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Freeform PBP Interest Thread
Marblehead Johnson
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Ok, piecing this together from my posts in Writer's Block...
I have been looking for players for a free-form PBM game, but this isn't a "roll the dice, you knocked out the bad guy" sort of game. I'm looking for a pure storytelling game. I was in two such games years ago... one was a Star Trek game being run on the Bravofleet site, and one was a Super-Hero game being run on my friends personal website (before the Australian hosts shut it down).
These two games were spectacularly fun, in that they were each populated with exceptional writers who knew how to write a cohesive multi-author plot, had a sense of style and drama, and did not abuse the powers of the freeform style (well, I abused it a little, when some of the Bravofleet people took exception to the amount of fun we were having, and started a little war). Posts ranged from 200 to 2000 words, and every day I looked forward to reading what these people had done to the world while I slept.
More recently, I was involved in a batshit-crazy one, which I will try to sum up: characters from popular media (books, movies, cartoons, comic books) were all being teleported to a mysterious midwestern town for reasons that needed to be explored. The cast was: Hellboy, 'Smallville' Red Kryptonite Clark, James Bond, Ellen Ripley, Dr Who, Samurai Jack, 'Smallville' Lana Lang (she was annoying), and Jack / Tyler Durden. The game was insanely fun (I was Samurai Jack), and it inexplicably shut down when the Yahoo group it was run on vanished one day without an explanation. I have not been able to get ahold of any of the other players since then save the guy who played Hellboy, since I didn't store any of their e-mail addresses.
So, what I am asking here is:
Would anyone here like to take part in what I consider to be a literary free-form RPG / PBM? I'm not sure if it would be played here on the forum (if we got some good writers, it might make a good spectator sport!) or somewhere else, but given what I've seen here, there's more than enough skill to justify me asking.
The plot would have to be worked out after.. super-hero game? Anywhere, USA? Something else? I am open to all sorts of ideas... I just really enjoy writing with other skilled storytellers.
Now, one would only be controlling their own characters, and any pertinent NPCs, and preferably not contradicting any NPC actions already made. I would like to try one of the following two I liked:
1.) Superhero-esque, but more realistic than the traditional four-color styles. I've been a big fan of the realistic / vigilante superhero genre (sort of what X-Men is on a good day, and Spiderman seems to be trying to be lately). The various characters would be normal people who find themselves capable of doing spectacular things, and how they handle it in the 'real world'. Of course, I'd love if some players became 'villains', or at least just delightfully morally ambiguous.
2.) Anywhere, USA. This was the game where you play someone from popular culture (books, movies, TV, cartoons), who are pulled from their normal habitat, and into a quaint little American prairie town against their will. Now, the thing about that is we never got to the part of the game where we found out why, so this would actually be a fun experiment for the players / storytellers to slowly unravel the plot of the story by making it up as we go along. I've always wanted to see how that would play out. Off-the-wall characters are MORE than welcome (the guy who played Hellboy was spot-on awesome, and the guy who played Sean Connery-James Bond was brilliant), and as diverse and varied as possible, to make the mix interesting.
I have been looking for players for a free-form PBM game, but this isn't a "roll the dice, you knocked out the bad guy" sort of game. I'm looking for a pure storytelling game. I was in two such games years ago... one was a Star Trek game being run on the Bravofleet site, and one was a Super-Hero game being run on my friends personal website (before the Australian hosts shut it down).
These two games were spectacularly fun, in that they were each populated with exceptional writers who knew how to write a cohesive multi-author plot, had a sense of style and drama, and did not abuse the powers of the freeform style (well, I abused it a little, when some of the Bravofleet people took exception to the amount of fun we were having, and started a little war). Posts ranged from 200 to 2000 words, and every day I looked forward to reading what these people had done to the world while I slept.
More recently, I was involved in a batshit-crazy one, which I will try to sum up: characters from popular media (books, movies, cartoons, comic books) were all being teleported to a mysterious midwestern town for reasons that needed to be explored. The cast was: Hellboy, 'Smallville' Red Kryptonite Clark, James Bond, Ellen Ripley, Dr Who, Samurai Jack, 'Smallville' Lana Lang (she was annoying), and Jack / Tyler Durden. The game was insanely fun (I was Samurai Jack), and it inexplicably shut down when the Yahoo group it was run on vanished one day without an explanation. I have not been able to get ahold of any of the other players since then save the guy who played Hellboy, since I didn't store any of their e-mail addresses.
