This is me, applying theory to design - using it to clear up how I want my game to work.  (Anyone who hasn't met the Actor/Author/Game-Player thing, possibly with other names?  It's possibly the oldest codified "RPG theory" out there).

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For the game I'm working on, which is called The Cog Wars, I want the main body of rules, and he "standard approach", to feel generally like this:

You are fundamentally a game-player
The majority of play in the game is split up into adventures.  Each adventure has a simple underlying structure: You want to beat the boss, but the boss is made stronger by means of claims he holds in the area.  Find and knock out the claims, and confront the boss; that's the really basic idea, which gets dressed up all sorts of ways.  Numbers, stats, dice, all that jazz; this is clearly a game.

Being an Actor is built in
Everything is built so that you can come at it in first-person perspective (this required stripping out some of the almost "boardgame" elements of the last big run at this game, which weren't from the perspective of the characters).  And there are plenty of bits and techniques that will directly assume that you are playing through them from the perspective of "acting the part".

Being an Author is for adjustment
Some games use "drama points" or the like to allow players to do a bit of spare authoring on the side.  And there's always character background, and the really tiny moments where a player makes something up about the setting without even noticing, just "as part of the flow".   That's about the level I'm shooting for here - though there won't actually be "drama points".  Instead, there will be specific points where you can make authory decisions; when your character is about to die, you can choose to 'go out hard' (and die), or to 'go out soft' (and retire the character to bit-part status, too scarreed for the real action).  Stuff like that.


....Hrm.   Thoughts?

I like the balance between the trad + story bits, and the clarity of intent. It's a sound little manifesto to work from.

Quote from: SeanI like the balance between the trad + story bits, and the clarity of intent. It's a sound little manifesto to work from.

Thanks!

As weird as this sounds, I'm trying to find the places where it is traditional for players to want to take on an authory role, and serve those specifically - like the "at character death" thing - rather than putting that stuff everywhere.

There are at least a few people that aren't well-served by needing to "be an author" in the middle of certain kinds of action, and where they have to do just that for some of the new-style games - the games where "drama points" can be spent at any time, for example, and which may expect you to do some authoring.  Don't want that.

Oddly, it sort-of looks to me like a lot of players don't mind authoring "the dull stuff" - ask them in-character about their day at work, and they wouldn't blink at making stuff up.

You've written this out, and it sounds like a good place to start from in putting the game together... but: how is this going to affect the actual play?  Looking at your bits up there, I'm unclear on how a session of Cog Wars is going to play fundamentally different from a session of D&D or nWoD.  Can you give a for-instance?

Also: When did you come back, Levi?  This place has been in dire need of you for quite some time.

Quote from: BrantaiYou've written this out, and it sounds like a good place to start from in putting the game together... but: how is this going to affect the actual play?  Looking at your bits up there, I'm unclear on how a session of Cog Wars is going to play fundamentally different from a session of D&D or nWoD.  Can you give a for-instance?

Sure!

D&D is a pretty good example, because, well, it's not going to be all that different from D&D as some people play it.

So, imagine a D&D adventure that has, first, very clear abjectives, and very clear "part-way" points.  In order to killl the boss monster (er, defeat the Mastermind) in the dungeon (er, Barrio), you must first go into the far-flung dark corners and destroy it's connection with several places of power (screw up his assets).

That's the first big difference.  When you sit down at the session, you will know (and your character will, too) that the sitation breaks down this way.  So, you can "game the dungeon" and "talk tactics" without needing to break very far away from the perspective of your character.  Some D&D campaigns, obviously, already do this, but it isn't built-in to D&D.  It will be built-in to The Cog Wars; there will be a few different ways to build an adventure, and these types mirror "what the characters can expect".

Making sense to you so far?  There's more than this, but I'm just checking in.

Quote from: BrantaiAlso: When did you come back, Levi?  This place has been in dire need of you for quite some time.

When I recently found that I wasn't being as tempted to respond to people "making a statement" about their opinions as regarded theory and games on other forums, I decided I should wander by and visit.