[Brick & Mortar: Last of the Independents]
stefoid:
Quote from: Dan Maruschak on April 20, 2011, 09:42:29 AM
Quote from: stefoid on April 19, 2011, 05:36:34 PM
There is a board game called Dune (well theres heaps of games like it, but its the iconic one) where you play factions, each of which have different winning conditions and each of which have some power unique to their faction.
Your game seems like that. Maybe as a roleplaying game, you dont need winning conditions, simply overriding goals that the archetype player should pursue. Obviously everybody individually wants to live and escape, take that as a given, so most goals should be about something other than that.
Maybe I'm being too subtle: I am telling The Owner that he needs to take care of everybody, and making it nearly impossible for him to give them what they need, unless he sends them away with no guarantee that they'll return. I am giving The Survivor tools that can save everybody if they cooperate, and telling him that he needs to watch his own ass. It is beneficial for the group if The Hipster hangs around being a snarky, complaining asshole, but it is unclear to The Hipster what he gets out of the relationship. I am telling The Regular that the store is his home, but giving him mechanics that will make him seem to everyone else like a panicky idiot who's not contributing anything. I think these asymmetries inject a lot of dramatic potential into the situation, and the mechanics will keep transforming the situation until it gets resolved. In play, the players will make interesting (organic) choices in their characterization. (I haven't playtested so I can't guarantee that it all works, and The Regular is probably the weakest in this regard). Giving other explicit "goals" for the players or overtly mechanizing these types of decisions seems like it would be bad for this design. The game puts into question whether a character survives or not because that's the tension that drives situations in the survival horror genre. Does that make the game "about" survival? It depends on what you mean by "about", I guess.
You definitely have elements there, which is why it reminded me of that game. Maybe it will turn out well in playtest, but if it doesn't, you might need to aim the archetypes a bit more squarely at each other and themselves to generate conflict. You could also have more achetypes as well - the authoritai figure, the mom with the kid (who gets into trouble), the criminal, etc...
happysmellyfish:
Would an Actual Play report help here?
Ron Edwards:
Hiya,
I'm not trying to argue against the game as it's envisioned, but I am having trouble envisioning it myself. And in trying to elicit that, I think I'm prompting responses that are either defensive or being read by me as defensive.
So I think the best move would indeed be playtesting - myself as well as anyone else,* because there's stuff here I do quite like and want to try out.
Best, Ron
* to be discussed in Game Development, not Actual Play. AP is for published games, not games in the design process.
Dan Maruschak:
I was able to playtest the game a few times yesterday. I posted the audio to my podcast and started a discussion thread with some of my observations in the Game Development forum.
(By the way, sorry for any defensiveness anybody was picking up earlier in the thread. I think I was letting my frustration with not understanding what Ron was trying to say infect the tone of my posts.)
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[*] Previous page