It's constantly a struggle to find equilibrium when I'm running an RPG story. If I script the whole thing, my players invariably want to do things that the storyline doesn't/can't accommodate, meaning I went to all the trouble for nothing. If I don't script anything and just throw random encounters at the players, the game becomes just that: random. It lacks form and substance and winds up just being a mishmash of events that rarely comes together into something coherent. I say "rarely" because occasionally it does, but the odds against it happening are tremendous.
I've entered into a new experimental style recently. Once everyone in the party has created their character, I take them aside and ask them a few questions.
-What is your character's innermost desire?
-What is their biggest rational fear? (fear of death, snakes, loosing money, etc.)
-What is their lifetime goal? (accumulate 1,000,000 dollars, steal a new cyborg body)
-What is their worst nightmare? (not necessarily rational)
From the answers to these questions, I create a list of events that would be meaningful to the character. For example:
Character "V"
-is a sentient humanoid-type machine called a Gen-Drone. He has been infused with human-class intelligence through artificial means and is as 'human' as the next person, except that he's made of a metal skeleton covered with nanomachines for skin.
-His innermost desire is to fall in love.
-His worst fear is failing in his duties or letting down a friend.
-His lifetime goal is to be rich (to accumulate at least a million CiMarks)
-His worst nightmare is to have his mind infiltrated or to loose control of his body through external interference.
Without giving away plot points to the player of this character, I can say that from what he told me of V, I would present him with game encounters that would give him the chance to form meaningful relationships with people, encounters that would test his loyalty and/or his ability to be there for a friend when he was needed, the chance to either gain or loose large sums of money, and finally, put him in a position where his neural integrity could be compromised.
Testing his limits and giving him events that are meaningful to his character allows three things.
1) It makes him feel as though V is playing a significant part in the events
2) It allows all the rest of the party to participate in V's world in a very personal way
3) It makes it easier on me; I don't even have the need to script everything, but rather, just give him the events pertinent to his character in a (more or less) logical order. Or in a totally random order if I feel like screwing with him.
So we take it in turns; I run an event for one character, then either shortly after or mid-event, bring in an event pertinent to another character. The hard part here is again, finding the balance. The characters will invariably want some downtime between events to reload and repair their armor (I like to throw well-armed opponents at my players...they never leave home in regular clothing anymore, they just wear their body armor everywhere) so I have to give them a little time. The good news though is that they no longer have the need for additional downtime to pursue their own agendas because the main storylines have been tailored to them!
Of course, this is all "best case scenario." It is still not unheard of for my players to ignore my plot points and do their own thing, no matter how important I think it may be to their character.
Or maybe I just have an excessively random group.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Predicting the Course of Fashion
One thing I always struggle with when I run a game of Neurojack is picturing the people in my head. While it's easy to think of the world itself and the machines in it, I have an inordinately difficult time envisioning just what the people look like. Sure, it's easy to say "They look like mobsters" or "they look like farmers/the descendants of Japanese/Chinese/Russian people", but what does that actually look like? And more to the point, what kind of clothes will people wear 900 years from today? Unfortunately, trying to picture a slightly updated version of clothes worn 900 years ago isn't very helpful. While people may have been well-dressed in some parts of the world, I have to confess that the image of a grime-smeared European with a linen outfit and a pitchfork is the first thing that springs to mind.
I thought initially that the fashions of Neurojack would be an extension of contemporary fashions. "Blade Runner", for instance, drew quite heavily on fashion as it was in the 1930's and 40's. I liked to think that the 50's and 60's would be out, since we consider that "camp" even now. 70's? Hardly. 80's? Sorry, I just can't see the mullet coming back into style. 90's? I doubt anyone will think to reinvent slap bracelets in the coming centuries. I suppose then that unless I wanted Neurojack to have a Victorian feel (which I dont) that the people will probably be wearing much the same stuff the characters in Blade Runner wore. Of course, everyone who knows me and is reading this is laughing at this point, since they all known Blade Runner is my favorite movie and they're thinking "Duh, what else would your people look like?" but the point remains valid: lots of fashion from the 30s and 40s has remained relatively unchanged since, and some things from then have never gone out of style.
Granted, mine is a somewhat uninformed opinion, seeing as how my fashion knowledge extends as far as "This looks good" and "Santino deserved to win Project Runway"...yes, I know some (or most) of Santino's work during the series was crap, but most of you have to admit, he really pulled it together for Fashion Week. At least I thought he did.
