"Wonderful people of Court Records, I want to personally thank you all for coming to see the next Bigg RP!"
"It's just another murder mystery game. Nothing to get so excited over..."
"Don't be such a downer, dude! This game's extra special, and not just because I'm in it!"
"This game will split you all into two teams and pit you against each other!"
"You'll be clashing wits as you try to solve each murder, battling it out for the ultimate prize!"
"YES. THE ULTIMATE PRIZE. THE ONLY PRIZE. THAT IS... THE RIGHT TO UNDO YOUR DEATHS."
***
Hello and welcome to After•Life! As a simple summary, After•Life is an Ace-Attorney-like RP. Just like in AA, the game consists of trials where two sides, the defence and the prosecution, debate back-and-forth to reach the truth. There will be three chapters in total.
In each chapter, players will divide themselves up into two teams. Trials proceed in a similar manner to an AA game, with witness testimonies and evidence driving things forward. Once the time limit is reached, the judge (who just so happens to be Death) will give a ruling based on which side was most convincing. (In more practical terms, the winning team is the team who managed to advance the case in their favour, leaving the other team unable to find find fault with it before the deadline. Of course, there is only one 'true' explanation to each case, so if you manage to fully solve the mystery, the winning team will simply be the one who was on the side of the truth. In that regard, it's best not to approach this game with too competitive a mindset.)
You will be playing as characters you create. They don't have any involvement in the story, they're simply there to participate in the trials, so keep that in mind for character-creation. Each chapter starts with a period of "free time" where you can RP freely and interact with one-another; this will be the primary time your characters can shine. There will be NPCs hanging about too, which will hopefully keep things lively. You'll also be able to request private, one-on-one conversations with one other character per chapter (i.e. the game has FTEs).
As for specifics, as you might have seen, your characters are DEAD. The Archetype of Death is, for some reason, hosting a program where dead souls compete to solve mysteries for the right to be brought back to life. As such, the only requirement for your characters is that they've died somehow and are motivated enough to want a second chance. This needn't be some huge, grand motivation, I would think your average person would rather come back to life than not.
Other Details
- There is no particular significance to the game's title. It's merely mimicking typical Japanese VNs. You're free to just call it Afterlife for convenience.
- There will be Quicktopics for each team during each trial, as well as for private conversations. However there's no need this time around for single-character QTs. I'll just contact you via Discord DMs if need be, or CR PMs if you'd prefer. (Please specify if you'd prefer the latter.)
- Basic game rules apply here. Don't deliberately make your team lose, don't ruin the game for anyone else, e.t.c.
- This is one of the few games where activity requirements aren't particularly strict. That being said, please don't push most of the mystery-solving onus onto just a few players, try to contribute as best you can.
- I expect pre-trial sections to last 4 days, and trials to last 3 days. There'll probably be a day's buffer between chapters. With three chapters, this means the overall game will last around 26 days when prologue/epilogue stuff is taken into account. Numbers are subject to change, but this is a good estimate.
There's no real need for a survey this time. Just post expressing your interest, and post again / DM me / throw a rock through my window when your character is ready. I'm hoping the game can start in a week's time, but ultimately I'll wait until all characters are ready first. Furthermore, the nature of this game means new players can drop in at any point without really causing problems, it's very flexible in that regard.