What is Magical Lyrical Radiant Strike Force?
Synopsis of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha:
Nanoha began her magical adventures as a typical third grade girl on Earth. One day she began receiving telepathic messages from a stranger whom she'd never met, pleading for anybody to help him. When Nanoha finally found the source of the telepathic messages, she discovered an injured ferret, named Yuuno. Around Yuuno's neck was Raising Heart, an Intelligent Magical Device that taught Nanoha much of what she needed to know to defeat rampaging Lost Logia (magical artifacts). The setting takes place on Earth, present day, and is a fusion of typical magical girl drama of forging friendships with high-tech science fiction and mecha (-like devices that form cloth mage armor), and we'll throw in an Inter-dimensional Navy protecting the galaxy and more too.
Inspiration of Magical Lyrical Radiant Strike Force:
While watching Nanoha's initial transformation, the lovely music blaring in the background, I felt moved, a sense of awe. I wanted to explore what she was feeling and thinking, and more excitingly, to participate in challenges like the ones she faced, and to explore the massive realm of the Time Space Administration Bureau. Thus, this game was born. The setting of
Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha features multiple genres that I find exciting to role play within.
Science Fiction, Slice of Life, Romantic Comedy, and of course my favorite,
Magical Girl/Superhero. But I don't want to trap myself within the thoughts and feelings of the canon characters. I know that I wouldn't do them justice. So, allow me to lay out the
rules.
The character you play shall be an originally created character, ranging between the ages of eight and 25. Your character may be male, female, or any gender inside-outside, or upside-down along the spectrum. You don't have to necessarily play a morally correct character either. Most of the characters within this world are
coming of age, meaning they're still somewhat figuring out right from wrong-- just look at Fate Testarossa from the
initial season/Movie 1st, as an example. You'll create your own Intelligent Magical Device (IMD) and optional Familiar (not as your character would create, but you as a player), and you don't have to put too much thought into these creations, at least initially. They'll grow more detailed as we play.
The setting of this game takes place between the second (
A's) and third (
StrikerS) seasons of
Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha. I'm leaving the time frame open until more players join so we can narrow down upon a specific time as a collective effort. This role play is after all, a collaborative fan-fiction, is it not? I invite all the players involved to help create the master plot.
Instructions to Join Magical Lyrical Radiant Strike Force:
- If you haven't already familiarized yourself with Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, you should probably do that. Don't worry, I've got you covered. Check out the episodes in the Media Gallery!
- Next, you'll want to create at least one character. Feel free to use this template to get started. (I'm hoping that you at least already registered on the fourm so that you can create your character topic?). Here's some things to keep in mind:
- Your Intelligent Magical Device, what's it look like, functions, and name?
- Do you have a Familiar, what's his/her name, what animal hybrid is it? Remember, most familiars fall under the specialty of Support Mage.
- What color is your mana signature? Check out the handy chart below under Critical Canon Characters.
- Be thinking about what type of mage you are. How powerful would your character most likely be? Not everybody will be a walking ICBM like Nanoha or Hayate! Choose your Mage Rank carefully.
- Most mages have a primary element or theme to their magic. Nanoha's are Divine. Fate's are Lighting, Chrono's are Ice. The spells that you create should fall into a pattern.
- Ask any questions you have about Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha in the appropriate location.
- Wait until your character(s) are prefixed with Approved before playing. In the meantime, while you wait, feel free to start up some awesome conversations?
Additional Resources:
I am proud to announce with the addition of the Media Gallery extension, we have the the ability to stream the first three seasons of
Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha available for you to watch. The first two seasons are available in English, while the third season (
StrikerS) is only available in Japanese, however, there are subtitles in English. You may ask why host three seasons when we're playing before the third season? The answer to this involves the official timeline of the Nanoha Franchise
found here. I've determined that some of the things that we may interact with could affect events that occur within the third season. So while it's not required to watch all three seasons of
Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha to play the game, you may find some of the additional content can considerably enhance your role play experience! Here's some more links with valuable information:
Layout and Structure of the Game
I'll be honest, this is the first forum I've set up specifically for role playing within a setting, so what's here may be different than what you're used to, especially if you're a vertern role player. But I assure you that "I'm going to do my best!". I have, however, performed the duties of Game Master for nearly two decades in a Play by Post format, so I know a thing or two about what works and doesn't work so well. In my experience, rolling dice and following game mechanics while using a forum ultimately tend to slow a game to a halt, it dies, and then a new game is formed, played for a couple weeks, and rinse and repeat. I'm hoping to avoid that cycle of doom. This will be a more free form game, and will function mostly as a collaborative fan fiction. Depending on the players that join, will determine if we collectively decide to experiment with rule systems and dice. Finally, I've laid out the board structure to include multiple in-character areas, or settings. These areas may all be played concurrently. I highly recommend and encourage you to create multiple characters. Anyway, let's navigate this mess:
- The first board will always contain important information, notices, rule changes, and player absence notifications. If this sounds redundant, that's because it most likely is. Get over it.
- The second board is for character sheets. Right now, we'll use a free form text to write up our character descriptions. Maybe later, I'll invest in a formal character sheet option or dedicated form that we can fill in the blanks for. You can write as little or as much as you'd like to describe your character. Also, you can reply to your character thread to include internal monologes, diary entries, etc, if you're feeling froggy.
- The third board is all Out of Character chat. This is where we will discuss game plots, rule amendments, and if applicable, game system mechanics related to the setting of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha.
- Boards four through Infinity are all In-Character role playing boards. The fourth board in particular is a special role playing area, designated for longer introspective character posts. Here you can write lengthy novels introducing your character to the game world, writing elaborate tranformation sequences, and having general one-shot sessions amongst all your characters. You can use this board to kill time if you're bored, waiting for another player to post their reaction to something or to create a character based sub-plot to be incorporated into the main game.
- All the remaining boards are dedicated locations that your character can move between. I'll figure out a way to keep track of everybody's location shortly.
Transform into your true magical form under the guidance of the Temporal Space Administration Bureau's assistance!
