DM Nagging: It's pretty much my job

[Ebiris]

Here's my five in no particular order. Flexible on specifics like Fate Stay/Night and Fate Zero or Fate Grand Order are all equally good, doesn't need to be one in particular.

Star Wars: Swashbuckling space adventures! Laser swords! Force powers! Big galaxy to explore and have adventures in, fly cool spaceships, but still pretty relatable and the sci-fi isn't too hard or complicated.

Fate: I know you don't want to do the companion rules, but picking up a Servant (or Master I suppose) buddy to team up with is a nice perk, and it's a chance to have epic fantasy battles with mythic figures in a modern setting. Or not modern setting if we did Grand Order and went to singularities.

Pokemon: Much like getting a Servant in fate, getting a pet in pokemon would be really cool. Plus it's just a really comfy setting I love and would enjoy exploring and doing all the pokemon activities in.

Dragonball: High power martial arts fun and adventure, and this is one you can have a lot of fun with meta-knowledge like that self insert as Yamcha comic a few years ago showed.

Worm: For all its problems, we've probably all read a ton of fanfic about it, so why not go there and see if we can do better?

[Iron Dragoon]

Tried to pick things that are widely known.

1) Firefly
2) Expanse
3) Marvel
4) Wheel of Time
5) Sword of Truth

[Anastasia]

Here's my five in no particular order. Flexible on specifics like Fate Stay/Night and Fate Zero or Fate Grand Order are all equally good, doesn't need to be one in particular.

Star Wars: Swashbuckling space adventures! Laser swords! Force powers! Big galaxy to explore and have adventures in, fly cool spaceships, but still pretty relatable and the sci-fi isn't too hard or complicated.

Wouldn't be the worst setting, no. I'm only loosely familiar with it and the jumps for it, so I'd have to do homework. (I was always more of a Star Trek fan.)

Fate: I know you don't want to do the companion rules, but picking up a Servant (or Master I suppose) buddy to team up with is a nice perk, and it's a chance to have epic fantasy battles with mythic figures in a modern setting. Or not modern setting if we did Grand Order and went to singularities.

I'm not sure how I'd handle a servant if you all went to Fate, but it's a fair point worth a mention. I'm familiar enough with Fate/Stay Night and Zero, though I'm mostly blank on Grand Order.

Pokemon: Much like getting a Servant in fate, getting a pet in pokemon would be really cool. Plus it's just a really comfy setting I love and would enjoy exploring and doing all the pokemon activities in.

It's not likely - I've never been a fan of Pokemon and there's some genuine dislike there as well - but I'll glance at the jump for it and see.

Dragonball: High power martial arts fun and adventure, and this is one you can have a lot of fun with meta-knowledge like that self insert as Yamcha comic a few years ago showed.

It's a really fun setting, absolutely. Just bear in mind it's not an early jump as even the most basic iteration of it has non trivial power levels and Saiyans in it.

Worm: For all its problems, we've probably all read a ton of fanfic about it, so why not go there and see if we can do better?

Oh sure. Good luck if you do. You'll need it but I think you know that.

[Anastasia]

Tried to pick things that are widely known.

1) Firefly

Fairly darker/lower tech sci-fi, right? I'm familiar with it through cultural osmosis if nothing else, I'd have to do homework.

2) Expanse

Whazzat?

3) Marvel

Oh yeah, and there's tons of different Marvel jumps too. They tend to be higher end on the power scale so it wouldn't be an early jump. I'd also note I'm not familiar with the MCU, but there's heaps and heaps of jumps for Marvel, MCU, comics and otherwise.

4) Wheel of Time

Passingly familiar with. Jordan's writing style never did it for me personally so I never got far in, but I'm familiar with the concepts.  Possibly homework-able, but it's a dense world so I'd have to read up and decide.

5) Sword of Truth

Never read that one, only very passingly familiar. I'll look it up sometime.

[Iron Dragoon]

2) Expanse

Whazzat?

It's an Amazon sci-fi show. It's low-power levels with advanced tech that eventually leads into an extinct alien races' gate system. They were wiped out by "something" and there's an all-consuming techno-goo that cyber-fies anything it infects.

[Iron Dragoon]

After mentioning it in #e, I'd also like to toss in Shadowrun as an option. I didn't think people were familiar with it, as I've never really heard it mentioned, but apparently at least a few people are!

[Nephrite]

You can take or leave any of these, but they're the settings at least I have a great familiarity and fondness for.

Persona
Shadow Hearts
Sailor Moon
Final Fantasy IV
Final Fantasy Tactics

[Iron Dragoon]

Alright, after going through things with Dune, let me revise my list:

Gate Thus the JDSF Fought there
Starship Troopers
Lovecraft
Marvel
Star Trek

[Corwin]

Lists!

