Hyper Focused Game Setting
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One of my biggest issues getting involved on a game is that, often, the setting is just too large. Even so-called "small towns" often encompass large areas and I often find it difficult to worm my way into plots. Some of that may be my timid RP nature but it led me to wonder about smaller grids.
On top of that I work at a hospital and on lunch today I noticed something...we're not actually a very big hospital but we still have a fairly large campus and a lot of people milling about. It led me to wonder about setting a game in a hospital (WoD or some other urban fantasy).
Some of the larger hospitals out there employ over 20,000 people with almost half that again in affiliated physicians. On top of that they can have upwards of 2,500 patients actually staying in the hospital not to mention how many more may be there just for brief periods for surgeries, doctor appointments, ER visits, or just there visiting any of the above. The total population equals that of a small to medium sized town.
Now the setting wouldn't have to be a hospital (that's just what I'm most familiar with) but anything that employs a large number of people and has a large number of visitors. Has anything like this been done before? I can't think of anything. And if not...why? Are there flaws that I'm not seeing that could not be overlooked or worked through?
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I'm generally for focused settings, I've had ideas pretty much like this but set at a police precint instead.
The main reason I think is most people that make games want mass appeal, and you get that by making it as open as possible. When you limit people in anyway, many see it as meaning the game is doomed to never have players. Or that's been my impressions of it.
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I would think a large college campus (with a few surrounding areas -- Greek row, the one street where all the shops and crappy second floor apartments are that's by every campus) would be ideal for this.
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My favorite space setting is "space station". It's certainly small enough that everyone has an excuse to know one another.
I would be quite thrilled to see a game with a tight scope. I think that Lords & Ladies games have this advantage; the setting may be wide, but the pool the characters comes from is not.
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos -
General Hospital of Darkness. I like it.
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I like the idea of focused settings, but I would prefer something with a bit more bite. Like everyone is in the same street gang, or the same mafia-style organization. Because crime is fun.
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Cruise ship of Darkness.
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Wasn't there a horror-themed show briefly about like, a haunted hospital?
...or is this one of those times where a concept/story exists solely in my head?
Saying the quiet parts out loud since 1996.
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@Auspice said in Hyper Focused Game Setting:
Wasn't there a horror-themed show briefly about like, a haunted hospital?
Perhaps you're thinking of Garth Marenghi's Darkplace? A spoof of 80s/90s dramas co-created by The IT Crowd's Richard Ayoade.
If you like people making fun of VCR-era dramas (because most of them were horrible), it's a fun watch.
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General Hospital is still on the air!
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@Thenomain said in Hyper Focused Game Setting:
My favorite space setting is "space station". It's certainly small enough that everyone has an excuse to know one another.
Yeah there were a bunch of Babylon 5 games way back when that got good mileage out of being a tightly-focused theme with a revolving door of visitors. Battlestar games have the same narrow focus, but the post-apocalyptic nature of them make it harder to have visitors coming and going all the time. Western games do pretty well with this too, generally being very small towns with people passing through. Apoc games like No Return... I'm sure there are others.
I think the most narrowly-focused theme was The Greatest Generation. Play usually centered around a small 'front' of the war du jour and a field hospital.
Long story short - sure, it can be done. Has been done.
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@Auspice There was also Stephen King's Kingdom Hospital.
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@ZombieGenesis said in Hyper Focused Game Setting:
@Auspice There was also Stephen King's Kingdom Hospital.
Yes! That's the one!
Okay, good. I like finding these things exist.
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Which was just an Americanized version of Lars von Trier's TV miniseries 'Riget', which was actually based around a new, hyper-modern hospital in Copenhagen.
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@faraday: I regret never having gotten to try Greatest Generation. I've heard all kinds of nostalgic reminiscing about it!
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@cupcake I'm sad you missed it! It was good times. I died a lot. I also was involved in a mini-plot where a few other players and I smuggled George Orwell out of Spain during the civil war. Still stands as about my favorite damn thing I've ever played.
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@Auspice
You're probably thinking about Kingdom Hospital. -
@Bobotron said in Hyper Focused Game Setting:
@Auspice
You're probably thinking about Kingdom Hospital.I was. @ZombieGenesis pegged it earlier.
Saying the quiet parts out loud since 1996.
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@Auspice
I'm dumb, I replied without reading the whole thread.I deserve the shame gif.
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@Bobotron said in Hyper Focused Game Setting:
@Auspice
I'm dumb, I replied without reading the whole thread.I deserve the shame gif.
I'll forgive you... THIS TIME.
