Silent Movie RPG

[Onix]

[Groffa]

I like the idea of a charades type of game. It would be a fun way to introduce new players to roleplaying (without them even thinking about it).

[Onix]

I thought about that, don't even tell them they're playing an RPG. People might buy it!

[NoobHealer]

That sounds very amusing. I like it.

[DavidEBest]

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Onix, I like where you are going with the charades idea. I wasn't keen on it at first, but I think a Silent Movie game could be lots of fun as sort of collaborative storytelling/party game mix.

I've just watched a few Charlie Chaplin short movies, and what really strikes me about about the Tramp character (and slapstick in general, I suppose) is the constant reversals of fortune throughout the bits. Chaplin would get the contents of his bag stolen and replaced with a brick, which he would use to accidentally knock out the crook, which would cause the crook to go get his buddies, etc., etc. What if the player group was divided into two teams, one pro-Tramp and one anti-Tramp, with the groups alternating narrative control?

Each team could have a certain number of placards that they could use (like lifelines) when their team fails to guess what they are acting out, when they want to do something too complex to act out, take narrative control immediately, or to establish additional 'stuff' for the scene.

Just some thoughts.

[Onix]

good ideas, let me just shoot these out.

Players would all write down what they want to do in a scene. The player(s) with control over the narrative get to look over each card and either swap them between players or change their order.

So if a player writes "I will kill you!" the players with control could hand that card to another player to say. There could be interesting effects of switching the order of who can say what and when.

Another thought, a lot of movies did their best to limit the number of placards of dialog. It was better to do everything by showing it. There should be a bonus or benefit of some kind for that.

And mimes can speak in a silent movie a la "Mel Brook's Silent Movie".

[SheikhJahbooty]

I have a feeling it might be fun to act out a character action, like charades, but you cannot enter anything into the narrative for your character except with a placard (chalk board might be handy here, or clipboard a few sheets of paper and a marker. Otherwise, you do your little pantomime, and then everyone else agrees on what you are doing.

Success of failure is always super easy to express without words, so that is totally within your own control.

This kind of makes it like a party game version of .

I wonder if music can be brought into it somehow...

[NoobHealer]

When I think about the idea, I actually think of it like Foreign Film Dub on "Whose line is it Anyway."

Each player acts out his action and then the other players decide on what was actually performed. I know that most of the people I play games with would never take the actions on the literal level. I'd be struggling to come with actions that people can't take the wrong way, but I could see it as being entertaining nonetheless.

[Onix]

I was thinking that, like charades the player acting would point to the interpretation that they liked and then those two players would get a hand at messing with each other's placards.

And yes no dialogue unless you're a mime. I don't know what that means yet. Maybe that's the name for the GM?

[DavidEBest]

I like the idea of a group consensus determining what your charade "means". Maybe the actor gets some sort of reward for having the group consensus match his own intentions. This could result in a tough choice for players - go along with the actor and the 'obvious' meaning of the charade, giving him the point, OR try and argue for a left field interpretation to deprive him of the point, and take the story in an unexpected direction.

Could music be used as a timing mechanism - say the scene will end with the song? Not sure how this would work with some of the slower elements (like coming to a consensus), but it could lead to some frantic miming to get that last little bit into the scene.

I was surprised by how few placards actually appeared in the silent movie shorts I watched yesterday - I thought they were used more frequently. Onix, I agree that their use should be limited, but I think they could make for fun wildcards. What if they were defined ahead of time, and you could get points for including yours?

I have never seen Mel Brook's Silent Movie. Guess I'll have to add that one to my Netflix queue.