Heretic's SITCOM RP!

[Mobius 1]

To expand on Shroom's point, it can be a version of TOTAL DRAMA ISLAND/SURVIVOR. At the end of every Episode, the team who doesn't have immunity votes someone out of the game. That way everyone can double-deal and maneuver along with the lulz of interacting and doing challenges, group or post-team merge.

And the fifth person voted out of SURVIVOR OMNIVERSE and the first member of our jury is... (reads vote) Malchus. (Extinguishes Malchus's torch). The Board has Spoken. (Dramatic youtube music, walk of shame).

[Heretic]

Shroom, you are unbelievably amazing. And I haven't seen the Justice Friends for a long time. Nostalgia floods me (Dash Havoc is loosely based on Major Glory).

Well, the issue with points/money for rent is how are we able to track it? Should we have a scoreboard for how much each of us has? And what can we spend it on? Just rent, or among various other things (like Plot-Holes, Plot-Devices that everyone must abide, and gifts for the landlady to lower our rent for a year)? I think if we do challenges we should go into a more convention RPG game with a very basic and lite stats/hit points/armor-dodge rating, so that there may be a chance of losing and a sense of urgency to get money before the next pay due.

Problem is, is there any way to do online dicerolling and junk? Or should we be polite gentlemen and agree on things in those challenges?

Edit: Or we can do Mobius's way.

[Shroom Man 777]

I don't really want to vote players out. Instead of them leaving the game, maybe instead they get to do ugly denigrating things. Like cleaning the latrines, emptying the septic tanks, or buying the groceries for the other team, or like fixing houses, or working in the farm and feeding the pigs or something.

It doesn't really have to be counted in exact points. I don't want to do maths and dices man! But if the player wins, he simply gets "a lot of money!", it doesn't have to be an ultraspecific amount.

Beating the challenges don't need hitpoints. We just write our characters doing it and winning/losing. Though yeah, people would probably make themselves win all the time. Blah.

[Heretic]

Man, what's with me agreeing and ass-kissing everyone's ideas and opinions?! I'm the game operator here!

Let's go with Shroom's idea! (We need more varieties of Smiles.)

Well, it could work if we have roommates and stuff. I mean, we'll need alot of space especially when we bring our own YOUR NPCs along. Unless our YOUR NPCs have apartments of their own. Maybe pets in one apartment and plucky sidekicks in the other, with the occasional robot pairing with the ghost mentor.

So what I'm thinking is a garden apartment area, which are low-rise apartments surrounding a park or countryside (maybe one side leading to the rural plot zone, while the other leads to a generic city plot zone), with a scary office area in an end of the long line of buildings where we must pay respect to the land lady every month to pay our tithes...erm, rent, and plead our cases on why we accidentally charred the public apartment yard.

[Mobius 1]

The main thrust is not so much the permanent removal (which, fittingly, is easily removed) but the awesome manipulation, team building, betrayals, and maneuvering that makes Survivor such a guilty pleasure.

[Heretic]

The main thrust is not so much the permanent removal (which, fittingly, is easily removed) but the awesome manipulation, team building, betrayals, and maneuvering that makes Survivor such a guilty pleasure.

Hell, we should have an RP like that one day.


We can manipulate, team build, betray, and maneuver (hur hur. Get it, maneuver? hur hur) without going Survivor. Though that should be an Arc later. One of Shroom's challenges! We should also have our characters try and roleplay situations and stuff, like in Total Drama Island or "Whose Line is it, Anyway?" Except, instead of real people doing imaginary stuff, our imagined characters do these imaginary stuff!

[Malchus]

Damn! The game hasn't even started yet and I'm already voted out! Damn you, Mobius!

Although, I am down with Shroom's idea of having the voted out person do demeaning, embarrassing things. Just imagining some sort of specially empowered being grumbling because he/she was forced to take out the trash/clean the toilets/fix the boiler/etc. has a lot of potential of hilarity and comic overreactions.

EDIT: perhaps the "prices" a player can win is something seemingly random and useless because, well, it is random useless unless, somehow, the player himself (or even other players) finds a way to make it useful later on.

[Invictus]

I'm not so keen on taking the RPG too far in the reality show direction. This mega-crossover seems to be going to be held together by an illusion of mundanity: everybody needs to eat, everybody needs a place to sleep, everybody needs to pay for it, etc. etc. Adding inexplicable team challenges on top of a normal tenancy situation is pushing things a bit. Why would a crotchety old landlady want to organize elimination contests? What does she want out of it? As soon as there starts being rules beyond the most simple, characters will start trying to break them to unearth THE TRUTH and the next thing we know, we're playing The Prisoner: The RPG.

