Interest Check: Insane Mass of Insanity

[Shamitako]

So I have a whole ton of ideas and I kinda want to turn them into an RP, but I wanted to see what people would be interested in first

To begin, I want it to be a fantasy RP, but I kind of have a Sci-Fi power system?

Actually, IDK where that was going, so let's just ride this disjointed train of thoughts on to the power system

So basically, you'd have a base ability that did fairly weak stuff, for example I'll use mind reading. And then you'd have two augments focusing on two aspects of that ability. So augment #1 could allow a mind reader to communicate two-ways. And augment #2 could allow them to overpower the targets mind with their powers of suggestion (FYI, that would be way OP on a character) How to activate the augments is still on my list of things to sort out

Next, I want there to be several races, but I want the basic race to not be humans, because humans are always the mediocre basic race

And finally, I was leaning towards making it a cliche'd and overdone type thing, because I enjoy and am good at that. So a nonexistent fourth wall and a super-overdone storyline with obvious character archetypes and whatnot

Thoughts? Suggestions? City names? (I suck at location names >_>)

Plot Ideas (In order of most cliche'd to least):

• Adventuring party out to stop an evil takover
• Faction war
• Natural disaster

#1 will probably be what happens, because I have an idea for it

Setting:
The World of Coticea

Nixus, the Ice Mountains
Home to the Great Compendium of Knowledge, a massive library that has stood for as long as the oldest texts, and the Human race. Nixus is harsh land, its inhabitants must survive not by strength but by innovation. The human residents have created large cities in the heart of the mountains and use thick insulation and heat brought from inside the land to keep warm. In these cities they study the world, and the most prestigious even study Abilicology, the study of the mysterious abilities possessed by certain people of Coticea. Humans are considered to be the most intellectual race in the world, and the scholars of the Compendium are considered to be at the pinnacle of all knowledge

Races:

Reptans, the Average

Reptoids are the most common species on Coticea and also the most versatile. They inhabit all lands to some degree

Humans, the Smart

Humans are the smartest species on Coticea, though they lack in strength and even more in speed. They inhabit Nixus

Manti, the Speedy
Manti are the fastest species on Coticea, though they lack in smarts and even more in strength. They inhabit Vitrus

Ursi, the Strong

The Ursi are the strongest species on Coticea, though they lack in speed and even more in smarts. They inhabit Silvus

Edited January 10, 2015 by KosherKitten

[Damiano]

Well I'm down to help with world building and stuff if that's what you're looking for? I've never done RP before though. I'm currently just a writer with too much time to think on his hands. World building and RP seems like fun if you'll have me. But I'd need more info on what it is you're going for.

[Shamitako]

I was literally just working on a basic concept for the world. Thinking three Australia-sized continents each housing it's own country type thing for the landmasses

Oh, you know what I could use some ideas on, races

Give ten minutes to put together some more terrain stuff... Feel free to give ideas for some different race concepts. I want a basic mediocre one (Thinking something like lizard-people for that?) Then I was thinking on having three main aspects outside that. Those being smarts, strength, and speed. I want to have a race specializing in each. Humans are going to be the smarts one (Which I'm sure sounds weird, but just imagine if everyone was a nerd )

[Yash]

One thing you could use for races was animal hybrids.. Maybe something like cheetah-man for speed, elephant-man for strength etc.. Or you could try having a species of mixed hybrids, each individually having different powers.. Just to have a far greater variety.. If you need help with this RP I would be interested..

[Shamitako]

Animal hybrids had crossed my mind. Issue is, those are humans with animal powers, and I don't want humans to be the basic race

Alright, so I have one continent down:

Nixus, the Ice Mountains

Home to the Great Compendium of Knowledge, a massive library that has stood for as long as the oldest texts, and the Human race. Nixus is harsh land, its inhabitants must survive not by strength but by innovation. The human residents have created large cities in the heart of the mountains and use thick insulation and heat brought from inside the land to keep warm. In these cities they study the world, and the most prestigious even study Abilicology, the study of the mysterious abilities possessed by certain people of Coticea (that's the world's name, I literally just made it up) Humans are considered to be the most intellectual race in the world, and the scholars of the Compendium are considered to be at the pinnacle of all knowledge

[Yash]

Hmm.. You could just make it humanoid animals then.. Could be the effect of magic, giving them higher reasoning skills and the ability for speech etc. Also if you want help in world building I can give it a shot.. Maybe send you a continent design..

