Most of the setting info as such will just be lists for inspiration. That way the setting will expand in detail to match the preference of the players. World War II history nuts can nitpick stuff, and the game can reflect that. Those who don't care as much can just pick up interesting tidbits from a list and then move on.
The lists themselves probably need a lot of work, largely because I'm not a WWII scholar.
Places You Could be Fighting
• In the bombed out heart of London, now largely abandoned but still patrolled by Nazis.
• Gloucester, the newly declared capitol, covered in Nazi banners.
• Near a concentration camp set up on the Isle of Man.
• Hythe, Kent, on the coast of England, where the invasion was the most violent.
• Cardiff, in the nominally autonomous puppet state of Wales
People You Could Meet
• Ian Fleming, brother of the resistance leader Peter Fleming, who terrorizes the Germans under the codename "BOND”.
• Field Marshal Edmund Ironside, baron, soldier from the First World War and hater of the French. Captive of the German forces?
• Alan Turing, homosexual cryptographer and mathematician, trying desperately to break German cryptographic codes
• ‘Punch’ “but that’s not my real name”, black market merchant extraordinaire.
• HATCH, demolitions expert for Auxiliary Unit H
Likely Targets for Assassination:
• Franz Six, Leader of the SS in occupied Britain.
• Oswald Mosley, British Fascist and Prime Minister of the English puppet government.
• Grand Admiral Erich Raeder of the German Kriegsmarine.
• Field Marshal Fedor von Bock, mastermind of the Irish invasion.
Possible Reasons the Axis Won:
• Japanese were too smart to bomb Pearl Harbor
• The Germans developed the atomic bomb first
• Russia kept working with the Germans instead of turning to the Allied side.
• Neville Chamberlain stayed in power too long, and Churchhill was never able to lead Britain to victory.
• Alan Turing was kept from the military because he was gay, meaning we never cracked the German codes.
• This is actually all some sort of bizarre dream sequence or alternate reality or the result of time travellers or something science fiction-y and bizarre.
Armaments:
• Molotov cocktails, simple and easy to make.
• homemade flamethrowers, impressive and effective but wildly unreliable and dangerous to use.
• "Sticky Bombs" made from nitroglycerin and chemical putty, for attaching onto slow moving tanks.
• Sharpened bits of metal made into knives.
• Black powder mortar system.
Potential character backgrounds:
• Spy trained for waging a propaganda war against an occupying force
• Inexperienced volunteer who never saw any violence before the Nazis came.
• Retired soldier who saw combat in the First World War.
• Civilian housewife who became active once she saw the horrors of the Nazi invasion
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
[Auxiliary Unit S] A Universe Sadly Lacking in Heavy Metal
It's a pity that rock and roll is never invented in the game's timeline. Because the flag of the British Fascist puppet government is just asking for some heavy metal guitar riffs:
Can't you hear it right now?
If the game ever made it to complete published book, you could see that flag showing up in the background of any image depicting the setting.
Can't you hear it right now?If the game ever made it to complete published book, you could see that flag showing up in the background of any image depicting the setting.
Auxiiary Unit S Rough Outline
I've pretty much decided to go with this idea. Already I have a decently compelling situation, some decent mechanics and a good idea what more it needs.
You are resistance fighters in Nazi controlled Britain. Somehow the war did not turn around for the Allies… anti-interventionist forces in the US took power, or the Germans developed the bomb first or something. Maybe the Russians and Germans kept working together, like how they started. (I need to learn some more WWII history for this to work right, I think.) What went wrong doesn’t matter, though, just the fact that the Allies have lost control of Britain.
You are all members of a resistance cell in the network of “Auxiliary Units” formed by the British government before the invasion occurred. You are Cell S, so your codenames start with S: Seabird, Star and Story (possible fourth and fifth members: Sharp and Service; six or more players should form two groups, possibly making up new codenames with a new letter).
Someone back at central command has reason to believe that a Nazi infiltrator has worked their way into the resistance. All cells with new members (which is you) need to be wary of their fellow resistance members. Any one of them might be a German spy. While trying to fight the occupying German army, you also are monitoring your supposed allies, trying to figure out who is the double agent. One of the players is randomly assigned to be the Nazi infiltrator, and is secretly sabotaging the mission. The other players each have their own secret reasons to be working against some portion of the mission, as well: maybe the mission requires assassinating a sympathetic NPC, or it endangers innocent civilians or otherwise violates your moral or personal ethics. This portion needs some additional thought put into it.
