These games hosted at the Giant In The Playground forums are part Mega Crossover, part MSTing. For one reason or another, a random assortment of characters from fiction have appeared in the world of a series considered to be poorly written (traditionally Twilight or The Inheritance Cycle), frequently with some motivation to kill its main characters. The game ends when all main characters of the work are dead. Sounds like a Hate Fic, except that interactions between Player Characters can make up a significantportionof the plot, to the point where the series being "lynched" is little more than a backdrop.Over time, the "kill allMary Sues" aspects have softened, to the point where some players will attempt to defend the canon characters, and some may be left alive at the end of the game. A game has even been run for The Lord of the Rings (which the players generally hold in high esteem).Originally each game took place in a separate continuity, with no interaction between them. Unless you'reDeadpool.
I can't help the way I am!
Although as of game Twilight III there has been something of a Continuity Creep leading to the games becoming part of a multiverse.The first game is currently being transcribed into a Fan Fic, which can be read here.
Excuse Plot: Over time, the actual effects of the Twilight characters have become more of a catalyst for the resulting action than the cause of the main plotline.
Power Creep, Power Seep: Characters frequently get "upgraded" due to having access to powers from other worlds (eg. Alexander Anderson becoming The Spectre). The canon characters are prone to this in particular, to present a greater challenge.
The game that started it all. Modern day monster hunters from all walks of life descend upon Forks and Volterra in order to combat the Cullen Coven of vampires and their allies. Just what is Edward planning on doing with that old Transelvanian Castle and when all the hunters have backed him into a corner?
All Your Powers Combined: Edward's final plan involves him acquiring Taylor's gift, Hellboy's stone hand, and Alucard's accumulated souls
Oh Crap: Verging on the most triumphant example, when Edward steals Hellboy's hand. Cut to the spirit world, where the just about everyone starts roaring with confusion and anger as their plans collapse.
The floodgates of crossover madness are opened as the endless battle against the Cullens comes to Gotham City. Instrumentality, the emotional spectrum, fallout from the time war and old Gods seeking to reclaim their long lost thrones ensue as the city falls apart in the chaos.
Gambit Pileup: Mr Wednesday had a convoluted plan to steal Edward's popularity and become a god again. Scarecrow wants to backstab him and bathe the city in fear, which Wednesday was counting on because it would make them all kill each other, powering him further, which Edward is also counting on because it would power his ritual Meanwhile, two incarnations of The Doctor have plans of their own, and The Joker bursts in at exactly the wrong moment...
Within London England hides another city called The Nightside. A place where every dream and every nightmare can become a reality. Alice's visions of the previous two worlds lead to them seeking power within this lost world of less than pleasent wonder and magic, unfortunately power comes at a price.
Stuff Blowing Up: Teirm and Dras'Leona are reduced to smouldering craters over the course of the game, in both cases the result of someone taunting Lina Inverse.
After the movie ends the marines are leaving Pandora when some new human players step up to the plate. Can they fare any better than their predicessors or will they fall to the mighty beasts of the Na'vi?
Basin City, the worst of the worst that the multiverse has to offer is the new home to the Cullens. There were no heroes here (until Sanya showed up near the end) only varying shades of monsters, who would notice a few more? Unfortunately this time it isn't Edward making the insane plans to save their asses it is Carlilse and he has a few tricks up his sleave including those not of this world.
Deal with the Devil: Unusually, the devil wins every single time, cleanly and honestly. Sam gets himself run deeper and deeper and deeper into debt, for example.
Death Is Cheap: The Game Master even admitted he didn't want to kill anyone. V, who does stay dead (part of a Thanatos Gambit), is replaced by his successor, and everyone else finds a way to return.
Earn Your Happy Ending: While the tone of the game was very dark, note that by its end, the majority of villainous characters were either neutralized or killed.
Fate Worse than Death: Averted. The fate is death. Just long, drawn out, messy death.
Genius Loci: At one point, Jack Hawksmoor merges with the Archetype of The City.
Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: Lobo shows up twice, then leaves both times after doing very little. Also, Richard initially seems to be one of these.
Hero Killer: Aro is introduced as one of these. Unfortunately he becomes a target of overwhelming firepower. Sanya also killed a huge number of characters.
Indy Ploy: In a departure from his usual use of The Plan Nicodemus is forced to rely more and more on improvisation to achieve his aims, due to a lack of available resources on his part.
The Plan: V pulled off a truly spectacular one against The Authority, killing off almost the entire roster, and if not for circumstances beyond his ability to forsee, he would probably have won. Light attempted one against The Authority, and whether he succeeded or not is really a question.
The End... Or Is It??: Nicodemus was killed, but The Devil promised him another life. And very soon afterwords, the Devil allows Sam his true love back...
