NEW RPG THREAD DISCUSSION

Where old RPGs go when they die and move on to the afterlife.
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Wedge14
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Re: NEW RPG THREAD DISCUSSION

Original mecha isn't really 'trouble' it can be a great selling point.

We should start submitting ideas soon. I am here to help and i like most the ideas i've seen. So if you're a little wary about running a game don't worry, because i will be running the game with you.

So let's start seeing some more concrete ideas. Don't be afraid if someones idea overlaps with yours, this is still a preliminary planning stage.
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Re: NEW RPG THREAD DISCUSSION

If it's alien invasion, I say give it a turn and have Earthers/the humans invading some alien's world for once. But that's just me. Maybe even a bit mafioso with it: "Yeah, we're from this place called Earth and jus wanted to drop in and say hello to youse guys. Hey, nice planet ya got here... be a shame if something should happen to it, yknow?"
SNT1 wrote:How about a Fast and Furious type plot?

Except, with mecha, instead of cars. No military-style ranks, and the most military-type of unit/squad one can have is a SWAT equivalent. I have no clue how one would RP racing, but it can be like fight club instead.
Along with examples given would be the ridebacks from Rideback and/or whatever the mecha were called in Viper's Creed. Or even IGPX where they seemed to skate? along the racetrack. But they could be useful starting points if you wanna come up with something somewhat original.

RPing a race... you may need to come up with some guidelines for depending on what type racing you have? Maybe come up with some sort of story or plot then integrate the racing mech into it. Such as the mechasploitation example.
blind_dead_mcjones wrote:
Rob DS Zeta wrote:So, basically, we need a RPG with a good, driving plot, mecha, a small scale, and a GM that gives a hoot.

...Good luck with that.
*crosses arms* challenge accepted.

a detective (think cluedo or something to that effect, best example i can think of) story based rpg set in the patlabor universe, the structure to which will be similar that FMP! suggestion someone made some time ago where all the player characters are on one side but in different roles (eg: detective, beat cop, labor operator, mechanic, etc) with the antagonists and neutral individuals (witnesses, lawyers, informants, and so on) being GM controlled NPC's.

as an addition there will be a chapter based time limit in which to get all the evidence required to resolve the mystery/crime
Why no, I'm not humping your leg-what silly idea gives you that! >.>

Like the show players could all belong to a single, or two, squad/unit/building/whatever but serving different roles on the team. Meanwhile the setting itself could be anywhere: retrofuturistic 20s or 70s or 80s, space colony, another planet, tropical island, post-apocalyptic underground, Byston Wells-esque land, etc.

Maybe clues, evidence and the like can be player generated to be used as the GM(s) sees fit rather than trying to pick the GM's brain (e.g. a character poking a lead could turn out to be just a red herring whilst a shred of evidence randomly thought up at a scene could be a major clue).

And like the show, cases can be a single or multi-thread allowing for numerous and differing self-contained stories that wouldn't always have to connect to one another in some over-arching plot. Though it also leaves room for those as well.
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Tangerine
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Re: NEW RPG THREAD DISCUSSION

Humans invading aliens world? yeah sure, something more serious than Avatar might work.

Police/ Patlabor type is intresting but I still clueless about how to play/what to write issue for other player that just tag-along and not tightly related to the detectives.
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Re: NEW RPG THREAD DISCUSSION

Tangerine wrote:Humans invading aliens world? yeah sure, something more serious than Avatar might work.
Did you watch the series premier of Terra Nova last night? I think that (plus mecha, of course) might be a viable answer to that.

However, I'm still game for the Patlabor/Megazone thing.
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King Monkey
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Re: NEW RPG THREAD DISCUSSION

Here are my 3 ideas. None are very fleshed out but I'll flesh out any one of them if people are interested in them.

1.) A revamp of the idea suggested by Fritz last round. The characters belong either to a group of space marines or a super corporation who are both investigating a lost colony. The colony is over-run by aliens and the two groups will be trying to clear them out and research them in the case of the corporation. Not every character will have mecha, and the mecha will be small, in the 4 - 5 meter range. Other characters will be marines and mercs without mecha or scientists or technicians or even bureaucrats. While it's possible that the marines and corp soldiers will tussle, most of the action will be between the humans (the players) against the aliens (the GM.)

2.) A short Macross campaign. Players will be members of one of three factions, Spacy, a Zentraedi fleet, and a Meltrandi fleet. All three factions have discovered an protoculture weapons cache at the same time and are trying to claim it. How much this one is driven by the players will be up to the players. If someone wants to play each of the three commanding officers then it will be the players driving the story with only GM arbitration. If no one wants to play the commanding officers then the GM(s) will take on those roles and determine the course of the plot.

