Every now and again it's fun to play the bad guy. Whether it's Grand Theft Auto, Monster Play on LOTRO, or simply rooting for the bad guy in movies, I find myself at times on the side of the villains and hoping the shiny hero doesn't win the day....just once. I'm guessing I'm not alone and therefore present, The Mist. A fantasy RP where the players are the 'bad guys' and the heroes are likely to lose. I'm gauging interest in an RP where players start with a level one villain of some manner (you name it, you can play it). I'll be using a Minds Eye Theater system of play (and will elaborate on those rules for anyone not familiar), as I've used it before in forum based RP and it works exceptionally well. I`ll start the RP with at least 2 players and will act as a player-DM until such time as we get 4 active players. The game world will be much like AD&Ds Ravenloft; dark and gothic in its horror as opposed to blood and guts. So, if you are interested, PM or post here. Happy Hunting

Looking back on this post I should clarify that the system is really easy and I'll elaborate if there's interest. That being said, I'm good running a purely text base RP as well as I know time is at an ever dwindling premium.

I'm not quite sure yet if I'll join the game (probably will, though), but I'd definitely like to know something about the Mind's Eye Theater system, and especially how it works in a forum RPG.

Disclaimer: Potentially boring preamble that has little to do with the system as it's used in forums...

Minds Eye Theatre, specifically Vampire: The Masquerade and Wraith: The Oblivion (games I'm familiar with), are LARP (Live Action Role Playing) games where the use of dice is a hassle at best, and near impossible at its worst. If you're not familiar with LARP, it's a system where you physicially act out your character as opposed to telling everyone what your character does. I found it to be tons of fun.

The useful stuff: To give a beginning explanation of the system, I offer the following. Every character has three categories of 'attributes' that are used for initiating actions against any target; Physical, Mental and Social. 'Traits' are adjectives under each category that describe the 'skills' a character possesses in that category, (i.e. smart as a Mental Trait, ferocious as a Physical Trait and Alluring as a Social Trait). For creativity and flow of the game, actions against a target are typically phrased a sentence, (i.e. I'm so 'smart' that this puzzle is easy to solve; I 'ferociously' punch the dumb smuck in front of me; I'm so 'alluring' that the target is willing to do as I say).

Every player selects one category as their primary Attribute (starts with 7 traits), secondary Attribute (starts with 5 traits) and; tertiary Attribute (starts with 3 traits). The challenge is in using traits wisely as once they are used, there is a chance they will be inaccessible for a period of time. Given the text based nature of a forum RP, this system seems to work rather well.

I'll post more later to avoid long posts, but this gets the ball rolling in terms of the game mechanics (resolving conflicts with dice etc.).

Updated 17 August 2013 (07:53)

Resolving Conflict

I'm going to provide a really simple example of resolving conflict to give potential players a general feel of gameplay and elaborate later if this game gets going. That being said....

Challenges are resolved using the kids game Rock, Paper Scissors (no Lizard or Spock in this version In LARP, this eliminated the need for dice and it still worked well in forums. Typically a 'challenge' will consist of 'bidding' a trait and choosing to 'throw' either Rock, Paper or Scissors. Bidding a trait is like gambling as if you lose the challenge, you lose the ability to use the trait for a given period of time (in forum RP's this really depends on how active the game is).

Example: My Orc decides to 'ferociously' bash in a Paladin's head with is mace and I decide to throw Rock.

The Paladin will 'quickly' try to dodge and decides to throw scissors.

The poor Paladin finds his neck much shorter than it used to be as he suffers a terrible blow to the head.

While this is over-simplified, I hope it gives some idea as to how the combat system works. I'm open to any questions and will post more specifics if/when the game gets going.

The system seems sound. What sort of a group did you have in mind for this game? "Villain" PCs tend to be tricky when it comes to party cohesion, unless they have a solid reason to side with each other.

Posted by MuadMouseThe system seems sound.What sort of a group did you have in mind for this game? "Villain" PCs tend to be tricky when it comes to party cohesion, unless they have a solid reason to side with each other.

Good question. Strength in numbers will certainly be part of the need to stick together, but so to will be the fear of a leader forcing them to work together. I want there to be room for some social politics, tension and backstabbing however, (as you pointed out), there will obviously need to be some level of cohesion or there really isn't much of a game past a few rounds

EDIT: I suppose a good example of what I foresee in terms of cohesion for this game is the manner with which the Orcs/Goblins are portrayed in LOTR. There is some fear holding them together and clearly some in-fighting, but at the end of the day, they fight together.

Updated 18 August 2013 (06:50)