Forums » Looking for RP » Dystopian Racing/Road trip-RP from A to B (closed)

Heavily inspired by "Need for Speed: The Run" with a bit Stephen King IN SPACE and a "little" twist to make it more interesting, I present to you:

Steel Lagoon: Road to Salvation

Steel Lagoon: A planet, rich of resources, at the most outer border of the pirate-controlled Star Ocean, once home to a mysterious civilization, until they were completely wiped out by pirates. As a revenge, they unleashed an ancient being, which covered the entire world in darkness, letting no light in, twisting the landscapes and leaving areas where the laws of nature doesn't seem to apply anymore. But fortunately, one brave soldier set out to end this madness once and for all and succeeded: The sunlight returned.

Today, nearly 100 years after the conquest and colonization, it's the main exporter of steelware to the planets in the inner Star Ocean - and a prisoner world, where the pirates send convicts and prisoners of war to do strenuous, dangerous work at the factories with no healthcare and insurances at all with no point of return to produce everything they need: From simple cutlery, over cars to weapons.
But once a year, the government led by AI-controlled vehicles, stage the "Road to Salvation"-championship, where eight contestants from the general populace try their luck in a dangerous race to win their freedom, named after the location where the hero of Steel Lagoon managed to defeat the demon: Jack's Salvation.

But hostile wildlife, treacherous environment and other drivers are not the only dangers one contestant has to face: There are rumours that there's something lurking in the dark, especially when the sun goes down and more reports about strange occurrences are heard...

Join either as racers trying to get to their destination first in one piece or soldiers, making sure the event goes smooth and fighting monsters along the way.

Or play as the ancient being, always waiting in darkness to pounce at the others, turning nature against them and torment your victims with psychological warfare. Leave no one alive.

It's intended to be played in rounds with the racers competing against the demon-player, while the former are allowed (and encouraged) to fight each other. A round begins with the start of a race and ends either with the death of all contestants (Demon wins) or if at least one driver survives to the end (Racers win). The soldiers themselves are the neutral party, but the demon-player can target them too to make things additionally harder for the racers.

That said: Expect your characters to die.

Once this idea attracts enough people, I'll add the rest, like the map with its routes, cars and general rules for each group in a separate discussion-thread.

Playable characters:
-Anthropomorphic characters (They are the most prominently in the source material)
-Humans (Very rare, but possible)
-(Weak) Magic is allowed, but extremely rare and whatever you do, don't use it to cheat - the soldiers will find out and the demon is too powerful to be affected by it

I'm definitely interested. I'd like to play as a human racer, who wastes lots of room in the car on cigarettes instead of supplies. Not sure if I need to tell some more details, but hopefully I can see this forum starting off in the near future.

I hope it too, but I'm actually worried if we will ever get the planned amount of people, as it is more of a special kind of RP. Sometimes I think about staging it as a more complex forum game with stats and sorts.

What do you think about using dice for every hindrance the demon-player throws at the drivers for determining their outcomes?

I think It's good, but maybe something like more unfair dice rolls if the challenge is harder? E: D10, crossing river. Roll 1-4, your car gets swept away. 5-10, you pass harm free. E: Moat of electric eels, D20. 1-5 You die, and your car remains in the moat forever. 6-10 You survive, but the car needs serious repairs. 10-15, minor damage to the car. 16-20 You escape harm free.

Outstanding idea!

But in that case, I think we should start out with only the drivers without the demon, while one player controls the soldiers as a NPC-faction to make it more lively. The route is pretty long (I already have a map and I imagine it to be a race "to the end of the world") and imagining that roughly half the playerfield could already die in the first area due to bad luck - be it either from obstacles like a river or other player's attacks -, additional difficulty from the demon-player might make it impossible to win for the drivers. The ancient being would then only serve as an additional danger in dark areas at first.

I would however add modifiers to the challenges, depending on the car a player drives. Something like this:

You drive through an unlit cave, the headlights doing their best to show you the unknown way, but only with a limited reach. Suddenly, large rocks appear in your cone of light. Roll 1d10 to:
-Evade (modifier: - speed)
-Brake (modifier: - weight)
-Smash right through them (modifier: + durability)


Further "stat checks" can occur depending on a player's action, like deciding to assault an opponent.

I would calculate damages according to the durability-stat of each car, which serves as a "defense"-stat, while also showing a vehicle's life points. But to make sure that you just won't yolo easily through each obstacle, you will always receive one point of damage. Otherwise heavy cars like pickups and trucks might be overpowered.

Between areas, I thought one can stop at outposts to modify their cars for upcoming areas, like "Install bullbars (+1 weight & durability, -2 speed)". Although not every modification is available for everyone.

I mean, if too many players reach the goal, we might still add the demon as an active antagonist later in the next round. Well, I guess it will need a few rounds anyway to properly balance it.

That's a great idea, more realistic too. But I have a question, will the NPC-faction be hostile, or something else? (Trading, buying certain things, etc.)

They would be neutral, as they have to provide cars, broadcast the race and make sure everything goes smooth. But they are required to shoot every driver who breaks the rules. Maybe even something like "Shoot the last player leaving an area" to increase the difficulty even further?

The more I work out the system, the more it actually turns into a more complex, turn-based Pen & Paper-forum game. I'm already trying to put a simplified (Just the drivers and the environments) version on another forum to at least test the car-balance.

I'm staging this "game" in another forum currently and I'm very impressed at how much work the players put in it! They are really telling a little story!

I can't wait to present the hopefully final version on this site once I completed a race with them!

Hey, is it possible for me to join in?

If you can speak German (It's a German forum), then no problem, come and join us!

The players are also very eager to point out flaws in the system and offer their own ideas for improvement.

I just hate it to disappoint them when they won't get the exotic cars they imagined.

Sorry for the necro, but after thinking it through again, I have a different idea.

As it will take a while before the game on the German forums will end and I'll be able to collect feedback, how about a much smaller and shorter version with closed race tracks through the different locations of Steel Lagoon, solely Just 4 Fun? That way, even those, who might not be able to play a single session from start to end (Mind you, it began on June and we are not even at halfway point of the race), want to test it first or are more interested in much quicker games, can join and have fun.

What do you think about that?