It'd be a fun way to liven up the forums and brush up on your writing skills.

Except it's sort of childish these days, huh? Can you believe I was 15 when I joined NNK? We can call it an inter-collaborative text-based fiction generation session.

Well, I wouldn't mind doing an inter-collaborative text-based fiction generation session, as you dub it. Not sure about everyone else, but I think I have enough (or a bit too much) free time this summer to, for lack of a better word, devote to a RP... or an ICTBFGS.

Hey, it's just an idea. Personally this summer has taken me to the 18th level of hell and back, so personally I could really vent off some steam.

Everyone has their way of releasing stress. I do so by scrawling mindless doodles and writing up never-to-be-finished little stories that no one will ever read. I thought this would be a great chance to liven things up, and if anyone is inclined to join me, blow off some steam as well.

i'm on.

and we need less planning, and more of just going ahead with the plot.

Agreed. Perhaps that way we can keep this going on for a bit longer, and people won't find it a hassle to join in.

Yeah, I vaguely remember the RP that came after Lamentable Nights flopping before it managed to take off... you could say it died in development hell or something.

So, uh, if the game plan is (in a very rough and general sense) present a preface, make characters and then 'GO', are there any ideas so far?

I JUST CAME BACK FROM SEEING INCEPTION. I WAS MINDBLOWING.

So if you were to ask me now, it's probably be something like that. Dreams and subconscious and whatnot.

no thanks. too confusing for me @___@


i still don't mind using the same premise as lamentable nights. less NPCs, and more our own chara. maybe 1 to 3 per person

Hey, sounds good to me. I think it was a mistake on my part as the instigator to impose so many rules. It made it both boring to read through and too restricting on the player's end. If we're to do it again, I'd say we forget the rules, keep only the core "story", and simply make up the rules as we go along. It'd be much more fun.

I never got around to watching Incception, haha. >.< Part of me feels that concept wouldn't too be out of place in a Japanese manga, though, pfft.

I think it would be interesting to try Lamentable Nights again, though I don't remember the presence of a lot of NPCs. o.o I do vaguely recall that after a while there was a lot less interaction between the player-created characters as everyone went off on their own tangents (I know I'm guilty of this). Maybe that's something to keep in mind if we do decide to do this?

I am also guilty as charged. I think everyone tried to cement their own stories before trying to interact with other players. So as I've mentioned, if we simply throw down a basic outline and hit go, I think we can eliminate these problems. The less we have to begin with means more freedom in writing, and less of the player feeling like they have to sort everything out before meshing into the game.

Speaking of which, it seems that more and more golden oldies are rediscovering the forums. If anyone wants to start tossing out ideas, that'd be cool. I'm too lazy to find the old thread again, but as I recall, the basic plot of Lamentable Nights was:

In the world there are humans who can see ghosts called Strays (as in stray spirit). A player can choose between three types of characters; a Human, a Stray, or a Panzer. A human is self-explanatory. A Stray is the ghost of a once living human who didn't quite make it to the next world. A Panzer a human fused with an animal soul (so a hybrid of sorts).

If enough people are interested, and this RP gets the green light, I can type out some extremely simple outlines for each character type. After all, it seems our motto this time around is to "keep it simple".

if contributions are welcome, may i suggest some plot devices so that our characters will have a motivation instead of just going along their on ways aimlessly. of course they are just random ideas, so feel free to shoot them down.

• strays are humans who died with regrets in their lives, their regret causes them to stay in this world (this is common sense)
• due to their regret, whether they realise it or not, strays will wish to be alive again. this may lead to them taking over the body of their human partner (may be intentional, or a side effect of the contract).
• alternatively, some of them have no memories of their life, and may just fuse with their contractor over time. (can we give them a name? how about, "link"? since contractors are the link between the living and the dead world)
• panzers are in no danger of the above though, since animals do not have a will
• panzers regard themselves as both human and animal. hmmm, like tony tony chopper? XDD
• when people become strays, they don't like really die, but rather, in the "few seconds that passes by in a flash before the end of your life", a "save point" has been created in their timeline. as a result, the strays separate from their body, continue wandering about until... when they actually die, they return back to that point of time, and die for real.
• links may take advantage of that phenomena, and go back in time to the moment of their strays' death (how this is done can be debated, but it gives the link good motivation)
• or, all strays can start off with no memories of their life. however, their special skills (whatever it is) will be related to the way they died. this way, the more a link and his/her stray fight, the more memories it regains, and this could be bad for the link (see second point)

i realise, i still have the art of my stray character

Of course, that seems to be the classic circumstance for ghosts across the board. But I feel the term "regret" could be too specific. "Unfinished business" would probably be a better way to give the players more clarity and freedom.


