Goals

by Adam Dray

I don’t even know what my game is about yet, but here are some things I’d like to get into it.

No, wait, before I go there, I want to talk about what I want to get out of it. Out of this endeavor, I mean. I do these contests for two reasons. First and primary, I want to practice and hone my craft. Entering contests like Reversed Engineer, Iron MACE Game Chef, and Bibliodyssey challenges me to try new things, work outside my comfort zone, and experiment. I want to use this contest to try out some whacky new ideas for game mechanics and stuff. If they don’t work, oh well. Second, I like the attention or, rather, the communication. I want to talk to other people about the games I write. There are two well-tested avenues for doing this in this community: actual play reports and game design contests. Since I’m not playing these days (but I’m working on it!) I need to enter contests to find the kind of dialog I crave.

Okay, that’s done. What are my mechanical goals for this game? I want some cool social mechanics. I have a couple ideas, inspired by the indie diaspora. One is a sort of group entity with its own statistics. I stole this idea wholesale and totally forgot who brought it up. Full credit is due, if only I can find the reference. Second is inspired loosely by something that Shreyas said about characters imprinting messages on one another. I want a system where players can drop new stats on someone else’s character and that player earns some kind of reward for using the new trait.

So I might be aiming my setting and whatnot at something that can support strong social dynamics among PCs and NPCs.