Here's an RP that I started up eight months ago but had to abandon due to lack of time to manage it. I'm looking to do a reboot, though, so feel free to join in.
The year is unknown, and the world has fallen into chaos. Though none still alive recall the reason, nor whether it was a hundred or a thousand years ago, "modern" civilization befell a great catastrophe, and the shattered remnants of humanity were plunged suddenly into the dark ages. Once-gleaming metropolises are now left as either rubble, relics of an ancient culture half-revered and half-deified, or crudely fashioned into sprawling castles and keeps that fuse crumbling concrete with fresh-hewn stone bricks. Up and down the eastern coast of what was once known as North America, dozens or hundreds of squabbling city-states feud with one another over struggling farms and isolated villages and crumbling roads. Men fight and clash and die as the ancestors of their ancestors did, with sword and armor -- only the barest traces of musketry are beginning to reappear on the horizon. Most powerful, though, are the very few remaining artifacts of a time long past, rumored capable of spewing fire for hundreds of yards to fell armored knights mid-charge.
The year is unknown, yes, but one thing remains constant: the desire for glory. Half-crazed travelers have returned from a land far across the continent's inland wastes, claiming to have discovered riches beyond anyone's wildest dreams across the endless scrubby plains and toxic sands. And so your party has been assembled, from every corner of a hundred feuding realms, your mission to travel across what was once a proud and unfathomably advanced civilization, to find what truth there might be to these allegations of great treasures, and to return for the glory of your people.
But is anything ever quite so simple?
So there's the concept -- essentially, a post-post-apocalyptic world in which some unknown catastrophe befell the 21st-century world a significant amount of time ago and society has reverted to a much simpler medieval-ish level of technology. I'm aiming to go for primarily a low-fantasy setting, i.e. there probably won't be any spooky demons from beyond the abyss involved. Your characters will be relatively unknown individuals who have volunteered to attempt to cross the wastelands of central North America, and bring back the incredible treasures that are rumored to be on the other side of the continent.
One way that I hope to set this RP apart mechanically from the others is the introduction of a basic trait system. The point of these are to outline your character's primary skills and weaknesses in a way that makes them easy to process and for other players to understand. They shouldn't be viewed as the end-all-be-all of your character (that is, don't let yourself be limited by them) but rather as a few distilled bullet-points summarizing the ten-page-essay that is their life.
In addition, you might find that players who roleplay their character's actions in accord with their traits are rewarded, while things may not go so well for those who try to exploit or ignore them.
Everyone gets 7 points to work with. Positive traits cost points, while negative traits give you them. In other words, if you've already used up your seven but absolutely must have another positive trait, you can take some negatives to balance things out.
I intend for the style of roleplay within this RP to more closely resemble a tabletop experience than your average freeform do-what-you-want adventure. That is to say, while there won't be XP tables and stat lists, the general pattern of RP will involve characters emoting their planned actions and the "DM" (myself) arbitrating the results. There are a few reasons for this:
1) It keeps things on track and ensures that the plot moves smoothly from point A to point B without being thrown majorly off-kilter (unless the group comes up with something ingenuous enough to shift the plot dramatically).
2) It helps tie in the trait system to the actual roleplaying.
3) It ensures that the more dangerous excesses of freeform roleplaying (like powergaming and godmodding) are kept to a minimum.
4) It keeps things exciting!
In most situations it'll be handled pretty casually, and if you want to do something that's reasonable within the setting / the limitations of your character I'll accommodate it. In high-stress situations, though, there may be some behind-the-scenes dice rolls by yours truly (weighting things like your backstory, traits, and current state of being) to determine the results of actions.
Also, be prepared for some pretty significant time skips (days to weeks, sometimes longer). The North American continent is large, even moreso when traversing it by medieval means, so usually there'll be events at certain locations followed by some jumping ahead once things have quieted down.
If you've made it this far it means you managed to wade through the sea of half-baked exposition and far-too-lengthy rule explanation that is this interest check, so congratulations. If you're interested by now, feel free to say so below.