But now that I've got a basic model for the fashion of Neurojack, I'm presented with another problem: what will their clothing be made out of? Will they still use wool and cotton, or will that be replaced by some type of polymer? Since I'm not big into S&M, I can tell you right now that the predominant materials for everyday clothing WILL NOT be vinyl or leather. I like The Matrix and Aeon Flux, but I dont like them THAT much...ok, I do, but the clothing is not what I'd consider practical. Aeon Flux would freeze her ass off in the northern continent of Asperian.
I can't help but wonder if this is somehow extraneous; do my players really need to know what kind of clothes people in the world of Neurojack wear? Do they really need to know what they consider "fashionable" in the 30th century? I suppose I kind of send mixed messages...on the one hand, I have a list of clothing items available for purchase in-game, then I throw lots of enemies armed with firearms at them. While the clothing looks nice, heavy armor lets their characters live a lot longer with the way I run things...
I think I need to sleep on this.
I thought initially that the fashions of Neurojack would be an extension of contemporary fashions. "Blade Runner", for instance, drew quite heavily on fashion as it was in the 1930's and 40's. I liked to think that the 50's and 60's would be out, since we consider that "camp" even now. 70's? Hardly. 80's? Sorry, I just can't see the mullet coming back into style. 90's? I doubt anyone will think to reinvent slap bracelets in the coming centuries. I suppose then that unless I wanted Neurojack to have a Victorian feel (which I dont) that the people will probably be wearing much the same stuff the characters in Blade Runner wore. Of course, everyone who knows me and is reading this is laughing at this point, since they all known Blade Runner is my favorite movie and they're thinking "Duh, what else would your people look like?" but the point remains valid: lots of fashion from the 30s and 40s has remained relatively unchanged since, and some things from then have never gone out of style.
Granted, mine is a somewhat uninformed opinion, seeing as how my fashion knowledge extends as far as "This looks good" and "Santino deserved to win Project Runway"...yes, I know some (or most) of Santino's work during the series was crap, but most of you have to admit, he really pulled it together for Fashion Week. At least I thought he did.
But now that I've got a basic model for the fashion of Neurojack, I'm presented with another problem: what will their clothing be made out of? Will they still use wool and cotton, or will that be replaced by some type of polymer? Since I'm not big into S&M, I can tell you right now that the predominant materials for everyday clothing WILL NOT be vinyl or leather. I like The Matrix and Aeon Flux, but I dont like them THAT much...ok, I do, but the clothing is not what I'd consider practical. Aeon Flux would freeze her ass off in the northern continent of Asperian.
I can't help but wonder if this is somehow extraneous; do my players really need to know what kind of clothes people in the world of Neurojack wear? Do they really need to know what they consider "fashionable" in the 30th century? I suppose I kind of send mixed messages...on the one hand, I have a list of clothing items available for purchase in-game, then I throw lots of enemies armed with firearms at them. While the clothing looks nice, heavy armor lets their characters live a lot longer with the way I run things...
I think I need to sleep on this.
How big is "Big Enough"?
Let me preface this with a short introduction for those not familiar with the concept of giant robots. These machines are common both in Japanese media (anime, games, manga) and American media, and are generally referred to as "Mecha" or "mechs". These machines vary greatly in height, armament and abilities, but there is no doubt that many believe the future of warfare to be held in the hands of mecha.
I have always had a soft spot for mecha, beginning with my older brother's Battletech hobby, continuing on to a fandom with the Robotech series and many, many other outlets to get my mecha fix. Bearing this in mind, I wanted mecha to figure prominently into Neurojack since they were (and still are) such a large part of what I consider to be a quintessential future world.
If I had to choose, I would say that there were 3 primary influences on the mecha in the world of Neurojack: Dream Pod 9's "Heavy Gear" rpg, Masami Yuki's "Patlabor" anime/manga and Shirow Masamune's "Landmate" mecha from "Appleseed" and a few other of his works.
The mecha in the world of Patlabor are very utilitarian; they are primarily built for construction and police work, with a few military models thrown in here and there. They are small (around 16 meters in height if I remember correctly) and not anywhere near as fast or as well-armed as say, some "Superhero" mecha in titles like "Giant Robo" or "Macross". This made me think of a future where mecha had an array of practical and (compared to most mecha fiction) realistic applications.
