P2TM Community Discussion Thread: I

[Beutarch]

It's 1935, and interwar Europe enters its twilight.

A very promising concept.

I would also be interested to see your earlier idea, the one inspired by the Czechoslovak Legion, come to fruition. Whichever direction you choose to go, I will be excited to see it.

[Great Confederacy of Commonwealth States]

My schedule seems to be stabilizing somewhat, and I've been rereading some Eric Ambler classics, so I thought I might try my hand at some noir again.

It's 1935, and interwar Europe enters its twilight. In that twilight, shadows lengthen, and they conceal a myriad of plots: Stalin's NKVD agents hunt Trotskyite revolutionaries, who cooperate with Macedonian nationalists to sell heroin to fund their operations. Greek revanchists scheme to assassinate Turkish politicians with the help of British spymasters. Corsican gangsters and White Russian emigres smuggle Gestapo guns to Falangist underground militias. In every country on the continent, coups are plotted, and paramilitaries do battle in the streets, and revolution approaches the boiling point.

Your characters, in true noir fashion, probably don't care about any of this. All that they have in common is that they happen to be regulars at a run-down bar in Sofia. Some of you may actually be Bulgarians: perhaps you are a Macedonian peasant who fled the ethnic conflict along the Yugoslav border, or a washed-up merchant seaman who got into trouble with the Ukrainian gangs on the Varna docks. But probably, you are a foreigner who found your way to one of Europe's ultimate backwaters. Maybe you're an old Menshevik or Trotskyite whose luck ran out in Russia five or ten or fifteen years ago. Or perhaps you are one of those penniless nobles, mostly Russian but often Polish too, spending the last of your inheritance on cut-rate vodka. Maybe you are an Italian professor, or a German journalist, who ran afoul of the new regimes and washed up in Sofia. Maybe you are a Hungarian war veteran who can't sleep at night for the thunder of the big guns in your head, or maybe you are just a British novelist drinking off a bad divorce where your ex-wife's lawyers can't find you. Maybe you are an Armenian prostitute who survived the genocide, and maybe you are an American jazz singer whose luck ran out and left her on the far side of the Earth. But one thing's for sure: life has dealt you a bad hand, and you could have played even those cards better than you did. Winners don't spend every night drowning their sorrows in a Sofia cabaret.

But something is about to happen in this bar: something shocking, something that implicates the interests of some of the most powerful men in Europe, something that must remain secret at all costs. Something that you have forfeited your lives just by witnessing. And now this unlikely, unwilling group of broken men and women will have to vanish into the shadows of Europe, one step ahead of an army of spies and gangsters, trying to unravel a conspiracy that spans borders and ideologies and that stretches from Salonika warehouses to Zurich bank-vaults to Madrid tabernas, and that could alter the balance of power in a continent on the brink of cataclysm.

So let me know if you have a mind to break out your trenchcoats and fedoras, to chain-smoke and bitterly crack wise, to flee the Gestapo across the rooftops of Prague, or to play cat-and-mouse with a Rumanian mob boss's beautiful wife. Depending on interest, I'd be glad to start work on an OOC.

Very interesting, of course! Already thinking of a few character concepts.

[Rudaslavia]

My schedule seems to be stabilizing somewhat, and I've been rereading some Eric Ambler classics, so I thought I might try my hand at some noir again.

It's 1935, and interwar Europe enters its twilight. In that twilight, shadows lengthen, and they conceal a myriad of plots: Stalin's NKVD agents hunt Trotskyite revolutionaries, who cooperate with Macedonian nationalists to sell heroin to fund their operations. Greek revanchists scheme to assassinate Turkish politicians with the help of British spymasters. Corsican gangsters and White Russian emigres smuggle Gestapo guns to Falangist underground militias. In every country on the continent, coups are plotted, and paramilitaries do battle in the streets, and revolution approaches the boiling point.

