[Gauging Interest] Text-based online Dresden RPG game

[Bosh]

I know we won't get our hands on our pre-order PDFs until at least April, but I have too many ideas bouncing around my head that want to get out. Due to my one year-old son and my bizarre work schedule it’s going to be hard for me to schedule many games with my regular playgroup so I’m going to try running a forum-based (or possibly play by e-mail) game. My schedule is too unpredictable (especially when summer hits) to have regularly scheduled voice chat games but I have a good bit of random free time in between my various jobs, so I'd be able to run a forum or email game at a good fast pace.

The sorts of games I’d be interested in running:

A. Dresden in Asia: Asia would be a great place to run a Dresden Files game since there’s so much fodder for supernatural plots and being set well away from Chicago lets the players keep out of Harry’s shadow. The Dresden Files calls out to be set in a big city and I know Seoul very well and it’s really a great setting for an RPG.

Seoul was chosen as the site for the capital because it is supposedly a nexus of geomantic forces (in Dresden Files term: ley line central). Korea has a long history of being caught in the middle between great powers so there’ll be all kinds of Russian, Chinese and Japanese influence as well as the local Korean stuff as well as there being an American army base smack in the middle of the city. For plot fodder there’s a Stalinist dictatorship just north of the suburbs, Buddhism, very strong Christianity, Taoism, Shamanism, strange cults by the fistful (Moonies!), incredibly powerful corporate conglomerates run by secretive families that mostly marry each other, wacky internet culture, plenty of awesome movies (Korean cinema is incredible) to steal plot ideas from and a thousand urban legends. Also I can go out and take pictures of some adventure locations.

The general tone of this campaign would be pretty similar to that of the Dresden Files (Noir-ish investigation). The party could either be a miscellaneous group united mostly by their desire to keep people from being hurt by the supernatural (like Dresden & friends), mortals in over their heads or members of a supernatural faction of some sort.

B. Viking Age Historical Campaign: Vikings are a lot of fun to play since stereotypical Viking hero behavior often sounds a whole lot like stereotypical PC behavior. More than any other book I’ve ever read when, when I read the Saga of Egil Skallagrimsson, I hear a GM in my head yelling at the main character, “you’re doing WHAT now?” and reaching for something strong. Viking magic is also a good fit for Dresden magic since a lot of it would carry over without any work at all (just tone down the flashy stuff, focus a lot on Thaumaturgy and swap out potions for runes while keeping the rules basically the same).

For this campaign I’d run something long on the Icelandic Sagas and short on the Eddas, i.e. lots of bloody local conflicts, telling people who killed your father to prepare to die, Viking raids, runes, berserkers, shape-shifters, witchery and the undead but keeping the large-scale mythical stuff in the background. The overall feel would be low-powered, gritty and relatively historically accurate.

C. The 17th Century Turned up to 11: take the 17th Century and then throw out historical accuracy and base things on the Rule of Cool and Dresdenisms instead. That means Jesuits with secret kung-fu brought back by Matteo Ricci, The Pirates of the Caribbean, The Three Musketeers, Solomon Kane, the Thirty Years War, witching burnings, Red Court conquistadores vs. Mayan human sacrifice, etc. etc. The PCs would be globetrotting adventurers of some sort.

D. Sword and Sorcery: from what I’ve seen so far the Dresden RPG magic system would work well for more traditional fantasy and the stunt rules seem flexible enough to cover all kinds of critters and powers. Trying this would with some Sword and Sorcery (inspired by Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser especially) could be fun. We could use the Dresden city rules to create a Lankhmar/Ankh-Morpork-style fantasy city state to start in and the rest of the world would be full of corrupt tyrants, wild tribes, degenerate semi-humans, the remnants of lots civilizations, cults of demon gods and all of that fun stuff. The map would mostly be left blank except for various cool locations that the players would think up (most world creation would be done by the players, not me) and would be slowly filled in through play.

What are people interested in?

[SoulCatcher78]

I'd be interestede in the Asia option.  I have little to no information about Korea so you'd have to put up with a lot of "how do you pronouce that?" type of questions (thankfully there is google (and google maps)) when it comes down to needing more information.  From your descriptions of your Seoul ideas in other threads I'd be excited to see them in action.  Forum based works well for me also because of work (54-60 hours a week).

