Every so often, I threaten the players with THIS story for a future season:
An alien invasion at the annual Gathering of the Juggalos. You Faygo drinking ninjas are all that stands between alien invaders and the rest of the Earf.
And they keep pushing me to pull the trigger.
...Tales In Time/Space.
I give you TITS, ladies and gentlemen.
lovecraftma.com 1880
http://lovecraftma.com
Open for Beta! Cgen, dice, temp rooms, the wiki - it all works. We're currently just finishing the grid and recruiting players and Staff. RP for now will be set near the end of Summer break, 2018, with school (high school and college, focus will be on both) starting when we have our grand opening.
Welcome to Lovecraft is a mortal horror game using the Slasher Flick rules system and (very) loosely inspired by the comic book series Locke and Key. Knowledge of either is unnecessary to play here - everything you need is on the wiki.
Our story is set in Lovecraft, Massachusetts, a fictional island town connected to the mainland by bridge with a single road in and out. On the surface it's a pretty little resort town with a friendly, close-knit community, but appearances can be deceiving. Beneath that placid surface is an ancient horror that feeds on youth and innocence, leaving the adults in an oblivious fog. Players take on the roles of students at Lovecraft High and Miskatonic University, or one of the rare adults who, scarred by the past, remembers and see things as they truly are.
The story is not limited to eldritch horrors by any means, and nearly any horror or thriller can fit right in here, from big screen slashers to the books of Stephen King. Using a game system that emphasizes cinematic storytelling over dice and survival over combat, we focus on personal horror from the point of view of the average person. We encourage player-run-plots, and have a number of pre-made plot kits you can use to tell stories, or you can make up your own with staff approval. We also utilize supporting characters to use in your stories.
Welcome to Lovecraft. We hope you enjoy your stay.
@seraphim73 I think a lot of the new, young players just getting into the hobby are enthusiastic and proactive while most of the older, more experienced players are wary and cynical. I also think this creates friction - the new people don't get that some of that cynicism comes from a decade or more of shit going down. The older players see the enthusiasm and proactivity as attention seeking or trying to do everything. Neither has the whole picture.
I think we need to encourage the enthusiasm and allow ourselves a bit of optimism again. I myself have been guilty of being wary of new players and new ideas, and I own that. We need the new blood if the hobby is going to survive and thrive.
horrormu.com 1880
www.horrormu.com
Horror MUX is a game of mortal horror set in a variety of rotating settings and themes, using different versions of the same characters, and with an underlying connection running throughout.
This is not your normal MU*. You don't write a background and 'make' a character. Players choose an Archetype for their character to embody, and that Archetype takes on a new character/role in each story, given to them by The Director. You decide their gender, name, age, ethnicity and appearance, as well as their personality (informed by the chosen Archetype), but the role they play in each story is assigned by The Director (again, informed by the chosen Archetype), along with hooks for the current story and often some supporting characters you can emit. This way, you get to play who you want to play, but you also play what the story needs played. Stories run as long as they take - each has a specific 'ending', often involving escaping an area, surviving until a certain time, or in rare cases defeating the danger(s). Fighting or killing the danger is rarely a good idea and simply surviving is usually the best strategy. It will usually - but not always! - be clear what the goal is. Examples include getting off a xenomorph-infested space station, surviving on an island until rescue comes, escaping a haunted house that's trapped its inhabitants, and so on. A story can also end with the deaths of all active Archetypes. In this game, there CAN be unhappy endings.
In between stories (or upon death in a story), Archetypes find themselves trapped in a sterile, lifeless place known only as The Facility, with no memory of who they are - or if they're real people at all! - but full memory of each story they've experienced and the role they played. There are no other people in the facility outside of the Archetypes, no cameras seem to watch them, food is provided by dispensers, and there is no exit or any windows. Each Archetype has a personal quarters consisting of a bedroom and bathroom, and clean clothes befitting the Archetype are provided daily, also by dispensers in their rooms. All of their needs are taken care of by unseen benefactors - or jailers, depending on point of view. This existence goes on without any clue as to day or night, season, or year. They can do as they please while in the facility - eating, sleeping, recreation - whenever they please. Sometimes new Archetypes show up, and sometimes old ones just disappear.
