Play By Chat Pitches 2018

This week I'm presenting the pitches I made for new Play By Post/Chat game. My initial experiment with transitioning my Demon: the Descent game to Play By Post failed. There were several causes. I over extended myself (the demon game tended to involve each PC going off on their own). We had difficulty with engaging all the players (some of whom rely on the social element). The pacing of the game was slow. All of these I hope to resolve in the new game.

The Pitches

I asked my players to rank these on a -5 (hate it) to 5 (love it) scale.

Inhuman Magics (Trail of Cthulhu)

Short pitch: Globe trotting scientists battle sorcerous cults and otherworldly horrors.

It is the 1930s. As political turmoil grows, a small group of academics, scientists, and dabblers in the occult uncover the hints of a supernatural threat to humanity. Witch cults, mad sorcerers, and less human things have begun a war for the secrets to true magic. Some seek to rules the world while others would call down god-like beings whose presence could erase current civilization. Only the investigators have the skills and belief to face this threat.

Inspiration: Indiana Jones, Ninth Gate

Player Characters: Academics, scientists & people associated with academia (former students, doctors, administrators, explorers) who know each other from their time at school (as students or educators) or through mutual friends.

Each has had a brush with the supernatural: a Mythos book or artifact, Fortean phenomenon, a brief glimpse of something not of this world, or an example of magic. Through correspondence with the others you have come together to investigate the Mythos more deeply.

Setting: Based in Western Europe, United States, and/or Canada but with global trotting possibilities (with enough funding); 1930s

The Black Pyramid (Mummy: the Curse/Vampire: the Requiem crossover)

Millenia after the fall of Irem, the Nameless Empire once again rises to claim the dreams and souls of the world. In the Egyptomania of the 19th century, ancient tombs long quiet are opened and withered remains stir to life. The undead revel in the new anonymity of the Industrial Age, sinking their fangs into city flush with new blood and new opportunities. Others with a long point of view plot and plan to bend this new age of science to their will.

Threats abound: soulless vampires, soul eating wizards, mortals wielding strange new science, and ever-present rivals. Who is the Theban and why does that name keep appearing? What secret lies beneath the city and who is really funding those tunnels? Why are the stars going out?

Chronicle Structure: Play would start in the early to mid 19th century. Every story would jump of a decade or two forward. There would also be many flashback scenes to look at the pasts of these ancient characters (and to fill in time, if someone ends up getting particularly active on posts). Overall it would be a sandbox with PCs able to pursue their own agendas. However I will try to push people together in twos and threes.

Player Characters: Mummies (Mummy: the Cursed, basically indestructible servants of a long vanished empire with little initial memory of their pasts and an instinctual duty to seek out offerings for their former (?) masters. They also are served by cults), Elder Vampires (Vampire: the Requiem), and whatever you can pitch to me that works within the campaign frame (basically you need to survive from the mid 19th century to current day and be interested/involved in the big picture).

Possible Locations: London (because of the British Empire, Victorians, and Museums), NYC (because of Museums and being the Axis Mundi), or Chicago (because rivalry with New York, Museums, and possible Mage linkages)

I'm not sure if anyone put this together but this game is essentially playing out the alternate history of the world where the Black Pyramid from the Demon the Descent game originated.