thinking about the system (2)

There are many ways to play and win at Mahjong, but the interesting part is that there are several different “hands” that can be considered winning hands, sets of Mahjong tiles. Some of the easier combinations are worth less points, while some more difficult or rare hands can catapult your score into the stratosphere. 

Anyway, the point was that since I used poker chips as a game aid for IDEOL, I thought it would be a good way to give players some control over the game by collecting and playing combinations of chips. The more painfully expensive hands would have greater effects, while the easier ones would have a marginal effect. SInce IDEOL was, at the time, being developed into a tabletop game, the rules are now no longer relevant, and must be rewritten before I can even consider them. It’s such an attractive idea I am sure I will eventually fit it in.

To explain this, basically the energy players collect to power themselves “flavours” them in different ways. I’ll have to think a lot about this because I don’t want players to think they’re jedi knights or something similar.

thinking about the system

I’ve been thinking about the game of mine, and how it needs to be fiddled. It’s not a matter of just hodge-podging some rules, but more importantly to come up with the context for the rules you want – or that the rules illustrate to be more accurate.

Anyway, the point is, that a party is about a group of people coming together, and that even though they are very different, and have different powers, when they work together they become more powerful than the individual. So instead of looking at all the players as being equal, and thus defined by their freedom of choice, they are from small beginnings, and from there, while they are able to expand into the form they prefer, they have roads of easier access – preferred paths that spring from the foundation they started with. It will be about the group again.

Each one will have a little to bring, some thugs, a few vehicles, a crappy ship, a neat laser gun. There will be many factions to start with, as before, but each one will offer a tempting, nigh irresistible ability or gadget, from which the player must choose one. Since there are fifteen companies, and most likely 3 to 6 players, they will have less than half of the neatness they will want.

Instead of each player having a personal army, not only military but financial and covert, they will have enough to fulfil a part of their dream. A small team of ninjas, some financial analysts or manufacturing capability, transport, tech or other angle.

They will put it all together and form a party, in game terms a company, a faction, a team. They will travel from world to world, from hirer to hirer and conflict, and they’ll try to find an angle in. or a place whereby they will profit. The more they reinvest in themselves, the better the chance of success, or of diversity in jobs.

The dream is that they will one day become the avant-garde of a new company that will define and shape its recruits or citizens.

back of the book

Mankind secretly travels to the stars. The inventors of awesome technology have fled across the galaxy to a hundred different petty kingdoms. Those that follow them seeking vengence are no better.

You wander as merchant princes, selling technolgy, secrets and skills to all who can meet your price.

Why is Ideol different? (4)

A player is not only the individual, but the corporation and followers that accompany them. The stats they use not only list their personal abilities and skills, but incorporate their followers and equipment as well.

Play does not follow the normal “real time” play of other roleplaying games. Instead Ideol plays much like a TV show or movie. We focus on the important parts of the game, while we shorten the less important actions. Players have a few important actions per day which they resolve, and their followers may be given orders to carry out as well.

Most actions are orders which are supplied to followers, who will then inform the player as to their success or failure. Actions in which the player assists are more likely to succeed as the player will be better equipt and experienced than a follower.

Combat as not as simple as in other games, where a player reduces the hit points of a target. In Ideol combatants determine a “objective” which they are attempting to sieze, complete or defend. combatants attempt to deter their opponents by force of arms, information and morale. The opponent who gains an edge and applies it for victory carries out their determined objective.

Difficulties will be mainly selected by the players themselves. They will determine the difficulty of the actions they undertake, aware of the likelihood of success. The more difficult the undertaking, the more larger the benefit when it succeeds. Players can increase the likelihood of success by spending resources that they have accumulated.

Players and special npcs will also have a special attribute will allow them to make a reroll if they choose to. Deciding to “push” a bad roll will allow them to turn a failure in a success, or turn a poor decision into a massacre.

