Darla & David's Game Thread
Darla Shockley:
David and I haven't discussed this yet, so he very well may disagree, but I want fairly strongly to avoid broadcast sorts of messages (like Twitter). Part of what I like about the idea is exactly that limitation, of having to find other ways of sharing information between people who may never meet. One thing we talked about early on was the idea of having this be a forum game to solve information sharing issues, and, while there is nothing wrong with forum or play by mail games, I want this to have a much faster, realtime pace. That's hard in online play, but not impossible (I hope). One of the reasons we are working for short sessions is this--short, fast sessions should be less prone to the distractions that often cause problems in online play.
So, the ultimate question is, can we get telling stories to work as a part of a fast-paced system? I hope so, but I'm not super-optimistic.
PS: please excuse any typos or other such issues in this post. I am at work, and our tech guy is on vacation, so I am waiting forever for his boss to get around to figuring out why I can't log in. Meanwhile I am responding from my phone.
David Shockley:
What we would really like, is to create a sort of miniature oral tradition, spread by the travelers. So that even though everyone isn't ever playing at the same time, they still have something that ties them all together. The reason we prefer an oral tradition to a written one, is so that the stories can change over time. Being adapted to the needs of the cultures they encounter, and the events surrounding their telling. (Ok, so technically its not Oral, if your playing in a chatroom, or IM, but.. you know what I mean.)
Quote from: dmckenna on September 12, 2010, 02:28:55 PM
Shotgun Diaries has players write a few sentences at the end of each day and one thing which they write is true. Maybe you can play with something like that, only the next visitor to the city decides which things are true and which things aren't.
I don't think we will do this, exactly, but it was a very helpful comment. Before I read this my brain forgot that the mechanism by which the person listening to the story interacts doesn't have to follow in game causality. We had been planning to end every session with an epilogue, where the traveler and the city player work out how the session has a long term impact on the city, and maybe how it impacts the traveler as well. But maybe this step should be done the session after, with the next traveler/city.
I've been having a hard time connecting to the travelers, in terms of color, so I've been thinking about how to flesh them out and give them a more specific focus. If we want to make the story sharing thing a major part of the game maybe they should be Bards. On the other hand, they could be the kind of characters who stories are told about, like mythic figures or folk heroes.
dindenver:
D&D,
As to flashbacks, I think it is a great idea that involves storytelling, without the onus of "telling a story"...
Have you ever read 3:16? The strengths and weaknesses in the game are flashbacks that the player can tap into for huge mechanical bonuses. In this system, you start with one open Strength and pne open weakness slot. If you use a strength, you tell a flashback of how your character learned something cool, then, we return to the conflict and your character immediately wins it for the whole squad using that knowledge. Weaknesses work the same way, except you only save your character and you leave your squad in the conflict to fend for themselves... Because they have mecanical "oomph" it acted as a strong incentive for the players to add to the depth of their character and the setting without feeling forced.
It feels like your game would benefit from a similar mechanic.
dmckenna:
I'm glad my comment was helpful.
When I read the initial post I got the feeling that the real characters in this game were the Cities and the Travelers were more like a force of nature that blew into town and turned everything upside down. I was really getting a folk hero mythology kind of picture in my head where the travelers leave behind all kinds of tall stories and it is difficult for someone to tell the fact from the fiction.
As far as travelers go, I think what they need is some kind of driving force or quest. This could be something that is unique to each traveler, or it might be something that they are all searching for to do with your overall setting. Something that explains why each person is traveling and might also reveal something about them. I'm not sure how you would work that in exactly, but I think it is probably the most important thing.
Finally, I just want to point you at something called Hobo Code. Hobo Code is/was a series of symbols that hobos would leave places for others to find. They would communicate things like where a good place might be to sleep or if the owner of a house was friendly. You could maybe draw some inspiration from this as far as communication goes between travelers.
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