LuniRPG is a sort of organized mayhem thing designed to be played on Internet forums, but theoretically adaptable to other environments, such as IRC. It consists entirely of battles in which players make up attacks with which to strike the opponent. Want to use the Flaming Glacier attack on the enemy? No problem, but the enemy may respond with a spell to give you the dreaded Uncontrollable Dancing status affliction! There is no such affliction, you say? Well, there is now!
I originally wanted to start a Calvinball-esque RPG game on a forum I frequently visit, but I found it necessary to add a number of rules to prevent immature people from ruining things for everyone. LuniRPG is the result. If you wish to start a game at your own Internet hangout, feel free to link to this page - the "Back to" links should change to point to whatever page sent someone here.
This game won't work unless the environment (forum, IRC channel, whatever) in which you wish to play is busy enough to include at least 10 reasonably active people who would be interested in playing.
These are the adventurers, the questers, seeking... to do something, I dunno. Mostly they're out to slay things and take their treasure. (But they're not buddy-stabbers - that's another game.) If you're a Party Member, your ultimate goal is to reach the pre-determined experience point goal - I recommend setting this at 200 experience points. Adopting an alternate identity is highly recommended - it's called a role-playing game, after all. Before the game, four to six players should sign up to be Party Members. The list of Party Members can be edited mid-game at the referee's discretion.
Anyone who is in the environment where the LuniRPG game is taking place, but is not a Party Member or a referee, is an Enemy in the LuniRPG game! The Enemies are basically the ones who are in charge of the battles, testing the Party Members' abilities. Since Enemies aren't Party Members, they can't win the game, but they can still have fun attacking the Party Members. Only one Enemy can be actively playing the game at any one time. As with Party Members, adopting an alternate identity is recommended, and you can use different identities in different battles.
The referee has a number of dull, yet important duties in LuniRPG games. The referee decides whether a new player can join the Party Members mid-game, and can kick out ones that haven't been playing. The referee decides whether Party Members who wish to run away may do so. And, perhaps most importantly, the referee keeps track of the experience points that the Party Members collect, and announces a winner when one has reached the goal. Make sure one member of the forum volunteers to be referee before the game starts, and make sure it's someone you can count on to stick around.
LuniRPG is just one battle after another. At the start of a game, and after each battle (assumming a Party Member has not yet won the game), an Enemy may declare an appearance to the Party Members, which initiates the battle. Party Members start each battle with 100 HP (health points) and 50 MP (magic points); the Enemy who made the appearance may start with as many HP as (s)he likes, and need not disclose a number of MP. The Party Members get the first turn.
If it's the Party Members' turn, any number of Party Members may declare an attack on the Enemy currently in battle. What exactly an attacker does is entirely up to the attacker - striking the Enemy with a pointy thing, casting magic, it doesn't matter. Attackers don't even need to directly effect the Enemy - an attacker could consume an item, for example. Attackers need only state what they are doing. Once at least one Party Member has declared an attack, the Enemy may take his/her turn.
On the Enemy's turn, the Enemy what effect the attack(s) had, and how much MP it cost the attacker(s). If an attack cost its user more MP than (s)he had, the attacker's overspent MP is subtracted from his/her HP. The Enemy may then initiate an attack of his/her own, which may affect any/all Party Members, and must complete his/her turn with stating how much HP/MP each Party Member has left. A Party Member with no HP left may no longer participate in that battle (but will be perfectly fine at the start of the next one).
When a Party Member attacks, (s)he may state that another Party Member is involved, or that another Party Member must get involved. This is called a Team Attack. If this happens, the Enemy must treat the attack as though it didn't happen until the necessary Party Member announces an attack which confirms their role in the Team Attack. The Enemy should consider a Team Attack to be better than an equivalent regular attack, but "better" in what way is up to the Enemy.
At any time during a battle, a Party Member may request to escape. If the Referee grants this, the battle ends, and the Enemy who was in the battle can't appear again for the next five battles. But if the Referee doesn't grant the escape, the Enemy in battle can penalize the Party Member who made the request. As with most other things in battles, how exactly the player gets penalized is up to the Enemy.
At any time, the Enemy in battle may declare him/herself defeated. When this happens, the Enemy may distribute up to 50 experience points, up to 1 Life Potion, and/or up to 1 Magic Potion among the Party Members. The battle is then over, and the Enemy can't appear again for the next battle. If you receive a Life Potion, you start the next battle with 120 HP, and if you receive a Magic Potion, you start the next battle with 70 MP. Before the next battle begins, the Referee should announce how many experience points each Party Member has, and declare an overall winner if necessary.
If all Party Members lose all their HP, the battle ends, and the Enemy they faced can't appear again for the next three battles. The Party Members will be perfectly OK when the next Enemy appears.
Eventually, other Enemies have to be given the chance to participate. Should the number of attacks in the battle reach or exceed the number of Party Members times five, the Enemy must declare defeat.
If you've read everything up to this point, you're now ready to play a LuniRPG game. But keep reading if you'd like some useful gameplay tips.
This may be pretty obvious, but I'll say it anyways: Clever and/or cool attacks are more effective than powerful ones, and will probably earn you more experience points as well!
Remember that your attacks need not actually attack the Enemy. For example: "I drink the potion I swiped from a mad scientist's laboratory."
Don't forget that you can run away from unresponsive Enemies.
There's no glory in winning since you control pretty much everything in the battle. Instead, provide an amusing challenge for the Party Members, and give goodies to Party Members who provide the most amusing response.
If a Party Member is annoying you by attacking much more often than the others, do extra-nasty stuff to him.
Declare yourself defeated if you need to leave the game.
Metadata is data about data, and metahumor is humor about humor, so metainfo is info about info!
LuniRPG is owned by Pixievolt No. 1 and made available to you under the condition that you honor its license, the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
If you're going to link to this page and not copy any part of it, don't worry about the license; everything will be taken care of. Otherwise, you ought to read at least the plain-English Commons Deed linked to above, so that you understand what is required of you.
This is version 2.0 of LuniRPG, released December 27, 2008. This version introduces the Team Attacks, Time Limit, Tips, and Metainfo sections, as well as minor changes elsewhere in the page. It is also the first version to be made available under the license mentioned above, which better establishes my ownership of LuniRPG while giving you greater freedom to mess with it.
The only version prior to the current one is 1.0, which wasn't as cool as this one. I forgot when I released it. Sorry if that's inconvenient to any historians.