This message was deleted by the user at 11:30, Sun 26 July 2015.

Dungeoneering, Inc.

I think you have to do a lot of thinking about the home-world for a game like this.  If a group of geeks, or whatever, had access to a way to open up other dimensions, why would they risk their own lives to go inside when there's a massive amount of money to be made from selling off this access to the military?  A world where weapons tests could be conducted with no repercussions is, alone, a massive thing.  Offering a military contractor a way to harness magical weapons?  Even better.

Once you're past that, why would geeks, etc., be doing the crossing over?  You can hire special forces style mercenaries without a whole lot of trouble, and they'd certainly be more effective than a bunch of geeks and SCA fighters.

I think, if you really beat the concept up until it becomes plausible, this could be a really interesting game (though, what I seem to be leaning toward is actually the Infinite Worlds setting).

The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

PVP is a turnoff for me, so nah.

The Retributors

This could be interesting, but I think the context is a little odd.  Usually, starting heroes are being driven into it for a reason, not doing it to gain status for themselves.  If the idea was more of beginning heroes coming together against a common foe, it might work better?  Like Hero A discovers that the evil corporation he's been fighting is a front for The Evil Guys and Hero B discovers that they're also the ones backing the drug dealers she's been taking out.  Cue teamup.

Ambush!

So, you're talking soldiers in WWII played straight up?  Not my thing.

I'd be up for the Ambush!

If I understand you right, this means you'd essentially be running freeform with rules being enforced out of the players' control, yes? Seems a little odd, but eh, I've run with weirder things.

Swordchucks makes most of the points I would make on each of the games... but I'm also a talker so I'll elaborate on my own.

Dungeoneering Inc. seems odd, because knowing what they would about the DnD world it would be just bananas to think you could do much to make a profit there. You could introduce technologies and whatnot for the common folks who don't have magic, but otherwise you're sort of kicking yourself in the teeth unless you have a way to go out and get the magical gear that would help you succeed in the real world. In short, you'd need a lot of gold to hire adventurers to go out and do the real work for a while, which sort of makes it a business management game and that's... odd.

The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly is interesting to me only in that I had the same idea once upon a time, but it was more secretive. Start up two games, essentially. Run one as the "good guy" side. Run one as the "Potentially not good guys" side (or just another group of good guys). Make certain the players don't find out about it for a long time (pretend the other group are NPCs for a lot of interactions and even the fights) until, one day, the two groups meet and clash in some epic event or another where they realize they've been playing against actual people for a long time. I think it'd be priceless to see their faces...
But just straight out PvP storytelling? Eh... I dunno.

The Retributors... nothing to add here. Heroes in it for themselves are more anti-heroes, neh? Not that there's anything wrong with anti-heroes, but a group of them makes for a weird dynamic I'm not certain I could get behind.

Ambush! is just a hard pass for me. Without something to make it more... interesting, we're just playing around with the minute details of modern history which doesn't tickle my fancy at all.

This message was deleted by the user at 11:30, Sun 26 July 2015.

I... don't understand the difference. If the players don't interact with the rules, how is it not freeform for them? >_> I mean, I understand there will be rules, and they will have to be obeyed, but if the player doesn't interact with the rules then it's basically the same as the GM arbitrarily saying "yes" or "no" to their declared actions, like in a freeform scenario. Unless I'm misunderstanding something, which happens. A lot.


Right, but they would know that getting a dragon's horde worth of gold would be nigh-impossible, since most DnD campaigns that get that far rely on people with incredible amounts of luck and magical ability, along with (usually) GM Fiat, none of which this group would have In-Character. OOC, sure, but our characters wouldn't know that. This would mean they'd have to be in it for a rather long-haul investment which they would need gold and silver to invest in within the world itself (can't really pay the elves in euros, after all), because I'm not certain how well an AK-47 would do against a dragon, but I feel like it would be a problem. Either that, or it would be incredibly easy because bullets and that would be more than a bit boring.

So, you know, things. I'm not saying it's impossible, merely that (as swordchucks said) it would need a lot of hashing out. Also, Gary Gygax's last will and testament is not a valid reason for trying to exploit a magical world for personal gain.


Oh... so it's Samurai Flamenco. Got it. That could work.

This message was deleted by the user at 11:30, Sun 26 July 2015.

One wonders, for the Dungeoneering Inc. setting, whether other worlds would be accessible by the same means. Gygax wrote of several, and other members of his gaming group and similar early groups spun off more.


There's also one historical issue from real life I'd like to point out with regards to importing dragon hoards. Remember the Conquistadors and the Spanish invasion of the Americas in search of wealth? They brought back loads of money in the form of gold, jewels, other precious metals. But money was not wealth. Inflation ensued. Lots of inflation.

Ambush and the supers/vigilantes idea sounds cool!

If the Ambush! idea moved forward, I would be interested.

Okay, I'm sold on the Ambush! idea.  Thanks for everyone's feedback.

Excellent! Looking forward to the game!

Thats not how most freeform games are run. I've seen a couple that let you just say what you do and what happens but it's extremely rare, it tends to cause chaos and in a game where a player can just write whatever and it happens there really isn't a NEED for a gm.

I have run several successful freeform games and the way I do it is a player types out what they WANT to do, I read over the post, consider HOW they're attempting to do what they're doing and what would seem coolest and most fun.

The way your describing it is basically how freeform is run except the GM rolls dice instead of reading over the posts and deciding based on logic and plot.

This message was deleted by the user at 11:31, Sun 26 July 2015.

I do too. Actually, in light of message 13, I saw how Freeform and whatever this is are different only in ways that are basically irrelevant. So as a result, I doubt I'll be in on this one.
This message had punctuation tweaked by the user at 04:39, Sun 26 July 2015.