The "Best" RPG Ever-2

 First / Previous / Next / Latest
 

---

Not ten hours ago, from at least one person's perspective, an avid tabletop gamer had received his monthly magazine, and found slipped into it an envelope with a disk inside. He couldn't find any mention of the disk in the magazine, the envelope was blank, and the only marking there was on the disk itself was "Best RPG Ever!" written in permanent marker. He muttered to himself a question of whether that was an advertisement or someone's review.

A few hours after checking the mail--just after lunch actually--he decided to take a look at it in his computer. The disk didn't even have an autorun function, it just acted like a data disk. "Is this someone's idea of a prank?" he thought. There was an executable that would apparently start the game, but no other files, not even a simple readme.

His curiosity was strong enough for him to ignore the risk that the disk might have some kind of virus or something, so he started the file and watched the percentage loaded crawl along. It was taking forever, so he got up to go get a drink. He didn't quite make it to the kitchen before suddenly, unexpectedly blacking out.

He woke up face-down, a little sore as if he'd fallen that way, and quickly pushed his way up into a standing position. Once he'd done that, it occured to him he definitely wasn't at home anymore. In fact, he wasn't anywhere recognizable: Just a white room with some kind of holographic pedestal in the middle, and what he could only assume to be an old-school message box floating above it.

"Huh..well, this is kind of awesome." He said, looking at said center-of-the-room objects. "I think they went a little overboard on the immersion, though, especially if they're gonna put unrealistic stuff like that in."

"..Oh who am I kidding. I wish I'd copied the disk and sent it to some LARPers or something. They'd have a hoot with this."

"Hmm..so, pick a class to begin, eh? What've we got here.." He figured out how to scroll from one class to another without much trouble. "Knight..class taken by another player. Bah, who wants that anyway? Witch!? Sorry, wrong gender. Illusionist? Lame. Huh, the archer sounds good, but probably sucks at close combat. Wait, construct? Like, a robot? I was thinking this was a fantasy game. Maybe it'd be interesting..oh, wait, it says constructs have 'muted emotions'. Nope, not for me, moving on."

The next option to appear looked to just be a 2D drawing of an eye floating in the air. "Hm..Psion." He read aloud, "Psions: Those who have rejected the use of all magic in order to unlock the true power of the mind. They are capable of unimaginable feats, manipulating and controlling the minds of others, lifting objects and affecting the physical world in various other ways through the power of their intelligence alone."

"Now that sounds awesome. But how do I..oh, yeah, just pick up whatever's there, right?" He reached out and closed his hand around the eye-thing. It didn't feel like he was holding anything, but his hand felt vaguely warm. The message box told him to bring his middle and forefinger to his forehead to confirm, or open his fist to cancel.

"Standard psychic stance, huh?" he commented, holding his hand in the prescribed manner. After a second or two, he felt something like static going from his hand to his forehead, and then his head started to hurt. "Hrk..ow. What the heck, message box, you didn't say this was gonna hurt!" He held his head in both hands for a few seconds as the headache intensified, making it feel like his brain was going to blow his own skull open, before suddenly dying down and going away, and then suddenly he felt oddly better than he had before, like his head had been a little sore all his life and now it had been relieved.

He let go, opened his eyes, and shook his head, trying to shake off a mild dizzyness that seemed to be lingering from the headache. He could swear the message box was moving up on him. Actually, after a couple of seconds he realized he wasn't all that dizzy and it was moving up. Or rather, he was moving down. He looked down to see if he was on some kind of elevator platform going down or something, and got a clear view of the floor getting closer.

"What the..is being short somehow a requirement for psychics? I...whoa!" His comment was interrupted by a sudden shove outward from his hips, making them wider and completely throwing off his balance. He flailed for a couple of seconds before going down, faceplanting with a smack.

"Ow," he said, not willing to get up yet. He felt another shove from his stomach now, but this one was inward instead of out, and as soon as it happened he could feel his shirt hanging loosely on the sides where it had fit pretty close before. Then his shirt pulled tight against his stomach, and he got an even better idea of the inward curve it had now. Then the sleeves grew out to his wrists, and his jeans suddenly felt like they were made of a much softer material.

He pushed himself up with his arms, trying to ignore a squeezing feeling coming from all four appendages, and managed to raise himself to a sitting position. He looked down and saw his shirt had turned a bright teal color, his pants now covered in black and white stripes; he was just in time to see the leggings splitting at the thighs and crawling down an inch or two, and then the top part started to open up a hole in the middle.