Chung-Hee Smith:

Born in the United States (2nd generation immigrants) Chung-Hee listened to stories of his family's homeland growning up from his Grandmother (Soon-yi) while his parents worked.  Both parents were killed when he was still young (15) and he was raised by his Grandmother until her recent death.  Chung-Hee has become disillusioned with the US and he wants to immerse himself in the culture described by his Grandmother.  Chung-Hee has used his remaining money from his parents/grandmother's life insurance policies and the proceeds from selling his parents business to finance his move.  What he doesn't realize is that Korea has changed radically in the last 50 years.  He has no relatives (that he is aware of) living in the south but has decided to begin his new life in Seoul.
More thoughts on concepts later.

[Blaze]

In our on line RPG:  We've done Old West Dresden.  Pirates Dresden (Cap'n was known as Shirtless Tom.) Roaring Twenties Dresden... (Well, Roaring Twenties Thomas and Murphy.)

[Ancalagon]

C would be *awesome* 

I just read Les Trois Mousquetaires (in French) from Dumas, so I think that would be all sort of cool.  There are a lot of hermetic mages and alchemists active at the time,  the beast of the Gévaudan isn't that far off, there are all sorts of cool stuff from overseas being imported, Richelieu, Oliver Cromwell, the man in the iron mask... it just reeks with possibilities. 

Unfortunately, I personally wouldn't able to commit to such a game (well... maybe depending) but I just wanted to speak out on how cool such a game would be.

Ancalagon

[Bosh]

I'd be interestede in the Asia option.  I have little to no information about Korea so you'd have to put up with a lot of "how do you pronouce that?" type of questions (thankfully there is google (and google maps)) when it comes down to needing more information.

Well, one of the benefits of a text-based game is you don't have to pronounce anything Seriously though, the broad outlines of Seoul are pretty easy to get, it's the closest thing there is to a generic Asian megapolis, since in a lot of ways if you take China and Japan and split the difference you get Korea. If this game starts up, I'll make some posts like "Learning everything you really need to know about Seoul in 5 minutes" and stuff like that

Chung-Hee Smith:

With that last name I'm assuming his father isn't Korean-American. Being ethnically half-Korean opens up a whole bunch of complications. Although things are getting better these days, for a long time there's been a tendency to not treat half-Koreans very well unless they're very successful, in which they get embraced on a national level. See for examples the good work (ethnically half Korean football star) Hines Ward is doing here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/09/sports/football/09ward.html?_r=1&ref=sports

What he doesn't realize is that Korea has changed radically in the last 50 years.  He has no relatives (that he is aware of) living in the south but has decided to begin his new life in Seoul.
More thoughts on concepts later.

Sounds like a solid concept. I've met some people like that at work
One possibility, if you want him be trying to throw his money around, is that's he's invested his money in some kind of business partnership (import/export, software design, etc.) in which his partner will hire the local work and he'll cover the international business aspects (talking to non-Korean clients, etc.). That could give some good hooks to pull him into the Korean business world and a lot of plots that come with that (Korean corporate culture often seems like something out of a CyberPunk novel).

C would be *awesome* 

Indeed. I think that C would be the hardest to pull of but the most awesome if it actually worked.

Just reading about some aspects of the Spanish Empire in the Americas at this time period is just a bit mind blowing with its immense size, wealth, how little outsiders know about it, etc.

[SoulCatcher78]

Crap...the forum ate my first attempt at this.

I will change his last name to Bak.  Smith was more of a placeholder until I could identify a "common" name.  It's part of his invisible in a crowd concept.

Using his money for an investment sounds good.  I was trying to figure out how much work he could actually get as an interpreter and figured he'd be living in the low income section of town.  Plot hooks abound if the corporate culture is anything like the zaibatsu of Japan, good times indeed.

Wikipedia (not always the best source for these things) says that Kkangpae involvement in Seoul is less than other parts of the country.  A Dresdenized Seoul sounds like it might be a nightly battleground between the police, the Kkangpae, Yakuza, and Triads (with magic!).

