[PXFIRE] Roleplay Discussion

[Morzone]

So, Here's some thoughts/ideas I had after reading the new plot-idea.

The Schism should be shadow pokemon
Just an idea, Shadow pokemon are supposedly evil or at least artificially Bad pokemon. It gives a good premise as to how the dictator keeps in power, because instead Killing off people they don't like, they can turn them into shadow pokemon who a essentially brainwashed puppets. Plues helps that shadow moves (onle usable by shadow pokemon) are always super effective against non-shadow pokemon. Also their sheer numbers suppresses the idea of purifying the shadow pokemon, making any "white knight" pokemon look hopelessly outmatched and pathetic. Possibly the dictator himself is XD001, but I would lean more toward having them not be a legendary.

Limit Plate powers to contact
I wasn't entirely sure by how you described it, but to be safe I think the plate's powers (changing type/using any move of that type) should only be usable when a pokemon is holding/wearing the plate. The way you said the "type changing stays for as long as the older wants" I wasn't sure if this would also last After they put the plate down or some similar action of no longer directly holding it. From my prior experience, plate abilities are often OP, but I think the limitation of having to have it on your person would help limit these, since an enemy managing somehow to make you lose/drop the plate can become a major liability in a battle.

More on plates, (for details) would you still be able to use your original type moves? For instance if a typhlosion had a water plate and changed type, could they still use fire type moves while he is a water type via the plate? Or would it be a "They can change back and forth" kind of thing?

A plot line Idea
This is mostly the way I organized the various ideas together into a plot-line:

You are in the PMD world of (insert name here), ruled by a dictatorship of shadow pokemon called the Schism. Their rule is absolute, and to go against them is considered futile.

The dictator has recently announced a grand event Known as the Tempest festival. An olympic-like tournament of bloody to-the-death battles, High risk land,sea,and air racing, Extreme endurance challenges, and similar dark and deadly competitions. Of course, as it is hosted by the government, the tournament is mostly rigged to allow the dictator's personal representative athlete shadow pokemon to win. However that doesn't stop other pokemon, supported by secret under ground factions (the teams) to join in a rare chance for a sliver of hope to take down the schism.

What is this hope? The hope is the grand prize of the festival: The master plate. Recently uncovered in an ancient relic sight, the dictator wants to take the opportunity to remind those who think to oppose him that it is futile, as after one of his warriors wins the festival they will present it as a "gift" to the true master: the dictator.

the factions know two things: If the dictator controls the master plate he will be unstoppable. And second, if one their faction gets the master plate, they may have for the first time a real chance to take down the schism. Each faction has, over many years, managed to acquire a few of the other normal arceus plates, which allow the holder to change type and use any move of that type. However even with a few of these plates they don't have enough power to face the entirety of the Schism. And this lies in the fact that the Factions are separate and relatively distrusting of each other in these dark and dangerous times. Each is worried the other will become just another version of the schism, only trusting themselves to bring peace to the devastated land. If all factions had combined forces and their various plates, they could probably do it, but the Schism's ability to spread fear and distrust is great and keeps any resistance broken.

Now here's the plot twist: At first the festival goes off as normal. The rigged stuff rigs things in favor of the shadow schism warriors. Then, part way through the festival, the "unknown attacker" strikes and the master plate is stolen, leaving only a message to keep the festival going until a winner is decided. It's clear by the Dictator's reaction (lashing out violently at other competitors to kill them and starting a crazed, death filled man-hunt for the thief) that this wasn't a ploy by the dictator in case the shadow warriors didn't actually win. This leads to a horrible nightmare of a game where the factions must simultaneously attempt to find the plate first (something near impossible considering the schism searchers greatly outnumber them, and the faction has to stay undetected) while at the same time trying to win the festival.

The important thing, which stays secret to the players, is that the "unknown attacker" is in fact Arceus. Arceus had decided that the world had become too evil and was due for destruction, but with the recovery of the master plate Arceus decided to give one last chance. If one of the factions managed to beat the schism in the festival, proving themselves worthy, he would give them the master plate, as well as a way to purify Shadow pokemon, in order to defeat the schism.

While each faction/team has plates, I don't think its necessary to make sure All the different plates are given out. Preferably each team would only have 2-3, but to keep it fair it might be better to have each entrant have their own plate.

So... what do you guys think?

[Soups]

So, Here's some thoughts/ideas I had after reading the new plot-idea.

