Callahan's Crosstime SD Saloon (Come and discuss your games!)

Is anyone running (that I dont notice) or planning a LIF?

I'm usually not bad about joining them so long as they have at least a somewhat unique concept. A bunch of weirdos being pulled together to save the universe gets old after a while.

As for starting one... Well, not me.

One in the style of kingdom hearts would be... delicious. and make a suprising amount of sense.

Well I am pretty horrible at it, I had a pretty crazy one going (you may remember) but my lack of literary ability at the time and someone who liked pwning with large mechs(COUGH VALLA COUGH COUGH)

I would definately join one though

You mean like with there being a hub that connects a bunch of "islands" from each world?

Ya know, a while before the search function when haywire, I came across a very old SD, called 'Secret Wars III' or something. LT was in it I believe(HAHA, old!).

It was your basic LIF, but with the difference everyone started apart, you had 4/5-person teams instead of single characters, and the characters were canon instead of the universes they came from.

LT for instance had a team with the Shocker, Bane, Blob and a Symbiote-turned Rogue(perhaps there were more, I can't remember), and another had Final Fantasy people.

I don't know if the idea of using existing characters instead of OOC ones is completly forbidden or disliked, but perhaps it might be something different to try again.

I think it's something we should explore. Like the characters being gathered to prevent interdimensional doom, and forced to visit different worlds to gather items or something in that line of thinking. With the evil-minded PC's or NPC's also being after these items on orders of the big mysterious bad or because they'll get something out of it.

I've had a lot of fun with the Pulp Horror SDs, in spite of the fact that I ducked out the first one and the second failed. I've been kicking an idea around in my head about a Pulp Horror set right around 1924, with a main quest that the player characters can follow (regardless of alignment) dealing with the "psychic wreckage" of WWI. Does anybody think this might be a good possibility?

That's something I want the others opinion on, wether they are okay with licensed characters and it not being too troublesome, like in powergaming like you earlier mentioned.

For instance, characters I would love to use in a SD(and already have with facial differences to make them fit) would be Kroenen from Hellboy or Kimbley from FMA.

But I could go with the occasional LiF characterization or original ones.

Interesting idea. With psychic wreckage, are you meaning a sort of spiritual fall-out due to so many men having died in unimaginable conditions, the soil they fought on destroyed beyond repair, gruesome side-effects from the chemical weapons, and horrible experiments inspired by the new technological advances?

Or simply the mental trauma that the war itself brought upon everyone involved?

Didn't you drop PH2 long before the art gallery was done?

Interesting. Sounds like it will deal primarily with ghosts and mental conflicts, calling up themes of trauma and madness. I'd probably enjoy playing that.

Sounds a little bit like what Cradle of Ruin was supposed to be, though with more of a psychic emphasis.

Will you be using the established template from the old games, such as the metaphysical trinity and the established supernaturals? Also, where will this game be set?

If it is tried, we might want to cut back on the sheer number of really supernaturals, or at least put some caps as to how powerful they can be.

I wouldn't mind something based on the ideas we had for the last five LiFs- a Tardis style slider group that's actually lost in fiction, and not lost from fiction.

I'd be very interesting and a new direction to have a bunch of people from random fictional origins sliding across multiple random fictional worlds. And hey, some of them might even get home- though in practice, they'd find themselves in an alternate origin world perhaps, and have to stay on with the crew.

The main difficulty I've seen with lifs is getting stuck on some desolate craptastic world with a bunch of russians and getting attacked by some super dude who is never quite defeated because nobody can really think up anything to do, and the game dies before that rolls around.

Flashing between known universes could be a lot more fun because we'd have a lot more to go on.

EDIT: Like the Daedalus Variations, except you don't get left behind if you're off the ship when the timer rolls around- it just drags you with it.

I would be interested in either a LIF or a Pulp Horror. Now that college has calmed down a bit I have some more free time.

I actually had an LIF idea a while back that involved low power chars, IE standard military grunts and the like with a fairly low power cap, being trapped on an Akira class Starship that has landed in the Babylon 5 universe.

Pulp Horror wise I would probably end up playing a spirit of some kind that has been mystically bound in a human body or some variation on that theme. Not entirely sure if the body would be alive/dead, or what kind of powers said spirit would have.

This one, mostly.

Most definitely; I thought the setting could help encourage people to choose good human characters. 1924 allows Great War veterans, Chandler/Hammet-style private detectives, Communist spies, plus the previous Pulp Horror spread of magicians and such. Magic and supernatural creatures are as in earlier PHs, with some additional NPCs.

