This is partially an addendum to the post on the module option, showing where else the module could be taken, or hacking the original game into. Also thoughts regarding clarifying a couple of points from the original game.

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So Luke has a thread where he points to a thread on the Forge, asking about why have it a war in space, amongst other things, and it got me thinking, regarding JRRM. This could be relevant as these are settings to put the module into, but it could also be used to "Hack" the original game.

First, I ascribe to the "Issue makes for Science-Fiction" school, so even if you change the colour from sci-fi space-war to a fantasy setting, to me it'd still be Sci-Fi at its core. The space is a metaphor/tool of distance and loneliness. The characters are removed from society, and it's basically a one-way trip with very little information before you make the choice.
And more importantly, you are now separated, both from most of humanity, whom you are defending (you're defending those you now are losing your relations to, I'm now reminded of Scalzi's Old Man's War with the Ghost Brigade troops), and from those who gave you your memories.

It could easily be changed into fantasy colour: You are summoners, your "Mecha" are demons, and you lose consciousness in order for the demon to manifest in this world, with the strain of the summoning and release taking their toll on your psyche.
This could be taken another step, being made into a high-school/academy style of place (anime style), and this also adds into the cast more characters (even if only NPCs) who are staff and actually care for you, rather than just other pilots and staff who only care to keep you fit for one more round of fighting. This also opens the characters up to being able to interact with fellow humans more, including people they care for, and actually able to form new memories! that matter! And change their Morality outside of combat.

This could be taken to varying degrees of comedy, with some rule-changing and mostly advice. You can deepen the tragedy of the pilots' fate by having a scene or two, or even an episode where the scenes (there are no free scenes in the original game) are not poignant and introspective, but light-hearted and even comic, just to contrast with what usually happens, and even have all that is golden be tarnished later.
You can on the other hand make it much more comic. In a more light-hearted setting, I'd make memory switches rarer, or their effects more light-hearted, or conversly, for a comic backdrop to a poignant game, have the memory switches be rarer (perhaps by making actual combat something that occurs say, every two sessions), and then have a lot more scenes that explore the profound change brought by such changes. Perhaps adding more scenes, or enabling a measure of free-scenes.

Here's an example that could go either way: Have Bob kiss Gwen, and form a memory of it. Then Bob's memory ends up in Mike's memory, who of course goes up to Gwen and kisses her again, because as far as he's considered, he's the one who's kissed her before. This could be played for laughs, or (and) to explore the measure of relationships, and how can you form a relationship when you can't retain your memories of what built it and of the other person, and when you know some of your memories of someone may not be yours?

After all, if we are nothing more than the sum of our memories, is it not us that now love person X, regardless of had we actually generated those memories?

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Also, after reading the Game Chef bits again, a couple of points:
The lack of information about "The War" is on purpose. It could be that they are fighting a civil war, actually attacking another culture/race, defending their world. Could be that what they were told and what's really happenning is different. They could also be sent to quash union strikes on asteroid belts!

Part of it is, that who said the pilots actually see/know what happens outside? The information they get through their machines could be altered/rigged, without a clear visual link to outside.

Regarding "Heart Scenes", which aren't here, because they're part of Juiced Rider itself, I'll want to clarify that piece again: It's not possible for such a scene not to be important to the character it's built for, or for that issue to not matter to it, it's designed according to the character's Moral Code, so the character has to decide if to uphold the moral code or not, and the character if not the player will care for it.

So I've been thinking of designing a modulated version of Cranium Rats while I put the competitive-story collision on the backburner. Heck, I've had it nearly full in my mind twice, and I let it fade away.

So now when I have some ideas/thoughts, I'd post them here, bit by bit, and maybe in the end I'll even type it all up! Besides, most of these thoughts could probably be used elsewhere, not surprising as when I say "Modulated" I mean more like a framework into which various different games could be inserted, with guidelines. Halfway-generic, but the basic themes are the same.

