Vigilante Maids with Rocket Boots - Episode 0

[Dracos]

DM Yammering:
Hi.  It's been a while.  I kinda took a break from DMing for a bit.  Kinda trying not to stay out of it forever.  I've
gotten kind of lazy on the planning phase of things, for as much as I improv well.  So, trying to shore that up a bit.  
Get my feet back wet into the DMing scene and toss something different than what we currently have going.  I'm a
believer in start with something small when you get back into things.  So, going to start this off with a 1 (maybe 2)
adventure theme run.  If it goes well, we'll start (or relaunch) with a proper Episode 1.  This is sort of like the
pilot episode some TV shows get, the idea being to bait the hook well and see if we got something that would be fun to
continue at length.  Something not quite at the end or at the beginning, but a compressed episode giving the flavor of
it all.  If it works, we'll do short seasons with the chance to join/end between them.

The Pitch:

Welcome to Neo-Tokyo.  The year is 21xx.  Neo-Tokyo is a melting pot city, where it would not be surprising to see any race or culture there.  Small rustic neighborhoods interweave large corporate business parks.  Speedy bullet trains carry folks around as schoolgirls brush shoulders with businessmen on their way to work and school.  The native language is Japanese, though English is often seen as well.  A pleasant and lively city where folks can be found awake and active at all hours of the day and night.  A pretty normal mega-metropolis...

Save for the fact it tends to be the target of any number of supernatural phenomenon.  Aliens from outer space?  Ancient wizards from beyond time?  Demon Sorceresses from the Moon?  Sure enough, any and all of these will invariably decide to make their start in world domination over at Neo-tokyo.  Generally more than the police can handle, and nobody wants to call in the army and have a war in the middle of the streets.

Naturally, defenses have risen to deal with this threat.  Vigilantes.  Magical girls, Tinker Geniuses, Reincarnated Super Samurai, battle maids, and others.  Vigilantes can be licensed as early as 14 and are classified based on the level of threat they are able to deal with.  This doesn't mean things necessarily go easily or as planned, but the Bureau of Vigilantism tries its best to add beauracracy to the process.  For most, it means they're legal vigilantes who can tell their parents what is going on and not worried about being sued if their identities are discovered.  Good enough for most.

Sometimes Vigilantes work alone.  Sometimes in teams.  For the start, you guys are a new team roughing it out on an early adventure, thrown together by the suggestion of the bureau to try and deal with the nerferious Gold Claw, a newly arrived evil emperor who (of course), aims to conquer the earth.  First though she will destroy Neo-Tokyo!  Unless you can stop her~!

The Theme:

Hot blooded anime gals and guys cruising through the city, fighting evil!

The Gritty Details:

Currently eying anywhere between 12 and 8 pm PST on sunday.  Time a bit flexible possibly on other days, pitch out.  Between 2 and 5 players.  Running with BESM 3rd edition at the Mythical 450 range.  This is half targeting the truesteel folks, including Merc, so going to be giving first dips to them with an aim of weaving in the empty sessions of True steel.

This starter episode is aimed for a 1-2 session episode.  If it goes well and people had fun, I'll start a season pitch up and we'll go with that.

No Mechs.  Magical pets or advisors are fine, but talk with me about them.

All Characters will be between 14-22 (In other words, schooling age), so they have to balance school living, activites, and vigilantism.  I'm aiming for something that might be a mishmash of Nanoha, Gurren Lagann, Cutey Honey, and Sailor Moon.  Folks might be firing rocket launchers or flinging hyper-accelerated manhole covers next to flying witches and traditional magical girls in short skirts.  Posing and Speechwriting is part of the game, and most enemies will indeed give time for doing that, as well as doing it themselves.  While you can (and will) deal with evil coming in off the schedule, you guys might also at any time get assignments from the mysterious bureau, or even interference from various other parties in the city.

Will characters be stolen from series?  Yes.  Total fanfic style here and I will make no apologies for it.  There will be original guys.  There will be rip-offs.  THere will be whatever feels fun.

2 additional things:
1)Before making a character, get approved to join the game.  Should be pretty much a hand wave :P
2)Give a short character pitch before speccing it out.  To make sure we're on the same sort of cool page.

