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The Vault of Maguffin (name subject to change)

6 replies [Last post]
Wed, 03/26/2014 - 12:45
Duckofdoom
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Joined: 03/24/2014

I've had this idea for a setting and a concept floating around in my head for awhile, but have hit a mental roadblock, and maybe can get some help with it here. And before reading on, yes I have seen the show Warehouse 13 and yes this is where the idea came from:

Hidden somewhere between every work of fiction, in a secret central location, is the Vault of Maguffin: A place where if you fantasy story needs a magical blade to pierce the Dragon's heart, your Sci-fi story requires the Disk that accidentally uploads the Evil AI, or your Horror story requires the Statuette that holds Unspeakable Evil, then this is the place where all those things are stored until approved personnel (Such as your Mysterious Stranger or Rogue Computer Hacker) pick them up and place them in their required stories. However, recently some folk have caught wind of this place's existence, and by either teleportation spells or transporters, have found it. And now that they can get here themselves, they don't want to wait for the objects to be delivered to their worlds, but rather take them (At least, the ones important to them)!

From this point, I cannot decide between weather the game should be from the perspective of the people trying to break into the Vault, or from the perspective of those trying to defend it. In the first case, the players can be archetypal characters from their respective types of fiction (like knights and wizards from fantasy, hackers and spaceship captains from Sci-fi, or characters from gothic horror like vampires and vampire hunters and modern horror like slasher villians or zombie apocalypse survivalists). Though after writing up the description it could also be interesting to make the game from the other perspective, and give it a more cooperative slant.

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Wed, 03/26/2014 - 14:16
#1
Corsaire
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Joined: 06/27/2013
So early to be stuck. Take

So early to be stuck. Take your brain down a walk through where the fun in each of those approaches is.

For your twist on the artifact warehouse theme, you could explain that an opening was created when the idea for a game about the warehouse got stored in the warehouse and created a paradoxical rift... Which, of course, means that until you complete development of your game you've placed the entire space-time continuum into grave danger.

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Thu, 03/27/2014 - 00:02
#2
Duckofdoom
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Joined: 03/24/2014
Then I better get to work so

Then I better get to work so we don't have that happen. I actually had more ideas about the players playing as the characters breaking in, as well as general concepts as to what characters were and would do (Such as a Knight being protected by armor, or the Museum Curator who's worked with strange artifacts before). After I actually wrote down the premise on paper in a fuller form and really looked at it, I though "Huh, there could also be some fun to be had in playing the security as well." It's all coming down to weather it'll be more fun as a Co-op game (as the security guards) or a competitive one (The vault raiders) and whichever one is decided upon will take the game in a different direction mechanically.

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Thu, 03/27/2014 - 15:49
#3
ruy343
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Joined: 07/03/2013
Here's my $0.02

I think that there's a third option that you might not have explored, which is trying to make sure that the artifacts make it to their proper stories, but as you make them, they could have effects on the vault until they're sent to their story. The Evil Genius's secret weapon that you made could really boost the fame of the vault of Maguffin, but if you aren't careful, it could destroy everything you've made! So, it's a cooperative game wherein the players must try to harness the powers that there are to try to get the right elements to the right stories.

However, I also think that it might be fun to mix up your two ideas a bit as well. What about a cooperative game where the players are working together to steal the power source from the vault of Maguffin, but when they trigger traps, one of the creations of the vault falls off of a shelf and become activated. Now, the traps are different each time, and the danger begins to accumulate.

(actually, I made a prototype game once where the players were each taking the roles of different thieves with different abilities (a la Leverage), and it was fun, but it lacked something like this that would make it truly interesting, and where the difficulty would continue to scale up as they got closer to their objective. Instead, it got easier as they worked together and disarmed the museum... This concept would fix that.)

I think that the second one is the more playable idea of those that I've offered, but as always, the idea of my comments is to give you the opportunity to hear more ideas and thereafter to come up with your own.

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Sat, 03/29/2014 - 16:59
#4
Duckofdoom
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Joined: 03/24/2014
Coalescing Ideas

That second idea actually sounds like a good one mechanically, though perhaps instead of stealing the power core, maybe they're just trying to steal a particular artifact of higher notoriety then others. But then herein lies the problem from a flavor perspective. Say the artifact in question is Data Disk from a Sci-fi story. Sure a computer hacker would want it the most, and the University professor might want it depending on what time period of fiction he's from, but why would they work together to steal it when they know it can only go to one of them? Also, say a Fantasy wizard in this group as well. Actually, come to think of it, why would people from different genres want the same thing? You know what, this might work more flavorfuly if the players were working in the Vault trying to keep thieves out. Thanks for responding!

MOAR IDEAS!

So then this just hit me. How about if the players are guards working inside the Vault, then there's one Master-like player who controls the waves of thieves. The Guards have their own Gear to work with, which could be represented by a deck of Gear cards. However, if the thieves provide too much for them, they could pull an Artifact off the shelf and use it, which would most likely be better then their own gear, but doing so would invoke their Boss's Ire, as they were assigned to protect the objects there, not use them! And if the boss's Ire raises too high, there will be consequences!

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Mon, 03/31/2014 - 10:32
#5
ruy343
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Joined: 07/03/2013
Actually...

You know Mr. Duck, What if each of the player characters were in it for their own artifacts, and were working together so that they could each get what they wanted from the vault?

This means that depending on the characters and abilities that the players choose, the game is different. With more players, you have to rescue more artifacts from the places on the board where they normally go, and those specific places could be well guarded against abilities of that player, requiring that your team go in your stead to get the object.

However, there could be a time limit imposed by "noise" that the characters and traps make as well, meaning that certain traps and monsters become more active the more noise is triggered. The players will want to rely on low noise powers until the end of the game, but inevitably, they might end up stuck at the back of the vault with no way out if they're not careful.

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Wed, 04/02/2014 - 15:58
#6
Duckofdoom
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Joined: 03/24/2014
Huh. Never though of that

I did not think think about that option. I pictured the thieves plotting against one another, hence the players themselves could provide the challenge. However, there is a whole new spectrum of things that can be done if the players work together against a living, thinking board, such as in Arkham Horror. Or maybe it could be like Last Night on Earth, where the majority of players play the thieves and there's one Overseer who can control the flow of the game, perhaps the longer the game goes on, the more things the Overseer can throw at the players.

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