Bleeding Kansas esque RPG

[Sonic The Hedgehog]

RPGs with these factions:

Whorehouse - Faction run by a madam and enforced by the women themselves. Thieves, rogues, and a brawler.
Slave hunters - Small group of idiot brawlers lead by a conniving and clever woman who is also ruthless. Vile faction.
Populist - Ruthless anti-government and big business leader with an assortment of hangers on, thugs, and brawlers ready to influence the people’s will.
Nudist Commune - Group of religious nudists encamped in the bush who are very welcoming to outsiders but very suspicious.
Native populations at war with each other - Both very anti-government but at war with each other over territorial and social reasons.
Constitutional partisans - Pro-government anti-slavery secret society spies
Anti-slavery partisans
Pro-slavery partisans
Railroad company - Bulldozing land with a group of thugs and immigrant laborers while trying to avoid conflict in the slavery issue.
Government - focused on keeping the peace but generally incompetent
Fantastics - Gypsey-entertainers used by the immigrants and hated by everybody else.
Ex-Slaves - slaves in the process of running away or trying to start new lives, usually allying themselves with the Anti-Slavery partisans

Gameplay - Isometric turn and adventure based. One would navigate through several areas acquiring information and being influenced/influencing the world around them until an event occurs which would be some sort of uprising/battle/duel/assassination/spy mission.

The character wouldn't be much stronger than any other character in game so they'd have to take care to pick their fights and missions carefully. The character's primary role in the game will be experiencing major events and trying to survive/personally analyze the situation. Influencing the world in minor ways that have more personal effects but also go to the outcome of the game. Essentially the game is about surviving, thriving, somewhat influencing, and experiencing a bloody kansas esque war. Multiple endings for the character that will usually end up in a Civil War situation, or more ambiguous like "venturing far off to a more peaceful place" or "tripping balls on hallucinogenic mushrooms till death" or "organizing the gypsies for better wages" or " leading a separatist movement of any stripe" or "killing head motherfucker of any faction and being hung or escaping/taking their place."

I'm imagining that maintaining a job and/or property being a crucial component to the game unless one becomes a full-time soldier.

I also imagine that the events back home play into the personal story of the person with him wanting to import the wifey or the wifey looking for him with a shotgun.

Character - Player is either a government agent or a commoner moving west. I think the latter fits in better for role play purposes.

Features:
- Newspaper system with factional basis reports the deeds of the player and his status in the territory.
- Realistic death/killing, as in most people don't die in skirmishes and the player is vulnerable.
- Historical characters and events, present and past, as well as political and economic issues/systems be somewhat represented.
- Significant backstory for a good deal of the people involved.
- FMV sequences in historical detail with dramatic license
- Realistic weather effects and degradation significantly influencing the game
- Realistic economy of scale
- Game to start off as a sim, merge into an adventure/rpg game, and then finish off as an action-story. Essentially a crescendo of player involvement with the game.
- Unique, ambiguous endings depending on player skill and choice.
- Stealing to be viable, but risky
- Weapons, especially quality ones to be rare. Weapons to be logically placed (IE, best weapons in a fort, also the hardest to get)
- Predictive metagames that will include player skill and computer skill with wildcard items serving as loot.

Pro-Slavery forces will be bad, Anti-Slavery forces will be good; both will use excessive force. Government will be helpless. Slave hunters will be evil motherfuckers. All other factions will have to be interpreted as good or bad, some skewing towards gray/irrelevant and other skewing towards more good or more bad. This is how the story will operate, and will not affect gameplay other than the story which will be mostly open to interpretation.

 

[Sonic The Hedgehog]

Whorehouse characteristic - Not noble, like the whorehouse in Unforgiven. More chatty Kathy and capitalist driven.

Slave Hunters - Thinking a hot mother with incompetent but thuggish sons chasing blacks across the state and intimidating everybody else. Capitalist and Ego driven.

Populist - Glenn Beck and Huey Long and Edmund Ruffin with a little John Brown reference. Anti-immigrant, neutral on slavery, pro-Indian, secessionist, anti government (wish to kick it out of the land) and anti-railroad Big business.

