So I've been following an odd quest over at the new (and half-vacant) /qst/ board and the setting, based on the god-awful Left Behind series of all things, is absolutely fascinating.
Basically, God is a really unimaginative That GM intent on making everything go exactly as planned in his notes starting with His victory over the Antichrist and New World Order. The Earths landmasses have been flattened into an endless fertile plain so that the sole mountain in Israel may rise above all nations, eternal sunlight has beamed down on the earth from a shell of water encircling the upper atmosphere that incidentally cuts humanity off from outer space, Believers are effectively immortal whil Unbelievers keel over at exactly the moment they turn 100 and are consigned to Hell, any attack on a True Believer results in the instant death-by-lightning of the attacker and weather patterns are tailored by the Divine to favor the crop yields of Believers and bring storm and famine on defiant communities.
The only organized opposition is The Other Light, a terminally retarded punching-bag organization allowed by prophecy to raise a giant conventional army on the Last Day, led by Lucifer himself, to assault the mountain-fortress of Jerusalem and be annihilated by Jesus with a single spoken word. They seem to be in serious denial about this outcome.
In the Quest the players are a sentient AI created by TOL as a logistics computer gone rogue seeking a third path, but I think this could be a great setting for an rpg as well. Especially New World of Darkness, since all of Left Behind is pretty much the story of what happens when the God Machine loses its shit one day and decides to use a prophecy with a lot of fervent Belief behind it to make the world neat and orderly until its work is done. I can see a kickass Demon: The Fallen or Mage game in particular.
Thoughts?
>>48327620
I think you should keep /qst/ shit on /qst/
Links for those interested in the quest:
>>>>/qst/379238
>http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive.html?tags=left%20beyond
>http://emlia.org/pmwiki/pub/web/LeftBeyond.LeftBeyond.html
Thinking about it, pretty much any Supernatural campaign could work with this as a backdrop, with the obvious exception of Vampire due to the whole eternal global daylight thing. I've been wanting to run a unique Mage campaign for a while and this looks like a great way to knock WoD players out of familiar territory. The Seers of the Throne would probably be pleased as punch about the whole thing and would only re-emerge if they found out that feral Mages had as well, I can only guess that the Spirit World has been sealed off somehow and would need the return of Werewolves, either from some kind of suspended animation or from sheltering in the Spirit World itself, to engage.
>>48327640
Jawohl Mein Führer!
I had no idea how insane and BAD Left Behind was until I picked up one of the 20,000 copies littering the thrift store. Seriously what the fuck
>>48327620
One if the players on qst here.
>I can see a kickass Demon: The Fallen or Mage game in particular.
Hunter could also work. Not to mention the fact that the setting has some (very) subtle mentions of things from outside this reality.
It also would serve as an extra interesting puzzle game because "Glorified" as well as believers can kill with impunity, yet non-believers can't and have to come up with interesting nonlethal methods when taking on the glorified in particular, because they get a bullshit punch me or worse and you spontaneously combust non-dispelable shield from god.
you had a whole containment board /qtg/, why can't you stay in it?
>>48328304
Because some of us play tabletop once in a while. And it would be interesting to play a pen and paper game as small scale characters who are trying not to be forcibly sent to Bible camp at gunpoint.
What prevents the Unbelievers from sciencing the fuck out of all those shortcomings?
Die at 100? Upload yourself to a robot.
Attackers get zapped? Drone them. Then you retrieve and repair the zapped drone. Send it again.
Weather patterns are hostile? Science bitch!
Jesus too OP? Catch him unawares.
Shit getting too tough? Find a way into Hell, make the way out permanent. Infinite reinforcements.
>>48328442
That's no excuse for bringing /qst/ autism back to /tg/. This isn't reddit; you don't need to ''''claim'''' your ideas by saying how it came from your/your favorite quest.
Just fucking mention the thing without mentioning the steaming pile of shit you dug it out of.
>>48328485
Scientific progress takes time and people willing to do it. Which in this setting there is a ridiculous shortage on. There's also the interesting fact that the government if the setting actively stamps out what it seems to be "unwholesome" and "subversive to the Lord". Sorta like some present day middle East countries. Then the god of the setting literally sends people and sometimes angels to stop or destroy projects that could "harm" his plans.
That in and of itself would make a fun list of rare items and "powerful artifacts" for the characters to chase after for their survival, and a good way for a GM to establish opposition.
Another fun game would be a group of scientist on the run after someone ratted them out to the local religious police. Or even a group trying to assassinate jesus or one of the other resurected. Biblical figures.
Honestly all the setting needs is a good system. Would WOD cover it?
