The Legionnaires

    “The Legionnaires” was an RPG-style event created by Shy for the Community Events forum on August 7th, 2005. This was one of the largest and most ambitious RPGs in the boards’ history, featuring 36 players and 8 story threads.

The basic premise of “The Legionnaires” is that The Legionnaires are the world’s greatest heroes. An odd assembling of mercenaries, the organization is sent throughout the world on strange and exciting missions by their mysterious leader, The Arbiter.

These players were split up into multiple “teams,” each assigned to a specific story thread to complete a “mission.” The basic concept of the mission was private messaged to that team’s leader in a “mission briefing,” and contained information such as the location and what needed to be accomplished. The team leader would then have the option of adding to the mission briefing if necessary before forwarding that message to the rest of their teammates. Originally mission briefings also contained an assigned posting order, but this was terribly unpopular among the players and removed entirely as the event progressed.

While each individual “mission” could be read as a self-contained story, the entire RPG contained multiple plotlines weaving in and out of the various threads. While individual team members changed from mission to mission, team leaders remained in their respective threads throughout the course of the event. The only way for a team leader to leave the thread would be if their character were killed off, or if the player resigned from the event. Ordinary players could have their characters killed off in the “Body Bags” thread, which was to take place after the completion of each team’s individual missions.

Various problems in the organization of the event started to show themselves almost immediately. While the sign-up form to join the event required that the player designate what Arena Thread Rating their writing may fall into (Mature, Parental Guidance, or Everyone) few who included this information did so accurately. As a result the initial teams’ organization created many creative and interpersonal conflicts, most notably in the Red Team’s first mission. Meanwhile, the rate at which members posted was very irregular. Some teams posted very frequently, while others hardly posted at all. (It should be noted that the posting rates in threads were on-par with the success/failure rate of most Arena RPGs at the time.)

Not all players were invited to participate in the first round of missions, creating even more voices of dissent for something that had only just begun. Afraid of losing players, the Green Team was created as an afterthought.

As a result the original “Body Bags” player elimination did not include every team, only the three which had originally completed their respective missions by that time. More often than not players were eliminated for their infrequent, or complete lack of posting. This was a far cry from the suspenseful and seemingly random way player elimination had been originally envisioned for the event.

The first (and only) round of “Body Bags” was completed on December 15th, 2005. Immediately following that sign-ups opened for a humorous anecdote to “The Legionnaires’” depressing tone, “Hero Patrol.” While the story for “Hero Patrol” took place in the same universe as “The Legionnaire” there was no plan to connect the two stories in any significant way. Before posting in “Hero Patrol” even began interest in the event as a whole to faded. Several team missions went weeks without posts, while the “Silver Team Mission Thread” died entirely.

While the various stories seemed unconnected “The Arbiter” thread in OB Anthology served as a way to reinforce the main storyline, which would eventually have led to the downfall of The Legionnaires group within the story. Limited only by their imagination various players contributed short stories, poems and other writings focusing on their individual characters. Shy, the event’s creator, posted exclusively in this thread as well as in “Body Bags.”

Lack of momentum eventually doomed the event, although many still hold out hope for an ultimate conclusion for the stories and characters contained. The last official story post was in the “Green Team Mission Thread” by group leader DeathKnight on July 16th, 2006. That thread, and various others related to “The Legionnaires” remain unfinished to this day.

Related Links:

Join Hero Patrol

The Legionnaires Art Thread

Categories: Events