While I suppose a stray can possess living beings just like any stereotypical ghost, I don't feel this should be standard for every one. All players should be given freedom (within reigns) of their character, so if they choose to play as a stray, I don't think they should be bound by this specific plot device. But of course, they can also use this if they wanted to.


I think originally I called them "Vicers" or something, because seeing the world of the dead is supposed to be a taboo thing. I realize this name is sort of gimmicky and makes no sense. I thought the term "Crosser" could work, with the whole "crossing over" thing happening. I also debated about not giving them a name at all, and just calling them "humans who can see ghosts". Link works too, it's nice and simple.


Haha, I remember someone calling me out for this... the whole "animals have no will" thing. In order to avoid getting complicated, I'm just going to say that Panzers are simply human-animal hybrids who got that way by fusing with animal souls. And that all strays are human, because every animal lives a happy and content life doing what they do.


Hey, no objections there. But I mean, the degree of this obsession can vary between characters.


I think I tried explaining something like this in the old RP. In the end, it just turned out to be extra trivia that no one really paid attention to. Not to say it's completely useless but the correction we're making in this RP is to make it simple, so it's easy to jump in, make a character, and play. If it's alright, I'd like to ask how this point would serve to take part in motivations. Does this imply that strays can be "saved" somehow, though they're doomed to die regardless? For all intents and purposes of the gameplay though, strays are simply buggered out ghosts who couldn't transcend into the next world (whatever the heck that is), and linger in the living realm. The causes, attitudes, and motivations of the stray should be up to the player. Who knows, some strays might like it, while some might hate it and just want to move on.


Yes, I've been wondering about giving the human characters a motivation too. I've a very specific motivation for Panzers in mind, and a stray's motivations are pretty obvious by now. Another alternative is to simply let the humans be, and give them no motivation... and just let them ride the flow of the game. If completely necessary, I suppose the player can forge a motivation for the human character. After all, everyone has desires, no matter how grand or petty. What would you do if you suddenly gained super powers? Money? Fame? Fortune? Would you just lay low and see it as an everyday convenience? Or would you go all out and become the next superman?


I think this is a great idea. The common denominator between all strays is that they have zero memories from when they are alive at the moment of their conception. However, that doesn't mean these memories are lost forever... they can gain bits and pieces back via various means. Visiting old locations of significance, seeing people they might have known, and perhaps even fighting other strays and humans. I don't want to implicate too much, seeing as people can get creative as to how this happens. However, there is one thing I want to stress; no matter what the circumstance, the one memory a stray has locked up tighter than any other is their name. At the moment of a contraction between a human and a stray, the human gives the stray a name which he/she chooses to accept to form the mutual pact. "Your name is ________. Do you choose to accept this?" That type of deal. Followed by something physical like a handshake. Needless to say, learning their living names is a gigantic boon to a stray's memory pool... not to say it will unlock everything. Or perhaps it will. It's up to the player.


I don't think I've ever drawn pictures of my character. That's something to do this time.

Man, this was a long ass post.

Uh, I had the old forum bookmarked, so I found the old thread for Lamentable Nights: http://z14.invisionfree.com/Natsu_no_Koi/index.php?showtopic=1317&hl=


It sounds like something that could be used as a stray's trump card or last resort. Like, for instance, a stray's human partner is near death and so the stray decides to take over his partner's body, but in the process, gives up some of his own energy to sustain the life of the human. Or something like that.


A little random, but I suddenly thought of RO's Soul Linkers when I read this.


I had always figured the humans were helping out the strays because of some sort of emotional attachment or willingness to help the stray. Though now that I think about it, you could just as easily have a character help a stray retrieve his memories just because they wanted to get rid of them or something, haha.

Now that I think about it, was there any specific criteria a human had to have to bond with a stray? I remember that there was some sort of requirement to be able to actually see the strays, but was there any distinction between humans that could just see strays and humans that could see and bond with strays?



I scrapped my old character and she went off to be integrated into one of my other stories, hm. I did create a "placeholder" character in her place though, because I don't like leaving missing holes everywhere... or something like that.

