THEME
The theme is comedy.

INGREDIENTS
In your game, include three of the following ingredients.

● Bond.
● Holiday.
● Starfish.
● Recall.

LENGTH
Please keep it short, as the judges will stop reading when they get bored.

I’m not very good with comedy, but I decided to give it a go. With limited time, I managed to turn out my game, SpongeBob and the Gargoyle in a couple of hours (so technically this is a 24-hour game too). I wanted to take a humorous kid’s show and tack on a dark element hoping the players would end up making a dark comedy or an absurd comedy. My idea was that one of the players would end up being a gargoyle (on vacation) who happened to kill someone. Patrick Star (a starfish) saw the murder. The gargoyle makes him promise to stay quiet or else. I wanted to game to work towards making Patrick’s player spill the beans. The game has two point mechanics: a player who looses rolls gains bond points, which bond the gargoyle to the player. Recall points are earned on successes and are used to make Patrick talk. Points are earned via narration. The mechanic that I’m using forces the players to narrate something to gain dices to roll. In a way, it’s derived from games like Breaking the Ice, which is a fine game. Where BtI succeeds and I think this game fails is that BtI uses traits and well-defined characters to constrain the players and move them towards the end. SPatG doesn’t do this.

I wasn’t satisfied with the basic mechanics of the game, but I liked the use of SpongeBob, and I didn’t have anymore time to devote to the game. So, I submitted it.

I think if I were to expand this, I’d add in gargoyle skills that the players could buy using points. And add in some type of skills/traits that represent what the characters have done with Patrick in the past. These could be used mechanically to solve the problems at hand. Points awarded based on successes and failure of the traits/skills.

Here’s what the judges said:

Sponge Bob and the Gargoyle

Graham: This is rather sweet. Earning points isn’t working for me: I’d just mechanically remember things I did with Patrick to get points.

I like the different ways to win. I like rolling d6s, which give hindering players Recall points and helping players Bond points.

The central idea is good. The mechanics aren’t together, though: I thoroughly encourage you to steal from other roleplaying games that do similar things.

Eero: The fiction doesn’t breathe a lot as the game is so tight. I like the basic idea that whoever has the most guilt points is currently the gargoyle and has to play opposite to his character description. There’s not much else here game-wise, though.

I agree with everything they said.

Check it out: SpongeBob and the Gargoyle

- The Miriam Incongruity
- http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/966637/The_Miriam_Incongruity.pdf
- A child, born on a remote planet, is key to defeating the undead theocracy. A group of protectors must deliver her to safety.
- two weeks, intrigue, fleur-de-lis, star, dressed, and zombies

Miriam is the Hebrew form of Mary. This comes out of the Fleur-de-lis. I taking the medieval religious meaning of “Lily among thorns” from the Song of Solomon and the later application of the symbol to the Virgin Mary. In the Christian myth, the Virgin Mary birthed a deity. In this game, the players are protecting a child named Miriam who has the power to end the undead rule.

Incongruity, because her wild genes don’t conform to the standard genes in the human pool.

Plus it’s cool to say.

Changing Situation Table

1d8	What happens
1	Escalate
2	Reverse Reward
3	Wipes Clean
4	Changes Completely
5	Setback
6	Lost Cause
7	It Worked, but…
8	Complete Escalation

Escalations and Complete Escalations

The GM plays off the current situation, but makes it harder. Example: While the group is trying to hide from security cameras in the local spaceport, the undead release airborne mobile cameras that make hiding much harder. In a complete escalation, they situation becomes even more dangerous. Every character will now have to face an obstacle.

Reverse Reward

The exact opposite of what the player wanted to happen happens, and the GM gives the character a setback.

Wipes Clean

The situation is wiped clean of any obstacles and the GM describes a new situation with a new obstacle.

Changes Completely

What the players thought was the obstacle ended up not being anything, and a new obstacle emerges from the situation.

Setback

The player suffers a setback to his character. The player marks the setback and tells how the setback came about. For some setbacks the GM may inflict a penalty on the character’s rolls. The GM decides which one: dazed, injured, dead, undead, trapped, outed, lost, depressed, mad, wants revenge.

Lost Cause

The situation and obstacle is a lost cause. There is no way around it, so the players will have to think of a different approach.

It worked, but…

What the player wanted to happen, happens, except that the GM can modify it by describing what also went wrong, and the GM gives the player a setback.

