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Onime's POV and Ideas
Topic Started: June 28, 2015, 11:27 am (264 Views)
Onime No Ryu
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I'll be your Undertaker this evening
the actual pov part of this might come at a later date

for right now i'm just gonna discuss some of the ideas of my rps in their entirety, for the following reasons:

Whenever I make RPs I either can't keep the hype going or I lose interest myself or, as has recently happened with this new job, shit comes up in life. Basically, I have never had an RP finish. They all die. And recently, they die quick. Way too quick. Since I've already acknowledged a long time ago that I enjoy being a player more than an admin, and since I have so little time to actually do shit now, I figured "Why not throw my ideas out here for anyone who wants to look at them and take them on for themselves?"

So, anything in this topic you see that you like, that you would want to play, or that you think could make for some good inspiration or whatever, you go ahead and take it. These ideas were intended for Role Playing, and I want someone to get some use out of them.

At some point I'll add the POV stuff to the top of this post. RP ideas will be in subsequent posts. Lemme write em out and the first one should be up soon.

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Onime No Ryu
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I'll be your Undertaker this evening
Base: Capcom's Monster Hunter franchise

Type: Mission-based, Uses Stats

Idea: I really like Monster Hunter and a couple of times the idea for an RP based on it has come up. Kaze did one once that didn't really work out, I was in one on the Guild that never got off the ground, and in general it seems kind of difficult to do one because it's not a real story heavy game. If you wanted to do this, you'd either need to come up with some kind of compelling story, or you'd need to have a playerbase that was more focused on character interaction and progression via social experience, interspersed with combat between the players and the monsters.

Part of the reason Monster Hunter is so fun for me and others is because of the Stat progression, but you don't get it just by leveling up. In Monster Hunter you use the parts of the creatures you hunt to make better gear. At first you might only have a spear made out of a shard of sharp rock and a stick tied together with vines. Use it to kill a big stupid ankylosaurus looking thing, and now you can use its femur and a spike from its tail to make a stronger spear of bone and use the shell to make some armored plates. Other than that, it'd be pretty much the same principle behind Sin's RPs that use rising numbers as extra motivation for players, only as if it were focused on gathering materials to bring to the Sasaki Blacksmiths rather than just killing the baddies to level up.

Possible Storylines:
+ Players are part of a group of pioneers settling a new land. Low level gathering and small-monster missions could be justified by the group needing to gather materials to build their houses, secure resources, and other such things. Perhaps the land they've settled, however, is the territory of a particularly dangerous monster, and the Hunters must improve their skills and find material for weapons that can defeat this enemy by going after other monsters.

+ Maybe some force appears that can control the monsters, and decides to marshall them into an army the likes of which the world has never seen. Who could do this, and why? Is it some form of darwinist who believes that the monsters should survive over humanity, or an environmentalist who believes that the Hunter's Guild is disrupting the natural order and putting these "beautiful creatures" in danger? Is it a more intelligent, perhaps even a sentient, monster? Against such a foe, Hunters would have to change their strategies and deal with a new threat.

+ I wanna be the very best, like no one ever was: Players simply compete to be the best hunter they can, forming bonds with others along the way and dealing with their personal issues, dreams, and flaws over the course of story arcs where different events and hunting campaigns force them to interact with others or make difficult choices. The Hunting takes backseat to the character interaction, or else the Monsters are used as metaphors for characters dealing with certain fears, flaws, or obstacles in their life.
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Onime No Ryu
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I'll be your Undertaker this evening
Base: Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda franchise

Type: Free-roam Storytelling, Ability/Item based

Sidestory: Fuckin' Zelda RPs. Newer folks and EoA natives might not know, but the Exile community has a long, looooong history with Zelda RPs. We're talking literally a decade, maybe even a decade and a half by now. The Exile Community got its start with Black Omnimon's (now known as Arcvalons) Chronicles of Hyrule way back on Gamefaqs, and after the mods deleted it from the forums and our private board wasn't enough for us, we moved to zetaboard forums and thus began a long and arduous history. I've seriously considered writing a book about it because it's fucking amazing, in both a serious and facetious way, how much drama and personal experience has come from this community where no one has ever actually physically met each other.

But basically, for a long time, Zelda RPs were what we did, all we knew how to do. It took a long, long time for more original RPs to become the norm. Every once in a while we bring them back, for whatever reason--a recruiting drive, a stroll down memory lane, whatever. This is one of those ideas I had on those full-circle occasions.

Idea: The setting of Zelda is a familiar one to those of us who grew up with it; though it changes with every iteration, the Land of Hyrule is at the same time eternal. Death Mountain, Zora River, Lake Hylia, the Lost Woods...time and time again we find ourselves drawn to these places. Whenever we make an RP about it, though, we're not only immersing ourselves in this world, we're displacing parts of it too, and adding our own. Sometimes that's cool and sometimes it seems to be detrimental. We run the risk of making it "not Zelda," but other times when we stick too closely to the formula of the games it just doesn't work in RP format. My attempts especially always have me trying to conserve the feel of the games and then nobody likes them because people hate puzzles or don't want to have to explore or whatever. So whenever you do something like this you gotta keep it balanced.

