[Gaming] A question of structure.
May. 6th, 2011 10:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
davywavyI'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?
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Date: 2011-05-06 04:24 pm (UTC)On that basis, I see two issues:
1. ensuring that other players do not know who is infected.
2. ensuring that infected players don't meta-game the thing to destruction.
The first one is probably a case of dealing cards to all players each time an infection takes place (or just when you want to screw with them) with one being the posessed/infected card. The same deal as the Battlestar boardgame but the cards are returned and redealt each time.
The second one is probably a case of dividing the creature's plan into individual tasks - instead of someone being told 'you're the creature, unleash the untold horrors in the basement' they get a card that says 'you're the creature, give the diary to NPC X then return this card'
It gives the Player a short-term goal which they can achieve without ruining the game, as well as giving them some insight into the plot. They get cookies for performing the task and then get their character back.
After that, the real difficulty is obscuring the creature's actions from the other players.
Of course, if we are talking LRP an infection 'token' that tells the person to excuse themselves and speak to the GM before recieving their individual task and being told to hand the token on as soon as possible after completing it.