The Official OTC TBRPG Planning and Organization Topic

[Toast of Awesomeness]

Bronzy gold then?

[JiMing]

So, since no one replied, I'm going to dump a description of the RPG concept I made a while ago:

 

Well, it's called Divided Lands: The Magitech Wars. It takes place on a planet, on it is a supercontinent. Scattered throughout are different "kingdoms", all very diverse. The two largest kingdoms are Ergas and Technos.Ergas is a fantasy medieval land with magic being a big part of everyday lives. The Warriors of the army have had their bodies modified by magic, and as such, are ridiculously strong, and capable of feats considered superhuman to many. The army also has skilled Mages, who range from Attack, Defense, and Healing Mages, and there are a variety of spells at their disposal.Technos is a futuristic kingdom with the people there living a worry-free life. The robots there do all the work for them, and Technos is overseen by a mysterious group of men who don't reveal their identities, but commonly like to brag about their achievements, and belittling other kingdoms, especially Ergas. This has enraged Ergas, who plan to declare war. Technos then builds up a force of robots in order to retaliate.So yeah, I need two people to fill in the roles of the commanding officer of Ergas, as well as one for Technos. If you're interested, PM me for more info.

[Xomeron]

Bronzy gold then?

You got it

[JiMing]

Why haven't I gotten even an acknowledgement of my idea? Is the world of TBRPGs more elitist than I thought?

[Alex Humva]

Dude, it's late at night for the majority of America, on a school night, and there's only been one post. Don't go crying elitist on us so quickly; I'll be perfectly happy to write an analysis of your idea tomorrow.

[Xomeron]

Frankly I don't think your idea is very interesting because I dislike Magitech. I figured staying silent was better than saying it though

[JiMing]

Fine, just making sure.

[dRoko]

Obviously, Muggles Do It Better, so no-one would fight for Ergas, unless they have some pretty powerfull magic.Also, I am thinking about a Gladiator RPG with robots(à la Real Steel, but then with weapons). It would lead to merciless killing without being needlessly cruelThoughts?

Edited April 2, 2013 by Vahki-Nui

[Canis Lycaon]

would we put our species religion under psychology portion?

Just wanted to say this, but if they have a theocracy, then it would be government. I do, but I don't think many others will.

[JiMing]

Obviously, Muggles Do It Better, so no-one would fight for Ergas, unless they have some pretty powerfull

Ugh, I remember having a big arguement over this with you guys. I forgot exactly how it was resolved, but I'll look.

[Wyrd Bid Ful Araed]

I'm sure we talked about why the magic guys don't just overpower the technology guys before, but I can't remember how it was resolved either. What is stopping them just magicking up some kind of meteor and dropping it on Technos? Or, if they've got forcefields, a whole shower of meteors?

 

You need some sort of definition of the range and limitations of the magic, something to stop wizardy characters just snapping their fingers and turning all Technos' robots against the people, or all the people into frogs.

Though in fairness the technology probably also needs the same thing. Otherwise we're going to wonder why we aren't using fighter jets to bombard those crazy wizards with missiles from miles away where they can't see it coming

[JiMing]

I found the point where we resolved the issue, but I can't post it right now, as I'm on my tablet. Also, I'll try to define the limits, but it's hard to say exactly how I imagine the limits.Again, if anyone thinks they can make the idea a million times better, then go ahead.

Edited April 2, 2013 by JiMing: Metal Overlord

[Xomeron]

Ship profile for Starscape

 

 

Name:

Description:

Reactor:

Propulsion:

FTL Drive:

Armament:

Defensive Systems

Detection Systems:

Cost:

 

Alex and Rover, I need your guys' ships soon, since you took Fleetborn

Edited April 2, 2013 by Xomeron

[HeavyMetalSunshineSister]

The species I switched to once Basilisk joined back in is not Fleetborn, so that's not an issue.

 

On the Magitech thing, I distinctly remember there being a lot of discussion along the lines of Ergas being inferior in pretty much every way. There seems to have been a halfhearted attempt to make Technos the bad guys because its rulers don't show their faces and mock their neighbors, but frankly, when you've got the sort of society they've got, and you can manage to both hide your face and stick your fingers in your ears and wiggle them at wizards, you have the right to do that.