My recommendation would be to create a Zelda that's completely off the timeline--we've tried in the past to make things fit between certain games, or make them direct sequels to certain games, or whatever. That could still be possible in some instances but it seems to me the best way to keep the Zelda flavor but also give us the kind of freedom we want in the structure of its world is to make something that's like, way before, way after, or way off to the side of the official timelines. Then just place all the typical Hyrule Tourist Locations in a manner that makes sense and come up with your stories.

Possible Storylines:
+ Original Flavor - A simple fantasy adventure story where a group of unlikely heroes must save a princess, defeat the dark lord, and journey to all corners of the land on an epic quest. This formula is so tried and true and, at its bare bones state, flexible enough to fit almost anywhere even in a more complex narrative. Do you save Zelda at the beginning, and have her lead the Heroes as an advisor, a figure that represents the side of good, or is saving the princess the end goal that can only be accomplished after all other obstacles have been surpassed? By subverting this and making Zelda the villain, whether through the means of possession/manipulation or through outright changing her typical character, you don't really get a different story, just a different kind of dark lord--thus it stands to reason that the "princess" of the narrative has to be replaced or changed too. Or not I guess. Like I said, this is very flexible. It's why it's probably the most common of the Zelda RP plotlines--Ganon, BO's Mad King, my New Gerudo King, whatever. Dark Lords. Heroes. Princesses. Exploration. Magic. Battles.

+ The Untold Story - In the past our RPs always have us taking the place of the real Hero. Link's not around, whether intentionally or because of sheer coincidence, and the player characters, the RPers, take his place. We end up fighting Ganon ourselves, or whoever the villain happens to be, without the aid of the actual Hero and usually without his Master Sword, the Blade of Evil's Bane, or many other aspects that are central to the series. This is because we don't want to offend anybody or make one person seem more special than the others--we all want to share the spotlight and be heroes, and naming somebody The Official Not-Link would undermine that. But what if Link WAS there? What if the RP's events were the "Side Story" to the actual Narrative? After all, Link's not always alone in his quest. There are many who help him along the way, and others who are affected by his actions. What if the story of the RP was focused around those kinds of people, while the conflict of Link and Ganon/Vaati/whoever is the greater background story?

Or maybe Link is just the leader of the RPers, their Guide Character, the Jeigan unit? Or maybe Link is still the Main Character--he just ALSO has a cast of other characters with him. Think of stories like One Piece, Fairy Tail, Power Rangers, whatever--stories where Teamwork, Friendship, and things like that are important. There is a Main Character, but there is also a Main Cast. Having someone play Link in this manner, whether an admin or a chosen player, might be a little different from what we're used to, but maybe that's just the way to freshen up this kind of RP that, to many of us, has grown irrevocably stale.

+The Scattered Pieces - In my Legacy of Courage RP from way back when, I built on the idea presented in the backstory of Wind Waker. The Hero of Time left Hyrule, and his symbol, the Triforce of Courage, was broken into many pieces and left behind, possibly because it was representative of Hyrule, its Goddesses, and so forth, and when he left for other lands he could not bring it out of its place of origin. When Ganon appeared, and there was no Hero to combat him, the Goddesses flooded the land to seal him beneath the waves. Legacy of Courage was meant to be the story of a conflict before the flood, where the pieces of the Triforce of Courage would have found numerous suitable hosts--no one of them as capable as Link on his own, but by gathering together they could carry on his legacy, and stave off the darkness long enough for the people to escape the torrential rains.

To build on this, I thought about Skyward Sword. I've never played it but I know the general outcome. To avoid spoilers, let's just say what people have already known/suspected about the Zelda series for a long time: the roles of Dark Lord, Hero, and Princess are continually recycled throughout the ages, leading to each incarnation having their own adventures over the course of all the different games. But what if, over so many eons, so many ages of history, the bonds between each of these began to fade? The Dark Lord's hatred, everlasting, forces him to chase the Princess to get his revenge, and his desires. The Hero is called forth to protect her, and to defeat the Dark Lord. But how long can a Dark Lord's hate last? How long until he tires of being defeated, time and time again? How long can a Hero fight? How long can he fight the same battle, over and over, with no end in sight? And how long can a Princess stand the constant struggle, the running from her enemy and the searching for her hero, lifetime after lifetime?

What if all three Triforce pieces broke apart, shards of Wisdom, Power, and Courage all three? What if each shard sought those most suitable to host it, and the combined threads of destiny once more began to pull at each of them, only this time in a tangled weave, no longer able to form the tapestry they repeated for so long?

Or instead, what if the roles became reversed, or changed in some fashion?

What if the roles DIDN'T change, but someone from outside this cycle wishes to break it? The goddesses, or the people of Hyrule, what if they tired of seeing the kingdom wartorn again and again?

