Magical girls, Ace combat, and cyborgs (not necessarily all at once)

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R-9 Pilot

Edgeknight
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Scifi, anime, mecha, magical girl, superhero, cyberpunk, yuri
Part of me hates doing this sort of "I have multiple ideas" thread, but I can't quite make up my own mind, so it's probably for the best. Lets me collect at least some input on things, before just running. I'm thinking of trying to get an RP going, but I'm not sure which option to pursue, so I'll put a few up here for perusal. So, without further ado, a few options.

Magical Girls

This would be a rehash of something I tried to do with some dice-based mechanics that just didn't go well at all. It would also be me retreading (and possibly expanding upon) familiar ground, as I use old campaign notes from a game I ran over chat some time ago. The basic premise is a setting similar to Mid-Childa from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha. Advanced magic and technology are flourishing, and there's a TSAB-like magical military. One ened not actually be a girl, whether due to age or gender, to take part, of course. But given I'm stealing heavily from Nanoha, it's still "magical girl" in genre.

The PCs would be members of a combat mage team tasked with investigating strange events, and later fighting the invading alien force behind them. The general focus of things would be a mixture of scenes on and around the base for more slice of life shenanigans or interacting with NPCs, and missions where you go out and fight, investigate, and otherwise advance the plot. ...Not that plot advancement may not also happen during the more downtime bits, as well.

Getting into a little more detail, the setting is kept intentionally vague because, uh, it's easier for players to fit their characters into it. Yeah. Totally not because I'm not always the greatest about detailed world-building. but really, if you've seen enough Nanoha, you probably know exactly the sort of place it is. Space and dimensional travel via big spacecraft is easily possible. There's probably at least one ancient empire of legendary lost magic and technology. Mages are generally categorized along broad lines of Knights who primarily focus on melee combat, and Mages who focus more on ranged magic. Most characters would be assumed to have some sort of Armed or Intelligent Device for channeling their magic, a Barrier Jacket (i.e. magical girl outfit of some description) for defense, and so-on. I would suggest focusing character abilities along a single theme of some sort, and probably limit everyone to a fixed set of spells or abilities. I'm not quite sure how to break that down, yet, though it'll probably be a mix of commonly usable things and a few big "finisher" type attacks.

And, now, what I can do to elaborate on the setting:
Recently, exploration ships have been attacked by a previously-unknown enemy. Whether this threat was coming, or they'd just been unfortunate enough to kick a hornet's nest, they were met and destroyed by a horde of bio-mechanical horrors which has continued to press onward, sewing terror and destructing in its wake. Samples recovered from wreckage of enemy craft have been recovered, leading to two interesting discoveries: markings bearing the word BYDO, which has since been used to identify the entire threat, and an ability to somehow subvert and assimilate technology and living things.

In addition to your usual tasks of defending the peace, your mission is as follows: Blast off and befriend the evil Bydo Empire.

Pros:
I've got a lot of notes, NPCs, and so-on already prepped, so it'd be easy for me to run and keep going.
Still plenty of room for character development and shenanigans.
No dice or other bullshit this time, just writing.

Cons:
Probably the most rigid GM and players approach of the options I have.
Hardly new material for me (which is good and bad?)
I legit don't know how best to handle things like combat when dice aren't a thing.
If I run this in chat, I'm running it using Mutants and Masterminds.
Absolutely full of shameless STG references.

(totally not) Ace Combat

Take a near-future Earth, add plenty of airplanes, and a conflict most reminiscent of Ace Combat 3, in which a rogue megacorporation starts a major conflict. The actual structure would probably also be a mix of missions and character interaction when not on missions, come to think of it. Some elements will include: any and every kind of jet aircraft being available to someone, regardless of national origins. Some scifi elements, such as more advanced (or semi-fictional) aircraft, not to mention giant superweapons. There will probably be an excuse to run teenage pilots, of one sort or another.

EMA Corp, a powerful megacorporation focused on advanced medical and military technology, has recently declared its independence from all world governments, and began a war to establish dominance its local territories. Their advanced military technology, particularly in the field of aircraft development, led to an early lead in battle, and several early victories. Experiments in gene therapy and cybernetic augmentation have also borne fruit in the form of a cadre of "human plus" pilots, all of whom are young children or teenagers, and fiercely loyal to the EMA cause.

Pros:
Jet porn.
Fairly fleshed-out setting.
Probably going to be more of a collaborative effort, one way or another.

Cons:
Special snowflake NPCs.
I definitely do not have a plot planned out from start to finish, here.
Not sure too many people like jets.

Cyborgs and...stuff

A world is torn by war and alien invasion. Cybernetically-augmented soldiers are the best bet for standing up against the alien threat. The war, however, is likely to be a bit more of a backdrop for character interaction military-flavored slice of life, and exploring the sort of transhumanist issues inherent with the whole heavy cybernetic augmentation thing. I'll likely be taking a lot of inspiration from the likes of Strike Witches, Sky Girls, and Kan Colle.

