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The Official OTC TBRPG Planning and Organization Topic


Noxryn

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Okay, got a hazy kind of idea. Not sure how well it would but hey, thats what a planning topic is for.

 

Essentially, every character in it is dead. Died at some point in history, and find themselves in a sort of purgatory world. Its a simple sort of blank white void, with perhaps a few details denoting one or two structures or features. The people within are much the same, being more or less just stick-figures. Imagine living inside an xkcd comic, basically. They have no real memory of their past life, all they know is that it ended and they wound up in the void. 

Then at some point they realise that there is another level of the purgatory, and this one has more detail. Maybe this one, while still being black-and-white, has a definite ground and proper houses. So of course the people have greater detail as well. Maybe they have hair now, or have more than just sticks for body and limbs. And they start remembering scraps of their old life. Things that haunted them, things they enjoyed. All with the slight caveat that its the GM who's inventing these traits for them, not the players. So perhaps it will turn out that those two characters who have become bestest buddies were enemies in life who ended up killing each other. Perhaps the there are two characters who were lovers when they were alive and have both found themselves in limbo...but have no way of recognising each other yet because neither of them looks like anything human yet. Perhaps a character who has assumed up to this point that they were male turns out to have been a woman when they were alive.

Originally I thought that dying in one level of the limbo would be the way to move on to the next, but thats going to isolate people very quickly, so perhaps its coming to some realisation about yourself that lets you move on. You realise, I dunno, "yes I did manage to make a lot of money in life...but what did I really do with it". You work through the various sins and regrets you built up, possibly without even realising it, when you were alive and that steadily causes you to be "reborn" into a more fleshed out human each time, with the world around you also becoming more detailed as long as you're in it and fading back to blankness when you move on.

 

I can see a lot of potential problems with this, but its an idea my head keeps thrusting back into the fore so I feel its worth working on. Any tips or useful insights from the vox populi?

Let's hear some of the potential problems you have with this, this is a very nice idea.

 

"Boss! Da needle is pointin' in da red! Dat ain't good!"
"Course it's good ya squealin' runt! Red goes fastah!"


Orks... Such wonderfully simple creatures.
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So I was spitballing this idea.

 

Shadows of the Heroes.

 

One night... lets say it's halloween because everyone loves halloween, Monsters appear. Old, terrifying entities that ravage the city. Cops can't stop them. They're the sort out of nightmare and myth. Then... that same night, specters descend upon these beasts, and swiftly dispatch them, all before dawn comes. Surprisingly, there is nothing on the news about such beasts. The destruction and death is somehow attributed to a nasty, brutal gang war or something of the sort, but life goes on.

 

Or so it seems. What do you do when, every night, gibbering horrors try to force their way into the world and eat everyone?  You call heroes, of course. But what kind? It's not like Superman will descend upon them and crush some skulls. No, a ritual was given to select people of all kinds, a ritual capable of materializing heroes and legends of old. Lancelot, Beowulf, Roland, and more. They exist as two, a mortal and a hero, a perfect partnership. The hero cannot fight without the mortal, but is many times stronger than they.

 

So why participate? On the humans' side, you get paid. Handsomely. On the heroes' side, they are given a second lease on life, to do what they want, maybe to start anew. Moreover, they need, I dunno, let's call it mana because everyone knows what that is, to subsist, and the easiest way to get it is by killing them. There is only one caveat, however. The mortal world at large cannot know.

 

So it goes - for a short while, everyone was cooperating, even if there was a slight competitive edge to it, as it happens when you put many, larger-than-life personalities next to each other. Then the realization: There aren't enough beasts to sustain everyone. To make matters worse, a rumor comes out, saying that, should a hero kill another, the mana infusion would be incredibly immense and perhaps something even more, so there's a reason for them to fight each other.

 

So the idea is that it's an urban fantasy playground where you can basically write fanfiction of awesome mythic heroes. As it is the plot is kinda shallow because monsters are there for mook fodder since people love mooks. Because you know, it's an urban fantasy playground where you play your favorite hero. It honestly does need a lot of hammering out, though.

 

Moreover, you can definitely bend and twist the legend to an extent. You can reinterpret events to give a different characterization slant. You can genderbend them if you want. Like, for example... a female Galahad, who is so absolutely incorruptible and pure, she can't help but feel disdain and disgust for everyone for not being as perfect as she. A completely alien and dangerous mindset. And so on.

