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Into every generation, a chosen one is born. Theirs is a task that none other may undertake (for thus it was decreed in Ancient times by the immortal God-King): they, and only they, may play Mercutio. When the last Mercutio dies, teams of Actors must gather to play their way up the glass tower, watched by the Law Committee, and upon reaching the top they must make their pitch to be the next Mercutio.

Thespians in the Glass Tower is an anarchic, GMless game of luvvies, darlings and utter two-facedness. Play proceeds in two distinct stages: first the actors must journey up the glass tower, each scene being determined by turning over cards - during this stage they will try to act in a manner that steels their emotions so that they can impress the committee - second, they face the commitee. Here players are directly compeeting against one another using the resources (emotional steel that they gathered in the first place) for the honour of being the next Mercutio). The game moves from the first stage to the second after one hour and forty five minutes have passed.

The rules will be balanced so that players must co-operate to get the best emotional state for the final act-off but are also rewarded for stabbing each other in the back at key moments.

That's pretty screwed up, right there. But sounding like fun already.

Of course, the ultimate challenge would be to include all the ingredients and themes from previous years, too...

Power 19

I thought I'd give a go at answering these:

1.) What is your game about?
Actors playing their way up a tower, and trying to impress a committee in order to win the role of Mercutio.

2.) What do the characters do?
Act, support each others acting and heckle. In the end they try to impress the committee and talk each other down. Players will also take on the role of being commitee members while others are acting.

3.) What do the players (including the GM if there is one) do?
There is no GM; situations are introduced by the use of cards. The players take on roles as their actor, and oppose other players in a second role as muse/commitee-member (not sure which yet). The players are aiming to steel emotional resources they can spend in the final play-off in front of the committee. During play everything a player says is considered in-character and in-game actions are communicated by hand-signals.

4.) How does your setting (or lack thereof) reinforce what your game is about?
The setting is there to provide gravitas and variety. The concept is deliberately bizarre to encourage the players to be the same.

5.) How does the Character Creation of your game reinforce what your game is about?
Don't know, haven't fleshed it out yet. It will have to be very quick whatever happens.

6.) What types of behaviors/styles of play does your game reward?
Highly competitive play with rewards for both teamwork and timely back-stabbing.

7.) How are behaviors and styles of play rewarded or punished in your game?
Success brings more emotional resources, higher risk stakes will yield higher rewards. All reward and punishment is mediated through the actions of the other players.

8.) How are the responsibilities of narration and credibility divided in your game?
Players take turns. They may invite other players to assist them (and share in the rewards), and uninvited players may pay from their own resources to oppose their success.

9.) What does your game do to command the players' attention, engagement, and participation?
Play is fast moving and competitive. Players always have the opportunity to do something.

10.) What are the resolution mechanics of your game like?
Not sure. They will involve the movement of tokens, and a small random element. I'm envisioning some Capes-style staking and some Great Ork Gods style distributed difficulty setting.

11.) How do the resolution mechanics reinforce what your game is about?
Resolution is arranged in an actors-committee oppositional manner, and offers chances to raise-risks-for-more-reward, co-operate or backstab. Also all the game mechanics centre around acting.

12.) Do characters in your game advance? If so, how?
No.

13.) How does the character advancement (or lack thereof) reinforce what your game is about?
The game plays out over a single period of time with a single character winning and the rest dying. Character advancement makes no sense in this model.

14.) What sort of effect do you want your game to produce for the players?
Laugh-out-loud humour, amusing back-stabbing and a deep sense of involvement during play.

15.) What areas of your game receive extra attention and color? Why?
The scenes to be played out will be central, they're also a vast opportunity to set the tone of the game and offer humorous potential.

16.) Which part of your game are you most excited about or interested in? Why?
How emotional resources are won, staked and lost. I'm interested in takign some of the concepts developed for Great Ork Gods and applying them in a different context.

17.) Where does your game take the players that other games can’t, don’t, or won’t?
There's no violence in the game, just lot's of pretention and ham. Anarchic, silly and fun.

18.) What are your publishing goals for your game?
Enter the Game Chef, see what happens.

19.) Who is your target audience?
Peer judges in the game chef competition.

I love games where you have to work together, but yet you can back stab! Question, in the final scene when the players are spending off emitional resources, does the player with the highest score win or is this still up for grabs?