Welcome to the wonderful world of the afterlife!
Good news: The dead get a second chance at life if they win (albeit they still have been dead for a week, good luck explaining that to the relatives).
Bad news: This is the end of the line - fail - and face being erased into non-existence. Sorry guys, no Heaven, Hell, or reincarnation actually exists, so make this last shot count.
this post is long, if you’re so intimidated you don’t want to do the RP because of it, feel free to just ask for a summary of something. Despite the walls of text the essence of the different aspects are quite simple, but I’m making them all flowery and fleshed out for the sake of I can and I will.
This thread serves two purposes, to reveal some framework for the game, and to recruit participants (I’m deliberately avoiding “players” for reasons that will become obvious in a few sentences). This game is mostly based around the DS game “The World Ends With You” however the guy who was supposed to hire the five star production team to adapt the game for vBulletin forums just cashed the check we gave him and skipped the country. So we’re without things like “robust story” and “gameplay mechanics,” especially in the combat department. Unless of course, you’re all up to making the best out of what we give you (and of course by “we” I mean “I”)!
Some basic guidelines before all of us begin here:
A short overview of what could be considered “meta-knowledge” to most participants will appear scattered throughout the post. Depending on the role your character is fulfilling he knows somewhere between near everything or nothing depending on his role and backstory (a first-time player would know near nothing, a high-level reaper who has been offered officer positions would be able to mumble this stuff in his sleep). Use your best discretion when determining what your character can and can’t know, or your team may come down with a serious case of “rocks fall, everyone dies.” A meta-game “lounge” thread may be started alongside the game (or we could continue with this one) where you can freely discuss things out of character. If you ever need to understand a term I’ll put a short glossary at the end, if it’s not there just ask.
So let’s begin, shall we?
We need two primary forms of participants:
Players - these guys are the people that got stuck in this hellish nightmare after they died. You make a pact with a partner, follow the objectives, and most of all try not to get erased. The number one rule of being a player: trust your partner. Upon entering the game they have the one thing they value most taken away, usually something that they would become stronger realizing they can overcome not having it. This can be anything from your memory, your body, or another player from a previous game (I’ll explain this other game stuff in a little).
Reapers - these guys come in many rungs of the ladder, from lower tier field reapers to organizers. I’ll outline it above:
Composer - not a reaper per se, he’s just the guy that made everything. Sure, he COULD erase you (and everyone else, including the living) as soon as he gets bored, but he really doesn’t have a dog in the fight except under VERY specific circumstances, circumstances that would be better suited for a single player game and we’re not going to worry about here (because you’ll end up singling one player out as the chosen one and such, not fun). If a player or reaper manages to take out the composer they become the new one, however usually the reapers are too afraid (or awake) or the players are too busy doing stuff that, you know, actually keeps them alive. Because of the fact he’s detached, whoever is in this position can control the NPCs. Because the necessity of such characters is slim the participant who is the composer may also have a reaper or player character (but will be closely watched so as they don’t abuse the system or role play between their own characters too much).
Conductor - he’s really the guy that RUNS the game, he doesn’t do much except appoint the new GMs and accepts new reapers (more on this later). He’s important enough that you may only be a Conductor. For our purposes he’ll also go out in the field and fight a little, but as he’s REALLY powerful, try to take it easy. He can also lift the “higher rules” in an emergency (think of it as declaring martial law). Finally, he tabulates the score for reapers and players (score is going to be loosely defined later on, don’t worry, we’re not using any arbitrary number systems).
Game Master - possibly the most important role. He gets to decide whether reapers can actively pursue players, the rules of that particular week (see below), and most importantly the objectives for the day. The GM is a rotating higher level reaper, as such someone cast as a GM and someone cast as a Reaper are the same person, it just changes every time. A GM may appoint a surrogate GM for a day.