The Schism should be shadow pokemon
Just an idea, Shadow pokemon are supposedly evil or at least artificially Bad pokemon. It gives a good premise as to how the dictator keeps in power, because instead Killing off people they don't like, they can turn them into shadow pokemon who a essentially brainwashed puppets. Plues helps that shadow moves (onle usable by shadow pokemon) are always super effective against non-shadow pokemon. Also their sheer numbers suppresses the idea of purifying the shadow pokemon, making any "white knight" pokemon look hopelessly outmatched and pathetic. Possibly the dictator himself is XD001, but I would lean more toward having them not be a legendary.

Limit Plate powers to contact
I wasn't entirely sure by how you described it, but to be safe I think the plate's powers (changing type/using any move of that type) should only be usable when a pokemon is holding/wearing the plate. The way you said the "type changing stays for as long as the older wants" I wasn't sure if this would also last After they put the plate down or some similar action of no longer directly holding it. From my prior experience, plate abilities are often OP, but I think the limitation of having to have it on your person would help limit these, since an enemy managing somehow to make you lose/drop the plate can become a major liability in a battle.

More on plates, (for details) would you still be able to use your original type moves? For instance if a typhlosion had a water plate and changed type, could they still use fire type moves while he is a water type via the plate? Or would it be a "They can change back and forth" kind of thing?

A plot line Idea
This is mostly the way I organized the various ideas together into a plot-line:

You are in the PMD world of (insert name here), ruled by a dictatorship of shadow pokemon called the Schism. Their rule is absolute, and to go against them is considered futile.

The dictator has recently announced a grand event Known as the Tempest festival. An olympic-like tournament of bloody to-the-death battles, High risk land,sea,and air racing, Extreme endurance challenges, and similar dark and deadly competitions. Of course, as it is hosted by the government, the tournament is mostly rigged to allow the dictator's personal representative athlete shadow pokemon to win. However that doesn't stop other pokemon, supported by secret under ground factions (the teams) to join in a rare chance for a sliver of hope to take down the schism.

What is this hope? The hope is the grand prize of the festival: The master plate. Recently uncovered in an ancient relic sight, the dictator wants to take the opportunity to remind those who think to oppose him that it is futile, as after one of his warriors wins the festival they will present it as a "gift" to the true master: the dictator.

the factions know two things: If the dictator controls the master plate he will be unstoppable. And second, if one their faction gets the master plate, they may have for the first time a real chance to take down the schism. Each faction has, over many years, managed to acquire a few of the other normal arceus plates, which allow the holder to change type and use any move of that type. However even with a few of these plates they don't have enough power to face the entirety of the Schism. And this lies in the fact that the Factions are separate and relatively distrusting of each other in these dark and dangerous times. Each is worried the other will become just another version of the schism, only trusting themselves to bring peace to the devastated land. If all factions had combined forces and their various plates, they could probably do it, but the Schism's ability to spread fear and distrust is great and keeps any resistance broken.

Now here's the plot twist: At first the festival goes off as normal. The rigged stuff rigs things in favor of the shadow schism warriors. Then, part way through the festival, the "unknown attacker" strikes and the master plate is stolen, leaving only a message to keep the festival going until a winner is decided. It's clear by the Dictator's reaction (lashing out violently at other competitors to kill them and starting a crazed, death filled man-hunt for the thief) that this wasn't a ploy by the dictator in case the shadow warriors didn't actually win. This leads to a horrible nightmare of a game where the factions must simultaneously attempt to find the plate first (something near impossible considering the schism searchers greatly outnumber them, and the faction has to stay undetected) while at the same time trying to win the festival.

The important thing, which stays secret to the players, is that the "unknown attacker" is in fact Arceus. Arceus had decided that the world had become too evil and was due for destruction, but with the recovery of the master plate Arceus decided to give one last chance. If one of the factions managed to beat the schism in the festival, proving themselves worthy, he would give them the master plate, as well as a way to purify Shadow pokemon, in order to defeat the schism.

While each faction/team has plates, I don't think its necessary to make sure All the different plates are given out. Preferably each team would only have 2-3, but to keep it fair it might be better to have each entrant have their own plate.

So... what do you guys think?

It's very Hunger Games... ish, which is cool and all because I actually enjoyed those movies.

If we ran with this idea, we'd obviously have our "good" teams and their motives would be clear: to rid of The Schism. However, what would be the motive for the "bad" teams we'd have? To rid of The Schism and have rule for themselves? I'm curious.

[Morzone]

It's very Hunger Games... ish, which is cool and all because I actually enjoyed those movies.

If we ran with this idea, we'd obviously have our "good" teams and their motives would be clear: to rid of The Schism. However, what would be the motive for the "bad" teams we'd have? To rid of The Schism and have rule for themselves? I'm curious.