Without warning, all current Archetypes will eventually become sleepy at the same time, and once asleep, find themselves in a new story. Once inside, they remember nothing of the facility or past stories, and simply become the role they are assigned. The only ways to leave the story are to die in it or to finish it. Upon death or completion of the story, they wake up back in the facility. The rest of the Archetypes are nowhere to be found until they, too, die or finish the story.
To allow players a way to continue within the story in the event their Archetype dies, they may continue to play any surviving Supporting Roles they have. Their Archetype, now back in the facility, has no knowledge or memory of those events, however. Archetypes may also resume facility RP with any other Archetypes that have died if they wish. A player whose Archetype has died in the story, has no remaining Supporting Roles, and no fellow dead Archetypes with them in the facility may be given a Central Casting character to play. This way there should always be something to do.
Over time, your Archetype will begin to evolve and flesh out, becoming more of a person as the stories and experiences shape them. Facility RP will become more interesting as the Archetypes turn to each other to try and make sense of it all and figure out what's really going on. There IS a deeper meta-story, and things WILL slowly unravel over time.
We employ a modified version of the Slasher Flick system which emphasizes personal horror and cinematic narrative over stats and combat, and this very simple game system is explained on the wiki. There is no need to purchase any books.
We are now in our fourth Season: Slasher!, an 80's romp in true genre style. Past seasons have been logged in their entirety and everything can be read at our wiki. Check it out today!
Developing this now.
Characters will recycle from story to story - different versions of the same archetype - and there IS going to be a meta-plot tying it all together, so long-term IC development will be a thing. I can't say more than that yet without spoiling something, but I think it'll be neat.
atas.aresmush.com 1313
atas.aresmush.com
AcrossTime and Space
We are an Ares-powered, modified FS3 game of high adventure, chilling horror, and everything in between set across all of space and time. Historical romps and dark dystopian futures await. Here you can explore space and tell stories of strange aliens and robotic monstrosities. You can also meet titans of history and help preserve the timeline from treachery. Even modern day Earth is full of surprises behind the curtains. Anything and everything you can come up with can be worked into play with a little effort.
Think of the game as a giant sandbox where all of time and space is in your toybox. You can tell stories of any genre, on any planet, anywhere in time. We've made character creation very easy and you can be approved and RPing in as quick as 5 minutes. We are based around troupe RP, so group apps and bringing friends is highly encouraged, but not required. This helps make sure you have RP partners to play with, but we'll do our best to find you a place in the stories.
Hey, Isn't This Doctor Who?
Yes and no. While the game is set in the universe of the Doctor Who TV series and related media, it is not a Doctor Who game. For starters, unlike the show, The Doctor is not the star of our game, or even a playable character. This game is about your stories, and can have little or nothing at all to do with the Whoniverse. Time travel stories of all kinds can be woven in, like Legends of Tomorrow, Sliders, Stargate, or pretty much anything else along those lines. You can even bring in things from Star Wars and Star Trek, within reason. We frame it all in a Doctor Who metaverse, sure, but it's a BIG metaverse, and there's room for everyone. You can have as much or as little Whoniverse involvement as you like. It's all up to you.
What You Can Be
Honestly? You can be just about anything here: humans, dozens of different ready-made aliens, your own original creations, or even a robot or android. Characters can be from Earth's history or future, or from modern day, or not Earth at all. There are very few limits on the kinds of characters you can make. Everything under the Theme menu in the upper half has been written for total newbies and requires no Doctor Who knowledge at all.
We are pre-open for concept brainstorming and chargen while the finishing touches are put on.
