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. Second City RPG is a multifandom RP based on Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files.
Characters have arrived in Chicago's seemingly deserted downtown Loop for reasons unknown. For all intents and purposes, it looks exactly like Chicago, sounds like Chicago, and has the city's famous winds. In fact, it might as well be Chicago...well, that's if you don't count the vampires, fallen angels, hobgoblins, faeries, and other supernatural creatures running around, making life quite interesting for everyone.
On the surface, it seems like a typical day for a certain wizard detective. But something old and powerful may be playing games just behind the curtain...
This game provides examples of:
- Adam Smith Hates Your Guts - Utterly subverted. For some reason, the shopkeepers will happily give you whatever goods you want or need for absolutely free.
- Infinite Supplies - The stores never seem to run out of stock, either.
- All There in the Manual - While the historical logs and letters aren’t crucial to the plot, reading them helps with the explanation of some characters and events later in the game.
- Alternate Universe - And how.
- Apocalypse How - The details about this are still obscure, but it sounds like someone's attempting a Class Z...
- Artifact of Doom - Friendly word of advice: If you happen to find an ancient silver Roman coin lying around, do NOT pick it up unless you feel like letting a Fallen Angel move into your head.
- Ascended Fanboy - Newly-minted Star Wars fan Sora got to battle a phage that took the form of Darth Vader. He was thrilled.
- Badass Bookworm - Given this is a Dresden Files game, several characters use wits as a primary stat for not dying. Harry Dresden, Thomas Raith, Sam Winchester, Linkara, and Clare Edwards spending a lot of time figuring out what the hell is going on.
- Badass Longcoat - Harry Dresden owned perhaps the ultimate one until canon events. The game currently has John Taylor, John Ross and Vin after losing her cloak regularly sporting them. Probably a few other examples as well.
- Badass Normal - The cast has a ton of them.
- Beethoven Was an Alien Spy - The letters and biweekly mod-written logs show that H. G. Wells, Albert Einstein, Anastasia Romanov, Anna Pavlova, Coco Chanel, J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, Teddy Roosevelt, and a bunch of other historical figures were very knowledgeable about the supernatural and "Chicago" itself.
- Belligerent Sexual Tension - Thomas and Elaine, which eventually leads to coma by sex...for Thomas
- Beware The Nice One - Many.
- A Boy and His X - In this case ponies...with Terra.
- Break the Cutie - Drop a bunch of unsuspecting ponies into a dark urban fantasy setting and see what happens. Unless you're Pinkie Pie.
- Brought Down to Normal - Following the Big Damn Attack, the fog closes in overhead and short-circuits everyone's powers.
- Changed My Jumper - Averted. Characters who get sent to various places and times in order to “liberate” something for the Postman will have their clothing instantly replaced with entirely new outfits that fit the setting.
- Chekhov's Gunman - James "Jamie" Kent/the archangel Raphael, Titania, Lysander
- The Chessmaster - Morgana, Merlin.
- Chronic Hero Syndrome - Everyone ever.
- City of Adventure
- Cool Car - Thomas has one, thanks to Winry’s tinkering.
- Curb-Stomp Battle - Everyone against the Skinwalker. Then the Skinwalker against the Postman.
- Despair Event Horizon - Trapped in a city with no apparent escape, the remaining folks get to see first hand the city crumbled into destruction.
- Dramatic Thunder - The storms constantly plaguing the city.
- The End of the World as We Know It
- Even the Guys Want Him - Stupid sexy Thomas.
- Everything Is An I Pod In The Future - The “Eggplant Elite” phones are blatant iPhone Expies.
- Everything's Better with Sparkles - The influx of ponies (and Alice) has added a healthy dose of sparkly creatures to Chicago.
- The Faceless - The Postman.
- As of the reveal, not anymore - the Post Office consists of Harry Houdini, Harry Blackstone Sr., and David Copperfield
- The Fair Folk
- Faking the Dead - Houdini and Blackstone to the rest of the world
- Fantasy Kitchen Sink
- The Fashionista - Alice, Fiona, and Rarity
- Fetch Quest - A few of these have been done as player-run plots. The trip into Undertown comes to mind.
- Fountain of Youth - Axel was cursed and ended up being de-aged to fifteen for several weeks.
- From Bad to Worse - The destruction of the Chicago Cultural Center was just the beginning.
- Future Me Scares Me: Isa is terrified of becoming Saix. Clare's not fond of how Fiona's described Clare's future boyfriend.
- Functional Magic
- Gentleman Thief - Neal Caffrey defines this trope.
- Get A Hold Of Yourself Man - Linkara does this to Terra when Terra continually angsts about his destiny/past.
- "Groundhog Day" Loop - an event that occurs during the quest for the Holy Grail.