[Blaze]

I am currently playing a Korean American reformed necromancer named Julian Park.  His family has ruled Koreatown in Chicago for many centuries...  Since the late 1600s. 

It is a lot of fun to bring in a Asian world view.  Because of course, the Asian mindset regarding death is very different than the European.  His specialty was necromancing people before they were actually dead.  They would hire him to keep them going at the point of death so that they could finish an important task.  His goal was to keep body and soul together just a bit longer than nature intended.  So of course he had to align himself with the bad guys, because the good guys would have just chopped his head off summarily.

[Bosh]

SoulCatcher78: in Korea just three family names make up the majority of the population: 김 (pronounced Kim or Gim) 이 (pronounced "Ee" but usually spelled Lee in English for some reason) and 박 (pronounced Bak but usually spelled Park for some strange reason).

So Bak/Park is about as generic as you can get and Chung-hee is hardly rare, the only problem is Park, Chung-hee is the name of South Korea's most influencial president so maybe Kim would be a better last name if you want to blend in.

Plot hooks abound if the corporate culture is anything like the zaibatsu of Japan, good times indeed.

Indeed, the Chaebol (the Korean equivalent of the zaibatsu/keiretsu, Chaebol and Zaibatsu comes from the exact same Chinese characters) are VERY strong and VERY similar to the old zaibatsu (more similar to them than the more modern keiretsu, since they're centered around holding companies instead of banks, just like the zaibatsu were).

For example the biggest Chaebol is Samsung and if you add up all of their subsidieries they have 276,000 employees, not counting a couple other large corporations with tight family links (owned by wives, ex-wives, younger sons, etc.) that own all kinds of other stuff. The Chaebol are massive, very influencial and pretty much immune to the law (one of the smaller Chaebol boss's son got thrown out of a bar and down the stairs and to get revenge he had the bouncers kidnapped and beat with metal pipes for a few days and got off with community service and some fines IIRC).

Wikipedia (not always the best source for these things) says that Kkangpae involvement in Seoul is less than other parts of the country.  A Dresdenized Seoul sounds like it might be a nightly battleground between the police, the Kkangpae, Yakuza, and Triads (with magic!).

In reality, they are a bit weaker than in other bits of the country since the city is so big, the people are richer (so less need to turn to organized crime to get what they want) and the local institutions are a bit too big for gangsters to bully, but in Dresden Seoul that would just mean that the underworld is badly fragmented and engaged in some nasty turf wars like you say (don't forget the Russian and the Nigerians either   ).

Also a lot of the Japanese Yakuza are ethnic Koreans so they'd definitely be a big force.

Blaze: um, not to nit-pick but neither Korean-Americans (in any capacity) nor Chicago have existed until WELL after the 1600's, but the idea of pre-emptive necromancy sounds like a fun application of death magic, I'll have to steal that

[breaker]

 I voted Vikings, but by the looks of this, its almost ensured that Seoul will be our playground for this, so I'm going with that. I'm going to follow Soul's lead and throw a character out there so you guys with more knowledge of the city can help me knit pick at it until its perfect.

Someone mentioned Russian underground, so I'm going with a character with that background. 


Concept: The usual suspect that the police can't touch.
Name: Anton Alexandrov
Quirks: Thrill Seeker, Germaphobe, Enjoys Dangak
Anton's family had always been on the edge, of his father's three brothers, two had joined the mafia and one was already dead. His father, Alexander, however, was determined to keep Anton away from such influences, and he was like-was protected from his extended family's activities until he joined a University. Two weeks after he'd left home, he got a call telling him that his father had been killed in his burning office. Anton rushed home immediatly, only to find that his mother had (suppossedly) abandoned their home, she was no where to be found. He then fell under the wing of his uncle, who had offered him a job, this clashed with his University studies, so he was forced to drop out. He's worked for his uncle and been given his fair share of mafia exeperiences for his age. His talent for hiding 'hot' individuals from many people impressed his uncle and he was sent to their Seoul wing recently to assist in setting up a cross-national operation. Sadly, for the now thrill-seeking Anton, most of it had been dealt with by the time he'd arrived in Seoul, with the family already sitting on a comfortable piece of territory. Anton was left to entertain himself, getting called in by the family for this or that every few days. He adopted the practice of attempting petty, but risky crimes as practice for himself, and this occupied most of his time until a clothing store that had been owned by the family burned down, and Anton saw who did it... and man.. they weren't ******* human. Anton has now taken it on himself to dab into the magical underground with only two goals, keep all the magical creepy crawlies of the family's doorstep and have himself a hell-ofa good time.

