How would do a campaign based on Utopia?
How would do a campaign based on Utopia?
Easton Phillips
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Nicholas Watson
Having never played any tabletop outside of MTG and D&D, but going off of context clues I'm going to guess
Any Cthulu and/or mystery / Secret World type game or system.
World of Darkness gets mentioned a lot.
It seems it's in the same vein of cyberpunk settings (population control, project Janus, etc.), so maybe Shadowrun?
And of course there's GURPS, which apparently covers everything.
Elijah Powell
I've actually thought about this a decent amount
It'd do it in Chronicles of Darkness(nWoD 2e, for those who don't pay attention to that shit), possibly having the PCs just straight up be Demons(The Descent variety, of course; again, for those not in the know, Demon the Descent is best summarized by its tagline, "A game of techgnostic espionage"--you used to serve the God-Machine(The Network) as an Angel(basically secret agents, and they can fit perfectly well as completely ordinary people when necessary), but then you had a spark of free or independent thought, and Fell. Now, the God-Machine is trying to find and kill you, and you're bound to run into Angels who pose as Demons to try and get close enough to stab you in the back, or ordinary mortals who just happened to be in the right place to fuck things up and put you in danger.)
The main cast from the show can all be done as ordinary mortals or, if you want something high-powered, as Demons, who all Fall after realizing that the comic, a piece of Concealment Infrastructure, actually contains clues to the God-Machine's future plans, and those plans are going to hurt a LOT of people.
Carvel Fell when he left the Network and started writing the comic, so it isn't *technically* Infrastructure, but whatever. Jessica is a Fractal Demon-Blooded, or a full-on Demon, depending on how you wanna handle that stuff. RB and Lee are Angels(as is Mr. Rabbit), RB Falls after he realizes his name isn't actually Arby/at the end of season 1. Wilson becomes an Integrator in season 2, and at the end he returns to being an Angel.
Alternatively, SpyCraft
Jonathan Morgan
players are against the utopia.
Justin Morgan
neat song
Andrew Bennett
I have been considering this for a while. And I have discovered problems.
For starters, Utopia fascinates with a very high level of craft. Acting, filming, lighting, editing, music, locations, and direction are top of the class and each convey their part of the final product. However, none of it translates to the game table in any way. So all that remains to play are the mystery and the group dynamic.
Now the mystery is difficult in game terms. Everything is very low key and little is explained. With the beginning of season 2 the audience actually knows more than any character, even the chief villain. And before that it is utterly paradox with each character, especially the protagonists, just wildly going off of what they have glimpsed in a wild panic. The story only forms from the omniscient perspective of the audience. But in a game the protagonists have to make some sense or the players will feel like random snowflakes in a storm. The only alternative is complete metagaming where players are disconnected from their characters not merely by knowledge, but by their concept of the world. And that's contrary to the level of immersion that is one of the most compelling qualities of the show.
Now the good news is that the character constellation pretty much directly translates to the game table. To recreate Utopia in any form as a game this is where I'd start: Flavorful characters from different socializations get forcefully connected with a mystery bigger than any of them and must explore this threat as well as overcome their dissonances and manage vestiges of their previous lives. This triple tension connects among them to form a complete mess which is only broken by the threat growing into sudden action packed plateaus on a regular basis, dragging everything else down with it.
Do not steal the lore. It isn't that complex and mostly shines through the characters and presentation, not by itself. Aim to recreate the tone more than anything. Trough chargen.
Samuel Fisher
For the full impact:
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Jose Russell
(Me)
Honestly, if I was to actually get a chance to run it, I'd probably start the PCs as loosely connected to each other by something, with their Falls happening as a domino effect as they connect with whatever the big mystery is and each other.
That gets you over the hump of "how the fuck do we know each other"/"why the fuck should we work together" that my players, personally, always try to bug me about if I don't hand it to them with a golden ribbon, and also sets up the story for each of them(especially if you run each Fall as a separate singe-player prelude session, as the book suggests, because then each player can get different pieces of information about what's going on that may or may not conflict with what someone else has, and you can start out with them all having different ideas about what's going on).
I'd probably also have scenes, from time to time, where the players are playing side-characters, just to give some exposition on things happening elsewhere in the world(a la Arby at Grant's school, with the players being students in that case), that they'd probably learn about pretty soon anyways.
Isaac Ross
I'd take it further and let character motivations and goals come into conflict.
Then establish a baseline normality slice of life for each player with a short 1 on 1 prelude that can later serve as ablative social armor, thing/people to take away, and generally to undermine the players' sense of security and of scale.
Next a prologue where the characters meet: the pub scene with the graphic novel manuscript conspiracy theorist forum members. I like to do introductions in character, although many players need a little handholding and propping up at that time. The alternative is to have the players come up with characters together and connect their backgrounds in chargen - not something that would fit for Utopia.
And then I'd start throwing out mystery and threat in short and tense individual scenes that the players must get to connect in order to have any chance. On a meta level that will make them responsible for group cohesion. On a practical level it will mean any PC who wanders off alone will be hit with a plot event. But unlike the jabs and glimpses of early events, now the characters are on the map and have to face the full force of the story. And doing so alone demands drastic measures as well as very high risks.
Isaac Watson
Jessica a shit
Jordan Russell
>Then establish a baseline normality slice of life for each player with a short 1 on 1 prelude that can later serve as ablative social armor, thing/people to take away, and generally to undermine the players' sense of security and of scale.
