Iron Tower Studio (The Age of The Decadence) is talking about their next game, a colony ship RPG

[apolloooo]

http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,7104.0.html

 

To promote design transparency and keep everyone amused for the next {insert a number you're comfortable with} years, we'll post monthly updates showing our design process from day one and how it evolves over time.
 

* * *

The Setting

Before we start looking at quests and characters, we have to define the setting, both the relevant past that defines the present and the present where the game takes place. Any Colony Ship setting starts with 3 key questions:

• Who launched the ship?
• What was the social system/order?
• What caused that system’s collapse?

Answer these questions and you’ll have a detailed and logical setting. Here’s our take on it:

The Founding Fathers:

Who’d launch and most importantly pay for an undertaking that costs so much yet delivers so little? Even if Earth were overpopulated, launching a ship to Alpha Centauri – a flight that would take hundreds of years if you’re lucky enough to have mystical elven Engines of Speed X10 (thousands of years if you don’t) – solves zero problems and thus gets zero cash.

Thus, it would have to be a private enterprise with a pinch of religious zealotry. Would a neo-Christian American foundation pay to establish a 100% Christian God-fearing colony on Alpha Centauri in the distant future? They conquered the New World once and by God’s grace they can do it again - even if it takes a thousand years to get there! Yee-Haw, gentlemen!

The First Generation:

The first generations are zealots who believe in the Mission. No sacrifice is too great, no suffering is too unbearable. They will never see Earth again; they will never see Alpha Centauri either. Their children, grandchildren, and so on are doomed to live and die on the ship in the name of the Mission. They will never see the sunlight, never swim in a sea, never sit under a tree, all because they had the misfortune of being born on the ship, chained to a fate they didn’t choose or want.

The Social Order:

Clearly, a flight that lasts hundreds of years must be carefully managed. Strict order would have to be maintained at all costs. Individual rights and freedoms would have to be temporarily suspended, all in the name of the Mission.

So the first generations would be ready to sacrifice everything for the dream. Their zeal would cement the totalitarianism and the loss of freedom that comes with it. For the greater good!

The goal is to deliver ready to go colonists, skilled in the trades the future colony would require in nearly exact proportions: farmers, metalworkers, chemists, doctors, administrators, armed forces to protect the colonists against all dangers undoubtedly lurking everywhere, etc.

So you can't just leave it to chance and hope for the best. You have to keep and maintain the knowledge within a certain group. You have to restrict freedom of choice for the greater good of the colony. This faith will weaken with every generation, but the change won't be as noticeable until you reach the boiling point where suddenly, seemingly out of the blue, everyone is unhappy.

Population would have to be controlled as well, so a two-child policy would be established. A child born into a “farmer” family would be taught the farming trade (aeroponics and simulations), forced to start a family of his/her own, get the mandatory two children, shove the much hated and useless knowledge of farming down their throats. Rinse and repeat for hundreds of years.

The second generation would still be under their parents’ spell, but the fourth or fifth generation wouldn’t give much of a **** about the Mission or Christ the Savior, which brings us to the second act: the mutiny.

The Inevitable Mutiny leading to new societies emerging. In any collapse, there is a movement that wants to go back to the good ol' ways (the South shall rise again!), a radically different movement (freedom for everyone!), and a religious movement (what would Jesus do, hmm?):
 

• Totalitarian traditionalism - what was good for our fathers is good enough for us; we must maintain the Laws of the Ship. The traditionalists believe that the old laws were necessary and that they were the only way to keep chaos at bay. Open-minded people would recognize the wrongs but see them as necessary and lesser evil.
• **** totalitarianism, give power to the people, embrace democracy!
• Democracy? We are on the ship because White Christ wills it so we must accept it and honor He Who Was Reborn as we shall be reborn when the ship reaches the destination.
• Can't we all just be left the **** alone? Life's hard enough without your bull**** getting in the way. :deadwood:

So the idea is to explore how this giant ant-farm is affecting people, how societies and ideas governing them evolve over time (something we didn't do in AoD), etc.

