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Rotating PBP game: Crazy y/n?

Started by Captain Obvious, August 04, 2006, 10:37:40 PM

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Captain Obvious

So i had a thought recently and just want to trow it out there to see waht people think.
Whether it's feasible, and whether people would be interested.

So here's the thought.
A pbp campaign in some setting (either a very well developed one or a more generic "standard d&d" one for simplicity's sake) where players and even the DM rotate in and out every now and then.

It could be a long running campaign that anyone on the forums could join (but with some maximum nummber at a time, and each person should play at least for a while), and they could join/leave/switch characters are any point when it would seem reasonable (i.e. dying, entereing some new town, completing a quest...). We should probably limit ressurection magic, so that there are more character change overs (dying in a great epic fashions and then just being brought back, always seemed to reduce the cooleness of it). You could maybe even promote a former contact or cohort. Be a redeemed villain (imagine defeating a proud orc warrior and then have him join the party, not controlled by the DM or an exixsting player, but by a new person who just joined). The possibilities are endless.

The DM would start off as one person and they would run the campaign for a while, and then pass the reigns over to someone else and retire for a while, or join as a PC. The storylines could work similar to long running comic sereises such as Batman and Hellblazer, where one writer make a story and then a new writer takes up where he left off and maybe choses to use loose plot threads left by an earlier DM.

People should maybe be allowed to use any material to make their characters (official stuff, things made here that need trying out, whatever). I like the idea of this campaign and world to be a place to try out things you've always wanted to, and to playtest new stuff that has been made.

So let me know what you guys think. Does this sound maybe possible? Who would be interested? What do you think shoud be a changed? How could we make this work?

As a final thought, what if this was a large world (ala FR) where we actually had a few canpaigns going on at once that interact with each other sometimes, and cradually flesh out and help shape this new setting while trying crazy new stuff.
[spoiler=My Campaign Settings]
The Age of Kings: My main CS(Comments and Criticism welcomed)
Shadows of the Last Alliance: My PbP game\'s CS (Not much written here yet)
...As it is in Heaven: My newer CS (currently mostly just brainstorming)
Vorsatz: my newest setting.[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Quotes]
\"We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us, leaving only the memory of smoke and the presumption that once our eyes watered.\" -Samuel Beckett
\"Who am I lady? I\'m your worst nightmare. A pumpkin with a gun!\" -Merv Pumpkinhead
\"This whole Case is like a chocolate jigsaw puzzle: It\'s messy, it sticks to your fingers and you don\'t know whether to fit the peices together or just take a big bite.\" - Jack Leaderboard
"Pig's lips meet my lips,
Pig's Stomach meets my stomach,
A meeting of meats."
- Anonnymous hotdog haiku.[/spoiler]
My Unitarian Jihad Name is Brother Boot Knife of Forgiveness.
Instigator of the Weirdo Invasion! :weirdo:

!turtle Are you a member of the turtle club? You bet your boots I am!

CYMRO

It sounds possible, even a fun way to get as many of the community in on a game as possible.


limetom

I'm in.

Additionally, if more infomation gets added to Cebegia, I personally think that that would be the best setting to do it in, with it being the Community setting and all.

Wensleydale

It's nice, but I wish you would start up the other PbP one again... :P

Raelifin

I've actually wanted to do somethin' like this for years. The problem was largely having players who were too attached to their characters or not enough players in general. I wonder now why I haven't thought of using the internet...

Anyway, I support your idea and will happily jump in wherever.

Numinous

I'm gonna do something like this, sometime later on...  I'm speaking now so I don't look like I stole Supa's idea...  It's a surprise though, so don't tell anybody...
Previously: Natural 20, Critical Threat, Rose of Montague
- Currently working on: The Smoking Hills - A bottom-up, seat-of-my-pants, fairy tale adventure!

Captain Obvious

Maybe people could make up a few seperate characters of varying levels in different parts of the world, and they use one or more of those when the appropriate plot lins meet up with them, but when they are not actively involved, it isn't as if they don't exist. They gain levels, move around, change in station, etc. This makes it easier to do such time based things such as magic item creation (removing yourself from the game for a time always seemed weird to me), natural healing (this allows a lower magic setting since magic healing is not a mandatory part. if your character is greivously wounded, they go to a medic and you can either switch to one of your other characters or sit out of the game for a bit), gaining political station and becoming nobility and making castles and so on (since you don't play the character all the time, it makes it easier and more reasonable for you to play a member in high standing in his community. Normally you have trouble justifying it unless you are an exile or something since not actual lord can just run off and spend all of his time adventuring - he has to govern a lot of the time). Maybe a better way to describe this is that you are not being PC's in the normal sense (who don't actually have any place in a stable society lots of the time), but rather you have a collection of NPC's with normal lives and places in society, that spend some of their time on heroic adventures when a hero is needed. I mean, who doesn't want to play the unlikely farmhand hero, the cryptic witch from the outskirts, the heroic lord protecting his vassals, or  (my favourite) the crusty oldtime adventure being pulled out of retirement to sharpen his ruty sword, stretch creaking limbs and heed the call to fight the forces of darkness one last time and go out in a plaze of glory.
[spoiler=My Campaign Settings]
The Age of Kings: My main CS(Comments and Criticism welcomed)
Shadows of the Last Alliance: My PbP game\'s CS (Not much written here yet)
...As it is in Heaven: My newer CS (currently mostly just brainstorming)
Vorsatz: my newest setting.[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Quotes]
\"We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us, leaving only the memory of smoke and the presumption that once our eyes watered.\" -Samuel Beckett
\"Who am I lady? I\'m your worst nightmare. A pumpkin with a gun!\" -Merv Pumpkinhead
\"This whole Case is like a chocolate jigsaw puzzle: It\'s messy, it sticks to your fingers and you don\'t know whether to fit the peices together or just take a big bite.\" - Jack Leaderboard
"Pig's lips meet my lips,
Pig's Stomach meets my stomach,
A meeting of meats."
- Anonnymous hotdog haiku.[/spoiler]
My Unitarian Jihad Name is Brother Boot Knife of Forgiveness.
Instigator of the Weirdo Invasion! :weirdo:

!turtle Are you a member of the turtle club? You bet your boots I am!

