[Steampunk Crescendo] Out on a limb
dindenver:
Here is the blurb I have so far:
Steampunk Crescendo
Will you succumb to temptation?
A roleplaying game for 3-6 players. 3+ hours, one or multiple sessions.
Intuitive, streamlined ruleset.
Antagonists are overcome using an action-based resolution system.
Compelling, dystopian, steampunk setting with room for personalization and change.
In a dystopian era of vampires, magic, and steampunk super-science, you face overwhelming oppression. Will you oppose your Antagonist? Will you fight for your Goal, and in so doing, bring meaningful change to your world? Or indulge in the temptations of this world.
dindenver:
So, after reading that, is this a group of statements that are not generic and say something meaningful?
Eero Tuovinen:
That works pretty well for me, except that I personally find objectively modelling statements more immediately comprehensible than suggestive provocative ones. I mean that explanatory paragraph:
Quote from: dindenver on February 14, 2012, 01:20:09 PM
In a dystopian era of vampires, magic, and steampunk super-science, you face overwhelming oppression. Will you oppose your Antagonist? Will you fight for your Goal, and in so doing, bring meaningful change to your world? Or indulge in the temptations of this world.
Could that be phrased in an external way that does not focus on what it feels to play it, but rather describes the structure that the game's system paints? For example, I find it a more interesting description of the Sorcerer system to say that the Humanity score, which controls your character's viability as a player character, might or might not gain or lose in value for individual moral actions of your character - there is no guarantees case by case. The equivalent subjective description would be something like "in Sorcerer you face dire choices, will they have consequence? Are you capable of resisting madness, despair and peril for your soul?", which is more vague and thus less interesting in my eyes.
I don't know the game enough to craft a similar objectively external description about this, but it would probably be something where you say that the GM is mandated to provide the players with opportunities scene by scene to strive for either stopping their Antagonist or achieving their Goal, and often the two goals will be perpendicular, forcing the player to choose between them. Assuming this is how the game goes, to me that description paints a picture of a clean, well-considered structural principle - I could imagine writing a game on that basis.
Then again, I'm pretty sure that I'm in a minority on this, as there are many roleplayers who don't want to to be told about the game's system as an abstract framework. Depends on who is your ideal audience, I guess.
dindenver:
Eero,
I dig what you are saying, but there is not a game I know that follows a similar model.
To break down typical play, you do the following:
1) Player picks a scene type (Exploration, Exposition, Research or Confrontation)
2) Player sets the scene
3) GM enters the scene and roleplaying starts
4) If a conflict breaks out, players declare Intentions for this conflict
5) Players declare Action Types
6) Players roll three dice (modified by their Action Type)
7) Players assign dice (after rolled) to Ambition, Cunning and Vigilance
8) Ambition totals vs Ambition totals are compared and players earn progress towards their Intention
9) Cunning totals are compared to Vigilance totals to see who gets hurt.
10) If everyone is willing and able to fight for their Intentions, go back to step 5
11) A player gets their Intention and die roll penalties are assessed for the next conflict based on how bad characters were hurt.
12) When the Scene ends go back to Step one with a different player.
Basically, I took the mechanics from otherkind and made them a "roll vs" mechanics (both sides of a conflict roll, assign and compare totals).
dindenver:
Oh,
So, to follow that up with a question, how do I describe that succinctly?
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