A very brief tease:
Horror MUX is a game of mortal horror set in a variety of rotating settings and themes, using different versions of the same characters, and with an underlying connection running throughout. Inspiration includes American Horror Story, Cabin In The Woods, Dollhouse and Westworld. Players choose an Archetype for their character to embody, and that Archetype takes on a new character/role in each story. In between stories, Archetypes find themselves trapped in a sterile, lifeless place known only as The Facility, with no memory of who they are - or if they're real people at all! - but full memory of each story they've experienced and the role they played.
Given the short-term nature of each story, even without the crazy pace of this first one, I'm not seeing this game being a good fit for once-a-week players. Especially since those once-a-week scenes can, as mentioned, get big.
We just completed our first story, Isle of Dread. It was a good learning experience, and we're building off of it going forward. Our next story is set in the ALIEN universe, and starts August 9th. This is a perfect time to join in and give it a try!
http://horrormu.com/index.php/Current_Setting
http://horrormu.com/index.php/Archetypes
I recently even started making Juggalo names for various archetypes. Nothing good can possibly come of this.
Scholar: Professor Thugnutz.
Defender: Cockstrangla.
Capitalist: Pussyfiend Esquire.
Artist: Vincent van Cock.
Creepshow: Murderwhore.
Penitent: Bitchface.
Explorer: Asspelunker.
Rebel: Fisticunt.
Dude. This. All of this. I played on a cyberpunk game that was NO TS EVER!!!11one, and went back to a guy's place. He was friends with Staff. My character fooled around with his a little (it never got far, and I'm not sure it would have), but dude was being a dick IC (and OOC) and I had my character say as much and walk out on him. Suddenly I get yanked into HS's office and told I'm being banned for TSing. His friend? Totally fine, nothing happened to him.
As for complaints and how to handle them, there's no easy answer. It sucks.
One thing I've found helps - me, at least - is deciding that my game isn't a wide-open, everyone gets a character affair. I don't have a policy of 'You have to do X to be asked to leave'. I'm not paid to manage people and their shitty behavior, even if it's not technically breaking a rule. Act shitty? I may ask you to leave. I run a very active game with tons of plot scenes - sometimes I've run three scenes a day for weeks. I love it. But the moment I'm having to deal with shitty behavior, my enjoyment craters. At that point, it's them or my happiness. To be clear I don't boot people for coming to me with issues, I don't blame victims. But I'm no longer shy about booting an asshole who technically isn't breaking rules because it's 'not fair'. Being a regular asshole is reason enough.
And yes, I try talking to them first. It takes repeated dicketry to get booted.
So we're trying a few new things this story. First and foremost, it'll be our longest story so far as we aim for 6 months. I've fleshed out a lot of lore for it, and hopefully it'll give people lots to play with.
Second, I'm allowing players to run plots involving 'monsters', in this case raider groups. Normally I handle Kill Scenes exclusively, but I'm testing out letting players run some. I think the core of our playerbase knows the system well enough now.
We have roughly half our Archetypes open, so now is a good time to give things a try - lots of options available and the story is just starting.
Introduction
We are an Ares-powered FS3 game of high adventure, chilling horror, and everything in between set across all of space and time. Historical romps and dark dystopian futures await. Here you can explore space and tell stories of strange aliens and robotic monstrosities. You can also meet titans of history and help preserve the timeline from treachery. Even modern day Earth is full of surprises behind the curtains. Anything and everything you can come up with can be worked into play with a little effort.
Think of the game as a giant sandbox where all of time and space is in your toybox. You can tell stories of any genre, on any planet, anywhere in time We've made character creation very easy and you can be approved and RPing in as quick as 5 minutes. We are based around troupe RP, so group apps and bringing friends is highly encouraged, but not required. This helps make sure you have RP partners to play with, but we'll do our best to find you a place in the stories.
Hey, Isn't This Doctor Who?
