MUSE
"In a world of darkness, there is seldom glimpsed a light as glorious as the Muse in swing..."
Q: What is a Muse?
A: A Muse is a strange creature. It fights not for food, or for money, or for power. The Muse spends its life struggling for notoriety and adoration; for the Muse, you see, is not a creature of flesh and blood. The Muse is a construct of imagination, and beauty, and love of the world. They are melody and majesty made manifest: they sing, they dance, in such a magnificent way that the sheer joy they feel at being alive spreads throughout all who look upon them. They haunt the cities, spreading their names and their magic to anyone and everyone who will listen.
The Muse cannot be killed by steel or fire, and similarly it cannot strike another living being dead: the Muse passes from this world only when they are no longer needed by the eyes and ears of mortals. Many Muses claim to have been mortal, in times long past; but the vast majority simply were, ushered forth from the minds of the huddled masses.
More to the point, a Muse is what you are.
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Character Creation
To play Muse, you need to—surprise, surprise—create a Muse of your own. For those unfamiliar with the idea of roleplaying games, imagine your muse as a small representation of yourself, through which you can shape the world of the game. When creating your muse, you need to fill out the following information.
Name: What's your Muse's Name? Why does he have it?
Backstory: What's the deal with your muse? Where's he from, does he remember having a human life?
Description: What color is your Muse's skin? How does he keep his hair? What's his outfit at the moment?
Signature Move: Every Muse has one iconic move that is utterly theirs, that pushes their innate showmanship abilities to the limit. What's yours?
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Skills: Unfortunately for the music world, no singer is perfect: and while you're bound to be better than most, that applies to you as well.
The character you create for your game will have to abide by a sheet of statistics, which tracks their abilities and resources over time. Skills are scored on a rating of 1-4: all Muses begin the game with 1 point in each skill, and 9 points to invest in each skill as they see fit.
off.

The Available Skills are:
Repertoire: Your repertoire is the number of signature moves you have at your disposal. For every point you have in repertoire, you can know one additional signature move.
Entourage: This skill determines the size of your entourage. For every point you have invested in this skill, the size of your permanent entourage increases by one dancer.
Presence: Your Presence determines how powerful you are during the dance. For every point you have in presence, the number of backup dancers you automatically recruit per successful move increases by one.
Vocals: A measure of how sexcellent your voice is. For every point you have invested in Vocals, you can make one lyrical Snafu without any negative effect.
Gusto: This affects how well you can stun rivals out of the contest. Your gusto is directly proportional to your potential success while dazzling: for every point you spend in gusto, you stun one additional competitor whenever you successfully perform a dazzling move.
Synch: Synch is how well you and your crew are synched up! For every point you sink into Synch, you may ignore one of your opponent's dazzles.
Special Effects: Some days, you just have to use that ace in the hole. For every point you have in Special Effects, you can use the Effects Blitz one additonal time per dance-off.
Budget: How much you have in that budget of yours. For every point you have invested in Budget, you can use a Backstage Asset an additional once per dance-off.

DANCE-OFF
In a dance-off, Muses pit their words and movements against one another in heated public battles: Smooth Muses attempt to work up enough flow to unleash a superstar move, while Bad Muses attempt to dazzle the enemy's backup dancers, and ultimately the lead themselves.
Beginning a Dance-Off
In MUSE, a dance-off begins when a muse challenges another—on the streets, in a park, in a club, or any number of venues. While a muse is never forced to accept a challenge, not doing so allows the rival's music to flow freely through his territory—and that, of course, is a right pain in the tuchus.

Winning a Dance-Off/Award For Winning
During a dance-off, there are two ways to claim victory over your opponent: either by building enough momentum to perform an awe-inspiring "Superstar move", or dazzling your opponent into submission with sheer force of skill. The method by which you attain victory makes a good deal of difference: not only does it change what materials are available to you in future dance-offs, it also shifts public perception of you dramatically. The Muse who rocks the world with his Superstar power will be known near and far as the Smoothest creature in the land, while the Muse who brute-forces his rivals into submission will be feared and famous as the Baddest of characters.

BACKUP
Your Backup is, for lack of a better term, the lifeblood of your routine. Without backup dancers to make it look impressive, you're just some twit making spastic movements—hardly the material of the new king. If, during a dance-off, your last backup dancer—including the members of your entourage—are dazzled out of the competition, you lose.

Acquiring Backup Dancers, and What to do With Them
Given that you are a Muse, your music and dancing has the most amazing way of drawing nearby audiences into your routine—without need for training or rehearsal. During a dance-off, you acquire backup dancers by Building during the competition; and once you've acquired them, your backups are instrumental in acquiring Flow.

Backup Flow Level
As your flow increases, so does your backups'. Your backups' flow level dictates how well they can keep up with you on the stage—if their flow level is too low, they are liable to slip up and stun themselves out of the competition. Unless otherwise noted, all backups enter the dance-off at Flow 1 and their level increases every time you successfully Build.

