Little Bits of Character November 23, 2007
Posted by Ian in Applied, Game Design, Methodological, Theory.add a comment
I watched Babylon 5 The Legend of the Rangers tonight. It’s pretty solidly grade-B schlock, the sort of movie in which everyone does just too much talking, as if you might not get it if they didn’t spell every development out. Pepper liberally with plot holes, corny dialogue, and plot devices cribbed from a half-dozen or more iconic films, then serve.
There was this particularly awful scene when they are introducing the audience to the cast. The crew of the ship passes this star around, each saying their name, their job, and their ‘truth.’ Truths include such gems as “I’m looking for something” and “I came to space by a difficult road” and “I live to serve and serve to live.” It would have been nice if those truths had had any bearing on the show.
But! The concept might not be terrible in a roleplaying game. It would be nifty if, at character creation, players gave their character just such a generic, vague ‘truth.’ Mechanically, it would be something a player could invoke once a session with the understanding that the outcome of the conflict would lead to an increased specification in the truth.
After it had been specified a number of times, it would have to be resolved, perhaps requiring the character’s exit from the game.
When invoked, it should provide the player some concrete bonus over the entire course of the conflict. If the conflict is lost, the player (or GM) to whom the player lost the conflict should get to add a new specification. If the player wins, they should be able to add the next layer of specification.
Ideally, play would be driven by those truths, with sessions established to develop one or two players truths at a time, giving them reason to want to invoke them. Perhaps some other layer might be built alongside that, to make sure that truths remained a primary currency in play.
I’m not sure what that might be, maybe something simple like fan mail currency for play that hits those truths well.
(This is, for the record, a modification of a mechanic found in Jason Morningstar’s 2007 Game Chef entry, Grover Cleveland).
