On a lighter note:
I may be designing an RPG for academic credit... ...*if* I can pull off some decent research within the next week (not too hard, though I'm pretty stressed right now), *and* design the game mechanics by the middle of December (that's where I'm going to need help from the good folks of SG).
Here's what's up: I decided I am absolutely sick to death of writing analytical academic papers. I'm very good at it, and consistently get good grades on them, but I am so done with that, having already done an undergrad thesis and a master's thesis. But right now, I'm taking a grad-level Music History class, and our term papers are coming up-we have to have our proposals, along with a tentative bibliography list, turned in by next Monday night.
Tonight, before class, I spoke with the professor and explained to him my frustrations with traditional paper-writing... you see where this is going. Basically, I asked him (in not so many words) if I could write an RPG about composers in Renaissance Italy, where they compete for patronage from the emerging bourgeouisie, and try to avoid getting either assassinated by their patrons' rivals, excommunicated by the Church, or completely alienated from all they love, forced to compromise their art for money.
Right now, my ideas for how to implement this are very sketchy at best. Here they are, in no particular order:
1. I see the potential patron (de Medici or whoever) as a sort of GM role, but I'm considering having it rotate à la Polaris or Shock: or somesuch.
2. I need to incorporate some actual music into the game somehow! Maybe not the details of compositions, but at least some sort of soundtrack. (Where's that soundtrack thread?)
3. I'm thinking 3-5 players.
4. The game needs to be educational in some way about the time period, and needs to showcase all the research which I'm about to do for it.
5. My answers to the Big Three:
a. The game is about the struggle to gain fame and recognition as a composer in 15th- and/or 16th-century Italian city-states.
b. The players (especially whatever GM-ish-type role I wind up with) attempt to recreate the feel of Renaissance political and religious conflict through appropriate narrative details, while challenging each other's characters, trying to prevent them from getting what they want.
c. The characters, at least the composer characters, seek to earn notoriety as composers and performers, and a secure patronage, while avoiding censure from the Church or being caught up in political conflict (or plague, etc.).
(Arrgh. I have no idea if that's any use at all.)
6. I'm considering having some sort of "event card" mechanic, things like "plague" or "Papal visit to your city." Maybe they could be ambiguous and interpretable à la Ganakagok.
Questions:
1. Should I take the easy way out, and just design this game as a scenario for Burning Wheel (or another system, but I think BW's lifepaths would be helpful), and mainly focus on historically researching the characters, maybe statting out historical figures and putting them into (semi-fictionalized) conflict with one another? (Regardless, I'm totally writing "Duel of Notes" mechanics lifted directly from the Duel of Wits. Somehow, some way, I will make it work.)
2. Can people suggest *one* or *two* games I should look into to help me, in terms of what I'm aiming for mechanically (although, I'm not even sure-see question 3)? I currently am at least familiar with (though don't necessarily own all of) the following: Polaris, Shock:, BW/BE, PTA, Mortal Coil, 1,001 Nights, TRoS, TSoY, DitV, Grey Ranks (and the Roach... ooh... the Roach comes to Renaissance Florence perhaps?), Beast Hunters, Conspiracy of Shadows, maybe one or two others I'm leaving out.
2a. Would "My Life With Master" be a reasonable model for such a game, if instead of seeking out patronage, you start out with a patron, who makes you do horrible things / does horrible things to you? My Life With Medicis?
3. Which of the three G/N/S priorities should I emphasize here? My instincts say Nar-the Borgias will hire you to be their personal house composer, but only if you murder your wife! But that might not fly well with my intended audience. I could see it being competitive, in which case there's a non-rotating Patron role, and the other players are competing composers; in the end, only one will be chosen. That might make it more like a boardgame, which is what my prof originally thought I meant. Ha. Little does he know... fools! I will show them all! Mwahaha... ahem.
4. What should I call it? "Grab the Lute!", "Duel of Notes", "Troubadour's Travails", something Latin TBD (Intervalus Diabolicus?), "1,001 Florentine Nights" (some sort of 1,001 Nights hack might not be a bad idea, actually) are all ideas I've had, but they probably suck. I don't know. I need help!
5. Should the characters maybe just be historical composers and patrons (and popes, etc), statted out? I think going this route might be easier, but would also involve going more in the boardgame direction as noted above.
Please note: I do NOT expect to have a 100% complete game by mid-December, but I'd like to at least throw some mechanics together and begin playtesting, perhaps with my unsuspecting classmates. And obviously the historical and musical research needs to be as solid as possible, but clearly that's not why I'm posting here.
