In Space, Nobody Can Hear You LoL
Announcements:
[!] ISNCHULOL will be going on one week hiatus while I sort out issues in my personal life, I'll post the blog for the second episode on May 2.
Character List Retroaction Math
So, I know I said I'd have this done for Friday, but then I spent the entire day doing homework. To be fair, I haven't slept since Friday! And I'm not going to bed until this is done. *lol* Anyway, first order of business, here's the players that made the cut:
Everyone! Or, to be more specific:
Imppala, Chameleon, Zhlink, FunnyFroggy, Pirkid, SilverFx, spygirl57, Gujju, SirPainsalot
I figured since this is a warmup game anyway, and we won't really be taking it seriously, there's really no need to exclude the 4 additional people past my original intended party size. There is a catch though; this game will be used to help screen players for the next one, which I will be taking seriously. And by "seriously" I mean still fun, but it'll have more depth than senseless jacking around. Now, when I say "screen players", what I mean is some of your characters will die. I expect one or two to kick it as soon as the end of this episode. This will be based on your performance in the game. Dying doesn't mean you definitely won't have a spot in the next game, but you'll certainly be lower on the list. (Don't worry too much though, I'm going to start the next game small and then slowly let more players in.)
If you're a spectator only, you can skip most of this blog. Start reading from the "Episode 1" title bar below. Check back occasionally, we'll be adding to this blog for a week, until Ep.2 comes out.
Glossary
This section contains terms I've made up or borrowed for my system.
doze – When you miss a turn, try to do something absurd, or break the rules, your character stands around and does nothing.
prime – Specific area of a statistic a character specializes in.
retroaction – Past action, used to roleplay recent events in hindsight.
stub – The very start of an episode, written before players take any action.
Miscellaneous Rules
I'll add to these as I think of more.
1. Metagaming: Your character doesn't always know everything you do. You can't use knowledge in-game unless your character knows it. If you attempt to do so, you will doze for that turn.
2. Out of Character: When posting, anything that's in the game, such as actions or character dialog should be surrounded by ###triple number signs###. You only need one set per post, don't go putting them around each sentence. Anything outside of these brackets is considered a comment, and will be ignored by in-game action.
3. Non-player posters: Anybody who isn't part of a game that tries to use ###these### will also be ignored. Characters who respond to to non-player posters will doze.
4. Editing RP posts: Any in-character posts made are considered final. You may edit these only as long as no other players after you have already made an action dependent on yours.
Play nice and have fun!
Character Creation!
(See character sheet in first blog comment.)
I'm making this system up on the fly, so we're gonna keep it really simple and functional. Everybody, before you take your first action, make a character and post it up. Your character consists of two major chunks of information. I'll refer to these as "background" and "statistics".
Background: First draw or Google up a picture. (Or you can skip this, and just describe your character's appearance instead.) Write up a paragraph (five sentences or more) about your character. This is important so I can use your ideas to help shape the RP. The better you guys can make these backgrounds, the more directly involved your characters will be in anything interesting that happens later. If you're stumped for ideas, have some of mine; write about how your character got to this point, their motives, their whims and hobbies, their nervous ticks and compulsions, their favorite or least favorite things, their close friends and relatives.
I'm going to put some boundaries on you guys next time, but they'll be very loose this time, because the theme is kinda wacky. Read the episode stub before you make up a background, because you guys are gonna help me write the rest!
Statistics: These are easier. You have "stats", "primes" and "skills".
Stats determine how good you are at something. These are mostly self explanatory. You have 30 points to distribute among three stats. 10 is considered average, and no stat may be lower than 3.
Speed – Important, this isn't just how fast you can move, but also how agile you are.
Strength – If you were to smash a helpless animal, how dead would it be in deadograms?
Intelligence – <insert celebrity name> has an IQ of 120! Can you beat his/her score!?
Primes allow you to specialize your stats. You can have either one prime worth +6, or two half-primes worth +3. These can be applied to either the offensive or defensive side of your rolls. You may apply half-primes to both sides of the same stat, but you may not apply primes or half-primes to the lowest of your three stats.
Offensive Roll – Any attempt to cause something to happen. (Attacking, climbing, crafting…)
Defensive Roll – Any attempt to prevent something from happening. (Blocking, evading, sense motive…)
Skills are by far the most interesting thing here. There's three specific types, but you get to make these up yourselves. They can be anything you want, and do anything you want, but if they're too over the top I reserve the right to scale them down or balance them out with weaknesses. You may pick one or two categories for any given skill. For now, choose 5 skills, no more than 3 in any one category. (If it's cross-category, you can count it as either for this.)
Movement– Any skills that get you from one place to another. Climbing, teleporting, etc.
Attack– If your skill can put the hurt on, it goes in this category.