I was going to leave that mainly up to the teams themselves. Hopefully emphasizing how, in this world, the only people you can trust are those in your own team/faction will be enough motive to keep teams from immediately banding together to fight the Schism. I guess selfish want for power is one way. Maybe a faction could betray the "good" and turn out the support the Schism. Maybe some actually want to see the world destroyed, Schism and good pokemon alike.

[Neo Emolga]

Everything definitely sounds great! Just a few things that I think might need a tweak:

I think the Plates should still only need to be touched once. Reason being that some Pokémon just don't have the hands to physically carry a Plate with them wherever they go. For example, an Electrode, a Dodrio, and a Serperior would be pretty out of luck. Also, a Plate, once retrieved, could be something the team could share rather than one player keeping it all to themselves. I would say if a Pokémon uses a Plate, they could still use all their original moves, but they just might not be as effective. Hence, that might be a reason why they might remove the effect. A Charizard that went water type might want to go back to normal if he came across a grass or electric type.

As for Arceus being the interceptor, I'm cool with that. I wouldn't actually make him blow up the world, though. It could just be a bluff to get others to take action. It might be a good plot point if the Master Plate falls into Schism's hands just for a short while before it gets stolen back. Also, I like the idea of Schism consisting of Shadow Pokémon. Heck, I'd be happy with the dictator being XD001 Shadow Lugia. That naturally seems to fit for the faction, and it would be a serious holy crap factor if he ever evolved, but I personally wouldn't have that happen.

I'm okay with dropping the genocide elements. We have a great plot and sweet subplots as is. What the teams decide to do is kind of up to them and what their teams goals are. Some teams may try to change the way of the world, though they would seem like the bad guys to a world of Pokémon who have always lived in a culture of violence and darkness. Others would simply want to be the new ruling regime. That depends and some of those goals could be conflicting.

[Morzone]

Well I doubt we'd get far enough into the roleplay to where he would actually destroy everything but... yeah. Also I kind of figured the "the schism turns other pokemon into shadow pokemon" would replace the genocide thing.

Just a few questions:

How are the plates going to be distributed? I mentioned in my idea that the teams already had a few (I'd limit it to 2 per team but 3 might work as well), at which point teams could request certain plates. Or are they sort of "discovered" as the roleplay goes on? My plot idea didn't really account for discovering the normal plates and assumed the teams would already have a few each.

So, last time in WAR II, there was a limit that you had to wait 48 hours between posting to make sure everyone got a chance to participate. Of course this was a pretty necessary factor, but would it be possible to shorten it slightly? Maybe 24 hours instead? It could help things get started quicker.

Are we going with that idea then? Just want to make sure.

I am HYPED! I wonder which character I should use... which one it is they are definitely going to be flying around in a plane.

[The Nonexistent Tazz]

I think that we shouldn't be openly stating our plot twists-especially if, you know, someone manages something very sneaky and suddenly Arceus attempts to steal a plate that isn't there at all, because now everyone knows that'll happen. WHEN may be the key difference, but it takes something out of it to know what's upcoming in advance anyways. The Judge is basically the GM and thus the plot twists shouldn't be predetermined for him/her.

We have the Tempest Festival as a good enough conflict; we should have the GM be able to decide what plot twists occur, and perhaps tie the other teams into things more-so than just the fact they're competing for the same item. I'm not saying that particular twist isn't pretty good, though, just that we not discuss such things as plot developments. That's going a bit too far forwards, methinks.

Other than that: The Schism being Shadow Pokemon is really good; it both explains their uprise (superior type), their behaviors (Shadows looking down on Non-Shadows), and if need be their downfall (Shadow Pokemon cannot gain experience; this means that they could believably be unable to win races because they couldn't train effectively, an interesting prospect). I do like Neo's idea to have the 'dictator' be nothing particularly special, however, and XD001 is a legendary.

The Plate Powers... Probably should only require contact once, but should also be limited to one plate per entity, such that you touching a new plate overrides the old (even the Master Plate) and not being in contact with the plate you got powers from, after a while weakens/nullifies that power, to ensure that someone can't just horde all the plate powers and that you can actually be crippled if someone were to take those plates.

[Morzone]

Well I said plot twist but I really was just trying to include the bit about Juno giving the world one last chance into this plotline. Really it'll be up to Neo to make whatever twists they want.

[Neo Emolga]

I have a decent sized chunk of the RP's storyline written, but I'm come across a few things along the way I think might be good to change. Certain things were causing me to hit hard into roadblocks, such as the Shadow Pokémon and just how Schism even got a XD Shadow Lugia as a dictator in the first place. Because I wasn't able to explain the origin story of those in a PMD-setting, I found myself really needing to go another route.

