The beginning of a D-Com game consists of the player(s) and Department Manager (the GM) discussing how long they want to play that night (yes, D-Com is now a one-night game; I want to position it as a game that can be played when a player doesn’t show up for game night). The negotiated length of the play session determines a central mechanic in the game: Core System Time.
Let’s say the 2 players and the Dept Mgr decide on a 2 hour game. The two Battlebot PCs begin play with a 10 in Core and a d4 in “Spirit”. Since in this example the game length is 2 hours or 120 minutes, every 12 minutes, both Battlebots lose 1 point of Core. When a Battlebot’s Core is 0, they are completely broken and cease all functions. These 12 minutes are real-time since everyone agreed to a two hour game.
If you think about this with the Core mechanic of stressing the system, most of the time, the game would last less than 2 hours.
Here’s my favorite part of the timing mechanic. Once the play group settle on a game length (in hours), they play an mp3 that comes with the game that lasts two hours. The mp3 is completely silent (nothing to distract those players who hate music in game). Every twelve minutes, an audio cue notifies the players that Core System failure has occurred.
But say you only want to play for an hour? That’s cool. The game will come with an mp3 with audio cues every 6 minutes. The game will come with mp3s for play sessions of 1, 2, 3 and 4 hours. As for what “comes with means”, I’m still pondering the details of either a CD included with the game or more likely, hosting the mp3s online.
I look forward to playtesting this live. I’ve discussed the mechanic with a couple people and have received interesting feedback.
Tags: game mechanics
