I’m participating in Nathan Paoletta’s Two Games One Name challenge. The name of my game is City of Refuge, and my constraint is “out-of-game interaction is punished by the game”. I chose this constraint for myself, because it seems to run opposite of my usual hippie tendencies.
My first thought was to go with a game about refugees, each of whom has a secret they must protect. Out of game interactions would be punished by allowing the GM to take certain actions against the secret if the player interacted out of game.
Refugees seems too easy though. So my other idea is that the City of Refuge is a city that essentially has no extradition laws. Anyone may live there as long as they don’t break the laws of the city. This leads to all manner of nasty people living peacefully in the city. The players play the peacekeepers of the City, protecting it’s residents from those who hunt for them. Not quite sure how to work the constraint in yet, but it may be something similar to the way I listed above.
October 25, 2009 at 10:53 am |
For what it’s worth, the second approach really grabs me more than the first. The idea of protecting “bad guys” from the “good guys” in service of a higher principle (everyone here is safe) opens up a lot of gray areas that I think would be really neat to explore in play.
October 25, 2009 at 1:29 pm |
Yeah. I’m definitely leaning towards the second. I was thinking of making it gritty/dark fantasy, but I’m not really sold on any genre yet.
October 25, 2009 at 4:35 pm |
I think the second would be cool to see, especially since I’m going the other way – a city full of refugees. And mine’ll be more epic fantasy with a dash of gonzo.
So it’ll be a nifty contrast.
October 26, 2009 at 7:51 am |
Put me down as being in support of the second as well. It’s a concept with legs.
Also, this: “chose this constraint for myself, because it seems to run opposite of my usual hippie tendencies.” makes me smile.