There will be a slight preface. If you're in a desperate hurry and wish to skip it, scroll down until you find this symbol: %%&%%

I recently played through the two Metal Gear Solid games available on the PC, so I had Hideo Kojima on the brain when I was thinking about this. I suspect it shows.

Anyway, I was thinking about how you'd make an RPG in which you could play MGS, or something else that was basically MGS with the serial numbers filed off. Immediately, I was struck by the problem that Snake is almost always solitary, sent in alone to infiltrate an enemy base with no equipment or allies. By contrast, tabletop RPGs work on the idea that a group of characters does things. It would be kind of strange if only the GM and his one player were sitting across from each other and gaming. It's just not a sport for that few people.

Then it struck me that Snake is not actually alone in any of his missions - he's always accompanied by a huge cast of characters who offer him advice / annoy him over codec. You've got the Colonel giving you orders, you've got a character for saving, you've got other people you can call to ask questions about the environment, or to get long rants about the evils of nuclear weaponry...

Occasionally, you depend on these support characters to find out just how the hell Kojima expects you to defeat the challenge in front of you, such as the famous Psycho Mantis bossfight where you WILL lose until you call the Colonel and are informed that the only way to win is to switch your controller to another slot (or in the PC version, stop using the controller and use the keyboard instead).

So here, then, is the idea.

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One player gets to play the Infiltrator character. Only his character is actually present at the scene where the game is taking place. Everyone else gets to play Support Characters with specializations in various fields the Infiltrator might find useful. They aren't really there - their task is to help the Infiltrator get past various challenges.

The Infiltrator's stat block, whatever that turns out to be, should more often than not be insufficient to let him get past the challenges the GM sets. That is why the Infiltrator needs to consult his Support Staff via codec and get helpful hints that solve his problems. This would entail the Support Staff giving the Infiltrator a bonus to his roll or some sort, depending on the Support Staff's own stats. The Support's solution simply turns out to be the correct one if the roll succeeds, which basically means the GM can set up a problem and not worry about what the Infiltrator OUGHT to do to survive, since it's up to the players playing the Support Staff to invent ways of that happening.

Also there might be some sort of resource management minigame in the background whose purpose is to determine just how much the Support Staff is lying to you, but I haven't worked that out to any extent.

Anyway, the whole point of all of this is simple: Do you think this is viable? Do you think it could be fun, or would the Support Staff players be bored?

Quote from: Axiomatic;338605Anyway, the whole point of all of this is simple: Do you think this is viable? Do you think it could be fun, or would the Support Staff players be bored?

My immediate thought was it would take a very good group to pull this off, to make the play balanced enough so that everyone felt involved and not bored, but I don't play MGS, so I asked my son Klaxon what he thought, without mentioning my thoughts. He said the very same thing, suggesting troupe play, with each player paying both an infiltrator and a support person, with the infiltrators coming in from different directions. That would, of course be a nightmare to GM, but it could be done. Good luck with it, though!

-clash

Quote from: Axiomatic;338605Anyway, the whole point of all of this is simple: Do you think this is viable?

Don't think so, frankly. What exactly would a Support Staff character do during the game? Look at his sheet, say "My support gives him a +5 on that", and that's it? Or would he quickly browse through his 20-page Explosives Manual then say "I suggest he cut the green wire first, since this type of bomb can be usually disabled that way"? But then the DM will first have to write a 20-page Explosives manual for that support character; and another one for the electronics guy, one for the intelligence officer, etc. etc..

So I'd say unless you can come up with an actual example dialogue from an imaginary session that shows how it's supposed to work, no, it doesn't sound very viable.

No, the support character IS the 20 page explosives manual. If you've chosen to play the Explosives Expert support character, for an example, then whatever you said to the Infiltrator would be considered truth. The GM doesn't have to come up with a specific bomb, he just has to throw a bomb at the Infiltrator, and then the Explosives Expert, via codec, tells the Infiltrator what kind of bomb it is and how to solve it.

I guess I'll have to think some more on this to come up with an example of how I imagine this working.

Agree I'd like to see an example table conversation. These are very powerful things to write when scoping out some new mechanism -- if you can't write it as a session you'd want to play, it might need work. If it sounds fun, though, moving to a playtest is logical.

I am also working on a "tactical espionage" RPG and I am ran into similiar problems.   I could not figure out a way to make the Support characters equally fun to play.   I just decided to go the SpyCraft / Top Secret route and focus on the Mission Impossible team.

I once did a Diablo campaign where each player has his Main Hero who went on an individual quest and then created a Retainer to assist each of the other heroes.   When we focussed on Hero 1, the rest of the table played their retainers.  

Since they were thrown across the planet, there wasn't a way for the groups to crossover and I took great trouble to make sure each main hero got table time.

It worked great, but only because we were all friends and I was trusted to balance the whole tightrope act.   I doubt you can codify that nicely into the ruleset.