Anon's Amazing "City of Mist" Campaign

[AnonymousSpeed]

"But Anon, what about your reboot of the Ruined World using a home-brewed version of the Forbidden Lands rules?"

Patience, my child. That requires researching solutions to game-play problems and play-testing them and writing out comprehensive item lists and other time-consuming tasks AKA I work on it in sporadic bursts. It'll happen, but in the meantime, my desire for play-by-post role-playing remains. So, to pass the time, I thought I'd check if there was any interest in a City of Mist campaign.

Q&A

What is City of Mist, conceptually?

Spoiler

City of Mist bills itself as a "superhero detective game", where characters with supernatural abilities must solve various flavors of mystery.

The elevator pitch is kind of like this. In the world of CoM, magic is real, but normal people (called "Sleepers") are unable to perceive it. One way or another, they "auto-correct" the supernatural events and creatures to mundane phenomenon. A centaur is seen as a man on a horse, or a magic bolt of lightening is thought to merely be a natural lightening strike with convenient timing. People with supernatural and magical abilities are known as "Rifts", and they can perceive these events.

Where do these abilities come from? Well, they come from a character's "mythos", which can be oversimplified as a mythical character whose powers they can use. Aside from giving you that person's powers, the mythos also "attempts" (in the same way a rock "attempts" to fall towards the ground) to re-enact its story through the Rift. In that sense, they can be thought of as these weird Jungian archetypes attempting to manifest themselves through the characters.

There is a struggle between the mythos, which essentially tries to turn a character into a puppet for its realization, and the "logos", or your character's mundane identity- job, associations, personal convictions, etc. As you progress through a campaign, you may descend towards your mythos. The closer you are to realizing it, the more mythos powers you get. However, you also lose more and more of yourself, including any mundane assets or abilities you may have had. You can also move away from your mythos, losing supernatural abilities while gaining regular-natural ones to compensate.

There thus is a balancing act both in- and out-of-character for your character's abilities and personalities. They may be more or less eager to subsume their identity to the mythos, and you may want more or fewer abilities of certain kinds. Regardless, balance is key- lose all your mythos aspects, and your character becomes a sleeper. Lose all your logos aspects, and your character becomes an avatar. You lose control of them, and they will attempt to fulfill their mythos story. Neither of these states tend to be permanent.

See the next question for more details about rifts and mythos.

What kinds of mythos are there?

Spoiler

All kinds, and you're allowed (if not encouraged) to get creative with how you interpret the mythos, it's story, and its abilities.

The most obvious kinds of mythos are of people or creatures- they can be from mythology, history, fiction, or folklore. Examples: The rift of Gilgamesh has superhuman strength, the rift of Typhoid Mary can spread disease to others, the rift of Sherlock Holmes has supernaturally sharp wits, and the rift of Bigfoot has really big feet.

As mentioned before, a mythos attempts to realize its story through its rift. The rift of King Arthur will feel a compulsion seek Excalibur if they don't already have it, while the rift of Richard the Lionheart will be naturally drawn to compete with the rift of Saladin (and vice-versa). Rifts not only inherit powers and stories, but also weaknesses- the rift of a vampire will be weakened by sunlight, and the rift of Achilles will be vulnerable at his heel (or some other small part of their body which serves as an analogue to the heel).

However, while rifts tend to be of people and creatures, they can also be of places, objects, works of art, or even concepts. Again, creativity is encouraged. Examples: The rift of evolution can rapidly acquire new and useful traits. The rift of the Sahara Desert turns to sand which struck or trying to pass through small holes. The rift of the Hubble Space Telescope can see minute details at great distances. Items can also be rifts, like a shotgun which is the rift of Thor's Mjolnir.

How do you play?

Spoiler

It's not a very rules-intensive game.

You roll a 2d6 for any action you actually need to roll for. As a general rule:

• 1-6 is a failure
• 7-9 is a success with complications
• 10+ is a plain ol' success
• 12+, in certain rare circumstances, is an overwhelming success

Your roll is augmented by tags. "Power Tags" are attached to your character and represent their various supernatural and mundane abilities. Each power tag increases your roll by 1 when applied, but to invoke a tag, I have to approve its use as being applicable to your current action. "Cunning" is a fine tag for picking a lock, maybe even walking a tightrope, but not really for throwing a fireball. Characters also have "Weakness Tags", which are like Power Tags except they penalize your roll. You can invoke these whenever you want, as can the game master. The benefit to doing this is that you have to invoke weakness tags to level up your abilities.

"Story Tags" are not specific to characters, but describe the situation that characters are in. They can be either positive, negative, or irrelevant to your action, and that can change depending on who's acting and what they're trying to do. It's easier to escape in the fog than hit a target, so "Thick Fog" is a +1 for running away and -1 for an attack. Statuses are kind of like tags, but they don't all count once. They are tiered, and a status affects a roll by an amount equal to its tier. A tier-2 positive status boosts your roll by two, while a tier-3 negative status penalizes your roll by three. Only the highest positive and negative status apply at a given time.

