Ancient Discussion

[Anastasia]

Agreed on the luck stuff 100%. I've had games that have had problems, but nothing like the heaps of bad luck this game attracted.

I'm debating what style/system to run. A few random ideas are as follows, nothing is binding:

1. Star Trek. I'm only loosely familiar with Star Trek, so this wouldn't be any super-knowledgeable game. It would just be a handful of newly minted ensign redshirts trying to survive away missions while navigating rocky interpersonal relationships. Sorta like Star Trek with a dash of a soap opera. It's a fun idea but I don't know if I want to commit to all the baggage Star Trek brings. I'm really not sure.

2. What if Hitler was right? The year is 1947. Adolf Hitler famously said that the Soviet Union would collapse if the door was but kicked down. In our world he found out otherwise. What if his luck ran even better in this world? Turns out Stalin went lighter on the purges and within a few days of the invasion a coup attempt turns the Soviet leadership into general chaos. The communist party and the top levels of the military manage to kill much of each other in a few bloody, confused days. In the aftermath no one can really effectively take control, while Marshal Budenny fritters away his armies against Germany. With no leadership comes far less of Russia's industry reaching the Urals, less cognizant defenses and ultimately a complete Russian defeat.

Anyway, historical justifications aside, the year is 1947. Germany rules from France to the Urals, straddling Europe and Asia. The USA and England are in a stalemate with Germany, neither side able to successfully invade the other. As a hot war cools down into a cold war, spycraft and black ops the order of the day. You play one such small black ops team, doing everything you can to weaken Greater Germany.

(I'm a history buff and I know this has some reaches. I'm going for vaguely plausible, not a meticulous analysis of alternate history. For what it's worth I think the USA+Brits would've had a fairly good shot against Germany, even if they beat the Russians into submission. If you aren't a history buff, just go along with it.)

3. D&D meets reality. Through a magical mishap a group of typical D&D adventurers finds themselves stranded in our world. Shenanigans and good times ensue as they try to get back. This one could go in a lot of directions, I haven't formed it past the root idea.

[Halbarad]

Not that I've really been involved with this game, but I wouldn't mind seeing a revival of something like the Neo-Tokyo Assassins concept - anti-heroes in a near future dystopia, or something along those lines. Partly because I never really did get to do much with the character concept I had there, and I wouldn't mind getting into a game again. <_<

[Brian]

A bunch of options, but one of them is to kill Nazis.

Who doesn't like killing Nazis?

Why was this presented as a list of options?

I'll take 'Kill Nazis' for 1000$, Alex. :)

Edit: My WWII history is fairly decent (in spots), but I'm more than willing to throw that all away for a fun game world.

[Anastasia]

Not that I've really been involved with this game, but I wouldn't mind seeing a revival of something like the Neo-Tokyo Assassins concept - anti-heroes in a near future dystopia, or something along those lines. Partly because I never really did get to do much with the character concept I had there, and I wouldn't mind getting into a game again. <_<

Could work, playing a bunch of sociopathic assassins could be loads of fun. Kill, kill, kill!

A bunch of options, but one of them is to kill Nazis.

Who doesn't like killing Nazis?

Why was this presented as a list of options?

I'll take 'Kill Nazis' for 1000$, Alex. :)

Edit: My WWII history is fairly decent (in spots), but I'm more than willing to throw that all away for a fun game world.

Indeed. I'm only looking for plausible - a coup, chaos and Budenny leading the '41 front even more than he did could indeed lead to some sort of Soviet collapse. The odds of it happening aren't great, but it's good enough to work with. The Germans, through complete Russian mismanagement and a bunch of luck, manage to take Leningrad off the march(This had a small chance to happen, but didn't work out), then turn and wheel into Moscow. They capture a city still trying to sort out a bloody situation and in it's citizens in an open panic that's only barely held in check by the NVKD and army. With the fall of Moscow and a Red Army not capable of a winter counter strike the Nazis are able to finish the job in '42 and force a peace on the Russian remnant. It's less a real peace as much as a simple status quo the Russians can't do anything about. Whomever comes out on top of what's left of the Soviets is trying to rebuild and prepare for round 2, while keeping what's left together. Meanwhile the Nazis are busy being evil little mass murderers.

It's without a doubt the greatest choke in the history of recorded warfare. A barely competent Soviet Union shouldn't lose to Germany if it's willing to soak up enough losses. Germany ran stunningly hot as it was in real life, it's mind boggling to imagine them getting more breaks.

