The Mobius Experiment - Homestuck-inspired Madness [Recruiting for a Tabletop RPG!]

[unvoicedAspiration]

Hey. Months ago nobleTiger made this thing. And now after waiting for someone to do something with it (and an unsuccessful attempt to make it hapen on another forum) I've decided to start something myself.

Who's interested?

Things to get out of the way:

• I will not be fulfilling the role of GM here. I would, but I am wholly unreliable and inexperienced in such things and have zero experience with the system the game is based on.
• I am capable and willing to do this over the forums, Skype, or Pesterchum.

[Zuki]

I am so down for this you don't even know.

I am even willing to run it! But....there are some things you should know.

I am a bad GM!

I prefer to be picky about my players, rather than just taking everyone on!

You guys absolutely gotta pull weight regarding your own brainstorming and idea-additions and suchlike, as the rules suggest.

I would like to play once a week, at a consistent time, in the evenings.

I would like to play on Skype, or IRC.

But basically I am so down for this you don't even know.

[unvoicedAspiration]

Replies, in order!:

Awesome!

Also awesome!

So are a lot of people!

I feel similarly!

Goes without saying!

That's what I had in mind!

Both work for me, preferably the former!

Very awesome!

[Cute_Riolu]

I think I'm willing to try this out too, especially now that I'm out for the summer. And being a bad GM in most games doesn't mean you're a bad one in this one! After all, this is more about storytelling than anything.

This is a really awesome system which pretty much sprang up over a week. I'm glad to have been involved somewhat in its making!

Anyway, I'm good for Skype or IRC. I'm a bit shy on the former but that's just my silliness. I'd be more than willing to go with whatever, at least for this!

[Silvak]

I might try this out seems rather interesting although a tad confusing il see what you guys make out of it and may or may not work on something to place into the rp

[unvoicedAspiration]

Hey, so if anyone wants to discuss something about the game over Skype, that Homestuck RPG group is still kicking around. Just a heads-up.

[swampmist1142]

I can't read google docs. Cab I get a rubdown of this?

[unvoicedAspiration]

Oops.

[unvoicedAspiration]

Here's the original idea posted to the Project: RPGstuck thread from nobleTiger:

I'm new here, but I registered specifically because I wanted to discuss the idea of a Homestuck RPG.

I think you're taking too much for granted. Or rather, that you have to start on a more basic level.

What is the game going to be about?
Who is the game going to be about?
What is to be the focus of the game?


Here's a dump of my thoughts on making a Homestuck RPG.

You wouldn't be playing characters from the actual Homestuck Comic. I'm not saying anyone suggests that, but wanted to say it. To go further, it's also true that you wouldn't be playing characters interacting with the canon characters either.

When I think of a Homestuck RPG, doing it in the way of a traditional RPG with a basic book of rules, lists of skills, weapons, hidden world information for the GM etc is right out. Why? Because that's not what Homestuck is about. Sure, nowadays it's glaringly obvious that Hussie has a grandmaster plan, but the beauty of the whole first few acts was discovering, along with the kids, how the game worked. In my dream Homestuck RPG, the players have to experience that, at the least. I want the GM to, as well.

Not only are both the readers (players) and the characters (PCs) discovering the world, the game and the rules while they play, what they discover follow a certain style. It's silly, rapidly grows over the top, jumps the shark just to later realise that the shark it jumped is also on a bigger shark, and jumps that one too, and so on. Anything combat-related goes into a video-game mode of STRIFE or something, presented as a video game assuming we already know the controls. But we don't. Everything is made up at the spot. When a character finally actually reuses an old attack instead of just bringing out a new "Level 5 Knight Strike: Mortgage Payback Time", that's a comic callback, not a familiarization.

In the Homestuck RPG I'm envisioning, the game system has failed me if I have to use the same attack more than twice during the adventure.



So, what do I propose? Well for starters things like
- what a particular alchemization yields
- what "Land of X and Y" someone ends up in
- what enemies, riddles or challenges they face as part of the games standard procedure
have to be made up on the spot. Made up beforehand by the GM might be okay, but definitely not written down in the rulebook under "Chapter 7: Sburb".
Moreover, the characters
- aren't built to be balanced. I mean, John is a silly kid who likes bad movies and playing pranks, while Dave is proficient with swords from the get-go. And Jade has sci-fi tech and a god dog.
- aren't pre-made. Sure, maybe the four kids equivalent could be, but the exiles? The trolls? No.