Reward Dice

When a player does something that the GM thinks is really cool, she can give out reward dice. Any reward dice given are put into a bowl in the center of the table.

When a player thinks that another player has done something cool, he can give a single die from the bowl to that player.

When reward dice are rolled, and more than one die beats the difficultly goal of the obstacle, the players get a Reward Situation.

Rolling the Dice

When a character tries to overcome an obstacle, his player rolls dice. Start with one six sided die. If any traits, skills, or connections can help, roll its rank in dice. The goal is to roll a single die equal to or higher than the difficultly of the obstacle. The GM sets the difficultly.

Difficultly: 3 is Easy; 4 is Hard; 5 is Challenging; 6 is Severe

Before any dice are rolled, the player says what he wants to happen if he wins, and tells everyone what his character is doing to make that happen. He also decides if he wants to spend reward dice.

If won, the GM tells the players how what they wanted to happen comes true.

If lost, the GM rolls on the Changing Situation Table and describes the outcome.

Helping

A player may help another by saying what he’s doing to help out and spending a reward die.

Each character has a QCB loaded with 5 minutes of conversation given to them by the church for undertaking this dangerous journey. One end is meant to be given to family, friends or close organization, but can be kept and used or given away later. The Teutonic Knight also has a 10 minute QCB connecting the players to Joshua.
The GM must track the time used and remaining on these boxes. When they run out, no more communication can be made between the connected parties. The church will provide instructions to the players about how to obtain a new box that will connect them to Joshua before the time on that box runs out.

Overview of Playing
The game is played with a game master and players. The game master’s job is to track time, track the QCB, and to provide imagined situations to share with the players. These imagined situations may have obstacles that the player’s characters must overcoming using their connections, skills, or traits, or they may serve other purpose of the GM’s desire. All situations should help the characters move further along in their journey to deliver the wild child to Vatican, or the situations should allow the players to feel their character’s connection to mortality through the aging of their friends, family, and contacts. Use the Undead to press the possibility of living forever. The GM is also responsible for changing the imagined situations when the rolls go wrong.
The player’s job is to tell the GM how their characters respond to the imagined situations the GM shares with them. It is also their job to decide which connections, skills, or traits that they will use to overcome obstacles in the imagined situations. When using connections, skills, or traits to overcome the obstacles, the players must state what they wish to happen then roll the dice. The dice will determine the outcome. Occasionally, with the right dice roll, the players will be able to put their characters into a imagined situation of their own design.

Obstacles

Obstacles are cool situations that characters must overcome to advance to the next situation and get closer to their goal of delivering the wild child to Vatican. GMs make up the situations. Players use their connections, skills, or traits to overcome a situation, and they tell the GM what they want to happen if they win within the confines of the current situation. (I.e. If the characters are in a tough negation for hidden passage on a freighter, they can’t learn the location of Vatican from the captain, because he doesn’t know.) If they win, what they wanted happens.
If they lose, roll on the Changing Situation table.
Sometimes, when they win, the players will be able to come up with the next situation in a Reward Situation.

Reward Situation

A reward situation is a situation that the players make up together based on the special success against an obstacle. It can be anything that flows from the winning against an obstacle. A reward situation can never revel the location of Vatican.

Changing Situation Table

1d8	What happens
1	Escalate
2	Reverse Reward
3	Wipes Clean
4	Changes Completely
5	Conditioned
6	Lost Cause
7	It Worked, but…
8	Complete Escalation

]]> http://www.emptygamebox.com/basic-system-for-the-undead-vs-church-in-space-escape-game-thingy-for-game-chef/feed 0 http://www.emptygamebox.com/passing-of-time-during-star-travel http://www.emptygamebox.com/passing-of-time-during-star-travel#comments Fri, 04 Sep 2009 20:04:01 +0000 Bryan http://www.emptygamebox.com/?p=59 The passage of time leads to death. Death leads to dust or eternal life as an Undead. Time passes.

-From Chant of the King

Time

The GM tracks the time passed. She does so both for starship days and planetside days. One day on a starship equals five days planetside.

As time passes traveling on a starship, the character’s contacts age. Any family or friend will be getting older and closer to death (average life expectancy is 190), and the GM played Operation Handler (Joshua), already elder, statistically gets closer to death. For each year, Joshua has an additional 10% chance of death. Who will handle the escape when he dies?

As time passes events happen. For each week, month, and year passed, roll on the following tables. The GM decides how these events are incorporated into the game.

