U4G Contest II - Winners Announced! WOOO!

[OldManRupee]

Welcome friends to the 2nd bi-annual U4G Contest! Here's the details:

A while ago, I started a thread over in Collab/Misc called Adventure Plots Up For Grabs (or U4G for short) where anyone can post adventure ideas that they didn't/couldn't make themselves, to let someone else use as their own. After a while, we had a big pile of great plot ideas, but no-one was using them! So that's where this contest comes in!

RULES
* Sign up begins NOW, just comment here with which plot idea you'll be using from the U4G thread. Sign up finishes on the 7th July, in one week's time!
* Everyone starts their adventures at (or as close as possible after) the same date, on Mon 11th July.
* When you start your adventure, please include "U4G" or "Up For Grabs Contest" in the title.
* After one month, we'll check which adventures are still active, and a secret panel of judges will choose a winner! If every adventure becomes inactive before then (unlikely) the judges will judge the 3 adventures with the most updates. Please note: You can still continue your adventure after the contest finishes, please don't rush it so you "finish" in the month!
* The winner will receive a free T-shirt from the Topatoco website, paid for by me! Including Postage!
* If you don't want to PM me with your address for posting (understandable, but I promise to treat your details ultra-responsibly, and delete them straight after), everyone involved will give you the gift of fanart for your new adventure instead.

Currently Registered
* Biophysicist - Hometrek
* animatedBlasphemy - Influence
* CheeseDeluxe - Diseased Imaginations
* Ixcaliber - MSPAPD
* frostedWarlock - Product Tester
* Lankie - Faux Hero
* TheGreenSpark - Death Is A Minor Thing plot idea
* acerbicAves - Mousetrap
* Ashtastic - Dungeon Crawlers
* Barralax - Generic minion shenanigans plot
* Plaid - Oneiric
* Bardic - Clockwork Heart
* HalcyonicStitcher - Tsurri
* Ace Rimmer - Fedorafreaky
* Radio - The Good Old Days
* AbsoluteCertainty - The Book
* SleepingOrange - Skyblight
* GloomyMoron - Aeternum

(note: names like this have dropped out)

[Biophysicist]

I'll give this a try. Gimme a sec to choose a story.

EDIT: I'll take Hometrek.

[CheeseDeluxe]

Can we combine ideas together?

[Phevnil]

Can we combine ideas together?

I did in the last contest. I think there were no issues with it (other than me choosing two ideas that eventually clashed and broke down in my head).

[Lankie]

I'm in!

I was just wondering could we get a list of the plot ideas that were used in the last contest? I don't want to accidentally choose one that was already taken.

[animatedBlasphemy]

You're living an ordinary life, until one day, messages addressed to you start appearing. Handwritten notes appear out of nowhere. Graffiti is signed with your name. Objects you need are suddenly found at the moment you want them. You find a key inside a bottle that you got from a vending machine.
These messages are all from the future. Shortly, you will make a decision that will have world-changing consequences. You are not directly told what the decision is or what the consequences will be. Several different organisations in the future are trying to steer you one way or the other, to create the future which they believe is best.

I'm going to enter this! It sounds like loads of fun!
And I am going to use the idea from the quote above! As long as someone didn't already use it, ya'know~
(Unless their isn't a problem with someone already using it?)

[CheeseDeluxe]

Hmm.

In that case,

Systems

Sign-venture

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You get a normal person-in-a-series-of-rooms-probably-with-weird-puzzle-shit-or-something plot, except each room has one or more green or red signs in it. The signs are actually rules about the posts in the thread. For instance, the first room might have a red sign with the words "Sign" and "Door" on it, and any person whose post contained the words "sign" or "door" would have his post ignored. The next room might have a green-bordered "Sentence Sentence Sentence" or "word word word word word word word" on it, and any post which was not three sentences or seven words would be ignored. As things went the rules would become more and more draconian, banning letters or demanding haikus or whatever else the author can think of; rules would be per room but the number of signs would gradually increase. Also by about room three there should be a red sign with a picture of someone whispering, meant to mean "Intentionally failing to obey the rules for the sake of planning while the protagonist can't hear you isn't allowed".

