So I finally got around to reading You Must Build in Blue a while back, and I was struck with the inspiration to create a DnD-esque game based on it to play with my friends. I showed them the quest and tinkered with ideas for a while, and what I eventually settled on was:

Spoiler

• GM designs and populates the world. They can have no other civs or hundreds of other civs, fantastical creatures or only humans, ancient or futuristic settings, etc, but the general rule is that the players are dropped into it with no clue of what their surroundings hold, and they must explore to find out.
  
• The players each take control of a single member of a new civilization, with new members and absent players (if they miss a session) being controlled by the GM. In the event of death, the player has the choice to either bow out of the game or adopt control of one of the (suckier) NPCs. Should all members of the civilization die, the game ends with the players' defeat. Conversely, however, only one person needs to stay alive for settlers to show up and repopulate the entire civ.
  
• A very small amount of starting resources are provided, and the rest must be harvested from the surroundings. Items and buildings may only be made up to the existing tech base of the world; otherwise, the player must come up with the schematics themselves and explain in detail the process of constructing the item. There is a high chance of failure with this option, and they must first invent all the necessary processes and tools.
  
• Actions ranging from fighting to communication to exploring may be taken at any time, but will take certain amounts of time, measured in roughly half-hour increments. The game progresses considerably slower than YMBIB for this reason, because every action of the day must be paid attention to for the first part of the game, when resources are scarce and death is imminent.
  
• Fighting is very simple. Nothing like armor class or hit points. A plan is suggested by the combatants, and the GM rates it based on its difficulty from 2 through 12 (7 is 50/50, 2 is 100%, 12 is 0%). They then roll two dice, and the difference between the roll and the rating is the outcome: 10 = critical success, -10 = critical failure, 0 = barely works. The rest is all qualitative.
  
• Building, on the other hand, is much more complicated. An item may only be built if the available materials and tools are available, and will take different amounts of time depending on how good these are. Skill at the type of building is also taken into account, and the quality of the product is also highly variable, and depends on all of the above.
  
• There is no set goal to the game. Most players wish to simply survive, and a basic set of sub-goals can be derived from that - for example, find fresh water, get a source of food, keep the Red Roofs from massacring you - but you can also have the goal to defect to the other civ, or to escape the continent, or to destroy the rest of humanity. It's up to the character you design.

And I relatively recently got to play a trial run of this with my friends for the first time! Since it was a trial, I made the world pretty close to the inspiration, with the players waking up in a blue-roofed cabin and seeing across the frozen river a few red-roofed houses. The tech base was somewhat anachronistic, but overall probably late medieval. I had them wake up recently after a snowstorm, so that they couldn't see their surroundings well, and could only take short actions outside lest they risk hypothermia. Things which happened:

Spoiler

• Rather cleverly, they start by giving all their outer garments all to 1-2 people, lengthening the amount of time they can spend outside to ~2-3 continuous hours (depending on time of day).
  
• One player burns a cross into a curtain and wears it as a robe. He also carves some gathered wood into stakes. Later, after the group has gathered two buckets of drinkable water by melting the snow from outside, he blesses one of them.
  
• The same player goes "stargazing" during the first night and, as a secret action, writes "NOT ALONE" in the snow behind the cabin, before heading back inside. There are no set goals for the players, and insanity is acceptable as a character trait, so I tentatively allow this.
  
• By complete coincidence, a different player on the second day explores the (dark) forest behind the cabin and gets an "ominous feeling", noting that the forest seems to grow darker and more oppressive as he delves further into it. When he returns, he finds the message in the snow, and immediately rushes to tell the players.
  
• On the same day, the snow has cleared enough that the players send a couple people to parley with the Red Roofs. I knew beforehand that my friends are good people who would try for peaceful relations, but conflict with the Reds is an integral part of Building in Blue, so I set up the world so that the Reds would be instantly hostile, accusing the Blues of being "demons from the forest." The envoy retreats when the Reds threaten violence.
  
• One player converts to the insane player's religion and drinks the blessed water. He is healed of a minor cut he had received earlier in the day.
  
• Another player had previously denounced the religion, declaring herself an atheist. When the convert drinks the water and is healed, though, she tries it too - and burns her mouth.
  
• The same player who explored the forest on the second day returns on the third day, and is greeted by a squirrel that seems to be fleeing something in the forest. He adopts it, and the group jokingly names it after me. I privately decide not to let it die at any point during the game.
  
• Meanwhile, the group has latched onto the Red Roofs' mention of "demons" as indicating a religious bent, and have sent their envoy again, this time with the religious fanatic in tow. He attempts to convert them, and is shot through the arm with an arrow for his troubles. One other member is also hit through the leg, and both are laid up for a while.
  
