The Next Big Thing

Continuing a little from my last post which touched on the subject of body-swapping, I also like the idea of providing players with the ability to steal the shapes of other creatures.  Not just at the point of death, but also as a deliberate quest-line. 

I have this idea where sorcerers deliberately summon daemons in order to steal their bodies and provide themselves with a monstrous shape to bumble around in.  And by bumble around I mean adventure.

I also think it would be nicely different to provide players with the option of playing as virtually anything in the game.  Trot round as a dog for awhile.  If you handle the knock-on interactions effectively, entire story-lines and certainly particular quests could require one to acquire a different form.  Dogs might go unnoticed where a person would be asked for their papers.

Gods as Men

And three come along at once!

In my last post I began to discuss death mechanics in a co-op dRPG.

More meandering thoughts here on the vague topic of backstory.

In order to imbed the notion of resurrection effectively into the game world I like the idea of the player characters being Gods as Men.  The idea somehow that perhaps this is how Gods breed, or how new gods are created.  And what is more heroic that aspiring to be the next god?

So the players have the lofty ambition of being the next big Thing.  (There's a post for that alone!)

Perhaps not aspiring to be Gods exactly - maybe the characters are the tools of the gods, the weapons of the gods, vessels of the gods?  But basically the idea that a person can die but come back again has some pretty obvious connections to deification.

Another theme of mine that I can't avoid returning to from time to time is the idea of body-swapping.

Also, if a character dies I like to get some semblance of realism in their regarding what happens to their body, their equipment.  Depending of course on how they die.  More on that later.

But evolving this notion from the last post of ghosts.  I like the idea of possession.  So provide PCs in some circumstances with the ability to move as a spirit and possess the body of another.  Maybe requiring specific targets to do this (vessels of the gods).  Or a vessel is easier to possess.  Maybe have a sub-game around possessing an unwilling target?

But provide a post-mortem route back to the land of the living via assuming the body of another creature.  I know some players are fixated on having their character look a certain way - so build in a mechanic where a player can 'warp' (slowly or quickly) back into their previous appearance.  But I think it would make for an interesting and exciting experience to be slain mid-combat and possess one of the enemy and immediately rejoin the game in another form, and then slowly assume your original form.

Watch Fallen.  Really cool film.  Part of this idea came from there.  I warped it a bit of course.  But that's the general idea. 

Schizo...

Not sure quite how to entitle this post.

A feature of many of my P&P games, and also a number of computer game proposals I have produced revolves around the concept of either switching forms, acquiring new forms, or absorbing abilities.

The longest running P&P game I GMed revolved around the concept of an ancient race, and an ancient, once lost form of magick that involved summoning daemons, slaying said daemons and absorbing their souls in order to take on their powers. This blend of original race, stocked full of daemon souls forever changed the player and turned them into a new being, a creature I called Shafaerinhai. Which - roughly translated from their ancient tongue - meant 'daemons in the blood'.

In a much later game set in the same world a couple of Ages on, I reworked this theme. In this game I had a cult of sorcerers attempt to resurrect Shafaerinhai magick, but fundamentally misunderstanding it. They used spells to summon daemons, and then excommunicate their spirits so that the daemon's corporeal form (which the daemon grew to journey within the material plane) was left an empty shell. The sorcerer was then free to excommunicate his own spirit, ripping it from his body and binding it to the daemon's empty shape.

In this way, sorcerers were able to acquire powerful, monsterous forms. And it made for a great game, even if I do say so myself.

This body-swapping concept I translated into a couple of computer game proposals. In one, the players played a sentient blob of jelly genetically engineered from an organic sample taken from a meteorite. The blob of jelly had the unique ability to blend with carbon-based lifeforms via osmosis and take over the brain functions of the entity, thus controlling it.

In this way the player had free reign to blend with guards, scientists, dogs, rats, birds and even some mutations from the labs as they sought and fought for their freedom.

I used another version of the sentient blob of jelly idea, in a game I called Evolver (later finding a game of the same name already existed - although significantly different) I changed the name to Wild World. Wild World was designed as an MMO with a difference. A vast perpetual world consisting of all manner of flora and fauna. Players start as the blob of jelly and slither around until they come across a creature with powers they want to incorporate.

In this idea, the blog can absorb the DNA of creatures it consumes and then mutate, taking upon some of the characteristics of its victim. In this way, somewhat like the Homunculus Jar, a player can end up with a creature sporting a complex array of different features... bat wings, toxic spines, acid spit, retractable claws, gills and so forth.

The basic principle was to evolve your creature and do battle with other creatures in the environment, attempting to acquire new abilities. There was a secondary thread about evolving an opposable thumb which would enable players to use ancient artefacts from a long lost, technologically advanced civilization, whose ruins adorned the world.

I'm not sure why exactly this theme of changing or utilisng alternative forms fascinates me. But whenever I have used it in games it has gone down very well with players. It breaks the mold to some extent in terms of established genres, but for me it extends still further the concept of acquiring news skills and equipment, and opens up a realm of new possibilities.