[d20: The 60's] The KKK, free thinkers, and the unwashed masses

[Violet Crazy Girl]

It started out innocently enough. My roommate is talking about D&D, and at some point mentions that there's a feat: Improved Trip.

Me: …
Me: You know, that becomes a lot cooler if you're thinking of d20: The 60's.

Twenty-four hours later, we're playing it.

The idea is simple enough. Everything goes exactly according to the D&D rules, except you append, “metaphorically speaking” to the end of every sentence in the combat chapter. Everyone plays a cultural mover and shaker of the times—someone trying to change the world. Your weapons are the tools you use to enact this change—influence, the media, rhetoric, and so forth. Your hit points are your idealism—your will to enact change upon the world, and deal with all the shit the world throws back at you for doing so. Your armor is all the stuff that helps you deal with this shit—fame (it's harder to hurt you if you're famous), tenure, loved ones, and so on.

If this sounds to you like d20 Shapnig combat, well, you're not wrong.

We did no mechanical conversion whatsoever; everything was mapped onto the D&D rules. We did map some new names onto classes and alignments. Good to Evil became Pacifistic to Violent; Lawful to Chaotic became Hip to Square. The classes, we mapped as follows:

Barbarian—Seeker
Bard—Rocker
Cleric—Mystic
Druid—Tree-hugger
Fighter—Psychonaut
Monk—Lover
Paladin—Demagogue
Ranger—Activist
Rogue—Revolutionary
Sorcerer—Beatnik
Wizard—Intellectual

Other D&D elements, we cast as we came to them. A Paladin's mount? Duh, it's movement she commands. The armor check penalty from your lesbian lover? Well, naturally, she's emotionally awesome, but the world has problems with that sort of thing, negatively influencing your ability to socially climb or tumble unnoticed through a city (“be careful getting coffee, I think these people want to shoot us…”).

Three of us played: T, Corvinity, and myself. We decided to set the game in New York.

I played a Demagogue, Zoya. She leads the feminist student group at NYU.

Corvinity played a Mystic, Dr. Cargyle. He's a prof at NYU, a cross between Timothy Leary and Aleister Crowley.

T played a Lover, Brent. He's a fixture around the scene, the guy everyone goes to to set up parties and… well, for other things.

Of the three of us, T is easily the most conversant in the actual D&D rules. Corvinity comes up second, and I've never played before. First session quote: “So how do I roll initiative? … You're going to hurt me, aren't you?”

We played through the dungeon in the back of the PHB, randomly rolling everything.

It was, in short, totally awesome. To give you a taste of how everything worked out, here's what our first encounter looked like. You can skip this if actual play bores you to tears :p

The first encounter was against a hell hound. We looked at its descriptors—Violent, Square, Fire—and decided that the KKK was holding a rally in New York. Cargyle wins initiative, so Corvinity sets the scene. He hears about the rally a few weeks before it happens, and starts writing anonymous editorials, spreading the meme that the KKK is anti-Christian, anti-American, and anti-pretty-much-everything-else-besides. (This is the cleric spell Doom, cast hidden and with cover—it hits.) Zoya goes next. I describe how she hears about the upcoming in one of Cargyle's classes and calls on her feminist student group to work to disrupt the rally. It's within their mandate—the Klan's ah “policies” are viciously harmful to all women. They leave fliers and posters around the city, graphically depicting the victim's of the Klan. Their reputation sinks, people go from “they kinda have a right to express their views” to “…and I have a right to express mine, in their face.” and by the time the rally comes around, there is a definite sense of unwelcomeness (Zoya's weapon here is “media propogation and left objects,” statted like a lance. Her charge does 16 HP of damage). Brent has the next attack; he drops hints around the scene that showing up and fucking with the rally would be really cool. Sadly, the response is underwhelming. “Yeah. The Klan sucks. Pass the pipe?” (Unarmed attack, miss.)

The Klan goes next, and their connections are impressive. Some strings get pulled, and NYU starts serious investigations into the leader of the NYU feminists, based on rumors of her homosexuality and evidence that the group is promoting the same. Zoya's pretty crushed by the massive personal attacks, and holes up in her dorm room. Brent is also burned a bit by his connections to us—suddenly, he starts finding it difficult to book venues or even talk to his old contacts. (Breath weapons suck. The hell hound did a couple of points of damage to Brent, here, and knocked me straight to zero HP.)

In the next round, Cargyle dragged Zoya out of her dorm room: “This is bullshit, and the administration knows it's bullshit, and if we talk to them, they'll have to acknowledge it's bullshit.” He uses his weight as a professor and appeals to academic freedom to get the investigation dropped (Cargyle casts Cure Light Wounds on Zoya, restoring 7 HP). Revitailzed, Zoya goes to the rally, and tries to talk to the Klan's supporters as they move to line the streets; she's largely ignored, or they tell her, “Yeah. I'll think about it.” (Missed its AC by, like, ten). Brent holds another party, and this time, he's less subtle: “You know, this Klan thing? It's bullshit. I'm just throwing that out there. You can feel differently if you want, of course, and if that's the case, I hope you can find other parties to go to.” At the day of the rally, he shows up with quite a throng of protesters.

Things ended well. Cargyle shows at the rally, dressed in violet velvet Klan's robes, embroidered with intricate acane symbology and a swastika, shouting about killing the blacks, the jews… hell, kill them all, burn the whole nation. He's a walking, effective parody of the Klan. (This is an attack with “showmanship and mysterious persona,” statted like a morningstar.) The rally is quickly losing steam; the protesters are getting angrier, and the police are decidedly nervous (3 HP remaining on the Klan). At this point, everyone notices something—remember the fliers from before? Printed with pictures of the victims of Klan violence? They're all trampled underfoot, covered in layers of muddy footprints. This just… does it. People start leaving, angrier at the Klan for merely existing (Zoya stabs at them again with her lance, taking the Klan down to -2 HP). Brent delivers a finishing blow—he's used his contacts to dredge up evidence of the Klan's infiltration into NYU administration and civil offices, and the illegal tactics they've been using. The police politely ask the Klan to, perhaps, leave.

So that was our first encouter. I killed my first D&D monster, and it was a Klan rally! Awesome.

Some things that worked, and a few that didn't:

Mapping D&D combat mechanics to the world of 60s activism is remarkably effective and lots of fun. We didn't have a GM, and the shared narration really worked here; everyone got to sculpt the world, and we all quite enjoyed it. We implicitly gave people authority over the meaning of their attacks and the effects, with everyone throwing out ideas. The fact that “death” (which, in this case, maps to “total disillusionment”) was a real possibility worked really well with the premise, too.

I enjoy operating at multiple layers of meaning simultaneously, and this obviously played into that perfectly. Later, I played with it a bit more—we encountered a unicorn, who we decided was a group of pacifist free thinkers. In some of my narrations, I described one of the group's members as snow white, innocent, with long blonde hair, glowing with idealism. This made me smile.

Also, the process of deciding on precicely what each of our weapons and armor meant was interesting—it was more of a character discovery process than I'd expected. If we ever write up this mod, we'd want to balance the power of making up the weapon descriptions with the desire to not have to start from “lance” and end up with “media control.” There's probably a good middle ground in there, somewhere.

Movement worked better than I expected, but it was still a bit weird. I might still want to introduce a waypoints / journeys type of movement to replace the standard D&D grid, but I don't think it's necessary, and it does get rid of things like cover bonuses, which we actually used to good effect.

As is apparent, each attack was basically a scene, and each round was essentially an act. This spaced out the system interaction to a degree that I find a lot more palatable, personally. It'll also increase the time it takes to play through a dungeon, of course, but that doesn't seem necessarily bad to me—it increases the return on investment from the prepwork of designing said dungeon.

