Idea Development - "Present day" Monster Movie

[OAMP]

Might be a bit early for me to be talking of such things, but I had an idea for an RP.

Anywho I've noticed a lack of "present day monster movie" hentai. What do I mean by that? Think cloverfield (though I've never seen the movie, personally), but with the standard hentai monsters, etc etc. No magic, but most of the effects can be described away as mad science/chemicals/whatever, doesn't really matter at this point.

The basic premise I have in my mind is this: A large monster (havn't decided what exactly, though perhaps a giant insectoid squid) is attacking some generic large city. The military (who has gender equality, and therefore plenty of women) throws everything they have at it, but the monster wrecks the city, and eventually a nuke gets called in, but only knocks it out. Players will play as surviving members of the military, scientists trying to study the creature, or remaining civilians, all fighting for their lives in a post apocolyptic mutant infested landscape. The outside world has trouble getting into/aiding the region for *reason not yet determined*, and when NPCs from there show up, they won't be automatically friendly, so to speak. I have more ideas, but not exactly relevent right now/might be better off as a surprise anyway.

What does everyone else think of this? It'll be awhile before I tie up all loose ends and get the experience nessisary to run such a project, however, but I want some opinions on it now.

 

[the_taken]

Re: Idea Development - "Present day" Monster Movie

Since you didn't see the movie:

Spoiler

The Cloverfield Monster spawned tiny minion creatures to harass infantry, about the size of a wolf. Apparently getting bitten by those little fuckers was very bad, and behind a lighted curtain scene involved a main cast character bloodily exploding, or be shot explosively. The military found that being bitten by Cloverfield spawn to be very bad... not sure what happens exactly.

Have you chosen a system yet? I know a few that might work depending on what your design goals are.

 

[OAMP]

Re: Idea Development - "Present day" Monster Movie

Well, I knew that part, and infact was why I used it as an example as what I'm going for

Anywho, I imagine it'll be more like Dark Gate and other PbP games rather then the type found in these sections here.

I'm thinking there will be a class system, namely Soldier, Support (military, but not front line infantry), Scientist, and Civilian, but still allow a few points for customization, or perhaps even personalizing the class based on a posted bio.

For instance, say someone choses to be an infantry woman. Based on the bio posted, the GM would grant them a few bonuses, like machine gun instead of assault rifle, perhaps an anti tank weapon (single shot, kills any non-boss and even a few lesser bosses in one hit, assuming it hits).

On the other hand, say they plan on being a civilian, and post the bio of a news reporter. Perhaps they'll get a radio, or atleast the chance to try and use their communication equipment before they have to leave their starting position.

The starting stats would be mainly class dependant, but could be altered if no other bonus could be role-played. Leveling up will work as usual.

Edit: Random ending thought. Non-military classes will be restricted to assualt rifles or less. No LAWs* or M60* for them.

*I plan on not using any real world references, so expcet to see some "AKA47s" if you know what I mean.

 

[Kathy]

Re: Idea Development - "Present day" Monster Movie

It's an idea, but you'd really need to figure out which approach you're taking to the situation. Things like zombie/infection outbreaks are more favored because it allows players to break into smaller teams, or individuals, to face it. One player can defeat two or three infected. While one player can't possibly kill one modern-day godzilla.

Because of this, your game kinda lands in a weird place... you could take several approaches to it...

- A game of politics to keep your group strong and handle other groups, while a "building a ..." type approach is taken as you gather resources and create a method of dealing with said monster. These games tend to be heavily about strategy and they fall back to a few power players while everyone else goes by the wayside. Ultimately, if any of those power players lose interest, the game dies out, and without any supporting roles, there's a high chance of that happening.

- A "survive until the outside world does something to help", which makes players feel a bit useless and gameplay can grow tedious quickly. Diplomacy checks constantly bog down the action, and what action you get is more about not being stepped on by a giant bug, rather than anything productive.

- A standard run-and-gun game with high action like our usual fare here. Smaller versions of the big-ugly can pop their head out, other monsters, etc. And let players kill those off by the truckload until they're ready to face big-bad. It seems to fit the idea of the dog-like cloverfield monsters roaming around. Although this hurts the feeling that you seem to be trying to milk with saying the nuke just barely dazed the thing.


