Inception PbtA?

#1

I was rewatching Inception the other day and I forgot how interesting and stylized that universe is. Then I started to notice how it’s structured kinda like a pbta game.

We have the Playbooks (Thief, Architect, Forger, Chemist etc) and the whole heist narrative is tipically full of failures and half-successes that propel the story forward.

The most interesting aspect for me seems to be the elements of Cob’s subconscious that surface in the dream world. Imagine a rule for this: a milestone in your characters life could be that her father died in a car crash, then during the game a 6- result could come in the form of a car coming from nowhere right towards the characters. Maybe something like Urban Shadow’s Corruption stat could measure the character’s mental stability and add to the probability of an event like this.

And we’d also need rules for tokens and dream levels and probably a bunch of stuff. I don’t really know enough to design a game like this, but I would totally play it!

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What piece of media do you wish was an RPG?
#2

Sorry about any unintentional butchering of the English language! I’m Brazilian :sweat_smile:

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#3

Have you heard of a game called Lacuna? It’s not pbta but it’s the closest to inception the rpg that I know.

I don’t wanna spoil it, but you play as agents who venture into the collective subconscious to pacify/capture/neutralize hostile personality profiles as part of a company. There’s more going on… Definitely omit the spider people from your reports… but play to find out.

It has cool mechanical stuff like how things you do require you to jack up your heartrate but too much means you wake up and are out. It’s my favorite game of Jared’s.

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#4

It’s not a whole game based on Inception, but Fraser Simon’s The Veil has a playbook called The Architect that’s a sort of reality hacker whose subconscious can get mixed in with their work, which I believe he’s said was at least partially inspired by Inception. Might be worth a look as a good starting point if you ever get the itch to play that sort of thing =O

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#5

I’ve considered putting some work into designing an Inception-based PbtA game as well, but I also wonder if Blades in the Dark might be a better fit since that game is specifically geared towards running heists?

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