Connecting 60s activism to the d20 level grind is also… morbidly amusing. But, again, appropriate! However much you accomplish, there will always be a bigger monster to fight…

On the downside, ironically, social skills… don't work. At all. Some of them have a good use (Bluff lets you feint, for example), but the ones that aren't connected to combat in some way just don't get used. (We played completely freeform when dealing with the unicorn, for example.) This isn't necessarily a big problem, mind, and changing it would likely involve twizzling with the d20 system more than I'd like to.

Some spells, too, are… When they affect combat, it's no problem. But what the hell does Create Water mean? It wasn't an issue in our play, but it could come up. One thought I had was to connect various physical elements to emotional / political elements, but that seems rather vague, and I'd need to think about it a lot more before it became something playable.

On the whole, I found the whole thing awesome. Score one for color radically changing a game.

Thoughts, comments, suggestions? Would anyone be interested in seeing this developed further, or in heaing more play reports?

[Uqbarian]

Would anyone be interested in seeing this developed further, or in heaing more play reports?Absolutely!!! Plus, do you accept online proposals of marriage?

[Axiomatic]

Thou art God?

[Vaecrius]

This is one of the awesomest things, and the awesomest D&D thing, I've seen on RPGnet. Ever.

I'd like to hear more about what movement and cover meant...

[Mr. Sluagh]

You've... Made... D&D... Narrativist...

My whole world is crumbling around me.

[JohnBiles]

That's incredibly cool. So does a 'dungeon' correspond to a city? So when you clean out the dungeon, you move on to another city and begin your activism?

And A wilderness adventure would be like a road movie, I guess.

[Mikis]

So much awesome!

[Arbane the Terrible]

This is an insanely great idea.

Now, who's going to stat up the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers? :D

[nick012000]

Anyone want to run a game of this on the Play by Post section of the board?

I'd be seriously tempted to play some sort of a forerunner to the Neocons- they started in the late 60's, you know. Failing that, maybe some sort of Randian Objectivist. Probably a Violent Square Intellectual. *shrugs*

[James Gillen]

This is like NWO Illuminati. But cool. :D

JG

[Corvinity]

Violet Crazy Girl's roommate and co-designer here. I'm glad you all like the idea. I certainly did.


I'd like to hear more about what movement and cover meant...

Pretty much the only effect of movement in this game was getting characters into and out of melee range. Broadly, melee attacks are face-to-face interactions and ranged attacks occur through media or public influence (we didn't enforce this very strictly, but the guideline was there). Cover indicated using influence anonymously. Therefore, Cargyle's initial attack against the Klan (casting Doom from outside the doorway) was a couple of anonymous (or pseudonymous) pieces published in different papers. One was an editorial in the Times about the Klan being Unamerican, and the other was a New-Yorker piece about the Clan being eggregious in every other possible way. His later melee attack was showing up at the rally and parodying them and everything they stood for.

Violet Crazy Girl, reading over my shoulder, points out that a more appropriate distinction between melee and ranged attacks is that melee attacks involve engaging the enemy directly in such a way that they can easily respond.

That's incredibly cool. So does a 'dungeon' correspond to a city? So when you clean out the dungeon, you move on to another city and begin your activism?

Actually, our original notion of what a dungeon would represent was a 'system.' However, we were basically treating the dungeon we were in as NYC.

And A wilderness adventure would be like a road movie, I guess.

Precisely. The "seeker" class is specifically modeled after the Easy Rider archetype. It's a person who's out trying to find himself/his place/the meaning of life etc. Rage is when he thinks he's found it.

Another thing not mentioned above is that this game could also very enjoyably be run with a DM (The Man). I imagine it would be an excellent roleplaying experience to design all the systems and groups supporting the status quo, from the cops (goblinoids--orcs being F.B.I.) to undead (the easily influenced masses) to major governmental figures (dragons), and really give the PCs some serious opposition.

As an aside, this model could be applied to any historical period. People are invited to play anything from Modernists & Movements to Postmodernists & Paradigms. And you'll have to trust me when I say we came up with all this before seeing this thread (http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=299988).

[Ian S., E-Squire]

And here I never thought there would be anything that would make me want to play non-computer based D&D again... Damn You! :D

[Corvinity]

And here I never thought there would be anything that would make me want to play non-computer based D&D again... Damn You! :D

*Maniacal Laughter*

[Violet Crazy Girl]

Sweet! I didn't expect such a positive response. Or, really, such a response. It's good to be wrong. ^.^

You've... Made... D&D... Narrativist...

My whole world is crumbling around me.Down with the walls of oppression! Smash the system! Stick it to The Man, (man)!

This is an insanely great idea.

Now, who's going to stat up the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers? :DI had to wiki that.

Franklin sounds like a Seeker, Phineas could be an Activist or Intellectual, and Freddy might be a Psychonaut.

I leave the actual statting as an exercise for someone who's read the comics. :p

That's incredibly cool. So does a 'dungeon' correspond to a city? So when you clean out the dungeon, you move on to another city and begin your activism?
Actually, our original notion of what a dungeon would represent was a 'system.' However, we were basically treating the dungeon we were in as NYC.To which I'd just add: it depends. It took us about an hour to complete each room, and each one felt like a nicely-contained “episode.” Completing a dungeon would take about the length of a short campaign, maybe equivalent (in narrative time) to a season of a TV series (Japanese or American, depending on the dungeon's length…). Moving to a new dungeon ought to indicate some kind of shift, but it could be thematic or geographical (or both), depending on the needs of the game.

Also, bigger monsters are more significant threats, right? So, by the time you're facing dragons, I'd imagine the game would range over rather more geographical area, just due to the nature of your power and that of the opposition. Corvinity analogizes: for Martin Luther King (epic level Demagogue) a single encounter is a city.

I'd like to hear more about what movement and cover meant...What Corvinity said above. Basically, movement had somewhat vague connotations. When we got closer to something, we'd narrate engaging with it more directly; when we pulled back, we'd narrate disengaging; when Cargyle was behind cover, he was protecetd by anonimity (you could also describe cover as bureaucracy, geographical distance, hounds of press people running interference, etc.) When Cargyle cast Cure Light Wounds on Zoya, Corvinity narrated him showing up at her dorm room, dragging her out, and strengthening her reputation and resolve. We didn't have any strict rules about this, but if he'd cast it from a distance, the interaction likely wouldn't have been as personal—he'd pull some strings, talk to some administrators, and get the mess cleared up from afar.

I didn't mention the fact that we used a battle map, but we did. This was actually quite neat—it went from just being a battle map to being a relationship battle map.

[Violet Crazy Girl]

Anyone want to run a game of this on the Play by Post section of the board?This would work really well on PbP. (I'm probably not the one to run it, tho'; I don't know D&D well enough to make a dungeon, and I'm really busy for the forseeable future. Plus, it would be hella neat to see other people run and play this ^.^)

I'd be seriously tempted to play some sort of a forerunner to the Neocons- they started in the late 60's, you know. Failing that, maybe some sort of Randian Objectivist. Probably a Violent Square Intellectual. *shrugs*Someone's always gotta play the evil wizard. :p

~~

As an aside, Corvinity and I are looking at Druids, because we didn't really think about what making them tree-huggers meant, other than it was plainly the only right choice.

Animal companions? They're a part of the environment—an ecosystem, a location, a particular species—that you've come to understand really well. An animal companion's attacks somehow reveal the importance of this part of the environment, in a way that people can't ignore.

So a Tree-Hugger's repertoire of narrations includes the human harm resulting from environmental damage. Perfect!

Faery Fire? Corvinity: “Rachel Carson.”

[ArmoredSaint]

Ugh!

It sounds like you were on an Improved Trip when you came up with this idea. I'm startled at the positive reception this got, too. I can't imagine why on earth anyone would want to play something like that; it doesn't sound entertaining at all. It sounds too preachy to be fun.

