The Evangelion mass-SI project! Calling all RPG fans!

[Ryo]

This may not be the best idea but....

I've decided to write an Evangelion fanfic, but found myself empty of any good ideas. I was thinking of making a SI, but quickly rejected the idea, since most Evangelion SI's (and SI's in general) tend to end up bad. This very morning, however, this thought struck my mind:

How about a mass-SI?

The idea is to use a forum thread that will work similar to an RPG thread. The roleplayers will sign up, pick a character, and roleplay through the Evangelion saga, under the guidance of a PM (plot master). Of course, this won't be SI in the original sense, as only actual Evangelion characters will be used.

There are quite a few reasons to produce a fanfic in this way:
1 - All characters will act in different ways, have different opinions, and will use different ways of communicating with the other characters. In short words, every character will be unique.
2 - Because of all of the people that are participating, the plot (most likely) won't get repetive and you won't have to worry about running out of ideas and suffer a writers block.
3 - There will be many people that can pre-read the fanfiction, and make sure that the final product will be good.
4 - If it goes somewhat smoothly, it can be quite fun.

To make this possible, however, the persons that are participating are recommended to visit the forum as often as possible. If you won't be able to do so, but still wan't to participate, it's recommended that you chose a character with lesser appearance (eg. Shinji's classmates, the bridge bunnies).

As well as the characters, another person that is required for this to work is the PM - The plot master. This one will be the story's "narrator", and it's up to him/her to decide about all of the non-character controlled events. (Angel attacks, school days etc...). This will be similar to the GM or DM in normal RPG's.

The PM will also play the characters that aren't in control by any of the other players. Just remember the plot master won't have the power to change the plot drasticly - It's just his/hers responsibility to keep the story flowing.

Is this a bad idea? Whatever, as long as you avoid flaming.

Not sure? Feel free to use this thread to ask questions and come with suggestions.

Intrested? Simply PM me and be sure to mention what character you will play.

So, will it be a breathtaking action story? An epic tale of friendship, love and war? A ruthless parody? A hot, waffy romance? Or just random kick-ass humor? The choice is all yours.

[DatDude]

I warn you in the worlds on fan fic the SI it somthing close to 8th deadly sin. I have seen them writen in a ok fasion ion the past but its rare.

May luck be with you.

[anatrok]

That's kinda intresting, but only just to screw around, and joke. I don't think SI (you never did say that SI means self-insert for people who don't know) can be serious, and good, especially with Eva.

[DatDude]

As a fic writer in training myself I do have one peice of advice for you.

Do not be afraid write badly, as long as you keep trying you WILL improve.

[Mr. Tines]

As a fic writer in training myself I do have one peice of advice for you.

Do not be afraid write badly, as long as you keep trying you WILL improve.

I'll second that. There is no substitute to keeping on trying, until you find a style that you can be comfortable in, and which captures the images you have in your mind in a way that someone else can see those images.

It took me maybe 5 years from first starting writing fiction for my own amusement to get to something that I finished, received positive feedback on, and, some years later, felt worth putting on the 'net. And in some ways, that piece was in fact an outrageous SI, as well as being a very obscure sort of fan-fic.

That's kinda intresting, but only just to screw around, and joke. I don't think SI (you never did say that SI means self-insert for people who don't know) can be serious, and good, especially with Eva.

It depends on the sort of SI - a cameo as a minor character, fine (the sort of thing that Hitchcock did in his movies); but taking over the story verges on the "Your wish fulfillment fantasy is showing".

Now, I often do the cameo SI, or have characters that are the next best thing, but it's one thing I've not been tempted to do so in Eva fics roughly on the grounds that "It's a nice place to visit, but you wouldn't want to live there."

[Carl Horn]

Is this really necessary? Thanks to the miracle of the Instrumentality (TM) we're all gonna be inserted whether we want to or not. Picture spending the rest of eternity on a stage set with just one folding chair, as we take turns running through the possibilities: "This is the world you desired...the one where you ordered ham instead of pastrami..." "Now here's the world where they had French's mustard." "In this one they had Gulden's Spicy Brown." "This one...wait for it...no mustard at all. Hey, how many are still waiting to be complemented? 2,641,068,955? OK, we'd better snap it up. Let's move onto the twenty-six roast-beef universes alone that faced you, that day on March 9, 2005." "Bloody hell."

