MUs That We Would Love To Make (But Won't)
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Someone in a FB Messenger chat brought up Motherland: Fort Salem as an RP setting, and then I was all "they could totally start in War College" and NO it's not going to be a thing, okay? Even though it could totally work in FS3.
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@cupcake It could be easily applied to using Mage rules as well. I always figured the witches were an interesting mix of Celestial Chorus and Verbena anyway.
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A seasonal game in which the characters are reality TV show contestants. Each 'season' of the game would be a new show with new competitors, gimmicks, et cetera: one might involve roughing it on an island like Survivor, while another might be a competition between professional food stylists, and another still might focus on interpersonal dynamics the way that Big Brother and the Circle do; there'd even be room for something like a televised death game a la Squid Game. Characters would probably be archetypes that are fashioned into contestants for each season, similar to HorrorMU, since breaking people down into their base archetypes and editing them into whatever role suits the story is a key part of the genre.
I think there's probably room to incorporate a metasetting/plot for players to engage with as a way to develop their characters on a more permanent basis, but it's not something I've put a ton of thought into beyond poking why on Earth people might be consigned to the distinctly uncomfortable fate of having to live through being a series of contestants in a series of reality TV shows. If not FS3, a barebones system oriented towards narrative play would be the way to go, I think; either way, cheating would absolutely be a mechanically supported tactic.
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@phase-face Isn't that kind of like The Network? https://thenetwork.mugames.org/wiki/home
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@gremlinsarevil It is (and HorrorMU), too; I'm just really specifically into reality TV, so 'kinda like that, but about THIS' is the result.
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Probably not the right thread to ask in, but
Given the issues with -isms in peoples RP space, could you even have nation based stereotypes like in 7Th Sea? The countries are fiction, but clearly based on one or more country stereotypes from the real world.
You could drop most all sexism/sexuality-ism if you felt like it (but see Arx for how that is seen in regards to bloodline based nobility and our own European Elizabethan era), but how about the nations?
As a side note, they certainly have lots of made up secret societies and religious differences to squabble over, if thats a safe area of conflict.
I have a waggish sense of humor.
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So let me start this off by stating that I am aware that this post/point could be, and probably is, coming from a position of Privilege.
With that said...As much as we want to avoid it IRL, Conflict creates Drama, and Drama is what drives the swashbuckling genre. Now, let's set aside the Crescent Empire and Cathay for the moment and solely focus on Thea...
IMO, 7h Sea did a decent job of stripping away the negative conflict between the Nations (i.e. racism/tribalism) and focused purely on the actual political and religious sources of conflict. Castillians don't hate Montaigne just because they're 'French'; they hate Montaigne because they invaded Castille, are lead by a king that openly mocks and oppresses their religion, and other (valid) reasons that have nothing to do with pure tribal rivalry. Similarly, the Vesten loathe their Vendel cousins because the Vendel are committing sacrilege and harming their ancestors with all this renaming of places. Conversely, the Vendel first broke away because the Vesten Jarls were utter d*cks to the farmers that became the middle class, so had minimal investment in a society centered around raiding by a noble class.
The main area of Conflict in 7th Sea that I think is the most problematic is the Vodacce suppression of the Fate Witches. Even then, there is a certain 'maintaining the status quo' logic that makes sense in the setting. I emphasized that because I think this is the key point: separating conduct and 'standards' in the setting from the same in Real Life. The Conflicts in the game are not simply arbitrary.
Again, just my opinion and more than likely coming from a place of Privilege, but I think that something gets lost when only the problematic is focused on. This isn't to say that problematic things shouldn't be identified and called out, or even 'it's only a game...'; the bigger conversation that I don't see often enough is about the potential to change the game world. I'm not talking about a GM altering the canon setting to fit their tableplay and everyone's comfort (which I do endorse). I mean the GM enabling the Players to be agents of positive change in the world.
7th Sea, in particular, is just exploding with the possibility for change. Yeah, the extreme classism of the Montaigne nobility is highly problematic; have the PC's join the Rilasciare and work to overthrow the Nobility and hopefully prevent the Terror that followed the historical events in France. Yes, the Vodacce suppression of women with sorcery is disgusting and wrong; sign up with Sophia's Daughters and start smuggling those women and girls to safety. The setting and the system are set up to let the PC's be the world-changing Big Damn Heroes, if that's what everyone wants. So let them be the BDH's of Thea.
