Post by Ogden Thorsap on Oct 16, 2003 12:01:00 GMT -5
i just read the series of unfortunate events in the last few months and last night was kept up by my thoughts of developing an rpg based on the books. looking through this section of the site, it seems that, with the intricacy of the story world, that players could easily create characters not mentioned in the books while still keeping what makes the series so great. coming from a long 'nerding' history encompassing dungeons and dragons, champions, teenage mutant ninja turtles, and more, it would be cool to create a good table top rpg that would be (almost) completely combat free. i'm still working out the basics, but this is what i have so far...
players would take the part of a (recently categorized) orphan ranging in age from 1 to 16ish. groups of players would be siblings pursued by various fiendish devils from home to home, place to place. some settings would include 'the regretable ranch', 'the odious opera', 'the fateful ferry', or anywhere else the game master might imagine for his particular group of orphans. the system would require puzzle solving skills on the part of the players in order to reveal the villians, rescue the victimized, and generally save the minute (a full day of salvation in this world seems too much of a blessing)...
not having any real combat, the players would buy 'skills', purchased in (perhaps) the following way. a player would get a number of points to spend on skills equal to (2 x their age) + d6 (a roll of a normal die). 'skills' could include those already seen in the snicket books (invention, research, cooking, poetry, journalism/observation, cartography, acting) and add some others (architecture, chemistry, archaeology, music, and so on). the ability to solve puzzles would be determined by the player's own knowledge and experience (that's revolutionary in too many rpgs), but also by (somehow) using the skills and dice to compare against a 'difficulty level' assigned to a task. for example, if a puzzle required knowledge of astronomy that the player didn't actually have, the player would be able to use the 'astronomy skill' to make up for their lack of knowledge. the children heroes of the stories are all very well read, and another skill i thought of (based on klaus's bookwormishness) was 'reading' which would (somehow) allow a player to have a random chance to have read up on a needed subject...
my little boy just woke up, so i'll ask anyone with ideas to leave them for me and i'll return later to continue. thanks...
G
players would take the part of a (recently categorized) orphan ranging in age from 1 to 16ish. groups of players would be siblings pursued by various fiendish devils from home to home, place to place. some settings would include 'the regretable ranch', 'the odious opera', 'the fateful ferry', or anywhere else the game master might imagine for his particular group of orphans. the system would require puzzle solving skills on the part of the players in order to reveal the villians, rescue the victimized, and generally save the minute (a full day of salvation in this world seems too much of a blessing)...
not having any real combat, the players would buy 'skills', purchased in (perhaps) the following way. a player would get a number of points to spend on skills equal to (2 x their age) + d6 (a roll of a normal die). 'skills' could include those already seen in the snicket books (invention, research, cooking, poetry, journalism/observation, cartography, acting) and add some others (architecture, chemistry, archaeology, music, and so on). the ability to solve puzzles would be determined by the player's own knowledge and experience (that's revolutionary in too many rpgs), but also by (somehow) using the skills and dice to compare against a 'difficulty level' assigned to a task. for example, if a puzzle required knowledge of astronomy that the player didn't actually have, the player would be able to use the 'astronomy skill' to make up for their lack of knowledge. the children heroes of the stories are all very well read, and another skill i thought of (based on klaus's bookwormishness) was 'reading' which would (somehow) allow a player to have a random chance to have read up on a needed subject...
my little boy just woke up, so i'll ask anyone with ideas to leave them for me and i'll return later to continue. thanks...
G