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.
From Monday, October 25th through Sunday, October 31st, HorrorMu* will be running a one-shot event called The Deadman's Party, open to anyone and everyone to come and try the game. Character creation guidelines for this event can be found at https://horrormu.com/forum/10/206. It takes less than 15 minutes to make a character, and you need only know what's in this ad and that post to make one.
Each RL day will be 3 IC hours, starting at 9am on October 31st, 1992. Set at the Eager Beaver lodge in Oregon, a Fraternity (Nu Mu Beta) and Sorority (Zeta Eta Pi) from OSU (go Beavers!) are throwing an epic Halloween event called The Deadman's Party, where everyone dresses up as their favorite dead person (historical or fictional). New player PCs will be Fraternity or Sorority members. This is NOT connected to or based on the HM 1.0 season Slasher! I'm just reusing the convenient setting.
That's it! If you want a week of horror movie fun for Halloween and feel like giving our game a try, you can find us at horrormu.com 4201.
So I'm resurrecting Horror MU, but it won't be in continuity/connected as there's a number of changes this time around.
First off, you aren't Archetypes, but actual people. The between-stories meta is that you're all in a surreal sanitarium as patients with no memory of who you are except for your name and age. You start in the sanitarium and spend your between-seasons time there (season one starts July 19). You're 'in treatment', and the stories/seasons will be some kind of a shared experience. Hallucination? VR? Something else? Find out! Group and individual therapy with the doctors is an actual thing, with staff/writers playing the doctors.
You HAVE an archetype that can be anything you choose, but it's to help us fit you into the stories, not who you actually are. Each season/story you play a version of your Prime self (the sanitarium one) with similar appearance, personality, issues, and so on. Your roles each story are less structured and defined, there's no leadership roles, no factions, no pre-written characters this time, allowing you flexibility and making things more organic IC. For example, someone who made a science-type Prime character can choose to be a science-type each season, or not. If no one makes a science type, an NPC will handle that instead of wedging a PC in each season.
Each season/story is set in a different time and place and features a different horror genre. Stories happen around and to you, and you deal with them however you choose. Your involvement is entirely up to and dependent on you. We help those who need it, sure, but there's not 5 pages of theme and detailed faction lore. Most of the time you're normal people (for the time/setting) that get caught up in Bad Shit. It's more character and survival focused, where HM 1.0 was all plot all the time. We hope it will prevent the, "I missed a week and have no idea what's going on anymore!" issue HM 1.0 had. There are several writers this time, too, so everything isn't on my shoulders to run scenes.
We're using FS3/Ares as the core with some minor house rule tweaks. Your stats are set on your Prime self and carry over into the stories. XP buys raise these stats over time. Some stories (but not all) offer Perks and Quirks you can choose related to that specific story. These go away once you return to the sanitarium.
Yes, it's FS3, but we made combat harsh. Armor is almost non-existent, weapons are whatever you can find, and damage is brutal. NPC monster/killer characters aren't low-level mooks, do get weapons and often armor, and there is no free rally from KO as a 'hero'. Fighting? Is discouraged. You'll likely die. It's intentional, as HM 1.0 was way too soft and forgiving in this area, and 2.0 will not be.
Our first season, It Lies Within, is set in modern day Old Downtown Las Vegas, and starts in two weeks. It will run at least three months, as will every story. You're all struggling, working class people living in apartments in a converted hotel - beyond that, you do you. Early on, something will happen that will result in the building being quarantined. Time will be dilated for every 3 RL days being one IC day, so the season will take place over a month or so IC.
Feel free to ask questions and come look over the wiki at http://horrormu.com. The game's port is 4201.
@tinuviel He's been banned on 3 more accounts, including his own Social Media Director's.
So, our President is currently being that player you ban who keeps changing IPs to log into your game and grief you.
The Last Road Opening Event: Bartertown Week!
We're kicking off the full open of the game with a week-long series of event as the PCs (residents of the Sanctuary) travel to Bartertown to cement a deal between the two. This a a great time to come and give the game a try, and we've put up 10 pre-made Tier 1 characters for just that purpose. Each was created without a specified gender or description so you can personalize them to suit your preferences. You can see a list of them at http://www.lastroadmu.com/roster. The three that have profile icons and are set app-only are not the Tier 1 pregens.
Things kick off Sunday with the convoy trip to Bartertown, starting at 4pm Eastern US. It will be an all-day RP event. More events will run throughout the week.
Come give the game a spin!