Make the 'ism's work to give the Players things to fight against. Just from my experience, it's far more interesting, satisfying, and cathartic than just steamrolling though another mob of CE Humanoids or stock evil cutouts from central casting.
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@misadventure said in MUs That We Would Love To Make (But Won't):
Given the issues with -isms in peoples RP space, could you even have nation based stereotypes like in 7Th Sea? The countries are fiction, but clearly based on one or more country stereotypes from the real world.
Can you? Sure. It's been done. Will it offend someone somewhere? Probably. Is that a reason not to do it? That's entirely a personal decision.
I personally don't find the barely-veiled national stereotypes and conflicts in the BSG universe offensive, but I can see where somebody might. Even so, after umpteen different BSG games, I've never felt a situation where it's like: "OK, we really need to tone down the Virgons (Space British) hating the Leonese (Space French) because it's getting to be a problem." But that's just me. YMMV.
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I have complicated thoughts about -isms in play. I absolutely see the appeal for a game to have certain sort of -isms excised, where those aren't required for the authenticity of the setting or provide interesting and important sources of conflict. Or if it's set in a secondary world inspired by a particular time period, but not actually on Earth.
But I do have problems with completely whitewashing past eras of history, because those prejudices were incredibly important in shaping that era. I think you generally position PCs as being on the side of the people fighting against injustice, and you definitely do not tolerate OOC bigotry of any sort, or the use of IC realities to harass or ruin the fun of players whose PCs might be targets for prejudice, but I think you absolutely lose some important things if you try to have your Victorian era without acknowledging the effects of imperialism, the impacts of anti-immigrant rhetoric used to discredit labor movements, the battle for suffrage and how that both supported and clashed with movements for racial equality, not to mention the disruption of rapid industrialization to constructs of class and changing centers of culture.
And not all of that has to be front and center, at all. You don't have to have, say, Victorian Misery Simulator, but these things should exist in your game (or be replaced with constructs that can reasonably stand in for those conflicts) in order to provide a robustness to the world, I feel.
That said? I also think this is a great part about having MANY games. There's absolutely a place for a game that's like, "Yeah, we just want the fancy clothes and hats and pea soup London nights, and we don't want to worry about any PCs having barriers to achievement because of race, gender, or orientation." And it's also okay to have a game where those elements are explored, even knowing that it's not going to be the right game for every person, because some people don't want to deal with that even in a fictional context.
And that's okay. Your fun time should be FUN. So, generally, I support games that have a variety of stances on the issue of inclusion of realistic prejudice.
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Utopia: the Dystopian
I think a game that starts out futuristic utopian. People live good lives, take pills regularly, slice of life, socialites. But with some aspect like blood sport that happens every couple of week, like Rollerball or something similar. Mingle in some Logan's Run, there is age control of some sort. Or elements of the more modern ones, like divergent or hunger games. Just some folks do the dangerous things, others live content drug induced lives under the ever mindful care of We Watching You Corporation or Energy Corp or whatever.
The focus for a few months is on just being in this world but discovering some weird tyrannical truth of who/what's in control.
But then going through the breakdown of overthrowing that and leaving the peaceful world and going out into the dysptopia. Playing a few months like that, rouging it, crazy mutant gangs out in the wilds. Slice of Life folks can stay in utopia, dice combat folks can be out in the wilds as the trailer park crazy suburbia folk gang (Cherry 2K).
It'd be something of post apocalypse where there is a Utopia set up and going and seems nice on surface aside from whatever they do for population control (blood sport and reaping the elderly), dystopia beyond the barrier but unseen until PCs break out of the utopia and go in to the cruel reality of the rest of the world. Slice of Life folks can stay in utopia and do their socialite parties, dicey folks can do their fighting the next random threat big gang coming to take their things.