Tech– Anything requiring technical know-how, like hacking, crafting, or interpreting.
Playing the Game
It's pretty simple, once you have a character.
1a. You get one turn a day. To use it, post an ###action###. This should represent ~10 minutes of in-game activities your character partakes of.
1b. Free actions don't take up a turn. This can be anything that takes a negligible amount of time, like a short conversations. These may be held retroactively between any characters that were in the same place during their turns. (You may want to poke their player(s) on MSN to let them know you're trying to talk.)
2. Check back on the main blog after each day for the official summary.
3. You'll be notified when to move to the next episode blog.
The first turn for this game is Saturday, April 18, 2009.
In Space, Nobody Can Hear You LoL
Episode 1
The year is 3042, and everybody's got space travel/warp speed/laser guns. All those things are old news now, and people have gotten back to their favorite pasttimes of eating greasy food and listening to bad music. The hottest place in the galaxy to do both of those things is the SUPERLOL MILKY WAY REC CENTER, which is where our adventure takes place. You're a human, robot, or one of several alien races who's either just arrived, or who works here. It's up to you to decide why your character is here or what they're up to, just remember to have fun with it. There'll be a concert here in a couple days with DeathFin AQUATIC, a popular alien band from the water planet SEA-4521, but for now just chill out and eat something artery clogging.
It's been a slow day at the SUPERLoL. About as slow as a day can be in a venue recieving traffic from every system in the galaxy and then some, anyway. Ships flock in and out of the spaceport, patrons spanning a spectrum of species wander about in droves.
Zhlink, a slim, spiky haired young man in medical garb, pushes his way through the throngs of people and tentacled monsters to the food court. He plops down at a booth seat and starts furiously prodding buttons on the holomenu. 10 minutes later, a robot waiter hovers over with a tray heaped high with greasy burgers, fries, and half a dozen different condiments.
Across the food court Pains stands at the entrance to a dimly lit room alight with flashing colors and music, a sign above which says "24 HR DANCE" in bold lettering. A human customer gets uppity, and attacks the bouncer, who then throws him across the room like crumpled looseleaf. Another large alien, covered in fur and rough cloth clothing comes by to relieve him of his duties: "End of the shift buddy, see you tomorrow?"
The customer lands with a crunch outside the "MAIN ATRIUM", which is currently empty aside from the janitor who with the help of a small flying robot and a larger arm-bot is hanging a sign for the upcoming DeathFin concert.
Silver: You get an alert on your eyepiece, several Grey hooligans are trying to flip one of your cleaning bots over.
Sitting by Pains, Lyza awakes with a start. She shakes herself awake and then wanders off to fetch some food. She sees Zhlink sit down and begin ordering.
Also in the food court is Innes, a pale skinned human in a black leather jacket. He seems to be arguing with the holomenu, which is trying rather forcibly to make him buy something. The man presses ctrl+alt+del and then ignores it, looking over the crowd for something. The holomenu flips back on. "Innes, we have information about your target…"
Gujju shuffles in and seats herself at a table in the food court, watching the ebb and flow of the crowd. The holomenu pops up and attempts to sell her "SugarSlop: the sugariest soda available!".
Tak barges in the main entrance from the spaceport, breathing hard, and then makes her way through the crowd to the food court. A few seconds later, three tripedal green aliens follow, and then attempt to spread out and continue looking for her.
Maria arrives in the food court as well, frowning at a mobile phone held in one robotic hand, and poking at a few buttons.
Aznroro, a man sleeping on a bench like a hobo falls to the ground and is concussed awake. He promptly goes to buy the least healthy thing he can find to eat.
The janitor completes her decorating and then surveys the SuperLoL via eyepiece. She orders C0-VV to shock its attackers, and then returns to managing the messes in the food court.
Lana attempts to apply for a job with the cleaning robot, which suggests rather haughtily she try becoming a stripper instead.
Zhlink, who had just finished eating, goes to check on the Greys, who were nearby when C0-VV tasered them. He later follows Lana to the dance club.
Innes stops to check out Maria, who then wanders off to the dance club. He also accidentally ordered a desert typically administered when inducing a heartattack, and then hurries after her without eating.
Pains punches his co-worker in the face unprovoked, and then attempts to delete the security holotapes that recorded the incident.
Lyza watches the crowd, gets all flustered over a cute guy.
Aznroro spends another 10 minutes eating unhealthy food. If he's still alive a year from now, he'll grow an extra toe from the nasty chemicals in that batter.
Tak, having settled in some, goes to get something to eat.
Half an hour passes.
The janitor is informed a food fight has started on floor three. The Greys have returned with a dozen friends and created a defensive perimeter of tipped over tables blocking the bridges to the central eating area, thus preventing the cleaning robots from getting to the mess. They've incited somewhat of a riot, and are throwing globs of ice cream at the robots, as well as over the balconies at patrons below.