Instead of HP, characters gain statuses when harmed, and these build up from successive blows. For player characters, a status of tier-6 is dead or some equivalent condition. Tags don't affect how many statuses you can take, but you can use tags when attempting to a resist a status, which will reduce how high of a status you tag.

Tags are always "in-play". If your character has the power tag "invincible", they literally are invincible, but it doesn't mean that attack won't give them any statuses. They take statuses in the same way as other characters mechanically, but it does mean that whatever statuses they do get can't be for physical harm. They will have to be incapacitated or harmed in other ways.

What do you do?

Spoiler

There is some fighting involved, but since the game is at least ostensibly supposed to be a detective game, you shouldn't expect that to be as dominant as in Fire Emblem or Dungeons and Dragons. In addition to other bits of action like navigating dangerous terrain, characters will also search for clues, talk their way out of trouble, and hopefully solve the mystery at the end of it with all their kneecaps intact.

That might seem a little bit vague, and that's somewhat intentional. Before setting out the plot proper, I wanted to gauge interest and see what the interested parties would like to do in terms of story, themes, setting, etc. City of Mist is intentionally flexible in a lot of those regards.

Isn't this "mythos" thing just kind of a crappy meme?

Spoiler

Yes.

How will this work in a play-by-post format?

Spoiler

My tentative plan, and I am open to suggestions, is that you'll post what action your character attempts alongside all the tags you want to invoke (justifications for them being allowed and encouraged, if you feel they are necessary). I will decide which of them are permitted, invoke any others I feel are relevant or needful, and then roll for you, returning the results in my own post.

City of Mist has no turn order and all the combat is done in the theater of the mind. This set-up should make it possible for me to respond to each post individually. I'm not looking for a large party, which should keep things manageable even if you want to see how another character's action resolves before making your own. For the sake of convenience, going ahead and posting multiple actions all at once is allowed, and I'll just confirm with everyone if any really big hiccups occur.

What do I do if I'm interested?

Spoiler

Let me know, basically. Either here or private messaging works.

If you have a particular character concept you want to use, I can either walk you through the rules for character creation or try and work something out for you and see if you like it.

If you're just interested in hearing more about the system before saying whether you're interested or not, I'd be glad to answer any more questions as they come.

As for the setting itself, I was thinking either something contemporary (for the sake of convenient understanding on all our parts) or set in the 1980s (I'm a fan of cheap nostalgia, and less advances technology allows for more dilemmas to be written that cell phones might solve too easily). Regardless, this would still be a mystery campaign, which the specific plot tailored to suit the sort of characters the players want to play.

I'm only looking for around 3-4 people, so if more than that apply, I'll probably have to cut a few applicants. My criteria will be to pick the group I think will have the most fun together in the long run, but I don't expect this campaign to turn out very long either.

Anyway, hope you all have a good night. I didn't really proof-read this message, so, uh...yeah, please forgive me if it's messy or unclear or filled with typos. Sorry.

[SoulWeaver]

15 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

"Cunning" is a fine tag for picking a lock, maybe even walking a tightrope, but not really for throwing a fireball.

What if it's a sneaky fireball, though?

This sounds interesting. If you get too many people...well, I was kind of the guy who killed Ruined World, so I won't hold it against you if you cut me. If you're down, I'll look at some character ideas and continue the discussion in chat.

[AnonymousSpeed]

1 hour ago, SoulWeaver said:

What if it's a sneaky fireball, though?

This sounds interesting. If you get too many people...well, I was kind of the guy who killed Ruined World, so I won't hold it against you if you cut me. If you're down, I'll look at some character ideas and continue the discussion in chat.

Sneaky fireballs require separate rolls for Sneak and Fireball.

Nah, no hard feelings. Keeping the map grids up to date was gonna be a pain anyway. Moving on, I'm down to hear whatever ideas you got.

[Acacia Sgt]

Much as I'd want to participate in an RP again, my time is much more limited nowadays sorry to say. Also, the whole concept feels too complex for me to want to tackle.

9 hours ago, SoulWeaver said:

I was kind of the guy who killed Ruined World

Wait, what?

Edited October 14, 2022 by Acacia Sgt

[SoulWeaver]

On 10/13/2022 at 8:56 PM, Acacia Sgt said:

Wait, what?

...UHHHHHH

I got hit with a warning for saying Areahdbar or however you say it looked retarded. Not for me saying the thing looked like someone attached a dick to a pole and called it a lance, but because I said it was retarded. I'm of the opinion that this is one of the dumbest possible reasons to warn someone, so I refused to acknowledge the warning, originally until it expired, but then I think I had a killer idea for the WYBO thread so I ended up clicking it earlier than intended. However, at the time I wasn't thinking about the fact that I was a) in an RP thread, and b) without any alternative means to talk to Anon, effectively deleting me from the group in the middle of the campaign. Anon himself didn't realize what had happened until he tracked my DeviantArt account down and sent me a message there.

