Saturday Night Poker

First voice: "I'm a bit short on cash, but the ruby eye of the idol of
             Gimorha should cover the difference."

Second voice: "You got it on you?"

First voice: "You know I'm good for it."

Third voice: "The idol of Gimorha? You mean the one guarded by ten
	     thousand mechanovampires and a malebranche of the eighth
	     circle?" 

Second voice: "Ten thousand is probably an exaggeration. Sure, she's
              good for it."

In Nexus the Infinite City, there are a few exceptional people whose
reputations transcend the interfaces that divide the city. Not necessarily
the princes or priests or captains of industry, but those with great
personal power. To the masses of Nexus, location is everything, but to
people at this level, it's their peers who are important: merely changing
your name and moving to another dimension won't shake off your enemies, nor
your friends. 

(Think of Amber for the finite social circle in an infinite setting, but
Feng Shui for the power level of those characters (especially as regards
combat ability).)

No one reaches these rarified heights without a great deal of history,
and no one creates such a reputation without a great deal of attitude
and style; both of these attributes will be important to characters,
although of course a great deal of actual ability will also be required.

The full range of Nexus character types is available to each individual
character: necromancer, cyborg death machine, demigod, pulp science hero,
anything. Although the ability to defeat hordes of faceless minions is
essential, it need not be the focus of the character. Investigators
(reporters, consulting detectives), technicians (combat network admins?),
rock stars, or thieves would all fit, so long as they have substantial
freedom of action. In other words, adventurers. 

However, as a group, the characters should want to associate with each
other (not ruling out sublethal animosity between specific pairs), though
not be a team (although some subsets may be partners), and should meet
weekly to play poker, swap lies about their history, and maybe make some
more. The majority of characters should be sympathetic, although one or two
antiheros would not necessarily be out of place. 

The action will be strongly driven by the goals and wild-eyed notions of
the characters, and many details of the setting and NPCs will be filled
in by players as being part of their character's backstory, either
written up ahead of time or improvised during play. The tag phrase for
this campaign is "the time when...".

5 characters is estimated to be the optimum number.

CHARACTER CREATION

The first session will be devoted to creating the characters as a group.
The general format will be that a question will be asked, and each
person in turn will answer about their character. One of the most
important questions will be "What are you known for being best at?",
because then all the other characters will be ranked in that ability.
(It is of course possible to have other abilities that are not
duplicated.) Other questions might be

* "What's your signature weapon?"
* "What's your opinion of and relationship to  Character Y?"
* "What's your greatest success, and is it generally known?"

Only after attitudes, styles, and ecological niches have been worked out will
actual character sheets be generated. The system will be chosen after we
know what sort of characters it needs to support, but will probably end
being either Nexus or Hero, although it may instead be something more
freeform like Over The Edge.

Regardless of the system chosen, the more detail players can provide
about their character's history, contacts, and archenemies, the better.

SCHEDULING

There are currently no plans for scheduling. I would prefer either a
long session (all afternoon/evening) biweekly or a short session
(evening) weekly, but can be talked down.