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First off, I want to say that I want input as far as ideas for the RP goes. They're more fun when people are invested and people get invested when they've contributed. Also, a lot of this is up for debate so, if you really think something's a bad idea, let me know. I do reserve the right to overrule you all if I feel really strongly about something. Sorry.

Anyway, I was thinking about trying to add some RPG elements to the RP and I think that there's some potential in it but, I might be over-complicating this. As far as the elements we might incorporate into the RP, we don't have to take them all

Character Levels and Leveling: For those of you who saw the movie, I liked how whenever Scott would have some growth as a character he would level up, Gaining stats and becoming stronger. The stats don't have to mean anything or affect the RP in the least, they just might be fun to include and I figured for simplicity's sake we'd just have the characters level at the end of each quest though, I'm open to you guys telling me when you think your characters deserve to level up and why. The higher the characters level the stronger their abilities get you know?

Special Abilities: This kind of goes along with the leveling in that I figure that every time the characters leveled they'd get an added special ability. Now, I don't know what they'd be exactly but since I want your characters to be yours I thought I'd let you pitch them. As an example, I was thinking that maybe Collins can initially only cast two spells. One that opens subspace portals and another that casts fireballs. When he levels I'd give him another and so on and so forth.

Health/Mana: Now, I'm not sure how exactly health would work in regards to taking damage and the like but, I was thinking that we could do with an old video game standby and have the characters recover it by eating food and resting. As far as Mana goes, I figure that we might use up a certain amount of it for each use of our special abilities. Say, opening a subspace portal takes two Mana and casting a fireball takes one or something like that. I dunno, I kind of like the idea of us having Health and Mana counters at the top of our posts. Mana might be recovered by drinking drinks.

Lives: Of course with having health, we bring up the possibility of dying but, there are two solutions that I can see to this. We go the Super Mario route and have 1-Up's that the characters can get through various means or, we go the way of Final Fantasy and use items like Fenix Down.

Fighting: As for fighting, this is really where I think I might just be getting overly complex but, it seems to me that a lot of the time when fighting NPC's roleplayers can be rather one sided. There might be a bit more room for dramatic tension if we incorporated rolls into the fights. I was thinking that we assign the regular baddies a certain amount of health, say two HP, and the role in that fight isn't to determine the victor (because what main character is ever killed by a nameless bad guy) but, to see whether or not the bad guy damages you. You roll a number between one and ten at the beginning of the fight and if its below five then your character takes damage equal to the health of the bad guy? Then for bosses, to extend the fight scenes, the rolls determine whether or not you hit and the like. We could say that a successful roll counts for one damage in a boss fight? A ten as two because it's a critical hit?

Dropped Items/Items in General: In video games baddies will drop items and coins and whatnot when they're defeated. We could have the odd baddie drop food or a drink when they're destroyed but, I was thinking that it might just be easier to say they just drop a dollar in quarters whenever they get destroyed and buy the items in a store. We could set up something pretty simplistic where all the restaurants have three sorts of meals that restore various amounts of health for a certain price across the board, all the coffee shops do that for Mana, and all the stores stock the same kinds of items for the same prices no matter where they are. The main bosses would drop the artifacts and much more money but, we could think of some other magical items we might get for fighting mini-bosses or going on quests and the like. A bracelet that gives you more health or a ring that adds +2 to your rolls or something.

More to come as I think of them and I'd love to hear ideas! Again, feel free to tell me I'm nuts. I want to keep this RP fun.

Also, if you guys had any ideas for side-quests that'd be awesome. I'll keep a list of the good ideas here.

Side-quest Ideas

Corrupted Vegan Police
Pink-eye Zombie Infestation
Terminator-style protection of our past-selves
Kaiju Battle
Someone Goes Super Hero
Battle of the Bands
Trek to Valhalla & Battle with the Rock Gods

Yo, Enradus here.

The levelling sounds fine. I think I would prefer that.

As far as special abilities go, I'm good with it, but where would that go so far as when it comes to people other than the spellcaster? Say, a certain guitarist? *whistles innocently* But seriously. Would the rest of us get random powers, or would there be a certain ability we have that we just start getting abilities based off of? Say, if I had an axe, I start by fighting with it, then level up and gain an engine powered axe that allows me to swing it faster, than progress it to two axes, and so on and so forth? That would make sense to me.

I think health and mana will just come from not being a jerk about dodging every single attack and knowing what your limits are. Say, if you roll the dice, you could say whether you're attacking or defending. If you're attacking, you'll get hit with a certain amount of damage definitely, but part of your attack can lessen the damage. If you're defending, you'll either block it entirely or receive partial damage depending on the roll.

Ex:

Attacking Roll List:
1-3: Weak hit, More damage
4-6: Normal hit, Medium damage
7-9: Strong hit, Less damage
10: Critical, no damage taken

Defending list:
1-3:Undefended, receives full damage
4-6 biggrin efended, receives no damage
7-9:Superb Defense, no damage and 1 damage reflected back at enemy
10: Counterattack (retaliates double with no damage)

For lives, I don't see why we couldn't do both. But I think rather than a Phoenix Down's normal ability, I think it's more like it brings us back if we're knocked out rather than dead.

Ex: Scott is fighting when he is knocked unconscious by the Chick-Fil-A's flying eggs. Ramona comes by and applies Phoenix down, and Scott wakes up from coma.

(As opposed to...)

Scott has fainted several times while fighting Chick-Fil-A. On the fifth time, the party is out of Phoenix Downs, and scott must lose a life to come back to the fight. If he has no more lives, he must be give a Green Mushroom or ($$$) during a (Continue?)

Fighting was described above...

Items and dropstuff sound good too.

Whoo! Let's make this good, guys! *fistpump*

1. Fantastic. We'll do leveling at the end of levels with the option of letting you all petition when you think your character deserves to level.

2. Yeah that's how it'd work and as far as non-spellcasters go, you all would get specific abilities. Like for an Axe-slinger, he might get a Cleave Ability or a Boomerang Axe throw or some such. I'd let you guys pitch your abilities and at what order you'd get them in.

3. Yeah, it would come partially from not god-modding but, this would give the RP a bit more of a videogame flavor I think. It'll be good.

4. I think we can use both but, the 1-ups will bring you back at full strength while Fenix Downs or whatever we use as their parallel (Red Bull?) will bring you back with one health.

5. Your system might be good for boss fights but, it feels a little overly complex for regular baddies you know? Let me think on it.

6. Fantastic. I'm thinking we could have power-ups as dropped items and a 'Store' with fixed prices on different tiers of food and drink(food for health, drink for mana)

ie. Doritos or a snack gives you five health, a Clif bar or something healthier could be ten, and a meal could give you full health. And as formana, a juice box could be five mana, a smoothie or something comparable could be ten, and coffee, soda, and energy drinks give full mana. Thoughts?

Also, sidequests! I've got some listed but feel free to pitch some!

*fist pumping* This is going to be awesome guys.