[Xomeron]

Got us a draft here. If I include all the specific details, then this RPG tops out at about 125% BZP's character limit. Since I have also come to despise BZP's text editor, which keeps bolding everything I paste in, I WILL be hosting the details of the game mechanics on Google Docs.

Starscape

Sixty Stars

Formed of nuclear fire, blazing with light and life, pulled together by the spiteful pull of gravity, the sixty stars of the Starscape Cluster are a powder keg. Intelligent life has long lived on these stars, peacefully unaware of each other. But now that comes to a close; the Light Barrier is broken, and suddenly the thick, overpopulated Homeworlds look out, and see realms they can colonize. But they also see enemies, competition, those who would stamp out their species and claim the realm for themselves. And now, you command your species. Will they conquer the stars by laser, sword, and railgun? Or will they be peaceful, colonizing and growing free of war? The choice is up to you.

---

Starscape is an RTSRPG, where players control and roleplay an entire species in a thickly populated Star Cluster. The RTSRPG format has its own dedicated following, but that’s all the more reason to get into it; if you have any questions, one of the regulars will be happy to help.

Interacting With An Entire Universe

Controlling an entire species may seem hard at first, but it's simple to get the hang of. Here's a quick example of a normal fight between ships.

IC:

Alarms sounded aboard the Skelvan Battleship as radar signatures from the edge of the trojan belt came in; four ships, Alansik by their configuration, had appeared some two million miles away. Knowing that was far outside missile range, the Skelvan Captain gave the order to sight in with his Frigate's laser. A kill at this range would be the wildest stroke of luck, but he had to try, knowing reinforcements would be arriving as soon as they could, since the planet's warning system sent out the alert the moment the radar signatures came in.

IC:

“Transition successful, all systems nominal, wait.” A lieutenant on the Alansik lead cruiser reported. “Laser damage to the outer skin of the ship. Looks like they're hitting us already. Minimal damage, but that means they've found us.” The Alansik Captain sighed, and gave the order to move at full burn towards the Skelvan planet.

Now, the important part here is that the player controlling the Alansik let the Skelvan player have the hit; if he'd just declared the Laser was an outright miss, it wouldn't be fair. But by ensuring the Skelvan's laser didn't do much damage, and it wouldn't at that range, he kept it fair for both sides but still sensible. And that's the most important part, keep it fair but sensible. Don't go breaking too many laws of physics.

Building Your Empire

The first step to playing the game is to design your species. This is a very open-ended process, but drawing inspiration from your favorite science fiction series can be a good idea. Once you have a basic idea down, take a look at the Advances section. You get six points to spend. These points are spent on physical advantages, advanced technologies, the setup of your system before the game begins, your species’ society and, most importantly, which form(s) of Faster-Than-Light travel you use. If you have ideas for another trait you want for your species, feel free to drop me a PM. There’s also technologies that everyone has, in the Common Technologies section.

Once you’ve created your species, they need a Homeworld. Drop me a PM, and I’ll create a star system for you; the maps, linked below, show both what type of star each system has, and which species owns which stars.

After that, you’ll need to design your starships; check out the Ship Design post; it’s a good explanation of how Starships ought to be set up.

Once you have that, your empire should be good and ready to go.

Industry

In Starscape, every species’ economy is built on two resources; Money and CHON. Money is an abstract idea of value, representing whatever your species use for currency. It’s mostly used for buying metals and paying your spaceship’s crews. CHON, by contrast, is four chemical elements; Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, and Nitrogen. These six chemicals are used in nearly every form of life, and are highly useful for other functions. It it helps, think of CHON as a Food resource.

CHON and Money are both produced by Planets; a planet that has been civilized for a long time produces more than a fresh colony. This is explained in depth in the post on Resources, found below.