[iconoplast]

I am totally in love with and in awe of this idea. Pure, unadulturated joycore at its finest.

[Recruitment] d20: the 60s (http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=300201)

[nick012000]

Out of curiosity, what the heck is a "psychonaut"?

[iconoplast]

It's what someone who takes a lot of LSD would call themselves.

[nick012000]

Ah. Fair enough, I guess...

It's a real pity that you girls didn't think of this until after WotC did their setting search that resulted in Eberron getting published.

[ArmoredSaint]

Upon reflection, I've decided that my previous post was too venomous. This is obviously something you girls are proud of.

I didn't mean to come across as belittling your effort. It still doesn't sound like something I'd ever play, though. To me, the '60s was the decade I wish had never happened...

[Wood]

I have to echo the majority here: it's an amazing idea. More than that, it's like this scientific demonstration of proof at how abstract game rules can be, and how they can actually be applied to anything.

It is a work of genius and wit; I wish I had thought of it, and I salute you.


(Incidentally, I'm glad the 60s happened. I'm a bit upset the 80s happened, but hey. You can't have everything.)

[Corvinity]

Uh, for the record, I'm not a girl. Just thought I'd straighten that out.

[nick012000]

Upon reflection, I've decided that my previous post was too venomous. This is obviously something you girls are proud of.

I didn't mean to come across as belittling your effort. It still doesn't sound like something I'd ever play, though. To me, the '60s was the decade I wish had never happened...

As far as the effects on politics and society generally, I agree with you. However, I like this simply because of how radically different it is from any other DnD setting out there.

[Wood]

As far as the effects on politics and society generally, I agree with you. However, I like this simply because of how radically different it is from any other DnD setting out there....and without changing the rules - just applying them to different things.

[Violet Crazy Girl]

I didn't mean to come across as belittling your effort. It still doesn't sound like something I'd ever play, though. To me, the '60s was the decade I wish had never happened...

As far as the effects on politics and society generally, I agree with you. However, I like this simply because of how radically different it is from any other DnD setting out there.

Okay, response the first: We don't agree politically :p But that's okay! Naturally, you don't have to play an activist. Nick wants to play a proto-neocon. Sweet! If you wish the 60s turned out differently, you can tell the story of the 60s turning out differently.

Or you can play dissidents in the Soviet Union, resistance groups in modern-day Iran and China, colonial revolutionaries in the soon-to-be independent United States. It all works.

Response the second: I don't know if this works, necessarily, but I really love Dogs in the Vineyard. The power structure the characters are a part of? Oppressive. The faith they believe in? Gross. But the game works because it makes me understand the forces underpinning the lives of the characters' and the townsfolk they meet. The stories in Dogs are about people who don't believe the same things I do, but that doesn't matter—what matters is what they do for their beliefs, and how it ties them all together. And that story is universal.

I dunno if this game could work in the same way, but it's a possibility.

Response the third: Obviously, the game is to some degere a masturbatory power fantasy. It's based on D&D :p

But that isn't all it is, or all it has to be. How much of the game is, “Rawr! I crush the Man!” versus how much of the game is introspection about why you're fighting, what you're fighting for, and what that means—well, that's up to you.

The game's setup—it sounds a bit goofy, right? I mean, you're playing hippies, who are going to change the world, etc. But you're playing hippies on the d20 level treadmill. The setup guarantees that you won't ever actually save the world. Oh, you'll accomplish a lot, do a lot of great things (or possibly terrible, depending on your viewpoint :p) But ultimately, there's no macguffin to bring back, no last big bad to kill. However much of the System you bring down, however many times you stick it to The Man, there's always a bigger dragon over the next hill. There are always more dragons.

And one day, one of them will get lucky.

In this game, hitpoint loss represents disillusionment. This was not an accident.

This isn't to say that I don't like the “rawr! I crush the Man!” aspect. Can't deny it—“I wish I was a punk rocker” was an inspiration for me, and shutting down the Klan was way more satisfying than killing a hell-hound could have ever been. But I do like having counterpoint. I like victories; I also like existential futility, uncertainty, and the knowledge that the end can never be in sight. Ideally, I like these things all at the same time.

'Cause in the end, I kinda want to fight the dragon.

[Fade]

Dungeons and Discourses (http://dresdencodak.com/cartoons/dc_031.htm)

[John Lemming]

This is an insanely great idea.

Now, who's going to stat up the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers? :D
Surely Freak Brother should be a prestige class all of its own.

[Democritus]

Dungeons and Discourses (http://dresdencodak.com/cartoons/dc_031.htm)
*loves it*

Also I love the Idea. This thing actually makes me WANT to play D&D, a system I despise. Awesome².

[Violet Crazy Girl]

I have to echo the majority here: it's an amazing idea. More than that, it's like this scientific demonstration of proof at how abstract game rules can be, and how they can actually be applied to anything.* grin * Thanks for the kind words. I'm glad you mentioned this bit, because it pleases me to no end. I'd wanted to do a really crunchy nar-ey system for a while, but the right combination of system and setup hadn't presented itself until now. Obviously, there's a lot of influence here from Shaping combat in Exalted's Fair Folk, but there is a very pleasing sense of purity that comes from using the D&D mechanics exactly as written. I think that the relative featurelessness of the base D&D system actually makes this possible. You can do it with, say, Exalted, but you have to rewrite all the Charms, because they just touch the raw fiction too much. Just about everything in d20 interacts with a few basic combat-oriented concepts, though, so the combat system functions as an abstraction layer. By switching out the meanings of a few targets, you can make changes that cascade all the way across the metaphorical field.

This makes me smile.

(Incidentally, I'm glad the 60s happened. I'm a bit upset the 80s happened, but hey. You can't have everything.)Corvinity says, “Dude! I was going to say exactly that.”

Except for the “dude!” part. He… doesn't talk like that.

[locke.dragnarok]

This is one of the most creative ideas I've seen recently with an established game system. It's completely awesome!
A question, however. Attributes stay the same? or they get changed for something else? (Strength for the amount of people you can get to manifest, dexterity for the contacts you may have on the media?)

[Violet Crazy Girl]

This is one of the most creative ideas I've seen recently with an established game system. It's completely awesome!
A question, however. Attributes stay the same? or they get changed for something else? (Strength for the amount of people you can get to manifest, dexterity for the contacts you may have on the media?)The attributes have the same names (or, at least, we didn't change them), but their meanings change. To figure out what they mean now, you have to look at how they're used. You've pretty much got it, though they might be a bit broader. And some of them come out kindof strange.

Strength is used pretty much for melee attacks. It seems to be your raw ability to engage people.

Dexterity is used for ranged attacks, your AC, your reflex save (generally used against sudden, unpredictable occurrences), and quite a few skills. It seems to indicate your ability to plan, think on your feet, and leverage connections to your advantage.

Constitution is used for hitpoints and fortitude saves. It looks to be the strength of your convictions.

Intelligence determines how many skills and / or spells you can know. If we take spells to be intellectual movements, it might be something like how involved you are in the world of academia and the roots of intellectual movements.

Wisdom is used for your will save (against magic, mostly), and sensing stuff. It's something like how good your sources are, and how much you've got your ear to the ground.

Charisma is just fuckin' weird. Mostly, it's used as the base for various Mystic (Cleric) and Demagogue (Paladin) powers. Perhaps it's manipulation / marketing? The degree to which you can make the masses agree with you.

So it looks like, if you wanted, you could rename them to something like: Charisma (STR), Logistics (DEX), Conviction (CON), Ideology (INT), Connections (WIS), and Manipulation (CHA). Or you might come up with better ideas! Those aren't exactly a perfect fit.