Anyway, I've sat down and thought on how to have the players interact with them controlling one character together through way of Aspects, while it not being a true competition, and here are some preliminary thoughts:

1. There'd be 15/16 points total. No player can have more than say, 8, and less than perhaps 2?
2. Each player would have 10-X "Veto Calls", where X are their points.
3. Likewise, each player would have 10-Y "Points", where Y are their Veto Calls.
4. The Points I'm not decided yet, but I think they may be refreshed every scene. They are the source for dice the player is using in the scene, either to gain control of the character for their aspect, and/or for the character to succeed inside the scene/for their opposition to succeed.
5. Veto calls I'm yet unsure on what they do exactly. Perhaps they can automatically wrest control/succeed/fail? Sounds too much. Maybe they give "Narration control", whereas you can go "No, but..." after someone fails, or "Yes, and.." after someone succeeds. Definitely will look at Polaris for more thoughts.
6. I think Veto points need to be given by one player to the one affected by it. So if I have 8 VC, and 2 Points, and I veto someone with 5/5 (VC/P), we end up with me having 7/3 and he having 6/4, VC/P respectively. Need to think what to do with the "Umpire" in regards to these, and what if a player can't be given any more VC points.

Definitely gives me some Capes thoughts as well.
"Trio-Stats" is because the three players playing a character together are a trio, and I'm thinking of their stats..

I had a thought for a con-game or short-arc, perhaps devoid of system, but based off of JRRM, and posted it on Story Games. It's Philip K. Dick-esque in nature.

I later posted the memory-swap rules, made "Plug-and-play", so you could put them into any game, or have them as your sole rules. I seem to be heading currently in the road of looking at older designs and seeing what can be taken from them and used elsewhere.

Anyway, these are reposts.

The idea and some background is as follows: In a future-world, there is a war, an alien invasion, rebels fighting against Earth Prime, what have you. People sign on to the army to pilot mecha in order to fight the enemies of Earth (go Voices of a Distant Star!).
There are two catches: Interfacing fully with the Mecha requires a drug which has the side effect of your memories mixing with those of others, both other pilots and random memories caught from the collective subconsciousness. The other catch is that if you volunteer to pilot these mecha, you cannot retire until you earn a large sum of money (in the form of bounties, go Area 88) To combat this, some of the people piloting mecha are "Prisoners", who as their sentence are sent and forced to pilot these mecha, being injected this drug.

Since no one has returned from the front yet, or if they have, they are sequestered from the public and media (often by their own choice, perhaps by a semi-martial law restricting the flow of information), and some rumors circulate about many such prisoners being people who have been framed, or committed very low-key crimes (theft? neglect?), one character will be a news-reporter who volunteered in order to find the truth of the matter, and get it back to Earth.
Complications are abundant: First, the prisoners will have been there longer, and not all their memories will be their own. The reporter will also have to remain there for a period of time after getting his interviews, and his memories may not be something he could trust after a few missions; is he a reporter or a murderer, is he an innocent, a framed person, or guilty? Would he even retain memory of his mission? Perhaps one of the Prisoners would get his mission, and what are we if not our memories? If a murderer loses the memories that made him a criminal, is he still a murderer? Is an "innocent" person with the memory of a murder he committed not guilty?

After I had the idea, especially the original mission, I thought it reminded me of Philip K. Dick's Lies Inc. which I oddly enough remembered as "Truth Inc.", and on further reflection, the whole game seems very Dick-esque to me, A Scanner Darkly, anyone?

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( Plug-n-play Rules )

So, for whatever reason, I was looking around some folders on my computer, and found something I've written a long time ago, as a "Positive Game". I didn't remember writing it, and when I've read it, I was very impressed with some things in this game.

It's not a full game, well, it is, but there isn't much meat to it. It's basically a frame-work that is aimed at being loose, and there is an interesting nugget or two here. It's only 1,509 words, so it should be a breeze to read.

If you do read it, tell me whether you think it has anything of interest or worth-mining, and tell me if you think there isn't. I'm not invested in it emotionally, heh.

Anyway, The Friendship Game (direct PDF link).

P.S. I should look at this game now that I've read Georg Simmel.

From this discussion during Game Chef 2007 :
The original piece


Then Filip Luszczyk asked an important question:
"Heh. I wonder what would Fae do with role-playing games ;) "

And my answer:
"They‘d play humans, and then comment on how insufferably dim they are! Then they‘d backstab one another using the game to send veiled insults and threats at one another!"