Ya know, #25 and #26 is kinda like NO EXIT.

[Soluzar]

Oh, god, save us from the armies of mary-sues. :)

[Ryo]

Hmm... Maybe this wasn't such a good idea :?
Since no one has showed that much of interest yet, I guess I'll stick to the 'normal' way of making fanfics after all (and no, no SI's).

And yeah, I forgot to mention that SI means self-insert. Gomen, gomen.

While on the SI issue, Random1377 made a SI parody that was pretty damn hilarious, I think it can be found on Evafics somewhere... That thing finally convinced me that an Evangelion SI made by me would end up like shit :P

Edit: Found it!
The Self-Insert That Wasn't Right by Random1377

[The Eva Monkey]

Maybe hold off until the BESM guides get released? They might offer some ideas for how to run an Eva RPG.

[Mr. Tines]

Maybe hold off until the BESM guides get released? They might offer some ideas for how to run an Eva RPG.

An EVA RPG (in the pencil and paper sense) is really a fanfic done as imptovisational radio theatre. The real question is - which type of fic? Continuation, with the 6+th child? Crossover? Alternate universe? Do the players take on any of the named cast or what.

To get that proper Eva feeling, it's the sort of thing that I'd see being done under GURPS or Hero with the house rule that the characters start off as ordinary normals, but are allowed to get an unlimited number of points from psychological disadvantage. Asuka spends all her points on continually useful things, and Shinji buys a bunch of one-shot abilities to save the day with.

[Carl Horn]

Maybe hold off until the BESM guides get released? They might offer some ideas for how to run an Eva RPG.

An EVA RPG (in the pencil and paper sense) is really a fanfic done as imptovisational radio theatre. The real question is - which type of fic? Continuation, with the 6+th child? Crossover? Alternate universe? Do the players take on any of the named cast or what.

To get that proper Eva feeling, it's the sort of thing that I'd see being done under GURPS or Hero with the house rule that the characters start off as ordinary normals, but are allowed to get an unlimited number of points from psychological disadvantage. Asuka spends all her points on continually useful things, and Shinji buys a bunch of one-shot abilities to save the day with.

One of the things that perhaps isn't remarked upon enough is Rei's chronically poor health; not just her physical injuries, but her heavy drug regimen. In the manga Ritsuko claims Rei would be dead except for the medical regimen she oversees. What, if anything, do we know about the reasons for Rei's lack of essential "viability?" Is it possible her drug regimen was induced in whole or in part to keep her under control as an experimental subject? At any rate, I'm sure you can get a handsome number of Disadvantage points out of it.

Hmmm, for Shinji...Disadvantages: Twitchy (-10) Whiny (-20) Clueless (-20) Shortarse (-5) Unmanly (-25) Secret (Is actually well-adjusted human being, -100)

There actually was a Japanese-language RPG developed for EVA and sold there under license; as I've said, who, in these troubled times, would not wish they were living the carefree lives of the EVA characters instead? If you want to play EVANGELION with the darkest feel possible, perhaps a campaign adapted from KULT.

[DatDude]

BAck on to fic writing let me know if any one wants help i'll point you to some nice web sights to help you out.

[Mr. Tines]

One of the things that perhaps isn't remarked upon enough is Rei's chronically poor health; not just her physical injuries, but her heavy drug regimen. In the manga Ritsuko claims Rei would be dead except for the medical regimen she oversees. What, if anything, do we know about the reasons for Rei's lack of essential "viability?" Is it possible her drug regimen was induced in whole or in part to keep her under control as an experimental subject? At any rate, I'm sure you can get a handsome number of Disadvantage points out of it.

There are a few other characters with signature (but less extreme) dependencies (Misato+booze, Ritsuko+fags), but everyone seems to have some sort of psychological hang-up or three, apart maybe for the bridge bunnies.