Gameplay: The big thing about Zelda is that you gotta have Dungeons, Magic Items/Spells, and Tools/Items/Weapons that the player progresses through, growing more powerful by finding new treasures. Exploration, that doesn't work too well in an RP unless you're just really good at making people want to see the locations on the map. Even then it's less exciting, in my opinion anyway, than it is when you're playing the actual game and you see the landscapes unfold on your screen. Puzzles don't work too well either, and I won't say what my personal opinion is on the matter, but the general experience is that they just don't work.

Stats could be used, and NTNP's Imprisoning War seemed to be going well with his Health, Stamina, and Magic idea. But the games have only ever used stats like one time, and it sort of limits the "freedom" that the Zelda series is known for. It was one of the very first games where the freedom to explore and find things on your own was established, and I think you've got to stay true to that feel in as many ways as you can to make an RP feel "like Zelda."

When it comes to magic, you've got to pick a "style" or "method" or whatever and stick to it. There's never much of an explanation given for it in many of the games, but at the same time the Zelda series' magic is very distinguishable from, say, Fairy Tail or Harry Potter. Don't let people do what CoH did and basically turn into DBZ/Naruto/Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann w/ swords and all that shit. For one thing it's too powerful, but I will admit the "arms race" was fun in some ways. But it's definitely got to be limited, dialed back, or else it just completely ceases to be Zelda.

Running dry at the moment so I guess I'll leave this one off for now. But like I said, we always come back to Zelda for some reason. I'll probably come back to this too at some point, or just make another idea post if I come up with Zelda RPs I want someone to take off my hands for me.
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Onime No Ryu
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I'll be your Undertaker this evening
Base: Various anime/manga based on Light Novel stories where a few authors tried to subvert the typical "Dark Lord" tropes and then everybody else followed along to try and cash in on the new fad. Examples include "The Devil is a Part Timer," "Demon King Dai Maou," "Overlord," and who knows how many fucking more.

Type: Up to whoever chooses to use this idea.

Idea: In keeping with the "theme" of cringeworthy Light Novel titles that nerdy teens in Japan might buy and drool over with their otaku friends, I originally titled this RP "I, the Demon Lord, Will Summon My Own Heroes!" Seriously, have you seen how stupidly long some of this shit is just for the title to the book?

It's more popular in Japan seemingly than it is in the West, or at the least the West views it as a story more for much younger audiences--A "Hero" from our world, usually a young, plucky male, is summoned magically to an alternate dimension/another planet/whatever and is told that he is the Chosen One who must defeat the Dark Lord. To keep with the traditional trappings of JRPGs, a lot of times multiple Heroes are summoned, to form a party. These young warriors must then overcome all their personal bullshit baggage (which is sometimes the cause for them being summoned in the first place because the spell only picks up people who WANT to leave their homeworld or whatever) and work together in roles like Swordsman, Wizard, and Rogue to defeat the Big Bad and save this world that isn't their own. A lot of times there are themes here like finding one's place, growing up out of one's childhood fantasies, whether one wants to live in a world that isn't their own or save it when it's not their concern, and so on and so forth.

So for MY RP idea, I decided to twist it in the most simple way possible. It's very similar to BO's Dark Army, but whereas that had us all making Evil aligned characters, this would allow people to make whatever kinds of characters they wanted and then have them react to the events of the story in whatever way fits them.

The Demon Lord, the Big Bad himself, decides that he needs Generals to lead his army of horrors against the Kingdom of Light. So he does the summoning ritual and brings forth "Heroes" from another world, the RPers. Now they're all stuck working for the Dark One and leading the orcs, trolls, dragons, and other such beasts against the realms of men.

Possible Storylines: I'm putting these in SPOILERS so that whoever wants this idea can preserve some of the surprises that I originally had planned for it. ONLY READ THESE IF YOU WANT TO ADMIN THIS RP IDEA.
THE COMMON FOE


THE DEMON LORD JUST WANTS HIS OWN PARTY


GODS FIGHT, MEN SUFFER


+Personal Choice - I'm sure anyone who picks up this idea will have more than enough of their own floating around that they could use to make something interesting out of this story, so I think I'll leave the possibilities up to you guys from here.

Suggestions: I think this kind of goes for all RPs in general, not just this specific one. But when I made this RP idea, I was trying to think of themes and such to actually explore through the narrative. I've gotten to the point in my writing where, instead of just saying "wouldn't it be cool if so-and-so had an awesome fight with such-and-such" I'm starting to consider the REASONS behind those fights and the overall MESSAGE my writing is leaving the reader with. I think if people start exploring those ideas they get much more genuine actions and reactions from both their characters and themselves, and become more invested in the ideas, even if they don't agree with some philosophies or whatever is being presented. So whoever picks this up, PLEASE put some thought into what this story could mean, rather than just marking it down as "Oh, we're twisting the idea by making the Heroes work for the Demon King."
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