So, what I am asking here is:
Would anyone here like to take part in what I consider to be a literary free-form RPG / PBM? I'm not sure if it would be played here on the forum (if we got some good writers, it might make a good spectator sport!) or somewhere else, but given what I've seen here, there's more than enough skill to justify me asking.
The plot would have to be worked out after.. super-hero game? Anywhere, USA? Something else? I am open to all sorts of ideas... I just really enjoy writing with other skilled storytellers.
Now, one would only be controlling their own characters, and any pertinent NPCs, and preferably not contradicting any NPC actions already made. I would like to try one of the following two I liked:
1.) Superhero-esque, but more realistic than the traditional four-color styles. I've been a big fan of the realistic / vigilante superhero genre (sort of what X-Men is on a good day, and Spiderman seems to be trying to be lately). The various characters would be normal people who find themselves capable of doing spectacular things, and how they handle it in the 'real world'. Of course, I'd love if some players became 'villains', or at least just delightfully morally ambiguous.
2.) Anywhere, USA. This was the game where you play someone from popular culture (books, movies, TV, cartoons), who are pulled from their normal habitat, and into a quaint little American prairie town against their will. Now, the thing about that is we never got to the part of the game where we found out why, so this would actually be a fun experiment for the players / storytellers to slowly unravel the plot of the story by making it up as we go along. I've always wanted to see how that would play out. Off-the-wall characters are MORE than welcome (the guy who played Hellboy was spot-on awesome, and the guy who played Sean Connery-James Bond was brilliant), and as diverse and varied as possible, to make the mix interesting.
It's human nature to derive meaning from that something that actually lacks it in order to suit your goals.
Dismayed By Humanity Since 1992.
Marblehead Johnson on
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Dismayed By Humanity Since 1992.
And that's one vote for Anywhere, USA...
Dismayed By Humanity Since 1992.
Should I make a new thread, more accurately outlining this?
Dismayed By Humanity Since 1992.
also, i have a bad tendency to be a retard when it comes to this kind of thing.
like youtube comments level retard. so feel free to reign me in if i get out of hand.
If I get one more, should I open up a Signup thread, or just keep it up in here? I want people to start talking about what character(s) they wanna be.
Dismayed By Humanity Since 1992.
Dismayed By Humanity Since 1992.
Anywhere USA sounds like a lot of fun.
Ok, then... time to talk about characters. I'll start off with some examples that were used / talked about using:
Mulder & Scully (two characters are ok, if they're integral to one another)
TOS James Kirt (ass-kicking shirt-ripping Kirk)
Dr Who
James Bond
Ellen Ripley (she was pulled from Hypersleep between Aliens & Alien3)
Hellboy
Samurai Jack
Evil Clark Kent (Smallville)
Montgomery "Scotty" Scott
Musashi
Hawk-Girl (she was played by a moron, though)
Jimi Hendrix
Chandler from "Friends"
The Mole, from "Southpark: BLU"
Dave Lister
Bear-Strangler McGee
Rosencrantz & Guildenstern
Jim Belushi
You get the idea.
Dr Who kept pulling characters from his Universe (as NPC's) to fight against, claiming they were lost in the Tardis, which was cool. Samurai Jack wasn't a cartoon, but the character was lifted as closely as possible... Hellboy kept making fun of his 'pyjamas'.
Please run all ideas past me. Exceedingly powerful characters are welcome, but as evidenced by Chandler and Jimi Hendrix, ANY character will totally add to the flavor of the game.
So... who wants to be who?
CAST OF CHARACTERS:
Marble: _____________________
Acid: John "Reaper" Grimm
Zardoz: The Russian (with boobs)
Fierce: Torgo (reading him now)
Shamus: Fiddy Cent (?)
Draug: Lancelot.... not Darth Vader
Grimmy: The Invisible Griffin (pre-death at the hands of dock workers)
Anyone else want in?
