So, I had this idea, what if we took these names of people who're quitting all the time and started using them as characters in an RPG about just daily life? You know, a kind of memento morai thing... Not sure about the system and what not, thoughts?
Yeah, looking at what I wrote before I have the following to say: GenId. So, here is the expanded idea with increased content. Basically, this is like one of those "slave auction" games you used to get on Facebook, except it uses the names and profiles of everyone who asks/has asked to have their account deleted. New players would sign up in this thread, and receive 100¢ (that stands for 'credits' BTW,) to start their plantation on the Colony World of Skyfandrious, A Plantation which begins with 38 acres of untamed scrub which includes a spring for drinking water: A Basic Plantation House, with a "spartan" Dining Room, Kitchen, Library, Master Bedroom, Boys Dormitory, Girls Dormitory, And Outhouses: Quarters for 6 Slaves, And a Barn, housing: 1 mule, 1 plow, 4 axes, 2 whips, 40 bushels of wheat, 15 bushels of potatoes, 10 bushels of carrots, 10 bushels of apple saplings, 5 bushels of apples, 10 bushels of onions, 5 bushels of beet seeds, 10 bushels of grass seed, 10 bushels of hemp seed, 6 hunting dogs, (3 mated pairs,) 5 cats, (1 Tom and 4 Queens,) and 6 sheep (1 ram, 4 ewes, and a bellwether.) You note: you don't start with any slaves. I would serve as the Governor/Guild Banker/Auctioneer. To allow new players to participate, the bidding for new slaves is slanted: 1¢ for them is not the same as 1¢ for established players. When bidding on your first slave you bid 1=1, but for each slave you already own, there is a 1¢ surcharge on each credit you want to bid, so if you wanted to bid 5¢ and had 4 slaves already, your actual bid would be 25¢, which you would write as "(Player) Bids: 5¢, surcharge 20¢." Now, it is obvious to all concerned that this makes it very hard to get more than a handful of slaves at auction, but as with most slave-based economies, the real way of building up your stock of slaves is by breeding. If you have two slaves, one male, and one female, you can breed them and a 1d10 is rolled. On a 1-3, three seasons later (each 'season' is one IRL week) a baby slave is born to the couple, who will grow up to be the first person to ask for deletion that week 72 "seasons" later. If more babies would be born than people ask for deletions that week, the remainder grow up to be "Generic Servitor Drones" which are the lowest form of slaves, but, still better than nothing, so breed your slaves early and often! Note that one male slave can service multiple females and that a female slave cannot be breed again while she is pregnant or nursing, which means for 1.25 "years" after she gives birth: but also note that incest is strictly prohibited by local law, even for slaves, so it can be a very good idea to trade insemination samples with other slave owners, especially since female slaves are much rarer than males... Also note that sexual contact between an owner and their slaves is only allowed under one very specific condition: Manumission and Marriage. An owner can manumit any of their slaves they chóse at any time. Typically the slave will re-offend and be re-enslaved as punishment within a few days if this is done, these are the dregs of society who asked for profile deletion after all, but there's one easy way to avoid that sort of thing happening. Slaves are weak-willed by nature, and if their owner gives them their freedom, then asks the recently former slave to marry them, the slave can be kept under good supervision while remaining a free man or woman in the eyes of the law. This brings us to Marriage Postings: in the event that a player does a "manumit and marry maneuver" or two players wish to combine their plantations by marrying their characters, they must pay a total of 5¢+ per bride/groom for assorted wedding stuff, like tux, gown, venue, limo rental, etc, ad nauseum. Further, the 1¢ surcharge per slave applies to this too, because your whole plantation has to be tricked out for this biggest of all days. (Among other things, it's traditional that all the slaves get a new set of clothes if the master/mistress gets married.) Now, I've talked a lot about slaves, what you can do to get them, but not what they're good for. Obviously, slaves work. You can work your 40-acre plantation by yourself, or just with two players combining up to an 80 acre with a husband/wife team, it can be done: be diligent, plan carefully, rotate your crops, buy some upgrades like a tractor and harrow/seeder: you can prosper like that and not a single slave involved anywhere... But, that's playing on hard mode. Slaves allow you to do more, more quickly, and with less of an outlay of initial resources. Let me put forward a hypothetical: its the early part of the game: two of the first players are a Husband/Wife pair who are into the BDSM scene IRL, so this seems like fun for them. They sign up, play along for a few turns, carefully bidding to get one male and three female slaves between them, two slaves each, they then 'publish the Banns' announcing their characters plan to marry and no one raises a legit objection, so, that 'winter' they wed, their plantations combine, and they now have four slaves between them, with two of those slaves "in a family way". This means that they not only have six workers to help with tasks each turn, (each IRL day is a turn, representing approximately two weeks of work,) but they can grow their population rapidly by breeding not only their slaves but also the wife's character, who can then possibly attract other players to take on the role of sons/daughters. Speaking of Sons/Daughters, when 72 seasons have elapsed from