Idea Winnowing down ideas before taking them to the interest checks....

[Beckoncall]

Hi there guys and gals!

I have a bunch of ideas for RPs that I may or may not get off the ground. I am posting here to discuss which ones sound interesting to anybody out there, if anybody has any cool ideas for any of the concepts, or wants to spitball ideas. These will be primarily forum roleplays (I often have discord components in my games but for reasons discord will likely not be a grand feature of any new RPs)

Here are the ideas for RPs I have sizzling at the moment:

HIPPODROME! (Arena of monsters and heroes) -- players create powerful mortal heroes or spellcasters, godlings, and/or monsters and combat other players in single combat or teams, using a homebrew dice and rules system. Will you be an Angel? A Devil? A Titan? A dragon? unique character creation/customization system leading to meaningful choices, intense fights, and meaningful rewards.

Apex Global Dungeon Challenge! -- The players (3-6 I'm guessing) would be a bunch of star-level adventurers sent into a diabolical dungeon crafted by the entire planets most diabolical wizards and warlords -- the prize being an incredible fortune in gold. The player party would have to deal with various dungeon challenges both solo and working as a group, as well as compete against and fight against other teams of adventurers as diverse as the dungeon landscape itself. In the end, only one hero can reign supreme... how long can you keep your team together to beat the other teams before betrayal and ambition make it everyone for themselves?!

Alien Conquest v2 -- The sleeper ship of the evil mother brain has awoken a handful of alien warlords with which to dominate planets and strip them of resources and biomass. The warlords must work together, but also distinguish themselves as the primary conquerors, even if that means turning their weapons on each other as well as the inhabitants of the contested worlds. Will you conquer yet another world in the name of your evil brain masters? Will you turn on your masters and attempt to secure your own freedom from them? What forces will you bring to bear and how will you fare in your war against various planet inhabitants and the forces of your competing warlords?

Ultimate Deep Delving Company -- Each player controls a magnificent magical excavation rig competing with other companies (players) for who can gather the most and best wealth and materials mined from the dangerous depths of the earth. Infestations, monsters, gas, explosions, cave-ins are all potential hazards and knowing when to stop and bank what you have is as important as knowing when to press onward or lay it on the line for more wealth than your rivals dare. There are 5 expeditions, and people can press their luck or back out at any time -- who at the end of five delves will be the richest and most storied finds? Dare to Delve and find out!

NTombed -- A catastrophic event nearly destroys a ship and all efforts to contain the disaster fail miserably. The ship is programmed above all other concerns to preserve the structural integrity of the vessel and to keep the crew alive at all costs. The ruined husk of the ship quickly sedates the crew that are still alive and puts them in cryogenic stasis pods throughout the ship, and begins the slow, elaborate process of repairing the ship with the systems, tools, and power left over after all measures to keep the ship and crew stable are in place. With the situation as it is, the ship's computer estimates that even with a priority placed on improving access to higher power outputs, free energy to permit crew activity outside of stasis, and even free energy for the repairs themselves -- is in massively short supply. Estimated repair time to restore critically low levels of functioning/environment: Eons. Please remain calm. Game is conducted over a series of phases of indeterminate length, centered on decision points, obstacles, and milestones to achieve for the hapless expedition. Rounds take place both in stasis with frozen survivors allocating resources to improving quality of life and probability of re-enabling/repairing the ship and with limited life support leaving stasis to seize opportunities, advance projects, and remain sane over the unguessable times the sleeper ship must limp ever onward...


Any of these ideas appeal to anyone? anybody have questions or input about any of the concepts or interest? If I can get one (or more) ideas fleshed out with people interested I might be able to carry them forward for an official interest check!

Thanks for looking!

-Beck

 

[Elucid]

Love the ideas Beck, personally I think I'm partial towards Alien Conquest v2, conquering planets for the immortal brain ooze seems like a hoot. As always, I look forward to any RPs you put out.

 

[Beckoncall]

Thanks for the good word. I will work on developing Alien Conquest v2, and Pat and I have another RP concept in the Muurdaan world (Avecury) that we're working on and hope to introduce soon! (it's a spinoff of the old "City of Bastion" RP.)

 

[Idea]

I didn't really find any of these ideas that appealing for me personally, but I'd like to provide some feedback anyway.

HIPPODROME! (Arena of monsters and heroes) -- players create powerful mortal heroes or spellcasters, godlings, and/or monsters and combat other players in single combat or teams, using a homebrew dice and rules system. Will you be an Angel? A Devil? A Titan? A dragon? unique character creation/customization system leading to meaningful choices, intense fights, and meaningful rewards.