Yes and no. While the game is set in the universe of the Doctor Who TV series and related media, it is not a Doctor Who game. For starters, unlike the show, The Doctor is not the star of our game, or even a playable character. This game is about your stories, and can have little or nothing at all to do with the Whoniverse. Time travel stories of all kinds can be woven in, like Legends of Tomorrow, Sliders, Stargate, or pretty much anything else along those lines. We frame it all in a Doctor Who metaverse,sure, but it's a BIG metaverse, and there's room for everyone. You can have as much or as little Whoniverse involvement as you like. It's all up to you.
What You Can Be
Honestly? You can be just about anything here: humans, dozens of different ready-made aliens, your own original creations, or even a robot or android. Characters can be from Earth's history or future, or from modern day, or not Earth at all. There are very few limits on the kinds of characters you can make.
Types of Characters
There are two classes of characters here - Time Travelers and Companions. A Time Traveler is someone with access to technology that allows them to travel through, well, time and space. Companions are everyone else, those who are taken on by Time Travelers and join them on their adventures. Human, Alien, or Robot, they come from all walks of life. A player may only play one Time Traveler at a time, but may play unlimited Companions with one catch we'll get to in a bit.
Time Traveler Requirements
Anyone who plays a Time Traveler must try to run stories for others, ideally 2 scenes a month. As a Time Traveler player you're being asked to help carry a bit of the burden of running the game and entertaining others. Playing a Time Traveler here is a responsibility as well as a privilege.
Time Travel Crews
Whether a TARDIS in Doctor Who, the Waverider in Legends of Tomorrow, or any of a number of other examples, there's a cast of characters working together – a Crew – and this is what we are basing our troupe-oriented design on. To help keep players clustered together instead of all spread out through everywhere and when, we want to organize people into Crews so you have some guaranteed RP partners. Whether you and some friends come in together as a Crew, or we help hook you up with others, the goal is to get you situated with people on at similar times as you and, hopefully, with common interests and tastes. You aren't required to be in a Crew, but being an Independent means you're on your own to find RP and get involved in stories.
Since RP is centered around the Crew, the Time Traveler who leads it is expected to tell stories for the group, as mentioned above. Obviously you get to be in those stories with them, but we ask that you share the spotlight and let them all be stars in their own right. Anyone can run stories, of course, you can never have too many stories! But Time Travler players have requirements.
There is no hard cap on how big a Crew can be, though ideally it would be 4-6 players so that the scenes aren't too big and overwhelming to play in. There can also be more than one Time Traveler in a Crew, but each Time Traveler must tell stories, either for your Crew, for Independents wanting stories of their own, or for other Crews where the Time Traveler(s) wants to just play sometimes. Teaming up with the other Time Travelers in your Crew and 'co-running' a scene doesn't count for your individual requirements, or else everyone would just do that. Only one Time Traveler per scene gets credit for running it.
You can play as many Companions as you like, as mentioned before, but can only play one per Crew. That's the catch. Companions and 'extra' Time Travelers can come and go, changing up a Crew's membership over time. It need not be static.
Independents
If, for whatever reason, you opt out of joining a Crew, that's okay. Time Travelers on their own still have to run scenes, though, and Companions may find some success 'freelancing' with various Crews for a story but not staying long-term. Another idea is to pick one of the static locations in the game - 'public' areas that are set in a certain time and place - and call it home. Now when Crews come through, you get to be the locals they interact with. A few of these are provided for you.
Independent Time Travelers get a time travel device and can do as they please, but again, you are expected to run stories.
Meta-Story (Seasons)
In addition to the stories you run for each other, the Showrunner and Writers will run a meta-plot that impacts the whole game called the Season story. This is a longer-term, far-reaching plot, but you are not required to participate directly if you don't want to. Each Season will span 4 months RL, and will be a mix of scenes run for Crews and scenes open to everyone.
