I'm not sure what you mean. Just switching viewpoint characters periodically? Or a PC party where we can say John: Punch Goblin? Or what?

Perhaps he means that there should be one character per player?

>>317998
This. Which is why the PC design would need to be done here.

>>317996
You could make people sign up and design their own characters.

Limiting it to three characters seems kind of odd. What will everyone else do? Ignore it? Read along in case someone dies so they can join in? Be available to give advice to the players?

>>318002
Three CHARACTERISTICS, not CHARACTERS.
Characteristics, stats, ability scores.
Elsewise this could very easily turn into the final showdown of Bill and Ted's Something-or-other Adventure.

As for the number of people playing, yeah it'll need to be limited. Easy answer is to split them up into different groups in different parts of the quest world, probably separated by when they actually play. I'm thinking weekly if it gets to large, though it may end up just being alternating days.

So um... it might be easier to determine characteristics if we know the characters involved as well as the setting.

I'll try though.

Speed
Skill (magic, weapons, map reading, ect)
Durability

Something like that?

>>318014
Fists
Feet
Fuckability

>>318003
Yes I know. I was talking about the "PC designs" part...

If you want a real simple attribute system, you could use Fitness, Agility, and Mind. Fitness is strength, endurance, toughness, etc. Agility is dexterity, coordination, balance, fine motor control, etc. Mind is logic, willpower, and intuition.

Health is determined by Fitness + (.5 * Mind) (or you could use 1/3 * Mind or whatever). Agility determines play order, dodging, accuracy. Mind determines special abilities stuff.


This sounds like it's going to be a lot of work for the one running it. Then again, I suppose all quests are a lot of work for the one running it...

This is kind of like a play-by-post of a traditional rpg. More power to you if you want to try it, but based on previous history I doubt it would get very far. There was something like that a short while ago that was like this and it got like one guy who posted.

How many PCs are we looking at? One for each player is unfeasible.

Reportin' fer duty, sah!

>>318016
I'd like to amend/expand this.
Health: Fitness + Mind/2 (round down)
Initiative: Agility + Mind/2 (round down)

Mind is both Willpower, which determines how much damage you can take and keep going, and Alacrity, which determines mental reaction time and how fast you can adapt to a situation.


A sample system would be to have attributes go from 1 to 10, with 1 being underdeveloped, 5 being human norm, and 10 being superhuman (or pinnacle of humanity). For an average power campaign, give the players 15-18 points to divide amongst the three, and limit initial levels to between 3 and 8. For a higher powered 'fuck yes' campaign, adjust numbers upwards: for a more suspenseful low powered campaign, adjust numbers downwards.

>>318022
I like where you're going with this. I kinda figured that the character knowledge would be freeform and would be controlled by me calling bullshit, but let's go with this.

As for the scale of the actual scores, I'd like to keep it low, like one through ten, or maybe up to twenty.

I believe there should definitely be some things that are automatic success, not requiring rolling, if your score for the appropriate stat his high enough. Something like, if the difficulty is half of your score or less, no testing is required.

>>318042
That sounds about right to me. The simpler the better. What kind of plot and characters might we be seeing exactly?

Alright, so stats are gonna look like:
Fitness: 1-20
Agility: 1-20
Mind: 1-20

Health: Fitness+Mind/2
Initiative: Agility+Mind/2
>>318050
Plot goes as kind of a horror/rescue deal, if I can pull the horror part off. As far as characters, that's something that'd need to be figured out between myself and the people who would be playing them.

Truth be told, I've been waiting for some specific people to show up, but as far as I can tell only one has, and I don't think they stuck around.

That's not to be exclusionary. As long as I think I can handle one more character, one more character will be welcome.

>>318078
Can I please play? Purdy please?


Also if you're going horror genre, Mind would be useful for generating a Sanity sub-attribute. Which, in turn, could be used as a pool for the special abilities you mentioned earlier, if it turns out those abilities are particularly taxing on the user's psyche. Might be more appropriate to the genre than a Mana Points system, but that's your call.

>>318078
Well consider some computer problems that have affected a person or two it might take another week. Also what with the Holidays people might be away.

I'm still shaky about how this is supposed to work. Considering the characters we use are pretty diverse and not always serious. This is what I meant when I said that adding more structure to something freeform might not work. The more we have to think about it the more it won't make sense. It could be easier to just decide on a setting and choose the characters that way.

>>318078
<.<

>>318078
It's funny, I meant to be watching for this, then I forgot. How fun.

So, now that we have basic stats, what would the general setting be? Sci-Fi? Fantasy? Present Day? Or the "all of the above" category, where dwarves can orbitally bombard the paladin battling C'thluhu?

>>318079
Good call. Alright, hit me with a concept. The quest won't be set in any particular world, so to speak. The actual setting will involve an isolated mountain town (and other stuff) with an overlooking fortress themed around baking and cooking, as well as the products thereof.

Because it's isolated we can just make up shit that allows things, within reason.

Basically, give me what you want and we'll find a way to make it work.

