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celtois
2013-11-05, 08:23 PM
Hey Guys! Several months ago now there was this cool contest that went on, were we were asked to produce a unique RPG from an abstract character sheet. Unfortunately most people didn't finish their games by the deadline, and the contest died out, as such I never got any critique on the game I wrote for the contest. So I'm reposting it in it's own thread in hopes of getting some feedback on the system.

So without further ado here it is!
~celtois

HOPE: Dare to Dream!


HOPE is a game about living. More specifically it is a game about decisions

Unlike many other RPG’s HOPE is neither truly cooperative nor competitive instead it exists in the realm between the two, what I call, a collective exploration game.

What exactly is a collective exploration game? A collective exploration game is a game in which, your fellow players challenge you to explore a topic in detail, and the consequences of the decisions you make about the topic. In HOPE this collective challenging of one another is accomplished through a distribution of storytelling responsibly.

HOPE provides a framework by which you can explore the pursuit of dreams, and the various demands on your time, and social relationships, which prevent that pursuit. By providing this basic framework
HOPE allows you to play a variety of different scenarios, in which you will be faced with tough decisions.

Finally, HOPE provides a framework to explore character’s who are very different from yourself, or character’s who are just like you.

Now pull up a chair, gather your friends and have fun exploring.
-Celtois

SCENARIOS

Reunion –

Theme and Locale: Every decade a group of friends gather at their favorite bar to talk about life. They swap stories, and their friendships grow and change as time progresses. This scenario takes place in the modern time period, and has no strong theme.

Turns:

First turn and set up: Characters are in their 20’s, and are just starting their adult life. Achieving their dreams still a distant specs on the horizon and the concerns of the present always threaten to overshadow their long-term desires.

Second turn: Characters are now in their 30’s and their lives are changing, as many of them are out of school, and others have made it through their first decade of work and other are starting to have kids.

Third turn: The characters are in their 40’s, life is slipping away quickly with kids, or work occupying much of their time. For other character’s they’ve made some sacrifices and have achieved their goal, or are close to it.

Fourth turn: The characters are in their 50’s retirement is just around the corner, and many characters have achieved the goals they have been working for the course of the game. The scenario is now half way complete.

Fifth turn: The characters are now in their 60’s and for many of them retirement is now a reality, for others however work, or kids still occupy much of their time. Some characters many just be finding time for their dreams now, others will have completed them already

Sixth turn: The characters are now in their 70’s and old age is starting to creep up on them, things that were once simple become tasks of great importance and difficulty. Family or lack of family may be occupying their concerns.

Seventh and Final turn: The characters are now 80+ and old age has caught up with them, this is their last chance to make a push for anything they’ve always wanted to do.

Passing On: In the reunion scenario passing on represents the character dying.


Making your own scenario:

Making your own scenario is relatively straight forward it consists of three simple steps. I strongly recommend that you do this as a group, after all you’re all going to be playing together.

1. Choose a theme and locale. This is essentially the hook for your game and should give everyone and impression of the sort of characters that are expected, where they are meeting and a basic understanding of why. For example, a group of activist-terrorists might meet every month, in a secret hideout that varies in location each time to discuss how plans are going, and what challenges lay up ahead. The theme should also give everyone an idea of what dreams are appropriate.
2. Define what each turn represents for the characters, and outline some of the things that might be on character’s minds during each of these turns. The seventh turn should represent a definite conclusion of some sort, unless you want to run multiple sessions of HOPE with the same characters in which case you can think of turn seven as the end of the episode.
3. Define what passing on represents for your scenario. Essential what happens to characters that overwork themselves. With this completed you’re done.

When making a scenario, keep in mind that time management is the main conflict in HOPE so a good scenario will have some sort of time pressure represented by the turns.



CHARACTERS
In HOPE your character is the vehicle by which you explore the ramifications of your decisions. Making a character in HOPE is a relatively straightforward process, in which you determine the elements of your character.

There are three elements to your character: How they perceive themself, what they want to see their future, and how others see them. In addition to the elements of your character, it is crucial for HOPE that all your characters know each other in some way.

The Element of Self

The first task of character creation in HOPE, is determining how you characters see themselves. In HOPE this is quantified using the Meyer’s Brigg personality index.

The Meyer’s Brigg personality index is a psychological test, which attempts to capture the personality of an individual along one of four spectrums. The four spectrums are Extroversion-Introversion, Sensing-Intuiting, Thinking-Feeling and Judging-Perceiving. For each spectrum select one trait to be your character’s dominant trait, the other trait will be your character’s recessive trait. Split ten points between your recessive and dominant traits. You may spend no more than nine points on any one trait. In the four boxes underneath Personality in your character sheet write the letters of your dominant traits.