Recycled IN SPACE: Kohaku ends up taking care of a serial killer locked in the basement of a mansion, while the residents feed on her blood. Again. Strangely, she was put in this situation by players unaware of the events of Tsukihime.
Wicked Cultured: V, doubling as a Cultured Badass. Carlisle also gives off this vibe, particularly when he has a talk with Kirby about the nature of evil. Nicodemus counts as well.
Wrong Genre Savvy: Nicodemus attempts to invoke Not so Different to a priest by making him doubt his methods and calling him a hypocrite. The priest is named Alexander Anderson.
Edward in his never ending quest not to be horribly slaughtered comes into possesion of a Keyblade and forms an alliance with another desperate keyblade weilder Eragon Brassom and Organization XIII. Conspiracies abound and mysteries that span infinite Earths seek to destroy the players before they learn the truth much less come out victorious.
Darker and Edgier: We made Sin City into a site of hope and fixed the world, giving hardline antiheroes a real shot at redemption, and we made 'Our ship runs on Happy Faces' Kingdom Hearts into a war without end against a terrible enemy that the forces of light are slowly losing, and the heroes are slowly losing faith and giving up, one by one. A Crapsack World and how!
A God I Am: Wednesday, though he gets a pass as to actually being one. Raistlin can't back it up quite so much up against Wednesday, but the rest of the time gets by.
Crisis Crossover: Combines both traditional settings into one game.
The Cullens barely seem to be a threat in the face of the impending apocalypse, unstopable returning Nazi Armies and their demonic allies, new Robin killing serial killer on the loose in Gotham and the spreading Biomass in New York. What is their involvement in this strange series of events?
And a Diet Coke: Overlaps with Crosses the Line Twice when Spider Jerusalem attempts to order his usual diet in a 21st Century supermarket. He insists that his Diet Cokes have actual cocaine in them.
Apocalypse How: Which way do the Nazi's decide to end the world? All of them. At once.
Author Tract: The Major will make grand speeches and sweeping declarations while around him the world burns, even moreso then in the origonal manga. And it is awesome.
Dragon with an Agenda: So Edward invited them to work for him. Yeah, that was going to happen.
For the Evulz: It would almost be easier to list the characters who do have real, human motivations then the ones that don't.
Ghostapo: 666 Super zombies, one thousand vampires and no shortage of other toys to play with, these Nazis are occult as you could wish. Except when they aren't.
Hijacked By Hitler: Honestly, Edward Cullen, unpleasant though he is, was never going to compete with honest to gods Nazis in terms of sheer evil. Particularly these Nazis.
Omnicidal Maniac: Rasputin believes that come the Ogdru Jahad, a paradise will be created out of the ruins of creation. The Major rather hopes that won't happen, and he'll drag the universe into oblivion with him.
Putting on the Reich: Ganon joins the Nazi Party, along with Mercer. Ganon is starting to have second thoughts, however, when he realizes just what he's getting into.
Stupid Jetpack Hitler: Oh yes. If this game is anything to go by, it looks like the Nazis were much more advanced in 1945 then the the human race can ever reasonably expect to be.
Accuse The Witness: When Dracula is put on trial by the Justice League for his crimes, Death acts as his attorney. And claims that she is Dracula's accomplice and must receive the same punishment. Naturally, there are problems with this.
All There in the Manual: Some important revelations, expositions and explanations only occur in the OOC thread, such as explaining how attacks work, or why certain characters are acting in a certain way. For example, Green Arrow's reward for rescuing Black Canary from hell is a silver bowstring. In the OOC thread, its revealed that its unbreakable so long as his love for her remains.
After the End: The characters find themselves on a world that has just been ravaged by nazi's and the legions of hell, with life being reduced to a few fortresses where people only leave during the day to scavenge. It is abandoned towards the end of the game.
Hannibal himself shows them all how it's done, reducing a Green Lantern to the point that he couldn't use his powers then maiming him, just by talking.
Abraham van Hellsing used Soulfire to split Vlad Tepes into two entities, Hellsing!Alucard being his human side and Castlevania!Dracula being his demon side.
The Crimson King is Father. Ironically, at the start of the game Naoki and Minato put him on the path to discovering and taking the over The Dark Tower.
Odin Skyfather is revealed to have been one of the most important Gods from the The Third world, all of whom were wiped out except Thor, and Wednesday is just a memory maintained by belief who wants to be a god again.
Combat Pragmatist: Everybody seems to be one, fighting dirty and doing whatever it takes to win, including ganging up and kicking them when they are down. Even people you'd never expect it from.
Continuity Cavalcade: Every character to appear in a previous game has at least made a cameo. Getting close to Continuity Porn, as plots from completed games are picked up here as well.
Cosmic Retcon: Explicately one of the powers of the Crimson King, to the point where his minions keep on coming back to life after he alters what happens.