On the surface, a motley group of living, sworn to protect a wild child from the undead, formulate an escape plan. A highly trained Teutonic Knight of the Church arrived on the Priest to help with the escape. This child could mean the end to the rule of the undead over the living. The evacuation team must bring the child to the hidden church planet, Vatican. They’ll have to follow a path across many planets finding contacts that will lead them forward while avoiding undead soldiers, agents, and sympathizers.

The stakes are high; this could be mean the survival of humanity. The undead are willing to do anything to stop the escape of the wild child, and galactic war seems inevitable. Undead agents are everywhere and they can offer the prize of everlasting life.

How will the Knight and his motley group escape Outer Liberty? Will they find the Vatican before being betrayed or found by the undead? Will their travels take them so far from home that time dilation will rob them of their loved ones?

And what is so important about this child’s bloodline?

State of the Universe
Once humanity discovered stardrive, which allows for travel faster than light, it spread among the stars. One hundred and forty planets were discovered that could support human life, and they were colonized. After 1000s of years and many wars, humanity united under the discovery of life in the physical form after death. An oligarchical theocracy rules humanity and bestows and maintains undead status to those it chooses. The source of this ability is a highly guarded secret. In the core world’s very few humans are left alive as most have assumed undead status and choose to live forever as undead. The undead throughout the years have amassed the power and wealth of the theocracy into the hands of the few.

The Church
Once the biggest belief system among humans and it’s banner was flown during the conquest of the galaxy. As humans became undead, they dropped the belief system which rewarded believers with nirvana after death. The church still has followers among some powerful factions of undead. It seeks to help the living, but it has been weakened.

Our Blessed Mother’s Breeding Program
A clandestine program that seeks out the remaining live women capable of child bearing now or in the future and places them under the protection of the Church. This program is dedicated to protecting and extending the sanctity of human life. It operates on many planets and always hiding in plain view. It is said that these women and their children have great powers that only increase as the breeding plan proceeds. They are always on the lookout for wild genes birthed outside the program.

Time Dilation
The use of stardrive subjects travelers to time dilation. For every day traveled, five pass at home. Some wealthy living families regulate aging at home using cryogenics. Some travelers meet their children’s children in old age.

Wild Genes
Throughout the breeding program, some outer rim planets were seeded with favorable genes and left alone for evolution to work its wonders. As the time passed, genes emerge with new powers. These are hunted and destroyed by the theocracy and sought out by the breeding program.

Constance
The capital world of the theocracy and home to the secret of undead immortality. Much of the ruling oligarchy calls this planet home and participates in the elaborate court. The outer planets in the Constance system serve as the center of trade, and the royal navy is based here. The Quantum Communication Commission is based on Constance’s only moon.

Outer Rim
The 23 planets considered part of the outer rim are mainly left to their own devices by the theocracy as the distance from Constance is great. These planets are mainly populated by live humans, and a few are left alone by the breeding program to produce wild genes. Some of the Outer Rim planets are highly advanced visions of hope for live humanity and others are depressing subjected to oppression. Almost anything goes in the Outer Rim.

Outer Liberty
A wild planet in the Outer Rim populated by the living ruled under the hammer fist of an undead family. Birthplace of many wild genes, and home to some of the players.

Theme:

Intrigue ->Clandestine or illicit intercourse (The Pinnacle Empty Quiver of Love)

Ingredients:

Fleur-de-lis ->Taking the medieval religious meaning of “Lily among thorns” from the Song of Solomon. Virgin Mary and the symbol of purity & chastity. Virginity is good, and the logo itself is like the symbol on Star Trek uniforms.

Seabird -> Color and the name of the starship on which the game takes place.

Star -> Takes place among the stars. Travel to a star for the “Virgin Mary” to give birth to a miracle. Planets name is probably something like Wiseman’s Planet.

Awards:

Brevity Award -> Cause I’m lazy and would like to make something short, cool, and to the point.

Cerberus Award -> For 3 players. Maybe.

Zombielogical Sciences Award -> You must watch out for the space zombies. I could go deep with this (as deep as you can in a 4 page game) and make the majority of the beings zombies waiting for a real human birth instead of having to use pills, energy, etc… to keep the race alive.

Elevator Pitch:

Essentially, this is a game about the stereotypical 1960s sex-deprived crew of the USS Seabird transporting a prized, sexy, hot and ready to give-it-up “Virgin Mary” to Wiseman’s Planet. On the way, they have to avoid space zombies and other hijinks.