Hey guys, I've been doing some
~homebrewing~I'm sure most of you have heard of
the World of Darkness, the urban fantasy/horror roleplaying game. I'm also certain that some of you might have heard of
Fiasco, the Coen Brothers RPG. I have come up with an idea that mashes them together. The intention is to make players that don't need to be artificially brought together by circumstance and to immediately generate stories that the players have a hand in. Note: this means that the party is less often "a party of adventurers going deep into the night" and more like "a bunch of losers killing each other for something vaguely mythical".
I'm basically aping the character creation system from Fiasco then welding it onto the World of Darkness. You start out by rolling a large pile of dice (4 per player) and then start defining Relationships, Objects, Locations, and Mysteries.
Every player has two relationships with the players to their left and right. First you say what kind of relation it is (Crime, family, etc) with a die, then use another die to define it (Dealer/addict, siblings).
Objects/Locations are distinctive items and areas that two players can add to their relationship. It's a similar system to relations; say what kind it is with a die (Valuable, Underground) then define it (A stolen assault rifle, a tunnel that loops back on itself). The object and location is integral to the relationship of the two characters: perhaps one of the characters stole the assault rifle from the other, or they both discovered the tunnel.
Finally, there's Mysteries. These replace a feature from Fiasco called Needs which are obsessive motives. Mysteries are questions that the two characters are both involved in. If the question was answered, both of these characters would be seriously affected. These could be as mundane as "Is my wife cheating on me?" to as strange as "Why is my furniture bleeding?". The mystery is once again integral to the relationship. It could be between the husband and the boyfriend of the wife, or the unfortunate owner of the bleeding furniture and the person who cast the spell on the furniture.
After you've used all your dice, you should start making character sheets and explaining how this all fits together. From there it's a regular World of Darkness chronicle, but I think this could add a whole new dimension to play. Here's a test I did, which resulted in a pretty sweet premise for a chronicle if I do say so myself.
Out by the city limits, there's a hill where the grass doesn't grow. It's just brown muck when it rains and dry earth when it shines. Two young kids named Tony and Sarah went for a walk near it. They climbed to the top, and found something odd. A book, bound in expensive leather, with no name on it. They read through it, ignoring the long-dead bird lying on the ground near them.
It was just gibberish, random vowels smashed together. Tony read out a random piece of nonsense verse. That's when they heard a cracking noise. The bird was growing it's skin back, like a sped-up fungus. Feathers pushed through the bare skin, and when the process was done it flew away.
They ran home to their farmhouse and told their aunt Victoria about what had happened. For a while, she didn't believe them. But when they demonstrated it on a dead cow, she grew curious. She tried to use the book to bring back a person.
If you asked them about what happened, none of them would say. Sarah washed her hands clean of the whole affair while Tony stashed the book and kept watch over the hill to make sure nothing else happened there. Victoria wanted that book, but that wasn't happening. It was a deadlock.
That was, until Leon came into the picture. Leon was a junkie, stealing anything to pay for his addiction. He snuck into a house aiming to take whatever wasn't nailed down. He opened the wrong door and stepped into the bedroom where Tony was cheating on his wife. Panicking, he grabbed the nearest thing at hand: a leather-bound book on a cupboard.
He took it to his drug dealer Angelo, wanting to exchange it for more drugs.
Initially, he balked. Then, he mentioned the book on a call to his mother, Victoria. She screamed at him, telling him he was a complete idiot. Wanting to prove his intelligence, he went back and got the book off Leon.
Tony and Sarah need that book. Victoria is one step away from getting it. Leon and Angelo are the unfortunate middlemen about to get screwed. Who comes out on top? What really happened that night long ago? Is death really the end?
Find out 11/6/neverbecausethisisatest.
Angelo
Drug dealer to Leon
Child of Victoria
Has a leather-bound book between Leon and him
Leon
Drug addict buying off Angelo
Stole from Tony
Has a leather-bound book between Angelo and him
Has a memory of a compromising position between Tony and him.
Tony
Stolen from by Leon
Keeper of a terrible secret with Sarah
Has a memory of a compromising position between Leon and him.
Has a hill where the grass doesn't grow between Sarah and him.
Sarah
Keeper of a terrible secret with Tony
Niece of Victoria
Wonders if you can bring the dead back to life between her and Victoria.
Victoria
Aunt of Sarah
Mother of Angelo
Has a basic mystery between her and Angelo. Unofficial definition (Since I ran out of dice before I could define it): "Will she ever recognize me as a good son?"
I think my "make a Bay12 World of Darkness game that doesn't rely on exposition" project is coming along nicely...
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Topic: Tabletop Games Thread (Read 197876 times)