It's November - let's gooooo! What are you making this November?
I will work on another solo game book for my Dungeon Blitz games. This time we are heading beyond the claustrophobic dungeon and into a haunted wood in Eldritch Enclave!
I've got a strange game that I've been wanting to make. It's a diceless game that uses evocative cards that inspire players to describe their actions in an elaborate, over-the-top fashion.
There's a grid of cards on the table that can represent an element of idea of the scene ("hungrey weapon", "twisted heap of discarded trash", "loyalty that defies sense", etc). Players have cards in their hands that represent their own approaches or abilities ("precise as a chisel", "giant messy axe", "a speed that's almost magical"). On their turns they can alternate Scene cards and Player cards to describe their actions. Other players can play Escalation cards to push them in various directions ("more dangerous", "act it out", "tell it from another character's point of view"). The idea is that each turn is dramatic and unpredictable.
There's no resolution mechanic on the player turn - whatever they say they do, they do (within certain constraints; they can't just kill the big bad or resolve the scene's conflict). But the GM gets a turn afterward. Each time a Scene card is selected, there is a GM card underneath. The GM card determines how impactful the GM's response is. Does it injure a player? Force a difficult decision? Put them at risk? The GM cards also serve the function of tracking how close the players are to resolving the scene.
Finally, there's the world-building. The setting is a multiverse, and each session takes place inside a different verse, or reality. The verses are constructed by placing cards into slots on a page. A slot might be "Government structure" or "Philosophical crisis" or "Impending threat". Once filled, a given page should give the structure of the verse and the conflict that the players will be engaged in while in that verse. Each verse will have a different genre (horror, sci-fi, talking animals, etc) to evoke a theme and a feeling.
It's a lot, and it's a very different playstile from anything I've seen. I'm worried that the basic play element, using the cards to describe the action, will either be too limiting (leading to frustration) or too open (leading to a feeling of randomness and disconnection from the narrative). I'll have to playtest to see.
Also need to think of a name.
Zombie World would be a good resource to research for this, as would Untold, the Rory's Story Cube RPG that hit and then was gone. I bet Tarot-sized cards would work for this, both for interpretive/inspirational art and some written prompts. I believe DriveThruCards has a template for them, which means you could print a slick prototype deck.
I just looked at Zombie World, and there's a lot of inspiration there. Building the setting using cards, resolving with cards. I've been wondering if I should have more card types, rather than relying on a really large number of "Scene cards" that might be setting, might be action, might be description, might be events. Zombie World delineates things really well. I'll have to playtest and see.
Thanks for the tip about DriveThruCards!
I really dig Lancer but I find the narrative play mechanics lackluster; I'm going to use the Wild Words SRD to flesh out those narrative mechanics so they are just as interesting as the mecha combat.
I've got an idea for a rhythm game that i've been floating with for a while now. Gameboy style adventure game where you're a member of a band, and you go around to concerts with friends and get new experiences, play cover gigs, and gather "ideas" that the player will be able to choose from to create a new song thats to be played in the finale of the game. a total of 3 songs will be able to be created this way. Leading to 3 different endings.