Entry? : The Tea-Party

[Quixotic]

I love that the game can be played by children and adults, here's my only question.. can you define this as an RPG? I believe it can be argued but I believe you may need to add something as a kicker that makes the game a definite RPG, with the games and fun added in. How do you feel about this?

I really do think this is a spectacular idea .. you are deffinately onto something!

[Antti-san]

The only thing that might (personally) screw this game up is the fact that your friends are idiots. Has anyone played Wario Ware Inc. on GC? It has a minigame where a player is told to play a microgame while doing something else. And the other players "applause" and the winner is determined by that.

If one or two of your friends are complete assholes, they will never judge the performance correctly.


But it can't be enforced by rules either. So I guess that this is a game you need to play in a group that actually encourages performing.

[Doug Ruff]

Good comments!

Quixotic: each character will be cued to an emotion, so I think there will need to be a mechanical reward for using that emotion. But even so, it's skirting the edge of "what's an RPG." That's cool, I can live with that, and I think I'm in good company.

Antti-san: You are spot on with your analysis. There have been some interesting threads knocking around RPG.net recently, and one of the posters there made an excellent point about not assuming that your players are going to be jerks, because if your players are jerks, you've lost already! However, I'd still like the rules to subtly discourage bad behaviour, or at least not support it. This may be a vain hope...

To an extent, I'm expecting the game to "self-police" because the rules are enforced by committee (the voting rules). However, I've got one major concern with this, and it may be a bit more pronounced by the "child" element:

It's easy to use voting rules to pick on a single player.

I'm putting that statement all by itself, because it's my current #1 concern for the game. This is why I want to sure that the game's "loser" gets to have fun - there's no in-game reward for rules-bullying. However, I'm not sure whether that's enough, and I'd sure like some feedback.

[Doug Ruff]

OK, I'm bumping my own thread, because I've got another idea for the game, and a first go at a sample character writeup.

First the idea: I'm thinking of having a pack of 'cue' cards to help players structure their stories and poems.

Each card has one or two choices on it, most of these will have a Carroll theme.

For example:

A girl or boy
A princess or queen
A rabbit-hole
Clever
Kind
A magic potion

The cards will also be a currency in game, but I'm still working this out. I'm very tempted to use a pack of playing cards, and have the words written on the face of the cards.

And a sample character sheet - I'm thinking of having this as a folded sheet, with the character name facing the other players, and the text facing the player.

Alice

You are a little girl, who has fallen-down a rabbit hole. You're now at a tea party with some very strange people - and some even stranger animals!

Emotion Kindness - You are a very good girl, and like to help people. Whenever someone else says 'please' or 'thank you', you can give them one of your cards, if you want to.

Magic Words "No thank you." If someone tries to give you a card becasue of their Emotion, you can say "no thank you!" and give it back to them. Your mummy told you never to take gifts from strange people, and you're pretty sure that applies to talking animals, too.

So, how does this sound? I don't have any children handy to test it on, alas.

[jwalton]

Having the suggestions written on real playing cards would be hot.

I think it's often better to reinforce the kind of play you want instead of discouraging the king of play you don't want. Positive reinforcement and all that.

I don't think you should worry too much about the "is this an RPG?" question. That's a pretty arbitrary decision and, one way or the other, you're still going to end up with an awesome game.

[rpoppe]

[kenjib]

[rpoppe]

What if you applied constraints as well? So for character X, expressing amusement is detrimental (an affront to dignity!) to balance out the special criteria of another character that is "too easy".

I disagree that balance in play isn't important. Particularly if you are playing with children, who are very keen rules lawyers.

[Doug Ruff]

Use of cards: I'm working out the details, but I think the suits and numbers will be used, and more than I intended. Thanks for this.

Invoking emotions: There will be a cap on using the powers. Also - and regrettably - I think it will have to be restricted to the emotions expressed in the story, rather than the emotions of the players themselves.

Balance: there is a balance issue, but i think it's about equal chance to have fun, rather than who wins. I may come back to this, but it may have to wait until after the game is done...

Oh yes, the story: I've decided to focus on the storytelling aspect of the game, and scale back the riddles and poems. There were just too many different types of challenge for the rules to cover.

This means that play will be divided into a series of stories, each of which lasts for the time it takes the sand to pass through the hourglass. Think of the quiz show Just a Minute, but with different rules for interrupting the players.

More to follow, as I think of it. Please keep posting, the comments are really useful!

[kenjib]