[A Hatful of Rabbits]
That was a bit incoherent. Probably because I was thinking as I was typing. Let's see if we can make it any clearer.
Here's the outline for the game:
To play the game, you will need the Major Arcana from a Tarot deck, and three to five people.
There are three roles that you will play in a given scene. After each scene, the roles will rotate around the table, meaning that everyone will play every role at some point in the game. The roles are:
The Magician, who roleplays out our aging stage magician PC who is on a quixotic quest for glory at the end of his life. Mechanically, the Magician player can call for conflicts and decides between options that The World presents. One person plays the Magician at a time, for one scene, then the role passes to the next player.
The World, which represents any minor NPCs in the scene, and is charge of background material. The World offers suggestions and feedback, encourages and guides narration from the Magician and the Arcana. If either the Arcana or the Magician calls for a conflict, then the World's job is to set stakes for the conflict. If you have four or five players, then multiple people play The World. In conflicts with multiple World players, they should talk with each other to decide what the most interesting/dramatic/complicated/heart-wrenching stakes would be for the conflict.
The Arcana, who plays the major NPC for the scene. The Arcana player plays the primary NPC for the scene, begins scenes by asking a difficult question about the magician, ends scenes once the question is answered, and calls for conflicts if appropriate. The NPCs introduced each demand something from the Magician in some way, often things that come at a cost to the magician.
At start of play, determine who is playing each role in the first scene. (You could mix the Magician, World and Judgment cards around to decide this randomly if you want; whoever gets Judgment starts as the Arcana, and the other two play the role shown on their card.)
Remove the Magician, the World and the Judgment cards from the arcana, then shuffle the rest and place it down. If you have four or five players, take two cards from the minor arcana (I like the look of the Two of Swords and Two of Pentacles from the Rider-Waite deck, but that's purely a visual aesthetic matter not based on divinatory meanings.) Place the Judgment card next to the deck.
Each scene, you will have one of these cards in front of you, which determines which role you will play in that scene. At the end of a scene, you pass your card to the player on your left. (??? Or otherwise redistribute the roles somehow?)
At the start of the scene, the Arcana player turns over the top card of the deck, which determines what sort of NPC they will be playing. Each card remaining in the deck of major arcana is tied to some sort of NPC and a category of questions to probe into. The Lovers card means that the Arcana player will play someone the Magician is romantically interested in, or that is interested in the Magician. And the Arcana player will as a difficult dramatic question about who the Magician loves, or about relationships, emotions and related matters. If the Arcana player draws The Hermit instead, then you have an NPC who does not want to b associated with the Magician, and is trying to avoid him for some reason, and the Arcana player's questions involve avoidance or secrets or mysteries (either detective or religious).
To start the scene, the Arcana player ask a difficult, probing question concerning the magician's character/motivation/goals/history/etc. That question acts as the frame for the scene: you keep playing that scene until the question has been answered. The Arcana player then describes the NPC they will be playing and sets the scene, which plays out until the Arcana player is satisfied that the question has been answered, or at least addressed. We need to know more about the Magician by the end of the scene than we did at the beginning.
The NPCs played by the Arcana player all want something from the Magician character. Intangibles like respect or love or peace of mind are probably better than tangible goods, and these things should cost the magician in some way. (Not sure on the viability here, but working on it.)
In a scene, either the Magician or the Arcana can call for a conflict. In this case, the World player(s) decide on a set of stakes, and offer the Magician a set of two options, using the "cut the pie" resolution system from House of Masks and this thread, that I don't want to go over right now.
Judgment
Once everyone has played each role at least once, then instead of drawing an Arcana card, the Arcana player can declare that this will be the last scene of the game. This should be done only after the Arcana player thinks that the story has played as much as it is going to: perhaps you reached a natural ending, or perhaps you are approaching the end of your available time. If there are no more facedown cards in the arcana deck, then you have reached the end of the game, and must play a Judgment scene. In that scene, the question is something along the lines of "Does the Magician find what he was looking for?" (I need to tweak that wording to get it just right.) It's the final resolution of the Magician's story, in which we discover is he is ultimately successful or not. And once that is finished, the story is done. There could be some different endgame mechanics for this scene, but I can't imagine why I'd need any.