Not changing them has the slight advantage of keeping the mechanics totally clear (if you're familiar with d20). On another level, it retains a metaphorical divide that I find fun to play with; you're fighting the Man, but the Man is kindof like a dragon, in his way. Look at Hoover speak, and if you squint just right, you can see the fire burning just in the hollow of his throat. His words, his deeds—they certainly burn…

[locke.dragnarok]

That sounds rather simple, I like it. May I try to run a session of this with my group? I'm sure they'll like it a lot, maybe we could even give you some feedback on how we fared along :D

[Mongoose]

Is there a way to play a guy running over a peace rally in a tank?

Mongoose

[Violet Crazy Girl]

That sounds rather simple, I like it. May I try to run a session of this with my group? I'm sure they'll like it a lot, maybe we could even give you some feedback on how we fared along :DAbsolutely! That would be awesome. Double awesome if you post about your play experience afterwards.

If you have any questions, feel free to post 'em here or PM Corvinity or I. We probably don't know the answers, but we'd be happy to help come up with them. :)

Is there a way to play a guy running over a peace rally in a tank?Yup, as touched on uptherad. That sounds like a Violent/Square (Evil/Lawful) alignment. The class names we picked probably don't work for that, but you can come up with different ones. Tank guy's class depends on what his M.O. is, outside of driving a tank. Maybe he joined up the army trying to find some way of preserving his world against these threats? Rogue—Seeker—Soldier. Maybe he's actually the guy sitting in the Polit office, giving the orders? Paladin—Demagogue—Politician. Maybe he's directing things from the sidelines, writing political papers encouraging a strong hand in dealing with these insurrectionists? Wizard—Intellectual—Neo-con (though the name “Intellectual” works for either alignment, really.).

And so forth.

[Jared A. Sorensen]

This is insane and excellent. You're drifting like a tricked-out Honda Civic, but it sounds like a good time.

[Violet Crazy Girl]

This is insane and excellent. You're drifting like a tricked-out Honda Civic, but it sounds like a good time.I think at this point it's less “drifting” and more “pointing the car at the shoulder and flooring the gas, all the while screaming, 'wheeeeeeeee!' ”

But it's definitely a good time. :p

[Allandaros]

Holy crap. This wins SO MUCH.

Also, it might be a good way to do that "introducing RPGs to the educational world" thing that everyone keeps talking about.

[Tomb's Grave]

I would play this.

I would play the ever-loving hell out of this.

[Tomb's Grave]

Also--I've seen d20's-mechanics-as-metaphor-for-social-happenings before, in a mini-game from Polyhedron. This is cooler, though.

(The Polyhedron minigame was HiJinx, a Scooby-Doo-knockoff-genre game. Fun stuff.)

[ScottL]

This is great. :D My first thought upon reading it was, "This is Shaping Combat, using D&D. Brilliant!"

The best thing is you don't have to know anything about Exalted or the idea of Shaping Combat to understand it. I marvel at how well you made this work-!

Clearly it requires a group with a great deal of imagination and a similar manner of twisted thinking... ;)

[WayneLigon]

Some spells, too, are… When they affect combat, it's no problem. But what the hell does Create Water mean? It wasn't an issue in our play, but it could come up. One thought I had was to connect various physical elements to emotional / political elements, but that seems rather vague, and I'd need to think about it a lot more before it became something playable.

You have the rules you need in the DMG under the environment. There's another type of damage in D&D, which is fatigue damage. It's temporary and comes back quickly. Hostile environments can take away fatigue damage while other things can restore it.

So, the hostile-to-idealism environment of a corporate boardroom or Flyover Country maps to hostile desert terrain. Travelling across it is fatiguing, to the point where it starts to eat away at your psyche (once it translates into hit point damage). What does water do? It refreshes. You're in some rural bible-thumper enclave trying to find a party member who has been abducted by his straight-laced parents. It's so 'dry' you can barely think, and your 'movement' is impaired. Someone casts 'Create Water' and you miraculously find a store that sells underground comics, restoring you to full health and movement :)

[Sleeper]

I love this in a way I think I'd regret in the morning, but I don't.

[Canis Major]

To join the others, this is awesome.

Even when a movement's dead, it can be brought back (raise dead, resurrection)

Sometimes you encounter major stumbling blocks that put you back a few steps (energy drain)

Othertimes you use bribes, or get people to look the other way for a while, because your interests coincide....like when Evangelicals and Liberal unite on the environment (Diplomacy skill)...or blackmail them (Charm spell) or hold someone hostage (Dominate)

Divination spells are using spies and contacts.

Wow.

[Matthias Wasser]

This is the single coolest thing I have ever read on RPGnet.

[Matthias Wasser]

Hmm.

What are traps, such that the normal avenues of social persuasion won't work against them, requiring the revolutionary's unique skillset? Something like moral dilemmas that can only be solved through the rigorous application of ideology? Inter-movement rifts that require leadership to navigate through? Legal or financial traps that require the tedious but neccessary work of the professional revolutionary?

EDIT: Probably the last! Because "the rigorous application of ideology" should be for the Intellectual, so their spellbook can represent a literal book that guides their philosophy: Atlas Shrugged, the Bible, Capital.

[Poster #15672]

Hmm.

What are traps, such that the normal avenues of social persuasion won't work against them, requiring the revolutionary's unique skillset? Something like moral dilemmas that can only be solved through the rigorous application of ideology? Inter-movement rifts that require leadership to navigate through? Legal or financial traps that require the tedious but neccessary work of the professional revolutionary?

I'd say more likely the third, with the first being solved by the Intellectual or the Beatnik in a pinch. The second would be the bread & butter of the Mystic. The third sounds mundane enough to be the more-grounded Revolutionary's turf.

And yes, you're drifting like an electric car on ice, and should probably consider a little bit of tweaking here and there, but I think you're right on track overall. :)

[JohnWest]

This is brilliant.

Chalk up another congrats from a random RPGnet poster.

This is a fantastic example of creativity at work.

I actually find myself at a loss for words here.

Take an Ultimate Awesomeness point. You deserve it.

JW

[Corvinity]

I would say that traps would be court cases. The revolutionary understands the nuts-and-bolts details of how the system works, because she has to. She has to know how to hit it where it hurts, and how to avoid and defend against its mechanisms. None of the rest of the classes deal nearly as directly with legalities, because they either rarely violate the law or they avoid any contact with it.

A couple of clarifications on why we assigned classes the way we did: The Activist gets favored causes. The Lover is adept at unarmed attacks. The Beatnik class is meant to represent any kind of poet or writer. Other than that, they seem pretty self-evident. Except for maybe the Psychonaut, but we haven't really looked at that one very hard. I guess I was thinking feats would be roughly analogous to different drugs. If anyone has ideas . . .

Of course, if you want to fuck around with any of this, please feel free. We just took a crazy idea and ran with it. I heartily invite you to do the same.

Upon reflection, I've decided that my previous post was too venomous. This is obviously something you girls are proud of.

I didn't mean to come across as belittling your effort. It still doesn't sound like something I'd ever play, though. To me, the '60s was the decade I wish had never happened...

Thank you for your circumspection. And I mean that. It gives me a newfound respect for this board that our one threadcrap quickly became a polite criticism. I honestly expected a bunch of cries of "Blasphemy!" (which, to be fair, it is--that's part of the fun) from D20 fans.

Also, I'm not the "I wish I was alive in the 60's" type. There are a lot of things about 60's youth culture that I heartily approve of, and I'm certaily glad the decade happened, but I'm not even remotely as idealistic as the characters in this game should be. This game is fun for me because one of the major reasons I game is to try to inhabit different worldviews, to understand how the world looks and works from different philosophical/ideological perspectives (yes, I loved oMage). I might be even more pleased to play a Surrealist or Dadaist in the 20's. Another thing that makes this game poignant is that we already know that these movements lost, in significant ways. They certainly acheived some of their goals, but the world today is a far cry from what they would have hoped it would be.