Reaper - These guys range from higher ranks to lower ranks. Technically everything so far except the composer is a “reaper” (hence the heading) but mostly this term will be used to refer to the field agents who actually get their hands dirty. They have a duty to erase players, if they don’t do well enough they get erased themselves. For days 1-6 of any given week they can only do this indirectly, typically by summoning “noise” (think monsters) or appointing lower level (read: NPC) reapers to put up walls that can only be cleared by meeting certain mini-objectives. On the seventh and final day they can attack players directly, in all their reapery glory. All reapers have a sort of over-the-top animal form, from full on transformations to merely adapting elements of that animal (i.e. Wolf and Werewolf are both applicable forms). But GMs tend to be the only ones that USE it (especially since the last day objective is usually “erase the GM”).
If any of these positions sound interesting, just say “count me in!” You can submit a bio if you want, you’ll probably want to eventually to make things easier (and will certainly make things easier on you when we want to say “you just pulled that out of your ass!” so you can say “it was in my bio!”) but for now feel free to just say “make me a reaper!” or “players are awesome” or whatever you want. I’m not capping the amount per role, but I may close it after some amount if everyone wants to be a reaper or something.
Gameplay:
Reapers I know this is going to be boring since all of this is player stuff, you guys can replace the following paragraphs with “MUST. KILL. PLAYERS.” Though we may discuss rules later on.
The first day you wake up in an area near the center of the city (map will be put up later today or tomorrow, we’re not using Shibuya). You will get a text on your cell phone, as this is the first day it’s usually something simple such as “meet at Joe’s Crab Shack, you have 30 minutes.” A timer will appear on your hand, and if it ticks to zero you get erased. However, keep in mind your first objective - pick somebody who looks like they could be good at the game and make a pact. This pact will effectively bind you to them for the next seven days, hope they’re nice. If you want to go solo tough luck. The noise attacks anyone who’s not partnered up, and given the properties of the noise, you’re not going to last long without one. And you may even find it difficult to complete the ASSIGNED objective without following the unwritten one first. You’re also given a fashionable scanner pin, with it you can read other people’s thoughts and find noise to fight.
The rest of the days you end up with your partner in some random part of the city, get an objective from your cell phone (often in a riddle format), have a timer slapped on you, and then you try your very best to stay alive (“alive” being a relative term meaning “still exists”) while completing the objective.
Know this: only one set of players needs to complete the objective for all to succeed, however don’t get lax, if one team can’t find how to proceed and you were goofing off you’re all erased if you can’t pick up the slack. And the more objectives you complete, well, again some surprises are best left for the end.
Okay I give! The surprise is that (and your characters DO NOT KNOW THIS) score is being tabulated, the single player (not team) with the highest score gets to return to life. Other surviving lower scored players can choose erasure, another week in the game, or becoming a reaper. Don’t worry winning players, if you want to be in again just think of another way to die, no matter how ridiculous (comes back to life in the middle of road… summarily run over by semi works just fine). Though do try to mix up partners game to game, just to keep things interesting.
Whats the score for reapers about though? Well, quite frankly, a higher score means more advancement, but more basic if you don’t have a high enough score you get erased as well. You get score by erasing and otherwise hindering players.
Score will be done on a “we all think you did good” basis (maybe a tiny bit more complex). We don’t really need numbers or systems, I think. If you disagree speak up.
Player fighting:
You fight noise (and reapers) in two planes at once, one is your partner’s plane and one is yours. They both are the SAME noise, if it dies in one it dies in the other, however coordinating attacks is very useful to reduce threat quickly on both sides. Generally you’ll have one psych user and one direct attacker. Psych users use pins to unleash different attacks on the enemy, direct attacks use their own hands, feet, kidneys, skateboards, telekinetic powers, animated stuffed animals (hey, it’s the afterlife) etc. I’m being lenient on the powers. If you can think of something cool I’ll let it in so long as it’s balanced. There’s also fusions, fusions are created by the direct attacker fulfilling a goal. Or it was in TWEWY. Here, we’re awarding fusions to players who use what a “superior tactic” against the enemy. Also, fusions will carry over battle to battle, but not day to day. A fusion is a massive attack on both planes that should symbolize a common bond between both partners. I leave the descriptions of your 3 different fusions as an exercise to the players.
