The Transformist: Interest Check/OOC

[Whatevr89532]

Alright, so I've had an idea for an RP sparked by someone's comment on how interesting it is to have reactions from the person being TFed, and the people watching that happen to the person. The resulting, developed idea is for an RP I call "The Transformist".

It takes place in a "magical modern earth" sort of setting, and the agent of change for nearly all changes is a single mage who has basically the power to alter organic matter at will. (There are limits and contingencies to the power, but that's the gist of it). This RP will be about that guy/girl's 'victims'; players will be encouraged to make several characters in this RP, some to be victims and others to react to other players' victims. The RP's setting is pretty much an entire city and surrounding suburbs, so it will be necessary for some characters to play characters who already know other players' characters in order for good interaction to occur.

Now, knowing the premise is transformation, and that I like slow, well-described transformations, and that I'll be wanting a bunch of characters, you may be wondering how I'd intend to handle all of that. Well, I can't. But that's not going to stop me--instead, I intend to set up a system whereby a willing few other players, who I will call "conspirators", help me run the RP by each handling about an equal amount of other players' characters, including transformations, NPCs, and situations. In a way, it's like if you took a bunch of MATFF-style events, shoved them all into the same world, and had the various characters interact with one another (but yeah, I came up with this idea before MATFF appeared). Naturally, that comparison is a huge oversimplification and ignores several details, but maybe it'd give you an idea of what I'm going for.

Anyway, I don't intend to start this RP unless I have at least two other people willing to be conspirators and help me with transformation, and enough interest in the idea that I could expect to have some characters if/when it begins. If there is enough support/interest, it would start, and the OOC here would be converted to a proper format in a little over a week from now at the very earliest. For now, I just want to know who's interested, and who'd be willing to volunteer..and any questions this fairly vague, generalized description raises.

[Shy Shay]

Oh! Oh! I'm interesting! And I'm volonteering to help! Pick me! Pick me!

...ahem.

This sounds like very interesting concet, and I would love to be a player, a consperitor, or both. What's the deal on mental changes?

[Whatevr89532]

The Transformist (which is what I'll call the one responsible for the transformations) has a small degree of psychic power; (s)he can insert little suggestions into a person's mind, but can't do mental rewrites or memory destruction. A person confused enough by a transformation or weak-willed or weak-minded might be fooled into thinking the suggestions are their own thoughts and/or allowing them to affect their mentality quite a bit. Ultimately, the idea with this is to have a balanced system where the transformation-handler gives suggestions and the player decides whether and how their character is affected by them, so that hopefully nobody has any mental changes they dislike forced on them. It's supposed to be an active, dynamic thing that goes on within the RP itself rather than the mental changes being dictated or decided beforehand.

[Shy Shay]

Ooooooooooh, neat! Now I really want to play this!

[Harri-chan]

This sounds like a good idea, and I'm certainly interested. I could help with some of the TFing too if you wanted. Would the person playing the victim get a choice in what they became?

[Marky]

Hm...this does sound very interesting, Whatevr. I'm interested in joining. Not sure about being involved in the conspirator part, but in joining at the very least.

[Whatevr89532]

@Harri:
I intend to have a "player" section of the character sheet which'll look like this:
Player--
Preferred Physical Changes:
Hated Physical Changes:
Comfort Zone of Mental Changes:
Mental Changes I Cannot/Will Not Play:

..and which the conspirator or I would use as guidelines for the transformation and its result. Hopefully the player would end up having a TF with a degree of control from them, but still has surprising elements. After all, there'd be no reason for a player to stick around if they end up with a character type they don't like to play.

[Blindsense]

I'm definitely interested. ^_^

[Mystic Mina]

Consider me sold on the idea. I'll lend my services to this concept, if need be. Otherwise, I won't mind being transformed by others...

[Ookalf]

You can count me among the interested.

[Whatevr89532]

Alright, well, this is definitely enough interest and potential conspirators for me to start it (next week, as mentioned). I might as well ask your opinion on something..

Obviously, having each person playing tons of characters at the same time could be an issue. The typical way I'd solve that issue would be by simply limiting the number of characters, for this RP maybe to 5, which is a pretty high limit. I had another idea though, what if instead I only limited the number of active characters? This RP could have a sense of time that passes for all the characters at once (for instance, I could say it was noon in the first IC post and then say some time later that time had progressed to 1 PM), so if a character goes into doing something that takes awhile and/or isn't too interesting to watch they would be put on "hold" instead of timeskipped, and then be inactive. A player could then have a certain number of active characters, and as many inactive/total characters as they like. Naturally, this won't make any difference to players intending to only have one or two characters, but I thought I'd ask about it anyway.

[Marky]

Hm, well, that does sound quite an interesting way of going about things, and quite fair to me, actually. I probably won't even get up to 5 characters total, but, yeah. I like it. Sounds good.