And rolling randomly for encounters really underscores the cosmic meaninglessness of it all.

As for being proud of it, this was really just an amusing lark for us. It turned out to be really fucking fun, but it was essentially a detour from our more serious designing efforts. So, for those of you who like this, I hope you'll check out the games we're working on when we get them to a more polished stage. Hell, we'll probably be recruiting playtesters here at some point.

[ArmoredSaint]

I guess I just look for something different in a game. I don't want to explore relevant socio-political themes or any of that. If anything, I view gaming as an escape from those very things, which are everywhere in the real world. I can get that on the News. YMMV, but I prefer something totally removed from the mundanities of modern-day politics. I'd probably leave a game if my GM even so much as snuck little snippets of political commentary into his games.

Fortunately, I have yet to encounter anyone who used gaming as a tool to explore this sort of thing, except on the internet. I'm glad you guys had fun, though.

[Mongoose]

I guess I just look for something different in a game. I don't want to explore relevant socio-political themes or any of that. If anything, I view gaming as an escape from those very things, which are everywhere in the real world. I can get that on the News. YMMV, but I prefer something totally removed from the mundanities of modern-day politics. I'd probably leave a game if my GM even so much as snuck little snippets of political commentary into his games.

Fortunately, I have yet to encounter anyone who used gaming as a tool to explore this sort of thing, except on the internet. I'm glad you guys had fun, though.

Dude, these people are revolutionaries. It's just how they roll, G.

Me? I'm willing to give any system a try if I can drop napalm on Woodstock.

Mongoose

[nick012000]

I have to wonder, though, what leaving the dungeon and resting for a day or two represents. Resting is a vital thing for any sustained game of DnD (and not just for replenishing spells), but it is confusing here.

[Matthias Wasser]

I have to wonder, though, what leaving the dungeon and resting for a day or two represents. Resting is a vital thing for any sustained game of DnD (and not just for replenishing spells), but it is confusing here.
Dude, you've never been an activist, have you? ;)

[nick012000]

No, but what I was referring to was the fluidity of the timescale here.

[Matthias Wasser]

No, but what I was referring to was the fluidity of the timescale here.
Ah!

Well, I feel like it's abstraction to the rescue here again. "A few days' rest" is system terms could be anywhere from "we go to Tom's killer party" to "I'm taking a break from activism for a few months to focus on schoolwork" to "I'm going to Tibet to learn meditation" in diegetic terms. (Though that last one would be something like a no-combat dungeon, really.) Maybe rejuvenation-time can be more specifically mapped onto "the inn" - with iron rations in the wilderness being time off with no entertainment, a night at mid-range in being a week of pot and day-jobs, and a luxury inn being Woodstock.

(And so towns-as-separate-from-Dungeons are, like, your social sphere or something?)

[Ace]

I have nothing to add other than praise. This is the most brilliant version of D&D I have ever seen

I am amazed at the creativity

[Peter LaCara]

Ugh!

It sounds like you were on an Improved Trip when you came up with this idea. I'm startled at the positive reception this got, too. I can't imagine why on earth anyone would want to play something like that; it doesn't sound entertaining at all. It sounds too preachy to be fun.
Yeah, but you're the kind of guy who thinks there's too much "girl power" in Exalted. Of course you hate it.

[Poster #15672]

Yeah, but you're the kind of guy who thinks there's too much "girl power" in Exalted. Of course you hate it.

C'mon, man, he apologized and explained himself later in the thread. Let's let it go, and focus on the awesome possibilities of viewing D&D in a surreal, abstract light.

[iconoplast]

So how did/would you guys deal with races?

I like the idea of mapping race to social class, because it seems easy enough w/r/t Elves, Dwarves and Humans as Aristocrats, Proletariats and Bourgeoise.

Don't know what to do with all the other races, though... any ideas?

[chaosvoyager]

Awesome.

This is everything I thought Blue Rose was going to be.

This shows exactly how important the thematic elements of a game are. Change what the words mean and the resources signify, and you have a completely different experience. I'd even go so far as to say that the rules really don't matter, as long as they interact in a minimal way (which D20 does) and the players can ascribe meaning to the results.

Which is a tough thing to say for a game designer.

Ironic that fighting dragons and the like was originally a metaphor for exactly these kinds of battles, and now someone has taken the metaphor full circle and made a game based on slaying dragons into one about social causes ... nay ... ideals.


On the downside, ironically, social skills… don't work. At all. Some of them have a good use (Bluff lets you feint, for example), but the ones that aren't connected to combat in some way just don't get used. (We played completely freeform when dealing with the unicorn, for example.) This isn't necessarily a big problem, mind, and changing it would likely involve twizzling with the d20 system more than I'd like to.

Some spells, too, are… When they affect combat, it's no problem. But what the hell does Create Water mean? It wasn't an issue in our play, but it could come up. One thought I had was to connect various physical elements to emotional / political elements, but that seems rather vague, and I'd need to think about it a lot more before it became something playable.
It's because these mean very little mechanically, even in straight D&D. So changing their meaning does little to change the effect they have in the game.


I think that the relative featurelessness of the base D&D system actually makes this possible. You can do it with, say, Exalted, but you have to rewrite all the Charms, because they just touch the raw fiction too much. Just about everything in d20 interacts with a few basic combat-oriented concepts, though, so the combat system functions as an abstraction layer. By switching out the meanings of a few targets, you can make changes that cascade all the way across the metaphorical field.
Bingo. RPG design in a nutshell. I think Sorcerer is the epitome of this point. Defining what the Humanity stat represents is what determines what the game is about. Same can be done by changing what HP represents. Then the whole thing just cascades down, and it becomes easy to figure out what kinds of actions would raise or lower that resource.


Strength is used pretty much for melee attacks. It seems to be your raw ability to engage people.

***

Charisma is just fuckin' weird. Mostly, it's used as the base for various Mystic (Cleric) and Demagogue (Paladin) powers. Perhaps it's manipulation / marketing? The degree to which you can make the masses agree with you.

So it looks like, if you wanted, you could rename them to something like: Charisma (STR), Logistics (DEX), Conviction (CON), Ideology (INT), Connections (WIS), and Manipulation (CHA). Or you might come up with better ideas! Those aren't exactly a perfect fit.
Interesting. Strength became Charisma, and Charisma became 'fuckin' weird' :)

I think this shows just what an odd place Charisma has in the core D20 rules. Changing the theme of a game can also highlight bugs in the rules too. A lot of stuff in D&D is there as a result of some meaning that the designer wanted to add because it 'should' be there, but ultimately it has no purpose in the rules.


So how did/would you guys deal with races?

I like the idea of mapping race to social class, because it seems easy enough w/r/t Elves, Dwarves and Humans as Aristocrats, Proletariats and Bourgeoise.

Don't know what to do with all the other races, though... any ideas?
o_o

Alright, December is officially irony month!

I find it ironic that a game about challenging the distinctions society puts on race and class (and gender) is based on a game system that uses race and class as its very foundation. Doubly so now that we have a suggestion that race should designate social class.

Which, now that you mention it, kinda does already. 0_o

I can't wait to see where this game goes :D






And since it's off track...
Upon reflection, I've decided that my previous post was too venomous. This is obviously something you girls are proud of.
THIS is interesting. You either delivered a back handed complement, or assumed that the people involved in this were both girls. Not a bad or good thing, merely an observation. I find things like this fascinating though, and really important to know when you're involved in marketing.

The universe is just one enormous unknown. If we didn't make assumptions, we wouldn't know anything at all.

[mhacdebhandia]

Congratulations. This is very smart, interesting work. I'd love to play this game.

