Inception Needs to be an RPG

[Beginning of the End]

While true, I'd note that to really do the movie justice you want a system that allows character creation to directly impact the reality of the dream / game world.

So give the players more narrative control.

I think it's more interesting to allow for Mal-type extrusions. The Protagonist/Antagonist mechanics from Shock might be interesting to look at.

 

[zlorf]

Apparently the Lacuna RPG has a similar concept - google search should reveal more.

Cheers
Zlorf

I'm lazy though...

I want the "big concepts" of the film translated into game for for me.

Like rules on how good your architect character is, or how much you can mess with the dreamworld before the subconscious fightback (or even how you accomplish doing that in the first place, as obviously it's a learned skill...) or how kicks work, or how time functions, yadda yadda...

I COULD do it.. I mean a friend of mine and I put together a fairly workable Matrix game in d20 modern... But still.

I would love to see an Inception game on the shelf.

Just basically saying that if some enterprising game company out there was able to put one together, they would almost certainly get my money.

 

[ParkerDupris]

more, on this...

Definitely a rich setting for story-driven games, reminds me a lot of how I used to crafts scenarios and run them in my In Nomine game. Plots could easily revolve around industrial espionage, but definitely aren't limited to that. Others could include:

• running an op on a willing subject to retrieve something forgotten or blocked out
• routine exam of someone ( background check? ) and finding something way strange, following it down or into the real world
• going into a coma-victim and finding out what happened, or retrieving some other important data
• braving the dreamscape/weave of an autistic, someone retarded, or high, for some reason
• new-wave "art thieves" who steal memories from famous peeps, preserving them and selling to collectors
• investigating a crime, doing dreamscape interrogation ( of subject or of projections ) or forensic investigation
• engaged by The Vatican, a law enforcement agency, think tank, or some eccentric to run down Something Unexplainable and Important in some dreamscapes. Some trend, along "Fringe" or "Millennium" lines.
• therapy specialists who operate in troubled dreamscapes to help peeps with psycho-pathologies
⁃--- why won't she talk? why does he kill? why doesn't she dream? why is he psychosomatically ill? why is she afraid of (whatever)?
⁃--- or, doing something in a dreamscape/weave which sculpts the placebo effect, and cures someone of something
⁃--- or, darkly, doing some other voodoo and affecting them badly, giving them a disease. Or finding this and undoing it.
• and of course, to plant an inception


characters could be a PIs, special forces operators, talented grad students working with new tech and few rules, memory thieves, expert contractors, therapists, etc.

specialties from the movie include...

• forgers - can be other people in dreams
• architects - create dream worlds that can be provided to subjects
• points- skilled in real world activities as well as improvisationists; make items, weapons, whatnot, much more easily than others
• chemists- tailor chemicals to sedate, enhance, or otherwise affect the dream state

others might include…

• analysts - experts at reading signs in the dreamscape to tell about subject, pathologies, histories, or whatever
• pilots - people very good at navigating through a dreamscape, finding their way through a maze. Necessary for particularly complex dreamscapes.
• crackers - experts at subverting subject/host defensive structures
• ninja - someone much more invisible to projections than others
• panku ( heh ) - individual able to adopt a skill the host has, while in the weave
• healer - skilled at untangling psychopathologies, getting them out of the weave
• sitter - expert at setting up or maintaining situations where dream operations can happen. Conscious of perimeter security, signs from the dreamers, etc.

I'd probably use d20 modern as a base, because I know it, have the materials, and my group is familiar with the system. But I'd have to work out the skills, feats, and whatnot.


Out of all the potential ideas I have rattling around in my head for a group of characters, I like the think tank/Millennium Group concept best; characters are all part of a below-the-radar organization that is noticing something happening in the world in people's dreamscapes. Something is building, and a colorful collection of diversely-talented operators is brought together to investigate it.
Definitely a lot of potential here... hmmmmm

 

[Scribble]

I don't know...the mechanics could be a real nightmare.

Badum.... thump.

It sounds like more a setting than a stand-alone RPG- bet you could run it fairly easily in HERO or M&M. And it might even work in something like Everway or even Primal Order.

It's got that whole fully conceptualized world-scape thing going on, kind of like Shadowrun. The setting, and story behind it, are what really draw me to the whole thing, but I think there are just too many specific elements I'd need or want rules for that I'd have to spend a lot of time doing in a system not already designed for it.

 

[SiderisAnon]

Adventure Concepts

If you take it beyond the technology of the movie and beyond the simple data heist, there are some interesting possibilities.

While I never owned or read the actual book, I remember an RPG during the 80's I think where you were effectively dream police. Your characters went out into the dreamland and fought off the evils and the nasties in order to help make the world a better place. I think it was something along the lines of taking out the negative so the world could be more positive or something.

That could make for an interesting campaign that wouldn't just be one data heist after the other.

 

[adwyn]

At the end of the campaign, do the PC's wake up in bed with Suzanne Pleshette?

I made the same joke in the theater at the end of the movie. My wife didn't get it but an older couple behind us laughed.

 

[RangerWickett]

I think from now on whenever my PCs try to charm/dominate/mind-modify somebody, I'm going to have to implement something drawn from this thread. Turn a simple spell/ritual with a saving throw into a whole session.

 

[Umbran]

My first thoughts on modeling this in a game took me to oWoD Mage.

The whole thing with the mind fighting back? Paradox.

Limbo? Paradox realm.

 

[stonegod]

My first thoughts on modeling this in a game took me to oWoD Mage.

The whole thing with the mind fighting back? Paradox.

Limbo? Paradox realm.

The Cult of Ecstasy and the Dramspeakers books would like have some peach stuff as well.

 

[Umbran]

The Cult of Ecstasy and the Dramspeakers books would like have some peach stuff as well.

Well, the PCs are clearly using a technological paradigm - I read them as Virtual Adepts or full on Technocracy. So, those books wold be GM-only, to represent how the PCs only understand some of what they are doing, which seems to match the movie well.