Your characters, in true noir fashion, probably don't care about any of this. All that they have in common is that they happen to be regulars at a run-down bar in Sofia. Some of you may actually be Bulgarians: perhaps you are a Macedonian peasant who fled the ethnic conflict along the Yugoslav border, or a washed-up merchant seaman who got into trouble with the Ukrainian gangs on the Varna docks. But probably, you are a foreigner who found your way to one of Europe's ultimate backwaters. Maybe you're an old Menshevik or Trotskyite whose luck ran out in Russia five or ten or fifteen years ago. Or perhaps you are one of those penniless nobles, mostly Russian but often Polish too, spending the last of your inheritance on cut-rate vodka. Maybe you are an Italian professor, or a German journalist, who ran afoul of the new regimes and washed up in Sofia. Maybe you are a Hungarian war veteran who can't sleep at night for the thunder of the big guns in your head, or maybe you are just a British novelist drinking off a bad divorce where your ex-wife's lawyers can't find you. Maybe you are an Armenian prostitute who survived the genocide, and maybe you are an American jazz singer whose luck ran out and left her on the far side of the Earth. But one thing's for sure: life has dealt you a bad hand, and you could have played even those cards better than you did. Winners don't spend every night drowning their sorrows in a Sofia cabaret.

But something is about to happen in this bar: something shocking, something that implicates the interests of some of the most powerful men in Europe, something that must remain secret at all costs. Something that you have forfeited your lives just by witnessing. And now this unlikely, unwilling group of broken men and women will have to vanish into the shadows of Europe, one step ahead of an army of spies and gangsters, trying to unravel a conspiracy that spans borders and ideologies and that stretches from Salonika warehouses to Zurich bank-vaults to Madrid tabernas, and that could alter the balance of power in a continent on the brink of cataclysm.

So let me know if you have a mind to break out your trenchcoats and fedoras, to chain-smoke and bitterly crack wise, to flee the Gestapo across the rooftops of Prague, or to play cat-and-mouse with a Rumanian mob boss's beautiful wife. Depending on interest, I'd be glad to start work on an OOC.

I already have a whole bio written for a character I was going to use several years ago in an RP that never launched. He'd fit into this story idea perfectly. I'm so down for this.

[Rudaslavia]

I'm surprised we haven't seen more Ruritanian romance inspired RP's over the years. A political thriller centered on a dynastic struggle in 19th century Europe would be pretty sweet.

[Theyra]

Just curious, and I can do another rp. How does a post-apocalyptic rp set in china sound? Like a rp where players are apart of an expedition or group sent from a resurgent Republic of China based in Taiwan to explore the mainland and investigate strange reports they are receiving from the mainland. While also secretly scouting out the mainland for possible allies, enemies, and resources for a eventual invasion of the mainland. Though I might need some help with it since my knowledge of China is limited. So any takers?

[Western Fardelshufflestein]

My schedule seems to be stabilizing somewhat, and I've been rereading some Eric Ambler classics, so I thought I might try my hand at some noir again.

It's 1935, and interwar Europe enters its twilight. In that twilight, shadows lengthen, and they conceal a myriad of plots: Stalin's NKVD agents hunt Trotskyite revolutionaries, who cooperate with Macedonian nationalists to sell heroin to fund their operations. Greek revanchists scheme to assassinate Turkish politicians with the help of British spymasters. Corsican gangsters and White Russian emigres smuggle Gestapo guns to Falangist underground militias. In every country on the continent, coups are plotted, and paramilitaries do battle in the streets, and revolution approaches the boiling point.

Your characters, in true noir fashion, probably don't care about any of this. All that they have in common is that they happen to be regulars at a run-down bar in Sofia. Some of you may actually be Bulgarians: perhaps you are a Macedonian peasant who fled the ethnic conflict along the Yugoslav border, or a washed-up merchant seaman who got into trouble with the Ukrainian gangs on the Varna docks. But probably, you are a foreigner who found your way to one of Europe's ultimate backwaters. Maybe you're an old Menshevik or Trotskyite whose luck ran out in Russia five or ten or fifteen years ago. Or perhaps you are one of those penniless nobles, mostly Russian but often Polish too, spending the last of your inheritance on cut-rate vodka. Maybe you are an Italian professor, or a German journalist, who ran afoul of the new regimes and washed up in Sofia. Maybe you are a Hungarian war veteran who can't sleep at night for the thunder of the big guns in your head, or maybe you are just a British novelist drinking off a bad divorce where your ex-wife's lawyers can't find you. Maybe you are an Armenian prostitute who survived the genocide, and maybe you are an American jazz singer whose luck ran out and left her on the far side of the Earth. But one thing's for sure: life has dealt you a bad hand, and you could have played even those cards better than you did. Winners don't spend every night drowning their sorrows in a Sofia cabaret.

