Meeting strangers 24h project (untitled so far)

[jeSter]

Hello all! This is my first post in the 1km1kt forums, although I've used the site as a source of free rpgs... and I've wanted to take the 24h rpg challenge for a while (actually, I've done it once already but never published the result). I'm not a game designer, just having fun playing rpgs with friends.

Anyway, when I saw the competition theme, meeting strangers, it was screaming to me "survival horror". Which means I had to try it... So, I've started working on it about 3 hours ago. I can't see something coherent yet, although I've written down quite a bit, hence the lack of a title.

The premise so far is: people start appearing/waking up inside a complex (I know, not very original; I was not aiming for original, though!). They don't know each other. They want to escape, but they must work together to have any chance. For the style, think of movies like The Cube, Alien, Pandorum.

The mechanics... let's jut not go there yet! I'm thinking about a dice pool, but nothing more than this.

Well, let's see where it goes from here. So far I'm a bit overwhelmed with choices and the lack of time. Between job and family, I would be surprised if I get to work on this long enough to have something to present...

[Evil Scientist]

Welcome on-board, jeSter!

When working in such a limited time-frame, it's always a good choice to keep it simple. Take the best idea you have, a single one, and flesh it out. It's better to be a one-shot pony than, you know, a shot pony?.. oh my, what a simile...

Good luck with your project!!

[jeSter]

Thanks for the advice, Evil Scientist! (you don't sound too evil! )

In fact, since the topic took quite some time to get approved, the 24 hours have already passed, and the design has finished. I worked on it for a total of about 13 hours within a 24-hour period. I intend to submit it to 1km1kt, but since the cloud is easier, for now you can see it here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6DR5Q ... sp=sharing

About the process, actually I started writing stuff before having something coherent in mind. I figured that there is not much room for planning. This turned out to work relatively well, and after about six hours I had both a good idea of what I wanted and a good deal of written text. The bad thing was that I started late at night, which means that I stayed awake until early morning, so not much sleep for me... just 3 hours.

About the mechanics, I went with the first thing that came to my mind, improvising while putting the rules down on (virtual) paper. This may not be efficient, as some revising was necessary, but without being able to play-test it I doubt that pondering it further would help.

One of the most puzzling tasks was coming up with interesting names for the setting, the character attributes, etc. Google helped a lot with this. As for the name of the game, I ended up with "Always Lonely, Never Alone".

Anyway, things that got done:
* A complete, playable rpg (at least as far as one can judge without actually playing it)
* A setting to go with it (at least the vague outlines of one)
* Random character creation rules
* Some special rules (cooperation, opposition, death, etc.)
* Character advancement (what rpg is complete without it?)

Things that are missing due to the limited time:
* A "running the game" section with more in-depth information for running the game
* Character sheets. The rules are simple, but a character sheet is always helpful
* A sample scenario
* Examples of play

[jeSter]

Hmm... gdrive link seems not to work... but this should: https://docs.zoho.com/file/mdngg52fd5e6 ... 4ce677b66d

Meanwhile, it has been submitted to 1km1kt too!

[Evil Scientist]

Hi! To read the file on Google Drive, I have to ask for your permission. It's fine with me, but maybe you can revise your settings and make the document public?

Edit: post order got mixed up a bit, jeSter's comments needed anti-spam approval...

[Evil Scientist]

[jeSter]

I'm happy you liked it! ALNA is clearly aimed at one-shot games. The characters are not supposed to live very long, so character creation should be fast but still allow for creating some diverse and interesting characters (pre-generated characters could also solve that, but they require preparation in advance). I understand that playing a random character is not everyone's cup of tea, but it is supposed to provide a character concept quickly (the faster you make a new character, the faster you'll be able to rejoin the game after the previous one dies). Also, in case some of the rolled props do not make any sense, they can be re-rolled (the rules do mention it!).

When making the game, I tried rolling a couple of characters to prove that it works. Here is what I came up with (without re-rolling anything):

The first attempt:
Riding (interest)
Judge (occupation)
Soldier (occupation)
Computers (interest)
High-pitch hearing (perk)
Well-traveled (background)

So we have a military court judge (judge, soldier) with a knack for computers (computers) and the unusual ability to hear frequencies above the normal human hearing range (high-pitch hearing). He has traveled around the world (well-traveled) and spends his spare time riding in the mountains (riding)

The second attempt:
Survived a plane crash (background)
Muscular (perk)
Bleeder (flaw)
Criminal (occupation)
Won beauty contest (background)
Naive (personality)

This is a beautiful young lady (won beauty contest) who wanted to be an athlete (muscular) but lost the chance due to an accident (survived a plane crash). She never fully recovered from the accident and still has some wounds that occasionally reopen (bleeder). She unwittingly (naive) got involved with a gang member and even helped him commit a series of robberies (criminal).

Edit: grammar, syntax!