Thanks all, for any help or insight you can offer!
Here's what's up: I decided I am absolutely sick to death of writing analytical academic papers. I'm very good at it, and consistently get good grades on them, but I am so done with that, having already done an undergrad thesis and a master's thesis. But right now, I'm taking a grad-level Music History class, and our term papers are coming up-we have to have our proposals, along with a tentative bibliography list, turned in by next Monday night.
Tonight, before class, I spoke with the professor and explained to him my frustrations with traditional paper-writing... you see where this is going. Basically, I asked him (in not so many words) if I could write an RPG about composers in Renaissance Italy, where they compete for patronage from the emerging bourgeouisie, and try to avoid getting either assassinated by their patrons' rivals, excommunicated by the Church, or completely alienated from all they love, forced to compromise their art for money.
Right now, my ideas for how to implement this are very sketchy at best. Here they are, in no particular order:
1. I see the potential patron (de Medici or whoever) as a sort of GM role, but I'm considering having it rotate à la Polaris or Shock: or somesuch.
2. I need to incorporate some actual music into the game somehow! Maybe not the details of compositions, but at least some sort of soundtrack. (Where's that soundtrack thread?)
3. I'm thinking 3-5 players.
4. The game needs to be educational in some way about the time period, and needs to showcase all the research which I'm about to do for it.
5. My answers to the Big Three:
a. The game is about the struggle to gain fame and recognition as a composer in 15th- and/or 16th-century Italian city-states.
b. The players (especially whatever GM-ish-type role I wind up with) attempt to recreate the feel of Renaissance political and religious conflict through appropriate narrative details, while challenging each other's characters, trying to prevent them from getting what they want.
c. The characters, at least the composer characters, seek to earn notoriety as composers and performers, and a secure patronage, while avoiding censure from the Church or being caught up in political conflict (or plague, etc.).
(Arrgh. I have no idea if that's any use at all.)
6. I'm considering having some sort of "event card" mechanic, things like "plague" or "Papal visit to your city." Maybe they could be ambiguous and interpretable à la Ganakagok.
Questions:
1. Should I take the easy way out, and just design this game as a scenario for Burning Wheel (or another system, but I think BW's lifepaths would be helpful), and mainly focus on historically researching the characters, maybe statting out historical figures and putting them into (semi-fictionalized) conflict with one another? (Regardless, I'm totally writing "Duel of Notes" mechanics lifted directly from the Duel of Wits. Somehow, some way, I will make it work.)
2. Can people suggest *one* or *two* games I should look into to help me, in terms of what I'm aiming for mechanically (although, I'm not even sure-see question 3)? I currently am at least familiar with (though don't necessarily own all of) the following: Polaris, Shock:, BW/BE, PTA, Mortal Coil, 1,001 Nights, TRoS, TSoY, DitV, Grey Ranks (and the Roach... ooh... the Roach comes to Renaissance Florence perhaps?), Beast Hunters, Conspiracy of Shadows, maybe one or two others I'm leaving out.
2a. Would "My Life With Master" be a reasonable model for such a game, if instead of seeking out patronage, you start out with a patron, who makes you do horrible things / does horrible things to you? My Life With Medicis?
3. Which of the three G/N/S priorities should I emphasize here? My instincts say Nar-the Borgias will hire you to be their personal house composer, but only if you murder your wife! But that might not fly well with my intended audience. I could see it being competitive, in which case there's a non-rotating Patron role, and the other players are competing composers; in the end, only one will be chosen. That might make it more like a boardgame, which is what my prof originally thought I meant. Ha. Little does he know... fools! I will show them all! Mwahaha... ahem.
4. What should I call it? "Grab the Lute!", "Duel of Notes", "Troubadour's Travails", something Latin TBD (Intervalus Diabolicus?), "1,001 Florentine Nights" (some sort of 1,001 Nights hack might not be a bad idea, actually) are all ideas I've had, but they probably suck. I don't know. I need help!
5. Should the characters maybe just be historical composers and patrons (and popes, etc), statted out? I think going this route might be easier, but would also involve going more in the boardgame direction as noted above.
Please note: I do NOT expect to have a 100% complete game by mid-December, but I'd like to at least throw some mechanics together and begin playtesting, perhaps with my unsuspecting classmates. And obviously the historical and musical research needs to be as solid as possible, but clearly that's not why I'm posting here.
Thanks all, for any help or insight you can offer!