomena, I want it to feel like you sort of know the angels responsible, even if you aren’t directly communicating with them by talking.

The angels in question are really just everyday dudes with problems and insecurities.  The idea is that those are spilling over into their job, and you're noticing it.

Can you explain what you mean by a “mundane premise?”

dugfromthearth,

I'd suggest tonight, turning all your lights off at around 7 or 8pm. No TV either. No electronic distractions. For an hour or two.

Realise how much it effects your life and imagine you had no choice on the matter, someone was messing your life around. Because they have issues.

Rebuild your sense of personal vulnerability that being in first worlder culture has eroded (fairly erroneously), and these things will matter more.

First, thanks for the thoughtful response.  Your latest reply has been very helpful and raised some issues I’ve considered, and some I haven’t as well.

Here's how this is coming off to me - just how it's coming off to me, which doesn't mean it is automatically what it appears to me as being. Okay, this strikes me as just prima donna GM territory - look at my beautiful angel characters, everybody, I'm the GM and I play them out! Oh, do you get to play out characters? No, you just investigate and discover my wonderful characters!

Let me put it this way - what is the players job in the game? What tasks is he supposed to do at the gaming table? For example, if he played out his character in such a way that ignored the investigation entirely, would he get glares from the GM and other players, because he's not doing his job? Or would people be interested in why his character is defying his superiors and what's he gunna do next?

There are plenty of government officials in real life who control the light in your house right now. And they are just dudes with problems and insecurities. Your scenario IS.

It's like if you can portray an employee arguing with a boss with a knight arguing with his king - makes it sound cooler and more epic. But it's essentially the same thing, just more fun.

Callan wrote:
dugfromthearth,

I'd suggest tonight, turning all your lights off at around 7 or 8pm. No TV either. No electronic distractions. For an hour or two.

Realise how much it effects your life and imagine you had no choice on the matter, someone was messing your life around. Because they have issues.

Rebuild your sense of personal vulnerability that being in first worlder culture has eroded (fairly erroneously), and these things will matter more.

I'm still liking the idea but can take aboard the idea that the players are obviously very important for play.

I do pick up the idea that small details can be representative of a bigger situation.

As far as who the characters are being important, I find it interesting to picture why god went away and why the department continues functioning.  Why do the angels rebel and not follow the previously set rules? Are they understandable reasons which the players may be tempted to sympathise with? Are the players blindly following the dictates of a previous era or do they see the need for change?

flossy wrote:
I'm still liking the idea but can take aboard the idea that the players are obviously very important for play.

I do pick up the idea that small details can be representative of a bigger situation.

As far as who the characters are being important, I find it interesting to picture why god went away and why the department continues functioning.  Why do the angels rebel and not follow the previously set rules? Are they understandable reasons which the players may be tempted to sympathise with? Are the players blindly following the dictates of a previous era or do they see the need for change?

what if you made it like Black and White?

the game is about the humans living their lives.  The players want them to achieve certain goals - be happy, worship a god, achieve enlightenment, or whatever.

the lives and behaviors of the humans are influenced by the "laws of nature".  So when angels have things act differently, humans change their behavior.

god had a plan and set the rules accordingly. But he's gone and things are not going according to the plan.

The players can choose if they want to just try to follow the rules (which may have bad results - if the command is to drive straight, that becomes a bad command if the car is turned into incoming traffic), do they try to correct the earlier changes to return the results to the plan, or do they try to change the results to something else.

The players choose what is important to them, but it gives a cosmic significance to their actions

dugfromthearth wrote:
The players can choose if they want to just try to follow the rules (which may have bad results - if the command is to drive straight, that becomes a bad command if the car is turned into incoming traffic), do they try to correct the earlier changes to return the results to the plan, or do they try to change the results to something else.

The players choose what is important to them, but it gives a cosmic significance to their actions

This premise sounds a bit like 'Paranoia' . 

substitue  the Angels for various > infrareds
substitute the PCs for troubleshooters
substitute God for the computer.

ah , what a fun game that was.

This is a solution I had thought of to deal with the prima donna GM issue, let me know if it makes any sense and/or has merit.

