OP of original thread, if you want it. Mostly forked from it.
Now with tropes page!
GM Message of the day:
From now on, I'll be puppeting absent players when the course of action is obvious (doesn't really need a decision) and when they're holding up the room. Unless they request otherwise, of course.
For those new and returning, the premise is this:You (as in
you) wake up in a pod in a strange room, with a set of your usual clothes (and items you carry around) and the most weaponizable object you own/in your home. The room leads into an expansive dungeon full of bewilderment and peril, and as you discover sooner or later, your fellow Bay12ers.
If you want to catch up, the short story is that after a few rooms, and some troubles with alcoholism, lycanthropy, and death, the party came across an "overworld" room and discovered a player settlement at the center. If you want to know what's in the rooms so far, there's links in the map page. However, it's not necessary to know the story so far in order to play. You'll discover things as you explore.
Many pages ago, in another thread...
About half a dozen people, including Zanzetkuken, Kj1225, NAV, Arcvasti, HugoLuman, griffinpup, Playergamer, RangerCado, and BlitzDungeoneer woke up in a strange room, where they promptly started arguing with each other and freaking out before the first door was even open. After some arguing over reality vs dreams and the resulting ethics of throwing an internet acquaintance under the bus, Kj1225, also known as kyle for excepting the real name ban, opened the first door to discover a scene from Binding of Isaac. Fortunately, despite freaking the group out considerably, the weakest enemies of that game proved little challenge, though Arcvasti still got scratched up somehow.
The next room contained a bunch of werewolves, though was only faced in earnest after retconning a puzzle room with explosives and a dragon due to misunderstanding rules about leaving rooms in progress. Contrary to all probability, they emerged victorious from this challenge with only moderate mauling of HugoLuman and the grisly death of Zanzetkuken, who was horrified to respawn as a woman and discover that not even in death can one escape from this horrific place. The mechanic of "limit breaks" was introduced and most likely dropped forever.
Meanwhile, Sentient Bowtie arrived, and while the group was dealing with the shock of learning about the respawn system, Kj1225 jumped the gun bravely forged ahead and charged into yet another room, quickly needing help against the Oni within. Again the group was victorious with far less than the expected casualties, and a great store of Japanese liquor was won, which the underaged Kj1225 immediately set about forming a habit upon.
Meanwhile meanwhile, Zanzetkuken snuck off on her own to yet another room, where she one-hit-killed an entire cult by freeing the dragon they were torturing for some reason with her trickshot ability. Grateful for the rescue, the dragon bestowed upon Zanzetkuken a mark designed to confuse any magic thrown her way, which she then kept secret for some reason for the rest of the game.
After the rest of the group headed her way to see what was going on over there (and jury rigging a chain-climb into the room since the dragon smashed the stairs on that side), they all went up the other side of the cathedral, where they found the Black Knight who helpfully informed them that none shall pass. Since griffinpup, the only one with a real gun at that point, had dropped out of the game, after HugoLuman spent a mental planning session getting people's names wrong and forgetting who had what, they were forced to go WWE on the Knight's ass. Their plunder after the dirty dishonorable beatdown was a newly vomit stained helmet for Kj1225 and a nagging sense of dread for some about killing the first human(oid) they'd encountered so far in cold blood.
Fortunately, at that moment Propman arrived, a wannabe privateer of eccentric garb who jumped at the call to adventure. He cleared out the horrific bathroom adjacent to the Oni room by solving the Legend of Zelda toilet paper puzzle within, before rushing off to the sound of Zanzetkuken's scream as the others un-dislocated her shoulder. Together they solved a deadly game of chess in the next room (where Arcvasti picked up a mysterious scepter from the defeated king piece) before charging off back to the other side of the dungeon to explore what lay beyond the mirror of the horrid bathroom.
What lay beyond was the foul clutches of an internet meme, the infamous edutainment flash game "Hungry Pumkin." When Kj1225 found out (the hard way) that violence would not work, they were forced to solve the simplistic vocabulary puzzle, until they quite literally broke the game and turned the room into a diner with a supply of actual food.
While the group celebrated this latest victory, the effects of being mauled by werewolves manifested on HugoLuman, prompting Propman to flee like a canuck coward and the others to be slightly alarmed and confused. Fortunately, the split in the party was temporary and resulted in no violent misunderstandings. And, after ominous buildup, they opened the big double doors in the cathedral where Zanz dragon had been, revealing not a boss fight but a gargantuan room representing the overworld.
With several people having dropped out of the game by this point (presumably left behind in the dungeon), Arcvasti, Zanzetkuken, Kj1225, HugoLuman, Sentient Bowtie, and Propman set off towards the center of this dome terrarium, where they had spotted a town. They crossed an amnesia-inducing magic river on the way, where Kj1225 picked up a pet duck and HugoLuman got some nasty silver burns which Arcvasti absorbed with his healing powers.
