With the advent of video game titles like Middle-Earth: Shadow of War and Watch Dogs: Legion, a pattern is beginning to emerge: enriching, long-form narratives built from characters, whether allied or adversarial, who are randomly generated. And this reminds me of a forum game, long ago...the Zenith Concert.
Resurrected by me multiple times under Chaos Chronicles, the game tried to capture that magic under the umbrella of a Forum Game. But the generated characters were built from too many moving parts, parts that were formatted by so many different people under so many different rules sets and using stats that may have ceased to be between revisions. It was ambitious, but complex, and every attempt after tried to build on top of this foundation instead of fixing the problems raised by previous versions.
It's time for a hard reset.
Bay12: Legion is a revitalization of the "Randomized Character RPG" concept that aims to correct the issues caused by Chaos Chronicles, which in turn was itself a resurrection of Zenith Concert.
The game rules will be similar to that of, say, Wiki-Warfare if it were a longform RP: combat is not dictated by Hit Points, but rather by detailed subsystem damage. Your rolled up stats will instead provide very simple bonuses of +2 to certain actions. For example, having the Positive Trait of being good at public speaking will provide a +2 to Social Interactions. Or debuffs of a similar level.
I will not be using the old list of stuff. I would rather have everything centered and easy to punch in to the randomizer(s). You may all still submit Fragments if you want, but they will be part of a new batch of stuff I will be adding a lot into as well.
Here is how characters will be laid out:
Name: This will be your character's name. Particularly unusual names will be commented on, but there usually isn't really a buff or debuff.
Species: A species will determine quite a bit about your character. For example, normal Humans usually aren't physically notable at all, but they're adaptable to foreign environments and plenty resourceful.
Age: How old your character is. Usually unimportant unless you're too young or too old.
Gender: Unimportant. This is how your character identifies, not their birth gender.
Sexuality: Also unimportant. Who do you love?
Positive Traits: This is the stuff you're good at! Are you good at military tactics? Can you cook filet mignon? Speak twelve languages, including Spanish? This is that! You get two of these.
Negative Traits: This is the stuff you're not good at. Are you terrible at military tactics? Do you set your kitchen on fire? Are you not even good at your native tongue, or are even mute? This is that! You get two of these, too.
Special Abilities: Special things you can do, in combat or out. Not positive traits of character, but rather physically exciting capabilities. Do you have a machine-gun mounted on a drone? Know a special kind of magic? Does your dancing cause a planet in another galaxy to explode? These are the things you can do that no one else can: anyone can shoot a gun, but only you can dual-wield! You get two of these, as well!
Weapon: What kind of weapon do you start with? Sure, you can pick up anything and use it as a weapon, but what do you show up with? Do you have a Tazer? A handgun? A knife, sword, magic? Your bare fists? A rubber chicken named Tony? What do you bring to the table at the beginning?
Items: Do you come with medkits? Have some rations? Maybe even another weapon you're not as good with, but have on standby? You get two items with you at the start, and they can be any physical object, be they keys to a speedboat, a cellphone, another weapon, or even just a good pair of shoes.
Class: Your job, your occupation. What do you do, and what does it make you good at?
Origin: How did you grow up? What did you learn in your youth? Why are you like this? An origin can determine a lot about you.
Associates: Do you know anyone? There's a chance you don't, but if you do, here's where they are! Family members, friends, rivals, parole officers, your hot 2nd Grade teacher, they're all in here.
Metadata: And finally, Metadata. Five bullet points that give you additional buffs or debuffs, or can just help you determine your character's personality! Do you hear voices in your head? Won a spelling bee? Got arrested a few hundred times? These aren't the most important things in the world, but they can shape you.
Finally, one more thing. As you can tell from the title, this game is drawing inspiration from Watch Dogs: Legion. I already have a plotline in mind, the plotline isn't what I'm referring to. I mean, your characters are not the only ones being randomly generated. There is a breathing world of nutters out there, friend and foe. Your Associates matter and they have their own Associates. And...there will be more characters then there will be players at the beginning.
The player count will be six, so let's say a full six of you join. I will roll up two characters per player, and the one you do not pick will be an NPC in the world. And if your character dies, you go into the Waitlist, and come back later as a brand new character.
So...if all of that sounds fun? Let us begin.
Players: 5/5
Supernerd, Nightwing64, Glass, 0cra_Tr0per, King Zultan
Waitlist: 0
n/a
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Topic: Bay12: Legion (Interest Check) (Read 3282 times)