Why is Ideol different (3)

If you look at the history of (computer) hacking and phone pheaking, you’ll see that the first explorers of the technology were simply very intelligent people who were finding new and interesting facets of emerging telecommunications technology. Later on, as the technology became publically known, it either scared or angered the government (and busineses), who then demonised it as an illegal and dangerous act.

To me, this is the template for the backstory.

Secondly:

War is often an adjunct to political and financial power, it allows contries to open up closed markets, and to take over or subvert successful ones.
Having watched so much of the invasion of, and war in Iraq, I saw companies and countries lining up on multiple sides to take part in the carving up of a collapsing country. Some used the economy, some used propaganda and ideology, while others sold their services as guards and specialists. To me that was the interesting part of the war: the fact that in a war no-one can limit your actions save yourself; that when there is a natural or man made disaster, there is nothing to prevent you from looting, killing or steal save your own morality and needs.

I want to make a game where players are placed between many groups, that they choose who and by how much they aid or destroy the many people they encounter. I also want to show that warfare is waged with propaganda and ideology, science and information, culture and economy as much as skill at arms, numbers of troops and strong walls.

Why is Ideol different (2)

If you are in a group of cooperating travelling companies who move from world to world to sell your goods, do you choose immediate gain by stripping a world or do you attempt to assist it. If you help the local rebels, you’ll build up credibility with them but lose cred with the government. With enough of a reputation you’ll earn higher benefits beyond simply asset stripping each planet, but you’ll also have the responsibility of maintaining your image. You will even be forced into undesirable actions to chase your target audience.

Imagine a forest behind your house: you can cut down the trees for your own use, and other people can come in and cut down trees too. But then someone starts selling the wood for a lot of money. Since noone owns the forest everyone in the area starts to cut down trees; if they don’t make some money now someone else will. Even though noone wants all the trees to get cut down, its gonna happen. If you owned the forest behind your house, not only would you not want them to go (because you sell them) you have a vested interest in preserving them wisely. They need to be protected, you probably won’t cut them all down at once, but they will be a lasting asset.

So it is in Ideol with planets. And the different groups and societies that move through the setting of Ideol.

Why is Ideol different? (1)

I’ve been working on a roleplaying game called “IDEOL” for a long time. I’ve wanted to make a different kind of roleplaying game, one that does not focus on each player as a member of a small group, but rather that each player is the leader of their own company.

Part of the idea came from the roleplaying game “Vampire” in which players were common folk who were coming to terms with the fact that they had been made into vampires. The social rules of Vampires are of course long lived and complex, and the older vampires would naturally take over control of many powerful humans such as politicians and also own businesses, drug cartels and other powerful organisations. At the point where a Vampire operated on that kind of scale, the issue of personal power was no longer an issue; rather the Vampire with the most flexible, creative strategies would win. The foil to this was that as they got older they became more set in their ways.

To my mind there could be some kind of link between this and a science fiction setting: if a powerful enough person were to set up their own petty empire, they would need to cooperate with other contempories at first, but as they aged they would need each other less and less, they would start to compete for the same resources. Each character would not expect to personally lead every battle and fly every starship, but would instead need to trust others, to find reliable followers and make difficult choices. The followers they needed to trust the most would also be the ones most likely to betray them, and the friends they made might be the ones who would be powerful to conquer them in the end.

Game theory (1)

I’ve been reading a lot of in depth information on game theory lately, writing through some philosophy texts that elizabeth passed me. It’s really amazing how important game theory is in relation to, well, just about any subject. The basic idea about game theory is that if you look at all decisions as a form of game, you can then spend some time looking into the best possible solution to any form of decision. Since in the future I’ll no doubt talk about this some more, I’ll start with a simple example.

On a police drama, two criminals are bought into the station. The police have a little time to question them and have a strong suspicion that they killed someone. So they put each criminal in a seperate room and make each an offer: If you admit to the murder and your accomplice does not, you’ll go free and they will get life in jail. If both of you admit to the murder, you’ll each get 10 years, and if neither of you admit to the crime we’ll get you on a minor charge for 6 months.