Dismayed By Humanity Since 1992.
http://www.imdb.com/gallery/ss/0419706/Ss/0419706/chopper.jpg?path=gallery&path_key=0419706
So... big guy with a big gun and a big heart. I guess he's going to still be shooting a lot of stuff up....
Dismayed By Humanity Since 1992.
Still not quite certain who I want to play though, but seriously, Reaper?
EDIT: Can I play Darth Vader? :P
But seriously, a good fighter who isn't overpowered with decent, if a little generic, backstory depth.
I can't think of someone that would be perfect to play, though. But I'll ponder it while I watch this...
Dismayed By Humanity Since 1992.
If he keeps being brought back to life, why not play the Russian before meeting The Punisher? Also, what sort of characterization could you have with someone who has no dialogue or free will? Seriously, I am wondering what you have in mind.
Dismayed By Humanity Since 1992.
Ladies and gentlemen, I'll be a Knight of the Round Table.
Still reading up on the bloke, but I think I'll settle for the time when he dissappears from court after Guenivere jealously spurns him, and spends a few years as a loony. Should be a nice window of opportunity for some time-jumping.
basically a gag character, really, i think playing someone as ineffective as Torgo would be a fun experience.
although, if at all possible, i'd like to give him an extended background that would make him more versatile and useful; detailing what happened to him after he ran off into the darkness following the loss of his right hand.
For fun, maybe a satire of 50 Cent - bulletproof, baby. Or at least the extraordinary ability to take bullets over, and over, again.
Hrmm. Sounds like fun anyway. (P.S. Small-town America sounds like a great setting.)
Sir Lancelot (one of my favorite quasi-fantasy characters)
Torgo (who I have never heard of, and have to read up on now...)
The mood will be light-hearted seriousness, sort of like the Punisher movie itself. There won't be MUCH fighting, and most of the fun from the game takes place with inter-character relationships. As a GM, I will only be popping up occaisionally to tweak the plot, but ther rest of the time I will be in-character, and playing / writing with you guys. I don't wanna be Samurai Jack again, but I, too, am having a hard time picking someone who will be juuuuuuuuuuust right.
Also, the more the merrier, all those who are jumping on the bandwagon.
Dismayed By Humanity Since 1992.
I'm looking at you, Dr. Peter Venkman. And you, Bertie Wooster. And especially you, Basil Fawlty.
Hmmm.
EDIT: Ah, hell with it. I'll just be Griffin -- better known as H.G. Wells' Invisible Man. He'll be just starting into the insanity phase of things. A little paranoid, a little unbalanced, but still more or less reasonable. Not yet trying to take over England, and so on.
All brutally awesome choices.
I'll have to read up on him, it's been ages since I read the Wells version...
ALLRIGHTY! I've decided on me, and here's how it breaks down now:
Marble: The Maxx
Acid: John "Reaper" Grimm
Zardoz: The Russian (with boobs)
Fierce: Torgo
Shamus: Errol Flynn's Robin Hood... he's a fancy lad!
Draug: Lancelot
Grimmy: The Invisible Griffin (pre-death at the hands of dock workers)
Still waiting on final word from Shamus, and when we got that, I'll start some intro-posting.
EDIT: Hah! I finally decided.
Dismayed By Humanity Since 1992.
As far as why I want to use The Russian. Imagine being taken to the brink of death, and brought back in pieces. Not only that now you have developed large breast and possibly a severe psychosomatic disorder. The guy already has a hard time communicating, now he's becoming an estrogen time bomb.
http://www.gayleague.com/gay/characters/display.php?id=107
Dismayed By Humanity Since 1992.
EDIT-- Oh yeah, The Maxx was the shit back in the day. I almost got a tattoo of him on my right shoulder, but I could never get it drawn up quiet right.
Dismayed By Humanity Since 1992.
Dismayed By Humanity Since 1992.
Scratch Fiddy.
I'll play Robin Hood, the Errol Flynn version.
Errol Flynn... this is looking like an awesome campaign already. ^.^
Working on the intro posting now!
Dismayed By Humanity Since 1992.