- Writing Levels
- Adaptable
- Genres
- I'm wary of magic with lots of rules.
Cat's Paw
"A person used by another as a dupe or tool."
"A person used by another as a dupe or tool."
Setting
You're an executive, controller, vice-president, ... of a megagroup, conglomerate, chaebol, keiretsu, or state-owned enterprise.
The time is Earth, 2222 A.D. The space elevator has made interplanetary travel surprisingly simple. There are shipping lanes between Mars and the Moon. Asteroids are regularly mined for materials. Fusion power is a thing. Governments have been replaced by self-governing conglomerates, megacorporations that control countries and their entire human capital.
What's left?
Your ambition.
There are three space elevators, all of which are anchored in neutral territory: the North and South poles, and the New Congo (formerly the Democratic Republic of Congo). The North and South pole elevators are guarded with lethal force, gigantic cloaked scorpion guns lying buried in the snow to obliterate any unauthorized approach.
Africa's coast is coated in gleaming metal skyscrapers and desalination plants, but the interior is still flush with automated mines where the carbon needed for the nanotube cables is drawn from the Earth. But New Congo, where the sky elevator tapers off into space, is undergoing politic upheaveal. It has an elected government with representatives from all major corporations.
Yesterday, a bomb snapped one of the intercontinental mooring cables that holds the elevator taut.
This is the story of a million corporations vying for control of the New Congo, playing a dangerous game through intrigue, subterfuge, brute force, and proxies.
This is Cat's Paw.
Mechanism
What would happen if we took the essence of poker, bluffing, and put it into an RP? RP has always been about soft power, trying to guess from posts -> levels -> IC power. The same spirit holds here.
You are yourself and your company. Every company begins with 1 billion requisition. Unlike traditional RPs, where your power tics up the more you do, requisition fluctuates as the Cat's Paw progresses.
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Rules
[/dash]- Win a contract and its dividends by bidding the most for it.
- As a rule-of-thumb, the amount you can do with requisition is about the same as present day US dollar purchasing power.
- You may increase your bid at any time.
- You may not decrease your bid.
- If you lose a contract, you recover 50% of your bid amount (number subject to balance).
The freedom - and responsibility - in Cat's Paw comes from being able to do anything you want, as long as you keep it at the level of power dictated by your spent requisition. Thus, Cat's Paw is a game about fair writing, and reading in between the lines.
At the end of an Event, everyone reveals the amount of requisition spent. Whoever spends the most wins the event, and the right to more requisition. They also win the right to write a humiliating closing post about their opposition.
Cat's Paw is nail biting. When you invest the same amount, your actions should be roughly similar. This situation creates a game of chicken where you are forced to decide whether to back out, hold, or go all in. If someone else wants to win, it's obvious, and if they back out early, it's also obvious. Just like poker. Delicious.
Suggestions
This is the time of electromagnetic guns, of maglev trains, giant, interconnected cities that are nearly sentient. Limitless power is a thing, space flight is a common sight, the architecture relies heavily on living pol-alloy and concrete. AI adjutants are common. There is a neuro-machine interface on every human. This is cyberpunk.
Select a theme for your executive and company when you create the character sheet.
You are encouraged to hide from other players. Employ twists, employ backstabs and double-triple-quadruple crosses. Make it so that nothing is certain in the world.
Select a theme for your executive and company when you create the character sheet.
You are encouraged to hide from other players. Employ twists, employ backstabs and double-triple-quadruple crosses. Make it so that nothing is certain in the world.
Code of Conduct
Exactly as outlined in Ilium. The karma system is used to enforce power gaming.
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