Skip to main content

More on The Plan

So I've been thinking about my earlier seed of a thought for The Plan, and reading this fascinating document, and remembering some of my favourite moments of (of all things) Parks and Rec.  Some factors I would like to include in the game: Favors from Organized Crime that equate to basic, quiet bonuses, but count as a Mark Against in your record; A separate track for each player balancing public approval and personal funds to keep you in perpetual election or re-election; A cool design challenge might be to use chess pieces on my board; the projects you work on that reach completion have a lasting influence on the City; A tableau you build of "your track record" that is useful for tracking your victories/achievements (and therefore makes a good point tracker), but also acts as a resume for certain jobs - ergo, you are rewarded phase-to-phase not only for your victory points, but how you earned them; the possibility of multiple players being in the same division for a phase, and being forced to work together for that phase; a "Head of Division" marker for each phase, whether or not multiple players are in the same division; a mechanism for making a move half-way through your phase, with corresponding Marks Against going into your tableau; Press Investigations that you can launch into your opponent's pasts (going back a number of phases = strength of investigation) or that can be triggered against all players...
Hmmm.  Yes.  Game Design is cool, a game takes way less individual writing (though much, much more proofing and editing) than regular fiction.  Popcorning ideas is fun without the depressing sensation that your awesome idea will be too difficult to execute.  Also, I get to indulge my ADD love of learning.  Off to read more about the Chicago Plan.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

TTRPG Tuesday: Three Means Of Resolving

Hi it’s another TTRPG Tuesday! First of the year.  Let’s get right into it. Saw a challenge on Twitter to make some resolution mechanics.  I can do those! Here we go: Hand to Hand The player performing the action and the person running the game or otherwise opposing the action both put their dominant fists toward one another, bounce them three times to get a rhythm, and reveal a number with their fingers, 0-5.  Sum the two numbers, and if the number is greater than 5, subtract six, so that the final number is always between 0 and 5.  On a 0, the action fails catastrophically, on a 1-2 it fails, 3-4 it succeeds, on a 5 it succeeds spectacularly.  The player taking the action starts the game with all five fingers up on their non-dominant hand; after an attempt, they may lower fingers on that hand to add to the sum of the attempt. Ex. Alice attempts to seduce Cat’s character over to the coup conspirators.  They put their dominant hands together (right for ...
Post a Comment
Read more

TTRPG Tuesday: Campaigning

  Hey it's TTRPG Tuesday, let's see if I get something written before sleep overtakes me. I'm still on that Channelers kick, but today I want to talk about a possible campaign path: The Magpie Offensive.  I see this as a military campaign where the PCs are conscripted, volunteers, or mercenaries for an army that is marching to quell Spirit threats and unite the region under a protectorate. There should be free RP sections as interludes between missions, and missions should be chosen by the party.  The army ensures loyalty with intangible rewards as well as artifact items. NOTE: This whole thing is being designed with the Rascal article on militarization in ttrpgs in mind. What is the thrust of the campaign? It's fundamentally one of conquest.  How do I encourage characters to question their presence and their complicity? How much interpersonal violence is an acceptable price to pay for environmental justice? How can party composition affect all this from jump? H...
Post a Comment
Read more

TTRPG Tuesday: The Secret Calendar

Welcome back to TTRPG Tuesday! Have I done any this year? Looks like no! On pace to be a pretty low-posting year I guess. Today I actually have a full-fledged one pager TTRPG to share.  I was listening to a Ludology with Camilla Zamboni as the guest and was inspired by her collection Roll for Learning.  The Secret Calendar came to me pretty much fully formed as I walked and listened to the episode, though I do want to acquire RfL to get layout inspo. Anyhow, the first draft can be found HERE .  I think this could be a fun activity for students (was also thinking of Wolfenoot) and maybe I’ll publish it or submit it at some point. Okay I’m out of practice so that's it buh bye!
Post a Comment
Read more