Checking interest in starting a new SDMB rpg game

The Game Room
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A few of us have some experience with play-by-post RPGs here on SDMB. For almost six months, we had a fantastic (imo) game of Shadowrun going that fizzled out after everyone’s favorite player Autolycus passed away in real life.

For those without play-by-post experience (or RPG experience in general), my favorite way to describe the experience is “cooperative storytelling.” Campaigns consist of several players, and a GM (game master) who’s more like a narrator than a “master.” The players create their characters, describe what their characters say and do, and the GM narrates the action via rolling dice (I use roll-dice-online.com) and controlling the “supporting” cast, or NPCs.

I’d like to start a new campaign using a modified version of the “Unbelievably Simple Roleplay” rule set. The benefits of this system are all in the name. It’s unbelievably simple! The rules are the barest of bare-bones, but make a very strong structure to flesh out.

The setting will be low (very low) fantasy, with a magic system that is subtle, and overt displays of magic being very rare. Each player-character will have their own goals and values, and what they want may not necessarily mesh perfectly with what’s best for the group. This kind of conflict is what separates good campaigns from the best campaigns!

If playing this sort of game sounds interesting to you, please respond in this thread. If it turns out there’s 4 or more people who are interested in playing, I’ll start a game setup thread for players only, in which we’ll create our characters and I’ll provide some more info about the world you’ll be exploring.

Come kill some orcs with me!

2

Sounds like fun, sign me up!

3

Sure.

4

I’m up for it.

5

I might be interested but I’m new to this. Could you say something about game mechanics (as in - do you receive pre-set goals or objectives, do you get a bunch of info on your character, is there communication via IM?). Do you need a lot of (or: any) experience or familiarity with rules to be able to play? And finally: how much time do you commonly spend playing, and how big of a deal is it if a player is unavailable for a week or two at some point?

Oh - and perhaps, do you have a link to the Shadowrun game, and/or to the unbelievably simple ruleset?

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Unbelievably Simple Roleplaying System.

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You do not need familiarity with the rules in order to play. The USR system only has a few basic rules to get you started. You could learn it in less than 20 minutes. We’ll be using a system based on that (but fleshed out quite a bit) for this campaign.

Players will create their characters through a combination of the USR guidelines, and interaction with the GM both in the public thread, and through private messages.

There were 3 total threads in our Shadowrun campaign. The latest was this one if you’d like to take a look. In that game, players did most of the roleplaying in the public thread, but also a significant amount through PMs. For example, aclockworkmelon made the 3rd post in that thread after settling all the dice rolls with me in private. In that same post, melon’s character appears to be a mindless, thoughtless and wholly evil killer, but he was driven by motivations the other characters didn’t know at the time.

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I’m interested.

9

I’d be interested.

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The list so far

  1. Phnord Prephect
  2. Johnny Bravo
  3. Mahaloth
  4. Hoopy Frood
  5. Suburban Plankton

Švejk, are you also going to play?

I’ll create the game setup thread by Sunday with the above players. I’ll shoot you all a private message when the thread is up. See you there!

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Vote Suburban Plankton

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I would be interested, too, if you need more players. I used to do by-post RPG a million years ago at UNspacy.com, so hopefully I can get back into the swing of things.

13

Stalker.

Or, since you posted in this thread first, does that mean I’m the Stalker?

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Since we haven’t heard from Švejk yet, we’ll count him out. That makes you our sixth.

The final list is:

  1. Phnord Prephect
  2. Johnny Bravo
  3. Mahaloth
  4. Hoopy Frood
  5. Suburban Plankton - 1 vote
  6. Time Stranger

Your party will consist of the following:

2 members of the Blake family. These will be minor nobles, either too young to have proven their worth, or having somehow fallen from earlier prestige.

1 native guide. This character may be a “savage” or barbarian from a hunter/gatherer society, or simply from a culture foreign to the rest of the group.

1 religious missionary. This character is not necessarily in service to the Blakes.

The remaining characters will be a mixture of mercenaries, or retainers/servants to the Blakes.

A note about magic talent - “The Curse”

Magic is very rare. It is quite possible that nobody in the group will have magic ability. If anyone chooses to receive the Gift during character creation, it will come with restrictions. The other party members may not even be aware you have the Gift, and would certainly be suspicious of you if they found out. The most common source of magic power is bargaining with malignant spirits. You will be in service to such a spirit if you choose to Gift your character during the character creation process. If you intend to do so, you should probably tell me via PM rather than in the public thread.

