# Online Collaborative Fiction - Heroes 5th - ICONS - Casting Call



## Chairman (Mar 5, 2009)

NextGen RPG

What would you do if you were given unbelievable power? An army of loyal fanatics? Lands and monies and as many husbands or wives as you wanted? How would you change the world? Would you change the world?

*Posting Requirements:* _(Please see additional GM note towards the bottom.)_  ICONS is a 5th Editions Champions game that requires good writing skills and the ability to post to the site a *MINIMUM* of two times a week. If you cannot meet the posting requirement due to real life obligations, then please do not apply for this game. Being a scarred veteran of the online gaming community, I've learned a few lessons about what works and what doesn't. And one of the things I've learned is that nothing kills a game faster than Real Time. 

*How do I submit:* Please send all submissions to gamerawaved@me.com | All characters need to be in either .doc or .hdc format (Word or Hero Designer). If you don't have access to Word or HD, please email me and let me know, and we'll work out something else. It is VERY IMPORTANT that  your character be as detailed as possible. Please also identify the one person in the world (living or dead) that your character trusts beyond all others - and give me some meaty background on this person as well. The game will consist of 5 players, with a variable number of Supporting Cast.

*Deadline:*  Character's must be submitted no later than March 15th, and I will announce the Main Cast on March 22nd. Game start date will be April 7th. A Supporting Cast call will be announced after the Main Cast has been confirmed. Supporting Cast characters will be announced April 1st.  A Supporting Cast call will be announced after the Main Cast has been confirmed. Supporting Cast characters will be announced April 1st.

*Your Points: *The players will start out as skilled normals with a 50 point base, and up to 25 points in disadvantages. A detailed background of the character including body cast will be required upon submission.

*The Game World:* This game will deal with morality and choice on an epic scale. The characters have the capacity to become the leaders and founders of empires very easily. I will not dictate how you choose to behave in the game world – however all actions have consequences, and I just ask that you be prepared to suffer them, come what may. That being said, this is not a snuff film or your outlet for writing that great American porn novel – adult themes will exist, and death will occur, but let’s not examine them too closely – think of the camera fading to black as the axe comes down, or the clothes come off. And please make sure to label your posts as Adult if the themes you are exploring are Adult ones – if only to make sure we aren’t upsetting someone’s kids.

*Your characters origin:* The characters originate from the every day world you and I know and recognize. It is April 2009, and the country is suffering through a serious economic crises. All of that jazz. Your character can come from anywhere on the planet – you are NOT limited to a United States origin – please however be prepared to play a different ethnicity realistically, and to assist your GM if he needs your help to retain that unique non-American point of view. Things will start out normally – expect them to change fairly radically and fairly soon after play begins.

*Your characters age:* Minimum of 8, maximum of 80.

*Your characters gender:* up to you.

*Your characters sexuality:* up to you.

*Your characters moral center:* In developing your characters, the sky is the limit. You can be feelthy rich. You can be on death row. You can be a child, a paraplegic, a savant. Let your imagination take hold... just have it make sense.

*Your characters powers:* I will build these for you – however, I will require that each player provide me with their dream set of powers. I need to know what power set you would truly love above all others - I just ask that your concept be sound and not totally random. "I want to be a telepath" or "I want to fly" or "I want to teleport" or "I want to bend steel with me bare hands" or "I want to magnetically rape the earth"... that sort of thing. Superman might be pushing it a bit from a “how’s that all work again?” perspective, and a purely Batman-type wouldn’t survive. Other than that, run with it! I will also be providing you with your disadvantages. And no, I won’t tell you what those are… I’m evil. So sue me.

*Additional GM Notes:* It is entirely possible that the characters will not interact directly with each other for up to one full year of real time. This is by design, so when considering applying to this game, understand that JP’s and whatnot will not be available. It will be you and me, with your fellow players sitting on the sidelines munching popcorn and rooting for your success or demise. That will change over time, but it may be a while.

ICONS will, in an effort to make the game world more interesting and the NPC’s more realistic, be introducing the concept of “Supporting Cast”. These are NPC’s that are controlled by other players – characters that interact with the PC’s regularly but may end up being left behind, killed, turning coat, that sort of thing. These will be for the most part skilled normals, with the occasional lower-powered super thrown in for good measure. These folks can be played by anyone on the site, and are perfect for those who either want to get their feet wet or just want to join in on the fun for a little bit. Applications will be required, and will be vetted by the GM and the Player for their particular Supporting Cast members.

You will, as a player, need to be very watchful of not using player knowledge when interacting with the other players – if and when you do so. 

Extra experience points for the game can be earned by providing the following:
    1. Character Diaries - 1 point per entry - must consist of at least 1 'page' of text. 
   2. Artwork - 1-5 pts - pictures, maps or images of the game world and its inhabitants.

*Let me explain the Posting Requirements:*  Say you've got five players at the start of your game... each of these players is posting according to the established posting rules laid out by their GM. Now one of the players, a good three weeks after the start of the campaign, begins to slack a little in their replies. The other four, being reasonable folks, don't raise too much of a fuss at first, understanding that sometimes real life intervenes, or writers block creeps up, or (fill in the blank).

Real Time passes. The game goes from multiple posts a day, to a sort of stop/start thing as our four understanding players wait for our one slow poster to be able to reply.

More Real Time passes, and now we're down to just a few posts a week instead of a day... momentum begins to die. And with that lack of momentum the four understanding players begin to get frustrated. This frustration leads to a checking of the site less and less, and also leads to a leaching of quality around the game itself as players try to remember where they were in their characters heads as of their last reply (a week ago now)... eventually the whole thing just sort of collapses... Game Death... (insert much wailing of teeth and gnashing of breasts... or something... here)

Now, GM's are as guilty of this as anyone, so I'm not just unloading on 'the players' here. I'VE BEEN guilty of it! I just want to make sure that I'm very clear in my expectations regarding posting so that there are no surprises. I'm not pointing fingers. I'm not trying to make subtle accusations. Honest! My commitment to my players is at least two replies to each of you per week. I think that it reasonable to ask the same of each of you. Smile
Tense: All posts will be in the third person, past tense. Example: “She opened the door and looked outside, curious as to what made the noise.” Not “She opens the door and looks outside”, or “I go and open the door”.


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## Chairman (Mar 11, 2009)

*Deadline: March 15th*

Still a few days left before the submissions are closed (March 15th).

We're running kind of light on submissions, our site move couldn't have come at a worse time. If you think you might be interested, we'd love for you to give the game another look and submit a character.

ICONS: Casting Call - Heroes 5th Edition


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