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koipond's thread - Over The Wall

PostPosted: Mon Sep 13, 2010 1:13 am
by koipond
Hey folks,

Sorry for not getting the CP one done on time. I'm still working on it, but other projects and divorce will get in the way of the best intentions.

However, Fred kicked me in the butt to get something done for Game Chef and I've got it pretty much figured out. It's a little more post human than I normally do, but I figure it's pretty awesome. Let me get into the nitty gritty parts.


1. Journey - You want to get Over the Wall to what's been told to you to be the promised land.
2. CIty - the machine city of Vaturdu is where you spend your time trying to get through in order to escape
Edge - The goal is the wall on the edge of the city, it's mythical but it's the demarcation between what is real and what is machine.
Skin - the only currency that works in the game. If you need to buy your way through something, will you sacrifice your own body to make it Over The Wall.

First 1k words.




Everyone wants to be Over The Wall. It’s in all the stories you hear as soon as you come into your creche. The ones that your keepers tell you to help you sleep at night when the monsters would come out of the shadows, clacking their teeth and scraping their fingers against the windows. Over The Wall is the promised land. A place of sunshine, honey, dreams, hopes, and the real. As real as you were now, and how you would never be once you left the creche.
They love the flesh Over The Wall. They worship the skin and shun any metal that you might have needed to use to get there. Some versions of the stories even tell you that they’ll replace the metal bits with your old parts that have magically reappeared, or someone else’s parts. It doesn’t matter where it came from, as long as it was yours and when you were whole again you would be richer than the richest of all the fleshbots in Vaturdu.
Vaturdu was what you would be born into, once you left the creche. It was the city of machines, were the skin you had was the only currency you could use to buy anything you needed. Work for food was a normal exchange, but if you wanted anything more than simple food and lodging then you need to trade your skin in for something bigger and better. In fact, your first act as an adult was to pay the creche for their care with something. They replaced it with a functional part, that was easy since the mechanics were everywhere, and options were available for better pieces for a price.
When you take your first step outside of the creche and see the city before you, the first thing all new citizens do is look for the wall. Everyone says that they can see it, there in the distance and after a few days they all want to find it. Life in Vaturdu is hard and the promises Over The Wall are tempting, but navigating the city is never easy for anyone. There are too many dangers, too many people jealous of the skin that you still have and want to take it from you. The stories all agree that in order to get Over The Wall you need to be at least a little bit real, or else your cast out of paradise back into Vaturdu to become one of the robots that wait and watch for other creche kids who still have skin left to sell.

Character Creation

You were born to a Creche with your brothers and sisters. The creche is important to Vaturdu as it keeps the population from dying when the bots that remain fall apart and can’t afford to be replaced. It’s also a way to keep the currency flowing in the city, as without an influx of new flesh the whole of Vaturdu would collapse on itself. No one violates the Creche, not that there haven’t been a few bots that have looked longingly through the high voltage fence at all the young skin there, but the defenses around the creche have stopped even the most determined bot enough times that the lessons have sunk in.

While you played in the creche, you knew none of this. You just knew your life of eating, sleeping, playing and learning. What did you learn? What did you like to do? This will inform your character. All children in the creche learn how to Run, Hide and Jump but your interests went beyond that. There was something that drew your curiosity onward and you picked up some extra skills.

Some kids were into Robotics, the learning of how their eventual bodies would work and so learned how to Repair, Identify, Build and Improve anything that had to do with machinery and parts. There were those kids who knew how to get what they wanted, from the flesh kids and from the other machines. Those kids were Traders and figured out how to Deal, Scrounge, Notice and Cheat. Outside there were kids that were busy playing games and pushing each other around. They got called Athletes by the governesses and Bullies by the rest. They figured out how to Hit, Break, Sprint and Leap. Which ever one you were helped defined who you were when you left the Creche.

You and your Creche siblings did everything together. You were groups together when there was eating time, sleeping time and learning time. You mixed with the other Creche children during free time, but most of your time was spent with those who were cloned in the same vat as you were. That means you got to know them very well, and in some cases too well. One of your siblings Was Horribly Mean To You. You need to remember how they were mean to you, and what you want to do back to them to get even. Whatever they did, you know that the governesses turned a blind eye to what was going on. It may have been to toughen you up, make you grow in the face of adversity, but you certainly felt that you could have gone without it and still turned out able to face Vaturdu head on. Of course, your other siblings noticed this and one of them Was Your Closest Friend. Who were they and what would you do for them? Would you give them your skin to buy their own freedom? Would you jump in front of a buzzkill to protect them from getting hurt? Would they do the same for you?

