game theory

[psocoptera]

I spend a certain amount of time awake in the middle of the night these days, and one of the things I think about is ideas for RPGs. (I haven't talked about it here but I recently GM'd for the first time and it was awesome and I'm now mad with power and want to do it again. (I haven't talked about it here because later that night I went into labor and I haven't even managed to finish writing that up.)) Lately I have been pondering the issues involved in roleplaying within an established universe - what kind of features does the game need to have in order to capture what excites people about that universe?

For instance, should all of the PCs in a Girl Genius RPG be Sparks? (The answer is clearly "no" because I'm pretty sure Josh for one would want to play a Jager...)

In a Tines game (from Vernor Vinge's Fire Upon The Deep), would it be more fun for each player to be a separate composite individual, or would it be more fun to play the components of one individual (finally, a party that can't split up...)? I imagine part of the fun would be a certain amount of reshuffling and recombining of characters via the deliberate or inadvertent swapping of members, so I would lean towards the former... but that would be a *lot* of bodies to track in a combat situation...

In a New Crobuzon game, should the players actually have a shot at achieving their goals? (Are both corruption and futility necessary to capturing the mood of a Mieville novel? Discuss.) I've been thinking about a New Crobuzon game for a long time but (unlike the rest of these universes) I've never been able to come up with a scenario I like, once the fun of deciding whether you're playing a beetle-headed lady or animate cactus or whatever is over.

In an Avatar game, what would the Bending mechanic look like? Are different Bending moves more like spells/weapon proficiencies that need to be acquired individually, with various prereqs, or should one Bending skill let you try various moves with varying DCs? And how do you make sure non-Bending characters are just as fun to play as Benders?

Also, given that the Avatar verse is based on Asian cultures, is any Avatar RPG played by white Americans necessarily engaged in cultural appropriation, and should a prospective GM worry about that? What about a scenario that introduced elements from Pacific cultures not already appropriated for the Avatarverse - is that somehow "worse" than using what's already in there? I once played in a game set on an alternate Earth that had all the races and classes of D&D3E. The original characters were mostly from European countries but when I joined the party was currently on a quest in Japan - my character was an Ainu wizard trying to become powerful enough to protect her people from Japanese oppression. I realize this was probably not cool from a racism perspective, taking a real culture's history and using bits of it to dress up a character, but in fact the reading I did was really interesting and the character was fun to invent, so, I don't actually feel sorry. Insofar as the Fire Nation is reminiscent of Japan, one could imagine them having some Ainu-like minorities on one of their islands, which could be interesting or useful for some bit of plot or other. But it feels "safer" to stick strictly to peoples shown on the show. Safer but maybe less fun.

Comments

[ali-wildgoose.livejournal.com]

On cultural appropriation in an ATLA RPG: I think it's totally fine for non-Asian folks to participate in an Asian-inspired fantasy RPG, provided they're respectful about it. I think that it would fall under "cultural appropriation" if the players all wanted to be ATLA characters but have those characters THEMSELVES not be Asian, if that makes any sense. Having a freckled redheaded Irish girl living in the Water Tribe, as opposed to a feckled redheaded Irish girl PLAYING an Inuit girl who lives in the Water Tribe. Does that make sense?

[psocoptera.livejournal.com]

It totally does make sense, and man am I lagged on replying to things.

[saxifrage.livejournal.com]

*hugs* I miss you, and you were completely awesome when you GMed! I would love to be in something you GM again! Speaking of games, btw, Trysha is about to start running a D&D 4th ed campaign--I know you and Josh probably don't have time for it, but if you did, you'd be totally welcome (and I'd be happy to help with Juniper-care during game). btw, I don't know if you've been reading my journal, but I did end up going in for the anesthetic study for my corneas, and it has made an amazing difference--most of the time I'm completely pain-free, and don't even need to take pain meds! In any case, this is all to say that I'm doing a lot better, and completely available to come over with a casserole and meet Juniper, whenever is convenient for you. *hugs*

[creed-of-hubris.livejournal.com]

The old Ars Magica system had a troupe style of gameplay, where every player had multiple characters that were played on different sessions. The wizards were super powerful, but there were also "companions" who were significantly less powerful, as well as "grogs" who were basically redshirts. Different wizards tended to do research at different times, so players alternated playing wizards and companions mostly, with occasional grogs in there too. The badass warrior types in girl genius (like whatsername with green hair, whatshername the captain, and the jagers) are definitely playable characters, if not as powerful as the sparks.

