Tuesday, January 30, 2018
Wednesday, January 24, 2018
Songbird
My RPG is a roadtrip. The goal of the game is to reach the center of the forest. "In the center of the universe is a forest. In the center of the forest is a secret." Or so the saying goes. But like all good dreams, and desires, there's another layer to it. Something beneath it. Our hero might set out to find love, and ends up realizing it's friendship that he needs.
My game is about journeying to the center of the forest. But really it's about the journey. It changes you. It makes you weird and it makes you unique. It's based around "Into the Odd", because that game spoke to me and is very close to what I want. Except that's a game about Greed and finding oddities. My game is about obsession and tragedy.
You will head into the DemonWood to reach the center, but dying or retiring are more likely. All the villages you will run into out there were built by people like you. But they found something else, or had their spirits crushed.
Every session begins with the phrase, "You're lost in the Woods." Because that is a constant state in the DemonWood. You are wandering from place to place, inching closer to your goal, crawling closer into legend.
I'm making this game because I've been playing DnD since jr. high, and my friends and I have never played it like it should be. We never went into dungeons. We had adventures, we had fun, but we didn't spend our time beneath the ground. So my game isn't about dungeons. There are dungeons, sure. But this is about adventure.
This is Cowboy Bebop in a mythic forest. This is Samurai Champloo with weirdness. This is the Arya/Hound arc on Game of Thrones. This is an episode adventure, where ever session is an episode, and every episode ends and begins the same. Every episode you either handle the problem or you don't.
My game is about journeying to the center of the forest. But really it's about the journey. It changes you. It makes you weird and it makes you unique. It's based around "Into the Odd", because that game spoke to me and is very close to what I want. Except that's a game about Greed and finding oddities. My game is about obsession and tragedy.
You will head into the DemonWood to reach the center, but dying or retiring are more likely. All the villages you will run into out there were built by people like you. But they found something else, or had their spirits crushed.
Every session begins with the phrase, "You're lost in the Woods." Because that is a constant state in the DemonWood. You are wandering from place to place, inching closer to your goal, crawling closer into legend.
I'm making this game because I've been playing DnD since jr. high, and my friends and I have never played it like it should be. We never went into dungeons. We had adventures, we had fun, but we didn't spend our time beneath the ground. So my game isn't about dungeons. There are dungeons, sure. But this is about adventure.
This is Cowboy Bebop in a mythic forest. This is Samurai Champloo with weirdness. This is the Arya/Hound arc on Game of Thrones. This is an episode adventure, where ever session is an episode, and every episode ends and begins the same. Every episode you either handle the problem or you don't.
Wednesday, January 17, 2018
Making a Songbird
My magical girl RPG is called Songbirds.
Creating a character works like this:
Everyone gets 1 heart. This represents your life. Lose it and you die.
Everyone gets a dream and a nightmare.
Your dream is how you level up. Doing something in service of your dream, trying to attain it, is how you get xp.
Your nightmare exists because of your dream. Think of it as a meter, with dream on one end and nightmare on the other. Witnessing terrible things, ignoring your dream, or failing, pushes you closer to your nightmare.
Nightmares are all monsters that you fight in the game. The key is to only fight the nightmares of others, but sometimes shit happens.
The goal of the game is to not become a nightmare.
It's a melancholic game. A fight against unstoppable forces. There will always be nightmares because not everyone achieves their dream. You are the people who stop those nightmares. You are Songbirds.
Dreams
Dreams are your wish. The game begins and there is something you want to fix. This is your ticking clock. It can be serious and devastating to small and personal. Losing a loved one, a friend moving away, your father losing his job, a classmate with depression. There is something that you want to fix. This is what makes you special. This is what makes a Songbird choose you and grant you the power to fix it.
Your dream is like hope in this bleak world. It cannot save the world, but it can make it nicer for those close to you.
To get your dream you have to do things for the songbird that grants you these powers. These things range from strange (burying a memento under a certain tree) to cruel (breaking up that popular couple at your school). If you do enough for them before you become a nightmare, your wish comes true.
Nightmares
Nightmares come true. Everyone has a fear and those fears live in the mind and plague your thoughts. Songbirds face Nightmares in battle. This is where the deck building and card battling takes place.
Sessions
Every session is an Episode. Every episode has a nightmare (if a nightmare is not dealt with during an episode, it becomes a 2-part episode, which adds complications).
These work like mysteries, where the players see a problem caused by the nightmare and have to figure out who is having this nightmare before it spreads and becomes a catastrophe (things like hurricanes, tornadoes, horrible, life-altering events).
(These are just thoughts and need more work)
Creating a character works like this:
Everyone gets 1 heart. This represents your life. Lose it and you die.
Everyone gets a dream and a nightmare.
Your dream is how you level up. Doing something in service of your dream, trying to attain it, is how you get xp.
Your nightmare exists because of your dream. Think of it as a meter, with dream on one end and nightmare on the other. Witnessing terrible things, ignoring your dream, or failing, pushes you closer to your nightmare.
Nightmares are all monsters that you fight in the game. The key is to only fight the nightmares of others, but sometimes shit happens.
The goal of the game is to not become a nightmare.
It's a melancholic game. A fight against unstoppable forces. There will always be nightmares because not everyone achieves their dream. You are the people who stop those nightmares. You are Songbirds.
Dreams
Dreams are your wish. The game begins and there is something you want to fix. This is your ticking clock. It can be serious and devastating to small and personal. Losing a loved one, a friend moving away, your father losing his job, a classmate with depression. There is something that you want to fix. This is what makes you special. This is what makes a Songbird choose you and grant you the power to fix it.
Your dream is like hope in this bleak world. It cannot save the world, but it can make it nicer for those close to you.
To get your dream you have to do things for the songbird that grants you these powers. These things range from strange (burying a memento under a certain tree) to cruel (breaking up that popular couple at your school). If you do enough for them before you become a nightmare, your wish comes true.
Nightmares
Nightmares come true. Everyone has a fear and those fears live in the mind and plague your thoughts. Songbirds face Nightmares in battle. This is where the deck building and card battling takes place.
Sessions
Every session is an Episode. Every episode has a nightmare (if a nightmare is not dealt with during an episode, it becomes a 2-part episode, which adds complications).
These work like mysteries, where the players see a problem caused by the nightmare and have to figure out who is having this nightmare before it spreads and becomes a catastrophe (things like hurricanes, tornadoes, horrible, life-altering events).
(These are just thoughts and need more work)
Wednesday, January 10, 2018
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