I was toying with the idea of creating a game that could be playable solo, taking inspiration from the randomly generated content of Roguelikes. I ended up with the idea of a desert-island survival game where you or your group collaboratively control a generated group of highschoolers that have to balance gathering food and materials to survive with complex social networks and backstabing. Of course I painted the whole thing with a thick coat of highschool stereotypes and had my basic idea down.

So in the very early stages here's what I'm for now calling Teen-Islanders.

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ddmbxmt_13cg9mbdv5

So far I've only really done significant testing on the group generation system, which I like a lot. For example, a friend rolled some dice for me earlier today and ended up with this group. Completely generated by the dice, she just filled in the names.

The Rebels
Lucia and Franklyn (Spunk, Couple)

The Cheerleaders
Michelle (Social, Fussy, The Bitch)
Tara (Social, Fussy)
Amber, Tiffany and Samantha (Social)

The Rest
Heather (Sports)
Christian (The Class Clown, Smarts, Spunk)
Eugene (Glutton)
Aaron (Jerk)
Amie (Sports, Crush on Franklyn)

The brackets contain any Strengths or Weaknesses the character has as well as how any other notable information such as relationships with other Castaways or whether they fit a special role such as Prom King or Class Clown. As you can see Cliques form rapidly on this island depending on character's Strengths.

As I said I've literally rushed these ideas together over a couple of hours so I'm not after any feedback on the details such as layout or phrasing. I'd like to hear what people think of this general idea and whether they think they'd be interested in playtesting when it comes to it.

Quote from: SuperSooga;217306As I said I've literally rushed these ideas together over a couple of hours so I'm not after any feedback on the details such as layout or phrasing. I'd like to hear what people think of this general idea and whether they think they'd be interested in playtesting when it comes to it.

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Not bad.  If you broadened the scope of this out from the specifics of an Teen-Island game and make it more generic it could become the basis for a generally useful social-intercourse game system, which could be useful to GMs generally speaking.   That said, I like what you've done with it so far.  It's rather amusing.  

Thanks for the feedback.

Personally I like to write games that are either system-generic and designed to be played in a number of different styles or games that are focused on one particular setting and designed with that in mind. There are plenty of good games in-between but I prefer to have that focus when designing.

Saying that you could quite easily hack this system and convert it to different settings based around group survival. Zombie attack on a shopping mall? Crazy AI seized control of a spaceship? There are quite a few that I think would be doable simply by changing around Strengths, Weaknesses etc and making new Events. Even renaming would suffice for many things, but it's something I'd rather leave up to the players that wish to do that.

Quote from: SuperSooga;217431Thanks for the feedback.

Personally I like to write games that are either system-generic and designed to be played in a number of different styles or games that are focused on one particular setting and designed with that in mind. There are plenty of good games in-between but I prefer to have that focus when designing.

Saying that you could quite easily hack this system and convert it to different settings based around group survival. Zombie attack on a shopping mall? Crazy AI seized control of a spaceship? There are quite a few that I think would be doable simply by changing around Strengths, Weaknesses etc and making new Events. Even renaming would suffice for many things, but it's something I'd rather leave up to the players that wish to do that.

Very true.  In fact I when I read it I was thinking ... gee with a tad bit of retooling I could use this for my Underworld Survival scenario.   Maybe a few words on the possibilities on the game page at the end would suffice.   Anyway, nice job.