Previous Entries: Design Diary 1 – The Pitch | Design Diary 2 – The Blockcrawl
Now we come to the special sauce that makes Protoplastic a distinctly Lego-inspired game: you assemble your character out of modular components, and can replace them as you find new ones. This is the primary “equipment” system – you’ll be able to carry objects around when necessary but you won’t really wear armor or wield weapons, those things are directly part of your body. This is also the primary advancement system, largely eschewing the idea of “leveling up” in favor of purely diegetic character progression represented directly on the body for all to see. Let’s break that system down.
Exobiology
The creatures of Protoplastic’s world are able to remove and exchange their body parts with relative ease. Why? Because they’re made of living plastic. In the 1970s, Carl Sagan and Bishun Khare published a paper describing organic compounds called “tholins” in Titan’s atmosphere, thought to be precursors of life1. One such compound was reproduced in a laboratory: polyacrylonitrile. That name mostly likely means nothing to you by itself, but the resin can be combined with two other polymers to produce acrylonitrile butadiene styrene or ABS – the kind of plastic LEGO pieces are made of. As such, although the inhabitants of the world may not understand this chemistry, it forms the basis of the liquid “protoplastic” oil sea that living organisms solidify from. They have a plastic-based metabolism, analogous to cellular life on Earth but operating by different biochemical pathways. Although comfortable to them, their atmosphere would be poisonous to us.
However, sapient beings possess one non-plastic component: their pearl. Divers pluck these fist-sized silicon orbs from the bottom of the ocean to act as the identity cores of new villagers. The translucent glasses spheres contain visible golden circuits that interface with protoplastic when slotted into a body, allowing them to maintain a continuity of consciousness no matter how much else is replaced, even their heads. They’re just a bit like “śarīra”, the pearls said to be left behind by enlightened Buddhist monks.
Full Rebuild
Each player character has five standard body slots that they can put any appropriate components into if they possess them. Those slots are the head, arms (right and left), torso, and legs. As the title implies, all of these slots can be swapped out whenever you have the time to pop off a piece and snap a new one onto the bare joint. If I had infinite Kickstarter money, I would wholesale replace the character sheet with plastic miniatures: you could just build a little robot instead of tracking your parts on paper.
Head
I might end up calling this one “Mask” instead – depends on the outcome of a decision point that I’ll discuss later in the Discussion section. Your head slot determines your senses (such as infrared vision, ultrasonic hearing, etc.), can effect your social standing (it’s literally your face, and may be especially beautiful/horrible as well as reflect a certain societal role), and might give you skills or other mental traits. It’s possible to swap out because your “soul” is in your pearl.
Arms
I initially wanted to just have a single “Arms” slot to keep things simple, but anticipated complaints at the table, so each arm is treated separately. They can be clamps, tentacles, or any sort of tool or weapon, from drills to flamethrowers. Generally speaking you’re not carrying a sword in your hand, your hand just is a sword.
Torso
Your main body provides the functions that armor does in other games: protection from damage, elemental resistances, and the like. Some torsos can also alter what slots you have available, such as giving you four arms instead of two.
Legs
The least literal of the slots, as while it holds actual legs in the default villager configuration, it covers all forms of locomotion, such as wings or even wheels. Along with the torso, this slot creates the possibility of rather odd player character body plans that diverge from the expected humanoid.
Discussion
In addition to the basic emulation of the media on which the game is based, the ability to respec your character on such a fundamental level provides numerous opportunities to address challenges by taking on forms best suited to them. Want to get something beneath the ocean? Everyone takes the waterbreathing head and the fin legs. About to fight a lava monster? Slot in a fire resistant torso and an ice spear arm. In most games, scouting and information gathering is of limited utility because you only possess the static abilities of your build, but a Protoplastic team can assume bespoke new builds as the need arises. Just keep your spare parts on your ship and return to it when you need to switch out.
I don’t plan on restricting how you acquire new parts, either: take down a creature with a given part, and you can loot it. This leads to strategic decisions by the party to hunt down a certain foe in order to harvest the parts they need, Monster Hunter style. I’m absolutely okay with the idea that the players might beeline to a particular location to get a certain part that completes an overpowering build – a grab for asymmetric power like that is satisfying to pull off and a reward for clever play.
The aspect I’m still trying to work out is how to handle masks. On one hand, they almost make more sense as the head slot more than heads per se (which weren’t the focus on the toys), and open up interesting design space when I bring in certain other ideas, such as masks that grant control of reshaping islands or unlocking ancient doors. On the other hand, with the extreme level of malleability characters are capable of, there’s something to be said for making your mask the one largely invariant component, something you draw on your character sheet in a little provided space to give them a consistent visual identity – if your chronicle was a show or a comic book you would want that kind of recognizable marker for the audience to know who was who. This would also match the idea of your mask embodying a heroic journey you mantle and follow to its conclusion.
Let me know in the comments what you think! I’m curious what others think is the core fantasy of being a biomechanical seafaring warrior – do you care more about the freedom to design strange forms or the ideal of a mythic hero?
Either way, next time I’ll cover the core resolution mechanic, tentatively called the “dice queue”. I’ve really been holding back not talking about it until now~
Footnotes
Featured Image:
Bionicle Comic Issue 2 (2001), Cover
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