Wensleydale

Cool... I wanna make some characters.

Korrim, the untrustworthy duergar rogue exile.

Assim, the enigmatic Xeph Soulknife.

Argoth, the distant wizard.

Orgus, the stereotypical orc barbarian.

So many choices! :P

Captain Obvious

One thing that i just thought of and i haven't thought through much yet.
Should all of the characters in a particular party (and party will be only temporary alliances for the purpose of completing a few quests, at which point most people would go back to their lives) should all of the characters necessarily be of the same level?

I know they normally are to keep all of the players able to contribute/survive/try cool tricks on the same level as each other. But in stories this is rarely the case. A few examples (all levels are guesses obviously)...

LotR: hobbits level 1, gimli and legolas level 8, aragorn and boromir level 13, gandalf level ??(he rarely shows his true power, but he is matching wits with the best of them. possibly epic?)

Icewind Dale series: Bruenor and Drizzt 14, Wulfgar 8, regis and Cattie-Brie 6

Prydain Chronicles: you have a farmhand and princess, then a bard and some warriors at mid levels, and then Gwydion at like level 12 or something

and so on and so on.

So i think that mixed level groups would be more realistic and make better stories sometimes. Also, encounters should be mixed too. Frequently in a high level dungeon, even the grunts and acolytes would be of CR 10+, but why? there would likely be lower level guys too. they just get written out since there's no point for high level pc's to fight them. it's a waste of time. But add these guys back in and you have people for the lower level pc's to fight. Or if it's just high powered stuff, the lower level guys would learn from the great heros around them and the encounters with great horrors would make them grow up quick (equal portion exp for a low level character = level up's every few encounters). For exampl, over the course of the LotR saga, aragorn and gandalf gained maybe 0-2 levels tops. Legolas and gimli got a few more than that (like, legolas learned the "cock and arrow, stab a guy with it, then shoot another guy" feat and the "slide on a shield feat", while gimli learnt the "improved banter" feat. Boromir learned nothing. he's dead). The hobbits however, probably ended up at like level 9 or 10! i mean they started out afraid of a dog, and then later on killed a giant spider, the witch king, a troll cheiftan, and lots more.

how's that for advancement?
[spoiler=My Campaign Settings]
The Age of Kings: My main CS(Comments and Criticism welcomed)
Shadows of the Last Alliance: My PbP game\'s CS (Not much written here yet)
...As it is in Heaven: My newer CS (currently mostly just brainstorming)
Vorsatz: my newest setting.[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Quotes]
\"We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us, leaving only the memory of smoke and the presumption that once our eyes watered.\" -Samuel Beckett
\"Who am I lady? I\'m your worst nightmare. A pumpkin with a gun!\" -Merv Pumpkinhead
\"This whole Case is like a chocolate jigsaw puzzle: It\'s messy, it sticks to your fingers and you don\'t know whether to fit the peices together or just take a big bite.\" - Jack Leaderboard
"Pig's lips meet my lips,
Pig's Stomach meets my stomach,
A meeting of meats."
- Anonnymous hotdog haiku.[/spoiler]
My Unitarian Jihad Name is Brother Boot Knife of Forgiveness.
Instigator of the Weirdo Invasion! :weirdo:

!turtle Are you a member of the turtle club? You bet your boots I am!

Raelifin

I suggest that the number of characters starts out low. When you have 4 PCs and the world, you are set up for rotation. A billion characters to start just seems a bit confusing.

Suggestion on rotation:
QuoteDM  - PC1 - PC2 - PC3 - PC4
Bob - Joe - Sue - Hal - Tom
------Rotate!-------
DM  - PC1 - PC2 - PC3 - PC4
Joe<- Sue<- Hal<- Tom<- Bob<-

If someone wants to leave, they are replaced by someone else. If the DM wants to leave, PC1 person becomes the DM and someone is added as PC1.

CYMRO

QuoteOne thing that i just thought of and i haven't thought through much yet.
Should all of the characters in a particular party (and party will be only temporary alliances for the purpose of completing a few quests, at which point most people would go back to their lives) should all of the characters necessarily be of the same level?

They should be reasonably close, otherwise it becomes a situation where the DM is just leading the party by the nose to achieve his story.  D&D/d20 rules assume some parity where level is concerned, otherwise some PCs are just there to thumb-twiddle.  Having a wizard with Divine Ranks (ala Gandalf) slum with a bunch of 1st level buggers (the hobbits) is a tough plot sell in a book.  In a game it would be much worse, as someone is going to get cheesed at having to play third fiddle to the ubermensch.
If Player X is playing a high level wizard, and a new DM starts a low level game, X can just play a lower level wizard, or a new character, or play his wizard as afflicted with the mysterious Planities Negatives virus, making him temporarily of the quest appropriate level, but upon completion of the quest, and with the help of his HMO, he will not only regain his former level, but will also level up.

Or, alternately, each game/quest would have a fixed starting level, and characters would be retrofit to conform to the quest du jour.  Nothing says this has to be temporally linear...