Sign Up The End Times (Adult themes, no kiddies please!!)

[Mnemolth]

[b]DISCLAIMER[/b]: This game is designed and made for young adults. If you are BELOW the age of 15, it is NOT suitable for you. Please leave. There are plenty of other games you can join. Thank you.

I know this post is a little long. Stay with it. Its long mostly because I'm trying to describe all the game mechanics in detail and trying to cover all eventualities. At the end of the day, you really only have to remember some basic concepts, such as ascribing 3 attributes to your character, attack, defense and feed. The game will be run on a points-based system, the more points you have the better. If you win any round, you are rewarded with the opportunity to write a battle scene from start to finish. At the end all the battles are strung together to form an overall story or chronicle of events. So yes, you have to be able to think strategically, outwit your fellow players, and be capable of writing a half-decent battle scene. And that's the gist of it.

But you should carefully go through the following to be familiar with the actual details of the game. If you ever get confused and feel your brain is overloading with all the info, just remember the above paragraph, there will be plenty of chances to grill me over the minutae later. Or if you feel its all overly complicated, again, its actually pretty simple, its just that I'm canvassing all options below so it only SEEMS complicated.


[b]The End Times Setting[/b]

The End Times is a contemporary story. It takes place in any major city in the world. Demons are amongst us. They do not necessarily have horns or hoofs, and some have managed to live with us, have even become cultural and scientific icons. Some have infiltrated our schools and been our teachers, some have penetrated our bedrooms and been our lovers. Human beings have co-existed with demons for a millennia, though few know about it.

Yet every thousand years, the cycle of life runs its course and the world renews itself. Every thousand years, the world purges itself of its demons. They become afflicted with a terrible hunger that can only be satisfied with the lifeforce of another. Demons battle one another, driven by this unknown and irresistable force to kill and feed, until there remains only one, the champion. It is he or she that shall ascend and become an Immortal.

Please discard all you may know about demons from other sources such as literature, films and other games. In this campaign demons simply refers to anyone with supernatural powers. This includes vampires, ghosts, and anything and everything under the sun or moon.


[b]The End Times Game[/b]

This is a little like Role-Playing Survivor. Essentially it is a strategic game, where there is a cast of characters at the beginning, and each week one is eliminated and their energy is consumed amongst those who are left. The carnage continues until only one remains, and he or she becomes the victor, and is deemed the champion.

Each player must create at least one character and can only ever have one character in any one game at any one time.

Your character MUST be a demon, although what that means is anyone's guess, but he/she/it CANNOT be either human nor Immortal (for obvious reasons). Furthermore, in addition to the above requirements, you also need to supply three distinct attributes of your character, the ways in which the character attacks, defends, and feeds. This will help others write up their battles if you do not survive.

All players start off with 3 'energy points' (or EPs) in the game. Players may 'feed' and accumulate more as time goes on. Once a player's EPs are used up, they are replenished for the next round. ALL EPs MUST be distributed. They can be assigned as the player sees fit.

All players MUST submit their actions each week. This is done via a PM to me, and the PM MUST be received by me BEFORE midnight of the Friday of that week. No player, except the winner of the previous round, needs to submit any piece of writing, and none will be accepted.


[b]The End Times Combat System[/b]

As was mentioned earlier, ALL EPs MUST be spent in one round. A player has total freedom to distribute EPs as they like. Attack and Defense EPs have to be targeted (to defend yourself, just target Defense EPs on yourself). Feeding EPs can be generic or targeted. Generic Feeding EPs are targeted at everyone on a 1:1 ratio whereas successfully targeted Feedings EPs are assigned a 1:2 ratio. That is, targeted EPs are twice as powerful (ie, they are worth double the number of EPs assigned to them).

[i]Attacking and Defending:[/i]
Combat is done by tallying up all the energy points and where they are going to for that round. Then each character's defense energy point is compared with how many attack points has been unleashed upon him/her. If there are more attack points suffered than defense points allocated, then the DIFFERENCE is counted. The player with the largest difference is deemed the loser and his character is killed off. If the difference is the same for two or more characters, then they are ALL killed. If there is no difference or if Defense EPs are greater than Attack EPs, then no one dies for that round. But because no one dies, the cabal of demons go hungry and everyone loses 10% of their EPs (fractions are counted, see "Rounding Off" below).

[i]Determining the Winner:[/i]
The Winner is the player with the highest COMBINED attack and feed EPs on the Loser. If two or more players have the same combined score, then the player who had submitted his action to me FIRST wins.

[i]Feeding:[/i]
Feeding EPs are used to drain the lifeforce from those killed in battle. The assignment of feeding EPs occurs at the same time as Attacking and Defending EPs. Feed EPs are NOT assigned to dead characters, they are assigned to LIVE characters who MAY be dead at the end of THAT round, but the choice to feed is made now, not when they are dead, because everything happens at once.

If a character gets killed in a round, then all the EPs of that character are distributed to the person with the greatest Feed points targeted at the dead character (the character would have been alive at the time of the assigning of EPs). If there is two or more people having the same highest number of Feed EPs on the dead character the EPs are shared equally (fractions are counted, see "Rounding Off" below). If there are no Feed EPs on the dead character, then no one feeds on him/her, and their EPs are lost for good.

