I had a dream last night (as of when this was drafted, not posted) that got rudely interrupted by construction just as it was wrapping up. It would make a great story that I will likely never write, but could also be a storygame TTRPG. I don't normally play or run storygames, I used to listen to a bunch of Actual Plays of them but honestly at this point don't know much about them, and don't have sufficient time to invest in it, but I would love it if somebody with more knowledge and interest in storygames could help me carry this idea into some small side project. I'm somewhat less gung-ho on this now that it's been several days since I had the dream and this would admittedly be a lot of work, but I do still love this idea and I suspect one way or another this will eventually influence something else I do, even if nobody takes me up on this for now...
Children of the Atom (1953), not to be confused with X-Men
The high concept is Children of the Atom (1953 novel not X-men) meets Royal Tenenbaums / Wes Anderson, with maybe a smidge of Life is Strange.
I should also say it's been a very long time since I've seen Royal Tenenbaums or read Children of the Atom; at one point I considered both to be some of my favorite stories, but I don't know if they actually hold up as well as I remember.
A rogue superscientist has a profuse number of children over a short span of time (or they're artificially inseminated, or genetically modified by him, or whatever). He raises them as part of a gifted school largely in seclusion from the rest of society.
One of the children, the "PoV" character we'll call them, for whatever reason was removed from the school at a very young age, but as a favor to the other parent for reasons that may or may not matter, they stay at the school for one summer during high school, so this would be the beginning of the story/game.
It would be tempting to make the initial source of conflict about animosity between the PoV character and the other siblings, but I don't think that's the direction I'd go, other than maybe one sibling or a small clique if it would spice things up, but the main struggle should be the extent to which, despite being generally accepted by the siblings, the PoV character feels like an outsider and fails to connect with their siblings, and also struggles to keep up with the rigorous demands of the school. An exploration of things like imposter syndrome, or feelings of being an outsider.
The other siblings would have their own personal struggles and the PoV character would develop relationships with them and begin to feel almost like they belong, but of course in the end, they have to return to the "real world".
The rogue superscientist is mostly a background figure or when present is present as a teacher and not a parent or relatable figure, but at the end they drive the PoV character to the airport. The PoV character finally asks the rogue superscientist why they were excluded from the school, only to learn that it was actually for a really petty and incidental reason that had nothing to do with them or their aptitudes. Yet even knowing this fact can't erase years of internalized self doubt, so it's all still very bittersweet.
From a storygame perspective, I think it is ok for the PCs to know that this is how it ends, to be keeping this in mind the whole time; it might affect how they think of the whole setting and the various relationships and dynamics.
You could give each student academic specializations, or go full X-Men / Doom Patrol with it. In fact, it seems highly likely that Stan Lee and/or Jack Kirby were directly inspired by the 1953 Children of the Atom novel- they literally refer to the X-Men as "Children of the Atom" in many cases. That said, an inversion of Doom Patrol (weird powered outsiders but who are exceptional and conventionally successful or perceived as such or held to such a standard), or something like Venture Bros (basically what I described as an inverse Doom Patrol...), or The Royal Tenenbaums themselves, are probably a better point of reference than X-Men.
Mike of Sheep & Sorcery suggested Umbrella Academy as a comparison, which I do like but always thought of as more like just a lesser Doom Patrol with the serial numbers filed off, but actually that is an important conceptual distinction between the two and in that regard Umbrella Academy is more like Venture Bros. and what I'm going for with this storygame premise, so that's a cool observation.
Where it gets more Royal Tenenbaums-y specifically, besides just the intended aesthetics, would be the extent to which it's about exceptional people who are detached from "regular society" and struggle to match the expectations set for them, and perhaps also what it's like to be in such an insular world lacking diversity of experience and broader perspectives.
But there's also this element of randomness, or the extent to which "randomness" plays a more outsized role in our identities and lived experiences than we may want to believe or be capable of understanding without outside context. The PoV character has practically defined themselves by the fact that they were excluded from this school, thinking they must not be as smart, or have ADHD/focus problems, or laziness, or mental illness, or anything like that. When in fact, it was basically just a careless decision by a self-involved agent and had nothing to do with them.
But now, despite that fact, the damage has been done, and they are forever changed as a result. They learn that they are capable of doing what their siblings do and have developed relationships with them, but they will forever be different, in difficult to define but meaningful ways.
Life is Strange is very much its own thing, more so inspired by Twin Peaks, but if the premise or scope for this game needed to be expanded, I would probably look to Life is Strange for reference.
From an RPG perspective, you could make the PCs be some of the siblings, and the narrative "PoV" character would be an NPC, a framing device for the mechanics of the game. If the PCs are the siblings, that would give them room to develop their own "narrative arc" in that Royal Tenenbaums vein.
Alternatively, you could have just one of the PCs be the "PoV" character and the others be the siblings. Or it might work best as a 1-1 game.
I say storygame because it should be more so linearly defined than like OSR/NSR/FKR type stuff, and you'd probably want some kind of game construction to evoke a Wes Anderson feel, although I don't know if or what that would entail.
But again, that's all very outside my experience or frame of reference, so to actually make a storygame out of this, I'd really need help and/or somebody to just take this idea and run with it with minimal involvement from me, but it would be cool to see this idea taken to completion and to be able to experience it in some capacity, even if I'm not super into storygames.
That all said, maybe I'm being too precious about the specific way I experienced it in the dream. I like the simplicity of the premise, of it being mostly not supernatural, but I could easily imagine this as like a different kind of module / setup for a game set in the broader MRD universe, like an "MRD 1.5 / Side Story" kind of thing. That would certainly be easier for me, but would that be as interesting?
No comments:
Post a Comment