Superhero game played by IRC with a session start time?

I have a problem, my dear fellow roleplayers.

I was "raised" on chat-based roleplaying games. I'm used to the quickness of replies, the longer "run" of back and forth until someone has to log off, and knowing when someone's replied without it having to be routed through email services.

In short, though I love to roleplay, and as much as I'm interested in roleplaying with you guys, I'm leery of joining peoples' games because it's not the way I play best and my experience shows that I'll be into it for awhile, but the slow pacing of waiting for peoples' replies will eventually get to me and I'll lose interest or only check for new posts sporadically. :/ (Color me deeply sad since there are probably at least a half dozen games out there right now that I would play the hell out of if I could, and at least another half dozen that have "died" for "lack of interest"...)

ANYWAY. I'm wondering if there are any other players out there who are interested in roleplaying by IRC with a session start time?

This is how it would work:

- We'd have an IRC room for in-character chat and a room for out of character chat to keep the logs of the game "clean".
- We'd pick day(s) where the majority of players could show up and spend at least an hour playing.
- After the session, someone (most likely me) would post the rpg log to the forum, based on plotline.
ie: "The Battle Against Captain Dread" might last two sessions before it reaches its natural conclusion, so there would be posts from both sessions of the chat logs nested under one "Location".
- Side plots could be handled through Character Journals (either posting chatlogs or roleplaying in the thread itself, depending on what method the players are most comfortable with).


And so now you're probably thinking, "Well, that's all well and good." (Or, alternately, "Totally not my bag, I don't have time for that.") And then you'd continue your thought with, "But what sort of game is Maneki talking about anyway?"

SUPERHEROES.

Obviously, you don't have to fully commit to a game until you've seen the write-up for it, but this is just me gauging general interest and what those who are interested in IRC games are most interested in playing - so we can play sooner. :)


NOTE: Edited to remove references to the other two games I was talking about. :B

Just noting that I've built the framework for the superhero game and definitely have a good basis for starting a game if more people are interested in that. (And, if not, I have the basis for a superhero book series. xD; Which isn't bad at all.)

So! That means I have:

- Roughly 45% of the superheroes game outlined.
It wouldn't take more than a day or so to get it all fleshed out and organized. I just got distracted and watched Columbo instead of finishing it. xD;
To give you more solid information on the game: Only 32 people seem to have superpowers in this universe. 16 of them can be PCs to start out with. (Half of them are good guys and half of them are bad guys and we'd be starting out with the good guys. I might open up villain characters as PCs later in the game.)
The superpowers come all at once in an event of some sort and so characters will be only just learning their powers to start out with. The game starts a few days after people have the event happen to them. The "other" 18 (the villains) won't show up until a few sessions later, after we've got started.
Mortality will be a thing. That is - in certain circumstances, your character can die. But you won't be faced with death every adventure. Even my own characters can die.
It would take only a few people before I'd be willing to open the game. Ideally, I'd have 7 players and myself to start with, but it certainly could start with fewer. I could manage to start with one other player, I think, but I think it'd be more fun if there were a few people who started out together.

Okay, it's 9:30am and I should have been in bed hours ago. Sorry for babbling~


NOTE: Edited to remove references to the two other games I was thinking of.

Spam, spam, spammity spam.

The more I work on "The Chessmen" (the superhero rpg) the more attached I am to it. But I will also play with Jack if I can get Jack to be active again. :)

SO. I'm editing this to reflect The Chessmen. ::runs off to edit post::

This does sound fun, but I think my schedule may not be condusive to a chat game. I would like to try though. I just have the whole real job thing to worry about so it would have to be evening and preferably weekends. I used to play hales on skype on Sundays with all my college friends.

Now that that's done, here's more specifically about, "The Chessmen". It will be a bit vague at the moment because I have not 100% decided everything.

========================

An event has occurred that has given 16 people super powers! (Players will be able to choose two powers from a list.)

There is the Queen, who is the "most powerful" of the team. ("Most Powerful" could mean a lot of different things.)
There are two Rooks (strong in defense or movement type skills/powers), two Bishops (strong in magic, communication, or shooting skills), two Knights (strong in fighting skills/powers), and eight Pawns (sidekicks assigned to one of the other eight superheroes).... and the King who can promote a Pawn, if the Queen or one of the Rooks, Bishops, or Knights falls in battle. (Then the promoted Pawns are thusly replaced by a new Pawn who is granted powers from the civilian population.)

You note how I said "16" people are given super powers. Those 16 will become known as "The Chessmen" (team colors of red and white) whereas there are another 16 with the same positions who will be known as "B.L.A.C.K." (It probably doesn't mean anything. xD And, yes, their team color is black.)

Though the overall theme of the teams is chess, you won't need to know anything about the game to play, it's just a convenient framework for the story.

========================

As I said above, I can start with one interested player, who can choose from the Chessmen's Queen, Rook, Bishop, or Knight. I'd be playing the first King, though if/when he dies, any currently active player can try for the King position.

I have only minor requirements for each type of character. They can be (and are encouraged to be) any gender, any sexuality, and a wide range of ages (between 25 and 45 for these positions. The Pawns can be between 15 and 24.) Ah - I should mention that the Queen is always female. (Though she can be a trans-female if desired.)

Players can play up to two members of the Chessmen, but not their own sidekick/mentor. (ie: You can play a Knight and a Pawn, but you can't play them in the official mentor/sidekick relationship. Each Pawn is specifically assigned to one of the other pieces... whether they get along or not.)

As with chess, the life of the game is really the Pawn position. The other positions may have the glory, but the Pawns have the most room for development.

