Games for the Mind

Lousy brain, coming up with ideas after I post. 

One quick idea: rather than have a dedicated person in a GM-lite role who opposes all players in their internal conflict, let the player who first suggests the conflict (even if they don’t necessarily play a strong framing role) be the default opposition for everyone else.  In other words, when you pick a conflict that is important to your character, it may hurt other characters.

I like the idea of a default GM figure, who will take up the conflict if no other player jumps in, but if other players come in, they are vying with each other, at least for the internal victory.  Hmmm, with advancement tied closely to participation in conflicts, players would have good reason to jump on-board and risk an internal bruising…

I really like the idea of an improv-driven GM role.  This could work out well if it is the players’ task to seek out conflicts.  They find the conflict, the GM (as players give them feedback) frames the conflict more coherently, other players jump in or don’t, and things go from there.

So long-time-no-blog.  Lots of personal stuff going on that keeps me busy, but that is neither here nor there.  What I do have knocking around in the back of my head is a mechanical fiddly bit which I think can become the heart of a nice, simple game.

Each player participating in the conflict rolls 5d6.  The player whose dice total the highest number value wins the ‘outer’ conflict.  The player whose dice have the most qualitative connections (dice roll includes every number 1-5 or 2-6, most matching numbers, etc.) wins the ‘inner’ conflict.  No dice are ever rolled if the conflict does not have both an outer and inner conflict. 

Now, this makes it possible but not necessarily likely that a player could win both inner and outer conflicts.  That disparity is what drives the game.

By outer conflict, I mean some external goal in the game: defeating an enemy, winning a beloved’s heart, persuading the crazy man to step away from the ledge.  By internal goal, I mean some internal conflict that the external conflict lets the character work out: am I a good person, am I worthy of love, and so on.

When a conflict appears, the player needs to establish both the external and internal dimensions of it, ideally with everyone at the table contributing to what is going on.  The victor of the external conflict gets to narrate how it plays out, while each player gets to narrate how their success or failure in the inner conflict plays out.

Mechanically, a lot of character development would occur around how players can access rerolls and bonus dice, ideally with some bonus dice only impacting one aspect of the conflict.  In other words, they would have to decide whether they wanted to push to win the internal or external.

Some kinks definitely need to be worked out: in a multi-player conflict, it seems a little kooky that only one player could ‘win’ the internal conflict, for example.  Although, perhaps, one player’s (perhaps a GM-lite style player)  roll could serve as the internal opposition for all participants in a conflict.  That has the interesting side-effect of making that player’s push in the internal conflict potentially devestating for many players.  It could be a real case of winning the world but at the cost of your soul.