I think the game would be playable in one three or four hour session, but that depends on scene length, really.
Here's the outline for the game:
To play the game, you will need the Major Arcana from a Tarot deck, and three to five people.
There are three roles that you will play in a given scene. After each scene, the roles will rotate around the table, meaning that everyone will play every role at some point in the game. The roles are:
The Magician, who roleplays out our aging stage magician PC who is on a quixotic quest for glory at the end of his life. Mechanically, the Magician player can call for conflicts and decides between options that The World presents. One person plays the Magician at a time, for one scene, then the role passes to the next player.
The World, which represents any minor NPCs in the scene, and is charge of background material. The World offers suggestions and feedback, encourages and guides narration from the Magician and the Arcana. If either the Arcana or the Magician calls for a conflict, then the World's job is to set stakes for the conflict. If you have four or five players, then multiple people play The World. In conflicts with multiple World players, they should talk with each other to decide what the most interesting/dramatic/complicated/heart-wrenching stakes would be for the conflict.
The Arcana, who plays the major NPC for the scene. The Arcana player plays the primary NPC for the scene, begins scenes by asking a difficult question about the magician, ends scenes once the question is answered, and calls for conflicts if appropriate. The NPCs introduced each demand something from the Magician in some way, often things that come at a cost to the magician.
At start of play, determine who is playing each role in the first scene. (You could mix the Magician, World and Judgment cards around to decide this randomly if you want; whoever gets Judgment starts as the Arcana, and the other two play the role shown on their card.)
Remove the Magician, the World and the Judgment cards from the arcana, then shuffle the rest and place it down. If you have four or five players, take two cards from the minor arcana (I like the look of the Two of Swords and Two of Pentacles from the Rider-Waite deck, but that's purely a visual aesthetic matter not based on divinatory meanings.) Place the Judgment card next to the deck.
Each scene, you will have one of these cards in front of you, which determines which role you will play in that scene. At the end of a scene, you pass your card to the player on your left. (??? Or otherwise redistribute the roles somehow?)
At the start of the scene, the Arcana player turns over the top card of the deck, which determines what sort of NPC they will be playing. Each card remaining in the deck of major arcana is tied to some sort of NPC and a category of questions to probe into. The Lovers card means that the Arcana player will play someone the Magician is romantically interested in, or that is interested in the Magician. And the Arcana player will as a difficult dramatic question about who the Magician loves, or about relationships, emotions and related matters. If the Arcana player draws The Hermit instead, then you have an NPC who does not want to b associated with the Magician, and is trying to avoid him for some reason, and the Arcana player's questions involve avoidance or secrets or mysteries (either detective or religious).
To start the scene, the Arcana player ask a difficult, probing question concerning the magician's character/motivation/goals/history/etc. That question acts as the frame for the scene: you keep playing that scene until the question has been answered. The Arcana player then describes the NPC they will be playing and sets the scene, which plays out until the Arcana player is satisfied that the question has been answered, or at least addressed. We need to know more about the Magician by the end of the scene than we did at the beginning.
The NPCs played by the Arcana player all want something from the Magician character. Intangibles like respect or love or peace of mind are probably better than tangible goods, and these things should cost the magician in some way. (Not sure on the viability here, but working on it.)
In a scene, either the Magician or the Arcana can call for a conflict. In this case, the World player(s) decide on a set of stakes, and offer the Magician a set of two options, using the "cut the pie" resolution system from House of Masks and this thread, that I don't want to go over right now.
Judgment
Once everyone has played each role at least once, then instead of drawing an Arcana card, the Arcana player can declare that this will be the last scene of the game. This should be done only after the Arcana player thinks that the story has played as much as it is going to: perhaps you reached a natural ending, or perhaps you are approaching the end of your available time. If there are no more facedown cards in the arcana deck, then you have reached the end of the game, and must play a Judgment scene. In that scene, the question is something along the lines of "Does the Magician find what he was looking for?" (I need to tweak that wording to get it just right.) It's the final resolution of the Magician's story, in which we discover is he is ultimately successful or not. And once that is finished, the story is done. There could be some different endgame mechanics for this scene, but I can't imagine why I'd need any.
I think the game would be playable in one three or four hour session, but that depends on scene length, really.