Comments | buddha_davis: Hole in the Brain

buddha_davis

Hole in the Brain

Mar 05, 2008 15:57

Okay, so I've got a hole being burned in my brain by a couple of ideas right now. In hopes of alleviating some of the pressure, I figured I'd put them out in the world for everyone to look at and help with, if they feel so inclined.

I do a lot of playing around with design and mechanics for rpgs. There are two things I’ve got right now; Flags and ( Read more... )

grim sparkles, indie, rpg, flags

Comments 7

Replying to my own posts... Oy. buddha_davis March 6 2008, 21:07:20 UTC

So Elliot Wu has been responding to my post, with some very good stuff! Here are some of his responses and my defensive, knee-jerk reactions ( ... )

And some more... buddha_davis March 6 2008, 21:07:52 UTC

Well, I think what I'm trying to say is that as a concept and as a roleplaying tool, it is probably an invaluable resource. In many ways, it's basically the belief/instinct system in burning wheel. Because fundamentally, what you're describing is WHAT your character cares about, which in turn is what you the player cares about ( ... )

Jason speaks! buddha_davis March 7 2008, 14:37:14 UTC

So Jason had a good question for me. He asks if the flag idea is something I'm thinking of as a game mechanical thing, or just an overlay? For me, it's an overlay, something you can apply to most any game. I mean, it's just a formalized way of doing part of a social contract, right? You could build game rewards in to drive certain types of behaviour, but I was thinking of this not as engouraging a behaviour, but as communicating a desire.

May have more later, right now, I gotta get back to work.

Buddha

zakarntson April 9 2008, 17:01:56 UTC

Flags should definitely be tokens. Something you plunk down on the table to announce, "It's freakin' ON!!"

So you're saying once's it's ON, gameplay shifts from one roll to a drawn out resolution? This sounds pretty awesome. The thing to be sure of is: It's really hard or impossible to hose yourself during a challenge. It would really suck to raise your flag only to suffer at a mountain of bad rolls.

buddha_davis April 9 2008, 19:49:27 UTC

Hey Zak ( ... )

buddha_davis April 9 2008, 19:54:37 UTC

So, it turns out I need to rename flags, as it seems to be a generic term for stuff like TSoY's Keys and SotC's Aspects... my version of flags are all about how you want the GM to challenge you and your skills and beliefs... what would be a good name ( ... )