I'm not sure that alone killed the thread - I know Peony was super hit-and-miss for a while too - but it certainly contributed.

[AnonymousSpeed]

2 hours ago, SoulWeaver said:

got hit with a warning for saying Areahdbar or however you say it looked

Careful Soul. You don't want to get another warning for talking about how God-damn ass-fucking r-worded you found that.

[SoulWeaver]

23 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Careful Soul. You don't want to get another warning for talking about how God-damn ass-fucking r-worded you found that.

I mean, I would like to believe better of the mods and assume they have the capacity to recognize it's just an explanation of a previous event that has even less of a business to warrant a warning than the actual event itself, but I suppose that's a good point.

[AnonymousSpeed]

2 hours ago, SoulWeaver said:

I suppose that's a good point.

That's very kind of you to say, I appreciate that.

Gonna @Jotari here just because I'm bored.

[Acacia Sgt]

Ah, I... see.

Is this Areahdbar another member or was it one of the characters of Ruined World...?

Edited October 19, 2022 by Acacia Sgt

[SoulWeaver]

19 hours ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Ah, I... see.

Is this Areahdbar another member or was it one of the characters of Ruined World...?

No, it's Dimitri's Lance, specifically as it appears in Heroes attached to Legendary Dimitri.

[AnonymousSpeed]

21 hours ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Is this Areahdbar another member or was it one of the characters of Ruined World...?

Have you already forgotten my magnificent cast of NPCs, consisting of Charlemagne and other people who never showed up?

3 hours ago, SoulWeaver said:

No, it's Dimitri's Lance, specifically as it appears in Heroes attached to Legendary Dimitri.

Spoiler

 

But enough about Legendary Dmitri. How's your brainstorming going? Even if we don't get enough people to actually start, I'm always interested to see your ideas.

[Acacia Sgt]

7 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Have you already forgotten my magnificent cast of NPCs, consisting of Charlemagne and other people who never showed up?

It happens, I guess.

[SoulWeaver]

17 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Have you already forgotten my magnificent cast of NPCs, consisting of Charlemagne and other people who never showed up?

  Reveal hidden contents

 

But enough about Legendary Dmitri. How's your brainstorming going? Even if we don't get enough people to actually start, I'm always interested to see your ideas.

Hey, hey, there were plenty of NPCs, most of them were just wearing masks so they accidentally seemed generic and forgettable, that's all.

Alright, I'll admit I laughed at that, thanks for that image.

I spent about two days seriously considering whether I could make Zero work for a Mythos - allowing him to surface more would cause the character to become more single-mindedly focused on one's own mission, while attempting to keep that from happening might have the effect of causing doubt in one's cause a la X4. I need to do some research on the Mechanical Gods of A Robot Named Fight(Tyr, Zurvan, Hephaestus, Wadjet Mikhail, Buluc Chabtan, Orphiel) to see if I can blend any of them with their other appearances(if they have any), since they were a thought I had, and I also considered Loki as an option for someone who begins to develop multiple personality disorder if they allow him/her/it/whatever to surface more. This week's been pretty busy, though, so I haven't really had time to do too much, I'll see if I can do some more fleshing out of those concepts over the weekend.

[AnonymousSpeed]

22 hours ago, Acacia Sgt said:

It happens, I guess.

sagde

5 hours ago, SoulWeaver said:

Alright, I'll admit I laughed at that, thanks for that image.

A pleasure.

5 hours ago, SoulWeaver said:

I need to do some research on the Mechanical Gods of A Robot Named Fight(Tyr, Zurvan, Hephaestus, Wadjet Mikhail, Buluc Chabtan, Orphiel) to see if I can blend any of them with their other appearances(if they have any), since they were a thought I had

Now, I didn't look into all of them, but it looks like those are all real mythological figures.

5 hours ago, SoulWeaver said:

I also considered Loki as an option for someone who begins to develop multiple personality disorder if they allow him/her/it/whatever to surface more. This week's been pretty busy, though, so I haven't really had time to do too much, I'll see if I can do some more fleshing out of those concepts over the weekend.

Very interesting. Have fun with that, it sounds very exciting.

[AnonymousSpeed]

Gonna give this thread one last bump. To go along with that, I thought I'd share an idea I had.

I've seen plenty of people on various websites try to start Fate campaigns, and these don't ever go anywhere. That's not really surprising, it's not hard to see that Fate is structurally unsuited to role-playing. However, City of Mist offers a more practical way to play out the underlying appeal: Superhuman powers based on legendary figures.

In honor of that, I thought it might be fun to do a kind of city-wide competition as a plot. This wouldn't be a battle royale, of course. Instead, the party would receive missions which they are expected to complete effectively in exchange for rewards, as do other rifts they might encounter on their adventures. The exact "competitive" aspect isn't totally set and might vary from episode to episode.

A concept like this brings to mind images of glamour, corruption, neon lights, and seedy underbellies- which makes me think the 80s setting would work better for it than a contemporary one.

That's all I have for now though.