Incoming ice cream! Lyza dodges neatly, and Pains is hit dead on by three scoops. Aznroro takes a hit, and Tak barely escapes a flying ball of moose tracks at the last second.
All over the food court humans, aliens, and robots shout and run about in a panic. The Greys, however, appear to have stolen several large cases of ice cream, and don't seem to be letting up any time soon.
Lyza, in the process of dodging ice cream, jumps backwards into the guy she'd been blushing at earlier. He turns aroud with a start.
"Oh, hey there.", he says, and smiles. The man seems unconcerned about the ice cream hail, as he's apparently brought an umbrella.
Pains is tapped on the shoulder by another large fur alien. Then it punches him in the face. The large Geno winces, but doesn't budge.
"You deleted that security hologram while the guards were still watching it, genius.", it growls in a throaty voice. Two other bouncers, the same species, step up on either side of him.
Maria has worked up quite a sweat on the dance floor, and the surrounding crowd has cleared aways a short distance to give her space. Innes feeling awkward in this setting is standing head down, back against the wall in a dimly lit corner, but can't help noticing the way she moves. Zhlink has been trying to get over to her, but the crowd just keeps getting in the way. Lana is swept up in the confusion, and is currently wandering around near the bar.
Maria dances up a storm, causing several patrons to wet themselves, and Innes to sulk. She then exits stage left to the spaceport and is approached by a bipedal humanoid in a swirling black cape. His face is obscured by a deep hood, and he's right in front of her before she can react. With a soft rasp, the creature extends a birdlike claw from under the cape, and tosses a manila envelope unceremoniously at her feet before melting into the shadows again.
Pouty, uh, I mean Innes makes his way out of the club and then goes to the bathroom shirtless. The entire place is damp with what is either overflowed toilet water, or aquatic alien projectile ejaculate. The fact that the cleaning robots missed it means it must be recent. Either way, it's not something to go sitting in.
Pains lies his pants off and then teleports to the second floor elevator. He's hit by two more scoops of ice cream.
Lana scouts the bar out, hoping to land a job waitressing. She's followed by Zhlink, who offers to buy her alcohol.
"Make it three, bartend." A lumbering alien that looks like an eight-eyed giant slug in a greasy business suit says, lowering his tentacle. (One of three extending from his left sleeve.) He pauses to puff slowly on a mushy cigar, and then raises a tentacle to each Lana and Zhlink. "I'm the boss around here, name's Bourguignat."
Lyza spends a pleasant 10 minutes idly chatting with the boy under the umbrella, whose name it turns out is Gair.
Aznroro is hit by several more globs of ice cream.
Tak continues dodging ice cream, until the green tripods spot her and give chase again.
The janitor activates a force field, separating the floors and effectively cutting the ice cream on the third floor off from the second and first. She appears at the Grays' barricade, and Tess is on his way as well.
Irritated with the force fields, the Grays spread out, skipping the bridges and using them to run straight to the restaurants for more ammo. Several of them spot the janitor on their way out, and throw ice cream.
The giant slug speaks sloppily, his misshapen lips seeming to struggle with English. "Well yes, what sort of job issit you're looking for? I think I could use a new personal assistant, actually." He smiles suggestively, and slings his left tentacles around her shoulders -covering them in slime. Zhlink concocts three mixed drinks from the bartending supplies provided. (75% chance, pass w/ 8 margin) He hands one to Lana, who peers at it oddly, and one to the boss, who grips it in two of his left tentacles.
"Mm, interesting flavor, I've never tasted anything quite like it.. you could go far as a bartender, son." The boss seems to approve. Then he and Zhlink look at Lana expectantly.
Aznroro wanders off to the dance floor, but is covered in sticky ice cream, and has putrid fish breath, so nobody seems interested in dancing with him.
Pains has arrived on the third floor. His laser set to stun, he attempts to fire at the nearest Gray, who is robbing a restaurant selling some sort of glowing gruel. (50% chance, pass w/ 0 margin) It only nicks him, leaving the alien dazed but not knocked out. The other Grays in the northwest quarter of the room notice him, and attempt to flee. He fires two shots at the next closest Gray. (40% chance, fail w/ 12 margin) The hooligan stumbles, but Pains' shot misses wildly. (30% chance, fail w/ 1 margin) Just as he starts running again, the second shot nearly hits him in the shoulder, and he trips. Pains retreats behind cover.
The janitor and her robots are fighting the Grays too. Nemo tasers one of the two attacking her, and the other attempts to throw more ice cream. The janitor activates an electric shock feature in the force fields, attempting to stun the other. She then turns them off for a moment, causing them both to fall through to the second floor. Tess arrives, but there are currently no Grays by the south wall. He leads the cleaning robots down one bridge to get to work on the huge mess there.