But something is about to happen in this bar: something shocking, something that implicates the interests of some of the most powerful men in Europe, something that must remain secret at all costs. Something that you have forfeited your lives just by witnessing. And now this unlikely, unwilling group of broken men and women will have to vanish into the shadows of Europe, one step ahead of an army of spies and gangsters, trying to unravel a conspiracy that spans borders and ideologies and that stretches from Salonika warehouses to Zurich bank-vaults to Madrid tabernas, and that could alter the balance of power in a continent on the brink of cataclysm.

So let me know if you have a mind to break out your trenchcoats and fedoras, to chain-smoke and bitterly crack wise, to flee the Gestapo across the rooftops of Prague, or to play cat-and-mouse with a Rumanian mob boss's beautiful wife. Depending on interest, I'd be glad to start work on an OOC.

This sounds pretty cool! If I have the time, I'd love to join. Your character concepts are great templates; I'd have to do a bit of research in coming up with a unique character, but it sounds like the type of research I'd thoroughly enjoy.

[Khasinkonia]

My schedule seems to be stabilizing somewhat, and I've been rereading some Eric Ambler classics, so I thought I might try my hand at some noir again.

It's 1935, and interwar Europe enters its twilight. In that twilight, shadows lengthen, and they conceal a myriad of plots: Stalin's NKVD agents hunt Trotskyite revolutionaries, who cooperate with Macedonian nationalists to sell heroin to fund their operations. Greek revanchists scheme to assassinate Turkish politicians with the help of British spymasters. Corsican gangsters and White Russian emigres smuggle Gestapo guns to Falangist underground militias. In every country on the continent, coups are plotted, and paramilitaries do battle in the streets, and revolution approaches the boiling point.

Your characters, in true noir fashion, probably don't care about any of this. All that they have in common is that they happen to be regulars at a run-down bar in Sofia. Some of you may actually be Bulgarians: perhaps you are a Macedonian peasant who fled the ethnic conflict along the Yugoslav border, or a washed-up merchant seaman who got into trouble with the Ukrainian gangs on the Varna docks. But probably, you are a foreigner who found your way to one of Europe's ultimate backwaters. Maybe you're an old Menshevik or Trotskyite whose luck ran out in Russia five or ten or fifteen years ago. Or perhaps you are one of those penniless nobles, mostly Russian but often Polish too, spending the last of your inheritance on cut-rate vodka. Maybe you are an Italian professor, or a German journalist, who ran afoul of the new regimes and washed up in Sofia. Maybe you are a Hungarian war veteran who can't sleep at night for the thunder of the big guns in your head, or maybe you are just a British novelist drinking off a bad divorce where your ex-wife's lawyers can't find you. Maybe you are an Armenian prostitute who survived the genocide, and maybe you are an American jazz singer whose luck ran out and left her on the far side of the Earth. But one thing's for sure: life has dealt you a bad hand, and you could have played even those cards better than you did. Winners don't spend every night drowning their sorrows in a Sofia cabaret.

But something is about to happen in this bar: something shocking, something that implicates the interests of some of the most powerful men in Europe, something that must remain secret at all costs. Something that you have forfeited your lives just by witnessing. And now this unlikely, unwilling group of broken men and women will have to vanish into the shadows of Europe, one step ahead of an army of spies and gangsters, trying to unravel a conspiracy that spans borders and ideologies and that stretches from Salonika warehouses to Zurich bank-vaults to Madrid tabernas, and that could alter the balance of power in a continent on the brink of cataclysm.

So let me know if you have a mind to break out your trenchcoats and fedoras, to chain-smoke and bitterly crack wise, to flee the Gestapo across the rooftops of Prague, or to play cat-and-mouse with a Rumanian mob boss's beautiful wife. Depending on interest, I'd be glad to start work on an OOC.

Health willing, I think I’d be very much interested. I have a few ideas that might work, but I certainly will have a few more bouncing around in my head once/if this materializes. Perhaps I’ll even narrow them down! This time period and such a place certainly offer a wealth of opportunities for some interesting stories.

[Rudaslavia]

Yeah, the release of Amsterdam has me really pining for some noir.

