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It's been awhile since we had one of these kinds of threads and I'm loving bringing it back like it was 2008 or whenever Ontological Zombie wrecked the last thread. I'm going to post in this thread and probably other people will post in this thread with ideas also. They can be anything, really, but presumably the topics in general focus in the Traditional Games type of joint. This is that kind of a thread. Here's an idea. Idea number one. What about a game in the *World rules systems that's actually just about world building? World World. It's like those god games that you see that pop up on the forums sometimes but there's some actual dice rolling. Playbooks would be aspects of the world - Adversary, Creator, Legendary Beast, Civilization Builder, and so on. Each playbook has a feature trait that defines the playbook but can also pick for a wider pool of things that grant them more access to manipulating the world. This seems like it would work because resolution mechanic of *World gives you three degrees of narrative control and other people playing different aspects can attempt to influence your stuff before, during, or after the fact. The game ends when people want to and you can bolt on other systems as you like depending on if you want to scale up or scale down.
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Apr 8, 2014 01:49
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| # ? Apr 25, 2024 22:39 |
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ooo i want to play the idea guy game no really 
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Apr 8, 2014 01:51
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Idea number two is here. I didn't say the ideas had to be good or bad. What about a contemporary game where you are attempting to come to terms with actually being a robot, but you're discovering it when you're already like in your late forties? Players will grapple with a mid-life crisis in addition to a transhuman identity crisis - do other people actually know that they're robots? Why has nobody told the players? Are there more robots out there? Who built them? You can use whatever system for this but if you want a depressing end you might consider some kind of system where Things End Badly, like Fiasco or Polaris or another small time system. You can also replace being a robot with being a skeleton archer. That's probably just as traumatizing to find out when you're 47.
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Apr 8, 2014 01:56
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Dice with the +/- modifier already applied
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Apr 8, 2014 01:57
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aldantefax posted:It's been awhile since we had one of these kinds of threads and I'm loving bringing it back like it was 2008 or whenever Ontological Zombie wrecked the last thread. I've played with this concept (A PBTA God Game) but it was more geared to divine drama and Gods being jerks to each other and mortals. My approaches were all pretty bad, but there's some fun moves in there, particularly for the trickster. Prince Of Lies When you Aid Another, you roll after all other participants have rolled. Before you roll, you can change your mind and decide to Interfere instead and turn the +1 into a -2. *on a 10+, your deceit goes undetected by the other Gods. *On a 7-9, they know someone worked against them, but not who. *On a miss, they know it’s you. Trust Me When you offer aid to another God, and make a convincing argument that they can trust you this time, they have to accept your offer. Because *world game rules are so modular, with them being broken up into moves, I love the idea of sticking moves on cards and doing stuff with them. I wonder if *world could be combined with Fluxx sensibilities in some interesting way? You build the game, fiction, etc as you play and lay down new cards.
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Apr 8, 2014 01:58
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True Detective inspired game with southern gothic feel using unknown armies ruleset
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Apr 8, 2014 02:05
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I'm running 2 things on here at the moment and neither of them really show signs of approaching an end point but I've had two ideas floating around in my head for a little bit now. The one that I'm probably going to go with next is maybe a little bit weird. The nine realms of the Aesir have been plunged into war. The actions of the traitor prince, Loki, have driven the worlds to chaos. When he destroyed the bifrost, he made it so the Asgardians could only watch the realms, rather than keep the peace among them. Jotunheim, Muspellsheim, Svartlafheim, Vanaheim and Nair have all risen up against each other, generations upon generations of hatred suppressed and now set free without the watchful eye and guiding hand of Odin Borson. All that the Aesir may do is watch as the peace that the population of Asgard fought so hard to secure is burnt away in the fires of war. The traitor prince is still on the loose, sowing havoc and mistrust everywhere he goes. You are one of the Einherjar - the greatest of the dead, brought back to life by the Valkyries and the Norns. You have been tasked by Thor, son of Odin, with bringing peace back to the Nine Realms while he and his cadre seek out Loki in an attempt to bring him to justice. You may come from Jotunheim. You could be an elf from Svartlafheim. You could even be a human from Midgard. Whoever you were, you died a great death in battle and now live again in support of your new home and to restore peace to the nine realms.
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Apr 8, 2014 02:11
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Idea number 3 from me, but I think this is probably idea number 6 for the thread? I go away for 30 minutes and people show up. A game where you find more cursed items than actually useful items. Players are just unlucky bastards that get really excited over a +1 sword, otherwise they're stuck trying to get rid of these boots that play music whenever walking slowly (like when sneaking) so they have to do handstands in order to stealth. Or the sword that interjects whenever it senses tension and says thing nervously. Talking with the king to avoid a war? This sword has a story about how it one was lying next to a dog that wouldn't stop barking...boy, that was a loud dog...
