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[bowdown2q]

welp. I've been working on a game (tabletop, atm, though if I ever get ambitious enough to learn some kind of code I might port it) in the style of FinalFantasyTactics (only without the tl;dr and difficulty cliffs). Right now I've got the playable classes, char sheets, stats, equipment, and several excel files with shorthand like "Mh-A-Sv-EF50-P48" and abilities like "Assault of the Eternal Typhoon:   50:100% P+M:2:   Enemy takes this damge again next turn. Deals Water damage."

But absolutely no ideas for plot, setting, or anything else. All I know is it has to work with magic, demons, samurai, and mech pilots.

SO. I figure, why not ask you guys? Just shout out ideas; anything at all. Even if it's stupid, silly, or just plain weird. I do want to avoid too many cliches - e.g. I'm avoiding goblins/orcs/mooks for my trash enemies, replacing them with 'Dorfs' (dwarves who have gone axe-crazy from oraniphobia & sobriety...or tantrum spirals) - but, hey, I'm open for any suggestions.

I'll throw together what piques my interest, and attempt to fit it to the game. Once that's out of the way, I still need to finish up a LOT of abilities, non-combat skills, and game balance.  If there's some interest, I'll post some of the basic tl;dr spreadsheets of rules.


copyright info:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

And not that I expect anything to come from it, but I don't want to be told I should have. whatever I post (c)2010 bowdown2q /QEE, all rights reserved, etc. If you've got something I use/ you playtest, you'll be noted in a "special thanks" bit someplace, along with the forum in general. And in the extremley unlikely event that I make money off this (yeah right), I'll make sure you get a complimentary copy and probably some kind of nerd-gear.

[Burnt Pies]

Will it be technology vs magic, or technology powered by magic? or neither? What sort of attacks are the mechs/pilots going to have, and do you plan on making melee the exception, or commonplace?

[Talanic]

I can sympathize some.  I've kinda got the opposite problem, myself - I'm developing a game based on a published author's works, which may eventually also get published.

My first draft wound up really tough to read and now I'm trying to slog through and rewrite it.  If it actually winds up good, there's some talk of taking it to GenCon, but that's a long ways away.

Good luck to you!

[bowdown2q]

(a hur. this is probably important info with witch you'd want to start)
I'm not sure about tech v magic.... I was seeing it sort of like ... yep, definitely Gaslamp Fantasy, at least as far as tech goes.

Magic:
Arcane - Arcane magic come from CHAOS, often in the form of demons/eldrich horrors chatting to you in your sleep. Must be bound via runes or channeled via force of will (or by selling your soul in return for control over your powers)
Divine- Divine magic is granted from the Gods (i have no idea what/if the gods will do), from personal faith (the self-actualized, Buddhists,etc), or from a cosmic force (like 'love' or 'the music of the spheres' or whathaveyou).
Nature - Derived from Nature Anima Spirits/ Genius Loci (think D&D druids, basicaly.) Basically, the natural world <3 you, and gives you magic so you can keep it going strong.

Elements - 8 ways; 4 with 2 subtypes -
Fire: Purifying, Consuming
Air: Frost, Thunder
Water: Cleansing, Torrent
Earth: Stone, Metal
Oppositions: put em in a circle and go clockwise and opposite.

Code: [Select]

#F#
E#A
#W#
Fire/Water oppose, Earth/Air oppose. Fire>Air, Air>Water, Water>Earth, Earth>Fire.

Equipment follows a sort of Diablo-style enchantment system (Mh-A-Sv-EF50-P48 = MainHand-Axe-SilVer-Enchant:Fire+50%-Power+48 / Silver Axe of the Inferno (+48 attack power, 50% of damage dealt is Fire-element)
all equipment buffs at least 1 stat (equip with no buff is the same as going naked), and follows a level system (the loot does anyway, items don't level with you). (lv5: Rusty Iron Club (pow+2), lv50(max): Vampiric Chaosmetal Club of Greed (pow+305, lifesteal 10%))

ok, classes:
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c106/bowdown2q/classes.png

pay no attention to the borders; they're kina hit-or-miss

Descriptions:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Sorcerer - basic arcane caster. Sorcerers have not yet gained mastery over the demons in their heads/whispers of the universe/maddening geometries from which they gain their powers. Spells use random elements, but can do extra damage. Exemplar power: Chaos Bolt:200%M damage, random element.

