The Baltimore riots.
TL;DR Summary:
- Setting: 2025 Baltimore, an urban warzone being cynically filmed for nihilistic entertainment of the jaded masses.
- The hunger games, on heroin, meth and crack.
- Over the top violence; it's like MTV with ma deuces. It's like the Syrian Civil War with ad sponsorship!
- Characters are either criminals brought in (like professional athletes) to make a big, violent, over the top splash on TV or are hapless residents caught up in this ratrace.
- Casual Standards; a paragraph or two is all you need for posting.
- Characters are totally expendable; hopefully, players will enjoy getting their characters killed (in spectacular, ironic, over the top ways, such as re-enacting Tony Montana's "Leetle Frien'" scene) enough that they make a brand new one! Hell, make multiples, have a backup ready!
- Have fun. This is meant to be darkly humorous and satirical, kind of like Robocop (the old one, I haven't seen the new one yet)
- Multiple characters per player allowed...you'll probably need them.
In Character Info:
"This is just satisfying the darkest parts of human nature with a daily dose of reality TV misery-- someone else's misery." - Andrew Malleus, CEO Malleus Entertainment
It's 2025, and corporations run the world. Granted extra-territorial rights by international law, megacorporations own outright entire small countries and parts of larger ones.
Enter Baltimore, a black hole of development project money, and eternally a nightmare of crime. Brighter Future, a real estate development corporation that was primarily concerned with trying to redevelop Baltimore into something better than it was, recently sold the whole of Baltimore City, lock stock and barrel, in an effort to raise money to pay off its creditors. The buyer, Malleus Entertainment Inc., known for its cutting edge, reality-based "TV that people want but are too afraid to ask for" saw potential in Baltimore's bleak urban landscape.
Malleus Entertainment's previous offerings included such shows as "Faroe Islands Jihad" where militants from Central Asia and North Africa, formerly held in extra-legal limbo upon capture or incarcerated for life, were bought up from their privately-run prison corporations, brought into the idyllic Scandinavian paradise nation (also bought at a bankruptcy firesale) and left to their own devices, resulting in a brutish war between the various factions and natives who became decidedly more militant. The subsequent season, "Faroe Islands Fascism" was also a smash mega-hit, with millions of viewers glued to the carnage. Its MMORPG spinoffs and seasonal DVD releases were also highly popular. Another of Malleus Entertainment's early successes was to apply the 'reality TV' paradigm in "Weekend Warrior for Hire," a show that followed the exploits and adventures of a group of average, middle to upper class Americans and Europeans as they immersed themselves in the Congolese warfare experience as freelance mercenaries, which won the "BEST ON TV AWARD" from Soldier of Fortune magazine and got all the contestants indicted for crimes against humanity in the Hague.
Malleus entertainment promptly announced their intentions to start a new reality show called "Urban Warzone" in Baltimore and bought out the local government contracts and ceased to provide service. So many homes went on sale in the area as to cause the values to plummet, which in turn forced many people to stay, as they could not sell for enough to pay off their mortgages. Those who were left became the unwilling participants in the newest gameshow as the country's prisons gleefully sold off their inmates to Malleus Inc. Malleus, in turn, gleefully dropped the inmates into Baltimore City and sealed off the city using the police force (County and City) that they'd just recently bought and kept loyal through allowing them an extremely generous home buyout plan.
To make things more interesting, Malleus Entertainment intends to drop in supplies to those that hold randomly selected territories of the city, a new one every day. As a result, no one is safe or able to hold down a territory long.
A much smaller test run of the concept was done in a nice suburb in the Midwest, and the sample viewership was wild. Malleus intends to make lots of money off this. The advertisers are salivating, recording artists are pimping their songs on it, and and the viewers are pumped thanks to the marketing blitz. A few intellectual eggheads are moaning about 'bread and circus' but who cares about all that ivory tower moralizing shit anyway? It's showbiz, baby! The market gets what the market demands!