Depending on which you want, there's different approaches to GMing, deciding stats, etc. All of them could be fun, but some may be more or less effort to GM, especially if enough interest is gathered.

 

[Pheonix Alugere]

Re: Idea Development - "Present day" Monster Movie

*reason not yet determined*

It may just be me, but I'm pretty sure that's because the entire area is swimming in nuclear radiation.

Of course, because we don't want characters dying of radiation poisoning given that that's no fun, I'm pretty sure that's B-rated movie radiation anyway.

 

[OAMP]

Re: Idea Development - "Present day" Monster Movie

Oh, now I understand the question, I think. I had a big post here, but I feel I need to type another post from the start to explain the idea clearly. Give me awhile, and forgive the upcomming double post.

 

[OAMP]

Re: Idea Development - "Present day" Monster Movie

Ok, I've constructed this post to explain. This is VERY spoilerific, and I'm going for a bit of a mystery element, so be warned. Some plot points subject to change.

Spoiler

Story

Take a world, just like Earth 2010, except it isn't Earth. A generic planet that everyone can clearly relate to, except a clean slate.

One day, a giant hole opens up in the heart of the biggest city on a given contenent. Within seconds, a giant monster asends to the surface, looking like a cross between a giant squid and an insect. In it grows many types of monsters that it can launch from various openings on its body.

The military is quickly called out. The monster itself is content to wander around the same few city blocks, but its minions spread out like locus, killing and raping everything in their path. The army fights building to building for around six hours, before finally forming a line outside the city. Some big shot in the chain of command decides to nuke the city, troops, civilians and all. However, something strange happens. The monster in a sudden burst of activity shoots the missles down via unknown means, though the missle still fizzles.

At the same time, a strange shockwave shoots out from the monster, frying all unshielded electronics. A strange bubble now surrounds the city at a radius of 100 km that disables all electronics that try and pass.

The monster itself lies motionless where it was, but its spawn continue to grow and spread throughout the city. The survivors are shaken by the previous events, and many have already died from a combination of factors. Those who remain must attempt to survive to figure out the mystery behind the monster while trying to end the threat of its minions once and for all.

Mechanics

Everyone starts by themselves right after the barrier went up. The introduction post will take care of anyone who has survived near them The player must quickly gather all items of use from their starting location and attempt to seek shelter and/or other surviors. Teaming up is highly encouraged, and can be facilitated through the use of (shielded) radios, though there is a very high randomity to radio use. In addition, finding a working radio is no small task.

At some point, the player(s) will signal to the GM that they are ready to move on to the main phase of the game. At this point, all possible endings are open to the player or party, but their choices in this phase will determine how they end up. The length of both this and the first phase is determined by how the player/party is roleplaying.

The game's focus is on combat and story progression. The team building is secondary.

The endings not yet worked out, but ones that will be included for sure are: Kill the monster outright, Maintain live samples for the scientists, and Find the origin of the creature.

*I still might not have described the style well enough, I think... Keep in mind, I had this more in mind for the PbP section then the RP section. I'm not quite sure what the difference in these two are, but...

 

[Pheonix Alugere]

Re: Idea Development - "Present day" Monster Movie

All games played on the forum are PbP games. RP's are PbP games that involve roleplaying. The location of your roleplaying subforum (Be it under the roleplaying header or the PbP header) has no bearing as basically anything that has a subforum is an RP and some were relegated to being under the PbP header instead of the RP header to save space at one point and they can't easily be moved.

 

[OAMP]

Re: Idea Development - "Present day" Monster Movie

Well, I hope my post explained what I was trying to say a bit better.

Anywho, about combat. What are the different systems for use there?

 

[Tassadar]

Re: Idea Development - "Present day" Monster Movie

If you've played pen and paper RPGs, the popular ones are D&D from roughly the 3.0-3.5 era, which I partially based Dark Gate on, and All Flesh Must be Eaten, which the game AWMBI run by RaptorJesus was based off of. There are a few others, like the other versions of D&D, Shadowrun, and World of Darkness, but I'm not familiar enough with any of those to tell you much about them.

Other than that, video game RPGs are helpful too, in particular WoW and Guild wars.

Generally, it boils down to: roll a die, add or subtract some numbers, and compare it to a set goal that you need to get higher than to see if you hit. Damage works much the same, except you're subtracting whatever you get from the targets HP.