[Malchus]

Hm, true. Having challenges like that might veer the RP too much away from sitcom and too much into "reality TV." Still, that has its its own attraction too. Of course, the sitcom idea appeals to me more since sitcoms involve a lot more prospects for the absolutely ridiculous than reality TV (well, to me anyway).

Another way to play this is could be as some sort of show with mudane surrealilty. Sort of expanding the concept of the Justice Friends. There's a lot of weird, not normal stuff in the background, but these are ultimately left uncommented upon. You could have cops in NKVD uniforms, carrying PPSh submachineguns and tooling around in East German Trabants. Yet they're still played like your friendly neighborhood sitcom beat cops--bumbling, doughnuts, and possibly Irish accents optional. There could be a big ass Kaiju who kidnapped a female King Kong in background trying to swat down biplanes, yet in the foreground you get two people gossiping about neighbors without a care in the world.

Ultimately, we can make the setting outside and in the apartment as TOTALLY FUCKO WEIRD as possible, yet we still play it as if we're in the normal world. The biggest challenges would be mundane things like cleaning the toilets, buying stuff from the grocers, paying the landlady, trying to find a job to pay the land lady, doing a buddy a small favor, borrowing sugar from neighbors--and an infinite number of standard sitcom plots and macguffins. We just play each of those mundane things as over-the-top and silly as we possibly can.

Say we start with the landlady telling us to buy her groceries for her and we do it grudgingly because she promises a discount on the next rent payment if we do (and because she'll kick our ass like that Kung Fu Hustle landlady if we don't). So, one of us starts with a list of groceries and maybe a description of us going out to buy it. Several posters and increasingly unlikely turns later, we're at the local Wal Mart riding a shop cart at high speed being chased by a bunch of Xenomorphs while a bunch of NKVD cops is in the background waving PPSh-41s and batons is going "Oi! Oi!". While all that's happening, John Baylor (who's in the cart with us) is trying to evade the anime-style harem of unwated suitors which has suddenly materialized after him and attempts to do so with Moby's help.

Or something to that effect. As log as, eventually, we will get the groceries done and we learn a sitcom-style moral at the end. Or not.

[Shroom Man 777]

Well, the challenges don't have to be reality show in format. They can be more like inexplicable events. Like, say, John Baylor takes a shit only to find that the toilet is clogged and backflowing because the plumbing has been infested with some Lovecraftianoid monstrosity. Or one of our flatmates has been abducted by Grey Aliens and we need to save him! Or, like, our characters are going to the local shopping center to buy some supplies and then suddenly, the whole town is full of fog and there are unspeakable horrers lurking within... THE MIST. Or just, like, girlfriend problems with an American supersoldier air force special operator! Imagine Alexis Starr as My Super Ex Girlfriend.

Or, for a more hellarious twist, what if our apartment mate was the SHROOMEDIAN and suddenly one day we find out that he's been thrown out of his window and has landed to his death on the pavement road outside.

[Heretic]

You guys are ridiculous, and that's why I love you!

Alright, so as gamemaster, I make the final call. It will be a sitcom (duh) with various things that I like to call ARC DROPS and EVENT STRIKES occasionally coming by to make the mundane things colorful and life will be in apartments which are the gateways to both rural and urban settings. There. That's the summary. How do you like that?

[Shroom Man 777]

Good enough for me. I'll make a profile sometime. Have to think about what I'll have though.

[Invictus]

Can you elaborate more on the setting, Heretic? I gather that its a whole series of low-rise apartments surrounded by private yards and stuff, like a gated community. How many stories does each apartment have and how many tenants live in each? I'm not familiar with this kind of setup. What kind of amenities are there inside the estate itself? And what kind of transport options are there out of it?

[Heretic]

I think three stories suffice,being that we are gonna have to fit our YOUR NPCs somewhere. Maybe they can group into apartments of their own.

As for how many tenets live in each, I think 3-4 is reasonable. I don't want the place to get too overcrowding (though when my family lived in an apartment, we had 5 people living there). And what do you mean by amenities? Like in the apartments or at the general area itself?

