Advice needed for a game idea

[jseah]

I had a game idea that appears interesting to me but I have a number of problems that need solving and am rather stuck.

The players are a freelance detective group working in a late medieval era world + magic. (pre-age of sail or so, firearms are poor but deadly and armour is going out of fashion)

Magic is very new to the world, being around for less than a generation. The only form of magic is little gems that people can use to cast spells (consumes the gem). Gems come from the Ethereal Region, appearing in a phenomenon that happens occasionally to unstable areas in the world. More than that, no one else in the setting knows. (I will work out the exact details of how the Ethereal Region works but the players won't know it)
These gems are controlled by a few powerful guilds that often compete with each other over unstable areas.

The players are tasked by a philantrophist to track down the reason for the simultaneous coma of a bunch of orphans, no one can explain it nor are they really interested in finding out why. It's magic related, but nothing more is known.
This leads into a plot that involves major powers of the setting and a very indepth study into the Ethereal Region. Maybe even changing the world.

Alot of talking to NPCs and connecting the dots.

EDIT:
Specifically, a city suddenly gains an unstable area, the appearance of which people can't explain (yet). Within the same day, the children undergo their simultaneous coma. There are a number of leads as well, including eyewitness reports and rumours from children among other things.


The first one is that I have no idea what game system to use. My first thought was D&D, but it doesn't fit. I have to rewrite many many things and discard roughly half the system. (all SU and SP and spellcasting are gone, meaning class rewrites/merges, balance issues, WBL rewrite, no monsters, no planes)
Suggestions here would be welcome. I do have access to GURPS rules but not the magic ones, do you think that would work?


The second one is that I do not know if players would be interested in playing a game whose plot critical elements rely on the players discovering at least some of the properties of an unknown thing. In fact, to discover the reason for the comas, investigation into the nature of magic is absolutely required.
IE. I am counting on the players conducting limited amounts of experimentation. And yes, the Ethereal Region is VERY strange. That is critical for the overall plot to hang together so its not changeable.


Perhaps the game idea wouldn't be suitable for... well, a game? It certainly seems to me that it would do just as well, if not better, as a written story.

[NikitaDarkstar]

I can't really help with a system, other than I'd possibly suggest running as a freeform game, but the problem I see with that is that players would need OOC knowledge on how things work to interact with the world IC, in a mystery setting I don't see that being to fun.

So me personally? I'd save that idea for a story. :)

[jseah]

I can't really help with a system, other than I'd possibly suggest running as a freeform game, but the problem I see with that is that players would need OOC knowledge on how things work to interact with the world IC, in a mystery setting I don't see that being to fun.

So me personally? I'd save that idea for a story. :)
mmm, I suppose so. It only really occurred to me to make this a game idea because I would love to play a game like this.

Then again, what I like is not necessarily what other people like. Perhaps discovery of rules through in-game experimentation and fact-finding isn't quite everyone's idea of a mystery.

I thought mysteries were supposed to be... well, mysterious. -.-"

[NikitaDarkstar]

I might have been reading you wrong, but the way you described it, at least to me it sounds like you'd need to know things OOC that you shouldn't know IC to even be able to do the experimenting.

Either way there's probably people who would want to play something like this if you can find a system to run it. Me personally? I probably wouldn't play it, but I'd certainly read it.

[jseah]

I might have been reading you wrong, but the way you described it, at least to me it sounds like you'd need to know things OOC that you shouldn't know IC to even be able to do the experimenting.
?

Where does it say that? I'll need to rephrase things.

I certainly did not intend for the players to require OOC knowledge to play. The point is for the players to use their characters to discover the properties of the Ethereal Region IC, and hence solve the mystery.

In fact, I doubt the idea has any replay value at all since OOC knowledge about how it works would kill the entire mystery.

[NikitaDarkstar]

It just strikes me as the players would need some OOC knowledge of how your magic works to even being to lean towards suspecting magic? And if it's new and very little is known about it I can't quite get it to add up how they'd end up suspecting that? Unless magic leaves some sort of physical evidence after having been used? (remains of the crystals used? I dunno.)

As I said I might be reading you wrong, actually I obviously am, I'm just having a hard time getting it to add up, but while I enjoy reading mystery I'm pretty horrible at actually understanding it well enough to tie things together, that might be why I'm reading this all the wrong ways. ^^;

[jseah]

It just strikes me as the players would need some OOC knowledge of how your magic works to even being to lean towards suspecting magic? And if it's new and very little is known about it I can't quite get it to add up how they'd end up suspecting that? Unless magic leaves some sort of physical evidence after having been used? (remains of the crystals used? I dunno.)
Ah, you mean that.

That's just the sketch of the prologue. I was intending to put in some suspicious circumstances that point towards the Ethereal Region.