We want each faction have a range of characters and beliefs, from extremism to liberalism, and I want the player to be able to push your faction toward a preferred end of the spectrum. Democracy, for example, can evolve either into a cheap popularity contest (Idiocracy) or earning the right to vote (Starship Troopers), all the way to ‘only the wise and infallible Senators can vote’.
 

* * *

The Overall Design

As mentioned previously, we want the CSG to feel and play differently from AoD. The core design (turn-based, choices & consequences, non-linear, text-heavy) would remain the same, of course.

So the new design elements are:

• Party-based. It’s a fundamental change that affects every design aspect, most notably content “gating”. If you have 3-4 party members, most likely you’ll have all skills covered.
• Feats. Feats require character levels (another departure from the AoD design) and will replace (and greatly expand) skills’ passive abilities. Our aim is to offer greater customization of your character’s abilities and builds’ support. So far we have the following categories: General (feats like True Grit or Critical Thinker), Specialist (Pistolero, Fast Draw, Paint It Red, etc), On Kill (Bloodlust, Second Wind), Target (anything related to the target: type, number, awareness, etc - Crowd Control, Duelist, Bounty Hunter, etc), Party-related (Warband, Magnificent Five), Combat (Adrenaline Rush, Headhunter), etc. No filler +1 to skill or +5 damage feats but meaningful feats that fit and strengthen your particular gameplay style.
• Focus on ranged combat. While melee builds will be viable, most enemies will use guns. We’ll discuss it in great details later.
• Focus on exploration rather than working your way up in a faction. While factions will get a lot of attention (see above) and play a large role, you won’t join a faction but will remain an outsider, free to work for and deal with all factions, which fits the setting better as these factions aren’t guilds but different hubs. However, many quests would have conflicting interests and reputation would play a stronger and more immediate role than it did in AoD, so you won’t be able to please everyone for long.
• Multiple-piece armor. AoD had a very basic “body armor + helmet” setup. With the CSG, we want to go a bit further: helmet, chest, right arm, left arm, legs. We’re thinking of cumulative DR against general attacks and individual piece’s DR against aimed attacks. We’ll test this system in the dungeon crawler to build up some experience in this area and see how it works.

* * *

The Character System

Expect the same 6 stats (Str, Dex, Con, Int, Per, Cha). So far the main changes are Cha determining the number and type of party members and Int determining the number of tagged skills (faster progression) instead of a SP bonus, which is a more elegant solution. A smarter person can excel at and master more skills than a person of average intelligence.

So far we're planning to go with 18 skills, grouped in sets of three:

Melee

• Fist
• Bladed
• Blunt

Firearms

• Pistol
• Shotgun
• SMG

Energy Weapons

• Pistol
• Rifle
• Cannon

Science

• Medical
• Mechanical
• Computer

Speech

• Persuasion
• Streetwise
• Trading

Stealth

• Lockpick
• Pickpocket
• Sneak

As mentioned earlier:

All firearms are ship-made; most are crude, angular weapons. It’s a 'rediscovered' tech (we all know what flintlock weapons are but we don’t make them, so if we have to start making them again, we’ll have to rediscover the tech we’re vaguely familiar with).

They have relatively low accuracy but most firearms tend to be multi-shot weapons (either more barrels or revolving cylinders or burst). They are made by various smiths for the militia and 'adventurers', so they vary in form and style.

- Pistols use powerful 0.45 ammo but most are single-shot guns. More advanced models add more barrels or revolving action.
- SMG use cheap 9mm and have burst mode.
- Shotguns use cartridges and have the widest spread.

We can consider ammo variations within each class but it’s not necessary as 3 different types are more than enough.

Energy weapons are Earth-made. Since they have no recoil, large stock isn’t necessary, so whereas the firearms and crude and angular, the energy weapons are elegant and curved (think flintlocks). They are single shot weapons that are extremely accurate but slow to fire. They use energy cells (one ammo type for all weapons) that are very rare. Some places sell re-charged cells but they are less effective.