Similarly, the mecha in the Heavy Gear world are quite small (the largest top out at around 8-10 meters in height) and are very maneuverable. They serve military, commercial and police purposes (though the story focuses on the military applications of the Heavy Gear) and run off of Internal Combustion Engines. Some of the elements of Heavy Gear mecha design (Crash bars, sloped or angular armor, camera eyes set into the head that revolve on a track, pilot situated in a small cavity in the chest and a few other things) bear a stark resemblance to the Japanese series "Armored Trooper Votoms" which aired in the early 80s, but still enjoys a following. Heavy Gears, unlike many other mecha types, were relatively lightly armored. They carried a rifle in their hands, usually a rocket pack or two on their backs, a knife and grenades. Some heavier models toted mortars or cannons, but nothing the scope of which you'd see on the average Battlemech (from the Mechwarrior or Battletech series which, by the way, ripped off some mecha designs from another Japanese anime series called "Fang of the Sun Dougram".)
One of the latest and most influential inspirations for the mecha in Neurojack, Shirow Masamune's "Landmates" opened the door for a whole new class of mecha. His Landmates were small, fast, lightly armed and armored, but fulfilled a variety of roles, just as the mecha in Patlabor and to a lesser extent, Heavy Gear, did. I particularly liked his designs, which featured very rounded bodies and stylish armor. One unique aspect of his Landmates (which I did not translate to Neurojack) was the concept of "Master Arms"; smaller armored gauntlets that the pilot would stick her/his arms into and use them as they would normally. These arms would in turn dictate the movements of the larger "Slave Arms" that were attached to the shoulder.
Bearing all of this in mind, I set out to build the mecha for my world. Initially, I took a more "traditional" approach and introduced 3 classes of mecha: Ramparts, Artillery and Palisades. Palisades are exclusively construction-class mecha. They are smaller than Ramparts and Artillery, are not usually armed and mount only rudimentary armor. Ramparts were (I say "were" because they are no longer part of the Neurojack world) the cream of the crop: they were quite large (between 20-50 meters in height,) mounted enough weapons to level a city and enough armor to stand up to anything save another Rampart. The only hitch was that they were ridiculously expensive to produce, meaning that there were less than 200 of them on the entire planet. I pictured them looking almost like something out of Makoto Kobayashi's "Dragon's Heaven", but with a slightly more coherent look (not that I dont like the look of Kobayashi's mecha, I just think they look a little disjointed.) Artillery, in the same vein, were meant to be quad, hexa or octo-legged mecha that were larger and slower than Ramparts, but carried much larger weapons.
As time went on, I began to realize that I had made Ramparts out of Illuminus and the people on Asperian were fighting for what little remained of the Illuminus deposits. The question occured: "Would the people spend massive quantities of an already limited resource just to kill each other? Isn't there a more economical way to do that?" So Ramparts got the axe, but I didn't shut one door without opening another.
While reading Shirow Masamune's "Dominion", I began to see the logic in a small and maneuverable mecha package, particularly in an urban combat environment. Thus, I devised the smaller, faster "Drudge Exoskeleton System" or DES. The Drudge is a suit of combat armor powered by a battery and large enough to allow a single soldier to carry large-caliber weapons and enough protection to soak hits from anti-tank weapons. Most Drudges top out at around 5 meters in height and are designed with more fluid combat in mind, rather than epic battles between single machines. Drudges are primarily used by the military who use them as front-line combat units and by police forces who use them as armored units in the modern equivalent of SWAT teams; ARMAS units (Assault/Rescue Mecha Armor Squad.)
I eventually gave Artillery the axe as well, since the focus of the world began to shift away from all-out warfare and towards smaller-scale conflicts that centered mainly around small land disputed in the equatorial region. And so the titans were left behind.
Palisades remained untouched and continued their role as construction mecha, the way I had always intended. More small mecha joined the world as time and revisions went by: Rapid Interdiction Units or RIUs (Drudges with Helicopter rotors on the backs) and Multiped Tanks (inspired by the Fuchikomas, Tachikomas and other minitanks from Shirow Masamune's "Ghost in the Shell" series) joined the scene, each with their own particular role. RIUs fill a need in urban areas for a quick-response unit while Multiped Tanks are used for espionage, urban warfare and some front-line duties.
