Table of Contents

Style and Tone

Origin Story is a game about community and identity. Citropolis is a difficult world to be a Spark in, and the struggles of being Sparked will feature in the game, but the emphasis will be on finding understanding and working through issues and finding personal fulfilment. Through the forum and its inhabitants, every character will have the power to meaningfully improve their circumstances by the end of the game. Most plot will be intimate and personal – some problems will be too large to solve during the game's timespan, but the importance of small victories and progress will be emphasised.

Citropolis, Aesthetics and Technology

Citropolis The game will be entirely contained by the city of Citropolis. The city is intended to feel like a world of its own. There is no concept of a wider world outside of Citropolis, no nation or ruler higher than the Mayor, and such things don't make sense to discuss during the game. The “edge” of Citropolis is a narrative boundary, rather than a place you can visit. Similarly, because of the narrative nature of Citropolis we have deliberately not given a map or specific size, so the city is flexible to our storytelling needs. The districts are designed to provide some sense of which things are very near each other, and the monorail ensures what you need is never too hard to reach.

Citropolis is a city out of time, mashing up several aesthetics and tropes. The city particularly inherits from comic book cities styled after the 50s and 60s and visions of the near future, such as Epcot 1). The schools, mall and daily lives of kids borrow from nostalgic depictions of the 80s. While references to the city's recent history, particularly Sparked relations and the economic situation of some areas, will be part of the game, Origin Story won't spend time looking at the past – there won't be a sense of a time when the city had a substantially different “vibe”.

Using SparkInYou.org Technologically, Citropolis is slightly ahead of our world in most respects – something you may be used to from comic books. For example, vertical farming and lab growing of meats are possible on a scale sufficient to feed most of Citropolis, with some fishing to complement food production.

The internet, however, is a somewhat recent invention, having come into the mainstream in the last 10 years or so. Most people, especially in the player characters' generation, are accustomed to using it, but it hasn't had time to mature into the integral part of society we know it as in the real world today. Likewise, cyber attacks and personal data collection aren't concerns on the level they are today. Despite the internet being a recent development, smartphones exist. In particular, your character can assume access to the forum from anywhere in the city.

Sparks

The Spark is a diverse phenomenon – most heroes from pop culture are valid interpretations of what a spark can be. The only exception is world scale universe-rewriting powers, which are beyond the scope of known sparks. Local reality bending is possible though – for instance, opening a portal to a version of Citropolis ruled by dinosaurs would be possible; rewriting reality so that Citropolis itself is ruled by dinosaurs would not be. Ask a GM if in doubt.

Despite the world's hostile nature to Sparks, “superheroes” in the pop culture sense can exist in setting. Wallace Udarnik and The Phoenix are the biggest examples of traditional heroes and villains in setting, but smaller scale examples exist dotted across the city – there are Sparks who go out, by necessity in mask with a fake identity, to try and use their powers to make the world a better place. Of course, even the friendly neighbourhood Sparks who aim to be a force for good are viewed as dangerous, and many people would rather they weren't around. The media will report such Sparks as vigilantes who should be minding their own business, and will be quick to jump on any Spark using their powers for bad and villainise them.

Allegory

Queer allegory has been part of the game since its conception. Being Sparked and being queer have a lot of common ground which this game is interested in exploring. In particular, the game will celebrate a diverse yet overlapping set of experiences under the Sparked umbrella, and explore the feeling of self determination and identification. The game will also explore the perspective of a group who many in society would rather get rid of, who are frequently discriminated against institutionally and personally, and how hope can be found in spite of such oppression.

The allegory is not one to one, and not every note in the Sparked experience will have queer allegory. Furthermore, it will be possible to play without leaning into queer allegory.

Other themes, particularly of disability, have been incorporated into design, and will also be explored using The Spark during the game.

PvP

A sense of community is core to the sense of the game, but player vs player interactions may occur, if all players involved are interested. The superpowered showdown emblematic of a personal or philosophical conflict is a trope that has its place in Origin Story. There may also be soft PvP, for instance competing for social clout in a school setting.

If you are entering a more direct PvP interaction with people, make sure you check in OC to make sure everyone involved is comfortable.

Romance

In character romance is something we would like to be able to explore in the game, as exploring romance is an important part of the teenage years for a lot of young people. As always, explicit OC consent should be sought before initiating romantic interactions. Particular care needs to be taken given the age of characters in Origin Story. There should be no sexual content, explicit or implied, at any point in the game – whether written by GMs or players.

Furthermore, an age gap of a few years between Origin Story PCs represents a far bigger gap in maturity than a similar gap between fully matured adults. As such romance between player characters with more than a year in age difference is not permitted in Origin Story. For instance, an 18 year old player character could ballgown with a 17, 18 or 19 year old, but not a 16, 20 or 21 year old. Non player characters below the 16 year old minimum PC age are also not eligible for ballgowning by any player, even if they fall within this limit.

Given how young the characters in Origin Story are, we will still be keeping a close eye on romantic relationships which do fall in the acceptable range. We are not interested in exploring unhealthy power dynamics or abusive romantic relationships in Origin Story ballgowns. The GM team may contact players involved in ballgowns to raise any concerns we have, and discuss modifying or removing them if they depict relationships that have no place in the game. If you have concerns about a ballgown, you may raise your concerns with the GM team via email and we will raise them anonymously with the player(s) involved.

Influences

This game has had many inspirations, including:

Films and TV:

Books and Comics:

Other RPGs:

Misc:

Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Tran

1)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPCOT_(concept)