Nudist Commune - Mormon/Anarchist/Eco Indian esque sort of hidden away. Leader to be a Jim Jones deceiver type.

Native populations - Essentially fighting a war in one significant territory over reasons most locals don't care to understand. It's essentially a pre-civil war (similar to bloody Kansas) about one more white man friendly Indian faction (in that they own slaves, and allow the railroad to come through for significant boosts to their own territorial gain) against another (not friendly to the white man).

Constitutional partisans - Secret black slave society who are pro-government and anti-slavery. Their downside is their complacency with fomenting wars secretly and ignoring other social issues in favor of constitutional liberalism. (think rich freed blacks)

Railroad Company - Ruthless Robber baron Government-capitalist enterprise using conflict in the region to push through its might.

Fantastics - Most present immigrant face mostly shat on by everybody else. Some weird mysticism and thieving shit.

Ex-Slaves - Recurring major factor in the game. Can be recruited to various factions or hunted down/made an example of.

I'm also thinking about the ability to add party members who you can mostly use for combat or for labor or for organizing or for doing sick shit too in the name of the nudist cult.

 

[Fritz Haber]

Why do ya steal from ma design document?!!!

I would drop the slave, nudist, constitutional and native factions,
but make those other factions more fractured. Lots of backstabbing,
the player as an intermediary and agent (and by that the small weight that
tips the scales one way or another).

The Sim parts wont fit well with that adventure/RPG stuff,
much better to turn them into Quests of sorts (the player being the agent
of bigger interests, financial power as political power).

 

[Sonic The Hedgehog]

Why do ya steal from ma design document?!!!

Tell me more :!: :!:

I would drop the slave, nudist, constitutional and native factions,
but make those other factions more fractured. Lots of backstabbing,
the player as an intermediary and agent (and by that the small weight that
tips the scales one way or another).

Indian war and faction could be dropped. Same with the slave faction. I would still need to have ex slaves and Indians (of various political stripes) in the game of course.

Nudist commune crazies is a fetish of mine for a while. I also think it would spruce up the game to a good fantastic level. I could drop them of course, but I see them as a fun little thing with some historical backdrops with the early American utopic communities and later hippie movements.

The constitutional faction might be the most crucial component of the game. To me, they are the ultimate "victors" historically and their actions and substance will be of great use to me in depicting the world and the environment. I'm also going to make them a bit devious and macro oriented. While a secret spy agency is also a bit cliche and prominent in too many games; I believe that it will drum up interest if they have enough political and social components explained. I would intend on making their cause the best one, but their methods some of the worst. In otherwords, an ultimate "do ends make the means" type group.

The Sim parts wont fit well with that adventure/RPG stuff,
much better to turn them into Quests of sorts (the player being the agent
of bigger interests, financial power as political power).

I'm thinking of the sim being small scale like having a job, joining an official political party, or owning a farm/house (which, along with the newspapers and individuals within the game, will be the true backstabbing components and interplay within the factions). I don't think of having the simulation reflect the ability to conquer the territories or own the railroad or become the mayor or something like that. Just to create immersion within the world and provide some context for the average western bound shit farmer coming into bigger events.

 

[Fritz Haber]

Tell me more :!: :!:

My ideas for a Western RPG are something along those lines:

- pseudo-historical
(there are no united states, but something very much like it. There is racism
and sexism to that extent that a female character will experience the game
vastly different from a male, black or asian characters are non-playable)

- plot is changed by PC
(At the start of the game, the plot is set, factions are in place,
the NPC inside those factions are working towards their own ends.
The Pc begins dicking around, taking on 'quests' from some of those,
changing the Plot and final outcome (for example, the plot unchanged
would end in a bloody civil war, but killing a key figure would lead to a
armed revolt in a handful of big cities, which will let those cities go up in
flames but ultimately not change the status quo.), breaking and facilitating
alliances within the plot. Those new combinations would be of course
limited in number. The goal with this is to create a responsive narrative that is
still engaging, or simply manageable from a design perspective.)