With all the different mecha that have come and gone from Neuroack through the course of it's evolution, I can't help but wonder: do the giant mecha have a place in Neurojack? I suppose there could come a time when the great titans walk the planet again, but what would spur their production? Something very large and very menacing would have to threaten the people of Asperian to spur the development of such a machine and even then, they would appear in such limited numbers that the loss of a single machine would be a detrimental blow to whatever nation created it.
There is of course, also the gaming aspect to consider: who would want to pilot a scrawny little Drudge when you could pilot the mammoth Rampart? Does the world of Neurojack even need something as big and destructive as the Rampart? Considering the current trend in modern military combat vehicles, the motto certainly seems to be "Smaller and faster is better than bigger and tougher"...would that still hold true several hundred years in the future?
One could also make the argument that this whole thing is somewhat academic, seeing as how I've already written Ramparts out of the Neurojack world and writing them back in would mean another complete rewrite and another change to the Vehicle Construction rules...
Oh yes, I almost forgot. There was one more type of mecha that I originally wrote into Neurojack that has since gone the way of the Dinosaur: the Aegis. Designed to be the absolute last word in mecha technology, Aegis were my attempt to strike a balance between the sleek and very humanoid mecha designs in "Neon Genesis Evangelion" and the weapon-packed mecha of the Battletech universe. The Aegis were very human-looking, but carried enough firepower to wipe an entire nation off the planet, and towered above the battlefield at between 70 and 90 meters in height. It occured to me, as my friends and I were driving through Richmond a few days ago and happened to pass by a 30-story building, that one of my Aegis was as tall as the building. I couldn't help but think "damn, that's tall."
I put it to you: how big is "big enough"? Are Drudges, RIUs and Mini Tanks enough to satisfy your appetite for armored robot-clad mayhem, or would you prefer something that could bring a city to it's knees?
I have always had a soft spot for mecha, beginning with my older brother's Battletech hobby, continuing on to a fandom with the Robotech series and many, many other outlets to get my mecha fix. Bearing this in mind, I wanted mecha to figure prominently into Neurojack since they were (and still are) such a large part of what I consider to be a quintessential future world.
If I had to choose, I would say that there were 3 primary influences on the mecha in the world of Neurojack: Dream Pod 9's "Heavy Gear" rpg, Masami Yuki's "Patlabor" anime/manga and Shirow Masamune's "Landmate" mecha from "Appleseed" and a few other of his works.
The mecha in the world of Patlabor are very utilitarian; they are primarily built for construction and police work, with a few military models thrown in here and there. They are small (around 16 meters in height if I remember correctly) and not anywhere near as fast or as well-armed as say, some "Superhero" mecha in titles like "Giant Robo" or "Macross". This made me think of a future where mecha had an array of practical and (compared to most mecha fiction) realistic applications.
Similarly, the mecha in the Heavy Gear world are quite small (the largest top out at around 8-10 meters in height) and are very maneuverable. They serve military, commercial and police purposes (though the story focuses on the military applications of the Heavy Gear) and run off of Internal Combustion Engines. Some of the elements of Heavy Gear mecha design (Crash bars, sloped or angular armor, camera eyes set into the head that revolve on a track, pilot situated in a small cavity in the chest and a few other things) bear a stark resemblance to the Japanese series "Armored Trooper Votoms" which aired in the early 80s, but still enjoys a following. Heavy Gears, unlike many other mecha types, were relatively lightly armored. They carried a rifle in their hands, usually a rocket pack or two on their backs, a knife and grenades. Some heavier models toted mortars or cannons, but nothing the scope of which you'd see on the average Battlemech (from the Mechwarrior or Battletech series which, by the way, ripped off some mecha designs from another Japanese anime series called "Fang of the Sun Dougram".)
One of the latest and most influential inspirations for the mecha in Neurojack, Shirow Masamune's "Landmates" opened the door for a whole new class of mecha. His Landmates were small, fast, lightly armed and armored, but fulfilled a variety of roles, just as the mecha in Patlabor and to a lesser extent, Heavy Gear, did. I particularly liked his designs, which featured very rounded bodies and stylish armor. One unique aspect of his Landmates (which I did not translate to Neurojack) was the concept of "Master Arms"; smaller armored gauntlets that the pilot would stick her/his arms into and use them as they would normally. These arms would in turn dictate the movements of the larger "Slave Arms" that were attached to the shoulder.
