Friday, November 5, 2010

CyberGeneration - Design Philosophy

Well Blogger ate the other post so this one goes up first! Yay!

With the new release of CyberGeneration in the works I think it's a good idea to put out what my personal design philosophy is in regards to this book. That way I have something that I can refer to if I feel that I get stuck or that I'm playing with the fiddly bits too much.

I really think every project should have a Design Philosophy, and I regret the fact that I haven't really done one before now.

Anyway, here we go:

1. CyberGeneration's Rules need to be Fast:

The resolution mechanic is a straight forward one. It's Stat+Skill+d10 vs Target Number. However, it's the other things that really get me. Combat can take forever because it has a attack vs defense roll where nothing happens on the defensive end. It's got a lot of little bit rules in the evolved types that make you have to know tables and stuff that makes being Evolved kind of a chore.

The net. Oh goodness the net. It's still better than most nets out there, but that needs to be cleaned up something fierce.

2. CyberGeneration need to be immersive:

One of the things I love about the game the most is the setting. It's what really drives the game and is the inspiration point for some other games with dystopic teenage angst. Make sure that gets driven home every chance we get.

Also, I want to make sure that when people make yogangs they actually make yogangs. It's not, "I'm a Guardian" but "I'm a member of the Brickyard Boyz." Immediacy helps with immersion.

3. CyberGeneration needs to be darker:

Some people might say we're living in the world right now, just without the cybernetics and even that that's slowly becoming a reality. Hell with Kinects (nee NADAL) and Sixth Sense virtuality is clearly on the way. Make sure that this helps drive how much control there is around the players.

4. CyberGeneration needs to have more fight:

The big driving force behind 2.0 was the Cabal. The Cabal is not going away, but I want the game to help the players feel that there is a fight going on even if they aren't playing in the Cabal. Sometimes this shit is worth fighting for.

That's what I have so far. Any suggestions?

2 comments:

Dave Herber said...

There needs to be more believability that a 15 year old kid can have as much power and influence as they do over adults.

Everyone needs to go read Lord of the Flies.

Unknown said...

How about show that kids are capable. I mean, I'm starting to read Cory Doctorow's Little Brother and that's really resonating with this because they're not doing outlandish things to circumvent the system, they just do things that they know.

Firestorm Ink's Fan Box