[Shamitako]

I could certainly use some basic outline ideas. I know one of them will be a moon shape, but beyond that IDK

Also PC loses internet in three minutes, so not going be doing anymore major work tonight, but I will probably stick around to read and reply to suggestions from my 3DS

Edited January 9, 2015 by KosherKitten

[Damiano]

The Calange

A sea of sand surrounded by fortresses from opposing nations. Balta the desert land and Den of the Calange. A ferrell, kill loving race. It was originally believed to be a merchant land, specializing in smithing and weaponry. However they seemed to go extinct in only a night. The gods seem to punish them for some unknown sin. Using benevolent power to bring a star from the heavens crashing to the sand and below. Strange, outworld creatures were said to arise from the smoldering rock. There infestation of Balta was not merciful. It is rumored that not a single human made it out alive that night. It is unknown exactly how the original citizens of Balta met their end but those who have seen the Calange would bet it was a cruel end. Fortresses have been erected encompassing the devastation keeping as many Calange inside as the walls can contain.

Calange-Speed
Features- Humanoid, tall, lean
Skin tends to be shades of near black dark purples and blues.
Mouths show sharp jagged fangs, no lips (causes a slight whistle when speaking), human tongue.
Eye’s varying colors though largely dilated, accustomed to night.
Hands display sharp knuckles used for digging and tearing apart prey

Behavior- Stealth/Rabid
A vicious carnivorous race. The Calange will stalk and kill anything thing it finds alone, unless given sufficient reason not to (such as staying hidden). While under the eye of others in the day they can socialize almost normally.
-Their interactions with the humans are most standard as they do not fear the power of knowledge, however a some some of them do not underestimate it.
-Their contact with the Pygmy (temporary name (from dark souls) for whatever the weak race is) much less kind. The Calange half-jokingly mention how easy it would be to rip them apart and devour their insides.
-Finally their interaction with warrior race is almost non-existent. They often remain quiet, attempting to go unnoticed by the race that fought and pushed them back into the desert before fortresses were built.

^My idea for the speed race. Stalker aliens...yeah. I actually kinda like it. It's almost two in the morning, okay? Naturally, all of this is changeable. So what do you think?

[Raindrop Valkyrie]

I would recommend making the strength one none bipedal, or at least partially none Bipedal. Like it can use it arms, to both walk and manipulate.)) Bipeds aren't built properly for strength.

Also, not saying this has to be, this is just a world-building thing in general. There is a reason Humans are the bog standard. One, people know exactly what a human is like, and therefore the easiest baseline to judge other races. This plays into the second point. Humans are very much bog standard. We are jacks of all trades, and not really built for anything in particular. This makes us rather well rounded. Because of this base-line it becomes hard to put anything below humans as this baseline because well, they are simply too foriegn for players to understand the proper balance of the universe. With humans being the Knowledge power, they are skewed towards this number. It makes the access point form a player muddling and confusing. How does one compare something built for intelligence to one for another purpose? It is hard to look into a tinted window and not have it stained by whatever colour it is. The baseline would have a clear window. This is usually the window players look in through. Humans are they tie to reality and the thing they can easily relate to to see into the world. However, here they are put behind a blue window, rather than a clear one. Everything on the other side is now stained in that blue, and it is hard to read it properly. There is more muddled noise from looking through the blue window, and then trying to look through the base line window through the blue window. As such, the picture is pretty horrid especially of the other races set apart for our point. We can't even get a good eye on them, because they are so different to the window we get to look trough. If the Strength race had a Red window, it would look purple to us instead of red. Basically it is hard to run a world when having the Humans be an exemplar of something, rather than the baseline. Because they are so different to the other races that uphold something, that they can't be properly understood without a lot of reaching and extrapolating. While I agree humans are boring, there is a reason they are in every single sci-fi and high fantasy. They are our view point into the world, and if they have a bias, we are tainted by that bias and it makes it hard to judge the world without it because it is all we have. Trust me, the world building will be a giant headache alone as it is hard to understand without a baseline that you can understand very well. ((to make up a race that frankly doesn't exist yet and tell people to try and base the world view on something they don't even properly understand is the recipe for disaster, no matter how good the world building is. Because the disconnect will ruin pretty much all of the good work, because players won't be able to easily wrap their heads around it.)) Basically, they are going to be playing from behind and that isn't good.

