Moments after submitting my game for this year I had a great idea for an entirely different take on the ingredients. The first game was fun to write so I'm seriously considering working on a second.
I don't plan to try and write this one in a week though - it was way to stressful. Here's my second idea:
- Its a story about a City on the Edge of reality
- The laws of physics change beyond the edge. Magic functions and creatures of pure spirit survive.
- Creatures of pure spirit cannot pass back from beyond the edge because without a body or magic to sustain them they would die.
- Mercenaries and Delvers decend into the Dungeons beyond the edge to kill creatures and take their stuff.
- Sometimes what comes back isnt a Delver but is a Fetch, Doppelgängeror Vardøger - creatures of pure spirit that have taken the skin of a delver and now inhabit it.
- The players play the role of Inquisitors - men and womens whos job is to psychologically test those who return from beyond the edge to ensure they're not sociopathic creatures of pure chaos.
- Those who fail the test are sumarily put to death for the safety of the city inhabitants.
- Only the truly desperate go Delving because the Inquisitors seem to feel most who return are probably sociopathic creatures of pure chaos.
In fact with a little work I think this could make a cool con game. I'm not sure about its long term appeal though.
Damn....now that you mentioned that concept, it would have been a great time to refine an old game of mine that I ran at a series of conventions in the mid 1990s....something that I've been holding back on for the last ten years or so, waiting for the right moment.
A city on the edge of reality is exactly the concept of that game.
Oh, well. I guess I can work on it later.