Game

On Account of our discussion on Friday, I'm intrigued about running a game with much more politicking, much less group unity, PKs, etc. Vampire naturally lends itself to this, as does City of Tears (I just saw the Departed...), but I'd be open to basically any setting for this.

Jason: point well taken, and I think you're right. In that vein, a take on one of Matt's proposals might be interesting: everybody makes their character, then makes a couple of supporting characters relevant to their character. If a session comes up where one or more other "main" characters are not involved, the "lead" for that session could hand out supporting character sheets to players whose characters were excluded from that session's action.

Gabe: Hmm, I like the idea of us making our own backup characters. Very neat. Also Ed's idea for a RPG could work really well with this idea too, though his seems more about group unity. Anyway I'd be down with a game like this.

--Jason 18:16, 19 October 2006 (MDT) I have been thinking about this a lot. One thing I am wondering about is/are factions. Lets assume that each player has a character involved in some sort of machinations. And as you have mentioned each of us have a primary character, and some number of secondary characters, wouldnt it be natural for our secondary characters to be aligned with our primary ones? It would be hard (and relatively useless) for your secondary character to scheme against your primary one. This doesnt mean it isnt possible, because I am certain it is. It just means someone needs to have a better idea than the one I was thinking about.

--BenofZongo 15:44, 20 October 2006 (MDT)Yeah, that would be problematic: it's something I've thought of as well. I guess as you said in your first response, the point isn't necessarily to have the characters be a non-group, more that they shouldn't HAVE to be a group. In the vaguest of terms, my plan would be to bring the characters together, but then let them decide how much/if at all they want to stay together. However, just for shits and giggles, I guess my plan was to let the characters that walk off still get game time: when their plot lines surface, the other players wouldn't be left sitting around by giving them semi-npcs (that might actually develop into main characters) to play, to keep everyone in the action. Of course, for scheming type stuff, this mechanic wouldn't work at all. As an aside, I don't really have a genre/game system I'm terribly excited about right now...in fact, the only game I was ever truly inspired to create was the Iliadic game. Every other time I've run something, it's been based on player input. As such, I just figured I'd put a bit in here soliciting people's desired genre for a more open-ended, do-whatever-you-want, more focused on intrigue, etc., kind of game. Once I have an idea what time, or setting, or whatever, people want to see, I can go to town starting to design my game world/system.

--Edmiao 16:26, 20 October 2006 (MDT)I don't understand what you mean by "intrigue" based game, which it sounds like Jason really really wants to play. could someone spell this out for me with a specific example?

--BenofZongo 17:32, 20 October 2006 (MDT)Well, I admit that my grasp on the idea is tenuous, but I'm trying to self edumacate. When I say "intrigue" heavy, the way I envision it is that there are no "missions": the sense of where to go, and what to do, are much hazier. Second, Enemies and friends are much less clearly defined. Third, consequences for actions are typically enhanced, necessitating much greater subtlety in how the players approach a problem (example: in Vampire 2nd edition, if you killed another vampire, the uber nasty Sheriff vampire of the city came and killed you in return. So, if you want to whack somebody, you better cover your tracks damn well, especially since lots of vampires could mind control you into telling them that you did it...). Third, and this applies mostly to my style of GMing, there would be much less emphasis on making the characters "good guys", also, much less emphasis by me on making the players act as a group: There might still be a hook to bring everyone together, but beyond that, who does what with whom is basically up to the players. Along with the no "missions" thing goes that the plot line is much more open ended: player defined goals, ambitions, and actions set what the characters pursue in game.

--Edmiao 18:32, 20 October 2006 (MDT)Sounds like PA to me.

--Jason 18:45, 20 October 2006 (MDT)How is that at all like PA? How often do characters do things without other characters when their player is present? How many characters have subplots (not plots that recruit the others) that run significant portions of the game? PA has been a strictly missions based game to this time. We get a task, everyone gets together and does that until the task is completed. Actually that could describe every game we have played: meet, get task, accomplish, repeat.