And, again, I can continue to ramble if anyone is interested. xD; But other than bringing this thread up once a day, I'll leave it alone until someone shows interest!

---------- Post added at 09:19 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:18 PM ----------

Oops, Utopia. LOL. You posted as I was rambling. xD

Evenings and weekends works really well for me, actually. I am rarely awake before 5pm central, unless my niece is shrieking in the kitchen.

So, I was thinking about this last night and I was thinking of adding the following game mechanic:

You know how I said that characters could die? (Even my own characters?) I wanted some sort of "game mechanic" for it, so that even as much as we'd grow attached to our own (and each others') characters, there would always be a risk that didn't depend entirely on players deciding to let their characters succumb to the fight or me/villains setting up a situation that would make it only fair that the heroes failed. But I also wanted it to be a situation where how much risk would be up to the player/character.

So, yes, there would still be situations where the player would look at a situation and say, "It's only fair if my character is injured/killed by this." and can make the decision purely on a storytelling platform.

But there would also be dice involved.

Hopefully it won't be too complicated a system, but the essential part is: in plot-relevant situations, superpowered heroes and villains roll dice based on the strength of the power they're trying to use. By "plot-relevant situations", I mean things like battles or similar circumstances, not "sitting on the toilet and using my superpowers to make the book that is out of reach fly into my hand" or "trying to flirt with the Queen by impressing her with my use of powers". Instead, the situation must be stressful and failure would mean more than being embarrassed or without reading material. xD;

The power levels go like this:
0 = [no dice] Very low level stuff, like floating a paperback novel across the room or lifting something that a regular human would struggle to lift, or having the psychic insight that something isn't quite right.

1 = [500 sided dice] Low level stuff, like floating a small child across the gap between two skyscrapers or lifting something a professional weightlifter would struggle with, or having the psychic insight that something dangerous is going to happen.

2 = [100 sided dice] Mid level stuff, like floating an adult across the width of the Grand Canyon or lifting a car above your head (one-handed), or having the psychic insight that someone was going to hurt your friend Bob.

3 = [50 sided dice] High level stuff, like floating a car across the width of the Grand Canyon, or lifting a tanker truck above your head (one-handed) and being able to walk with it, or having the psychic insight that someone was going to shoot your friend Bob when he got coffee.

(Pawns cannot use these next two levels.)

4 = [10 sided dice] Super level stuff, like being able to fly a tanker truck across the country as long as you were within a mile of the tanker, or lifting and then launching the tanker truck a mile down the road, or having the psychic insight that someone was going to shoot your friend Bob when he got coffee at Joe's Coffee Shop on April the 15th.

5 = [5 sided dice] Epic level stuff, like being able to make a tanker truck fly across the country while you sit in bed and watch cartoons, or lifting and then launching a space shuttle into orbit, or having the psychic insight that (all previous stuff about your poor friend Bob's assassination) and that the person who wants to do this is Sally Example and she can currently be found at Joe's Coffee Shop, working the counter as a barrista.

So here's where risk comes into it: if you roll a 1 in any of these scenarios, you die. No questions asked. Catastrophic backfire. Each level will also have at least one roll where you have major backfire and you're rendered near-death (but someone can save you from death if they act within a reasonable amount of time), and at least one roll where you suffer some sort of backlash (which may include injuries or being put into a coma), and one where you just fall unconscious. [So, yes, if you try to perform an epic-level feat, you have only a 1/5 chance of success, a 1/5 chance of instant death, and the other 3/5ths of the options aren't optimal either.]

But - wait, what about the success part? Each roll set will also have a special numbered roll that will get you points towards gaining an extra super power. If you perform an epic-level feat and succeed then you automatically spontaneously gain a new power.

So you automatically start with 2 superpowers, but can build a whole team's worth of powers if your character is active and takes risks. And when they take these risks and how risky it is would be entirely up to the player (or character).

That is a really nice and very simple dice system.

Now I need to think about a character and see what my schedule can really accommodate with chatting on the IRC. (Sort of depends on how needy my boy is being any particular day.)

Ah - good. xD I'll have to test the dice to make certain it goes up to 500...

The 500-sided dice lands on 30


No rush on figuring out your schedule, but I'll probably start setting up the game "proper" tomorrow or the next day and maybe that will help you work on your character. :3 Is there any particular role(s) you're interested in? I'll make sure to give you that information before I start setting up the "proper" version of the game info. :)

Just noting that I haven't yet been able to work on things, but hopefully will start tomorrow. I just can't seem to wake up today and it's making anything that requires thought difficult. ._.

Noting that I'm tinkering with it tonight and might have it up later tonight or tomorrow after I've woken up again. :)

I've also been toying with a new element that would run mainly behind the scenes/in the characters heads.

I really like this idea and I'd be willing to join. The powers thing seems simple, but effective, and I like the way you're setting up the super-heroes and stuff.

Awesome MarineViolet. xD Okay, now I really will get off my bum and work on it... after I make a notation of what sort of information I need to cover. xD Will bump this when I've at least got basics up.

(If it's not posted 24 hours from now, throw a brick. If you or anyone else who sees this game and is interested sees this post, then feel free to say something like, "Oh hai, stop being lazy ya bum.")

And here we go:

http://www.wtfrpg.com/forum/showthre...2-The-Chessmen

And the OOC thread: http://www.wtfrpg.com/forum/showthre...C-The-Chessmen

I'll be sending you two a PM, but as I'll say there, if you look it over and realize you're not up for the game right now (or ever), I won't hold it against you. xD

Locking this thread now that I have a proper OOC and such!