Cacique Caribe | 29 Apr 2008 8:44 p.m. PST |
Would it be immediately apparent to the gamers which humans are not really human? Also, how would you incorporate fatigue/sleepyness (and attempts at staying awake) into the game itself? In your opinion, what rules would be best for this? Thanks. CC TMP link |
DeWolfe | 29 Apr 2008 9:10 p.m. PST |
While it could be done as an RPG with miniatures I don't see how it could work as a wargame. |
Pictors Studio | 29 Apr 2008 10:11 p.m. PST |
I think the best way to do it as a wargame would be to have several players, say 5-8 each with a number of figs under their control. The GM does random encounters and tells the players which of them are under control. So they do that but the other players don't know. Mayhem ensues. Eventually the other players will figure it out, say only one or two of the players are snatched, but it will still be fun while it lasts. |
cloudcaptain | 29 Apr 2008 11:26 p.m. PST |
The GM could put small labels under the bases. For solo gaming you could put numbers on labels and draw numbers out of a hat. Sleep is best simulated by a degrading of skill/ability
even movement IMHO. Make it so that characters eventually become almost useless until they rest. No Dose can be a found item in the game :) |
bandit86 | 29 Apr 2008 11:56 p.m. PST |
On every move have the player close thier eyes and remove a figure from the table
then replace it with the exact same figure. (snatched) |
Steve Flanagan | 30 Apr 2008 1:41 a.m. PST |
How's this? Two players, human and pod, with conflicting objectives. The pod player starts out with fewer figures than the human player. The rules must include some sort of initiative or morale test. Every time one of the human player's figures fails a test, roll a die. Let's say there's a 50% chance that the reason the figure failed is that it has been a pod person all along – control of the figure is transferred to the pod player. For every figure or set number of figures so transferred, the human player's chance of passing subsequent initiative or morale tests is reduced by a set amount, representing the increase in panic and fatigue. |
psiloi | 30 Apr 2008 2:24 a.m. PST |
There was an old TSR mini game – They've Invaded Pleasantville. One person controlled the aliens, the other the humans. It can be picked up on ebay etc for fairly cheap sums. The game had two counters for each person in the town. The counters had a description on one side(ie sheriff, doctor, etc), and one of two symbols on the other side. The alien player had a stack that he kept hidden. Counters could be picked up and put behind a screen by the alien player, who could possibly replace the counter with one of his own. Any character known to be under human control who saw this could roll to see if they saw a conversion.You could use a modified version to start the game, 2 sets of counters, and minis in whatever setting. |
Doctor Bedlam | 30 Apr 2008 6:02 a.m. PST |
Yeah
I think you'd HAVE to have a GM for that one
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Zephyr1 | 30 Apr 2008 2:56 p.m. PST |
Play a non-stop campaign game over a weekend BUT, if a player actually falls asleep, the pods have got'im. Should add a bit of tension and "realism" to the setting
. ;) |
Detailed Casting Products | 30 Apr 2008 5:00 p.m. PST |
Yes Doctor Bedlam, but how do you know if your GM isn't a "Pod-GM", eh? Like water against the wicked witch of the west, you could arm the humans with squeeze-trigger bottles of Roundup(r) (using die roll attacks) and charge the Monsanto company for in-game commercial representation, heh. More seriously for a second, why not just run the game as overt combat with the two sides using "regular" figures with different colored bases. The pods then become used as caches that have to be targeted by the forewarned humans. They then serve a purpose as a game goal instead of a participant. |
Cacique Caribe | 30 Apr 2008 8:22 p.m. PST |
"The pods then become used as caches that have to be targeted by the forewarned humans. They then serve a purpose as a game goal instead of a participant." I'm intrigued. Please elaborate a bit. Thanks. CC PS. Zephyr1 I like how you think too. :) |
Detailed Casting Products | 30 Apr 2008 11:11 p.m. PST |
WARNING- the following contains enough wry humor to make toast
Well CC, I'd guess intrigued is better than infected, lol. Pod humor. <Cough>. What I'm saying is that one use of the pod models would be to say (thinking off the top of my head here), um, have them stacked in a 1940's pickup in a town square. Some forthright (and very human) playing pieces could be armed with a few pistols and pitchforks, trying to get in range to toss a Molotov cocktail at the pickup before it drives off to the next town (after maybe ten game turns). Trying to stop the humans would be a larger force of "Agroterrorists" (quite literally), armed with date-rape drugs (heh) in syringes. Scared yet? Quite another variant would be to have a tabletop of "small town America" as a play area. The pod-people would wait for dark (game start) and attempt to place "agri-pods" outside the bedroom windows of the houses, strategically. A roving gang of teenagers, each dressed in Levis and white T-shirts with one sleeve rolled up over a pack of smokes and all looking remarkably like James Dean, gets all patriotic and tries to hunt down and smash the agri-pods instead of creating the mischief they were out to do originally. By the way, what alerted them to the problem was the next town over, Bedford Falls, was totally overrun and Donna Reed was turned into a rutabaga. Those all-American boys were very displeased I'll have you know when they found out what happened to Donna Reed. It just doesn't have the same ring to say "What a 'baga" when you really meant "What a BABE!" This of course, meant WAR. Oh, and I just want to warn anyone that isn't up on the latest intelligence, I'd be careful when thinking about listening to internet podcasts. Yes, they are in enemy hands. Then of course there is that whole Apple thing with the I-pod
</wry> |
Captain Apathy | 01 May 2008 6:38 a.m. PST |
I dug up my copy of They've Invaded Pleasantville after reading psiloi's comments. TIP is actually pretty clever and the mechanic could be easily tranlated into a minis game. Thanks for mentioning it psiloi. I will dig out some of my other tsr mini-games to see what nuggets there are to be mined for minis gaming goodness. |
Cacique Caribe | 01 May 2008 10:33 a.m. PST |
All of these suggestions are just too cool not to try out. Can't wait to finish sculpting the pods and send them to DCP for production and sale. Wish me luck. CC |
soulman | 01 May 2008 1:11 p.m. PST |
For a tableop game, this also falls into the film "the thing " as well.. How would i game it, without a Gm..? 1. You can only tell if someone is human with a test of somekind, be it a blood test or talking to them etc, to do this you have to be with say 2-4", unlike them you cannot attack that person at all. At anytime the alien player can attack and sho his true colours and will be then open to free attack
Fot the film the thing, a alien/human walks into a room, i know he is a alien, but unless i have a teast, then i can only react when he picks to attack.. Something along that sort of thing
Each game system is different of course
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psiloi | 01 May 2008 4:47 p.m. PST |
Just thinking of the potential of the game makes me want to try a 3D Pleasantville. Great another area of minis to buy, paint and etc. Please keep us posted to what finally happens. |
Cacique Caribe | 03 May 2008 3:40 a.m. PST |
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