"If there's one thing I can say about the MERP 3, it's that in all my time GMing, totalling about 2 years and about 6 Roleplays discounting this one, most bare successes or failures, this is the ONLY ONE where I can GM it and never stop having fun, whether it be Roleplaying, anticipating, planning... for all the faults the GMs have felt this series has had and time spent correcting those faults, I don't think anyone can deny that MERP 3 has never stopped getting one thing right: never discarding the spirit of fun this series has undoubtedly had from the very beginning."
—Infinite Paragon, voicing his praise to the Mass Effect RP 3 Skype Chat on what he feels about the current RP and the relative series as a whole.
The TV Tropes Mass Effect RP, in its latest form is a ship surrounding the crew of the PMC vessels Ozymandias and Hamurrabi, going around the galaxy for their next paycheck and somehow managing to attract the weirdest of everything as they go. The crew themselves are a strange mix of witty, deadly, funny, romantic, psychotic and a juggling NPC hanar. Enjoy.
The three threads can be found here
, here, and here.
Tropes Demonstrated
- Affably Psychopathic: Thresh has this going on, especially in a fight.
- Badass Boast
- Thresh says one as the crew runs from a battle:
Thresh: "I could say that your world will run purple with blood when I return, but I'm scared that the world purple may subtract from the horror that you have every right to feel. Congratulations on scaring a Krogan. Your reward? I'm going to be blunt with you. A brief reprieve from the ocean of doublespeak that your kind drowns in. I'm going to kill most of you. If not with this crew, if not in their fragile lifetimes, on my own terms. Take some pride in the fact that your worthy of my attention, then find a god. Perhaps, If she answers, your bone and sinew will give away quickly to my gentle grip, hopefully before your prayer is done."- Joe tries to make one, but gets... distracted:
Joe: "Who are we? Lady, when you're up to no good in the middle of the night, and you hear a Carnifex charging up, that's us. When you foolishly think your files are encrypted so tightly that it would take the Geth a year to crack, only to have them stolen out from under you, that's us. When you're eating breakfast at a cafe in Paris, waiting for your contact, only to see a laser sight on your coffee, that's- DAMMIT!, I left my thermos on the Ozzy. I hope the coffee doesn't stain it by the time we meet back up with them. It was my special-edition Blasto 5 thermos, too." - Badass Crew
- Battle Couple: Subverted with Kate and Jordan, their positions prevent them from fighting side-by-side as such; She's a sniper and he's normally on point.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: A few characters start itching to move out on Dano's mission. As he is explaining that there is about three hours until the raid, the front door explodes.
- Big Damn Heroes: The crew at one point made a rather... explosive last-minute entrance to save Una from an Asari Crime Boss who turned out to be a bit too much to handle for her.
- "Blackmail" Is Such an Ugly Word: Uttered word for word by corrupt C-Sec Detective Karis, when trying to manipulate Deimos to do his bidding. It made the crew a little pissed off.
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Almost all of the crew has issues - See Only Sane Man below -, but are still very competent.
- Burial in Space: How the two Red Shirts are buried.
- Catfight:A lot of the crew started betting on one between Una and Kate. Said fight ended up taking place a day later and getting very violent.
- Captain's Log: Captain Jeko does this sometimes.
- Captain Oblivious:
- Aiden and Marik having a discussion about tits... whilst there is a firefight raging on outdoors.
- An angry krogan and an elcor bouncer were brawling in a dance club. Jordan walks right up to the bar and orders a drink without even noticing them.
- Call-Back: Early on, Amy finds herself in the Med-Bay after getting shot in a raid on Tuchanka. As soon as she is able, she leaves the Med-Bay, in part because of her memory of who had also been in that Med-Bay and why unsettling her alot.
- Child Soldiers: Used by a biotic cult.
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Happened with Ravenor Tarek. His player quit the RP without writing him out, so Tarek went on a mission with his strike team and was never seen, heard of, or talked about again.
- He was later Hand Waved out.
- Cluster F-Bomb: Deimos, who normally utters only mild curses, drops one of these when an actual bomb goes off outside the Bloody Spoon.Deimos:Fuck, fuck, fuck fuck fuck!
- Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Although not a moron, Lucas seemed like a decidedly Non-Action Guy-type of person, before developingnote almost unnervingly keen combat talents.
- Deadpan Snarker: Jordan, often.
- Though pretty much the whole crew at least lapses into this at some point or another.
- Did Not Do the Bloody Research: Kate often says 'arse' pronounced as such. Problem being that 'arse' is a British term.
- False Flag Operation: When Kate buys Una a replacement amp for the one she broke, she signs Jeko's name to it.