[i]Rounding Off:[/i]
All characters' EPs are calculated to two decimal points. However, the EPs can only be used as FULL WHOLE numbers, so they are rounded to the nearest integer or whole number, and this amount is then able to be used in the coming battle. The fractions do count as they do add up after a while, particular as there is rounding off.

[i]The Hunger:[/i]
The terrible Hunger that afflicts all demons during the End Times is so violent and irresistible that, at the beginning of this period of bloodlust, every demon MUST spend at least one EP to attack.

Similarly, if no one dies, and the cabal goes hungry for one round, this means that the pent-up feeding frenzy needs release, and so one the next round, EVERYONE has to attack with at least 1 EP. Also if after that, again there are no deaths, the cabal are now starving and so ON the THIRD round, NO ONE can spend ANY points on defense.

[i]There can only be one:[/i]
When the game comes down to the last three characters left standing, each of these characters can be filled with power. To decided who wins and who loses then becomes are a voting contest. Each of the three players has to submit a battle story by the end of Wed of THAT round week. These are then posted for ALL registered players to read. ALL players are eligible to a vote. They can only vote for one story (ie one character). However, the vote is then weighted according to how many EPs the character possessed (at time of death), or possesses. In other words, you cannot split your EPs to vote for more than one candidate. For example, if you have 3 or 6 or how ever many EPs, ALL of them will go to your ONE choice. his means you have to be careful about your allegiances and who you double-cross. After all, much like real life elections, the dead here do vote! ;)


[b]The End Times Battle Stories[/b]

The Winner of the round MUST submit a piece of writing (whether prose, poetry or even song) before Wednesday midnight of the following week (ie he is given 3 days to write it up). It MUST to be between 300 to 3000 words in length, and it MUST include a description of the battle and death of the loser of that round. It also has to be CONSISTENT with ALL previous submissions/stories. If the winner fails to submit a piece of writing in time, then the player in second place has a FURTHER 3 days to submit. If there is no one in second, or the second place getter fails to submit, then there is no 'story' for that round.


[b]What you can expect from me[/b]

You can expect that I will run the game more or less smoothly. I have spent some time designing this game, I will spend just as much time ironing out and wrinkles in the game architecture, or any hiccups from actual play. You can PM me, or better still post on this Board so that everyone can see my response (you never know, other people may have similar questions, and it would save me the hassle of repeating myself again and again). IF this game gets up and running, my turnaround time is a maximum of 24 hrs, so that if you have query or complaint, you will get a quick answer. And obviously, you can expect me to act with fairness and impartiality.


[b]What I expect from you[/b]

I expect you to be an adult. I expect a minimum level of commitment (ie I don't want 20 sign-ups only to find 18 no-shows). If you win a round I expect you to write a story. I expect that your writing will be adequate and intelligible. I want you to enjoy yourself and have a lot of fun strategising and reveling in writing horrible tales of the demise of your opponents. Its expected that you will conspire, lie and betray in this game, but keep it in WITHIN the game! I expect everyone that started the game to finish the game. If you're killed off in the first couple of rounds, you should still keep a rough track of what is happening because I expect you to vote when the time comes to decide a winner from the last 3 standing combatants.

[b]How to apply[/b]

If you would like to play this game, you can register your interest by signing up. You can do it in one of two ways. You can simply indicate you want to join NOW, and edit your post LATER with details of your character (if the game gets up and running I will give a deadline for all character creations). OR, you can submit your character in the same post.

Minimum number of players to start game is 7.

Maximum number of players in a game is 20 (not that this would ever be a problem).

Once I get the numbers of people I feel are worth starting or within two weeks of this post, which ever is sooner, I will close all applications. Because this is a last-man-standing kinda deal, NO ONE can join AFTER the game starts!

If you are planning to create a character be sure to include a VERY BRIEF description and attack, defense and feeding powers/habits. Be as vague as possible, because you are likely going to want to develop your character as the story moves forward.

I plan to include here an example of a few rounds of the game, just to give you an idea how it all gets put together. I will also post a story on the Adventures forum, although I should warn you right now my story is NOT and example of what you SHOULD write, just an indication of the POSSIBILITIES. Most of you would probably not write anything as macabre or long, and that's just fine, I don't expect you to. I will also try to put up sample characters and a FAQ on this thread, but this will depend on the level of interest. If no one signs up there really is no need for sample characters or any FAQs.


[b]Who are you, and what kind of drugs are you taking?[/b]

Some of you might have read all this, or just quickly scrolled downwards to here, and thought something like, "F*ck! This guy is nuts if he thinks anyone's gonna waste their time with something like this!". And to be honest, I quite agree with you. :) I don't expect I will get many takers. But I made this game and I might as well put it up on the shelf for one and all to see. And you never know, there is always hope. ;)


[b]Game concept, design and writing © 2002, Mnemolth. All Rights Reserved.[/b]

[Mnemolth]

Please open the attached text file (I don't know how to copy and paste TABS onto the Board, the formatting goes all wrong). I've created a text file but it doesn't word wrap on IE, sorry. Click
[url=http://falkor.anu.edu.au/~ely/example.txt]here[/url] to open.

Otherwise just download the attachment, and view it at your own leisure. Its a simple text file so there's nothing to worry about. :)