OK, so maybe I'm getting a little overambitious, but I was thinking about trying to start up a gang campaign, LITS style. What I mean by that is a heavily character driven, real-life oriented game.

I view LITS as being focused on individual lives, where each character is a primary plot driver in and of themselves. Thus, there is no difference between a character's life and the primary plot driver, they are one and the same (the character).

My intention for the gang campaign would be to have two separate but concurrent focuses. First, the adventures of the gang as a singular entity would be the primary plot driver. Since all the gangers are ultimately a part of the gang, there would be a lower level of independence than LITS, as all gangers would obviously be expected to be active participants in the gang.

The second focus would be on inter-PC interaction and relationships, which is where I think a gang campaign would outshine LITS. The true appeal of a gang campaign to me would revolve around the ability to allow PCs to heavily interact with one another and cooperatively build stories about people's lives based around shared experiences (gang life) and a common theme (fellow gangers).

The inter-PC interaction really appeals to me precisely because it's so fun, yet so difficult to achieve in LITS. LITS inter-PC interaction is limited by both differing timelines across characters and common sense. For example, Dragon's storyline so far has had him opposing some combination of the Mafia, Yakuza, Triads, Aztechnology, and Saeder-Krupp, plus various others. It's safe to say that Lana most likely would not run into Dragon barring exceptional circumstances, which means any opportunities I personally have to role-play with Vegas are limited at best. Furthermore, because Dragon has so much on his plate, it's unlikely he'll catch up to characters that are ahead of him in the timeline, because he just has so much going on each and every day. I think it took me a year and change just to get through January 6 alone!

In short, LITS was built to revolve around individuals and their lives, allowing players to play out whatever story they chose as a small piece of an infinitely larger world. Put another way, you may be only a small fish, but you get to experience an extremely large pond.

By contrast, the idea of a gang campaign would be to revolve it around a group and its individual components, allowing players to be key players in the small little world they call home. Here, you are a big fish, but in a very little pond.

When you get right down to it, my desire is to create a game that is ultimately a mirror image of LITS. They both revolve around similar principles, but operate under very different frameworks that highlight particular strengths and weaknesses unique to each set up, forming a very different style of game and a very different gaming experience.

However, having started such a large scale endeavor with LITS, I am intimately aware of the difficulty of such a huge undertaking. If it is set up right, the system will (mostly) run itself. If you do not, it will fall apart faster than a house of cards.

One of the most valuable lessons I learned with LITS is the need for a strong core, both players and GMs. Without GM contributions from Grendel, Talia, BC, Mister Juan (and Scrapheap and Bandit at various times), LITS would never have made it. However, many people (too many to list) were and are critical to LITS's continuation by staying active as players, because the greatest GM staff in the world without any players is, well, out of a job.

And thus we get to why I am approaching you three first. As veterans of the 410 Crash game, you have firsthand experience with trying to operate a large-scale gang campaign. As LITS veterans, I have established relationships with each one of you and value your thoughts and input based on my experiences through those relationships.

Therefore, I wanted to approach you first and see if any of you would be interested in being part of a gang campaign, courtesty of LITS productions. Right now I'm just gauging interest, the nature of your involvement can be discussed later. While similar to LITS, I plan on having a different operating structure to fit the nature of the game.

A few other people I plan on contacting are:

ES Sparky: She and I have talked quite a bit since meeting in 410 Crash, and I have a high regard for her potential contributions in various ways to the game.

Rokur: I thought he was a solid player, consistent poster, and general asset to the type of player I like in a long term game.

Wounded Ronin: One of his biggest weaknesses in forum games (a general lack of interest in role-play and a strong interest, maybe even obsession with tactics and strategy) can be a huge asset in the proper position. I was thinking about asking him to take charge of all dice rolling and actions for NPCs, particularly the opposition NPCs, removing the need for me to do so. Large volumes of dice rolls are a killer to a GM (I learned this from the Warehouse Fight) and can make running a gang brawl a nightmare. I think he might love the idea of simply being in charge of the combat and tactics of the opposition force, which would make my life a heck of a lot easier.

Grendel: No explanation needed.

And of course, the rest of the LITS-verse, as I obviously have a high regard for and a lot of trust in, all the people in our LITS family.

However, you three were the ones who have the most direct and best experience in a game of this nature as well as sufficient interaction with me to have a general idea of what I would be attempting to accomplish (due to your understanding of how LITS operates), and before I contact anyone else, I want to know what your thoughts are and general interest is on the matter.

Before I go into specifics about the campaign, I'll pause here to get feedback.

For convenience sake, please respond as I posted, addressing the other 3 individuals and with a spoiler tag, so as not to take up visual room on the LITS OOC thread. Thanks, and I look forward to hearing from each of you!

Not sure how much space this spoiler saves.

The idea is a lot of fun. Really the only thing I think needs to be explicit up front is that the gang is the main character and the PC are elements of that. From that we derive some of the other effects this has, the one main being simply that the ensemble cast is going to be very wary about timelines and interactive events. There's the question of who's ultimately responsible for the overall gang. Other then that I don't see much different then people usually seem to do on these forum based games.

Perception (7):
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I'm in mate. All the way, all the time.

Oh. Hell. Yes.

I want in, I'm with MJ - in all the way. I have to agree with DR though that it's going to take some careful orchestration for whoever is responsible for the whole shebang. Gang storyline first, personal storylines second. But if any group could manage to pull this off and pull it off well it's one based out of LitS for certain.

Perhaps a way to manage the overall flow of the game and keeping the gang forefront and center is making whomever GM's this puppy the NPC "Gang Leader"?

I like your idea Vegas, what do you think of this one: I want the PCs to ultimately have control over their destiny as a gang, so I don't want a GM controlled NPC running the gang the entire time, or else it's just like me running the story and having everyone else playing out relatively predetermined roles because they're sort of being plot hammered into following the leader.

I also don't want to mimic Tinkergnome's plan of having an NPC leader then having him get whacked and the gang going through the process of deciding on a new leader. It was a good idea, and I'm sorry it didn't get a chance to play out, because I actually really wanted to see it happen. However, I don't want to copy it because it would feel like we were just playing out a script we'd already seen done.

So, I was thinking about having a PC as gang leader from the beginning, one carefully selected to have both the personal and gaming ability to pull it off. They'd obviously need to be a consistent poster, excellent player, competent leader, etc. They would be the one to set the major tone for the gang, and obviously would be a driving force for the game. I don't want to leave that kind of responsibility up to chance or short-sighted democracy.

So I came up with a few possible candidates, with each of you on my very short list. But then I had a brainstorm that's just this side of brilliant, if I do say so myself. I already talked to this person about potentially being involved in the game as the possible gang leader and they listed themselves as a 'definite maybe'. However, with enough prodding from outside sources (read: you guys) I feel reasonably confident we can get it upgraded to a 'yes'.

I don't even want to spoil it for you guys, so I'll give you a moment to guess at who I've got in mind, then open the spoiler below.

How would you all feel about having the following individual playing the part of the PC gang leader...

Grendel. I pause for your response.

Oh holy *$)(!*_)(!#_)(!# !!!! Da Big G!

Hee! That could seriously make this whole idea even more kickass. Or brutally scary, possibly both.

While I liked a lot of the low-profile gang aspect of the 410 game, it made things really chaotic since there wasn't a sense of cohesiveness or whatever among the players, granted trying to find all the "gang mentality" of 13+ players when we started was difficult at best.

Obviously WR1, you were waiting on our reactions before talking specifics (which knowing you you've got a lot planned out/in mind) so what kind of game are we looking at here? Level of characters, type of gang, etc. etc.?