ICONS | NextGen RPG

ICONS

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It sat below the twisting branches of the dead tree and watched the world as it burned. In the end the world always burned, no matter who was chosen to receive the gifts. The power became too much, and wars of ideology erupted, sides were chosen, armies roused. And yet still It tried, selecting and sorting from across the infinite complexities of time and space those that It thought would be suitable, plucking them from their worlds and bringing them to this one, hoping that one time, just one time, the world would not burn.
 
The world.
 
Smoke blew across the shattered stone of the world as the forests burned, the oceans boiled, the cities fell. The air had been made poison by the conflict, the life drained from everything that walked or swam or crawled or flew. Nothing lived, nothing remained but Itself.
 
It regarded the tiny figures scattered broken on the withered grass before It. They glittered and shone even now, energies pulsing and writhing around the fractures and breaks, the power It had granted the only thing that kept them whole now. Little men and women, little icons of so many minds and souls and dreams and desires, all faded and worn smooth as river stone. And so very broken.
 
It shook Its head and raised a withered hand, holding it palm down over the tiny effigies, five fingers splayed in such a way that the tip of each finger hovered just above one of the stone pieces on the ground. Energy flared upwards, running into the old creatures hand and into Its fragile body. It burned with the power, and knew that soon It wouldn’t be able to effect this transfer any longer. It knew that when that day came, it wouldn’t just be this world that burned, but all worlds throughout creation. All would burn unless one could be found that could keep the power safe, use the power to teach and build and create the next world – to bring everything and everyone into that next bright place… Oh how It longed for that. The transfer stopped and the effigies on the steaming ground below the dead tree crumbled, their power now gone.
 
It regarded the tiny piles of dust with sadness, and then pushed Itself up onto spindly legs, using the dead tree for leverage.
 
Once more then, It thought as It turned Its face to the sky.
 
Once more It raised Its arms and spread Its fingers, drawing the energies of the burning world into Itself until It grew too bright to look at, to incomprehensible to behold.

Once more the power flared out, searching, searching… seeking the one that HAD to be there…

 
 *********

One SC Opening Still Available - http://www.nextgenrpg.com/forum/icons-jessica-jackson-sc-open

All other submissions closed.

What would you do if you were given unbelievable power? An army of loyal fanatics? Lands and monies and as many husbands or wives as you wanted? How would you change the world? Would you change the world?

 
Posting Requirements: ICONS is a 5th Editions Champions game that requires good writing skills and the ability to post to the site a MINIMUM of two times a week. If you cannot meet the posting requirement due to real life obligations then please do not apply for this game. Being a scarred veteran of the online gaming community, I've learned a few lessons about what works and what doesn't. And one of the things I've learned is that nothing kills a game faster than Real Time. Let me explain:

Say you've got five players at the start of your game... each of these players is posting according to the established posting rules laid out by their GM. Now one of the players, a good three weeks after the start of the campaign, begins to slack a little in their replies. The other four, being reasonable folks, don't raise too much of a fuss at first, understanding that sometimes real life intervenes, or writers block creeps up, or (fill in the blank).

Real Time passes. The game goes from multiple posts a day, to a sort of stop/start thing as our four understanding players wait for our one slow poster to be able to reply.

More Real Time passes, and now we're down to just a few posts a week instead of a day... momentum begins to die. And with that lack of momentum the four understanding players begin to get frustrated. This frustration leads to a checking of the site less and less, and also leads to a leaching of quality around the game itself as players try to remember where they were in their characters heads as of their last reply (a week ago now)... eventually the whole thing just sort of collapses... Game Death... (insert much wailing of teeth and gnashing of breasts... or something... here)

Now, GM's are as guilty of this as anyone, so I'm not just unloading on 'the players' here. I'VE BEEN guilty of it! I just want to make sure that I'm very clear in my expectations regarding posting so that there are no surprises. I'm not pointing fingers. I'm not trying to make subtle accusations. Honest! My commitment to my players is at least two replies to each of you per week. I think that it reasonable to ask the same of each of you. Smile

Tense: All posts will be in the third person, past tense. Example: “She opened the door and looked outside, curious as to what made the noise.” Not “She opens the door and looks outside”, or “I go and open the door”.

How do I submit: Please send all submissions to gamerawaved@me.com | All characters need to be in either .doc or .hdc format (Word or Hero Designer). If you don't have access to Word or HD, please email me and let me know, and we'll work out something else. It is VERY IMPORTANT that  your character be as detailed as possible. Please also identify the one person in the world (living or dead) that your character trusts beyond all others - and give me some meaty background on this person as well. The game will consist of 5 players, with a variable number of Supporting Cast.

Character's must be submitted no later than March 15th, and I will announce the Main Cast on March 22nd. Game start date will be April 7th. A Supporting Cast call will be announced after the Main Cast has been confirmed. Supporting Cast characters will be announced April 1st.

