Checking how many people would be interested in a Yu-Gi-Oh RP taking place in the GX duel academy. For the most part, the characters and possibly episodic plot would be different from the original.
I've been in several Yu-Gi-Oh RPs before, but I've never really been satisfied with the way they were set up. So, I also want some feedback on how to run it. There's two aspects that really irk me and that's the "gameplay" of a duel and the deckbuilding associated with it. Some of the most fun parts of Yu-Gi-Oh RPs is taking innocuous, trashy cards like Shapesnatch and building a deck or even archetype around it with custom (or anime/manga/video game-only) cards, but that also means that a realistic simulator isn't really a viable way to resolve pvp. In place of that, most RPs just allow every single character to get every single card they need for a perfect combo like they've all been collectively blessed by the heart of the cards, leading to decks that don't really make any sense in the context of statistical probability and serve more as toolboxes stuffed with as many goodies as possible to whip out later. (In some ways, this mirrors the anime, such as how Jaden has used well over 100 cards despite never explicitly having more than one deck or taking any cards out)
As such I'm asking which among these would be preferred:
1A. Duels are simulated over discord and decks are realistic, where I PM people cards they've drawn, determined by a random number generator, and so on. People would describe their turns action by action in a discord channel and their opponent would react in real time to negate or not. This ideally ensures a feeling of fairness, because it's close to the actual game.
1B. Duels are simulated, and I implement tabletop elements (as in an entire skill tree) to simulate forum RP dueling quirks, such as players gradually unlocking the ability to pull some bullshit call upon the heart of the cards, become a psychic, or perhaps they're just Kaiba-rich and use rare misprinted cards (which would be legal in-universe) that are better than their originals. The intention is a sense of progression as a duelist for your character and the ability to go beyond the card game, although this would inevitably involve a form of "grinding". (Albeit not for wins; just any duel)
1C. Duels are simulated, and I implement tabletop elements (as in a perk system) to simulate anime dueling asspulls. Why does Jaden always have a fusion card ready? Why does Pegasus always have Toon World down on turn 1? How does Joey keep managing to draw Baby Dragon and Time Wizard together? Just say "it's a perk" and you can cover a huge hole in otherwise fundamentally flawed decks. This allows for more rule of cool in deckbuilding, and by changing perks between duels you can change the entire focus of a deck without changing its makeup. I'd probably leave such a system more open-ended to allow people to create their own perks, if none I come up with fit their needs.
2A. Duels are chiefly narrative-driven. Standard RP fare. It will mainly differ in that people will be encouraged to avoid realistic decks, and we might ignore quantity of cards in decks altogether in favor of stuffing them with more things to pull on narratively. Duels are more performative than suspenseful, and it is highly recommended that people decide who will win and lose beforehand OOC. Mentally announcing your plan in character is ideal, since it stops the need to retcon posts constantly. Your opponent always playing around your plan would not be ideal, and there's not really a good solution to this other than deciding the outcome in advance. Slifer/Ra/Obelisk placement might end up mattering for settling disputes, and if not, then coin flips may have to be relied upon.
2B. Duels are narrative-driven competitively. Each player presents a strategy they intend their character to implement and I pick out the one that sounds cooler as the winner of the duel. It is then written out performatively.
No matter which is desired, I have no plans on limiting overarching deckbuilding options, and a deck of nothing but custom cards is on the table. (Albeit highly discouraged for the sake of convenience) However, I do intend to scale the metagame down to better fit GX-era power levels. This is more or less impossible without banning most modern archetypes, so I'll be balancing based around specific decks rather than the specific cards within them. In other words, if you intend on rocking a modern archetype, expect it to be gutted, such as having a significant combo piece removed, depending on what most appropriately weakens it while preserving its playstyle. Hand Traps? Turn 1 full boards? Multiple turn 1 omni-negates? I'd rather not. It's going to be an inexact science so I highly encourage picking deck ideas based on flavor or even nostalgia and aesthetics, and trying to make it good from there, rather than starting at a powerful archetype and having to work backward. This RP is in part inspired by the idea I came across of Revived of Serpent Night Dragon being a quick-play spell card that can tribute any monster (including enemy monsters) to summon Serpent Night Dragon from pretty much anywhere. There's also Nightmare Sonic Blast. Serpent Night Dragon is an awful card with nice art and I like the idea of creating (or in this case, dredging up) support for old cards like it.
