This is an MMORPG in which you are one of five players, playing the same character. Your "turn" begins and ends at arbitrary times. You must not only figure out the goals of the game, from waking up in random locations, but how to interact with your other "personalities", by clues left in the game. Predicting their traits will help accomplish certain goals. As the game progresses and you begin to predict how your other personalities can help in certain situations, you assimilate that personality and both players are now one (or can take turns at the same time, talk with headset coms). Winning the game will be impossible until you can assimilate the five personalities into one, and become a formidable sane fighting force.-- leinypoo13, Apr 08 2009 'The Book of Ptath' by A.E. van Vogt http://www.amazon.c...d=1239277440&sr=1-7A somewhat similar concept (except that it's a book and not a game). [DrBob, Apr 09 2009] Head over heels http://en.wikipedia...d_Over_Heels_(game) [leinypoo13, Apr 09 2009] Not the same, but does remind me of playing in conventions, where there are several pre-generated characters and over the course of the day you'll play each of them, usually with a different group of players each time.-- normzone, Apr 08 2009 Aah, [normzone], that sounds like competitive role-playing to me as often practised by the RPGA before they got into Living Campaigns.
As for the main idea it sounds like this would be a online role-playing game with a single player character but multiple players. MMO strictly means Massively Multiplayer Online game.
One problem could be one of players loosing interest with the whole thing, or simply being unable to play anymore, before the climax of the game.-- Aristotle, Apr 09 2009 This is a really excellent idea and perfect halfbakery material to boot, because it has critical flaws: the frustration of one fifth of the control; the difficulty, when played remotely, of determining from the limited actions of the character, the intent and style of your co-players; the less than entirely obvious idea title and so on and so forth. I do like this, though.
[Aristotle], I don't see how this couldn't be an MMO game, with x-thousand multiple-personality wizards and shit running around alarming the crap out of each other with their internal and external unpredictability. In fact, if you could get MMOs played in this way, you could have more players (and therefore more filthy subscription lucre) with the same number of on-screen chaos mage manticores etc.-- calum, Apr 09 2009 I guess that the idea just sounded to me like a personal journey for a character with five personalities and hence five players. MMOs are prone to sacrifice depth of experience for mechanics suited to mass interaction IMHO.-- Aristotle, Apr 09 2009 So it's an MPDMMORPGIMHO then.
Catchy.-- theleopard, Apr 09 2009 I like the concept but Ithink that I would push it further. I would go with having players occupy or 'possess', if you will, a random unoccupied character in the game every time that they log in. At least for the, say, first half a dozen sessions and except for the first one where you get to create a new character. After that, if one of your previous incarnations is available for use, then you get to use the one that you've not used for longest. If none are available then it's another random re-incarnation I'm afraid. This would not only be interesting (well, I think it would anyway) but it would be a great antidote to so-called "power" gamers (the ones who always have to have the most money, the best equipment etc and who spend their time hanging around the most popular spawning points with their most powerful character, waiting to attack newcomers who haven't got a hope of winning. +-- DrBob, Apr 09 2009 //I guess that the idea just sounded to me like a personal journey for a character with five personalities and hence five players.
Calum has what I meant, multiple multiplayer multiple personalities.-- leinypoo13, Apr 09 2009 You mean a bit like Head Over Heels?
edit : thank you [leinypoo13]-- Bad Jim, Apr 09 2009 This would work well as a scifi premise, along the lines of Kiln People or Altered Carbon, where the concept of body in more fluid. It might not be immediately apparent that 2 or more of the points of view presented in the course of the story pertain to the same physical body.
I remember a Stargate episode where a bunch of disembodied spirits all possessed the body of Daniel Jackson and struggled for control. A similar premise might apply in the above described fiction - many bottled spirits are allowed a chance to "live" using a limited number of bodies, but perhaps these spirits have not been clued into the manner in which they are given their turns, and must figure this out for themselves.-- bungston, Apr 09 2009 random, halfbakery