- Pistols
- Rifles have the longest range and best accuracy; the sniper’s weapon
- Cannons (weapons that were mounted on mechs); consume an entire cell when fired.

[Nonek]

I have to admit that i'm intrigued by the proposed setting, though i'd like to see what repair and salvage techniques are used (perhaps an entire industry based around asteroid mining or some such,) because obviously repair will be an ongoing and perhaps almost holy thing. Perhaps a faction dedicated to repair a la the Adeptus Mechanicus?

 

Intriguing to be sure.

[Keyrock]

I look forward to playing this in 2027.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

By the time this is released colony ships will have already been sent out.

[HawkSoft]

Sounds interesting, as does Age of Decadence, but unless it runs on Mac I won't be playing it

 

Some book references, have you read?

• Serpents Reach by CJ Cherryh, how an isolated human society loses much of its humanity
• A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge, considers how a sub-light trading empire might work (or not…)

I am concerned that you already have a detailed arms catalogue but your background does not seem to have considered what the attitudes of 4th generation spacers might be to the widespread use of weapons that could cause catastrophic equipment damage and/or decompression.

Current day sky marshals use weapons designed not to cause decompression in a thin skinned airliner, I would expect born and bred spacers to have similar concerns. Yes, you could say the ship is built into an asteroid and hand wave the problem away but I think you could make the setting more unique by considering this issue.

 

Characters should also have a good dose of *settler skills* EG farming which might diverge from their practical templates to become pseudo religions in the absence of any practical application, EG the Three Fielders versus the Enclosers (these are from UK history). This could be a source of *matrix tribalism* among the crew and allow for multi-dimensional reputations.

[HawkSoft]

Some more thoughts.

 

On a spaceship the key materials to make gunpowder, sulphur and saltpetre are likely to be hard to get hold of whilst electrical power will be plentiful, even if small, high power batteries are not.

 

High precision machining facilities would be a *must have* on any generational ship so making a weapon, given a suitable design and materials should be straightforward. Chemical processing would be more problematic as many techniques rely on gravity and most are potentially very dangerous.

 

Some ship made weapon options:

• ​Non-military (EDIT: electrical) lasers, these might force people to wear protective eye shields,
• EDIT: Chemical lasers, powerful but consume lots of unpleasant chemicals (best used outside)
• Tasers,
• Air guns: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girandoni_air_rifle,
• Microwave *burners*, basically the guts of an *overclocked* microwave oven with a more directional emitter.
• Various forms of baton round: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baton_round

There would probably be very strong taboos about polluting the air or damaging the (biological) waste recycling system.

Edited February 2, 2016 by HawkSoft

[rjshae]

Some book references, have you read?

• Serpents Reach by CJ Cherryh, how an isolated human society loses much of its humanity
• A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge, considers how a sub-light trading empire might work (or not…)

 

There's been a metric ton of sci-fi books published about generation ships, making for plenty of source material. It's even a TV trope. What I haven't seen explored much is the concept of a small fleet of generation ships, all traveling to the same destination; the goal being to not put all your eggs in one basket. That would allow more political variation, as well as a need to travel outside the ship (if only to exchange genetic material by trading mates).

[HawkSoft]

@rjshae, neither of my book suggestions are about generation ships but about what happens to societies isolated in space.

 

In Serpents Reach you have a relatively small *alpha* human population that has been quarantined by the rest of humanity in a sector containing the first intelligent aliens. The book examines how a small society, exposed to alien behavioural norms might drift away from what we consider normal…

 

A Deepness in the Sky is set in a universe with a (almost) galaxy spanning trading civilisation where individual deals might take decades or longer to come to fruition. The book itself is about a clash between this mature trading civilisation that exists as a diaspora of generation ships, a regional planet-based *barbarian* power and a newly discovered alien species. There's quite a lot of politics both within and between the 3 civilisations.

[aluminiumtrioxid]

I do wonder, will the gratingly pointless cynicism of AoD return, or can we expect a tonal shift?