Your Points: The players will start out as skilled normals with a 50 point base, and up to 25 points in disadvantages. A detailed background of the character including body cast will be required upon submission.

The Game World: This game will deal with morality and choice on an epic scale. The characters have the capacity to become the leaders and founders of empires very easily. I will not dictate how you choose to behave in the game world – however all actions have consequences, and I just ask that you be prepared to suffer them, come what may. That being said, this is not a snuff film or your outlet for writing that great American porn novel – adult themes will exist, and death will occur, but let’s not examine them too closely – think of the camera fading to black as the axe comes down, or the clothes come off. And please make sure to label your posts as Adult if the themes you are exploring are Adult ones – if only to make sure we aren’t upsetting someone’s kids.

Your characters origin:
The characters originate from the every day world you and I know and recognize. It is April 2009, and the country is suffering through a serious economic crises. All of that jazz. Your character can come from anywhere on the planet – you are NOT limited to a United States origin – please however be prepared to play a different ethnicity realistically, and to assist your GM if he needs your help to retain that unique non-American point of view. Things will start out normally – expect them to change fairly radically and fairly soon after play begins.

Your characters age:
Minimum of 8, maximum of 80.

Your characters gender:
up to you.


Your characters sexuality:
up to you.

Your characters moral center:
In developing your characters, the sky is the limit. You can be feelthy rich. You can be on death row. You can be a child, a paraplegic, a savant. Let your imagination take hold... just have it make sense.

Your characters powers:
I will build these for you – however, I will require that each player provide me with their dream set of powers. I need to know what power set you would truly love above all others - I just ask that your concept be sound and not totally random. "I want to be a telepath" or "I want to fly" or "I want to teleport" or "I want to bend steel with me bare hands" or "I want to magnetically rape the earth"... that sort of thing. Superman might be pushing it a bit from a “how’s that all work again?” perspective, and a purely Batman-type wouldn’t survive. Other than that, run with it! I will also be providing you with your disadvantages. And no, I won’t tell you what those are… I’m evil. So sue me.
 
Additional Notes: It is entirely possible that the characters will not interact directly with each other for up to one full year of real time. This is by design, so when considering applying to this game, understand that JP’s and whatnot will not be available. It will be you and me, with your fellow players sitting on the sidelines munching popcorn and rooting for your success or demise. That will change over time, but it may be a while.
 
ICONS will, in an effort to make the game world more interesting and the NPC’s more realistic, be introducing the concept of “Supporting Cast”. These are NPC’s that are controlled by other players – characters that interact with the PC’s regularly but may end up being left behind, killed, turning coat, that sort of thing. These will be for the most part skilled normals, with the occasional lower-powered super thrown in for good measure. These folks can be played by anyone on the site, and are perfect for those who either want to get their feet wet or just want to join in on the fun for a little bit. Applications will be required, and will be vetted by the GM and the Player for their particular Supporting Cast members.

You will, as a player, need to be very watchful of not using player knowledge when interacting with the other players – if and when you do so. 

Extra experience points for the game can be earned by providing the following:
 

  1. Character Diaries - 1 point per entry - must consist of at least 1 'page' of text. 
  2. Artwork - 1-5 pts - pictures, maps or images of the game world and its inhabitants.
                                   
 

Comments

Question: The disadvantages

Question:

The disadvantages that you will assign, and not tell the players about, are those in addition to the 25 that are allowed during character creation?

...or is that THE 25 points mentioned in the Character Creation section?

 Those would be in addition

 Those would be in addition to the original 25. 

 

I've just run across the

I've just run across the game, fairly close to the deadline. I am interested, but have no knowledge about the RPG system Champions you mention. Is it possible to submit a character by description and have you flesh out the details? I'm fairly experienced in PBEMs, and have usually replied pretty fast on the PBEMs I've participated in.

Communication by email would be preferable.

Hey Marius, Another

Hey Marius,

Another potential player asked that same question yesterday.  The GM said that he'd be happy to create the character sheet for those that made it through the selection process.

In order to be considered he needs a fully fleshed out background and a picture (bodycast), sent in by the deadline.  The picture can be of an actor or actress that you imagine to look like your character.

He'll be around later in the day and checks in frequently, so just give him a holler here or in his forum, http://ans75.midphase.com/~nexttho3/?q=forum/icons-world, if you have any additional questions.

Welcome to NextGen RPG.  Smile

Torchwood, In order to

Torchwood,

In order to implement the campaign page blocks that you wanted....I had to rename the main ICONS page to what it will be called going forward.

So, be careful not to edit the title any more, because if you do, it will change the URL and disable the blocks.

Going forward, create new book pages, and assign them to the ICONS main page under the book outline section.  I'm happy to help with this if you need it.  You can't mess it up, anything can be fixed.  (I think)  *grin*

The forum block is already added.  If you log out and go to the ICONS page, it will show it really well.

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