Inverted City wouldn't be a thing without Disco Elysium. It just wouldn't. While most of the ideas you're about to read have been kicking around inside my head for a long time, they were never a cohesive whole. Disco Elysium finally helped me shape them into a game that actually has something to say with its concept, mechanics and characters.
In this blogpost, we'll be taking a quick look at the game's outline, its themes and the mechanics that will (hopefully) support them!
THE BASICS
At its core, Inverted City is an urban fantasy RPG, but that might be selling it a little short. It's a game about the seedy, almost otherworldly underbelly of a quintessential City and the bizarre folks who call it home, struggling to tame the untameable.
The Inverted City is a powder keg, constantly on the verge of exploding and positively oozing with chaos and unrest. It's corrupt, rotten, cruel, uncaring, vile, greedy, nihilistic and self-destructive. In spite of that, it's also capable of great beauty. You just gotta know where to look.
Player characters are known as Sparks — people fated to channel all that confusion and frustration into something new. But new isn't always better, and it's up to them to make it so.
Along with Disco Elysium, Inverted City also counts NORCO, David Lynch, True Detective and Neil Gaiman amongst its influences. When it comes to TTRPGs, this thing owes a lot to Wraith: The Oblivion's Shadowguiding mechanics, Electric Bastionland's structure, FitD & PbtA's ethos, CBR+PNK, and even CY_BORG's district section. They're the real MVPs here.
GETTING SHIT DONE
Rather than reinventing the wheel, I decided to stick with the basics when it comes to resolution mechanics. The players roll at least one d6 and, if applicable, a d8 (known as a Spark die, which is directly connected to their character's Archetype; more on those later). Results ranging from 1 to 3 are failures, while 4s and 5s are partial successes. 6s are complete successes, and double 6s are critical successes. A 7 or 8 on a Spark die is also a success, and one of the two ways characters can acquire experience in Inverted City.
Generally speaking, if a character is attempting something they don't need any special training or equipment to accomplish, they will always get at least one d6, the Lucky One. If they have a relevant Drive (more on those later) they'll also get a second d6, known as the Inspiration die, with the possibility of getting a third d6 known as the Style die if they're dressed for the occasion. Each of these needs to be of a different colour. Under certain circumstances, they'll also roll a d8 known as a Spark die.
Unskilled, unprepared, underdressed and Uninspired (that is, lacking a relevant Drive) characters may still try to accomplish any particular goal, but they only roll a single d6, applying -1 to the result. Inspiration always supersedes anything else, though — that is, if you're rolling an Inspiration die, you never suffer any penalties, no matter how unsuited you may be to the task at hand. Passion trumps all.
THE CACOPHONY
Every player character has a collection of Drives, the things that inspire them to succeed or fail in their endeavours. Each Drive has a Voice, played by a fellow player. During character creation, you'll assign a few Drives yourself, while another player will claim some, and the Maestro (that is, the Judge, Master of Ceremonies, Dungeon Master or what-have-you) will assign the remaining Drives. Every player in the table needs to be assigned at least one Drive from each PC.
When a character follows one of their Drives while trying to accomplish a challenging task, they roll an Inspiration die in addition to any other die involved in the roll. If that die's result is a partial success, a complete success or a critical success, the Drive's Voice will narrate how the character accomplishes their goal. If the roll results in a failure, that Voice will tell you how and why you failed.
Drives will also function as a Health Track of sorts. When a Drive is wounded, it'll be temporarily lost, along with its die. In order to recover a wounded Drive, the PCs will need to pass a relevant check without its aid. The Maestro will determine what counts as relevant for each Drive.
The Cacophony, inspired by WtO's Shadowguiding and Disco Elysium's skills, is probably my favourite Inverted City mechanic. Fair warning, though: I still don't have a full list of Drives. So far, I've only really settled on two: The City Talks and Fortean Street Blues. The former will be useful for gathering information, navigating the City's labyrinthine streets and tuning into its very soul in search of answers. The latter, as its name may suggest, focuses on dealing with any and all supranatural matters.
ARCHETYPES
Full disclosure: I'm not in love with this aspect of the game, but I do think it serves a purpose — not only that, it also helps give the PCs some direction. Think of Archetypes as PbtA playbooks, rather than typical character classes. They're meant to delineate a Spark's role in the City and the way they tend to effect change. Here's a few interesting ones I've sketched out so far:
- THE FIREBRAND: idealist, agitator, rebel with a cause, burning with passion
- THE ICON: famous, trendsetter, inspirational, legions of fans and haters
- THE DESTROYER: breaker of chains, enemy of the status quo, all-consuming inferno
If there's something I actually really like about these archetypes, it's the way they're tied to advancement. Succeeding at actions with your Spark die the only safe way of gaining experience (more on that below), which incentivises the PCs to act in ways befitting their Archetype. Now, while that may sound constraining, there's a catch: the main form of mechanical advancement in Inverted City is acquiring more "triggers" for your Spark die. The Destroyer, for one, could add such triggers as breaking bones and breaking someone's will, while the Firebrand could add triggers related to converting others to your cause, or sowing the seeds of unrest. Is there room for improvement? Absolutely. But it's a decent start.