As for transport, there is an open parkway for one car and a small garage for another (which could turn into another room). Each apartment has one of each. And a bus station is also nearby.

[Heretic]

The City!

It's generic, man. There's a corrupt mayor living in a colonial townhall surrounded by statues of himself in green lawn and stone pathways. There's the dinky downtown where various funny gangs (Bowler Hat gangs that recite Shakespeare and drink spiked milk, anyone? I swear they are very harmless) fight for control. Up along the way there is the high and shiny skyrise corporate skyscraper land, Dcdonalds and Burger Queens dotting every corner along with Galaxy Coffees (so generic that even the alternate stores have funny names to avoid lawsuits from the real thing). And in the middle, there are various San Fransisco apartments and more family friendly things going on. Two elementary schools, three Junior High, and Three High Schools are in the City, and a college and university is near the mall.

The Mall is the place of interest and only noteworthy thing here. Along with the strip mall, it is linked to a Best Electronics Buy (Best Buy), and a Kabelas (Cabelas) because I'm a wannabe redneck like that. Underneath it is the Super Store, a store under the SubtlEvil, Inc.'s umbrella. where all extraordinary gagdets and plot devices are for sale to the metahumans and anyone who knows about it and has the money. It sells crazy weapons, super potions, gagdets that can both spy on you and download pirated videos, clothes of kinky and special powers (don't forget the leather trenchcoat for those rugged grizzly gunslinger individuals who want to add a bit of noir to their life), and whatev. If you are buying a vehicle or something huge, you will have to buy the redeeming code, go to your nearby Super Store Yard (in the Rural Zone), and give the employees there your ticket, who in turn will show you your awesome vehicle or whatnot. Transportation and gas sold separately.


The Wilderness Zone
Feeling country? Don't worry. Here in the Rural Zone, engineered by SubtlEvil, Inc., you can go green in a various flavors. The most biggest is the forest/meadow/hills area, which have a British/New England feel with mystical mists, haunted hills, and fairy-infested fields. The trees there go with the seasons, and you could find the occasional abandoned mansion or castle (despite this being in an SPARTAFREEDOMAERICA-setting). The Super Store Yard is also here, near The City.

A few hundred miles away, you will reach the Tropical Area. Only a day's yacht ride, you can experience an exotic time! With sunny palm beaches with coconuts and all, you and that special someone can forget all problems renting one of the bungalows or just enjoy the day near the beach before going back to one of SubtlEvil's many luxury hotels. If you are party goer, islands can be rented out, bungalows and stereotypical native villages included. For your party experience, Tiki culture will surround you as masked TIki Dancers with fire breathers will make your night lively and Polynesian cuisine and Rum punches will fill you up. For the more adventurous, SubtlEvil, Inc. has designated various islands filled with man-eating sharks, dark jungles with lost civilizations filled with traps and unbelievable treasure, and savage cannibal tribes ready to capture the damsel for the sacrifice to fearsome voodoo gods! (Note: SubtlEvil, Inc. is not responsible for any injuries or deaths in our Danger Zones.)


Note: There is also a snowy area, but my brain is too dead to write about that, and I want to keep it open as much as possible, so yeah.

[Dakarne]

Okay, here's my character, from a first-person perspective;

1. Name: I am referred to by many names... many, many names. Some people also refer to me as Creation, or occasionally the Creator, but I have to admit that the latter one is somewhat inaccurate. You may, however, call me the Void, Cosmos or perhaps Astra, depending.
2. Age: 13,000,000,000 years old. Any statements that I am 13,750,000,000 years old are lying, I tell you.
3. Race: Genius Loci, I suppose. Though the typical meaning of such a thing becomes somewhat blurred when dealing with my sort of scale, so I may also qualify under the general status of Deity as well.
4. Gender: I lack gender. Or reproductive organs of any type. I am able to rearrange my physical body to have these whenever needed, though.
5. Universe: I suppose you could say that I am the Section 20 universe.
6. Quick Bio: Well, there was a rather large expansion of matter, and then I existed. The following thirteen billion years have seen the development of life, which was rather interesting, and I have acquired an unusual fondness for looking in on such things. When I discovered other universes, I found that it'd be rather interesting to manifest a body by which I could explore these.
7. Skills: Various things. I'm extremely good at making sure the laws of physics work, for instance.
8. Superpowers: I'm virtually omnipotent; whilst I cannot rearrange an entire multiverse to suit my needs, I do have some measure of universal scale power, control over the fundamental forces of reality, and inevitable knowledge of creation magic. I was, for instance, able to create a biological form to explore the other universes with.
9. Special Perks: I am a universe. Or at least, I am the genius loci of a universe.
10. NPCs:
    1. None, but I've left an advert in the local newspapers; 'Single genderless universe, 13 billion years old, looking for room-mates. Rent is already paid, but prospectives will have to buy their own food and toiletries; I will put up with any lifestyle choices except for nihilists or the type of religious nutcase who scientific analysis of how I came to be.'