This might be a heavily constrained game: title the game “The Last Mission of Auxiliary Unit S”. You know from the start that the group is doomed, though the question of how everything falls apart is still open (is the mole caught? Who lives and who dies?). Or it might be more open ended, I don’t know. Inevitably, the game goes until one person declares someone else is a mole, so the real game design question for me is the scale of the game: does it tell a story over weeks and months or over hours or days?
On a mission (or each conflict of a mission), each player defines one thing that could go well or go badly. I don’t know if this all happens at once, or if we take turns or define as we go or what, but a mission is not complete until everyone has initiated a conflict. Anyway, once the conflict possibilities (success and failure) are defined, we use sortition to decide whether the group succeeds or fails:
Each player will put either a white stone or a black stone into a bag, from which one stone will be drawn to determine success or failure. A white stone means that the team succeeds at that portion of the missions, while a black stone means failure. Then the team narrates how they succeed or fail at that portion of the mission.
Some things can give a player bonus stones to use: you can earn bonus stones (of some third color, neither black nor white) by doing cool stuff. When other players are pleased by your narration or roleplaying or anything you do, then they can give you a bonus stone from a big pile. Each PC probably also has specialities, competencies, drawbacks, secrets and the like. Whenever you draw something from another PC’s sheet into the game, you get a bonus stone. So if John’s character has “Expert Safecracker” on his sheet, you get a bonus stone if you introduce the necessity of breaking into a vault of some kind. Or if Emily has a fear of dogs listed on her bio, then you can get a stone for introducing a set of guard dogs that need dealt with for the mission to be successful. You can even get stones for using details like a PC’s codename as a sort of thematic motif: Seabirds, particularly carrion eating gulls, seem to follow
You don’t get bonus stones for introducing stuff off of your own PC’s sheet, though. Possibly, there’s a more formalized feedback system as well; I may just steal the Flags system from my 2007 Game Chef game Department Nine, as the system works well and might fit in just fine. It’d also let me have some built in rewards for things that needs rewarded (like stakes that don’t favor the PCs, or PCs failing a conflict) since the game is at this point GMless.
(This means that you can write as much or as little about your character as you want, and add details as you go, as additional detail only empowers the other players. You probably want a few details to start with, though.)
Bonus stones can be spent when a conflict begins. Each stone you spend lets you put in either a white stone or a black stone in the bag, but it’s secret which one you place (as always).
Play continues until two of the PCs agree that the third is a Nazi spy and execute them. Then we have a denouement, wherein their secrets are revealed, and the two survivors can rejoice at killing a spy (if they were right) or the one British loyalist can be killed by the German (if they were wrong).
And that’s the entire game. Unless I decide to incorporate the astrology idea into this one, that is. In that case, the planets would be providing thematic ideas and oracle-style inputs but not determining success or failure. And then we’d be firmly in “The Man in the High Castle” territory, as Philip K. Dick used the I Ching to determine the course of the novel.
In proper Dickian fashion, the game might involve question about the alternate history not really existing would. Or maybe I should leave that as a plot twist for individual players to introduce on their own.
You are resistance fighters in Nazi controlled Britain. Somehow the war did not turn around for the Allies… anti-interventionist forces in the US took power, or the Germans developed the bomb first or something. Maybe the Russians and Germans kept working together, like how they started. (I need to learn some more WWII history for this to work right, I think.) What went wrong doesn’t matter, though, just the fact that the Allies have lost control of Britain.
You are all members of a resistance cell in the network of “Auxiliary Units” formed by the British government before the invasion occurred. You are Cell S, so your codenames start with S: Seabird, Star and Story (possible fourth and fifth members: Sharp and Service; six or more players should form two groups, possibly making up new codenames with a new letter).
Someone back at central command has reason to believe that a Nazi infiltrator has worked their way into the resistance. All cells with new members (which is you) need to be wary of their fellow resistance members. Any one of them might be a German spy. While trying to fight the occupying German army, you also are monitoring your supposed allies, trying to figure out who is the double agent. One of the players is randomly assigned to be the Nazi infiltrator, and is secretly sabotaging the mission. The other players each have their own secret reasons to be working against some portion of the mission, as well: maybe the mission requires assassinating a sympathetic NPC, or it endangers innocent civilians or otherwise violates your moral or personal ethics. This portion needs some additional thought put into it.
This might be a heavily constrained game: title the game “The Last Mission of Auxiliary Unit S”. You know from the start that the group is doomed, though the question of how everything falls apart is still open (is the mole caught? Who lives and who dies?). Or it might be more open ended, I don’t know. Inevitably, the game goes until one person declares someone else is a mole, so the real game design question for me is the scale of the game: does it tell a story over weeks and months or over hours or days?