Though this might count as jumping the gun a bit, I think we're good to start counting the amount of people interested.

That way, at least we can get a feel of the scale of the game. It's not much fun with only 3 people.

So who's in?

wow you're great. i couldn't find it man.

i was thinking, that since we are all busy ppl, this thing would make it easy for us to "drop" a character and move on to another chara more easily. the fact that strays can die, that vicer/link/crosser/etc can be taken over...

i have no comment XDD

well, it is up to the intepretation of the rp-er. some possibilities could play out:

1. stray is "dead". stray and link/vicer go back to past. with vicer's skills, stray's about-to-die body is revived [good end]
2. stray is "dead" and has regained all memories. stray and link/vicer go back to past. on deathbed, he/she voice his/her last wishes to the vicer who goes on to fulfill them [normal end]
3. stray is "dead", but somehow swaps lifeforce with vicer and goes back to the past. vicer/link dies in stray's place, stray lives life anew in link's body [bad end]
4. same as above, except that if the vicer has unfinished business, he/she becomes a stray [mindscrew end]

all that, and a few more variations that is up to your imagination.

not a good idea, because the if strays themselves already start off with no memories, and their human have no motivation, there'll be no plot ~__~

that does sound very cute. super unwilling protagonist

*leaves this question to pictor*

pictor
ayc
martia

then, we need to call these guys back.
savvi
chinchin
pasonia
antihidden
sent
maybe we shld just mass-pm everyone who used to be around

even so, that's not a lot of people for an rp...... but it is good to start off small. heck, even 5 ppl would be a good thing ._.


however, i also think that it would be good for 3 of us to start off basic, like get the ball rolling, but slowly. this way, there will be a setting for others to join in. we should also impose a word-limit, so that it won't be tl;dr for newcomers.

/so wants savvi back
he was the only player-character that i managed to intereact with previous round

after reading the link to the old forum posted by AYC, i've come to the conclusion we need some rules.

1. all posts need to start off like
   Date: 26 Aug, Thursday
   Time: 4pm/late afternoon
   Location: A civilian home in an apartment in the Garden City
   PCs: martia
   Other PCs: pictor, AYC
   NPC: None
   this way, we will know who when where. what why how will be the story
2. word limit. maybe 500. this is super needed. too many thing happen too fast, others cannot catch up. go slow, ok?
3. for PCs, ratio of majority character to minority character must be 1:1
   like for every vicer/link, there should be a stray or a panzer or a human.
4. one person can play a maximum of two PCs. one pair of vizer+stray=two PC. if you want a villian that will be very much involved in plot, that counts as your second PC
5. god-like charas need to be banned.
6. this is not my business, but can we cut down on japanese names? they annoy me that there are so many japanese ppl around

well, what do you think? i know i wasn't involved much previously, so that could be much that i am wrong about

1. I've been thinking about this too. Last time, everyone went off on their own tangents of time. A person might be 3 days ahead of everyone else, while another might be 3 days behind. Although I don't think we need to go as far as to list every single character involved in a post, having the time and location is definitely a good idea.
2. A word limit sounds good. I don't want to absolutely impose this, as perhaps certain sequences need just a bit more words to nail down. Though 500 words is pretty generous. Just a reminder that although this is a literary experience, there's no need to write a novel. Get your actions across, and don't jump 3 days ahead of everyone else.
3. Hopefully this will work out on their own. I don't think we should force people to play as a particular class just to even the score. We can try to make each one appealing enough that they'll attract their share of players. But I agree, it's not much fun when everyone just goes for a particular class.
4. Yes, I think that is also a good idea. I don't think this was a problem last time, but two characters sound like a fine limit. For the sake of moving the story further, I have some generic, "random encounter"-type enemies in mind.
5. I hope everyone playing has the common sense not to make such characters. I think in the writing industry they're informally known as Mary Sues; invented characters which have no flaw, too much power, and too much significance to be practical. Seeing as how this is an RP, we can expect people to do a certain degree of self-insertion, but please do watch the god-mode.
6. I completely understand what you mean. But in the end, we can only phrase this as a request and nothing else. I mean, people are free to name their characters whatever they want. But yea, it'd be appreciated if we mixed it up a little.