[Heretic]

Welcome aboard, universe! I'm sure SubtlEvil, Inc. can find products and/or services to fit your interests!

Also, remember to pay your rent! And now, we wait until we get a decent amount of people joining.

[Malchus]

Since I'm planning to make these guys multiversal characters anyway, here goes:

Name: Justinian, nickaname "Pockets"

Age: unknown, looks 13 by "default"

Picture: (because i are being animu fangirl )

Race: unknown, looks human

Gender: male

Universe: There's probably some version of him in every one of them.

Quick bio: No real memory of any childhood except a brief self-imposed stint at an orphanage. Always wears a pocket vest and an old Soviet ushanka (he's not a commie, he just loves their headgear). Tendency to blather on about something.

Skills: Plays any instrument and speaks any language fluently.

Superpowers: Generates different-colored tesseracts that allow him to jump through time (blue colored), jump to other universes (red colored, very rare), or keep things in pocket universes (green colored). Also doesn't need to eat or sleep, but does so anyway because he can.

Special Perks: Is not distracted by the sexy. Ever.

NPCs:
1. Rasa Sceadwe (nickname "Bells"): Looks like a 10-year-old Chinese girl; real age unknown. The Great Old One Zul-che-quon is somehow bound to her shadow, and she can control how much of Zushakon's power she draws by ringing the three artifact bells she wears in a specific sequence. Justinian sees her as a pet. She's extremely protective and clingy toward the boy. Only speaks in Mandarin Chinese.

2. Tribonian (nickname "Tribby"): Also known as "the Quail" or "that quail on that kid's head." Some powerful psychic being that outwardly looks like a California quail. Almost always found on the boy's head and seems to prefer communicating exclusively with said boy via silent telepathic messages.

[Heretic]

Hmm... I think we would have to either enlarge the apartments, or give the YOUR NPCs their own. How clingy is Bells to Justinian?

And concerning the picture...*ahem*...KAWAIII!!!

[Shroom Man 777]

Oh, that is it!

Name: John L. Baylor (the L stands for Leningrad, shh!)

Age: 30s

Picture: (made by my buddy)

Race: Human

Gender: Male

Universe: The great Jaded Chronicles of past, and also Comix, CSW, SOTS, and a myriad other 'verses that always have a John Baylor who's always an asshole.

Quick Bio: Gunrunner, trader, transporter, mercenary, entrepreneur, private investigator, school Phys Ed instructor and part time janitor, and (former) Marine with not-inconsiderable combat experience having fought in wartorn shitholes all over the place (planet/galaxy, depends). Has survived against communist bear aliens, Soviet cyborg ninjas, and postapocalyptic pseudo-Connoltian paleo-technobarbarianators. Commonly found with a Hawaiian shirt. If wearing power armor, wears Hawaiians over the armor. Sometimes wears Mk. 1 Mod 0 Tactical Bandanna when appropriate.

Skills: Weapons, explosives, distraction (the shirt!), easily underestimated (likes looking like an idiot), unconventional thinking, and spite. Has possible multiversal experience.

Superpowers: Hardiness. Runs on the same kind of Energizer batteries John McClane uses. Has a penchant for surviving close-proximity explosions usually caused by himself, is sublime in the art of unconventional claymore and grenade usage.

Special Perks: Has the ability to tick off people innately. Also has the ability to be amusing (either to himself, or to others) when the situation warrants it, or to find amusement when the situation doesn't warrant it.

[speaker-to-trolls]

Thought this guy of all my preexisting characters would probably fit the setting best. Sorry about the unauthorised reference to Nimaru, I'll change it if the uniqueness is out of line but in any case this is entirely unofficial.

Name: Alexander Voltaire.

Age: 2060 and looking good with it.

Picture: Appearing Soon!

Race: Human, specifically Welsh in the modern parlance.

Universe: Comix.

