Okay, I'm probably asking for trouble with this one...

This afternoon I read a message from Mr. John Wick decribing a game called Blood Lust. I vaguely remembered having heard something about just such a game some time ago, so I zipped over to the Hogshead website and read up on it. From what I can tell the game is fairly Moorcockian. The gimmick is that you not only get to play a hero, but you get to play his intelligent, magical weapon as well (shades of Elric and Stormbringer)...

And at that moment I had an idea. That scares me, because I feel like I am probably blatantly stealing from someone. I should probably be reigned in.

The idea is this:

Lately, I've heard a lot of talk about world creation games. Aria is just one such game...I know that some Forge members are working on their own variants of this same concept. I've always been intrigued by that style of game, although I've never attempted to design or play such a thing. Until now...

My idea is to jointly allow the players to create a world, and then have them destroy it. For the next game, they would create another world, and then they would destroy that one too.

The connecting feature would be that the PCs are actually magical items. Cursed magical items, ala The One Ring or Stormbringer, that always find their way into the lap of civilization, and always bring about its ruin.

It would be way gamist. The PCs could compete against each other to see who could destroy the world first, vying for the affections of rulers, struggling to break the wills of the finest heroes, controlling whole armies with greed and selfishness. And whoever managed to destroy the world would get some special privilege - perhaps more "say" in how the next "world" would be designed.

Anyway, it sounds cool, but I have some problems. I don't know much about the BloodLust game - am I treading to closely to something that's already been done? And what about Elfworld - is the destruction of whole worlds a major element of that game's design?

Some feedback would be appreciated. If this idea is up for grabs, I want to do it before someone else does. But I don't want to step on any toes in the process...

Take care,
Scott

Editorial Note: It occurs to me now that this might tread close to Sword & Sorceror, which I don't own (yet), so maybe Ron has already addressed this idea. If so, someone put me straight...

[ This Message was edited by: hardcoremoose on 2001-08-10 01:00 ]

[ This Message was edited by: hardcoremoose on 2001-08-10 01:02 ]

My advice is to not worry too much about being the "first" - you won't be. Someone, somewhere will have done something somehow similar to what you're doing. Sure, it's good to be aware of the other things out there that are similar to what you have in mind, but don't stress over it - part of the reason to be aware is so that you can find good stuff to stea . . . er, be inspired by.

That said, to my eye your idea has got more than enough "intriguingly different" aspects to seperate it from the other stuff you mention. If you want to do it, and think it'll be fun to work on . . . go for it!

Gordon C. Landis

From what I've read & heard, you are treading fairly close to bits of Bloodlust. The PCs in Bloodlust are powerful, intelligent magic weapons, who get their bearers killed on a fairly regularly basis.
The point of Bloodlust seems to be, well, Frazetta-style barbarians whacking each other with magic nuclear swords...so if you stay away from the actual bloodlust bits, you should be clear enough.

Scott,

Not to worry about Sorcerer & Sword. That's far, far more oriented toward the person side of things, much less so the demon side.

As a personal call, I don't think you need worry much about overlap with other games. As long as you're not actually imitating them or ripping them off, the differences will stand out.

John could speak to this issue with more authority than I, but it seems to me that Ork and Orkworld co-exist quite nicely without irritating one another.

Best,
Ron

Ron (and everyone),

The more I think about this, the more I believe it would be well suited to Sorceror. The magic items are the Demons, and you (as a player) would get to play the item. You'd also have some control over its human wielder, but he would be more of a puppet than a master. And once you have resolved his Kicker for him, you waste him and find another person to bear you forth (I see this as being a rather clever variation of the Kicker rules...by resolving the Kicker and rewriting the character, you are actually writing up your next possessor/victim).

Of course this sounds just like Blood Lust, so I would have to find a way to get the world-destroying apsect of the game into the Sorceror rules...but I have no fear of that. Sorceror could easily handle the broad, sweeping strokes of macro-politics as easily as it does the micro-tactics of day-to-day adventuring.

We'll seee what comes of this. Maybe I'll wait and see what Sord & Sorceror has to offer.