First off, my idea was to have clues dropped randomly (determined by rolling statistical outliers on 2d6 dice).  The clues come up in the form of strange phenomena that happen while the players are doing normal activities in the affected area.

This means that it’s very possible to go through a bit of the session before any clues even come up.  My hope is that this will encourage the players to explore other facets of conflict, primary among them being issues within the Department (”except in terms of the agency heads being another moral issue to deal with”).

To put it into an example of play: you could be hitting the office copier trying to get it to work, roll a 2 or a 12 on your check, then find that your hand passes through the machine.

Second, immediately after a clue gets dropped, I was considering calling for a scene from the offending angel’s “mortal” past to be framed.  The GM decides what it involves (time, place, what the person’s age is, what the situation is, etc), but the players get to choose the characters they bring into it.  The idea is that this gives them a chance to sort of extort information from the GM about the mystery (the “mystery” being what personality ill or hardship is causing the angel to fuck up).  It also allows them to interact with and influence the character more directly, as opposed to it being just GM wank time.

For example, if you find out what insecurities the angel has, in detail, you might exploit them in the future, assuming you choose not to report (or choose to misreport) your findings to the Department.  Of course, you might have characters who don’t want to shirk their duty, and that could become a source of player character conflict.  I very much welcome play like that, and that’s actually sort of what I was getting at in my first post with “I'd like it if this conflict spilled over into active conflict between player characters, as players make different choices about their ultimate goals.”

My intention is to leave things like defiance possible, although the nature of the phenomena and how they occur within the mechanics I had imagined (ie randomly) would make it difficult to 100% ignore them.

It would be possible to ignore the investigation entirely, and I would want people to be interested in the case of someone doing that.  Ignoring the mystery element, someone might choose to simply exploit the phenomenon for their personal gain.  That sort of goes back to the “who do you work for first and foremost” deal.  You can choose to shun your duty, and although that should have some logical consequences, I want them to be interesting.

Ahh, now I better understand what you mean by ‘suger’.  That makes sense, and though I find it sweeter with the angels, I wouldn’t mind playing a game like that.

but the setting isn't the people whose lives are being messed with.  It is someone else investigating it.

I turned my light switch and the light didn't go on - how much do you care?

there are investigative shows on tv - they are almost all about murder.  If the crime isn't murder people just don't care enough

You don't see detective shows about robberies, etc.  The investigation might be just as interesting but the stakes are not as high.

You can make as niche a game as you want, and you can blame others for not wanting to play your game because it does not interest them.  Or you can tweak it so that it does interest them. 

Well, alot of people eat crap food and are headed toward morbid obesity. Doesn't mean all food are best tweaked to extra greasyness. Same for RPG's - lot of ego feeding out there.

In terms of blaming anyone for not liking it, I'm not sure any target market has been discussed yet. Let alone anyone owing it to the author to like it, somehow.

Also I'm enjoying the second series of Doc Martin, where I can't remember anyone dying, let alone being murdered...

When I've been thinking about this game, the thing I keep wondering about is that the Department for Cooperative Logic is connected to human government. I suspect that may be similar to the Ministry of Magic in Harry Potter. I'm unsure exactly how this would work out in an rpg, but I'm open to suggestions! What's coming to mind instead is a form of celestial bureaucracy. This could be similar to how the sidereal in exalted work in organising how the world works, only with a more western and Catholicism feel. Hope that helps.

Thanks for all the suggestions guys.  Callan- I've started down the path to making the game more player character oriented (as well as focusing more on the "real world" aspect, instead of just the snapshots of the angel's lives).  Some of your points made me radically reconsider what I'd been making.  Hopefully I'll have some Actual Play to show you guys soon.

flossy wrote:
When I've been thinking about this game, the thing I keep wondering about is that the Department for Cooperative Logic is connected to human government. I suspect that may be similar to the Ministry of Magic in Harry Potter. I'm unsure exactly how this would work out in an rpg, but I'm open to suggestions! What's coming to mind instead is a form of celestial bureaucracy. This could be similar to how the sidereal in exalted work in organising how the world works, only with a more western and Catholicism feel. Hope that helps.