- Freudian Excuse: Dru's father has one to explain his actions on Noveria.
- The Gambling Addict: Deimos, at the less extreme end. He is a fan of the poker game Skyllian Five. Later becomes a case of Characterization Marches On, as he is never seen talking about or playing the game after the early pages.
- Amy is noted to be one as well, although the extent of her addiction has not shown itself to be any more extreme than the other members of the crew.
- Godwin's Law: Gratefully averted, what with the count of two German characters and one of whom being incredibly racist.
- Gratuitous German:
- Hair-Trigger Temper: Kate, but she's perfectly calm until she's been pissed off.
- Hated by All: Danari has been held at Omniblade point by Lucas, received a bioticly assisted punch in the face from Kate, was chewed out by Una, called a fool by Jeko, and his existance didn't even register with the Quarian.
- Although Jeko did give him a silent gesture of approval when he blackmailed the corrupt C-sec officer, Karis, to bring Jeko an ambulance in exchange for them keeping his previous entrapment of the crew silent.
- Head-Tiltingly Kinky: Una's reaction to finding... ehm... "Fanart" of Archangel.
- I Call It "Vera":
- In a throwback to history, Jordan names his rigged Vindicator rifle "The Bitch."
- He rigs a Shuriken and names it "Calamity Jane."
- Danari has a Stinger VI named "Maria."
- Lucas owned a Widow named "Isabella." See
Word of God below. - In MERP 3, Kardan has a modified Terminator he calls "Akelah"; apparently, he named it after a stripper.
- Large Ham: "Looks like it'll be another field test for MAD SCIENTIST JORDAN! MUAHAHAHAHA!"
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: Lucas suffers from this due to the failed assassination attempt that forced him to assume a new identity and have his memories erased.
- Law of Inverse Fertility: The one time Captain Jeko, a salarian who has little sex drive, shows any interest at all in sex, he gets an asari pregnant.
- Leeroy Jenkins:
- "Dano had already run off to fight the enemy himself."
- Danari quotes the legendary quote: See Moment Killer below.
- Lethal Chef: Deimos manages to blow up the flash cooker, a feat that he accomplishes about once a week.
- Love Triangle: Marik and Deimos are both infatuated with Una, who is currently oblivious.
- Macross Missile Massacre: Well, Macross Throw Massacre. Una's loyalty power sends a cloud of smaller biotic throws at one single, very unlucky, enemy.
- Mauve Shirt: Kate has her sniper team of NPCs that mean a lot to her. It isn't too much to assume this would have been Tarek's strike team, also.
- The Medic:
- Aiden and Marik.
- MERP 3 newcomer Dana will also be taking this role but is explicitly just a field medic.
- To a lesser degree, Danari as well
- Moment Killer:
- When Kate walks in on Jeko and Enosa in bed.
- Also, when Danari interrupts a moment of personal mourning screaming Leeroy Jenkins.
- Mood Whiplash: The proven result of going from the shipping webs, mental straight lines and other assorted memes of the OOC discussion to the RP, which is decidedly not lighthearted.
- Noodle Implements: Lucas; "Round up Engineer Morano, Sergeant Braxis, as many concussive grenades and concussive rounds as you can carry, the mass effect field restraints from the Mako and a lot of firepower."
- No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup: Dru specifically set out to avert this when planning to destroy his father's research.
- Not What It Looks Like: When Danari walks in on Kate "keeping Jordan company", as she put it.
- Although in this case it actually isn't, although Kate's choice of words doesn't really help.
Kate: This is not what it looks like! What does it look like? - Oh, Crap!: Two sick quarian's separate reactions to seeing a salarian enter the room.Malon: Being a living lab experiment was bad enough, but Malon knew from the vids that as soon as a salarian gets involved, everything gets worse.
- Only Sane Man: Aiden. "Am I the only person here who doesn't have some sort of long standing psychological, or personal issue?"
- Parental Abandonment: Happened to Kate. The truth about that? Remember the facility on Pragia that Jack went through? They gave her up to that place willingly without being coerced.
- Pillow Pistol: Kardan does this.
- Planning with Props: Deimos uses a knife and two thermal clips to try to plan out an attack on a warehouse.
- Pleasure Planet: The crew ended up doing a job on Elysium, a vacation planet. Unsurprisingly, it wasn't without unsavory elements.
- Private Military Contractors: What the crew is.
- Real Life Writes the Plot: Jordan's birthday coincides with his player's birthday.
- Red Shirt: Two of them die in an attack on the Ozymandias. They only get names once they're dead.