"Wh-what is this?!" he said, as his underwear suddenly lost its leggings entirely and pulled rather close between his legs. "How is..?" He was interrupted again by a sudden feeling of something shoving out from his back, a strange, thin appendage that all at once grew at least as long as one of his arms, and quickly began flicking around all on its own. He turned around to see it dancing around, just as it felt like it was.

"A..tail? Aah!" He was reacting to another sudden push, this time from his right ear, as it moved higher up on his head, became much larger and, by the feeling of wind across it, also became covered in fur. It was followed quickly by his left ear, and then just as suddenly his hair burst out, framing his face and tumbling down his back, to the top of his hips.

Then, without warning, came another shove inward, this time from between his legs. He looked down at the skirt that the top of his pants had now turned into with wide eyes for a second or two. "D-did I just..eep!" His voice was high and squeaky, nothing like how it had been just a few seconds ago. And his shirt chose now to pull its collar down from his neck all the to way below his chest, as if it were unzipping, and show some kind of vest that hadn't been under it before.

He saw his flat chest for only a second before it shoved out, too. "Aah!" Two little bumps appeared, and then came another push. "Aaah!" This one was just slightly longer, but accomplished much more, filling the little bumps rapidly into full-sized breasts, confirming his earlier suspicion about the pull from between his legs. But just to be certain, he put his hands down in the middle of the skirt, and..sure enough, he was a girl now.

"W-well," she said, blushing and quickly taking her hands away from that spot. "I don't see how being a catgirl is necessary to be a psion.." She carefully stood up, but quickly found the caution unnecessary. Her tail seemed to be making it incredibly easy to balance, and when she did an experimental stretch, she actually felt really limber.

"Hm.." On a whim, she tried to do a backflip, something he had never even attempted before, and found it remarkably easy to do, landing neatly on her feet at the end of it. "Okay, this isn't all bad," she said. "I can handle this. It's just..very immersive roleplaying. Which means I need a name."

She walked up to the pedestal, seeing that the message box had changed to indicate she should walk into it to "begin her journey". She took a deep breath, thinking. The Psion class had sounded good for a reason. All she needed was a positive attitude, and this could be a lot of fun. Then she took the next step, into the circle.

---

Since he couldn't actually see any towns or landmarks, or much of anything besides some mountains way off in one direction, Zack just picked a random direction and began walking. The grassy field seemed to stretch on forever, but he didn't seem to get tired from walking nearly as soon as he expected, especially with the bits of armor built into his current clothes...even as nonsensically-placed as they were, they definitely weighed something, right?

Eventually he saw someone in the distance. As far out as it was, he couldn't tell exactly what the person looked like or what they were doing. Dancing around randomly? Jumping left and right? He walked a bit faster out of curoisity before he caught sight of another member of this "dance", a decidedly quadripedal creature that appeared to be trying to catch the other one. Then it occurred to him that they were probably fighting, or at least one of them was. The other was trying to avoid getting killed.

Well. He had two swords, and apparently knew how to use them. Zack broke into a run immediately, and though there wasn't any super-speed or anything like that, his stamina was still surprising for the distance he covered, and thankfully by the time he got there the person hadn't been pinned by the creature, and as he stopped, panting, he could get a better look at both.

The creature looked like an unusually large wolf, with unusually messy fur and teeth somehow even more prominent than on a normal one. The person appeared to be some kind of cat girl, in much more modern clothing than seemed quite appropriate. At least, he thought so. Zack wasn't exactly a history buff. She appeared to be trying to get her hand to her forehead, and nearly succeeding before having to jump out of the way of the wolf again. Her reflexes seemed unusually good..he tried really hard not to think 'cat-like', but couldn't help himself.

Having sufficiently rested from the run, Zack drew his blades and charged at the wolf just as it was about to pounce at the..cat-girl..again. The wolf was surprised by the attack, but jumped out of the way quickly enough to just get a couple of gashes on its side rather than just being cut to pieces as Zack had intended.

"Hey! Are you stealing my kill?" demanded the girl.

"You don't have anything to kill with," answered Zack, staring down the wolf while it growled at him, seemingly ready to pounce again. It occured to him after he said that that she might also have an inventory or whatever.

"That's what you think! My mind is my weapon," she said.

"Okay. Then use that to kill it if you're so concerned. I'll distract it." The wolf jumped at him, and he knocked it away with the flat of his blade. It rolled with its landing and was back on its feet in no time.

While they stared each other down again, the cat-girl seemed to be having a private conversation with nobody. "Oh, come on! Really? You've gotta be kidding me."

"What's the matter? Your 'weapon' not as powerful as advertised?"

"Rrgh, stupid quadratic wizards. All I can do right now is provoke it or stun it briefly."
"Well do one of those then!" The wolf jumped at Zack, and its claws grazed his right arm, but he managed to give its back a nasty cut with his other blade, and turned around before it could press its attack any more.

