Basic planning points for a possible Bioshock RPG

[camwyn]

- Unlike bio_shocked, this would take place around 1959-1960, before Jack was activated and while the place was still a living hell. From what I've seen, bio_shocked takes place in Rapture when the city opens for the second time, after the events of the game or something like that. I like the place better when it's hostile.

- It's panfandom, with limitations. Characters get to the city because one of the more dedicated scientists worked out a way to reach through realities and bring people through. Unfortunately, Rapture is sort of in an extremely weird place on the spacetime solidity gradient, and it would take an astronomical amount of energy to reverse the machine and send anyone back. It's not impossible, but it'll require better science/tech/engineering than they currently have available, even with ADAM-mad geniuses.

- And as long as we're at it? The world of Rapture is without gods and their opposites. There are no native gods, no native angels, no native demons. There are no cosmic horrors. There is no native magic, either.

- Along those lines, the equipment that pulls people into Rapture cannot bring any such entities into the world. They can't be summoned or made to arrive by any other means, either. There are to be no gods, demons, angels, cosmic horrors, demigods, nephilim, or anything else partly or wholly Divine, Infernal, or Outsider among either the PCs or the NPCs. Magic whose source is purely internal and/or only requires props/foci to channel, like Potterverse magic, will work. Magic that requires the invocation of gods, demons, or the Outsiders will not work. Spirit magic is a little bit iffy, as we see ghosts in Rapture but have no indication that they can affect the world around them, or that they're even really ghosts and not just Jack touching something and having a moment of psychometry.

- People with a Destiny will not be grabbed by the machine. Destiny doesn't really have room for being yoinked into an exileworld in the vast majority of cases, so it's assumed that people with Destinies are protected from being grabbed by the fact that they have a Destiny at all.

- Psychic powers work real good. So do mutant abilities and superpowers that are not dependent on gods or external magic. F'rex, comics!Juggernaut, with the powers derived from the Crystal of Cyttorak (or whatever), is a no. Movie!Jugs, who's a mutant, is fine. However, there are geneticists in Rapture who may want to have Words with people seen to use powers...

- The game is not to cross over with other games except in the sense that characters may be pulled into Rapture from some other game's continuity. I'm not so sure about this rule.

- People who are too magnificently wonderful and incredible are probably going to be followed around by distressing-looking little girls and large stompy people in diver suits just in case, assuming that Dr. Steinman or someone similar doesn't run them down first in an effort to derive everything possible from their perfection. Just sayin'.

- Game to take place primarily in a main community, but RP is allowed in character journals. Such RP should be linked to the main community once it's good to go, though.

- Jack has not been activated. Andrew Ryan is alive. Jack may be activated in future for a plot but right now he's on land somewhere living the life he thinks he has.

- Whoever can account for the source of cloth in Rapture to my satisfaction gets a cookie. Seriously, they didn't have cotton fields or a sheepfold or mulberry trees that we saw. Is Rapture clothing all Dacron derived from the trees in the arboretum? Do they have an oil well that gives them the makings for Nylon? What?

- No translation convention. Unless your character can build a translator device or something, they're going to have to learn other people's languages. I'm sure there's a machine in Rapture somewhere that makes learning languages on the fly a breeze, though. That'll just have to be a plot point or something.



That's it so far. I want to get all the ducks in a row before I create the community or ask for help with layouts or anything.

Comments

[daniidebrabant.livejournal.com]

A Scifi book I read once involved a cloud of nanomachines acting as clothing?

Modal, a fabric made from wood fibers (as we do see trees).

Fabric made similarly from kelp?

[camwyn]

Yeah, for some reason I- Rayon. Rayon, not Dacron. Rayon's the fiber I was thinking of that's made from cellulose and therefore could be from wood and maybe from kelp.

[valles-uf.livejournal.com]

Kelp engineered to create linenlike fibers?

[lienne.livejournal.com]

I've never even heard of this Bioshock thing and I'm already tempted.

No! Bad Pyth! Must get Shatter and Milliways in order before joining shiny new games that don't exist yet!

On the other hand, if/when you want a layout for the thing, feel free to hit me up. :D I like makin' layouts.

[e-mily.livejournal.com]

Kelp-linen and rayon are extremely viable options, and given that they are in the middle of the ocean, it's not that unfeasible for them to have found an oil deposit. One does wonder how they process it without a large facility, though. And why the oil wouldn't be used for power instead of products. Unless the city already has a clean powersource that's been established.

Are you going to allow OCs?

Also, I like the "Destiny" bit. This means no big-ass canon Mary Sues that everyone loves to play. Mwuahahaha.

[camwyn]

There's a lot of geothermal stuff going on. I think they get most of their electrical power from something going on involving a magma flow. I wasn't paying as much attention as I should've on my original playthrough, so I couldn't say for sure.

I'm considering OCs, but I'd ask that they be OCs within existing canons. You know, 'random Potterverse witch', 'terrifying Murgo warrior', 'some Jedi we never saw before', etc. That way I at least know what framework they're coming from and how their powers/lack of powers work. Besides, this is Rapture. If people want to spontaneously sprout more and more abilities, they need to go out and get some ADAM and some plasmids and splice themselves up like everyone else.

[(Anonymous)]

I've actually been wondering if I could work a character into Milliways, with an eye toward the next Freeman Expedition... :)

[midnightlurker.livejournal.com]

...That was me. Darn lj... >.

[camwyn]

Heh. Well, Milliways only accepts canon characters, fair warning- although you probably already knew that. Who were you thinking of?

[midnightlurker.livejournal.com]

Several possibilities. I was primarily thinking Sho Fukamachi, hero of the manga/anime "Guyver" -- he's in a very similar situation to Gordon, and I thought it'd make for some nifty interaction. Combat could prove a problem, though, as depending on which part of canon he enters from he could have stupid huge levels of firepower, possibly outclassing even Divis Mal himself. n.n;

[camwyn]

If you're ever interested, there's a non-continuity community my friend daniidebrabant created that a lot of people use for testing out characters before they app them at Miliways. Or just for playing characters they can't get at the Bar, or are trying to hash out for their own OC stuff, what have you. It's mixed_muses and nothing that happens there is considered official or continuity for anything; it's great for getting a better feel for a character or interactions or what have you.

[midnightlurker.livejournal.com]

I'll try that out, thanks.

[aberrantangels]

I would approve of a Sho, even if he outclassed the Beacon Mal. Maybe especially if he outclassed the Donighal. (-8

[midnightlurker.livejournal.com]

I'm not entirely sure of Mal's top-end capabilities, but Sho was tossing around Macross-level fleetkilling beam cannons before his latest upgrade. :)

Putting together the lj now (boosted_armor), rummaging through twenty-six volumes of manga scans for potential userpics. n.n;

[aberrantangels]

I'm not entirely sure of Mal's top-end capabilities

Put it this way: Word of God, relayed to me by etherlad, has it that, after his departure from Earth in 2061 (per Trinity's backstory), he used the "Universe Creation" power from the Aberrant Players Guide to build a pocket reality where he and his followers could "evolve" to their full potential. (When you see him, inna Bar or inna Nexus, referring to his "Personal Space", that's what he's talking about.)

Then again, that's a level of power he doesn't use in comms. There, he's just the guy who, in 2005, hijacked every broadcast medium on his Earth to deliver the Null Manifesto.

[midnightlurker.livejournal.com]

Yeah, somehow I don't think creating universes is anywhere on even the Gigantic Exceed's function list. o.o;

(And if it weren't for lj's fifteen character limit I'd have used the name phlebotinum_rebel (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PhlebotinumRebel), one of my own contributions to the Life-Ruiner. :) )