3.) A steampunk/magic game. All the mecha are powered by magic and/or steam or are biological in origin. Like the alien game not everyone will have a mecha. Some characters will be warriors who do not have mecha, magic users, technicians and/or explorers. This story will be largely GM driven and the party will be a group of elite people working for a kingdom to avert some catastrophe.
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Re: NEW RPG THREAD DISCUSSION

Tangerine-
The team or roles would likely need to be arranged where their expertise supports one another rather than reducing some characters to tag-alongs or cheerleaders. An example could be a detective investigating a lead that involves mechanical matters, so she drags one of the mechanics from team's garage to assist her on the matter. And the characters would interact from there while dealing with the case. A vice versa example could be a mechanic using the detective's investigative skills in tracking down mechanical hardware or its previous owner/manufacturer.

King Monkey-
Blank slate as it is, I kinda like the third option. Chance to useful while on foot, in addition to being a viable option. A change in tech-scenery. And it makes the A-Team & Full Metal Panic A-Team sounding themes go off in my head.

And I'm rather diggin' the idea/change of a GM vs player RPG.
Hmm. Luke, this Gundam reminds me of a puzzle.

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Fritz Ashlyn
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Re: NEW RPG THREAD DISCUSSION

Ziryab wrote:And I'm rather diggin' the idea/change of a GM vs player RPG.
Yeah, I've been hoping to see one of those tried out myself.
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Tangerine
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Re: NEW RPG THREAD DISCUSSION

King Monkey wrote:Here are my 3 ideas. None are very fleshed out but I'll flesh out any one of them if people are interested in them.

1.) A revamp of the idea suggested by Fritz last round. The characters belong either to a group of space marines or a super corporation who are both investigating a lost colony. The colony is over-run by aliens and the two groups will be trying to clear them out and research them in the case of the corporation. Not every character will have mecha, and the mecha will be small, in the 4 - 5 meter range. Other characters will be marines and mercs without mecha or scientists or technicians or even bureaucrats. While it's possible that the marines and corp soldiers will tussle, most of the action will be between the humans (the players) against the aliens (the GM.)

3.) A steampunk/magic game. All the mecha are powered by magic and/or steam or are biological in origin. Like the alien game not everyone will have a mecha. Some characters will be warriors who do not have mecha, magic users, technicians and/or explorers. This story will be largely GM driven and the party will be a group of elite people working for a kingdom to avert some catastrophe.
Those 2 seems interesting.

Few thoughts that I could offer about the first idea is to change the background story a bit. No super corporation and such, I think it's really overused in Parasite Eve/ Resident Evil thingy. Just small civilian exploration fleet with few armed marines found out a settlement/ colony so far out from the charted territory. The settlements are old, if not antique and it thrills everybody in the fleet. (Imagine finding Atlantis or Titanic). They began the excavation and then...

The RP should start small. We could even wipe out the entire fleet and make everybody victims if necessary before a rescue fleet with more military oriented personnel arrived and get into the fray.
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wonton bob
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Re: NEW RPG THREAD DISCUSSION

I'm not sure about the magic one....the wizard robes might get caught on something in the cockpit and as for a pure comedy rpg --i don't think interest can be kept unless the RPG is about 3 fat guys selling used mecha and eating sausage and pepper sandwiches.
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Fritz Ashlyn
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Re: NEW RPG THREAD DISCUSSION

I feel like it's necessary to reassure everybody that there's no concrete deadline for submissions or anything like that yet. We're still simply looking for brainstorming, discussion, and questions at the moment. If you have an idea ready to go don't hesitate to send a PM to Red, but nobody has to rush to get something ready just now.
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SNT1
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Re: NEW RPG THREAD DISCUSSION

I just also want to throw in the fact that I want a mecha RPG... if we end up having "magicians vs aliens---oh there's also a little robot there" mecha RPG count me out completely. I have WoW for that.
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Tangerine
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Re: NEW RPG THREAD DISCUSSION

SNT1 wrote:I just also want to throw in the fact that I want a mecha RPG... if we end up having "magicians vs aliens---oh there's also a little robot there" mecha RPG count me out completely. I have WoW for that.
What he said. Something mechanical and exo-skeleton.

I think we already said about smaller mecha compared to usual UC era MS. Some 4 to7m tall, well articulated humanoid, etc. I can even dig powered armor like those Star Craft (game) Marines if necessary.
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Re: NEW RPG THREAD DISCUSSION

Has anyone considered a Warhammer 40,000 RPG of sorts? That'd be familiar enough to attract newcomers while having unique enough 'mecha' and vehicle designs, as well as monsters and demons (not to mention equal reliability on both mechs and hand-to-hand combat to win battles) to not be much of the same Gundam mold we've seen before.
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Inferno
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Re: NEW RPG THREAD DISCUSSION

I love 40K, my only problem is that it's a fairly difficult setting to RP in: people die at a rate that puts Tomino to shame, and the balance is fairly skewed: A Space Marine can go through massive amounts of guardsmen without breaking a sweat, and Daemons are essentially unkillable.
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The Big Zabowski
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Re: NEW RPG THREAD DISCUSSION

Tangerine wrote:
SNT1 wrote:I just also want to throw in the fact that I want a mecha RPG... if we end up having "magicians vs aliens---oh there's also a little robot there" mecha RPG count me out completely. I have WoW for that.
What he said. Something mechanical and exo-skeleton.