[Gyrfalcon]

Chiming in with the obNice Work, Wanna Play message.

As for Charisma - it maps to Zeitgeist. The extent to which you grok the will of the Common Man, and can frame your message and vision in ways that he'll understand and appreciate. Kennedy had high Charisma (in the d20: The 60s STR-analogue sense), and was able to convince people that his policies would change the world for the better. Reagan had high Zeitgeist, and was very good at proposing things in ways that didn't seem to be much of a change or a threat at all.

[Peter LaCara]

C'mon, man, he apologized and explained himself later in the thread. Let's let it go, and focus on the awesome possibilities of viewing D&D in a surreal, abstract light.
Enh, you're right. I should lay off. I guess you're just a nicer guy than me. You should see the things I deleted before I posted.

[CowboyEnergy]

*GASP. OF. AMAZEMENT*

[strange_person]

Elevation bonus => Moral High Ground.

Melee attacks are slightly more effective, representing the intimidation factor that just doesn't carry over the phone. It's harder to get cover, especially against ranged attacks; nothing turns the moral high ground into an avalanche faster than an anonymous press release with incriminating photos.

Power Attack => Ad Hominem Attack.

Based on strength, which should be obvious. Makes all melee attacks for the round more damaging, but less accurate. Only works for melee attacks. Bad logic in writing is just too easy to spot. "Yeah, well, I'm right and you're a doodyhead" isn't the most reliable debating strategy, but against a target with already poor self-esteem (like an unarmored Intellectual), it can be devastating.

Other feats in the Power Attack tree represent other logical fallacies. Cleave becomes Guilt by Association, Sunder becomes Straw Man, and so on.

Expertise (and the corresponding feat trees) represent logically sound, or at least politically correct, debating tactics, which generally emphasize securing your own position (increasing AC) over smearing your opponent (attack rolls).

Improved Disarm co-opts your opponent's strategy; we saw it successfully used (in combination with Mudslinging, the statistical equivalent of a spiked chain) in the 2004 presidential race with the "swift boat veterans for truth" ads. In the next round, mr. Bush took a 5-ft step forward and picked up the War Record in his off-hand, weilding it to surprising effect despite his nonproficiency.

Improved Trip is just what it sounds like: disabling your enemy with a contact high, and getting it all on tape.

Proto-Neocons are probably best represented by the Warlock. They can't be Pacifistic, and they're relatively fragile (it is a new movement, after all) but a network of allied churches, PACs, and diehard supporters lets them make weak ranged attacks and use a narrow selection of other abilities at will. An Intellectual can pick up a new pet theory

The issue of time:
One round of combat, or few minutes of intense out-of-combat activity (like stealth or searching for traps) works out to somewhere between an hour and a day, depending on exactly what happens.
Hours or days of overland travel work out to days or months of "road trip."
Days of healing, item-creation, or training work out to weeks or years of education, employment, meditation, soul-searching, and/or academic research.

Item creation works out to education and academic research pretty well. If a regular-type lance is "media propogation and found objects," leaving pamphlets everywhere, then a +1 lance leaves pamphlets citing peer-reviewed journals, or biblical passages, or just quoting a bunch of friendly PhDs.

[Dreez]

1) It sounds like you had a blast playing this. I would too.

2) I've found some of the discussion that has followed nearly as fascinating. What a great way to deconstruct a game and see, not what makes it tick so much as what IS ticking.

3)

Improved Disarm co-opts your opponent's strategy; we saw it successfully used (in combination with Mudslinging, the statistical equivalent of a spiked chain) in the 2004 presidential race with the "swift boat veterans for truth" ads. In the next round, mr. Bush took a 5-ft step forward and picked up the War Record in his off-hand, weilding it to surprising effect despite his nonproficiency.





This is frickin' funny.

[Vigorous Ape]

This is cool.

[strange_person]

I just thought of a solution for the elemental issue.

I was thinking: A hell hound naturally translates into a Klan rally. Violent, square, fire. Nothing says "hates everything" quite like fire.

Ice, of course, is Apathy.

What about earth vs. air? Well, the classic air creature is the Invisible Stalker. To me, an invisible stalker seems more than anything else like a geurilla insurgency. So, Air corresponds to the Viet Cong, or maybe just Communism in general. That makes sense; people go to the Elemental Plane of Air to be free, unless they go there accidentally or against their will, in which case they plummet to certain doom. Nothin' quite like collectivized farm labor and no rewards for individual merit to crush idealism.

That would make Capitalism correspond to earth. Again, logical; folks travel to the plane of Earth to seek out deposits of metal and precious gems, but often get crushed (under debts or the obligations of a 9-to-5 job).

That leaves Electricity, representing tolerance and moderation, to occupy the middle position on both elemental axes.

Race can work kind of like Occupations in D20 Modern:

Elf => anthropologist / dilletante (lots of academics, no real convictions, good at finding subculture hangouts [secret doors])

Dwarf => dealer / heavy user (good at appraising, resisting emotional attacks, getting away from beaurocrats [giants] and getting back at "the man" [orcs and goblinoids], distance from reality means poor strategic social skills [cha] but rock-steady convictions [con], lots of practice at discussing the mysteries of he universe [favored class])

Half-elf => entrepreneur (rich-kid connections [elven blood], good at making long-term deals [diplomacy], setting up spy networks [Gather Info], alert to potential threats and opportunities [spot and listen], generally versatile)

Gnome => Phreaker (poor social skills [str], hacker ethic [con], low public profile [size bonus to AC and Hide], interesting abilities at communication and deception, gets along equally well with druggies [dwarves- Fight the power!] and technocrats [elves- respect for technical skills])

Halfling => scammer / gold-digger (used-car-salesman vibe [str], money laundering [dex, thrown weapon bonus], can talk their way into anywhere [athletic skills], never gets caught [saving throws], always looking for the next big score [listen bonus, favored class])

Half-orc => disgruntled vet (intimidating in person [str], limited formal education [int], out of touch with civilian life [cha], military contacts [orc blood], unresolved emotional issues [favored class])

Sample encounter:

An Commie Saboteur (Arrowhawk) weilds the promise of equality for the domestic servants (electricity ray) in an exclusive gated community (elven treetop village).

An econnomist (elven Abjurer) and a union negotiator (halfling ranger with favored enemy: outsider [air] and a pterodactyl companion) are hired to defend the status quo by defaming communism (sling stones), using economic tech-talk to set up a false dichotomy between the existing system and communism (electricity-protection spells on the villagers), and eventually locating and removing the instigator (melee attacks) by social engineering (pterodactyl dogfighting) or existing security systems (rope-swing attacks with rapier and touch spells).

[Mr. Sluagh]

You need to flesh this out more and publish it. You really do. It would sell like crazy.

[NotMousse]

Ugh!

It sounds like you were on an Improved Trip when you came up with this idea. I'm startled at the positive reception this got, too. I can't imagine why on earth anyone would want to play something like that; it doesn't sound entertaining at all. It sounds too preachy to be fun.
I'm taking this as satire of the hippies of the day. Somehow I don't think the others are.

[blackasatophat]

So how did/would you guys deal with races?

I like the idea of mapping race to social class, because it seems easy enough w/r/t Elves, Dwarves and Humans as Aristocrats, Proletariats and Bourgeoise.

Don't know what to do with all the other races, though... any ideas?

Elves = blacks: musical, athletic, dextrous, chaotic.
Dwarves = jews: Lawful, bearded. Antipathy to elves. Hoard gold.
Gnomes = asian: short, technically adept.
Half-orcs = american indian: tribal warrior culture.
Latinos = halfling maybe?

[Vigorous Ape]

I'm taking this as satire of the hippies of the day. Somehow I don't think the others are.

Seems amusing to play it either way.