[Rostavykhan]

How do people decide on specific ideas or conflicts for an RP setting? Worldbuilding? Themes? Aesthetics? I've been trying on-and-off to do something for a few months, and I swear I keep hitting a wall the moment I actually sit down to start writing.

I'm starting to go full schizo and scribble a Pepe-Silvia-esque doodle collage on paper now. Have a dark fantasy setting that I would love to develop, but I have both an overabundance of ideas, and no idea how to flesh them all out. I've been throwing myself head-first at the damned thing since August and I'm still stuck at square one.

[Constaniana]

How do people decide on specific ideas or conflicts for an RP setting? Worldbuilding? Themes? Aesthetics? I've been trying on-and-off to do something for a few months, and I swear I keep hitting a wall the moment I actually sit down to start writing.

I'm starting to go full schizo and scribble a Pepe-Silvia-esque doodle collage on paper now. Have a dark fantasy setting that I would love to develop, but I have both an overabundance of ideas, and no idea how to flesh them all out. I've been throwing myself head-first at the damned thing since August and I'm still stuck at square one.

I can relate. I've had my RP for over 9 years and getting worldbuilding I have in my head down onto paper/NS is still tricky. Sometimes if I've been stuck on some aspect for a while I'll switch gears entirely, start writing ideas for other aspects that suddenly sprout in my imagination before they congeal like the older ones, which in turn maybe gives those older ideas a chance to rest from me picking away at them for ages.

Sometimes a nice long walk will give me random inspiration on some worldbuilding questio I've been struggling with for a while, too. Go into the mountains and stare at the trees until it all clicks haha.

[West Bromwich Holme]

I've had writer's block trying to come up with an AH storyline, set in 1994, in the US currently - it's set in Los Angeles, but would this be a difficult one for a realistic RP?

It's a fairly realistic RP, and set group of characters, and if anything, is a bit minimalist in terms of cast - only 8 characters have speaking roles (not counting the cat's meowing every so often).

[Northern Socialist Council Republics]

I now have an acquaintance with a subscription to one of those AI art things and thus have access to a bottomless pool of anime-style art to draw on for my original characters in future roleplays.

Truly the progress of humanity is breathtaking in its celerity.

[Cheries]

I started writing worldbuilding for a (possibly upcoming) fantasy RP way back in March of 2020 in hopes of using it for a D&D game, but it never went to use. I've got pretty much all of my lore down (see puppet here if you want to see some), though I'm still in the process of rewriting and reformatting it for NS. While I'm pretty solid on my lore, my planning for introducing the setting may not transfer well from D&D style RP to P2TM style RP. My original introduction saw all the characters all waking up in a single location. However, from what I've seen of the RPs here, the standard on P2TM has the players picking where their character starts on the map, and has multiple adventures in the same setting, each with only a few characters. Should I keep my original plans, or scrap/rework them for a more flexible starting situation?

[Zarkenis Ultima]

I started writing worldbuilding for a (possibly upcoming) fantasy RP way back in March of 2020 in hopes of using it for a D&D game, but it never went to use. I've got pretty much all of my lore down (see puppet here if you want to see some), though I'm still in the process of rewriting and reformatting it for NS. While I'm pretty solid on my lore, my planning for introducing the setting may not transfer well from D&D style RP to P2TM style RP. My original introduction saw all the characters all waking up in a single location. However, from what I've seen of the RPs here, the standard on P2TM has the players picking where their character starts on the map, and has multiple adventures in the same setting, each with only a few characters. Should I keep my original plans, or scrap/rework them for a more flexible starting situation?

I think your original plan should be just fine. There's some RPs that are more sandbox in style, but there's also plenty of more plot-centered ones that work just as well.

[Constaniana]

I now have an acquaintance with a subscription to one of those AI art things and thus have access to a bottomless pool of anime-style art to draw on for my original characters in future roleplays.

Truly the progress of humanity is breathtaking in its celerity.

Indeed. I saw Harkback Union was using something similar on their recent RP to make art deco portraits. Next time I want an appearance for an NPC I might try using one of those rather than sifting through anime imageboards.

