Experiments in gaming

[Crothian]

I was thinking of the different elements differnet people bring to the gaming table. THis idea came up and it woulkd work better for a one shot, or game day/convention setting. You construct the adventure to work around characters all of one class. But without telling the PCs, they are all playing the exact samcharacter stat wise. Same feats, same skills, same attributes, but the players get to develope background and personality themselves. I think as a one shot it would be interesting to see if and when the players figure out they are all the same.

 

[shaylon]

Sounds like a really cool idea! I would think that if you got some bright players it wouldn't take long, but then again, a few of the guys I have played with recently would have no idea. I'd bet on that!

 

[Shadowdancer]

Not sure it would work at a convention. With pregen characters, everyone starts grabbing the sheets and looking at the stats, skills, feats, etc. It won't take them long to figure out what's going on.

 

[Crothian]

Well, they would only get to look at their own character. The DM would just pass them out to players.

 

[mac1504]

Not knocking the idea (I like it), but it seems that you would be pretty limited by the logical reasons for why the characters would all have the same stats, feats, class, etc.

The one idea I thought of would be a group of enslaved soldiers that had been trained from birth. And now, perhaps, they've been freed and now are learning to have thoughts independent of their unit.

 

[Herremann the Wise]

Hi Crothian,

If you wanted to twist this into a really strange experiment, I had the following idea a while ago and have always thought to institute it at one stage or another for a game or new campaign.

Each character does not control their character sheet. This is the province of the DM. They do however have a description sheet with equipment lists upon it. They might also have extra information such as weaponry, spells they know they can cast or can pray for or get. Spell descriptions are exactly that. Descriptions only. In fact, you get players to describe the spell themselves in words rather than numbers. You don't use a battlemat and minis and you go back to the oldschool way of saying - what do you want to do and expect a description rather than a move equivalent action followed by a free action before a standard action.

By divorcing mechanics and statistics entirely from a game, the hope would be that the players would try and be a little more imaginative with their character's actions and focus a little more on what's happening in the game. It may just end up frustrating them but if your descriptions are up to the task, it might be a refreshing change for something very different.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[Crothian]

Not knocking the idea (I like it), but it seems that you would be pretty limited by the logical reasons for why the characters would all have the same stats, feats, class, etc.

The one idea I thought of would be a group of enslaved soldiers that had been trained from birth. And now, perhaps, they've been freed and now are learning to have thoughts independent of their unit.

Its a one shot, the great thing about one shots is you really don't need a reason for it to happen. Just a you are all hired by so and so or whatever. Most of the time in one shots the background is not that important; its the adventure and the characters that count.

 

[The Horror]

By divorcing mechanics and statistics entirely from a game, the hope would be that the players would try and be a little more imaginative with their character's actions and focus a little more on what's happening in the game. It may just end up frustrating them but if your descriptions are up to the task, it might be a refreshing change for something very different.

Or you could just try some different game systems...

 

[Herremann the Wise]

Or you could just try some different game systems...

The game system would work exactly the same but be hidden from the players. The difference is a focus from mechanics to pure description.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[Crothian]

Or you could just try some different game systems...

While it can be done with any game system, it doesn't matter what system is being used as the players are not aware of the mechanics ofr the numbers.