Well, it's finally happened again and the little twinge of PS nostalgia is back, but I'm afraid that these days I don't have the energy to invest in the busybodying that I normally do when I come around. But I still have a few ideas that someone might make use of so I decided to make a thread for posting ideas that I can't run but that others might be able to work with. Feel free to ask questions if you wish to develop an idea further but want more details on what I mean in these event descriptions.
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Event: CavernBelly and the No Food Really Bad DayTeaser: A Gigantic round monster with massive maw and large teeth has moved on <pick a city> demaning food. Its normal food supply is depleted and it is now disrupting all trade and shipments to the city devouring what it can and attempting to destroy what it can't. No one is quite sure what it is or where it has come from but traditional methods of disposing of it are proving useless. Even attempts at teleporting it away don't prevent it from returning to wreck havoc again. Maybe it's time to try something different... maybe we should just give it what it wants. Anyone know how to cook?
The Particulars: CavernBelly is likely the creation of some mage with too much free time on their hands and has gotten out. Normally he roams through the countryside eating but pickings have been a little slim lately. Pesky hunters and adventures have been killing off the things he likes to eat. So CavernBelly has decided to go to where the hunters and the adventures are and settle some accounts.
Normally you can just kill off a creature and be done with it but this time it's proving to be difficult. Cavernbelly has a thick hide and is pretty solid so normal weapons won't work. It is also shown a tendency to eat said weapons if it can. Magic doesn't work much better since the creature can also eat spells but watch out if the spell is too strong! Strong spells give CavernBelly indigestion and you won't want to be anywhere near him when he breaks that wind! But even with CavernBelly eating these things, it's still not full!
At this rate it only leaves trying to feed it with whatever you've got and hoping it goes away. But who knows, maybe a good homecooked meal might convince CavernBelly that we aren't so bad afterall.
OOC: So this is an event that will let the people that normally don't get called be the heros, Cooks! Thus no magicking or bluntly beating/cutting your way to a solution. Cooks can either RP cooking or can actually go and prepare meals that will then be delivered to whoever ends up playing CavernBelly. While the end result can turn out a variety of ways, in the end it should be food that drives CavernBelly off or in some other way defeats him.
Whoever plays CavernBelly should take care to RP more than just eating the food. After all, who knows what effects different foods could have on him and he may have preferences for certain foods or just plain old spit out others... Have fun with it, this is not suppose to be a super serious drama event.
RP opportunities:- Cooks can RP cooking and getting non cook players help in fetching ingredients and testing food
- Conversing/negotiating with CavernBelly, not just trying to kill it
- Using RP to invent dishes that don't exist by mechanics
- RPing the economic affects of disrupted trade between cities
- RPing alternate cooking methods, although who knows how CavernBelly might react to Kran food and magically concocted foods might prove gaseously dangerous... Hit the deck!
- Mages and fighters geting to gripe about being the ineffective ones for once
- Guards(GM) commenting on needing a pay raise for the kinds of stuff they have to put up with and reviewing some of the more ridiculous incidences
- Threatening to feed your enemies/bad children to CavernBelly
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[since I've been asked about doing other Balls here is a ball idea for those that might want to try it.]
Event: Changing Faces MasqueradeTeaser: A new Ball is coming to town so break out your costumes and get ready to dance and carouse the night away!
The Particulars: A new troupe of curious masked people have moved into <pick a city> and proposed to throw a ball. However, it is more than just the preparations for a party. They also have merchants and craftspeople with them to provide goods in the days leading up to the Masquerade.
However, despite the festive attitude that these people bring with them, there is just something slightly off about them. They are always terribly vague about who they are, why they do their balls, where they come from and many other things... But on the surface they seem harmless and everything is what it seems, right?
OOC: So the Ball is a party but the party is a front. It is a cover for nefarious type things... Moving Illegal/stolen goods, passing info to shady parties, putting people in contact with shady sorts, seeing to it that people disappear in the chaos, use your imagination.
Use the skills of whatever characters you can rope into the event to decide on what happens, but be creative. It would also be nice to have a plot of uncovering the activities of the traveling troupe. Maybe someone catches them maybe they do, maybe they get stopped maybe someone finds themselves in too deep.
