Pigtown RPG Devlog #2: Where Characters Start

As good a place to start as any, when talking about an RPG, is to start where the characters start. I want the engine to be able to support a variety of different starting points, where you can play a character who is setting foot inside Pigtown for the very first time, or you can create a veteran character, who is well versed in the back alleys, bars, brothels and sewers of the whole complex. To do this, when creating a character, the first thing that a player has to ask, is how deep have the hooks of Pigtown dug into your character.

At the moment, players can start off at four different levels. At the bottom, we have the Freshmeat--men who have just begun their adventures in Pigtown, and so are quite literally out of their league. Above them, in order of corruption, are Residents, Pigs, and Lost Ones. 

As the game progresses and your character grows and changes, they will progress from one level to the next. The main benefit of this progression, is that players at the higher levels possess an automatic, structural advantage over players at levels lower than them. A Pig, for example, will have a substantial bonus to every skill check made against a Freshmeat character or a Resident. Pigs and Lost Ones will be the only characters capable of harnessing advanced skills, feats, and magic as well.

Players move from one level to next by accumulating Shadows. Shadows are the nightmares that your player has faced in Pigtown, and have fallen victim to. Each night the players traverse ends with them accumulating a number of shadows, memories of trauma, ecstasy, lust and primal urges that are slowly overwhelming their prior, human minds. On their own, shadows don't pose much of a threat to a character, but if a character goes down and succumbs during an adventure, shadows can form a curse on their character (we'll discuss these more in a later entry). Once characters pass certain thresholds of shadow, they move from one level of corruption to the next, and gain access to more powers, and abilities than before. 

In addition to one of these four levels of corruption, players also begin the game with a role--something similar to a class, but rather than determining character growth, roles are more about establishing a backstory for your character. The sorts of adventures they go on after the game starts, should guide how your character changes more so than an arbitrary class level chart. Freshmeat characters have limited roles to choose from, mostly reflecting how or why they are venturing into Pigtown to begin with. Residents, Pigs, and Lost Ones, can choose from more robust roles, focused more of the sorts of work they do within Pigtown to get by--mechanics, street guides, bouncers, and other odd jobs like that. 

Rather than accumulate XP from battles and defeating monsters, players collect XP from incentives, within the BOLT system. An incentive is a question that can be answered with either a yes or a no, usually in regards to how a character got through an encounter. A character who is a grifter, for instance, might have an incentive like, "Did I deceive someone?", while a brawler might have, "Did I wrestle with someone?" Players are rewarded for playing within their character's role. Incentives can change as the character changes, and incentives can come from multiple sources--not just from your role. 

With these two aspects of your character, you can flesh out any number of possibilities. Maybe you want to create a resident who has only recently found themselves living in Pigtown, and has found a job as a bartender to make ends meet. Maybe your character is a Pig who has made a home for themselves in Pigtown, pickpocketing the Freshmeat each night, and occasionally picking one or two to enjoy for the evening as well. Most of all, I want to encourage players to come with an idea for who they want to be, and I want the engine to be able to adapt to those ideas, rather than forcing players into boxes. 

Next week, we'll discuss some of the mechanics of Pigtown itself, and how adventures are structured.