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[Aninimouse]

My last question managed to get itself buried in the thread, so:

Spoiler: In regards to this: (click to show/hide)

So, would anyone be interested in this (Mess of seemingly random thoughts )?

 An RTD that takes place in a world with automobiles, trains, firearms, semi-modern cities, airships, etc...
But also Gods, Magic, Dwarves, Elves, the Undead, Dragons and the like? I've been working on the setting for a while now, for a Freeroam forum RPG, but I'm considering doing a simpler, possibly cooperative adventure in RtD form as well.

 I find it kind of hard to explain the setting, especially as it's still a WIP, and there's just so much to it, but basically it's 'What if you took Medieval Fantasy, and then went forward in time until things were about WWII Era in terms of technology, with Magic and Mythical creatures still playing a large role.' that takes place in a world of small continents and islands spread amongst an infinite expanse of sea.

The current "Known" world is a little smaller than Europe, ignoring large bodies of water. And that world is filled with human towns and cities, (That happen to be a little on the generic side for the most part, but they're Humans, what do you expect? )

Expansive, industrial, Dwarvern cities within mountains, filled with networks of subway systems and factories.

The Elven cities, built within the trees of ancient forests. Although most Elves look down upon all the industrialism that the other races have turned to, and spend most of their time holed up in their forests. There are still an abundance of Elves that are a bit more lenient when it comes to that, and have integrated themselves into the societies of other races.

Then there are the 'Thelenawen' Elves, whom split up with the other Elves long ago, in favour of a more industrial, and warlike lifestyle themselves. However, they were driven away into a tiny corner of the known world by the Orcs during the 'Territory Wars'. (Which were basically battles over the continents and islands there were being newly discovered right after the invention of the Airship.)

Giant, Orcish Fortress-Cities, filled with Soldiers-in-training and factories pumping out weapons. Although they do sound like they'd be evil, they aren't really. Holding honor and such in high regards,
they just really love battle.

Goblin cities built into the cliffs and mountains of the dangerous, arid regions of the Northwest, using makeshift airships to travel from settlement to settlement to avoid the dangers that lie in the deserts below.

Ancient ruins of civilizations long forgotten, filled with undead and other dangers of course.

Magic, as I said, is still a common occurrence. Around 30% of the Human and Dwarvern Races are capable of using at least the simplest forms of magic. It's a bit more uncommon in Orcs and Goblins, but it's extremely common in Elven and Gnomish societies.

Gods are still worshiped, and from time to time choose to walk amongst the mortals.

Somewhat Castle in the Sky inspired, as far as airships go.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/61829979/CitS3.png
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/61829979/CitS2.png
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/61829979/CitS1.png

Firearms, for the most part, are somewhere around WWI-II level for the Humans, the Dwarves are a bit more advanced, and the Orcs make a lot of big, bulky weapons that can't really be described in our history's terms. The Elves still use Swords, Bows, and Magic, (While the Thelenawen use a combination of Melee Weapons, Magic, and Firearms), and the Goblins can use whatever they can. (Mostly small firearms, rifles, spears, and crossbows.)

I have enough to make a thousand RtDs in this setting, anything from soldiers, to adventurers, to criminals, to the crew of an airship, to explorers, to evil necromancers, to members of a rebel/freedom fighting group, to police officers...
 
But I'll only bother figuring out what the players will be doing, if they're actually interested in the first place.

I was going to go for the classic 'Players are Adventurers', but does anyone else have any better ideas that they'd think would be more fun, given the setting?

[scriver]

Wrong colour.

 ...
...
...Not if you... Erh... See it like, uhm, since it doesn't reflect anything, all colours kind off stay in there... Or something.

[Dermonster]

Black is lack of color. White is all the color.

[Gatleos]

Sweet Sankis, I already have 8 pre-ins! Looks like that special waitlist format I was working on will be used after all...

[freeformschooler]

You guys are gonna love the special waitlist format.

[monk12]

* Monk is INterested in special waitlist format

* Monk cares not for rainbows, for they lack the heady sense of self importance associated with the third person!

[Yoink]

* Yoink is saddened by his lack of internet time currently, but shall still claim a waitlist spot in Gat's RtD!

Also. I actually did some work on my RtD the other day. Yes, really. It's like that episode of South Park where Kenny's on life support, with Blacktree Trail as Kenny and all the great RtD ideas in my head taking the roll of Cartman.

[monk12]

You guys are gonna love the special waitlist format.

You're right, I do.

[monk12]

Roll to Survive Ninja School!

Players are all enrolled in Ninja School (not necessarily by choice) where they must learn to become deadly assassins of the night through study with the Ninja Masters, passing random challenges (both physical and mental,) and of course, murdering other students for fun and profit.

Flavor 1) Coop, ninja school is organized into teams where each team must put aside their difference and pool their assorted abilities to outwit and outfight the other teams. Only one team gets to graduate, and there exist both formal deathmatches and your classic "bathroom break" ambush scenarios. Optionally, as players die, they are replaced by the weakest members of larger teams (thus allowing waitlisters to cycle in believably.)

Flavor 2) Competitive, every man for himself, shifting alliance backstabbery goodness. One ninja graduates, every day the bottom 2 ninjas who did worst at the day's tasks are forced to fight to the death.

Each day is divided into several phases, themselves divided into however many turns are necessary to resolve player action. Assuming any kind of competitiveness, players get 2 actions- a Public Action they post in thread, and a Secret Action they PM to the GM. Secret Actions are only known to the other players if their effects are discovered, either due to terrible failure or the efforts of the intended target. Players should PROBABLY get some kind of reward if they don't indulge in a Secret Action, otherwise all actions should be secret in a competitive format.