The setting is likely to lean toward Ace Combat's Strangereal, or a similar not-really Earth sort of world that is mostly familiar, even if the continents and political factions are different. I'm terrible with names, so absolutely none of the major nation-states have them, but I'll give a bit of a breakdown.

There's a sort of Not-Belka German/Russian - flavored country that while technologically and industrially strong, has been hit particularly hard by the invasion. They're fighting desperately as a major front line, and have developed a lot of the recent advances in combating the alien threat, but are far from the kindest place to live. Probably the go-to area for amoral human experiments, etc. Their tech may be more utilitarian in nature, prioritizing function over form.

There's also a major megacorporation of sorts which is all about high-tech, sleek, and futuristic designs, and probably blatant not-Japan and not-America areas. Plus whatever else one might want. Really, things are pretty open, and a major aspect of it all would be getting a setting fleshed out.

As far as the alien invaders go, they're heavily modeled after the likes of Neuroi from Strike Witches, JAM from Yukikaze, and WORMs from Sky Girls. They just sort of appeared one day, and most anything humanity has encountered from them are giant war machines of impressive power and often unusual design. Smaller, more humanoid troops are a recent development to counter the forces arrayed against them. The aliens set up hive-like bases, which churn out a miasmatic mist which spreads across and chokes the land, slowly transforming it into an eerily beautiful and deadly landscape of metal and crystal. People exposed to the mists without protective gear eventually die, with their bodies beginning to crystallize, or simply deteriorate. Removal of affected limbs or organs and subsequent cybernetic replacement is the only effective treatment, at present. Most alien monsters have some sort of core which can be exposed and destroyed, killing them quickly and efficiently. Upon death, a monster disintegrates into shining, snow-like fragments, which will themselves sink into the ground and can produce lower levels of toxicity similar to their mist, requiring careful clean-up after battles.

Pros:
Definitely the most collaborative, both in terms of storytelling and putting the setting together.

Cons:
That whole "most collaborative" thing may mean falling into sandbox game problems.

And there's the bare-bones summaries. I can do my best to write up detailed pitches if anyone's interested in hearing more about any given option. Some things are likely to be common themes and things, so I'm rambling about them here. Adult themes and situations are possible, although none of these will be about RPing smut. If you want to do that with your characters for some reason, you'd have to take it elsewhere. Since characters shouldn't be created in a vacuum, I'd expect some level of discussion between the players on the sort of characters they're making and how they might interact. Pretty much all of these options assume the PCs will know each other in some capacity beforehand, but even if you want to start as an outsider or newcomer, you should have some ideas on how you'd get along, and so-on.

And finally, it's possible I could run any of these as a chat-based game. However, particularly for things like the magical girl option, I am likely to use dice mechanics and actual game rules of some sort of I do such a thing. On the plus side, I'm pretty good at running a chat-based game and keeping it going. On the downside, the schedule I set may not please everyone.
 
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You know who likes jets? This guy right here.

I've been hankering for a good fighter pilot rp for a long time. I'd be up to working with something if you choose to go that route. I guess as an added bonus, I've played most all the AC series except for 2 and 3 ironically, so I'm already pretty familiar with most of the subject matter.

@R-9 Pilot
 
uwahh all of these sound so interesting! :x my issue with chat-based rp's is that I typically get on at very strange hours due to work, and so I miss out on all the fun. 8'C

In terms of preference, I'd go with Magical Girl > Cyborgs > AC-based. I'm totally up to help with world-building and interactions.
 
I'm not likely to do anything chat-based unless whatever group of people I have asks for it. I'm a little more accustomed to it, but I've got enough on my plate in that realm.

There's probably solid opportunity for world-building in all of them. The last time I ran the magical girl thing, the setting was pretty loosely defined, so it'd be easy to fill in anything one wanted to. I do know it did explicitly have Russian cyborg magical girls, though. Which is amusing primarily because it was specifically Russia. Let me see if I can add some more detailed pitches to the different ideas. Which is easier done by editing my previous post.

As for Ace Combats, I've really only played through the PS2 titles in full. And Air Force Delta Strike, which is a similar arcade flight sim with possibly even goofier stuff than typical in an AC title.
 
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Haven't played Delta. Just Air Combat for PS1 and the PS2 titles + AC 6 for the 360. That's about it. Most of the other stuff were WW II / WW I era flying.

And I like the updated plot info as well for the AC-type one. Just outta curiosity, is it set in a Strangereal kind of place or just a future earth?
 
It could be either. I've put more thought into the conflict than the world map, to be honest.
 
I glanced over this interest check and got a muse for a cyborg girl that was corrupted by nanomachines. I'll prolly prep a character sheet on my own time

I'd be super up for the cyborg RP and I tend to play well with brainstorms. Chara I had in mind might even be a solid fit for magical girls as well.
 
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I glanced over this interest check and got a muse for a cyborg girl that was corrupted by nanomachines. I'll prolly prep a character sheet on my own time

I'd be super up for the cyborg RP and I tend to play well with brainstorms. Chara I had in mind might even be a solid fit for magical girls as well
That concept would probably work for either, with some possible tweaks needed for specifics of the game. ...well, if such specifics exist.
 
