Two Elevator Pitches
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Spacey Rabble Rouser: “WHAT DO WE WANT?”
Spacey Crowd: “WE DON’T REMEMBER”
Spacey Rabble Rouser: “WHEN DO WE WANT IT??”
Spacey Crowd: “…NOW WE GUESS!!!” -
@Kestrel said in Two Elevator Pitches:
OK, hear me out:
Amnesiac space peasants rising up against the space lords and ladies, to create a better space future.
Bloody space revolution for some, memory exercises for others.
Little space flags for all.
I don't know what I'm doing. Poke at Seven Nations sevennations.aresmush.com port 2021
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I’d like to see a mix of the ideas - maybe have two factions (or multiples) where one operates kind of like the Handmaid’s tale, why? Survival. And the others are various mini-or idealistic versions of different economic/political systems. That are being created because now it’s all about survival and people need to figure out a way to succeed and survive.
To another person’s point, some people only like playing the rebellious oppressed character, but if you just make it one small faction with some guidance for folks. Like, do not join this faction unless you are genuinely X or Y group (oppressed or oppressor) and if someone should get ‘out’, they should officially join another faction to keep that RP going, and keep that space open for those who would participate.
But, I very much prefer sci-fi to fantasy every day of the week.
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@Testament said in Two Elevator Pitches:
@Kestrel said in Two Elevator Pitches:
OK, hear me out:
Amnesiac space peasants rising up against the space lords and ladies, to create a better space future.
Bloody space revolution for some, memory exercises for others.
Little space flags for all.
wait a minute, why do only the rich space people have their memories?
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@helvetica said in Two Elevator Pitches:
@Testament said in Two Elevator Pitches:
@Kestrel said in Two Elevator Pitches:
OK, hear me out:
Amnesiac space peasants rising up against the space lords and ladies, to create a better space future.
Bloody space revolution for some, memory exercises for others.
Little space flags for all.
wait a minute, why do only the rich space people have their memories?
Memory is DLC.
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@helvetica said in Two Elevator Pitches:
@Testament said in Two Elevator Pitches:
@Kestrel said in Two Elevator Pitches:
OK, hear me out:
Amnesiac space peasants rising up against the space lords and ladies, to create a better space future.
Bloody space revolution for some, memory exercises for others.
Little space flags for all.
wait a minute, why do only the rich space people have their memories?
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@helvetica said in Two Elevator Pitches:
wait a minute, why do only the rich space people have their memories?
TO PREVENT THE REVOLUTION.
Basically why they did it to droids in Star Wars, right?
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RE: Ten Thousand Burning Suns (which I just realized shortens to 10K BS so probably the name needs work)
This is all great stuff re: amnesia blank slates. I’ve played a game that had this setup myself (Castle Marrach) and liked a lot of the effects it had on the game. I had not thought about the difficulties some might have in finding their motivation.
So to dig into that for those with this concern- What is the minimum level information you’d need as a runway to launching a character? Some ideas (including ones I’m cribbing from @Kestrel ) that I could see implementing that wouldn’t sacrifice the ludonarrative properties I want:
- Memory Fragments: A collection of pre-generated memory fragments that characters can select at CGen. Once one is chosen, it’d leave the pool. Some may have cryptic connection to the meta, history, etc. I can definitely see myself/staff tossing these into a hopper as ideas come to us.
- Emergent/Evolving Memories: To tip the hand a little bit, I had already planned for this as a significant route of storytelling. Spontaneously occurring according to some game systems, explicitly provoked by plot progression, and a few other avenues. If these came early in the character experience post-CGen, would that suffice, or do people not want to pull the trigger on a character without some of this direction? I think this may be a super important question to get to the bottom of this.
- PC Authored Memories: Could simply let people write up their own memories, with some assiduous guidelines to follow and an approval process. I like this option least but I understand that some people may simply not be interested in a character that they didn’t author themselves.
- Memory Roster: A menu of wanted memories that we’re looking to have in the game to round out the culture, for plot purposes, or otherwise. This is something I could see being a post-launch, down the road option, but my gut says not likely at launch.
Specifically, the aspects of Identity that I want to avoid characters having from the jump are those that would determine or legitimize some role in the game that a character might fill. For example I don’t want anyone with a clear past of being an Engineer, and so they “should get to work in Engineering” or whatever. Nor do I want clear ideological predispositions that might pre-empt the post-CGen experiences that would inform what relationships, alliances, or allegiances a character makes. I want all of that to come from live play.
