Playground,does this universe sound interesting?

[LennyV]

Planning to make a post by post RP,just need some approval....so,this is the gist of the story.The story takes place in an apocalyptic earth,where the entire earth population exists in one giant dome,called the magmus dome.This protects everyone from the harmful gasses and dust from the outside.Inside the dome,there are two floors.The 1st floor is where the Echonus City resides.This city is almost in shambles,and everyone there is extremely poor,most are criminals.This city also houses release prisoners from the city above,Venitis City.This city houses all of the wealthy and rich people,and looks similar to hollywood,if you want a visualization.Very fancy.The people from Echonus City all have one goal,to one day live in Venitis City.Unfortunately,to get into the city,you must pay a fine of 100,000$ and must keep and income of at least 10,000$ to stay in the city.These rules where made to keep Echonus citizens in there own city.Daily,Venitis police guards come ro patrol Echonus City,to keep track of a crime syndicate,named "The Rebels"They're goal is to get into Venitis City by using an underground facility under the magmus dome as a passageway.The roleplay takes place during a mission to sneak into Venitis City to assassinate the mayor of Venitis City and claim it as their own.Along the way,they will uncover the secrets surrounding the magmus dome and what really happened to the world outside.I plan to call the universe "The Magmus Roleplay" If you feel i should change anything about the story to make it better please tell me.And if you're here,thanks for reading.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Seems like a standard enough Hunger Games/Elysium type setup. Normal genre convention. The setting doesn't grab me in and of itself, but there's nothing wrong with it.

[LennyV]

Seems like a standard enough Hunger Games/Elysium type setup. Normal genre convention. The setting doesn't grab me in and of itself, but there's nothing wrong with it.

Hunger Games? I have heard if it before,but never read the books.I want this to be different,so i'll change up some things,thanks for the feedback.

[Berenger]

If you liked your idea before, don't change it because it's similar to something already existing. Nothing new under the sun and all that. That said, a layered city spire doesn't remind me of Hunger Games at all as there was a rich capital city and various poor province towns that were quite a distance away. But it reminds me very much of the Hive Cities of Warhammer 40.000.

[noob]

Did you watch metropolis?

[Tinkerer]

If you liked your idea before, don't change it because it's similar to something already existing. Nothing new under the sun and all that. That said, a layered city spire doesn't remind me of Hunger Games at all as there was a rich capital city and various poor province towns that were quite a distance away. But it reminds me very much of the Hive Cities of Warhammer 40.000.

Well Minas Tirith is the first thing to spring to my mind for layered cities. But this one does have a distinct difference, namely that it's divided into just two sections and the means of ascension is very clearly marked. The fact that there isn't even a third section raises some rather interesting questions, as well as the fact that the majority of people in Echonus are career criminals. If I had to compare it to something it would most likely be Larry Niven's The Burning City... which reminds me I should really give that another read one of these days. The biggest problem that I see with the outline is that the Rebels believe that assassinating the mayor will give them control of the city. I can't really see how that is supposed to work.

EDIT: I just remembered The Burning City actually did have a middle class. I completely forgot about it.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Sounds like a workable framework. It's the details that are going to make it truly interesting, though. You need to work out how the layers are governed (officially and unofficially), what interests conflict (e.g. maintenance of the dome along the first floor might be quite difficult, but crucial), and as a consequence, what is common and easy to get, and what is rare and exclusive (material and immaterial).

[LennyV]

I'll make some changes and tweaks to the story tomorrow,adding more details about both citys and how the dome works,right not im hitting the hay.

[Anymage]

The base idea, that this one place is the last bastion for all of humanity and that it's designed to highlight class differences, is not uncommon. Then again, Tolkien knockoffs are pretty common and people still have fun gaming in them.

And depending on the system you want to run it in, it sounds like it gives you a fair amount of room to tell the stories you want in it. I could think of a few ways to expand the setting, but sometimes too much expansion just muddies whatever theme you wanted to focus on.

[LennyV]

Alright,i think this version is better.The 2nd floor of the magmus dome,is a virtual simulation,and it was made to farm sadness and despair from all the survivors of the world war that happened,(WW3?)and now are forced to sleep eternally in ruins that was left,unable to rebuild there own society,so it would kinda be like groundhog's day,and the rebels work toward breaking the loop and ending the virtual system.(Keep in mind,Venitis City owns almost all of the currency,resources,and controls Echonus City entirely.)I have not come up for the motivation for the villan who created this whole simulation and the magmus dome.However,the history of the magmus dome,it was craeted by master scientists,put someone (villan) used it to control the remaining humans of WW3.

[Vitruviansquid]

Planning to make a post by post RP,just need some approval....so,this is the gist of the story.The story takes place in an apocalyptic earth,where the entire earth population exists in one giant dome,called the magmus dome.This protects everyone from the harmful gasses and dust from the outside.Inside the dome,there are two floors.The 1st floor is where the Echonus City resides.This city is almost in shambles,and everyone there is extremely poor,most are criminals.This city also houses release prisoners from the city above,Venitis City.This city houses all of the wealthy and rich people,and looks similar to hollywood,if you want a visualization.Very fancy.The people from Echonus City all have one goal,to one day live in Venitis City.Unfortunately,to get into the city,you must pay a fine of 100,000$ and must keep and income of at least 10,000$ to stay in the city.These rules where made to keep Echonus citizens in there own city.Daily,Venitis police guards come ro patrol Echonus City,to keep track of a crime syndicate,named "The Rebels"They're goal is to get into Venitis City by using an underground facility under the magmus dome as a passageway.The roleplay takes place during a mission to sneak into Venitis City to assassinate the mayor of Venitis City and claim it as their own.Along the way,they will uncover the secrets surrounding the magmus dome and what really happened to the world outside.I plan to call the universe "The Magmus Roleplay" If you feel i should change anything about the story to make it better please tell me.And if you're here,thanks for reading.

