I'm a major Role Player. I have the experience co-running an enormous Star Wars RPG known as NSU, which for a good year had over a thousand members in it. I was involved in NSU for over three years, until we shut down as a result of an enormous amount of really, really stupid people joining, or should I say invading? As a result, most of our intelligent player base left, and I lost a lot of interest in running an online RPG of that magnitude. So I took several friends from NSU and I've been hosting much smaller RPG's in the Star Wars universe using the official Star Wars d20 rules published by WOTC. I've been doing this, as the head GM for about two years now, and I'm constantly being complimented by several members at how in depth my RPG sessions are.
At anyrate, I've been thinking about hosting a Matrix RPG for a while. If I do it, it'd run at least up until MxO comes out, and if we're still going strong enough that the players are interested in doing both, or if MxO just turns out to be a major dissapointment, the RPG could continue even after MxO is released.
Several things have to happen for this RPG to get started though. First, I'll have to create the rules. The Core Rulebook for the SWRPG is nearly 400 pages, and they've got about 15 extra books, so all in all there's probably close to 2000 pages of rules and stats and all that crap. Forgive me if I don't get that in depth with mine, but fuck doing that. My RPG will keep things simple, with probably between 15-20 pages of rules, and maybe another 5-25 of stats for equipment and all that.
Rules and heavy-statistics aren't truly important to me. I tend to run heavy on the Role Playing side, so if you want to join, don't expect constant dice rolling in combat situations. Don't get me wrong, in the current RPG I run, there's a shitload of combat. I'd say a good 35% is combat, and sometimes it goes as high as 75%. I've even had more than a couple sessions that were simply all out combat, in small scale war situations.
I'm pretty damn good at multitasking, and not to brag, but as a GM, I'm the shit.
At anyrate, if any of you are interested, you can let me know in this thread. If enough people want to do it, then I'll write the rules for it, tweaking as appropriate, and we could probably get this thing started as early as next week.
If you want to join, there's a few things you need, or need to know:
I host my RPG's on AIM. It isn't perfect, but it's easy to use, most people have it, it's got chat room dice built into it, and it allows for multiple font types and colors without hassel which is good for people expressing themselves (I know it sounds silly, but it's true) and it helps me differenciate between who's saying what quickly, without having to always refer to the screen name, I can just read the text and know who's talking.
So until I find something better--better being something as easy, or easier to use, easily accessable, free, more stable and less hassle--I'm going to be hosting the RPG on AIM. So if you want to join, you'll need that. You can go to
www.aim.com to get it, if you don't already have it.
Besides, if MxO is going to incorporate AIM into their game, nobody can bitch at me for using it in mine.
The only other thing you need besides AIM, is time. I'm serious about my role playing. I'm not a dick about it, and it's not like I think my RPG should come before your real life, that's not what I'm saying. What I AM saying though, is if I'm going to spend 3+ hours creating details, NPC's, plotlines and an indepth story for you guys to play in, I'd expect you not to waste my time and not show up for half the damn sessions.
I'm an easy going guy, and I can work with everyone's schedule as much as possible, and if we can only host one session a week due to people's conflicting schedules, that's okay. I'd just hope that the people who tell me that they'll be there on a specific day actually show up, so that I don't plan a particular story session around a specific character, and have that guy not show up. I don't think that's terribly not-understandable.
So that's what you need in order to join. As far as things you need to know...
I'm looking for smart people. If you're incapable of typing out completed sentences, without reverting to retard-speech of "u ppl r 2 kewl 4 wut im sayin" or anything remotely similar, I don't want you to join. I'm not trying to be a dick, but nothing spoils the creativity more than me setting up a beautifully articulated scene for you, putting an image in your head of exactly what you're seeing, what's going on, and then have Player F say "y r there no agent ppl around 2 kill?"
Even using one or two of these words every once in a while can spoil things. "Neo walks toward Smith, the rain pouring upon them only to accentuate the Matrix code breaking down, and falling apart upon their skulls. Neo slips over 2 the side of a manhole, careful to not b caught in any possible trap Smith may b plotting. Slowly, Neo prepares himself for the fight of his life, but deep down he hopes he doesn't have 2 fight every Smith in the Matrix. He glances from side to side, unknowing of how many ppl r trapped behind the shadowy vision of those square black sunglasses."
That could be very rich, but the few points of using 'b' instead of 'be' or '2' instead of 'to' or 'ppl' instead of 'people' pulls your brain out of the mood. It just fucks all that up.
So in other words, if you're incapable of talking like a mature, educated person who can take creative writing seriously, don't join.
And really, that's my only rule. As long as you're not a dumbass, or at least you don't sound like a dumbass, and you're willing to use AIM and you've got at least enough free time to stay committed to at least one session a week, I'd love to have you join.
The RPG would take place both inside and outside of the Matrix, though I haven't really thought too heavily on what the storyline would be yet, I have a few directions I know I could take it, that I think would be very enjoyable for everyone who participated.
Also, if enough people from the Angels join up, I could have the storyline of the RPG focus around our Clan. That could, in fact, be a very good thing for us as a whole, as I'd imagine there'd be quite a few people who'd look fondly on our Clan simply for being such supporters of Role Playing that we're actually doing so actively prior to MxO shipping.
Anyway, if any of you want to join, let me know.