>>318097
Steampunk is usually pretty fun. Victorian period, fantastical steam-powered technology, dubious pseudo-scientific/magical pursuits like alchemy and ether. Particularly good for horror stories centered on the idea of science/magic gone too far.

>>318199
Scientist devises a way to look into the Aether.
It looks back.

>>318201
So, basically Cthulhu mythos stuff?

>>318202
That's the easy way out.
Have the entities (Or entity) be understandable, but just an asshole.

>>318202
You can do Lovecraftian without doing C'thulhu. He did a lot of good stuff before he created the C'thulhu mythos. I'd have to look through my ebooks to find some examples, but there are a lot of short stories out there that deal with Things Man Was Not Meant to Know without bringing C'thulhu into it at all.

To clarify, this is most likely going to be a dungeon crawl, if only to see if this sort of thing can work. Hopefully, once we get the hang of it and work out any kinks that come up, we can go into more complex stuff.

Though in all likelihood I'll try to include actual roleplaying when possible.

I'm also thinking about an advancement system. Mostly just that what a character practices, a character improves in. Which would mostly be abstract. And I guess doing cool or in character stuff would garner bonuses as well, to encourage it. I suppose this would include in-fighting where appropriate.

Oh, hey guys... only about... what.. A week late? Sorry...

Fit, Agil, and Mind sounds like a pretty stable system, if you ask me...

Listen, just don't worry about the plot or setting just yet. I'm keeping it fluid until we get some characters for a reason.
>>318290
And pants-less no less. But yes, I think we're all agreed on that matter. Then, special abilities, as well as health and sanity. Other matters will be dealt with abstractly.

I swear, I'm tempted to get into equipment stats, but I know that would just make things way to complicated, especially at this point.

>>318078
I'm still around! It's just I kinda forgot for a while.

Also, the system seems sound, although I've not really the head for this sort of thing.

As for equipment, let's leave that off till we've made sure this even works.

>>318204
Can we at least avoid the needless and bizarre racism?

>>318447
Well, does this site have a dice function?
>>318460
It can be avoided so long as it is not apart of someone's culture. If it is, it would be racist to avoid the racism. Or culturist, I guess.

rolled 15 = 15

---

>>318462
That should answer your dice question.

For another matter, I could probably be arsed to join. I think it would be better to know a setting so we could tailor the characters to it instead of the other way around.

>>318462
I know, I just mean the needless racism that Lovecraft had.

>>318465
You mean we can't have a cat named Mr. Nigger?

>>318462
Just put "roll XdY" in the email field, where X is the number of dice to be rolled, and Y is the number of 'sides' each dice. You can add an amount by attaching "+Z" (no spaces) after Y to represent a flat bonus. I don't know if you can use -Z or not.

The racism in question is referring to Lovecraft's controversial racism towards blacks... but the question is pointless considering that was a matter of author style/taste, and not the genre he created.

>>318285
I'm a bit disturbed that roleplaying is only a possible inclusion at this point... This sort of game without playing a role isn't a story, it's just grinding like in some MMO. As in, mind-numbingly boring.


Also this guy >>318463 is correct, we need to decide a setting first and then create characters that make sense within the setting.

>>318465
Shouldn't be an issue unless someone decides to recite some of his limericks.
>>318463
Thank ye, and alright, let's define the setting a bit better. The actual village in which the quest starts is supposed to pretty isolated, up in the mountains, and out of contact with the rest of the world to such a degree that it is suspiciously like a cliche. Though maybe it would be better to start before that.

As for setting, for a settlement to be that isolated odds are we aren't talking about spaceage stuff, though for plot purposes it should not be high magic, with magic being either mostly unknown, highly difficult to get the very basics of, or maybe some damn good reason why people just don't mess with it (Perils of the Warp!).

I'm thinking something pretty close to modern with some fantasy races as well.
>>318466
Good point, that would suck. I've got at least one part that will be pretty much dominantly roleplaying unless someone decides they want to be Retarded Evil. I'll include another part that is dominantly roleplaying and add in roleplay situations throughout the rest of it. There will still probably be a few parts where roleplay is mostly between the players, something I like to encourage.

Alright, here's the refined setting so far. Tech level is set at the Napoleonic period. I'm not sure if I want to make it "earth" or "earth-like," and I definitely don't want it to be a one-climate planet, like a planet made entirely of deserts, ice, swamps, cities or lava (you get the the reference? I know you do.)

Magic exists, it's just incredibly hard to practice. A spectacular magic user is someone who can cast a fire spell that can do more than light a torch or start a campfire. However it can be used co-operatively, so most spells that are actually useful require a group of people skilled in magic to cast.

Races so far are humans, gnolls, and ogres for certain, and other races will be added to that list as they are suggested.

Before we actually get into the backgrounds of the races, I'd like to settle the whole earth, earthlike, or not bit, and I'd appreciate suggestions because I really can't decide, and it'd help me figure the rest of it out.

>>318613
Forget my name.