You can never die (32nd Century eGhost gameplay)

AJ · 2005-03-07T07:41:44

Picture a cyberpunk / nanopunk future where the soul can be digitized, cities sport "soulcatcher" networks in case of death, and a new body is just a masoleum away... What are the gameplay implications of not only your character and major allies not being able to die, but your major enemies as well? How would you end up playng your character? Would it be interesting to have to figure out alternatives to just killing major foes? Background Imagine a world where the soul can be relayed by an implant to a network and downloaded into another body. The tech is so advanced that, depending on the (massively expensive) network, sometimes you don't travel between planets or stars, but rather die and resurrect because it's faster. In some societies, everyone has an implant. In others, only those rich / important enough do. People are reborn either in cloned bodies or cyborg frames. Corporations, syndicates, agencies and other major factions each have their own masoleum for resurrection, but every city with this tech has at least one public masoleum as well. Delimma Would it be interesting to have to figure out creative means of trapping / thwarting / delaying your enemies because death was pointless? Or should there be means to always kill an enemy? If the latter, what should they be? If the former, what options should you have? Also, how to keep players from stupidly dying just because they can (like jumping off a cliff just to restart closer to some place)? Some possibilities: Poltergeist Virii Make Death Risky Poltergeist virii are fragments of human will encoded in digital form. The rest of the human is gone, but the remainder haunts the datanets. When you die, poltergeist virii have a chance of imbedding in your soul and later hijacking your behavior. This results in occassional blackouts, some benign and some malevolent ("Uh, why the hell am I standing in a room full of dead people with a smoking machine-gun...?"). The faction you belong to determines how secure / hackable your "packet" is. Just a joe blow? Too bad, you could wake up a split personality! Sidequests or expensive purges would be required to rid. Dying Delevels You Your brain / cyborg body acts as a plus modifier to your stats. When you die, you may not be able to recover your body, and therefore your character investment. New bodies could also be expensive, on a sliding scale. Incomplete Coverage = True Death Just like cell phone networks, the soulcatcher network may not cover certain areas. In really bad ghettos, anti-tech factions may have pulled down the "towers" (or whatever they are). Where powerful factions fight, both may have carved out territory by using signal warfare. This means that some areas WOULD hold the possibility of final death. (Does this defeat the whole potential of the idea?) Implant Destructable Maybe the intensity of the death matters? Get hit with a rocket or fall into a raging inferno and you're not coming back without a reload. For the player against NPCs: I Know Your Respawn Loc, Punk! Your NPC enemy's faction has only so many masoleums. Destroy / infiltrate them to get to your target and finalize their death. Soulcatcher Upload Delay This could apply to you, too, but you're supposed to be able to optionally assimilate your foes. The quality of their network could determine how long it takes them to escape. As they're trying to upload, you can stand next to them and drain their soul stats. Diplomacy, Rank, Rejection Maybe you can somehow cause your enemy's faction to reject him? Then he is doomed to wander the nets (out of the game for awhile) or disintegrate into a poltergeist. Thoughts? Improvements?

Game Design and Theory Game Design

Started by Wavinator February 22, 2005 04:55 AM

46 comments, last by TechnoGoth 19 years, 11 months ago

You can never die (32nd Century eGhost gameplay)

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