At Intervals or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the MMFRPG

...Reboot. Hey again, everyone. First of all, to answer a question Flanker had in the AGOG thread:

If you want to re-use an old character, just go ahead and copy-past the sheet into the new sign-up thread once we put it up. Characters who had to be nerfed the first time around in order to fit with the generally-lower power levels we had originally will probably end up getting some or all of those nerfs removed, though, so your sheet might not end up looking exactly the same as before.

Anyway, since we're going to wait just a bit before putting up the sign-up thread, we'll be happy to answer questions you guys might have about how things are going to be done this time around. Before that, though, I'd like to talk your ear off for a minute to explain a bit about one of the main changes we're going to be implementing for this reboot, and why we decided to change what we did.

Season 3 started out with sort of a metaphorical rug-pulling, what with a setting change that was completely unexpected. Some people told me they really liked it that way, while others were pretty vocally disappointed about the setting we chose. That's why, this time, I don't see why we can't have it both ways. Extremus is still going to be central to the conflict at-hand, and for those of you who were in the first part of Season 3, the major players have still gone mostly unchanged.

However, the party is no longer going to be restricted to Extremus, which is definitely the biggest change we're implementing. While working out how Season 3 was going to go, we still had quite a few G Ms on-staff (as much as we really had a staff). Demo actually pitched the idea of a "caravan" scenario, in which the party would trek across a wasteland, and I really liked that idea, so pretty much from that point on, we went about designing things under the assumption that that was just how it was going to be. The problem we ran into was that, while it sounded really cool in concept, it was extremely difficult to get working in practice.

It made scheduling plots and subplots an absolute nightmare for everyone involved, particularly the players, and it meant that all of a sudden, the group needed to ration food and ammunition and things like that. We found ourselves trying to strike a balance between creating a tense and difficult situation for the party, while still giving the group more than enough to succeed, which was made difficult when we started asking ourselves "Well, okay, but at what point will our horrible death-land basically be tailored specifically to help this exact party succeed?" Contrived conveniences don't make for threatening settings, but a complete lack of resources makes it more difficult to have fun unless all the players involved want that sort of game.

In particular, I wanted to create a harsh-but-fair situation, in which the party would need to think on their feet and really work as a team in order to succeed. I wanted challenging, strategic encounters for the players so that, when they succeeded, they'd feel like they really earned it. I still think that's possible to do, but at the same time, I think the fact that most of you had no idea what to expect got in the way of how much fun a challenging setting can be, particularly considering how striking a contrast that was from Season 2, where the party was literally never in any real danger.

Anyway, to digress, my point is that while I did actually get a decent amount of positive feedback about how Season 3 was run the first time, I also realize that for a lot of people, it wasn't really what they'd signed on for, and I can respect that. That's why I want to be more transparent about what the general setup of the reboot is going to be.

To wrap this up briefly, we've decided there's going to be a year-long time skip between when the party was thrown into Ashur's new City, and the start of the reboot. During that time, the party managed to override Ashur's replacement of their memories, and through a combination of their efforts, a few of them managed to sort of brute-force their way past some of his control over the City. Essentially, while they still need to work in vaguely-covert ways, the original party now controls a lot of the City. They can't do anything major yet, partly because they don't want to alert Ashur that they're still around after a year, but they can pull other people in at random to try and enlist them for the fight, and they can open up portals to transport to worlds which are very close by, which includes Extremus.

Over the course of the previous year, Ashur has been waging a war against the Bloodhounds for control over Extremus and the Conduit, and the Bloodhounds have had to call in reinforcements to compensate, and now the two sides are locked in a stalemate. The player characters are essentially the third side in this conflict, and it's pretty much up to them to break the stalemate, should they choose to, and how they do that is up to everyone involved.

If you've played AGOG, you're already largely familiar with the "mission" format a lot of it involves, and that's how a lot of this will go, since I think that's a really good system. The party will occasionally be sent through a portal to Extremus in order to go on missions, but plots can happen within the City, too, or on a neighboring world. Player-created missions and subplots are heavily encouraged, since while there's still going to be a large central plot, I'd like to try and make up for how difficult it was for everyone, G Ms included, to create anything but plot-central events in the original Season 3. Basically, I want us to just be able to have fun with this, while still creating a good story. That's been my goal since Season 3 started, and now I think we've found a good enough balance to make that doable.

Anyway, enough of that. Let's get some discussions going. It's good to be back, guys.

Introducing the new super-special mechanic, the recap post! At the end of every in-game mission, or otherwise at appropriate intervals, we'll be making recap posts in this thread to let everyone get up to speed/remind themselves what happened most recently. This post exists so that we can have a handy link for anyone who needs a recap.

Recap of Seasons One through Three

Recap of the first two missions

edited 18th Sep '13 3:32:17 AM by KiriAme

See, I actually proposed I joined in as Mabel Pines, but I'm afraid she might end up being useless when compared to some other powerhouses.

