BattleSchool OOC

[Jakhi]

I might be open to the right co-GM...if you're interested PM me and we can talk, but no guarantees.

Welcome to BattleSchool

This game will be based on the book Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. If you haven't read the book....well you should 'cause it's awesome, but either way you don't actually need to have read the book to play and play well.

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The children sent to BattleSchool are Earth's last hope against an invasion of 'Buggers'. The alien Buggers have already come to Earth twice and been rebuffed, but at great cost. There is no way Earth will be unprepared if they come again. Every child picked is not only in the top of their class, but the top of their entire school...if not their country.

BattleSchool is a space station in the form of a huge ball that orbits Earth. It rotates around the 9 battlerooms that form the physical, as well as figurative, center of the station. Within it's confines children from around the world are trained every day to become the best soldiers, generals, and commanders the world can create. They are under extreme amounts of pressure to succeed, but they can't remember another way of life. The teachers are not there to help them be happy, but to turn them into Earth's best defense against an invasion.

Once a launchie has graduated from the launch group they are assigned to an army. Soldiers and Toon leaders bunk together, but Commanders have earned the right to a private room. Within the army bunker each child has a bed, their 'desk', and a small locker to call their own. No more. They wear the colors of their army in the ship suit that is their only clothing, and they spend all of their free time with the other children in their army. There are fierce rivalries between armies, these are encouraged by the teachers and any fighting is overlooked. The strongest message is that no one will help them, save themselves, so they had better learn to be strong.

The high point of every child's life is the Battleroom. Within the battleroom armies face each other to see who has the best strategies and defenses. Each child wears a flash suit that freezes when it is shot, and carries a light gun to shoot the other army with. At the end of the game the winning team must have at least five soldiers left unfrozen, or the game becomes a draw. Armies are ranked according to how well they do against the other armies, and children are also ranked individually as soldiers according to their accuracy and how long they spend frozen each game.

BattleSchool is the anvil made to forge the strongest soldiers possible, but in the process many weapons will break.

Are you ready to play?

~~

In BattleSchool there are 21 armies, and 2 launch groups. The ages range from 5-13.

Launchies, the children who have most recently arrived, spend their first year learning the very basics of how to fight in zero-g as well as acclimatizing to the atmosphere of BattleSchool. When they arrive the children are between 5 and 7 years old, generally the younger you are when you arrive the more intelligent and threatening you seem to the rest of the students. This is one school where being the best isn't always a good thing, though. It is widely accepted that the 'best and brightest' will have the hardest time at BattleSchool because not only will your peers be jealous, but the teachers will push you to see how far you can bend before you break entirely. Launchies are spared from some of this pressure at first, but part of being a launchie is learning how to move up, and move up fast.

Once a launchie has gained the basic skills they need in the battleroom they are assigned to an Army. Each army has 40 children, but other than that they all have a Commander, the structures vary widely from there. Most armies have 4 platoons, or Toons, each led by a toon leader who has been promoted by the commander of the army. Each toon will have about 7 or 8 children, these are the groups that spend the most time together.
Within the army bunker each child has a bunk. Most commanders arrange their bunkers with the youngest children at the back, and the toon leaders, as well as the commanders closest friends, towards the front. Within his bunker the commander has near supreme authority since the teachers rarely interfere.

Generally toon leaders are promoted between the ages of 9 and 11, although some will be earlier or later depending on their level of skill. Commanders are promoted by the generals who run BattleSchool, and usually around 11 or 12. Each student will spend about 6 years in BattleSchool, but simply making it there is not a guarantee that they will graduate. If they aren't improving, or if they make a crucial mistake they risk being 'iced' or sent back home. At BattleSchool this is a disgrace, but in reality the simple fact that they made it to BattleSchool practically guarantees them a very comfortable government job, sometimes quite high up, for the rest of their lives.

If they do graduate BattleSchool then they may move on to CommandSchool.

More inf to come...

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I haven't got a set limit on how many people I'll accept, I'd love to get 5-6 dedicated people. Since I'll already be the GM my character will be either a Toon leader or a soldier, as well as a boy. This will leave room for some of you guys to play fun parts as well

Spots open:

Commander: (Age 12-13, you can try for 11 but you better have a good reason! There will only be 1.)
Toon Leaders: (Age 10-11. Again, you can go for 9, but you'll need to have a good reason. I'll accept up to 2 toon leaders)
Soldiers: (Age 8-9, most people will need to play soldiers.)
Launchies: (Age 6-7, I'm hoping for at least 1 launchie...)

