AU Concept Repository

[Sh4dE]

All Stars go

[Aster]

I think chat said that this idea had been thrown around before but I've fleshed it out enough in my head that I might as well toss it in here.

SOTF: The Study takes place in a near-future setting where whole brain emulation (WBE) and simulated reality technology exists. The eponymous study is an experiment run by psychological researchers who want to ""ethically"" study human behavior in life-or-death situations.

The neural scans they're using are sourced not-so-ethically from students at the university the study is being conducted at. They advertised a small but generous stipend to anyone who's willing to submit a brain scan and complete a psychological evaluation without being explicitly told what they would use them for. All the participants would be college students roughly between the ages of 18 and 22, though they could be older/younger depending on certain circumstances (like skipping a grade in K-12 or having to take an extra semester or two). The participants wouldn't know that they're in a simulation—their memories after a certain date are erased, and they believe that they were abducted by a shady organization and forced to fight to the death.

There's another potential gimmick that would come into play in the second version, where previous participants could be resubmitted alongside potential new ones, since IC the researchers would likely reuse the neural scans in multiple trials to explore how the same person would react in different scenarios. The neural scans could even be sourced from volunteers from the general public, enabling handlers to RP anyone over the age of eighteen, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

[DerArknight]

Allow me to throw my own hat in the "people who want to run their own AU some day"-ring:

SOTF: Cyber

The setting is around three decades in the future. While the earth is still inhabitable thanks to new technologies, most humans in the first world spend most of their life in “Cyber”, a virtual world that anyone with the right equipment can link into while their body in reality falls into a sleep-like state. Despite being only introduced ten years ago, Cyber has already become an important part of people's lives to the point that most of social life happens not on earth, but in Cyber.

In the USA of this time, schools are no longer physical. Instead, all students are provided with the gear to log into Cyber, where they attend virtual schools. As a result, most students never meet outside of Cyber due to living in different parts of the country.

One day, the senior class of a random high school is suddenly abducted by a group of hackers. The cyber-terrorists use a program that traps the students inside a virtual arena created by the terrorists. If any attempt from outside is made to free them, the program will kill them via the gear that connects them to Cyber.

The terrorists then make their demands: The students are to fight to the death in the arena. Every time a student dies in Cyber, they will be killed in reality as well. Only the last survivor is allowed to log out.

Okay, I admit this might sound a lot like Virtua. So let me summarize what I believe makes this pitch worthy of being its own AU:

- Unlike in Virtua, the students are not fictional characters with fake memories.

- The death game has real consequences with the students actually dying.

- The whole death game will be broadcasted to the world. However, instead of a recording starting after the fact, the broadcast will be live. After all, the locations of the students are known from the start. It's just that no one can save them from the virtual world.

- The scenario in Virtua had to be somewhat realistic to keep the students from realizing the world they are in isn't real. But the students in Cyber are aware that they are in a virtual world. As a result, there is no need to hold back on creative Sci-Fi stuff that would be impossible or unrealistic to exist in any other SOTF-verse. For example, one location could be inside a zero-gravity-field, allowing to write unique fight scenes playing out with the characters floating through the room and having to use various tactics to move from one place to another. Or there could be special weapons that defy the laws of physics like an actual lightsaber.

None of this is supposed to be critique on Virtua. I am just pointing out the ways my AU-pitch diverts from the already established Virtua while also using said comparisons to give a better picture on what would make SOTF: Cyber stand out from other AUs.

Will this AU ever be a thing? Yes! Currently I am still too new to this site to start such a big project, but I can definitely see myself running an AU down the line. So this is not something to look forward to in the near future, but something I want to already mention I am planning later on.

[AnimeNerd]

My brain still keeps thinking of ideas so I have two more to talk about!! Don't expect to see either of them any time soon, tho.

Survival from the Undead

The same old song and dance as usual. A class of students is kidnapped from their senior trip and forced to participate in a game where they have to kill each other to be the sole survivor. The usual expected from most versions of SOTF.

The twist? There is a scientist on this team of abductors. A scientist who has created something very special, and wants to do a field test with it-and the rest of the team is more than willing to comply.

At the start of the game, most students will feel perfectly fine, but a special few (most likely NPCs similar to PV3P) will have been injected with a special serum where, after a determinate amount of time, they will become zombies-shambling corpses ready to maul any living creature to death if it means feeding its insatiable hunger. It is only if they are able to bite a human, however, that anything attacked by them will also become a member of the walking dead.

