The Anomaly: an ongoing sci-fi play-by-post RPG campaign

[ascetic]

Hello, uniform stealing enthusiasts.
I proudly present to you my most ambitious writing project yet. It is called The Anomaly, and it follows the story of two highly dangerous fugitives, hunted by their former masters in a sci-fi world where humanity escaped their home galaxy after a cataclysm.

It is counting up to 170 000 words already and it is still ongoing. For now I'd say there is enough content for 1.5 seasons worth of sci fi goodness including subterfuge, exploration and action packed storylines. It is sexy, mature and emotional. Volume I is finished, and the Volume II is being written as you read this.

The unique thing about it is that it's written in cooperation with another writing partner in the form of play-by-post RPG campaign done on Discord. I play as one of the protagonists, while my partner plays another and we write back and forth and create the story together, assisted by elaborate game mechanics.

The game system is Starforged, created by amazing designer Shawn Tomkin. It allows for solo, co-op and traditional guided gameplay. We are doing it in co-op.

You can find the free rules summary here
https://tomkinpress.com/pages/ironsworn-starforged

The text im going to share is exported from the game's story channels, edited for readability. It includes the mechanics of the game, action rolls, oracle rolls (basically random idea generators for appropriate situations) and other bits that have to be there for context. Not everything's is included, like our internal discussions, setting info, some deep mechanics etc, but the main body of story is there. It is not proofread much so there are typos and errors, please keep that in mind.

Now you might wonder why I'm sharing this here.
Well, as a female clothes stealing enthusiast I have always dreamt about including this passion of mine into my works. And so I did, and you will find three elaborate multi page uniform stealing sequences in this story.

If you are interested only in them, I will list them below, but I would appreciate if you could spend some time reading the intro pages (with characters backstory and stats) prologue and some of chapter 1 to get the feel for the characters and setting and see if you are interested. Also it's best to at least read several pages before the uniform stealing scene to get the context for it.

Link to the Google docs document. It is readable in smartphones as well. I recommend using a Google docs app for the best experience.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oFd ... psIm83Ie4/

Scene number 1
Non-lethal.
Hotel security staff.
Chapter 4: Cloak and Fist

Scene number 2
Non-lethal.
Mercenary soldier.
Chapter 7: The Ashen Grip

Scene number 3
Lethal.
Cult leader
Chapter 10: The Sacred Spire

In addition I included some custom graphical images in these scenes for more oomph.
Please let me know your thoughts or questions. Appreciate any feedback. And thank you for reading.

[FemaleSpy]

Hello, uniform stealing enthusiasts.
I proudly present to you my most ambitious writing project yet. It is called The Anomaly, and it follows the story of two highly dangerous fugitives, hunted by their former masters in a sci-fi world where humanity escaped their home galaxy after a cataclysm.

It is counting up to 170 000 words already and it is still ongoing. For now I'd say there is enough content for 1.5 seasons worth of sci fi goodness including subterfuge, exploration and action packed storylines. It is sexy, mature and emotional. Volume I is finished, and the Volume II is being written as you read this.

The unique thing about it is that it's written in cooperation with another writing partner in the form of play-by-post RPG campaign done on Discord. I play as one of the protagonists, while my partner plays another and we write back and forth and create the story together, assisted by elaborate game mechanics.

The game system is Starforged, created by amazing designer Shawn Tomkin. It allows for solo, co-op and traditional guided gameplay. We are doing it in co-op.

You can find the free rules summary here
https://tomkinpress.com/pages/ironsworn-starforged

The text im going to share is exported from the game's story channels, edited for readability. It includes the mechanics of the game, action rolls, oracle rolls (basically random idea generators for appropriate situations) and other bits that have to be there for context. Not everything's is included, like our internal discussions, setting info, some deep mechanics etc, but the main body of story is there. It is not proofread much so there are typos and errors, please keep that in mind.

Now you might wonder why I'm sharing this here.
Well, as a female clothes stealing enthusiast I have always dreamt about including this passion of mine into my works. And so I did, and you will find three elaborate multi page uniform stealing sequences in this story.

If you are interested only in them, I will list them below, but I would appreciate if you could spend some time reading the intro pages (with characters backstory and stats) prologue and some of chapter 1 to get the feel for the characters and setting and see if you are interested. Also it's best to at least read several pages before the uniform stealing scene to get the context for it.

Link to the Google docs document. It is readable in smartphones as well. I recommend using a Google docs app for the best experience.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oFd ... psIm83Ie4/

Scene number 1
Non-lethal.
Hotel security staff.
Chapter 4: Cloak and Fist

Scene number 2
Non-lethal.
Mercenary soldier.
Chapter 7: The Ashen Grip

Scene number 3
Lethal.
Cult leader
Chapter 10: The Sacred Spire

In addition I included some custom graphical images in these scenes for more oomph.
Please let me know your thoughts or questions. Appreciate any feedback. And thank you for reading.

