Art Nouveau Roleplaying
As a student of design, one of the periods I loved was Art Nouveau. You can see this a bit in my website (especially through the swirling parts of the menu block in the lower right corner).
But I'd love to develop a game where this aesthetic echoes through all elements of the product, not merely adding graphical elements and nouveau typography as a veneer over a standard base.
The recent Cyberpunk revival project has reminded me of the many games which have been designed with a cyberpunk attitude. The output from the project has added a few more great examples to the mix; it would be nice to see a few of them achieve refinement and professional publication (whether free or otherwise).
I've seen games try to push a modernist agenda through their imagery, mechanisms and flavour text. The transhumanist games even seem to push a post-modernist agenda.
But the closest I can think to an Art Nouveau game is Nobilis; and that's only from flicking through the game a few times over the years at my local game store. It looks unfathomable on many levels, and the confusing conflict in feedback over the product hasn't enticed me to run out and buy a copy.
I have a pdf copy of Fae Noir, and that also seems to come close. But along with it's art deco and darker noir aspects, it seems to be the very type of product I'm trying to avoid...a standard base with a stylised veneer overlay.
I'm wondering what else might be out there.
But I'd love to develop a game where this aesthetic echoes through all elements of the product, not merely adding graphical elements and nouveau typography as a veneer over a standard base.
The recent Cyberpunk revival project has reminded me of the many games which have been designed with a cyberpunk attitude. The output from the project has added a few more great examples to the mix; it would be nice to see a few of them achieve refinement and professional publication (whether free or otherwise).
I've seen games try to push a modernist agenda through their imagery, mechanisms and flavour text. The transhumanist games even seem to push a post-modernist agenda.
But the closest I can think to an Art Nouveau game is Nobilis; and that's only from flicking through the game a few times over the years at my local game store. It looks unfathomable on many levels, and the confusing conflict in feedback over the product hasn't enticed me to run out and buy a copy.
I have a pdf copy of Fae Noir, and that also seems to come close. But along with it's art deco and darker noir aspects, it seems to be the very type of product I'm trying to avoid...a standard base with a stylised veneer overlay.
I'm wondering what else might be out there.
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Comments
Mortal Coil looks Art Nouveau and also breaks down the barrier between author, GM, and player, but Mortal Coil doesn't use "thematic batteries" but tokens, representing a player's ability to dictate what is true in the world of the game. For example, spending a magic token allows one to state that anyone who meets a certain definition can perform a certain ability with a certain cost (e.g. wizards, can cast fireball, by reciting the incantation over a sulfur stone).
I'm not sure why I associate that style of play with Art Nouveau. I guess because Art Nouveau was everywhere, like you could have an Art Nouveau radio or hip flask, so when I see a game that is steampunk or has Art Nouveau graphics and puts narrative authority everywhere (spreads it around the gaming table), I think of it as Art Nouveau.
Would you seek to emulate the attitudes and beliefs of turn of the century Paris? Or would you try to make things flowy and beautiful and make even the most mundane parts of the game elegant and pretty?
But the next questions cut closer to my aims, because they strike at the heart of the issue. I don't want a veneer of style, I would want this type of project to have a sinuous flow, an underlying beauty of curves and coils rather than angles.
If I were to look at this through my Vector Theory, it would probably avoid blatant nodes and decision points, instead offering ways to push at a story's momentum indirectly. Like a path following bezier curves rather than intervals between points.
It's one of those concepts I've toyed with, but never really considered seriously because I just didn't know where to start.
That's an interesting approach, and one that I think would be tough to pull off, but most likely rewarding if you can figure it out. I'm pretty stumped off the top of my head, but this is a theme I'll be thinking about.
The art in it is kind of Art Nouveau.
And the way Magic Points are spent in that game has kind of that bezier curve thingie (at least how I imagine it), in that once a magic point is spent any ____ can ____ as long as ____. (eg. Any wizard can cast fireball if he can speak and has a sulfur stone on him. All vampires are stopped by running water unless carried over in a coffin. Etc.) This allows someone to subtly build rules into a game so his character comes out on top in the end, or to carelessly send the story off in an unexpected direction.
In one way, I guess you could say that the issue is that whole "form" versus "function" debate all over again.
I guess my other issue here is the fact that there is plenty of steampunk stuff around at the moment. I'm looking for distinctly non-steampunk ideas.