There are many great RPGs, ones that I've absolutely loved and have influenced how I see games forever-- TES II: Daggerfall for instance.
But over the years, I've gotten bored with what RPGs have been: games focused on character progression, with a nod toward letting you pick who that character is and even less to who that character is to the rest of the world.
When I envision what a "role-playing game" should be, I see something different.
I think the game should be focused on letting me play a role, one that I invent, and that is more concerned with my place in the world relative to the people in it than to any "beastiary" or to a scale of maximum possible stats or a list of unique items to collect. I think we come to tolerate these kinds of mechanics, settling for payouts while waiting for the game to again become fun in its own right.
It's a bit of a departure, and I'm looking for people to take it with me and some friends I'm already working with.
What I'm working on is, as the title says, something I'm calling a social strategy game (no sense competing with 40 years of gaming heritage for the name "RPG"). I've been writing up a description to share, and published it on Google Docs.
Scone Game Idea
Every game needs a great vision for what it can be. But it also needs realistic goals, ones based on what you can actually do (and that challenge you to push the envelope of what you thought yourself capable of pulling off). So our first step is a prototype, something to test the idea that our "core gameplay loop" is fun-- the actions that the player will be doing over and over while progressing through the game. I'm excited to see how it goes, but we will need to hook up with a someone who not only likes our idea but can also script up a little text-based test of the idea.
Scone Prototype 1
Thanks for reading. I appreciate any feedback.