A Crash Course On Time Travel
If you're looking for a hard-sci-fi take on time travel, this game isn't that. We're more high adventure in time and space than straight Science Fiction. It plays fast and loose with paradoxes and the like, but it does follow a few basic rules. Most of the time.
Rule #1: You Can't Change Your Own Timeline
Each time you make choice, your timeline branches onto a new path. Somewhere out there, though, are alternate dimensions or realities where you made a different choice. In fact, there's one for every choice you could have made. You exist in your timeline, the one you've chosen, because this is who those choices made you.
Your characters cannot alter their past. Changing your past makes you someone different, and then the you that changed it never existed. It's a paradox. Touching an earlier or later version of yourself can be catastrophic. Time Travelers can break the rules (sometimes), but those changes don't always stick and often come with harsh consequences.
Rule #2: Certain Events Are Fixed Points In Time
Along the same lines, there are certain events in time that are so big and important that even Time Travelers can't change them. Some things will always happen a certain way. These are fixed points in time.
We'll start with an obvious trope: going back in time and killing Hitler. Hitler's death is a fixed point. Things during WWII can be altered, lives saved here or there, but the war ends only with Hitler killing himself in that bunker, and any attempt to kill him before that simply fails.
What we encourage instead for stories in game is to make up history that didn't happen and have the heroes stop it so it goes the way it's supposed to. An alien invasion in Shakespeare's England obviously never happened, so imagine everyone's surprise when it almost does.
Rather than breaking history, use your stories to save it.
Rule #3: When A Time Traveler Encounters An Earlier Self, The Earlier Self Forgets
Sometimes Time Time Travelers cross their own timeline, but they are somewhat exempt from the rules above. This doesn't create a paradox, and they can even shake hands without blowing up reality, but there are side-effects. When two versions of the same Time Traveler meet, the younger (as in earlier) one will always forget as soon as they part ways. They cannot remember the meeting and therefore carry no spoilers going forward. Remembering something like that might cause them to act differently after, and that would change their timeline, and well, see above.
Try to keep these things in mind in your stories, and fudge where you have to. It's just a game.
Making A Character - Newbies
In order to make the game as accessible as possible to as many people as possible, we're avoiding any and all Doctor Who material until we get specifically to that section. This means that you can log in, make a character and start playing without ever having seen an episode and without having to read about it. This includes character creation. Those who WANT to play a character grounded in the Whoniverse will want to skip this section.
The first thing you need to decide is if you're playing a Time Traveler or a Companion. Time Travelers have time travel technology and experience using it. Companions don't. As a Companion, you're someone who is along for the ride. Time Travelers start with more AP, higher caps on things, and the aforementioned time travel tech. Companions get less AP and have lower caps on what they can spend it on. For these reasons you can only play one Time Traveler, but many Companions.
Time Traveler Creation
To start, you need to decide WHAT you are – human? Alien? Robot or Android? If human, are you from Earth? Modern day? Some other place or time? Work out who you are, where you came from and when, and how you became a Time Traveler. You can use existing Alien races listed on the wiki or make your own. Original Alien races can be taken from pop culture as long as you aren't playing a canon character.
Time Travel tech comes in many flavors. Sometimes it's a ship, like the Waverider in Legends. Sometimes it's a stationary object, like a Stargate. Sometimes it's an item you carry or wear, like a Vortex Manipulator. Figure out what yours is and how it works. Once you have an idea of who you are and how you get around, you're ready to make your character.
Time Travelers get 60AP with which to make a character. They can spend up 12AP on Attributes and up to 40AP on Action Skills. They get 6 free Background Skill points and 3 free Language Points. They get the Advantage: Time Travel Tech (Basic) for free.
Time Travelers have a cap of TWO Attributes at 4. They may have THREE Action Skills at 5+, TWO at 6+, and only ONE of 7+. There are no caps on Background Skills, Languages, or Advantages.