- plot progresses apart from the PC
(As written above, NPC have their own goals and follow there own timetable,
actions of the Pc not withstanding. For example, if the Pc decides to be nothing
more than a petty thief inside a city and ignore the changes, he will find himself
an unwilling part of what happens. This also means that some alliances and
actions of the player will come back on him.)

- NPC
( I think the main thing is to make NPC a bit more important to the plot.
That means you have to give them their own ambitions, the ability to lie
and betray the player. This goes for party-NPC as well as 'quest-givers'.
It should be a common feature that the PC has to think carefully who to
trust and who to support, what leads to follow within the progressing
narrative. C&C and all that...)

Regarding the game mechanics, some IE/FO-clone would do nicely (FO
would be better, not being able to directly control party-NPC is a good
thing, as is turn-based combat. The ability to climb and jump should be
added though...)

Your take sounds a lot more colourful, or fantastic as you said
yourself. I was going more for a Deadwood meets the Birth of Nations
meets adventure novel a la Dumas...thing.

 

[Fritz Haber]

To add to the nuts and bolts of the design/game system:

I have this set-piece in mind where the PC is hunted by two thugs, who he
has just seen committing a murder. The Area is an open road, from west to
east (about six screens big), to the north a stream, about hip deep, to the
south a cornfield which expands to the border of the area.

How can this play out? In my mind, the PC will follow the road until he sees
the thugs, standing over the body(which should place him just north of the
central point of the area). They first try to engage him in dialogue to draw
him nearer, failing that start to shot at him. PC has options what to do now:

Shot it out (obvious consequences and solution), flee across the stream to
the north (bad idea, as it slows him down, making him an easy target),
back along the road to the west (again, he is visible, but he can move fast,
making him harder to hit, and he can use the headstart when they follow
him) or to the south, into the cornfield (as it is summer and the corn is high,
he can go prone to be unseen, indicating careful/stealth movement within
the game system).

But as he can not be seen by the thugs, he can not see them, while they
are searching for him within the field. Leaving the prone state means he
can take a look around, maybe sees one of them still on the road, to block
him from going back, maybe sees one close by who will use this to catch up
with him. Much like Fallout, the actions of the PC while no hostile is visible
happens in realtime, going to turnbased if that changes.
While being in the stealth state, the PC should get feedback based on
perception, like JA or X-com ('you hear movement from the north/south' etc.)

 

[denizsi]

Pro-Slavery forces will be bad, Anti-Slavery forces will be good

So I guess it's out of the question that you meet Emmet Brown after you beat the main quest, who will tell you about the future and what a libtard multikult place of evil it is, full of backwards boys of da hood be chillin 'n trippin and how anti-slavery people had no idea what they were getting themselves into.

 

[Sonic The Hedgehog]

Your take sounds a lot more colourful, or fantastic as you said
yourself. I was going more for a Deadwood meets the Birth of Nations
meets adventure novel a la Dumas...thing.

I think you have a pretty good start on how to make something like that possible. I like your initial scenario and racial component. My guess is that you're shooting for more of a Hollywood western like Deadwood, Dead Man, or Unforgiven moreso than a historical mirror (which is what I'm trying to do with significant artistic license).

How big would your gameworld be? I'm thinking four pretty massive overhead maps; with one major city and settlements scattered all around. I would also have exploring in regions not connected via road mostly difficult and time consuming.

 

[Fritz Haber]

How big would your gameworld be?

Having roughly mapped what I consider a starting town (about the size of
Klamath, without the underground), I don't think more than 3 cities and
5-7 towns plus a few special areas for encounters/set-pieces.
No exploration, just travelling between those points of interest.

My guess is that you're shooting for more of a Hollywood western like Deadwood, Dead Man, or Unforgiven moreso than a historical mirror

p.much, a weak simulacrum of that time so I don't have to worry as much about lore.

 

[crufty]

on a side note, i always thought x-com 1853 would be a neat game.

 

[Fez]

Do you mean steampunk or realistic technology level for the era?

 

[crufty]

a little bit of both I guess, start western -> steam punk

sprinkle in the classic lovecraftian themes, artifacts from the past that couldn't exist (figurine found in coal that was just mined), lands of dreams, etc.

ok not 1853 so maybe 1890s ?