Okay, a few things I think you might want to work out, and how to work these things out:

1. Not everyone in Echonus City can be a criminal, nor can most. It seems to me like you need a number of people doing actual productive labor in order for the career criminals to leech enough resources out of them to survive. Likewise, there needs to be a believable amount of stability in order for people to live in general, because people like stability - unless you

The fix: Probably just say that Echonus City is mostly lawless, that people live in a sort of urban-tribal society. Everybody is a member of a gang, which gives people the protection to live. Not being part of a gang means you are quickly going to be taken advantage of by the gangs, robbed, and killed. Of course, not everybody who is a member of a gang is expected to fight with the gang or defend the gang's turf, but these gangs are essentially extremely small polities (they attempt to have a monopoly on force, they attempt to establish laws) that are constantly in tension with each other for turf and resources. And of course, the people of Venitis City don't acknowledge any of the Echonus gangs, and largely see Echonus as a festering hive of crime and murder.

2. Why is the plot-important criminal syndicate in Echonus called "The Rebels?" They are not rebels, they are criminals. Even if they were rebels, have you ever seen a rebel group name itself simply "The Rebels" outside of Star Wars and its Rebel Alliance?

The fix: Sit down and think of a backstory for "The Rebels," and then come up with an evocative name that relates to the group's history.

3. How come "The Rebels" think that assassinating the mayor of Venitis City will cause them to own Venitis City? How come the people in Venitis City couldn't simply get a new mayor, especially if they have all the resources and weapons and fanciness?

The fix: Create some kind of power that the mayor has over the city, which allows him/her to rule in a tyrannical, iron-fisted fashion. Maybe the mayor somehow has access to a unique superweapon that even other people in Venitis can't challenge? Maybe the mayor holds some way of controlling all the food or water supplies? What if the world outside is actually in a state of regeneration and is coming out of the apocalypse, only the power-drunk mayor of Venitis has set up a totalitarian regime that controls all information of the outside world? (If you haven't watched the movie Snowpiercer, watch it)

4. Okay, sure, you can say that Venitis uses a monetary fee to keep all the Echonus people out... but wouldn't it be more interesting if that fee was linked to some kind of more sinister backstory that the players could uncover?

The fix: All that money goes to the mayor, concentrating power in Venitis City strictly at the top.

Alright,i think this version is better.The 2nd floor of the magmus dome,is a virtual simulation,and it was made to farm sadness and despair from all the survivors of the world war that happened,(WW3?)and now are forced to sleep eternally in ruins that was left,unable to rebuild there own society,so it would kinda be like groundhog's day,and the rebels work toward breaking the loop and ending the virtual system.(Keep in mind,Venitis City owns almost all of the currency,resources,and controls Echonus City entirely.)I have not come up for the motivation for the villan who created this whole simulation and the magmus dome.However,the history of the magmus dome,it was craeted by master scientists,put someone (villan) used it to control the remaining humans of WW3.

I would kinda go with the old premise and develop it a bit. Since you're asking which one sounds more interesting, the first sounds far more interesting to me.

[LennyV]

Okay, a few things I think you might want to work out, and how to work these things out:

1. Not everyone in Echonus City can be a criminal, nor can most. It seems to me like you need a number of people doing actual productive labor in order for the career criminals to leech enough resources out of them to survive. Likewise, there needs to be a believable amount of stability in order for people to live in general, because people like stability - unless you

The fix: Probably just say that Echonus City is mostly lawless, that people live in a sort of urban-tribal society. Everybody is a member of a gang, which gives people the protection to live. Not being part of a gang means you are quickly going to be taken advantage of by the gangs, robbed, and killed. Of course, not everybody who is a member of a gang is expected to fight with the gang or defend the gang's turf, but these gangs are essentially extremely small polities (they attempt to have a monopoly on force, they attempt to establish laws) that are constantly in tension with each other for turf and resources. And of course, the people of Venitis City don't acknowledge any of the Echonus gangs, and largely see Echonus as a festering hive of crime and murder.

2. Why is the plot-important criminal syndicate in Echonus called "The Rebels?" They are not rebels, they are criminals. Even if they were rebels, have you ever seen a rebel group name itself simply "The Rebels" outside of Star Wars and its Rebel Alliance?

The fix: Sit down and think of a backstory for "The Rebels," and then come up with an evocative name that relates to the group's history.

3. How come "The Rebels" think that assassinating the mayor of Venitis City will cause them to own Venitis City? How come the people in Venitis City couldn't simply get a new mayor, especially if they have all the resources and weapons and fanciness?

The fix: Create some kind of power that the mayor has over the city, which allows him/her to rule in a tyrannical, iron-fisted fashion. Maybe the mayor somehow has access to a unique superweapon that even other people in Venitis can't challenge? Maybe the mayor holds some way of controlling all the food or water supplies? What if the world outside is actually in a state of regeneration and is coming out of the apocalypse, only the power-drunk mayor of Venitis has set up a totalitarian regime that controls all information of the outside world? (If you haven't watched the movie Snowpiercer, watch it)

4. Okay, sure, you can say that Venitis uses a monetary fee to keep all the Echonus people out... but wouldn't it be more interesting if that fee was linked to some kind of more sinister backstory that the players could uncover?

The fix: All that money goes to the mayor, concentrating power in Venitis City strictly at the top.




I would kinda go with the old premise and develop it a bit. Since you're asking which one sounds more interesting, the first sounds far more interesting to me.

Thanks for the feedback,i will take all of this into account for my 3rd revision.

[Berenger]

(If you haven't watched the movie Snowpiercer, watch it)

That's great advice. Snowpiercer is essentially your city shrunk to the size of a train.