So I've been working on an idea I've had for a new forum game, and it's gotten a bit bigger and more complicated than I originally imagined. Which is starting to make me worry, since it's a bit... experimental in how its mechanics work and its story is bizarre to say the least. In other words I want another people's opinions as to whether I'm making a playable forum game that people will actually join as opposed to a giant trainwreck that I should abandon. I already have six pages down, and will probably write several more to finish the thing. Anyways, without further ado: Here's the bare-bones outline of Madcap, the game of dress up, over the top combat, and ancient Martian artifacts.
Races:
Vampire:
Description: Vampires are ancient creatures of the darkness, who have sat in their lairs and terrorized humanity for eons. Hunting down ancient alien artifacts to terrorize humanity more efficiently is simply a logical leap for them. Besides the blood drinking, extended canines, extreme paleness, pointed ears, massive egos, and black wardrobes, they are completely indistinguishable from humans and blend easily into crowds without standing out one bit.
Power: Bloodsucking: As a vampire you have amazing regenerative powers that are activated with blood. Other people’s blood. While grappling with an opponent, you may spend a full-action to make a basic attack. You heal all of the damage that you inflict.
Weakness: Limited Colour Scheme: As a creature of the night, the only acceptable colour of clothing that you can wear is black and white. It’s just common sense. You do not gain the Coordinated Colour Bonus for colours other than black and white.
Beastkin:
Description: Beastkin are people who are extraordinarily in tune with nature. This results in them becoming faster and gaining animal features, because everybody knows that humans are artificial and unnatural. These animal attributes range from the extreme, like fur all over their bodies or hands and feet turning into claws, to more minor things, like an extra set of ears or an extraordinary sense of smell. Either way, all Beastkin could make a killing selling pictures online if they weren’t so busy hunting for lost Martian artifacts.
Power: Power of Nature: Your body is in tune with the power of nature, giving you great strength and speed. The speed bonus to your stats is increased by half, rounding up, while your opponent’s speed bonus is decreased by half, rounding down.
Weakness: Headscratches: Whenever someone scratches that special spot between your ears, you just want to roll over and be called a good boy/girl. It’s hereditary, trust me on this. If they are across from you, your opponent may spend a quarter action to remove your speed bonuses for the rest of their turn.
Parasites:
Description: Occasionally some silly human gets infected with something harmless, like worms or a virus or the Plague, and then gets bombarded with cosmic radiation. Or some scientist forgets to follow proper safety procedures when working in his biolab. Or- you get the idea. Parasites are biological wonders who exhibit amazing combat and fashion powers. Sometimes they exist symbiotically with their host, and sometimes they use their host's dead body as a disguise, but either way they seek out Martian artifacts for the same reasons that everyone else does.
Power: Hyperspecialized: Parasites are genetically superior to other creatures, and have adapted to fight tenaciously in their favoured terrain. When you create a Parasite, pick one of the following: 'Up in the Air', 'On the Ground', or 'Under the Earth'. As long as you are in that state, your base stats are doubled.
Weakness: Hyperspecialized: For as long as you aren't in your favoured terrain, which you selected when you made this character, your base stats are counted as zero. Maybe you specialized a bit too much...
Martian:
Description: Martians are aliens from Mars, who left all of their technology scattered around Earth like a bunch of litterbugs. Occasionally the Martian Potentate sends brave Martian warriors to Earth to retrieve this forgotten technology before their eons-old rivals, the Venusians, can. Conveniently, Martians look completely identical to Earthlings, except for their dark brown skin, which is due to the harsh atmosphere on Mars. And their ability to jetson body parts in times of stress.
Power: Familiar Technology: As a Martian, you obviously know how to use all of the technology that your ancestors have left around Earth. You gain +1 to every stat for each piece of Martian technology you have and one extra point to distribute between your stats per level.
Weakness: Scared the Legs off of Ya: In times of stress, such as losing a fight or running from a predator, your legs, arms, chest or head automatically detach to confuse anybody chasing you. While you can’t control this response, don’t worry. The detached body part will grow back eventually. Whenever you lose or run away from a fight, your opponent chooses a body part. You lose all clothing attached to that part, unless it is attached to multiple body parts to begin with.
Venusian:
Description: The Venusians are aliens from Venus, who fought against the Martians long ago. And still do today. Occasionally Venusian freebooters and agents head to Earth to gather lost Maritan technology to annoy their ancient rivals. Conveniently, Venusians looks completely identical to Earthlings, except for their pale skin and blonde hair, which is due to the harsh atmosphere on Venus. And their scorpion tails.