The basic idea I had for the plot borrows a few elements from the Vertigo Comics "Lucifer" series. The Great War and related events (1918/19 Spanish flu pandemic, Russian Civil War) caused damage to the collective consciousness of the human race, and evil, biblical-based supernatural creatures like the Nephilim, Lilim, plus some demons from Hell itself, want to use the opportunity. Their idea is that WWI could have substituted for the battle of Armageddon and led to the end of the world, but was for some reason aborted, and it has to be jumpstarted. Since opposition to this plan would come from all directions (from heaven and those people who have to live on Earth for obvious reasons, from Hell because Satan doesn't want to jump the gun on the apocalypse) they have to move in secret via intermediaries, plus there is a reason for all the player characters to work together regardless of alignment to good or evil.

I haven't worked out the specifics of the bad guys' plan but I know the arc of it (the Garden of Eden will play a major role), and it would play out as an Indiana Jones "violent artifact hunt" kind of story, with opportunities for travel and set-piece encounters. If there's real interest in this I'll start to make my outline it in earnest, but even then I want to be sure to get it right (so it doesn't fall apart right away!) so I'll be a while at it.

I'm pretty sure I played it until it died, and might have had one of the last posts. But PH2 demonstrated to me the folly of multiple plotlines in one game, because my character pursued his own thing, and the disconnection probably helped mess the game up.

I would probably use the idea I got earlier, of a paratrooper who was wounded and had surgery to repair damaged organs - by implanting eldritch creature organs. Mostly human, but with some quirks and mild powers. Haven't defined it yet.

Fits with the universe. Seems like a good starting point for a plot.

I can't remember, honestly. You're probably right - You were posting as we were doing the burning gallery bit, and you may have stopped only shortly before I dropped it due to schoolwork.

Multiple plotlines requires that people make a concerted effort to tie the plots together, usually requiring multiple players and the GM to coordinate a lot. I got it to work before, but it was always a bit of work to keep everything together. In PH, nobody really had the time or inclination to work out the disconnect - in my defense, I was monumentally busy. The most I did was to have Zhuge Long use your character in as the diviner, which I was going to use as a hook after the gallery when Long was supposed to go after that group. Sadly, we didn't get to that part.

I am myself thinking of a German stormtrooper who due to accidently inhaling a devasting chemical weapon is forced to have his gasmask on at all times, due to a traumatic fear of exposing himself ever again to open air, along with some nasty scars.

EDIT: Or, taking over an idea from the Superhero one, the Stormtrooper actually is dependant on the chemical that has infected him and oxygen has become lethal to him.

Though it over and came up with this:

The daughter of an American (British would likely work as well) diplomat assigned to Japan. While in Japan she was kidnapped and a Kitsune was sealed in her with magic.

The girl is alive but withdrawn within her mind and semi-catatonic, leaving the Kitsune in charge. But the kitsune has lost most of her powers save for illusions and fox fire.

Well I had to reinstall windows and everything else over the last week so I missed Superheroes first death rattle.

PH?
Vampire hunter...Check and cut in half
Cursed French guy...Check and WTF happened to PH2?
Half breed Vampire Hunter...Check and god that one died fast.

Think it's time for the teenaged psyker who escaped the Sanitarium she was put in.

Fond memories. I vaguely even remember to having used the remains as a distraction tactic in the following fight.

Well, I'll start on my outline later tonight, and see about getting a thread up in the next few days, maybe next week sometime.

No way to treat a Belmont-Hellsing family member. Semi sad we made him non-vampiric in PH. Would have had a perfect way to bring him back in PH2 otherwise.

Shouldn't have told you he was wearing a bulletproof vest after you had him shot to death as the first ending.

Present wishlist for someone else to start .

A Mech/mecha SD - Maybe in that short Sd style that was discussed a few pages back to avoid 'interval burnout' as I think of it. Also Super or Real not both since that didn't work to well.
Sol System - This one starting in the middle of the independance war that is in most SS backstories so no-one needs to try and make up an excuse to go to war (oh and no pluto so Singh can't hide out there ).
Another Fantasy type Char SD - Pc's as Monsters? (Yes I'm streaching here.)

Things on my backburner
Junk Space - nBSG-verse Empire SD - Yet another in my quest for simple/new rules .
Mana Surge E - Nanoha char SD (as tempted as I am to do an empire one for kicks ) - Flipside of the last one, PCs as the 'bad guys' (cyborg/artifisal lifeform/'non-authorized' mage/rebels) fighting to stop the quiet conquest of the omniverse (or at least there worlds) by the TSAB.