Thursday, March 17, 2011

Orc RPG Revamping

After some feedback from Greg Christopher, and some long thought, I have decided to take Being Green in a whole different direction. First of all, I am changing the name. The working title I am using right now is Life of Rage.

I'm also going to use a different game mechanic. I'm not sure how it will work, but for now I am using a variation of the Storyteller System from White Wolf (Vampire, Werewolf, etc...), but using d6's instead of d10's. This isn't set in stone, but it's what I am putting in there for the time being.

Many of the same concepts in Being Green will also be present in Life of Rage, such as the Battle Circle, Bragging and Glory. In fact, it will more or less be the same game, but with different rules and a different flavor. And to that end...

The main change will be in the flavor text. Rather than the passive, third-person voice that is normally used in RPGs, I will be using a 1st person narrator. And that Narrator will be an orc. So, reading the rulebook will be like having an orc sitting with you, explaining everything about the game. I hear tell there are a couple of games that do this. I find the idea very cool, personally. It will also serve as a way to develop the cadence and speech patterns of orcs for a couple of fiction projects I am working on.

Here is the opening of the game, as it stands now. I like this, and even though it may get edited a bit down the road, I think it will pretty much stay in tact:

So, you wanna be an orc, huh? Bah! You squishy humans couldn’t hack it.

Heh. “Hack it.” That’s funny.

Alright, fine. You wanna see what life is like for us? Play this game. Me and my boys wrote this game for squishys just like you. It ain’t all that realistic, but you’ll get an idea of what we’re all about.

What? Of course we wrote it. We ain’t as dumb as you lot like to make us out to be in your “high fantasy” stories. We have culture and tradition. And we can read and write, too.

Anyways, here are some rules for you to learn. You can handle that, right squishy? I mean, I’ll be here to hold your hand, but you gotta be willing to let go of your human weakness and just embrace the glory of being an orc. And when I say “glory” I mean it. That’s very important to us. But, I’ll get into that later. For now, let’s start at the beginning.

Just so you know, when I refer to an “orc” while telling you how to play this game, I am referring to squishys like you who are pretending to be orcs. Real orcs don’t play this game. We live it!

Now, here’s the rules.


Well, what do you all think?

3 comments:

bowiefan said...

It's perfect! Honestly I like this approach.

Pontifex said...

I like it too.

Charles Gramlich said...

Life of Rage. That sounds pretty damn cool.