Re: Fantastic Fascist Fantasy

From: John Hughes <john.hughes_at_7fGx7-ipU1ltEZT0eq8ccEfV8kEdpC8Ua_nP_qYRpm9bkUkVuoTONJea36odxe6b>
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2007 16:01:58 +1000


Congratulations, all. In just a few posts we've moved from my relatively simple request into man boobs, the Queen's bidet, moustache porn and Stu's excited vocal utterances. You've done me proud, as was entirely expected.

Attention span of a newt.

Pillocks.

A little more seriously, thanks for the suggestions. They were.... ummm... inspiring. Really.

After a little alpha playtesting (float this idea and see how long before the players break it) the game-in-game idea is solidifying. Plot elements will be extremely simple - adventure gaming caricatures (who'll carry the lantern, who goes through the door first, 50,000 orcs on the hill, run away with the widget.) Remember we're not roleplaying fantasy characters, we're roleplaying characters *playing* fantasy characters. What this means is that we can suggest playing styles as well (diva, powergamer, munchkin etc.) which will be the source of much of the fun). So I'll keep the game-in-game elements very simple. The in-game characters will also reflect and emphasise attributes and tensions between the player-characters. Who's the real leader? Who's hot for whom?

>Did the characters create their own characters or were they created for
>them?

The in-game rationale is build around five people in a room with fancy PS-style game controllers, laptops with web cams and a wall projection screen. If we were playing Trek (shudder) all, I'd have to say is "you go to the holodeck' but my base genre here is 'day after yesterday' realpolitik. Hence the rationale. Each laptop has a web cam and players wear simple biomonitor tabs so the game knows your basic emotional responses. For fantasy characters, players imput their own bio-mesh profile (even now available in the more fashionable dept. stores as an aid to perfectly fitting clothes - a sort of camera booth that generates a 3d body mesh of your shape) and answer a series of questions on their laptops: Black or Red? Whisky or Wine? Sex or Romance?... As the game progresses, it attunes to emotional responses through the biofeedback tabs, and so can read player responses to images projected on their laptop, so the psych profiles can be built up simply by showing a series of images (Tony Blair, Maggie Thatcher, President Shrub, Adolf Hitler, Tom Cruise, Bin Laden, a rose, a toad, a gay sex scene, a murder scene... ) and measuring the emotional response.

This is all background of course, and will be dealt with in a few slides in the pre-game briefing. What it means is that the fantasy character is an exaggerated version of the base character, with character choices determined through training runs and emotional response rather than rolling up an idea. it also means that the more you play the game, the more it builds up an emotional profile of the player. Potential for misuse? You bet ...

Confused? Oz convention roleplaying has its own unique playing styles and genres, built up over a couple of decades, and Triptych was set up as a venue for pushing boundaries. I'll make the module available when its done.

They're not man boobs. They're muscled thews. Honest.

Jimbo.            

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