rowyn

After watching Vicorva stream Strange Horticulture, I bought the game and then finished it in a weekend (it’s not a long game).

It’s fun: I liked the little puzzles that were often pretty easy, and that the game had a “hint” option so if I didn’t find the puzzle easy I could just keep asking for hints until it gave me the answer. XD

I still wanted to play after I got an ending, so I played some more to identify all the plants. And then started a new game. But I remember all the answers so it’s not as much fun as the first time.

So now I’m thinking about running it as a play-by-post RPG.

One reason I like the concept of Strange Horticulture as an RPG is that the mechanics (identifying plants and solving puzzles) are nonviolent.

I don't usually like puzzles as a game mechanic because I get frustrated easily. But Strange Horticulture's "hints" option solved that, which is why I want to incorporate that explicitly into the RPG.

The video game has some off-camera violence. I'll let the players decide if they want violence in the RPG or strictly non-violent.

Game premise:

All the PCs play people who have recently started to run a shop of mysterious and mystical plants. None of the plants are properly labeled. You have a book about plants but it’s bad at describing them. (You get to decide how you got the shop/plants/book).

Game play:

• General roleplay: interacting with customers and deciding how you want to handle them
• Identifying plants: I’ll provide a bunch of plant pictures and some poor descriptions of them and you get to try to figure out what goes with what.
• Solving small puzzles/riddles: you’ll get clues and solving them will give you more things. Sometimes the clues will be Extremely Obvious. I do not promise challenging puzzles.

Each PC has a talking animal companion that can give them hints, but There’s a Cost. (Maybe parts of your soul! Or your memories! Or kitty treats! I will let the players as a whole decide this one.)

Likewise, I’ll let the players decide how serious they want the game to be -- do you want Lives To Depend on your correct identification of plants/solving puzzles, or more like “the most dire consequence is that some customer is angry at you because the wrong plant attracted ants and ruined their picnic”?

There will be an overall plot of some kind, but also small stories about helping customers (or failing to help customers by providing the wrong plant, whether on purpose or not) and how they react.

I’m thinking 3-4 players, and players get many of the same puzzles to solve and can collaborate to solve them in various ways. And one of the mysteries is “why did we all start running our shops at the same time in different places?”

In the event of players who join the game but later have to leave for whatever reason: I'd like to have their PC retire and/or mysteriously depart and hand over their shops to a new player or NPC, so that their departure needn't impact the other PCs. n_n

I will not use any of the plot points or specific puzzles from the video game, so there'll be no spoilers for the video game and no advantage to having played it or not.

Would anyone be interested in playing?

Possible players so far:

• Ciel
• Alex
• Anke

I'm only putting up three possible settings/plots this time. This is partly because I already have three ideas I'm fond of and would like to do, and that's two more than I will actually use. Coming up with more ideas just means more that I'll want to do and can't. Also, I have Friday off and if I already have the setting picked than I can spend part of the day ruminating on the details.

Dungeon Dwellers: PCs are henchmen monsters guarding a dungeon for an evil wizard. The evil wizard will be gone for 24 hours. Havoc ensues. The PCs do not have to be evil themselves in this scenario: the plot may revolve around PC plans to betray the wizard, for example. This would generally be a silly, light-hearted campaign, with various plot devices to prevent PC death. ("Hey, he may be an evil wizard but he's got a *great* healthcare plan.") Inspired by stories like "Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic" and "Dungeons & Denizens", etc.

Study in Space: The "Black Event" happened to a manned survey ship in orbit around an uninhabited planet. All of the crew survived the event, but they have no memory of it and their ship was destroyed. (They were rescued by another ship). Amidst the wreckage of their ship were several alien artifacts, which are poorly understood by modern scientists but which have tremendous potential. Several years passed, during which scientists have built a small research space station at the same orbital position. The PCs are researchers on this space station when another Black Event happens. PC goals: try to gather as much information as possible and protect the results of existing research plus any new discoveries from destruction until the Black Event ends (the duration of the last one isn't known for sure, but it was between twelve and seventy-two hours). No people were harmed during the last Black Event, so no one expects to be harmed this time, but it would be really nice to come out of this with more data and maybe even some new alien artifacts .... This would be a space opera-ish setting, with hand-wavey science, because I don't have the background to do real science. Basic idea stolen from octantis. Thanks, Octantis!

Dealing with the Unknown: A race of fey, or aliens, or people from another dimension, or something -- no one's quite sure what -- has made contact with modern Earth. They're called "Traders", and they have a bazaar where they'll make deals with humans, trading their goods and services for human ones. The Trader's Bazaar appears at random on locations all over the world, and disappears 132 minutes later. Twenty-two hours later, the Bazaar reappears for thirteen minutes and fifteen seconds, during which time any deals made at the previous Bazaar may be cancelled. The bazaar stocks a bewildering array of tangible and intangible goods. the Trader's Bazaar has been appearing for several years now, and humanity is ... sort of used to it. In many countries dealing with the Traders is illegal, but it's currently legal in America.

The Traders do not sell at fixed prices or for cash. They barter. For everything. They are very friendly and cheerful, but only partially comprehensible. They're translated by small floating crystals near their heads (or maybe that's a second mouth?), but often the crystals render parts of a deal as , and you don't know what you've traded, or what you've got, until the deal is sealed. But you do get one chance for a refund, during the 13-minute window 22 hours later. The PCs will be a group of people who've just completed deals with the Traders. These deals will give the PCs certain known powers (to be picked by the player and to be superbeing type abilities, like mind-reading or teleportation) with unknown side effects (determined by the GM). They will also have given up certain known valuables, plus one mental/social/emotional ability (personal integrity, capacity for love, abiltiy to deceive, etc.) The player will get to pick the last, but ICly the PC will not initially have realized what they traded away. PC goal: figure out in the next 22 hours whether you want to keep what you got or get the refund. This'd be a good option for "The Terrible Way". Idea ganked from conversation with terrycloth and tuftears.

Now, on to the poll! Once again, please only vote if you're interested in playing in one of them.

[Poll #1211163]