Companion Creation
As with Time Travelers, you need to work out who you are and where you came from. You don't, however, need to work out any time travel tech, but instead need to determine how you first got dragged off through space and time. If you're coming in with a Crew, you likely have this all worked out. If you're a new player on your own, you might want to see about finding a Crew looking for Companions and put together a scene or story to get picked up. Of course you could also pick a static place to be a local and let it all happen IC! When you decide which track to take, you can make your character.
Companions get 45AP with which to make a character. They can spend up to 10AP on Attributes and up to 30AP on Action Skills. They are Incapable of buying the Action Skill Time Travel. They get 4 free Background Skill points and 3 free Language Points.
Companions have a cap of ONE Attribute at 4. They may have TWO Action Skills at 5+, and ONE at 6. They cannot buy over 6. There are no caps on Background Skills, Languages, or Advantages.
So my life has finally settled enough that I can return to MUing, and I'm actually getting ideas again as the itch returns. HorrorMu took way more out of me than I realized, keeping that much plot going and creating, what, 7 themes in a year? Anyway, I crashed and burned. Hard.
I generally hate CoD, but FUCK I love Promethean. I'm really thinking it would be a nice change after plot-driven HM to do a much more character-driven game, where it's less about danger and action and more about development and exploration of character. The kind of game where you don't get left behind if you miss a week or three.
I'd make the game with the option of being a newly-Created if you have no experience or familiarity with the theme/game, so you could just read a few wiki pages, answer a few questions, and boom - you're a baby Promethean, learning as your character does. They are literally empty vessels, blank slates, so you would need to know zero OOC. Promethean, for the uninitiated, is a game where you are Things That Should Not Be, like Frankenstein's monster. The world and nature rejects your very existence, but you desperately want to be a real person and search for ways to become one. It's all character and pathos and shit.
Is there any interest, though?
I ran an original sci-fi/survival horror game called Cold Space that had a smallish but awesome playerbase. It was probably easier to get into because it wasn't super far-off sci-fi, maybe only 120 years or so in the future, and it was set in our history so there wasn't an entire history to build and civilizations to design. Still, it was never a big game, no.
I'm tryinga Doctor Who game as something different for sci-fi, hoping that between an existing fandom and easy character creation it'll float. Not expecting it to be big, either.
So I'm thinking about trying something I wanted to do a couple years ago but didn't have a good system or structure for, but think I do now.
A series of short-term, limited-run survival horror stories where there's a set beginning and end. A mistake I made the last time I tried this was having everyone make whatever they wanted, which is fine on a long-term, ongoing game but hard to pull off on a short, focused story. This time I'd be treating it like a LARP at a convention, where everyone picks or gets handed a pre-made character to play for the weekend. I would go roster-based, so characters are pre-gens - they'd all have roles in the plot, ties to other characters (good and bad), and come with goals to accomplish. Stories would be anywhere from a few weeks to a couple months, depending on need.
No, it wouldn't be for everyone. People looking for long-term character development, growth and XP building would hate it, I imagine. But it would be a game where you could do minimal reading, pick a character, and get guaranteed plot X many times a week. The finite nature of things means there would be real consequences and risk, anyone could die at any time, and anything could happen. I liken it to the difference between The Walking Dead and Breaking Bad. Regular MU*s are like the former - ongoing, most key characters are safe, the threat and danger feels artificial. This would be like the latter, where no one is safe, there's an end game planned, and how you get there is the thrill of it.
I'd use the modified version of Slasher Flick I'm running now on Welcome to Lovecraft with a few last tweaks. It's great for a game where fighting the evil is a deathwish and surviving is what matters.
Would there be interest? I wouldn't want to make a bunch of characters and story if no one really wants it.
We have two roles in particular I'd REALLY like to get played. They are:
http://horrormu.com/index.php/Scholar1/Eisenreicht
http://horrormu.com/index.php/Explorer2/Chevalier
Their roles have been written, but no gender/PB/first name assigned, so you can do anything with them there. Please give them a look!