Power: Fashionably Damaged: The fact that Venusians look like attractive Scandinavian people is a complete coincidence, but one that they eagerly exploit. Damage to your clothing only reduces its bonuses by 3 instead of 5. You look good in anything after all, even rags.
Weakness: Scorpion Tail: Your tail makes it harder to find stuff that fits you. Your layering capacity is only 7 on your upper and lower body.
Reincarn:
Description: Reincarns are humans who have learned the secrets of life and death, and are caught in a continuous cycle of death and rebirth. A cycle which greatly benefits them, for it allows them to build up fabulous fortunes and priceless artifacts. And the most priceless artifacts of all are the lost pieces of Martian technology. As such Reincarns use their honed skills and priceless fortunes to do what everyone else is doing: Get their hands on priceless artifacts.
Power: Fashion Experience: Living for several generations have taught you a thing or two about fashion. Pick one fashion stat. That stat is increased by 20% after stats and clothing is accounted before, and before other buffs and debuffs.
Weakness: Darn Whippersnappers: Living for several generations means that you’re constantly behind on the hip jive-talk of the youths. Counter-Taunting takes a full action to complete, and you only gain half the bonus from the taunt meter if it's in your favour.
Celebrity:
Description: Fame has a power of its own. The power to lift trucks and fight off legions of lesser men. Celebrities have existed for as long as man has liked other men, though only recently with the rise of mass media have the number of celebrities grown to noticeable levels. When they aren't setting fashion trends, appearing on national TV, winning elections or cooking omelets, Celebrities can be seen hunting down ancient alien artifacts for the fun of it.
Power: Legions of Fans: Your fame gives you several perks besides the ability to punch people through buildings. You always get the best service, the hottest clothes and hordes of fanatical fans. Using fan abilities costs one less fan than normal, to a minimum of 1.
Weakness: Paparazzi: Being famous isn’t all glamour and glitter. You’re constantly pursued by the paparazzi, who are dedicated to catching every misstep and wardrobe malfunction they can. Damage to your clothing reduces their bonuses by 7 instead of 5.
Random Joe:
Description: Sometimes an average person displays the inner strength and wisdom necessary to throw vampires and other powerful beings into chokeholds and body slams. Having discovered their true abilities, these people do the only logical thing: continue to lead completely ordinary lives. I'm just joking with you. These normal people hunt down Martian technology, because it's what everyone else is doing and may hold the key to why they have these strange powers.
Power: Heart: Whenever you are reduced to less than a quarter of your HP, you may spend a full action to activate your power of heart. For the rest of the fight you ignore all speed and taunt bonuses not in your favour, and gain an extra quarter action each turn.
Weakness: Joe Schmoe: You don't have fans so much as drunken followers who want to see you beat stuff up. Using fan actions costs half as many fans as usual, rounding down.
Stats:
Four combat stats exist in this game: Health, Attack, Defense and Speed.
Health increases your HP by 4 points for each point of Health. Obviously if your current HP ever reaches 0 or less you automatically lose a fight.
Attack is how damaging your attacks are. More or less.
Defense is how much you reduce damage from attacks. More or less.
Speed is how fast you go. Having a higher Speed than your opponent(s) increases your Attack and Defense by the difference in speed. Having a slower Speed increases your opponent(s) stats by the difference.
Additionally, you have four fashion stats in the game: Cuteness, Toughness, Stylishness and Flamboyance. At the start of the game, you assign each fashion stat to a combat stat, and your combat stat is determined by the value of the fashion stat assigned to it. For example, if you assigned Cuteness to Attack and Cuteness was equal to 19, then you’d have an Attack stat of 19.
At the start of the game you assign 27 points between the four fashion stats. These are your base stats and can never be removed or lost, though certain moves may ignore them. Additionally, each time you gain a level, you gain 9 more points to distribute between your stats.
Fashion:
The key part of the game is acquiring clothing, and mixing and matching them to increase your combat abilities through the power of Martian Science. Clothing has several stats and may have extra abilities. Obviously you can only gain the stats and abilities of a piece of clothing if you wear it.
Name: The name of the piece of clothing. Pretty obvious.
Colour: The major/primary colour of the attire. This is important for colour coordination.
Location: What part of the body this piece of clothing covers. The locations are: Feet, Lower Body, Upper Body, and Head. Clothing may occupy multiple locations at the same time.
Thickness: Each piece of apparel has a thickness value. You can wear as many pieces of clothing on each part of your body as you want, so long as their combined thickness values do not exceed 10. It’s just common sense. So if you had a shirt with a thickness of 6, you can’t wear any other pieces of clothing that go on your upper body with a thickness of 5 or more.