There doesn't seem to be much data on Rei's condition - it would make more sense if she is, at least in part, Lillith's flesh informed by Yui's form, as some equivalent of immunosuppression to keep the Angel and human parts working together.

There actually was a Japanese-language RPG developed for EVA and sold there under license; as I've said, who, in these troubled times, would not wish they were living the carefree lives of the EVA characters instead?

I'm not sure I'd consider the Children to have carefree lives - they may not have adult financial responsibilities, but they have a job as well as school, eating into the time they have to be care free in; and they're on the front line of the war.

If you want to play EVANGELION with the darkest feel possible, perhaps a campaign adapted from KULT.

That's not a system I've actually read, so I don't know how well the mechanics facilitate the feel. I do know players and psych lims - and that seemed to fit so well with the Eva trademark of well-adjusted (hem-hem) people.

[Reichu]

There are a few other characters with signature (but less extreme) dependencies (Misato+booze, Ritsuko+fags), but everyone seems to have some sort of psychological hang-up or three, apart maybe for the bridge bunnies.

You know, non-UKers are bound to misinterpret that. ;)

Maya certainly has psychological hang-ups. If nothing else, she seems rather sexually repressed -- being very critical of others, while not attending to her own needs.

There doesn't seem to be much data on Rei's condition - it would make more sense if she is, at least in part, Lillith's flesh informed by Yui's form, as some equivalent of immunosuppression to keep the Angel and human parts working together.

I don't quite see why immunosuppression would be necessary. Unless her body attacks those cells that have been constructed from assimilated ramen biomass, anyway.

[DatDude]

I fugured that because she didn't know how to use anyking of angel regeration power type stuff that her body needed external maintance. Kwaro( so I know im lazy ) didn't need drugs or anything and he was also an angel.

[Carl Horn]

One of the things that perhaps isn't remarked upon enough is Rei's chronically poor health; not just her physical injuries, but her heavy drug regimen. In the manga Ritsuko claims Rei would be dead except for the medical regimen she oversees. What, if anything, do we know about the reasons for Rei's lack of essential "viability?" Is it possible her drug regimen was induced in whole or in part to keep her under control as an experimental subject? At any rate, I'm sure you can get a handsome number of Disadvantage points out of it.

There are a few other characters with signature (but less extreme) dependencies (Misato+booze, Ritsuko+fags), but everyone seems to have some sort of psychological hang-up or three, apart maybe for the bridge bunnies.

There doesn't seem to be much data on Rei's condition - it would make more sense if she is, at least in part, Lillith's flesh informed by Yui's form, as some equivalent of immunosuppression to keep the Angel and human parts working together.

There actually was a Japanese-language RPG developed for EVA and sold there under license; as I've said, who, in these troubled times, would not wish they were living the carefree lives of the EVA characters instead?

I'm not sure I'd consider the Children to have carefree lives - they may not have adult financial responsibilities, but they have a job as well as school, eating into the time they have to be care free in; and they're on the front line of the war.

If you want to play EVANGELION with the darkest feel possible, perhaps a campaign adapted from KULT.

That's not a system I've actually read, so I don't know how well the mechanics facilitate the feel. I do know players and psych lims - and that seemed to fit so well with the Eva trademark of well-adjusted (hem-hem) people.

"Carefree" was meant ironically--that dry, understated sense of humor for which the Americans are famous.

It's arguable that Misato, Ritsuko and Kaji, having lived through the Second Impact, carry as bad or worse a set of traumas as the Children. Shinji has been described as uncommunicative, but when Misato was 14, she spent a year locked up as a catatonic, after having witnessed the disaster with her own eyes. Despite this, EVA's "second generation" rarely alludes to what they went through--Misato never grabs Shinji by the shirt collar and says, "Listen, you little creep--when *I* was your age..."

When Asuka (whom, remember, is a college graduate) rather thoughtlessly asks Kaji how he spent his 8th grade field trip, he doesn't reply, "scavenging for food amongst the waterlogged corpses," but gently reminds her about what happened in 2000. All things considered, Misato and Kaji make better family figures for Shinji and Asuka than their actual family did; but one of the tragedies of EVA is that it also suggests the Children are not as doomed as they think they are.