Ideas

Oh man, yeah! You roll the dice, and then suddenly a loud scrape from somewhere in the basement...

Here's an idea: an adventure starring Isaiah Mustafa, the Old Spice Man.

You must sell as much Old Spice as possible in a day. Using your powers of dashing good looks, manly muscles, the ability to turn anything into diamonds, spontaneous changes of pants, and horseback riding, can you do it?

Broken Feelings: An adventure where the main character has a strange medical condition: His feelings are all mixed up. Sad things make him laugh, silly things make him scared, being surprised makes him feel contented and at peace etc etc.

You're living an ordinary life, until one day, messages addressed to you start appearing. Handwritten notes appear out of nowhere. Graffiti is signed with your name. Objects you need are suddenly found at the moment you want them. You find a key inside a bottle that you got from a vending machine.
These messages are all from the future. Shortly, you will make a decision that will have world-changing consequences. You are not directly told what the decision is or what the consequences will be. Several different organisations in the future are trying to steer you one way or the other, to create the future which they believe is best.

Idea 1
The main character discovers he actually has a spark for magic, and he's going to need it as the world's going to end in a few months. Unfortunately, this kind of magic has been corrupted, and anyone who uses it will slowly go insane.

The insanity would be one of the main mechanics of the adventure. When he's just received the powers, he begins to see some hallucinations every now and then, but they're easy to recognize as madness (everything at this stage would have, say, a thick blue outline or a specific filter on the image).

But as he draws in more and more of the magic and grows stronger in it, the madness also gets worse. It's no longer as easy to spot the hallucinations and parts of the adventure that aren't real. Here there would be a specific symbol that indicates which things are real and which aren't. But again, as he grows even more stronger, that symbol is hidden (for example, painted in the window of a background house for smart readers to notice) and in the end, disappears completely.

If you act too crazily, you'll get sent to a mental asylum and lose your friends and allies, and the world is doomed.

It will be called "Apologies to Brickman" or something.

WILL IT BLEND? THAT IS THE QUESTION

(doo dee doo dee doooo, doo dee doo dee doodooooooo...)

EDIT: GOD DAMN IT! Ninja'd by animatedBlasphemy!

Lankie:

Anyway, lets update that list of participants:
* Ford Johnes with the Rock Paper Scissors and the walking ship in a bottle ideas.
* Ed_knott using the Alcoholic Artist's Inebriated Doodleventure idea.
* Yako with the mixed up superhero/supervillains idea.
* Masterweaver with a Robo Plot idea using the Duo Type Control idea.
* Sleeping Orange with the Raddish of the Damned plot utilising the noun/verb magic system idea.
* Kieros with Jury Duty: The Aisleventure.
* Phevnil with a combination of the Dungeon Building And Puzzle-Trail Blazing idea, and the Secret Guild of Stilt-fighters idea.
* Anomaly with the Sign-venture idea.
* Kino with a combination of the dark suspense dopplegangers idea, and the creepy the-world-is-an-alien-stage idea.
* Happyhappytrain with a combination of the reality-is-in-a-box-in-your-hands idea and the Amazing Yeti Massacre idea.
* greyscaleScavenger with the Yarn Spinners idea.

I'm missing Skelatox's idea.

[Lankie]

Muchly appreciated

[Ixcalibur]

I call dibs on:

I've had an idea boiling for a while, since I started reading the Thursday Next books, about a Jurisfiction division for the MSPFA forums. For those who haven't read the Thursday Next books (you should, they're great), Jurisfiction is a kind of police force that operates inside books, making sure things go as the plot dictates, and other general order-keeping in the BookWorld. Or in this case, the MSPFA part of the forums. Most of the agents are characters from classics, for the MSPFA version I guess a combination of original characters, MSPFA characters (with the owner's consent) and fan/background characters.

[animatedBlasphemy]

Oh man, I'm so glad I decided to screw chores and look up ideas, or else I never would have ninja'd CheeseDelux xD

Also, can we go ahead and start on the first post before the competition starts?