General day outline:

Breakfast- Ninja Free Time! Ninjas may eat (restoring HPs assuming none of the other ninjas poisons them,) train (small skill/stat gain,) meditate (charge/recharge ability,) or attack another Ninja (stealthily or directly.) More social Ninjas may also gather information on rival classmates, learning their weaknesses, abilities, loyalties, and so on (obviously more likely to happen in the Coop variant.) If they can think of something else to do, they are of course welcome. Ninja Free Time is unstructured, meaning no Ninja Masters are present to intervene in student conflicts.

Morning Lesson- Ninjas are taught a lesson by a Ninja Master, which mechanically translates to automatic skill/ability gain. Ninjas may attempt to assassinate one another, but if caught by the Ninja Master they will be disciplined. All's fair if they get away with it, though.

Midday Break- Ninja Free Time! Same as Breakfast.

Afternoon Challenge- Ninjas are taught another lesson by a Ninja Master, but whereas the Morning Lesson is more of a lecture format, the Afternoon Challenge is, shall we say, more interactive. As in "Today's Lesson is DOOOOOOOOOOOOOODGE!" Depending on the challenge, players may be rewarded with additional skill/ability/stat gain, although commonly mere survival is considered reward enough.

Evening Meal- Ninja Free Time! You get the idea.

Evening Challenge- Depending on flavor, some kind of formal competition takes place. Coop has the Team competing against another (or all other) teams in a variety of challenges ranging from Deathmatch, CTF, peasant-murdering sprees, or whatever, ideally themed according to the day's Lesson/Challenge setpieces. Competitive has the aforementioned Elimination round of the bottom 2 students- uninvolved Ninjas can use this as Ninja Free Time, except this time they are monitored by stern Ninja Masters.

Night- Ninjas sleep, restoring all HP, recharging all abilities, etc. Ninjas may forgo sleep (and the associated benefits) in exchange for extra Ninja Free Time, traditionally used for assassination but also for sabatoge, spying, exploration of normally forbidden areas, etc. Sleeping Ninjas take significant penalties while asleep, although they always get a roll to detect the intrusion of an enemy Ninja. Ninjas may also place traps/alarms before going to sleep, depending on equipment and ingenuity.

Setting can vary from crazy magic Naruto ninjas to your more mundane "Everyone is Batman/Charles Atlas Superpowers" ninjas. An overarching plot apart from the daily drama of ninja life is also optional, and there are plenty of tropes to draw on for that. Obviously needs a robust skill/ability tree, possibly stats depending on other mechanics, while equipment would probably come courtesy of Ninja Master "generosity" and/or daring raids on the weapons locker. More interesting boobytrap rules would be exciting, as a nice defensive counterpoint to assassinations. The general theme is "whatever you can get away with is legal" as far as the Ninja Masters go.



Semi-Random Tangent- Speaking of interesting waitlist formats, I was thinking of how in a regular RTD, there normally isn't too much waitlist movement just because everything is designed to be challenging-but-survivable. You don't have a new Player of the Week, you have a new Villain of the Week.

What if random waitlisters were secretly the Villain of the Week?

Basically, every boss fight is between one souped up, GM-created Waitlist-controlled character and the PCs. The identity of the boss is kept hidden until the conclusion of the fight, at which point somebody gets to brag. Dunno, I had some more thoughts there but I ran out of steam.

[Caellath]

TV Tropes Will Ruin Your Life.

[Tarran]

TV Tropes Will Ruin Your Life.

It's not like nobody knew that.

[Gatleos]

ninjas

I'd be so in this that I'd post in it before you did. In fact, you could say that I...
 
Ninja'd you.
I also like the idea of players secretly assassinating each other. The assassin could post a fake action in the thread, then PM their real action to you.

Semi-Random Tangent- Speaking of interesting waitlist formats, I was thinking of how in a regular RTD, there normally isn't too much waitlist movement just because everything is designed to be challenging-but-survivable. You don't have a new Player of the Week, you have a new Villain of the Week.

What if random waitlisters were secretly the Villain of the Week?

Basically, every boss fight is between one souped up, GM-created Waitlist-controlled character and the PCs. The identity of the boss is kept hidden until the conclusion of the fight, at which point somebody gets to brag. Dunno, I had some more thoughts there but I ran out of steam.

I've had this problem a lot, and that's an excellent idea. Normal tabletop games are designed with the players in mind, so that a player dying is a big event in the story and takes a lot of lousy rolls to pull off (unless you've got a Killer GM). With RtD you have a waitlist, but in most even moderately story-heavy ones it's counter-productive to be killing the players off all the time.

That's why audience participation is a good idea to me. They don't even have to be villains, just side characters. The side characters, controlled by other people in the thread, wouldn't be subject to the rules but also wouldn't be able to affect the outcome of the game in a meaningful way (unless the GM wants them to, of course). It's a good way to keep the thread active between turns.

And of course, villain actions would have to be secret. We must pioneer the field of action secrecy in RtDs!

[lawastooshort]

Yeah I like the sound of that too, monk. Nice.

[Gatleos]

This barroom brawl is turning into some kind of horrible social experiment, with people forming uneasy alliances and brutally murdering each other without knowledge of who is who. We need more mafia-esque situations like this.

[IronyOwl]

That's why audience participation is a good idea to me. They don't even have to be villains, just side characters. The side characters, controlled by other people in the thread, wouldn't be subject to the rules but also wouldn't be able to affect the outcome of the game in a meaningful way (unless the GM wants them to, of course). It's a good way to keep the thread active between turns.

Oooooh, I like this idea. I may have to work it into whatever my next game ends up being.

This barroom brawl is turning into some kind of horrible social experiment, with people forming uneasy alliances and brutally murdering each other without knowledge of who is who. We need more mafia-esque situations like this.

I also approve.