- The Group - Scathing called the "post office" by Linkara when he found out there was more than one postman.
- Guile Hero - Plenty, the most notable is Clare making Morgana swear on her power... shame she didn't word it well enough to protect everyone.
- Harmful to Minors - Kyoko's life, also Chicago.
- I Gave My Word - The Mothers of Summer and Winter made a promise to help the group find the eleventh pillar. How helpful they were depends on how much you can trust a faerie's word.
- Intergenerational Friendship - Isa and Axel... sort of. Time travel has a habit of making friendships complicated.
- Instant Awesome: Just Add Mecha! - Franky, Mechakara
- Jerkass - Kincaid, Kyoko, Jayne, Hellboy, Dean, Deadpool...
- Killed Off for Real - Only one so far, considering the canon source of the game: Neal Caffrey, killed in a blood ritual.
- Kiss of Death - Elaine to Thomas.
- Knight in Shining Armor - Galahad, so much.
- La Résistance - The nameless group of people from the 20th century working to create Chicago - commonly called a "brotherhood"
- Little Miss Badass - Kyoko, Toph when she was around.
- Macguffin Delivery Service - All the hard work everyone did to retrieve the artifacts goes to waste when Morgana ends up trashing the Chicago Cultural Center, destroying the Statue of David and taking three of the articacts (Tyrfing, Pandora's box, and the Four Chinese Guardians) with her.
- Everything is Criss Angel's fault.
- Merlin and Nimue - Hinted by the triumvirate of wizards that this is why the worlds are currently in distress. And thus outright proven by both appearing in game.
- Mr. Exposition - David Copperfield, since Houdini and Blackstone are less than forthcoming with details.
- Mr. Fanservice - Chicago's home to a bunch of fine-looking guys.
- The Multiverse
- Nakama - The Alliance throughout the 20th century.
- Nightmare Sequence - Current plot in game. They are getting progressively worse since the Skinwalker incident.
- Odd Friendship - Terra and Linkara. Terra and Rarity. Kitten and Thomas. It's a panfandom game what do you expect?
- Oh Great, a Snark Index - DRESDEN. FILES. GAME. Honestly, chances are most of that index counts. It would be simpler to list who can't Snark than list every snarker in the game and how they snark.
- Older Than They Look - Ebenezar, Katherine, Alice, Thomas, Adell, Rozalin, Aurora, Kyoko...
- Ominous Fog / Fog of Doom - Serves to keep everyone corralled within the city. Nobody knows what exactly it’s hiding, and so far, nobody’s been eager to find out the hard way.
- Ontological Mystery
- Only the Worthy May Pass - Stupid Grail.
- Our Vampires Are Different - Local vamps from the Dresden Files (three kinds, Red, White, and Black court), and the non-local Twilight (Alice Cullen) and Wizards of Waverly Place (Juliet)
- Plucky Girl - Clare, Kairi.
- Power Limiter - Any supernatural abilities the characters possess get handicapped in some way upon arrival.
- Power Trio - Houdini (Superego), Blackstone (Ego), Copperfield (Id)
- Ragtag Bunch of Misfits
- Reality Warper - Houdini
- Refusal of the Call - More like "TELL US MORE AND WE WOULDN'T HAVE TO REFUSE, DAMN IT"
- Schizo Tech - Advanced technology simply doesn’t work here. In fact, nothing that was produced after the 1950’s or so seems to function properly. The sole exception is the special phone each character receives upon arrival.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here - Hellboy's reaction to the trio's reveal.
- Sealed Evil in a Can - It backfired.
- Shipper on Deck - Alice.
- A Storm Is Coming
- Stuff Blowing Up - Dude, it's the freakin' Dresden Files. Harry lives for this and now finds himself in the company of people who do the same. Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Soldier's Field, and Millennium Park are the only things to be permanently down.
- The GM Is a Cheating Bastard - You expected anything less?
- Took a Level in Badass - Clare Edwards
- Too Many Belts - The Kingdom Hearts cast were designed by Nomura.
- Yet the cast is mostly from Birth by Sleep, which don't have many belts at all. Go figure.
- Troubling Unchildlike Behaviour - ...Everyone under the age of 20 as far as Charity Carpenter is concerned. However Robin and Kyoko probably take the cake for this place. Especially Kyoko.
- Vagueness Is Coming - It is.
- Violence is the Only Option - She-Hulk, understandably. Deadpool as well since he showed up. Kyoko loves violent solutions.
- Written Sound Effect and Unsound Effect - Knives Chau (seventeen years old)
- Year Inside, Hour Outside - How faux!Chicago initially worked until the group arrives in real Chicago and are informed by Copperfield that for two weeks, the two cities had been running on simultaneous times.
- Youth Is Wasted on the Dumb - We love you too, Eb.