Wildfriend - this is a placeholder name untill I find something better. Wildfriends use NATURE magic. Their powers are in the realm of changing plant/animals, and their spells use a combination of Strength and Magic stats. They are best as melee/short range crowd control. Power: Entangle: halves movment in 1 space burst; Earthstrike: melee damage=average of Magic/Power.

Acolyte - your basic healer, buffs. Every White mage ever.  Power: Cure: healing=100%magic. Retribution: damage=maxHP/currentHP.

Soldier - exactly what it says on the tin. Fighters, plain and simple, favoring HP over damage. the Tank. Uses Stances to buff stats while debuffing other stats. Power: Defensive Stance: +25% defense, -25%power, -50% speed.

Rogue - paper-thin melee DPS machine. duel-weilding, knife specalty, theft. Power: Stealth: next attack +50% damage. Pick Pocket: steal an item/gold.

And the Tier 2/3 classes:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Warlok - this spelling is intentional. Loks are sorcerers who have chosen to embrace / are driven mad by the things in their heads. Their powers are DoTs and creepy debuffs. Their attacks can trigger their DoTs to detonate with extra damage. Power: Sepsis: ends a DoT and deals 150%magic poison-type damage. Optic Hemorrhage: 33%magic damage + blindness.

Wizard - wizards have controlled and chained up the insane magic of Chaos into Runes. Their spells are tiered: In order to cast Fire2, they first need to cast Fire1 (havent worked out the mechanics yet, but that's the gist). They study magic ans chain it up with geometry. Spells they case create runes on their Tablet (a class-specific item) that grant bonuses to other spells, e.g. if you case Slow, then as long as that Rune persists on your Tablet, all your spells have a slowing effect. This is the class with all the elemental-specific spells. Power: Fire/Ice/etc. Ultima.

Demonolgist - T3, requires levels in both Wizard and Lok. You summon DEMONS & etc to fight for you, and can combine the DoT/debuffs of Loks with the runes of Wizards, creating some really horrific damage/debuf combos (like a poisonous fireball, e.g.)

Shapeshifter - placeholder name. You can transform into a wolf/bear/whatever as a stance, which opens up new powers based on form. See the Diablo2 druid.

Beastmaster- summoner. animals show up, adn you gain buffs depending on the animal you summon. Basicaly, a beasmaster buffs the beast and lets it fight for him.

Druid - T3. Uses summoning, shapeshifting, and crazy weather magic to great effect.

Bishop/Oracle - ill-defined at the moment. One does things like 'shell' and 'protect,' and the other things like 'dispell' 'esuna' and 'nullFlare'

Heirophant- T3. Warrior-Preist. The D&D cleric, basicaly. Divine retribution-type stuff, smiting, holyfire, and punching the dragon to heal the party.

Knight - exactly what it says on the tin. Plate armor, 2handed weapons or shields. Standard Tank, forcing enemies to target himself instead of allies.

Paladin - T3. Pretty much a combo healer/tank. a little ill-defined until the Oracle is. Seems to share a bit too much wiht the Heirophant, now that I write this...

Monk - melee elemental powers. Punch something with LIGHTNING. stances based on elements.

Samurai - T3 monk upgrade. 3 weapon stances - Glaive, 2weapon, and Bow. Great damage, good durability, great versitility.

Ninja - exactly what it says on the tin. Smoke bombs, enhanced sneak, high crit-rate attacks.

Dervish - T3 - trades point-attack power for lots and lots of attacks. Such attacks do things like trigger weapon-based enchantments, crits, and poison more often.

