Subject: This all works by RNG anyway.
Author:
Posted on: 2022-03-21 20:01:16 UTC
(RNG = Random Number Generation, if you don't know the term.) In other words, everything is determined by chance. So, the characters' actual abilities and personalities have no influence what happens in the arena. Trying to make it make sense is part of the fun. ^_^
~Neshomeh
...and we've even done stuff with it before!
Here's BrantSteele's Hunger Games simulator, a funny little website-thingo where you can run a bunch of characters (custom or not) through, well, a Hunger Games simulation! Events are randomized, characters die off through various means, and it's weird chaotic fun depending on how you run stuff - you can have Barney the Dinosaur split Optimus Prime in half with the right luck and candidates.
Anyway, so it turns out we had a PPC version of this... five years ago? Well before my time here, actually. Here's a link. There's even a bunch of interviews with the Agents competing, plus written commentary for each day to make it all come together like an actual sports broadcast of sorts. It's pretty neat!
So I guess what I'm kind of wondering at the moment is if anyone would be interested in seeing another one of these? I'm not entirely sure how the setup for these worked, but I'm willing to learn if needs be.
See this for an example of a previous season.
In this experimental sixth season, we’ll see 24 (or 48, depending on interest) characters simulate a PPC-style Hunger Games, made possible through Holodeck technology and being broadcasted live on Nutmeg TV!
But in order to make this work, we’re going to need some competitors. So!
Each Boarder can enter anywhere from one to four Agents into the event. Permission is not needed, though it would be convenient. If you want to enter some folks, you can go ahead and reply to this post with sign-up entries for the characters you're submitting.
The entries can contain a bit of the following: name, gender, maybe species, preferred weapon, stuff like that (This is solely for flavor, so don’t worry about it too much).
In addition, if you want, it’d be nice to have a little snippet from your characters. Like an interview! There’ll be a chance to write one of these after each day in the arena, plus one for when they’re signing up, to help the audience understand the characters and their mindsets a bit better. Maybe they can say why they’re competing, or what they want to do there, or something of that likeness.
Feel free to ask questions if you have them, and may the odds ever be in your favor!
All the slots have been filled - thank you for signing up! I'll try to work on the actual Hunger Games bit and hopefully have it out by the end of the week. Thanks again, and-
Um. Hold up, I need a good one-liner to close off. Hmm.
Oh! May the odds ever be in your favor! That's a good one.
-OrangeFox
Kokoro (こころ): Four feet tall, extremely muscular, intelligent and analytical but can appear somewhat detached from reality. (She claims to be emotionally distancing herself to protect herself from badfic.) Along with her partner Hiromi, she protects the long-suffering childrens' cartoons from the horrors of weird Youtube clickbait for kids. I think. The department creation proposal still has to go through Personell...
Home continuum: My Hero Academia. As a result...
Quirk: Flatland - she can decrease the local space-time curvature, allowing her to weaken gravity and weather the effects of spacetime distortions better than most.
Weapon of choice: Her fists usually suffice.
Hiromi: Partner of Kokoro. Is a human-shaped cyborg called a Humagear, originally created to work in a processing plant before reaching singularity, becoming sentient, and attempting to start a union. Was put down for this act of malfunctioning, and luckily got spirited away to the PPC before the setting's villains could get their hands on him. Unlike most Humagears, he does not have a humanlike outer layer as a political statement -- he also had his hands modified to give his fingers three joints instead of two.
Home continuum: Kamen Rider Zero-One. Can't tap into any of that setting's power system, though, as IIRC it depends on some satellites that he's too far away from. Has tried to slap together a way to use it anyway, to negative results.
Weapon of choice: Spears, then swords. Terrible ranged fighter.
Kaitlyn Jackson, Floaters / DCPS. Human, but gets very excited if people mistake her for a Hobbit. Not really much of a one for weapons.
"It's back! So I was in the last, um, three of these? I did really well my first time out, but the other two have been kind of, ehhhh, so I'd really like to have a good game this time!"
Holo-Acacia, a hologram of Acacia Byrd originally created for the 2nd Games, and reappearing in the 4th and 5th. After the last games, she ran off into the HQ networks and is only reappearing now. Pretty much acts like Acacia.
"Yeah, he said I should get out a bit more, so I thought I'd jump back into the Arena... he who? None of your business."
hS
Name: Boadicea (I think that's how it's spelled?)