This decision is not meant to be a risk/reward measurement! If you are interested in receiving the Gift, it means that your character has already attempted to contact such a demon with the intent to make a deal with it. You will be presented with the terms of the deal, at which point you may accept or decline. Both choices have major consequences. Any player who intends to play a strong-willed, proud, spirited, or self-reliant character should stay away magic, as it’s not for you.

You may want to start discussing how you’d like to divide up the party roles now, before I get the “official” game setup thread ready. Target date for the official thread, with a step-by-step guide for character creation, is Sunday 3/17/2013, by 8:00 pm PST. See you all there!

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Intrigue! Secrets and Lies! Hidden affiliations and volatile status! Inevitable betrayal and almost certain death! …Sounds like fun to me!:smiley:
My first inclination is to take the missionary position. I mean, the position of the missionary. I mean, to come religiously, face-to-face with whomever I might grapple whilst struggling in the darkness.

Let me start again.

How serious is this game gonna be? I can play serious, but my first thought was along the lines of a Priest of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, a deity who may or may not have any existance outside of my own head. What is the technological level in regards to the duties of a missionary… healing spells, healing potions, healing herbs, bandages, or rubbing mud into the open wound? Can they be violent? Insane? Drunk? All the above?

Barring an insane missionary, I could see being the outsider, the native guide who doesn’t quite understand the strange rituals and behaviours of ‘civilized’ society, but tries really really hard to get them right. Using the club on the left to bonk the first enemy on the head before using the inside club on the main force, because that’s how the fancy people do things, right?

Barring that, I could play any role needed, although I’d probably prefer not to play one of the nobility, for no reason better than I like to be able to pick my nose once in a while and not have an empire crumble behind me for it.

Looking forward to hearing others’ ideas about their characters, get an idea of what kinda group we want and how to balance our skills and such. Also looking forward to hearing more about the world we’re gonna be wandering around in… sounds interesting!

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Sorry guys, should have responded sooner - but I can see the writing on the wall already, I don’t think I’ll be able to contribute on a regular enough basis to make it worth anyone’s while. Enjoy!

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If you choose the priest/missionary role, there’s no requirement that your deity actually exists outside of your character’s mind. He could be nuts, he could have delusions of grandeur, he could be worshiping a demon, or he could be a legitimate priest of a well-established religion.

You will not necessarily be pigeon holed into the role of “healer.” Your character might be a Conan-style warrior worshiping gods of conflict, striding bare-chested into battle whilst wielding a mighty axe. Alternatively, he might enjoy scholarly pursuits, or political intrigue, or healing.

The tone of the game will be serious, with plenty of room for comic relief if you want. Crazy just for the sake of crazy isn’t cool, but crazy for the sake of a good laugh or a good story is fine. The only real rule I have in my games is that you can’t force another player’s character to do something their player doesn’t want to do, for example by trying to use a mind control spell or intimidation skill. Other than that, go nuts.

If you’d like, you can provide a list of traits your character would see as worthy of worshiping, and I will assign you to the service of the deity (or demon) that most matches your character’s ideal. This will come with benefits and penalties. If you’d rather your character worship something that doesn’t actually exist, he won’t receive any particular benefits or handicaps for his belief.

18

I would like to be one of the Blake nobles.

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I’m not going to play but I will throw out a character idea, free for the taking (this one is going to go quick so first person to post gets it):

Ruby: A female Japanese pop star from the year 2020 famous for wearing hot pink plastic windbreakers and white gloves and coloring her hair blue who was transported back in time when the train she was riding passed through a wormhole created by a nearby nuclear reactor.

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I wouldn’t mind being one of the Blake Nobles, though I don’t know that I can remember far enough back in time to play “either too young to have proven his worth”; I’m thinking more along the lines of “an old cousin from an offshoot sect of the family, who never had any chance to inherit anything of real value, but has played off his name all his life, and has now become bitter since he’s hit middle-age with nothing to show for all his time and effort.”

I also think the Guide position sounds fun, though I’d rather play it as “from a foreign culture” rather than “barbarian/native”.

What is the setting of the game? I’m not talking detail, just basic timeline/culture sort of thing. Is it more-or-less contemporary? Gothic horror? Old West with space zombies?
Anyway…Mosier, thanks for letting me play, and don’t mind me taking your well-laid character creations and turning them inside out…

…or alternatively, tell me to shut up, mind my own business, and play the role you’ve gone to all the trouble to create :slight_smile: