I have a little bit of a snag planning wise I'd like to get some input on, for anyone still lurking this thread.

Lets take a hypothetical scenario. There's a spot on the map that's likely to draw contestants in for supplies, so someone decides to lie in wait to ambush them. How do we rule fairly on whether or not that ambush is a success?

Obviously the RP would be boring if all of the other players actions are hidden and I'd like to trust you all a little bit more than that. While I'd love to leave it in your hands collaboratively, I imagine it would feel bad to know in advance your character is in danger and have to decide whether or not your character dies based on whether you think they'd be paying attention or not. I feel as though deciding based on a dice roll, while impartial, would also feel pretty bad in either case.

I'd like to allow for strategies of all variety any person might reasonably imagine. My best theory at the moment is to have RP happen in the thread for anyone to see but allow players to DM me if aspects of a plan should be hidden to other players. It might still feel bad to have an ambush strike your character because you didn't actively write that they were being cautious, but this would at least allow both writers to write their characters genuine approach without any aspect of meta-gaming.

What do you all think?

It's honestly difficult doing secret actions such as ambushes, so I don't blame you for being stumped on them. Running these sorts of PvP arena roleplays in the past, I've always handled actions requiring preparations in a way that does allow for the most basic of reactions to the action in question. Usually it's matters like ensuring the action is in the post, and having any specifics messaged to me privately.

An example of this is if, say, someone decided to poison the food of a well-known food supply area. I would usually have them ensure that they've written out their character had tampered with the food in some way, and through DMs they can tell me just what they did with it, from if they poisoned it to more specific instances such as the effects of the poison and the like.

That said, a lot of this does come from having trust in all parties that the narrative is playing a focus here. It's a bit harder to write out such scenarios in pure PvP settings without being unfair to a degree. This also comes from the assumption that people are playing their characters to form. Someone known for being honorable and forthrite wouldn't stoop to poisoning food for example, and someone who isn't known for their intelligence wouldn't just sniff the food and go "nope, something is definitely wrong with that!"

In the end though, my method is pretty imperfect and requires a degree of trust to be had. It works if you want to have a narrative focus over a competitive one, at leaat~

I want to update everyone that, after three solid days of mentally juggling all of my muse around in my head, I have a solid opening with a timeline that makes sense. Heck, I bet I could have imagined a much simpler premise, but I'm proud of what I've managed.

That said, I still need to finalize the power list and the economy system. I'm like.... 90% done on everything though, so I'll be making the actual RP OOC thread pretty soon! Hang tight!

Edit: Also, I want to reply to the above just a bit to say I am very much thinking I'll be focusing on story rather than an arena based RP. The plot involves the characters in conflict with each other, but that competition ends with them. The RPers are just here to craft a story together. <3

I'm very much interested in this.

I'd also like to contribute to the power list, if you're still looking to fill it out more. I love making up complex power sets.

By chance, would players intuitively know what their ability did, or would they have to find out themselves akin to The Hollow?

Ah, this looks interesting. Any room in here? I like a randomness, maybe a little too much for my wellbeing, but nevermind.

This idea strikes my fancy. I'll certainly keep around as I adore the idea of working against the power of chaos itself to create a character either at odds with their power set or oddly complimenting to it.