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RE: Liberty
I definitely think the idea has some legs. I will however need to workshop it much more before it’s remotely ready as a design, given the plethora of sharp edges implied by the theme. I’m not sure which themes of oppression I’d want to include, which do I think could be or are safe for being responsibly portrayed. I have tough feelings about this as on one hand it seems dangerous to open up themes like the subjugation of indigenous peoples or slavery, and on the other, it is also frustrating to leave those stories in silence.
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@shit-piss-love I really love the Memory Fragments idea at chargen. Especially if maybe those memories came with mechanical things? It could even be a part of the chargen process, like a strange twist on the Lifepath system of chargen. Just speaking for myself, building a character around those sorts of things would be delightful.
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@shit-piss-love said in Two Elevator Pitches:
What is the minimum level information you’d need as a runway to launching a character?
This sounds sooooo trite, but I need to know their motivation, and I need it to be unique to them.
If I’m on a spaceship full of amnesiacs, getting my memory back isn’t going to be a unique experience. Questing to get my memory back because I woke with the words GORBDORP on my lips and a feeling of loneliness in my heart? Could get me out of the gate.
but real-talk, i’m not your target audience
Unless you plan to make a major change to Evennia to make it persistent, the combination of “memory loss” + “having to play via client again” = “probably not for me”Would voyeur, though. \o/
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@Pyrephox said in Two Elevator Pitches:
@shit-piss-love I really love the Memory Fragments idea at chargen. Especially if maybe those memories came with mechanical things? It could even be a part of the chargen process, like a strange twist on the Lifepath system of chargen. Just speaking for myself, building a character around those sorts of things would be delightful.
I have not got far into systems design thinking for this game concept yet, but this is a great note. Thank you!
@KarmaBum said in Two Elevator Pitches:
@shit-piss-love said in Two Elevator Pitches:
What is the minimum level information you’d need as a runway to launching a character?
This sounds sooooo trite, but I need to know their motivation, and I need it to be unique to them.
If I’m on a spaceship full of amnesiacs, getting my memory back isn’t going to be a unique experience. Questing to get my memory back because I woke with the words GORBDORP on my lips and a feeling of loneliness in my heart? Could get me out of the gate.
but real-talk, i’m not your target audience
Unless you plan to make a major change to Evennia to make it persistent, the combination of “memory loss” + “having to play via client again” = “probably not for me”Would voyeur, though. \o/
Even if you’re not exactly an audience I can hope to get, I’m sure the points you’ve raised apply to plenty of other people so I really appreciate the in-depth feedback.
That said, I do plan to write an evennia extension for async play, assuming that’s what you mean by persistent.
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@shit-piss-love I might mean async. Depending on what you mean by async.
I don’t mean persistent in the sense of scenes taking a long time.
I mean persistent in that my in-process log transports between devices as seamlessly as possible. I go back-and-forth between my desktop and my iPad constantly.
On Dragon Wings · https://pern.gaslightswitch.com · pern.gaslightswitch.com port 4201
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@KarmaBum said in Two Elevator Pitches:
@shit-piss-love I might mean async. Depending on what you mean by async.
I don’t mean persistent in the sense of scenes taking a long time.
I mean persistent in that my in-process log transports between devices as seamlessly as possible. I go back-and-forth between my desktop and my iPad constantly.
Ahh that is different than async in part. And also a really interesting feature request. I had not considered that use-case but I see how that is provided for by Ares. Great note, I will give a think to how evennia might be massaged into doing something like this.
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@Kestrel said in Two Elevator Pitches:
OK, hear me out:
Amnesiac space peasants rising up against the space lords and ladies, to create a better space future.
Isn’t that just Fading Suns… but without the better future bit?
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@Kestrel said in Two Elevator Pitches:
OK, hear me out:
Amnesiac space peasants rising up against the space lords and ladies, to create a better space future.
Space Nobleman, swerve
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I mean no lie regardless of what kind of game it is, if I’m running it there’s gonna be heavy themes of class warfare and other stories about punching up. The amnesiacs would have plenty of opportunities to glass space aristocrats from orbit.
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@Kestrel said in Two Elevator Pitches:
OK, hear me out:
Amnesiac space peasants rising up against the space lords and ladies, to create a better space future.
The Noble Swerve movement 2.0.
ETA: Oof @Polk beat me to the punch but it’s a fun enough concept that I’m leaving mine up.
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@eye8urcake That image cracked me the heck up on Arx. It deserves extra mentions.
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@shit-piss-love said in Two Elevator Pitches:
I mean no lie regardless of what kind of game it is, if I’m running it there’s gonna be heavy themes of class warfare and other stories about punching up. The amnesiacs would have plenty of opportunities to glass space aristocrats from orbit.
Forgive the outdated meme, but I feel it’s appropriate:
