So... anyone want to run Rapture Academy?

Started by Blinkin, November 15, 2014, 08:17:15 AM

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Blinkin

So, I downloaded this PDF for Rapture Academy years ago because someone wanted to run it in an Email group game. Sadly, the game never got off of the ground. Now that I've had the thing and read the rules, which I mostly understand, I'm really, really wanting to give it a try just so I can say that I've played the thing. It looks like a lot of fun, but never having played it, no way I'm going to try to run it.

I need a GM, perhaps some players would be nice too, but I really, really, really want to play this thing. Help?
"I am a Southern Gentleman, which means that I'm a rogue and a scoundrel. When I'm not kissin' the hands of married women, I'm slipping off their wedding rings."
My Ons' & offs'
Absenses & Apologies (Updated 3/02/23)
Blinkins' Thinkin's (Story Ideas)
Yes, I really am blind.
Being Literate is the ability to read and understand a language. When you ask for literate, what you are looking for is Verbosity, which is the ability to use lots of words without actually saying very much... like politicians. I consider myself both literate and verbose.

SneakyGuy

We are speaking of this system - http://web.archive.org/web/20080208112929/http://markovia.com/index.php?title=Rapture_Academy#LARP_.288.2B_players.29 - right?

+1 as a player. I can learn the system, but I don't want to GM a setting I haven't played before.

O&O

Blinkin

Yes, although my copy has a bit before the start of that document, it looks like the same system.
"I am a Southern Gentleman, which means that I'm a rogue and a scoundrel. When I'm not kissin' the hands of married women, I'm slipping off their wedding rings."
My Ons' & offs'
Absenses & Apologies (Updated 3/02/23)
Blinkins' Thinkin's (Story Ideas)
Yes, I really am blind.
Being Literate is the ability to read and understand a language. When you ask for literate, what you are looking for is Verbosity, which is the ability to use lots of words without actually saying very much... like politicians. I consider myself both literate and verbose.

SneakyGuy

Cool. There are few things to be desired on the way it handles conflicts, but for a smut rpg, it will do. The setting is cool and there are some nice ideas inside.
O&O

Crasey

Rapture senses tingling... I'll watch this space.  ::)

This is a more recent revision, for what it's worth. Reached by clicking the arrow to April 2008 in the top right in SneakyGuy's link. Just some changes to merit/flaw costs, and a handful of new ones.

SneakyGuy

Also the prospectus is entirely new. And the structure is good.
O&O

Blinkin

It would be up to the GM which one is used, but I'm cool with either. I don't want to start saving things until there's a game, but thanks for the update. :)
"I am a Southern Gentleman, which means that I'm a rogue and a scoundrel. When I'm not kissin' the hands of married women, I'm slipping off their wedding rings."
My Ons' & offs'
Absenses & Apologies (Updated 3/02/23)
Blinkins' Thinkin's (Story Ideas)
Yes, I really am blind.
Being Literate is the ability to read and understand a language. When you ask for literate, what you are looking for is Verbosity, which is the ability to use lots of words without actually saying very much... like politicians. I consider myself both literate and verbose.

Idlewyld

I might be interested in playing - though running it is probably out of my league.

Blinkin

Well, it looks like we have interest in playing, just not a GM for it. *sighs* Maybe eventually, if we keep the thread alive, someone will stumble across it on a dark and stormy night and help us find our way deeper into the dark. ;)
"I am a Southern Gentleman, which means that I'm a rogue and a scoundrel. When I'm not kissin' the hands of married women, I'm slipping off their wedding rings."
My Ons' & offs'
Absenses & Apologies (Updated 3/02/23)
Blinkins' Thinkin's (Story Ideas)
Yes, I really am blind.
Being Literate is the ability to read and understand a language. When you ask for literate, what you are looking for is Verbosity, which is the ability to use lots of words without actually saying very much... like politicians. I consider myself both literate and verbose.

alextaylor

Had a lot of fun with this awhile back! Probably my favorite system so far. If I had time, I'd gladly GM, but sadly I don't. I'll happily cheer you guys on and lurk to watch though!

The system is really good in that it encourages people to build really interesting characters! It encourages a lot of weird kinky ideas people never thought of. It balances out those characters. And it also encourages some teamwork, like to be a pack of predators. Or survive as a herd of prey.

The conflict system is not so great though. And because every character ends up being corrupted, the system mechanics itself encourages people to get into nonstop orgies. It's also poorly documented and tested. I feel as if the system designers just got bored of it after a round of testing and never fixed it.


One experiment I'd propose is just building characters using the rules, and then freeforming it. You'd probably get a whole lot more fun freeforming, because the rules are broken.

Just use the rules as some kind of guideline as to what the reaction is without needing to roll dice. So if you've got a Chastise score of 5, you'd likely win against someone with a Threat of 2, but won't budge someone with a Threat of 7. This is probably what the rules intended to do, but they didn't really implement it properly.
O/O

SneakyGuy

The core mechanic, d6 dicepool is sound, but they flunked the whole virtue/desire scales. It makes more sense to  leave them as resources to boost successes on rolls, then add a completely different arousal meter.
O&O

Crasey

#11
I like that idea, and played around with rewriting some sections to suit it, but I can't find a way to make it work without either it turning out mechanically the same (when Arousal interacts with Virtue & Desire), or the Virtue & Desire balance of each character becoming static (when Arousal doesn't interact with Virtue & Desire).

Did you have an example in mind? Even a very simple one. I've seen what alextaylor means about the games degrading, but I'm kind of a system geek and would love to make it work. :P

SneakyGuy

The mechanics I have in mind is similar to a lot of dicepool systems. Lets say you have the following stats, apart from the skills and stuff (which are fine):

Virtue - Defensive stat
Desire - Offensive stat
Arousal - Equivalent of HP

Permanent Virtue+Desire always equals six. This is the amount of virtue points and desire points you may have. They are replenished in some way (can be discussed)

Tests are done dicepool-y. Roll d6, success on 4+, count successes. You can spend a point of virtue or desire to gain additional success or reroll. You can spend only one of each per turn and cannot spend both on the same roll.  You can spend Virtue to resist temptation, help others and so on. You can spend Desire to tempt others, obtain something, etc.

Arousal goes from 0 to 6, unless modified. If you reach 6 arousal, all you want is to fuck and you don't have much control over yourself if any. Arousal attacks are successful if they score more successes than the defence. Then they give you the difference of the successes as arousal points.

Example:

Alex wants to seduce Bess.
Alex has 2 Virtue 4 Desire and is at arousal 2
Bess has 3 Virtue 3 Desire and is at arousal 0

Knowing her fetish for alternative boys, he appears dressed in gothic clothes and makes a vamp roll (3 dice for skill), gets 2,2,3=0 successes and spends a point of Desire to reroll. 5,6,1 = 2 successes
Bess uses threat to defend (2, -1 for the fetish) and rolls 3 = 0 success. Spends a point of Virtue for an additional success, so she can partially resist. She still gains 1 arousal.
Now it is her turn, she uses chastise (2 dice)to tell Alex to stop slacking and start doing his part of the project, instead of trying to get in her pants. She rolls high, 5,6 = 2 successes and spends another virtue point to go to 3.
Alex defends with threat, (1 dice), rolls 3, but even if he rerolls, this is still a loss. He spends no desire, shuts up and goes to his place for a while (time frame is intentionally described vaguely, as in the book). May be next time he'll have better luck and Bess will be a tad more aroused.

And pretty much that's it.
O&O

Blinkin

I'm not sure that I agree with the idea of getting a completely new roll with just 1 point of desire or virtue. It makes more sense to me to either use a point to either add a dice to the original roll, before hand, or to grant an automatic sucess. Only 1 point can be spent in a single roll. Once the point is spent, the usual rules for regaining the point follows.

Does that make any sense?

In the above example, Alex doesn't think that his 3 die vamp will be enough to overcome Suzy's 5 dice of threat. He uses a point of desire to add a 4th die to his check.

Example 2, Alex has  rolled his 3D6 vamp, getting a 3, 4, 6. He has two successes, but wants to play it safe. So he spends a point of desire to get a third success.

Suzy resist Alex's vamp with her 4D6 of threat. She decides that her 4 die will be enough and gets a 2, 3, 5, 4. 2 successes. She decides the spend a point of virtue to gain a third sucess and creates a tie. neithe gains ground. The next round, Suzy wants to amek sure that Alex gets the point and spends apoint of virtue to get an extra die to her roll, she rolls a 4, 5, 4 and a 3. three sucesses, the best that she could do normally.
"I am a Southern Gentleman, which means that I'm a rogue and a scoundrel. When I'm not kissin' the hands of married women, I'm slipping off their wedding rings."
My Ons' & offs'
Absenses & Apologies (Updated 3/02/23)
Blinkins' Thinkin's (Story Ideas)
Yes, I really am blind.
Being Literate is the ability to read and understand a language. When you ask for literate, what you are looking for is Verbosity, which is the ability to use lots of words without actually saying very much... like politicians. I consider myself both literate and verbose.

Crasey

#14
So, instead of each success in seduction making a character more susceptible to further seduction in the current scene, the difficulty remains the same until they're at 6 Arousal. The only change would be if they spend all their Virtue or you spend all your Desire, and being especially successful or unsuccessful doesn't help that happen, it just gets them closer to 6 Arousal or not.

Yeah, stupid me. Part of the smut singularity problem has been that seduction curve, so I don't know why I was trying to keep it around.

SneakyGuy

Blinkin, the point is, that both virtue and desire have very low values and giving a single die bonus means you'll occasionally have about half success on average. Thus they won't really matter much. Having a reroll available saves you from really bad dice and the bonus 1 success is still not much in comparison with tons of bonuses from the book, that give up to four dice per roll, or magic spells with a difficulty of 4 or 5.

Yes, Crasey, the number one problem is the seduction curve. Thus my main idea was to scrap it.
O&O

Crasey

#16
Now I'm trying to figure out climax and Corruption with this change. If giving/consuming Desire is replaced by Arousal during sex as well, then if I understand the idea, it seems like climax happens easier because Arousal doesn't get spent, only raised. Then, if Corruption points are still given for climaxing at 0 Virtue, and Virtue only drops by resisting, then I guess that the way to avoid risking Corruption is to not resist? I'm not sure if that seems backwards or just appropriately depraved. :P

Edit: Maybe Corruption should be given by climaxing at 6 Desire, now that that's no longer necessarily the point of climax. It still means the character will be at 0 Virtue, but being at 0 Virtue doesn't necessarily mean you're at 6 Desire. I also like it because it sort of implies not just that you physically enjoyed what happened (Arousal) but that it was appealing to some deeper desire (Desire). Eh? Right? It also makes multiple climaxes really important for creating Corruption in virtuous characters, if that's your goal, since that would be the only way to raise Desire during sex now, I think.

SneakyGuy

Not necessary, cause you don't have the spiral "the hornier you are, the easier it is to get even more horny". Also, you might as well have merits spells, items and actions that drop arousal. The easiest I can think about is encountering a strongly negative fetish.

Corruption can be discussed, but climaxing at 0 virtue might represent that the character tried everything, yet completely failed and thus became a tad more cynical. Thus, kids, always keep your last point safe, unless you really think that this one roll will bring you the victory :) Oh, and also beware of things that drain your virtue. :P
O&O

alextaylor

I like SneakyGuy's proposal. But my bit of opinion...

Virtue is a character's willpower with regards to refraining themselves. It should be something like an 'armor' stat. It lowers 'damage' in regards to seduction, but it can also be burned up to resist successes. Fetishes could be used as some kind of 'armor piercing' attack. So if a prude has 5 Virtue but a +3 Fetish to biker guys, she'd have like 2 Virtue with regards to resisting a biker guy.

Desire is a character's willpower with regards to getting what they want. It's used dicepool style. So it could also be used in chastising people. It can be used to damage someone's virtue.

Virtue would probably replenish slowly, like after a full night's sleep.

Desire could replenish quite fast. Like someone could run out of desire for an encounter, go home and see his roommate nailing a girl, and have that desire partially replenished again. I'm thinking maybe a desire point could be replenished for a point of fetish.

Arousal could probably replenish fairly quickly. So sometimes it makes sense to attack Virtue for the long term. Like if a guy talks dirty to a girl in class, gropes her, gets her arousal up to 3. The teacher then breaks them up. The encounter ends after class, and her arousal goes down to maybe 1 or 0.

So a good girl (e.g. Virtue 4) might get seduced into an orgy that night and have her Virtue lowered to 0, but her arousal has been replenished after a few orgasms. A non-attractive guy hits on her while she's on the way home, and finds that she's a lot easier than normal.

It opens up to some interesting strategy later on. So you'll have these 'foreplay' moments early in the day to burn down Virtue of ultra difficult targets. Rivals might team up to lower a girl's virtue, but individually plot to get the girl for themselves. Exhibitionist/slut characters might want to take down and humiliate the snooty Pietas bitch.

Corruption could be based on the present Virtue level when the character reaches Arousal of 6. So that previous character with 5 Virtue hits Arousal of 6, she doesn't get corrupted. But if her virtue was somehow burned down to 2, there's a much larger chance of her getting corrupted. So if you want to corrupt characters, take down their Virtue.
O/O

SneakyGuy

Yes, I think this is also a perfectly working idea.
O&O

Crasey

So, I threw this up on editthis.info to give Rapture Academy a home that isn't a spotty snapshot of a wiki, and I've recently tried to adapt it to what my understanding of the Arousal business is. If others have the interest, please edit/discuss away over there. I'm not confident in the job I did at all.

SneakyGuy

Isn't Virtue+2 a bit too high of a defence? Why not Virtue? Have you tested it?

Apart from that - nice, I like it.
O&O