[HoonDing]

Totalitarian traditionalism - what was good for our fathers is good enough for us; we must maintain the Laws of the Ship. The traditionalists believe that the old laws were necessary and that they were the only way to keep chaos at bay. Open-minded people would recognize the wrongs but see them as necessary and lesser evil.

**** totalitarianism, give power to the people, embrace democracy!

Democracy? We are on the ship because White Christ wills it so we must accept it and honor He Who Was Reborn as we shall be reborn when the ship reaches the destination.

Can't we all just be left the **** alone? Life's hard enough without your bull**** getting in the way. :deadwood:

lol

[Hurlshort]

I do wonder, will the gratingly pointless cynicism of AoD return, or can we expect a tonal shift?

 

I'm hoping for more of a Dead State feel than AoD.  

[Tigranes]

I liked the widespread cynicism. Of course, everybody was cynical and ruthless in AOD because that's the kind of dog eat dog world it was, where it makes no sense to adhere to 21st century politeness. I'd expect the tone to be different come this new setting.

[aluminiumtrioxid]

I liked the widespread cynicism. Of course, everybody was cynical and ruthless in AOD because that's the kind of dog eat dog world it was, where it makes no sense to adhere to 21st century politeness.

 

I'd argue the game itself was cynical, not the characters in it.

 

I mean, literally every NPC I've met was a sociopath with no impulse control and a complete lack of long-term thinking. Compare and contrast with the Witcher series, which incidentally also depicts a crapsack world, but people seem to actually have motivations beyond "acquire more personal power".

[apolloooo]

 

I liked the widespread cynicism. Of course, everybody was cynical and ruthless in AOD because that's the kind of dog eat dog world it was, where it makes no sense to adhere to 21st century politeness.

 

I'd argue the game itself was cynical, not the characters in it.

 

I mean, literally every NPC I've met was a sociopath with no impulse control and a complete lack of long-term thinking. Compare and contrast with the Witcher series, which incidentally also depicts a crapsack world, but people seem to actually have motivations beyond "acquire more personal power".

 

maybe because you mostly deal with powerful people who want bigger piece of cake here. if you see regular NPCs like aemolas, even the soldier turned mercenary, feng, crassius, the people in in small villages/etc, they just want to live, hard as it is.

 

also they come from an empire that technology is beyond comprehension, there is always desire to "restore" the old world. n witcher 3 we deal more with commoners and even peasant. that power hungry sociopath is represented by radovid, ehmyr, and other rulers. although AoD has bigger numbers of them.

 

witcher 3's world also isn't as crapsack as AoD. in witcher 3, people are suffering because of the sudden war, but before that, most people live a normal life, maybe poor, but a group of armed group burning your village is a rare occurence, while in AoD that happen on weekly basis maybe. in AoD it's a literal wasteland, outside some oasis and area, ground are toxic and impossible to grow anything, water is non existant, etc. in witcher, outside velen maybe, the land is still lush, clear water flowing, living condition isn't that hard. find a good spot, you could build a settlement. thus reducing the need of stealing/raiding for other people.

Edited February 3, 2016 by apolloooo

[aluminiumtrioxid]

regular NPCs like (...) feng

 

 

Oh yes, the completely regular everyman who's implied to have acquired his current position by poisoning, whose first quest is tasking you to murder his rival in cold blood, and whose reward to you is a worthless bauble that provides you with an avenue to con the most powerful man in the city.

 

Now, the funny thing is, in the AoDverse, this is the completely regular everyman. Has no apparent goals beyond retaining his current position, believes in nothing besides looking out for number one, goes for the most amoral and - more importantly - inelegant solution possible to resolve his problems*, and lacks any ability for long-term thinking (has it not occurred to him that conning the city governor may not be a very good idea, because a/ it threatens with consequences he's unprepared to deal with - at minimum, losing his livelihood, b/ having spent a considerable portion of his life on the political battlefield, said governor is pretty likely to have a decent bull**** detector, c/ apparently wandering loremasters are common enough that two of them showed up in close vicinity to the town just in the last month [not to mention the countless number of resident alchemists, which given that calling his bluff requires something like Alchemy 2 or 3 doesn't make me confident about the prospect of it holding up for very long], and d/ anybody who can correctly identify the item as a worthless bauble has no reason not to tell the governor?).

