![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
[Gaming] A question of structure.
May. 6th, 2011 10:38 amI've been thrashing out in my head a tabletop game with a structure based loosely on The Thing; a closed environment with a group trapped with an antagonist. The more I play around with it as a structure, though, the more I wonder how it can be made to work as an enjoyable - and runnable - game, and I'm after input and thoughts from you lot. I shan't go into specifics, but the setup is:
1) The characters are in a closed environment which they cannot leave. The antagonist enters this environment from outside.
2) The are not the only people in the group, but the group isn't large (i.e. a relatively plentiful supply of NPCs/cannon fodder/replacement PCs).
3) The antagonist has an objective (effectively it must seize control of the command centre for long enough to achieve it's objectives. It can do this through force or deceit).
4) The antagonist may or may not be able to possess bodies/disguise itself as people etc, depending on how well this could be made to work.
Now I've been wondering what the best way of putting the game together would be. Do I make it an exercise in paranoia like The Thing, where the monster can be anyone (even a PC), with lots of note passing and conspiring between players? Or do I make it a straight us vs. them game in which the monster slowly takes over more and more NPCs and the PCs have to fight them off/ root out infiltrators?
Certainly the second option is a lot easier to write (and run), but I'd like to at least think about how option 1 could be made to work (and by work I don't mean just play, but actually really work well).
Thoughts, please, chap(ette)s?
1) The characters are in a closed environment which they cannot leave. The antagonist enters this environment from outside.
2) The are not the only people in the group, but the group isn't large (i.e. a relatively plentiful supply of NPCs/cannon fodder/replacement PCs).
3) The antagonist has an objective (effectively it must seize control of the command centre for long enough to achieve it's objectives. It can do this through force or deceit).
4) The antagonist may or may not be able to possess bodies/disguise itself as people etc, depending on how well this could be made to work.
Now I've been wondering what the best way of putting the game together would be. Do I make it an exercise in paranoia like The Thing, where the monster can be anyone (even a PC), with lots of note passing and conspiring between players? Or do I make it a straight us vs. them game in which the monster slowly takes over more and more NPCs and the PCs have to fight them off/ root out infiltrators?
Certainly the second option is a lot easier to write (and run), but I'd like to at least think about how option 1 could be made to work (and by work I don't mean just play, but actually really work well).
Thoughts, please, chap(ette)s?