the birth of a PC's child there is a 20 season window where a new player may, instead of starting from scratch with a blank plantation, negotiate with the parent/parents of that character to take over that character and be given their inheritance from their parents to begin their new life. The character would get a part of the parent's plantation, (This hasn't been brought up but plantations are not fixed at 40 acres or multiples of the same forever, they can be expanded or contracted in various ways, which this is one of...) A small percentage of their parent's slaves, (probably the "Generic Servitor Drone" dregs, but still,) some money and goods to get themselves established, (100¢ and the rough equivalent to the starting package from the governor is traditional,) and be sent on their way to earn their fortune. Alternately, their parents can come up with 111111¢ and pay for a brand new blank 40-acre plantation to be conjured for their scion in the border marches, then send along whatever additional goodies they see fit. It is worth noting here that incestuous relationships are prohibited not just among slaves but player characters as well, including cousins of less than the fourth remove, so you might be limiting your choices of romantic partners if you do choose to play such a character. It is also worth noting that these characters can be used by the players of the parents to retire their current character who is growing old and past their prime for a younger and more adventurous PC, during this same window... But back to what I was saying about slaves doing work: Each day IRL is a turn in the game, representing roughly two weeks of in-game time. Don't worry if you can't be here every single day to post, you can plan out activities for an entire season or even year in advance, but they are resolved one turn at a time, so be sure they aren't too dependent on the previous activities success. Each Slave or PC can perform two actions per turn, and has two quality ratings: ranging from "Generic Servitor Drone" to "CHYOA Guru" plus a gender which can be "male", "female", "herm", or "neuter". Each action must use one of its quality ratings, one of which is based on their status on the main site when they quit, the other of which is based on their status on the forums when they quit, and the gender is based on their listed genders in each location. If both say male or female, then that's what they are if one says male or female and the other is blank that's what it is, but if the two disagree, its herm, and if both are blank, its neuter which both mean the slave can't reproduce. Each degree of quality rating allows the Slave to get approximately 2 days of good work done on that task for that turn. (This may have to be adjusted if the number of quality levels is adjusted…) This total can be increased by one if you have the slaves have an “Overseer” on the project at least two quality levels above them, or by the slaves being Specialists. Specialists are treated as 1 quality level better at the task they specialize in, for all purposes, including both benefiting from an overseer and serving AS an overseer for that task. As you may notice, since an overseer must be at least 2 quality levels over the workers he oversees, Overseers are only really effective if overseeing a work detail of at least 3 lesser slaves, minimum. This means that you need at least 3 slaves to gain any benefit from an Overseer. (The PC can act as an Overseer, and often is the only person experienced enough to do it…) Back to specialists for a moment, slaves must have a minimum quality of ‘Generic Servitor Drone’ to become a specialist, and they do so by working the same task with the same side of their profile for an entire season. For each quality level above “Generic Servitor Drone”, a slave may have an additional specialty on that side of their profile, so, for example, a typical ‘virgin’ slave can have two specialties on each side of their profile. It is of special note that once a specialty is earned it cannot be un-selected, only upcycled*, so be careful what specialties you chose for your slaves: some specialties are seen as added value if a slave is sold, some, are seen as drawbacks, and most, it depends on whom you are selling them too... *(More on this later…) Ok, I think I've gone off the deep end with the description, what do people think of this expanded Idea? .
Yes, though you'd probably have trouble finding a spouse, as the default race of all characters unless specified otherwise is human: and your children DEFINITELY would due to the anti-incest rules... True, but: would you like to play the game? EDIT: So, while I wait for responses, I'll just wax verbose about a few more aspects of the game. One major difference between this set of plantations and those of the southern united states is that ethnicity plays no factor in one's status as a slave. There will be 'white' slaves, 'Asian' slaves, 'Hispanic' slaves, 'First Nations' slaves, 'Arab' slaves, 'Pacific Islander' slaves, and yes, 'black' and 'mixed race' slaves, not to mention slaves from non-human races like Furries and Pokémon and such on occasion. A slave's species/appearance is decided by the most suitable of their former profile pics... Or a generic extremely mixed 'race' human if they didn't have one that's suitable, as decided by myself and the other game moderators: with tie votes resulting in a 'twofer', two slaves with the same profile and name, one using each profile pic/race, coming up for auction marked A & B. I reserve a veto/override though for things that aren't even alive like boats, buildings, landscapes, or flags, and things like gods get downgraded to special effects experts. Anubis, for example, might still be a furry, however...
