So I had this idea, I've never serious RP'd before but I was thinking of starting a thread that followed a more-game like fashion, full of intrigue, political espoinage, armies, battles and wars. I don't really like doing an RP that is entirely pre-known to all the players, so I wanted to add a game-mechanic to the mix. And now that the site has a dice-roll feature, we can utilize the game mechanic idea. So this is the idea of the RP, anyone whose experienced with serious RP can tell me if it's too complicated or doesn't seem fun.
The Setup:
King Ameron The Second, the wolf king of the land of Rodan, has died, with no heir to the throne, the four largest families and their allies are now fighting out to find out who can become king in the land that is now full of chaos and disarray.
The Players:
The First four participants of the RP control one of the four "Major Houses" in the land, the houses story and description are all set by the player. Each house has 1-4 family members that act as the participants of the RP. The 1-4 (though most likely four (maybe set it to three)) participants don't have to be necessarily related to each other, but they must belong to the major house. When there is only one major house left standing, or only one with overwhelming support, that major house is the winner. Any other player that joins will control a lesser-house, with 1-2 characters. These lesser houses cannot "win" the game, but can pledge their support for a major house, if that major house wins all the lesser houses who pledged their support also win. If a major house dies, the lesser houses can become the new major house.
The "House" of a player controls how influential the players name is (gone in further detail in the mechanics section) and what resources the players characters have at their disposal. However, it's the players characters that make up the story. Characters of rival houses can be friends, and each character in the house can follow their own unique story (this follows how normal RPs follow, it's a player made story) and they have their own unique characteristics. Characters can fight other characters outside or even inside their own house, when all the characters of a house are either dead, banished or indisposed, that house collapses and is said to be destroyed (the player is out of the RP). The game follows perma-death, so once a character is killed there's no bringing him back.
Mechanics:
Each Major house has 8 points to share between three stats, lesser houses only have 5 points to share. The stats are
Military Power: (0 - 5): Controls how strong your houses military presence is. Will influence whether your house wins a battle against another house, and will also control protection for characters.
Influence (0 - 5): Controls how much the common-folk like your house. With high influence you can create revolutions against other houses, weakening them, your player characters might also have an easier time convincing NPCs to do stuff.
Wealth (0 - 5): Controls how much money your house has. Wealth is expendable, meaning you must "spend it", thus if you use 1 wealth, you can't get that wealth back. However, wealth acts as a "jack-of-all trade" resource, you could buy sell-swords to beef up your military in need, you could fund common-folk to cause a revolution, you could even buy a city. The choices are up to you.
There are six major cities on a map I'll draw up during the RP, each major house will control one city and 2 will be free cities. Cities give points to stats, maybe a city increases wealth, maybe it increases influence, etc. Players can capture cities through battles, though of course you need a character to be in the battle to do this. Whoever wins the battle is just a comparison of their Military Power stat, if the other player calls in a revolution or does something else fancy (again it's free-form, you can try whatever and the god (that's me) will tell you whether it'd work and what it'd do) it could weaken the opposing player, weaking their military power stat temporarily. Houses don't NEED to control cities, but it's helpful for raising their stats. I'll control the micromanaging and put it in a simple form so that everyone knows what their current stats are.
Lesser houses and even other major houses can also pledge their support for an action (if they're close to that house in the story), when a house pledges support to another house that houses stats are added into the final thing. So lets say House A had a military power of 5, and house B and C had military power of 3, house C could help house B invade house A (3 + 3 > 5) for something in return.
Characters:
The houses are just there to help the characters, the characters are the people that are controlled by the players and are the drivers of the story. Characters also have three stats with 16 points distributed between them. Lesser house characters also get 16 points. Each house (major or lesser) can pick a main character that'll have 20 points to share. The stats are as followed
Attack: (0 - 10): Controls how well your character is in battle
Stealth (0 - 10): Controls how sneaky your character can be for stealing or evading
Charisma (0 - 10): Controls how well your character is at manipulating other characters or NPC's.
Each stat has the following characterstics:
Attack Check: If your character wants to attack another character, or an NPC, to kill or wound that character (they must be in the same area in the story obviously) then you can call in an attack check, you can do this any time (even if your character was really friendly to the rival character, it's a game of deception after-all!). When attacking you roll a dice that's between 0 - 10. You can either wound or kill the opposing character. Wounding causes the opposing character to lose 2 Attack points per wound, if the attack points go below 0, the wound is fatal.
Calculating what you need to roll for wounding: (Your attack - Their attack) + 5 (if the final thing is negative you can't wound them)
Calculating what you need to roll for killing: (Your attack - their attack) (If the final thing is negative you can't kill them)
If you attacked someone and didn't kill them, that person can either attack back or can run away. Whether they can run away is dependent on the situation and will be decided by the god (me). If your character is guarded (surrounded by guards) or is in the army during a battle or something, than your attack is increased by 2*(Military Power) (Can change based on situation, decided by the god (me)). Your current attack stats and I'll display, so it'll be well known. Remember if a character is killed due to an attack check, that character is dead forever.
Stealth Check: If you want to do something stealthy, like sneak into an enemy city to cause a revolution, sneak past another character, or steal something. You need to do a stealth check. Stealth checks are decided entirely based on the situation, you'd post in the OOC or something "I want to do a stealth check" and I'd say what you'd need to roll based on the situation, if you rolled successfully then you'd completed your stealthy exercise, and everyone has to roll with that. If not you're found out and the story changes based on that. NOTE: If you're trying to be stealthy against another player character, your stealth stat will be pitted against his. Also, if you have 5 points higher stealth than your opponent, you can attack him with a SURPRISE attack that temporarily (for one attack) gives you an extra 5 attack points. You can't be stealthy while you're guarded.
Charisma check: Charisma is important for influencing NPCs (NPCs are just random people in the story you make up that aren't really controlled by any player but are public domain). If you have a low charisma you mightn't be able to convince the prison guard to open the cage for you
. Charisma is similar to stealth in that it is situational based, you'd say you'd want to do something, like lie or even deceive another character, you'd say you'd want to do a charisma check and I'd say what you'd need to roll. You can convince NPC characters to fight with you to increase your attack rating and, with a high enough charisma and influence (or wealth), can convince the gaurds surrounding another player character to disperse.
Besides those things, everything else in the game handles like a normal RP. A player character might not even be interested in controlling the house and may have a love affair with another player character in another house, houses can be allies and friends, though these relationships might be temporary. Politics and deceit await with the knowledge that if you let your guard down, another player might kill your favourite character.
So does it seem too complicated? Does it seem interesting? Would you join it?
Topic: Tell me if this RP idea is too complicated (Read 899 times)