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Well, I have a title. That's nice. Not sure what it means yet, but we learn.

I basically have an idea, sort of ish? I'm working on it, but here's what I have thus far.

I want to set this about fifty to a hundred years in the future. The technology won't be much different than our own though, because of an event that has caused it to stagnate. Other worlds are connected to our own, so most "meaningful" tech isn't our own. Cars and street lamps and traffic signals and smartphones and laptops and everything your layman has access to is much the same, but things like batteries and sensors are imported from the multi-stellar hub, because they have progressed long past the point of humanity's understanding. There are aliens with godlike power, but they look human to us, and they don't generally stray to Earth because there's nothing interesting. Even when they do, it's generally to sightsee and then leave.

The plot itself will revolve around a "free-for-all death game"-like scenario in which characters are made to fight, willingly or not, with unspecific conceptual abilities that are defined semantically. Duels revolving around who is better at wordplay would not be out of the question. The characters wouldn't be fighting constantly, of course. Most of the time would be set aside for interaction, and breaking that "free-for-all" rule is not only possible, but very likely. Hell, I'd be disappointed if at least someone didn't decide to screw the system altogether, but you know.

If this sounds stupid or unworkable, by all means nip it in the bud, but if anyone has interest and/or suggestions, I'm all ears.
 
Sounds like it could use some fleshing out. Looking to brainstorm ideas?
 
Fleshing out is mostly what this thread is here for, honestly. As I say, suggestions are very welcome.

I added a couple of tags of the general expectation but potentially all of them are subject to change.
 
So are we captured by beings from one of these other worlds and forced to fight in an arena like setting, or...?
 
My immediate thoughts can be summarised as "yes and no". I'm quite eager to establish the city itself as a setting, since I think there's a lot we can do with that, and the fact that the beings from the other worlds are much more advanced than humans, they probably have at least a shred of morality and/or law that would prevent outright kidnappings. I'm thinking this would have to be the work of an individual since any organised group would get their shit kicked in once interstellar law enforcement show up.

That said, an arena is kind of necessary, so I'm trying to come up with some way of turning said city into an arena without simultaneously getting it turned into an oversized ruin and driving out all sense of life.
 
So there's a magnificent bastard (or group of them) that essentially "kidnaps" some people to play a free for all death game for their amusement?
 
For all intents and purposes, yes. Perhaps they were moved elsewhere, perhaps they always lived in the city, but they're here now.

That said, the powers being played with can be godlike in the right hands, so "amusement" might not necessarily be a great motive, but something like "science" might.
 
Maybe they volunteered for a study that turned out to be crooked.
 
Possibly. I do like that idea more and more the more I think about it.
 
It's not a bad one, in all honesty. Provides some groundwork for the whole thing at least.
 
My thoughts exactly.

Including NPCs, I'm thinking that allows for 15-20 characters participating. It's kind of big, but that gives us a cast.

Some way to force them to fight may be necessary, but it depends on how much weight the psychological aspects hold.
 
Maybe just go the Danganronpa route? Fight or you can't leave.
 
In theory I can see that working, but on the other hand, if you imbue a bunch of people with some very open-ended abilities and then try to make them do something against their will... Well, kudos if you succeed, right?
 
You'd definitely need to have a means of not having them just rip you to shreds. Make the powers too...powerful...and you lose control of everything.
 
Not necessarily true from my experience. It's mostly from tabletop gaming, but I find you can balance hax against an equal amount of hax.

Oh, which gives me an idea. We could give the experimenters a power that forces the subjects to fight one way or another.
 
Mental manipulation?
 
I'm generally against limiting the choices of the players through things like that. It'd be basically impossible to do anything to the antagonist(s).
 
Probably be pretty hard to force them to fight otherwise, unless you limit how overpowered the characters can be to something less than what level the "researchers" would be at.
 
I tend to make my antagonists way stronger than the PCs on principle, so that's alright.

Maybe to encourage them, we can make there some kind of consequence for not having at least one fight between them in a certain time period (like at least one battle between at least two subjects per day)?
 
Are these necessarily fights to the death?