Inspiration for a game designer comes in many places: books, movies, music, overheard snippets of conversation, the internet. In that way, game design is just like any other creative field. Inspiration comes in strange places.
For this post, I'm going to do something a little different than usual. Hopefully this works.
I am going to start with an inspiration, in this case a video that I saw linked in an RPGNet thread. This video is from Liquid Televsion, an old MTV experiment in animation that brought us Aeon Flux and the animated version of The Maxx. Here's the video:
Karma police, arrest this man
He talks in myths
He buzzes like a fridge
He's like a detuned radio
- Radiohead, Karma Police
An interesting video and I have to admit that I don't remember it, but with my memory that doesn't mean a lot. To the contemporary me, I see this as something that can be given a bit of Grant Morrison-esque strangeness with the backdrop of Hindu religion superimposed against the Noirness of the main character.
Now, since this post is named inspirations rather than adaptations, the idea isn't to directly convert the setting and characters of the video into a game, but to rather build a flavor of this setting and turn it into something that is interesting and playable.
The first step is to talk about system. For the purposes of this post I am going to pick something released under the OGL (which for those few who still may not realize this is more than just the old d20 System) because for a blog post I don't want to have to worry about licensing or anything like that. A good free license suits my purposes just fine.
As a game designer my primary goal these days is KISS. Not that band but the principal of Keep It Simple, Stupid. I prefer to err on the side of simplicity anymore in my game design. I just don't have the time for endless hours of gaming like I did, so a game that gets to the point and gets to the gaming is what I want and need. This desire spills over into my game design. As a game designer, if you don't design the game you like you won't like the game you design.
So, while I ponder the bits and pieces of how I want to take the next step (i.e. the system design) I leave you with this first post. If you want to make system suggestions (please don't just list a system if you make a suggestion, tell me why it would be a good fit for the idea of the setting) go ahead, in the comments, but just make sure they are a system available under the OGL.
I'm not sure if my next posting in this series will be about setting or system. I guess it depends on which comes up in my head first.
For this post, I'm going to do something a little different than usual. Hopefully this works.
I am going to start with an inspiration, in this case a video that I saw linked in an RPGNet thread. This video is from Liquid Televsion, an old MTV experiment in animation that brought us Aeon Flux and the animated version of The Maxx. Here's the video:
Karma police, arrest this man
He talks in myths
He buzzes like a fridge
He's like a detuned radio
- Radiohead, Karma Police
An interesting video and I have to admit that I don't remember it, but with my memory that doesn't mean a lot. To the contemporary me, I see this as something that can be given a bit of Grant Morrison-esque strangeness with the backdrop of Hindu religion superimposed against the Noirness of the main character.
Dharma, voiced by Dick Rodstein, was a private detective who lived in Timbuktu sometime in the near future. The city is very heavily populated (with a population of 30 million people) and apparently ruled by an elite called the "Hipster Elders". Dharma is depicted as a trenchcoat- and fedora-wearing man with long, stringy hair and eyes that appear, like Little Orphan Annie's, to have no pupils. He seems to have psychic abilities. The plotline pits Dharma against corrupt public officials (including what appears to be the French Foreign Legion) and a mysterious organization called The Beelzebub Brotherhood.
From the Wikipedia page.
Now, since this post is named inspirations rather than adaptations, the idea isn't to directly convert the setting and characters of the video into a game, but to rather build a flavor of this setting and turn it into something that is interesting and playable.
The first step is to talk about system. For the purposes of this post I am going to pick something released under the OGL (which for those few who still may not realize this is more than just the old d20 System) because for a blog post I don't want to have to worry about licensing or anything like that. A good free license suits my purposes just fine.
As a game designer my primary goal these days is KISS. Not that band but the principal of Keep It Simple, Stupid. I prefer to err on the side of simplicity anymore in my game design. I just don't have the time for endless hours of gaming like I did, so a game that gets to the point and gets to the gaming is what I want and need. This desire spills over into my game design. As a game designer, if you don't design the game you like you won't like the game you design.
So, while I ponder the bits and pieces of how I want to take the next step (i.e. the system design) I leave you with this first post. If you want to make system suggestions (please don't just list a system if you make a suggestion, tell me why it would be a good fit for the idea of the setting) go ahead, in the comments, but just make sure they are a system available under the OGL.
I'm not sure if my next posting in this series will be about setting or system. I guess it depends on which comes up in my head first.