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Apr 8, 2014 02:47
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Laphroaig posted:True Detective inspired game with southern gothic feel using unknown armies ruleset I've got a steampunk fantasy setting in a far eastern continent waiting for a mashup with this (no I don't, but trying to shoehorn steampunk fantasy into literally everything is an exercise in its own right, kind of like trying to use a baby as a kettlebell like Winson_Paine does sometimes)
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Apr 8, 2014 02:50
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Hexcrawl game where the players cooperatively create the map on a piece of paper first, name things and then you overlay a hex grid on it and go from A to B. Map rules not at all dissimilar to this.
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Apr 8, 2014 02:58
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Rulebook Heavily posted:Hexcrawl game where the players cooperatively create the map on a piece of paper first, name things and then you overlay a hex grid on it and go from A to B. Map rules not at all dissimilar to this. Hexcrawl board game - each expansion is a map and all the resources on it in the form of cards and all that kind of thing.
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Apr 8, 2014 03:02
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A D&D 4e game where the case must fight against a converted versions of their 3.5e, 2e, and 1e class. Which Fighter reigns supreme - the one that rolls a ridiculous THAC0 and Player Options, the one with all the weapon feats, or the old school grizzled warrior with tricks up his sleeve!
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Apr 8, 2014 03:28
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Going to use this thread as a dumping ground for the worst mechanics and game ideas I have locked away. A game where players are clouds of sentient gas, that take on "roles" and have so little understanding of the way the world works can only perform actions that specifically relate to their roles. Such roles would range from animals, to profession such as "fisherman" or "door-to-door salesman". Roles would be selected at random and could be shuffled up. Rejected because it was really fiddly and dumb.
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Apr 8, 2014 03:40
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A game about finding someone that doesn't exist.
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Apr 8, 2014 05:52
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In our podcast we do something like this fairly regularly, and our latest one is one of my favorites: There is a plague in heaven. Angels are losing their wings. An entire ghetto has sprung up below the clouds centered on the 'Groundbound.' Amidst this creeping plague, the first Murder in Heaven is committed. The Ideals, being abstract concepts, have no idea how to deal with a murder investigation. Fortunately, the players are all among the recently deceased, and some of the greatest detectives throughout history. These are their stories  Wretches Like Us
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Apr 8, 2014 07:04
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An RPG with a frustration mechanic that increases strength while reducing dexterity unless you have the STONE COLD feat which focuses your inner chi
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Apr 8, 2014 07:51
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signalnoise posted:An RPG with a frustration mechanic that increases strength while reducing dexterity unless you have the STONE COLD feat which focuses your inner chi Greg Stolze's done a couple of games like this where stats are paired off and the values can slide back and forth as things take "damage" or get compromised.
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Apr 8, 2014 07:57
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How about a game that's basically Eoris Essence, but everybody shoots their emotions out of guns. In fact, it's the primary energy source in the world for a wide variety of things, meaning having a lot of emotion power means you are strong. Emotionpunk.
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Apr 8, 2014 15:57
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Planescape -punk setting. Megacorporations rule the planes and all the players are gith who live off the grid
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Apr 8, 2014 17:25
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winson is a hater!!code:
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Apr 8, 2014 17:31
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Related to signalnoise's idea, a while back I had an idea for a magic-cyberpunk game where wizards invented computational magic and magical networks that run through uninhabited planes. So a wizard can make a gate that takes you into the network and you can hack into the Credit Dwarfe servers or whatever. Except it turned out the planes weren't actually uninhabited, and the natives were able to hack into the networks also, and cause bugs/ice/etc.
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Apr 8, 2014 18:09
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inklesspen posted:Related to signalnoise's idea, a while back I had an idea for a magic-cyberpunk game where wizards invented computational magic and magical networks that run through uninhabited planes. So a wizard can make a gate that takes you into the network and you can hack into the Credit Dwarfe servers or whatever. Except it turned out the planes weren't actually uninhabited, and the natives were able to hack into the networks also, and cause bugs/ice/etc. Wait, isn't this is a plot in Shadowrun? If not, it really should be. What about a fourth-wall skirting game where exploitation of game mechanics is part of everyday life for denizens of the realm? Think D&D 3.5 where dropping something is a free action, and picking something up is a move action - since free actions are defined as taking no time, you could have a courier service of goblins standing exactly 5 feet apart from each other constantly dropping and picking things up to deliver parcels in six seconds anywhere they can make this happen. Wizards making +1 magic swords en masse keeping something of equivalent CR handy nearby in case they need to kill something for some quick experience to fuel their enchanting; everybody gets a raise dead or a resurrection, so dying is completely trivialized in developed society, randomly generated dungeons are a major economy source, etc.