It's 2025, and corporations run the world. Granted extra-territorial rights by international law, megacorporations own outright entire small countries and parts of larger ones.
Enter Baltimore, a black hole of development project money, and eternally a nightmare of crime. Brighter Future, a real estate development corporation that was primarily concerned with trying to redevelop Baltimore into something better than it was, recently sold the whole of Baltimore City, lock stock and barrel, in an effort to raise money to pay off its creditors. The buyer, Malleus Entertainment Inc., known for its cutting edge, reality-based "TV that people want but are too afraid to ask for" saw potential in Baltimore's bleak urban landscape.
Malleus Entertainment's previous offerings included such shows as "Faroe Islands Jihad" where militants from Central Asia and North Africa, formerly held in extra-legal limbo upon capture or incarcerated for life, were bought up from their privately-run prison corporations, brought into the idyllic Scandinavian paradise nation (also bought at a bankruptcy firesale) and left to their own devices, resulting in a brutish war between the various factions and natives who became decidedly more militant. The subsequent season, "Faroe Islands Fascism" was also a smash mega-hit, with millions of viewers glued to the carnage. Its MMORPG spinoffs and seasonal DVD releases were also highly popular. Another of Malleus Entertainment's early successes was to apply the 'reality TV' paradigm in "Weekend Warrior for Hire," a show that followed the exploits and adventures of a group of average, middle to upper class Americans and Europeans as they immersed themselves in the Congolese warfare experience as freelance mercenaries, which won the "BEST ON TV AWARD" from Soldier of Fortune magazine and got all the contestants indicted for crimes against humanity in the Hague.
Malleus entertainment promptly announced their intentions to start a new reality show called "Urban Warzone" in Baltimore and bought out the local government contracts and ceased to provide service. So many homes went on sale in the area as to cause the values to plummet, which in turn forced many people to stay, as they could not sell for enough to pay off their mortgages. Those who were left became the unwilling participants in the newest gameshow as the country's prisons gleefully sold off their inmates to Malleus Inc. Malleus, in turn, gleefully dropped the inmates into Baltimore City and sealed off the city using the police force (County and City) that they'd just recently bought and kept loyal through allowing them an extremely generous home buyout plan.
To make things more interesting, Malleus Entertainment intends to drop in supplies to those that hold randomly selected territories of the city, a new one every day. As a result, no one is safe or able to hold down a territory long.
A much smaller test run of the concept was done in a nice suburb in the Midwest, and the sample viewership was wild. Malleus intends to make lots of money off this. The advertisers are salivating, recording artists are pimping their songs on it, and and the viewers are pumped thanks to the marketing blitz. A few intellectual eggheads are moaning about 'bread and circus' but who cares about all that ivory tower moralizing shit anyway? It's showbiz, baby! The market gets what the market demands!
Out of Character Info:
Basically, the setting is one big urban apocalypse for TV entertainment purposes where the contestants battle each other for the 'prize.' 'Prize' to be determined if people are interested. Basically, the setup is that the characters are dropped into a bombed out, blasted out urban wasteland and have to fight it out with whatever weapons they can scavenge there. Yes, there are guns all over the place. It's Baltimore, after all.
Characters are bound to be either the world's worst criminals, brought in to liven things up and to keep the "Lord of the Flies" spirit alive and well, or hapless residents who are unable to move out of Baltimore for one reason or another as the place is turned into a warzone. But hey, they were warned, right?
This RP is definitely toward the straight, constant combat side of things, with little philosophy involved; it's supposed to be over the top, much like a bad 1980's action movie (like "The Running Man.") I haven't decided if PC's should be pitted against each other or whether or not to throw a bunch of crazy NPC's at people à la "Running Man." So I'll decide that if there's any interest. If nothing else, this one is intended to really be a couple paragraphs per post and fairly fast-paced; a post every three days or so from everyone involved. It doesn't have to be long or fancy, the plot just has to keep moving.