Personally, I'd go so far as to propose a carte blanche. The stories from playing this rpg wouldn't be very canon anyway. I'd like to make a game aimed at reproducing the Homestuck type of story for your rpg group, not playing in the actual world of Homestuck. Also, if you were to play "by the book", there would be shitloads of stuff to keep track of. Sure, we're all huge nerds, but still. It is so not important that there's a denizen on every planet, that there are eight gates, that Derse is situatied outside the Veil, the exact rules for entering god mode, what objects are deployable after the cruxtruder and basic alchemiting equipment, and so on. I could go on and on about details that
- are funny
- added a great deal to the world when introduced
- could still just as easily have been completely different if Hussie had wanted to when introducing them
- are easily changed for people playing this game, i.e. different from campaign to campaign.


Thoughts on this? I'm pretty much stream-of-consciousnessing right now, so I might blurt out more stuff in a minute. I plan on posting a "how I envision the game to work" soon, too.

Here's how I envision a Homestuck rpg would have to work.


Say you have five players. One of them is set to play the first character. They name him*, and decide as much as they want about him, and the others can fill in and come with ideas. Then the four other players collectively do the part of the GM, hitting the player with things happening and lulling up a start to the plot. The first character is quirky, but still quite mundane.

After a while, other characters are introduced, through some means of communications. Yes, since it's not recreating the actual Homestuck story it doesn't have to mirror that, but I do believe interacting with other characters indirectly while adventuring mostly on your own is central to the genre. If the characters meet up earlier than they do in Homestuck doesn't matter, but I think it gains from introducing them separated. Also if it's actually going to be Sburb, they have to live in different houses. Anyway as characters are introduced the other players pick which ones they'd like to play.

Then after a while, the next character is formally introduced. The game has some kind of stats, and the rules for subsequent introductions is that characters must have a higher Weirdo or Badass stat than the most recently introduced. Think John being kinda weak and just quirky, Rose upping the ante with a very weird relationship to her mother and generally a strange house, Dave going badass with his swords and mad bro, and then Jade flat out having sci-fi gear...

When one character is "in play", the other players do GM things like introducing new plot elements, playing NPCs like monsters and salamanders, and try to bug and fuss and meddle with them through their own, not-currently-present character. With five players you would have a four-player Sburb session, so one of you would stick to being the GM and never pick up a character of their own, but remember – for the ones who have characters it's still a bit like collaborative storytelling, since you'll get at most around 25% screentime.


The most important job for the GM-players, meaning, the players who are not the full-time GM but currently not in the scene, is keeping track of stuff. Homestuck is built on surprises and weird shit happening, in a strange way connected to the feeling of "it all comes together". Everyone has a notebook in which they write everything down, furiously. It is encouraged to come up with a system of organisation yourself, that nobody else understands. Cross over things, draw lines and scribble "are these connected?" Since everyone has the GM's right to introduce plot elements, bring things back.

When everyone's forgotten that the hammer got stuffed away in a strife specibus (a word someone made up) long ago, someone flips back through their notebook when it's time for the first fight and goes "Hey, John can't just hit them with a stick, he's got the hammerkind specibus! He equips his hammer!" Or when John enters the asteroid and the AR? is around or whatever, someone recalls Bro's rocketboard that was a one-time gag at first and it ends up crucial to someone getting to the right place.

Get that notebook shit working well enough, and sooner or later people will start inventing stable time loop and realise that Li'l Cal brought about his own creation.

The mindset I'm in here, is pretty much this: I'm imagining the RPG that, when played, could have given rise to the original Homestuck story. Not an ordinary RPG in that world. Not even a custom-built RPG for that kind of powers and characters. I'm after the story, and how it's told.


After re-reading the first couple of posts, this got me thinking that maybe I'm in the wrong thread. Should I start my own, or are you chill with my weird ideas?


*the first character is apparently male, for grammatical simplicity.

Not very in-depth, but that forms the backbone of the system.

[swampmist1142]

sounds fun. Can I join?

[unvoicedAspiration]

Currently, we have more interested players than slots. This RPG in particular needs a certain kind of player to work, so I don't think it's unfair to pick and choose who we're allowing in. There are already three participants that will be definitely playing - myself, Zukes, and Cute. Hikari Kaze also seemed interested but had problems with the mechanics, and if we can work that out she's in too.

With those things in mind, could you show me the IC threads for some roleplays you were previously involved in (Silvak as well)? Please don't be offended if I think you aren't right for this game; I only want it so that if this game goes badly I can be reasonably sure it's a problem with the mechanics rather than the players.

[frustratedEclectic]

This sounds so fun! I think I'd actually enjoy working as a gm instead of regular characters, I've always been more of an assisst character anyway!

[ninjamaster1991]

I'm up for almost everything.