After the End -- A Post-Apocaylptic Fantasy RP
Background
The year is unknown, and the world has fallen into chaos. Though none still alive recall the reason, nor whether it was a hundred or a thousand years ago, "modern" civilization befell a great catastrophe, and the shattered remnants of humanity were plunged suddenly into the dark ages. Once-gleaming metropolises are now left as either rubble, relics of an ancient culture half-revered and half-deified, or crudely fashioned into sprawling castles and keeps that fuse crumbling concrete with fresh-hewn stone bricks. Up and down the eastern coast of what was once known as North America, dozens or hundreds of squabbling city-states feud with one another over struggling farms and isolated villages and crumbling roads. Men fight and clash and die as the ancestors of their ancestors did, with sword and armor -- only the barest traces of musketry are beginning to reappear on the horizon. Most powerful, though, are the very few remaining artifacts of a time long past, rumored capable of spewing fire for hundreds of yards to fell armored knights mid-charge.
The year is unknown, yes, but one thing remains constant: the desire for glory. Half-crazed travelers have returned from a land far across the continent's inland wastes, claiming to have discovered riches beyond anyone's wildest dreams across the endless scrubby plains and toxic sands. And so your party has been assembled, from every corner of a hundred feuding realms, your mission to travel across what was once a proud and unfathomably advanced civilization, to find what truth there might be to these allegations of great treasures, and to return for the glory of your people.
But is anything ever quite so simple?
OOC
So there's the concept -- essentially, a post-post-apocalyptic world in which some unknown catastrophe befell the 21st-century world a significant amount of time ago and society has reverted to a much simpler medieval-ish level of technology. I'm aiming to go for primarily a low-fantasy setting, i.e. there probably won't be any spooky demons from beyond the abyss involved. Your characters will be relatively unknown individuals who have volunteered to attempt to cross the wastelands of central North America, and bring back the incredible treasures that are rumored to be on the other side of the continent.
Traits
One way that I hope to set this RP apart mechanically from the others is the introduction of a basic trait system. The point of these are to outline your character's primary skills and weaknesses in a way that makes them easy to process and for other players to understand. They shouldn't be viewed as the end-all-be-all of your character (that is, don't let yourself be limited by them) but rather as a few distilled bullet-points summarizing the ten-page-essay that is their life.
In addition, you might find that players who roleplay their character's actions in accord with their traits are rewarded, while things may not go so well for those who try to exploit or ignore them.
Everyone gets 7 points to work with. Positive traits cost points, while negative traits give you them. In other words, if you've already used up your seven but absolutely must have another positive trait, you can take some negatives to balance things out.
The Setting
The Style
I intend for the style of roleplay within this RP to more closely resemble a tabletop experience than your average freeform do-what-you-want adventure. That is to say, while there won't be XP tables and stat lists, the general pattern of RP will involve characters emoting their planned actions and the "DM" (myself) arbitrating the results. There are a few reasons for this:
1) It keeps things on track and ensures that the plot moves smoothly from point A to point B without being thrown majorly off-kilter (unless the group comes up with something ingenuous enough to shift the plot dramatically).
2) It helps tie in the trait system to the actual roleplaying.
3) It ensures that the more dangerous excesses of freeform roleplaying (like powergaming and godmodding) are kept to a minimum.
4) It keeps things exciting!
In most situations it'll be handled pretty casually, and if you want to do something that's reasonable within the setting / the limitations of your character I'll accommodate it. In high-stress situations, though, there may be some behind-the-scenes dice rolls by yours truly (weighting things like your backstory, traits, and current state of being) to determine the results of actions.
Also, be prepared for some pretty significant time skips (days to weeks, sometimes longer). The North American continent is large, even moreso when traversing it by medieval means, so usually there'll be events at certain locations followed by some jumping ahead once things have quieted down.
If you've made it this far it means you managed to wade through the sea of half-baked exposition and far-too-lengthy rule explanation that is this interest check, so congratulations. If you're interested by now, feel free to say so below.
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