Species: Terrarian female
Preferred weapon: Anything she can get her hands on
Why she's here: It's like in Terraria. Lots of fighting. It's like home. She may not stay dead if she gets killed on account of being a videogame character, although someone may have put her in a reality room and gotten rid of this ability.
(RNG = Random Number Generation, if you don't know the term.) In other words, everything is determined by chance. So, the characters' actual abilities and personalities have no influence what happens in the arena. Trying to make it make sense is part of the fun. ^_^
~Neshomeh
Thirteen out of the twenty-four (or forty-eight, but that seems a bit far fetched at this point) slots have been taken, leaving at least eleven competitors unaccounted for!
Honestly I don't know whether I should've waited for this thread to drop down further so I could put the sign-ups as its own independent and more noticeable thing, but hey. Hindsight is 20/20 and all that. Anyway, let's see how this turns out!
-OrangeFox
Edit: ...Eleven, not nine. Sorry.
Name: Thalia Quinn
Gender: Female
Species: Human (we think, DC stretches their human characters a bit)
Preferred Weapon: Her bat, creatively named Bat
Former occupation: Bit character copy of Harley Quinn
Department: Mary Sues
Why she’s here: “I heard nothin’s off limits! So I can finally blow stuff up without hurting people!” [grins manically and twirls her bat]
Name: Doom
Gender: Male
Species: Halfling (half human/half demon)
Preferred Weapon: Crossbow
Former occupation: Gary Stu who was the uncanonical brother of Raven
Department: Mary Sues
Why he’s here: “Because Quinn is a madwoman and someone’s got to keep an eye on her.”
I want to give priority to people who haven't had characters in one of these before, but if you end up needing to fill spaces, you can use Caprice (average World One 20-something Latina woman) and Shimon (evolved Razielim male from a Legacy of Kain AU, stupidly tall and blue with black hair, nails, and wing feathers). Department of Floaters, if it matters.
~Neshomeh
Species: Kif (Chanur verse) - broadly, thin, rat-like, two sets of teeth
Gender: Male
Former occupation: Background pirate #4
Department: Crossovers
Why he's here: What, you think I'd pass up an excuse to engage in conniving backstabbing and occasionally stab someone? That's pretty much my thing, historically. And FicPsych can't object to this ... right?
[Note: the multiple daggers Kkukttak had concealed on his person on the way into the Games may or may not have made it through]
Species: Hani (Chanur verse) - think lion-people
Gender: Female
Former occupation: Junior crew on a merchant spaceship
Department: Crossovers
Why she's here: So, for one thing, maybe I'll make some new friends! I also need to practice actually fighting, since it comes up in crossovers just often enough that I keep getting caught out by it. But mostly, someone needs to keep an eye on Kkukttak.
Species: Orc (Lord of the Rings)
Gender: Male
Department: Mary Sues
Former occupation: Member of a scouting party going after a Sue
Why he's here: Fightin's fun! [grins, putting a hand on the hilt of his sword]
Interviewer: [backs away slowly, moving the camera with them]
An' no one actually gets hurt 'ere! Heck, I think I've got a shot 'ere .
Species: Hani (Chanur verse)
Gender: Male
Former occupation: Lord of the manor, more or less
Department: Finance
Why he's here: Turns out letting it slip that you've fought before and not being ex-Action gets a solid chunk the gods-rotted division at your door talking you into "providing representation for Finance". I don't think I'll do too well at this whole free-for-all murder spree, but I did set up the betting pool, so, even if I lose, I win.
Hope no one minds that I’m putting a Google Docs link here. Either way, I’m hoping my good kitty girl gets far.
Name: Rebecca Buch
Gender: female
species: human
preferred weapon: bow and arrows
reason why she's here: she is not sure how she got here, and now this seems to be a nightmare coming true.
"Well, I have to say, it's wonderful having a good spectacle!" A long, confusing looking creature said. Although serpentine, he had the hand of a human at the end of its tail, and it was wearing a headset with a large microphone and camera dangling off of it. He was sitting next to an equally strange humanoid creature, a grey, clay-like entity with a massive yellow cybernetic eye and no discernable facial features.
The grey thing laughed, "well, it's always good to get stuck in again," he said, waving a hand, "you'd be surprised how few good fights you get out on Missions."
"Mind stating your name, RC, canon of origin, and preferred weapons to the crowd?" The snake asked.
