Strange premises that total work.

[smoke prism]

(Not sure if this the right form, but here gose).

I'm just wondering if the playground can list some games that have premises that shouldn't work, but some how do.

My example is Dungeon the dragoning (http://lawfulnice.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/dungeons-dragoning-11.html?m=1), a mix of d and d, ashamed, vampire and meany over games, which by all rights should be a complete mess, but is rather cohesive and well put together.

So can you come up with any more examples.

[Arbane]

Paranoia?

The setting's an unabashed dystopia that the PCs are supposed to be enforcers for, player infighting and killer GMing are _encouraged_, and the rules are set up to maximize character failure.

Good thing it's a comedy.

[Delta]

I once read an awesome column about two guys discussing how every genre gets better by putting "-punk" behind it and tried thinking about a genre that can't be "punked", and finally arrived at the conclusion "You can't punk Disney!", and then went from that to prove themselves wrong by creating "ToonPunk", which for all the weirdness sounded like something that would actually work if given the chance, unfortunately it was so long ago I forgot much of the details.

[The Dark Fiddler]

Don't Rest Your Head.

The default assumptions of the game (that is, the way you're going to play unless you go out of your way to counter the point of the game) mean you're going to be playing a slightly psychotic insomniac. You've been awake so long that you finally Awaken, and you see a parallel universe. As you progress, you get more tired and a bit crazier, and that makes you more powerful. Your biggest danger is falling asleep, or maybe going crazy.

But you know what? It has a very specific theme, and it works very well for the type of game it's meant to play. Also, it's pretty cool.

[Jay R]

How about a medieval wargame in which Queens are more powerful than Kings, and Castles move farther than Knights.

It's called "chess".

[Slipperychicken]

How about a medieval wargame in which Queens are more powerful than Kings, and Castles move farther than Knights.

It's called "chess".

Or a game where the goal is to indiscriminately slaughter helpless green people by using a team of fanatical suicide/kamikaze bombers to collapse their buildings on top of them (crushing them to death under the weight of said buildings), earning points for causing collateral damage and losing as few members of your own species as possible.



Angry Birds

[Yora]

Mouse Guard

You play as a group of tiny mice with tiny swords and protect your hometown from natural disasters and predators like bats, owls, foxes, and so on.

[Doorhandle]

I once read an awesome column about two guys discussing how every genre gets better by putting "-punk" behind it and tried thinking about a genre that can't be "punked", and finally arrived at the conclusion "You can't punk Disney!", and then went from that to prove themselves wrong by creating "ToonPunk", which for all the weirdness sounded like something that would actually work if given the chance, unfortunately it was so long ago I forgot much of the details.

...That's... That's epic mickey isn't it? (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/EpicMickey?from=Main.EpicMickey)

[Eldan]

I once read an awesome column about two guys discussing how every genre gets better by putting "-punk" behind it and tried thinking about a genre that can't be "punked", and finally arrived at the conclusion "You can't punk Disney!", and then went from that to prove themselves wrong by creating "ToonPunk", which for all the weirdness sounded like something that would actually work if given the chance, unfortunately it was so long ago I forgot much of the details.

Well, there's the European Disney Cartoons. As a German, you probably know them. The Mickey Mouse detective stories were rather brutal and dark at times. Or the Italian superhero cartoons with Donald Duck as a batman-like gadgeted vigilante.
Take that, make it a bit darker and more mature and you're there. Also, a few more social themes, those are essential for punk.

[Mono Vertigo]

There's a game where your character was kidnapped by fairies and replaced by an evil double. You drain people's emotions or eat mushrooms funky fruits to power up your magic. Despite the modern and urban setting, you're involved in courtly drama with kings and queens. And you've got a true, fae form, but nobody "normal" can see or touch or perceive it in any way barring rare exceptions, and no amount of logic can change that.
Several years ago, if you'd told me I'd become a huge fan of Changeling: The Lost, I wouldn't have believed you, but here we are. I don't even like fairies or fairytales. I suppose it works because it uses everything dark about fairytales while still providing you with sources of hope and wonder that aren't innocently naive.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Monsterhearts is often pitched as "paranormal drama in the vein of Buffy, Twilight, and True Blood".

For some reason, it's also one of the best games I've played. It manages to take the drama elements and make them concrete in a way that lets me appreciate the drama aspect. The way that it leverages intra-character relationships in a mechanical way is fantastic.

[Delta]

Well, there's the European Disney Cartoons. As a German, you probably know them. The Mickey Mouse detective stories were rather brutal and dark at times. Or the Italian superhero cartoons with Donald Duck as a batman-like gadgeted vigilante.
Take that, make it a bit darker and more mature and you're there. Also, a few more social themes, those are essential for punk.