That concept would probably work for either, with some possible tweaks needed for specifics of the game. ...well, if such specifics exist.
The core of the backstory would involve being royally screwed over by a megacorp trying to save money on fighter jets with the creation of adaptive circuitry and machinery that can adjust its form and function to suit purposes, in order to mass produce just one component of a weapon instead of several. Accidents happened, to put it very briefly.

If such a megacorp exists in either verse, it would probably fit, I think?
 
That would definitely fit right in for the cyborg "war story". And probably for magical girls, too. I do tend to keep my settings open enough to "hm, I didn't have any shady group doing X before, but sure, they can be there now."
 
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I ended up making a character bio for fun since the muse was strong. Backstory has cyborg rp in mind but in a magical girl setting not much would have to be changed.

Sylphie Foster - Charahub

If the group rp doesn't go through a 1on1 would be fun too!
 
Tallying up things so far... I don't have too many interested folks. Which, to be fair, isn't bad. I'm used to small groups of 4-5 players. And I'd bet more would turn up for the actual sign-ups anyhow.

It's something like two most interested in cyborgs, one in magical girls, one in Ace combat. And enough overlap between magical girls and cyborgs that I could probably run either and have a fair bit of satisfaction.

I think I'll go with the cyborg thing. Gonna be hell to come up with a halfway decent title for it, though.
 
Cyborg thing sounds kinda interesting. No idea what any of those shows[?] you mentioned are though.
 
Don't worry too much about not recognizing my anime title-drops. They are, at best useful guidelines for those who share my own tastes, and make for an easy shorthand of not needing to explain in too much detail what I'm going for. What matters is that, in practice, there will be less focus on fighting a war than on having a cast of interesting characters and letting their personalities bounce off each other to generate entertaining scenarios and sequences of events. Or, put another way, sure there will be fights and combat missions, but a major subplot for a while might be a cooking contest around the base for who can make the best curry. There may also be various bits of transhuman blues and learning to adapt to being a cyborg, if you want to go that route. Cybernetics may not eat your soul, but they still might not all be fun and games.

Oh, and there's the whole you can lose a limb or two, be repaired, and get to relive that sort of pain all over again... Shit could get dark, though I'm likely to try and de-emphasize such. Dark and serious just isn't my style, no matter how good I can talk that game.

Anyway, cute combat cyborgs doing cute combat things is what I'm going to run unless something comes along to change my indecisive mind. So, with that in mind, I do have one question for you interested folks. There's going to be multiple factions who likely have different ideologies. Would you rather all be from a single one (which could allow some focus more on warfare and strife between them), or a multinational force focused primarily on fighting the alien threat, setting aside and sharing differences in the face of a unifying "other"?
 
I do have one question for you interested folks. There's going to be multiple factions who likely have different ideologies. Would you rather all be from a single one (which could allow some focus more on warfare and strife between them), or a multinational force focused primarily on fighting the alien threat, setting aside and sharing differences in the face of a unifying "other"?
I might prefer the multinational idea and putting a bunch of ragtags together, but it ultimately depends on what characters get used.

Can speak for own character that Sylphie is a pretty special case as a government secret and would probably more sensibly mesh into a UN task force.
 
I might prefer the multinational idea and putting a bunch of ragtags together, but it ultimately depends on what characters get used.

Can speak for own character that Sylphie is a pretty special case as a government secret and would probably more sensibly mesh into a UN task force.
Before you get your heart set on things too much, I don't think Symphie will quite work as-is. The whole senteint nanomachine colony and resulting looks and abilities don't really agree with me for whatever reason. I'm willing to work with you on things, of course.

And, well, I really do want characters to not be created in a vacuum. I can't feasibly get them generated as a group exercise like I could if it was a first session of D&D, but do still want some amount of group discussion and such. I haven't even made a OOC thread, yet.
 
Multinational should be good. I dunno, since you dropped the SW influence, I think that one would be good.
 
Apologies for being presumptuous then. I made the bio offsite to develop for personal use and get thoughts on paper since I had a muse going.

Would be nice to use her for this and thought the bio hit a lot of high points you may have been looking for based on the blurb alone, but I should probably wait for an OOC or go private to defend her. I'm more flexible on adjusting the abilities as opposed to messing with the design itself.

Feedback on what you'd rather see would be desired. It's your RP at the end of the day so if you don't want her to be a part of it, I won't use her and consider making someone else.
 
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I'll get some feedback your way as soon as I can. Probably after I've set up an actual OOC, which may take me a little time, due to needing to put things together for it. ...notably names. I am just really bad at coming up with good names for places and things, so one thing I will highly encourage is doing some of that work for me.

So, this...uh, this got a little bigger than I possibly expected or would have let on. I-it's not like it was a pet project I've had on the back burner for a while, or anything. So don't go getting the wrong idea. </tsundere>

OPEN SIGNUPS - Dive into the Sky OOC
 
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Because a quiet edit doesn't ping as a new post, double-posting to say the OOC thread's live. See my post immediately above this one for the link.
 
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