The End... Or Is It??: Odin and Darkseid are Dead, but in the God business it's not the death that matters, but the opportunity for resurrection, and Wednesday orchestrated his own to unite with the rest of himself and become Odin Skyfather again, which seems to have succeeded. And in the last post, Randall Flagg wakes up in a random beach in a random world, and gets back to work.
Even Dream can't quite compete with God, but he curses Scott Pilgrim to never sleep again after being questioned.
Gambit Roulette: Flagg's plan. Though it wasn't a plan, so much as going with the flow.
Odin knew everything. Your scheme? He was on to it from the start. Your accomplices? He was the one who let your letters get to them. That time you stubbed your toe? He was watching!
Though what he actually pulled off was a Thanatos Gambit, letting the Green Lanterns kill him the propper way so as to reform as he who he was. Still well played, however.
Godzilla Threshold: Pretty much the point of the game. Things are so bad, anything is a viable strategy. Some of the things that are come up with in response to this...
Morbius reanimated the the formerly zombied Unit-02 as a Frankstein monster powered by Hellboy's stone fist and Excalibur to fight Cthulu and Godzilla.
And win. Turns out the King of Monsters was the least of their problems.
In fact, Darkseid getting the Anti-Life Equation was a subplot. A minor subplot.
Heroic Sacrifice: Ash takes a bullet for Michael that allows him to finally kill The Saint. Deadboy takes one for Taylor, and Roland shoots out the Saint's eye that messes up his perception and allows both these gambits to work. And Dante cutting out his own Heart to stop the Judge living again.
Hero Killer: Saint of Killers mows people down like it's the easiest thing in the world. Nicodemus is a close second, because he has to work harder.
Let's Fight Like Gentlemen: Played bizarrely straight with Elric, who gets furious at people for interrupting his fair and honorable duels. Then proceeds to beat Nicodemus in that manner.
Like a Badass out of Hell: Averted. So Spiderman and Green Arrow decide to take matters into their own hands and rescue their girlfriends, using the potion used in Romeo and Juliet. It worked.
Ret Gone: The Crimson King uses this power a few times. It rarely sticks.
The opposite is also true. Magog appeared out of nowhere and was considered part of the Authority, despite there being no mention of him before.
Super Weight: Most of the characters in this game are high on the scale, if they don't outright break it.
Except the ones that are not. These make it up by being badass.
Surrounded by Idiots: Lord Zedd. His senior tecnician is Jar Jar Binks. His infiltrator is Invader Zim. And his main general? Nappa. Most of his other servants are not much better, or more effective. The very fact he mannages to be a threat at all says something about his power.
Shrouded in Myth: John Taylor attempts to weaponize this, and Stephanie Meyer has no idea what to make of him, so she tries to do everything.* Story Breaker Teamup: Not quite "teamup", but the Animorphs end up in proximity to Godzilla...
It was retconned into Mephisto being afraid of their child (which was destined to kill him), and so arranging things so it was never born.
Terraform: Getter Emperor transforms Apokolips into a lush paradise in a matter of minutes. Apokolips. Darkseid was not pleased.
The Dog Was the Mastermind: We learn that the Cullens attacking countless worlds was all orchestrated by one being creating them for the purpose of seeking power and destabilizing the universe. We learn it was all a huge gambit to tear apart reality at it's fundamental point and watch all creation, all possible worlds burn around it. We learn of a Eldritch Abomination specifically birthed to bring this about, and arranged to be in the position where it can end all reality. And the man behind it all? Charlie Swann, a man of many handles, partner, who prefers to be called Randall Flagg. Yeah, Mind Screw.
The Older Immortal: The Kurgan to Nicodemus. Played with, as Nicodemus is a man of wealth and taste, the Kurgan is a primitive brute.
The Worf Effect: Thanos went down very easily, the first time at least. When he comes back he manages to recover.
Wolverine later shows up for no reason but to show everyone how it's done.
Elric. Oh Gods Elric. Nicodemus beat him in the climactic duel, despite the fact that he doesn't even qualify as a speedbump given the sort of things the White Wolf routinely kills.
As does the Stig, who blows up Chicago to make sure The Host doesn't spread, even though most of the people within aren't possessed yet.
Thanos of all people calls out Hayato, saying that the Getter Force is as big an abomination as anything it fights, it doesn't give a damn about anything but it's own self interest and egoism, he and his entire groups are all total hypocrite and that at least he doesn't go around telling people being made part of death is for their own good. He still ends up helping them, but it was nice to see.
World of Badass: Thanks to all the settings involved, this is unavoidable.
