Entry: Decade

[kleenestar]

I've got four or five pretty good ideas kicking around, so I figure I'll start posting them and see what people think. (Maybe I've actually got only one idea that's actually good - or none! -g-)

Decade is the RPG of reunions. It takes place over ten one-hour sessions, each of which takes place between 11pm and midnight on New Year's Eve. The characters get together with old friends who they promised to spend New Year's with long ago - even if they aren't really friends anymore, none of them would think of missing it. Each session takes place exactly a year after the previous one, and by the end of the game the players have advanced through a decade in their characters' lives.

I am using the terms as follows:
ANCIENT - who doesn't think they'll be ancient and old ten years from now?
EMOTION - because what else comes up when you see old friends once each year?
GLASS - the traditional New Year's champagne toast, signaling the end of each session.

The basic mechanic involves cards with possible narrative events written on them. Cards are worth various amounts depending on how difficult or unpleasant the story events are to carry out. If you succeed in playing out the event on a card, you get to keep it and count it toward your XP total at the end of the session. However, you must give away cards to win contested actions against other players. You will have to balance succeeding in the story events that you introduce against hoarding cards for future narrative possibilities. If you run out of cards, the only way to get more is to introduce narrative complications for other players that they don't like!

Cards actually fall into different emotional categories, such as joy, love, surprise, hate, anger, etc. You score your cards based on the number of different categories that you have represented, multiplied by the single largest number of a single emotion that you have.

This game is likely a LARP, but I'm not yet sure.

I know that I'll have to deal with structuring the narrative a little more, plus figuring out character creation and dealing with conflict resolution a little better. My vision is that people spend most of their time in character, with the end of the hour signaling the New Year's toast and the end of the game.

Players can refer to events that have taken place over the past year, but other players can challenge them by spending cards. ("Hey, did you hear about my high-powered new job?" "Oh, you mean moving up from cleaning bathrooms to cleaning floors?")

Cattiness, envy, secrets and double-dealing are encouraged.

So is getting drunk on champagne at the end of each session.

[Antti-san]

[Quixotic]

[Doug Ruff]

Neat! And remember, at midnight, everyone has to kiss!

[kleenestar]

I'm wondering whether character creation should be structured or free-form. I sort of like the Dread "fill out a character questionnaire" idea, and I also like the idea of players creating cards that other players then have to incorporate into their backstory (very 1KBWC!).

The one thing that I'm sure of is that I don't want character creation to take more than ten minutes. In fact, I'd be happiest if it could be done during actual play.

Maybe other players get to decide who you are, or you're somehow defined by how you relate to them.

Hey, I could get a fourth word in if you were given your character by committee.

This seems like a game that might have very fruitful use of character archetypes. Who were you before you began the game? Is this a high-school or college reunion crowd? What other social groups might be reuniting before New Year's?

[shehee]

[Doug Ruff]

[adgboss]

[Rossum]