RP opportunities:- Blacksmiths that meltdown stolen items and recast them into easy to move ingots
- Dancing girls/guys or musicians that distract customers to be robbed blind
- Merchants that sell trinkets or goods at high prices then cheat their customers in some way
- Strongmen that moonlight as leg breakers
- blackmarket goods sold secretly
- etc.
- typical party stuff, selling souvenirs, selling drinks, selling services, dancing, singing, eating
Things you may need/want from GMs- A stage*
- stalls*
- Custom items
- an engraver
- flyer placement
- environment effects (such as ominous foreshadowing winds blowign through)
- snooping guards
*depending on where you hold it
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Event: QuarantineTeaser: A strange new illness seems to be affecting <pick a location> and it is behaving in the oddest manner. Some people and creatures are getting sick but some aren't. There is no rhyme or reason to the spread, but one thing is certain, it won't end well if it is not stopped. Symptoms of the disease progress in stages, the end stage is death. Something must be done to try and save those infected that are still alive.
The Particulars: Certain inhabitants and creatures seem to be predisposed to contract a new disease. It is unknown where the disease comes from or how it even spreads, but what is known is that the symptoms come in four stages. By stage four there is nothing left that we can do for a person but try to ease their suffering or speed their way into death.
However, we have all available doctors, healers, and alchemists working together on a solution.
OOC: There is a disease spreading but only those with some sort predisposition *cough*their players decided they wanted to participate*cough* are getting sick. Players who are doctors, healer, and alchemists should work together to form a plan of attack, run experiments, and hospitals. This is not something that should just be magicked away by one person, let people people get in on the action and make something of it.
Someone will need to decide what the symptoms are and what cures will be effective and then find ways to communicate that to the other players so they can role with that. Also, some people will need to be patients.
RP opportunities:RP diagnosing, first responders to particularly bad outbreaks, running hospitals and experiments for cures
RP variations in symptoms or maybe a completely different illness that gets confused for the serious one
RPing the stubborn patient that refuses to follow treatment plans and gets others sick
RPing searching for new ingredients for potions or medicine
RPing the ethics of running experiments on live subjects
Organizing meetings and conferences for sharing information on what is known about the disease
Exploring through RP the implications of entire towns and cities potentially being wiped out by disease or cut off in a quarantine like Ojaveda.
RPing Snake Oil cures that don't work
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Event: New Arrivals PicnicTeaser: Everyday new people stream into the cities of the Dome looking for a fresh start. Many of them don't know where to go or who to talk to and several don't even have any friends on the level. So, to deal with that, people in all the cities have started to organize New Arrival Picnics to give new people a place to get information, meet new people, and better acclimate to life on the Dome.
The Particulars: A picnic will be held and new people in particular are invited to come and listen as major city features and services are presented, to take tours to learn where to find things, to network and meet people who can help them in future endeavors, learn how to pick up new skills, where to find work and housing, and to sit and enjoy a nice easy going picnic.
OOC: The purpose of the picnic is to provide a safe no pressure environment to help newbies to acclimate. There should be some way of telling people what a given city has to offer them and also tours to take people around. Food, drink, picnic baskets, and blankets(rugs or hides) will help set the scene but the main thing is to have a sort of open forum for players to ask questions.
Try to be forgiving if they are completely OOC.
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(Newer Entries as of 9/1/13 - Yes I'm American, we do m/d/y :p )
Event: The PlayTeaser: A playwright has come to <pick city> looking to put on a production of their newest play <Play Name>. But, there is only a very small pool of actors, now what? Well, it seems like they will have to start at the point before the beginning. They will have to train their actors as well. This should be interesting.
The Particulars: This event is targeted at actors and every level of actor from aspiring actor to experienced actor is invited to come attend classes, audition, and to participate in the play.
OOC: This event is really an excuse at both teaching people to RP in an IC way and also giving characters that may or may not get to branch out in their RPs a chance to do things a little differently than they normally do.