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Apr 8, 2014 18:14
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I want to run a Vampire game starting in Carthage (or somewhere Classical) with one person playing the vampire and the rest playing his minions. At the end of the story arc the person who played the vampire would choose his successor to then raise to vampirehood and that player would pick the next time period to play in (out of the next 2-500 years) while the previous head vampire would go into torpor or die or whatever. Basically Ars Magica wizard/grog gameplay with vampires. Does new Vampire do split power levels well? Is it fast to learn? I am getting mighty cantankerous about RPG systems in my old age and if nWoD character creation is as fiddly as Eclipse Phase or its magic is as broken as Shadowrun, I'm out. I already know it's gonna have too many dice and skills and modifiers and so forth. I don't need it to be *World, but what do you guys think? A good idea for a Vampire game? Does it suck to play ghouls? Will converting swords and armor be a pain in the dick?
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Apr 8, 2014 19:32
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I'm not particularly a fan of WoD mechanics but there is a VtR Ancient Rome supplement out there.
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Apr 8, 2014 20:12
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A setting where everything is falling forever through the gullet of a reality-devouring serpent. Another setting where the sea lies beyond the sky, held at bay by mysterious lamps. A setting/boardgame idea where the players are the denizens of a dark (literally dark) plane that is being invaded by humans and their searing light.
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Apr 8, 2014 20:15
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MartianAgitator posted:I want to run a Vampire game starting in Carthage (or somewhere Classical) with one person playing the vampire and the rest playing his minions. At the end of the story arc the person who played the vampire would choose his successor to then raise to vampirehood and that player would pick the next time period to play in (out of the next 2-500 years) while the previous head vampire would go into torpor or die or whatever. Basically Ars Magica wizard/grog gameplay with vampires. There's a world of darkness thread which may be able to best field your mechanical questions regarding nWOD/Vampire here so that might be your best resource if you're doing a feasibility check. Note that Ars Magica generally recommends one person calling the shots in the high tier while the others do stuff in the scrub tier (or various other combinations thereof). You can play around with a lot of things by mixing roles and responsibilities for players, but the assumption in Ars Magic is that everybody has multiple characters that they can use at varying levels of power, which dominate the playstyle of a given adventure/session/whatever. ---0- Can someone run a megacampaign with several games in the same timeframe/setting? I feel like with as large a community that TG has you could have multiple groups with multiple GMs that have things in one game that directly or indirectly influence another game and advances a metastory. There have been several attempts at this both here and elsewhere and it's generated some great stories. There's a good series of posts about it on Ars Ludi starting here.
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Apr 8, 2014 20:28
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A Monopoly expansion that adds new corner maps to jail etc much like Talisman
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Apr 8, 2014 21:21
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A phone app that takes all of the crunchy bits out of a Pathfinder type character and adds all your bonuses together for people that are really bad at combat stuff. Something that would add your BAB, stat mod, feat bonuses, magic + of the weapon, and whatever else, then roll a d20 and add them together. Then do the same for saving throws, damage, skill checks ETC. I love to game with some people but it would make the game so much better if they didn't have to do math 
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Apr 8, 2014 21:33
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Nissir posted:A phone app that takes all of the crunchy bits out of a Pathfinder type character and adds all your bonuses together for people that are really bad at combat stuff. Something that would add your BAB, stat mod, feat bonuses, magic + of the weapon, and whatever else, then roll a d20 and add them together. Then do the same for saving throws, damage, skill checks ETC. I love to game with some people but it would make the game so much better if they didn't have to do math Pretty sure they made something like that - they call it a calculator? I think that some enterprising individuals have, in fact, made apps that do that type of calculation for combat blocks and such, but you can also just give people a form to fill out and ask them questions then you can see things from a control sheet at a glance. PCGen, for example, lets you build a campaign control sheet for 3.5 and pathfinder.  -------- What about a paradox-style game that's founded on legacies of past games? Not just in the short term, like "Steve Swords the Second's Son, Stephen Swords the Sanguine", but actually going through major civilization epochs as one family/clan/tribe. You would have traditions and influences but also have people joining and leaving the tribe - how does it determine leadership? How much power does it hold? Does your ancestry still hold relevance from the stone age to the digital age and beyond? RED AEGIS has something like this but it isn't a real game yet (as in, not fully released - it's still in beta). However, I'm curious to see if it can be handled in a different way, perhaps as a boardgame rather than as a tabletop game. Risk Legacy is the only game that comes to mind where decisions you make in prior games actually has a significant impact on the future development of what people can and cannot do, and it has a predefined endpoint.