 

[OAMP]

Re: Idea Development - "Present day" Monster Movie

Yeah, I really like the system you got going on in Dark Gate, but want to add some of my own unique flares to it, so to speak.

I've always been itching to play pen and paper, but havn't really had the chance, though as luck would have it, a few people I know have decided to play over IRC as of a few hours ago, though about half of them are the type that make the rules as complicated as possible it seems

 

[lurker]

Re: Idea Development - "Present day" Monster Movie

The system of Path of Ashes was pretty simple, as well as the fact that it was written by someone else and all I had to add was Pleasure Damage (aka for the erotic stuff) and make up the char classes, armor, and weapons with the bonuses/stats required. Like Tassadar said though, any system you make that is stat or dice based is essentually roll and then add/subtract/multiply/divide etc.

 

[OAMP]

Re: Idea Development - "Present day" Monster Movie

Well, I think my biggest problem will be the weapon stats. It's a sad fact that most RPGs are midevil fantasy, and therefore not many have guns and rocket launchers for me to compare to, to come up with stats that'd work for them.

 

[the_taken]

Re: Idea Development - "Present day" Monster Movie

Well, I think my biggest problem will be the weapon stats. It's a sad fact that most RPGs are midevil fantasy, and therefore not many have guns and rocket launchers for me to compare to, to come up with stats that'd work for them.

The advantage of guns isn't just in their stats, it's in the change of tactics they bring. Old muskets were in many ways better than bows and arrows, but the battle field tactic used was similar. Then the invention of the encased bullet significantly reduced the reload time of guns, and the addition spinning bullets greatly improved accuracy, quickly changed the tactic from mass volleys into enemy ranks to large scale cat and mouse (though they didn't figure that out until after WWI). The invention of the clip and automatic reloading mechanisms, the accuracy, and the eventual invention of the fully automatic firing mode, made massing troops together in tight formations completely suicide.

Having a gun allows someone to do more than just shoot a fool in the face from range. They can take some extra time to steady their aim, or fire off some bullets to suppress enemies, or if they're a nood they can just spray-n-pray.

Special Attack Actions

Aim: Aiming is the act of taking extra time with a shot in order to make it more accurate. Each Aiming action reduces the effective range between the character and the target by one range category for the next shot. The actual distance does not change, and the threshold is still modified upward if the character is firing from beyond the weapon's accurate range. If the weapon is sufficiently braced that recoil is completely negated and the target does not move substantially from its original position, the character's Aiming can continue to apply on future shots. The first Aim action takes a Simple Action, and each further Aim action takes a progressively longer time frame (1 Round, 1 Minute, 5 Minutes, and finally 20 minutes of preparation to reduce a Remote target to be effectively Adjacent). These subsequent Aim actions all apply to the same attack, but a character can't actually benefit from more subsequent Aim actions than they have actual skill rating in Combat or Rigging. Aiming at targets beyond Short range requires a scope.

Suppressive Fire: Suppressive Fire is the act of firing a bunch of bullets near a piece of cover that a target (or targets) are hiding behind. Since Suppressive Fire is actually fired at a place where the targets are not, it has no chance of hitting them. What it can do is seriously threaten anyone who breaks cover. If during the following round any potential target comes out of cover (even for purposes of popping out to take a better shot), they are subject to an attack as if they had no cover at all. Suppressive Fire is very effective game mechanically with automatic weaponry because autofire has improvements in accuracy but suffers penalties against cover. This is not an accident, as suppressive fire is frequently and effectively used in the real world with weapons that have a high rate of fire. Suppressive Fire is a Complex Action and covers the entire round. Characters with multiple Initiative Passes can do other things while suppressing an area.

Spray-n-Pray: Automatic weaponry can be walked across areas, firing off bullets seemingly at random. This is neither advisable nor safe, but it can totally hit people with bullets and kill them and stuff. Which for people with little skill with firearms is not necessarily a bad deal. Spray-n-Pray differs substantially from most actions in aWoD because the character's skills and attributes don't really get used. Instead, the character nominates an arc and rolls just the 3 dice bonus for autofire against each potential target in the area. Spray-n-Pray ignores threshold modifiers from target speed or poor visibility, but is otherwise a normal ranged attack. Spray-n-Pray is not compatible with Aiming, and thus it will never hit anyone farther away than Way out Range or anyone behind heavy cover. Spray-n-Pray is a complex action.