They went a bit more over the top than that, drawing a lot of inspiration from Roger Rabbit where the borders between a toon and a real universe were softening up, with megacorporations like Disney or of course the unavoidable Acme Corporation taking over both worlds, one of the things I remembered was the idea of "toonware" as opposed to cyberware, were humans could have pieces of toon anatomy implanted to give them super strength, speed and so on.

[Grinner]

They went a bit more over the top than that, drawing a lot of inspiration from Roger Rabbit where the borders between a toon and a real universe were softening up, with megacorporations like Disney or of course the unavoidable Acme Corporation taking over both worlds, one of the things I remembered was the idea of "toonware" as opposed to cyberware, were humans could have pieces of toon anatomy implanted to give them super strength, speed and so on.

:smallconfused:

:smalleek:

*picks jaw up from floor*

Someone, anyone, do this NOW.

[Delta]

Hah, found it!

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?144268-Toonpunk

[Kaun]

slightly off topic but adding "-punk" to a genre, how exactly does this alter the genre?

While im familiar with many -punk games i'm not really sure what exactly defines -punk.

[Mono Vertigo]

From my understanding, -punk adds a social dimension where the wealthiest/most powerful use some magical/technological element (steam, cyber, etc) for profit or to control the weak. In reaction, some people among the latter try to get a hold of that element and use it to fight back or just improve their life. It's often a bit darker and anarchic than the punk-free version.
Cyberpunk, for example, tends to feature super-corps and cyborg soldiers alongside techno-enhanced criminals and hackers and rogue androids with stolen device and machines made from garbage and/or kitbashing. Deus Ex, Shadowrun, etc...
Contrast with straight Cyber, where there's no such socio-political element, the technology is used to improve people's life in general, and most people have access to it. Star Ocean, Star Trek, etc...

[Kaun]

ahh ok.

That makes sense, i figured it was something close to that, but it is good to confirm it.

[The Rose Dragon]

slightly off topic but adding "-punk" to a genre, how exactly does this alter the genre?

While im familiar with many -punk games i'm not really sure what exactly defines -punk.

Nothing! Several -punk words aren't even genres, but dominant aesthetics. In fact, cyberpunk (and possibly dungeon punk) are the only ones that are actually genres that I can think of. Everything else is either cyberpunk with different aesthetics, or something else entirely (usually fantasy, like most steampunk).

[Eldan]

Eh, there's people, me included, that argue that most of that which is labelled Steampunk is just some vague sort of Victorian-inspired Fantasy or Sci-Fi.

Real Steampunk, to deserve the -punk suffix, should deal with the problems of the 19th century. Imperialism and slavery, the industrial revolution and the birth of socialism, the industrialisation of war, urbanisation and poverty...

There's plenty of material there to write an incredibly dark story.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

"Steampunk" is actually a parody (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steampunk#Origin_of_the_term) of "cyberpunk".

Also, Dickens is essentially all of the social commentary that "real steampunk" would have, just sans the technology. So an injection of the punk ethos into steampunk would look like Jules Verne and Dickens spawned offspring.

[Doorhandle]

"Steampunk" is actually a parody (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steampunk#Origin_of_the_term) of "cyberpunk".

Also, Dickens is essentially all of the social commentary that "real steampunk" would have, just sans the technology. So an injection of the punk ethos into steampunk would look like Jules Verne and Dickens spawned offspring.

Which would also be awesome.

Personally, I always though that -punk was used to denote a sort of dominating type of technology, and particularly in the case of steampunk, technology beyond our own with the appearance of technology behind our own. So Dino-punk would be the Flintstones, for example, and bioshock is certainly Biopunk. Hence cyberpunk's defining technologies are cyberwear and computers.

the distinctive cyberpunk ethos seems to have been lost from it's derivatives though.

[Eldan]

I wouldn't say the technology alone makes it. Cyborgs were around long before anyone coined the term Cyberpunk and there's works written later that feature the tech but aren't Cyberpunk (Ghost in the Shell).

[Mono Vertigo]

Well, there's definitely a drift in the original meaning, from the one I gave to the one given by almost everybody else. There's a lot more focus on the aesthetics - reaching higher levels of technology through unusual and even impertinent combinations of whatever are the elements focus on at the time.
I do think the original meaning is more interesting. More conflict, more thinking material, and, IMHO, more realism (or verisimilitude for the pedants). To each their own, though; I'm myself fond of steampunk whether it includes the socio-politics of the Victorian era or not.