Okay, I'm having trouble with this one. It's rather long. The author has some minor spelling problems, but they aren't too bad. My real problem here is that I think he's going to bite off more than he can chew... despite stating his commmitment to the game and understanding of how long these things can run, having played in a couple and even GM'd three games already (all Alternity, which was pubished May 1998, so he hasn't had a long-running game), his planned story (as vague as it is) seems very broad and time consuming. He plans on having each character play out several game days before meeting each other. If this goes anything like some other games, they'll never meet each other. I've seen games in which it took a year to play out a single game day. Overall, I don't think he knows what he's getting into and hasn't put enough thought into the setup and potential story. I'm inclined to reject him, but I feel like I'm being too harsh. Anyway... here it is. There's a lot of it, but I need more than just a couple opinions on this, so please give it a read and tell me what you think. title = Caught Between Heaven and Hell blurb = A game where Humans of ordinary backgrounds have developed some extra-ordinary abilites and are now using them as they see fit... Imagine playing your favorite Comic book character, mixing and matching powers from comic book characters, or even making up what you would like to be able to do if you were a super hero. That is what this Alternity Game is all about... You are a super hero of your own devising and are out to stop evil (or good as the case may be) NOTE: This game uses the revised FX rules presented in 'Beyond Science: A Guide to FX' genre = Supers system = Alternity about = I have been GM ing Alternity for about 2 years now, am currently running one Alternity game set in the Dark*Matter universe every other saterday in the real world, i have run 2 or three Online games one of which had a success rating of over 80%, i have also run three or four PBeM games one of which had a success rating of approx. 90% ============= I am responding to this to make sure that everything has been taken care of correctly. I have read your e-mail and am responding to it throughout the mailing it's self so that there are as few miscommunications as possible. [snip] My take on this is that you would like for me to expand on the description that I gave on the web page. If this is the case then here goes if not then i apologize for cluttering up your mailbox. This PBeM is going to be using the Alternity Ruleset for creation of characters, use of specific skills (if asked for explisitly), and any combat that may occur. This PBeM will also be using the "Beyond Science: A Guide to FX" for the heros to pick up the specific super powers. As for the way that the turns will be handled I will be taking a story like turn based naritive approach (similer to what was described in Harrigan's "How to run a succesful PBeM campaign") Now as for the actual game its self... this game is going to be a 'The Tick' meets 'Spiderman' meets 'Batman' meets 'Lady Death' (or in other words a comidic comic meets Mavel, mets DC, meets image, meets whatever else you can slide in there) so far one character is heavily based on the Image world, the other players still have to make up their mind as to what they are going to want to be. as for the premise of the game the characters will be working seperatly for a few turns until they can be brought together and then they will hopefully be working together, however should the decide to work at cross purposes i have also planed that track out for at least a few 'chapters'. [snip] I am currently playing in two PBeM's and have run three of my own. I have also played in three more. The ones that I ran, of which have been Alternity based, have been at the very least a learning experience for me. The first one that i rean was one based in PL8 that one failed due to me being fresh as a PBeM GM and not realizing that one post every other day was a little excesive... The second one was a PL7 Tangents game, that one went well for a while until the players hit Finals in school (about half of them were in college) and then decided not to contact me after vacation was over, so i took that as them saying that they no longer wanted to play. The tird one was a Dark*Matter game. That game turned into a real-time web based game using WEB-RPG. We played weekly for a few months and then they recently decided to retire their characters. [snip] I believe that the previous paragraph that I wrote states that I realize how much time is involved in a PBeM and that I can handel it. ============ Can you tell me a little more about what you plan to do in the game? You've given the background and what kinds of characters you expect, but it's unclear what kind of plot you're expecting. I ask this because many GM's start out with an interesting premise but no plans beyond, "a bunch of superheroes get together and adventure," assuming that they'll think of something when the time comes. At the Phoenyx we believe that a GM needs to be prepared with a rough plot, or at least a clear antagonist(s) with goals and motivations, and situation into which the characters will be thrust to create conflict with the antagonist. If you can give me a simple synopsys of how you expect things to progress in the game, that should be all the more that I need. [requested more detail] Sure! Not a problem. The major antagonist(sts) really depend on what the players actually choose to play... but at the moment I will build off of the one character whose background that I do have with some notes following at the end. Right now the character that I have is essentialy a samari type character that was created/engineered. Every superhero seems to have at least one MAJOR flaw and his is his sword. His sword is essintially a magical item that has had an evil soul forged into it (imagin an inteligent weapon with an alignment of Chaotic Evil in AD&D) from which he draws his powers... The character him self is a good individual but is tormented by his sword, and with out the sword he will either wither and die or become a babaling idiot that can do nothing except sit in a chair and drool on himself (as will the sword without him, kind of a symbiotic relationship, almost like Yin and Yang). So far the main antagonist is the group that created him and from which he is fleeing (not to mention the sub plots of him trying to control the sword and what happens if the sword is stolen or destroyed). Once the group is a little bigger (i am looking for aprox. four players) there will be more antagonists and the plot will be more involved, however being the person that i am and having the personality that i have, there will be occasional 'chapters' that are very 'Tickesque'; if you have ever seen 'The Tick' you will note that these are going to be purely for comic relief. Ok a short synopsis of the plot goes something like this: at the present moment the plot is a somewhat dark superhero game, it is almost a superhero bordering on horror (like Spawn). the players main goal will be defeating something from their history along with things from other players histories, while protecting a city or small country from some smaller baddies (like superman stopping an 'everyday' bank robery or spiderman getting a cat out of a tree clear up to Superman, The Fantastic Four, and the X-Men stoping a civil war) However due to the way that I have the initial setup planed I have also taken into account the characters working at cross purposes there fore there has the possability of there being up to four 'seprate' games with in this one PBeM (although for my sanity I am hoping for at most a 2 way split) the main reason that I am running each player seperatly for a few game days is so that I can weed out any players that are not exactly commited and replace them more efficiently and with less plot 'trip-ups'. -- -------------------------------------------------------------- Listowner tools are found at http://www.phoenyx.net/listowners