Upon reaching the town (and passing security), they discovered it was a colony of "players" like themselves, other people from "IRL" who had been there longer...
-Thread 2-
After a summer-long hiatus While they were exploring the town, another group of Forumites consisting of Fniff, McDonald, GentlemanRaptor, and Smurfington (who promptly dropped out after threatening everyone with his machete), along with a newly killed and respawned BlitzDungeoneer, appeared in the dungeon. After a while they ventured forth into the dungeon, where they proceeded through the final unopened door in the first room (after looting the BoI poop piles, which the others hadn't thought of.) Here they found a giant hopping head monster, which was easily dispatched by GentlemanRaptor's .22 rifle, and further on a WWI minefield, which they navigated through thankfully without incident. At the end they found a double-sided quantum door, which led to a spider on one side (which they killed) and a group of space marines on the other.
Meanwhile, the first party found a couple people to spout exposition in town, while also discovering that they could afford precisely jack shit. With Arcvasti accumulating absorbed injuries from the rest of the party, including a break on his non-burned leg from a random stranger (healing in exchange for item identification), and HugoLuman needing to retrieve a werewolf corpse from the dungeon so an alchemist could cure his lycanthropy, and the group needing medical supplies and cash in general, they decided to return to the dungeon, aided by suddenly discovering (overworld only!) fast-travel. And so they went, leaving Kj1225 and his duck behind at the town.
Sentient Bowtie and HugoLuman discovered some signs of the other group, but as Zanzetkuken had broken the chain up from the cathedral (and sustained a nasty leg slice in the process), they decided to press on past the Chess room instead. The other group heard Zanzetkuken's scream in the distance and milled around the end of the minefield for a while, wondering what to do, until Cryxis (Iton) accidentally blew his leg off on a mine. GentlemanRaptor ran to the space marines for help and one agreed to follow him.
The first group, having cleared 2 more rooms in the meantime, heard the mine go off just before they were reunited with Propman, and may have been about to investigate when Kevak arrived and became the first person to use the spawn room teleporter, surprising them. They decided to crack the bank vault of the room they'd just cleared, but had no luck aside from finding a cryptic note. They decided it would then be best to go after more XP, but the next room was a city street of some kind filled with cats (large and small).
HugoLuman made a deal with one of the tigers to gain passage in exchange for the corpses of the enemies in the bank room. He'd forgotten that one was unconscious, though, so they went back to move him to a safer place. While they were doing that, they got into an argument involving the endgame that resulted in Zanzetkuken running off. HugoLuman's curse activated again, so SentientBowtie dragged Kevak and Arcvasti back to the bank vault, further splitting the party. After sorting things out and probably killing the NPC prisoner, they went in search of Zanz, finding her passed out in the cathedral after she killed 20 more cultists due to magic mark shenanigans, passing out for a few minutes.
SentientBowtie and Hugo climbed back up the ledge, only to find HugoLuman was unable to identify the corpse they needed, so they went to get food instead. They got distracted by a Corrupt a Wish room while on this errand. Meanwhile, Arc and Kevak went back to the bank to get stuff for a ladder, and when Zanzetkuken woke up, they all climbed up after the other two. After much shenanigans and a near devolution into civil war, Zanzetkuken wished for a time rewind, causing future versions of HugoLuman and Arcvasti to show up, along with something really scary trying to kill them. The group fled down a nearby elevator (which appeared when HugoLuman, with some assistance, wished for the truth) where they explored an immitation of The Stanley Parable, with a dying Future!HugoLuman left at the start. Their path soon led them to a strange gallery where they fought against their own old FG&RP characters.
Meanwhile, Propman had fallen into a secret passage from the chess room while being chased by an entity that kills those who stand alone for too long. After blatantly grinding some levels exploring some interesting puzzles, he finds some interesting details about the robbers from before, and the plot thickens. Shamelessly grinding levels on his own, Propman emerged into the overworld again after fighting many goons similar to those in the bank, acquiring a pistol in the process. From another player near the end of this side trip, he learned of a not-so-nice player in town by the name of Two-Shoe-Louie
Meanwhile Meanwhile, GentlemanRaptor's group entered the space marine's ship, where it turns out the marines are out of supplies and badly need help against an enemy aboard. Here they did absolutely nothing for several hours, presumably chatting with the marines. Several of them dropped out from boredom.
More meanwhile, several new players entered the game. BlitzDungeoneer, staying behind in the minefield for some reason, got killed again by the loner-hunting entity and respawned as a woman. Prophet became the 2nd person to use the spawn teleporter, winding up with those down in the "Truth" room, while Caroline and FelixSparks set off together, finding a faerie to travel with them in the room adjoining the head room, and following that, a massive arctic terrarium with a brutal 12-hour survival challenge. FelixSparks wandered off to fate unknown, leaving Caroline and her newfound NPC friend Lilium to face the cold on their own...
