Plot Cards for Fanfic Game

[ffutures]

I've been working on the "plot cards" for the fanfic game - briefly, each will be a plot coupon that can be played to affect the course of the game, players will be given a few at the start of each scenario. So far I have forty ideas, ten cards per page, each will eventually consist of a name, a quote as an example, a description of what the effect is, and a note on when the card can be played and whether it is a one-shot effect or permanent. If anyone wants to suggest more I could possibly be persuaded to take it to 50 or 60 cards...

I've put in the full text of the first four, the rest will be written as time permits.

Technobabble
“Hah! A short burst of quasitron particles will soon disable their hyperdrive…”
No matter how dire the situation or minimal your resources, you have the technology to set things right, if you can come up with some convincing technobabble.
One use only

Real Family
“By defeating me you have proved yourself a worthy heir to my evil empire…”
Your character, or another character of your choice, is unknowingly related to one of the principal heroes or villains of the story; the GM decides who. Not always good news…
One use only

Woke Up in Vegas
“Who are you, and what the frack are you doing in my bedroom?”
Your character, or another of your choice, wakes to discover that he or she has married unexpectedly; the GM selects the spouse, the wedding cannot be annulled
Permanent effect once played

Retcon
“I thought everyone knew I studied nuclear physics before I became a vet…”
Something in your character’s past, never before mentioned, will provide exactly the skills, contacts, or circumstances needed to solve the current problem.
One Use Only

The others are:

Plot? What Plot??
Crossover
Slash!
Typo
Baby on the Doorstep
All a Dream
Here We Go Again
With One Bound…
Fade to Black
Like a Virgin
Back-story
Separated At Birth
Essential Attribute
Unexpected Allies
Jump the Shark
Fame at Last
McGuffin
Stunt Double
RPF [real people fic]
Amnesia
Marriage Contract
Your Mission
Marooned
Debt of Honour
Secret Base
Songfic
Badfic
Wedding Surprise
BFG [big fracking gun]
One Liner
Bad Science
Terms of the Will
Cute Kid
I Got Better
Exactly As I Planned

Comments

[honorh.livejournal.com]

What, no "Woke Up Gay" card? No "And Then They Done Sex" card? No "Mary Sue" card?! And you call yourself a fanficcer!

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Mary Sue will be most of a chapter, I think. The others are pretty much subsets of PWP or Slash.

[booster17.livejournal.com]

I was going to suggest "A little too Mary Sue" card, effect being to strip one power/ability away from a character.

What about "Choose Your Own Adventure" for those people who let the reviews decide what they do next?

And we need a Time Loop card. These are fun!

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

The time loop is "Here we go again" but Time Loop may be a better title.

The other two are good, I'll certainly use them or something like them if I go to another page.

[lakrids404.livejournal.com]

Bash fic:
Let me show why X suck

Power up:
X gets a power

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[wiredwizard.livejournal.com]

3 cards missing, I think.

- Exploding Explosions: we needed some filler here so we made stuff explode a les Mythbusters.

- Deus Ex Machina - Higher forces are interfering & moving characters around like chess pawns

- Rocks Fall - writer has gotten bored & ties the ending up in one fell swoop leaving characters & readers alike going "WTF?!"

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

OOH! Like them!

[wiredwizard.livejournal.com]

=sweeping bow= Always happy to help. =)

[lakrids404.livejournal.com]

WIP/not completed.
Really interesting, but write your ending, because nobody else will.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Maybe a bit too meta, I'll have to think about that one.

No, but unseriously ...

[soren-nyrond.livejournal.com]

Like a Virgin
"AH, the exquisite flavour!"
Your character has suddenly realised that not only is s/he a vampire, but one whose tastes require a specific type of victim.

Re: No, but unseriously ...

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

I was thinking of this one as a change of state card; play it on yourself, or someone else, to make them a virgin - or NOT a virgin - as the plot demands. e.g, to ensure that someone else is first choice for human sacrifice.

[doctor-toc.livejournal.com]

Evil Twin/Spock's Beard
Grim Meathook Future
Yes, I Am That Cool
Tastes Like Kryptonite
Wangst
Giant Robot In A Can

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Not quite sure what 2, 4 and 5 are, and 6 sounds a bit too specialised, but I like 1 and 3.

[doctor-toc.livejournal.com]

Wangst - Remember Buffy after she came back from the dead and spent the entire season being depressed about it? That's Wangst; endless wanking about how tortured the main character is and how no-one nderstands their pain.

Grim Meathook Future - "Turn Left" in Doctor Who was a great example of a Grim Meathook Future - everything that could go wrong, does. Tends to be done by folks who really enjoy torturing their characters and writing death scenes for characters who are otherwise never going to meet their maker. Other examples are things like "Days of Future Past" for X-Men and the Master's "New Time Lord Empire" shortly before Captain Jack punched the big red reset button.

Tastes Like Kryptonite - This is when a character's previously trumpeted vulnerability turns out to suddenly not work. Comes from a Superman comic in the seventies where Lex Luthor threatens Superman with a lump of Kyptonite, only to have Superman take it off him and eat it.

Giant Robot In A Can - This could also be called "Katana Space" or "anime mallet". It's that trope of having a character who has some immense bit of signature kit that cannot possibly be hidden about their person, artfully hidden about their person.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

OK, right, some good ones there.

[sirernest.livejournal.com]

Ram Them Until They Give Up (yes, Star Trek fics, I'm looking at You!)
Lets Wait Until We're Married (well, what else would you call going totally OOC just to avoid doing the natural and obvious just to cater to the author's particular hang-up?)

[sirernest.livejournal.com]

Oh and FLASHBACK! (to switch to a totally different adventure -which might or might not be connected to the current plot- mid-story)

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

All good - many thanks!

[wiredwizard.livejournal.com]

2 more:

"Damn it Harry, that's not a plan, it's a Looney Toon!" - main character heads off on a course of action better suited to Wile E. Coyote & his ACME catalog

McGyver it! - Lacking an essential piece of equipment, character(s) attempt to build the equivalent out of available junk

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

OK, second one definitely works. Not so sure about the first one, but it's certainly a possibility.

[wiredwizard.livejournal.com]

"Damn it Harry, that's not a plan, it's a Looney Toon!" - Lt. Karrin Murphy to Harry Dresden in Summer Knight (I think) by Jim Butcher after Harry dumps out a bunch of Gumballs on the floor hoping the ogre after him will wipe out on them. Plan proves to have about the same level of success as the usual Wile E. Coyote plan. =)

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

I'll probably put in a more generic "It just might work" thing, e.g. "It's a crazy idea but..."

[sirernest.livejournal.com]

You could use a Discworld ref here - It's a one in a million chance but it just might work

(if you're not familiar enough with those novels) The joke about this one the Disc of course being that they always work - as long as they're _exactly_ one in a million