Okay, Dream Park from scratch. Help please (longish)

[Silversmith]

I have this idea about doing a campaign set in Larry Niven's Dream Park. I will apparently have to pretty much do the writeups myself. Let me share my thoughts on Dream Park and ask for help.

Dream Park is situated about 50 - 75 years in the future. It is primarily an amusement park. Kind of like Disney World. Rides, shows, special effects. Especially special effects; as if Disney and Industrial Light and Magic, and anyone else involved in visual, audio, psychological special fx went in together to make a theme park. What is different about Dream Park is the gaming areas. 2 very large gaming areas (measured in hundreds of acres) dominate the space of Dream Park. These areas are used for Live Action Role Playing games. People of varying gaming experience come into the park and play a role playing game thought up by a Game Master. They play the roles of characters generated according to a prescribed method (here we'll use the hero method). The GM pays for the use of a gaming area in Dream Park and gets royalties on any use of his game after the original run. In each game there is a person of vast gaming experience whose job it is to lead the players through the game keeping as many as possible alive until the end. (The GM sort of tries to kill off characters.) All the people stay in character for 12 hours a day and interact with environment, people, and creatures in the GM's world. Some are actors some are holograms. After the 12 hour window the game shuts down for the night. A character can only be killed out during the hours a game is on. And nothing they do during the hours off can affect the game. People are awarded experience points based on treasure finds, battles won, puzzle solving, and role playing during the game. The points transfer to the character after the game. Big games take 3-4 days and Dream Park makes movies of them and writes books about them and sells these. They also allow others to play the game once it has been completed.

Hero system write-ups:
I need to know what you guys think is the best way to simulate the Dream Park atmosphere. Should all players submit a character sheet of the person who is the gamer then a character sheet of that person's character? I was thinking about awarding a few bonus points for characters who buy the perk "gaming experience". They could only use those points on the character they play in the game not the gamer. (Could get a little frustrating.) I was also trying to decide whether or not to have people be able to play Dream Park employees who make the games happen. The idea would (I think by necessity) be a multi-GM concept. I would handle the running of the park and allow the GM who is running the game to interact with the staff and equipment of the park. They in turn would handle the running of the games within the park. The reason I want to do this is because in the "Dream Park" series, the staff of the park has something going on all the time. In the first novel there is a murder of a security guard and a theft of some experimental chemical. The Park people had to take care of that and it ends up affecting the game going on in the Gaming Area.

The gamers would be competent normals with backgrounds etc. They would be able to build a heroic character and submit that character to the GM. If they bought the perk "gaming experience" it could give their character 10-20 more points based on the level bought. Any challenges faced by the characters would have to be bumped up according to the experience level of the characters. Most of the time (except when the real world breaks in :eg: ) no harm will befall the gamers, only the characters. Death brings a point penalty but there is usually a way to recover some of those points. Genre of the Games would vary from fantasy to Sci-Fi depending on the individual GM's ideas for campaign. I think a character from a fantasy realm could go into the sci-fi or modern world for the game's purpose quite easily. He just needs to be careful where he points that fireball when on a space station.

This, again is a VERY rough concept at this point and I know that it looks a little unwieldy. I think the only way this could play is on Hero Central or some other play by post site. I am hoping for some pointers to help me make something worth playing.

The reason it is on the Star Hero board is that I am basing it in the future and it will be hi-tech in the extreme.

[Savinien]

The Great Unknown ran a game on Hero Central based on this concept. I'm not sure if the campaign made The Great Migration, or not, but you could post this question there. He might see it and help you out.

Do you plan on the players ever playing their 'real' character?

[Silversmith]

Do you plan on the players ever playing their 'real' character?

Yes. Sometimes they will have to play the "real" character. I'm calling that character the gamer. Even the GM's should have character sheets for their "real" people. Things happening in the real world during the game will affect the game sometimes. Also there is a 12 hour downtime per day. Not sure exactly how to play this though. Thanks for the help, Savinien. I was counting on your input.

[Savinien]

I think it would be okay for each player to have their 'gamer' sheet and then a new sheet for whatever game they happen to be involved in at the time. I think the GM of the DreamPark game would allow or disallow whatever characters happen in his game.

It could be interesting but what a tangled skein! For the purposes of your campaign, I'd think you'd want the gamers to all be Dreampark crew. On the other hand, if they weren't all crew, you could detail some of the world outside the Dreampark, or affect a story arc that deals with a 'gamer' at Dreampark which somehow stumbles into a Dreampark game, too.

I'd try it. It gives the opportunity for a lot of cross-genre.

[Lethosos]

Hrmm... having read and enjoyed both books Dream Park and The Barsoom Project... I would say concentrate on one or the other. This will get rather messy in a hurry, if you did both.

