I'm judging in the contest announced here.
So I can't enter. Right? I'll check on that later I guess. Point is I (pending confirmation) won't win the prize on this one. Good news everyone else, you actually have a chance this time.
Still, I wanna talk about my idea; a Planescape MMORPG.
NO! Wait, come back. I know I said MMORPG, but seriously I have some ideas to make it interesting.
Let's focus on Planescape for a moment. It's a setting for Dnd, introduced in 1994 for 2nd edition. It's a cosmology for the system that places a great city Sigil at the middle of the cosmos (and the settling) and then spokes out the other planes in a wheel from there.
The normal settings for DnD are all set in the Prime material plane, basically a multiverse that contains all objective reality. There's an Ethereal realm and a shadow realm and the elemental planes and that all forms the Inner planes, then all of the Heavens and Hells outside that, mostly placed by alignment, that form the outer planes. Sigil is unique in this because it is the city of doors. Any enclosed bounded space in the city can become a portal to another plane.
Ok, so that's a basic intro to the setting. Why does this make for such a great setting? Well, let's think for a moment about the most immersion breaking things in MMOs today.
Top of the list has to be death. All games work the same, you die, you get up and try again. Some try to apply stat punishments, others just make you run back to where you were, neither is really satisfying because at the end of the day, they feel like a cheat.
But in Planescape when you die you become a petitioner in one of the heavens or hells, depending on your alignment. It creates a perfect opportunity for an actually impactful morality system. Instead of respawning, you are reborn in one of those planes depending on your alignment.
In normal circumstances this would mean you are stuck there, but now there is an crises in the multiverse where petitioners are escaping their afterlives.
It also gives the chance to bring in the Blood War, a war that has been raging between the chaotic demons and the lawful Devils for all time over how they should be evil. As an evil character the possibilities are obvious, but as the Blood War often spills over into other planes any alignment could participate. This would be our primary PVP areana, having border towns in the Outlands (the lands between the heavens and hells) be territory that could be won by the different planes and providing bonuses for people with that alignment.
The second annoying this in MMOs now is that everyone has basically the same journey. Resources for a game that can be funneled toward writing are in short supply, but even if you really went all in on the idea (like say Star Wars: The Old Republic) there are only a few stories you can produce. In short, if you have a story, a million people are gonna play it and they will SEE other people playing it.
Planescape gives us an out here too. Let's imagine each player starts as a SPECIAL ONE! A one of a kind hero of the ages, that in the course of the story falls into a portal and ends up in Sigil.
Sigil would operate as the hub and would be the only place that was totally shared. Any other missions you go on would be in a different prime for each player. They would each start out the same, but would change with your decisions. The overarching goal would be to fix the damage to the multiverse, but it HOW you specifically did it would be between you and the plane you came from.
So that's my idea. What do you think! What would your ideal game be! Let us know in your own entry and use the Archdruidcontest tag!
