Alright guys, this one's rougher than my previous checks.

I know I said I wouldn't, but I finished the Culture novels (by Iain Banks) about a month ago and the idea of doing a story in that universe keeps banging around in my head. What I have so far is less of an outline of a setting or story than it is a list of disjointed thoughts.

  • The general idea would be to have people playing Contact agents (maybe Special Circumstances, maybe some other branch) who are either humans or drones, and/or non-Culture aliens who have been swept up in the crisis du jour.
  • I'd like to structure this as a GM+Players game, rather than everyone being "in", so to speak. It's the format I'm most comfortable with, and I think stories tend to flow better that way.
  • That said, one idea that has been sticking in my head is for the GM to have a limited role as a GMPC playing the Culture Mind who is also assigned to the current mission.
  • I'm not dead-set on the GM role; if someone has a good idea for a scenario and wants that role, they're welcome to it.
  • I'm not aware of a system that's explicitly designed for games set in the Culture-verse, but my inclination is to have some sort of resolution mechanic. I'm leaning towards using a very basic version of the Drawn from the Undertow system (from Eidolon: Become Your Best Self 2E--see my Eidolon campaign or the Eidolon Playtest podcast for examples of how that works), but I'm open to suggestions for any rules-lite, narrative-first system.
  • I'd prefer to run this with a small group--between 3 and 5 people.
  • I've tagged this as "Advanced", but I'm not really interested in length--the emphasis is more on character exploration, collaborative storytelling, and strong narrative.


So there it is. As usual, feel free to post bare statements of interest, but I also welcome any suggestions based on the above.