And, of course, the only way to kill these creatures? Damaging the head.

The last one still moving gets to go home. Try to make sure that's not someone whose already passed on, will you?

Celebrity Survival of the Fittest

You know how some game shows have celebrity versions? Celebrity Family Feud, Celebrity Big Brother, stuff like that? I've sometimes had the thought of why there couldn't be something like that for SOTF, but I remember that the point of most SOTF kids is that there supposed to be normal, realistic kids.

Then I think 'What if the terrorists in one AU actively decided to target kids that didn't fit that mold?'

So! In this Mini, the class chosen was from a very special high school-one that very rich and prominent people send their kids for both the best education, and as much protection as possible. Not everyone from the class will be famous-could be the politician's son that wants to have a low-profile in life, or the actor's daughter who has no interest in fame-but even so, everyone is from a rich background, and they <I>would</I> be recognized for their family's fame.

The purpose of this game? See what happens when the top of society is forced into a real life do-or-die situation. Will they continue to show themselves as above the rest of humans? Or reveal themselves as no better than the average human, ready to slaughter their fellow man in the fight for survival?

Again, if anyone else wants to pick this up, feel free to talk to me, because I would love to see these in action.

[Sh4dE]

I'd be interested in doing something experimental, changin the mechancis of rolls. I present you:

SURVIVAL OF THE MINIMALIST

It would be an SOTF game but every roll cycle rolls aren't random, but determined by the word counts of the characters. The largest characters get autorolled every cycle.

[The Honeless Beard]

I'll be following RC's up with

SURVIVAL OF THE MINIMALIST: HANDLER EDITION

It's determined by the character count of your handler name. You're rolled randomly as before, but you need to chop off a letter of your handler name every time you're rolled. Once you hit 0, you're out.

[DerArknight]

So I came up with this weird Au concept today. Before I knew it, I had formulated this pitch:

SOTF: Proxy

In a not so distant future, conflicts between nations are no longer decided by large-scale wars. Instead, the two nations will each select a random class of a random high school from their country that will represent an entire army. The two groups of teenagers are then forced onto a battlefield where they have to fight to the death until one side is completely annihilated. This is called a proxy-war.

The students who manage to defeat the enemy will be celebrated as war heroes and receive fame and money. Even the deceased will be fondly remembered unless they did something that brought shame to their country.

This AU revolves completely around the fight of two groups instead of the usual “Everyone against Everyone”-setting. It has some aspects of both TV and Program, with the basic setting being in a program-like world and the mechanic of two armies being similar to the team-mechanic of TV. However, it misses the lighter tones of TV by focusing less on the entertainment-aspect of the proxy-wars. It also avoids becoming as bleak as the Program by stating that the winner will not disappear/be forcefully turned into a super-soldier after surviving. Also the world will be less of a crapsack world.

In order to avoid a situation where the version ends too fast because one side gets very unlucky with rolls, there will be two different Rolling Lists, one for each country/army. Each set of rolls, a certain number of the two lists will be rolled. Since it would be unrealistic that both sides always lose the same amount of people each day, the numbers of rolled characters per list are independent.

However, the rolls will be calculated so that the final ten will see each side with exactly five members left alive. Then the winner will be determined either by a vote or – if no complete consensus is reached – by rolling one character after another until one group is completely rolled. Then the endgame can begin with all ten characters engaging in a final fight.

Since I currently have my hands full with SOTF: Cyber, I have no plans to start working on this. And even after Cyber, I am not sure if I will give this one a try.

So if you are interested in running this AU, feel free to hit me up.

[MurderWeasel]

The Grand Tournament

The idea here is pretty simple: there's this world, see, kind of like our world except more pulp. Sort of like the world of a fighting game circa 1994. It's a world with a whole lot of crazy martial arts, and one day some folks get the idea, you know, what if we got all these crazy masters of esoteric traditions together to fight it out in a tournament and see who's the best? And that's this game, that tournament.

How this would work would be pretty simple. Each handler creates a character who is a really skilled practitioner of their own special martial art. Everything has to be made up, kinda like Supers powers, because I don't want to worry about stuff like plausibility or accuracy, but if you want to file the serial numbers off something sorta real, more power to you. More power to you also if your character was raised in a pizza kitchen and foiled a robbery at age eight wielding a pizza pan and one of those rolling cutters and now their martial art is based on that. The rule of thumb is, nothing overtly supernatural, but if you can explain it with pseudoscience you can probably get away with it.

