Testing the waters

[Rockbird]

As a distraction while i'm home sick i've begun to try to write a role-playing system. Right now i'm more or less just trying to beat the basic concepts into shape, but i thought i'd check something before seriously getting to work:

Does the following strike you as something you'd be interested in trying to play?

A game where you play as a kind of household spirits tasked with the care of a village. The human world would be a really gritty dung ages kind of feel, but as a spirit your task is to keep the village free from various fae and goblins and other folkloric troublemakers. There'd be considerable focus on the health of the community, as proper worship and sacrifice would increase your own powers.

I'm also going to try to make a strong system for creating the village in question as a group (rather than the dm doing it).

Anyway. Disregarding that there's no mechaincs and really just a concept here, does that concept strike you as something you'd be interested in trying out?

[Jornophelanthas]

The concept as you've described sounds intriguing to me, and if there would be such a game, I would indeed consider trying it out.

However, I am not sure if the concept lends itself well to roleplaying, because it sounds like the most interesting developments would be the politics of the NPC villagers (i.e. social cohesion, worship, sacrifices, etc.), as opposed to the PC spirits who merely reap the rewards.

You could try to design a balanced and plausible (story-wise) system for getting the villagers to reward the players for fending off largely invisible supernatural threats.

However, my own intuition would be to develop this idea in the form of a card game or board game, perhaps with roleplaying elements. If the villagers are part of a "board", players can push their buttons for advantages, but in doing so they sacrifice time that could be spent actually defending/protecting the village.

Edit:
If you're looking for inspiration into these themes, you could read Terry Pratchett's novel "The Wee Free Men".

[The Rose Dragon]

Get Faery's Tale Deluxe.

Have everyone play a brownie.

???

Profit!

[Shenanigans]

Hmmm, I don't know if you're old enough to remember Populous or Actraiser, but the idea seems vaguely similar to those. That's a good thing as far as I'm concerned.

What would the play consist of? Would the players be fighting off monsters (other spirits), averting natural disasters, keeping invaders away, or would it be slightly more mundane, like helping crops grow, watching over children, etc.?

I think this idea could turn out very well depending on the system.

[FMArthur]

This sounds literally identical to the opening scenes of Dragon Quest IX. You play as a creature called a "celestrian" - essentially an angel, and effectively just a human with wings. Each village down in the protectorate (the world of humans) has a celestrian guardian that watches over it. No mortals can see you; they sort of worship or at least give thanks to their guardian (whom they mysteriously know the name of, and automatically rewrite their memory with a new name if the village gets a new guardian) when lucky things happen; belief is prevalent but rare nonbelievers exist.

Whenever you've accomplished some task of paramount importance to any particular mortal, they give up Benevolescence, crystalized gratitude. You take it back to your castle in the sky, the Observatory, and offer it up to Yggsadril, the tree at the top. According to legend, when given enough Benevolescence to make the tree bloom, Yggsadril will return all of the celestrians to the Realm of the Almighty someday. Leaving all the mortals in the Protectorate, whom they must not actually care one whit about, to the monsters.

Obviously it doesn't quite work out that way and disaster strikes when you complete your mission. You lose your wings and halo and fall down to earth to fight evil as a mortal.

[Rockbird]

The concept as you've described sounds intriguing to me, and if there would be such a game, I would indeed consider trying it out.

However, I am not sure if the concept lends itself well to roleplaying, because it sounds like the most interesting developments would be the politics of the NPC villagers (i.e. social cohesion, worship, sacrifices, etc.), as opposed to the PC spirits who merely reap the rewards.

You could try to design a balanced and plausible (story-wise) system for getting the villagers to reward the players for fending off largely invisible supernatural threats.

However, my own intuition would be to develop this idea in the form of a card game or board game, perhaps with roleplaying elements. If the villagers are part of a "board", players can push their buttons for advantages, but in doing so they sacrifice time that could be spent actually defending/protecting the village.

Edit:
If you're looking for inspiration into these themes, you could read Terry Pratchett's novel "The Wee Free Men".

I knew there was something bugging me when i wrote the OP, and you've helped me put my finger on it. Thanks!

You're quite right that the village rather than the PC's is the immedietly interesting focal point. Designing a system for that was my intention, though i'm buggered as to how at the moment :). That's part of the challenge, though. It may be that elements of board-game will come in handy. The future will tell, i suppose.

(Oh, and i've read Wee Free Men. Crivens! 'Ave a faceful o' dandruff!)


Get Faery's Tale Deluxe.

Have everyone play a brownie.

???

Profit!

I will give it a look. If nothing else inspiration is always fun.


Hmmm, I don't know if you're old enough to remember Populous or Actraiser, but the idea seems vaguely similar to those. That's a good thing as far as I'm concerned.

What would the play consist of? Would the players be fighting off monsters (other spirits), averting natural disasters, keeping invaders away, or would it be slightly more mundane, like helping crops grow, watching over children, etc.?

I think this idea could turn out very well depending on the system.

I did play Actraiser a bit a long time ago. While it's a bit more high-powered than what i'm aiming for here it's a good game.

As for play, i was thinking both. It could be an interesting balance between having power over the land and the weather, but being a weak little pixie-thing physically. Maybe able to scare off a hungry fox or wolf, but no more.


Okay, new question!

What gets you enthusiastic about playing a particular game or character?

[Shenanigans]

What gets you enthusiastic about playing a particular game or character?
Hmmm...do you have a broader question perhaps? ;)

As far as a character, it's often the concept I come up with, but sometimes it's the way they'll interact with the world, which would seem to be more applicable to what you're trying for. And those two reasons interact of course. For example, I once built a 3.5 Necromancy Specialist Wizard/Red Wizard (with no Thay in the world...explained as a dead order my character had researched) who had the Skeletal Minion ACF. The concept was a non-evil necromancer who would only control evil undead and only create undead if he got the permission of the dead person whose body was being used. His skeletal minion was actually an ancestor who served him out of familial devotion and tradition.

I loved the concept, but also the way he was forced to interact with the world (usually keep his minion disguised in some fashion, work against necromancer stereotypes, etc.)

As far as games, I think systems need a balance between ease of use and level of detail. Good fluff doesn't hurt, but you seem to have that well in hand.

[Rockbird]

You're right, I should rephrase...

What sort of things usually makes you go "oh, i want to do that?
Within the game, i mean? Obviously it differs from character to character, but in general - power? A sense of "my character would do this? Things that seem fun?

Grmbl... this question is harder to ask clearly than it should be...

[Telonius]

Might be stealing a bit from "His Dark Materials," but you might want to use Pullman's idea of a "daemon" as something for your spirits to interact with. They wouldn't necessarily dictate to the people what they're going to do, but if you can establish a rapport with a daemon you might be able to subtly influence that person's motivation, desires, and dreams.

[Rockbird]

That's an interesting thought. I had the idea of including some form of dream-walking in this. Combining that with a totem/daemon-thing could be cool.

[JonestheSpy]

It sounds like it would be a great strategy game with a lot of roleplaying elements thrown in, sort of like the totally awesome but sadly little known King of Dragon Pass.

Otherwise, it sounds like a very interesting campaign that could work within a lot of already extant systems.