An old man with a beard down to his knees spoke to the group of incoming freshman, his voice booming out over the sizable crowd.
“It is my pleasure to welcome the incoming class to our fine school. I am sure you will find its unique classes suitable for the situation we find the world in today….”
His speech is interrupted by two gunshots, going off somewhere in the school behind him. He doesn’t look phased, or in fact, react at all.
Coming into view, backing up with a sword held with both hands was a girl with brown hair tied in a ponytail, wearing the schools uniform. The sword moves in a blur as another gunshot goes off, a short spark forming in front of her.
“I TOLD YOU I DIDN’T TOUCH YOUR SANDWITCH! CHECK WITH INVESTIGATIONS IF IT BOTHERS YOU SO MUCH!”
She shouted, putting her sword to her side as she does so. It was swiftly brought up again, with two sparks jumping off it in quick succession.
Another girl comes into view, a woman with long dark hair flowing around her. In each of her hands with a Berretta PX4, both pointing at the other woman.
“YOU LIAR! BONNET SAW YOU TAKE IT!”
Her shout could hardly be heard over the two gunshots, one from each side. The other girl deflects them as she done before, this time charging forward with a shout.
The sword swings low at the gun girl, but she does an athletic jump over the blade, putting the gun to the sword girl’s side as she finishes the swing.
The sword girl calmly puts her sword back in its scabbard on her back, putting her hand to her head and looking away from the other girl.
“All right…I might of kind-of-sort-of eaten your sandwich. But I can’t help it! The blood of a legendary thief runs through my veins, I am sure you know what that is like.”
The gun-girl put both pistols away, into holsters half hidden by the uniform’s skirt.
“Of course I forgive you, we are friends right? Just be honest with me from now on. I can stand you stealing from me, just not lying to me.”
The two girls hug, then walk off in the direction they came side by side.
“As I said, welcome to our unique school...”
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These stories take place in a reality much the same, yet much different from our own. The past few decades have seen crime rise drastically, causing the governments of the world to seek ways to combat it. Weapons that where illegal in times past where immediately legalized over all of the world, to different extents, and the court system was completely streamlined in an attempt to combat this effect.
The solution that is most relevant to our story is, of course, the creation of Private Detective Agencies, much like the ones that had been created in the past. Calling them detectives is a little inaccurate, however. In effect, they are a kind of private police force, a kind of mercenary group, and of course a kind if investigation group. If you have the money, you can effectively skip over the overburdened police force straight to the Private Detectives, who will find and arrest the criminal responsible, retrieve a lost or stolen item, or even just find your stray cat.
You play one of these Detectives. More specifically, you play one of these detectives in training. You still take missions, and are actively required to for credit and cash, but generally are put into smaller jobs. Don’t let that fool you, many small jobs lead to something much, much bigger.
This game is heavily based off of anime. It was inspired by shows like Hidan No Aria, Naruto, Full Metal Panic!, Gakuen Kino, Yu Yu…You know what? Let’s just say it is based on the incredibly, incredibly common anime theme of “High School Student Fights things”
This game is not at all realistic. The game system, when needed, is based off of Feng Shui, designed to be quick and action packed. You can dodge bullets or block them with a sword, wield a gun in each hand, or even use magic if you are so inclined. Describe every move how you want it to look, making it incredibly cool, and assume that any object that could logically be there is.
This game is meant to be somewhat low maintenance on my part. I am lacking time now a days, only enough for short write ups. I hope to be able to settle what I need to in a single paragraph, trying to avoid my long and droning posts. Kind of like the one I am writing write now!
As such, this game is meant to be a half-“MUCK” style, half a quicker version of my normal RPGs. While in the school ground, you will essentially be on your own to interact with other players and NPCs as you see fit. I typically give descriptions of new events, the general layout of the environment, or general appearance and personalities of NPCs, but for the most part it is entirely player run. You can even feel free to make your own NPCs to interact with, or control interactions with unimportant ones I generated. *Crosses fingers* hope this system works!
The other half of the game is the one more heavily controlled, the “Missions”. Missions are plots that you go on, generally where you fight a bad guy for some reason or another. Most missions happen by request, you go over to the message board and pick up a job that sounds interesting. Some come to you, though generally only if you ask for them, such as an old enemy attacking you on your way to the school, or you finding out a secret about a fellow student and following the threads where they lead. Most missions have multiple players, groups going to fight enemies together to give me less work to do. NPCs may also join, whether by player choice or my own. You typically get school off while on a mission, but nobody says you can’t go back. Of course, avoid missions for too long and they will find you!
Last thing is your character sheets. They are purposefully simple, with little variety. If you want them to get stronger, you have to go on missions!
Defensive:
Attack:13 Defence:15:Speed:10
Offensive:
Attack:15:Defence 12: Speed 11
Speedy:
Attack:13 Defence:13 Speed:13
See? Didn’t even need spoilers!
A quick summary:
Attack is how easy it is to hit with an attack, and how much damage it does. Attacks can be anything from guns to fists to mops to cars. All do the same damage, and are rarely ever fatal on the first hit, or at all unless the enemy is doing it. Most fights go to the KO, most Detectives aren’t given a license to kill after all. Set up with your opponent’s Defense as a check bar.
Defense is how hard you are to hit. Blocking, dodging, deflecting, or any other way of avoiding harm. This is the difficulty of your opponents attack check, a higher defense means it is more likely you will not get hit at all.
Speed: How quick you act in one turn. At every turn, I make a roll for both speeds, then subtract the lower one from the higher one. If it is a big enough difference, the quicker one gets a bonus to their roll and can often act twice in a single turn.
You choose one of the choices (Defensive, Offensive, or Speedy) and put those stats down in the stats sheet.
Perhaps the only other thing that would be unclear is the “Class” spot. The class spot states what your job is/is going to be. For example, if a character primary goal is to burst into the enemy base and capture everyone inside, they would take a SWAT class, while a more investigative character would take Investigations, a stealth based character would take Infiltration, a sniper would take Sniping, a magic user would take “Supernatural Arts” (SA), etc. The choices are limitless if they are at least half logical.
As for the rest of your character sheet, it is pretty self-explanatory. I would explain anyway, but already wrote too much.
haCracter Sheet:
Name:
Backstory:
Class:
Stats:
Description:
And with that, let’s see if the experiment works! After you post your stat sheet, you are part of the game and can get started. I will probably not veto them or anything like that, so feel free to start under your character sheet.
As for the first description:
You are all standing in a green courtyard in the middle of the school, on an empty field surrounded by buildings. Having just witnessed the events of the opening, people are beginning to talk all around you. The elderly man, having just finished the sentence, promptly fell asleep snoring loudly where he stands. Some students are trying to wake him up unsuccessfully, while others wander away towards the school.
You, of course, are fully prepared for whatever may come. You have your weapon and equipment with you, as is school policy, and are wearing your bullet-blade-fire-whatever-else resistant uniform, given out before school started.
Well, time for your first year of school at Gunsmoke High.