Aptera
2009-09-07, 08:35 PM
I had an idea very recently when I was reading about long term campaigns in RPGs (different generations, founding kingdoms, that kind of thing) and I thought "wouldn't it be cool to play as secret societies?". You know, the ancient and vast conspiracies you see in every fantasy, or sci-fi story, whether they are vampires looking to control humanity from the shadows, an ancient species of aliens controlling humanity from beyond the stars, that kind of thing.
So heres my idea: The Players control a secret society devoted to a Goal. A Goal can be whatever a player wants, but it has to be big, and I'd encourage them to be creative, so something like "Defeat my enemy by learning ice magic" doesn't cut it, but "summon an ancient ice deity" is good, and "summon an ancient ice deity locked away by the gods, to encase the entire world in ice so that they survive the Squid-mens time travelling empire" is really good. The things standing in a players way would mostly be the other players, and whatever NPC groups (opposite aligned religion, empires, God) the GM decides to throw at them.
My problem is that I need a system for this. I need something thats flexible, so that players can have a wide variety of resources and Goals to choose from, but also balanced so that no player suddenly gets outclassed by another, which is my main worry. I've thought about doing this free form, or with a system of my own devising (with stats like Secrecy and Minions), but it would be really nice to have a system to work with, and any feedback you have on the idea itself.
So heres my idea: The Players control a secret society devoted to a Goal. A Goal can be whatever a player wants, but it has to be big, and I'd encourage them to be creative, so something like "Defeat my enemy by learning ice magic" doesn't cut it, but "summon an ancient ice deity" is good, and "summon an ancient ice deity locked away by the gods, to encase the entire world in ice so that they survive the Squid-mens time travelling empire" is really good. The things standing in a players way would mostly be the other players, and whatever NPC groups (opposite aligned religion, empires, God) the GM decides to throw at them.
My problem is that I need a system for this. I need something thats flexible, so that players can have a wide variety of resources and Goals to choose from, but also balanced so that no player suddenly gets outclassed by another, which is my main worry. I've thought about doing this free form, or with a system of my own devising (with stats like Secrecy and Minions), but it would be really nice to have a system to work with, and any feedback you have on the idea itself.