Independent game design from beyond the grave
The map is a 10×10 grid. Place the start location and 1d10 additional rooms.
To place a location, roll 1d10 to find X (horizontal) and 1d10 to find Y (vertical).
Roll 3 FUDGE dice to generate the height and width. + moves one grid square down, – moves one grid square up. If rooms intersect, they become one larger room.
Corridors, stairs and features are generated during play via player exploration rolls.
What is this game about?
Spiritually draining work, an existential threat to one’s psyche, often glamor- and glory-free—but, nonetheless, a social necessity. Investigations hampered by the protocols, egos and machinations of higher powers.
How does it go about it?
Players portray investigators working out of a small office. They work within a maze of bureaucracy, rules and customs that hinder their efforts. Rewards are small or non-existent and threats to oneself are ever-present. Success closes cases but only through challenge and failure can one grow as a person.
What behavior does it reward or encourage?
Working together, spending “downtime” on non job-related activities; risky behavior to quickly finish difficult cases or non-risky behavior to slowly build a solid case; going with or against the flow of destiny — do you let it control you or do you fight the inevitable and try to effect change?
Snow Crash / Lady Gaga / JG Ballard / Douglas Copeland / Cory Doctorow / Chuck Palahniuk / Videodrome / Underground / FreeMarket / Borat / Mark Leyner / Warren Ellis / Grant Morrison
What if everything that was happening all the time everywhere happened to happen all at once?
Player A says something to Player B. Player B responds with one of these three words:
OKAAAAY!
“I accept your proposition and would like to respond.”
YEEAAAH!
“I agree with what you’re saying. Please continue.”
WWWHAT?
“Please, explain what you mean in more detail.”
…or Player B may disagree with Player A and issue a challenge by asking:
“ARE YOU FUCKIN’ WITH ME?”
Player A responds with either “Yeah!” or “What?” If Player A responds with “What?” then Player B may offer a rebuttal. If Player A responds with “Yeah!” then Player B commands:
“STOP FUCKIN’ WITH ME!”
…in which Player A responds with either “Okay!” or “What?”
And so on.
Imagining a kids adventure game where they play toys (natch). Each toy has access to a list of stock phrases.
There’s a snake in my boot!
To infinity and beyond!
Hi, I’m Ken!
Each phrase tells you something about the character. Buzz Lightyear is bold and brave, Woody is prone to getting into trouble. Ken is effusively friendly.
They’re kind of like beliefs for the toys. You’re not limited to these phrases but there’s an incentive to use them during the game (not unlike the Dying Earth RPG). These phrases are determined by the toys’ players.
A pre-game activity for 3-5 players.
Bullpen is a game you play before you play the game to help suss out character ideas. It’s especially suited to creating superhero characters.
Each player needs a laptop computer and three six-sided dice. Open a word processing program and create a new document. Name the document “bullpen_yourname.” Create a heading containing your name, followed by the names of the other players. Save the document. If you have access to Google Wave you can share a document.
For example, I create the document “bullpen_jared” and list player’s names:
Jared
Luke
Thor
Drozdal
The first player is the first person to set up their laptop and this document.
On the first player’s turn, he should reveal a fact about his character’s history using the first person and write it down on the first line of the document. The other players should also write down this fact under the first player’s name.
Jared
I was created by a scientist to protect mankind against an alien threat.
The first player may then roll a six-sided die or pass.
If he rolls the die and it turns up 6, he may introduce another fact about his character’s history or pass. If he didn’t pass, he rolls again.
If he ever rolls a 1, then that fact is up for debate – the next player may change one part of the first player’s fact. His turn ends and play proceeds to the next player’s turn.
If the first player passed or didn’t roll a 6, the second player now reveals a fact about his own character and the game continues.
If a player incorporates another player’s fact, then he gets to roll an additional die (max. of three dice). If any of these turn up 6, he may reveal another fact. If all the dice turn up 1, his fact is up for debate and his turn ends.
When writing down historical facts about your character, you can insert facts anywhere in the document under your name. This helps in establishing and maintaining the chronology when writing down a fact that occurred before something you already wrote.
At the end of the last player’s turn, that player gets to ask the first player one question:
Who? What? Where? When? Why? How?
This question should pertain to a fact already established by the first player. The first player must then answer this question by revealing another fact about his character (usually writing it beneath the previous fact).
The game continues until each character has 12 facts in his history. If a player finishes early, he gets to continue to ask questions and debate facts but not add any more of his own.
Your box text might be incredibly well written and interesting to read on the page but it’s not at all important when you’re playing a game and it’s time to relay that information to the players.
It doesn’t matter.
Investigation is not about taking in every detail and trying to make sense of it. It’s about finding answers to your questions.
There’s a thread on story-cunts and predictably, the host of usual suspects just doesn’t get it. Jesse sees the problem, because he’s an astute guy. From him, re: Gumshoe (which I dislike immensely, so full disclosure there):
“You come into the library, ornate tapestries hang from the wall depicting scenes from the life of Henry the V. Each row of books is headed by an ornately carved statue. The floor itself appears to be made of marble and is inscribed with odd occult runes. The large domed ceiling sports an incredibly detailed map of the stars.”
In most of these kinds of games and in this example, the GM waits for one of the players to pick the right thing to inquire about, then gives him the relevant information. This is ass-backwards.
