[spoon-discuss] Where do we go from here?

["Baron von Skippy" <bvs@xxxxxxxxxx>]

In the wake of the current batch of "kill it all and let Dave sort it out" mass-repealing proposals, what do we want to do with this game? Clearly, it does no good to haphazardly throw little ideas into a big pot and hope something that works comes out. I'd say Rule 301 is a pretty good example of such a strategy failing totally.

I've got a fairly rough idea for a direction to go in which is (I think) pretty revolutionary (read: It comes with a whole new slew of problems). I'd like to see things get a little more abstract and precedent-based in this game. This idea came to me back when we were talking about putting Aes Sedai into this game - instead of having set powers (Force Grip, Push, Pull, Catch, Kickthecrapoutof), everyone gets a certain number of mana points (or some like term) in each of the five variants of the True Source and whenever you want to use them, you tell the Minister of Aes Sedai what you're trying to do and they, DM-like, determine a) whether it works, b) what it costs, and c) what the effects are, and then records all of that information so that others can do the same later. In this way, we avoid having to propose every single thing and the rules get a little more flexible and the game gets more interesting to play.

So if we had a number of different Ministries that had that sort of mutability, and a central set of checks and balances (Dave can veto anything that's a Bad Thing (TM), for example), would that be good for people? I mean, this can be applied to a lot of things. I also had an idea featuring a huge list of simple materials which can be combined by players to make complex objects - for example, you could buy a lot of pipe, some sheet metal, parts of an engine, four wheels, and weld it all together into a car to cruise around the Grid on. If someone wanted to cause that car problems, say by throwing a Can of Whoopass at it, it would be up to the Minister to figure out the effects, as opposed to the thing simply vanishing (for example, a car might be smithereenized, but a tank might keep going, albeit with a brand new window on one size, and then you'd need to buy materials to fix it).

Anyway, I think I've more or less explained myself here. Understand that this is a rough idea without any existing examples to point to, so if you see a glaring problem, take a number, I'll be with you shortly...

[[BvS]]
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