What I Want From A Roleplaying Game

What I want, in as few words as possible, is a compelling story.

It may be that I'm in the wrong genre entirely. What I want right now is not something that is best described in hit points or skill levels or stat blocks...but rather something best described by characters, by what they do, what they wear, how they sound, how they look, and how they react to the events of the world going on around them. I like concepts of grandiose power games, conspiracies to take over the world, unseen powers not for this earth. But they're for the story. Players of RPGs seem fixated on what they can do, what actions they can take. Instead of the 'what', how about the 'why' or the 'how'.

So maybe a roleplaying game is a foil for my own laziness. Maybe all I want to do is create a compelling story, and maybe I want a bunch of people to help me.

So this could be collaborative fiction. Or it could be that I should just write something. And it could be that I need to look more critically at what elements I tout in my games, because those are going to be elements I want to integrate into my stories.

So I want danger, and I certainly seem to like the Cyberpunk genre. Character depth is key, as is an interesting plot with a decent (though not overbearing) amount of backlog. But I always get stuck on realism, which is kind of contradictory in many genres of science fiction, cyberpunk included.

So let's wind it back. The thing that makes cyberpunk and dystopian literature interesting is their connection with the real world. So let's, for the time being, stay in the real world.

Let's work through some scenarios, based on fanciful (though not ridiculous) thought. A man, generally left-wing in his opinions, owns a gun. He owns a gun for two reasons: first, he enjoys shooting from a hobbyist perspective, and pistol shooting is both inexpensive (relatively) and challenging. Second, he has, from his own opinions on the world, a dim view of the government.

This man is a tinkerer. He has an engineering background, and enjoys tinkering with stuff. Building stuff. Modding stuff. He lives in the midwest (let's say Wisconsin) and has recently put the down payment on a fairly large estate, about 4 to 5 acres. It isn't arable land, and due to the composition of the rural route he lives on (farmers) the land is relatively cheap. Still, he now has a large mortgage.

This man is fairly cyberactive, and keeps two computers; a desktop for movie editing (his prized possession is a camcorder, at least after his 1966 Ford Falcon) and other home things, and a small Sony laptop to go to and from job, and also everywhere else. He owns three cars, but they're worth about 7500 dollars in total. He is a tinkerer. His 1981 Toyota Starlet sits dead in his garage, halfway through a conversion to run on natural gas. He knows how to finish the car, but is at a personal roadblock, having suffered minor burns and a crushed ego after an attempt to install a methane off-gas valve onto his septic tank resulted in a small explosion.

Back to the computers. The man, for the same reason he has the gun, uses Tor for his browsing. He is the only one in his county who does so. Unfortunately, when two high schoolers hold their school's computer network hostage for an unspoken ransom, the police go to the door of the one guy who they can't packet-sniff. When they ask to search his house he calmly asks for a warrant. The police ask again. He refuses, asserting his fourth amendment rights. The police say something about the Patriot Act and terrorists, and the man does not care. They enter his house. He shoots them both, killing them. Now, in reality, since they did not have a warrant, this would be termed as a self-defense killing. Police or not, you aren't allowed to enter a man's home without a warrant. So, two armed men broke into his house. Hmm. In reality, it wouldn't go down so easily. Even without the current imperial presidency, failure to produce a warrant is not likely to be considered justifiable cause for shooting police officers.
Now, the man loves taking home video. He vidblogs, and uses it to record things he does to his cars. Let's say he saw the cop car, and set up his camera on his stairway to videotape the conversation. Let's say the police officers drew weapons before he drew his, and shoved him to the ground upon trying to enter the house.


Let's say that was uploaded to Youtube.


Hmmm. I may have a novel.