[K5pbem] K5PBEM Future Direction

[Mike Surbrook]

On Thu, 1 Mar 2007, Logan Darklighter wrote:

> Rob King wrote:
>
>> Thanks for your posts regarding the future direction of the PBEM, it is 
>> possible to either resume the game from where it left off ontinuing from 
>> turn five or reboot the HK/2039 scenario also the PBEM could start anew 
>> with a new loaction/timeline suggestions on all three possibilities are 
>> very welcome.
>
>
> This is very good news. I'm looking forward to resuming the game.
>
> I'm for continuing from where we left off myself with the Hong Kong Game. I 
> have some infinished business with my character Lora Doubet to hash out. 
> There were also interesting characters that I'd like to interact with.

I could try and finish the Lora and Shion sequence. I'm still burned out 
on K5 PBEM-wise, but am looking forward to getting the chance to totally 
revise the K5 worldbook.

A while back, I finally overcame the big hurdle dealing with writing the 
backstory. Instead of the dry, text-book approach some of you may have 
seen and proofed, I'm going to re-write it from a first-person 
perspective. And...

**sudden brainstorm**

What do people think of using Sarah J Ferrari as the vehicle to dispense 
information?

> There seemed to be something lacking though. And that lack was what caused 
> the game to peter out. Partly it was Mike's lack of time to devote to GMing 
> (which is now remedied).

And this is good.

> But perhaps part of it was also a lack of any overarching plot? Or an 
> antagonist(s) to go up against? The Mega-Corps provided much of our story 
> fodder in the previous game. And even the Zone itself as a dangerous 
> environment allowed us to go "Urban Dungeon crawling". We might not have had 
> a single enemy for out various characters. But the Zone War was a backdrop 
> and ultimately Jinsei was the "Empire" we were rebelling against. I think 
> that storyline kind of collapsed under its own weight in the end though, 
> because too many of our characters were running independent stories and not 
> interacting.

My suggestion is to use a system that formed fairly well in some older 
(super hero) PBEMs. PCs submit overts/moves each month inwhich they plot 
out things they want to do. The GM should also present plot seeds for 
people to react to. The GM then corss-matches things and tells various 
Players what happenes next. The Players can then react to said response, 
and the GM then deicides the result.

Really basic example:

Joe Esper moves to Hong Kong and his players decides his frist order of 
business is to get a place to stay, followed by getting work so he can kee 
it. The GM decides that Joe finds a place at the Mandarin Towers 
(naturally), and tell Joe's player he can write a bit with Sarah J 
Ferrari. He also tells Joe's player that Joe detects other espers in the 
Tower (Raven, et al) and that the word on the street is to talk to Li 
Ling Ling if you want gear and work. Joe can then write that bit up as she 
chooses, and then goes to meet with Ling Ling. Meanwhile, the GM has been 
talking to Sally Samurai, and she is also looking for work. He points her 
to Ling Ling, she meets Joe, and the two get a job to extract Rock, a 
corporate wage-slave, from company X. Rock is a new PC, and this is his 
origin story.

This make sense? It can be time intensive for the GM and *requires* that 
the players reply in a timely manner.

> Same deal with the Hong Kong K5. But more so. We've got stories that center 
> on character development and that's good. And individual "shadowrun" stories. 
> But I think we need an antagonist. And a way to draw in the PCs to the fight.

I wanted to do something with the Esper Institute but couldn't get it 
together.

> What do you think?

I think it works. BGC has GENOM, Appleseed has... well, a lot of people, 
Dominion has Buaku, Cowboy Bebop had Vicious, Silent Mobius had Entities, 
and so on. Actually, several "big bads" would work, of different power 
levels, so the various PCs could have someone to deal with depending on 
who they are. A foe for Shion (example), would crush Sandra Blackmore.

-- 
Michael Surbrook
susano at guisarme . net http://surbrook.devermore.net/index/
There is a race between mankind and the universe. Mankind is trying to
build bigger, better, faster, and more foolproof machines. The universe
is trying to build bigger, better, and faster fools. So far the universe
is winning.

Albert Einstein