The idea's fairly simple: the PCs start out in what seems to be a post-apocalyptic city. Gradually, they get clues that the situation's more complicated than that, and that it's desirable to ascend. The city has many levels, and each level's harder to reach than the level below. But this difficulty comes in the former of greater need for cooperation, rather than conventional acts of virtue. Getting up to the second layer, which is less unpleasant than the first, requires simple things like  opening a door. The second might need two levers to be worked simultaneously, and so on. Does this sound like an interesting premise? The players wouldn't know at first that their characters are dead. Heck, instead of an afterlife, it might be a sort of "pre-life," or "interlife."

I would generally advise to be careful with "It was all a dream" / "You were dead all along!" kinds of twists, storywise. They can bomb spectacularly.

Far as gameplay goes, don't see why this wouldnt work. You might want some form of individual theme for each floor, which affects what kind of challenge or puzzle the players must overcome. The whole "cooperation" part depends on the party. I've tried such things before, and it can be a bit of a slump at first, until your group gets a general idea of what works and what doesnt.

I'd ask myself why exactly I was choosing spiritual afterlife metaphors for an RPG setting.

Generally those are about spiritual development in one sense or another. Do you want your game to be about that?

What spiritual tradition is this afterlife patterned on, and what are its moral principles and spiritual lessons? So far, it sounds like a video game where the designers have in mind to insist players cooperate in simple animal-intelligence-test kinds of exercises to proceed. Is that what you intend?

Is it just that it seems cool / different / interesting / surreal and appealing in some way you're not thinking closely about?

Is it meant to be a purgatory? What are the mindsets of the inhabitants at the lowest level like that they are suffering with and not opening doors? Are they illusions that are part of a puzzle conceived by... who/what? Is it just a generic unconsidered pseudo-Judeo/Christian/Islamic moralizing tormenting "I'm everything" style deity, or something more specific, or different somehow?

Is there an interesting type of play to engage in at each level, other than trying to get out of that level? What other sorts of gameplay is there to do, and does the situation at one level become irrelevant when you ascend to the next level? Will PCs ever descend? Will NPCs from lower levels left behind ever ascend? Can a PC cooperate with NPCs to ascend without the other PCs? What happens when PCs die?

What's symbolically significant about going up?

How does it spatially occur to the people in this world that they can keep going up from an apocalyptic city? Are there skyscrapers and you have to choose one and you're limited to that building? Are there bridges between them higher up? Or is there no sky and it's an underworld city? Or is it a surreal telepotation or planar shift sort of thing?

Well, it's just a sketch at this point, but I'll try to answer your questions:

Yes. Spiritual development/personal growth

No specific tradition, and yes, I do know that it sounds like that.

It seems neat and maybe kind of cool.

Yes, it it a sort of purgatory. Everyone starts out on the first level; the only one who stay there are the ones who are too fanatically non-cooperative to do anything that's expected of them. Who or what created this is unclear at best. The players don't find out, as I conceive it.

Undecided. Also undecided. Possibly, though probably with PC aid since the whole setting's about cooperation and mutual assistance. PCs might choose to descend, in which case what they do on the lower level is up to them. Maybe they'll try to get others to join them on the way up. NPCs might ascend, but that's not likely to be an occurrence. This isn't really a campaign setting, it's more short run. Working with NPCs will probably be necessary, given that most RPG groups are quite small, 4-6 being typical in my experience. Not sure about PC death. It might not even be possible.

Going up is more effortful than going down. It's that simple.

At some point, the PCs will encounter towers that appear to pierce the sky. This is Big Honking Clue #1 that there's something odd going on.

I think the premise sounds interesting... I've always been interested in the afterlife and how it's portrayed in games.

However, it's potentially a huge setting so I think some of the parameters need to be pinned down a bit. And what do you want the players to do in terms of gaming. Is it a big dungeon crawl or will it also involve lots of RPing? As there are plenty of interesting beings in the after life I'm sure.

As pitched so far it sounds like a cool video game. So more deetz needed!