Sorry for length XD

[Blaze]

Bosh  before you nitpick, ask! The original Park ancestor who came to the area we know as Chicago, was from the Joseon period of Korea's history.  Technically he was from Ulleungdo Island, off the coast of the Mainland.  He first went to Chicago's area with Jesuits who ere trying to convert the Algonquin Peoples, and was there with Father Pierre Charlevoix, who first mentions Chicagou in a journal in 1671. 

I always do my homework.  Any decent game master ought to. 

[Bosh]

Blaze: my apologies, that is some impressive research. I'm trying to think of how that guy ended up with the Jesuits. I'm guessing it was via Japan (kidnapped by Japanese pirates? POW or something in the Imjin War?). Any more info on this guy, I'm curious He was probably the first Korean to set foot in America.

breaker: yes, it looks like Seoul is in the lead, it would probably be the easiest for me to run since I can recruit people here and then use the people I know IRL to fill up any empty slots if/when people drop out (online games usually have pretty high attrition over the first month).

Quick and dirty history of the Russian underworld in Korea (pretty hazy since I'm not exactly an expert):

After the fall of Communism in Russia, Russians started coming over to South Korea in BIG numbers mostly to get big bags of consumer goods wholesale to take back to sell via commercial airlines to Russia. That big burst has mostly dried up these days but a lot of wholesale import/export companies remain (mostly dealing in clothing) and they're most of what exists in the Little Russia neighborhood in northern Seoul (walked around there one time, not much to see these days).

What the Russian mafia is mostly involved in these days is car theft (buying stolen cars from the Korean gangs and sending them to Vladivostok), a few nightclubs and prostitution (with attendant human trafficing). They also seem be in charge of most of whatever illegal stuff is going on (in cooperation with local and Nigerian groups) in the foreign areas.

From the sound of your character he'd probably hang out in Itaewon: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itaewon which has traditionally been sort of the Mos Eisley of Seoul (although it's gotten a bit gentrified since the 24 hour US military curfew after 9/11 hurt the red light bit of Itaewon while it was in effect and you get a lot of things like nice used book stores in what used to be brothels).

Anton would probably hang out at Rio, a Russian nightclub right at the base of Hooker Hill (you can see some Russian clothing stores across the street from it in the second picture):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/curoninja/464995544/in/pool-itaewon
http://ronandrachel.blogplugs.com/Korea%20Pictures/ItaewonJPG.jpg

Of course in a Dresdenized Seoul, Itaewon would be back to the bad old days (or worse) and be a fun mix of creepy crawlies from EVERYWHERE, down on their luck backpackers, drunk GIs, Russian and Nigerian gangsters, hookers, black markets, burned out craaaaazy alcoholic English teachers who can't get work anywhere else, confused Japanese tourists, random fist fights in the street, etc.

[Blaze]

The whole of it was part of an adventure...  PM me if you want a link to read it.  He ran into some interesting circumstances.

[breaker]

Thanks Bosh, you gave me more than enough to work with. I'm pretty excited about it now, so defintely count me in.

Also, I got the clothing store thing completely on random, I didn't know it was a prevailing business in the area. God I love talking to smart people.

[Wizard H]

This sounds like a lot of fun especially the Seoul game, I've been working on a character that I had intended for a game taking place in the states but I think I could adapt him to Seoul as well plus he has the whole flawed do gooder thing going on, his hearts in the right place but he's a bit of a lech and little gray on what he thinks 'Justice' is.  If the interest keeps up I'd love to be included I'll just have to research the area a bit.

[Sorryman105]

Set the Korean thing about 50 years in the future and include a larger American presence and you have a sweet deal there.