• By this point, the group has begun keeping watch during the night, so I throw the first "invasion" at them. At around 4-5 am, Alpacaman the squirrel begins making a lot of noise, hiding in the corner and generally freaking out. Its owner notices and looks out the window to see a pair of glowing red eyes.
  
• Though injured, the religious fanatic demands to go outside and see what it is. He sprinkles some holy water on a fire-hardened wood spear he'd previously made, and heads out with the squirrel owner (carrying a torch and the group's only axe) in tow.
  
• They enter the forest, and find nothing. Suddenly, a dark figure drops from the trees and spears its hand through the religious player's chest. He crumples to the ground, mortally wounded, and the other player sees that the dark figure has glowing red eyes.
  
• Its legs are bent like an animal's, and it has a visible snout, but it stands on two limbs and kills with the other two. Its shoulders are broad and hunched, its gait predatory, and its powerful arms seem to always be trembling a little. It breathes heavily, but it makes no noise.
  
• Squirrel Man brandishes the torch, making the creature recoil, before swinging his axe. He gets lucky, and manages to cleave through one of its arms. It hisses, more out of anger than pain, before darting back into the tree cover.
  
• Seizing the opportunity to flee, Squirrel Man grabs his friend's near-dead body and runs as fast as he can back towards the cabin. I nearly have the monster catch up to them again because of the added burden of the body, but he yells for help, and the rest of the group come out with torches of their own. The beast's red eyes are visible briefly in the shadows of the tree cover, and then abruptly they are gone.
  
• The religious player expires on the ground. The others debate briefly over the ethics of harvesting his bones for raw materials, before deciding to leave the discussion for the next day.
  
• The sun rises on the fourth morning, and the first session ends. The players have a solid base of resources and tools, and are aware of their immediate neighbors - but they are one fewer in number, and a mysterious threat lurks next door. They are trapped between the forest and the Reds, and must deal with one or the other if they wish to survive.

We intended to only play for a couple hours, but we wound up spending ~4 on it. Apparently, they really enjoyed it, and even though we're all at different colleges now, we're trying to get a regular vchat together so we can play it every one or two weeks.

I think the pace of the game was quite a bit slower than intended, and since even more people will be playing if we ever do it again (I'll probably split them into separate Red and Blue civs, so that they have to compete with each other), it only gets slower from here. I'll probably have the players do "day plans" instead of deciding each action of the day as it occurs to them - with the option to change their actions if unexpected things happen, of course. This will reduce some immersion, but will hopefully accelerate the pace of the game quite a bit.

I'm also not sure if I should reuse the same setting for the next session or not. This was a bit of a throwaway for the trial, so I didn't put much creativity or thought into it, but apparently they really liked how the game was going, and feel invested in it enough that they want to keep going.

But overall, it was a boatload of fun, and probably something that will become a minor staple of our group activities from now on. So even though I weep deep blue tears every day for the death of YMBIB, I can still sort of keep the glory alive through my bastard lovechild game (which lacks a real title). Thanks, Palindrome!

 

I'm jealous of your friends. You Must Build In Blue was a great thing, and I'm envious of your players who're indulging in it.

 

That seems like a really interesting idea for a RPG. I'm wondering about the more technical aspect of running it; how were you handling the actions of players? You talked about a secret action, is that something every player has or it was just a matter of circumstances (he was alone in the woods)? How do you plan on handling the action of opposing civ without giving away too much information to the opposing civ? Did you have a map, or were you using Theater of the Mind for most of it?

 

I wanted to learn and play rpgs for at least a decade but I don't live among the friendliest of people. I'm always jealous of other people when it comes to having nerdier/geekier friends.

 

Actions: DnD has a complicated system of actions, with various classifications ranging from standard actions to free actions to movement actions to swift actions, etc. It's a bit confusing, so we went with a simpler system: timed actions and untimed actions. You don't need to really know about them when you're playing, because it's very intuitive. Fighting, for example, is a timed action, because it's a general description of what you're doing for a certain time period. For example: From 5:30 to 6:00, Player A is fighting. However, "swinging my sword at his leg" is an untimed action, since it occurs within the larger umbrella of fighting, and therefore isn't counted towards the elapsed time. So with dialogue, for example, your timed action is walking to the river and conversing with the Reds, while your untimed action is specifically what you choose to say. In a "day plan", you would write out all your timed actions for the day, and then the GM would go over them with you, play out the scenarios, and have you react with appropriate untimed actions.