On a mission (or each conflict of a mission), each player defines one thing that could go well or go badly. I don’t know if this all happens at once, or if we take turns or define as we go or what, but a mission is not complete until everyone has initiated a conflict. Anyway, once the conflict possibilities (success and failure) are defined, we use sortition to decide whether the group succeeds or fails:
Each player will put either a white stone or a black stone into a bag, from which one stone will be drawn to determine success or failure. A white stone means that the team succeeds at that portion of the missions, while a black stone means failure. Then the team narrates how they succeed or fail at that portion of the mission.
Some things can give a player bonus stones to use: you can earn bonus stones (of some third color, neither black nor white) by doing cool stuff. When other players are pleased by your narration or roleplaying or anything you do, then they can give you a bonus stone from a big pile. Each PC probably also has specialities, competencies, drawbacks, secrets and the like. Whenever you draw something from another PC’s sheet into the game, you get a bonus stone. So if John’s character has “Expert Safecracker” on his sheet, you get a bonus stone if you introduce the necessity of breaking into a vault of some kind. Or if Emily has a fear of dogs listed on her bio, then you can get a stone for introducing a set of guard dogs that need dealt with for the mission to be successful. You can even get stones for using details like a PC’s codename as a sort of thematic motif: Seabirds, particularly carrion eating gulls, seem to follow
You don’t get bonus stones for introducing stuff off of your own PC’s sheet, though. Possibly, there’s a more formalized feedback system as well; I may just steal the Flags system from my 2007 Game Chef game Department Nine, as the system works well and might fit in just fine. It’d also let me have some built in rewards for things that needs rewarded (like stakes that don’t favor the PCs, or PCs failing a conflict) since the game is at this point GMless.
(This means that you can write as much or as little about your character as you want, and add details as you go, as additional detail only empowers the other players. You probably want a few details to start with, though.)
Bonus stones can be spent when a conflict begins. Each stone you spend lets you put in either a white stone or a black stone in the bag, but it’s secret which one you place (as always).
Play continues until two of the PCs agree that the third is a Nazi spy and execute them. Then we have a denouement, wherein their secrets are revealed, and the two survivors can rejoice at killing a spy (if they were right) or the one British loyalist can be killed by the German (if they were wrong).
And that’s the entire game. Unless I decide to incorporate the astrology idea into this one, that is. In that case, the planets would be providing thematic ideas and oracle-style inputs but not determining success or failure. And then we’d be firmly in “The Man in the High Castle” territory, as Philip K. Dick used the I Ching to determine the course of the novel.
(Different New Age mystic mumbo jumbo, but close enough.)
In proper Dickian fashion, the game might involve question about the alternate history not really existing would. Or maybe I should leave that as a plot twist for individual players to introduce on their own.
Monday, August 31, 2009
So at this point I have two decent ideas, but I'm not sold on either one. I'll flesh each out a bit more in this blog later tonight or tomorrow sometime, then eventually decide on one and develop it further. Hopefully have a rough draft before the 1 week mark, then a more complete game before the two week line.
Basic ideas:
A star chart (maybe astrological) game, where each planet reprresents something different in the fiction. And each planet takes the form of a line of cards, each of different length, that advances one by one, much like the card game Guillotine. Biggest problem with this one is that it is a mechanical idea without a strong fiction element tied to it... yet.
OR
A game where you play members of the Auxiliary Units, a planned but never implemented British resistance force against a potential Nazi invasion force. Of course, this would be an alternate history game where the Nazis did take Britain, so now you have to fight back, in secret. But at least one of the PCs is a Nazi infiltrator. Can you find the mole successfully? How will your personal lives complicate your resistance missions? Will your fellow resistance fighters mistake your personal complications for working for the enemy? This one I have a decent fiction and a good mechanic for backing it up.
Could the two be combined? I don't think so, but I'll look into it.
Basic ideas:
A star chart (maybe astrological) game, where each planet reprresents something different in the fiction. And each planet takes the form of a line of cards, each of different length, that advances one by one, much like the card game Guillotine. Biggest problem with this one is that it is a mechanical idea without a strong fiction element tied to it... yet.
OR
A game where you play members of the Auxiliary Units, a planned but never implemented British resistance force against a potential Nazi invasion force. Of course, this would be an alternate history game where the Nazis did take Britain, so now you have to fight back, in secret. But at least one of the PCs is a Nazi infiltrator. Can you find the mole successfully? How will your personal lives complicate your resistance missions? Will your fellow resistance fighters mistake your personal complications for working for the enemy? This one I have a decent fiction and a good mechanic for backing it up.
