New Game Project- PodCasters
So about a week ago, nekoewen sent me a post he propped up on a gaming site about the use of music in pen and paper games beyond background music.
Almost immediately, I got the idea of game mechanics using music in general to do amazing things and it soon bloomed into a full game concept where players are young people in the modern day who can use music to summon parts of their psyches to fight invisible soul eating monsters. If you played Persona or the other Shin Megami Tensei titles, you should have a good idea where this is going.
The tentative title is PodCasters, which I came up with on the spot and has caused a few people to groan.
I managed to finish the alpha version of the game- that is where I can have a semblance of a full game to see what worked and what didn't.
I decided to focus away from lots of points and numbers when it came to the base mechanics while giving players a good reason to use the music abilities. Players have six traits, 3 physical and 3 mental that are rated in 4 different die types.
Anything the PC wishes to do using normal means requires the player to roll two dice. One is his "trait", and the other is the "challenge die". The player then subtracts the challenge from the trait. If it's a positive number, it's a success by whatever number it gave. Failure occurs when the challenge result is higher.
To better personalize the characters, I gave the players two "Fortes"; things the characters are good at. If they roll under the lower half of the die (like 1-3 on a 6 sided) when doing something they're good at, they can roll again and add the previous number. I also gave one Flaw for things they had trouble doing which did the same thing for the Challenge die.
For the main attraction, the music mechanics, I made two items: Triggers and Soul Ignitions.
Triggers are a set of three tracks the player brings to the game. These would allow the player to do plausable, yet amazing things to reality. The track is pretty much up to the player and can be used to substitute a contest in the game that would require die rolling. Instead, they play the song and do a short improv scene of what they want to have happen. Other players vote on how appropriate the soundtrack was to the action. The points earned in voting determine how well it did. Each trigger can be used only once.
Soul Ignitions are the theme songs of the character's Avatars- a part of their mental image and unlike the Triggers, it allows players to do amazing superhuman feats, but because of it being an unpredictable element bending the laws of physics and reality, die rolling is needed after voting. The voting enhances the dice to treat as if it was under a Forte or a Flaw. a multiplier is added at the end if the trait used was appropriate to the Avatar.The song for the Soul Ignition can be done multiple times.
I had a test of the game the other day and several things became pretty obvious that I need to fix before I bother putting in new things into the game, but I'm open to suggestions... along with a better name if I can find one.
I'm rather happy that this is in some kind of playable phase, and I'd love to get this released and finalized in the not-to-distant future.
Almost immediately, I got the idea of game mechanics using music in general to do amazing things and it soon bloomed into a full game concept where players are young people in the modern day who can use music to summon parts of their psyches to fight invisible soul eating monsters. If you played Persona or the other Shin Megami Tensei titles, you should have a good idea where this is going.
The tentative title is PodCasters, which I came up with on the spot and has caused a few people to groan.
I managed to finish the alpha version of the game- that is where I can have a semblance of a full game to see what worked and what didn't.
I decided to focus away from lots of points and numbers when it came to the base mechanics while giving players a good reason to use the music abilities. Players have six traits, 3 physical and 3 mental that are rated in 4 different die types.
Anything the PC wishes to do using normal means requires the player to roll two dice. One is his "trait", and the other is the "challenge die". The player then subtracts the challenge from the trait. If it's a positive number, it's a success by whatever number it gave. Failure occurs when the challenge result is higher.
To better personalize the characters, I gave the players two "Fortes"; things the characters are good at. If they roll under the lower half of the die (like 1-3 on a 6 sided) when doing something they're good at, they can roll again and add the previous number. I also gave one Flaw for things they had trouble doing which did the same thing for the Challenge die.
For the main attraction, the music mechanics, I made two items: Triggers and Soul Ignitions.
Triggers are a set of three tracks the player brings to the game. These would allow the player to do plausable, yet amazing things to reality. The track is pretty much up to the player and can be used to substitute a contest in the game that would require die rolling. Instead, they play the song and do a short improv scene of what they want to have happen. Other players vote on how appropriate the soundtrack was to the action. The points earned in voting determine how well it did. Each trigger can be used only once.
Soul Ignitions are the theme songs of the character's Avatars- a part of their mental image and unlike the Triggers, it allows players to do amazing superhuman feats, but because of it being an unpredictable element bending the laws of physics and reality, die rolling is needed after voting. The voting enhances the dice to treat as if it was under a Forte or a Flaw. a multiplier is added at the end if the trait used was appropriate to the Avatar.The song for the Soul Ignition can be done multiple times.
I had a test of the game the other day and several things became pretty obvious that I need to fix before I bother putting in new things into the game, but I'm open to suggestions... along with a better name if I can find one.
I'm rather happy that this is in some kind of playable phase, and I'd love to get this released and finalized in the not-to-distant future.