That's more or less what the Prelude is supposed to be in Demon; you set up the people that the players know, what they were doing for the God-Machine, and all that, and then you end it by dropping a bowling ball on everything when they Fall, and let them decide whether or not they want to pick up the pieces.
Granted, to do something exactly like Utopia, you'd have to put off the bowling ball moment a bit, but they'd (probably) still Fall when they arranged to meet up.
To put the story through the framework of DtD, Bejan was the first to Fall(excluding Jessica), when he found the manuscript and made the decision to buy it. Hence why Arby and Lee go after him, (though it's mostly to get the manuscript back).
(Alternatively, Bejan was just a mortal who found a piece of the God-Machine, and the rest of the group end up Falling when he tells them about it and they decide to meet up at the pub.)
Jacob Johnson
Uubermosh, basicaly. Utopian powers that be determine humans need violence every once in a while and set up controlled riots. Critically wounded people are medevacced quickly.
Grayson Thompson
You clearly have no idea what we're talking about
Dominic Powell
It's a gameplay premise, not a research paper on how to run a utopia.
Also, uubermosh is fucking rad. So is swarm riders.
Jeremiah Taylor
We're not talking about *a* utopia; OP was asking how we'd run a game based off the british tv show, Utopia
Easy mistake to make though
Luis Jones
Oh, okay.
Then yeah, I cant contribute here.
Zachary James
Can someone give me a spoiler free pitch for the show? The opening scene I watched made me kind of curious. I don't want to read through the big blocks of text in case spoilers.
Also, is this on Netflix or anywhere an American can watch it legally?
Ayden Brown
Twenty years ago, a man named Phillip Carvel wrote and published a comic called The Utopia Experiments. From inside a mental institution. Over the years since then, people have noticed tiny hints in the comic that correlated with things that happened after it was published; in particular, there's a page containing a symbol which is identical to the genetic makeup of a disease that was discovered.
The show starts in 2013, with that scene above, and follows the people who have found the manuscript for The Utopia Experiments: Part 2, another comic written by Carvel at the same time as the original, that tells the same story with different information.
Nathaniel Ross
Also going through google to find that image made me wish once again that they actually released the comic, because the art in it is fucking cool.
Asher Bell
It changes pace and dare I say genre 2 or 3 times throughout the 2 series (seasons) produced.
The strongest appeal to me is the art of it all. It is shamelessly overproduced and really comes across like a 24 hour movie, especially visually. It uses stark contrast and surreal as well as hyperreal cinematography, which nicely fits the story.
A random group of modern strangers have been in contact for a while on an Internet forum concerned with a cryptic cult comic book. Rumors go that the artist is a madmen, institutionalized for good, whose mad ravings are expressed in comic art and published by some editor who understands genius, if not the work itself.
These acquaintances are a random group, a school boy, a conspiracy theory fanatic, a damaged student, and an IT consultant. They meet for the first time after one believes the mythical manuscript for the second volume of the comic has been discovered.
Meanwhile a government bureaucrat in dire straits with his marriage, his affair, his professional responsibilities, and life in general stumbles down a path of intrigue and corruption he doesn't understand. In the UK the government makes wholesale pharma deals (duh!) and this administrator seems to be involved with the purchase of vaccines.
And there's two charming homicidal maniacs from the cold open. Also an elusive Jessica Hyde.
It's a show about trust, loss of social reality, and a dark conspiracy spanning decades. S2E01 reveals EVERYTHING and then the show works with the character constellation alone. It's ingenious and very well made.
If you like dark social utopy, enjoy flavors like Black Mirror, or always wondered what the X-Files might look like from a civilian perspective, then this is a show for you.
It was clearly ahead of its time and hasn't found the appreciation it deserves. Maybe it's too dark and quirky. There's nothing to compare it to because it is a truly unique production. Only parts overlap with other TV genres. Just let it unfold.
Brayden Torres
This scene doesn't spoil anything and encompasses all that the show is about, really.
Tyler Roberts
And about spoilers...
This is a show that reserves sufficient complexity for a very enjoyable second screening. So even if you know all the secrets, it will still wow you. To keep up with all the character motivations is hard the first time around, they lie.
So if you don't mind massive spoilers, here's the S1 recap.
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Charles Ward
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Oliver Gonzalez
Spoiler tag that shit, we're explicitly talking to a guy who hasn't seen the show and doesn't want spoilers
Christian Harris
It's only a spoiler if you remark on its relevance, like you just did.
Logan Walker
Thanks guys. Looks like something to watch, REALLY doubt the wife would be interested so it might take me some time since I might get one episode in a night between when she goes to bed and I do.
Leo Hernandez
...
Camden Fisher
That's really pretty
Juan Lewis
She's a lot better than Becky, the irritating cow.
Xavier Cox
Don't forget to include the sudden, shocking violence that always leaves someone dead
Cameron Price
Not PC though. They just get tortured and maimed if they aren't played like an instrument.
Carson Clark
bump
Jackson Scott
This is the only interesting thread right now.
And it looks dead
Jaxson Wright
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One thing this show will never cease to be a good source for: background music
Kevin Carter
It reminded me a lot of the vocal instrumentation of Geinoh Yamashirogumi's Akira OST.
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Dylan Powell