So, in my case, I'd be a dragon, neuter at this point (until/unless I set my gender). And, why would I have problems finding a spouse? I'd have problems finding a breeder, but the two are quite different...
Well, if you don't mind your children bearing the social stigma of being bastards, I suppose so, but, that issue aside, there is always the option of simply not having children and instead of paying a marriage-fee, paying the much more modest flat 10¢ to establish a relationship of Heir Designate, with one of your off-planet relations who shall come to care for you in your old age and take over from you when you die. (Important point of note, any character in the game can live for up to 1111 years, regardless of race, by purchasing or crafting and using ever more expensive/difficult-to-make "rejuvenation treatments". Without them, it doesn't matter if you are a human, a goblin, an elf, or what-have-you, you will be an adult at 18 years, and dead by 100. The specifics of what goes into a treatment might be different for different races, for example, an Android might need specialized replacement parts, but associated prices and difficulties to craft them remain the same.) Anyway, sorry for the late reply, I had to see my mother off on her annual vacation, which takes a lot of packing and prep work.
After giving it some thought, I've decided that while the Male/Female/Herm/Neuter thing should stay, the 'races' thing needs modification. From now on breeding in the game would more-or-less follow D&D rules. With the right potion, anything is possible, and most things don't even need a potion to cross-breed with humans. I decided this after going through the present list of deleted accounts looking for ones that were reasonably 'gendered' or 'speciated' just based on the name and finding more than a few, all of which will be available for auction when/if we get our first players. Oh, also, we have our first slave noted down for availability that could serve as an overseer! (Only to "Generic Servitor Drone" class slaves, and only on one side of their profile, but still.) Also, I've decided that the 'Herm' gender will not be as restrictive as previously: 'Herm' PCs/slaves can reproduce, but only with other 'Herm' PCs/slaves. (Neuter slaves/PCs are still infertile.) Speaking of which: Players are allowed to establish the genders of their characters exactly thrice, under specific circumstances: If the player started the game as Neuter or Herm they may change to Male or Female by setting their gender as such on the forum and the main site then PMing one of the game moderators. No questions will be asked. They may also change to Herm in this way if they started as Neuter, but that uses up their one 'free' change. Changing again is much harder: to do that the player has to first change both the main site and forum gender tags to Male or Female then PM one of the game moderators a full body selfie holding the front page of that day's newspaper from a major metropolitan area in their region with the date clearly visible in just their underwear that clearly shows them to at least visibly appear to be the gender they wish to change to. Should you wish to change a third time, you will have to forward facsimiles of court documents indicating a LEGAL change of gender to the gender in question AND have Friedman change your username to one that the game moderators agree matches your new gender status. (Hint, anything correctly using any of the words: Incubus, Lad, Guy, Lord, Dude, King, Man, or God if male: or Succubus, Lass, Gal, Lady, Chick, Queen, Woman, or Goddess if a female should do the trick...) A fourth such change is not permitted, if you are super certain you have to change your gender again you're going to have to build up 111111¢ to buy a blank plantation, create a new account, set up this new account for the gender you want, talk to Friedman about transferring your writing content, and ask to have your old account deleted... (New and experienced slave coming up for auction in 3, 2, 1...!) Oh, it's also worth noting that these genderswaps can only be done when a player is changing over from one individual PC to the next, like a father retiring to make way for his daughter to run the plantation or whatever: unless the player is willing/able to pay 100¢ for a full-body-morph potion.
Not sure what you mean...? Edit: also, your plantation profile was supposed to go in its own thread, like the other two...
Alright, I put this up in a profile post but I find it's safer to post it in multiple locations for safety: I'm going to be leaving CHYOA temporarily starting at midnight tonight In EDT when it becomes August first I will be checking out of CHYOA for a week to work on my D&D Campaign Setting, and ergo, I won't be running this game, which, since we have no other game moderators right now, means the game has to just pause for a week. I know, we haven't even really started yet, but this is actually a good thing because while I work on the D&D setting I'll also work on this game's system as a way to take a break from that! So expect a slightly, but significantly, more polished game when I come back, because I've basically just been making this up off the top of my head... Also, it would be NICE, though I doubt it'll happen, to come back to a significantly increased number of players and be able to do a soft reboot...
Please Define "tge" or did you miss type 'the'? In any case, yes, there are plans to create a "General Store" thread where you can purchase seeds for other crops, saplings for trees such as hickory and sugar maple, and such like, but balancing that against the costs of slaves and the high value of a single Credit is proving difficult. Besides, you'll want to have the land cleared and ready for cultivation first, seeds are no-good if you cannot sprout them...
Ok, it's time and past time I said this, I just can't do this. IDK why but I've lost the will to do this game, sorry GE.
