Are there any existing tabletop settings that emphasize multiple people working together, but each with their own objectives?

Question

Take something like Paranoia -- where each player has separate missions from their secret society, but also wants to accomplish the mission, but ALSO wants to kill the fellow players as much as possible. However, this game is just silly. It's fun and thoughtless.

I want to DM a game where different players have drastically different objectives and each player really has to decide for themselves who is worth trusting and who isn't. Take something like this:

1) Player 1 is told he is going to work with 2, 3, and 4 to accomplish X. 2) Player 2, 3, and 4 are told they are to help Player 1 do something do SLIGHTLY different from X, Y, which violates X. 3) Player 4 is told that he is really working with Player 1 to accomplish X, but he shouldn't let this on to 2 and 3.

The main themes here are deception, trust, and paranoia. Does anything spring to mind or would I have to write my own tabletop setting like someone with talent or something.

Answer 1

Several settings come to mind... for a variety of different games... but, fundamentally, it's about party dynamic, NOT rules.

Several systems that provide mechanical support for such games include:

• Burning Wheel
  (European Dark Ages through early Renaissance Fantasy; supplements for pre-shogunate Japanese, Dune, post-holocaust, and Vikings)
• Burning Empires
  (Iron Empires setting - shattered big empire setting with wide variety of tech levels. Has been used for fantasy by some.)
• Mouse Guard
  (Roughly early middle ages tech, but used by semi-antrhopomorphic mice in an almost realistic setting)
• Fiasco
  (Modern things going bad during a crisis)
• Houses of the Blooded
  (Fantasy; Supposedly pre-roman culture with late medieval tech.)
• Blood and Honor
  (Fantasy shogunate Japan, but readily adaptable to historical Japan.)
• Sorcerer
  (Modern occult, but supplements for fantasy and post-holocaust.)
• Fate system games
  Diaspora, Spirit of the Century, Legends of Anglierre, Starblazer Adventures
  (Various settings. Weak recommend.)

It's a play-style issue, tho', so keep in mind that the above list are games with enforced play-styles. Mouse Guard is special, in that it highly rewards cooperation, but each character has explicit player-written goals for the mission, which need not match up. This has created in-party friction often, for good drama.

Burning Wheel and Burning Empires have multiple beliefs per character, and those can bring players into in-party conflict. Moreover, BE is strongly themed for two-sides at each other play from the get go, and over 4 players, some can be on the "GM's team"... especially since the GM has very little power in Burning Empires.

Most military games would provide a means as well - hidden orders from higher command need not be the same for all individuals; one might be a CID informer, one might have dual chains, like the S3 (Intelligence) officer might have conflicting hidden orders from G3, and the S4 (Supply) from G4... but in such a setting such orders must be low-key to not break the setting.

FATE is a special case. The system can, if the characters are set up right, support this strongly. It doesn't enforce it in setup, only once established in the outset. With the caveat that it only supports it in play if characters are built for it, it's a choice that can and does have mechanics which support and can encourage playing it that way.

Many point based games (GURPS, HERO, CORPS, EABA) have disads which can, if handled right by the GM, enforce this style of play, but they require that the players opt to take them AND the GM remember to reward them.

Answer 2

First of Amber RPG based on Roger Joseph Zelazny series of books of the same title springs to mind. The "Thrown War" game is one of those where the ending is clear is sight but the way to get there is obfuscated. Many different plots can be made and the characters will themselves get their own plots going.

Secondly, the Toon RPG has many adventures were the characters are actively fighting against each other for comical effects.

Thirdly, Dune (Frank Herbert) has a d20 incarnation as an RPG. There are other fan created versions like this GURPS one for example. It could easily contain many different goals for each characters -- just have them from different houses, or branches of family, or Bene Gesserit and you are done.

Finally, any game featuring conspiracies can be adapted with ease to your requirements.

Answer 3

World of Darkness

You don't even have to go to indie games to find this. In mainstream games, pretty much any World of Darkness game would fit the bill. I'm not sure about New World of Darkness, but intra-party goal friction was one of the big deals of games like Vampire: The Masquerade.

Oh, and Cyberpunk games have this sort of thing all the time.

Answer 4

I can't believe no one has mentioned Paranoia yet! It's fun and challenging: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoia_(role-playing_game)

Answer 5

Hot War and Cold City both would fit the ticket. Cold City takes place in 1950s Berlin with an Inter-Allied agency looking into all the "things" the Nazis left behind. Players work for the American, British, French, or Soviet governments so the differing allegiances is obvious. Hot War is nominally a sequel to Cold City taking place in a 1963 post-apocalyptic UK (London I think) after the cold war went hot. It uses a similar system to Cold City.