Cam

Letters From Home

I'm thinking that as a rule of thumb, 60's - 70's would work nicely.

Tridam's Heroes (Sci-Fi Military Action RP)

War is a condition that has plagued humanity since the very beginning. From ancient tribal skirmishes for food and territory to the cataclysmic World Wars of the 20th century, one thing has been certain. Where there are people, war will follow.

This truth followed us even into the stars. With the development of the Freon-Hurtz Jump drive in 2131 and advanced teraformation techniques, we expanded outwards into the last frontier. People believed, they hoped, that with distance and bounding resources across the traverse, that war would simply die out.

The first skirmishes occurred within weeks.

Almost all of the first colonies were founded by corporate interests. There were mining colonies and farm colonies, what have you. It didn’t matter. There was money to be made everywhere.

In the beginning there were few colonies, all of them within the Sol system itself. All of them had multiple corporations laying territorial claims. What better way was there to increase profits than by eliminating the competition?

The following series of armed conflicts became known to history as the Unification Wars. The governments on earth realized the need to eliminate financial interests ruling the colonies. The UN was given executive powers over all non-earth populations and the authorization to use military force to tame them.

Over the course of five years, this goal was met. The next year, the UN Charter was re-written, creating the Union of Populated Worlds. There would be, for a time, peace.

Over the next fifty years, humanity continued to expand. At the height of the UPW’s influence, there would be over fifty colonies in twenty systems.

People hoped this would be the end of war.

They couldn’t have been more wrong.

The UPW, a democratic marvel on paper, was in fact, and oppressive and over-powered military machine with every human world under its thumb, or so many believed. The resentments were old, having their origins all the way back to the Unification Wars. The fact of the matter was, the planetary governments wanted more control over their territories, however the UPW refused to give it to them, believing that if left to their own devices, the colonist would ruthlessly go back to killing one another over petty disputes.

However, in a move decades in the making, five systems allied themselves together and declared themselves independent from the UPW. The Telph, The Grimm, The Holdsted, the Yalta, and The Undeas all announced their sovereignty on the centennial anniversary of the Unification Wars end.

This is where our story begins.

You are a UPW Marine Stationed in the Undeas system on the world of Tridam. The war has been going on for almost a year, the fiercest of the fighting against the Allied Stance having been in the Undeas.

Tridam is strategically imperative to the UPW’s war efforts in the system. Tridam is home to the Allied shipyards, and is ultimately the backbone of their resistance. You are up against an entrenched enemy. They are brothers and fathers and mothers and children and every one of them will fight to the death to see you leave their home.

Can you survive?

This isn’t the first war we’ve fought.

Will it be the last?

You and your fellow player’s make up one squad in the larger 2nd Platoon of the 12th Infantry Regiment on Tridam. The folks back home call you Tridam’s Heros. The locals call you “Those UPW mother fuckers.” You don’t necessarily agree with the locals, but you're fairly certain that nothing about you is very heroic.

You have been fighting for ten months. Since the war began. You’re tired, you’re beaten, but you know damn well that you’re not going home any time soon. The folks back home call the war “The Great Skizim.” You call it hell.

Lieutenant Colonel Pete Firebrand commands the 12th. You might have met him once or twice. He’s a good man. A good soldier. You respect him. You think that too many good soldiers have died here. He agrees.

You don’t know it yet, but this attitude shared by your squad, all of second platoon, and the whole 12th itself is what has destined you for greatness. And infamy.

You CO is Captain John Banderas. You think he’s kind of an asshole. Colonel Firebrand agrees.

This is why one day, Chief Warrant Officer Cameron P. Bose graces the presence of your squad. Now, only play can reveal what is to come.


Name: Cameron P. Bose
Gender: Male
Age: 58 years
Rank and MOS: Chief Warrant Officer 5 / Navy Welder
Biography: Cameron Bose was one of few men that could see the conflict in Undeas coming from a mile away. His old friend, Peter Firebrand, was another.
Bose spent five years feverishly buffing up the UPW’s defences on Tridam dispite all the crazy looks he received. When the first shots in the war with fired, the UPW’s great military minds thanked him personally for the foothold he was able to provide them with in the enemy’s shipyards.
He thought they were all idiots.
He told them so to their faces.
This was why, after the war began, the old welder and architect remained in the most dangerous
region of known space instead of serving safely in the inner colonies.
Bose believed this was probably for the best.
Though he had no authority to command troops, he and Colonial Firebrand were almost singlehandedly responsible for the UPW’s strategy on Tridam. Only the meddling of Vice Admiral Hackett, the supreme commander of the Undeas theater, was there to hold them back.
Bose, of course, thought that Hackett was a moron. He even told him so once.
Hackett doesn't talk to Bose anymore.
Firebrand has asked Bose to take control of a special project on Tridam. One that Bose was happy to accept.
Weapon: Standard issue H-26 Officer’s pistol. .44 MAG Revolver, antique.
Other Equipment: Modified GRT-45 Tactical body armor, blue instead of standard camo/kakhi. Portable hand-held plasma welder. Stainless Steel flask.

