Okay, Idea I Will Never Ever Realize (And Anyone Else Is Welcome To Take, Should They Want To And Deem It Not Full Of Utter Suckage) the Sixty-Seventh.
How about this:
The Power Of A Caged Mind: A Dual RTDHere's the deal: you are a group of convicts of varying degrees of sociopathy, craziness, violence and all sorts of other fun things. All of you are in prison, and even the most harmless of your number is at least 20 years away from freedom. The food sucks, the guards are assholes and you're pretty sure that guy three cells down the block has a fresh new shiv he'd like to introduce to your ribs. Or not. He's kind of crazy that way. The point is, a high-security prison is hardly the vacation destination you imagined yourself being in at this time when you were younger.
However, you think you could escape. It would take a plan, tools, accomplices and possibly a riot, but you're pretty sure you could pull it off, given time, pressure and other factors. You must escape. You are not spending all your life behind bars. This escape has to happen, and it has to happen soon, 'cause you're unsure you could take any more of this place. Especially with that new reeducation program that's in place. Seriously, screw that crap.
What, you don't know about the re-education program? Well, it goes a little bit like this: the prison's taking part in a re-education experiment using something called "Virtual Reality". Sounds like bullshit to you, but hey, you're in prison, so what do you know. You see, they want you to log at least 1 hour a day in VR where you wield virtually unlimited powers and cannot permanently die. Sounds like all fun and games, right? Newsflash: it isn't. You have to spend this hour doing something
constructive, usually to accomplish some kind of lame-ass objective the warden sets out for you. If you don't, well, you get sent for analysis. And analysis doesn't just take a whole day, it's also apparently ridiculously painful and somewhat debilitating. So you have to dance like a monkey for the warden and hope it's not your noggin that gets electrodes stuck to it the next day. Fun, eh?
To make a long story short: you need to escape this fucking nightmare. Right the fuck now.
The Basic Idea: My idea is, this would work sort of like Roll to Roll to Dodge where you're essentially playing two games at once, except this time you'd play a regular prison RTD and a minimalist VR RTD. The day would be divided up into turns, each taking about 15 minutes. You get about 4 hours in total outside of your cell, of which 15-30 minutes are spent on your lunch break. The rest can be spent getting stabbed by socializing with other convicts, working out, picking out books to read in your solitary cell, setting up your escape and, of course, using the VR, among other things. Each of these can be very important in the success of your escape, particularly the VR.
The VR: You have to use it for at least 1 hour (4 turns out of 16) a day, with each day having its own objective and a certain amount of points. It would work in a minimalist fashion, with things happening with very little reason or rhyme and based entirely on unmodifiable d6 rolls. At the end of the day, the warden will evaluate how well you've done at your project. If it's good, worry not. If it's bad, be afraid. Be very afraid. If your project is judged the worst, you are sent for analysis. Analysis hurts and sometimes (depending on rolls, yes) causes temporary or permanent physical or mental penalties in addition to taking up the entire next day, essentially robbing you of a lot of time, relatively speaking. You have to spend at least an hour a day in the VR, though you can spend more if you feel the project needs it and you don't feel particularly pressed for more time to escape. There are no limits to what you can do in VR - you can create, destroy, help and, of course, hinder and sabotage to your heart's content. Just be careful not to be too overtly destructive. Work in VR is sorted by block: all the players are in the same block and thus will be directly competing with one another.
The Escape: It's the only reason for you to exist - the sweet promise of eventual escape to yourself. You can escape in any number of ways, but you will have to work hard for it. It is a high-security prison, after all. However, it is definitely possible in several different ways. It is ultimately up to you (and possibly Lady Luck) which avenue you wish to pursue, however.
How to Lose: There are several ways: get analyzed too much or too severely, get a shiv in the vitals, get caught in a half-assed escape - you're going down. And when you do, a new inmate will be reluctantly shuffled into the block. This will be the new player. Be nice to him. He's new here.
The Players: All are inmates, and the prison can be either a men's or women's, depending on player wishes. It doesn't really matter all that much. They start with a certain skill or two based on their biography and possibly a weakness as well. Depends on the particular GM's vision. There will probably be about 6-8 in total, with an asshole/model prisoner NPC or two perhaps thrown in to shake things up a bit and let the GM screw with players all the more.
I got this idea from mixing together Roll to Roll to Dodge with my very own headcanon background explanation for the Art of Minimalism RTDs. Whaddaya think?