Pretty nice scenes and interesting plot, reminds me old Startrek episodes, would love see more undressed last cult leader, but still okay, thanks

[ascetic]

Thank you for feedback) glad you liked them.
The interesting part with uniform stealing in this is making the scenes pretty detailed to get the imagination going, but also keep them not over the top so it's readable for the wider audience. And ensure they make sense within the world and the story.

[FemaleSpy]

Thank you for feedback) glad you liked them.
The interesting part with uniform stealing in this is making the scenes pretty detailed to get the imagination going, but also keep them not over the top so it's readable for the wider audience. And ensure they make sense within the world and the story.

Yep, it's still cool thanks, just liked when few images for better imagination, like in your previous story, glad you continue do everything with USB ;D

[rufusluciusivan]

It feels good to see you back! I love how you come up with unusual and unique works.

I like Tabletop RPG too - though I admit I prefer Fantasy and Swashbuckling over Sci-Fi. (Began with Warhammer 2nd Edition, played a lot of 7th Sea 2nd Edition with my brother, and I'm currently obsessed with Fabula Ultima and Barbarians of Lemuria - and also one called Würm that takes place in late Palaeolithic, but I don't quite believe this one ever got an international release.)

I agree RPG have good potential to include uniform stealing. Not even necessarily a full-uniform-stealing campaign, including one or two scenes in a "mainstream campaign" works too. Even managed to sneak one in a campaign I GMd with my brother once - sadly he was playing a male character, but thank Goodness for GMPC!

I didn't know this specific Tabletop Game. The action roll mechanic looks interesting - I see the inspiration drawn from the Apocalypse World system, except instead of fixed threshold the challenge dice bring a bit more chance (and instead of 2D6 + stat, there is only 1D6). Not my favorite system, but it sounds intuitive once you get the hang of it. I don't know why, but when I read about your characters, it made me think of Shadowrun - though the setting itself seems more like a darker counterpart of Star Wars.

So you were two people and no GM, or did I miss a detail? Never heard of a Tabletop RPG with only players and no GM!

Thanks a lot for sharing and, most importantly, for taking the time to edit the document!

I assume you were playing the part of Onyx. I'm curious to know if the descriptions were as detailed in the campaign itself, or if you added some details of the descriptions when you edited the document.

Onyx herself looks like a cool character - like the contrast between her ruthless no-nonsense attitude and the fact she's still forced to keep it as non-lethal as she can.

Now, to discuss the clothes stealing scenes proper, my favorite one was the first one, from chapter 4 with Kamila the guard of the hotel/casino resort. (Good choice of picture works wonders. ) Also love the set-up. The oblivious guard taking a call, and then the imagery of her left trussed up and gagged on the bathroom tiles. And it's not exactly the clothes stealing proper, but the parts with Regnart add suspense. Like how the story discusses the cons of non-lethal, makes it more grounded and realistic.

There sure is some devoted roleplay - especially in Chapter 7.

Since this is an ongoing campaign, I'm curious to know if there is an other scene planned in the near future. Guess it'll depend on where the story goes. But if there are other uniform stealings in Volume II, then I'll be interested to take a look.

[ascetic]

It feels good to see you back! I love how you come up with unusual and unique works.

Thank you, Rufus, for your extended feedback. Really appreciate it and glad you enjoyed the scenes

You are right about the Apocalypse World similarity: Starforged is clearly inspired by Powered by Apocalypse design principles. But the main draw of this specific system is possibility to play 100% solo or in co-op, without the need of GM.

We play without a GM. We discuss the possibilities, set the scenes, roll some random oracle tables for inspirations (there are 100 pages of great tables in the rulebook), then play them out and write back and forth until we have a story.

Apart from Starforged, there is also Ironsworn (dark fantasy gritty dark ages setting) and Sundered Isles (swashbuckling pirate fantasy setting). Ironsworn is free so if you are interested to play some and make a story of it I highly recommend to try.

For me the thrill is the lack of absolute control over the story so I can't just write whatever I fancy because we have to follow rules and play by them. So when the story aligns and there is possibility for uniform stealing im trying to make it happen. This is so unique and an additional sense of interactivity between the author and their world really gives extra satisfaction.

I play Onyx, correct). Funny thing is that my writing partner did not know that Im a fan of uniform stealing but maybe now he does . Though I tried to not make them super fetishised.

The text is 100% what we write as we play. I only fixed some errors and poor grammar im some places. The 99,9% of the text is written in the moment of gameplay, not after.

If we come around to another opportunity for uniform stealing Id be glad to utilize it. We will have to see how it goes as we write chapter 11 and beyond.