This gives you my initial thoughts, which lay dormant in my mind since then, thought of now and then, and then put back to sleep. Game Chef 2007 was back in March, now is February 08, so yes, quite some time.

Now I had a thought about a mechanic, having 4 traits, each with a die size and/or number, and having the dice progress from one position to the next in each scene. Perhaps having 4 balls a year, with each ball/season moving onward representing change in the characters, or just as the years progress, and nature shifts, so do these timeless lords of joy and sorrow.

I am having second thoughts, which make me wonder if I can even say I have a game idea, as I have only parts of the "Situation", of the "What Happens?", where the story is, and at the same time I have too much.
I'm thinking of the game revolving around getting promises/things (first born, dreams, kiss, memory of love, time...) from humans, with a mixture of Polaris's Key Phrases to negotiate the terms and/or DitV's Raise/See mechanics with the ability to "Escalate" by introducing into play one of your own weaknesses (as all Fae have some sort of weakness, some common to them all, and some unique, like Rumpelstiltskin's name, or being under gaesa), and further escalating by giving an Oath of yourself. If Polaris, then Zeal/Weariness replaced by how much of yourself is left, and which is diminished by giving of yourself, and possibly returned by gaining offers.
But if so, I need to see about Situation creating, about how to create a mold, a frame, into which all encounters between man and fae would fit (BTW, advice is totally cool).

Another option is to have the game be about the court of Fae, where you can only gain dice to use from what you've managed to achieve in the real world, and that and how you were setback in the real world having direct correlation to your rise and fall within the court.

Another option, of course somewhat mixed with the first is having Dreams/Scenes you take from a Mortal Mind, and then replaying them in the Fae court, re-interpreting them and using them to send veiled insults at your political enemies. But again, I need a frame for all such dreams to follow, like the Town Creation system from Dogs, or a way to incorporate the right themes into Polaris.

Or maybe I'll somehow come out with my own idea for system.
And figure out how many games are hiding in here, and which one(s) I want to design, and how to incorporate those different tastes.
These doubts came later today, and show that this game is going to return to the place in my mind which is like a loose tooth, where I push and poke at it until it solidifes

I am looking for feedback.
All the best,
Guy.

I've talked recently about what I'm going to do with Cranium Rats.

I am going to create the Cranium Rats Chassis which will be character generation, Aspect generation, the interaction between Aspects and Resolution. I will put that content under Creative Commons, allowing other people to meddle with the game and make it explore areas of their choice.

I will give examples of Aspects triads to be chosen, and will further give rules for regaining resources for at least one Set of Aspects. This won't be under Creative Commons.
What comprises the Aspects (Male, Female, Genderless; Water, Dirt, Rat; etc), and what generates resources (and will thus get further exploration during play) will be left for designers to design, and will give the game played its mood and themes. This content will be owned by the person(s) who will create it. I am day-dreaming of it being not unlike the Sorcerer mini-supplement situation.

Your feedback will be most appreciated.

I had understood what the "problem" with Cranium Rats was a while ago, but I needed to let it sit and stew for a while more.

First, I'd like to thank Filip, who tried to break the system as hard as he could, and showed me the gravity of the problem.

So, the problem is this: There's friction between Story and Competition, and it is such that one not only comes at the cost of another for you, it can come at the cost of the other for everyone. If you choose winning, mechanically, you may make choices that will make less sense to the story, or will make for a weaker story, and I wish the story to be significant at the same time as there being unrestrained competitionl. But I guess the lesson is that you can't have both.

I will now explore similar cases in other RPGs that sadly do not apply to my case, but I want to show that I am looking at other cases, and if someone manages to solve this issue, I would be there, ready to jump and grab it.
Capes: Capes doesn't have an end-point, which limits the competition; there's always a next time. Nothing is finite. Another possibility is when competition is not really there, you want to "Win" for Resource A, and he wants to "Lose" for Resource B. In CR there's an end point, there's a definite winner, and so, definite losers.
The Shab-al-hiri Roach: In the Roach you have a roadmap, it's very much like a boardgame in that respect. You know where you're going, you have a limited number of stops on the way, and you get there. It requires the game to be built in a specific manner, which I didn't choose for CR.