Secret Actions: This is something that occurs in DnD, too. I don't know if this is the official name for it, but characters will occasionally take actions which are unknown to the rest of the party, like stealing some extra loot or killing an ally in secret. Generally, you all agree not to metagame beforehand, so the action can be announced to the whole room and they'll just play as though their characters have no idea. However, if you are playing with people unfamiliar with the concept - as we were - you can have the player pass a note to the GM, or whisper in their ear. Secret actions can be taken at any time, since they're just regular actions the rest of the party isn't aware of. Additionally, any action has the chance to fail, if the GM deems it too difficult or unlikely to succeed, and the same goes doubly so for a secret action: if the player chooses to do it at an inopportune time, there's also a chance they'll be noticed by the rest of the party (in DnD this is usually done through stealth/perception checks and the like, but we didn't have that here so I just used my better judgment).

Two civs: This is a difficult one. I really like the idea of having the players split into two opposing teams - especially considering the alternative is 7-10 players in a single party - but I'm modeling this game on DnD, and I don't know of a precedent for playing with two parties at once. I could just have everybody playing together, and impress upon them the need for no metagaming, or I could (this is more likely) split them into two group chats and act as a liaison between them, notifying them whenever they come into contact with a member of the other group.

Map: How can one Build in Blue without a map? I'm shocked, shocked that you would even suggest such a thing. I didn't have the ability to edit a pixel map in real-time, but we basically took some paper and I'd draw surroundings from memory as they explored them. So I started out by drawing a basic cabin, and then when they found the river I drew that. When they found the forest behind them I drew that, when the snow cleared to reveal grass I drew that as best I could. Since I drew it a little bit at a time, they had to explore to find everything, but it also didn't break up the game too much.

 

How do you ensure that the two sides are assholes to each other and prevent cooperation?

 

I'm familiar with D&D, I was merely curious on how you handled it.

I was thinking on how to make this game fair; it seems very easy with your current rules to have a biased GM ruining your actions. I've recently "I am John" or whatever it's called, and they use a very simple system. You have 2 skills determined at the start (i.e. Good with a Sword and Amazing Actor). When performing an action, you roll 1d6; you need a six to succeed. If you have a skill pertinent to the action, I believe you need a 3+ on your roll for success.

Perhaps an adaption of such a system could be used. Let's say you want to fight the Filthy Reds. You amass your Blues, cross the bridge, and start pillaging the enemy. Now, since you have Stone Weapons as a item, and the enemy as well you have no advantage. As such, you need to roll a 6 to succeed on your pillaging. However if you had Stone Weapons and Beowulf Mighty Warrior, you have an advantage; 3+.

Opposing Teams: Your description of actions seem to imply that they write down what they are doing (for timed action)? Perhaps you could simply ask them to write down their timed action for the day, for both team, in secret. They are of course allowed to converse between themselves (easily done with Discord - set up a text chat for each team). Once the time limit as been reached, they post their action to the General Chat, and you go through them one player at a time. Let's say my actions would be:

Hawkin (Blue Team)
7:00-8:00 Hunt the Boar with Alpacaman in the Forest
10:00-12:00 Stand watch at the Bridge
13:00-15:00 Exploring the North Cave

Let's take a look at Alpacaman's actions now:

Alpacaman (Blue Team)
7:00-8:00 Fishing at the Crossing
10:00-12:00 Prepare Dinner in the Communal Room
13:00-15:00 Building a Small House

Red team now:

Yak (Red Team)
7:00-8:00 Attacking Blue Team at the Bridge
10:00-12:00 Pillaging Blue Team's House
13:00-15:00 Healing the Injured

_________

Oh no, Hawkin and Alpacaman forgot to discuss their first action. As such, Hawkin is either forgoing his Hunt, or he's going alone. While Hawkin is hunting, Alapacaman is fishing. Oh oh! Yak and his Filthy Red are attacking at the bridge, and none of the blue players are standing watch. Automatic Success.

_________

As you whistle a tune to yourself, you suddenly hear sound of screaming from behind you, Alapacaman. Turning around, you can see rising plumes of smoke, and men fighting amidst the village. Horrified, you watch as the now infamous Bloody Yak cut down your wife!


________

This is just a reflexion. I'm not sure how well it would work with a lot of players. I know Diplomacy ( a board game) uses this kind of system. You speak up when your action opposes or assists a player's.

 

Asking politely?

But seriously, this is mostly in the setup of the world. Like, let's say that Green and Purple have been warring over an unnamed planet for centuries, and Green has finally defeated Purple. With Purple's armies and population decimated, Green decides to punish them by taking all their most prominent leaders - the ones who argued for unity amongst Purples - wiping their memories, and awakening them on the most barren parts of the planet with only a few supplies. The two teams, which have no idea who they are anymore, are accordingly given colors to identify by: Red, and Blue.

