What ideas have you backed off from, recently or otherwise?

[Ammokkx]

I've been thinking a lot about something I'm doing a lot recently: Coming up with a bunch of ideas, but never publishing or following through with any of them. Either I don't think I'll have the time, commitment, something's rubbing me the wrong way or I just didn't think it through at all.

I'm curious to see how many others just go like "Y'know what? Nah, let's not" and to see how much of a widespread problem our collective lethargy seems to be.

Of course, since I started this thread, I'll give all y'all a recent example of my own.

So, basically, I was thinking of reviving a dead game from not too long ago. I found the idea behind it cute, but since I'm Ammokkx, I always make some changes to the formula. I had thought to structure it like a pseudo "choose-your-own-adventure" type game. I had figured to, periodically, give players a list of choices to build their character from (+ the option of them privately shooting the shit on an idea with me, but making sure to limit them in scope comparable to the choices I'd laid out). Hypothetically, right, I woulda gone something like:

"You stumble on a sword in the ground. You begin to remember something... if you're right about this, it was:

A: The sword of a legendary king
B: Yours, from a long time ago
C: Crafted by a fine smith, though wasn't the captain of the guard meant to have it?
D: (Free choice)"

and then the player(s) picked one and we'd continue the plot thread from there. I put like a day of three's worth of time in planning out a world, some lore and thinking about how the choice system would work. Then I just kinda backed out because "lol i would be a terrible GM" mixed with "Y'know, uni starts soon and I really shouldn't ignore that."

Oh, I also flirt with the idea of starting another yugioh roleplay about once every half year and then get PTSD flashbacks from all the failed attempts on this site, so I don't bother with that anymore.

Anyone else got something to share? Doesn't have to be GM woes like I have, could just be "Y'know, this is a really cool character I could make for this RP, but I don't think I'm actually going to" too. Or just not joining an RP in general.

[Gendarme]

I'd just encourage you to go ahead and try to make an interest check. Tell you what, if you have an idea for a role-play I'll go for it. I'm feeling a bit adventurous and wouldn't mind making the effort.

[Ammokkx]

I'd just encourage you to go ahead and try to make an interest check. Tell you what, if you have an idea for a role-play I'll go for it. I'm feeling a bit adventurous and wouldn't mind making the effort.

@Gendarme

Not quite the reason I started the thread. I just wanted to hear if anyone else had something they didn't want to push through for one reason or another.

I've got plenty of reasons to not want to start RPs right about now.

[Gendarme]

I had an idea for a role-play awhile ago. It was basically going to be a group of people who'd struck silver out in either Kansas or Nebraska in the old west. Someone was supposed to have stolen the group's treasure and they were going to chase down the bandits. At the end of the day, it just didn't seem as interesting as I thought it was.

[BangoSkank]

So many

Deadlands RP
Supernatural Cowboy Western Horror

Department of Multidimensional Time Cops Who Also Know Karate
High Powered High Nonsense Kick Assers Kicking Ass and Chewing Gum across history and alternate history

The Brief Respite
Collaborative RP made up of short stories explaining how characters came to be desperately lost (lost in whatever way you prefer be it spiritual or physical or psychological) and to serve as a sort of RP In Character meet up nexus for characters folks want to write again or characters they've come up with but haven't quite found the RP for.

[Bee]

i've always wanted to do a political thriller rp but i dont know enough about politics to do it properly nor do i think there'd be enough interest or commitment for it :(

[DELETED jdl3932]

I've been wanting to do god RPs where you're actually beyond mythological levels of power. So, you know, an actual god. Unfortunately I've backed down from the group attempt at it upon realizing, both from player feedback and just thinking it out, that power of that kind leaves the idea as a whole rather directionless.

Why do anything when everything is possible after all? There's no challenge or skill really, things just happen because you want them to, thus removing the fun.

[Hedgehawk]

I had the urge a week or so ago to reboot my SoL Pinewood Hills RP. It was supposed to be set in a small town and started with characters final prom and basically followed them as they went out into the world. It was a good idea in my head. But then I think I came to realise that there was no real plot to it and it was just a sandbox. While SoL RPs are more about character interactions, I think the scope there is too big for it to work well. Or at least the scope is too broad to give it a decent success chance.

I have been debating over the past month about bringing back my Magic Incursion Roleplay for reboot number godknowswhat now. That one is more a question of when than if. Every iteration seems to be getting better. The lore is being refined more, and my GM skills grow that little bit more too. I think this time though there is going to be alot of change to the plot and then scope of the RP. Running the Satsuma spin off RP gave me a new plot idea and helped deepen that background on some of the main characters that made them so much more deeper. So I am really hopeful for its chance of success this time. I think I just need more time to flesh it out.

[AlteredTundra]

A few months ago, I was going to do a Bleach roleplay centered around the Vizards (Shinigamis with hollow powers), but I ended up scrapping the idea because of a combo of reasons: got too busy with my other stuff, couldn't figure out some of the details to make my idea work, and generally lost steam by the time I went back to it. I also it had to do with me getting too deep into my own head, but that's a whole bag of worms all on its own.

I also had this idea to do a Digimon RP fashioned after the squad system Naruto made famous. There are a few moving parts, but I haven't enough confidence in it to go past the "this could work" phase. All I know is that it would probably be under the guise of "Digimon Tamer academia"-type stuff and, if I am able to pull it off, I think it would be pretty kickass.

[Penny]

I've toyed with the idea of an epistolary RP (RP that takes the form of letters) before but haven't gone anywhere with it. I don't don't have a clear enough idea of what it would be and I doubt anyone has much interest in such a weird format. Similarly and weirder an in universe document that tells a story through a series of foot notes by two different editors.