 

Also to wave off some potential questions...

 

Could I be my own partner? No.

 

Why not just make it based on Fate/Stay Night? Lot of reasons. One, the class system is incredibly restrictive. Two, having GM'd a Fate RP before, I honestly do not have a high opinion of Type-Moon. The writer makes rules just so his protagonists can break them. Projection magic is supposed to be absolute garbage except the hero is able to almost perfectly replicate LEGENDARY weapons because plot. Average magi have 25 mana, except for the heroine who has 500, because reasons. Heroes are supposed to be myths, but then you have Archer.

 

Are all heroes created equal? To be honest... not really. It will be a cold, cold day before Lancelot loses a sword fight to Caesar.

 

Can I be a god like Zeus? No.

 

Can I make up a hero? No.

 

Can I, as a regular guy, fight a hero? Yes. Will you survive, barring exceptional circumstances? No.

 

Can I draw from the bible? No. See this? I don't want to open it.

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>Snip<

Let's hear some of the potential problems you have with this, this is a very nice idea.

 

I think first problem is how people are going to take to having their backstory dictated to them. I thought it might help create conflict or interaction between characters, but I can see it creating conflict between the players as well if they don't like what the GM mandates their history was when they were alive. I would take something like that as a challenge, seeing how dead!character deals with alive!character's flaws, maybe tries to move past them, but I can see some people getting insulted by it if they get something bad. 

 

There's also the question of how you move to the next circle of limbo. I've said my plan would be if they learn from regrets and sins in life...but what if their backstory doesn't include any regrets or anything. Lets take that idea of two lovers lost from each other I mentioned, would they ascend because they find each other? What if one decides their love in life was really a meaningless fling they both read too much into and they ascend through that...but the other one continues to think that getting back together is how they ascend too. Are they then stuck because their goal has been made next to impossible? Do they then have to rekindle the love their other half felt, despite the fact that getting over it was a big part of their character development? 

 

I like the idea, especially as a much more character driven contrast to most the RPGs currently around, but it still needs work and I'd definitely need help managing it.

 

 

 

@Shadow of Heroes: I'm sort of thrown off by the "must keep everything out of the mortal world" clause. I mean...how? Sure the mortals and the champions can do their best to avoid the limelight and keep things on the down-low, but by the sound of it the monsters sure aren't. And it doesn't matter if its at night, or if the news doesn't report it, this is the age of the camera phone. Someone is going to see a gibbering terror, and the first thing they're going to do is whip out their smart-phone and start recording the whole thing. Then upload it to every social media site they're a part of. It just seems impossible that you could keep this kind of war secret for very long no matter how cautious you are

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Why not just make it based on Fate/Stay Night? Lot of reasons. One, the class system is incredibly restrictive. Two, having GM'd a Fate RP before, I honestly do not have a high opinion of Type-Moon. The writer makes rules just so his protagonists can break them. Projection magic is supposed to be absolute garbage except the hero is able to almost perfectly replicate LEGENDARY weapons because plot. Average magi have 25 mana, except for the heroine who has 500, because reasons. Heroes are supposed to be myths, but then you have Archer.

 

 

I was waiting to shout out FAAAATE the entire post.

 

I have similar thoughts to you as to F/SN, but setting this in a completely different environment and just borrowing the summoned heroes / holy grail idea could work. There are a lot of fate spinoffs that do this, making for much better stories than the original imo. Simply because the idea is great, the execution can just be lacking.

...but close to it

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Yeah another thing I didn't like was the holy grail made conflict mandatory and yet they'd meet up and sip tea anyways

 

^^That's why youre going to have to eliminate witnesses. Moreover if you keep making a nuisance of yourself these benefactors may very well put a bounty on you. They managed to spin hours of unchecked rampage as a gang war, but it doesn't mean they want to do it again.

Edited by Bloody Nine
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Erasing evidence? Buying off those that could be, discrediting those that couldn't, and so on. Call it a terrorist attack if you want. I'm sure there's hundreds of videos about "monster" and "ufo" sightings but nobody believes those.

 

At the end of the day, there's destroyed property without answers, and something mundane is more believable than shadow monsters.