 

*For ****'s sake, the guy has been established as a master alchemist and poisoner extraordinaire, yet instead of trying to at least maintain some semblance of plausible deniability, for example by employing the very same poison he's famous for, he asks some guy who just waded in to his house to slit his rival's throat and try to stuff the corpse somewhere it won't be found for at least a week?

 

 

 

witcher 3's world also isn't as crapsack as AoD. in witcher 3, people are suffering because of the sudden war, but before that, most people live a normal life, maybe poor, but a group of armed group burning your village is a rare occurence, while in AoD that happen on weekly basis maybe. in AoD it's a literal wasteland, outside some oasis and area, ground are toxic and impossible to grow anything, water is non existant, etc. 

 

 

 

...And all of  the problems I detailed wouldn't be quite so infuriating if they weren't done under the guise of "realism". If "groups of armed groups" (sic) were indeed burning down villages (just established as super-rare sources of vital sustenance due to the scarcity of water and most of the ground being toxic) on a weekly basis, they'd soon starve to death due to just having burned down the only place in miles where they could get food from. Which, granted, neatly solves the whole "armed sociopaths wreaking havoc everywhere" problem, but isn't quite compatible with the world's current state as presented (namely, armed sociopaths being eminently alive and thriving).

 

The "everyone is a murderous idiot with no impulse control or long-term thinking" approach simply isn't realistic, at which point we must arrive on the conclusion that it's not an attempt at simulation, but an artistic statement. Thing is, I'm not sure "people are ****" is a very insightful or inherently valuable artistic statement to make.

[Orogun01]

My main question is; are they gonna fix their god damn awful combat?

[apolloooo]

combat is fine :s

[Nonek]

I quite liked the cynicism and drastic ruthlessness that was usually counter productive in AoD, makes a nice change from the RPGs which are presented where peasants frolic happily, there are no social problems and the world is basically just a modern day wimulation with a thin patina of renaissance fayre style. Also the counter productive ruthlessness was almost a hallmark of Rome, for instance the Siege of Syracuse which was so poorly handled, various revolts springing up from epic mishandling of the populaces, and the very nature of the politics, makes one wonder whether the lead in the water theory holds some weight and the patrician class were all half mad.

[aluminiumtrioxid]

the very nature of the politics, makes one wonder whether the lead in the water theory holds some weight and the patrician class were all half mad.

 

Funny you say that, since lead acetate was a component of a certain artificial sweetener used by ancient Romans.

Edited February 4, 2016 by aluminiumtrioxid

[Wrath of Dagon]

Sounds interesting, as does Age of Decadence, but unless it runs on Mac I won't be playing it

 

Some book references, have you read?

• Serpents Reach by CJ Cherryh, how an isolated human society loses much of its humanity
• A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge, considers how a sub-light trading empire might work (or not…)

I am concerned that you already have a detailed arms catalogue but your background does not seem to have considered what the attitudes of 4th generation spacers might be to the widespread use of weapons that could cause catastrophic equipment damage and/or decompression.

Current day sky marshals use weapons designed not to cause decompression in a thin skinned airliner, I would expect born and bred spacers to have similar concerns. Yes, you could say the ship is built into an asteroid and hand wave the problem away but I think you could make the setting more unique by considering this issue.

 

Characters should also have a good dose of *settler skills* EG farming which might diverge from their practical templates to become pseudo religions in the absence of any practical application, EG the Three Fielders versus the Enclosers (these are from UK history). This could be a source of *matrix tribalism* among the crew and allow for multi-dimensional reputations.

