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Intro and Welcome:
Don’t forget to check out Grand Con!
Whatcha been playing?:
Jason has been playing: Trivial Pursuit
Rob has been playing: Lost Cities
“Mechanic” of the Week:
Hidden Agendas
Other Games we mentioned:
Practicing the Pitch:
Rob pitches Fractured Arms
Comments
2 responses to “Episode 48: Hidden Agendas and Fractured Arms”
Hey guys,
I’ve never really played tabletop RPG games but the idea that Rob pitched appealed to me. Telling the story from the point of view of a possessed objects seems really interesting. I would side with Jason in that the GM would be better suited to come up with the characters and the players could focus more on their weapon avatars. The idea of a curse or a bond between the wielder and the weapon could be emphasized more. The person character could have less impact on the world once he’s bonded with the weapon. The intentions of the weapon, whether malicious or honorable, would then be the driving force of the game. There could be an objective for each player to fulfill. A need of redemption or revenge or something of that kind in order to free the soul from the object it possessed. I guess my comments don’t add much as far as mechanics of the game go but thematically, that’s what would draw me to it.
Not much to add on the topic of the week, really. You mentioned Battlestar Galactica to which I might add Resistance or Shadows Over Camelot. Whenever you have a traitor element to the game, it seems to work. However, in game such as Ticket to Ride, the interaction between players might suffer if everyone is trying to achieve a different goal. Usually it’s better to work on your own tickets than trying to impede the other player’s progress if you don’t know what they’re trying to build. It would be interesting to see what a game of TtR would look like if the players played with their tickets revealed. Would a lot of players actively try to block others while keeping only a minimum number of tickets themselves? Would they count on a negative score of their opponents?
I can’t really think of other hidden-agenda games. Mostly this kind of thing has more to do with a strategy a player takes than a built-in feature of a game.
I think I should keep my posts shorter from now on 😉
Cheers,
Pawel
Great episode, thanks for the kind words and the shout out for my Ghosts Love Candy game.
I too am not familiar with playing very many RPGS (I have played the new Star Wars one and Fiasco once each), but I get the appeal of them. The idea of playing as a weapon that gets passed along to a character you may or may not control sounds fascinating and truly original to me. I am interested in hearing a playtest, it seems like it would lend itself to good audio.
I love the idea of Hidden Agendas, they are a major part of my Mob Town game. I am trying to think about other games I have played that use it besides the ones you mentioned, hmmm, I’ll get back to you.
Unfortunately I will not be at Gencon 🙁 its not in the budget this year… I’ll get that beer someday!