Here's the question (as there seems to be some movement on a Masks systemed type of game). If there is genuine interest there, is someone going to grab the bull by the horns and start working on it? Could the people interested in it maybe get together and collaboratively put in work to bring it to reality?
I'd be happy to help, but have zero coding skills. I'm more of a fluff and flavor text person.
I'd be down to help out with lore, concepts, story stuff, etc, but I can't say that I've ever ran a game.
The more I see of that weird Action Taimanin mobile game, the more I kinda want an MU in its crazy 'ninjas protect near-future japan from criminal demons while subtly doing counter-ops and tense cooperation against/with foreign forces' setting. The game's needlessly sexy, but surprisingly fun and cute in a lot of its events.
@squirreltalk said in MUs That We Would Love To Make (But Won't):
The game's needlessly sexy, but surprisingly fun and cute in a lot of its events.
Uncomfortably combining sexiness and cuteness is Japan's forte.
@ominous Yeah. It really is interesting, though, if a little wordy to explain.
Basically 'demon' is a catchall term for abnormal creatures. Elves, fairies, animal people and the like would all be classified as 'demons', on top of the vampires, ogres, oni, and ugly monsters you would expect. Some of them just look like humans, but are absurdly powerful and/or have magical weapons or whatnot.
A long time ago gateways to the Demon Realm opened on earth, and by the 'present day' of an anime sorta-cyberpunk future, the societies have kinda begun to merge and cross over a lot. You don't necessarily always see ogres romping down city sidewalks, but you could. Sadly, there's also been a bit of a rise in fucking organized demon crime with all their weird magical shit.
There's a group called NOMAD that's publicly an extremely powerful corporation, that's secretly an even more powerful front for underground crime, assassination, and terrorism lead by one of the oldest (possibly THE oldest) living vampire Edwin Black, who gets treated like a Lovecraftian deity in terms of being untouchable.
The offspring/descendants from human/demon couplings have the potential to awaken unique powers - on top of physically being bad ass as hell - and the Japanese government has basically gathered them together to corral and/or fucking murder criminal demonic elements, with roughly the same public presence of the CIA. They're called Taimanin (Roughly, Anti-Demon Ninja), and there's a semi-hidden town and school where new generations of Taimanin are trained, organized, and sent out on missions. They've begun to chafe a bit at the Japanese government's control.
Other than that, the USA's grown/merged/changed into the UFS (United Federation of American-Pacific States), and is basically trying to maintain global power and authority, which means undermining Japan as much as assisting it. The UFS has discreetly split into Pro and Anti-NOMAD factions, the former want to work with Edwin Black for greater power. The UFS employs some Taimanin, but most of their operatives are just using high tech (and sometimes fanciful) weapons and technology.
The Chinese Union is basically the same thing for the east, as far as I can tell (there hasn't been as much detail about them), and Japan's caught in the middle.
Also there's cyborgs and stuff, and a great big artificial island city just off the coast of Tokyo that fell into financial ruin, and became a run down haven for criminals and unsavory demons, called Tokyo Kingdom.
I think it's rad as hell for a grindy mobile game.
Cyberpunk RED.
Do I want to make it? Fuck yes. Would I play it? Absolutely. Why won't I make it? I doubt the community can handle some of the setting material maturely.
The Center Cannot Hold.
@horrorhound Might be worth checking out this thread: https://musoapbox.net/topic/3173/interest-in-cyberpunk-mu
Sadly I think it's time I came to terms with the fact there are several games I'd love to make but probably won't.
Masters of the Universe. Even with the recent resurgence I just don't think this theme would work well. Even if you expanded it to include other, similar, properties such as Thundercats. I think you'd have a hard time getting people to "play it straight" and take the theme seriously.
Heroes Reborn. A Marvel Universe game with no X-characters. I always wanted to do a game where the focus was on non-X types.
The other problem is that those two examples aren’t from the same source material.
The new release planned by Netflix looks and feels very different than their She-Ra reboot, and those two lines were interwoven in the past. Thundercats, which is a Rankin-Bass IP (like the classic racist Christmas specials), would probably better fit with Silverhawks and Tiger Sharks, and the newest incarnations have a world very different from Eternia and Etheria.
“It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like.” -- Yamamoto Tsunetomo.
@zombiegenesis said in MUs That We Would Love To Make (But Won't):
I think you'd have a hard time getting people to "play it straight" and take the theme seriously.
It's a property from the 80's explicitly designed for children, it's inherently a little silly. Trying to get people to play it "seriously" is the wrong angle, imo. Just because people are having fun with it doesn't at all mean you couldn't also tell stories with real weight or gravitas.
