Oh, hey, uhhhh so, I was kind of bored a week or so ago and I thought of an RTD, I probably won't ever run it because I would immediately quit from it but I thought it would be cool to pitch to you guys the basic intro and the story ideas:
MANDATE: Construct *Mandrake* Farm:Well, you sure are here.
In the middle of bloody nowhere.
LUCKILY, even with this barren soil, hard as diamond dirt and blazing sun with the job of constructing some kind of farm, said farm doesn't require anything someone would associate with, well, 'farming'.
What kind of farm would this be? Well, a Mandrake farm of course! Not exactly something that is the most amazing of jobs, but it is better than being thrown in the pit of Spiders And Sharp things, which, contrary to expectations, only contains spiders! That isn't an upgrade, now that I think about it.
So let's see what we have here..
1 Little Mandrake (De-Shrieked).
1 Bottled soul.
6 Sleeping bags.
The cart itself.
2 Drums of Low-Quality Mandrake Shriek!
TMFood supplies, about enough to last a couple weeks or so.
1 Info dude.
"Yo."All in one Mandrake Refinery.
The two Mules moving the cart.
Annnd that about encompasses it, really.
Actually, there should be 9 Bottled souls, Wild mandrakes don't have shrieks, remember? Their shrieks come from the souls they ingest.
Luckily, the souls we have are pretty low quality, so any mandrake that hit you with a full shriek with these souls in them would, at best, knock you out for a couple of days.
Still, better to know which one took it."Dammit.
Well, better to get the introductions over with quickly, I guess, I'm Omnipotent VoiceOver N.5748593047.
"He is."And he is Info Dude.
"I am."Just ask him for anything you need to know, do know that sometimes there is info he won't tell you without a price.
"Tips, Hints, they do cost different things, of course, so a hint for a puzzle would cost more than a hint for... I dunno, a certain metals special attribute, for example, but background information like what 'Mandrake Shriek!TM' is will always be free.
I trade in TBit-Coins, by the way, I would tell you the exchange rate for it compared to other things but it doesn't really matter right now."Anyway anyway, QUEST GIVEN!
Find the Shrieking Mandrake!Reward(s):
Unlocks:
ANYWAY, here is what you do to join in:
Say
IN IN BOLD and state a special item that you have, you can't say exactly what it is, only what category, so a pet or utility item or something, you can also add an adjective to it, so a ranged weapon or a magical pet, Finally, post an action and then I'll handle the rest, okay?
Okay.
Just a note.
This is semi-minimalist, so you can't do anything you want.
Yet.
Also, is will not last long.
I was thinking of having the world being centred around Mandrakes and their magical properties, like, for example, Mandrake Shriek is juiced mandrake, fermented in an iron barrel (Iron because it's a known magical protectant) which has healing properties when applied to the site of injury,but with the low quality I would start you with, you would (without any chance of bad side effects occurring) at best be able to heal some bad cuts, but really well made (By that I mean many decades of fermentation) Mandrake Shriek would be able to reform dismembered limbs, and Mandrake Shriek that had been fermented for centuries would be able to revive people, like Phoenix Down.
As well as this, when drunken it would give you massively increased physical capabilities, to the point where you could cut solid steel in half.
In order to balance this, I decided there could be something I would call in game the 'Shizemen Threshold' where it would start to cause negative physical and mental mutations, caused by the body attempting to adapt to the excess energy (perhaps it could be some type of magic exclusive to mandrakes?), think Sunshine Overdrive in terms of mutation.
I also had the idea of mandrakes being able to be used for other things, like, when blended into a smooth paste, it would make an excellent cement, or when the juiced form was mixed with alcohol it would increase magic capability to incredible levels.
As well as this, if cooked and eaten as if it was a stake, then it would give players small permanent boosts to physical attributes or if juiced with sugar added to it, then it would increase mental skills the same way.
Perhaps when Mandrake is also dried and powdered it could be a powerful explosive, far more pound for pound than gunpowder, basically, Mandrakes were going to be a big part of my game world, and without them the world would still be in the fantasy age.
As Dermonster always complained about there not being enough Semi-Minimalist, while my original intention was to create a small Minimalist game, my plans quickly got out of hand so I thought of making it semi-minimalist, though with this came many more problems.
The biggest one was the idea of sending the players on an adventure through the Mandrake escaping and taking the soul with it, leading to the characters attempting to contain it, 'however', I thought, why would a world so dependant on Mandrakes leading scientific evolution not immediately know exactly what to do if it escaped? I couldn't start it off that way, it would seem far too contrived.
Perhaps I could ditch the original setting and have it so they were adventurers searching for the mandrake in some abandoned mansion or something, but that sounded far too much like my Ill fated 50 Floor Tower Of Doom! RTD I made and quickly abandoned after realising I had no way of knowing how to balance the characters to enemy threat levels, and without using a random generator for the spells or loot, I ran the real risk of overpowering the characters to the point that I couldn't pick them off to balance power levels without it feeling like a rocks fall and everyone dies scenario.
Not to mention that fact that if Mandrakes were used to power you up, how were you going to get them if you were chasing this rouge mandrake halfway around the world?
It seemed like a cool idea for a while, so if anyone wants to do anything with it, go ahead.