Open Freeform Chose Your Own Adventure [CYOA] Crime in the Streets of Dayport

Rosewood

Member
Hello everyone

Introduction
My name is Rosewood and I've been RPing on-and-off for about a decade and a half. And now I've come here in search of a talented writer to do one of my biggest RP ideas yet: The Streets of Dayport.

As for me, I'm a Dutch guy who turns 30 this year and hasn't quite come to terms with it yet >_<

I enjoy a wide variety of nerdy activities including video games, watching anime, reading and watching Netflix series. I'm currently studying to be a translator and intend to work in that field while working on my own projects in my free time.

I like to chat and exchange banter with my RPing partners but that's not a requirement, I don't mind if you're all business as long as we can write well together.

The CYOA Format
Now you must have noticed the [CYOA] in the title and either wondered what it stood for or known what it stood for but wondered how it works. I'll happily explain both! First off, CYOA stands for Choose Your Own Adventure. It refers to a genre in which you shape a story by making choices from a limited selection. I've essentially co-opted this idea and used it to create my own 'unique' roleplaying format.

The way it works is that I put your character in a situation and then offer you a set of choices for how you want to act on that situation. You pick one and write a short post based on it. After which, I write out the outcome and the next situation and so it goes.

In practice this will play out a bit like a cross between a tabletop RPG like D&D and an RP. You will have a character sheet complete with inventory, abilities, how much money you have and so on and so forth. Naturally, the risk of death and injury is also present but there is also the chance to reach incredible heights, the advantage of the format is that you can go anywhere you want and do anything you want, though naturally you will face the consequences for your actions.

To help paint a picture, here is a simple example:

Bob walks down the road and finds the road forked in two, one road that led to the right and one that led to the left.
He stopped to consider his options for a moment.

Choices:
-> Pick the road that leads to the left
-> Pick the road that leads to the right


You pick a choice from the list, copy-paste it back to me and I write out the next post based on your choice and it keeps going like that. Sometimes you'll also get situations like this:

At long last Bob had found his way to a village, his feet were sore from all the walking and his stomach felt like a hollow pit, churning with hunger. But as he approached the village borders he was approached by a man. "Who are you? What is your business here?" the man asked, clutching a farmer's scythe like a weapon. There was a clear tone of hostility and wariness in his voice....

Choices:
-> Tell him you are a traveler seeking a place to stay (your choice how)
-> Tell him you are looking for work (your choice how)
-> Ask him why he's so wary (your choice how)
-> Say something else (your choice how)
-> Do something else (your choice how)
-> Leave (your choice how)


In these situations you aren't just picking a choice but also providing details like dialogue and how your characters presents himself and what kind of tone he uses and so on, these are kind of like RP posts but short ones. It'd end up looking something like this:

-> Tell him you are a traveler seeking a place to stay
(Bob holds his head as high as he can manage. "I am Bob, I'm just a traveler looking for a place to stay. I don't mean you any ill will," he said in a firm, strong voice that showed he wouldn't stand for being intimidated by some farmer and his sad excuse for a weapon!)


And from there I write out how the farmer responds and set up the next situation and you post a choice to that and so on and so forth.

The Setting
Is called Dayport, after the coastal city-state in which it takes place. The setting is akin to Victorian England, Dayport can be thought of as a fictional version of Victorian London.

Another major element in the setting is the practice of alchemy. In the setting, alchemy is basically a magical version of chemistry. While it mainly produces magical potions it also produces a variety of other substances like powders, alchemical metals and so on. While alchemy can produce some spectacular effects it is ultimately scientific and rule-bound in nature, in other words while the effects are magical the practice itself is scientific.

Dayport is an industrious city, it's coastal location means it ships a great deal of goods and it's factories produce many more goods. However, the wealth resulting from this disappears almost entirely in the pockets of the nobility and the rich. The hard-working labourers receive next to nothing for their trouble, even though they endure all the industrial accidents and alchemical spills.

Naturally this creates problems and the biggest of those problems is crime.

Dayport has always had a reputation for having a vast criminal underworld who deal in everything from smuggling to coin-clipping to burglary, information dealing, kidnapping, assassination and much more. The gangs and the more skilled criminals command as much power and respect as the nobility and the wealthy merchants.

The Story
You are a criminal, born and raised in Dayport. Beyond that, we'll agree on the story together and we can go in many different directions ranging from being a lone gentleman thief to a vicious highwayman robbing stage coaches to an assassin for hire to a champion of the illegale fighting rings to an information broker who deals in secrets.

The only things written in stone are the setting and the fact that you are a criminal of some sort.

Note that criminal does not necessarily mean evil. A thief who steals from a nobleman can be a far better person than the noble he's stealing from, remember that Robin Hood was technically a criminal!

You can choose to play a kindhearted criminal who has a personal code or a ruthless crook who does whatever it takes to earn a living, that's all up to you. We can even introduce something of a morality system if you like.

The System
Is something we can decide on together, as the title suggests it leans towards a more freeform approach rooted in the CYOA format, but beyond that we can debate how we'd like to play things out. I'm open to designing a D&D-style system, complete with levels, criminal skills and so on or some other system we'll work out together.

I'm also open to discussing what kind of (mis)adventures your character will get involved in and how it'll all play out, very little is written in stone here!

Considerations
Before you decide to approach me, these are a few things to think about to see if we'll work well together:

- I prefer to play in sessions where we post back and forth fairly quickly, aka you make a choice, I write the post right away, you make a choice right away, etc. These sessions can be anywhere from an hour to several hours long. I'd generally like to do at least one session a week and I'm open to more.

- I generally prefer to schedule these back-and-forth sessions in advance but I'm open to being more spontaneous.

- I only RP on Discord, not here on the site. Nothing personal but I need Discord infrastructure to organize things.

- I don't generally like adding things to the setting, so if you'll only RP with me if I add say, unicorns, to the RP then you might as well not bother.

- This RP will not, under any circumstances, include any romance, smut or melodrama or anything resembling it.

- As mentioned above, I'm Dutch, this means I'm in the GMT+2 timezone. I only have time to RP in the evening on workdays and on weekends it varies wildly. I am generally available on most evenings.

- Finally, if you're in doubt I strongly encourage that you approach me anyway. I'm more than happy to talk things through with you as long as you want and if we find we can't work together than we part ways amicably.

Finally
I hope you enjoyed reading this thread. If you're interested, please add me on Discord at: Rosewood#5556
 
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