What video game would make a good RPing world?

[Ragnar]

Definitely pong.

"It is completely dark. You see a white sphere speeding in your general direction, but looks to be heading to your left side. In the distance is a thin white plane."

>Move left

You move left. You have covered half the distance between your former spot and the path of the ball.

>Move left

You move left. The ball slams into you, and as it bounces in the opposite direction, you realize that your body has transformed into a thin white plane devoid of limbs.
The ball has almost disappeared in the distance when it collides with the other plane, and starts to come back at amazing speed, heading to your right.

>Move right

You move right. The ball whizzes past you about two yards to your right.
The opposite plane fades into darkness.

Play again?"

[metroid composite]

The games that struck me as having good settings include Suikoden and Skies of Arcadia.  I've always been somewhat interested in doing a Suiko RP, despite being less of a fan of the games.

I am another one of those Koudelka/Shadow Hearts fans, but hmm...well a more limited setting like Koudelka would work; SH rather ruined the suspension of disbelief for me with the whole "everyone and their dog is into something occult" stuff (see: random plotless little girl who learns she can summon monsters).  FFX has a very nicely detailed setting with lots of background to work with; wasn't fully enamoured with it in-game, but might work well in an RP setting.

[Anastasia]

Skies of Arcadia is already taken by another GM at a future date. I agree 110% with that, however, and plan to play in this person's game. (He or she can ID themselves if they wish.)

And Shadow Hearts vastly interests me, but...For some reason, I'm not confident that I could pull that world off to my satisfaction.

[Ebiris]

Skies of Arcadia is already taken by another GM at a future date.

That'd be me. Even though Dune originally meant to run it, somehow I landed the job somewhere along the line...

It's not planned until sometime near the end of December at the very earliest, though.

And on topic, I think X-Com would work very well as an RPG. An elite team of misfit soldiers from all across the globe coming together to investigate crashed alien UFOs, decipher their technology, learn the mysteries of alien society, before taking the fight to the enemy on their home turf! I can see a lot of potential in that.

[Huitzil]

The original Unreal was pretty damned cool, as is Half-Life. I can see interesting games made out of either of those settings.

A plug for my current favourite game, Starcraft, would not be out of place if we hadn't already seen an attempt. Bleh. Bad karma, now.

Richard Baker personally apologized to me for the Starcraft RPG game. The rest of Alternity is limitlessly awesome, so I think he is forgiven.

Half-Life could be intense, extreme awesomeness for a short game assuming the PCs are Black Mesa employees trying to get out while the game is taking place, ala OpFor and Blue Shift, but it would not be good for a prolonged campaign. At least until HL2, anyway.

[Halbarad]

Earthbound would make a very good setting for an RPG with a humorous tone; the world is fairly loosely defined, and the 'great conflict' that the game deals with doesn't really impact about 90% of the world - only a few wise men and high-level individuals are even aware of Giygas' existence (like Mr. Carpainter or Geldegarde Monotoli). You'd have a very broad world, with unique enemies (You have encountered a pack of rabid New Age Retro Hippies!), a VERY warped sense of humor, and many elements that could easily be used in another game - are the 8 Your Sanctuary locations the only ones that exist, and if so/if not, is Ness the only one who can make use of them? There are other things that could be used as well - Dr. Andonuts, Stonehenge, Talah Rama (the sage in the desert who teaches you to teleport), the Lost Underworld (I THINK that's the name), and of course, Mr. Saturn. You've got a wide and varied setting for the game with a reasonable amount of development and a very tongue-in-cheek approach that wouldn't be too hard to fit a new plot into.

[Rezantis]

A little late, upon noticing this thread, but - X-Com: UFO Defence

Yarr.

[Otter]

Not that I know anything about this, but it does seem like an RP set in a Persona setting would be extremely cool.  If the rumor system had a flaw in-game, it was that you had to acquire rumors in order to spread them.  If players could spread any rumors they desired (with the right payment, of course, which could lead to whole other quests), they could do just about anything imaginable, and there's even a fallback for game-breaking rumors (that being that the rumor would be discredited due to its absurdity and not gain the required belief).  Seems like that would be rather awesome, and the Persona universe allows for just about any kind of character and plot RP-wise.  If few people are familiar with Persona, so much the better - they'd have to discover their power and its limits on their own with experimentation, which is always fun.  Of course, you'd need a willing GM familiar with the setting, and I'm not sure how that would work out.  Still, I second the idea.

[Dracos]

Rezantis, you're late in everything. =)


Truthfully, Hal's idea though intrigues me. =)

In that evil way.

Dracos
Free time A-coming.  10 days and counting.