That is the big concern I have with this lol. Feel free to totally ignore me, but trust me it will be so much harder working with it this way.

[Yash]

Sensei make a rather valid and totally confusing point.. Maybe you could have sub species of humans rather than plain humans.. Kind of like two different evolutionary paths.. One that is regular jack of all trades.. The second is one that has evolved to a higher level of conscience and understanding, however at the cost of physical strength or something like that..

[Tomas Elliot]

I like your ideas so far, and well, I am a rather accomplished roleplayer (if I say so myself) with too much creativity for my own good. So yeah, given that this coming sunday I am finally returning to Bologna and re-starting my free (read: parents-less) dayly routine, I'll be glad to help you develop every part of the game you might need a hand with, and even to co-host should you need it.

Before everything else, there is something that I need to ask. I see that you want both supernatural powers and Sci-fi technology to exist in your world, and that, among your plot ideas, there is a catastrophic scenario: so I gotta ask, do you know of a game called Shin Megami Tensei Devil Survivor? Because that could be a good source of inspiration for you (what with people using computers to summon demons that have supernatural powers, in a catastrophic scenario).

[Shamitako]

Hmm. I was more saying that my powers were more sci-fi-ish in that they were mostly random. You don't study them, they aren't based in any elements or following some system of magic, they're just abilities. But now I'm curious about your thing

I've decided to definitely do lizard-people for the basic species. They're literally going to be giant sentient lizards. They'll run on all fours and walk on two legs, to help emphasize their versatility. They'll also live in all regions, but be considered inferior to the people there. For example, in Nixus, how smart you are is the measure everyone is placed to. And compared to the Nixian humans, these lizard-people are generally dumber. Thus they are seen as inferior, despite being stronger and faster than humans. In the strength place they'll be inferior by being weaker physically, despite being smarter and faster, etc

Speed people will probably be insectoid, leaning towards mantises or maybe dragonflies (And they would literally be giant sentient variations of that, though the mantises would have grasping hands instead of claws)

Oh, and Huk, these humans aren't exactly what we have either. I mean, we have dumb humans and strong humans too, so I'll be pointing out in my races thing that these humans don't have the genetic code to be stocky or have low brainpower (Like, the minimum IQ for them would be average for us) They're human in name and appearance, but they're still quite different. So yeah, that could be an issue with people not having a proper baseline to compare things to. But just imagine if everyone had a B average or better with little to no effort. Still, you do have a point there, and of course I understand. It would still be fun to have the baseline be something else

Also we're /not/ jacks of all trades at all, we're very physically lacking and can't reach very high speeds or strengths without assistance. What we have going for us is our innovation and smarts allowing us to survive. Thus, using us as a baseline automatically limits the speed and strength races

Edited January 9, 2015 by KosherKitten

[Tomas Elliot]

Ok I had misunderstood what you meant by Sci-fi, in this case my earlier suggestion cannot really help you...

The multiple races idea is fascinating tho: are you going to set the work in some fictional universe then? Or, to make things more interesting, couldn't the whole thing be set in our world, and the various racesbe the product of experiments made by humans? it would also explain the fatastic racism humans would display against them: they would see them as expendable, lowly guinea pigs and nothing more, possibly setting up a "humans are the real monsters" scenario...