>>48327620
That does sound like a rather cool setting, I would play in it.
Also, thank you for playing quests on the fucking quest board. I'm so fucking happy that someone is using it and we have one less quest here I'm not even mad that you are posting quest shit here.
That is all.
>>48329122
For what it's worth, this is a mishmash of two scenario that were developed for the Very Different Places rpg system.
http://emlia.org/pmwiki/pub/web/LeftBeyond.LeftBeyond.html
http://emlia.org/pmwiki/pub/web/Tripocalypse.Tripocalypse.html
I turned it into a quest because I couldn't get Tyndale House to give me the rights to do a commercial RPG (RPGs are de debbil, dontcha know! Remember that these people REALLY believe stuff that's written in Chick Tracts).
Since they had already granted permission for noncommercially publishing fan material, and couldn't take that back, I put the whole thing on my wiki. Please enjoy it :)
>>48328485
The unbelievers are, in fact, scienceing the fuck out of all those things. Since IRL I am an engineer working into a proto lab, I tried to do something a bit more realistic than just !!SCIENCE!! (with the exception of the nuclear research path, which is unrealistic on purpose because that'd be a bit too close to my work and as you can imagine they're fairly strict about that sort of thing).
Die at 100? Install a life support system before your corpse stiffens.
Attackers get zapped? Drone them, build anti-EMP armor, and so on.
Weather patterns are hostile? Desalinators, underground greenhouses, all sort of thing happened.
Jesus too OP? Hehe that's for the end game :)
>>48327620
That sounds like railroading: the setting.
>>48329866
> I couldn't get Tyndale House to give me the rights to do a commercial RPG (RPGs are de debbil, dontcha know! Remember that these people REALLY believe stuff that's written in Chick Tracts).
>
Since they had already granted permission for noncommercially publishing fan material, and couldn't take that back, I put the whole thing on my wiki.
.. I think I'm going to bookmark this and track game design general just to see if "TG gets shit done" on this one.
![bolling961223[1].gif](https://i.imgur.com/9Jh2WEc.gif "bolling961223[1].gif")
>>48329964
That's definitely true of the books. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/YMMV/LeftBehind
>>48328577
Fuck off you elitist prick, goddamn.
>>48329122
Speaking as someone who fervently opposed the /qst/ board whenever it was discussed, it's starting to grow on me. If I run a quest I'd probably do the first thread here just for exposure (/qst/ is reeeeeaaaaaaaaallly slow) and stay in my corner from there on out.
Can we not make this about the quest board and focus on the setting as an rpg or is that just to much to ask?
>>48331373
take off your name, namefag, and then maybe we'll listen to your questshit.
>>48328577
Jesus christ, I hate quests as much as the next fa/tg/uy but he's actually trying to do a tabletop thing, so it kinda does belong here. And I dunno if you've noticed, but /tg/ still has plenty of quests, so it's not like it's actually contained anyway. Hakuna your fucking tatas.
>>48328577
>Implying quests ever left
After the absolutely mismanaged shitstorm that was the launch of /qst/, the mods are never going to try to remove questfags again.
>>48331882
>mismanaged shitstorm
you mean your tantrum over finally having to go into your quarantine?
=__= ok. If you wanna bitch about /qst/ or argue it's merits.
Get your own damn thread.
If you want to talk about the viability of the setting as a tabletop RPG, feel free to stay around a throw in your input.
>>48332049
>=__=
yeah fuck off back to containment
.... you know what. Most of the work for a pen and paper game in this setting is already done in the wiki. Almost all that would be needed to be done is for someone to shove it into a PDF. Although I don't know if the legality's would allow for that. Anybody know about that?
>>48334503
And playtesting. I completely forgot about playtesting.
>>48331882
Really, it's just apparent that they've got a questfag on the mod team trying as hard as he can to keep quests on /tg/.
>Questfags can't move because it's a """"""""""Trial board""""""""""
>3 months later
>Still handing out the good ol' 2 day 23 hour ban to everyone who tells the questfags it's time to fuck off forever
You know what. . . Fuck it. Can we get a mod here to delete this thread.
Honestly, we tried to focus on the setting being used as pen and paper game and how that would work out. But no, you assholes had to make it about your damn board conflict. And this goes for both sides of the arguement, jump off a cliff.
>>48334843
Welcome to the shitty arguments side of /tg/, where no one has anything of value to say and the posts don't matter.
On topic, I could see a Demon game where one of the side goals is bringing back other Supernaturals just to introduce chaos into the God Machines little ant farm. In particular, I think nature spirits would be beyond pissed that the entire fucking world has been reduced to Kansas without the interesting weather.