I think we already said about smaller mecha compared to usual UC era MS. Some 4 to7m tall, well articulated humanoid, etc. I can even dig powered armor like those Star Craft (game) Marines if necessary.
This was the whole thing about Fallout. It took retrofuturistic pop-sci from the 50s, attached a plausible 'why we don't have iPads in 2077' thing and ran with it. 'Beep boop' robots, laser rifles, high powered rail guns only mounted to either tanks or hand carried by the armors.. miniaturized nuclear warheads the size of a football.

It wasn't until probably the 2040s in game that transistors were developed and power armor wasn't far behind as tanks had become long in the tooth. So when someone had the idea and fielded it of using a powered exoskeleton to take on tank divisions.. the end result was the evisceration of chinese forces at Anchorage in 2076-2077.

Toss in 'OH SHI- NUKED!' and then 'what do?' and it becomes a sort of mad max world where military remnants control the armors but other non powered body armor and non specialized military weapons fall into joe schmoes hands and warlords pop up.

Some of the said warlords being former military realizing what they have on their hands.

www.fallout.wikia.com.

Oh, and the US annexes Canada in the 2060s because they wouldn't STFU. Seriously..
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Ziryab
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Re: NEW RPG THREAD DISCUSSION

So when the time comes, which brave souls likely have something to put on the table?
wonton bob wrote:I'm not sure about the magic one....the wizard robes might get caught on something in the cockpit
Who says a wizards must wear robes? Let alone while in a cockpit. Heck, if Char pilots in space without a normal suit--I propose a faction or unit that pilots in the buff! Problem solved! :mrgreen:
Hmm. Luke, this Gundam reminds me of a puzzle.

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Tangerine
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Re: NEW RPG THREAD DISCUSSION

Few things about anything old but futuristic. first I can't say I'm interested in 50s or 70s style with lazer or robot simply because it bothers me about the "realism" issue. the farthest I could dig is things like jin-roh because it's rather plausible. WW II engineering and robot does not sounds like anything close to realistic either. to me the settings should be around near-future (50 or 500 years in the future) for convenience.

That aside, why don't we create the settings together at least stuff that can be used as guidelines for the upcoming RPG. A list of do and don't should be good I think.
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Wedge14
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Re: NEW RPG THREAD DISCUSSION

I don't wanna rain on anyones parades but mecha need a pilot. So something you wear, like an endoskeleton or power armour do not constitute as mecha. BUT! I've been playing with a scenario.

This is nowhere near an official idea either.

I wanna set it in a small colony near mars, though a normal colony it's main source of funding is a privately maintained prison/insane asylum. The majority of the colony dwellers actually work here. Even so it's a small tightly knit community and not really an awful place to live.

The main incident is that the colony will be attack by some kind of wierd cyborg creatures and their human handlers. It's quickly learned by the police that these cyborgs are tough! And the best way to combat them is by using mechanoids (5m tall construction mecha). Even so the city is quickly overrun and the inhabitants find themselves pushed right into the prison themselves.

Quickly thinking this is safest place for them to hide they find themselves wrong as the power is suddenly cut to the prison and the prisoners are all suddenly let free.

What i'm aiming for is kind of a bladerunner/assault on precinct 13/light mecha story. The people attacking are actually the private company that owns the prison and colony. They will be after a specific person for a specific raisin, that i just haven't figured out yet. :S
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Tangerine
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Re: NEW RPG THREAD DISCUSSION

I try to add twist as well as writing some more concrete background.
- Warning: quick draft only, likely lots of mistype or not coherent writings, etc

The year is 2213, human already colonized mars and left. Other planets on new solar system provide better hope for near-earth terraforming. With recent very successful terraforming on Moon, there’s little reason to stay on Mars which can only offer harsh environment, barren land and unmanageable oceans. So people left Mars and only the capital city are occupied.

Mars capital is the only place that offers earth like city landscape with tall buildings for commerce, malls, towering apartments, etc. Half of the facility still located on the pioneer building that still works despite its age. One of them, the largest and one of the oldest is the Terra Firma or the Old City. It was constructed by the pioneers when Mars is still largely inhabitable as part of the colonization process. The huge building impressively stands several stories tall on the ground and possesses numerous levels of underground facilities that are being dug due to necessity for expansion several years ago. In that massive building complex that dwarves even the Earth Pentagon in size resides police HQ, fire fighter, space port, R&D, large workshop, hospital, broadcast facility, even court and legal system along with the less famous asylum, detention and prison facility.