[Shamitako]

Eh, that feels waay too sci-fi and not enough fantasy (But it's a really neat idea, gaah) I think Ima stick with Citicea owo

Also, everyone but the lizards are fantastic racists, because they all feel the other are inferior due to not being as good as them at something or other. The lizards are just normal racists that think the other races are all racist, pompous assholes

P much, no race likes any of the others, the lizards are just willing to put up with the others due to being less extreme in their veiws

[Raindrop Valkyrie]

Yea, keep in mind I had a very good idea with what you are going for, I am just trying to make sure it is clear building around it will be a pain in the ass XD.

Humans in other settings aren't the baseline because they truly are, they are out of necessity and simplicity's sake.

but yea, Insectoid is probably best for speed, they are built for it. I would imagine they even think rapidly and quickly. Probably are good problem solvers in a pinch.

I will probably be back once this is hashed out a bit more lol. That ends to be when I am good at hammering out kinks. I like messing with the small stuff, like why a race is motivated to think or act a certain way. Why their culture is the way it is etc... That is what I like in world building. I don't like the grunt work so to speak lol. The sloppy meaty stuff, like banging out the raw form.

((and sorry about the strange metaphor I used up above, I tend to do that. I find it easier to explain in metaphor what I mean rather than just like straight talk it sometimes. Or at least I think a visual aid helps a bit.))

[Shamitako]

You're fine, I practically live for metaphors

And I guess I better get working then owo

[Code: PIRULUK]

Make basic race a race of amorphous blobs

[Chevaleresse]

on humans again: we are most certainly NOT bog-standard. The human body is geared for two things: supporting the brain and being able to take one hell of a punishment and be fine in a week. We completely lack any sort of natural weapon other than punches, kicks, and bites with a relatively small amount of muscle mass behind us, putting our offensive power even below that of a rabbit (for our size, of course.) Humans also lack the ability to naturally adapt to a variety of climates: our anatomy works best in tropical climates and we lack the ability to really survive extremes of heat or cold. A human's skin is not protected by any sort of natural armor, either. However, there are two things that no one else has. One is our ability to preserve information across generations and convey complex information. The other is our absurd endurance. The primary theory behind how humans hunted is that we WALKED things to death. We literally followed prey until it collapsed of exhaustion. We recover from wounds at an astronomical pace compared to most of the animal kingdom. Our scar tissue usually covers up wounds within a day or so, and a person can simply walk away after losing an arm and have a fair chance of not only living but surviving to reproduce. We're built to take damage; a bone is stronger after a break and muscles are more powerful after being torn. You can survive for quite some time with vital organs damaged or shut down given that your body is still circulating oxygen.

tl;dr we can walk a really long way and heal fast, and we're smart. Humans are only viewed as standard because we're the only form of intelligent life we know of.

[Raindrop Valkyrie]

That was pretty much my point lol, It doesn't need to be reiterated really. It would be best to hash out other stuff from here rather than keep restating the same thing lol.

[Shamitako]

Welp, as my status says, I has ideas. I just need to get them all up in the OP

[Damiano]

I know the you wanted humans, insects and reptiles but what are the Ursi? I don't wanna just assume they're bears.

[Shamitako]

No, they're Walruses yes they're bears. It was that or tigers

[catgame21234]

Reading this threw I think get the general gist…

some odd number of contentents with fancy names with diffrent races. We have racist french lizards who are fast but thats it. Smart humans who are squishy as always. Something super bulky and tough and I dont fliping know the last one.

corect me if im wrong in my lamest summary x3

One thing I do want to note, your battle system / item system you said at the start…it reminds me a lot of your action comands in a game called Transistor. You have your basic move, for this sake we'll name it "Bash()" were you swing your sword at someone. Then you can put an an abbility on it, lets say "Lazor ()". Then when ever you turn on "Bash ()" and hit something. A lazor beam shots out of your sword as well.

That's how it works in THAT game. Maybe you could look that game up and see if it could help you develop the system you offored up at the start. I havn't been seeing that topic talked about that much =)