What style of gaming do you want to see in Dark Conspiracy?

[Marcus Bone]

Hi all,

Time again for some hard questions to be asked of you and your favourite RPG. This time it's – What style of gaming do you want to see in Dark Conspiracy?

I personally see DC as an extremely flexible game, where the setting is outlined, but the action is unlimited. I’ve always thought that this encouraged different types of games to be run within the DC setting, from grim, dark conspiracy horror, through to action packed military combat or deep, mind-bending investigation.

That might just be my impression of the game, however, and I'd be keen to hear your thoughts on the style and structure of your own game play.

Look forward to your replies,

Marcus

[Linden]

That might just be my impression of the game, however, and I'd be keen to hear your thoughts on the style and structure of your own game play.

I've always been keen in setting my games in real life locations, ideally ones that I'm familiar with. I find a realistic setting helps make the
other worldly horrors more believeable. Grounds them in reality as it were.

In terms of playing style I like investigation with a bit of combat as well, possibly at the climax of the adventure. I'm not as gun happy as GDW originally were. Reading some of those old Challenge adventures (and not just for DC) I think its obvious that GDW mostly regarded rpgs as a variant on skirmish wargames. Didn't DC designer Lester Smith say something similar in that introductory article he did for Demonground? I realise that gun fights in DC are a lot more acceptable than in, say, CoC, and that can be quite liberating, I just don't think they're the be all and end all.

[anthraxus]

I've participated and ran both combat-heavy and investigation-heavy games. Personally I prefer to change it up depending on what that particular story calls for.

[Mister E]

I like the idea of a very open ended take on what sorts of conspiracies there are in the world. I like the way the Darklings are jsut catalogued, but not really given specific places in the world.

While I like the supernatural part of the game to stay ill-defined and open-ended, I would like to see a solid and believeable real-world time line. The set up for the Greater Depression and the social stratification as explained in the earlier editions never quite rang true to me.

[Antenna]

I have run "low intesity battle campaigns" and also campaigns where you need at least a small nations arsenal in weapons to get thru. The openenes as it is stated earlier in the thread is appealing for me as a GM becouse it gives me more or less free hands to get almost any adv done.

Antenna

[Morthrai]

It was always the flexibility of DC that made me happy with it, you can throw almost anything from the wider genre in there and it still fits. As for Lester Smith's comment about GDW, I think he said that when he said 'RPG' they would always ask if he meant a grenade launcher

[Zvezda]

If you ask what style of gaming I want to see for DC I think I have to say: More than one. I think your impressions, Marcus, are true. After about 13 years experience with DC I have done all of it at some point. With different players and all that but it always worked perfectly well. The only limit which came with the game was magic-combat. I have never been a big fan of magical combat but players who came form shadowrun insisted that we had to do something about that.
I personally prefer sessions with little or no dice roll at all. Where all the outcomes are regulated by role playing. This works very well in DC. But combat heavy missions with a lot of rolling are also possible. Through all the games I have used so far GDW has brought up the best combat system. Not too much paperwork and a really fast pace.
The setting is one of the biggest advantages. It is good that neither the opposition nor the world as such is unchangeable and pre-defined. I don’t like the ETs one of DCs core darklings so I have never employed them. It worked perfectly well. I think not pre defining every thing is great for experienced GMs, though it might hinder the selling of the game a bit.
For the future I would like DC to stay the same as it is. With some technical improvements however.

[Braxen]

I try to balance my games with investigation and combat. All the while I try very hard to keep a very grim and tense tone/mood. The system as it stands now allows me to keep the game at a rapid and smooth pace. I would not mind a little more crunchy rules stuff but not much. Maybe add in some sighting distances for things like muzzle flashes for example.

The magic system has always seemed a bit cumbersome to me. I am not sure how to fix it without it looking like a magic system from say D&D or Rolemaster.

The one thing that I do not want to see is this wonderful game turn into another WOTC d20 knock off. That would turn me off to the new DC game quicker than seeing a fat chick in a thong bikini.

[Zvezda]

There are some very useful rules on 'noise' in the Merc2000 book. Maybe you like those. They can easily modified for flashes I guess.

[Paul Mann III]

Dark Conspiracy should be equal parts; Horror Movie, Crime-Drama, Action Flick and Suspense Novel. Of course a bit of Comedy nevers hurts...