For good or bad, Old City was almost neglected if not for few remaining occupied places. Today’s colonists prefer to live outside in the new towering apartment or if one liked it a rural agricultural village or a fishing community. However, even with rich oxygen and regular or seasonal rain the planet is very much barren. The sea didn’t show much life, no fish to catch and aquatic breeding program was declining. Farming fare better but crops regularly shown tendency to rot before they can be harvested. Life is harsh on the planet especially when the dust storm and seasonal raging wind crossed the area. Live stocks are few in number and only used for dairy products.

Life is rather dull with everything else happening not on Mars but on Moon, Earth or some distant planet on another system. It’s like a backwater planet. Most of the characters were living/working peacefully when on one Monday evening one unknown face shown up on the all local TV channels at once.

“I’m Iris Valerie vice commander, 3rd Mars regiment. I relay this from barred bunker south from your city. Complete data is on your way as I continued to upload as I speak,” she said calmly without any sign of emotion. The facial features were pleasant but empty. “All Mars colonist need to be warned, rampant unknown alien was attacking military presence along with the remaining civilians in the New Patagonia city and training facility. We held but lost the battle. It’s been five days before I was able to broadcast this as the equipment is damaged heavily,” she looked unsure for a moment as if checking something out before continued the video transmission hesitantly. “The batteries are almost out. I need to inform you that evac is unnecessary. All of the remaining survivors had died. I am the last survivor and I’m too already run on backup power.”

It was clear that she was one of the steel commanders. Humanoid AI used by military branches to providing tactical reviews, tech support, integrated plans or simply quick arithmetic or calculation on the field. No wonder she survived without life support as she simply switched herself to electric support and last longer than her human comrades.

The video changed and it shown civilians as well as marines being attacked by what looked like a savage dog or animal and then huge creatures broke the defensive wall and then like sick movies it just went berserk as people tried to outrun them everywhere. “From what I gather,” she commented, “They are at least biological in form with few mechanical parts. It seems that for once they devoured pieces of our military hardware...”

Static began to interfere. “My batteries are running low. I guess this is a goodbye. Heed my warnings, leave the planet. There is not enough manpower on Mars to fight these beasts. Their numbers are too vast.” as if she timed the video correctly the screen shows massive numbers of those giants before a limped marine shut the bunker door down and then totals blackness before regular broadcast resume itself. End.

----------------

# Game will start on this point after the warning broadcast. There will be time to play crisis scenario as people tried to make up their mind whether this is a hoax or a true warning and whether they need to leave or just stay and fight. People will be panicked and few will try to organize people to build some makeshift defensive as a just-in-case scenario.

# I guess this is a no brainer and no secret. Eventually they will breach any walls or defensive structures and swarm the city. The only escape is the Old City which is a self sufficient very large building complex that has been abandoned and neglected save for some important places like spare port, courtroom, police HQ, workshop and asylum plus detention/ prison facility. Lets emphasize on “abandoned and neglected” to build the tension as clearly it wasn’t all that safe there either as the Aliens began to make their own way into the building.

# What I trying to do is to build a suspense/ thriller like movie situation where you just don’t know if the room next to you is safe or filled with killer creatures while being chased constantly by gigantic aliens. Characters will pilot their makeshift combat mecha or labor and clearly in dire need to re-arm or refit their equipment to protect the survivors. There’s hope of such upgrade as they make their way into the Old City labyrinth to locate the supply depot or military workshop. Further, they still need to solve this “case” as well by trying to determine what or where the Aliens originated from. The main goal is to secure the remaining survivor to the space port which obviously won't be able to transport them all to safety.

# The GM or Trinary will control the aggressive aliens side while other characters not from Mars is also welcome as I think few quick reinforcement from Earth, Moon or space station a plausible one. They’ll be well equipped but I liked to blow up expectation and hence I prefer to make them face disaster scenario before desperately joining up with the survivor.
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wonton bob
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Re: NEW RPG THREAD DISCUSSION

You will need to supply us with detailed maps with street names since people who have been living here a long time should know their way around the capital. I don't see why parts of it would be neglected if there people live there...the population must be rather low as to not give a sh*t. But since you mention court systems still in place it must be high instead of just caretakers running the place. This place could be Detroit replanted on Mars.

It seems that the only reason to go back into the city was to get to the spaceport and evac civilians who I doubt they'll want to stick around and solve a mystery. The military/cops I assume would investigate.

The mecha should be small otherwise they'll easily stomp on the aliens--what size?

Do the aliens have large talons?


I still think the rpg about 3 fat guys from Jersey selling used mecha and eating sausage and peppers while discussing pizza etiquette is the best so far.
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