Roleplaying System

The goal of this system is to set up a framework for fun, engaging role play that allows for the maximum amount of engagement and fairness over a large community.

The GM's Role
I see the GM's role in this game as to push players towards conflicts and situations that challenge what's important to them. The GM's role is to represent the surrounding world of the game, and RP NPC's and their reactions to player's actions. The GM's role is not to set out a formal plot structure, where the player is expected to do A to accomplish B or bring about outcome C. Instead, the GM is expected to play the situation, and to adapt as the players interact with the world around them.

The Scene
The Scene is the basic unit of this game. It is, at it's core, a structured interaction between any characters involved in the game (including NPC's controlled by the GM). In this game, I use google documents (abbreviated as gdocs) to run scenes, though you shouldn't feel limited to just that in your interactions with other characters. If you want to chat in-character over AIM like it's 1996, I ain't gonna harsh your buzz. Do what you like.

But! When I'm running a scene, I have a few simple guidelines:
 * 1) Let everyone have their turn (as much as possible). This means that if there are 2 or more players in a scene I'm running, and one player hasn't contributed for a few lines, I'll try to pause, check in, and give them a chance to contribute. It can be easy to get impatient, especially when things are asynchronous (meaning not everyone's on the doc at the same time), but take a deep breath. We'll get through this.
 * 2) "Tag" the end of your lines. When you finish writing what you want to write in a doc, put a little (tag!) on the next line to let everyone know you're done and they can keep going. One strategy I'm fond of is getting the first draft of what I want to say down, putting down a (tag!), and then going back and maybe tweaking the exact structure or grammar if I'm not satisfied with it.
 * 3) "Tag" in the slack chat! This applies more to asynch, but is a good idea regardless. If you noticed the other person hasn't seen your tag, it doesn't hurt to DM them a quick "tag!" message. I usually open up a private channel in slack for this sort of thing when there's multiple players in a given scene.
 * 4) In a multi-person scene, put the name of your character up-top, change the font to any easy-on-the-eyes color, and then write in that text. It helps break out who-said-what, which can get confusing in a multi-player doc.

The Action
OK, this is going to get a little pedantic, but stick with me here. All actions are scenes, not all scenes are actions. Two PC's chatting it up? Scene, not an action. A bit of light fluff between an NPC and a PC? Scene, not an action.

An action is when you are actively hoping to accomplish 'something' as your character. I, as the GM, will be trying to bring your character into conflicts and situations that challenge what's important to them. The stakes are higher. That's what makes an action.

Each week (we'll get to those in a moment), each player gets one action. Now, you could have multiple characters taking part in-game, but you as the player will only have one action. THis is to keep things fair and to keep any one player from dominating the game with an army of alts.

When a player decides which action they'd like to take, they can let me know, preferably via the slack, but DM's or any other way you want to get in touch also works. I don't have to be online / present for you to send me your action. You can always DM it to me at 3am and I'll read it when I wake up. Your action should be something that could, conceivably, put you into an interesting situation. If it's something rather mundane, the fantasy equivalent of "I pick up my groceries," than that doesn't need to be an action. Just build it into another action, ie "I pick up my groceries and then go attack the ninja fortress."

Next, I'll spin up a scene in a gdoc, send you the link, and we'll play it out! At the end of a scene, I might ask you to write a quick, one-line summary of what you think happen. This is just so that we're on the same page as to what was accomplished, what was challenged, and what the outcome was. After all, it's your story, and I want to make sure I tell it right!

The Week
When is a week not a week? Well, when you're roleplaying, of course! A week roughly stands in for a week of time in-game. Or, an amount of time that is long enough for something interesting to happen but not so long that a whole slew of interesting things could happen. Now, in the real world, how does this week work?

Usually, I'll open a week with a quick update on what happened "last week" in game, and then ask people to submit their actions. Over a course of real-world time, I'll work through people's scenes with them. A week might take a real week! Or it might take two! Hopefully, it won't take a whole month, unless things get really interesting.

At a certain point, I might put up a "last call", meaning that past that deadline, no new actions will be accepted for the current week. I will then try to wrap up any outstanding actions and move the game forward to a new week.

Situations
The Free Cities is not plot-driven in the sense that I will not set up a grand, overarching scheme that I expect my players to run through and engage with. There won't be some grand mystery, or an ultimate evil to defeat, or a big-bad-guy to beat the snot out of. Instead, I will set up interesting situations. Powderkegs, all over the city that might go off at any moment! One house is mad at another house. A council seat goes empty. Strange disappearances in the night. These are are all situations that players can interact with. I don't determine what happens, you do. I don't have a plan, or branching path to try and lead you all towards a singular destination.

And heck, if you don't like the situations I set up, you're more than welcome to loop in your own! Maybe you'll decide your character wants to go meet up with an old friend, or maybe you're still sore over some scar from the duelling club. I will always be up for exploring your character's own stories.

However, this is a collaborative game, and I will try to bend things in the setting so that players gravitate towards interacting with each other. One of the main ways to do this is by addressing the same situations, so as to give you and your fellow players something to discuss, fight over, and negotiate with. To that end, your personal situation may wind up drawn into a larger situation, or it might turn out that other players have an interest in what you're doing, or maybe you'll just bonk into other players when you're roaming the streets, handling your own business.

Seasons
Once I feel like the game world has changed significantly, I will announce a new "Season". At this point, I'll consider how things played out, shake up some existing situations, maybe introduce a few more, and start a new "Season." One thing I want to avoid is this game falling into staleness and power-creep. I don't necessarily want my oldest players and their houses to dominate the game.

So! As your power increases, so will the risks. Events between seasons might force powerful families to contend with hostile situations, or even just shunt them into a lower status due to events beyond their control. I won't do this to be mean or "play favorites", but rather to keep the game interesting. I will try and discuss such events with the players affected and negotiate away from anything that would make the game "un-fun," but I again, reserve the right to make this game fun for as many people as possible.