For Gamers, a couple of things... Since what they get are actually Equipment/Skills, and often "pigeonhole" themselves to a specific role (created by an independent Gaming association,) this actually helps the GM an enormous deal by defining beforehand what the roles are and can distribute them to the players accordingly. This just leaves the Gamer himself, which is merely one person. So if you're being inordiantly nit-picky, just seperate the Game Skills from the Normal Skills. Everything else for the Gamer persona is given to you in the course of the Game.

Oh, and it's rather pricy to enter/stay at Dream Park, so some Wealth perk is mandatory. How are they gonna gain access to the home 3D units to train their Game Skills in the first place? :D

[Silversmith]

Hrmm... having read and enjoyed both books Dream Park and The Barsoom Project... I would say concentrate on one or the other. This will get rather messy in a hurry, if you did both.

I recommend California Voodoo Game as the last in the series. I really don't remember that much about it but it is the only one where the game takes place outside of Dream Park. It's in an abandoned Arcology damaged in an earthquake in California.


This just leaves the Gamer himself, which is merely one person. So if you're being inordiantly nit-picky, just seperate the Game Skills from the Normal Skills. Everything else for the Gamer persona is given to you in the course of the Game.

I understand what you are saying. More character sheets for each participant could get rather messy. And keeping track of in-game and out-of-game could get rather ugly, too. The only thing is I want to be able to set it apart from other games. This would be a game about gamers to an extent. The playing of the game would be a part of the whole and the experience the character receives would not be transferrable to the gamer. The game is but a part of what gives the gamer experience points. I was also thinking about having another GM to play the GM character in the Dream Park setting. He or she would run the game while role playing their GM character. The RP demands on the other GM would not be much since in the Dream Park novels they are locked up in the control room through most of the games anyway. Only "real world" happenings would trouble them. Also having both character sheets would allow gamers to play in different games with different characters at different times. I can actually see (if there were enough interest) running games in both gaming areas at once and having some external (non game) circumstance cross from one game to another.


Oh, and it's rather pricy to enter/stay at Dream Park, so some Wealth perk is mandatory. How are they gonna gain access to the home 3D units to train their Game Skills in the first place? :D

I can see wealth as helping but in the early 1980's if you had been able to show someone an Xbox what would they think about the cost? Or even a newer home computer. They would never believe that a private individual of moderate means could afford any of those things. So I see what you mean but I think the growth of the economy and the lowering in price of computer hardware will make the equipment possible. And going to Disney is expensive now. How many people go anyway?

Thanks for the input.

[Silversmith]

I think it would be okay for each player to have their 'gamer' sheet and then a new sheet for whatever game they happen to be involved in at the time. I think the GM of the DreamPark game would allow or disallow whatever characters happen in his game.

It could be interesting but what a tangled skein! For the purposes of your campaign, I'd think you'd want the gamers to all be Dreampark crew. On the other hand, if they weren't all crew, you could detail some of the world outside the Dreampark, or affect a story arc that deals with a 'gamer' at Dreampark which somehow stumbles into a Dreampark game, too.

I'd try it. It gives the opportunity for a lot of cross-genre.

This was my thought as well. I would almost HAVE to have a GM for a game within Dream Park's gaming areas but I thought that "real" world cicumstances (theft, relationships, sabotage, rivalries, etc.) could cross into the games and affect gamers themselves not just the characters they are playing.

The cross-genre part is also interesting to me. How would a barbarian prince react in a modern pulp action game? The backgrounds of the characters would have to change for each game but the characteristics (skills, perks, disads, etc.) would be locked in place. They would just be altered to fit the time period if necessary. He could carry the huge sword or cast the spell. The hunted may just be local police or space troopers instead of evil druids.

[Savinien]

By forcing attributes to stay in place, you're limiting the possible genres for 'games' within Dreampark. As far as I can tell, within the 'game', everything is virtual. Therefore, forcing particular attributes seems cludgy.

I would make the GMs create the characters and have 'gamers' pick through RP, or something. When they log-in to the 'game', there are a series of choices. It seems genre to me...

YMMV

[Ranxerox]

The other choice would be to make all the ingame abilities into a VPP.

As a house rule for this one game, both he base and the control cost of the VPP could have the limitation "Only in DreamPark, Only During the Game, Only to Effect Items and People/Creatures of the Game" (-4).

This would bring down the VPP cost to the point where competent normals could afford a good size pool and let their "RL" stats carry into the game - i.e. a triathlete can go on longer without being winded than a couch potato regardless of what the holograms say.

YMMV

[Silversmith]

a triathlete can go on longer without being winded than a couch potato regardless of what the holograms say.

True and this might be a good way to get that across in game. However I am thinking about the ability of people to change characters between games. The character needs to be separate from the gamer, I think. But I think I may limit the character's basic stats to be the same as the gamer except for rolls when trying something in-game. Like a STR roll to move a rock or hit someone or a dex roll to be able to walk a tightrope or something.