Colonization

Colonizing a planet is a long, expensive process. The first step to it is building a Colony Ship. If you’re colonizing something in a solar system you already have a planet in, a colony ship is basically a steel can with engines, a radar, and the materials you need to start your colony. If you’re headed to another star system, you can do just as well by slapping a Faster Than Light drive on the ship and call it a day. Colonizers can be reusable, or they can disassemble on use to give the colony extra raw materials to work with. Once your colony is set up, it produces the resources listed for its planet type in the Resources post.

The Ancient Past

Civilizations rise and fall. With the terrifying, destructive weapons utilized in war among the stars, this is even more true for spacefaring civilizations. The current set of races in the Starscape Cluster are hardly the first. Previous civilizations left great ruins, but most have decayed. Only a few, held in Stasis Fields, have escaped the rush of time, These Stasis Fields, thus, are very valuable, containing ancient technologies, powerful and sometimes beyond comprehension, or other secrets of the far past.

The Outsiders

The Outsiders are a species in the Starscape cluster who do not own any planets, or any other central power base. They live entirely on starships, and never pass the speed of light, preferring the cold darkness to the reckless terrors of high-speed travel. An Outsider ship will occasionally drop into a system, often looking to replenish its resources by selling technological oddities before heading out again.

Rules

1: BZP Rules Apply

2: Use IC and OOC

3: No godmoding, auto-hitting, or auto dodging

4: Yarn

5: Be respectful. These are other people's thoughts, work, and in a lot of cases, opinions out in text, so be nice.

6: If you don't know of a scientific or practical reason you couldn't do it, you can try it. It might get shot down by the GMs, though. Try anyway, we might be asleep

7: Anyone who invokes Godwin's Law by making deliberate parallels to Nazis, Fascist Italy, or WWII Era Imperial Japan will have a -1 Industry penalty for three days. Calling someone Hitler or a Nazi(even jokingly) is -2 for one week.

Joining Up

The process for joining is simple; Fill out this form, and PM it to me.

Username: (Obvious)

Species Name: (Make it interesting!)

Biology: What do they look like? What chemicals are their bodies built on? Do they have DNA, or some other way to pass genes on? What do they eat?

Government: Generally, by the time it reaches space, a species will have tried enough systems to figure out what works best for them. So what do your guys use? Democracy? Theocracy? Communism? Democratic Communist Theocracy?

Psychology: Species can have wildly different ideas of thought. A human, finding an ancient superweapon that once destroyed all life, might think "How terrible if any race but mine should find this" But a Kzinti, on the other hand, would think "Now I can conquer the galaxy, as is my right." So how do your people think?

History: (Why are they in space? Why do they use the government they do? Details like that)

Homeworld Name: (Humans call our planet Earth for a reason. Why do these people call their world what they do?)

Homeworld Location: (Try for one that's not taken.)

Map Color: (So we can see what you own)

Advances Taken: (You get six points worth)

Now get out there, conquer the stars, and have fun!

 

Astrographic Map

Political Map

 

The Google Docs in question

https://docs.google.com/document/d/11GTxuiYSFkEJS25VmuVYuYURW2Nc2hEBiUUrFN-c8PU/edit]Resources[/url]

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mXhwlzaByLOqUI31JigqswJDqrUJ6GGMMH5rEx-Fa64/edit]Advances[/url]

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yaPpjAmTmtgkGb-iLGON_jP-TWQ1rICzdoIa0SU_XSs/edit]Ship Design[/url]

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TD6CNDF9HaxfRpXbh86oKTbZ5a8oBhUrU0XeegLjAHY/edit]Common Technologies[/url]

https://docs.google.com/document/d/12qvRvwjR10pyaWwU_uO5WmchUcwsVHVZEdnKwuK7B4Y/edit]System Composition[/url]

Edited April 2, 2013 by Xomeron

[Havelock Vetinari]

This is a BZP RPG, I remain extremely leery of using google docs for the main RPG.

 

As a general rule, an RPG hosted on a site shouldn't be utterly reliant on another site.

