Dollhouse: The lost years RPG --- Introduction

Having re-watched the dollhouse series, i'm revisiting an idea of a role playing game, in particular, the last episode.

As a recap, the last episode was a miniseries in itself. The one hour special started out as if you had picked up the show at the end of a non-existent 3rd season, flashing through opening sequences, not taking time to elaborate on the events unfolding. We're here, bad stuff is happening, and the technology that was questionable at the end of the 2nd season has spun completely out of control. For all intents and purposes, you can hear Joss cursing at the audience and producers "This is what you get for canceling my show!"

Anyways, the evil Rossum corporation fell, or at least the organizational structure did, and the remnants of that corporation gathered the technology and a war began between the rebels and Rossum. The war takes place in major cities, and from what it seems, when the rebels start to get close to a major victory, Rossum wipes entire city sectors, reprogramming them into 'butchers', making escape costly at best.

Mercenaries spring up, fighting the war on wheels, capturing and improvising the brain scanning and remapping technology as they go. This is where the focus of our game lies. You play as tech-head mercs, roaming whats left of america, trying to stay one step ahead of Rossom.

The Future of RPGs

Trying to make money on rpgs is tough. Wizards seems to be doing pretty well, but i don't know how well a monthly pay system would work for anyone else.

Essentially, rpgs started on a 'play-for-free' model that videogames are starting to embrace. Player empowerment that allows for house rules only makes that tougher, as the same mechanics used for player restraint and encouragement of monitization systems by our digital brothers can be easily overcome, just by changing the mechanics.

Art seems to be the current answer, as players might pay more for printed or digital materials based on pretty pictures and expanded content. There's a paradox there though; You need the art and the content to be made public, so awareness can be wrought toward your product... so people buy your content and art.

There has to be a better way, and I think that better way will eventually somehow involve ARGs, facebook, Android and I- devices (technology integration in general), Living Campaigns and/or retail-style boxed sets.

But I've been wrong before.