Dragnix.Net

We didn't have an RP at all last year. We didn't even have a post in the OOC forum last year.

My question is... would you like to play a game?

Okay, let's bat around some RP ideas. Here's a couple, both based on other people's fantasy work (ASOIAF, LOTR) but like, with modern or higher technology.

Planetos: Before the Fall

This one is inspired by the video Is Game of Thrones Post-apocalyptic?

Planetos is a world teetering on the brink of annihilation. Everyone knows that it will fall, they just don't know when. In the icy north of the continent of Westeros, a splinter group of humanity that have engineered themselves to thrive in the frozen wastelands of their home are fighting a war against the others who live there, using nanotech to convert dead bodies into footsoldiers. In response, the forest dwellers have created trees which form a massive spy and computer network - a network which they are uploading their minds to. In addition, working with their allies, they have developed a means for selected individuals to gain mental control of animals, using them for both spying and attacking,

In Valyria, seeing their manufacturing capability being destroyed and fearing technological regression, their bioengineers begin work on a project that will have repercussions echoing down through millennia. The creatures they will create will be powerful biological flame-throwers, capable of flight and programmed to only obey the children of Valyria.

Meanwhile, wealthy survivalists begin the construction of fortresses, feats of engineering that their descendants in their ignorance will attribute to magic...

...and the second one, the LOTR one.

Lord of the Rings: The Fifth Age

History passed into legend, legend into myth, until even myth was forgotten, hidden beneath the accumulated sediments of millennia.

When Isildur was killed, that was not the end of Sauron, but it was to be a long time until he regained any power - so long that the only beings in Middle Earth who knew of him were those wizards who had not been recalled to Valinor. The ring would not be found again until an archaeological dig, in their ignorance, dug up that which ought not to have been found.

Now, Mordor Incorporated is a world leader in bioengineering and arms manufacturing. Their biomedical research division is responsible for groundbreaking work into ancient human admixture, from which they have been able to recover an almost full genome of an extinct species. Conspiracy theorists claim they are attempting to recreate the species for Dark Purposes, but so far no credible evidence has come to light to suggest this. What is known is that the leader of Mordor Inc is in remarkably good health for a 95 year old, and that he has the ear and support of most world leaders.

Personally I'm not a huge fan of plotlines that complex for RPs. Books yes, but unless there was some preexisting database every post of substance would have to be checked by the RP author for consistency or be extremely vague/bland. Don't get me wrong, if those were books I'd pick them up in a heartbeat.

The second one though... what does the timeline look like for that?

Ironically, I started out thinking of them as being fanfics, and then decided they'd do better as RPs. As far as checking goes, fortunately there are wikis maintained by dedicated fans for that purpose...

The timeline... hmmm. Mordor, Inc would be created several decades before the beginning of the story, by whoever the ring was best able to utilise. I'm thinking by that point only Saruman and Gandalf would remain of the five, and of course they'd be incognito.

Do you have any other ideas for RPs? Perhaps a space western?

Speaking of space westerns, anyone up for a bit of thievery and smuggling amidst the rings of Saturn?

I'd suggest something straightforward to start with that everyone could jump into. Since you propose something about Saturn's rings, maybe lean on Heinlein's stuff for inspiration (and, of course, the original "G" of space westerns, Firefly):

Setting would be the solar system, almost fully colonized by humanity. The Inner Planets are under the control of the United Terran <insert synonym for federation/syndicate/whatever>, the futuristic descendant of the United Nations. The Outer Planets, while nominally also under UT- control, are far enough away from central authority that local governors/ruling councils tend to hold absolute authority over their particular domains and piracy is a major security risk. Even though the world nations all answer to the UT-, they still independently maintain and operate space programs, leading to an awful lot of tension and proxy skirmishes between some of the dominant powers. Until this is resolved, the colonial areas on the outer planets will consistently have to deal with their own problems with minimal support from Earth, Mars, and Venus.

Colonies consist of domed cities on most of the gas giant's larger moons, with Titan having been completely terraformed into a slightly smaller Earth-like planetoid. Massive free-floating starbases (think Deep Space 9) are also scattered through the moons. An expedition (colony liveships, terraforming rigs, and equipment/supply freighters) set out for the illusive ninth planet, Nemesis, with the intent of establishing a colony, but humanity lost contact with Expeditionary Force 141 a month after departure and has not heard from them since.

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At the time the RP starts, the piracy rates have begun to rise, with many pirate vessels now displaying the same emblem of unknown origins. A bizarre burst transmission was picked up by the Pluto outpost, a transmission that partially matches the distress signal encryption assigned to EF 141. The player characters have all gathered at <insert city name>, the capital of Titan, to enter for a chance to be part of a rescue mission tasked with tracking down the source of the mysterious transmission and attempting to discern the final fate of EF 141.

Couriers

The Earth has been sundered, humanity has been scattered. Earth is no longer accessible. In its place myriad worlds now exist - some fast, some slow, some high in magic, some low. Nearly all humans are trapped wherever they found themselves, but a tiny fraction, 1 in 25,000, can move between these worlds. They are the couriers, the only links that bind our species together.

The setting: the worlds range in clock speed from 2x earth's to 12x. It has been 10 earth years after the sundering, so the slowest worlds are now 20 years on whilst the fastest, and so most recovered, are 120 years on. Magic exists, but some worlds do not have much of it - parlour tricks at best. Others have a great deal. Rules vary, with most supporting some form of microelectronics but others being inimical to high technology. There is a diverse range of environments, and not every world is a planet. Most people live on the major or minor worlds, a group of a few hundred, but there are countless corner worlds where tiny groups were scattered to in the sundering.

The couriers: rare individuals capable of attuning themselves to the different worldlines and so crossing between them. They appear wherever they left off in that world, or in the centre point of the sundered earth part of that world if they haven't been there before. Anything they can carry, in the sense of bearing its weight, they can take with them, with two exceptions - complex electronics are destroyed, and sentient creatures cannot be carried across, whether conscious or unconscious. Most couriers are fantastically wealthy, as one would expect from traders in unicorn wool, nanomanufactured goods, and letters and photographs between loved ones who will never again see each other. It has become standard practice to carry a handbook detailing the worlds one passes through, designed to be easy to copy from each other when meeting a fellow courier who has visited different worlds.

The plot: not all couriers are good, and the only people who can chase a courier across the multiverse are other couriers. There are bounties to collect. Some steal, some do worse, and some just seek to cause mayhem. Whatever their deal is, only you can stop them.

Holy shit, it feels so good to be back!

I am down to clown... once I get back from deployment...