If you are unsure of which trait embodies your character best a brief description of each of the Meyer’s Brigg traits can be found below

Meyer's Brigg Summary

Meyer’s Brigg Personality Spectrum:

Introverted – Introverts are more withdrawn and less social, they find time spent alone invigorating. Introverts prioritize thought over action.
Extroverted – Extraverts are very social, and active, they find being about people invigorating. Extraverts prioritize action over thoughts.
Sensing – Distrust hunches, like to see, hear or touch things themselves. Data is more important than the underlying theory; tend to trust details and facts.
Intuiting – Tend to trust hunches, and draw associations between information quickly. Underlying theories are more important than data for intuitive persons.
Thinking – Make decisions by weighing the possibilities, more likely to choose an option that they don’t like, but realize is better. Tend to like rules, and are often blunt.
Feeling – Make decisions based on their impression of the situation, will try and minimize social harm, and put themselves in other’s shoes.
Judging – Judging individuals are decisive and tend to view the world in terms of the actions that take place.
Perceiving – Perceiving individuals focus on their observations about situations. They are often indecisive as they prefer to keep their options open.



The Element of Future
Once you have determined your character’s personality, the next step is to determine what your character wants to accomplish in the scenario, his or her dream.

Dreams are an important aspect of HOPE, as they provide your character direction and meaning. Without them HOPE is not possible. Your character’s dream can be anything, just so long as it fits into the scenario.

Once you’ve picked a dream for your character write it in the first blank on the characteristics section of your character sheet, and have the player to your left assign success cost based on how hard they believe it is to achieve, an average dream will have a success cost of five. Write the vitality cost in the box next to the goal.


The Element of Other
Unlike the other elements of your character, how others see your character is not determined during character creation and is instead developed over the course of play.

If you fail to complete at least one of your demands in a given scene, you must ask one of the players to assign you a negative label, which is written in the characteristics section of your character sheet, indicating that you’ve been neglecting your social responsibilities. Negative labels aren’t all bad though; you can spend a negative label to ignore a demand without incurring a stress cost.

If you complete all of your demands in a given scene, you must ask one of the players to assign you a positive label, which is written in the characteristics section of your character sheet, indicating that you’ve been performing your social responsibilities. You may spend a positive label to decrease your stress by one.


Stress and Vitality
You may have noticed two sets of boxes labeled vitality and stress on your character sheet, you don’t need to worry about these yet as they act as a resource and event track over the course of play, so there is nothing to fill out there during character creation.

You should notice that two of the vitality boxes and two of the stress boxes are labeled in a different color these are breaking point boxes. When marked off temporarily during a scene the first red box for vitality has no ill effects when marked off, it just indicates your character has done all he or she can do without wearing him or herself out. For each of the two boxes after the first red box, if you mark them off you must also mark off one stress. If you mark off the last red vitality box your character is exhausted and you must permanently mark off two vitality boxes instead of just one at the beginning of the next scene. For the stress boxes, every time you mark off the first red box, your character needs some time to his or herself and must miss the next scene, though he or she may still issue demands as per usual. If your stress reaches the second red box, your character has had a nervous breakdown and is out of the game.


GAMEPLAY
In HOPE you play through a time-limited scenario in a series of scenes, where each scene represents a certain amount of in-game time. How much time each scene represents depends on the scenario that you and your friends are playing.

Begin each scene by having one player introduce where you are in the scenario, and what this scene represents. I recommend that you have a different player narrate each introduction.

Next the player, who introduced the scene, explains his character situation in the scene and describes how his character progressed or stagnated at his or her goal in the last scene. After which, starting with the player on his or her left, each player, in character, tells the first player one demand on his or her time during the scene. Continue telling the player demands until three have been assigned. Repeat this process for each of the other players until everyone has a set of demands.

Once everyone has a list of demands. Each player must then decide how he or she is going to act during the scene.

There are two different types of actions you can choose between in HOPE, you can perform an unlimited number of all of them until you have dealt with all of the demands and your goal.
Mark off a stress box to ignore demands, Or
Mark off a vitality box to attempt demands, or your goal

For each attempt roll a D10 against a relevant personality trait, rolling under your trait is a success, 10’s are low (0’s). Any roll over your trait is a failure; mark off a stress box for each failure. For each success on your goal reduce the initial vitality cost by one. If you successfully complete a demand or progress in your goal using one of your recessive personality traits you may reduce your stress by one.

Once all tasks have been attempted or ignored, in character, tell the person who assigned the task about how you attempted it, how or why you either, completed, failed, or ignored the demand. Still playing their character they describe the reaction of those affected by your action, inaction or failure, from their perspective, as well as their own impression of your action.

When all demands have been dealt with the scene ends. Erase all marked off vitality, after which permanently mark off one of the vitality squares, you may spend one less next turn.

Begin the next scene, continue until all vitality boxes are permanently marked off or all players have completed their goals by reducing their vitality cost to zero.

Characters who have completed their goal/dream, may choose to purse another dream and continue to play normally, or they may choose to opt out of task receiving and just assign tasks and act out consequences. In contrast a character who has marked off all their vitality squares is out of play and while they may continue to assign tasks they must do so from the point of view of a non-player character, their character has passed on, whatever that means for the scenario you are playing.


Character sheet:
http://s12.postimg.org/curs02tod/Character_Sheet3_01.jpg




Never lose face, Never lose hope. Dare to Dream!

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