After the main group defeated the reminders of their forums pasts, they encountered GLaDOS, who offered yet more cryptic hints at the truth, but getting her to talk involved revealing the Space Between Rooms, a deadly void which was Not Meant To Be Seen. They had to forcibly shut her off to close it, whereupon Kevak looted her main core to later wire into a potato and they took an elevator back to the Cathedral (SB & Arc snagging portal guns in the process). Kevak sorta healed Future!Hugo (who promptly left), the group ran into the newly respawned BlitzDungeoneer and the newly arrived Omeganaut at spawn, and the other group (evacuating the spaceship on advice of passing time travelers), met up with them. Night having fallen and the day having been long and weary, they slept.
Group 1 (Arcvasti, HugoLuman, SentientBowtie, Omeganaut, Cryxis, GentlemanRaptor, technicallyAdventurer, Ace of Hearts, "Crematio" the ghost (NPC), InsaneGame27, Propman, Armach, EndlessBlaze, 0player) After joining up with (most of) Group A, they finally enter the bank vault.
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=143615.msg6117178#msg6117178
Group Alpha (Caroline, FelixSparks, Propman[controlling NPC Lilium]) Currently in Snowglobe, dealing with 12-hour survival challenge and a giant penguin-herder:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=143615.msg5785146#msg5785146
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=143615.msg5759796#msg5759796 (several posts on this page)
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=143615.msg5752870#msg5752870
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=143615.msg5752857#msg5752857
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=143615.msg5748303#msg5748303
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=143615.msg5748303#msg5748303
Loners: Zanzetkuken (gone off to explore the OW east of the dungeon.), Rolepgeek, Kj1225
Mechanics of This Game
We keep track of stuff in a simple google doc, link is at bottom.Spawn Room:New/Respawning players wind up here, coming out of one of the pods. It is a circular room made of stone, with a circular platform in the center holding some unidentifiable tech-dias. This platform is connected to a series of semi-circular platforms (which hold the pods) surrounding it and the single exit door, all suspended over the ankle-deep water on the floor of the room.
This room can also teleport players to any room currently containing at least one other player, allowing new/respawned people to easily catch up with the others. When traveling this way, you arrive in a burst of light with a loud bang, in the nearest safe area to that group.
Dungeon Structure:If a room hasn't been entered before, then the player who enters the room provides a description of the room, and a threat or two within it. Each room needs to have at least two doors within it (one you came in from and a Mystery Room), and at least one threat within it.
In other words, the content of a room depends on who first opens it.There is a large "Overworld" room, a 4km dome with a town in the center and many connections within. While in this chamber, fast-travel is possible to certain parts of it (provided you visited them before) via a holographic display from the wrist device.
Most rooms cannot be walked out of until "solved." i.e. More people can come in, but none of them can leave until they beat the room (or they die and respawn.)
Doc for room ideas, if you've got one but you don't want to run it or you want to open a door but don't have an idea.
MapClass selection:To select your class, you walk to a Dias in the center of the starting room, and a device that looks like
this held on by the restraints of
these attaches to your character's non-dominant arm.
After this, your character gets a recommended class based on the weapon they spawn in with, and a single ability related to that class. Each time your character levels up (every 5 rooms), you get a selection between two abilities, a passive (always on) or an active (needs to be activated). Please keep in mind your level when giving your character abilities.
It's a fairly freeform class system, so the definition of your class and the what abilities are related to it are pretty much up to you.
Respawn System:The system is Permadeath-Respawn, wherein your character respawns, but your appearance changes by at least some degree. Under this system, there are only two requirements. One, you have to remain the race you were when you died. Not necessarily human, because players might wind up being transformed into another race at some point. Two, you cannot have an appearance you have used before. It has to be new, at least to you.
Combat System:As this is fairly open RP, combat is realistic. Stab in gut = your guts are punctured, etc.
Sign-up SheetYou will use this at initial sign-up, and post a new one if you have to respawn.
Name: (Your forum username)
Appearance: (Your gender, an age class (ie. mid-twenties, early forties, etc), and one or two features. Approx. height and weight would also be good, though it's understandable if you don't want to get into that much detail. (
Note: It only has to be your actual appearance and clothing if you want to use it. You can look however you wish.)
Inventory: (Clothing you currently have and one weapon (with ammo, if neccessary). As above, the clothing does not have to be your actual clothing if you don't want it to be. It is preferred that the weapon is something that you actually have, though)
Characters, Inventory, and Statistics kept track of here
Poll
6 (42.9%)
Author
Topic: If Forumites Were Stuck in an RPG (2nd thread. REBOOT COMMENCED) (Read 293569 times)