[Gaming] A question of structure.

[davywavy]

I'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?

Comments

[davegodfrey.livejournal.com]

It could work if you set it somewhere where everyone's trapped and they all have to work together to escape, but at the same time they can't let the monster out because it will Destroy The World or something. So they've got to try and keep (nearly) everyone alive and escape, but also work out who the baddie is and kill them with extreme prejudice.

Also if everyone has tasks to complete that are completely randomised, and at cross-purposes that might work too- if everyone has their own agenda they're all trying to double-cross each other at the same time as achieving their major goal, which should make it harder to work out who their real target is. You could have victory points and stuff if you really wanted to ramp up the paranoia- not only are the characters working against the Big Bad but they're working against each other too, but they can't work *too* hard against him or everyone dies.

Cutthroat Caverns does this quite well as a card game- you *have* to work together otherwise everyone dies. But at the same time you *have* to screw each other over, killstealing, nicking each others stuff, etc. Its a lot like Munchkin but without the silly jokes.