I don't think this one has too much going for it. This is a custom dice RP and a basic coloseum RP, and that combination is at odds with each of its components in terms of appeal.
- The dice side has a custom dice system and rules, or put another way, I do not come in with any pre-formed interest in the system. This means to appeal to me you'd be using not the dice system, but the plot or setting. Characters don't serve as appeal here, as adding a dice system specifically makes it more restrictive in terms of what characters you can play.

-The simple coloseum style thing here means there is a very simplistic plot and setting, meaning it's very reliant on pre-built interest in characters (and in a dice RP, potentially the dice RP system).

So there is a paradoxical situation in which both parts of this equation take away exactly what the other needs to function in terms of appeal.

Apex Global Dungeon Challenge! -- The players (3-6 I'm guessing) would be a bunch of star-level adventurers sent into a diabolical dungeon crafted by the entire planets most diabolical wizards and warlords -- the prize being an incredible fortune in gold. The player party would have to deal with various dungeon challenges both solo and working as a group, as well as compete against and fight against other teams of adventurers as diverse as the dungeon landscape itself. In the end, only one hero can reign supreme... how long can you keep your team together to beat the other teams before betrayal and ambition make it everyone for themselves?!

Seems like it could be interesting. Not my cup of tea as I'm not a fan of that whole "turn against each other any time" style of trappings, but I do think it's definitely an idea with potential.

Alien Conquest v2 -- The sleeper ship of the evil mother brain has awoken a handful of alien warlords with which to dominate planets and strip them of resources and biomass. The warlords must work together, but also distinguish themselves as the primary conquerors, even if that means turning their weapons on each other as well as the inhabitants of the contested worlds. Will you conquer yet another world in the name of your evil brain masters? Will you turn on your masters and attempt to secure your own freedom from them? What forces will you bring to bear and how will you fare in your war against various planet inhabitants and the forces of your competing warlords?

I think this one has a lot more appeal in the sense that wow, this is a pretty unique plot! I can already see the ideas spinning in my head XD Unfortunately though, I'm again not the biggest fan of this sort of ultra-competitive thing. If I wasn't as pressed for time as I have been though, and with this being run by a friend, I think I might join anyway, maybe make some kind of researcher character that helps all the others develop new tools for war though I would also predict that someone else would have their character be able to do it on their own and then go around claiming they actually are doing it better even though my character is supposed to literally be specialized in that, so I'd just have to bear it

Ultimate Deep Delving Company -- Each player controls a magnificent magical excavation rig competing with other companies (players) for who can gather the most and best wealth and materials mined from the dangerous depths of the earth. Infestations, monsters, gas, explosions, cave-ins are all potential hazards and knowing when to stop and bank what you have is as important as knowing when to press onward or lay it on the line for more wealth than your rivals dare. There are 5 expeditions, and people can press their luck or back out at any time -- who at the end of five delves will be the richest and most storied finds? Dare to Delve and find out!

To be honest, feels more like quick family board game than an RP by that description.

NTombed -- A catastrophic event nearly destroys a ship and all efforts to contain the disaster fail miserably. The ship is programmed above all other concerns to preserve the structural integrity of the vessel and to keep the crew alive at all costs. The ruined husk of the ship quickly sedates the crew that are still alive and puts them in cryogenic stasis pods throughout the ship, and begins the slow, elaborate process of repairing the ship with the systems, tools, and power left over after all measures to keep the ship and crew stable are in place. With the situation as it is, the ship's computer estimates that even with a priority placed on improving access to higher power outputs, free energy to permit crew activity outside of stasis, and even free energy for the repairs themselves -- is in massively short supply. Estimated repair time to restore critically low levels of functioning/environment: Eons. Please remain calm. Game is conducted over a series of phases of indeterminate length, centered on decision points, obstacles, and milestones to achieve for the hapless expedition. Rounds take place both in stasis with frozen survivors allocating resources to improving quality of life and probability of re-enabling/repairing the ship and with limited life support leaving stasis to seize opportunities, advance projects, and remain sane over the unguessable times the sleeper ship must limp ever onward...

Another interesting idea, definitely very niche appeal to me that would require me having a very specific kind of character arc I wanted to explore. Setting myself aside though, I think with this kind of idea you might want to make a clearer distinction of the game-i-fied side of this idea with phases and the like, and the actual RP content.

 

[Beckoncall]

Thank you for the honest critiques, Idea -- Very on point.