[frostedWarlock]

I have an Idea for an adventure.
It's called Combo Maker. Feel free to think up of a better name, but please give credit if you use my idea.
You are in a test facility with the newest device, "The Item Combiner". To test it, an obsical course has been set up, and you have to solve each obstical through combining the given items to make new items to help you pass the obsticals.
Sounds awesome to me!

I have a good idea for that. I'm doing this.

[Lankie]

Alrighty, I call dibs on this:

You're a legend. A hero. There are stories written of you, movies made detailing your epic and heroic feats. Monuments made in your visage. You've become unbeatable, and evil trembles at your name. But the strange thing is...

Absolutely none of that stuff has ever happened for you. You're just a waiter at a restaurant. You have been for 3 years, and you enjoy it. People keep on bugging you and asking you for your autograph, or to tell them epic tales of your heroics. It kind of gets on your nerves.

One day, when you awaken, a mysterious letter is on your nightstand. "Come to Scerider's Sorcery at 2:00 AM or die." But... Scerider's Sorcery is at the BAD part of town...

[thegreenspark]

I'll throw my hat into the ring! I'm going to use this idea, if that's okay. c:

Idea: "Death is a Minor Thing"
You are a cheerful and carefree person who has nothing to do, and you're sort of bored. There is nothing you really want to achieve and pretty much nothing interesting about your life, but there is one thing "peculiar" about you--you will be dead by the hundredth page of the topic, and there's nothing you could or ever want to do about it.

You are simultaneously a person who is very close to the above person. You are far, far away from that person, and you just recieved a mail from him/her that he/she will die soon. You now want to see that person one last time, but there seems to be every concievable kind of obstacle in the way.

The mood would be most fitting as comedic and cheerful, at least until the end.

And the the title would definitely be "Death is a Minor Thing".

I would have made this if (one) I could draw and (two) I had any time to work on it.

[acerbicAves]

Reaffirming my in-ness! I'll be making my attempt with this thing here:

Mouse Trap: The epic-venture.

You are a small fieldmouse of the Farmhill clan, and your people are being persecuted by the evil Greytail and his rat marauders. You must travel through dangerous lands, braving the desert, the hawk-filled woods, the cat hunting grounds... you must find the 7 lost mouse-warriors, and bring together the fabled pieces they guard. Pieces of the ultimate weapon to stop Greytail. It goes by many names; the Great Game, the Fiddly Board, the Contrivance of Power.... the Mouse Trap.

Time to put all those hours spent reading Redwall books and watching the Secret of Nimh as a kid to good use

[Lankie]

Time to put all those hours spent reading Redwall books and watching the Secret of Nimh as a kid to good use

aaaaaaa WAVE OF NOSTALGIA AAAAAAAA

[frostedWarlock]

Should we share notes here? I have two character designs that I might wanna use, but I don't feel like starting off with a "CHOOSE YOUR PLAYER" thing. I just wanna start with puzzles for once.

[Ashtastic]

I have an idea or so: using D&D rules and characters to run a campaign set up as a forum adventure.

Oh man, this sounds fun! I will totally do this one, if I'm permitted.

[Barralax]

Count me in. Using this one, from Engineclock. The MSPAFA will be under the title "Superior Orders"

A plot I toyed with briefly was a stereotypical minion whose equally stereotypically villainous boss just got offed by some hero or other; said minion then has to find a new job and/or try and take over what's left of the villain's lair. Shenanigans ensue.

[Plaid]

This is an amazing idea and I am so signing up.


Yoink!

Setting: The Real World. But not the real world. This is a world where the reality is very thin, and people's minds generate Dream Worlds which are utterly theirs, and yet chained to the imperfect Real and thus imperfect themselves.

Plot: A genetic experiment produces a man/woman/boy/girl/honk called the Fool, designed to travel the Collective Unconsciousness and destroy the chains linking the Real World to the Dream World and thus creating a utopia in which everyone is separate from everyone else.

Tone: Serious-ish.

[Bardic]

Hm... I might try this, while I have time for it. It probably won't continue past summer though. Still, these ideas are really cool, so...

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Monsters are made of 3 parts: Verbum, Imago and Materia.

Verbum and Imago are given at 'birth'. Verbum is a sentence, but only with one independent clause. It affects the monster in unknown ways.

