Maverick Hunters Series

Maverick Hunters: Replimasters

OtakuBoards’ Maverick Hunters series of RPGs is possibly one of the most prolific series in the site’s history – at the very least, it has spawned several incarnations over a period of years.

The very first RPG in the series, Maverick Hunters: Replimasters, was created on 04/01/2002 by Flash (known as Final Flash at the time).  It began somewhat awkwardly – several members joined after the RPG commenced and several members were also kicked out within the first few pages.

However, the RPG ended up finding its feet and started to become cohesive by the second page.  Maverick Hunters: Replimasters was based on the notable Mega Man universe but this link was tenuous at best – it provided a foundation for what became a very unique and original tale spread across hundreds of years and dozens of characters.

Maverick Hunters: Replimasters introduced several key characters who would become legendary within the RPG’s history (including Flash, Warlock and Proteus).  One of the RPG’s other unique traits was that it introduced several futuristic technologies that were described with significant detail (the original RPG established several forms of technology that were used throughout the series).

At the end, Maverick Hunters: Replimasters reached only ten pages and died somewhat quickly – it became disjointed and the story never progressed beyond introducing key characters.

Maverick Hunters: Replimasters
Creators: Flash and Warlock.
Notable Characters: Flash, Warlock, Proteus, Drake, Nova, Omega, Signas, Max and Dr. Light.
Notable Members: Flash, Warlock, Chaos, Yoda, James, Dragonballzman, Break and 9mm Avenger.

Maverick Hunters: Personification

The second RPG in the series, Maverick Hunters: Personification, was arguably the series’ high point.

The RPG was created by Flash on 10/23/2002 and featured several notable improvements:

• The story was far more complex and well-paced than the original RPG.
• Characters were more fleshed-out than ever before, with complex histories and intertwining relationships becoming apparent.
• Many new technologies were introduced with detailed descriptions of how they worked and interacted.

Maverick Hunters: Personification was very much a labor of love for the creators – despite several members becoming inactive during its lifespan, the original participants ploughed on and continued to add to the story – Personification arguably became better as the amount of active members decreased.  At the end it was only Flash, Warlock, Chaos and James who continued to post.  And up until recently, only Chaos and James were active (with James producing a post for the RPG as recently as March 19, 2007).

This RPG is notable also for its sheer lifespan – it was created toward the end of 2002 and continues to live today in 2007.  It is perhaps one of the longest-lasting RPGs in OtakuBoards history.

In addition, Maverick Hunters: Personification was one of the first RPGs on OtakuBoards to move from script-style posts to more traditional novel or narrative-style posts.

Maverick Hunters: Personification
Creators: Flash, Warlock, Chaos and James.
Notable Characters: Reverb, Demos, Havoc, Warlock, Proteus, Signas, Dr. Karman, Zero, Massacre, Gunner, Duke, Iota, Echo, “Protogen Unit”, Dr. Inoue and Prime.
Notable Members: Flash, Warlock, Chaos, James, Talon, Outlaw, Nagare Boshi, 9mm Avenger, The Harlequin, Yoda, Domon and Juuthena.

Maverick Hunters: The Third Succession

Maverick Hunters: The Third Succession, created on 09/06/2003 by James, was intended as a distant sequel to Personification.  It was radically different, however – this RPG moved further away from the series’ Mega Man roots than ever before.  Reploids had a completely different style and the story was set in “New Hokkaido” as opposed to Novus Concordia.  In addition, the plot took place several hundred years after Personification’s plot ended.

Despite featuring a radically different story, The Third Succession had several key links to previous RPGs.  For one thing, it was set in the same overall universe – the main character was, in fact, a direct descendent of Proteus (a figure who ended up evolving and having a child with his human wife).  This simple fact was the course of a major change in the Maverick Hunter concept; reploids were still artificial but were far closer to organic beings than their predecessors (with the ability to reproduce in particular).

Several members from prior RPGs joined The Third Succession and by all accounts, the RPG featured an “all-star” cast (including both veterans of the series as well as members who were entirely new to the series).  Unfortunately the RPG died largely due to its own weight – it was an incredibly wordy RPG with several complicated plot threads occurring simultaneously.  This, ultimately, made the RPG difficult to push forward for those involved.

Maverick Hunters: The Third Succession
Creator: James
Notable Characters: Cyan, Dr. Inoue, Themos, Arano, Ryan, Kattarin, Fiona, Sariyah, Deep, Loki, Angelus, Raynos and Yin/Yang.
Notable Members: James, Warlock, Chaos, FartMaster745, Domon, The Harlequin, terra, Dragon Warrior, Baron Samedi and Revelation.

Maverick Hunters Oddities

Although the series included three “main” stories, there were several off-shoots (all of which were essentially failed efforts).

Maverick Hunters 3: B-Spec: This was James’ failed attempt to resurrect the third Maverick Hunters RPG.  B-Spec was not really a re-posting of The Third Succession though – it was, rather, a completely new take on a third story.

Dr. Inoue (who was present in three of the MH RPGs) was a prominent figure in the RPG but there were really no familiar faces.

B-Spec, like The Third Succession, featured a stellar cast including both MH veterans as well as newcomers: Talon, Baron Samedi, Wondershot, DeadSeraphim, Jeremiah, Sakura and Gavin were all participants.

Much like the RPG it was intended to “replace”, B-Spec was incredibly wordy – so wordy and so detailed, in fact, that it largely made itself redundant; it did not move beyond a single page of posts.

Nevertheless, what is there is an example of classic, good-quality OB role-playing.  Despite being a series failure, B-Spec is still a notable Maverick Hunters RPG.

Flash vs Warlock: This was another oddity, largely because it showed how obsessive both Flash and Warlock were about the Maverick Hunters universe.

This RPG was a spar – but what a spar!  The opening posts especially were ridiculously complex with detailed histories and descriptions of technology.

The spar was also slightly unusual in that it included posts from spectators (notable figures like Chaos and Sephiroth were involved).

The spar ran for four pages but was never completed.

Categories: Notable Threads, RPGs