 

If you want them to consider your suggestions, I suggest you post on their forum at the link in the OP. The game is inspired by Heinlein's "Orphans of the Sky" generation ship novel. Edited February 4, 2016 by Wrath of Dagon

[Gromnir]

I do wonder, will the cartoonishly pointless cynicism of AoD return, or can we expect a tonal shift?

-- apologetically altered to match Gromnir's pov.

 

 

am suspecting that aod were actual written by the south park goth kids.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[apolloooo]

late but update no.2 us up http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,7120.0.html

 

Since the Colony Ship RPG will be a party-based game, let's talk about our party system.

Design Goals

Typically, RPG party members serve a purely tactical role, giving your more bodies to control in combat and access to different combat abilities. In a sense, you’re role-playing an entire squad as outside of combat there is very little (if any) difference between the character you created and the characters you’ve recruited or created next.

It works great in RPGs that are mostly about combat, but calls for a different approach when it comes to non-combat gameplay. The main problem is that party members offer nothing but combat benefits (occasionally, freaky sex to relieve combat stress and party banter), giving you very few reasons to treat party members any differently than the main character.

In short, the problem is that in most RPGs party members are mindless zombies lacking any free will, agenda, goals, etc – the very qualities that separate an actual “character” from a zombie. Thus, our main design goal is to create proper characters that have a will of their own, as well as agendas, beliefs, goals, and other infuriating qualities.

 

No, it doesn’t mean the “gotcha!” design. It means that if you want to play a character that does things a certain way, you either run with a posse that has a very similar outlook on life (which doesn't always guarantee smooth sailing) or do your best to avoid pissing them off. Needless to say, if you’re a treacherous scum, don’t be surprised if your men take the lessons you teach them to heart. In other words, all unpleasantries caused by your party members should be the direct result of your own actions, aka dynamic reaction based on your choices in quests, conversations, reputation, and such.

To give you a very simple example, if you decide to double-cross a religious faction, don’t be surprised if a religious party member won’t stand for it. He might leave you, he might turn on you, he might join your enemies in a fight, etc. His exact decision won’t be random but will depend on a number of different factors.

Furthermore, don’t expect the party members to follow you anywhere for free, which might create tensions and personal dilemmas

 

Last but not the least, party members aren’t immortal heroes. It will be possible and even easy to lose them if you insist on getting into every fight (think of saving Vardanis in AoD). You should even be able to lose an entire crew and come back alone, Flint-style, with all the proper consequences (fewer people would want to follow a suicidal maniac). Much like in AoD, not every fight will be winnable by ANY party at ANY point.

Mechanics
 

• Your Charisma determines how many people can follow you.  So far the formula is: 1 follower at CHA4, 2 at 5, 3 at 7, 4 at 9.
• XP will be divided by the number of people in the party, so a smaller party will level up faster.
• Large pool of potential recruits, including mutants and a droid. The droid won’t require XP (more for you) and will be upgraded rather than leveled up (think Lore/Crafting plus parts you’ll need to scavenge).
• All party members will have unique feats the PC won’t have access to. They will have good stats and skills and will be created with the same love and affection you create your own character.
• In AoD the content was determined by your stats, questlines, and skills. In CSG party members will often have valuable in-game knowledge that would unlock certain places and extra quest solutions. Basically, 50% of gating will be outsourced to the party members.
• Your party members will be able to participate in conversations but you won’t control their lines. Think of letting Virgil to handle the conversation with the assassin near the crash site in Arcanum. Basically, you select a line for your PC to say or “let party member X handle it for you” (and hope for the best).
• You won’t be able to take equipped items from the party members, but you’ll be able to offer them proper replacements (i.e. no ‘disarm and dump’). Other than that you’ll have full control of party members in combat (if they object to your leadership, they will do it before combat starts) and when leveling up.
• Unlike the player’s character, the party members will have a complex personality & beliefs system that would determine their reaction. Most likely these stats will remain hidden from the player and you’d have to figure out what you’re dealing with by talking to them and observing how they act/react.
• Instead of going for AWSUM!!! characters with troubled past, we're going for a low-key gang of colorful characters.

[ShadySands]

Looking forward to this