>>48334503
Person who set up the wiki and wrote the setting here.
So, this very much is "That DM: The Railroading", only in-universe: the idea is in fact to break the rails.
I have zero problems with someone making a PDF and I'll even put it for download on the same site, as long as credit is given.
>>48334515
Some playtesting happened. Other than the quest, there are 3 games in progress for Tripocalypse and one for Left Beyond.
>>48335243
That's definitely a feasible approach! I'm trying to stay true to the source material, in which other supernatural entities are serious weaksauce and barely show up (the intended audience wants to see All TurboJesus, All The Time) but YMMV. The whole thing is on a CC license, so remixing is encouraged.
>>48327620
Left Behind was great. And I will fight you sir.
>>48327995
And yet, it made almost as much money as Harry Potter! For a while, it was actually ahead in sales in the American markets, and you can bet that the relevant segment of the population was very happy about it (They're the same people who think that Harry Potter books teach actual spellcasting).
>>48330239
I mean, the entire story is just adapting Revelations into a full-length novel series, and not just leaving it as a summary.
>>48335361
Personally, I see Left Behind as about the same level as those NYT Bestsellers you see in supermarket shelves. They're popular because they're fun to read, and even if you know the ultimate end you still want to know what happens to certain characters. It was also pretty interesting how they approached good but non-Christian people. The only real stumbling block was the last novel where they had to create opposition to The Kingdom of God when you'd literally have to be Hitler to oppose it.
>>48335501
> The only real stumbling block was the last novel where they had to create opposition to The Kingdom of God when you'd literally have to be Hitler to oppose it.
And they do that by turning God into SuperHitler.
Consider The Other Light characters.
Trapped in a world of enforced blandness. Crime is allowed to happen but the perpetrators are immediately executed by lightning afterwards, thereby somehow managing a Worst of Both Worlds approach to criminal justice. Everyone is forced to live to 100 whether they want to or not, and then immediately murdered if they haven't pledged allegiance to the local regime, or forced to endure up to another 900 solid years of continuing to age and degrade with no hope of the relief of death if they HAVE pledged allegiance. The world is strictly stratified, with the ruling class living in a beautiful walled-off city and occasionally sending representatives out to give members-only talks to special children's clubs, and the guy at the very top only ever interacting with people by murdering those who disagree with him and low-maintenance puppet-mastering/lobotomising everyone else. And, as if just to rub salt in the wound, the bastard RUBBED OUT THE NIGHT SKY for some reason.
>>48335559
So these guys want to rebel. Of COURSE they do. But they don't know how to. They can't see a way to win. The local tyrant is LITERALLY GOD. They've been trying to oppose him however they can for ninety years now, and they haven't come up with anything that might work, and now they're all coming close to their divinely-allotted murder dates. They'd be forgiven for giving up and switching sides to save their own lives. They'd be commendable for just deciding to make a symbolic gesture out of going down fighting a hopeless battle. What they actually do, though, is fling a light into the future. They focus their last years before they die on recruiting younger members. Because, of course, there IS a chance that, one day, SOMEONE will work out how they can win. So having established that it's not gonna be them, that they personally are boned either way, they make a selfless investment in the future, going to their own deaths but founding a movement that will last the whole millenium, changing the time limit on finding a way to win from 100 years to 1000. It's not much, but it was all they could do, so they did it.
God took away EVERYTHING from these people. Freedom. Beauty. Purpose. Diversity. Any chance of equality. STARS. But they found a way to stop him from taking away their hope. And when hope was all they had left, they took it and ran with it and made the most of it.
It sounds like these people are far and away the most heroic characters in the series.
If anyone wants the book.
http://www.amazon.com/Kingdom-Come-Final-Victory-Behind/dp/0842361901/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1462447054&sr=8-3&keywords=kingdom+come
I like how the blurb makes it sound like the outcome is in any sort of doubt.
>>48334754
I'm sorry the mods keep deleting your posts, anon. If only they realized that your opinions about what's /tg/-related are more correct than theirs!
>>48341121
>But it's so fucking cancerous, all those bans, the containment board, both sides are fucking disgusting in their treatment of this event. It's fucking worse than waifu wars on /a/
It's pretty simple, really. The actual mods don't like people backseat modding, so when someone tries to "improve" the board by shitposting about [THING I DISLIKE], the shitposts get deleted and the poster get a ban. By now the mods have probably seen the low traffic on /qst/ and realized that the only ones who wanted a separate board for quest threads were three or four butthurt anons and their sockpuppets. Chances are, /qst/ will disappear once a new blurb gets put up in the news box.