[strange_person]

Skills:

Disguise is exactly what it sounds like: Identity theft. It's zeitgeist (charisma) based because the single most important aspect of any deception is not to draw attention to it, and the way you do that is blend in with the crowd.

Diplomacy is contract negotiations.
http://www.giantitp.com/articles/jFppYwv7OUkegKhONNF.html

Bluff is Grassroots Manipulation. It's the skill you use to project the appearance of a supporting organization, even when you're acting alone and your "movement" is really just some people waiting in line for a movie.
Feinting in combat is making yourself look like a figurehead; when your target ignores the spokesman and moves to stop an angry mob that isn't there, you attack them for harrassing random bystanders.
More strategic distractions (bluffing your way past a guard) involve showing false credentials, etc, to achieve something that would normally be beyond you. Anyone can flap their wallet and shout "Hands up! FBI!" but to really make it work you need to know what people think the FBI is going to act like (charisma => zeitgiest) even if you just use that knowledge to surprise them as much as possible.

Perform is less about actual musical skill and more about marketing. When a Rocker uses her Countersong ability, she's not just singing a catchy and distracting song; she's getting it on the radio, on TV commercials, in homes everywhere, saturating the media. Suggestion, of course, is subliminal messages.

Spot is noticing upcoming stuff through the conventional media: newspapers and television. It's easy to block (darkness => "national security" or just lack of coverage, Invisibility => smashing cameras) but when it works it gives details (targeting without a miss chance for concealment).

Listen is noticing upcoming stuff through unconventional connections: gossip and insider tips. Works even across barriers (walls and doors, no line-of-sight) or while you're "out of it" (unconscious), since rumormongers know no borders, everyone in the world is only 6 degrees away, and real friends tell you important stuff even when you don't ask. On the downside, tends to be short on useful detail; trying to act against someone you only know of through rumors is an exercise in futility (miss chance for concealment, general fighting blind rules).

Climb and Tumble have already been adressed (the bit about armor check penalties).

Jump is tactical hitchiking. There's (for example) an invitation-only club you want to get into (area across a crevasse or up a tree) and you haven't got an invitation (ladder) or even a bribe (rope w/ grappling hook). So, by sheer charisma (str) you convince one of the invited guests to take you in as a guest, and then break off the "relationship" in such a way that you end up inside and unencumbered (standing on your feet). If you fail by less than 5, you're stuck hanging out with your "date" for a while (prone) or desperately trying to prevent them from making a scene and getting you "bounced" (hanging by your fingertips).

[The Lord of Nothings]

Congratulations. This is very smart, interesting work. I'd love to play this game.

As would I....

now we just need to recruit a few other people.
I wonder if there's a way to combine this awesome system with my obession with 60s musical subcultures as Occult Weirdness.
Probably not, though

Psychonauhts are about more then drugs, though... its exploring the limits of perception

[strange_person]

Exactly! That's why they're some of the best close-quarters debaters. It's easier to prove someone wrong if you can actually understand where they're coming from, and "exploring the limits of perception" is how you get that understanding.

[Brad Elliott]

I love this thread with a passion that defies a thousand suns.

You two rock.

Heh... speaking of Shaping Combat... I don't know what the rules for it would be, I don't know what the rules would (I'm decades out of touch with D&D!), but I can already see how such 'Shaping Combat', or trying to affect the hearts and souls of a culture, would be...

Rock Songs. Well-written and well-performed, they'd have a shot at changing the world, whether John Lennon's Imagine or something else.

Of course, it's decades too late, but this made me play the Teddybears song, Punk Rocker with vocals by Iggy Pop...


See me driving down the street,
I'm bored with looking good.
I got both hands off the wheel,
The cops are coming.
I'm listening to the music with no fear,
You can hear it too if you're sincere.

Coz I'm a punk rocker yes I am.
Well I'm a punk rocker yes I am.
Coz I'm a punk rocker yes I am.
Well I'm a punk rocker yes I am.

I see you stagger in the street,
And you can't stay on your feet.
And you're faking in your sleep,
You wish that you were deep.
You can't hear me laughing to myself,
If you could you would be someone else.

[Chorus]

See me die on Bleecker street,
I'm bored with being god.
See me sneering in my car,
I'm driving to my star.

I'm listening to the music with no fear,
You can hear it too if you're sincere.

[Closing Chorus]

[Robert McGregor]

I have to jump on the band wagon and say what an incredible an amazing idea this is. I think this opens the door for all kinds of narrative rle playing possibilities and using hack and slashy rules at that.

I'm actually a very hard core conservative and even though being 60's activists isn't my ideal wish fulfilment RPG - I think it still looks like a lot of fun and with relatively minor adjustments my conservative role playing friends and I could play our own version. Though it wouldn't necessarily need to be idealogically linked, I am sure you could use this style of gaming to play something considered more politically neutral. Though personally I would have no objection to playing a radical liberal activist, I think it would make an awesome role playing experience even if I did disagree with my character about certain things.

[strange_person]

Rock Songs. Well-written and well-performed, they'd have a shot at changing the world, whether John Lennon's Imagine or something else.

That's why "rocker" is a core class.

For Elton John-style lyrical refits, check out Lotus Crane's Project Rebalance bard:

http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=611940

[Goblinardo]

ohdeargodthisissoincrediblyawesomeiwantomarryvioletcrazygirl rightthefucknow.

Ahem. :D

[Red_10]

I had to wiki that.


RE: Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers

Damn, thanks for making me feel old. (Having read the original comics and such.)

This idea rocks on toast so hard it broke the toaster. (and I mean that in the best way possible.:cool: )

[Pete Whalley]

I love it.
This is pretty much empirical evidence that rules really don't matter one whit. I am in awe.

[Saru Sponge]

Very awesome.

[buzz]

This is pretty much empirical evidence that rules really don't matter one whit. I am in awe.
I see the exact opposite. The awesomeness grew out of their use of the rules. The key is that VCG's tweak simply changed the kind of awesomeness the rules helped inspire. I doubt sitting down w/o a system would have led to the same gaming experience.

[1000 MPH]

Ok, jumping on the bandwagon to say that 'this is awesome', but I might suggest a couple of things if I was to run it.

The Barbarian, perhaps instead of being a Seeker (although that is cool), could represent Gonzo journalists/media types, getting bonuses (through their Rage) when they're provoked into writing a vehement article/series of interviews/ radio shows/ whatever.

I'd also change Fighters from being Pyschonauts (mostly because I'm still not quite sure how I'd implement them into a game) into Face Men, the backbone of political movements (but please remember I'm not a politician/student of politics, so I might have it wrong). They're the main people who give the interviews, who stand on the front line of the movement or sling mud form the back (archers).

Any thoughts?

[Corvinity]

As would I....
now we just need to recruit a few other people.

Hell, I'd play in a PbP game of this. When we played we didn't have a GM and didn't miss it, so it's not necessary that anyone "run" it, per se. If anyone wants to start a recruitment thread, feel free. I'm not gonna start it because I'm not sure how much effort I'm willing to invest just now.


I wonder if there's a way to combine this awesome system with my obession with 60s musical subcultures as Occult Weirdness.
Probably not, though


Au Contraire. Such is eminently possible. Play a multiclassed Mystic/Rocker. And there's nothing to prevent you from incorporating supernatural elements into the setting.

I'm taking this as satire of the hippies of the day. Somehow I don't think the others are.

Seems amusing to play it either way.

I think it ought to be played both ways. On the one hand try to get into the mindset of the 60's activist, and on the other hand employ the irony of historical perspective to comment on/satirize the time-period.

Ok, jumping on the bandwagon to say that 'this is awesome', but I might suggest a couple of things if I was to run it.

The Barbarian, perhaps instead of being a Seeker (although that is cool), could represent Gonzo journalists/media types, getting bonuses (through their Rage) when they're provoked into writing a vehement article/series of interviews/ radio shows/ whatever.