Already at 15 approved characters with RP happening daily - so happy with the turnout given the time of year!
Hoping to do an event soon for prospective players to come try out the game. If I have some starting-level (Tier 1) pregens to choose from, would people be interested?
Our first 3 Roster characters are up! On TLR, Roster Tier characters are pre-made parts of the existing story/game world. The Triumvirate that runs the Sanctuary (the starting IC location) are Roster characters. They have pre-written history, leadership duties and are the highest statted characters on the game. They are, however, NPCs in a sense as plot pieces meant to further the game. You can see them here. Interviews are how we cast them, so poke DeLorean (me) on game if interested. For the record, neither I nor Tesla (my SO) play Rosters, though I may emit them in scenes if they are currently without a player as head ST.
The Last Road is a post-apocalyptic dieselpunk game inspired by the Mad Max movies (you'll be fine if you haven't seen them), using Ares MUSH and FS3 as a system and codebase. This is a game of desperate survival, high-octane adventure, cruel piracy and even crueler politics. It is a consent-based game that focuses on PvE and co-operative storytelling, but allows for brutal combat and life-and-death consequences for those who want the risk. We don't just focus on combat and danger, however - the social warfare and politics of the post-apocalypse can be just as treacherous. Throw in plots of mystery and discovery in a wasteland that's buried more than a few secrets and we're hoping there's something for everyone here.
We have different character Tiers for different levels of activity and responsibility (30AP/45AP/60AP), open to everyone. These are not lengthy, heavy-handed apps, and you can can have up to 5 Tier 1 (starting level, 30AP) characters at a time, one in each group. Tier 2 are more experienced (45AP) and are limited to 1 per IC area, which at open is one starting location. Tier 3 are IC leadership roles expected to help foster RP (60AP), and you are limited to 1 on the game at a time. This way everyone can have one 'badass' and a number of more basic power characters.
We're just opening and literally everything and anything is needed, so jump in anywhere. We'll get you going.
If anyone experienced with Ares and FS3 is interested, I'm looking for staff. I have the wiki mostly done and the majority of the grid done, so I'm mostly looking for Admin help with apps, running combat scenes, plots, etc. I had a small but very solid group of staff on HorrorMU that handled all the paperwork and it freed me up to run stories. Looking to do so again.
@bear_necessities I'm very much into the MM idea. Excited, even. As for HM, I'm just not really feeling it anymore as this last year has been crushingly bleak and horror isn't appealing as a result. Messy, chaotic fun is more my current speed.
Who were you on HM? Hope you're well!
Promethean was too obscure and without all the heavy code most WoD games have, wasn't going anywhere. Sooooo...
Mad Max/Post apocalyptic dieselpunk based in Ares/FS3, anyone?
Since I've had one whole player interested in this, I think I'll shelve it. Gonna try something a bit different instead.
@cobaltasaurus I was playing on her game Aconite died. That was so surreal. Sorry to hear this.
@pyrephox The Quickstart, if nothing else, might be worth a shot!
@pyrephox Sure! In Promethean, moving around and the vagabond lifestyle is already a major element, so The Sanctuary jumping is actually more a way to keep it with you as you travel. It doesn't jump weekly or anything, though. Months, even a year or more (IC) can pass before it has to jump.
So all of that is to say that, yeah, the real challenge the game will face is having enough going on in terms of mundane interaction and human encounters. I share that concern, but I want to try, at least. When I ran HorrorMu, I was running some pretty plot-driven, break-neck stories for 2-4 months at a time for a year solid. Here, I'll be running SOME danger/action/mystery plots, but what I see my main job being as head ST is running/emitting humanity for you guys to interact with while everyone settles in. Hopefully at least a few players will jump in and people can take turns playing or emitting humans for each other. Everyone is supposed to chip in IC in some fashion, so pickup scenes can easily be the part time job you work to bring some cash in, or the scrounging for useful items around town, etc. Daily life. It's what HAPPENS during that daily routine that gets the ball rolling, and then incidents get talked about at home with other Created, lessons shared, ideas explored, etc.
TLDR; Yeah. It might not get off the ground, but I'm willing to work my ass off to try.
As mentioned in a below post, ended up shelving this idea as it wasn't going anywhere.
SANCTUARY
sanctuary.aresmush.com
sanctuary.aresmush.com 4201
The air smells like ozone, full of electricity that crackles all around. That electricity flows through you, too, like blood, or perhaps fire. Your first breath fills your lungs in a gasp, your body going rigid as muscles and nerves awaken. The world comes slowly into view, blurry at first, but soon sharp and crisp and bright. You're alive.