"Sure thing, uh, Sarkan. I'm Agent Noman. First name Agent, last name Noman, of SOM167168. I'm here from the AAHW, and Madness Combat," Noman said, "and, while I can use pretty much anything as a weapon, my favorite thing to use is an ax. Or a submachine gun. Or a nuke, but I don't think we have any of those sitting around."
"You'd be surprised!"
COMBATANT
NAME: AGENT NOMAN
SPECIES: NEVADEAN
HOME CANON: MADNESS COMBAT
PREFERRED WEAPON: AXES OR AUTOMATIC FIREARMS
GENDER: MALE
COMBAT STYLE: HIGHLY AGGRESSIVE
INTERVIEWER
NAME: SARKAN
SPECIES: SNAKE PERSON
HOME CANON: ALL TOMORROWS - A BILLION YEAR CHRONICLE OF THE MYRIAD SPECIES AND VARYING FORTUNES OF MAN
PREFERRED WEAPON: N/A
GENDER: MALE
COMBAT STYLE: N/A, INTERVIEWER
PICTURE: (Probably not him): https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/aliens/images/9/93/SnakePeopleAll_Tomorrows.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20171020135405
Name: David Null
Gender: male
Species: Vampire
Preferred Weapon: Dagger
Reason why he's here: "I was forced to by my trainee because" turns towards the side "he's a coward!"
Matt, shouting from the background: "Am not!"
David: "Then submit yourself!"
Matt: "Then I'll die!"
Name: O'Ryan Keys
Gender: Male
Species: Human
Preferred Weapon: Scythe
Reason why he's here: No comment.
Name: Matthew
Gender: Male
Species: Human
Preferred Weapon: "Guess I'll find out."
Reason why he's here: a bit of grumbling
Paye: "Hey! It'll be fun!"
Matt: "Being murdered is fun?!"
Paye: "Well, you have to be able to take what you dish out, anyways!"
abrupt cut to black
Yeah, Matt is the type to be a coward when it comes to being murdered for somewhat obvious reasons.
It'd be funny if David kills Matt or visa versa.
-kA
The amount of times I chucked random characters into it and (very subtly) hoped my favourite would win. I didn't know there was a PPC version. I think there's also reality show simulations but that's obviously not as much fun as having characters kill each other off.
Setting it up is easy but it's just a random number generator. You just put in the names and the pictures and things run basically automatically.
You can find the four seasons of the PPC Occasional Hunger Games on my webplex, under the NTV banner. I think season 2 was a non-interactive event, season 3 was run by Sergio, and I ran 4 and 5. (Also the pictures are missing at the moment; I'll try and get them fixed someday).
How hard it is depends on how much work you put in. You can just ask for 24 or 48 agents, stick them in and post the output over a few days. You can do commentaries of more or less detail. You can ask for interview snippets (you'll probably get these regardless). You can even modify the events the generator will output - I did this in 4 to add more hatchets (the Hatchet Sponsor insisted), and in 5 I created an entire custom arena. That took a lot of work - the editor isn't super intuitive, or very forgiving - but I think it made for a great thread.
I don’t have the brainspace to run Season 6, but I will gladly contribute agents to the melee, and archive it all when the Victor is declared.
hS
I've been messing around with scenarios and events and such to give the thing a much more PPC-like flair, with help from some of the folks on the Discord. Hopefully I'll have signups ready to go in a week or so!
There is something I'd like to ask, though - does Nutmeg TV have a volunteer service, and would it work to have a bunch of vaguely incompetent part-time workers as hosts? (Also, am I allowed to use Nutmeg TV in the first place? I don't want to step on any toes.)
-OrangeFox
Because I am thinking about throwing a certain grumpy vampire into the mix.
-kA, who just realized that they need to update said vampire's wiki page. Oops.
I wasn't altogether sure about the timing, since I didn't want to take attention from/be overshadowed by the Shipfest sign up thread, but... i guess I can try it, to see what happens. I honestly think I'm just worrying too much about it
I'll get the sign-up thread bit up soon!
-OrangeFox on mobile
NTV is run by Agent Undis Closed, which is presumably a pseudonym for an agent whose identity is... ah, you get it. But Undis is lazy as sin; he's always happy for people to send him shows to run. He provides the arena (it's a blue marker north-west of the city, but is delighted for other people to do the work. :) That's how Dafydd wound up with the job last time round.
hS