THIS GAME IS CENTERED ON A MYSTERY, THE SOLUTION OF WHICH IS READILY AVAILABLE ON THE INTERNET.  DESPITE THIS, PLEASE TAKE CARE NOT TO SPOIL THE MYSTERY FOR THOSE PLAYERS WHO WOULD RATHER NOT KNOW.

THE MYSTERY AND ITS SOLUTION MAY BE FREELY DISCUSSED IN THE 'WINNING HAND REVEALED' THREAD IF YOU WISH...

ALAS VEGAS - SOULS ON FIRE

"Bright light city gonna set my soul
Gonna set my soul on fire..."
Elvis Presley, Viva Las Vegas


You wake in a shallow grave in the desert. It’s night. You have no memory of how you got here, or who you are, or the location of your clothes. A scar of neon in the shape of a city squats on the horizon. There are answers there. And trouble.
Intro from the DriveThruRPG page for Alas Vegas.

This is a game for mature players, possibly up to the limits RPoL allows.  I will take player tolerances into account but this game should make you a little uncomfortable.  It may not be for you.

Souls on Fire (which I will often shorten to SOF) is a miniseries.  It is meant to tell one adventure, the solving of a great mystery.  The characters will either triumph or be defeated but the game will end either way.  SOL uses the Alas Vegas RPG rules (which I may also shorten to AV).

AV is the final product of a Kickstarter campaign long-delayed for spooky reasons.  But it is finally here.  In my opinion, AV has more charms than challenges so I have decided to try a game.  There are some real challenges though and I don't know how well the game will work in a PbP format.

But what's a game about Vegas without a little risk, eh? :-)
This message was last edited by the GM at 21:47, Wed 26 Feb 2020.

AV is a game that (in my opinion) is best run around a tabletop.  It actually calls for four GMs (called Dealers in this game), one for each of the four acts of this story.  And tabletop is probably the best method for pacing the gradual revelation of the mystery that is the core of AV.

So, I suggest if you have any chance at a tabletop game of AV in the foreseeable future, you don't apply for this game or read any further.  This game is for those players who are intrigued but don't have a real-life option to play.  In this game, I have had to make some compromises to run it completely.

That said, you are welcome.  From this point on, I won't be able to help some minor spoilers about the game...

In AV, your persona (what other games might call your Player Character) doesn't remember anything before waking up naked from a shallow grave in the desert.

This loss of memory is not true textbook amnesia (or any other real medical condition).  It is almost inexplicably eerie in how complete and precise it is.  Your persona does remember that they had a past at least.  In time, your persona will come to remember...

That they once seemed quite at home in (what us players would call) the real Las Vegas of our mundane world (the one we players know) of the Present Day (around the year 2020 we players know).  Perhaps they were canny natives of Las Vegas or well-seasoned tourists.

Are these memories of the real Las Vegas true memories or not?  Well, at least they will let the persona know that the nightmarish dreamlike version of Vegas they are currently in isn't real (or at least not as real as they remember real being).

The persona does not wake up alone but with other naked folks also missing their memories.  These personas will eventually feel that they once knew each other (or at least knew of each other).  This does not necessarily mean they were friends.

The persona may remember making some dark choices in the past.  It may not have bothered them at the time.  But now it seems that every compromise or failing has a strange 'weight' over you that may mark you and that would like to free of.
This message was last edited by the GM at 00:14, Thu 27 Feb 2020.

OK, some more details.

• Your character is an adult, that is, at least eighteen years of age.  AV is not for children, players or personas.
  
• Your character is very likely able-bodied, even if they don't remember (when they remember) being so before.  In fact, physicality doesn't seem to be as important as it was before.  You may find that, in this place, an arthritic grandma can beat a 'roided pro athlete at arm wrestling if she wantsit more.
  
  
• To save time, your persona can speak and (very likely) write in what all the personas agree is English, even if heavily-accented.  Language barriers will not be a big part of this game.  In addition to literacy in its most conventional sense, the character are technically and socially literate enough to have easily navigated basic independent living skills for the real Las Vegas of 2020.  At the very least, your character can probably drive an average car.
  
• Your GM will have some other personas in the group not controlled by any player.  Some are extra personas for new players (this game is harder for new personas to join) to take over.  One is the GM personal persona.  And one may be the persona that betrays the group.
  
• In your group, there is one persona who is will eventually betray the others.  This persona may know more about y'all's mysterious situation and may have secret capabilities the other personas don't.  If you want your persona to be considered for the position of betrayer, message me privately.  Otherwise, the betrayer won't be your persona.  If no player volunteers, the betrayer will be one of the GM personas.  But you won't know which until the betrayer is revealed.

This message was last edited by the GM at 21:57, Thu 27 Feb 2020.

To apply, I need the following information in a readable manner.  I will provide an actual character sheet template but I don't really mind how you present it all.

PLAYER PRONOUN PREFERENCE:  If a pronoun does not suggest itself from your username, I will default to 'they' and 'their' for pronouns.  But if you want to state your preference outright, go ahead and do so.