I started writing worldbuilding for a (possibly upcoming) fantasy RP way back in March of 2020 in hopes of using it for a D&D game, but it never went to use. I've got pretty much all of my lore down (see puppet here if you want to see some), though I'm still in the process of rewriting and reformatting it for NS. While I'm pretty solid on my lore, my planning for introducing the setting may not transfer well from D&D style RP to P2TM style RP. My original introduction saw all the characters all waking up in a single location. However, from what I've seen of the RPs here, the standard on P2TM has the players picking where their character starts on the map, and has multiple adventures in the same setting, each with only a few characters. Should I keep my original plans, or scrap/rework them for a more flexible starting situation?

I think your original plan should be just fine. There's some RPs that are more sandbox in style, but there's also plenty of more plot-centered ones that work just as well.

Agreed. If you've been writing it for that long and the plot is relying on having everyone's characters start in the same place then you can transfer that to this forum.

[North Macaronesa]

I now have an acquaintance with a subscription to one of those AI art things and thus have access to a bottomless pool of anime-style art to draw on for my original characters in future roleplays.

Truly the progress of humanity is breathtaking in its celerity.

Indeed. I saw Harkback Union was using something similar on their recent RP to make art deco portraits. Next time I want an appearance for an NPC I might try using one of those rather than sifting through anime imageboards.

Do you know how Harkback Union keeps it consistent though? When I try to make it using AI-generated art, it keeps changing the design, as if different authors were making it.

[Constaniana]

Indeed. I saw Harkback Union was using something similar on their recent RP to make art deco portraits. Next time I want an appearance for an NPC I might try using one of those rather than sifting through anime imageboards.

Do you know how Harkback Union keeps it consistent though? When I try to make it using AI-generated art, it keeps changing the design, as if different authors were making it.

I'm not sure what specific programme Harkback uses. Maybe it comes down to sources the different art generator systems use to "learn" how to draw (If someone here actually knows how this sort of thing works feel free to give a proper explanation), or very specific wording in the prompts.

[West Bromwich Holme]

I've got a new RP planned called "City Living" where it's set in a more dystopian Amsterdam and everyone's an expat, unaware that there's a shadowy force trying to get rid of this group of friends one by one.

Alt-timeline, 2000s, possibly?

How would this work out as a self-contained RP?

[Great Confederacy of Commonwealth States]

I've got a new RP planned called "City Living" where it's set in a more dystopian Amsterdam and everyone's an expat, unaware that there's a shadowy force trying to get rid of this group of friends one by one.

Alt-timeline, 2000s, possibly?

How would this work out as a self-contained RP?

Ohhhh that sounds nice. Do you need help with the setting or Dutch alt-history?

[Ovstylap]

My schedule seems to be stabilizing somewhat, and I've been rereading some Eric Ambler classics, so I thought I might try my hand at some noir again.

It's 1935, and interwar Europe enters its twilight. In that twilight, shadows lengthen, and they conceal a myriad of plots: Stalin's NKVD agents hunt Trotskyite revolutionaries, who cooperate with Macedonian nationalists to sell heroin to fund their operations. Greek revanchists scheme to assassinate Turkish politicians with the help of British spymasters. Corsican gangsters and White Russian emigres smuggle Gestapo guns to Falangist underground militias. In every country on the continent, coups are plotted, and paramilitaries do battle in the streets, and revolution approaches the boiling point.

Your characters, in true noir fashion, probably don't care about any of this. All that they have in common is that they happen to be regulars at a run-down bar in Sofia. Some of you may actually be Bulgarians: perhaps you are a Macedonian peasant who fled the ethnic conflict along the Yugoslav border, or a washed-up merchant seaman who got into trouble with the Ukrainian gangs on the Varna docks. But probably, you are a foreigner who found your way to one of Europe's ultimate backwaters. Maybe you're an old Menshevik or Trotskyite whose luck ran out in Russia five or ten or fifteen years ago. Or perhaps you are one of those penniless nobles, mostly Russian but often Polish too, spending the last of your inheritance on cut-rate vodka. Maybe you are an Italian professor, or a German journalist, who ran afoul of the new regimes and washed up in Sofia. Maybe you are a Hungarian war veteran who can't sleep at night for the thunder of the big guns in your head, or maybe you are just a British novelist drinking off a bad divorce where your ex-wife's lawyers can't find you. Maybe you are an Armenian prostitute who survived the genocide, and maybe you are an American jazz singer whose luck ran out and left her on the far side of the Earth. But one thing's for sure: life has dealt you a bad hand, and you could have played even those cards better than you did. Winners don't spend every night drowning their sorrows in a Sofia cabaret.