Then again, I've also pondered using the Doctor (yeah, I know, so original), or a character from one of the many gaming franchises I'm playing in, like Fallout, Team Fortress and Bioshock, or some eastern franchises I like but haven't used any characters from, like Soul Eater.

But the point I'm trying to get to is: if I joined with Mabel, would she turn into The Load?

Ah, it's good to be back (and I think we may have just broken the record for longest discussion thread title here - already we're breaking new ground )!

I'm excited to see how things will play out from here on in, and furthermore I'm sure that everyone will have a great time. This was a pleasant surprise, to say the least.

Hey, I've also been pondering using someone from Soul Eater.

I've also thought about using the Doctor, but I've just recently become a fan of the show and have still much to learn (although I have watched all the modern seasons and all that).

Its different, so now I hate it.

Nah in all seriousness I am looking forward to this. I kind of like how things are reversed in that now the P Cs are the ones in control of the reality bending city.

You ah tearin' me apaht, Oni.

@ Strat:

Non-combat or very weak characters have certainly been done before, but it typically requires a lot more work on their player's part than a regular character would. Someone like that might eventually end up doing alright, but my first inclination is to say that she'd probably end up not really helping the party much.

So, how about a "story so far" for potential newcomers? Or will that be in signups?

We're working on that right now, actually. We'd rather keep it out of the sign-up thread, since our last sign-up thread was enormous. We'll put it in here and link to it in there, though.

edited 28th Apr '13 4:10:38 PM by DoctorThunder

Hoo boy. I imagine it will be a wall of text to rival the text walls of old.

Cool. It'll be good to see what this legendary RP was all about.

From a cursory look at the character section of Gravity Falls' trope page, I've gotten the imperssion that she's a ten-year-old girl who knows martial arts, so I'm going to answer this question under the assumption that I'm correct about that.

A lot of the RP is character-interaction based, so honestly, I'd recommend picking someone you're going to enjoy playing rather than someone you think can do well in a fight. If you're worried about that, though, we're going to sort of try running multiple missions at once later on, to appeal to the different skill sets certain groups of characters might have.

Honestly, though, the fact that she's ten years old might provide more of a barrier than the fact that she doesn't have magical powers or anything, since, having R Ped as a child character in Season 2 of the MMF, I can tell you that playing a kid alone in a random city on the other side of the multiverse starts to get old after a while.

It's up to you, though.

I stated this before, but in case this becomes like Edge of the Multiverse and everyone and their mother is signing up, I'm gonna apply as the only Movie Wars Megamax Kamen Rider I haven't played yet: Kamen Rider Poseidon.

We're back, baby!

Final boss of season 3, lemon ending, etc.

Really looking forward to this, especially the idea of the party having to keep things on the down-low and act as a covert organisation while at their home base.

For what it's worth, I'm planning on keeping Agatha involved, but she'll most likely be more of an NPC and will mostly stay back at base - having already talked it out with the GMs, she's going to be heavily involved in hacking Ashur's reality-control tech, and maybe acting as a sort of Q character. I'm still not 100% decided on my main character, but I'm considering Lucina ATM.

edited 28th Apr '13 4:40:45 PM by Gaunt88

Various characters I'm considering:

• Wreck It Ralph
• Fix-it-Felix
• Turbo
• Bumblebee
• Arcee
• Smokescreen
• Anti-Mage
• Ax
• Tobias
• Tsavong Lah
• Sari Sumdac

Some of these are dependent on things like allowed power levels and the overall tone of the RP, but it's probable that I'll think of the perfect character to use the day after I sign up.

edited 29th Apr '13 4:47:51 AM by Locoman

While I was one of the biggest complainers of Season 3, I'm not going to complain about this new MMFRPG for not being like Season 1 or 2. I figure if anyone, myself included, wants something like that, they have Edge of the Multiverse to check out. MMFRPG should have a chance to do a new thing and continue on from the Extremus storyline. I'll likely go with a new character, although if Doctor Thunder allows it, I would be willing to bring Rogue back just to finish up her dangling plotline.

edited 28th Apr '13 4:52:26 PM by GameGuruGG

I'm not really decided on a character yet. I've got a few Jojo characters and a Gundam character in mind, but I think I'll wait to decide.

I've already settled on my character. Mostly because I can't think of any other options, but dammit at least I've made a decision.

Oh, hey, if it makes the decision easier for anyone, we're actually planning on tentatively allowing characters with no established personality (so, like, every RPG protagonist) or OCs, as long as they don't break the canon of whatever they're from or anything.

I'm going to be playing the Tactician because I apparently can't resist dem JRP Gs.

Oh, Mabel Pines is more than your normal ten-year old.

This ought to be interesting. I shall await for the story first.

Test post

...Okay, wait, I think I know what's going on here.

...Or maybe not.

edited 28th Apr '13 6:12:58 PM by KiriAme

Apparently the traps guarding my house were insufficient. I have had my door kicked down and was dragged kicking and screaming back into this RP, and now that I'm back I can't leave. I JUST CAN'T QUIT YOU, MMF! I JUST DON'T KNOW HOW!

The incident seems to have been fixed. One of the servers ran out of room or something.