Ask away.

Players:
Merc
Bunneh
Namagomi
Jon
Ryder

Example Character archetypes that might fit:
1)Nanoha
2)Fate
3)Cutey Honey
4)Yoko
5)Hayate
6)Amelia
7)Natsu

These aren't power levels, so much as the sort of larger than life type vibe.

Example pitch:

Honey Kusanagi is a sword wielding android girl who can switch abilities and costumes.  She has a secret identity of Cutey Honey who is both out to help people and get revenge against the mysterious Panther Claw who killed her father.  Her real identity works as a friendly ditzy blonde office temp and lives alone.  Her secret identity is a brave warrior who charges in, teases the enemies with sensuality and swordplay, and leaps about in cunning acrobatics.  She also commonly assumes other roles to confuse and battle her opponents, such as a Knight or a Movie Director, or a Nurse. Her transformation code word is Honey Flash!  She needs to eat a lot when she runs out of energy or her clothes start falling apart.  Her best friend is Inspector Aki and she has a mysterious advisor Seiji.

What is this?

A pitch needs to communicate to me:
What's the name and ability direction for a character - Costume changing sword wielding android.
Any slight background hooks. - Out to fight crime and get vengence for father.
A bit of personality direction: Here we've got Friendly/Ditzy yet with a brave and sexy alterego.
Any important pre-game allies
Any key defects - Needs to pay attention to energy or gets in embarrassing situations.

This isn't to say your final character will end up exactly like you pitch, but just to make sure we're getting excited anime types rather than gritty military ones :P

[Merc]

If we're licensed, are we -truly- vigilantes then? =p

Anyhoo, interested.

[Dracos]

I should add.  I've never run BESM 3rd edition.  This usually goes badly for me.  I'll work hard here, but just saying so I have my cards clearly showing.

[Dracos]

If we're licensed, are we -truly- vigilantes then? =p

Anyhoo, interested.

:P  Yes.  The licensing usually comes afterwards as a way to legitimize what was already happening.  A way to sort of say "Well, you broke a dozen laws and collapsed the Naru bridge, but you got the bad guy, so it's okay we'll let this fly!"

[Bunnehwyld]

I have four words for you, Dracos. Oh, and an emoticon.

1: SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE <3

The other three: I want IN!

[Namagomi]

Super-kami-Nama approves this.  And wants in.

[Merc]

The very definition of 'vigilante' is that you're illegally doing what you do. If you're licensed, you're not a vigilante, you're a law-enforcement officer. =p

[Namagomi]

Justification: Anime universe.  They love them their loose translations.  Perhaps there is a better Japanese word that fits, but the best English translation is vigilante.

...okay, pulled that out of my ass, but it's entirely possible.

[Merc]

Hah =p

[Jon]

I'm in for first non-truesteel dibs.

Jack Williams is a pyrokinetic parkour artist. (Powerset includes flame bursts, wall/roof hopping, flame shields, limited lightning generation/control, and limited bursts of flight. Yes, this is basically the powerset of Azula.) Motivations: tracking down the yakuza cell who murdered his scientist father, never being late to a date with Hikari (the Silver-haired Speedstress of Neo-Tokyo), being named valedictorian at high school, figuring out how to not set his shoes on fire when he uses his powers for flight (luckily, his whole body is pretty fireproof; the scent of burning rubber is still annoying, though).

[Namagomi]

Suggestion: Restrict ranks of Extra Actions.  HEAVILY.  It's a pretty heavy cost, but the sheer basis of what it does means that anyone who can afford and buy multiple ranks of it is...broken.

Anyway, character pitch!

[revised pitch to be inserted here]

[Dracos]

Please check the example pitch in the original post.

We will worry about house rules and character sheet details once all pitches are approved and I move us to a forum.

[Jon]

The very definition of 'vigilante' is that you're illegally doing what you do. If you're licensed, you're not a vigilante, you're a law-enforcement officer. =p

Perhaps, then, we are Irregulars.

[Dracos]

If you're arguing about the use of vigilante as 'realistic/correct', you may have missed the Genre this game is in.  :)  Enough of that.

[RyderHakubi]

... HOLY CRAP, I'M POSTING!

Yeah, I'm in.