GAME COLOR SCHEME (OPTIONAL):  If you tell me what color scheme you are using for this game (under your User Preferences), I can better tailor the graphics for the group.  But this is completely optional and I will take care to make the game legible in any case.

PERSONA NICKNAME: To save time and effort for both players and personas, you should select a nickname for your persona (as they can't remember their previous one).  It could be that this nickname is your persona's barely-remembered true name or the persona just likes the sound of it.  In-character, it could be that the other personas suggested the nickname and it 'stuck'.  It may not be your persona's first choice for a nickname but it is not bothersome enough to change.

FIRST IMPRESSION:  This is what might be learned about your persona after about five minutes of casual interaction when your persona is not particularly guarded.  It is not just a physical description but also includes mannerisms, accents, affectations and the like.

PERSONA PICTURE (OPTIONAL):  You don't need a picture for your persona.  It is completely optional.  You may use an icon instead of a picture to show the persona's inner life rather than their exterior.

I would suggest (and RPoL will likely insist) that your character image be a clothed one.  Although your personas start this game naked, that will be a temporary state and, over time, the characters will eventually be dressed as they would mean to.

I would like to ask a personal favor of you.  I would prefer you don't use the picture of anyone who has never asked for fame or notoriety.  Your personas are people who have made bad choices and are in a bad way.  It is not right to use someone's image for such a thing without their permission.  I don't mind using a celebrity picture or the image of someone who has chosen fame.  Anyone in the public eye already has had their image misused much worse than this game could ever achieve.

For myself, I use images from thispersondoesnotexist.com These are artificially generated portraits.  As realistic as they look, those people (like the site says) do not exist and thus can't be misused.

In any case, I have no way to know either way where your images come from.

More will be added to your character as the game continues but this will do for now.
This message was last edited by the GM at 04:44, Fri 28 Feb 2020.

Nickname:
First Impressions:
Signifier:

Name, First Impressions...

God moves in extremely mysterious, not to say, circuitous ways. God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players, ie., everybody, to being involved in an obscure and complex version of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won't tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time.
Terry Pratchett, Good Omens
This message was last edited by the GM at 20:23, Fri 28 Feb 2020.

Style Guide:
There is no easy artistic merging of Vegas and Hell so either go realistic or Sin City riff.

The color scheme on this board can change with various viewers so pictures should be bordered and letter art outlined.

The color scheme is red and everything greyscale (this is tricky with some color schemes).

---

Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
spoil

---

This message was last edited by the GM at 05:40, Sat 29 Feb 2020.

♠A♦L♣A♥S ♠ V♦E♣G♥A♠S ♦ - ♣ S♥O♠U♦L♣S ♥ O♠N ♦ F♣I♥R♠E♦

A group of strangers dig themselves out of shallow graves with no explanations, no clothes and no memories!  Around them is only endless desert apart from a neon welt of a distant city that beckons with the possibility of answers...

Alas Vegas is a quick-and-easy 'beer-and-pretzels' RPG, a laid-back B-game to distract you from your much more serious and demanding A-games.  The players are learning about the rules as their characters are learning about themselves.  All you start with is a one-sentence description about your character so the game asks very little to start playing.  You can take the game for a test-drive before going all-in.

All good, eh?  But there are some other things you should know before you place your bets.

♦ In my opinion, Alas Vegas is best run as a real-life tabletop game.  This online PbP game is offered for those who don't have that option.  But if you do have a chance at a sit-down tabletop Alas Vegas game in the foreseeable future, leave this game and play that one.

♣ Alas Vegas is essentially a single adventure.  Win or lose, you will likely say goodbye to your characters at the end of the game.

♥ The single adventure that makes up Alas Vegas all hinges on how fast the characters can figure out the mystery behind them being in this strange situation.  This mystery has been spoiled on the internet.  If you already know the solution to the mystery behind the scenes (or intend to look it up), fine.  But please take care not to spoil the game for other players who might not wish to know.  The spoiled mystery can be openly discussed in this thread.  I've also changed this game so that it doesn't quite follow the standard adventure.

♠ This game is set to Mature and is for mature players.  Message me if you want further explanation or to negotiate the specifics.
This message was last edited by the GM at 05:25, Fri 13 Mar 2020.

What is grief, if not love perservering?

WITH GREAT POWER, COMES GREAT RESPONSIBILITY!
This message was last edited by the GM at 06:53, Fri 16 Apr 2021.

“Marvel is a cornucopia of fantasy, a wild idea, a swashbuckling attitude, an escape from the humdrum and the prosaic. It's a serendipitous feast for the mind, the eye, the imagination, a literate celebration of unbridled creativity, coupled with a touch of rebellion and an insolent desire to spit in the eye of the dragon.”
― Stan Lee, Excelsior!: The Amazing Life of Stan Lee
This message was last edited by the GM at 06:50, Fri 16 Apr 2021.

🆃🅴🆂🆃
This message was last edited by the GM at 06:59, Sun 18 Apr 2021.