Then came that fateful day when you and your Creche siblings had to leave the protection of the Creche and make it to the outside world. Before you left, you had to pay the Creche for their tender loving care, as they put it. You had to give them something for their pains. Would it be a hand, a foot, your eyes? Don’t worry, they had the standard replacement which would work just like the old ones did. They had implants that could make you better, but they were a bit more expensive. Would you trade in your arm in order to get a hand that would be able to crush anyone who got in your way, or your hand in order to get eyes that didn’t miss anything?

Re: koipond's thread - Over The Wall

PostPosted: Tue Sep 14, 2010 5:30 am
by vulpinoid
This is dark.

I looked up skin, and saw that it was a colloquial term for money, but I like how you've really pushed this concept.

I don't know if I could convince anyone to play this with me, but it'd make a great psychological mind-screw.

Keep on working at it.

Re: koipond's thread - Over The Wall

PostPosted: Wed Sep 15, 2010 5:59 am
by koipond
Character Creation

You were born to a Creche with your brothers and sisters. The creche is important to Vaturdu as it keeps the population from dying when the bots that remain fall apart and can’t afford to be replaced. It’s also a way to keep the currency flowing in the city, as without an influx of new flesh the whole of Vaturdu would collapse on itself. No one violates the Creche. Not that there haven’t been a few bots that have looked longingly through the high voltage fence at all the young skin there, but the defenses around the creche have stopped even the most determined bot enough times that the lessons have sunk in.

While you played in the creche, you knew none of this. You just knew your life of eating, sleeping, playing and learning. What did you learn? What did you like to do? This will inform your character. All children in the creche learn how to Run and Hide, but your interests went beyond that. There was something that drew your curiosity onward and you picked up some extra skills.

Some kids were into Robotics, the learning of how their eventual bodies would work and so learned how to Repair, Identify, Build and Improve anything that had to do with machinery and parts. There were those kids who knew how to get what they wanted, from the flesh kids and from the other machines. Those kids were Traders and figured out how to Deal, Scrounge, Notice and Cheat. Outside there were kids that were busy playing games and pushing each other around. They got called Athletes by the governesses and Bullies by the rest. They figured out how to Hit, Break, Sprint and Leap. Which ever one you were helped defined who you were when you left the Creche.

You and your Creche siblings did everything together. You were groups together when there was eating time, sleeping time and learning time. You mixed with the other Creche children during free time, but most of your time was spent with those who were cloned in the same vat as you were. That means you got to know them very well, and in some cases too well. One of your siblings Was Horribly Mean To You. You need to remember how they were mean to you, and what you want to do back to them to get even. Whatever they did, you know that the governesses turned a blind eye to what was going on. It may have been to toughen you up, make you grow in the face of adversity, but you certainly felt that you could have gone without it and still turned out able to face Vaturdu head on. Of course, your other siblings noticed this and one of them Was Your Closest Friend. Who were they and what would you do for them? Would you give them your skin to buy their own freedom? Would you jump in front of a buzzkill to protect them from getting hurt? Would they do the same for you?

You talked a lot about what you wanted to do when you got out to Vaturdu. Most of you wished you could bypass it. Your governesses never spoke well of it, they talked about the buzzkills and the gangs and the checkpoints and the flesh markets and the never ending smell that permiated the place. It was a house of horrors that never seemed to end. You wanted to get Over the Wall, where you could just relax and not have to worry about the next bot coming behind you to take whatever they could off of your body. Some of you secretly thought it would be grand to be a fleshbot, a bot with so much flesh that you could attach and extra limb here and there just to flaunt your own wealth. You would have an army of weaker bots at your command who would do anything for a hand, or a finger even. They just wanted to be close to you, to gain favour and wealth of their own. You’d rule sections of Vaturdu with an iron fist and no one would ever challenge you, or dunk your head in the water trough again. Of course, you never told anyone that. You had an Open Goal and a Secret Goal. Sometimes you were an honest child and they were one and the same, but even the most honest of children harbour a secret desire for power and fame and wealth.

