"Perpetual Players" is a bi-weekly actual play web video series show by four friends who are looking to tell some stories together. They use the "Perpetual Motion Roleplaying Engine", a system designed and sold by the group’s GM Christian, they have announced that they will be exploring other systems like Monsterhearts, and the Cypher system for side games and one-shots when they need a break from their main plotline.
They started out testing GM Christian's RPG system the "Perpetual Motion Engine", later renamed to "Perpetual Motion Roleplaying Engine", A d100-based crunch-heavy system he made from scratch in college. Since the rules are still very much in beta Christian watches certain mechanics break in real-time and talks through a patch for it with the players as they play. They also release occasional how to play streams with Christian explaining some of the things PM does differently from other RPG systems.
Their first campaign, "Menagerie of Fate" aka:mof is centered around Eas (a magical arms smuggler) played by Kat, Deacon (a vampiric priest) played by Grant, and Caillan (A humanoid tree and peacekeeper) played by Lyra. These three are bonded by the discovery that each one of them is bound to an eldritch animal who keeps teleporting them half a continent away for adventures in haunted houses, floating cities, and giant glass squids.
All episodes are prerecorded and released biweekly on both the Perpetual Players YouTube channel
and their Twitch.tv channel with the players themselves chatting on the twitch.
Perpetual Players contains examples of:
- Adorable Abomination: Sweetie Was once a changeling made of senient nothing that went on a murder spree until she forgot who she was. After the Menagerie helped her find herself all that unknowable nothingness condensed itself into the form of a teenager who just wants to help out on Eas's boat.
- Cast from Hit Points: Without a magic battery magicians who can't focus their energy risk burning themselves in the process of charging a spell. Something that has happened to Deacon on more than one occasion.
- Covered in Mud: Deacon getting pulled through the Goats portal at the end of Episode 6 resulted in him ending up in the churched covered head to toe in mud
- Canis Latinicus: The Communionist Faith uses quite a bit of gratuitous Latin.
- Doom Troops: The Axiunian Elites who save squid mart wear mirrored face masks that don't present any facial features. When we get to see what they look like under the mask we learn they have entire strips of glass embedded into their skin.
- Double-Meaning Title: Menagerie of Fate is often abbreviated to M.o.F which is the initialization Measure of Failure the mechanic measurement of how badly someone just screwed up a roll.
- Eldritch Abomination: All of House on Flower Hill The entire house being a battleground for two sentient nothings each one trying to assert its identity over the other. When one of them finally won explaining it kinda broke the Menagerie
- "If I look up, do I see nothing that became something that is now the absence of nothing's nothing?"
- Fire and Brimstone Hell: Infernal magic is heavily based on fire and twisted demons that can all heal and teleport using fire.
- From Bad to Worse: Caillans plan to throw a Koukatail (a Molotov Cocktail) at the demons in Squid Mart resulted in all of the demons being fully healed by the flames
- Just in Time:Kulun arrives at the head of an army of super soldiers to chase Breagh back into hell just as the Menagerie realizes she was behind the whole mess at squid mart
- Old Shame: We meet Deacon in sort of soft exile for a meltdown he had when Joachim abandoned the Communionists that almost resulted in multiple higher-ups in the church dying
- Open and Shut: The Menagerie is regularly thrown in and out of magical doors that immediately disappear all throughout the House on Flower Hill
- Our Vampires Are Different: Nostrunin start out looking like baseline vampires, fangs, glowing eyes, etc. As their virus feeds on their soul they become more like the virus's full appearance, that of a humanoid bat snake hybrid coming in at about 8ft tall. The Nostrunin only consume flesh to distract the virus's hunger for souls. Additionally, the virus is actually solar powered, they avoid the sun to slow down their transformation.
- Our Zombies Are Different: The Guests are plant-based elemental zombies. If you replace voodoo magic with Plenty magic they’d also count as those since they need to be raised up by a Gardener
- The Schlub Pub Seduction Deduction: Shiri Shari is stated to be a weirdo who cuddles dead fish for comfort yet he somehow landed Breagh Droma a beautiful floranian mage? Played Straight when it’s revealed Breagh was using him to sabotage the fountain to bring the demons in
- Shoe Slap: Eas distracts Joachim by using magic to turn her thrown shoe into a bomb.
- Supernatural Sensitivity: Despite being the only nonmagic user Caillan has an innate ability to detect the influence of things from far beyond this reality like the Inferals and Plenties
- Supreme Chef: Eas has an event that gives her a bonus to social rolls whenever she cooks for someone. This came into force when she made Deacon cookies that were so good they reminded him of life before being turned into a Vampiric Nostrunin
