On Vox: Glass and Steel: Back by popular demand, I suppose
Well, there seems to have been a flurry of interest... or at least a consistent background of interest that I just finally tapped into... Or... well... there's interest, okay-- in the Glass and Steel RPG system. For those of you who don't know and don't care enough to backtrack, here's the idea as it stood:
Every PC* snaps to awakeness in the late-morning of an ordinary workday at some large firm that does something, in a modestly-sized office building downtown. The day proceeds pretty well as per normal, until a truck-bomb rips through the building. (How's that for subtlety?)
After the bombing, the characters try to make their way out, until-- after a set period of time, they all lose consciousness and wake up... back in the late-morning of an ordinary day.
The back-story is that all of this was an event in the past, being relived through some manner, either explained or unexplained (i.e. TBA). In the original event, one of the PCs didn't make it out alive. In order to stop the cycle, that PC must die, either by accident or outright murder. At the end of each round, players have the opportunity to get "recollection cards" that reveal their fate in the original event.
NPCs generally reappear after each scene, even if they die, unless the PCs make a connection to them and "flesh them out" to more than just a background player. (This mechanism is handled by the GM.)
The problem as it existed was that there was little systemic impetus to perform in any particular manner in the game. In short, the game had no point, no reason, no motivation. Although there was the general goal of finding out the doomed person, there was no system-enforced morality, and it was all to easy to end up playing the game like a disinterested type of Clue.
That was where it left off, and it's just been rather stagnant for a while. However, talking to Jeff, it sounds like the Ann Arbor group is interested, and I believe Stefanie's into it, although Josh wasn't feeling it. In any case, I'm picking it back up again as a prospect, and made a little headway on the problem.
After playing a couple games of Hunter (old-school) with Josh GMing, I picked up on the whole Virtues and whatever the other thing was called-- I don't own a book-- that tied your character's traits and alignment quite directly to advancement and abilities. Now, I'm not going to go and copy that verbatim, but it got me back to the idea that, well, it doesn't need to be that complex to tie motivation to reward. At the moment, I'm thinking of selection of traits and values, which leads to the selection of an archetype, which then grants specific extraordinary abilities or modifiers if one plays to their archetype. Not supernaturally extraordinary, just more along the lines of increased or decreased confidence, drive, focus, or effectiveness when making actions consistent with the character's traits.
I've worked up the initial parts of a traits-selection system. This would be the first step, then you would use this information to narrow down to a single class or archetype of character. The initial selection is similar-- but not ripped off from-- a Myers-Briggs style "pick sides" classification:
- ACTion versus CONtemplation (Do you think things through first, or spring into action and work with what comes to you?)
- OVeRview versus DETail (Do you pay more attention to grand plans or implementation details?)
- SURvivor versus REScuer (Do you put yourself or others first?)
OVR
SUR
Go-getter, commander, conniver
ACT
OVR
RES
Organizer, activist, charity race-runner
ACT
DET
SUR
Worker, technician, specialist
ACT
DET
RES
Salesman, sports-player
CON
OVR
SUR
Architect, designer, engineer
CON
OVR
RES
Visionary, manager, planner
CON
DET
SUR
Bookworm, expert, scientist
CON
DET
RES
Host, planner, psychoanalyst
Each of the three elements would have two degrees each way, as such:
Action O O | O O Contemplation
Overview O O | O O Detail
Survivor O O | O O Rescuer
You could only, optionally, take the second level-- called the "to a fault" level on one trait. This is an extreme, extraordinary disposition toward the trait-- sort of an "all of one, none of the other"-- and would come with both both a bonus and a negative.
I'm also going to have some sort of sanity/humanity/willpower/whatever pool to gain and lose. I'm still not set in stone as to what sort of "thesis statement" I want to attach to that, whether it be burning Conscience points when you let someone die, or having to burn Sanity or Willpower points to get through the tough spots... although I just thought of an interesting twist that might work.
(Unrefined brainstorm here:) While most games have you losing abilities and effectiveness with the loss of "willpower", it might be an interesting idea that your personal traits become more extreme. They're not necessarily more helpful-- in fact, I may have the benefits wear off as the traits become more extreme. It's just that as the pressure rises, you show your "true colors" more, and are compelled to irresistably act upon your traits, even at the expense of doing well.
So, to those of you who care, expect to see a bit more from the Glass and Steel angle. Now I just have to dredge up all those old notes.
*PC: Player-character, NPC: Non-player Character
Originally posted on fleb.vox.com