Changing Schism and Dropping the XD Shadow Lugia Dictator - Besides having difficultly explaining the XD Shadow Lugia's origins, background story, and while he would be running the show at Schism, it just seems too painfully cliché (and I'll admit I've used Lugia a gazillion times before in RPs). I definitely think something more unique is needed for this to keep things interesting and I think we'd be better off without a legendary at the top, but instead a really hard-as-balls common Pokémon. Instead of the... "eh, I think we've done this before" setting with an evil *yawn* dictator, let's go for something a little more... unique.

On that note, what was "Schism" is now "Black Lotus" and it's commanded by Queen Taiya the Lilligant. She's charismatic, alluring, extremely difficult to kill, and she's as cruel as she is beautiful. She hates the weak and loves to exploit fools and send the stupid and brazen into combat. Sadistic, cynical, and sassy, she's the villain you'd LOVE to HATE. You'd be lucky to have an audience with her directly, but you'd regret it and it's more like coming down with a rare disease than winning the lottery in terms of chance and happenstance. She sings songs about her dead and humiliated adversaries and hosts festivals to celebrate the fall of her enemies. She has the media loving her and a seemingly endless horde of pawns at her disposal. While the rest of the world becomes a filthy pile of crap and her royal quarters continues to grow and gather influence, she's living the high life in a very well-protected compound, though she's quite capable of chopping any attacking assassin into tiny little bits with her extreme mastery of swordplay. Six have already attempted and while two were beaten into goo by her bodyguards, she finished off the remaining four herself and quite frankly enjoyed the experience all four times. She's hoping you'll be number five.

She has a whole hierarchical military throughout the world and absolutely loves overkill and NEVER fights with a trace of compassion or honor. You fall, you lose your weapon, you come unprepared, you're dead. Period. She'll fight with all sorts of nasty tricks and things below the belt just because she knows they'll ruin you and that's all she wants. Meanwhile, Queen Taiya has a inner circle of elite warlords and commandos that is called Teien. Like her, coming across Teien warriors means a brutal fight to the death. And usually Teien warriors are commanding officers of Black Lotus and they're on the field leading platoons as centurions. No one knows exactly how many members Teinen has and there are some Teinen that are well known and infamous while others lurk in the shadows and remain hidden to the masses.

And on that note...

Dropping Shadow Pokémon - It was a great suggestion, but there's something I want to try instead that's sort of like it, but different and opens new possibilities in terms of uncovering plot points along the way. It bends more toward being on the mysterious side as to why Black Lotus Pokémon and followers seem to have that extra vigor and endurance. Only the highest on the Black Lotus food chain know the real nature of it, but the wind has carried the whispers and at least, most Pokémon know it is called "Ante".

It's up to you to figure out what this mysterious and deceptive force of Ante really is and where it's coming from. Even Arceus doesn't know and it's deeply concerning him, but it's very enigmatic in nature and trying to get to the root of it is like trying to navigate an ever-changing labyrinth in your dreams. Arceus fears that there may be a link between Ante and the Master Plate and if Taiya gets her hands on both (she's already got one, that's for sure), something beyond anyone's control may happen... much to her delight.

Setting changed to continent - Rather than using an entire world, which would result in a ton of people getting separated, the RP will be focused on a small continent of a Pokémon-only world. And this entire continent is ruled by the Black Lotus Kingdom. While the rest of the world is, for the most part, muddled with violence, greed, and so forth, the RP will focus on this one Australia-sized continent. There's one major capital city, another metropolis-sized city, and a few smaller ones. It's definitely plenty to work with for the RP's setting. If we need to expand, I'm ready to answer the call, but I think it's best to at least start with this and the storyline of the Black Lotus Kingdom and the Tempest Festival.

---

So that's what I've been up to. I hope people like the new changes because I think they're bound to be more fun and interesting. As you can see, I'm definitely still using your ideas, but please don't mind if I tweak and transform them around a bit here and there. Usually I do this a lot with my RPs, just not so out in the open and under scrutiny as you're seeing before you.

[Soups]

Queen Taiya is RUTHLESS! I love your imagination, Neo. It's really something special.

I like it. It's definitely simpler, but it also leaves tons of room for growth. I also like the fact that you decided to shrink the size of the setting. That will encourage more interactions between RPers.

[Morzone]

This is why Neo is the master Rp maker

Ooooo... the "ante" Makes me shiver with excitement!

Not sure if the "As evil as she is beautiful" Queen Trope is that unique, but I still like it a lot better than using Lugia/XD001. I've never really been a fan of using Legendaries in RPs unless they're very distant or in name only :/