As far as RP etiquette and regulations go, I think everyone would be pretty darn familiar. Play nice, swearing is fine as long as we keep it artistic, don't control other people's characters without permission, denote meta posts with "OoC" (for Out of Character), and refrain from creating a boringly overpowered character. Of course, you can't be a stuck-up and never relinquish control of your dudes. That's probably half the fun. If someone throws a punch, another has to just man up and take it.

The setting of the RP takes place in a seaside town. That way, we'll get a good variety of environments. I was thinking maybe I could doodle up simple map so everyone can have an objective thing to refer to. Nothing too specific... just hospitals, libraries... schools, the like.

This is up for debate, but for now, I'm thinking we should have the time frame set during the summer. Then younger characters won't have to worry about obligations like school... although if you really wanted to summer school is always an alternative.

And a mass PM sounds good. Though, I don't really know how well that'd work if they don't frequent the forums as much as they used to. Hopefully if we get a slow ball rolling, people will be more willing to jump in. As of now it's just us three pitching ideas around.

Oh yes, and in response to AYC's question about humans bonding with strays. No, there isn't a distinction as far as I'm concerned. If you can see them, you can interact with them, and you're a liable candidate for a bonding pact. It's more of a matter of keeping things simple, otherwise we'd have a million types of extra characters, and a million more technical terms and jargon. Believe me, if I wanted to, I could get extremely convoluted. So convoluted everyone would get lost, including myself. Just like last game.

1. Date, time and location seem to be very practical suggestions. Like Pictor said, I don't know if listing all the characters involved in a scene is necessary, though it would further help keep track of where everyone is, in case someone wants to compile an overall timeline.
2. I think 500-600 words is pretty good. The essays I did way back in the beginning of high school were supposed to be 500 words, so if 500 words qualify as a mini essay, that's a fairly liberal helping.
3. A ratio is also reasonable, but I also believe it might force other people to choose a different character type; for instance it might create something like a first-come, first-serve basis. The people who create characters first can take their pick of character types, while the people who join later might have to pick characters they're not really interested in to fill up the ratio. I do think some sort of mechanism, for lack of a better word, is needed though to make the characters more varied; I remember the original had very few Panzers and quite a handful of Reapers and the rest were Vicers/Strays.
4. A two character limit is good. I'm assuming there isn't much need for a limit on NPC characters though (perhaps anyone can play as an NPC character that someone else mentioned/created).
5. Well, you could always use this to check out the super godliness power of your character. It's more oriented towards fanfiction characters, but it should catch the most extreme Mary/Gary Stu character before the rest of us start mutilating it.
6. I think it was fairly varied in the original RP, but since there's less of us (for now), it's certainly plausible. Part of me suddenly entertained the idea of code names though, just because it sounds cool, haha.

(A seaside town suddenly reminds me of Harvest Moon). A map would be a good reference. A summer time frame is fine with me, though if everyone wanted to make older characters it wouldn't make much difference, haha.

Recieved mass PM.

Reading through all this, it's more simpler. Sounds good.
I think I would join. :3

Will be a Panzer again. :3
Kitty soul!

My guy scored a 16. Just borderline, but I'm in the clear.

Whoohoo!

And I find it funny how many of those quiz items seemed a little too specific at first glance, but upon reflection, you're like "Oh wow. I totally know what you're talking about."

well, i didn't mass-pm. just you only heh heh. because i knew you'll still active

woohoo let's be friends again na? *dances with kitty*


pictor, do you need help with the rp? i think that we can split up the work, so it will be less confusing since it isn't all done by one person. like
pictor: map and story setting, character types
ayc: character profile requirements and QC of PCs. end of the day summary.
martia: "game mechanics" of the worlds magic system
savvi: proofing (if we get too complicated, tell us!!)

when we have built it up nicely, then we can mass-pm XDD

Friends again ^^ *dances with kitty*

Sounds good to split up the load. :3

Yes! Some help would be nice.

Actually, being the nerd I am, I've already typed up a document full of character sheets, and just some ideas floating around. I'll copy/paste the contents here later, so we can discuss how many illogical mistakes I've made.

All in all, I've tried to cut down on the technical terms, labels, and general jargon. Sometimes an apple is just an apple. No need to give it a fancy name derived from Norse mythology. As far as the "lore" of the RP goes, I've a thousand ideas, but not all of them would work in a forum RP. I'll toss em out when I post my thoughts, and we can debate about those too.

Hopefully the creation won't be so tedious that we're tuckered out before the RP even begins.