The game will be a series of 1v1 matches, with possible exceptions if we get a number of characters that is not either exactly 16 or exactly 32. It will be an elimination bracket. However, unlike other games, nobody dies—this is a civilized fighting tournament. When you're not actively fighting, you can hang out around camp and train, watch other people fight and heckle them, eat soup at the mess hall, and other fun things like that. If you think writing fights is horrible and awful and boring, you can also play a member of somebody's retinue of doctors, apprentices, performance-enhancing drug peddlers, and so on, and do all the stuff that's not fighting. It'll be a good time.

The winner of the tournament gets eternal glory and a trophy or something. Everyone who wants to write a little Epilogue gets to. If it's fun maybe we do it again later.

This is probably coming more soon than my other AU ideas because I'm pretty into doing a game that's not a death game, and where you can play a wider range of characters. It will still probably be closer to the end of the year than the beginning. More musings at some point!

[DerArknight]

SOTF: Nightshift

It was supposed to be just another boring night at the job. But the last thing you remember is heading out for your workplace.

Now you awake in the break room of wherever you work. Several of your coworkers are there. All of you are tied to chairs, arms behind your backs. Also your head hurts like hell.

Before confusion can turn into panic, your manager enters the room, visibly disturbed. He tells that all of you will have to kill each other until dawn. Anyone who tries to leave the building or contact the outside world will have the bomb that has been planted in their head detonated. Same goes for everyone if no winner is found by the end of the night.

After this shocking explanation, your manager pulls a gun and shoots himself in the head.

With a clicking sound, the restraints of everyone in the room open themselves, allowing you to move again.

What will you do now?

---

And now for the OOC-stuff:

This AU-concept is the spiritual successor to SOTF: Office, an AU-concept that was created by Ohm. Ohm was contacted and gave me his blessings for this AU. Apart from that, Nightshift also takes some inspiration from the horror movie The Belko Experiment.

The biggest difference between Office and Nightshift is that while Office was focused on office workers, the premise in nightshift is more wide. For example, versions could take place in fast-food restaurants, supermarkets, banks or police stations. Basically any place where people work nightshifts.

Versions will be fast-paced and might even have character caps since it wouldn't make much sense IC for one McDonalds to have 50 employees. The arenas being rather small is also a reason for a smaller cast.

Alternately there is the option to have a version take place in a whole building, with very floor featuring a different workplace. In this case handlers could decide if for example they want to write someone working in the restaurant on the first floor, the gym on the second floor or the offices on the third and fourth floors. It would be similar to the first two TVs that pulled students from two different schools each.

There also probably won't be any announcements and Danger Zones. Although at some point, Danger Zones might be created OOC in the form of hanbdlers no longer being allowed to create new threads in some locations.

As you see, the AU is still in early development and many things might be subject to change.

Nightshift will most likely be my next AU after Cyber, which is my current priority. Once it is time for me to start with Nightshift, I will make a call to get a team together.

[almostinhuman]

SOTF Underground

In this setting, a fabulously wealthy but shady socialite holds a yearly secret tournament, in which a large group of people are pitted against each other to fight to the death, all for the entertainment of their host and her wealthy associates. Unlike the usual SOTF version, though, all competitors signed up willingly and knowing fully what they're getting into. The event's illegal and clandestine nature means that only those involved in illicit activity or with criminal backgrounds are likely to have even heard of it, much less know who to contact to sign up for it; thus, the competitors are mostly thieves and mercenaries and hitmen rather than ordinary students. The prize for winning is, effectively, whatever the winners desire; the host will use her vast resources to ensure that, if it's possible, they get what they asked for.

The game takes place on an abandoned and heavily-urbanized island over the course of three days, with announcements doled out every twelve hours. Unlike other versions, competitors are not assigned random equipment, and are expected to bring their own; while some basic gear and supplies will be handed to everyone, anyone who comes without a weapon isn't getting one for free. All competitors are handed a device that provides the announcements, gives them a map of the island and allows them to track other competitors, making it far harder to simply hide and wait out the chaos. The tournament also ends when any three people are left instead of one, all three of of whom are declared the winners, encouraging a degree of teamwork between competitors without creating formalized teams and allowing alliances to remain fluid and unstable.

Currently still in an embryonic state, but I'm working on it. It'll hopefully be ready for submission soon!

[Dogs231]

SOTF — Countdown.

