Interest Thread - Another High-Speed No-Drag Dark Fantasy

[Parrhesia]

A couple of times on these boards, I've set up moderately successful RPs (Shattered Honour and Frontier) based around a few core principles.

1) High-Speed No-Drag

When combat occurs, through stats, it should be simple, quick, and lethal. There are chances of death - small ones (it won't be just SH's '0 HP and you're dead', which was a mistake) but enough that getting into a fight is never really the best solution. Just, sometimes sadly necessary, and something you're equipped to deal with. Using Frontier's system, combat is really fucking streamlined. Which brings me onto my next point;

2) Streamlining Communication

You know what sucks about forum RPs? Conversations that should by all rights be over in ten minutes taking up a week of real-life time. This RP would be firmly grounded in some form of IM software (probably Discord, maybe Skype or IRC) allowing and encouraging players to take small private conversations into personal messages and then post the results into the thread. Quick and easy.

3) A World That May Have Taken Slightly Too Much Inspiration From HBO's Rome But I Can Take Steps To Make It More My Own Thing

And, let's be honest here - imperfect product of way too many years spoiling the broth it may have been, but it sure as fuck wasn't anime. I felt it was a breath of fresh air, and, honestly, there's a lot I can keep from this place.

4) Player Choice

It's not a railroad. You might not be powerful, you might have superiors, you might not totally be in control of your own destiny. But what you say, and what you do, matters.

5) What the fuck's a dark fantasy

I have no idea what else to call it. Either way, realistic (this doesn't mean grimdark or edgy or grey ffs) in tone but under new circumstances and in new worlds. The existence of magic is debatable.

So if those RPs were so great, why aren't they still around? First, lack of direction. There wasn't really any clear path for the protagonists to follow, and I didn't have real responses for all of the possible actions. Railroading is garbage, sure, but that doesn't excuse aimlessness. This falls squarely on my shoulders, and would be the primary focus of my work before setting this thing up. Second, interest fading away. Player numbers dwindled with time, probably at least in part due to the first thing. But an RP is nothing without a solid platform of, well, RPers. And I'm not going to put all my energy into revamping this without clear and concrete interest.

That's where you come in! Does any of this actually interest you? Had you played and been interested in one of the previous two campaigns? Do you have no fucking idea what I'm talking about but like vaguely how it sounds? Then post here - saying so. Feel free to ask questions, of course.

Edited January 17, 2016 by Parrhesia

[Shin]

I've been in a few of your previous campaigns. Generally, the combat system works pretty well, but I find that we were often just dragged where the plot took us. There was also the problem where the plot also didn't really seem to mean that much to the players, so it was essentially an interlude between battles.

[Parrhesia]

Entirely valid points! And I'd like to make the focus on combat, well, a focus on... anything but combat, as well as lowering my personal involvement. My hope is that a plot that has... I don't know, coherence, I guess? Will give the players more incentive to find their own way along it. But it's a hard balance to find.

I think Frontier was a lot closer to what I wanted to achieve than SH, which was more of a tech demo than anything else. In hindsight it's clear I had no idea what I was doing with it.

Edited January 17, 2016 by Parrhesia

[Nanami Touko]

i appreciate the red alert reference or hope it is but idk if another one of these would work. i'll try to hop in if you get enough interest, but i share shin's issues (though I felt that wasn't just a GM issue, it was more a 50/50 gm issue/player interest thing)

[Tryhard]

i appreciate the red alert reference or hope it is but idk

grizzly tank op that was "high speed, low drag" nerd; since it's just a phrase for efficiency

unfortunately keeping player interest, both through coherence on the part of the GM and the players being able to keep on top of what's happening is a common issue with almost all the rps here. it's a tough one. i'll be interested to see what you do even if I don't participate since I did check out Frontier a little.

Edited January 17, 2016 by Tryhard

[Nanami Touko]

dammmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmit

i just want my red alerts

[AnonymousSpeed]

It's not a railroad.

To be honest, I just wanted to do that.

[-Cynthia-]

IMO the GM(s) need a pretty strong idea of what to do at the beginning and should be prepared with a good amount of description, NPCs to interact with, plot events etc. Later on they can pull back a bit and let the players interact among themselves (while still moving the plot forward when needed), but players are usually not sure what to do initially.

[Rapier]

Can't say I'd like to participate without at least some information about how it's story will be ("dark fantasy that maybe has magic" isn't one, but it's not like it was supposed to be one). On theory, its system looks good, but I'm more concerned about the background. If you don't want to put energy into developping one before you get enough interest, then maybe a short draft could work.

Edited January 20, 2016 by Rapier

[Rothene]

I have played those campaigns and been able to keep up with the posting pacing, to my delight. As I am more inclined to follow than lead, railroads make things more convenient for me. I know you're intimately familiar with the setting of the world you use, assuming you're still using the same one with some name changes to nations and nobility. Although with a year gone by you could have made some changes.

By the point Frontier stopped, my primary character was still in learning about the rules of this 'foreign' land to better shape when he can start calling some shots(look for an employer with much more lucrative pay that are either desperate for help due to being on the losing side of war or are already clinching in a solid victory and he rather be on good terms with them) with his mercenary heart(while dragging along those he can get along with, other equally unscrupulous characters), so I was not bothered with following the plothook.

If you start another of these campaigns again I will sign up.

[Skornvorax]

HOnestly i've been doing various kinds of rps for about 3 years and I kinda want to go for a more complex FIre Emblem themed rp, I always enjoyed medieval/fantasy themed rps so why not ? I sure would join, I mean sure I would be kinda new to this style but still, if you are going to make something I will try to join, heck I even got 2 ideas, both of them the character is a Brigand/Barbarian if you dont mind