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
If we're licensed, are we -truly- vigilantes then? =p
Anyhoo, interested.
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.
Quote from: Merc on September 05, 2010, 11:16:30 PM
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!"
I have four words for you, Dracos. Oh, and an emoticon.
1: SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE <3
The other three: I want IN!
Super-kami-Nama approves this. And wants in.
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
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.
Hah =p
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).
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]
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.
Quote from: Merc on September 05, 2010, 11:26:47 PM
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.
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.
... HOLY CRAP, I'M POSTING!
Yeah, I'm in.
Okay.
Looking for pitches from you guys before I move this to a proper forum. Remember the starting game is looking to be a 2 session deal. If its fun, we'll pitch a season.
Yarp. I'm interested if there's a slot. Only concerns I have are doing two weeks of training at Ft. Benning in October. Though, with it being on a sunday evening, I 'think' I should be free even then. After that, I'll be in Afghan-land at some point, and that's about 9 hours ahead which would be.. Eh.. 9pm Sunday to 6am Monday. That works fine, I should be done by work way before 9pm. I don't mind staying up till midnight or so, provided my work time is 6am or 7am and not earlier.
I honestly tend to go back-and-forth on concepts until I finish building a character sheet, so kind of hard to put it down to one particular thing. As I'd mentioned before, currently kind of thinking of some stoic magical girl, or a demon hunter katana wielder that's a lucky ditz. Possibly also hot-blooded armored hero now. I don't know!
Until I get cracking on chargen, I can't offer a detailed pitch, because I really am the type that develops both pitch and sheet at same time.
That said, I'm most likely going to end up being something frontliner/melee-oriented for combat purposes, that much I'm fairly certain on.
As of now, I'm considering a stoic military type.. Someone like Sagara Souske from FMP. Drac said he was worried about it not fitting, but if I follow the line about over-reacting to everything and speaking my thoughts out loud, I think it'll open up enough comedy to fit in.
Kinda a bit weak on the hot blood, but again, please give a pitch. I gave an example format above to help folks. I'd rather hear how your character will be rather than 'it's like this guy, but x', because I really don't know that guy.
Quote from: Merc on September 07, 2010, 02:12:20 AM
I honestly tend to go back-and-forth on concepts until I finish building a character sheet, so kind of hard to put it down to one particular thing. As I'd mentioned before, currently kind of thinking of some stoic magical girl, or a demon hunter katana wielder that's a lucky ditz. Possibly also hot-blooded armored hero now. I don't know!
Until I get cracking on chargen, I can't offer a detailed pitch, because I really am the type that develops both pitch and sheet at same time.
That said, I'm most likely going to end up being something frontliner/melee-oriented for combat purposes, that much I'm fairly certain on.
Odds are pretty good for either of those. So I'll let that by.
Jon not quite getting a personality from that but should be fine to go to the next stage and build a sheet on.
Update: After joking/bullshitting with Merc, I've decided that, if I should play or a slot opens up, I wouldn't mind being someone's animal mascot. I envision hijinks.
If someone wants animal companion/mentor Iddy, I'll allow it and he can instantly join the game. Said player can have 10 more points to help with paying for and building up Iddy (As Companion rules).
Let's see.
I know what Jon is playing/wanting to play.
I know what Merc is wanting to play (or a few acceptable options).
I know what Ryder is wanting to play
Iddy has offered to take the mascot role.
No pitch from bunneh.
And Nama is still outstanding.
Alright, had a couple pings for interest in the animal companion. Decided to go with Merc (sorry Jon & Nama). Looking like I'll end up as a four tailed kitsune.
Now for my attempt at: SUPER PITCH XX 2.1.1 REVISED TURBO /RELOAD
Yuuki was part of a JSDF project to try and find a way to combat demons and other supernatural threats without relying on the seemingly less reliable resource of shrine maidens, magical girls, and the like, citing the possibility of a "wide-scale invasion" as the number one reason for this. Unfortunately, due to the project's low funding, that amounted to him having been handed a Vigilante license and being a 'testbed' for two manalogical weapons--the independently-mobile 'Strike Feather' variable-support drones, and the 'Nephilim Cross' variable manalogical weapon. I hope they don't have to be described too much further in detail on that end. In case anyone is wondering, the project got bought out by some other corporation, though Yuuki isn't aware of this.
As far as Yuuki's life not pertaining to the energy weapons he possesses, he is currently a third-year high-school student. His parents...to put it lightly, do not approve of his vigilante status--and would rather prefer he get a 'normal' job. Such as a salaryman role or the like. He currently works a cashier job at a convenience store--something he generally finds grating. For the most part, he cares little about high grades in school, or excelling in anything, settling for average for the most part, but is a bit addicted to the life of a vigilante. ...unfortunately for him, an incident that occurred during the rather violent breakup of the last group he was in landed him with a license suspension for some time--until the Bureau offered him a way back.
...naturally, he leapt for it.
