Thinslayer

An isekai roleplay

@TheFox
Ooh, I just had another plot idea for him, if that's okay?

Considering his character sheet, he may actually have the opposite problem: he may be capable of more heroic things than he thinks he is. As a reincarnation, he possesses more power and potential than just about anybody else in the world, but his timid personality is holding him back. When people are counting on him to do something important, he fails them at a crucial moment because he doesn't think he can do it. So his character arc would involve him learning to find the confidence to accomplish things he is absolutely capable of.

Just some ideas. :3

An isekai roleplay

Yeah, I change my mind on the whole "grinding for xp" idea

@Conejitoooo

Same. While we probably could create a leveling system that doesn't involve tabletop mechanics, I'm not ready to put in the level of effort that would require. So we'll shelve it for the time being.

Good question. To me he has still much to learn, even though he has the skills to defend himself, there are still things from his past life that hold him back. He realizes he is not the hero of the story like the one he created and perhaps the fear that he might die for real this time. He is still unexperienced.

@TheFox

What if he doesn't realize he's not the hero of the story? At least not immediately, because he may not be aware that there are other reincarnations like him. And that could be an amazing story arc, where he learns that he won't be automatically handed everything on a silver platter just because he reincarnated; he'll have to work to become somebody, just like in the old world, and he'll have to confront the personality flaws he thought he'd left behind in the Old World.

An isekai roleplay

@TheFox
I like it so far as well. What sort of character arc should we work toward for him? Is he overconfident now and must learn how to temper himself, or is he still the timid boy he once was and needs to learn true confidence? Or did you have something else in mind entirely?

An isekai roleplay

To flesh this out a bit more, I'm thinking we should require each player character to have a clearly defined Goal, a driving motivation for them to engage with the story. The characters don't necessarily have to implement it in-story immediately (since it's not always appropriate), but it should eventually become a key driver of their character. Whatever that turns out to be, it will greatly affect the kinds of items and powers they'll pick up on their journeys.

So it loops back around to role selection: players will be needing defined roles connecting their characters to the story.

EDIT: Nah, this isn't a good idea. We should let them decide on their own goals. This is hard. ;_;

An isekai roleplay

About leveling systems, I have a few notes.

We could do this Zelda-style, where accomplishing major objectives gives unique powers or items. In one story I'm (trying) writing, the main character has a time-travel power that initially lets him reverse time by five seconds once a day. Accomplishing key objectives allows him to improve this power a little, either by letting him go back further in time or do so more often. We could do something similar for the player characters; whichever power they choose for themselves, completing story objectives will let them improve upon it. They could also acquire important items, like a Baneblade or a new form of Plot Armor.

So if people are hesitant to do anything like tabletop gaming, we could use this minimalist system instead. Of course, preparing for it would be difficult without having their character sheets beforehand...

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While I mull over the leveling system, I have another question: 18+ content yea or nay? Obviously anything explicit would go to PMs.

An isekai roleplay

In the Anima Prime RPG system, the gameplay loop goes something like this:

• Decide whether to Maneuver or Strike. Maneuvers set up Strikes and can increase the power of Strikes. Strikes deal damage.
• If you decide to Maneuver, take some dice from your Action Pool (like Energy from those bad MMOs), and any successful rolls go into the Strike Pool (or Charge Pool if you "crit," used for epic moves). Complement your roll by describing your character doing something cool.
• If you decide to Strike, take some dice from your Strike pool and roll them. Successes deal a Wound on the target. Describe in your post what that looked like.
• When all enemies have fallen, the GM distributes rewards to all the involved players, such as a story McGuffin or a new Skill, kind of like what @The Irish Tree was suggesting.

There's obviously a lot more detail to the system, but that's my impression of its fundamental gameplay. As you can see, it doesn't require any sort of grid-based movement or anything; it's just abstracted enough to work for forum gaming.

An isekai roleplay

In that light novel, they have a sort of "system" or "divine voice". Should we have something similar? Perhaps, one of the players could control the leveling system? maybe I can? I don't know. Its just an idea. I don't want the players to be leveling their characters up all willy nilly and make themselves op. I want it to be challenging.

@Conejitoooo

In most of my RPs, there've been Haven Towers, which were built to protect civilization from Voidspawn incursions. And in one RP, they acted as a sort of System that created and maintained the rules of magic. So we could definitely implement something like that. But like you said, allowing players to grind would be detrimental to the gameplay experience, so we'll have to figure out a way to limit that.

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@Conejitoooo
Before that, I think we first need to establish the broader game mechanics it'll operate under. If the players are up for it, we could incorporate some sort of tabletop system. I did some research on the subject a while back, and I think the Anima Prime RPG system would work well for forum-based tabletop gaming. D&D is designed more around movement mechanics, which forum games suck at. There would be a somewhat high barrier for entry, in that whichever game system we decide on (if any) would require players to become familiar with it. So I'm hesitant to use any tabletop system at all unless a majority of players are keen on it.

If we're not using tabletop mechanics, we still have a number of other mechanical decisions to make, like what kinds of skills players can get, how they get them, how combat is resolved, and so on.

An isekai roleplay

@Zerofighter
@Omni5876
@Jenessa
@Wolvena
@TheFox
@WanderingDragon
@Benzaiten
@The Irish Tree
@Conscripts
@Zool
We should probably take a poll on this, as it's a major decision that will require a whole lot of work to set up. Who's interested in adding leveling mechanics to the RP?