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A Memory Called Empire Q8: Gaming
There are many things that could be taken from this book, into a game. There's The City itself, and the imperial court within it, and the protestors looking to overthrow or reform the system. There's scope for mil-sf with the various wars of pacification and annexation. There could be stories on Lsel, whether internal politics or dealing with the aliens.
There are also wider ideas. Does this book help you with games of high politics, or clashes of cultures, or portraying different societies generally? Does it help you bring art and culture into your games? Should you have more food and cooking?
Comments
Commenting so as to see what others write
As a writer, I often get feedback that food plays too much of a role in my books. I also include music in various forms, but not art or sculpture as I now next to nothing about that and don't feel I cold write convincingly on them. Broadly (both as writer and reader) I prefer books which show something of the cultural clash by means of representative individual interactions, rather than the staying at the high broad-brush level.
I am a game designer of games no one but myself plays. They tend to be built around the interplay of different cultures, so this sort of thing is already important. I tend to think of roleplaying games as being built and adjudicated on three different levels. Designer level, Group level, and Individual level. As a GM, I have a preference for games which leave more at the Group level than the Designer level, and also enjoy a strong Individual level. Details tend to be increasingly moved from Designer to Group and Group to Individual levels as their level of scale decreases. As a GM, there are tons of great ideas I can nab here for individual instantiations of games, but as a designer, not so much.
@clash_bowley , can you give some examples of what would go into a game?
And I'm interested in what would make a good idea for something at the "Designer" level. What sort of things would inform your design decisions? Is there something about multiple meanings in messages, and how that could inform what characters do?
For example, I like the idea of a native assisting an Ambassador at the highest level, Two Seagrass' position, ensuring they get access to what they need. The Ambassador most probably doesn't know how to game the local system, especially early on. I may work this into my current game, which is working at a diplomatic level.
I also love the idea of ad hoc poetry slams. Like a game of HORSE with words! And the the rules changing as the game evolves. That could be very cool with the right players!
What the characters actually do is for me a 'Group' level decision. As a designer I give the group - which means either the GM or GM with players, as the group prefers - tools to build an association appropriate to the game they want to play. They get capital, and use it to purchase assets that allow them to do what the would like to do. My settings are typically drawn at a very high level, with details defined at the group or even individual level.
That is typical for my Designer level stuff - tools to facilitate the kind of play the group wants to pursue. Tools to specify the setting, tools to create characters, tools to define the way you play. Other designers have different ideas.
I think that's something we don't have enough of in games. Mahit had Three Seagrass. Phileas Fogg had Passepartout, D'Argtanan, Athos, Porthos and Aramis had Planchet, Grimaud, Mousqueton, and Bazin. Knights in armour had squires.
It's a dynamic that's missing from many games. In this book, Three Seagrass was a sufficiently interesting character to be her own person and would make a good PC.
In games where servants would be usual, I sometimes have each PC play both their main character an another PC's servant. With some groups this works a treat, but some players do not like playing more than one character.