It was supposed to be a day of simple fun, a field trip for the senior class, a week before graduation. All of you had spent so long, worked so hard, to raise the funding; it wasn't easy for a school like the one you went to, underfunded and small as it was.

You never imagined something like this would happen; it wasn't possible, it couldn't be. A kidnapping of schoolchildren by some crazy cult; it was like the plot of some schlocky B-movie, sure to bomb at the box office.

Still, none of it changed the facts; no matter if you pinched yourself, you didn't wake up. This nightmare was reality; you had—if the man on the stage was right—only one day left to live.

You had learned, from that briefing, that the last man standing by then was the winner, though not what would happen then. The speaker left the rest to the imagination, but you didn't need the explanation; it was, by that point, all too clear.

If the clock struck midnight, your time was up.

---

SOTF — The Experiment.

As you awaken, the first things you see are the concrete walls, gray, plain, perfectly squared; they seal you inside, like a mausoleum or, just as accurately, a prison. There is a chill in the air, and the low hum of the ventilation system sings in the distance; it is the only sound you hear at first.

Then, the others arise from their slumber, strangers, the lot of them. The group, now laid before you, drawn from all walks of life; poor and rich, young and old, the weak and the strong. The shouts and screams subside into a dim lull, and it is then that the screech of the intercom plays.

"Each of you has an electronic device in your right pocket," the speaker says, "and you can use this device to cast a vote; it is yours, and nobody else can cast a vote on your behalf."

There is a surge of confusion, and you hear the others cry out for an explanation, but you remain silent; you want to understand. The intercom screeches again as if by deliberate action, and the crowd quiets once more.

"Every eight hours," the speaker begins again, "a vote will begin, and you will select a member of this group."

There was a pause.

"The one who receives the most votes dies."

[Salic]

SOTF: Depth

Deep underneath the icy surface of Europa, a lone submarine pushes its way through pitch black waters of the subterranean ocean. Navigating through the treacherous Koumandian Trench, this submarine has one mission: to haul food from the New Horizon colony over to the Schwarz-Rot-Gold base, which has been radioing for food to stave off an impending famine. The journey is around 1100 miles, and the projected course has the submarine reaching the starving base in around 15 hours… of course, it only holds true if the monsters beneath Europa’s waves don’t get the submarine first.

You are a member of the ESV Tarpon, one of the many submarines from New Horizon that was sent to assist the Schwarz-Rot-Gold base. Your course goes through the Koumandian Trench, the fastest way to get to Schwarz-Rot-Gold, but also one of the most dangerous environments in Europa’s oceans. Hostile animals, hostile plants, and even hostile geography are aiming to ensure that the Tarpon’s final resting place is on the ocean floor. If you can use quick thinking, evasive maneuvers, and the appropriate amount of firepower, then you may live long enough to see the light of the Schwarz-Rot-Gold base cut through the endless blackness of Europa’s oceans.

As you may have inferred, this is not a death game. It’s more of a survival-horror experience as you flow through the Koumandian Trench, not knowing what awaits you down there.

The prologue for Depth is completed, while the mechanics and state of the world are currently in progress. I still need a Second and hopefully a third staffer to help round out the administrative side. Feel free to DM me if you’re interested in helping or have any questions you want to send my way!

[+] Role List

Captain
Commander
Lieutenant Commander
Chief Security Officer
Chief Medical Officer
Chief Engineering Officer
Chief Mechanics Officer
Chief Comms Officer (the announcer)
Comms Lieutenant
Navigator
Navigator
Security
Security
Security
Security
Doctor
Doctor
Doctor
Engineer
Engineer
Engineer
Engineer
Engineer
Mechanic
Mechanic
Mechanic
Mechanic
Mechanic
CBRN Cleanup Crew
CBRN Cleanup Crew
CBRN Cleanup Crew
CBRN Cleanup Crew
CBRN Cleanup Crew

More roles will be added/removed depending on handler interest!

[KamiKaze]

Slasher High

We all know the story by now.

A group of teens meets up to party. Then, a masked figure picks them off one by one, until a brave young woman defends herself and lives to tell the tale. But, time and time again, the same killer would re-enter her life, waiting to take their vengeance.

But what if I told you that this is only part of the story?

That boarding school seems normal, isn’t it? Unless you’re a student there.

See, this is a school for Slashers.

