I mentioned in my previous post about creativity during quarantine that I was working on writing a new game. I’ve been interested in trying to write something that moved away from text adventures and went into open-world RPGs. I’ve been inspired both by the Republic Commandos game run by Mikhail on an episode of OHAC (and in-person during college), as well as the Campaign Podcast he recently got me into.
So over a weekend I decided to take advantage of the InDesgin license I have through work, and get to business making a little game. I wanted to use a simpler game system, and I discovered the Simple World system. This is a small document that takes the basics of the Powered by the Apocalypse system and all of its variants. There are so many games that use the Apocalypse system, each with its own set of rules, characteristics, player types, and all the other details out there. But they all have a basic system beneath that, and Simple World helped me make my own game.
I’ve called my game The Last Question, inspired by the Isaac Asimov Story (PDF) discussing the future of humanity, the nature of computers, and even more beyond that. However, I’m not taking much from the actual story. I used it as a jumping-off point to create my own future of the universe, with my own set of terms and player types.
It was really fun playing this with my friends a couple weeks ago. I’ve never GMed something like this; being a parser is much easier than being a GM. It’s exciting to build characters, build a small world, and to react much more naturally within the provided context to what is happening. I learned a lot just by playing once: Be more flexible, understand the characters better, and focus on creating situations that players need and want to respond to in some way.
I find collaborative storytelling incredibly engaging. It’s an enjoyable process that lets me enjoy all of my interests together. I take bits and pieces of what I love and hide them in a game, while also building in situations that the players will enjoy too. While I still want to write more text adventures because they are a hoot, and I’ve learned a lot about those as well, this open-ended style is great as well.
Here are the character sheet and character type documents I’ve made for this game. Basically all the mechanics are described on the character sheet, which is why I love the Apocalypse system: you can get up and running rather quickly.