Gifted: A contemporary Sci-Fi role playing game
sprightx:
Thank you all for your excellent feedback and sorry for taking so long to answer.
Contracycle:
Again, I think I may have not explained myself well. My question should have been:
Do you think the general idea of a social rewards/penalties system is appealing from a potential player's perspective (as in do you find immersive social roleplaying gratifying enough to make it such a fundamental part of the game)? If the concept (not the system, as I haven't really decided how to implement it yet) does appeal to you, how do you think it could be implemented more effectively than the ideas I outlined which present many obvious flaws? I'm not looking for an opinion on the system itself as I still haven't really built it, what I'm looking for is how to do so in a way that would justify its use in the game and not exhibit all the flaws we discussed. I hope I've made myself understood more clearly this time.
Callan S:
I'm not familiar with universalis, I'll look into it as it sounds interesting.
Players could play PC's yet still feedback into the creation of their environment and the stories. It feels very unoriginal (which isn't necessarily a problem) but A Song of Ice and Fire's destiny points mechanism is a good example of a system that allows players to influence the story and events they participate in. While in ASoIaF destiny points can be spent in two ways and they can be used both to change the narrative and to modify rolls and their outcomes in Gifted maybe they could be restricted to influencing the story line. This, coupled with an extensive content generation system, would grant the players a high level of participation in the development of the story.
The previous point actually feeds into what happysmellyfish mentioned about Cthullu's clue system. Were the game to incorporate a resource that allowed players to influence the story it could possibly be used to purchase clues at critical moments. Players would have a low, fixed amount of said resource to spend on influencing the narrative or buying hints and this would allow them to obtain the information they needed to move the story forward. The issues I can see with such a system are that it might make the game 'easy', ie. players could not influence the story at all and just spend all their points buying clues, and that in the hands of a smart group of players such a resource could detract from the GM's control over the game, giving the players too much control. It is debatable whether this is good or bad although in a investigative game I'm inclined to think it is the latter.
The other point worth examining is whether a linear story is a problem. In theory a 'railroady' story can be just as enjoyable as one that grants players more freedom, but for it to be truly successful the GM has to be a VERY GOOD storyteller. For an experienced GM this isn't a problem, all of us who have run many campaigns have developed techniques and styles to make them enjoyable for our players, but for someone who isn't a charismatic storyteller it may be very difficult to make the game truly gripping, in which case the lack of freedom becomes a penalty and detracts from the overall quality of the experience. With greater player control part of the burden of making the story interesting is shifted off the GM but in a game that focuses on resolving mysteries giving control to the players kind of defeats the purpose of the whole thing. Even if a player doesn't know the details of the story or who killed whom, just knowing the general topic makes it much easier to predict.
Callan S.:
Well, that's the thing about an investigative structure - it's basically a railroad. If the story is that the butler did it, then the butler did it. The players don't get to influence that at all and if they are expected, in moment to moment play to keep attempting to find it out (rather than their characters go do something else with their lives), then play of course heads towards that predetermined end.
Personally I envision a kind of wide tube instead of a tight track. The players can richochet from side to side in the tube, encountering very different events as they move latterally in the tube, even go backwards sometimes (though an overall progression to the end is the idea) and the tube doesn't pinch into one outcome, but has a few outcomes (including failing the investigation - despite the fact that 99% of books and movies can't stand to have failure as an ending). Further, the outcomes might undergo de-emphasis and some act of the players might become 'the real story'. Like say they are trying to find the murderer, but at some point the players encounter an orphan and something about it makes them intense and they try and find a family or some better situation for the orphan. Now maybe at the end they find the butler did it, but that's ceased to be the big deal - instead an epilogue abou the orphan having a better postion in the world is the big deal ending. That becomes the climax of the story. As a GM you just learn to let go of the butlet thing as you feel the players build up some passion about something else (and then you try and work out some way of stiching it into the climax (that, or if you conclude it now, play ends now, never mind the butler)).
That structure seems to give some freedom, but like smacking a horse on the rump, gets the players bolting and out there. I think full on narrativism gives a much wider range of freedom, but it depends on whether you want to.
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