Could the two be combined? I don't think so, but I'll look into it.
"Special Distinctions"
So, continuing my initial overview of this year's rules. Now we have "Special Distinctions", which are like the Achievements you get in various videogames.
Well, I do work for a Media Center, after all. I could probably make up a video in Final Cut Pro, though not likely in the "1 Week" version of GC. Maybe the One Month or One Year versions.
Brevity Award
4 pages isn't tough, really. Make a simple enough game and this can be done. Definitely doable, but this badge feels more like one I may or may not achieve bu won't go out of my way to get.
Cerberus the Three Headed
Well, I do have two adult roleplayers besides me living in my house. Designing for 3 players would be my natural course of action anyway. It increases the chances of the game getting playtested in the course of GC, which is always good. Oh, and 3 is how large you want your clandestine cells to be, if I go for Intrigue.
"Fit it on a Frisbee"
Or other custom printed object. My best idea here is to have a custom clock, wherein the face tells you different things in the game, depending on where the hour and minute hands are. This might be combined with the board game idea (see below) to have a board game played out on a clock face, wherein you have to outrace the minute hand as it completes the hour.
Reimagine a previous Game Chef Game by someone else
This is another "coincidentally way to easy" things I don't want to try. I was already in the middle of rewriting Gar Hanrahan's Poking the Emperor into a LARP when Game Chef began. I could just finish that and submit it, but it feels weak. Now, I don't know what other GC entries I'd rewrite, in part because they haven't been well archived at 1km1kt.net.
Academy of Flatland Make a Board Game
Not a bad goal, but not one I'm especially interested in. I'm more likely to accidentally realize halfway through GC that I invented a boardgame and then get this trophy than I am to aim deliberately for it.
2001 and Zombies
Both are okay, but don't grab me. But they aren't actively the sort of thing I want to avoid, like some awards.
That's obviously way too many things to try for, so I need to narrow it down some as I cogitate on things.
I'm trying for the Service Medal just to be helpful, but that really just means reading and commenting on things and doesn't tie into the game design portion directly.
So what other Special distinctions are interesting? Let's see:
The Al Gore Yadda Yadda Play on A Cell Phone or Internet Award
Cellphones would be hard to work with, but the internet has a variety of interesting technologies that could be used. Like Blogs. Or Wikis. Something might be doable here, though it bears further thought before getting committed.
The A/V Club Badge
Well, I do work for a Media Center, after all. I could probably make up a video in Final Cut Pro, though not likely in the "1 Week" version of GC. Maybe the One Month or One Year versions.
Brevity Award
4 pages isn't tough, really. Make a simple enough game and this can be done. Definitely doable, but this badge feels more like one I may or may not achieve bu won't go out of my way to get.
Cerberus the Three Headed
Well, I do have two adult roleplayers besides me living in my house. Designing for 3 players would be my natural course of action anyway. It increases the chances of the game getting playtested in the course of GC, which is always good. Oh, and 3 is how large you want your clandestine cells to be, if I go for Intrigue.
"Fit it on a Frisbee"
Or other custom printed object. My best idea here is to have a custom clock, wherein the face tells you different things in the game, depending on where the hour and minute hands are. This might be combined with the board game idea (see below) to have a board game played out on a clock face, wherein you have to outrace the minute hand as it completes the hour.
Reimagine a previous Game Chef Game by someone else
This is another "coincidentally way to easy" things I don't want to try. I was already in the middle of rewriting Gar Hanrahan's Poking the Emperor into a LARP when Game Chef began. I could just finish that and submit it, but it feels weak. Now, I don't know what other GC entries I'd rewrite, in part because they haven't been well archived at 1km1kt.net.
Academy of Flatland Make a Board Game
Not a bad goal, but not one I'm especially interested in. I'm more likely to accidentally realize halfway through GC that I invented a boardgame and then get this trophy than I am to aim deliberately for it.
2001 and Zombies
Both are okay, but don't grab me. But they aren't actively the sort of thing I want to avoid, like some awards.
That's obviously way too many things to try for, so I need to narrow it down some as I cogitate on things.
Theme and Ingredients Reactions
Ingredients and themes and optional medals for this year have been posted. So what do we have this year?
We have a theme of Intrigue. That's interesting, though in the last year I have organized a half-dozen LARPs with varying levels of intrigue and started a D&D campaign where the PCs fight in a resistance movement against evil efreet in the City of Brass:
If you do something here, you'll get burned.