I've been in several Yu-Gi-Oh RPs before, but I've never really been satisfied with the way they were set up. So, I also want some feedback on how to run it. There's two aspects that really irk me and that's the "gameplay" of a duel and the deckbuilding associated with it. Some of the most fun parts of Yu-Gi-Oh RPs is taking innocuous, trashy cards like Shapesnatch and building a deck or even archetype around it with custom (or anime/manga/video game-only) cards, but that also means that a realistic simulator isn't really a viable way to resolve pvp. In place of that, most RPs just allow every single character to get every single card they need for a perfect combo like they've all been collectively blessed by the heart of the cards, leading to decks that don't really make any sense in the context of statistical probability and serve more as toolboxes stuffed with as many goodies as possible to whip out later. (In some ways, this mirrors the anime, such as how Jaden has used well over 100 cards despite never explicitly having more than one deck or taking any cards out)
As such I'm asking which among these would be preferred:
1A. Duels are simulated over discord and decks are realistic, where I PM people cards they've drawn, determined by a random number generator, and so on. People would describe their turns action by action in a discord channel and their opponent would react in real time to negate or not. This ideally ensures a feeling of fairness, because it's close to the actual game.
1B. Duels are simulated, and I implement tabletop elements (as in an entire skill tree) to simulate forum RP dueling quirks, such as players gradually unlocking the ability to pull some bullshit call upon the heart of the cards, become a psychic, or perhaps they're just Kaiba-rich and use rare misprinted cards (which would be legal in-universe) that are better than their originals. The intention is a sense of progression as a duelist for your character and the ability to go beyond the card game, although this would inevitably involve a form of "grinding". (Albeit not for wins; just any duel)
1C. Duels are simulated, and I implement tabletop elements (as in a perk system) to simulate anime dueling asspulls. Why does Jaden always have a fusion card ready? Why does Pegasus always have Toon World down on turn 1? How does Joey keep managing to draw Baby Dragon and Time Wizard together? Just say "it's a perk" and you can cover a huge hole in otherwise fundamentally flawed decks. This allows for more rule of cool in deckbuilding, and by changing perks between duels you can change the entire focus of a deck without changing its makeup. I'd probably leave such a system more open-ended to allow people to create their own perks, if none I come up with fit their needs.
2A. Duels are chiefly narrative-driven. Standard RP fare. It will mainly differ in that people will be encouraged to avoid realistic decks, and we might ignore quantity of cards in decks altogether in favor of stuffing them with more things to pull on narratively. Duels are more performative than suspenseful, and it is highly recommended that people decide who will win and lose beforehand OOC. Mentally announcing your plan in character is ideal, since it stops the need to retcon posts constantly. Your opponent always playing around your plan would not be ideal, and there's not really a good solution to this other than deciding the outcome in advance. Slifer/Ra/Obelisk placement might end up mattering for settling disputes, and if not, then coin flips may have to be relied upon.
2B. Duels are narrative-driven competitively. Each player presents a strategy they intend their character to implement and I pick out the one that sounds cooler as the winner of the duel. It is then written out performatively.
No matter which is desired, I have no plans on limiting overarching deckbuilding options, and a deck of nothing but custom cards is on the table. (Albeit highly discouraged for the sake of convenience) However, I do intend to scale the metagame down to better fit GX-era power levels. This is more or less impossible without banning most modern archetypes, so I'll be balancing based around specific decks rather than the specific cards within them. In other words, if you intend on rocking a modern archetype, expect it to be gutted, such as having a significant combo piece removed, depending on what most appropriately weakens it while preserving its playstyle. Hand Traps? Turn 1 full boards? Multiple turn 1 omni-negates? I'd rather not. It's going to be an inexact science so I highly encourage picking deck ideas based on flavor or even nostalgia and aesthetics, and trying to make it good from there, rather than starting at a powerful archetype and having to work backward. This RP is in part inspired by the idea I came across of Revived of Serpent Night Dragon being a quick-play spell card that can tribute any monster (including enemy monsters) to summon Serpent Night Dragon from pretty much anywhere. There's also Nightmare Sonic Blast. Serpent Night Dragon is an awful card with nice art and I like the idea of creating (or in this case, dredging up) support for old cards like it.