China's a gamer, so it would not surprise me at all if his thoughts on New Crobuzon games are out there somewhere on the web.

[jere7my.livejournal.com]

In fact, he did the map for the Bas-Lag RPG that's in the works from Adamant Entertainment.

[orawnzva.livejournal.com]

Also note that the cast of Girl Genius contains an unusual-for-that-world-at-large number of epic or legendary sparks. We know there are non-epic sparks in the GG setting, and they'd probably be a lot better balanced in a party with non-spark characters.

[glynhogen.livejournal.com]

Maybe a combination of feats and talent tree for bending?

Re: cultural appropriation, there's a big difference between "neat historical backstory for an Ainu [or Avatarverse equivalent] character" and, say, "my Asian chick looks hawt in her kimono [or Fire Nation two piece]."

[irilyth]

>In an Avatar game, what would the Bending mechanic look like? Are different Bending moves more like spells/weapon proficiencies that need to be acquired individually, with various prereqs, or should one Bending skill let you try various moves with varying DCs?

I think there's some implication in the show that people learn different moves, so it seems like you'd want to implement that. Beyond that, how you do it depends on the system.. Champions has a couple of mechanics that would work well (Multipower and Variable Power Pool), since they let you use only a few XP to buy a new "power" that's similar in some respects to your existing powers. GURPS's magic system also works this way to some extent, in that it's fairly cheap to buy new spells, but expensive to get good at them, but you can also sink points into being good at spells in general, thus increasing your baseline...

[orawnzva.livejournal.com]

In a Tines game (from Vernor Vinge's Fire Upon The Deep), would it be more fun for each player to be a separate composite individual, or would it be more fun to play the components of one individual (finally, a party that can't split up...) I imagine part of the fun would be a certain amount of reshuffling and recombining of characters via the deliberate or inadvertent swapping of members, so I would lean towards the former...

Yeah... and I think you have to follow the narrative lead of the book here — a pack of Tines is one character, in novel or RPG. The question is, then, what kid of mechanics are you using? Tines aren't going to be handled well as a straightforward drop-in content module for any system, since you need some pieces of character data to map to packs, and others to members.

but that would be a *lot* of bodies to track in a combat situation...

Well, remember that in close combat, Tines can't act as packs anyway, so if you're actually having to track all those bodies among each other, the character of the game will shift. I think you'd want to handle melee with a simplified board- or miniatures-based system almost like the battle system from Titan, and not devote to much detail to the resolution of individual melee attacks. After all, during melee, you're not playing your character, so who wants to spend a lot of time in melee?

I'm totally interested in working with you to design this system — you know how obsessed I am with FotD. And I really should finish writing "Red-jackets and the Numerous Bad Wolfpack" one of these days...

[psocoptera.livejournal.com]

Hey, I never replied to this... I've only GM'd once so far, but I think I maybe favor an "absolute power" kind of approach rather than collaboration. ::grin:: Also, the way I'd want the mechanics to work would probably be really different for a one-shot (where I'm in favor of keeping things really simple) versus an ongoing campaign (where I'd want the mechanics to be more involved, to be able to handle things like your character increasing their skills over time) - I'm guessing you'd be more interested in working out all the details of the latter, but I'm much more likely to actually run the former. ::grin:: Also also, in my one game so far, there was no clear line between mechanic and scenario, and if you got spoiled for the scenario you couldn't play in the actual game, which I had figured I'd invite you and Sarah to play in if and when I actually run such a thing. But thanks for the offer. ::grin::

[orawnzva.livejournal.com]

Yeah, wheee! That was fun. I'm going to condense my ideas for mechanics into a Munchkinized version I plan to call... Tines of the S.P.O.R.K.