I'd also change Fighters from being Pyschonauts (mostly because I'm still not quite sure how I'd implement them into a game) into Face Men, the backbone of political movements (but please remember I'm not a politician/student of politics, so I might have it wrong). They're the main people who give the interviews, who stand on the front line of the movement or sling mud form the back (archers).

Any thoughts?

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.

But seriously, nothing here is hard-and-fast. If you want to switch things around, go for it. It does occur to me, though, that Gonzo Journalist would make an excellent prestige class for Seeker. And you may be right about Face being a better fighter-analogue, but I would feel that there was something missing if Psychonaut were not represented.

[simontmn]

Anyone want to run a game of this on the Play by Post section of the board?

I'd be seriously tempted to play some sort of a forerunner to the Neocons- they started in the late 60's, you know. Failing that, maybe some sort of Randian Objectivist. Probably a Violent Square Intellectual. *shrugs*

You want to play a Drow? Munchkin! :D

[1000 MPH]

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.

But seriously, nothing here is hard-and-fast. If you want to switch things around, go for it. It does occur to me, though, that Gonzo Journalist would make an excellent prestige class for Seeker. And you may be right about Face being a better fighter-analogue, but I would feel that there was something missing if Psychonaut were not represented.

Fair enough. As something of an aside - would you mind terribly if I did a summary of 'Politics & Persuasion' and post it up here? I've got a few ideas for games that could be run...

[Corvinity]

Fair enough. As something of an aside - would you mind terribly if I did a summary of 'Politics & Persuasion' and post it up here? I've got a few ideas for games that could be run...

By "Politics and Persuasion" do you mean the game that this thread is about, or something else? Either way, go for it. Far be it from me to censor you. Besides, it's rather unlikely that Violet Crazy Girl or I will be putting much more work into this. I should probably check with her, but, at least provisionally, consider the idea handed off to whoever is excited enough about it to work on it. We will, of course, be around to bounce ideas off of if you wish, though VCG is pretty busy currently.

Also, reading back through this thread I noticed that someone actually did begin recruitment for a PbP game. Does anyone know if that ever got off the ground? I'd love to see it if it did.

[strange_person]

And there's nothing to prevent you from incorporating supernatural elements into the setting.

It's as simple as describing one of your actions as taking effect through supernatural means.

[Thanatos02]

It might make a smoother translation if one used D20 Modern classes instead, though. Also, d20 Modern gives action points. Just a thought.

[Emprint]

It might make a smoother translation if one used D20 Modern classes instead, though. Also, d20 Modern gives action points. Just a thought.

You'd lose the fun from metaphor and simile, though.

[derekt]

fat freddy's cat would be a cool animal companion. and he found a necklace of three wishes in one issue...

[Dr. Tran]

This reminds me of the little booklet game in Buttery Holsomeness, Freebase (http://www.squid.org/freebase.html).

Luckily, in the real world, definitions about what is good and what is evil are simple to discern; Abandonment of Individuality for the Greater Glory of the Higher Being: good, Premarital Coitus: evil. Alas, in TWOR, things are not so clear cut, To assist with this, an Alignment system has been provided. "Alignment" is a quick and simply way to annote the general demeanor and intent of a Persona and to give the Player a guide to deciding the appropriate action in a given situation.

These aspects are combined to make up the Alignment in this manner: LG, LN, LE, NG, N, NE, CG, CN, CE. Choose your alignment from the list below. Though the labels are relatively self-explanatory, a short description has been included with each.



LG [Liberal Granola]:
Knows that mass social protest is the only way to defeat THE MAN.

LN [Liberal Noncommittal]:
Buys bumper-stickers against THE MAN on occasion, and would like to rise up against his oppressors and end this cruel reign of tyranny, but prefers Dead shows.

LE [Liberal Establishment]:
Sells bumper-sticks against THE MAN and T-shirts for Dead shows; pretending to be part of the movement for social change, yet profiteering off his fellow brothers and sisters, finally becoming part of the System that has forced our children to go to die in 'Nam.

NG [Noncommittal Granola]:
Bought a couple of shirts, thinking this helps, but only practices Iron Butterfly riffs in the garage while the gears of government run by fascist weapon industries crush his remaining freedom.

TN [True Noncommittal]:
Is happy to live in whatever Orwellian hell is presented to him, unknowingly disposing of his own, and hence others, right of choice.

NE [Noncommittal Establishment]:
Buys into the propaganda machine of his mom's Rosie the Riveter days, and does not question the Draft, though it will mean his end.

CG [Conservative Granola]:
Blindly puts faith in other's power to change the world he is increasingly shackled by.

CN [Conservative Noncommittal]:
Voted for Tricky Dick because he liked his speaking voice.

CE [Conservative Establishment]:
THE MAN.

Freebase isn't the same as d20: the 60's and the later is actually a GAME instead of a raw parody that will get you arrested for playtesting, but still you might be able to draw some rough inspiration from the former. :)

[The Ent]

This is just the funnest, most imaginative, and generally coolest thread I've read on Open since forever. :)

[The Ent]

BTW I support the idea of Fighters = Politicians (since feats aid in combat etc.).

Barbarian as Gonzo Journalist sounds good too, allthough Seeker works as well.

[Aesthete]

Ya. This thread is good. Man.

[Old Geezer]

'Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers'

I had to wiki that.



*cries*

[Omegatron]

Let me just say: WOW. You wonderful people are... just fantastic! :eek: :D I have to jet soon, and can't fully elaborate on how impressed I am.


Just some quick questions:

Psionics. If you turn the Fighter into a Politician (which makes the most sense given what you did to combat). Could you turn the Psion into the Psychonaut, or Drug-user/pusher? What about the Psychic Warrior, or the Wilder, or.... (here's a weird one) the Soulknife?

The Scout (from Complete Adventurer), what, if anything would you turn it into? Is it pointless with the Revolutionary (Rogue) and Activist (Ranger?) It's class features are about moving fast and hitting hard... Maybe a Roadie? Or even an Underground sort of thing. Trucker even? Nomad? Hitchhiker, or would that step on the toes of the Seeker too much? How about a Fugitive? Someone fundementally Illegal that they have to keep moving. A draft-doger or an immigrant?

What could you possibly do with the Warlock (from Complete Arcane)? Focuses on Ranged Eldritch Attacks, which would transfer to what here... A spy/minion/assasin network? Maybe even a primitive hacker?? :eek:

The Artificer, from Eberron's Campaign setting makes magic items, and thus, supernatural effects. What if it translated to a media or business mogul archetype? The Magic Items and the effects they create would be businesses/employees or journals/newspapers/radio programs /tv shows / movies? You could have "establishment" types and "guerilla radio." It would contrast the Beatnik (Sorcerer) and Intellectual (Wizard) classes, because they don't get their "magic" (special effects from ideologies and academia) from high-minded learning or academia, but from cold, hard cash.

The classes from The Book of Nine Swords. They focus on combat, and use special abilities from Nine Disciplines of the Sublime Way. I'm thinking that each discipline could be a specific ideology?

Diamond Mind - Feminism or Intellectualism
Iron Heart - Gay Rights or Youth Culture
Stone Dragon - Conservatism
Tiger Claw - Black Power or American Indian Liberation
Devoted Spirit - Evangelism
Desert Wind - Racism
Shadow Hand - Anarchism
White Raven - Communism
Setting Sun - Civil Disobedience-based ideologies


Am I way off base? What do you think? These are some of the more popular non-core classes around, so I thought I'd investigate.

[strange_person]

Let's update this for fourth edition.

[apparition13]

Let's update this for fourth edition.
Well I'm certainly not the person to do it, but this is a really cool idea, and I can see it as a skill challenge system as well as a game.