Combat Engineer- builds and uses traps, bombs, guns, and turrets in combat. Turrets will be modular - e.g. Turret base + Fire addon + sleep addonm etc.

Mech Pilot - pilots a battlemech. Gaslamp fantasy at its finest. Thinking elemental bombs/missiles/bullets.

[thobal]

So these mech pilots break into a magic laboratory guarded by samurai. To steal a magic formula or something. They get the codex or whatever and the samurai give chase. Demons are summoned by accident and the mech pilots and magic samurai have to team up and battle the demon hordes.

Wait, I've got it back to front.

It's like the Natural magic Mech Pilots are using their magic to take over this abandoned cathedral and the Divine magic Samurai have been dispatched to raid the site and retrieve some Arcane magic artifact or magic codex hidden in the catacombs beneath the cathedral. Of course, the artifact has summoned all sorts of horrid forces to it which inhabit the catacombs. So they go and find the artifact(maybe together or in competition) but of course, when they find the artifact it's demon forces have broken into a mine near the awesomest city in the world. So they fight their way(together now)through the back end of the demon army(harder baddies but tons of loot). Once they get to the sewers under the city, they help out some mutant freaks who live in the tunnels who are torn about which side to fight on, the demons or the city folk who made them freaks. Of course they team up with the good guys. When they get to the surface, horrid beasts control the city with possessed mecha general as the figure head. The people are getting eaten by tentacle monsters and used as slaves to construct some unholy device(nuclear reactor) and our heroes must do battle with the demons, half demon mecha pilots, weird living mecha(made out of demon) and creatures of pure energy that look like angels and have massive blast attacks(one of whom has been following the heroes and helping only to betray them(you think it's an angel from the divine magic, but it's just another demon(WHAT A TWIST!!!))). They wage an epic battle on the streets of the city  to save the world. The device is damaged and explodes, consuming the city in unholy fire. So they lead the freaks, city folks, and now half paralized but good again mecha general back to the cathedral(on the surface this time) where they live in harmony with nature.

tl;dr
Rivals team up to fight evil underground, mega battle once they reach surface, sad ending with silver lining.


Terms and Conditions reside with:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

As for the copy-write, I think a "(Based on a)Story By" credit is standard. As for fees it's usually a flat rate, but I'll be happy with 5% gross, while retaining all story and merchandise rights.

[Burnt Pies]

some very Final Fantasy terminology there, you'll need to change that.

Otherwise, how about a standard-ish rebellion type story?

The dictator has all the power (All of it!), and persecutes a minority/religion with all his might. There might be a good reason for this, there might not. You don't know until the end (Bonus Points: whether this persecution was justified is determined by your actions/what you discover during the game). One/a group of these people seeks shelter in your village, but they are pursued and found by agents of the Tyrant. One of the people they take is your friend, but beforehand you didn't know that he was of this minority/religion. You have a choice between believing the official line and helping the government by subduing these people, or deciding that friendship is more important, and rescuing the people, handing a beatdown to the evil government.

Technology such as the Mechs will have to be given/stolen from the government, as they have created all this to try to combat this perceived threat.

Maybe the persecuted people are nature magicians/druids?

[bowdown2q]

Oh my. Hm. First off, lemme just make something clear: I'm not looking for a whole storyline (Although I'd welcome anything you have) - I'm just looking for you guys to throw me some ideas/tropes/characters to stir my own creativity / give me some basis for recombination. I don't want a writer; just some ideas/plotpoints/etc. As I said, I'm no programmer, and I honestly doubt this thing will get any farther than my own D&D games.

The FF-terms are placeholders, until I can come up with better ones.
I don't really like the whole 'persecuting the druids' line... I feel like it's been just a little be too overdone.
City on fire is always fun... but I'm not sure how i feel about it.

thobal = forces have broken into a mine near the awesomest city in the world. creatures of pure energy (angels?)
-I'm really digging the mine under/near the Best City Ever, and I don't know about 'angels,' but pure energy things as intelligent enemies would be pretty sweet.

