Avatar / Korra game considerations
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As I'm watching Avatar: The Last Airbender on Netflix, I find myself thinking about what a MU* in 2020 might look like based on ATLA and/or the Legend of Korra, depending on what timeframe might work best.
What would you argue are necessities for success for such a game?
I've got a few that come to mind, but I recognize players may come to the table with some significantly different expectations:
- Clear point in game world/timeline
- Long-term central storyline(s) that all PCs can contribute to
- Opportunities for easily grouping together PCs in scenes
- Wide range of backgrounds & bending abilities
- Some sort of coded conflict resolution system
Given the above, how might you rank/prioritize these (and/or anything else that might be important)? Are any missing the mark?
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@fatefan I would LOVE an Avatar game. I honestly think that Republic City is a fantastic setting, given its existence as a centralized locale and the diversity of its populace. It allows people to bring in characters from all over but have a reason to be in the same place. I'd definitely rate "Opportunities for easily grouping together PCs in scenes" pretty highly, as I feel like it often gets forgotten in MU* development.
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@fatefan said in Avatar / Korra game considerations:
As I'm watching Avatar: The Last Airbender on Netflix, I find myself thinking about what a MU* in 2020 might look like based on ATLA and/or the Legend of Korra, depending on what timeframe might work best.
What would you argue are necessities for success for such a game?
I've got a few that come to mind, but I recognize players may come to the table with some significantly different expectations:
- Clear point in game world/timeline
- Long-term central storyline(s) that all PCs can contribute to
- Opportunities for easily grouping together PCs in scenes
- Wide range of backgrounds & bending abilities
- Some sort of coded conflict resolution system
Given the above, how might you rank/prioritize these (and/or anything else that might be important)? Are any missing the mark?
I think you need to start where all good games have started: what kind of game is this?
Is it a storytelling game, where everyone participates by consent?
Is it a campaign setting, where players can have an effect on the world their PCs are in?
Is it a war game, where players are expected to join in on plots with a substantial risk of doom?
From there, you need to figure out what system you want to use based on the kind of game you've chosen.
Everything else is relatively minor.
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@Ganymede A very excellent point, thank you.
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Set it right after Korra's death (or after an Avatar's death) so it's baked into the theme that no one is ever going to play the Avatar during the game's timeline, not even Staff.
Be careful how you manage accessibility to bending by PCs and the importance of bending when it comes to being included in RP and plot.
"Excuse the hell out of you. He's a bag of dicks. I'm a carefully curated box of cocks." -- to @GirlCalledBlu upon being misrepresented.
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@Coin yeah i'd think ideally all pcs who want to be benders should be. Also I would love a game like this. Also, no lily white blond people.
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@Kanye-Qwest said in Avatar / Korra game considerations:
@Coin yeah i'd think ideally all pcs who want to be benders should be. Also I would love a game like this. Also, no lily white blond people.
Well, also, anyone who doesn't want to play a bender should be able to still be involved in plot and RP regardless.
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@Coin This is a really good point. I'd hate for anyone to feel like they had to play a bender just to have any RP agency.
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@Roz's point about Republic City is a good one and Republic City is actually the basis for my idea of a fantasy island world. It's a Babylon 5/Citadel - a central hub where people from around the world/cosmos gather for a good fluff reason that doesn't break verisimilitude.
@Coin's point about having it set after the death of an Avatar so it is set that no one will be playing the Avatar is also a good one.
My understanding of the setting is that the number of airbenders are pretty low around Korra's time, so maybe set it a few generations after Korra so that the number of airbenders can be reasonably increased, that way airbender PCs won't be seen as very special/strange.
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As long as there's a place that sells cabbages.
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@fatefan Sokka has a boomerang and does just fine!
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@fatefan said in Avatar / Korra game considerations:
I find myself thinking about what a MU* in 2020 might look like based on ATLA and/or the Legend of Korra.
Don't be teasing me. I need this. I didn't know I need this, but I need this.
- Clear point in game world/timeline
I personally don't care. I'm not immersed enough in the lore that referencing specific events in the timeline actually means anything to me. If the recent history is a big deal, then sure, detail it, but otherwise?
- Long-term central storyline(s) that all PCs can contribute to
That would be nice.
- Opportunities for easily grouping together PCs in scenes
Isn't that up to the players, though?
- Wide range of backgrounds & bending abilities
Like a specific list of options to choose from? I take it the goal here is to provide some freedom while enforcing thematic cohesion?
- Some sort of coded conflict resolution system
I personally prefer consent-based games these days. MUSHes do not do a good job of communicating the information needed about their systems, at least to my way of learning. I'd be so interested in the game I'd think of bending this principle, though.
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If the recent history is a big deal, then sure, detail it, but otherwise?
For some of us, I think this is all we might need. I know that others might want clear "anchors" for thinking about thematic relations and the like. There are some great points about about when possibly to situate the game to try to take care of some central issues (such as there being no PC avatar and why, for in-game reasons as well as OOC policy).
Isn't that up to the players, though?
Yes, for sure. But there are also ways to try and facilitate these opportunities--like having things set in Republic City to avoid the game setup of a bunch of single wandering players maybe bumping into each other or not in the wilderness or having people buy into a given realm and then not feel able to travel easily. (This can be as much a perceived problem as any infrastructural one, but it's worth reflecting on regardless, I think.)
I'm also a fan of consent games, but I also think that if and when PCs potentially come into conflict, it can be helpful to have some sort of third-party arbitration to determine the outcome. I don't know if there's any best answer to this issue, admittedly. Maybe a system that can determine conflict outcomes if players don't want to go pure-consent conflict for a given scene?
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I'm not even a huge Avatar fan, but I feel like I would give this a swing, esp if you could set it up in Ares.
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@silverfox That is likely what I would try to set up, codebase-wise.
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@Kanye-Qwest said in Avatar / Korra game considerations:
Also, no lily white blond people.
This bit is actually interesting for me to think about, because I feel like you'd have to explicitly say it somewhere, because players are still gonna default to white PBs. (Even if you do say it somewhere, they're gonna default.) But I'm pretty sure that there's just no white people in the Avatar setting.
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@Roz
Unless M. Night Shyamalan is directing.That was his twist for the movie.
Ceterum autem censeo Carthaginem esse delendam
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@Ominous What movie?
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@Roz
It's hard to call a black screen occasionally interrupted by the color blue a movie, but the Avatar: the Last Airbender movie.Ceterum autem censeo Carthaginem esse delendam
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@Ominous What?
