It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia hack

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It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia hack
« on: September 01, 2014, 02:43:03 AM »
Yep, that show.

Brainstorming stats & moves.  Feedback & your own brainstorms welcome.

Move triggers:

When you outshine someone,
When you belittle someone,
When you ignore a reason to stop what you're doing,
When you trick someone,
When you celebrate someone's misfortune,
When you adopt a new lifestyle,
When you are confronted by your failures,

Stats:

capable
mean
decisive
in charge
slick
realistic
stable


I'm assuming that, though the players are rooting for things to go wrong, it'd be most fun to advocate for the characters as in AW.  On the other hand, given that Always Sunny characters are reprehensible enough that some P/C distance is a given, it might be better to equate high rolls with misfortune:

Alternate stats:

inept
petty
indecisive
unconvincing
clumsy
deluded
fragile


As for the move outcomes, I'm thinking they'll deal primarily with the following:

outshine - whether you succeed, and how much incidental trouble and ill will you bring upon yourself
belittle - whether you make someone roll "confronted by failures"
ignore a reason to stop - whether your commitment wins/loses you allies/enemies, and/or ups the stakes (+/-1 to next "confronted by failures"?  +/-1 to one or more enmities?)
trick - whether you get an NPC to do what you want, or a PC to accompany you on your path; also, how badly they'll strike back at you afterward (+1 enmity?)
celebrate someone's misfortune - how well you bond or squash beef with other PCs who are also celebrating (-1 enmity?)
adopt a new lifestyle - how much of your new routine is how self-destructive
confronted by your failures - whether you flip out and adopt a new lifestyle / ignore a reason to stop

Enmity would be the amount you can Hinder the other PC's roll.

Re: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia hack
« Reply #1 on: September 04, 2014, 04:46:30 AM »
I like it!  I'm Charlie!

Re: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia hack
« Reply #2 on: September 11, 2014, 02:16:46 PM »
if you're still working on this let me know.

Re: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia hack
« Reply #3 on: January 03, 2015, 12:48:31 AM »
I haven't been working on this, Aaron, but I'm still down to discuss it, and happy to hear thoughts if you have 'em!

Re: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia hack
« Reply #4 on: January 03, 2015, 01:22:33 AM »
It just occurred to me that "adopt new lifestyle" and other developments might tie into two separate (or one bi-directional) advancement tracks.  There are two cycles going on in the show:

  • Within an episode, things get more awful for most characters until near the end, but then wrap up with things mostly back to normal.  Standard serial comedy, but with the degree of personal misfortune turned up to 11, such that changes can seem profound ("Now we're homeless junkies!") rather than circumstantial ("I can't let my friend catch me having borrowed her favorite shirt without permission!").

  • Character positions and relationships are slowly altered over time, often for the worse.

Accordingly, making an AW-style list of advances which are basically improvements seems inappropriate... but a list of advancement options that are special (that is, not otherwise accessible), for good AND for ill, could still be fun.

Losing points from a positive stat could be an option for those who enjoy using the system to mirror the fiction, but would otherwise be a waste of an option; it might be best to make losses mandatory rather than optional.  On the other hand, if the stats themselves are negative, then advancing one gives the player more options to choose outcomes (7+ rolls on "player picks" lists) even as it lessens their character's odds of success (with GM narrating successes on 6- rolls).

Is rolling to lose, and picking your failure, a perfectly Always Sunny way to play?  Or would it simply be no fun?

Another option is to leave improvement to the realm of [decreasing Enmity, getting others to do what you want, and fictional developments], while assigning "advances" strictly to negative stuff.  (No prob asking players to choose bad options if ALL the options are bad.)

Perhaps over the course of a session, your stats get worse, and then you have to buy them back up to their starting positions by the end of an episode, so the show can start fresh for next time.  So the pervasive concern across multiple sessions is not the stats, but the budget you spend on them.  This budget should then tie into lasting changes in positioning; the less you must spend on your stats, the more you can spend on shares of the bar, or some other sort of leverage over the other characters. 

I could also tie in Enmity, letting it carry over across sessions and allowing players to take on more Enmity to buy back stats (if you're in good with Charlie, 0 Enmity, then you can afford to con him into some obnoxious shit he'll resent, in order to boost your depleted In Charge stat).