So, what can be made of Cranium Rats?
One option is to remove Story, and have it as a board game, or nearly one, but this option is the least appealing to me.
Another option is to remove competition, to make it a game about Choice and what makes a Human. Heady stuff. If I go down this route, I'll also be able to take out much of the current system, which is complex and fiddly, because the system is there to regulate the resource flow and ensure no one is "Downspiraled" to a point of insignificance. This is an option I think I will pursue, and that will lead to an interesting result.

If you people have any ideas of how to mate competition and story successfully, please share.
Or if you have thoughts/ideas/feedback/suggestions or whatever regarding the above, especially option #2.

I've designed the game in February and since then didn't touch it, I guess it's a long enough cooling period. I asked Christian (chgriffen) to read the game and tell me what he thinks, which resulted in the following:

[18:26] xenopulse: So at the core, you have the Liar's Dice conflict resolution. But it seems like the Storyteller is up against at least five players. That seems hard for the ST to beat.
[18:26] Thunder_God: It is.
[18:26] xenopulse: Do they each get to bid? Do they all pool resources?
[18:27] Thunder_God: They don't pool resources.
[18:27] xenopulse: so does it matter which one wins?
[18:27] Thunder_God: It's like this, most likely the Tribe will win, because as you noted, but it's also about honour and deeds, it's important to the Tribe who wins, in game.
[18:28] Thunder_God: On the Deeds sheet, you write who succeeded, but I may possibly need to alter it and make it more pronounced why we care which Tribesman wins. Good point.
[18:29] xenopulse: ok. next up: rituals. I like having rituals in there, but I didn't see much about how they come about or what their role is.
[18:30] Thunder_God: It is discussed very little, but it will have a profound effect on the game.
[18:30] xenopulse: like, it says later on that there's an "associated ritual" with troll dice, but I don't think you said that each troll die has a ritual with it
[18:30] Thunder_God: You get them for gaining Spirit Dice for the village.
[18:30] xenopulse: you mean spirit coins?
[18:30] Thunder_God: No, if you gain coloured special spirit dice, from spirits, aka, Troll dice which are not the original ones, you gain rituals.
[18:30] xenopulse: there's so many different kinds of dice and coins in there, it's hard to keep track
[18:30] Thunder_God: Spirit dice, not coins, but yes.
[18:30] Thunder_God: ::nods::
[18:31] Thunder_God: Their effect is that you have to uphold the ritual.
[18:31] Thunder_God: MUST.
[18:31] Thunder_God: So depending on the rituals, it will affect play.
[18:31] Thunder_God: They're like Gaesa.
[18:32] Thunder_God: And I'll probably need to make a page where I review all the dice types and clarify them, heh. There aren't that many though, there are coins, troll dice, spirit dice and normal dice.
[18:33] xenopulse: I must have missed spirit dice in my reading
[18:33] Thunder_God: Spirit Dice are the Troll Dice spirits use, which you can win.
[18:34] xenopulse: okay. more questions: can the tribe die if it doesn't have enough coins for all the requirements?
[18:35] Thunder_God: Technically a tribe dies when the Troll has no more dice, because the Troll and the Tribe are one, not getting coins just means more hardship for the tribe in the future, and then probably even less coins, but you're right, I need to cover that too, what happens when you get really few coins. It's left to narration currently, to describe people dying of hunger, bickering and leaving the tribe, etc.
[18:37] Thunder_God: Keep going, you're going to give me enough content to do a whole rewrite ;)
[18:40] Thunder_God: :: smiles faintly::
[18:42] Thunder_God: And Aidan will be a super villain.
[18:44] xenopulse: Alright... are there conflicts between the player characters, or is it always ST v. players?
[18:45] Thunder_God: Both.
[18:45] xenopulse: What's the benefit of inter-player conflict?
[18:45] Thunder_God: You play Liar's Dice with both the GM and the other players.
[18:45] Thunder_God: Having your way.
[18:45] Thunder_God: Only one wins Liar's Dice, only one player.
[18:46] xenopulse: So they get narrative rights?
[18:47] Thunder_God: Hm. I'm not sure I covered who narrates the result, let me check.
[18:47] xenopulse: Which brings me to another point, the connection between mechanics and narration is not too clear.
[18:47] xenopulse: It seems like people might just move from one roll to the next with little roleplaying.
[18:47] Thunder_God: Players get Deeds or Trait for successful bids though.
[18:48] Thunder_God: ::Nods::
[18:48] Thunder_God: You are right. I didn't do what I did with JR, where I defined where you can RP. I left it like most games leave it, amorphous, which I think is a bad thing.
[18:49] xenopulse: Well, in highly structured games, there's often little reason to RP. Because it has no impact on the rest of the game.
[18:50] Thunder_God: ::Nods::
[18:50] xenopulse: You won't get more dice or any other advantage from it.
[18:50] xenopulse: Which brings me to this question: what's the role of the ST? Not completely competitive, I gather.
[18:51] Thunder_God: No, to present opposition to the players, to create the challenges, like a ST in Dogs, except there's no escalation here.
[18:51] Thunder_God: TL draws a lot from DitV, but I think it needs to draw a bit more to be a complete game.
[18:52] Thunder_God: In Juiced Rider you don't get any advantages from roleplaying either, I wanted the RP to be pure, with no mechanical bits creeping in, but still, it has an important part in the game, it's my goal for it to be true in other games too.
[18:52] xenopulse: Let me make sure I point out, though, that I see several parts that I really like and think could be awesome, like creating your land, your tribe, and your rituals.
[18:53] Thunder_God: ::nods::
[18:53] Thunder_God: I need to add a section to the creating your opposition part, or several, but I feel it's a good beginning place, and has use.
[18:53] Thunder_God: Giving the GM the tools equivalent to creating a Dogs town, is good.

