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[Lone Gunman]

I recently read a homebrew paper RPG by Clive Oldfield that I thought would make a brilliant story on SC and so here's the premise (with a few moderations by myself):

The story revolves around a supposed television show from 1968 called 'Tim Traveller' in which a group of people are thrown through time due to the interventions of an evil soviet agent. Unfortunately, due to a dispute between the actor playing Tim Traveller (the supposed hero of the show) and the director, the actor is fired and Tim Traveller is killed off in the first few scenes. It is therefore left to the others in order to carry the show.

Each player would be controlling an actor on the show and it would be presented in Episodes. Each episode revolves around the characters trying to get to the next time portal in order to 'leap' and hopefully get back home.

Each character would have a Fan Base score and there would be a Ratings score for each episode. If characters do well (and utter their catchphrases) then their Fan Base score remains high and the Ratings also remains constant. If they don't do well, their Fan Base drops and they risk being fired (and their character being killed). This also affects the Episode Ratings and risks the series being cancelled.

Would anyone play in this? I really want to run it!

[Merzedes]

Now *that* sounds different and interesting

[Lone Gunman]

Thanks Mercedes!    \/

It would have a kind of 'Time Tunnel' feel to it and I see each episode ending on a cliffhanger (for instance, the characters tumble out of the time tunnel and find themselves standing beside a river surrounded by red-coats which is where the next episode begins).

If anyone actually wants to play Tim Traveller then let me know otherwise I'll keep to the original plan of having him perish in some comical way during the first episode.

[argyle2001]

How would you be handling the world-within-a-world aspect of the game?  As it's a game, the 'actors' wouldn't have scripts for playing their 'roles'.

[Lone Gunman]

The game would be played as though the audience reading the story is the audience of the television show. The dialogue that a character says during episodes will be assumed to have come from the pages of their scripts. I guess, in this aspect, it means the players are also the script writers of the show.

Is it a bit confusing?

[Scattercat]

It's a bit meta.

Would the "real world" be addressed at all? I mean, there's the angle of "characters struggling without the protagonist" and then there's a whole other angle of "actors jockeying for relative position."

It'd be interesting to follow all the minor characters of a given story a la Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, but on the flip side, Sports Night has its own charm and appeal.

Running both simultaneously would be difficult at best, I think.