But something is about to happen in this bar: something shocking, something that implicates the interests of some of the most powerful men in Europe, something that must remain secret at all costs. Something that you have forfeited your lives just by witnessing. And now this unlikely, unwilling group of broken men and women will have to vanish into the shadows of Europe, one step ahead of an army of spies and gangsters, trying to unravel a conspiracy that spans borders and ideologies and that stretches from Salonika warehouses to Zurich bank-vaults to Madrid tabernas, and that could alter the balance of power in a continent on the brink of cataclysm.

So let me know if you have a mind to break out your trenchcoats and fedoras, to chain-smoke and bitterly crack wise, to flee the Gestapo across the rooftops of Prague, or to play cat-and-mouse with a Rumanian mob boss's beautiful wife. Depending on interest, I'd be glad to start work on an OOC.

I would love something like this!

[Rudaslavia]

Any talented map makers up for a mini project? I'm looking to make a map of early 6th century Scandinavia for a Beowulf-based RP I've been cooking up for a couple years now. Essentially a map breaking down the various petty kingdoms of yore that I've decided to rope into the broader world of the RP. The RP itself will be set on the Danish isle of Zealand, where Hrothgar rules from the ancient settlement of Lejre. But relations between Zealand and the other kingdoms of the region -- Svealand, Funen, Västergeatland, Östergeatland, etc. -- will also be pivotal to the backstory.

I think a map would be super helpful. But I'm not good at that shite. I need assistance big time.

[Theyra]

Well not sure when I can do this, but I got an idea for a rp. A sci-fi spec ops rp but a different kind of one. Basically, one starts with the squad of spec ops is sent on a mission to a rouge research faculty and ends up recovering alien artifacts from the site, but either during the mission or a short time after during the jump back to base(Still thinking about it). The squad gets sent three hundred years in the future and realizes several things.

One that the United Earth Federation, the united human nation, is gone, and in its place are three successive governments, each claiming to be the rightful heir to the UEF. The Sol system is a no go zone since the reason for the United Earth Federation's collapse was that an alien force came into contact with humanity and despite the UEF's best efforts. The aliens laid waste to the UEF until there reached Earth during the climactic Battle for Earth. That was the last known sighting of the alien force, along with any contact with Earth and the Sol system. Ships have been sent to determine the status of Earth, but none have returned. That and new aliens races have encountered humanity, but unlike the first alien force. Are actually friendly, but the three human nations have mixed feelings about them due to the alien force earlier.

So the squad finds itself out of time and is forced to do merc work to survive and try to make sense of things. While the squad unknowingly finds itself in the middle of an alien prophecy(Might change that), and the future of both alien and human is at stake unless they act.

So that is my idea, and I might change some details. So people would be playing as the spec ops squad, and there would be a player limit. Like either four to eight. So this sounds appealing to anyone?

[Baigalia]

I have an idea for a roleplay, but it's not really a roleplay and more of a community project. Here we go...

The Backrooms, to me, is a very interesting concept. So my idea is, what if we made an entire project dedicated to making custom levels? Not the one-liners in Forum 7, but rather detailed accounts and pages about them? Is anybody interested in the idea?

[G-Tech Corporation]

I have an idea for a roleplay, but it's not really a roleplay and more of a community project. Here we go...

The Backrooms, to me, is a very interesting concept. So my idea is, what if we made an entire project dedicated to making custom levels? Not the one-liners in Forum 7, but rather detailed accounts and pages about them? Is anybody interested in the idea?

Hmm. Sounds like a good time. The idea would be to write up a setting for the Backrooms for a future RP? Or just an interesting time collaborating on the setting?

[Baigalia]

I have an idea for a roleplay, but it's not really a roleplay and more of a community project. Here we go...

The Backrooms, to me, is a very interesting concept. So my idea is, what if we made an entire project dedicated to making custom levels? Not the one-liners in Forum 7, but rather detailed accounts and pages about them? Is anybody interested in the idea?

Hmm. Sounds like a good time. The idea would be to write up a setting for the Backrooms for a future RP? Or just an interesting time collaborating on the setting?

The latter.