- Remember the New Guy?: Happens with characters who join midway without a stopover on a planet imminent. Can be more justified on a ship.
- This approach is now planning to be used as a last resort in MERP 3. See Word of God below.
- This approach is now planning to be used as a last resort in MERP 3. See
- Rules Lawyer: Danari pulls this off marvellously when Karis attempts to leave without getting the wounded Jeko medical attention (And his player included a video with Phoenix Wright music).Karis:If a word of this gets out to anyone, anyone, he can kiss his freedom goodbye.
Danari:Guess again, buddy. Word of this gets out, you can kiss your freedom goodbye. See, we can't be prosecuted for any of this because you commited entrapment. Since you orchestrated all of this, and led us into buying weapons we wouldn't have bought without your little plot, we're off the hook, but you are potentially facing criminal charges. - Running Gag: In the discussion forum, the concept of Una x Jeko.
- Self-Made Orphan: Kate. She never knew at the time she was killing her own parents.
- Shout-Out:
- Private Pyle is killed by asari commandos.
- Kate appears to have the Shepard VI installed on her omni-tool
- "Out of all the Red Shirts I knew, they were the most red."
- "Una didn't know anything about turtles, but Rano could probably tell her all about them if she bothered to ask, especially those who practiced Ninjitsu"
- "Oh, look, Cap's been following us, as close as a shadow... and twice as silent."
- Jake, perhaps the most evil, if not most sadistic member listens to Beethovens 9th
- The krogan infomercial on Tuchanka
Krogan: Jurdon Gaze here with another great product! I don't always feel like decapitating things, but when I do I prefer the OmniSaw9000.- Joe calling his Omnitool a "holo-screwdriver"
- An asari-run restaurant on the Citadel is called Warmaiden's.
- A drell "dancer" at the casino on the Citadel—which the crew visits—is named Karliah, a name she shares with a master thief from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. This Shout-Out, however, was not intentional.
- Joe thinks that the Ozzy is named after a character from "classical American literature".
- Shower of Awkward
- Shut Up, Hannibal!: As shown in Lucas's loyalty mission, the crew isn't too fond of winding Motive Rants by villains.
- The Snark Knight: Una, although signs show she might improve.
- Spit Take: Kate has one at the Bloody Spoon when finding out the news she's going to be promoted to Captain.
- Danari also has one when he finds out that he's going to need to leave the ship sooner than expected... also because Kate is going to be the captain.
- Status Quo Is God: Danari and Kate have an antagonistic relationship, and despite joining the mission to save her, that hasn't really gone away. They worked together well at that point, and upon visiting the citadel, it became apparent Kate would still not take any jokes from Danari. They worked together during Deimos's loyalty mission... and later on, she trolled him during a poker game.
- Averted with Jeko and Kate; Jeko is going to die within weeks, at which time Kate will become the new captain. Kate has told the anonymous room she wants to make amends with Jeko.
- Stepford Smiler: Jake seems to be this, although it is unclear what type.
- Stuff Blowing Up: The whole of Deimos's loyalty mission. Hollywood Science abound on how these explosions work.
- Talking the Monster to Death: The team tried this tactic against Maria Carver.
- Team Chef: Marik, officially.
- Although, Jake is putting his job under threat.
- Token Evil Teammate: Jake seems to be heading towards this, when he walked into Karis's house and threatened him with his wife as a hostage.
- Troll: Joe seems to have made a hobby out of feeding Dru selective misinformation on human customs and biology. Dru eventually got him back, though.
- Tyke-Bomb: Lucas was raised from childhood to kill.
- Similarily Jake who was raised by his Drill Sergeant Nasty of a father to become a soldier.
- Understatement: All the time. And that's an understatement in and of itself.
- Unflinching Walk: The crew tried this at one point, but failed hilariously.
- Unstoppable Rage: Kate, often.
- Utopia Justifies the Means: Sekoi'Peroh's opinion regarding his own experiments
- Virtual Training Simulation: There is one aboard the Ozymandias, complete with a high-score board.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: There are only two things which scare Karas: Elevators and geth. Guess what show up within days of each other?
- Why Won't You Die?: expressed by Jordan in a fight against a boarding party of seemingly never-ending mercs.
- Will They or Won't They?
- Wouldn't Hurt a Child: The crew goes out of their way to avoid killing the child soldiers of the biotic cult.
- Word of God: Although Lucas' Widow, named "Isabella" - See I Call It "Vera" above - was simply a name, considering the nature of Lucas' player, it was turned into a pun at some point.
- Said pun, however, was never used.
- While Remember the New Guy? was a valid method of entry in MERP 2, it is not being used in the third installment of the series.