What are Slashers? Well, they look like normal people. Most of the time. But they can recover from things that would kill them otherwise, and are stronger than most, and, most importantly of all, they have a bloodlust. Maybe it’s from their family, maybe they were born with it, maybe something happened to them later in life that awakened their urges, maybe it was something else. Some of them even have unique abilities. You don’t want to know what Joey can do once he’s in your dreams, or what Sarah did with her telekinetic abilities when she got upset during lunch.

The senior class’s graduation is coming up, you know? And we have one more exam for them.

There’s another high school that’s sending some students not too far from here for their own end-of-year celebrations. We just… gave them a little invite, told them that they could visit us. Little do they know, they’ll be our lovely volunteers!

Oh, but these things never go too smoothly. The Slasher students typically just barely get along at school, enough for us to hide if… well, someone looks into things too deeply. But graduation tends to get competitive, and we tend to lose a few people. Some people cheat, you know. We frown upon it, but we don’t necessarily discourage it. More practice is better! And sometimes, the volunteers… well, they make things a little harder. But that’s part of the challenge!

So, come meet us at graduation. We’re dying to meet you.

---

As you might have guessed, this is the slasher AU I was shitposting about in chat with folks earlier that I decided to flesh out. The premise is that a class of graduating students consisting of various fledgling horror villains are unleashed onto a group of perfectly normal teenagers to test out their abilities.

I’m thinking that you can either play as one of the villains or as one of the potential victims. On the Slasher end of the scale, you don’t necessarily have to create a villain from the slasher genre specifically, and you can branch out into other horror tropes. Want to create a kid with a body horrorific ability that they use on their victims? Sure! Want to create someone who’s essentially a werewolf? Fine with me! Want to create someone from a clan of redneck cannibals? You can create someone from a clan of redneck cannibals! The same goes for victims, you are not just stuck with the final girl and such.

Both the Slashers and the victims can be killed. Sometimes the victims fight back, and sometimes, well, things get a little… territorial, so to say.

Tonally, I’m thinking of aiming towards a more campy, horror-comedy vibe lore-wise. Think lots of self-awareness, think lots of dark humor, think lots of playing around with and winking at tropes.

It’s literally something that was thought of today, and it definitely needs ironing out. But I am excited at the idea of slasher villain AU, so here it is in my current thoughts. But I may change the concept significantly, so don't treat everything mentioned here as 100% canon.

[MurderWeasel]

Oops All Twists! (OATs!)

So this is like way down the list behind several other games I have cooking (bare minimum TGT will come first) and this is gonna be a vague write-up by necessity but this was born from some conversations the other day and I think could be fun.

The basic concept of this AU is that it will be full of weird and wacky twists and this will be clear from the start but what precisely they are will be kept secret. The idea here is that handlers will roll in knowing full well that they're gonna be involved in something incredibly unusual and prone to swinging. Nothing is taken for granted and fundamental swerves in plot, genre, and even OOC game mechanics are on the table, and there will be secrets in play to large degrees.

What will be shared will be information needed for character creation and a vague explanation of the projected tone. There will also be an option for handlers to contact staff regarding specific triggers/concerning elements to get info on whether or not they're going to be central to the version so that nobody accidentally steps into something they don't want to.

That's basically it!

[DerArknight]

So as I was browsing MangaDex I stumbled upon this manga. Halfway through, I thought to myself "Hey, that would make for a cool AU concept!" So here we are.

SOTF: Space

The year is 21XX. Humanity has long since colonized several galaxies thanks to new technologies allowing for faster-than-light-travel. However, earth still exist as one gigantic museum, and the long period before space is fondly remembered.

One day, a class of senior high school students boards a passenger ship travelling to earth for their end-of-the-year-trip.

But in the middle of the week-long journey, tragedy strikes as several meteors hit the ship, killing all crew and teachers and damaging several important parts. As a result, the oxygen supply will fail long before reaching earth, dooming the surviving teens to suffocate. The only salvation comes in the form of the ship's cryosleep capsules, capable of inducing a state in which the oxygen failure won't be an issue. But the number of capsules is much smaller than the number of survivors...


As you can see, this AU changes the format a little. Not only by taking place in space, but also in that the situation is created by an accident instead of terrorists or evil TV-showrunners. Furthermore, the number of cryosleep capsules is not limited to one, allowing for a game designed to have multiple survivors. It also changes the dynamic of the killings: IC there is nothing stopping the characters from coming to a peaceful agreement on who should get to live.

As always, not sure if or when this AU becomes a thing, so if you want to run it, hit me up via PM or on Discord. But I figured posting the concept here can't hurt.