Random game idea: The Backpacker's Apothesis

[benlehman]

The player characters are late teenage or early twenty something backpackers travelling in China. They left home, looking for something that was missing, and now they're looking for it at the far end of the world. They don't have words to describe the feelings that drew them to China, but we do. They are drawn by their karma. All of the characters are reincarnations of Chinese people who died traumatically during the events of the last 150 years, returning by instinct to the places that they lived to try to resolve their karma.

Play fluctuates between recovered memories of their previous life and their actions in the present day. In the end, they might reconcile their karma, become dominated by it, reject it, or surpress it.

The GM must be knowlegable about modern Chinese history.

Comments

[yeloson.livejournal.com]

Sort of a cross cultural Please Save My Earth?

Also: have you seen Jackie Chan's The Myth? He plays a modern day Indiana Jones type hunting down artifacts related to dreams he keeps having of his past life as a general in ancient China.

[benlehman.livejournal.com]

That movie sounds kinda awesome.

[yeloson.livejournal.com]

The movie is pretty awesome. It mixes between modern stunt-fu Jackie Chan and ancient China wuxia "taking out 100 soldiers" Jackie Chan. It also stars both a Korean and Bollywood actress for the cultural mix factor.

[russiandude.livejournal.com]

On a somewhat different note (since my knowledge of Chinese history is a bit poor), what about turning it around into a worldbuilding game?

The players try to deal with the aftermath of the world-founding events, involving famous people who have died (and have unresolved karma, etc), or the creation of crazy artifacts, or anything else that is appropriate.
As play proceeds and players turn to any of the outcomes you have suggested, their actions communally define how that world advances through that period of time, until another group of people finds their lives drawn to these key objects/places. You can have the players get one incarnation with each key. And you can have fluctuations, where the players fill in certain scenes from the past incarnations (or perhaps even suggest scenes for future incarnations).

[benlehman.livejournal.com]

Hmm... That's an excellent other game.

I was hoping to make a somewhat educational game for Alexis to run. Sadly, she thinks that this game idea is annoying and stupid. So nothing will probably come of it.

[kitsuchan.livejournal.com]

Well, it's mostly that I hate backpackers. So playing a game about them makes me irrationally irritated.

[moreocean.livejournal.com]

This idea is a plausible explination of my entire life so far.

[gillan.livejournal.com]

A friend of mine shared this with me, thinking you might be interested in it (I'm not sure how I got this job). You may have seen it already.

http://www.zamak.fr/#top