Simulation CA and Modules February 6, 2009
Posted by Ian in Creative Agenda, Game Design, Methodological, Simulationist, Small Idea, Theory.add a comment
You’d think there would be cobwebs over here! It seems like forever since the roleplaying mechanics part of my brain has been turned on.
Anyway, there is this little idea that has been tugging at my sleeve, so I figured I would dust off this old blog and post it here. It is a pretty simple one that combines me thinking about module play in light of the recent discussion here about setting and oracles; that old Myst-style of computer play; and my youthful days of playing D&D modules.
Random Thoughts about Modeling Debate October 16, 2008
Posted by Ian in Game Design, Methodological, Small Idea, Theory.add a comment
In honor of the last presidential debate, my mind is churning over that ever-elusive mechanic to simulate and even structure social conflict more minutely. And, heck, I haven’t posted over here in like forever, so I figure, why not? Let me sketch something really rough out.
Macchiavelli in Play? January 31, 2008
Posted by Ian in Applied, Game Design, Methodological, Small Idea, Theory.add a comment
I’m sure I’m not the only player who picked up Vampire when it first came out way back when, read through the material, thought it was so interesting and different than what had been going in gaming, and then sat down to discover I had no idea how to run or play the political intrigue that supposedly drove the game.
And it crossed my mind there might be a way to structure those interactions a little more. The biggest thing is to give political and social bonds some sort of mechanical weight. Here is a basic idea:
Social conflicts always have enduring consequences. If you lose a battle of wills, you get a consequence recorded directly onto your character sheet regarding your relationship to the winner. That becomes a demand your character must meet or pay some resource to ignore (back in the day, Willpower).
Ideally, over time, there would emergent tensions in those consequences, perhaps even to the extent that a single player would have conflicting injunctions.
Some extra fiddly bits might be useful, like giving the victorious character a pool of resources they can offer their subject for following their injunction. That sets up a follow and get rewarded or disobey and have to burn resources.
Of course, any given player should have a limit on how much bounty they can distribute in a single session, so that a player with lots of social power is in the position of having to play favorites.
The Roach and Rabelais December 3, 2007
Posted by Ian in Actual Game, Applied, Methodological, Personal Reflection, Review.add a comment
Because I hate to let the blog lie fallow for too long at a stretch, I wanted to throw out a little thought that has been working around the back of my head. It’s simple, really, an observation about how I play the Shab al-Hiri Roach.
I play the Roach like something between a cross of Rabelais and tragedy. The mechanics all but guarantee that the characters will be victims and the color helps cement that. The characters are people cast into a maelstrom of ill will, subject to the grossest whims of chance, and capable of being degraded beyond their control, through the agency of a mere bug, a bug that crawls into their bodies.
But it’s more than just that awful tragedy, though. The mechanics of the Roach cards, with their injunctions to eat and copulate, to conquer and enslave, emphasize the sheer meatiness of the characters, their appetites, their physical presence, but as objects, as things to be consumed.
The brevity of the mechanical contact to the amount of game play enhances this, giving each scene drastic variability. The single draw of a card, the single roll of a die, shapes the entire scene and its aftermath.
There’s comedy that can come of that. But beneath that comedy there’s a fear, a fear that drives the comedy. It’s a vision of a world where hope and despair are mere accidents of chance, where people are mere containers, vessels, for animal hunger, where people can become awful things wearing the tatters of their humanity like shame.