So people are probably wondering, "How does the entertainment company get around home owners?"
(some of you reply, "Who cares? I can haz guntruck?" Sure can, Gomer.)
Easy. They own the government. They stop providing services, criminals run free and things go to hell in an handbasket quickly. Like the Democratic Republic of the Congo or Somalia or Burma, the company is considered a sovereign entity. Rights groups plead, no one listens.
Homeowners stick it out, because they can't actually sell their homes for anywhere near the invested worth. Meanwhile, the cameras are rolling. This serves a use to other companies; when this program rolls, it will be an advertisement for why you don't want Malleus Media to buy your community, and why it might be a good idea to start paying installments to keep the company that DOES own your local government happy.
At this point, the government is a feeble memory of authority that no longer has any bearing on things; it's the raw form free market, baby! Heck, a restriction of corporate rights would mean the military provider corporations that fight the wars would turn on the government.
This background stuff isn't meant to really explain the entire setting, it's just there to provide the framework for why this setting exists as it is. There are no details on the way congress and so forth, not to mention the UN, sold everyone down the river for campaign donations and so forth, because frankly, the details are mind-numbing and banal...which is why there was little to no citizen outcry when it started.
So yes, this is a dystopian mirror image of a world that probably won't be, but it makes for a heck of a setting.
Characters will be all walks of life, the only criteria is that they live in Baltimore. They can be as crazily armed as you want, because some people have probably been stockpiling up for years ever since the City started turning into a bombed out ghetto since the 1970's.
So yeah, armor plate your trucks, grab your flamethrowers and get ready to be on TV!
Characters are bound to be either the world's worst criminals, brought in to liven things up and to keep the "Lord of the Flies" spirit alive and well, or hapless residents who are unable to move out of Baltimore for one reason or another as the place is turned into a warzone. But hey, they were warned, right?
This RP is definitely toward the straight, constant combat side of things, with little philosophy involved; it's supposed to be over the top, much like a bad 1980's action movie (like "The Running Man.") I haven't decided if PC's should be pitted against each other or whether or not to throw a bunch of crazy NPC's at people à la "Running Man." So I'll decide that if there's any interest. If nothing else, this one is intended to really be a couple paragraphs per post and fairly fast-paced; a post every three days or so from everyone involved. It doesn't have to be long or fancy, the plot just has to keep moving.
So people are probably wondering, "How does the entertainment company get around home owners?"
(some of you reply, "Who cares? I can haz guntruck?" Sure can, Gomer.)
Easy. They own the government. They stop providing services, criminals run free and things go to hell in an handbasket quickly. Like the Democratic Republic of the Congo or Somalia or Burma, the company is considered a sovereign entity. Rights groups plead, no one listens.
Homeowners stick it out, because they can't actually sell their homes for anywhere near the invested worth. Meanwhile, the cameras are rolling. This serves a use to other companies; when this program rolls, it will be an advertisement for why you don't want Malleus Media to buy your community, and why it might be a good idea to start paying installments to keep the company that DOES own your local government happy.
At this point, the government is a feeble memory of authority that no longer has any bearing on things; it's the raw form free market, baby! Heck, a restriction of corporate rights would mean the military provider corporations that fight the wars would turn on the government.
This background stuff isn't meant to really explain the entire setting, it's just there to provide the framework for why this setting exists as it is. There are no details on the way congress and so forth, not to mention the UN, sold everyone down the river for campaign donations and so forth, because frankly, the details are mind-numbing and banal...which is why there was little to no citizen outcry when it started.
So yes, this is a dystopian mirror image of a world that probably won't be, but it makes for a heck of a setting.
Characters will be all walks of life, the only criteria is that they live in Baltimore. They can be as crazily armed as you want, because some people have probably been stockpiling up for years ever since the City started turning into a bombed out ghetto since the 1970's.
So yeah, armor plate your trucks, grab your flamethrowers and get ready to be on TV!