Letters From Home

Sorry for my recent absence, I work a lot. I am still ready to launch it, though, given the response that it has had.

Draft of the OOC below.

Welcome, one, welcome all to the Letters From Home RP.

My name is Cameron, your friendly neighborhood GM.

Letters From Home is a unique role-playing experience in that all of the roles being played must be expressed indirectly through “hand-written” letter, journals, newspaper editorials, and even official documents.

As a player in LFH, your goal is to investigate and uncover the mysteries of our in-game world by writing these documents. Through collaboration and creative writing, we will shape entire histories and cultures for the peoples of our world.

First, the basics:

As a player, you have an unlimited number of characters at your disposal to tell a story. Other players may take up the pen for characters you create, given your permission. Although, You are only allowed up to three characters that you may write for exclusively. Anything else may be considered public domain.

The OOC is kind of a game in and of itself. I would like the players to consider themselves kind of archeologist, putting together and unearthing new information about a forgotten world. As far as the game’s cannon is concerned, there must be a degree of teamwork and cooperation for it to exist. I expect there to be disputes. That is the nature of the game I wish to create. People remember things differently, they lie, and sometimes are just down-right wrong. Together, the players must determine what is fact and what is fiction.

That pretty much sums it up. I am giving you, the player, a lot of liberty in this game. All I ask in return is good writing.

Next, a few things about the world:

We are investigating the fictional world of Undea. The world is geographically and evolutionary similar to Earth, but culturally and historically it is up to the players to decide. Suffice to say that we are in a quasi-modern setting (there are no space travel or alien life present).

There are three continents on Undea, each containing a number of nations and inhospitable regions. The scale we are playing on is a grand one.

The approximate population of the world is about 3 billion, unevenly distributed between the continents.

Major nations are both seafaring and airborne. Their militaries are strong and may use conventional weapons and tactics.
Undea is reaching a time of crisis. Resources are scarce in many places and world war is on the horizon. Players may choose to follow this chain of events, although in the game, there is room for almost any story to be told.

And I think that’s all I’m going to tell you. The rest is up for you to decide.

Letters From Home

SilverRain said
What's the setting going to be? Can I write my posts as Dear Diary entries instead of letters? Can I keep a character for myself?

I'm going to keep the setting fairly vague in the beginning. Suffice to say that I want to explore an entire era. Everything exist anywhere inside a window of thirty to fifty years of time.

The world will be a fictional one. Similar to earth but not quite. Quasi-modern as far as technology and society goes. No aliens, nor space travel. The world is at the brink of a cataclysmic event. World war, famine, the like. Everyone can have their own story. They need not necessarily link together right away.

Dear diary writing is perfectly acceptable. Any sort of written document that could be recovered by historians.

I'll allow you to reserve characters for yourself, but a limited number of them.

I have my first post written up and ready to go. So long as those who have posted here are game, I can have an OOC and IC up and running by tomorrow.

Lonely Planet / Pompeii (Sci-Fi / Political and Military)

I'm impressed with the amount of thought put into this. Looking to hear more.

Nationbuilding Roleplay?

I am personally in favor of the alt-history 1800's American frontier setting.

Letters From Home

I'm glad to see that the idea has a little bit of support behind it. To show my thanks, I'll flesh it out a little bit more for you.

The goal of the game is simply to interpret the story based on the evidence we create as a group. The evidence being the letters and other documents we write together.

However, I fully encourage a degree of contradiction to be present. People make mistakes, remember things differently, and even outright lie all the time.

As more evidence presents itself, our interpretation of the story changes. The world grows.

You have an unlimited number of characters at your disposal, but of course there can and will be recurring characters.

Unless otherwise noted, it would be acceptable for multiple players to write for the same character.

The game will be subtle. The game will be long. I hope that there will be a lot of depth to it.

Myself included, I would like to have five people to start, although more are welcome. I don't usually shut the doors on my RP's.

Are there any questions thus far?

Letters From Home

Would anyone be interested in playing a game in which the entirety of the story is told by writing letters?

The premise is simple. At the beginning of the game, you are given a broad group of facts about the world. From there, you extrapolate a story by creating letters, journals, and other documents. The more you write, the more we learn about our story.

The game I'm imagining almost resembles an archaeological dig.