Reapers: You guys get to be mini-GMs when you release noise, meaning you get to create your own noise monsters and go and say what they do. Be fair (this goes for players as well). Noise basically just have attacks, no fusions or anything. Like the pins and powers, if it’s cool and balanced I’ll let it in. Large noise (think end-day bosses) should generally be more grandiose than your run of the mill guys you’re sicking on players every few minutes. Remember, you guys also fight on day 7, so come up with animal forms and normal forms, you should have cool attacks in both. If your animal form is really powerful come up with SOME technicality for transforming please, before I do it or you. In some cases reapers may work as partners, but it bars animal form. Feel free to come up with a fusion however.
Both: Noise can be used in reaper attacks (any day) or as a plot device. Characters that are angry or depressed may possess noise. Eradicating the noise may solve the problem, or the angsty character may be creating the noise, the GM (or composer playing the NPC) may decide which. It’s up to the player to figure out how to fix the problem the character is having if it’s coming FROM the character however.
Misc notes/Glossary:
“Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies.” A humorous phrase based around the fact that if the players are dicking around enough the person running the game can effectively say “rocks fall, everyone dies” to call the session as over and terminate all characters. I basically use it as a tool to say “look, if you’re breaking the rules and not giving others a fair shot YOU’RE going to be the one not getting a fair shot.”
Taboo Noise: I didn’t mention this, but there is “rogue noise” that hunts down players (as opposed to being reaper initiated), and attacks reapers as well, it’s also generally a bitch to kill. Depending on how the RP goes we could have a rogue reaper start creating it, or possibly become a taboo reaper (it can happen). However, such an escalation would make the character dangerously powerful and as such would only be allowed if the story goes that way over a long period of time for sensible reasons. One day declaring “I wanna be taboo” doesn’t cut it, there needs to be some build up.
Weeks and days- Obviously as a board based game where not everyone is on at a time entire BATTLES can take a day if they’re epic enough. Essentially the GM declares when a day is done. This CAN be done to throw players off the path of a side-story if one develops, but should generally be done in a manner that facilitates good overall gameplay, not what’s convenient to you all the time. Don’t forget you’re answering to all of us, and via popular vote or composer veto may find yourself overruled, the effects erased, and yourself dead (this applies to the composer veto and initiating a vote as well).
Meta-game - Knowledge outside of the game, you may know all these weird rules and such, but your character may not. Try to keep the rules in mind while your player fumbles around obliviously almost violating everything. Through power of observation they may of course figure out the stuff they weren’t told already, but at the onset they’ll know what they’re told (which I’ll put in the first post of the actual RP),
Meta-gaming - Both using the knowledge your character shouldn’t know in character and cheating the system. By that I mean saying 'I dodge" or “I cut off his head and kill him” all the time. Feel free to choreograph some large blocks of the action, but take turns doling out punishment and remember death should always occur at reasonable times when hopefully all involved would most likely agree. And don’t forget, the participants who aren’t emotionally invested in the fighting characters are there to neutrally call foul. I’ll excuse a little bit when it comes to notoriously powerful things (like I said, they need a buildup to BECOME that powerful though), but keep in mind there’s a line between “making use of your character that makes sense in the narrative” and “pissing people off and stomping out their fun.”
The real world - The “UG” (Underground or afterlife) and “RG” (realground or the living world) exist in the same place. The UG can see the RG but not vice versa. The players can read people’s thoughts in the RG using their player pins, and clear up conflict by erasing the noise possessing people (above). Reapers can freely appear in either the RG or UG, being a reaper is effectively their “job.” They’re normal people otherwise, they can by anything from an average Joe to a rock star. However reapers tend not to manipulate the RG for the game (it could get complicated). Objectives often center around RG conflicts, two people may be fighting and you may need to clear it up, maybe a new shop is getting too big for the GM’s taste, hell, maybe that awesome song isn’t loved by enough people. Methods for solving some of the more difficult issues that can’t be solved just by busting noise heads will be addressed upon request or when they come up because this post is too long already.
Any rules I’ve not yet mentioned should pertain to movement logistics and will be sorted out with the posting of the map. If I forgot anything you feel is important or something is not clear by all means ASK.