Then came that fateful day when you and your Creche siblings had to leave the protection of the Creche and make it to the outside world. Before you left, you had to pay the Creche for their tender loving care, as they put it. You had to give them something for their pains. Would it be a hand, a foot, your eyes? Don’t worry, they had the standard replacement which would work just like the old ones did. They had implants that could make you better, but they were a bit more expensive. Would you trade in your arm in order to get a hand that would be able to crush anyone who got in your way, or your hand in order to get eyes that don’t miss anything?

You were given a comm with a personal status chart. That’s how they keep track of you to see when you become a full fledged citizen. On it was a chart that showed you what flesh you had left and what you had sold already. There were the benefits of each bot part, because you were still getting used to what they could do, and a place to remember what you knew how to do. You could Run and Hide as well as your Four Other Skills. They had already put in 8 points in those Skills as a way to show you that you were being graded the whole time you were there. They had been watching you the whole time, and it made you wonder what else they knew, or what they though of it. What secrets did you have left?

Re: koipond's thread - Over The Wall

PostPosted: Thu Sep 16, 2010 4:54 am
by koipond
Skills

Sometimes you don’t know what a Skill does, by it’s name. You need a greater description, that’s why the Creche has provide you with further details on how you have been evaluated for all these years.

You just liked the way your feet would touch the pavement when you would Run. It was such a satisfying smacking sound that you did it all the time in the creche, even when you weren’t supposed to. You always arrived first, no matter where what because if there was an option to run or walk you would always run. The hallways were your racetrack and you always came in first place. Now that you’re going out on the streets of Vaturdu, this should serve you well. Understand that some bots that might want to do you harm have wheels, engines and the ability to move faster than you can run.

Quiet time was at a premium inside the Creche. It was a luxury since the governesses had every minute regimented with activities, food and sleep. If you wanted a moment to yourself, you could always Hide, and you frequently did. The governesses always had to take that extra time to try and find you for your lessons, or your lunch. The peace was worth the scolding you got if they manged to find you.

When you get interested in Robotics, the first thing you did was tinker until you Improved on a piece of gear. You don’t know how you managed to do it, but you were able to remove some of the problems that bot parts posed people. The kinks were worked out and the machinery was able to flow faster and freer than ever before. This made you a favourite among the governesses who would take special care of you as you made their hands faster at chopping the food you needed to eat, or let their arms rotate 360 degrees, so they could stop the children from doing things behind their back. It didn’t make you popular with the Bullies but you didn’t care, you were making things better.

Instead of just tinkering, you started to learn more about how bots worked. You learned how to Identify parts and what they did and how they could be used. You also managed to get inside the library and find out the different bots and what they could and couldn’t do. It opened your eyes a little bit on how limited the governesses actually were and let you figure out weaknesses that they had. You also knew which ones were newer, which ones were older and which ones were going to be decommissioned soon.

Once you had spent your time doing your research and learning how things worked, you were ready to Build your own bot parts. You build a small drone that would follow you around and clean your part of the creche so you could read some more. You had a fake mechanical hand that gave the governesses a good scare, thinking that you had managed to sell your hand for the part, that someone had gotten into the creche. It was awesome, you were able to build whatever you wanted.

Then your creations would break, and you had to spend your time with Repair. You’d fix what was broken, and learn even more from that. This endeared you to the governesses even more because not only could you make them better, but if they got hurt you could fix them too. You got special treats when they thought no one else was looking, but you couldn’t help rub it in to the other creche kids when it happened. It just proved that you were special, better than the others. You would make it Over the Wall when they fell.

If you were interested in being a Trader, it was the first time you managed to Cheat and not get caught. It was a heady feeling, and it helped that the kid you hated managed to get in trouble for what you had done. It became something you did, you cheated all the time. Sure you would get caught now and then, but not enough to outweigh the benefits you reaped when it worked.

You were also good at finding what people wanted, you just seemed to Notice when others talked about their desires. There were subtle clues and hints that you just seemed to pick up on that explained everything you needed to know. It also helped that you had to pay attention to people when you were Cheating, because those too were clues. It let you know if people believed you, or if you might have to Run. This developed your eagles eyes that can notice anything at all. There’s that piece of paper that everyone else overlooked that just happened to be the one that was needed. There was that extra bit of food that no one else saw. It made you happy every time it happened too, because you knew that no one else would have seen it in a million days.

That led to you being able to Scrounge up things that no one else knew where there. From making food appear out of places your creche siblings never expected to getting toys that everyone thought was lost, you knew the best places to go to get what you needed. To your siblings, it looked like you were able to just pull stuff out of thin air.

Eventually you took your ability to Scrounge and Notice and Cheat and turned it into your ability to make a Deal. You traded things that you found for bigger and better stuff that you wanted. You always had whatever you needed, and you came out the better in any transaction that you were in, be it with your siblings or with the governesses. People wanted to avoid you for that reason, but you always seemed to have what they wanted or needed.

The rest of the kids were too busy playing sports and being ‘Athletes’ in front of the governesses and Bullies behind their backs. If you were a Bully one of the first things you did when you got out of the vat was Hit. You Hit the walls, your toys and most importantly your Creche Siblings. You hit them a lot, in fact, so much so that you got used to being alone as you got separated a lot. Eventually you grew up and learned how to play games that required you to hit things, rather than creche-kids, but that desire to his your brothers and sisters stayed with you forever.

After the Hitting started, then came the Breaking. You couldn’t have nice things because the urge to Break them was too tempting, and often you’d give in to it. Then, when you get older, you realized that you didn’t want to Break your things anymore, but your sibling’s stuff was more than fair game. It doesn’t take too much effort to Break things, just a lot of will and determination and you have plenty of that.

Part of Breaking is the ability to Throw accurately. You wanted to make sure objects that you tossed ended up exactly where you wanted them. A piece of pie in your creche sister’s hair, that spitball on the back of your creche brother’s neck. That kite, just in the right spot up the tree so people would have to break their necks to get it down. Your desire to Throw things even extended to putting that ball exactly where it needed to be, when you weren’t busy showing off your skills on your creche siblings.

The last thing you picked up was your ability to Leap out of dangerous situations. You could climb a tree by jumping up and grabbing onto that branch that no one else could reach. The roof was your playground and the governesses did their best to try to make sure that you didn’t break your neck up there, jumping around like a Spiderbot. You could Leap further than even some of the governesses, much to their frustration.

Re: koipond's thread - Over The Wall

PostPosted: Thu Sep 16, 2010 4:59 am
by koipond
Playing the Game

The Game will take place over a series of encounters. You need 20 encounters to make it over the wall which represents the five days it takes to make it there on foot. There are ways around that might make that shorter, or longer, but in the end you will have to travel through the lands of Vaturdu in order to make it Over The Wall. Each game session, is one day of your journey. The game uses a deck of 52 cards, which represents the 52 various encounters that can happen inside of Vaturdu.

The Set up

At the beginning of the game, the deck of cards is shuffled and put in the middle of the table, these represent the encounters that you will draw. Sometimes, they will be good. Frequently they will be hard.

The Hour

The Hour is the a single encounter. Each creche kid is trying to make it to the Wall themselves so that means that they’re going to run into different things along the way. The Hour breaks down as follows.

The Start

An Hour starts with the character who has the highest Run. That player will pick either the character that they love or the character that they hate. The time of The Hour may inform their choice as to who they wish to give an encounter to. Once the choice is made, the top card of the deck is flipped over to determine what the encounter is. There are charts that will give you the first few lines of the encounter, but after that the player who flipped over the card becomes The Bot for this scene and the player that the card was played on becomes The Creche-Kid dealing with the encounter.

There are four Hours to a day. They go in the following order: Morning, Noon, Evening, Night

The Minutes Pass

Once The Bot and The Creche-kid have established the scene and what they want to do with it, the remaining players can now get involved. Starting from the left of The Bot each player can add or remove an element to the situation. This can be designed to help either The Bot or The Creche-kid but both The Bot and The Creche-kid get to react to what the player did. If a player doesn’t feel inspired, or think they want to do anything they can also Pass.

After The Bot and The Creche-kid react the next player on the left gets to do the same thing until each player not in the scene gets to add or remove something or Pass.

The Clock Chimes

When every other player has had a turn the group has a decision. At the end of the scene, has enough changed that The Creche-kid or The Bot is going to come out on top.

If the Creche-kid comes out on top
Then the Creche-kid gets to describe what they want to have happen as a result. Usually this involves the Creche-kid escaping in some way.

If the Bot comes out on top
Then the Creche-kid has a couple of options. The first one is to let The Bot win and describe what’s going, this usually doesn’t end well for the Creche-kid but they might be in a situation where if they use a Skill it will end up being worse for them.

The other option is that the Creche-kid can use a Skill. If this the Skill is below it’s threshold then they will succeed and do what they want. If the Skill is above it’s threshold then they’ll still succeed, it just won’t go nearly as well as they’d hoped.

The Hour Turns

Once the scene is resolved then play continues to the player to the left of The Bot and they start at the beginning of The Hour.

The day ends

Once the four hours have passed, the day is over and the session is done.

Using Skills

When a Creche-kid uses a Skill what they are doing is succeeding in escaping a scene in the matter that they choose. That means they might be able to get an upgraded bot part for the price of a single limb, rather than the limb they’re replacing and a new one. They could also leap across the top of a building to get away from the Buzzkill that’s chasing them, or even hide from the Draco that’s flying through the air, looking for a tasty snack.

However, the points that you associate with Skills at the end of character creation are the Thresholds for each Skill. Every time you use a Skill you get closer to the Threshold. If you pass the Threshold you still succeed, but now The Bot gets to determine some kind of bad effect that happens to you. You Leap across the top of a building, but you land awkwardly hurting your foot. You Hide from the Draco only to run into another encounter in the building that you were hiding in. Whatever it is, it’s not going to be good.

Re: koipond's thread - Over The Wall

PostPosted: Thu Sep 16, 2010 5:01 am
by koipond
Okay, this is what I've got.

Good, bad, ugly? I'm trying to keep it dark and uncertain. My one big problem is that I feel that I've set myself up for a lot of blurb writing. There will be recycling, oh goodness yes, but that still means I've committed myself to writing up hundreds of encounter blurbs.

Could I do anything else? Could I do "draw 2 cards in the Morning, 4 at Noon, 3 at Evening and 2 again at night" and just do 52 keywords. Something like Ganakagok? When players draw they can draw cards for inspiration?

Re: koipond's thread - Over The Wall

PostPosted: Thu Sep 16, 2010 6:27 am
by DavidEBest
I like where you've taken this - its dark, but sounds like a load of fun.

Instead of writing blurbs for each card/role/hour combination, why not just go the keyword route, and give the non-bot and creche-kid players a bit more power in defining the situation?

Another option would be to have a few different decks, one for Person, one for Place, one for situation/keyword/wildcard. This might help you retain some more flavor than just a deck of keywords, but without needing to write hundreds of encounter blurbs.

Maybe different Hours would result in a different mix of card types drawn?

David

Re: koipond's thread - Over The Wall

PostPosted: Thu Sep 16, 2010 10:29 am
by DavidEBest
I had another thought about the deck of event cards concept.

What if you provided a list of card titles or themes, and you left it to the GM to decide what cards were in the deck? This way, the GM can run the Vaturdu that the group would find most engaging. If they wants to emphasize running from the law, the GM would include an extra helping of Buzzkills or law enforcement.

I should probably be thinking more about my game. :)

David

Re: koipond's thread - Over The Wall

PostPosted: Thu Sep 16, 2010 11:59 am
by koipond
That's really cool.

There's also the possibility of doing something like In A Wicked Age where instead of decks you take Suits of cards and give them a theme and then you can pick which ones you're going to apply to the game, but that's more going back to the scenario bits.

I appreciate the help on this, regardless. I just need to make a decision on what to do.

Re: koipond's thread - Over The Wall

PostPosted: Thu Sep 16, 2010 6:03 pm
by koipond
Okay, I've got it.

The four suits are split up and this is what they are.

Spades - Bot pile
Diamonds - Location Pile
Clubs - Complication Pile
Hearts - Danger Pile

Morning you draw from Bot and Location
Noon you draw from all four
Evening you draw from Bot, Location, Complication or Danger
Night you draw from Location and Complication

Now I just need to come up with what the Complications and Dangers are.