Nutopia

We’ve started a new role-playing game, with an interesting subject. It’s a game of Shadowrun, although we’ve had to make some changes in order to fit the rules for the game - Shadowrun has some very restrictive rules, like assuming all the characters are criminals (and this is portrayed by the character generation). I think that’s a rather large assumption. The system is also unable to handle influence in any smart way. Some abstraction is also needed in handling money and assets, or it can get really tedious.

Despite these problems, the game started out strong: we spent time talking about the characters and theme before we started making the characters, so they should be compatible (both with the theme and each other). We used J’s enquiry again, and arrived at something that resembled the results we got earlier with the same group. We choose a little narrower path than before, with less power to the game-master and more power to the players. I think it is due to some (justified) mistrust of our game-masters ability to stay within the frames we specified. I’m a bit disappointed of the effort he has put in the game, but you got to understand that people have lives outside the game.

The game is called ‘Nutopia’ after the group our characters founded. They are all urban activists, with backgrounds ranging from anarchist and eco-terrorist to neo-Nazi. They are joined in an effort to break loose from the oppressing society of 2070’s combination of capitalism and police-state. What makes the game so interesting for me is the chance have some meaningful thought about society, within the frame of the game. I think the characters won’t be able to create the Utopia they are trying to, but it remains to be seen.