You are not logged in (log in or sign up)
RPG Laboratory

Dramo Worlmoro

|

Dramo Worlmoro is an RPG set within the mind, where players assume the role of anthropomorphic creatures that reside there. Whatever a person experiences, those experiences are manifested in this mind-scape.
((The mechanics rough draft can be found in the attached file, which is a Word document.))

Joe
One player assumes the role of Joe, game master and storyteller. Joe is a giant tin can robot that keeps all things in balance. Joe can also breathe fire, and sometimes uses it as a neat party trick. His siblings Ego and Id are troublemakers, so Joe makes creatures called guardians and sends them out to clean up his siblings' messes. However, the guardians have minds of their own, and Joe often has a difficult time controlling them or keeping them focused. The other players assume the role of the guardians.

Guardians
The Guardians are automatons made by Joe, but they are not all robots like him; they can be all kinds of things. Joe makes the Guardians out of this stuff called, well..."Stuff", and he gives them different parts which grant them peculiar abilities. In the Create-a-Guardian section, you get to choose your parts, which range everywhere from having bat wings, to being made of bones or plants, to breathing out fresh minty air...or corrosive acid. Corrosive acid is always fun.
Joe will send your Guardians out on missions and offer incentives for completing those missions and bonuses for meeting certain conditions. These rewards are important because they improve your abilities or grant you new ones. However, completing missions for Joe is not the only way to build up your Guardian. Some items can do this (defeated bosses often have good items like this). Guardians can also seek out the Wishing Chicken. If your Guardian happens to get "Unstuffed", then it will re-stuff in Joe's realm. Guardians can do this a finite number of times before Joe gets fed up and disassembles them for good. If a Guardian is clever enough, however, he can elude, persuade, beat up (not likely), or trick Joe in order to prevent their de-stuffing.
Guardians may also do missions for Ego or Id at their discretion, although Joe won't like that should he find out. Joe especially won't like it should you happen to change your alignment to Ego or Id. They will re-assemble you so that you will re-stuff back in their realm. (The player that takes the role of Joe also takes the role of Ego and Id.)

The Three Siblings
Although none of them can actually die from any occurrence inside the mind-scape, their power is in constant flux. And more power means better parties and well-stuffed babes. When one gains power, the others lose power. Inside dynamics and outside experiences affect the distribution of power. For example, when the outside Person is scared, Scare monsters (or Scares) from Id's realm multiply and wreak havoc. If the Person has low self-esteem and experiences success, Joe's realm will grow in power. When a realm grows substantially in power, the outside Person will also be affected greatly and tend to do things in accordance with that realm.

Id
Id changes his mind, and his form, often. He (or she, depending on the mood)is erratic, whimsical, destructive, and doesn't think things through. He typically has more raw power at his disposal, however. Monsters and Bosses tend to gravitate towards his realm. Id has a brilliant adviser, but Id always manages to botch those plans, or instead sends the adviser out on stupid or pointless missions. Id is a magnificent artist, and tends to sport very eccentric fashions.

Ego
Ego likes a lot of power and loves to look his best. Although Ego is calculating and effective, he often deludes himself into thinking his abilities are greater than they actually are. His adviser, like Id's, is also brilliant, but Ego typically ignores her ideas or lays claim to them. She can't stand his constant womanizing, but the pay and benefits are good.

Miniatures!
If I ever design this into a fully functioning RPG, I'll make Play-Do miniatures to illustrate the combat rules (I'll draw all the damned artwork myself to save money). And maybe a box of parts that you can piece together to make your own Guardian miniature. For example, a torso will have tiny holes for snapping in arms, legs and wings; a head having slots for horns and big teeth and such. Weapons will fit neatly in the hands and armor pieces will fit over the body areas. Kind of like Legos, actually; 4-5 inches tall. Piece together your Guardian, and character creation is practically done.

I am sold

This is really refreshing. I have seen a lot of stuff not worth commenting on, but this is brilliant. Your idea deserves to be finished and polished, I love it.

http://www.1km1kt.net/Aaron-White.htm

Thank you for the positive feedback.

A little insight on how I get my ideas:
Dramo Worlmoro started when I was about 16 in highschool. Instead of paying attention in class, I was doodling this cartoon creature with a black horn on his head and bubbly lips, and Popeye forearms blowing his brains out with a miniature revolver. I thought the creature had a charming quality about it (sans the suicide), so I decided that this guy just reanimates every time he dies, and he dies often because the horn on his head is unlucky. I named him Volvox. I refined the drawings over and over until I got a funny Wallace and Gromit/old school Japanimation look.
Then, one day in my art field trip, I made this hollow, clay head of Volvox, but I forgot to poke a hole in it and the head exploded in the furnace. It was hilariously fitting, so I wrote a poem about Volvox's untimely end.
A few years later, I was tinkering with Nevercast's mechanics when I decided I should try a new game with a simpler model; one that could actually be completed in this lifetime. Because Nevercast was a fantasy-future setting at the time, I was focusing on a highly fantastic setting where less explanations were necessary and I could focus on dramatically stylized qualities. In this case, dreams came to mind, where anything is possible.
I thought, "Well, what would this dream world be like?" and then I thought of all those strange cartoons I drew when I was a kid who had all of these strange (mis)adventures. I realized it would be a perfect setting for all of them to inhabit. Volvox resided in a world made of clay, so the end result was all of these Wallace and Gromit/Japanimation abominations that had their adventures in a dream world made of clay, or Stuff.
The absolutely absurd humor of the setting is inspired primarily from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Alice in Wonderland, in which I've written the outline for a short novel. It's about Volvox, who is a guardian that Joe made, and who constantly screws up and has to get restuffed. Joe gives Volvox one last chance to redeem himself, and has to escort a human girl out of their world. The human girl is a conceptualized version of an actual girl that the Person has an insatiable longing for, but can't have, so he falls into deep despair.