THE BIRTH OF A CITY
Your Inverted City will never be the exact same as anyone else's. It's yours, for starters, and it belongs to you and your table. All I plan on doing is giving you the tools to build it — random tables, prompts, sample denizens and so on. The City will always include a set of districts, all of which will have individual themes, but it'll be up to you to decide who lives in them, what they actually look like and its current events. I'm considering making a modular map for the City, with district boundaries and evocative visual motifs for each district, which should be fun!
While I'm still at the planning phase when it comes to city-building mechanics, I already have a few things I plan on implementing. The first of which is tying every district to a Drive, and making the player whose character has the highest rating in said Drive responsible for the district. Before the game starts, they'll get to choose or create a set of important NPCs, secrets and omens for that district, and at the start of each session, they'll be asked to tell the rest of the table about a new event related to one of those.
The other mechanic I plan on implementing is Chaos, as that's a central part of the game's concept. Basically, every time a player rolls a 6 on an Inspiration die, that will add Chaos to the district related to the Drive they used. All characters with that Drive gain experience, but once a district's Chaos Clock reaches a certain level, one of its omens comes true. I'm really fond of this mechanic, as its thematic relevance is pretty strong. There's a reason PCs are called Sparks.
DRESS TO IMPRESS
One of the things I really loved about Disco Elysium was carrying around a bunch of weird, mismatched pieces of clothing, so much so that I actively enjoyed playing around with outfits and trying to find out the best combination of clothes for each given situation. That's what I'm going for with the Style die, though I'm not 100% sure of how it'll be implemented.
I don't think wearing a fine suit should necessarily give you a Style die when meeting high society, for one. If anything, I want it to feel weird, and I want it to feel earned. Clothes need to have a Story in order to actually grant you Style die, and sometimes, your own clothes will develop their own stories during the game. Finding a discarded handmade sweater in the dumpster with “I ♡ BIG DICKS” sewn onto it should be an event, something the players will actively look forward to, something they'll remember.
OUTSIDE THE CITY
This is one aspect of the game I haven't really done a lot of planning for yet, but I'd like to include two other playable areas, apart from the City: the Eerie Suburbia and the Wild Wastes (and this is where the NORCO influence comes in). The former would be similar to Electric Bastionland's Deep Country, while the latter would encompass all the places mankind left behind, such as abandoned oilfields, ghost towns and rusting factories. While reality is still barely holding together against all the Chaos inside the City's boundaries, the same can't be said about these places. Shit gets weird outside the city. Shit gets real weird.
CHAOS ITSELF
One of Disco Elysium's most memorable pieces of worldbuilding is the Pale, and while Chaos isn't meant to be a 1:1 conversion of it, I can't deny it was an inspiration. HUGE spoilers for Disco Elysium below!!
While the Pale consists of pockets filled with the total absence of matter and of existence itself, and it's brought about by things, ideas and so on being manifested before its time by people capable of intercepting information retroactively transmitted from the future (which seems to be a natural phenomenon), Chaos is far, far simpler.
The easiest way to describe the effects of Chaos is by saying that under its effects, anything that could happen will happen, no matter how far-fetched or unbelievable. If it can be conceived of by the human mind, it's possible. As for where it comes from, well, that's even simpler. It comes from us. From our collective desires, fears and beliefs. The City is home to millions of voices, each of them manifesting their own ideas into the Chaosphere, and while that sounds like a recipe for disaster, it's better than the alternative. Those voices drown each other out, and whatever does end up happening is usually far milder than what a single, powerful voice could bring about. Sparks, naturally, play a huge role in that, which is why the Chaos Clock is a thing. Their actions always have serious consequences in the Chaosphere.
DESIGN ETHOS
To conclude, let's talk a bit about what kind of game I want Inverted City to be. The easy answer is “meaningful”, but that's always easier said than done. The more complex answer is, well, I want it to feel personal. I want every City to be distinct, through the help of random tables and such, yes, but also through your own unconscious biases and preferences. If you don't want any supernatural elements in your Inverted City, then I want it to be easy for you to shave those off and still have fun with the game. If you want to go all-in on exploring the Wild Wastes and its distorted realities, I want the game to facilitate that for you. I don't need Inverted City to be everything for everyone, though, as that's unreasonable and a great way to dilute any thematic power the game may have. But I do want to make it as modular as possible, without losing what it makes it tick. I also want to make this as accessible as possible, seeing as most of my friends don't have a lot of experience with TTRPGs, so making this an easy game to get up and running is a must.
Truthfully, I don't know how much of this is going to work, but I'm excited to find out.
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