You are alive.
Promethean: The Created is a roleplaying game of existential horror, where players take on the roles of creatures that were never meant to be. The monster in Frankenstein is the most well-known example in pop culture. The wooden boy Pinocchio is another. By one means or another, a spark of divine fire has been infused into a corpse (or parts of several!) or some other kind of humanoid construct and unnatural life has been created. Reality rejects these poor creatures, slowly twisting and warping everything around them if they linger too long in one place. Humanity abhors them on a subconscious level, their lizard-brains whispering that something Is Not Right even though most of the Created appear quite normal. Over time, that whisper grows into a scream and humans lash out in extreme and often violent ways without understanding why. The Created can never escape Wasteland and Disquiet, as these two phenomena are known, for very long. What's worse, they come to know that they are not human, but monsters, when human is all they want to be. So they travel to avoid lingering, and they make acquaintances instead of friends, and they seek a way to transcend their unnatural state and join humanity as one of them.
You don't need to own the RPG to play on Sanctuary. In fact, if you're willing to start as almost as much of a clean slate as your character, everything you need to play is right on two wiki pages. Once you've read that, you can answer a few questions and make your character. We're serious. Don't let a lack of experience or knowledge push you away. Give it a read, and if it sounds like fun, give it a try.
Sanctuary is a Promethan: The Created 2nd edition game. It is NOT a Chronicles of Darkness game. Yes, we use the basic rules, but none of the theme/lore/setting. Vampires, Changelings, Mages - you'll find none of it, and any supernatural entities that do come up (if any) will not be from those books. This is a standalone game. The only book we use is the 2nd edition of Promethean, and even that isn't required to play. Because of this, there is no Refinement of Silver/Argentum in this game, and no Spiritism Transmutation.
We are focused on co-operative storytelling first and foremost. Players who feel the urge to stockpile XP and max out their stats will be disappointed. XP is gained monthly at a 5XP per month flat rate. There are no XP incentives or bonuses to chase. We want players who play in and tell stories because they enjoy it, not because they're getting incentives to. Similarly, this is not a competition. PvP is discouraged. We seek players interested in helping each other tell tales of existential horror, tragedy and redemption. There will be plots and NPC antagonists, but action and fighting are far from the focus of this game. Players who want to see more action and adventure are encouraged to run their own stories for anyone interested. Staff are very accommodating to such things as long as power levels and the like are kept within reason.
Most Staff run scenes will be one-shots that involve emitting the human masses your characters move among and interact with. The slice-of-life that makes Promethean what it is. Players are encouraged to do this as well, and playing humans for each other can be a great deal of fun. You can start play as an existing Created or freshly made, complete with a 'Born on the Slab' scene. Existing Created get 15XP on top of their starting points, and details can be found on the Making a Character page under Systems. Newly Created get their 15XP broken up as an extra 5XP a month for the first 3 months. They can redo their stats after a month of play, and every player can respec in March and September.
All character sheets are done in PDF by Staff and posted in a special section on your character's wiki as an image. This image must not be edited or replaced by anyone but Staff - and yes, we can tell. Any tampering will get the character yanked and the player suspended. When XP is gained and spent, Staff will update your sheet for you. Dice are rolled on the game by typing 'dice <#>d10', where <#> is whatever your dice pool is. No, it's not coded chargen and sheet/dice support, but Promethean is a fringe game and doesn't have much MU code or support. Ares has a LOT of great functionality, so this is what we're doing. It's not that hard.
So the game would be centered around a location - a building - that can move as time passes and Wastes build. It reaches a certain point and the building literally moves, often from one city to another, and takes on a new appearance and shape. The alchemy involved makes the average populace just assume it's always been there and ignore it. Within the building, Azoth is masked to outsiders (Pandorans, Centimani, alchemists, etc.), Pyros use is masked and no Wasteland forms. OUTSIDE, however, all is as you'd expect and all bets are off. A cell phone is always kept within the building that all residents can call if they are out when a move happens (there's never any warning) so they can find out where to go. They still have to travel to get 'home', or have someone come get them, but few get truly left behind.
Also, this would a be a Promethean-only game in the strictest sense - Chronicles of Darkness, God Machine, and all other spheres and lore aren't a part of it. The Refinement of Silver is not used/canon. If anything else supernatural is out there, it'll come up IC. Human Alchemists exist and are a known danger, however.