El Hazard
Scrapped Princess
Magic Knight Rayearth
The Twelve Kingdoms
Ranma 1/2 (even though DB is cool)

The choices (Ranma aside, arguably) are about exploring a fantasy world, and said world is often the result of sufficiently advanced technology. Also three are some variant of isekai, but that works with jumps so sure why not.

Incidentally, nice choices for Fate and Marvel (Iron Man is a favorite, but Spidey is also always fun), guys.

[Anastasia]

You can take or leave any of these, but they're the settings at least I have a great familiarity and fondness for.

Persona

Familiar with. Not a huge fan but I'm familiar with the series.

Shadow Hearts

Also familiar with and think it's solid. But I know that you know that.

Sailor Moon

Duh.

Final Fantasy IV
Final Fantasy Tactics

Obviously I'm aware of those. Video games like that are best considered carefully due to instant death abilities and magic. It's not like a phoenix down is going to save your chain if Doom hits you.

[Anastasia]

Lists!

El Hazard
Scrapped Princess
Magic Knight Rayearth
The Twelve Kingdoms

I'm not actually familiar with any of those. I know El Hazard and MKR a bit from 90s anime osmosis but that's it. I was actually interested in MKR I think, but back then anime was -expensive-.

Ranma 1/2 (even though DB is cool)

I know this one at least and know it quite well.

The choices (Ranma aside, arguably) are about exploring a fantasy world, and said world is often the result of sufficiently advanced technology. Also three are some variant of isekai, but that works with jumps so sure why not.

Incidentally, nice choices for Fate and Marvel (Iron Man is a favorite, but Spidey is also always fun), guys.

The basic, overarching theme's entirely workable at least.

[Anastasia]

Game Structure

Each adventure (which likely won't be short as the word adventure implies) will be to accomplish a particular mission in a world. Think a serious goal that you and your group has to accomplish. Good examples of this would be the one of the longer quests in Balmuria, such as all 777 pieces of lore to find Sylvie or Alicia's ongoing relations and sparring with Malcanthet. In other words a reasonable challenge and investment of effort for your party.

The upside is that this means the challenge is made with your group in mind. So you don't have to expect level 50 quests when you're level 3. On the downside, that means it's tougher to out escalate them. Moreso because you have a Benefactor behind them who has his or her own goals. This includes companions if the group recruits them. So if you go companion heavy, expect your missions to take your manpower into account.

Your Benefactor will usually go no further than the choice of jump and mission, but if you prove worthy enough they may occasionally insist on certain drawbacks, either in jump or custom ones. This is more of a long term concern and should drive home the point - you have a patron behind this all and that patron has their own reasons for this.

---

In general, each jump will have three phases.

1. Prejump

This covers the introduction of the jump, your task, any miscellaneous information required and finally the selection of perks. While I intend to try this game as an IRC game, this phase will usually be set up at the end of session when possible and rely on board posting between then and the next session to hammer out builds, questions and any in character discussion needed.This also gives me time in the event you have companions who make their own purchases that I need to figure out Then of course I have to sort out your final choices so that I can adjudicate them mechanically.

2. Jump

The actual jump and the longest phase of a jump by far. You go in, do things and try to get your mission done. This is the most obvious and straight forward part of the jump.  I don't think I need to say a lot here, it goes on until you succeed, you fail or you all die.

3. Postjump

You always end up here afterwards. If you failed or died, this is your grand finale before your Benefactor says goodbye and the party is sent home. Consider it your swan song if that sad chain of events comes to pass.

Should you have succeeded in your jump, your patron will talk to you and ask if you want to continue your chain, stay here and end your chain or go home and end your chain. As I noted before I want PCs who are going to be heavily slanted towards going on with the chain, so this is meant to be a formality most of the time. Otherwise this will cover any odds and ends with the end of the jump, the award of any extra prizes or benefits the jump stated you get or otherwise deal with any unfinished business before the cycle repeats itself with a new jump.

---

Your Benefactor's exact name, role, personality and motives will be revealed as the game goes on. Benefactor's a generic title that some use and may or may not be used in the game itself. You'll have to play to find out more about them.

---

So with all that said, any related questions? I may not be able to answer if I consider the answer spoilers but feel free to ask.

Also, how are your PC ideas going?

[Corwin]

I'm strongly leaning towards Okarin.

[Anastasia]

I'm strongly leaning towards Okarin.

Okay, and who is that?

[Ebiris]

My concept is probably going to be a Vtuber. Maybe with health or other issues that going on a jumpchain would alleviate, and otherwise being the sort of person that's not so comfortable in her own skin but really good at playing the extroverted entertainer type online especially with the help of an anime persona between her and the audience. Sort of person that might enjoy having different lives in each jump and trying different personas.

As far as skills probably isn't bringing more to the table than singing, playing videogames, and spouting memes. But that doesn't really matter because all the skills and powers are coming from the jumps.