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I've got the perfect soundtrack:
https://rhysfulber.bandcamp.com/album/your-dystopia-my-utopia
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@hedgehog said in MUs That We Would Love To Make (But Won't):
I've got the perfect soundtrack:
https://rhysfulber.bandcamp.com/album/your-dystopia-my-utopia
Oh, that was a good song and very fitting to the concept even without lyrics heh. Usually I don't vibe with other folks music they recommend. That was both good and spot on, then saw he was with old Front Line Assembly which brought up some memories. That was great.
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He is, in fact, back with FLA. And I blame Al Jourgenson for ruining our going out to lunch on the 24th. Because he had to run off and deal with the fact that his phone was blowing up because FLA and Helmet had just unceremoniously (and without warning or discussion) gotten chucked off the tour they were supposed to be doing with Ministry.
I really fucking hate Uncle Al.
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@hedgehog said in MUs That We Would Love To Make (But Won't):
He is, in fact, back with FLA. And I blame Al Jourgenson for ruining our going out to lunch on the 24th. Because he had to run off and deal with the fact that his phone was blowing up because FLA and Helmet had just unceremoniously (and without warning or discussion) gotten chucked off the tour they were supposed to be doing with Ministry.
I really fucking hate Uncle Al.
You can hate. The rest of us can imagine being jealous or something. I enjoy some good industrial. Somehow still enjoy the synth pop sort in the end. Glad you shared the Rhys track.
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I had a weird dream in which I was coming up with some original theme world and I was telling someone else I needed a person from MSB to help fill in the details.
This place was future primitive steam punk, 1880s tech level after some fallout that left the world a poisonous place, always cloudy with like acid rains sporadically. Inhabitants generally had to wear masks regularly to breath but could go limited time without a mask, just long term health concerns. It was sort of like 9 in how reduced the population was. I remember the inhabitants had to use their tech to syphon toxic fruits and veggies for various applications from food to elixirs and such, they'd use needles to pull out sap and such from within the otherwise deadly fruits, then brew up what they needed. There was two clans with their own sort of special formulas for surviving this new world. And I was getting into culture and for some reason they were Shamanistic/totem worshipping. One clan revered Raven like deities and the other Crows. There wasn't much animal life, I am not sure if ravens and crows were gone from the world and revered that way, or if a few still survived somehow and thus the reverence. Not sure, at the part that ok up, I just remember telling the other person we needed a person here who left the community because they were big on fae/changling and they'd have good ideas for developing the faith side of these two clans, the Raven and Crow clans. Some or all could shapeshift into anthropomorphic forms.
It was a weird good dream, makes me curious about this place now. The dream was half animated as I came up with the ideas for the world and its inhabitants.
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@lotherio No splitting up the Corvids.
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@macha I dunno... splitting the corvids here seems very Church of England/Catholicism to me, somehow? I'm more curious if the inhabitants peacefully coexist, or if it's a point of conflict.
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@lotherio I could recommend a good thematic soundtrack for you:
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@macha said in MUs That We Would Love To Make (But Won't):
@lotherio No splitting up the Corvids.
It was the dream, I didn't do it but ...
@hedgehog said in MUs That We Would Love To Make (But Won't):
@macha I dunno... splitting the corvids here seems very Church of England/Catholicism to me, somehow? I'm more curious if the inhabitants peacefully coexist, or if it's a point of conflict.
Makes it interestingly curious. I think its a point of conflict between the groups. I didn't think of Church of England / Catholicism after the dream but that seems really fitting.
And Amber is priceless resource, I think it ties into faith/magic, but going to the beach to hunt some up is a dangerous endeavor. I think its near the Baltic Sea cause of this and amber ties in, in its own way, to the saps and such they pull from the mutated toxic fruits/plants/seeds/etc.
That thematic music is pretty fitting, it inspires me to ponder more of this strange world, wish I could dream up some more.
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I keep wanting to do a sci-fi game, probably Star Wars, with no Force/Jedi/Sith since they're supposed to be really rare post Order 66. Like, less than a year after RotJ, but before the Empire has completely fallen. Anyway, smugglers, bounty hunters and mercs just trying to survive in the chaos as the galaxy crumbles around their heads and no one really controls anything.
Or just original sci-fi, but original requires lots of work.
Ah well.