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That would work if it was not a very sudden outburst all across the entire city (If for some reason this only effects a single city.) What I Am Ultron Six said still comes into effect, pretty much everybody is going to have some record of these things, especially police and first response crews. And then you have all the people who got wounded in the full on combat that was taking place.

 

If it was gradual or just a few at a time yeah, the government could probably do a proper coverup. Not at the scale that you currently have it at though.

"I serve the weak. I serve the helpless. I am their sword and their shield. If you want to strike at them, you must go through me, and I am not so easily moved."

zsUPm2E.jpg?1

 

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if a crazy bum dives a guy in the middle of the street, is the first thing you think is "OMG the zombies are here!" No it isn't. And if he gets subdued by the police, and the counselor tells you, "Don't worry about it, he just had a bad dosage of meth and was also rabid and went crazy" you'll believe that because that's a more comforting fiction than "oh geez zombies are rising"

 

Similarly nobody's going to think "Oh this thing is freaky, it's clearly actually a monster and not my mind playing tricks on me". It's terrifying, but people will rationalize it as something more scientific, believable. So if someone tells you, "Yeah, terrorists stole some powerful hallucinogenic agent and loosed it into the water supply and tried to cause as much mayhem as possible. That explains what you saw. Now go over here to receive the vaccine". It's a more comfortable fiction than "demon beasts from nowhere decide to wreck stuff up because reasons." You can explain terrorists. They don't like you, they want to make you hurt over the slights that your people did to theirs, and so on.

Edited by Bloody Nine
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  • 3 weeks later...

Wow dead really

 

I think I shooould be able to double post at this rate?

 

I was tinkering with an idea like this. Fantasy setting.

The world is kind. People are prosperous, peaceful. The Gods are watching. Or so it seems. Yet, beneath the surface, Dark Gods stir. They are fallen or corrupted Gods from ages past, legendary monsters consumed by ambition, and more. They know that a war among the heavens is soon coming, and are looking to come out on top. But they are weak. Should they move into the light, they would rapidly be obliterated. They work secretly, through a select few agents.

So it's a two-tiered RPG.

The first tier you're playing a Dark God. Plotting, hunting, searching, corrupting, whatever. Any God can converse with one another on an astral plane separate from time and space, but you don't want to give TOO much to those that are your rivals and at the same time, your allies. As you amass more power, you can do more and grant more boons to your underlings.

The second tier, you're playing as random fantasy people. Agents of Dark Gods, paladins and clerics of light, wandering bounty hunters, whatever. Your dark patron gives you orders, and you follow them. You can work for any god if you quickly hash out a profile together with the god's player. You have powers granted to you by your patron God, and they choose your advancement on that specific aspect.

"But what if X the player hates me, and I'm his best agent?" You ask. "How can I advance?" Do what you do when your boss doesn't appreciate you: quit and find another patron.

 

"But what if X just wants as much power as he can and advances all of his agent players as soon as he can? How do I, as a Dark God, compete without just matching this arms race?" You may ask. Then X is getting too strong, too quickly. Band together and put him down.

 

It sounds complicated and a bit wonky to work out, especially given that everyone is basically a mini-GM in a sense, but it's something I was thinking of.

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  • 3 weeks later...

It's been almost a year since the idea of a Transformers OTC RPG came up, and there are quite a few Transformers fans in our midst (i.e. Axilus Prime, Jakura Nuva, etc.). Could I work with this, or is this idea going to shot down to oblivion by the "three-strikes-it's-out" deal?

"Remember when the comics forum had a lot of good stuff? Let's make that a thing again." -Kazi the Matoran

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I could possibly do a Transformers RP... Bring in my characters from another forum... though I should warn one of them is not so well liked, even among his own team... Calling him a Bit trigger happy is like saying a Nuke is just a cigarette lighter...

"A stranger will always be a stranger unless you give them a chance."

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 |premierball.png| <- My Pokémon | BZPRPG Characters: Po-Matoran Doseki & Nui-Jaga Scorpio; Ga-Matoran Orca 
Matoran und Panzer: Doseki & Glitch | Marvel RP PC | Mata Nui Monopoly: Come... Own a piece of the legend!