This is true for Juiced Rider, and some other imagined/planned projects. I am toying with the idea that you don't get to role-play all the time, however and whenever you like, and that system comes to the fore when you disagree with someone or want to get something which you might not get and it has an impact on the story.

I want it to be a game, and in a game, all activities you may do are part of the scripted options. In D&D, both 0ed and 3ed, there is no description of role-playing, and the know-how of the activity is actually transmitted by players.
In my "RPGs" (sometimes "Story-Games"), you can only Role-play when it is said that you are free to. There are specific scenes/bits of the action where it is said you may role-play.

How do you feel about that?

Unlike some of my other designs, Juiced Rider is designed to be an RPG; a game which also has role-playing in it. And while the game portion is certainly fun, or so it seems to my quite Game-centered mind, I thought that perhaps there isn't enough RP going on:
You go on missions, and those who don't go on missions get to set a scene to RP, but what about fall-out from missions, or if you're a Prisoner and thus go out on almost every mission, or have a hole in your pocket that needs to be filled?

Here's another sort of scene, designed for that purpose: Washing the Tears:
After a Mission, the pilots which participated in it may engage in a limited number of scenes. The player who went last picks 1 or 2 players who will be in a scene with him, after the mission debriefing, then the next person, who went next to last picks 1 or 2 other people who may be in a scene with him.
Each pilot may only be in one Washing the Tears scene. This is where you confront someone or thank them for their deeds during the mission.

How does that seem? As cool as Painting the Fabric?

The rules as they stand state a couple of things:
While on missions, Zero Mind must be higher than Temporary Self.
When Temporary Self goes to 0, reduce (permanent) Self by 1.

As the rules stand, there's no reason not to have Temporary Self at 1 and put all the beads into Zero Mind, which translate into Control (effectiveness in combat).

There are two options I'm thinking of:
1. For every bead you move from Self to Mind Zero, you roll a die after the mission, and on a roll of 1 you lose 1 point of Self. This seems a little steep to me and would turn the game into something more fatalistic than grim.
Possibly solution, lose 1 Self for every two dice which end up with 1, but then moving 1 dice is absolutely risk free.
2. For every bead you move, you roll a die after the mission, If you rolled one 1, switch a memory with the memory pool, if you rolled two 1's, delete a Morality trait and write a new one. If you rolled 3 1s or above, do both and lose 1 Self.


Hm, maybe take the second but alter it, no dice rolling. You know what you're going to risk, what you're going to give up in order to be in the mission, and afterwards you pay the price, not the risk.

Thoughts, ideas?

The purpose of this blog is simple, whereas tundra_no_caps is about my personal life, and CSI Games is about Competitive Story Games, there hadn't been a place dedicated to me talking about game design projects of mine.

This place will be it.