@zombiegenesis said in MUs That We Would Love To Make (But Won't):
Masters of the Universe. Even with the recent resurgence I just don't think this theme would work well. Even if you expanded it to include other, similar, properties such as Thundercats. I think you'd have a hard time getting people to "play it straight" and take the theme seriously.
Or a Thundarr the Barbarian-esque sort of deal. Its years beyond the apocalypse, the world is now future-primitive with sorcery of some sort. Science guys with psionics control cities and computer and high tech stuff, people still have machines but live by simple farming, some folks learned magic (or its derived from tech or something).
I'm just a surge protector doing my job, sir.
I will never not want an Avatar rpg, maybe post-Korra? Apparently an RPG tabletop game is being released and you have your choice of eras to play from.
I don't know if it's sustainable without an overarching plot, but I'm really enamored with Dusk City Outlaws as a system and think a game based on it might be fun.
Also, I have broken down: GRISHAVERSE plz.
"If you stand for nothing Burr, what will you fall for?"
-- Hamilton: An American Musical
@lotherio Yeah, I was tempted to try something like that to scratch that motu itch using Masters of Umdaar.
@Cupcake - Avatar would be good. The start of Korra but splintering to an alternate timeline or universe or whatever. Just the beginning of Korra without the next Avatar coming into being. The set up of the city being like some 1890's industrial city with its own dark underside was a great pulp noir sort of set up. Metal bender police, underground bender battles, the various elemental groups remaining splintered and not unified and not trusting each other. There was a lot in just the premise of the new legend series that was left unexplored heh.
ETA: I say 1890s cause it feels like a distinct split happening between upper crust tycoons and the bottom of the city is happening, but it covers a few more decades into like the 1930s. From new Hollywood/motion picture and sound, to automobiles on the streets and such that is later generations.
@ZombieGenesis Yes. Actually that Masters of Umdaar sounds ideal only because I am unfamiliar with it thematically, Fate Core and the system yes, the theme no. That's why I like OC comics and non-canon games, I like to discover something new. Masters of Umdaar could hit the itch between all the references they make there.
@ganymede said in MUs That We Would Love To Make (But Won't):
The other problem is that those two examples aren’t from the same source material.
The new release planned by Netflix looks and feels very different than their She-Ra reboot, and those two lines were interwoven in the past. Thundercats, which is a Rankin-Bass IP (like the classic racist Christmas specials), would probably better fit with Silverhawks and Tiger Sharks, and the newest incarnations have a world very different from Eternia and Etheria.
EDIT 2: NVM, there is nothing good about that idea. Maybe a Sid and Marty Kroft one instead, unless somehow all that turned out to be evil, too.
Dusk City Outlaws is one of my favorite games to play during board game nights with friends. It's also got a wonderful sister game (Spectaculars!)
I've always wanted to see a Robinhood game based on the Disney animated cartoon.
You could basically do the same thing but set it in the old west as well. Corrupt sheriff, outlaws trying to take him down but the state governor is partners with the sheriff trying to make sure they control the cattle market, the gold mines, and the whore houses.
It isn't covered in school but if you look into history on your own whores and whore houses were big political movers and were the life blood of some towns. Having a quality whore house in town meant workers would travel for days to come bone their money away.
The maid Marion of the story could be the hooker who runs the whore house.
@de-villefort Now that you point it out, Robin Hood story is pretty similar to a lot of Western Movies, but instead of crusades, they're coming back from Civil War and such. Disney Robin Hood would be interesting.
I was pondering a place once using Zootopia, big city big dreams, big crimes. It had plenty of corruption. Heck the main character works with a mob boss for the purpose of solving the missing predators case. Combat was more focused on chasing (foot and vehicular). Cops/robbers type stuff, it's prevalent in some of the conceptual work - chase signs in rain forest district, an old swampy place Nick was gonna use for contacts that was like an illegal casino. I was persuaded not to pursue this one.
@lotherio Sounds fun to me. The problem with places like that though is that if you set games in modern times, with modern tech and modern social standards it just turns out boring.
The world is too safe today.
That's why star wars always had their characters rocketing off to some dirt planet like Tatooine, a frozen planet or a planet already controlled by enemy droids.
Technologically advanced societies always end up being boring and crime free.
Look at Star Trek. They spent hours every week reliving Shakespeare plays, old books and visiting beaches in a holodeck. The only place anything actually interesting happened was deep space far away from the federation.
Here's the question (as there seems to be some movement on a Masks systemed type of game). If there is genuine interest there, is someone going to grab the bull by the horns and start working on it? Could the people interested in it maybe get together and collaboratively put in work to bring it to reality?
