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Obsolete - Prime Time Teenage Monsters: what is this about?

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Pippo_Jedi:
Ciao a tutti, in questo post vi parlerò del mio progetto di gioco, ma lo farò in inglese e chiedo a tutti di rispondere solo in inglese. Nel caso aprirò argomenti anche in italiano.

HELLO EVERYBODY (yes the actual post begins here)
This is the place where I develop my roleplaying game project Prime Time Teenage Monsters. I'll use a Q/A format in this post as it help me outline things.

What is Prime Time Teenage Monsters about?
PTTM is a game about growing up, about the relations, loves and dreams of teenagers that are becoming monsters. Will they become one or will they stay human... and what the heck does that mean?

What are the sources of inspiration?
I played Joe Mcdnaldo's  rpg Monsterhearths and liked it a lot from the start... but something did not work right the way I wanted. So I started hacking it and then I found myself working on this.
Vampire the masquerade/requiem for some themes. From a tv standpoint: buffy the vampire slayer and (perhaps more so) Angel, the vampire diaries, teenwolf... you got it? Right?

So you're developing a game, why should I care? Why are you writing all this nonsense?
Well, the rpg community I hang out is full of ideas, very friendly and supportive, so, being sometime lazy, I thought I may find motivation in working on this by writing it... and hey: if this ever becomes the next masterpiece of rpg design then I'll be doing great hype!

ok, I was kidding on the last part :-P

Ok, Ok, fine: let's suppose I'm still reading this... since the game is in developing stage, what are your ideas about the game?
An outline...

- System: the game started as a Monsterhearths hack, so it is a powered by apocalipse game. For those that does not know (??? where you live ???) it is a very flexible story driven system, each player chooses a boolet (aka PC archetype ) and has a bunch of moves to make thigs happen, there is a game master that is named MC.

- Booklets: In this game each booklet is an archetype of a monster type (vampire, werewolf...) that exemplifies and exaggerates a specific type of personality / relational  problem of a teenager i.e. The vampire is about a person that is incapable of having 'normal' personal relationships: for her is all about having emotional control over people.

- Moves / Core rules: The game is NOT about young people having cool superpowers that sometime whine about themselves. Is about discovering that you are becoming a monster, that to be happy, to have what you want right here and now there are two ways: the human way and the monster way.
The human way is hard, difficult: that's why is called “growing up” (cit)
The monster way is fast and easy and of course full of temptations: you will obtain what you want, but what will you have grown into? (think of Willow of Buffy and her black hair)
To accomplish this there will be human moves and monster moves (each booklet will have unique monster moves): human moves will be generally weaker at the start of the game and will always bring some gnashing of teeth to the Pcs, monster moves on the other hand will be few at the start but each will be powerful compared to what the teenage can do normally.

-  XP: Human moves make you gain human XP, monster moves make you gain monster XP. When a type of xp track reach 5 xp then you gain an advancement in that area.
The human advancement focus on unlocking more powerfull human moves, so they actually are really usefull and carateristics. Monster advancements focus on having more monster moves and... well transforming you :-) *evil grin

- Story arcs: in the first session of play or two each player will discover which are the issues that his PC is facing and the player will write down a story arc theme that will have a four sector clock countdown representing: the “discovery” of the issue, the struggle, the climax, epilogue. This countdown is managed by the player, not the MC and it's a big Flag for the MC to use for his dirty work. When the story arc reaches the climax and till the end of the epilogue story arcs human moves become available “for free” to the PC giving him/her the chance for growing up, for resolving issues... or maybe plunge further into darkness and more problems.

- Booklets:
I've written down a tentative list of base booklets and their focus: it's only a list! I've written down a try of the first two but I know i will throw them to the trolls.
 > Vampire – wants emotional control over people
 > Werewolf – violence and rage issue
 > Ghost – the ignored one, invisible to others, will be the main actor of his life or not? (I'm thinking about moves triggered by others actions... will see)
 > Witch – based on violating customs and traditions: no straight white dudes please! :-P
 > Wizard – on the search of cold power and emotional detachment
 > Fay – addiction from strong emotions and on how they will make you trample others
 > Ghoul – about the perceived image of self that others have of you, and how you change it by changing your diet...

Ok, fine, you have some ideas, but you're talking about doing a game: it requires you to actually write all the stuff you said and to make it work...
Yeah, I know, that's actually depressing! :-P
Well, I think I have enough ideas to start some actual work: I have written the list of the human moves and have begun to write them down and I think I found the general format of them.
I've written the core ideas for the vampire and the werewolf, but it's just a work in progress.
Regarding the story arcs mechanics I have them already laid it out, I will need to write the story arcs human moves.
I've written the carateristcis rules, that are something different from MH and AW.
I've to revise the string system fo MH which has to work differently while I think I will erase the condition system.
The part that scares me the most is the MC part: I've written down some new agenda and principles but I think I will be needing a lot more than that. The part in which I found MH lacking the most was the Mc section. But to write that part I will need some “easy” playtest of the rest of the system.

So... all of this makes you a Game Designer?
Hell, no! I do this because I'm enjoying it and because for the first time I think I have a shot at finishing a rpg.


So, end of Q/A part here...
since this is a moderated forum I set some rules about this topic: this is for general questions about my ideas and to ask/see at which point of the development am I. Feel free to open a new thread if you want. In the next days, while I make progress, I will open new threads on specific topics.

That's all folks.
bye bye!  :)

Iacopo Frigerio:
Why only in English in an italiano forum?

Pippo_Jedi:
I think I'll make italian post too with time, but since a third of my G+ rpg contacts are not native Italians I thought it would be nice, I also plan to actually write the first real draft of the rules in English, then translate them.  :)

Gabriele Luzzi:
I'm looking forward to playtest it =)

Stefano Crispino:
The idea seems interesting (but I love MH unreserevedly), I'm asking myself though "why on Earth someone would want to choose the Human track?".
I remember when I was a teenager, and even if it was many many years ago, I can still say that if someone would have offered me a shortcut into things I wanted (sex, validation, friends) I would have taken without a flinch.
I understand that the game will supposedly be played by adults who pretend to be teenagers (even if, well, many adults are still mentally teenagers  :P), but I think the reward structure should be very evident for a player to choose the hardest path :)

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