Burnt Pies = The dictator has all the power (All of it!).
-Always fun. I think a good Stalin-esqu Big Brother type would do very well here. Not necessarily outright evil/oppressive, just a dictator.

...Image for this city: deep-ass shaft in an old quarry. Central axle, ring layers, all metal and neon lights, like some kind of techno-fortress. Central Shaft is some kind of Unobtanium/Phelbotinum Reactor-thing...

[Rooster]

In the cold space of grimdark future there is only war!

It has worked out in the past, it might work now.
I mean. That's all you really need. Then hire some writers to write fluff for you, and then SHAZAM!
Millions of fans, and even more sold figurines!

[thobal]

Nah, you just think it's an angel cause it helps you with some mooks until you get to the big fight and you find out it's just stringing you along and there's a million of them. Or not, I dunno.

[Rube]

Some random interchangeable ideas off the top of my head, based on the four examples (magic, Samurai, demons, mechs) you gave;

*Magic is demonic, and empowered by demons (enslaved to fuel spells?).

*Mechs are powered by magic.

*Samurai are warrior-wizards who use magic to enhance their fighting abilities. Maybe their blades are made of pure magic, allowing only magic users to become Samurai?

*Magic is destructive toward everyone, target and user alike, and can only be safely handled by people wearing protective suits (mechs). Mechs shoot spells.

*Mechs cannot be built, they are relics from an ancient age. Perhaps mechs are the demons that legends speak of?

*Demons are the eventual form of anyone who wields enough magical power/stays inside a mech too long/whatever.

*You have to sell your soul to use magic at all, becoming a demon.

*Demons have come to destroy humans for their misuse/overuse of magic. Perhaps ambiguity regarding whether the demons are wrong or not?

[Zangi]

Here is my take on it:

Spoiler: Setting (click to show/hide)

1 world.
4 different continents/societies separated by dangerous oceans/terrain. (Little reason to interact cause of dangers.)

Society 1: Low/No Magic - Techs * Mechs
Society 2: Medium Magic - Samurai/Wilds
Society 3: High Magic - Magery
Society 4: Demons, they have super metals.  They don't want to share.

Random Tidbits
Samurai/Wilds occasionally trades with both the Techs & Mechs and Magery
No - little contact with Techs & Mechs and Magery
Magery and Demons constantly at war.
Magery is highly religious.
Magery enslaves Demons?
Some demons corrupt everyone else and make em Thralls?

Dorfs are slaves nearly everywhere.  Dorf uprising happens, demolishing nations and kingdoms, generally being jerks about it and killing everyone else...
Tunnels and stuff were built into the dangerous areas by the Dorfs during the uprising, safe havens and what-not.  Later on, expanded to connect the different worlds/societies together.  The world was never the same and many Dorfs still hate everyone else. 

Fast Forward a few centuries...

Anarchist Dorfs make it a point to gather and destroy nations and kingdoms that get too strong, its now become tradition or something for them... every 10-50 years, they gather and burn a nation to the ground.  They are the horde.  No nation or kingdom has withstood their might yet...

Wild West like setting now.   Many places are lawless, in the wake of the Dorfen horde.
Though, there are some places that do have law, one way or another.

From there... you can go some different routes in the story...  Nation building...  fighting the Dorfen horde... toppling stuff...  whatever.


Add in a precious metal:  Super effective armor, energy and magic conductor...  Everyone wants it. 

Who knows where to find it and dig it out?

[Eugenitor]

Focus on making the mechanics work.

I have a whole system of characters begging for a Disgaea treatment, but lemme tell you a secret of game development: mechanics before plot. A game with an involved plot but no mechanics won't get played. A game with superb mechanics and a thin/jokey plot becomes a masterpiece.

Big example: Mario's mustache. They put a mustache on him BECAUSE THEY COULDN'T FIT A NOSE. Make your characters' abilities stem from what you can do in the game, not the other way around.

