Thoughts on gaming and systemhacking
Amongst many of my friends I am the indie guy, the tinkerer, and mostly the GM. This may be because I have been running for some of them off and on for nearly a decade and in that time I have never been happy with a setting or mechanic as is. To be fair, I started really running games with Rifts and Vampire so there is a lot that could be improved. In that time, I am known for liking epic storylines that are rolled in grit, dipped in the surreal, and decorated with mythic overtones... its why I love mage so much. As cayros can attest, I can obsess about the details of a setting to the point of overkill and unfortunately, I feel that is one of my short comings as an RPG writer is the inclusion of too much detail. My Ahtalis setting could be 3x the size it is now if I went back and re-read it to fill in the gaps of game world knowledge I have dreamt up. Part of this obsession is due to the rules. I hate them for stifling one's imagination, but I love their ability to focus a game.
There have been a number of games lately that have really gotten under my skin, some of this is setting and som are rules. FATE, HotB, Trail of Cthulhu / Mutant City Blues, Rocketship Empires 1936, Unhallowed Metropolis, 7th Sea, the dream of Dresden Files rpg, Prime Time Adventures, Mage, Wilderness of Mirrors, PDQ, Dark Heresy, Unisystem (especially Armageddon and Buffy). Most of these I will not get to play or run because of differences in the players that I have. This is not a bad thing, but is counterproductive to really digging to some concepts that I have floating in my head.
A while back, seannittner posted an RPG wishlist and I have been stewing ever since on creating something that would satisfy my indie thoughts with something that is playable. The core of my design objective is to create a game that recognizes the flow of a story and empowers the players to proactively adapt to the themes to further the collective story. Many games try to capture the feel of physics (movie or real world), but I think this is mistake. I want to see mechanics control the flow of the story by reflecting the character's core elements.
Now, what the hell does this mean? It means, or at least I see it as, a mechanic that is about narrative privilege and who gets to take the reigns of the story and guide the action. At the same time, the mechanics should be composed of the story elements that define the insert noun here (character, place, thing, etc). The mechanic must also engage the players in some fashion to heighten the tension of the risk that the character is entrenched in.
Goals of the mechanic. Done. Any game that I would want to be involved with needs to handle magic in a way that is ‘esoteric' (but not so steeped in the metaphysics that it becomes a philosophical debate), the influence of destiny and Archetypes, corruption, spiritual evolution, and masters of a craft... I will get back to those in a bit.
So what is it that I want to incorporate from those influences? I don't know, but here is a rough stab at this point: Say Yes, Roll the Dice, or Compel
- Virtues Vs Attributes - this is one thats up for some debate
- Aspects - Ranked and redefined to become more narrowed and manageable then standard FATE.
- Dice Pools (not sure if I want an additive TN or a success based)
- Tension between players (i.e. Wagers, or some method of almost gambling to ramp up competition)
- ThreeThings that are True
- Themes empowered mechanically (ala Wilderness of Mirrors)
- Stress (and Consequences)
- Story Hooks as per PDQ
- Token Economy - Scene Budgeting
- Maneuvers / Techniques as a Wager Reduction
- Static Defenses (Wager Minimums based on Aspect types)
More later