Vince Baker's three insights, and the game I want to write
My friend Dave has been thinking about these recently, and as I have a new game in my head I thought I'd try 'em too.
"When you design a game, you're taking three different positions, expressing three different insights, putting forth three different opinions. Saying three different things. First, you're saying something about the subject matter or genre of your game: something you think about adventure fiction, or swords & sorcery, or transhumanist sf, or whatever. Second, you're saying something about roleplaying as a practice, taking a position on how real people should collaborate under these circumstances. Third, you're saying something about real live human nature." -D Vincent Baker
1. Subject matter: I think samurai and ninja are totally sweet, and I think most people would agree with me; although the picture I get from research and training I've done is that actually being a samurai or a ninja is not much like the popular imagination thereof. I think realistic feudal Japanese warfare and espionage action has a lot of important elements which our adventure fiction and games often skip over: things like chain mail armor and firearms and throwing spikes and war horses and disguise and teamwork.
2. Roleplaying as a practice: I think a lot of players I know fixate on certain really satisfying moments during games in which their characters were unexpectedly awesome, often during a conflict, often because of clever choices they themselves made, and this is true even of people who don't normally enjoy super-competitive games and trying to win. I want to make a conflict system which celebrates the interesting choices people make and the interesting things they say about their characters and their surroundings.
3. Real live human nature: I think the way we fight is the way we train, and the concept of "experience" in a RPG could expand to reflect that in a really cool way.
So I'm writing a game centered on the idea of a ninja team attacking a samurai castle. I want the game to do more than that, but that's the centerpiece of the game, the thing the action is really built to simulate. The ninja attackers and the samurai defenders each fall into the hands of different players; and the characters are each well-trained specialists with advantages that make them effective and cool. Details to come.
"When you design a game, you're taking three different positions, expressing three different insights, putting forth three different opinions. Saying three different things. First, you're saying something about the subject matter or genre of your game: something you think about adventure fiction, or swords & sorcery, or transhumanist sf, or whatever. Second, you're saying something about roleplaying as a practice, taking a position on how real people should collaborate under these circumstances. Third, you're saying something about real live human nature." -D Vincent Baker
1. Subject matter: I think samurai and ninja are totally sweet, and I think most people would agree with me; although the picture I get from research and training I've done is that actually being a samurai or a ninja is not much like the popular imagination thereof. I think realistic feudal Japanese warfare and espionage action has a lot of important elements which our adventure fiction and games often skip over: things like chain mail armor and firearms and throwing spikes and war horses and disguise and teamwork.
2. Roleplaying as a practice: I think a lot of players I know fixate on certain really satisfying moments during games in which their characters were unexpectedly awesome, often during a conflict, often because of clever choices they themselves made, and this is true even of people who don't normally enjoy super-competitive games and trying to win. I want to make a conflict system which celebrates the interesting choices people make and the interesting things they say about their characters and their surroundings.
3. Real live human nature: I think the way we fight is the way we train, and the concept of "experience" in a RPG could expand to reflect that in a really cool way.
So I'm writing a game centered on the idea of a ninja team attacking a samurai castle. I want the game to do more than that, but that's the centerpiece of the game, the thing the action is really built to simulate. The ninja attackers and the samurai defenders each fall into the hands of different players; and the characters are each well-trained specialists with advantages that make them effective and cool. Details to come.