Meanwhile, the ten remaining Grays who haven't been stunned have gathered assorted food items, which they all lob at either the janitor or a nearby cleaning robot. (50% chance, 6 pass) All three robots on the southwest bridge are struck by assorted greasy foods, go berserk, and charge out onto the force fields, making all sorts of irritable noise and flailing. Another on the northeast bridge is struck as well, and reacts in a similar manner. The janitor is struck by a small squid thrown by one teen on the east balcony, it appears to still be alive, and begins wrapping tentacles around her head. A plate of green cheeseburgers hit Tess, but he plows through it.
Lyza goes off dancing with Gair, and he puts his hands in all sorts of inappropriate places.
Tak is still being chased around the food court, occasionally knocking things or other patrons over.
Innes is apparently taking a long time to visit the toilet.
Maria is still cooling off outside the dance club.
Lana discusses additional employment opportunities with Bourguignat, to which he suggests personally assisting him, pole dancing, or janitoral work. They nevertheless allow her to attempt to waitress the rowdy bar, which will likely knock her over and trample her before she gets three steps from the boss.
Lyza shouts at Gair for his initial advances, and rejects him, but when his fanclub moves in to take over, she becomes jealous and goes after him again. They make out rather indiscretely in public for several minutes, dance for a few songs, and then sneak off to the living quarters.
(Back in the food court, the restaurants Grays targeted to steal food fight fodder from were ones with smaller and weaker owners, who could do little to stop them. Space gnomes and slugs and ewoks.)
The janitor pulls a squid off her head, and throws it to the ground, thereafter trodding on it slightly. She shuts down the AI and manually guides 3 berserk cleaning robots off the force fields, leaving one remaining to thrash around on the Grays in the northeast corner. It hits three Grays, knocking them prone. The janitor then lets more cleaning robots into the central area, which is coated in ice cream and other foods, and then bubbles it off with a force field. The seven remaining Grays along the east and west balconies decide to throw their remaining food at the walls instead, and then scurry out the emergency exits to the spaceport.
Zhlink makes more mixed drinks, and wanders off to the liquor store on the third floor to buy more alcoholic beverages. The aliens at the bar help themselves, and about two thirds of them spit the beverages out immediately. The medic arrives on the third floor to find a food splattered wasteland, and attempts to cross it on hands and knees to avoid attracting attention. (50% chance, result 3) He manages to get halfway across the room without being noticed. A slightly squished live squid climbs onto his face.
Pains fires at the stunned Grays until they're knocked unconscious, and then seeks cover again. In the meantime, he gets all reminiscent.
Maria returns to her ship in the spaceport to prepare for an assassination attempt.
Innes is still on the pooper. He's probably playing with himself or something.
Aznroro is in a bad-fish induced stupor, and has collapsed in a puddle of his own vomit on the 24 hour dance floor.
Tak run down and captured by the green tripods, who drag her kicking and screaming out the main door. The authorities ignore them.
The janitor gets an alert and a video feed from a security camera in her living quarters. There's been a forced entry, Gair and a petite blue-haired girl walk in. She recognizes Gair, because this is the third time he's brought a woman to her room this month! They sit down on the bed straightaway and get started. (Note that as the janitor keeps her room very clean, there are no spills sitting around, or opened liquids to be spilled. As such, there is no mess that needs cleaning that she can Knack to. At least, there isn't yet. Hahahah.)
Zhlink manages to pry the enraged cephalopod off his face, and then throw it across the room. He then returns to buying alcohol. Pains spooks him by the door, but decides to let the man pass after all. The medic returns to the dance club, and the bouncer to the employee living quarters.
Lana attempts to serve drinks to a rowdy crowd of aliens at the 24 hour Dance club bar, (40% chance, result -4) but trips almost immediately and is stepped on several times. One of the more sober, larger aliens fishes her out and deposits her at the boss' feet before returning to his drinking.
"That didn't go well at all, now did it?"
Half an hour passes.
Lyza sits collapsed on the bed in the Janitor's room, a sweaty and panting mess. Gair is up and getting dressed already. Their clothes are strewn about near the bed.
"What's the hurry?", Lyza asks.
"Nothing much, but the janitor will be here in a minute." he says, pulling a shirt over his head.
"Janitor?"
"You'll see."
Speaking of which, the janitor and her cleaning robots have finished with the ice cream in the center of the third floor, and are getting started on the food smeared on the walls there.
Zhlink has spent the last hour making simpler mixed drinks, which seem generally well recieved. Lana appears to be recovering from being trampeled, and is also talking to the boss about employment again.