Since neither criminal can talk to the other, both have to look after their own interests, no matter how much they trust each other, the possibility that the other confessed is too grave a possibility to face. The best option for either of them is to confess. At worst they’ll get ten years and at best they’ll get to leave after a lengthy interview.

Now, this pretty much explains a lot of situations in life. The next lot of complications arise when a group of criminals consider the repercussions of such a deal. Their leader decides that the best way to combat the police is to make each criminal swear an oath: if they talk, they die. Now, when they are taken into the station by the police, they have a new “worst case scenario”: take life in jail, go free or die for talking. The police now have to craft a more tempting offer.

Game theory is having a profound effect on my design principle in my roleplaying game, and I’ll continue to talk about it more.

What does a party want (1)

I’ve run roleplaying games for my friends since primary school. Over time you start to work out the kinds of things that players want from a game, and for my own amusement I think I’ll try and list some.

1. Self determination

Every party enjoys looking at the game as a puzzle. They like to talk about the conspiracies and motivations of every part of the game. you need to make them think that, whether or not you have one, theres a reason for every action and conversation in the game.

2. Adapt to the dreams of the party

If you listen to the conversations of your players ( and their description of their character) you can find out their current interests and the things that they are going to look forward to in the game. It’s a good idea to incorporate those ideas into the game as it makes the game way more fun for them. The trick is to insert their ideas in a way that makes it look like you were planning to anyway, instead of seeming to react to their wish list. They might talk about wanting to form an army, or  to prefer games with shades of morality, and so on.

3. prefer to say yes

if you have a good group, whenever they come up with an idea, as long as they have some kind of reasoning, or strategy, you should support and try to act as if the idea is plausible and reasonable in the game. For example, if a player suggests that since they are in an inn there should be some flammable alchohol around that can be used to make bombs, you should try to work through that. They’re trying to keep the action coming and they have applied “movie logic” to the situation, so its better and more fun to roll with it than to halt the everything because you don’t like the idea or don’t think that 13th century taverns had barrels of flammable rum.

4. Give everyone a moment.

For the most part a party should act as a unified force, debating actions and then following them through, but at some point you should take a little time to listen to, and act on the wishes of each player to make them feel special. As well you should try and incorporate little things that are important to them, so that if a character likes dancing, every so often theres something to do with dancing in the game. it makes them feel important and it shows that their interests are incorporated.

5. combat is any kind of drama and resistance.

Often games become combat fests, in which the party take breaks between dungeon delving to gear up and sell loot, but really, physical combat isn’t the only kind that makes you feel good. Succeeding at a contest, debate, dance off or spelling bee, when presented well, will make the party feel just as good as if it had survived a tough encounter. The trick is to reward the party for any dramatic act as well as if they had completed a tough fight. If your party member seduced a noble lady while the others helped, reward them with a token of her affection (like jewellery) and benefits like contacts and improved social stature. When they understand that not just combat bring rewards they won’t be so boring about their goals.

A brief post on atheism (1)

I agree wholeheartedly with the idea, theory and argument of atheism. I have one concern, and that concern is this: that people who have “converted” to atheism may have simply transferred their poorly understood support for one system of understanding to another one.

To make it clearer: often people change their beliefs in order to feel part of a larger group and to be socially accepted. But underneath that need for acceptance they still maintain a baseline of fundamental beliefs and views that might still be very similar to those they had when they subscribed to when part of an earlier, religious system of belief. 

A person might convert to another religion, they might change their religious practice; but they will still bring with them ideas of acceptable social behaviour from that earlier practice.

So my concern is this: if, as more modern people are claiming to accept the atheist argument (that it is impossible to logically conclude that there is a god or gods who micromanage the universe and our place in it), are those people merely moving from one social group to another as it advantages them?, without understanding the underlying argument and the changes it makes to our goals in politics, science, social justice and the environment.

If this is true, then a certain percentage of the population of self described atheists might still make decisions which are as harmful and poorly considered as non-atheists.