[Dracos]

Hmmm.  No bites on my end really.  I'm not an Alternate History buff really at all, so I'd kind of flounder in that setup, and I tend to prefer Space Opera to Sci-fi (Star Trek was awesome to watch, but I wouldn't want to play it, I don't think).  I have no idea what I'd even spin up for the third.  It seems like a comedic short story more than a game hook.  If only because it largely depends on Savages in Society concept.  I mean who would be the antagonists?  Well meaning policemen?  Corporate super villians, seeking to open a portal to their world in order to sell/pillage it for profits?  Present day culture is just really far removed from most D&D cultures and it just feels like the game would coast on the ability of players to make jokes on it.

hmmm...

How about a cult of personality game?  Some madman takes over a country, dividing it into fiefdoms, and the players are group leaders of such, inspiring people toward their ways of life (or not).  Nyum.  Sorta like Bancho Kongou style in a sense.

*posts and goes to read the new posts above him

[Dracos]

hum.  Anti-heroes setup?  Well, closest to a bite so far.  Last game I played like that was Jon's disaster.

Nyum.  So sort of Deus Ex/Ghost in the Shell style?  Corporate Mercs?

[Iron Dragoon]

I like the thought of an anti-hero set up, and also the thought of a GitS style world... Glancing through the 'Games I wanna try running' thread..

-Crisis at the Memory Bank. In the future, people can upload their minds and jump from body to body. But as a result, the value of physical life is slowly dwindling. For the security forces responsible for protecting the massive databases that house humanity's collective consciousness, a struggle against hi-tech terrorists awaits- even as they wrestle with just what, exactly, is really worth defending in a world where everything is digital, and replaceable- even souls. Old-school cyberpunk and giant mainframes await!

^Might be a decent starting point. We're hired cyber terrorists/assassins. Our job is to break into different mem banks and destroy the back ups, then hunt down the current body. I think if we put a spin on it, we could wind up with a Boondock Saints type of feel. Yeah, we kill the shit out people, but we have our rules. No women, no children, ect. Anti-hero doesn't have to mean evil organization, after all.

Though I wouldn't be opposed to an evil game, but the whole terrorists/assassins thing seems kind of hard to have a working over-all plot to me.

On the other hand, http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AdeptusEvangelion
More than one person was interested in this. No one's mentioned mecha stuff yet, but it's up there and has had interest.

[Brian]

Let's play Shadowrun!

I can ... get behind this.

[Dracos]

hmmm...

I really kinda liked the relaxedness of tristat.  Otherwise I'd pitch evil races in D&D world.  Survive and thrive, make alliances, that kinda jazz.

nyuum.

Brian said Chrono Trigger over on gtalk.  Which would be a fun world, but not sure how that'd fly. :)

Huh, shadowrun.

[Iron Dragoon]

Who says you can't pitch that? Keep Tri-Stat and go with a D&D setting. It'd be easy enough, I'd think.

But yeah, GitS style game looks to be in the lead.

Also, tossed this in chat:
Iddy> Though, I can easily see us going the other way in anti-hero. We could do the rebel scum thing.
Iddy> Trying to make the huge corporations feel it by killing off the board members, and going after corrupt government officals.

[Dracos]

Well, I generally prefer to be the good guys :)

[Anastasia]

I don't know Shadowrun at all, so that's probably out unless one of you wants to run it.

Keep on chatting guys, by all means. I'm just thinking right now.

[Dracos]

I don't know shadowrun at all really either.  Brian I think was voicing it more as a conceptualization of the Cyberpunk+Shamanistic Magic+Dystopian Future bid.  Because really that's what it is.

[Iron Dragoon]

Yeah, that's what I got out of it, too. I figure the GitS world would be a decent setting for us with some tweeking. Pretty much everyone already knows it, and it fits for what we want.

Plus, it'd be interesting to see how it went if we did the rebel scum thing and actually went up against the Major. I think we could take her with the proper planning. =)

[Dracos]

Hack, Hack, Hack.

Wait, we want to take down the Major?   I contest the only proper planning with her is a setup with high yield explosives and us nowhere in the area.  And even then, she'd survive it and just be angry.  Come on, good survival is not kicking the energetic hunter who pretty much took the "Almost the best at every commando and hacker skill set, also hot, superhumanly capable, and can survive having her head blown off."

:P

Anyhow, GitS type  setting would be fun.  Add magic to it and it'd be even more fun.  Is it out of your conceptualization, Dune?