[Xomeron]

Google Docs allows me to have real-time updates of all my docs; at the very least this will be critical for the System Composition document. BZP's editor also keeps bolding everything I paste. Between these two factors, I expect using Google Docs will save me several dozen hours of labor over the first few weeks of this RP.

 

It's really just the best option.

[Havelock Vetinari]

....Several dozen hours? What is your WPM?

 

This is a BZP RPG and I fail to see why an RPG that seems to exist half way or more outside of BZP should even be approved.

Edited April 2, 2013 by Basilisk

[Xomeron]

My WPM is obscenely high. That was hyperbole.

 

I'm going to host the text offsite because it lets me make easy edits that everyone can see instantly, rather than struggling with BZP's gawdawful word processor for an hour like I did to get that draft up.

[Havelock Vetinari]

Some of your RPers cannot even access google docs. So you are actively cutting them out of the process as well.

 

It's rather easier for everyone else if they don't have to click a succession of links, half of which fail to work at the moment. I don't know what is going on with your wordprocessor, but I've never had an issue with mine.

Edited April 2, 2013 by Basilisk

[Let's Henshin!]

I don't see why there is such a problem hosting parts of it on a Google Docs, parts that are there for Reference more so than actual gameplay.

 

It keeps things less cluttered for one thing, and it's not like Google Docs is some other Forum or something.

[Xomeron]

I don't see anyone saying that the links are broken except you. Problem looks to be on your end.

[Havelock Vetinari]

Lone did, last I checked.

 

This isn't getting approval from me until I feel this has been addressed.

[Alex Humva]

Ignore this, turns out you can't post Starscape II in its full.

Edited April 2, 2013 by Alex Humva

[Havelock Vetinari]

Problem solved.

 

Thank you Humva.

[thelonewander]

I works now, but i had to sing up for a google account to see them, and that mess up a few things for me, mainly my account on that video site we all know

[Havelock Vetinari]

I works now, but i had to sing up for a google account to see them, and that mess up a few things for me, mainly my account on that video site we all know

 

Why should someone who uses this forum have to sign up for a google account just to play an RPG here?

 

They shouldn't. These are called BZP RPGs for a reason.

[Xomeron]

That's weird, Lone. They're set to let everyone see them regardless of account.

 

Basilisk, you're being pretentious.

 

Alex, you didn't get the Ship Design, Common Technologies, or System Compositions sections.

[Let's Henshin!]

You shouldn't have to, I've accessed it multiple times at school without using one.

[Alex Humva]

Looks like the problem is deeper than I thought. Apparently it actually extends past the BZPower character limit per post.

 

Buggerific to say the least.

[Havelock Vetinari]

And yet....

 

This is isn't getting my approval if so much of it is hosted offsite.

 

Insults will not change my mind Xom. Do keep that in mind.

 

We can post more then once you know.

Edited April 2, 2013 by Basilisk

[Xomeron]

Well BZP just flat out refuses to host more than what's posted above, which is only about two thirds of the RPG. Anyone got any solutions?

Edited April 2, 2013 by Xomeron

[Alex Humva]

Find a co-host, do alternating posts to avoid triggering the anti-double post feature.

[HeavyMetalSunshineSister]

You can easily put some of it into a second post. I doubt any of the information you have can be readily condensed, so just have your cohost make a second post after the first one, including the other sections.

[Havelock Vetinari]

Which has, I believe, been done many times in the past.

[Wyrd Bid Ful Araed]

Or, if your co-host is premier, stick the stuff in blog posts and link to them

[Havelock Vetinari]

So, for the Lovecraft/Supernatural RPG.

 

Who likes the 30's setting and who would prefer a setting in the middling 1700s?

 

Think Pirates of the Caribbean.

Edited April 3, 2013 by Basilisk

[HeavyMetalSunshineSister]

Well, there's a certain appeal to fighting eldritch abominations with accurate firearms.

[Toast of Awesomeness]

Well Abracadabra is set in the 20's so some variety would be nice.

[HeavyMetalSunshineSister]

Yours is set in New York in the 20's.

 

Basilisk's is set in the swampy bits of Florida in the 30's.

 

I think there will be enough variety.