[Shy Shay]

Sounds fair... though I would think that there should only be, at most, two characters of one person transformed at a time. Any more would be waaaay too confusing.

[Miku-chan]

Why Shay, even your creative mide should be able to handle up to Five Personal characters getting TFed...... But anyway, color me interested as well, I'll help out where needed if you want...

[Whatevr89532]

Okay, let's start this up.
Official-type post:
The setting is one Earth where magic has existed for quite some time, and those who were using magic in hiding revealed themselves a few years ago. Most people know it exists now, but many people don't understand it very well and the average Joe's life is relatively unchanged. The American government recently began funding a preexisting organization known as "The Magical Authority" which strives to prevent unethical or vigilante uses of magic, but the organization is spread very thin and usually only takes on the more dangerous offenders.

The RP is about several random citizens of a city and its suburbs to which the Transformist, a being with the power of transformation, comes; many of the characters will be 'victims' of the man. In this world it is known that transformations of one's body can sometimes result in a change in one's magical potential: some gaining power, some losing it, and some retaining the same amount of power but in a different class of magic. A few of the Transformist's victims might undergo this sort of change, though some will notice it and others won't.

As per discussion...each player can have however many characters he or she likes, but only five can be "active" at a time, inactive characters being those who are for whatever reason not being narrated at the moment and may appear later. Furthermore, only two characters can be in the process of a transformation at a time, to reduce the load on the conspirators and me. You are not obligated to make more than one character to join the RP, however. The aspect of gaining/losing/altering magic is one a player may request or opt out of if they like; if no preference is given, the conspirator or I will choose. That said, here's the character sheet:

Code: Select all

[b]Character--[/b]
Name:
Gender:
Age:
Appearance:
Personality:
Magic?: (if yes, say what magic they have; if no, don't worry about it)
Changes Log: (updates to this are purely optional on the part of the player)
[b]Player--[/b]
Preferred Physical Changes:
Hated Physical Changes:
Comfort Zone of Mental Changes:
Mental Changes I Cannot/Will Not Play:
Magic Preference: (Request, Opt out, or Don't care)

I will be playing the Transformist him/herself, at least at the beginning.

Conspirators:
These are the people who will handle narrating surroundings and changes to characters; I'm sharing the load on this. Ideally, there will be about an even share between conspirators unless one needs to take a lighter load. All you need to be a conspirator is a willingness to try various sorts of transformations and attempt to make the game fun for the players you'll handle. Mention in a post if you would like to become one or decline being one.
Present list of conspirators:
-Whatevr89532 (Admin)
-Shy Shay
-Ickle Harri-Chan (?)
-Nephilim (?)
-Miku
[(?) just means I'm not sure the person has committed to doing it yet.]

Important information for conspirators handling changes follows--
In an effort to be fair, the list will be used to rotate straight through conspirators unless certain exceptions occur. So for instance, I will do the first character to join's TF, Shay (second on the list) would do the second character to join's TF, and so on. Exceptions include a request to not do a given TF, to take on a lighter load, or if one would be doing one's own character's TF. In the event of an exception, the next two conspirators will simply swap unless that creates another exception, in which case we'll cross that bridge if/when we come to it.
The Transformist's basic ability:
When close enough for physical contact, he can essentially "program" a change in, setting it to occur at a specific time or after a specific amount of time, or even set off by a particular trigger such as the person hearing or saying a certain word. He also has control over how fast a change goes, whether it all follows from the trigger or time setting or whether it's periodic or requires more of the trigger to move forward in distinct chunks. The change can be to a person, animal, part-animal, other races such as elves; pretty much any creature.
The Transformist's Limits:
First of all, someone must be (or must have been) close enough to the Transformist for physical contact in order for a transformation to happen. Therefore, a character who's been nowhere near the Transformist, won't change. Once a character has been near enough for the Transformist to do something, I or the Conspirator over the character will change the character according to whatever rules have been decided for the specific change.
Second, the Transformist can't alter non-organic matter. If your character wears polyester, their clothes won't change; they won't lose their cell phones or PDAs or gaming devices unless they happen to drop them or have them stolen somehow. For that matter, guns, swords and other weaponry won't be changed, though in some cases it won't be easy to keep them around. Included in this, the Transformist doesn't have the power to make cloth or other objects sentient, so unless some other agent interferes, Inanimate TFs are very unlikely in this RP.
Third, the Transformist cannot actively rewrite a person's mind. He can put in little psychic suggestions tied to the change, and the character might respond to them in a number of ways including self-induced amnesia, but it won't be the Transformist's fault and it will be generally up to the player how the character responds to the suggestsions. A note to Conspirators and players alike: Forceful suggestions are less likely than subtle ones to make it through, and the Transformist knows that.

Character List:
Format-- Character: Information. [Owner; Conspirator handling change]
((None yet))