I've also thought of doing a King Athur story but in SPAAAAACCCCE. I haven't attempted it because I have a very clear idea of what tone I would like to hit and I feel like I would need to be too proscriptive to make it work.

Finally I really would love to do a good investigative horror game ala Call of Cthulhu were the players actually generate the plot as the go along. I've made several attempts at this but they keep breaking down because I lose key players and depend on them for plot points.

[Ammokkx]

I've made several attempts at this but they keep breaking down because I lose key players and depend on them for plot points.

@Penny

ah, see, but there is your first mistake

you still have faith in people

[swift]

I've toyed with the idea of an epistolary RP

@Penny

Penny and Prejudice

[Penny]

<Snipped quote by Penny>

Penny and Prejudice

@swift

Penny With Extreme Prejudice

[Darth Cognus]

I've shied from starting/joining anything in general from the highly pessimistic take that anything I'd start would probably just die off, and it's tiring to put my mind into something that's not gonna continue if the thing it was made for doesn't. Either I'm gonna put heart into it and others will leave, or I do the same but I realize it's not something I'd stick to for a longer period. Kinda depressing when the going mindset is 'if they don't kill it I probably will'. The idea of doing stuff is fun, but the doing stuff is an exhausting prospect.

My answer to part of above has been 'start something you can remix into original content', but I haven't had enough thoughts in general that I think would actually work for the Guild. I have random stuff like thoughts of a Battletech based roleplay or something to revive Arena, but again. All stuff that takes energy to pull off for returns I'm not sure are there.

Mainly I'm here out of nostalgia, and remembering why I vanished. Add tangents of real life, very fickle muse and other hobbies and the result is not much at all happening. Sorry if I took it a little too dark.

[Vampiretwilight]

i had a few ideas i backed off from myself, believe it or not.

i once wanted to do a supernatural horror mystery rp, and debated about an interest check. the main plot would have involved a incubus who pretended to be human and worked as a detective, solving mysterious including murders, some of which he himself caused as a twist, but i hesitated to do so because i think nobody would be interested. And so, i never did.

[Yankee]

I feel like I still need a lot of experience as a GM so I tuck all my ideas away. I've had a classic D&D adventure in mind for a long while, about a prince taking over a kingdom in his father's stead and hiring a whole new court, which would be the players. Also, a classic Pokemon adventure... which would be fun but, there's already plenty of great Pokemon RPs out there. Some of the more outlandish ideas... I'd thought about trying to reignite my first GMing attempt but never put a ton of thought into it, and also... a certain board game RP (drums start playing) that would have to be done with quicker replies, and well - I'm a very slow writer haha.

[Andreyich]

I have like a zillion ideas I didn't go through with (yet, anyway)

I planned an RP in renaissance/post-medieval Europe wherein the many superstitions of the lands such as werewolves, vampries, witches, the loch ness monster, chicken-footed houses, basilisks, daemons, banshees, etc. are all real. But I thought there's not enough of a crossover of people who are interested in history and supernatural shit to make me get a nice audience.

I wanted a Fallout RP set in the massive OWB Mod setting, but I struggled to somehow think of a way to bring all the content I wanted to show from Mexico the land of Titans to the Northern land of God and Cannibals. Perhaps some sort of copy of the cancelled fallout tactics story except less silly.

More whacky, I wanted an RP where people can sort of let out their inner power fantasy from all the edgy books and dusty 90s/00s animes out there of intergalactic barbarians and knights and wizards and prophecies. It was to be very lighthearted of course, players more or less givne free rein to one-up their enemies in B-movie tier twists where you reveal some hidden power. Just cheesy nonsense

I also wanted to do a more grim RP in the world wars. For WW1 like some KuK conscripts that hardly know each other's language desperate to not get pummeled at the Isonzo by artillery or on the East beheaded by Cossacks, or if the second world war then follow some Tommies on their road to drive the fascists from France.

On an ending light hearted note I thought of some absurdist RPs. Either an arena style battle royale where players are dropped in a walmart and must slaughter each other with its contents, or alternatively chronicle Florida/Polish/Brazilian men as they have a huge acid trip. Also perhaps a joke/meta RP chronicling the more memetastic eras of RPG personifying the free section as a crossover of a huge kingdom and an anime convention, the advanced section as some sort of snobby country club believing itself to be a great nation unto itself, etc.

[Kassarock]

So the current idea I've been working on (and continuously putting off actually doing) is running a Tabletop Paranoia RPG here on the Guild, or if not that, a game set in the universe of Paranoia's Alpha Complex. Basically after some kind collapse or calamity, all of humanity lives in a vast underground city called Alpha Complex, overseen by the Computer. No one knows how long this has been going on for - but its probably a long time, as everything is continuously breaking, the systems are collapsing in on themselves and the Computer has gone insane.

But the Computer doesn't realise this. It thinks everything is fine. All the problems in Alpha Complex? Terrorists! Terrorists and Saboteurs! So the whole city operates as a bureaucratic nightmare police state where everyone must prove their loyalty to Friend Computer and Fun is Mandatory.

It'd probably be a shorter RP, since Paranoia encourages both the killing of players by the GM and other players. There are lots of secret societies and factions (being in a faction is treason), there are mutant powers (being a mutant is treason), and you get rewards for reporting (or fabricating) your team mates' treason. So you can see why its called Paranoia.

It's feasible to run on the guild I think, just need to digitalise the item card system.

[BangoSkank]

@Andreyich

I love all those ideas, Deadlands is basically that first idea just in the Wild West instead of Renaissance Europe

[integer]

i wanted to do an RP based off The World Ends With You, but also didn't (and still don't) feel like i could handle it