What Would You Do? (A New Game Idea)

[Lord Raziere]

Hello. I have a very simple idea.

Basically, imagine a character from a story you thought that could've gone better, that the character could've made a better decision or something, that if you were in their shoes, things would've turned out better.

Alright, hot shot. Lets test that.

Lets put you into that characters shoes, lets put you into the same situations, give you the same abilities, the same opportunities, everything.
Now, simply have you make whatever decision you want- and then have the Gm rolls a d20. 10 or below, the result is worse than what happened originally. above 10, its better than what happened originally.

such a game would follow the storyline of the original work, with the needed modifications depending on the rolls. the less crunch the better as this focuses more on decision-making and the consequences of such rather than the action itself. there would be of course, no retakes, once you made a decision your stuck with it. that and your actions must be somewhat in character for that character, act too out of character and it will adversely affect the roll.

no bonuses or stats or anything, you just make a decision, the Dm rolls to see if things turn out better or worse.....and your claims of whether things would've really turned out better with you at the helm will be settled, one way or another.

So, if you were in the characters shoes...what would you do? :smallamused:

[DoomHat]

This basic premise is the core reason I play RPG's in the first place. I've always had an affection for stories. I take in good stories because their good and I taken in bad stories because I love to rack my brains with the question, "What would need to be different in order make that have been not or less terrible?"
I play RPG's so they I can put myself in the shoes of someone in an impossible situation and then do what makes sense to me.

It is for this reason I can't not, will not, tolerate being railroaded. I also hate most social combat systems, as they hand over control my character's actions to a dice roll.

I understand what you're going for but I think you should look at some proper Story Telling games. There are a lot of games out there that do something along the lines of what you're proposing but they're a lot more structured and a little less random.
While most Role Playing games base stats on simulating real world concepts, Story Telling games base their stats on narrative concepts and applied tropes.
Here's a few examples,
House of the Blooded (http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/product.php?productid=16617&cat=0&page=1)
octaNe (http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/search.php?mode=search&page=1)
In a Wicked Age (http://www.lumpley.com/wicked.html)
Don't Rest You Head (http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/product.php?productid=16236&cat=0&page=1)

There are a few more, but these are popular.

[Lord Raziere]

I meant actually going into an existing work of fiction, and changing it.

not an original world or anything, just y'know like, becoming someone like Naruto, a protagonist of an existing work and making different decisions will in his shoes. you don't create a character you just pick an existing character and story then make different decisions that you feel could've been made.

like interactive fan fiction.

[DoomHat]

Just to clarify…
Your goal is to create a game in which the player takes up the role of a character in an existing story at a pivotal moment, to see what would happen if they took a different course of action?

The problem with your execution of that goal is that the choice the player makes is utterly meaningless. Whatever they do has a 50-50 chance of better or worse. It doesn’t matter if the player chooses to act in a way the makes no sense for the character’s motivations, it doesn’t matter how cunning, foolish, or insane, 50-50 odds.

You might as well just watch an anime or movie and pause it occasionally, when a character has make a pivotal choice, then flip a coin. If it lands heads, start the show again, if tails, the character’s action had the opposite outcome. Discuss amongst yourselves how the rest of the episode plays out in light of that.

[Lord Raziere]

then how about an area where it isn't better or worse, just different? like, 8 to 12 or something?

and yes that is the idea.

[DoomHat]

Still renders choice meaningless.

[Lord Raziere]

Still renders choice meaningless.

no one said the idea was perfect, or that it was fully developed.

multiple characters of course, make different choices the conflict with each other and bring out about more interesting results, that and I will work on making choice not meaningless.

[elliott20]

In general, RPGs that are heavily focused on conflict resolution over task resolution (which is what you have here), will allow the player and GM to influence the outcome of the roll in some way. Your system thus far does not. So it doesn't matter about the dice size, you have essentially no control over the narrative, which makes the game meaningless.

To be honest, the idea is nothing new. It was done in Dogs in the Vineyard, and Prime Time Adventures very well.

In fact, you could pretty much play Prime Time Adventures to do the Naruto idea up above, as it basically lets you do that.

To use their example, this is what they did:

Each character has several story aspects that the player feels is important to the character, split into edges (like wealth and skills) vs. connections (like friends and followers).

Any time a conflict comes up and the character wants to influence the decision, they call on one of the aspects. The problem here though, is that they can only use one aspect so many times per session. So they have to make them count.