I think it's potentially interesting, but very undeveloped, and you need a group that's willing to run with something a bit odd. A few comments:

How does going up work? It's a city, not a dungeon. You don't have levels, you have buildings, with floors. Going up to the second floor in one building is completely disconnected from going up to the second floor in another building.

You need a payoff. Don't dangle the players in Lost-like ambiguity forever. Have an explanation, and make sure it's a decent one.

What kind of conflicts do you imagine the PCs will be facing? Do they relate to the methods for going up?

Can the PCs go up and down at will, once they figure out the trick?

How will you encourage the players to go up? Just presenting a puzzle isn't good enough. You're creating a quirky campaign premise, and if you're not explicitly telling the players that's the goal, you need the world itself to provide multiple hints/rumors/rewards to encourage them to follow that premise.

It's too abstract to really comment on at this point.

Quote from: Pat;1047303How will you encourage the players to go up?

Use a level based system like D&D and start at level one. When they open a door and go upstairs to the second level of the city--Ding!--they also hit level 2 on their character sheet. Put challenges in front of them to try to stop them from climbing any higher.

It's like teaching a rat to pull a lever to get a food pellet. A lot of players won't even question it. They'll just keep climbing.

Quote from: Non-English characters are not accepted;1047972Use a level based system like D&D and start at level one. When they open a door and go upstairs to the second level of the city--Ding!--they also hit level 2 on their character sheet. Put challenges in front of them to try to stop them from climbing any higher.

It's like teaching a rat to pull a lever to get a food pellet. A lot of players won't even question it. They'll just keep climbing.

I generally don't mind artificial in-game constructs like hit points or levels, but that one might be a bit much even for me. Moreso, if leveling is tied to literally going up a story in a building, you're going to have PCs trying to scale outer walls, cutting though ceilings, using vaulting poles, inventing hot air balloons, and doing a zillion other creative things to gain height. If you allow that, you'll have uncontrolled leveling. And if you don't allow it, you'll have to come up with ever more outlandish reasons why it doesn't work, and your players will become very frustrated and most likely refuse to play in your rat race.

BTW, it's really fucking annoying that quoting one of your posts guarantees my post will be rejected because the forum software doesn't like your username.

Quote from: Pat;1047976I generally don't mind artificial in-game constructs like hit points or levels, but that one might be a bit much even for me. Moreso, if leveling is tied to literally going up a story in a building...

It isn't any dumber than getting XP for GP.

Quote from: Pat;1047976BTW, it's really fucking annoying that quoting one of your posts guarantees my post will be rejected because the forum software doesn't like your username.

That's not my fault. It was allowed as a username. The forum doesn't allow it inside posts but that wasn't known until after I made the account.

If you wanted, you could submit a name change request in the Help forum.

Quote from: Whitewings;1046966The idea's fairly simple: the PCs start out in what seems to be a post-apocalyptic city. Gradually, they get clues that the situation's more complicated than that, and that it's desirable to ascend. The city has many levels, and each level's harder to reach than the level below. But this difficulty comes in the former of greater need for cooperation, rather than conventional acts of virtue. Getting up to the second layer, which is less unpleasant than the first, requires simple things like  opening a door. The second might need two levers to be worked simultaneously, and so on. Does this sound like an interesting premise? The players wouldn't know at first that their characters are dead. Heck, instead of an afterlife, it might be a sort of "pre-life," or "interlife."

I've been using the afterlife a lot in games. I think this can work. But my suggestion is give it some context because the revelation that they are all dead, might not really have that much impact otherwise. For example if you started this campaign in the wake of a total party kill, and they slowly discovered they were the souls of the TPK party in question, I think that gives it a little more heft than if they are random dead people. It also affords you the opportunity if you wish to attach some interesting goals at the end (i.e. resurrecting their old characters, finishing goals their dead characters were working on in life, etc).

I don't think I've ever done an afterlife campaign, or even a significant portion of an 'afterlife' campaign.
I have, a couple of times, done a "you go into the underworld to bring back a dead character" quest.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1048403If you wanted, you could submit a name change request in the Help forum.

Apparently, that doesn't do anything. It's been three months now.

QuoteApparently, that doesn't do anything. It's been three months now.

Sorry. I was neglectful. I'll deal with it now.