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Apr 8, 2014 22:16
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A game with an XP/learning system that isn't based on earning points but on gaining achievements. You became a Local Hero in Dunksville for slaying The Large Orc, gain +1 on all friendly interactions with Dunksville. You slew a Dragon and gain the Dragon Slayer achievement, your Fame increases by 1 and your Wealth is set at a minimum level of "Well to do" but Dragons automatically begin social relations at Distrustful of you.
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Apr 8, 2014 22:23
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A game where actual character arcs are simulated through mechanics, and the end of a character is an inevitable, planned event, just as satisfying as the rest. A game where all the players collectively control the cast of characters, allowing for party death and swaps and differently sized parties without leaving people out.
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Apr 8, 2014 22:24
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Asymmetrikon posted:A game where actual character arcs are simulated through mechanics, and the end of a character is an inevitable, planned event, just as satisfying as the rest. I think Polaris does this.
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Apr 8, 2014 22:36
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It does, but I think it's an idea that could use some broader implementation into, i.e., even more story-based games. It's one of those things that is an integral part of fiction, but isn't really put into games because it's not something we generally think of doing. e: Idea that might work with this - * World hack where you have to give up old moves to progress your character and get new moves, emulating change. Asymmetrikon fucked around with this message at 22:45 on Apr 8, 2014 |
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Apr 8, 2014 22:40
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To build on the idea of playing as gods building a world, a game where you start play as gods making a world, then move down to being rulers within the world making world altering decisions,then down to the nobles carrying out those decisions, and finally to the regular people dealing with the consequences of each of these choices.
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Apr 9, 2014 00:08
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inklesspen posted:Related to signalnoise's idea, a while back I had an idea for a magic-cyberpunk game where wizards invented computational magic and magical networks that run through uninhabited planes. So a wizard can make a gate that takes you into the network and you can hack into the Credit Dwarfe servers or whatever. Except it turned out the planes weren't actually uninhabited, and the natives were able to hack into the networks also, and cause bugs/ice/etc. Pretty much this, but with a horror take. The world is very much like ours, but a new kind of high-speed wireless networking actually creates/destroys pathways and avatars in some other realm. The things that live there aren't upset enough to want to destroy humanity because of this, but since they're incomprehensible otherworldly horrors they might as well be.
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Apr 9, 2014 00:16
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Asymmetrikon posted:It does, but I think it's an idea that could use some broader implementation into, i.e., even more story-based games. It's one of those things that is an integral part of fiction, but isn't really put into games because it's not something we generally think of doing. But [FIGHTER] can only learn 4 moves! --- I want a game with samurai duels or something where dueling is the bee's knees. Maybe not Motobushido, a different implementation, perhaps? I don't actually have any specifics on this particular idea but it would be more based on reading the opponent to determine what their moves are in order to counter them. A Way of the Samurai tabletop game or something?
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Apr 9, 2014 00:19
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aldantefax posted:I want a game with samurai duels or something where dueling is the bee's knees. Maybe not Motobushido, a different implementation, perhaps? I don't actually have any specifics on this particular idea but it would be more based on reading the opponent to determine what their moves are in order to counter them. A Way of the Samurai tabletop game or something? Maybe something like an opposed roll-off where the better you do against your opponent the fewer potential options he can choose from, then the actual shooting/stabbing/whatever is simply a matter of both parties picking what they plan to do (all-out attack, feint, etc.), then comparing them to each other and seeing which technique beats out the other. So if you do a good job reading your opponent then you narrow down his choices and make him easier to predict.
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Apr 9, 2014 00:24
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Kai Tave posted:Maybe something like an opposed roll-off where the better you do against your opponent the fewer potential options he can choose from, then the actual shooting/stabbing/whatever is simply a matter of both parties picking what they plan to do (all-out attack, feint, etc.), then comparing them to each other and seeing which technique beats out the other. So if you do a good job reading your opponent then you narrow down his choices and make him easier to predict. The dueling mechanics in L5R were hilarious because it was all about focusing for huge bonuses to strike, so every strike was always lethal. Maybe a really quick card game where both sides put all their cards face down and then reveal when someone strikes? That's basically what it came down to in L5R.
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Apr 9, 2014 00:37
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Traditional d&d classes and gods and poo poo like that mix with present day reality. Not a cyberpunk dystopian future, the bullshit dystopian present, with +2 AR15's and poo poo.
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Apr 9, 2014 00:56
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What to do after you've been eaten by a dragon.
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Apr 9, 2014 01:26
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