Since there is an acting lesson component, how your character normally reacts to things need not inherently stop you from trying out an idea in regards to how your character behaves. There is a wide range of possibilies here. However, your character may be a horrible actor, in which case, no matter what scenario they are given their personality ends up "interfering" with their ability to act. Or maybe they are too good at acting and have a hard time disconnecting from a role. Explore the possibilities
This is basically improv for your character so take an idea given and run with it. If you are given a prop to act with and an open ended prompt, have fun with it. Or if you are giving a scene to do with another character and an prompt that leaves room for interpretation, take the unexpected interpretation. Basically have fun with it as it will get harder to pull off by the time it comes to doing a play.
The harder part. If you want to continue the story past the acting lessons then you will need a play or at least some scenes for your actors to practice "Acting out". Something that they can do during auditions, something they can do during practice, and if you are really ambitious something they can do on stage in front of an audience.
RP opportunities:- "act" out various characters through the one you already have
- interact with other characters in various "scenes"
- practice improv acting for fun and giggles without having to be super serious about it
- RPing an exasperated director/"true actor" who is burdened by having to act with amateurs.
- RP a Diva
- RP supporting characters stage hand, props creator, costumer, ect... and use that as an excuse to put your own spin on it. "Of course the make up has to look like that! People are looking from the seats not the edge of the stage... Trust me it will look fine from a distance." *snicker*
- Bystander in the seats heckling (Statler and Waldorf anyone?)
- jealous rival playwright looking to either sabotage the play or steal it and produce their play before the original playwright
- etc
Extra planning you will need to do:- Pick a genre to work towards overall (horror, historical, romantic, etc)
- Writing acting prompts
- writing scenes for your actors act out*
- props
- writing a play*
- Decide on how to provide refreshments if you choose to have them at all
*depending on how far it gets
Things you may want/need from GMs:- Stage*
- custom item props
- stage affects like curtains rising or set pieces falling. (phantom of the opera?)
- locked containers to store event connected items near where the action is happening
*Depending on where you hold it.
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Event: What Lies Beneath?Teaser: A local achaeologist has enlisited the help of local citizens to help in the excavation of ruins of presumed import. The ancient ruins seem date back the earliest times of Yliakum but after the first arrivals. It is unknown what exactly will be found.
The Particulars: An archaeologist visits the major cities looking for people to participate in the digs, work as porters, cooks, quartermasters, etc... This will be a large scale operation to uncover the ruins and discover what secrets have remained hidden for all these years.
Participants in the dig will need to be willing to go to the dig site.
OOC:So there is a dig site in the Dome of ancient ruins. Lots of dirt, stray commonplace artifacts, and whatever major reveal under the dirt that you would like to spring on Yliakum.
Although the dig has it's own opportunities, in this case it's the unexpected find that should shape the story and garner the most attention. Now what is that find you may ask? Well, that is where you decide what kind of story you want to present or what kind of issue you want to raise. It could be a powerful magical artifact, an ancient tome of dangerous (or immensely helpful) information, it could be an old weapon rumored to be owned by Historical figure, It could be a scale mock up of a city only mentioned in Legends but said to contain vast wealth, it could be a treasure trove with far too much in the way of worth to sucessfully divide evenly and fairly, it could be a large deposit of a rare but useful/valueable/powerful ore, etc...the possibilities depend really on where you want go.
RP opportunities:This list is actually long but here's what you can do no matter where the main plot goes
- play a tomb raider, researcher, historian, mercenary, cook, spy, member of a secret or not so secret society bent on preventing the reveal, etc
- Try to speed along the dig then try to steal the whatever once it has been revealed/ try and prevent thefts
- Use the dig as a cover for moving artifacts stolen from other places and people, but watch out a historian or researcher may catch you.
- Play a museum curator looking for pieces for a Yliakum history exhibit
- play a down on your luck citizen that is only in it for the work
- etc
Extra planning you will need to do:- You will likely want to actually have a location for the dig site for people to interact with and at
- decide on what kind of artifacts people will start to find
- decide on the properties of the major dig find
- Decide on which storyline you want to run in connection with the find
- figure out which roles you need to have to successfully run the event at the scale you are thinking and find people to fill those roles ahead of time.
Things you may want/need from GMs:- Locked items at the dig site
- props or renamed items
- effects connected with the reveal of the major dig find
- advertisement flyers