Both are told that they are infected with a horrifying alien parasite which will, no question, kill them all in exactly a year. They are also told that Green has the antidote, but nobody's been infected for dozens of years, and the knowledge of how to make it was destroyed in the war. In fact, it just so happens that they only have enough left for a single team. The parasite is not contagious between humans, so they don't need to worry about curing new additions to their civs, but they also can't die and control a non-infected character here - in this version, death is it. And if one team manages to kill all the members of the other, decisively, that team "wins".

Since the decision to group together and fight Green for the antidote will only arise if they realize there's enough antidote to go around, they'll think it's a very simple us-versus-them scenario, and fight each other accordingly. And it is, really, but with a secret Good End if they do enough digging into their surroundings and uncover the truth of their situation.

This isn't a bad idea. You're absolutely right that a biased GM can be an issue - not that I'd ever be biased, of course, because I'm a perfect GM - but I can easily see how a bad GM can ruin the game while still technically adhering to the system.

Still, that system seems a bit inflexible. Obviously, you want a big bonus for having a particular advantage or skill, to incentivise using them. However, it is also true that almost every action the players take should have a high chance of success - you wouldn't want it to be the case that players fail five out of the six times they go to gather wood. Even two out of six is too many, really. The game has to account for the difference in difficulty between actions, such that collecting snow is far more likely to succeed than raiding the other village.

I also think it's important to account for the quality of success. If somebody with an axe and Woodcutting goes to gather wood at the same time as somebody without either of those things, they'll both succeed, but one will obviously gather more wood than the other. Likewise, if two people make a spear out of the same items but only one has the requisite skills, it doesn't matter if they both manage to succeed - you'd still make the skilled one do it because they'll make a better product.

So I like the idea of adapting the combat system: the GM assigns a difficulty rating based on the player's advantages, skills, and disadvantages (perhaps a cheat sheet formula could be constructed for this figure, to improve fairness), and then that value is subtracted from the a 2d6 roll. The magnitude of that number determines the degree of success.

Yeah, this is pretty close to what I have in mind. Utilizing a group chat is a clever idea, which I'll probably steal, but a General Chat would have to be heavily censored to prevent metagaming among people unfamiliar with the concept. I think I'll use a Google Doc to create a schedule template and have the teams fill it in with actions and timeslots for each player as they discuss. Then, when they've both come to a decision, I'll walk them both through the actions of the day, directing them to the General Chat when there's a conflict.

Thanks a ton for the ideas, though! I think I'll push for a new game when we gather to play, so that I can put them into practice from the start.

 

You're right on the failure part; I am John is a game where all the players control John, and failing a task results in a battle for control of John. The failure risk is high because of that; silly me didn't think of that when proposing the example.

Another idea then (feel free to tell me to shut up, but I really like the little game that Palindrome came up with, and being able to bring it to a table for a RPG seems like a splendid idea!). So you talked about skills, and tools, and whatnot. I can clearly see how General Yak, with his bronze armor, and bronze weapon would be much more effective in battle than Hunter Hawkin, who's got only some leather jerkins and a bow and arrows.

What about rolling a number of d6 determine by your tools/advantages/etc. Every 4+ is a success point. For PvE action, you set a DC to achieve (i.e. Easy = 1, Medium = 2, Difficult = 3, Very Difficult = 4, Almost Impossible = 5, Impossible = 6). For PvP, the DC is determined by the opposition own dice. Hawkin is attacking General Yak. Hawkin has the advantage of long range, and has skill with the bow. Yak has bronze armor, has the skill good soldier, and is has the General Title. Hakwin will roll 2d6 vs. Yak 3d6 defence. If Hawkin has more successes than Yak, his attack is a success. You could even add that the number of successes over the DC determine what kind of successes he has; Hawkin only injures Yak with 1 success, but kills him if he manages to land 2. It would also allow you to prevent them from building something without the proper tool. Can't do 4 successes without the proper Advantages/Tools/etc. to grant you more dice.

(I thought Title could be awarded by the GM based on extraordinary feat, or special circumstances; like a player being voted Mayor of the town or perhaps another defeated a Giant and is now known as Giantslayer. Depending on the situation, the title could count like an advantage. Or perhaps you could make the title reduces the success threshold. When fighting Giants, or Intimidating, the PC with Giantslayer only needs 3+ to succeed. I think this could be awesome; it would make having a title a very big thing.)