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Until I see signed statements by five RPers that they will actually play a Transformers RPG and dedicate time to it, I'm not approving one.

  • Upvote 1

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"In short, my English Lit friend, living in a mental world of absolute rights and wrongs, may be imagining that because all theories are wrong, the earth may be thought spherical now, but cubical next century, and a hollow icosahedron the next, and a doughnut shape the one after." -Isaac Asimov, responding to a letter he had received saying that scientific certainty was false, The Relativity of Wrong

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Well better start a petition if you want this to pass then Dallior. If you need a signature you can add me to the list.... I may use my speedster Supersonic, though I think he could become as hated as my other character... Though for different reasons...

"A stranger will always be a stranger unless you give them a chance."

:m_p: :r: :m_o: :w: :l:    :n: :i: :g: :h: :t: :w: :m_o: :l: :f:

 |premierball.png| <- My Pokémon | BZPRPG Characters: Po-Matoran Doseki & Nui-Jaga Scorpio; Ga-Matoran Orca 
Matoran und Panzer: Doseki & Glitch | Marvel RP PC | Mata Nui Monopoly: Come... Own a piece of the legend!

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Well we could always roll a Beast Wars Version... Change it up and be Maximals and Predicons instead of the usual Bot and Cons... If you could transform into any animal what would it be? Who knows if it catches on we could go all the way into the Transmetal season... Allow for 3rd vehicle forms or even if one so choose a Fuzor (Mix of two animals)

Edited by Prowl Nightwolf

"A stranger will always be a stranger unless you give them a chance."

:m_p: :r: :m_o: :w: :l:    :n: :i: :g: :h: :t: :w: :m_o: :l: :f:

 |premierball.png| <- My Pokémon | BZPRPG Characters: Po-Matoran Doseki & Nui-Jaga Scorpio; Ga-Matoran Orca 
Matoran und Panzer: Doseki & Glitch | Marvel RP PC | Mata Nui Monopoly: Come... Own a piece of the legend!

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well if that's true then that could be 4 people down for some form of Transformers RP... that means we'd only need one more...

"A stranger will always be a stranger unless you give them a chance."

:m_p: :r: :m_o: :w: :l:    :n: :i: :g: :h: :t: :w: :m_o: :l: :f:

 |premierball.png| <- My Pokémon | BZPRPG Characters: Po-Matoran Doseki & Nui-Jaga Scorpio; Ga-Matoran Orca 
Matoran und Panzer: Doseki & Glitch | Marvel RP PC | Mata Nui Monopoly: Come... Own a piece of the legend!

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  • 3 weeks later...

Would anybody be interested in trying a Mass Effect RP again? Rather than being an open world RPG, it could follow the crew of a specific ship and their exploits; keeping everybody together in one location could help maintain a healthy level of interaction. It could take place before or during the Reaper War to have lots of canon to dry from, or it could be set after the ending of ME3 to maximize possibilities.

 

Alternatively, would anybody be interested in reviving FTL: Faster Than Light? The concept itself was good but the plot started to Peter out near the end; if a proper "roadmap" were to be thought up, could the story get back on its feet?

 

Even if the two above story concepts don't appeal to the community, would their basic structure of "being set in an isolated location" and "linear plot" appeal to the community? Or are sandboxes more popular here?

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been talking over a mass effect rpg with kaithas, but i think the general consensus is that it's best left on the backburner while we work on other projects and that the forum's kinda crowded enough already

 

-Tyler

SAY IT ONE MORE TIME 

TELL ME WHAT IS ON YOUR MIND

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Tbh as great a potential as FTL had, I'm not sure it could have ever been a success long-term. A big role in its early success was I had twenty-some backers starting off, and then it petered out as time went on due to a variety of reasons. I still think group-based everyone-in-the-same-spot RPGs are the future for the forum, but I'm not sure if FTL as a concept (i.e. people having specific roles within that group and trying to do those roles in conjunction with others) is the route to go. The medium's just too slow for that to work. If one player has to rely on several others being online and active at the time then it just causes too many logistical issues.

 

Still interested in seeing a survival-type set up, band of survivors wandering the wastes and all.