[bowdown2q]

oh Italian Plumbers. 

Well, it's not that I dont have mechanics, per sey, just that I'm still missing some abilities for the higher-level classes.
As of now, I'm looking for some ideas for, say, places, important characters, etc. from which I can springboard some other ideas.

[Korbac]

Carnfach the Arch Paladin of (Insert Generic Holy God Here)

He is a Paladin, and he takes no bull. He nominally serves the King, but the King makes no attempt to control him and he is mainly left to his own devices. He spends all of his time kicking unbeliever ass. If you anger the Church to much, he will whoop your ass. He can heal himself, summon a divine shield cutting your normal damage about ~80% for a few turns, smite you with unavoidable holy power, and of course, whack you incredibly hard with his big sword. When he dies, he turns into a wierd wraith type thing (shock horror!) that can drain your life, curse you (causing you to die on the spot occasionally) summon black bolts of lightning, etc. In this form he is incredibly hard to kill with weapons other than of the holy type.

...Sorry, just had to put it out there. 

[qwertyuiopas]

Hmm...

Well, you need some excuse to make combat common, and at least occasionally involve fighting people who would otherwise be allies (Tournaments and other competetions are common). If "dead" characters come back after a battle, an excuse must exist for it, and that excuse will be a key element in the plot or backstory (FFTA: Judges. Massive element to the game, not just an excuse that is just used to let you keep your characters), and whatever it is should be fully exploited by the population. If any harm done to certain people is healed at exactly midnight, every night, even death, you can expect at least one corrupt ruler to use prisoners with that as a source of endless meat for their vicious war-dogs. Perhaps there is an agreement between races that they only fight to the point of unconciousness, never inflicting permanent injury that cannot be healed? Well, some opponents won't respect such a truce...

Now, assuming that that is done, what about locations? Each city should be unique, and easily remembered, with it's own quirks and puns. You might not recall it by name, but if there is a fool occasionally leaping in over a low wall and stumbling over his own feet while you are there, then you will probably remember that location, at least enough to recall having visited there before. Other characters would generally treat it as commonplace. A character from a city powered by thousands of windmills mounted on every available surface will be fairly surprised when they first see a city with _none_.

As for plot, one civilization/city/country/government should be evidently corrupt and/or evil, and they are either a primary opponent or a grudging ally against a greater evil.

There must be at least one volcano lair/city/hidden residence, just because many people will consider it awesome. Good place for metalcrafters.
<Tangent: Metalcrafter volcano city>
Consider the possibility of a city that specializes in working with metal. Now consider if, where normal cities have sewers, they have a magma distribution system. Want magma? Talk to the city, and they'll run a pipe off of the main network for you. Now, don't forget to pay your bills, those pipes canbe veeery dangerous if they crack and/or break...
Also a very good place for excessively steam-themed construction. Magma and steampunk... LoHaC? (See MSPA: Dave).
Rather than a mechanically inclined, grungy, stereotypically dwarven city, how about a different view of it?
Imagine vast inverted cones of magma, slowly spiraling (texture-wise) up to the roof or wherever, with platforms hovering around them at fairly random points, makikng up a city. The closest buildings would be mages' homes and dedicated constructions, with them using the magma as a source of power, while further away the less magically-oriented people and buildings are located. Transportation is either large rocks, floating together to make pathways, or slabs that move between locations, like miniature automated ferries, except floating on air, and capable of mving in three dimensions to get to the specified destination. For the slab-ferries, a large number of them would have dedicated distinations of only a few local "docks", like between someone's house and a nearby "street". Some people might have a personal slab, so there would be fairly comon points to leave your slab temporarily. A large public transportation network could be expected, with major hubs devoted entirely to transfers between routes. Fairly office humour-like comments about the 9:15 slab bein nearly 7 minutes late can be expected.

Augh, that was like a wiki-walk, only writing ideas...