So the day before GC started, I was already reading about clandestine cell structures used in espionage and revolutions. I guess the question here is: do I want to keep doing more of the same, or is that too straightforward/easy/not interesting enough? I'd like to vary up what I'm reading and writing, and Intrigue sounds too similar to what I have been writing.
Ingredients:
Fleur-de-lis: Symbolic primarily of pre-revolutionary France. You know, I just finished reading this article about news syndication in Pre-Revolutionary France, and how songs heard in the street (and 18th century rap battles) were essential tools for informing the public and starting the Revolution. Once again: helpful coincidence, or too easy?
Dividers: More difficult to quickly integrate. Though if I'm dealing with revolutionary cells, division between cells is a very important concept. I'll have to think about this one some.
Seabird: That's a bit different, though it works great for some sort of spy codename. Also brings to my mind the Albatross in Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Seabirds as past sins? Seabird also fits with Fleur-de-lis (as in compasses and exploration) and Stars for nautical adventure in the Age of Sail. Probably a lot of games coming along those lines this time, especially as intrigue and espionage can fit right into an Age of Sail sort of game.
Star: As already mentioned, you got stars as navigational tool. You could also transpose your your French sailing ship into outer space:
Kinda like Spelljammer
Sailing ships in outer space is already kind of done in rpgs, though. Stars also have a crazy number of other connotations, too, which could be used somehow. Right now I can imagine a astrological system based off cards, something like how the Athasian moons are used in the weird game I just finished writing about Dark Sun. More on that later, perhaps.
And beyond the ingredients, there are a large number (twelve) of "Special Distinctions". I'll cover those in another post, though.
We have a theme of Intrigue. That's interesting, though in the last year I have organized a half-dozen LARPs with varying levels of intrigue and started a D&D campaign where the PCs fight in a resistance movement against evil efreet in the City of Brass:
If you do something here, you'll get burned.
So the day before GC started, I was already reading about clandestine cell structures used in espionage and revolutions. I guess the question here is: do I want to keep doing more of the same, or is that too straightforward/easy/not interesting enough? I'd like to vary up what I'm reading and writing, and Intrigue sounds too similar to what I have been writing.
Ingredients:
Fleur-de-lis: Symbolic primarily of pre-revolutionary France. You know, I just finished reading this article about news syndication in Pre-Revolutionary France, and how songs heard in the street (and 18th century rap battles) were essential tools for informing the public and starting the Revolution. Once again: helpful coincidence, or too easy?
Dividers: More difficult to quickly integrate. Though if I'm dealing with revolutionary cells, division between cells is a very important concept. I'll have to think about this one some.
Seabird: That's a bit different, though it works great for some sort of spy codename. Also brings to my mind the Albatross in Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Seabirds as past sins? Seabird also fits with Fleur-de-lis (as in compasses and exploration) and Stars for nautical adventure in the Age of Sail. Probably a lot of games coming along those lines this time, especially as intrigue and espionage can fit right into an Age of Sail sort of game.
Star: As already mentioned, you got stars as navigational tool. You could also transpose your your French sailing ship into outer space:
Kinda like Spelljammer
Sailing ships in outer space is already kind of done in rpgs, though. Stars also have a crazy number of other connotations, too, which could be used somehow. Right now I can imagine a astrological system based off cards, something like how the Athasian moons are used in the weird game I just finished writing about Dark Sun. More on that later, perhaps.
And beyond the ingredients, there are a large number (twelve) of "Special Distinctions". I'll cover those in another post, though.
Introduction
My name is Nick Wedig, and I design games for fun. This blog will cover my attempts to create a new game, as part of Game Chef 2009.
If you care, you could follow my personal blog, which is about whatever things that interest me at the moment: usually roleplaying games, video games, mocking creationism, strange metaphors and similar geek pastimes. You could also follow my attempt to write a oneshot Live Action Roleplaying game every month, which may or may not be on hold for the month of September. I guess if I get a larp out of this, then we'll play that at the end of the month.
That's enough talk about me. Now for talk about the ingredients!
If you care, you could follow my personal blog, which is about whatever things that interest me at the moment: usually roleplaying games, video games, mocking creationism, strange metaphors and similar geek pastimes. You could also follow my attempt to write a oneshot Live Action Roleplaying game every month, which may or may not be on hold for the month of September. I guess if I get a larp out of this, then we'll play that at the end of the month.
That's enough talk about me. Now for talk about the ingredients!
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