Quick Bio: Born more than 2000 years ago as Voudag of the Iceni, Alex was murdered one night while on the way home from trading meat for Gallo Roman wine in a port village, being distracted by meditations on the fascinating lands of the Roman Imperium, which everyone else told him were simply full of barbarian deviants. He was brought back to life by an apparently mad druid, who then offered him a bowl of brains and told him to 'eat right' and that he'd always be fine if he did so. After discovering the truth of his new condition, that being that he is very hard to kill and has an indefinite lifespan, he has spent the last 2000 years wandering the Earth having weird adventures. For the last few years he has lived in New York as a rich playboy inbetween adventures tracking down where all his money has gotten to over the years.

Gender: Male.

Skills: Master of several dozen forms of martial arts, including his own special branch of Nimaru which is dependant upon his own particular condition and allows him to sap the energy from other practitioners. Knows over thirty languages (but not all at once), is a master of disguise, knows a small amount of magic and moreover has a great deal of experience with supernatural beings. Experienced mountaineer, sailor, farmer, blacksmith, gladiator, negotiator, military commander, philosopher and probably a few other professions.

Superpowers: Massive regeneration given adequate food, cannot die except by destruction of the brain, only known practitioner of endothermic nimaru.

Special Perks: Requires sustenance via the consumption of neural tissue. Brain is in a constant state of flux and disrepair, so while he has all the aforementioned skills and his 2000 years of memories, he does not have them all all the time. The longer he goes without brains, the less intelligent and reasonable he will become, then end result of this is not nice. Despite having 2000 years of experience dealing with human nature in almost every part of the world (and some brief stints in a few others) he is still not ver good with women or money.

My NPC's: James Chung, Professor of Economic History at Lord Farenheit's College Cambridge, Alex's accountant.

Sarah Morrow, his on again off again girlfriend who stays with him despite the turbulent and frustrating nature of their relationship in order to keep tabs on him for the Gargoyle Institute.

[Booted Vulture]

Name: Mr Tourff

Age: 3 (25 years human equivalent)

Picture:

Race: Cat.

Universe: Sitcom RP Exclusive.

Quick Bio: A Stray tabby cat, Mr Tourff ran wild in the City of Sitcomm, living rough and wild with his devil-may-care attitude, eating wild pigeons and left overs from bins and drinking from puddles, and rivers. Sadly one of those last ones and been contaminated by evil corporations dumping of special green ooze. Upon accidentally drinking this ooze. Mr Tourff: 1) developed super-intelligence and telepathy a truly comic book transformation and 2) was slightly poisoned. While searching for a place to sleep off said intoxication, Mr Tourff found his way to the doorstep of the Apartment Block and was let inside by a concerned resident. He has since recovered an adopted the entire block as his residence and personal dominion, graciously allowing the others to share his territory in return for their food and subservience.

Gender: Male.

Skills: Athelitiscism, free-running, Hunting, sleeping, ruling over all that he surveys.

Superpowers: Super-intelligence (for a cat) and ability to telepathic ally communicate with humans in a way they interpret as speech.

Special Perks: Always lands on his feet. (literally AND Metaphorically)

NPC: He considers everyone he sees to be at his personal beck and call.

[Shroom Man 777]

We need to pit Mr. Risto Kitten-Cats against Dakarne's character. And make Tourff win.

Speaker, mang, I miss Alex! He's one of the older first-gen Comix characters! I like the Nimaru thing, btw. Keep it!

[Dakarne]

We need to pit Mr. Risto Kitten-Cats against Dakarne's character. And make Tourff win.

Speaker, mang, I miss Alex! He's one of the older first-gen Comix characters! I like the Nimaru thing, btw. Keep it!

My character is the most literal opposite to Mr. Risto Kitten-Cats. The Section 20 Universe tries not to lord its omnipotence over everything and is merely fascinated by the sheer fact that certain things exist... therefore is liable to merely find the cat cute and fascinating in its attempts to lord its (extremely meagre) powers over the rest of creation.

[Malchus]

Oh dear. Telepathic supersmart cat with a god complex who eats wild birds?

He and Tribby either won't get along... or get along surprisingly well.

Hmm... I think we would have to either enlarge the apartments, or give the YOUR NPCs their own. How clingy is Bells to Justinian?

And concerning the picture...*ahem*...KAWAIII!!!

She wouldn't need her own apartment. She can just use her funky shadow powers to sleep in the shadows of Justinian's room.