"Well I am not drawing that thing's teeth at me," she said. "Stun it is, then!"

Since the direction he was facing had both the girl and the wolf in it, Zack could see her putting her fingers to her forehead again, successfully this time, and then the wolf appeared to be hit by an invisible bat to the head, and stumbled for a second, dazed. That was all the opportunity he needed to lunge at it and stab the point of the larger blade into it. It was still moving with the sword going all the way through it, so he shoved the thinner sword under its neck and drew a deep gash through it, finally causing the creature to slump over and stop moving.

As soon as it was clearly dead, the wolf disappeared and a small sack appeared in its place (not stabbed through with Zack's sword, though, thankfully). He looked to the stranger, about to ask her a question, but she interrupted him by saying "Dibs!" before dashing up to the sack and picking it up, causing it to disappear (presumably into inventory).

"Was that really necessary?" said Zack, sheathing his blades.
"Yes it was. Every bit of gold counts," she said.

"..Sure, whatever. So were you pulled into this place by a weird game disk, too?"

"Oh, so you're an actual person, then? Not an NPC? Real shame, that."

"Yes. I'm Zack."

She gave him a confused look for a second or two. "That doesn't sound like it fits you at all," she said.
"It's my name," he answered.
"So you used to be a guy, too?"
"I am a guy."
"You can't be serious. Your breasts are bigger than mine is!" she said.

"Th-that doesn't mean anything," said Zack, crossing his arms across his chest and then quickly uncrossing them, as that had the unfortunate effect of reminding him about the unfamiliar weight there. "I'm still the same person I ever was, even though someone screwed around with my body."
"Hmph. You clearly have no sense of good roleplaying. I'm Katherine."
"Which would make your actual name, from before you got sucked into whatever the heck this is.."
"..none of your business!" she said. "You may call me Kath if you need to save time."

He tilted his head a bit sideways. "Not 'Kat'?"

"Ha! No, nothing so stereotypical as that. So I guess you're the one that picked the Knight class."

"Yeah."

"Great, you can have it. I picked Psion because I was promised unimaginable, head-exploding power...but obviously that's going to take a while."

He started walking again, and she ran up next to him. "We should stick together, Zack. Form a party, share XP?"

"So there's experience in this, too?"
"Well, there's gotta be! How else are we gonna learn new skills? I'm still working on figuring out how to access my stats right now, though. But anyway, you keep me alive long enough to learn some powerful skills and I'll repay you ten times as much once I can throw buildings around with the power of my mind. How's that? Sound good?"
"Whatever."
"Great! And I hope you're not bent on playing a Lawful Good, because absolute power corrupts absolutely, and I mean to be thoroughly corrupted by the time we're through with this game."

"You think that'll work? We're probably supposed to be heroes or something."
"Hey, heroes can conquer, too. I don't think anyone's gonna have a complaint when I can explode heads or make mind-slaves whenever I feel like it."

"..You're completely crazy, aren't you?"
"No, I'm just having fun with the role! I chose to be a Psion for power, and I'm gonna ride that power as high as it takes me."

Zack didn't really care one way or another, but didn't bother to say that. He was too busy looking at what seemed to be buildings on the horizon.

---

Note: Well, most of the suggestions on the last entry were rather far-reaching. I was really looking for things to help me move it along short-term. I have ideas for how the setting works, and the direction the plot moves in eventually, and they may not be entirely compatible with some of those suggestions. But I'll try to work in what I can, which in this case meant having Zack "rescue" the second party member on the way to town. I mostly felt compelled to do it this way once I figured out what her personality would be like, and really wanted to write some of it right away. As you may have guessed, I know of what a few of the players' classes will be, but I mean to add any classes you happen to suggest (wizard/sorceress in this case) to the list of possibilities to pull from whenever I decide to add another member. Hoping to play on the two-character dynamic for the moment, though.

I do want the players to be actually trapped in the RPG world for at least a while..but I will say that just because they're stuck in an "RPG" doesn't mean winning will free them, assuming there even is a win condition to begin with, since that was just what Zack was hoping would happen. The idea with NPCs is that they will be people who were born in this fantasy world, and act like real people, rather than repeating the same line of dialogue endlessly. I think the best explanation I can give without spoilers is that Katherine has a much better idea of what kind of game this is than Zack does right now.

That said, I still want any suggestions you have, especially about what kind of town they're entering, character ideas for the NPCs there, and what sort of quest they may find themselves sent on.
And monster ideas, too. I'll probably keep using stock fantasy monsters like dire wolves otherwise.