Bearing all of this in mind, I set out to build the mecha for my world. Initially, I took a more "traditional" approach and introduced 3 classes of mecha: Ramparts, Artillery and Palisades. Palisades are exclusively construction-class mecha. They are smaller than Ramparts and Artillery, are not usually armed and mount only rudimentary armor. Ramparts were (I say "were" because they are no longer part of the Neurojack world) the cream of the crop: they were quite large (between 20-50 meters in height,) mounted enough weapons to level a city and enough armor to stand up to anything save another Rampart. The only hitch was that they were ridiculously expensive to produce, meaning that there were less than 200 of them on the entire planet. I pictured them looking almost like something out of Makoto Kobayashi's "Dragon's Heaven", but with a slightly more coherent look (not that I dont like the look of Kobayashi's mecha, I just think they look a little disjointed.) Artillery, in the same vein, were meant to be quad, hexa or octo-legged mecha that were larger and slower than Ramparts, but carried much larger weapons.
As time went on, I began to realize that I had made Ramparts out of Illuminus and the people on Asperian were fighting for what little remained of the Illuminus deposits. The question occured: "Would the people spend massive quantities of an already limited resource just to kill each other? Isn't there a more economical way to do that?" So Ramparts got the axe, but I didn't shut one door without opening another.
While reading Shirow Masamune's "Dominion", I began to see the logic in a small and maneuverable mecha package, particularly in an urban combat environment. Thus, I devised the smaller, faster "Drudge Exoskeleton System" or DES. The Drudge is a suit of combat armor powered by a battery and large enough to allow a single soldier to carry large-caliber weapons and enough protection to soak hits from anti-tank weapons. Most Drudges top out at around 5 meters in height and are designed with more fluid combat in mind, rather than epic battles between single machines. Drudges are primarily used by the military who use them as front-line combat units and by police forces who use them as armored units in the modern equivalent of SWAT teams; ARMAS units (Assault/Rescue Mecha Armor Squad.)
I eventually gave Artillery the axe as well, since the focus of the world began to shift away from all-out warfare and towards smaller-scale conflicts that centered mainly around small land disputed in the equatorial region. And so the titans were left behind.
Palisades remained untouched and continued their role as construction mecha, the way I had always intended. More small mecha joined the world as time and revisions went by: Rapid Interdiction Units or RIUs (Drudges with Helicopter rotors on the backs) and Multiped Tanks (inspired by the Fuchikomas, Tachikomas and other minitanks from Shirow Masamune's "Ghost in the Shell" series) joined the scene, each with their own particular role. RIUs fill a need in urban areas for a quick-response unit while Multiped Tanks are used for espionage, urban warfare and some front-line duties.
With all the different mecha that have come and gone from Neuroack through the course of it's evolution, I can't help but wonder: do the giant mecha have a place in Neurojack? I suppose there could come a time when the great titans walk the planet again, but what would spur their production? Something very large and very menacing would have to threaten the people of Asperian to spur the development of such a machine and even then, they would appear in such limited numbers that the loss of a single machine would be a detrimental blow to whatever nation created it.
There is of course, also the gaming aspect to consider: who would want to pilot a scrawny little Drudge when you could pilot the mammoth Rampart? Does the world of Neurojack even need something as big and destructive as the Rampart? Considering the current trend in modern military combat vehicles, the motto certainly seems to be "Smaller and faster is better than bigger and tougher"...would that still hold true several hundred years in the future?
One could also make the argument that this whole thing is somewhat academic, seeing as how I've already written Ramparts out of the Neurojack world and writing them back in would mean another complete rewrite and another change to the Vehicle Construction rules...
Oh yes, I almost forgot. There was one more type of mecha that I originally wrote into Neurojack that has since gone the way of the Dinosaur: the Aegis. Designed to be the absolute last word in mecha technology, Aegis were my attempt to strike a balance between the sleek and very humanoid mecha designs in "Neon Genesis Evangelion" and the weapon-packed mecha of the Battletech universe. The Aegis were very human-looking, but carried enough firepower to wipe an entire nation off the planet, and towered above the battlefield at between 70 and 90 meters in height. It occured to me, as my friends and I were driving through Richmond a few days ago and happened to pass by a 30-story building, that one of my Aegis was as tall as the building. I couldn't help but think "damn, that's tall."
I put it to you: how big is "big enough"? Are Drudges, RIUs and Mini Tanks enough to satisfy your appetite for armored robot-clad mayhem, or would you prefer something that could bring a city to it's knees?
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