Player interest query

[tel]

I've spent the past day or so looking over the Vorkosigan sourcebook, and I was wondering if there was any online interest in a Vorkosigan campaign. I would be willing to run one. I do have an offline gaming group that does play one-shots like this, but they normally play, er, simpler oneshots. This could be via chat, on Livejournal/Dreamwidth, or on OpenRPG, or play-by-email, or any other venue players might prefer.

I understand there used to be a Vorkosigan RPG on livejournal that was more the classic livejournal RPG style, with people playing their versions of canon characters and interacting with each other. I'm not really looking to do that. What I'm interested in starting is more like the online analogue to a pen and paper RPG campaign, with players playing original characters within the universe. The game would have a defined endpoint/goal and would be small (preferably 3-5 players or so).

This would not -necessarily- be using the GURPS Vorkosigan system (edit: I'd likely be using PDQ, don't worry if you've never played it, it's very simple). Would there be interest in that sort of thing?

(edit: Tentative initial scenario would be Betan survey personnel captured and secretly held without contact with the outside world on Barrayar, reason unknown to them. This would be set during the approximate timeframe of Shards of Honor/Barrayar. Player characters could be from any advanced planet on decent terms with Beta Colony (I have a set of customizable pre-gens that includes a Jacksonian and an Escobaran) and there'd be opportunities to play (male) Barrayaran military characters as well.)

Comments

[elf]

Oh yes please!

I've never played an online RPG, but I'm a veteran of the paper-and-dice versions. And I could scrounge through my GURPS reference works and see if there's something about converting GURPS to a diceless system that might work for online play.

[tel]

I'm a little leery about using the full system because I'm not experienced in running it (I have other DM experience, but not GURPS), the combat parts look a little involved and I'm not sure any players I might have would have prior GURPS experience. That's a bit of a bad combination, and in my experience combat tends to go even slower online.

I was thinking about maybe converting to one of the systems my gaming group likes for one-shots. They tend to pick simple, very easily learned systems that may not have fully realistic combat but are fun to play and, critically, allow and encourage wild improvisation.

Possibly even go systemless. You don't really -need- dice to roleplay, and if someone's coming from the kind of RPs that are generally found on livejournal it could even be a turnoff. If a group comes together that's tentatively interested, we can talk about that sort of thing further.

[elf]

GURPS combat is complex (second only to Hero, IMHO) and would be utterly useless for long-distance play-by-text gaming.

A modified form of Amber diceless, or Everway, might be good, if a system were needed. I'm... a bit nervous about going systemless. I'd love to modify Houses of the Blooded for it, but I think even minimal dice-rolling would kill an online post-based instead of chatroom-based game.

I've never quite been able to figure out the interactive-story RPG thing. Willing to try, for a world I love as much as the Vorkosiverse, but still nervous.

What systems does your group like for one-shots?

[tel]

I was thinking of using PDQ, actually. It's available in its basic form online for free, and with a good group it's fantastic.

http://www.atomicsockmonkey.com/freebies.asp

You could essentially stat out a young Miles (around Vor Game) like this, and it'd be fully playable:

Space Mercenary (+2)
Vor Lord (+2)
Bullshit Artist (+4)
Teratogenic Defects (-2)

It's obviously not a simulation system, but for the combination of high drama and low farce a Vorkosigan campaign would be I think it'd work great.

[tel]

I think for this game I'll be going with PDQ. More information and a character creation post is now here: http://tel.dreamwidth.org/391.html