But coming up with stats is kinda easy. You can just take the lethality of sticks and swords, and add range. A big huge axe becomes a sniper riffle, a pair of swords become an assault rife, a great sword becomes a shot gun, and a dagger becomes a pistol, which is then the only available option to use with a shield. You can keep the stats for armor, you just change the flavour text, chain equals kevlar, metal plates instead become ceramic and plastic-glass plates, or something like that.

 

[OAMP]

Re: Idea Development - "Present day" Monster Movie

Oh believe me, I know alot about guns and their tactics. I'm a redneck (sort of), and military enthusiast

That's one way to handle it, just changing the flavoring, I'll look into it. Does that WoD there stand for World of Darkness, by any chance?

 

[the_taken]

Re: Idea Development - "Present day" Monster Movie

Oh believe me, I know alot about guns and their tactics. I'm a redneck (sort of), and military enthusiast

That's one way to handle it, just changing the flavoring, I'll look into it. Does that WoD there stand for World of Darkness, by any chance?

aWoD stands of alternate World of Darkness, a non-party's attempt to restore some semblance of sense in the bloated systems that are Old World of Darkness and New World of Darkness. The main writer is Frank Trollman, a former designer and writer for Shadowrun, which is a similar system to the one used in oWoD and nWoD. WoD is supposed to be a game system for playing around in a horror movie, like All Flesh Must be Eaten, but isn't obsessed with zombies like the latter is. aWoD supposedly fixes a bunch of issues... you mileage may vary.

 

[OAMP]

Re: Idea Development - "Present day" Monster Movie

aWoD stands of alternate World of Darkness, a non-party's attempt to restore some semblance of sense in the bloated systems that are Old World of Darkness and New World of Darkness. The main writer is Frank Trollman, a former designer and writer for Shadowrun, which is a similar system to the one used in oWoD and nWoD. WoD is supposed to be a game system for playing around in a horror movie, like All Flesh Must be Eaten, but isn't obsessed with zombies like the latter is. aWoD supposedly fixes a bunch of issues... you mileage may vary.

Heh, well I've played a computer version of Vampire: Masquerade, using the oWoD, though the system in it wasn't complete obviously, and that group I mentioned had decided we were going to play Shadowrun, so hopefully I'll pick up all those things quickly.

Just one more question before I forget. One thing not covered using swords and such is hitting many enemies in a short timeframe. Should combat turns just be really short, or is there a mechanic for handling this? I plan on having the monsters "swarm" sometimes, for lack of a better term. Even with a large party, I highly doubt they could survive unless they could hit many enemies quickly, perhaps in the same turn. I suppose some "special attack" that can hit all enemies (one role per enemy) would work? I saw something like that in Planet of Pleasure that just started.

 

[Tassadar]

Re: Idea Development - "Present day" Monster Movie

Heh, well I've played a computer version of Vampire: Masquerade, using the oWoD, though the system in it wasn't complete obviously, and that group I mentioned had decided we were going to play Shadowrun, so hopefully I'll pick up all those things quickly.

Just one more question before I forget. One thing not covered using swords and such is hitting many enemies in a short timeframe. Should combat turns just be really short, or is there a mechanic for handling this? I plan on having the monsters "swarm" sometimes, for lack of a better term. Even with a large party, I highly doubt they could survive unless they could hit many enemies quickly, perhaps in the same turn. I suppose some "special attack" that can hit all enemies (one role per enemy) would work? I saw something like that in Planet of Pleasure that just started.

If it was Redemption, I'm sorry. If it was Bloodlines, damn good game.

Special attacks/abilities are what you need for that.

 

[the_taken]

Re: Idea Development - "Present day" Monster Movie

If it was Redemption, I'm sorry. If it was Bloodlines, damn good game.

Special attacks/abilities are what you need for that.

Aye. Having the ability to wield two swords means you can stab two enemies at once, or one enemy twice when you do. Then there's the iconic whirlwind ability, which makes you just as dangerous to everyone around you as anyone around you, stabbing everyone around you in quick succession, twice if you have two swords.

 

[OAMP]

Re: Idea Development - "Present day" Monster Movie

It was bloodlines. I was actually doing a replay a few weeks ago with the unoffical patch, greatly improves the game and fixes everything Trokia didn't get to before they went out of bussiness.