Mapping the sky

Just a quick one, not sure if I mentioned this before, but this is how I'd like to handle astronomy in a dRPG:

When the skill is active/selected and you look into the sky, the stars will slowly coalesce to reveal the cardinal compass points and some markers inbetween.  So characters with the skill (and no compass - which I feel should be an item that needs to be used) can look into the sky to orientate themselves.

It should be an active skill though, as sometimes its just nice to look at the sky withour forcing the stars to spell out N, S, etc.

That's all for now.

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.