Okay, so you're a reckless low-budget science/military refuge project whose in trouble with his parents. That's fine, roll a sheet.
Okay, I have 2 char sheets.
Jon has dropped out.
Nama is making something?
Bunneh no word?
Ryder no word?
Navi is taking Jon's place.
Folks, if you're making them, please get a rough draft at least by saturday.
Bunneh has dropped out.
Ataru is taking his place. Ataru you've got a few days for a sheet.
Still waiting on Ryder and Navi.
Okay. I'd like to start on the 3rd...but I lack sheets.
Instead we will start on the 10th, 3 pm sunday. Merc ye have advance notice for scheduling around :P
Before that, I will likely run some tutorial sessions, practice combats, etc.
If folks want in on that, say Aye here and say when ye'd be available for doing such over the next week.
Yaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrpppppppppppppppp.
I should be free every day barring Tuesday.
Should be available on some nights.
Likely going to try tonight around 7-8ish PM PST to run a tutorial type thing on combat. Be there if you can.
I have a night class, so I probably won't make it. What irc channel though? I'll at least idle there.
#VigilanteMaids :P
Reminder:
4:30 pm, PST time is when we'll try and start this sunday.
Not sure I can make it that early. Apparently, I'm supposed to be in classes until around 7 pm Georgia time.
That's 7:30 Georgia time, but we'll see how it goes.
Thanks Nama.
Next Episode Airing: November 7th.
After the devastating battle on the bridge, the team needs to recover and find out what they can about these vicious biker gangs that they sparred with.
Reminder, planning on running this sunday, provided weekend work duty doesn't burn me out.
Also SHOUT TO LET ME KNOW YE READ!
I AM FULLY CAPABLE OF LITERACY, YOU BLOODY CURMUDGEONLY BLOKE!
Apparently not.
Anyhow, tentative for the 21st. Remember guys, if you session miss, there is a minimum of 2 weeks before we can reconvene. Also Iddy wakes up at godawful o'clock to game with us, so it's pretty horrible to him if he wakes up just to stare at an empty screen. If there is an issue, bring it up early.
So, Nov. 21st is the next session, yarr?
So the deal is that Merc is begging to finish his bit.
My plan?
Finish merc's (<1 hour), then run mine. Or I'll run them side by side. :P
But the likely deal is that we'll start late.
For Iddy, come an hour late.
For everyone else, well you have to be there for merc's game anyway~!
I didn't beg, you liar =p
See ye guys today. The working dracos will pretend he is conscious to run!
Okay, we've not had good luck getting together since the starter session.
Here's the plan for next month:
5th of December: Awesome VM Renunion!
12th: The Rocking Goes on!
19th: True Steel Returns
past that is holiday season so...yeah we'll see.
~~~~~~~~~~
<Dracos> but I did want to sketch out the next weeks.
<Dracos> so, 5th, 12th, 19th.
<Dracos> which are TS and which shall be VM?
<Dracos> you got dibs since your game comes first :)
<Andria> I probably won't run anything until 12th or 19th. My last exam is on 16th, so I can definitely do 19th, 12th is a maybe.
<Dracos> hum.
<Dracos> 5th then VM (Ye will show!), 12th VM with also making sure we've got the foundation for a solid TS session going on
<Dracos> then 19th TS
<Andria> That's fine
I'll do my best to be there.
Ding: REMINDER. Sunday!
Folks please poke people. I intend to be there at 4 pm PST (7 pm est).
I'm stuck on night shift this week, unfortunately. I'll try to bring my personal laptop and log in, but no promises.
Out of work a touch late. Driving now.
Reminder: We are on again this week.
Sorry I missed. Internets were down. Gotta love Afghanistan.
*nods* Ended up delayin.
Merc has next week. He's going to dazzle with awesome.
You wish.
I do! :( It's been weeks since a good game ;_;
Ah, vacation begins to migrate toward ending...
I've been really quiet here. Really terribly quiet here.
There's been suggestions to move boardward. We might. Let's give another try though soon, on the 16th.
We'll see how it goes then. o_o
I deny your board-posting gaming.
DENY.
I will be there the 16th.. Though I gotta re-figure the math on what time it is for me >.>
Uhm, don't I have the 16th reserved? Since we have two weeks with no Navi which would otherwise mean a 3week gap as opposed to a 2week gap? You can have the 23rd and 30th. =p
Fine, you reserving cat!
Now, now. It'll be okay.
Everyone can just open multiple clients and both games can go at the same time.
... And I'll enjoy the ensuing train wreck =D
In theory we are next sunday.
With awesomeness to spare.
Tali-ho?
I barely remember my character...
... Looks like it'll be a re-learning experience!
Who are you again?
Apologies. I am quite sick, and cannot run today.
Excellent. I felt bad because I was on an armored convoy when we were supposed to be gaming.
I wanna pllllllaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyy..... ;_;
I'm sorry about the sporadicness. Though this game was intended to fill the gap between TS sessions.
I'm gonna be out of the country next week, so obviously no game. :(