Bioshock: Anyone Inspired for RPGs?

[Qwillion]

Actually I find System Shock 2 more inspiring, and I keep thinking that Savage Worlds with its cinematic action and short preptime would be the best system.

 

[Shades of Green]

Actually I find System Shock 2 more inspiring, and I keep thinking that Savage Worlds with its cinematic action and short preptime would be the best system.

From time to time I get th urge to run a System Shock 1 adventure in Traveller. A space station ruled by a mad AI and overrun by crazed robots and her cyborg and mutant experiments... Simply delicious!

I haven't played Bioshock yet; I got scared when I heard about its DRM (is it true that you can only install it 5 times and then it stops working?). If the DRM issue would be solved I'd definitely buy it - I know the guys who've made it from their previous work (the System Shock series) and I like their work.

 

[Shea]

Bio Shock is a beautiful game. The setting is very rich. I could easily imagine it as a role play setting in its own right. I think it kind of says something about the industry right now that it isn't. Kinda like ... "Where's the GI Joe d20?"

 

[JohnRTroy]

I haven't played Bioshock yet; I got scared when I heard about its DRM (is it true that you can only install it 5 times and then it stops working?). If the DRM issue would be solved I'd definitely buy it - I know the guys who've made it from their previous work (the System Shock series) and I like their work.

Just so you know, I ran the original without a problem. I believe a lot of the DRM hate is based on principle, and not so much on actual encountered problems.

 

[Shea]

Cities On the Hill

Typically if you have a tyrant, he's there because he's the biggest, strongest guy with the most power, and he's in charge. Rarely is it a personality cult.

Rapture is instead made by a guy (and then later a woman) with a Vision. He didn't have power until after the fact, but the entire Place is built to venerate his Ideology. Rarely do you see places that are shaped by the leader's opinions, rather than just his Goals (War/Power/Control). Rapture is intriguing because this Philosophy was built right intot he foundation - and then it fell down under the weight of the idea. So it's a contradiction and a failure, but even BEFORE then, it was built purely on a philosophy.

Exotic Environment

The exotic location of being Underwater is neat. It is intriguing. It also allows for exceeding Isolation and Control. It's Unique in the part of the World.

Rapture isn't just a "city underwater". The fact it's underwater is a constantly reinforced thing. Walking through hallways that are completely glassed, so you see the sea around you. Areas are continually leaky. Rooms occasionally burst and you have to escape the flood (or walk along the bottom of the ocean).

So it implies that if you create such a unique place that is linked to its locale and environment, constantly reinforce it. Tie that location so much to it. So it's not just "A town sitting in this funny place" but "many aspects of this funny place is incorporated into it" and "effects behavior" and a lot of other effects related to the city itself.

Final point

Bioshock 1 & 2 constantly reinforce their themes. The plot(s) are circling all the things it's created, rather than plots that barely touch them. So a site-based adventure, have the hooks and the plots reinforcing the characteristics of the city itself.

Drawing up a real crazy sight like rapture is not going to be easy.

I mean - you can go for the underwater city idea, and that is certainly something you don't see everyday. A flying city is actually (strangely enough) a far more common concept to find in gaming than a undersea city. Unlike a space station (probably the nearest equivalent) the undersea city can be breached and just left to leak. A space station that sprung such a leak would have to be sealed immediately or the whole environment would be destroyed rather rapidly. That said.. space station is certainly not fantasy.

In a similar, yet fantastic, light I am getting this idea of a spectral city built in the elemental plane of fire!

Imagine a Rapture like city built within an endless sea of fire instead of water!

You could have that same "City on the hill" by having the city created by a extraordinarily powerful wizard. Or even a diety!

 

[Piratecat]

Rechan, you know that Sagiro was a designer on System Shock, System Shock 2 and Bioshock, right? My friend Tim (whose EN World username I'm completing spacing on) worked on the first two as well.

I'll let them know about this thread in case they wants to swing by.

 

[Rechan]

Rechan, you know that Sagiro was a designer on System Shock, System Shock 2 and Bioshock, right? My friend Tim (whose EN World username I'm completing spacing on) worked on the first two as well.

I'll let them know about this thread in case they wants to swing by.

I did not! That's really cool!