Gauging Interest
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Tempted to go in a WAY different direction given we're LIVING a season of HorrorMu. I mean, I guess I'm open to bringing it back, but it just seems like we have enough angst and dread.
I... kinda really wanna do Whoniverse. Fly through time in boxes. Meet crazy aliens. Save the universe. Something more redemptive. Be a Time Lord or companion. Do adventures. New places, new times, new stories, new genres, but with continuity of characters.
Open to request/suggestions for other kinds of games. Many of you know my strengths and weaknesses by now.
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I was just talking to @krmbm about how I'd love a game set in a Sliders universe but wow is it too much work. I don't like the "Kid in King Arthur's Court" sort of situation where it's just bumbling out-of-time idiots, but I do love this idea of playing a medieval fantasy for a month and then playing cowboys the next.
I don't think I'd particularly like to play in the Whoniverse world if only because I'm a super casual Who-er who really stopped after the David Tennant episodes? But the CONCEPT is super cool if you take out the specific Who-themes that non-fans wouldn't understand.
Except you can leave the Daeleks.
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What @bear_necessities said. Except 0 interest in "Dr. Who" specifically. If it's based on an existing IP... I probably won't be into it.
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@bear_necessities I say Whoniverse because it wouldn't be TV show based. The Doctor's out there somewhere, sure, but this isn't their story. I'd have Time Lords, companions of just about ANY alien race, and there are always Time Agents which can also be just about anything. Never seen Dr. Who? Play a companion or Time Agent. No TV knowledge needed. Stories can be as dark or light as you and your friends like. Any genre, any time.
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@krmbm You could even choose not to have anything to do with Time Lords if you don't want to.
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@Botulism said in Gauging Interest:
@krmbm You could even choose not to have anything to do with Time Lords if you don't want to.
Oh. Yeah, no. I'm not keen in getting involved in something that has, like, fans of the show and canon to learn or whatever.
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Isn't the entire thing about the Whoniverse that it doesn't actually have that much worldbuilding/canon to learn? There's a few recurring villains but the average episode is just about visiting a brand new world/time period and exploring the unique society and some local mystery.
What is obvious to you may not be obvious to me and vice versa.
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@krmbm What if you didn't have to? You were just some rando with a gadget that lets you jump time/place (a Vortex Manipulator). Your character could be utterly clueless of anything Who. If they learn something IC, then so be it, but you'd have ZERO requirement to.
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@Groth Exactly. This. It would be a framework there to hang things on, but what you hang is up to you. Realistically, 99.9% of the universe is like, "Time Lords? What?"
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@bear_necessities said in Gauging Interest:
I was just talking to @krmbm about how I'd love a game set in a Sliders universe but wow is it too much work.
The very first MU teenage-me ever wanted to do was a game set in the Sliders universe.
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@Botulism said in Gauging Interest:
@krmbm What if you didn't have to? You were just some rando with a gadget that lets you jump time/place (a Vortex Manipulator). Your character could be utterly clueless of anything Who. If they learn something IC, then so be it, but you'd have ZERO requirement to.
I love the effort to pitch it, but still no. Between the fact that the player-base would almost definitely be mostly fans of the show, that I have never liked the show, and that I have a very limited willingness to play games based on existing IP... It just wouldn't be the right place for me.
Edit: The fact that y'all are in here talking about the canon of the show to explain how the canon of the show doesn't matter is kind of illustrative of the issue. I just can't want to get into Dr. Who.
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@krmbm Considering so far no fans of the show have spoken up, no, I don't think it necessarily would mostly be fans. As for talking abut canon, I just used one term - Vortex Manipulator. I could have made that up myself for all it matters. You really could know nothing and play.
I understand just notwanting to play on anything IP based, though.
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I really think you could achieve the same "feel" without having anything Who specific but that's just my opinion.
I tend to stay away from existing IP games, mostly because they tend to fill quick with super fans who look down their noses if you get even one thing remotely wrong. It's why I will never play a Star Trek game even though I love Star Trek, or a Xanth game even though I love Xanth.
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@bear_necessities I can understand that. HorrorMu was that game. I had to make a new setting, theme, history, etc. every story. Doing it as you suggest, I'd have to world-create again. A ton. Whoniverse gives me something pre-existing to start with that I can then set up in a way that YOU don't need to know anything and can just jump IC without me having to create a bunch of stuff from scratch.
I get fans, though. But honestly, I've had like, three 'fans' involved in the only prior Who thing I tried. There just aren't a lot in MU*.
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@Botulism Again, totally appreciate the pitch. I just don't care for most games based on existing IP to begin with. I played Pern long enough to be done with canon-cops. Plus, I just don't like Dr. Who at all.
I wish you luck, though! Make the game you want to play, and at least then you know you'll have one satisfied player.
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@krmbm I understand!
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Yeah I think a more generic theme is better here. It means you can write your own metaplot, temporal mechanics, etc to fit what you want to do. Anything IP-based invites appeals to canon.
HorrorMU did it pretty well. It wasn't Nightmare on Elm St. MU where everything was some kind of layered dream construct under the rules of that movie, it was just 'horror stuff'. There was a metaplot, but it was a mystery, which made it interesting. In an IP-based thing, you couldn't have that mystery layer, and you'd have people trying to tie things into the lore instead.
I didn't stick with HorrorMU that long but the basic concept still really intrigues me. I feel it might even work better without the supposed trope-y character of the horror game; one of the things that always peeved me was when I felt people weren't being 'true' to the spirit of the genre, which is as much my issue as theirs, but nonetheless something that made it hard to enjoy. Something where the characters have more inherent agency might alleviate that.
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@bored I don't have the creative juice anymore for that level of world-building.I just don't.
To expand: The HM stories based in IP (Alien, for example), I had WAY less questions of world mechanics, whereas all the original-theme stories I ran were CONSTANT floods of questions on the most random and tedious of things no matter how much theme I'd written and a number of players would get frustrated and freeze up because they didn't know what they could do. At least with an IP framework I can give easier, faster answers and not have to develop as much from scratch.
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@Botulism said in Gauging Interest:
whereas all the original-theme stories I ran were CONSTANT floods of questions on the most random and tedious of things
lol I feel you, I feel you SO hard.
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@bear_necessities Were you there?