Stat Bonuses: Each piece of clothing increases one or more of fashion stats by a certain amount. Picking which pieces of clothing to wear to maximize your stats is critical in the game. Stat bonuses will never be negative.
Abilities: Clothing may grant additional abilities if you wear them. Some abilities are passive, and will always be active if you wear that piece of clothing. Some abilities are additional actions you can do during your turn. If a piece of clothing is ever damage enough that all of its stat bonuses are gone, then its abilities automatically deactivate and you can’t use or benefit from them anymore.
IMPORTANT: Clothing isn’t gender restricted. At all. You’re welcome.
Example Clothes:
Orange Fuzzy Jacket
Upper Body, 8 Thickness
+10 Flamboyance
Red Heart Boxers
Lower Body, 1 Thickness
+5 Cuteness
For All to See: If you aren’t wearing anything else on your lower body, or the rest of your clothing there is in tatters, then your opponent(s) lose 10 speed from the sight of you in your underwear.
Black Tuxedo Vest
Upper Body, 6 Thickness
+10 Stylishness, +5 Toughness
Let’s Dance: Grappling takes a quarter-action instead of a half-action.
Coordinated Colour Bonus (CCB):
Coordinating your wardrobe is very important! Wearing complimentary colours increases all of your stats by 2 for each piece of clothing that matches, to a maximum of 20. The complementary colours are red/green, orange/blue, yellow/purple, and black/white. For example, if you were wearing 2 pieces of red clothing and 2 pieces of green clothing, then all of your stats would be increased by 8. If you added another piece of red clothing, the bonus would increase to 10. The CCB works even if you’re wearing just one colour. So wearing 4 pieces of red clothing would give all of your stats a +8 bonus. The CCB does not stack. So if you were wearing 4 pieces of red/green clothing and 3 of orange/blue, then your CCB is only +8, not +14.
Clothing Damage:
Certain moves will damage clothing. Each point of damage a piece of clothing receives reduces all of its bonuses by 5. Clothing is considered tattered when it receives enough damage to reduce all of its bonuses to 0. Tattered clothing does not grant any abilities, CCB or other effects, and must be repaired at a Tailor to remove damage and have an effect again. Clothing that is damaged but not tatter may be repaired in a fight, due to certain abilities, moves or effects.
Special Moves:
Obviously using basic attacks in every fight gets really boring really fast, which is why every character has special moves to liven things up, and make fights turn into their favour. Each character starts with 2 special moves, and gains one more with each level up. Special moves can have a bunch of effects and conditions, selected when the move was created, which makes them more powerful and tactical than basic attacks.
Advantages/Disadvantages:
Special moves are created using a point-buy system. Each special move starts with the same basic effects: Normal damage against an opponent above, below or across from you, chosen when the move is created. Additionally each special move starts with 1 advantage points (AP), and the option of getting up to 2 more AP by taking up to 2 disadvantages for a total of 3 AP per move. The list of advantages/disadvantages is in its own spoiler. Note that you do not have to automatically create a special move when you level up or create a character. But you are not allowed to create special moves during a fight, only before and after it.
Fans:
For as long as people have hunted down Martian artifacts, other people have tagged along to cheer them on. After all, it’s like watching wrestling, except the wrestlers are better dressed and their moves aren’t fake.
Every time a character wins a fight, they gain 1 fan. They may also gain fans in other ways, depending on the circumstances. For every active fan a character has, they gain +1 to all stats. Additionally in a fight they may use special fan-actions, which temporarily remove fans from a fight, eliminating their bonus(es) in return for a more immediate benefit.
Positioning:
Positioning is important in a fight, since some Special Moves may only activate if the fighters are in certain positions. The three positions are: 'Up in the Air', 'On the Ground', and 'Underneath the Earth'. Additionally fighters can be considered to be across from each other, or above or below each other depending on the their positions relative to each other.
Moving so that your relative position to another fighter costs a half action. So if you were across from your opponent, moving to be above or below him would cost a quarter action. At the same time, moving changes your absolute position. So if you and your opponent were both on the ground and you moved to get above him, then you'd be considered to be up in the air. If you were both in the air when you tried to move above him, then you'd still be in the air, just higher than your foe.
Moving so that your absolute position changes but not your relative position costs no actions to do. So if your opponent was in the air and you were underneath the earth, then you could move up, onto the ground for free, which can be very useful in certain situations.
Obviously I need to add in a lot more, like what you can do with special moves, fan-actions, multi-character fights, miscellaneous rule stuff, examples and clean-up, but the basics are all there, more or less. So how does it look?