Specifically, a city suddenly gains an unstable area, the appearance of which people can't explain (yet). Within the same day, the children undergo their simultaneous coma. There are a number of leads as well, including eyewitness reports and rumours from children among other things.

[flumphy]

Since you have a system of magic that's kind of unique, I'd recommend going freeform or using something rules-lite. I'm not sure there's anything out there that does exactly what you'd need right out of the box, so something with minimal rules where a little tinkering isn't going to majorly break anything is the way to go.

For a specific system, I'd recommend FUDGE, since that offers a lot of customization but is still easy to GM for without even seeing it in play. And it's free. There are, of course, many other good options out there (including FATE, a more complex FUDGE derivative), but that's what I would use for this.

As for whether players would like your game or not, that will vary between individuals. Some people like exploring the world and figuring out how it ticks. Others are more action and conflict. If you're running this over the internet, you should easily be able to find enough of the former. If you plan on running this at a table with friends, you know them better than us.

[jseah]

Since you have a system of magic that's kind of unique, I'd recommend going freeform or using something rules-lite.
=( I haven't even played freeform or rules-lite before. GMing it would be... peculiar.

I'm not sure how a magic system that works by rules would fit into a freeform game. My impression is that things get refluffed all the time in those and everything is rather fluid.
Not what I'm looking for since refluffing magic is simply not possible if the mystery is going to work.

EDIT: of course, if you could tell me how it could work, that would be great.
I'll look into FUDGE

[Extra_Crispy]

For game system I would suggest 7th Sea. There is a good amount of magic in it but that part you can just ignore. The game includes rules of guns and armor is pretty much unheard of as guns trump it. It is also a very heroic and dramatic style of game suited for more story telling but can handle lots of combat if you want.

The characters can also choose "swordsman" schools instead of the magic schools allowing the use of combat and specialized abilities without the true use of magic. Finally the magic, while some can be powerful, is fairly limited. The magic gets passed through blood lines and every country like Vodace (real world Italian) has its form of magic and is limited to using a few spells abilites from a certain list. You could easilly limit people to having to have crystals to use the abilities and even have certain groups of people or bloodlines specialize in only certain types of magic/able to fully use only certain crystals. That would fit into the 7th sea rules perfactly.

[pasko77]

It almost seems Call of Chtulhu, with the Dreamlands in place of your Ethereal Region.
You can give it a look, it might give you ideas.

[jseah]

You could easilly limit people to having to have crystals to use the abilities and even have certain groups of people or bloodlines specialize in only certain types of magic/able to fully use only certain crystals. That would fit into the 7th sea rules perfactly.
Mmm, maybe. I don't know 7th Sea, but I can check it out. However, I did intend the crystals to be usable by anyone, would be quite hard to explain why not when the nature of the Ethereal Region becomes known.

Still reading Fudge 1995 though.


It almost seems Call of Chutulhu, with the Dreamlands in place of your Ethereal Region.
You can give it a look, it might give you ideas.
Yeah, come to think of it, it does sound that way.
Except that its not horror. And definitely not Lovecraftian.

No, there is nothing in the mist. That's just your imagination. =P

EDIT:
I do have an inspiration for the idea however, so I already have a skeleton of a plot.

[dsmiles]

Well (not to be contrary), to me it seems like Malifaux (http://wyrd-games.net/home) would be the perfect setting for this, with the soulstones and all. It's too bad they haven't published an RPG yet.

I think you could do it in FUDGE or FATE, though.

[Xuc Xac]

You could use Savage Worlds by saying that Power Points (used to cast spells or use other powers) don't regenerate because they are physical objects consumed in the casting (i.e. the gems). It would be a very minor matter to alter the Weird Science rules to represent the gems instead of crazy devices and magic items.

[jseah]

Well (not to be contrary), to me it seems like Malifaux (http://wyrd-games.net/home) would be the perfect setting for this, with the soulstones and all. It's too bad they haven't published an RPG yet.

I think you could do it in FUDGE or FATE, though.
XD
Not quite so much on the monsters everywhere thing in Malifaux. One of the reasons why I am not using D&D3.5 is because I end up discarding the monsters.
On top of discarding WBL, magic and supernatural classes, rewriting illusions and a few minor things here and there.

Too much work.

I am into the combat section of the free FUDGE 1995 pdf. So far, this can work for the game, but the amount of work (building a list of skills and what situations they cover, writing all my own magic spells for gems) is roughly the same as needed for converting 3.5e.

I think I can do it, but even if that is the case, I stand a better chance recruiting players from my friends (who know 3.5e like the back of their hand) and rewriting bits of the system.
Still, I'll finish reading FUDGE. The simultaneous combat turns system looks interesting.

EDIT:
7th Sea and Savage Worlds are in the line.

Come to think of it, I could probably just crib the skill list from 3.5 and that would work for FUDGE, while saving me half the work. Maybe crib selected spells as well.
I think that could work?