What should happen is that the players investigate the scene not by finding an answer but by asking a question:
“What are we doing here?”
Look at a police procedural. It’s not a clue by clue scavenger hunt, with bloody footprints leading the way to the next mini-scenario like a trail of breadcrumbs. It’s people searching for the answer to a question and then using that to determine their course of action. The players decide where the story goes based on the evidence. The best part of this is that they won’t ever be wrong. Even if they don’t go to the next obvious place to find the next piece of the puzzle, wherever they go/whatever they do will give them something related to their first inquiry.
Standard investigation game: the players are searching a room for *a* clue. Any clue. The GM gives them a description and the players try and figure out the obvious breadcrumb trail. Sometimes it’s with a search roll or something relevant to the item/location/person being examined (like botany or archeology or library science). If successful, the GM elaborates on the item/person in question, giving them more information that wasn’t originally included in the description. The roll is either binary (yes they find it, no they don’t) or it’s scaled (varying amounts of information tied to the character’s proficiency or die roll or both).
My investigation game: the players ask a specific question and the GM gives them the thing that answers that question. Proficiency determines how much the answer helps to build their case. Example: the players enter a murder scene. What’s the question? Well, in general it’s “Who dunnit?” but that’s too broad. They can begin with a theory or start totally cold. What they need to do is to build a case to support their theory. “How the victim die?” Well that’s known… someone else did the legwork and they just talk to the guy (an easy task because the medical examiner is on their side. “Blunt trauma to the head.” he says, perusing the victim’s crushed skull). The players decide they’re going to go to scene of the crime and ask the next logical question: “What is the murder weapon?” The GM doesn’t give them any more than minimal details about the location until they ask this question and make the appropriate die roll. The players roll well and the GM gives them the murder weapon (a heavy stone paperweight) and a clue about that clue (it has spots of dried blood on it).
Everything is a clue until it’s determined to be irrelevant, nothing is a clue until it’s put into context.
The players can know that yes, this is the murder weapon. The paperweight fits the profile (heavy, hand-held, bludgeoning trauma, available to the victim’s killer). The dried blood is another link in the evidence chain. If they rolled even better you could have more solid evidence (hair fibers stuck to the stone, and/or the paperweight is not on the desk where it should be but is underneath the desk). “Knowing” it was the paperweight doesn’t matter until the case is built. The more facts are known, the more solid the evidence, the more solid the case.
Less is more: too much information is not helpful. Investigation is about discerning what’s important in a sea of noise. Don’t contribute to the noise.
So what if they roll poorly? You can still give them the clue but it’s shaky evidence (“Well, it MIGHT have been this stone paperweight…”) and then the players need to continue exploring that angle (lab tests? fingerprint dusting? smashing gelatin heads and comparing the result to the wound on the victim?). Or you use the lack of evidence as ANOTHER CLUE.
There is an empty space on the desk that catches your eye. Everything is a little dusty but for one roundish spot. The breeze blows in through a window, scattering papers piled on the desk.
This of course leads to a follow up question: “Where is the murder weapon?” Answering this clue will give them the murder weapon but also lead to more questions they can ask, all leading up to the most interesting mysteries:”Who?” and “Why?”
So that’s how I’d do it.
Ideas fall like rain in Florida; they are sporadic, inevitable, unpredictable and torrential.
My brain is a bucket. Ideas overfill the brain bucket, spilling out over the sides. My energy, time and desire is a tiny ladle with holes in it. The challenge is to empty that bucket with that meager implement. Whatever I can scoop out fills another bucket: the project. When that bucket is full, the project is done.
That said, I’ve been busy. Rain falls into the brain bucket and I’m feverishly scooping out as quick as I can.
I have two card games I’m working on (“Don’t Burn the Toast!” and “Jungle Ball”), as well as a few more ideas I have yet to start (working title: “License to Kill”). Work continues on FreeMarket but right about now it’s all editing and production… the niggling finish work we have to get done for the summer release.
Speaking of FreeMarket, check the project-donut.com site or the Facebook group for some info on a contest we’re running!
The schedule for GenCon is done and it’s… ambitious. Luke and I will be super busy, in addition to manning our respective booths (and speaking of Manning, HEY MANNING! WELCOME!).
I also have a couple RPGs of my own I’m exploring, not to mention some media licenses that Sorensen/Crane is hoping to develop.
Busy busy busy. I need a bigger ladle.
Designing an RPG (and I’m talking tabletop, not computer) is like designing an uncomfortable chair. And right after you finish building this uncomfortable chair, you have to convince someone to sit in it. And not just that, you need to teach that person to get other people to sit in the chair as well.
If you do it right, everyone gets something out of the experience. It’s worth the bruising.
If you don’t do it right, nobody will sit in the chair for long, if at all.
The game’s player, if he’s conscious of his own decision making, is going to at some point ask himself, “Is this worth the pain?” If yes, he will keep on keeping on. If not, he’s going to call it quits.
Now, the game’s designer can make the chair less-painful but he can never make it comfortable. I think the best RPG designers are experts in not making less-painful chairs but are adept at distracting the person sitting in that chair from realizing how awkward and painful it is.
Now how’s that for a tortured metaphor?