Imago is an image, 500 x 500 or less, suggested by the readers. It affects the appearance of a monster at the start.

Materia are the things equipped by the monster. At the start, the monster may equip one armor and one weapon. It evolves to absorb these, and at the next stage, may equip one piece of armor and one accessory. It will again, absorb these after a while. At the next stage, the monster may equip one piece of accessory before evolving to its final stage.

It is possible for a monster to grow without Materia, and will be a 'pure' monster. Monsters can be combined, but their Verbum and Imago will be unknown. Appearance will be based off both parents. Combination can only be performed on monsters when they're in their max level. The default Max Level is 5, but these can be increased via combination. During combination, a Materia may be used. This affects the monster in unknown ways.

(Unknown ways means that it will not be obvious)

(The names "Verbum, materia and imago" may be changed.)

The protagonist and possibly everyone else in-universe can augment themselves with objects from their surroundings, ranging from tarot cards to feather boas to panzer tanks. The hero, whose heart was replaced by a clock or some other small mechanical thing, has to go and find it after it gets stolen for some mysterious reason.

[HalcyonicStitcher]

There's a large war that's been raging since the beginning of time on a forgotten planet. Every time one side wins, the planet resets, dies and is reborn, and the war starts again. The loop is caused by an old deity who has trapped the world in a time loop while he tries to buy more time to revive a dying tree at the center of the world. Unfortunately, he started the loops at the beginning of a war, so now the war loops. The tree is an odd wood and metal structure called Tsurri, which the world was born out of. But it grew lonely at the center of the world since none of its children could see it or knew it existed. As it grew lonelier, it grew sick and began dying, which began killing off the world it created piece by piece.

This is so cool. Both the plot idea and the contest. Count me in!

[KawaiiMelon]

Can you put all the participating adventures in the OP this time? I could never remember all the adventure names during the 1st one, and it was made worse considering I was a judge.

[Ace Rimmer]

I noticed someone posted a fedorafreak adventure as an option in the linked thread. Can I use that because if so taken soooooooo badly.

[Radio]

cybrspce95: ADVENTURE IDEA
cybrspce95: Action Hero Retirement Home. When action heroes retire and get old, they're sent here to live the rest of their lives.
cybrspce95: BUT SUDDENLY
cybrspce95: A world crisi occurs, and all the REAL heroes in the world have gone missing!
cybrspce95: It's up to a bunch of octogenarians to save the day!
cybrspce95: You've got a disable espionage operative, a strategic master with alzheimer's, a sniper with parkinson's, and any other terrible combinations you can think of.
HoboNinjaPirate: a speedster with bum hips
HoboNinjaPirate: a strongman with scoliosis
HoboNinjaPirate: a master of stealth with parkinsons
HoboNinjaPirate: who would be the sniper's spotter
HoboNinjaPirate: and they'd be the shaky twins
HoboNinjaPirate: and they'd shake their way up and down the halls
HoboNinjaPirate: a seductress who now doesn't have much to work with

This is going to be so much fun, I'm in!

[absoluteCertainty]

I'm not going to be here for the first two weeks of the contest, could I still sign up? I know that it would be pretty unfair for me, but it's summertime and I have nothing to do, so I'm pretty sure that I can deal with it...

Anyway, as for suggestion-combining:

<Cain> No... I never killed anyone
<Cain> My brother...
<Cain> He wanted heaven for himself
<Cain> Thought he could forsake his body by killing himself
<Cain> The ground hates me for manipulating it. For using it to provide for myself.
<Cain> God had judged too early.
<Cain> What the book says is not true.
<Cain> We never left Eden.
<Cain> Instead, it is our prison.
<Cain> The angel blocks not the way into Eden, but the way out.

+

I have one about a robot, but I am planning to do that one myself someday. I do have one up for grabs though...

While during a day that is seemingly just like all other normal days where the Main Protagonist goes out to retrieve water from the well, only to find a gooey and oil-ish small critter down in it, crying for help. The Main Protagonist ends up saving it, and they becomes sweet, sweet friends. Little did the Protagonist know, he/she would be one fantastic plot for something very big!

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Also, horrifying nightmare fuel. I will leave it all up to your imagination if you decide to steal this plot.