Interest Check: Shared creative setting

Dr Simon

Explorer
At the moment this is just a check to see if anyone would be interested in such a game, probably morphing into recruitment and OOC if there are takers.

The idea is for an extreme design-in-play game, where players and GM bring in elements of the setting, and the plot, as they go. Not only that, but characters can be created on the fly.

My idea is to use Pathfinder, probably with 3 or so characters of 6th level, or equivalent. Core classes, APG classes are allowed, as is anything from pretty much any official 3.5 book. Unusual races, more than welcome. Whatever you bring to the setting is in the setting.

I can't think how to explain it too clearly, so I'll give some examples of how it could work.

GM: "You are waiting outside the gate to the Apothecaries Quarter and night is beginning to fall." The GM at this stage has no idea of why the PCs are there, nor what the Apothecaries Quarter actually entails.

Player #1 "I don't think our contact from the Citadel Guard is going to show up." The player has introduced the concept that there is a Citadel with a Guard. We as yet know nothing about his character.

Player #2 "Not to worry. Aldo is a Journeyman of the Azure Society. He's well-versed in picking locks." Player 2's character has a name and a background - sounds like the Azure Society is a thieve's guild of some kind, perhaps. Player #2 can decide that his character has some levels of Rogue, and/or ranks in Disable Device. He can assign some of his pool of unassigned skill points to Disable Device, thus defining part of his character. We're also getting the idea that the PCs want to get inside the Apothecaries Quarter and are probably not supposed to be doing so.

And so it goes.

Core rule is to use the "yes, and..." concept of improv. theatre - everyone has to take the ideas and roll with them. Characters should still conform to the rules, however, but this concept means that they will always (at least until completely defined) have abilities relevant to the adventure.

There are some rough guidelines to the setting - I'm thinking of something inspired by the likes of Jack Vance's Dying Earth, or Gene Wolf's Dawn of a New Sun, or Dune - a very, very far future Earth, probably mostly set in a huge, Gothic, ancient city (overtones of Gormenghast). In tone more than anything specific. And I'm thinking of a game revolving as much around politics and skullduggery as dungeon-crawling.

The idea is to have fun rather than be truly original, so feel free to borrow from source material.

Thoughts?
 
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Shayuri

First Post
Mmm...how cruel. It sounds so interesting and fresh, I can't NOT want to try it even though I'm probably over my limit on games right now.

Evil.

But I do want to try it.
 



Dr Simon

Explorer
Herobizkit, it'll be good to have someone with experience of this kind of thing on board.

I've done this to a certain extent with my Iron Heroes game on this board, but I wanted to hand over even more player control to see what happens.

The character creation on the fly aspect may become a bit tricky to track - I've done this with 1st level characters before and it works okay, but not higher level. It'd be up to the players how much of the character they bring to the game already - it could be race and class, maybe some basic abilities assigned, maybe nothing at all. In a story the characters are revealed bit by bit, whereas in gaming you come with everything already laid out, but it may be that you've given your character abilities that don't really come into play (exaggerated in PbP because of the extended playing time); this way you can be sure that your character is fitted to the adventure.
 

Insight

Adventurer
I like the idea, but I am wary of Pathfinder. Not to the point where it's an absolute deal breaker, but 3.5 and its clones are not my preferred system anymore. For the right game, however, I'd be willing to deal with it.
 

Dr Simon

Explorer
I suppose the ideal system would be something fairly mechanics-lite, but I've gone for PF for several reasons. First is that I use it for two of the games I run here; the rest are d20 variants and I don't want to remember yet another subtle set of differences. Of those, PF is the most popular, plus available as an online SRD (or two). I guess I could use D&D4, but it feels to me too much like the characters are designed towards combat (or perhaps "encounters") with a de-emphasis on other aspects of RP. Hence, PF.

Of course, it may all collapse in a soupy mess anyway, but I think it could be fun trying ;)
 

Herobizkit

Adventurer
For a game like this, I would think the simpler the mechanics, the better. I'll wager that Savage Worlds would be perfect for such a game. I've played it all of once; I found the rules to be light and creamy with just the right amount of cheese.
 

Insight

Adventurer
For a game like this, I would think the simpler the mechanics, the better. I'll wager that Savage Worlds would be perfect for such a game. I've played it all of once; I found the rules to be light and creamy with just the right amount of cheese.

I would also vote for Savage Worlds. I'm pretty sure it has a free "Quick Play" PDF on the Pinnacle website. But I'd be OK with anything. It sounds like an interesting idea.
 


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