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"In short, my English Lit friend, living in a mental world of absolute rights and wrongs, may be imagining that because all theories are wrong, the earth may be thought spherical now, but cubical next century, and a hollow icosahedron the next, and a doughnut shape the one after." -Isaac Asimov, responding to a letter he had received saying that scientific certainty was false, The Relativity of Wrong

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Me, Jakura Nuva, and Aerixx: Gukko Lord are setting up a Transformers RPG for real. It's set in the smaller city of Altihex, a typically Autobot city, where a large Decepticon presence  is gathering. Players can create their own Transformers, and the GMs (me, Jak, and Aerixx) are minor canon characters like Clamp Down and Brainstorm.

 

Thoughts?

"Remember when the comics forum had a lot of good stuff? Let's make that a thing again." -Kazi the Matoran

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I would totally join a Mass Effect RPG.

 

It would probably be easiest to set it during the Reaper War (and by that I mean during the events of Mass Effect 3; I'm not sure if the whole time span of all three games is referred to as the Reaper War) because a lot could be done within that. Setting it after Mass Effect 3 would be possible and interesting, but it would be harder to come up with a plot (not necessarily a bad thing).

 

Anyway, yeah. A Mass Effect RPG. That would be awesome.

My epic: For Them (Review Topic)

 

BZPRPG: Trauer and Faora

 

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Me, Jakura Nuva, and Aerixx: Gukko Lord are setting up a Transformers RPG for real. It's set in the smaller city of Altihex, a typically Autobot city, where a large Decepticon presence  is gathering. Players can create their own Transformers, and the GMs (me, Jak, and Aerixx) are minor canon characters like Clamp Down and Brainstorm.

 

Thoughts?

Is it just the usual Autobots v Decepticons factional dispute thing going on?

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Me, Jakura Nuva, and Aerixx: Gukko Lord are setting up a Transformers RPG for real. It's set in the smaller city of Altihex, a typically Autobot city, where a large Decepticon presence  is gathering. Players can create their own Transformers, and the GMs (me, Jak, and Aerixx) are minor canon characters like Clamp Down and Brainstorm.

 

Thoughts?

I could get behind a TF RPG. The last one I was in was several years long and I had several characters in it. I am usually a Decepticon however I do have Bots on tap for the good fight. Most of my characters are less then gentle and quite destructive. If you guys are doing something via PMs invite me in. Love to show you my character for both sides.

Edited by Prowl Nightwolf

"A stranger will always be a stranger unless you give them a chance."

:m_p: :r: :m_o: :w: :l:    :n: :i: :g: :h: :t: :w: :m_o: :l: :f:

 |premierball.png| <- My Pokémon | BZPRPG Characters: Po-Matoran Doseki & Nui-Jaga Scorpio; Ga-Matoran Orca 
Matoran und Panzer: Doseki & Glitch | Marvel RP PC | Mata Nui Monopoly: Come... Own a piece of the legend!

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Getting a Transformers RPG to succeed is incredibly difficult though.

 

Every last one has crashed and burned.

 

Yeah. I should know. I was aboard a few of them when they went down.

 

I still get flashbacks.

I believe you find life such a problem because you think there are the good people and the bad people. You are wrong, of course. There are, always and only, the bad people, but some of them are on opposite sides.

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Prowl, you wouldn't be one of the LEADERS, but we can make a discussion board seperate from the planning/creating board for you. Lemme conserve with the guys first, though.

"Remember when the comics forum had a lot of good stuff? Let's make that a thing again." -Kazi the Matoran

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Oh well I don't see why I could not be one of the leaders, whatever that means. I have a leader character... He is quite powerful and rivals Megatron in tyranny.

"A stranger will always be a stranger unless you give them a chance."

:m_p: :r: :m_o: :w: :l:    :n: :i: :g: :h: :t: :w: :m_o: :l: :f:

 |premierball.png| <- My Pokémon | BZPRPG Characters: Po-Matoran Doseki & Nui-Jaga Scorpio; Ga-Matoran Orca 
Matoran und Panzer: Doseki & Glitch | Marvel RP PC | Mata Nui Monopoly: Come... Own a piece of the legend!

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Just a question, do you fellows believe you can get a willing playerbase for your RPG?

 

OTC is a ... dead place, and Transformers RPGs have not done very well in the past, so people are wary on another. Those are going to be two major stumbling blocks in your quest for approval and if that is solved, the survival of the RPG.

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