The Fortieth Annual Meeting of the Subcommittee for Preservation of Planet Earth
This world is rotten. In recent weeks, the Harmonious Congress has been abuzz with the findings from Gaebronius Zaphiel, Concordant Researcher First Class. The Zaphiel Report contains evidence that Earth is a drain on spiritual resources that could be better assigned to developing new planets – ones without such an overabundance of radium and fluorescent lighting.
A certain faction in the Harmonious Congress feels that Zaphiel is being hasty. They recognize that there’s a timetable to keep, but an emergency investigation would be prudent. The purpose of this investigation is nothing less than justifying Earth’s existence to the Committee of Heavenly Reacquisition.
Committee: The Committee of Heavenly Reacquisition can only believe in your efforts for so long. After that, they’ll repossess the spiritual components of Earth, leaving it a monstrous wasteland. Can you win over each member of the Harmonious Congress?
Emotion: Each player is a personification of a specific emotion; Schadenfreude, martyrdom, anxiety, greed, etc. Emotional depth is enough to save Earth, so who better than a bunch of abstract constructs to judge?
One of the players is designated team secretary. The secretary’s job is to keep minutes for the mission to save Earth. The notation is in Cosmos Time; coincidentally, 8 hours of Cosmos Time is equivalent to 8 hours of real time. Even if months pass in game, only 8 hours pass in the Cosmos. After 8 hours have been reached, the game is over. Penalties are assigned based on violation of cosmic law. (On this planet we obey the laws of thermodynamics! 15 minute penalty for violating the laws of physics)
Glass: Steel and glass cities vs. delicate spires. Humanity can be either way… Evidence for the committee is collected in glass spheres. Each character wears an hourglass with the time remaining.
Ancient: The practice of demolishing Earth has a great deal of precedent. The same team could be called on to justify existence in any era, perhaps several times in its career.
My comments so far:
Glass and Ancient seem tacked on. In the final cut, one of them will be excluded.
Apathy and emotional shallowness aren't the most interesting opposition out there. I wouldn't mind adding a competitive element wherein each emotion is trying to obtain the recognition for saving Earth. Then the players could fight over potential sources of emotion, seeking to twist them to their own designs (i.e. Joy would want to subvert the anxious zookeeper to unwarranted happiness. Anxiety would stomp on all such attempts, but not in a way that would leave the target an emotionless wasteland.)
Mechanically, I'm thinking that each potential target would have a pool of beads indicating how much control each emotion had over them. If the players act too overtly, the target will discard beads and become another drudge, unable to connect meaningfully with the world.
This all sounds dreadfully familiar, however. Has it been done before?