The commander will have to be someone who is quite experienced and is willing to get private messages from me in advance about certain game mechanics, they will have a certain amount of power IC, so I might be requiring a writing sample if you're interested in this role. PM me if you're interested in being the Commander and we'll chat (If no one wants it then the commander will become and NPC powered by me...but I think it'd be fun to play him.)

There are approximately 880 students in BattleSchool at one time, only 11 of those be girls. Because of this I will only be selecting one female application, and she'd better be good. Feel free to try for it, but I'll be picking the best applicant. (I always like a bit of a challenge ) I have no particular preference for what rank the female is, but make sure you try to justify it in your char sheet. (And you'll have to pick whether you'll be female OR younger than average. I won't accept both.)

I think it's worth mentioning that even though you love the books as much as I do you may not play an Ender or Bean type character. Realistically there might be one child in the entire school that is anywhere near that...maybe. Also it makes things less fun for everyone else if I pick who gets that sort of role, IMO. I won't be playing one of those either...just your normal, average, genius child. lol

As per the usual, I placed this OOC in the Advanced section for a reason. Since we will be playing as super smart children I would like us to be able to follow the basic rules of grammar. I'm not going to be searching through every post for errors, but please spell check and watch your p's and q's to a reasonable extent. Thanks.

Also, activity..Ideally I'd love this to be super active, realistically I hope you post a minimum of 2-3 per week. If life catches up to you, as sometimes happens, please let me know and we'll assume you character is just following along until you're return. If you vanish without notice for more the 2 weeks you can pretty much expect that your character will have been transferred to another army. Luckily, in the case that your absence happens for a valid reason, sometimes transfers aren't permanent and you'll be able to come back with a great story for your character to tell!

No Mary Sue's, or in this case John Doe's, or power playing. If, in my role as GM, I say your character was flashed and is now frozen...then that's what happened. if another player says the same thing, feel free to duck. Since there won't be any actual dying (that I have planned) we won't need to deal with more than hurt feelings over having to float around aimlessly for a bit.
A slight modification to this rule, though, is that if you have been flashed in the battleroom other players are more than welcome to fling you around as they like...you're frozen after all and it might need to happen for the tactics of the game. Feel free to have your character upset though, that's fair to a certain extent.

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Our army will be Tide Army...because I wanted to pick one that had no association with the books, really, and also I liked it. Our colors will be Blue Green Blue, and our jumpsuits are blue with silver trim.

Other armies colors and jumpsuits will be covered in game...I did a lot of checking, both by skimming the book and by searching online, but most armies didn't have designated colors or suits, so I improvised a bit.

The army names, as mentioned in one of the books, are:

Asp
Badger
Centipede
Condor
Dragon (Which is around for our purposes)
Ferret
Flame
Griffin
Hound
Leopard
Lion
Manticore
Phoenix
Rabbit
Rat
Salamander
Scorpion
Spider
Squirrel
Tide
Tiger

Our timeline will run about 10 years after BattleSchool first opened. All the armies are around, but things are still changing and adapting according to how the teachers see fit.

Anyone who tries to act like Ender or Bean in some obvious fashion will face consequences...so please don't. All the tactics they came up with in their time aren't around yet, and they'll stay that way for the most part. Just so you know.

The game room (with the giant, ect) will be around, but it won't be a central part of the game. Feel free to mention parts of it if you like and refer to playing it, but remember that talking about it is considered bad luck

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Picture: (Real people please, no anime)

Name:

Nickname:

Age: (5-13 range, see above for how that effects rank)

Gender: (Only 1 female will be accepted)

Description: (1-2 paragraphs)

History: (Briefly please, 1-2 paragraphs is plenty)

Desired Rank: (No guarantees, but you can aim for something)

Second choice for rank:


Accepted Characters

Commander:
Toon Leader 1:
Toon Leader 2:
Soldier:
Soldier:
Soldier:
Soldier:
Launchie:
Launchie:

~~

Any questions feel free to post I'll come back in a bit and go over it again, so keep your eyes peeled!

[MisterGrey]

Oh, we're all in the same Army? I suppose that's probably for the best.

I'd like to play a Toon leader.

[Jakhi]

Yeah, for organizations sake it works best it'd be waaaay to confusing otherwise. If I get TONS of interest I might be persuaded to do two armies...but I'd need at least 10-12 applications before I'd consider it.

[5Solas]

I'll draft up a character sheet for Commander and a Launchie...see which one takes to me the most.

[Jakhi]

Anyone else willing to take on battleschool?

[Jakhi]

Alright, last chance...I do really want to run this, so speak up if you're interested.

[5Solas]

I'm sorry, I've been busy though I know that's no excuse. Tonight?

[Jakhi]

Sounds good!