A Gaiden Game started when the DM for Twilight VII was away for a week. Instead of trying to be serious and dramatic the game was designed for pure silly fun. The secret Government Organization BUCKLER has drugged and kidnapped a group of unlikely heroes and dropped them on the Vampyr Castle-Mech that is actively destroying Australia.
The White Council fell during the Tower War, and in it's stead Molly Carpender took up the Blackstaff and rose to power. Uniting the Knights of the Cross, the remnants of the White Council and conquering most of the world she brought forth a new age of magic and science. The Age of the Britannian Empire. Of course her reign is tainted by the emerging superpowers of other magical nations and the increase in technology elevating the common man to the same level as the average wizard. What could she be planning with that little burnt book with a picture of pale hands clasping an apple and what will the world do to stop her?
DC Universe: Bruce Wayne, Damian Wayne, Conmissioner Barbara Gordon, Oracle (the Virtual Ghost of Oracle from Sanity's Requiem)
Dresden Files: Empress Blackstaff (Molly Carpender), Susan Rodriguez, Martin, Carlos Ramirez, Fallen Rangers (Denarians), Sidhe Courts, Red King Arianna
The White Council was destroyed at the end of The Dark Tower, leading Molly Carpender after Harry Dresden and Ebenezzer McCoy's death takes up the Blackstaff, Winter Mantle and Lasciel's Denarian. With this power she reunites the remnants of the White Council as the Holy Britannian Empire. From there she took the other Denarian Coins and used them with tech from the ruins of Angel Grove to created the demonic Sentai team the Fallen Rangers as elite guard.
Crapsack World: In order to justify the psychosis of several characters, the problems with the world are highly made plain. Everyone is ruled by Toltalitarian states who only mannage to survive thanks to mutually assured destruction, and we're using resources at such a rate that in three generations there will be nothing left.
Crazy-Prepared: Spider Jeruselum carries around enough useless stuff to drive of real profesionals or survive anything (all the poor devils had was real guns and bullets).
Doomed Moral Victor: Klaus Von Wulfenbach and Richard Seaton, surprisingly. Averted by V, who says This Is Just The Begining and decides to apply it on a multiversal level now, and Lelouch, who vanishes into Nightside with Shirley and swears to kill his father.
For Want of a Nail / What If?: The versions of Dresden Files and Code Geass canon employed for this game are basically "What If Thomas was the chosen sacrfice for the Bloodline cure in Changes?" and "What if Lelouch joked about telling Euphimia to make out withCornelia instead of killing Japanese?" respectively.
Order Versus Chaos: Becomes a major theme, with every character forced against their will to one extreme or the other.
One-Man Army: V is an inversion of this, in that he could be, but never does, prefering to work from the shadows. However, he can kill men by the dozen without effort when called apon to do so.
Schizo Tech: Most of the stuff the Sparks come up with.
Stable Time Loop: Several characters are sent back in time to star in earlier games.
The Souless: Loosing his identity and all his emotions, and thus his ego as well, and then going mad really made him far mored dangerous then he ever was before.
Oddly Small Organization: V's group of terrorists who are holding every government in the world at gunpoint consists of Spider Jeruselum (whom is more of an independent contractor) and three women, which only two of have any affect whatsoever.
The Unfettered: V. He'll sell his soul, torture his son, manipulate the woman he proports to love, and do whatever it takes to reach his objective, even when the entire point of reaching said objective no longer has any meaning, he won't even slow down.
Twist Ending: Something of a subversion of the expected conclusion, to say the least.
By far the strangest game in the Lynching-verse. This game took three D Ms with three very different visions and levels of knowledge of the various source material to come together into one outstanding train wreck of a game. With the rotating themes of Badass Normal folks caught in a conspiracy, Sequels and I dunno whatever the Hell you want, let's end this game and move on already this game was surely a sight to be seen but will never be mentioned again.
For strange and somewhat contradictory definitions of Badass and Normal.
Mole In Charge: Nick Fury, Ultimates version, has apparently put a large portion of this together to cover up his more-then-shady dealings with the Cullens.
Odd Friendship: Dare Devil's a blind lawyer brought up in Hells Kitchen, with a strong sense of morality and a string of psychotic and dead girlfriends! Green Arrow's a billionaire playboy from a destroyed world who dresses up like Robin Hood and shoots arrows! They Fight Crime!
Not to mention rode in on a motorcycle, shirtless, while firing two guns.
The Hunter: Baby Bonnie Hood, Cassie Hack and John Chesse all have this to a certain degree when facing monsters.
Too Soon: Due to lead time between planning and play the fact that Japan has been reduced to inhabitable rubble by natural disasters in this game seems a bit insensetive so soon after the Tsunami and Earthquake.
The Federation: The Trope Namer but merged with the trope namer of it's opposite number The Empire and The Alliance. They have more than their fair share of corruption but ultimently do make the galaxy a safe place for member worlds.
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