Entourage
Your Entourage is a troup of highly-trained dancers who follow you from dance-off to dance-off, and accompany you into every confrontation. While they can be dazzled out of the competition, they will ultimately pick themselves back up and accompany you to your next dance-off. Entourage members do not count towards acquired backups, but they are valuable insulation between you and game-over, and they enter the game at Flow 2—however, they cannot exceed flow 5.

FLOW
Flow is a measure of how well your performance is coming along: if you have low flow, you're either just beginning or doing terribly, but at high flow you're literally knocking some socks off. Throughout the course of a dance-off, your Flow level will gradually increase as you string together more and more impressive moves.
Flow is measured in levels, from level 1 to level 6. You begin a dance-off at level 1—and once you've reached level 6, you can perform a superstar move and end the game.
To build flow, you need to first acquire Backup Dancers, in appreciable amounts. When the number of backups you have acquired over the dance-off (bear in mind, entourage members do not count towards this number) equals your current flow level, and those backups' flow level matches your current flow level, you simply need to perform a build move to advance to the next Flow level. Which is to say that if you have two backups at flow level 2, you must build to raise them to level 3; and you must build a third backup to level 3 before you can advance to level 4. If you have 5 backups dancing at level 5, you can advance to Flow 6 and perform your Superstar Move to win the game!

PULLING
Unfortunately, backup dancers do not simply fall out of the sky. However, as a Muse, you have the power to draw like-minded performers from any crowd you may be performing in front of. During a dance-off, you can perform a Pull action to attempt to lure the crowd (For there is always a crowd) into your routine. To Pull, declare your intentions at the beginning of your turn, and select a number, 1 through 6. If you roll your chosen number or above, that many members of the crowd break away to join your routine.
You may have no more than 20 backups at a time. Any more, and things would get muddy.

BUILDING
Building is the act of performing a dance move that you use to allow your backups to fall in step before attempting to rise to the next flow level: which is to say, you use it to bring your newly-arrived backups up to levels 2 and beyond.
To Build, declare your intentions and select a flow level that one or more of your backups is currently at. Roll a six-sided die: if your roll is that number or higher, all backups on that flow level will advance to the next level.

Signature Moves
A Signature Move is a supernaturally deft flurry of motion practiced by you, and you alone. Each muse starts with one Signature Move, but can learn more if they have the appropriate skills; but no matter how many you have, you can only use each Signature Move once per dance-off.
Using a Signature Move counts as a successful Build action, which you do not have to roll for under any circumstances.

DAZZLING
During a dance-off, your opponent will be pulling and building just as much as you are—you can't get through an entire confrontation doing just that. Sometimes, you have to channel your power as a Muse to dangerous levels, to dazzle the enemy backups with outstanding displays of grace and style.

To attempt to dazzle an opponent's backups, announce your intentions at the beginning of your turn and select a flow level that one of your opponents' backups is currently dancing at—bear in mind that you must have at least one dancer at a flow level equal or greater to the flow level you declared in order to successfully dazzle your enemy. After declaring your target, roll a six-sided die. If your roll is equal or greater to the number you declared, then a number of your opponent's dancers equal to the number of dancers you have of that flow level will be dazzled, and rendered unable to continue the routine.

For example. If Adrian has four flow 3 dancers, and Brenda has 6 flow 3 dancers, and Adrian successfully dazzles Brenda's dancers, than 3 of her dancers will be dazzled, leaving 3 in the dance-off.
No dancers above or below the target flow level will be dazzled.

Special Effects Blitz
Sometimes, you just have to give the other guy both fingers. Once per game, you can perform a Special Effects Blitz, which instantly and automatically dazzles the enemy's lowest current flow level.

LYRICS
No song-and-dance is complete without, well...the song. While many Muses prefer to go silent for their acts, there are a small but dedicated number who adamantly maintain that having some words to go with the music really enhances the experience—and, from a purely logistical standpoint, it does.

During a Muse Dance-off, at the start of your turn you may declare your intention to use lyrics—you do this in addition to making a Pull, Build, or Dazzle action. If you successfully roll the six-sided die, you may add lyrics to your action: before tallying up the totals from your action, declare a number equal to or less than the number you rolled. After doing so, compose two rhyming lines and sing/rap/write them. These are your lyrics, and for every set of two you compose, you may increase the effect of your action by one point. You may write as many lyrics per turn as you like, up to the number displayed on the die; which, in essence, means that a full set of lyrics will double the effect of your roll.

However, if you do not write the number of lines you declared you would, you get no bonus at all.
For example. If Adrian chooses to pull and rolls a five, and then declares 5 he can compose two lines to pull six members of the crowd; or he can compose a whole ten to pull ten new backups into his routine. However, if he only writes 4 lines, he has to make due with what he rolled.

NOTE: Don't try to play this game over the internet. At all.

Lyrical Snafus
Writing lines can be hard. If, during your composition, you forget to rhyme or repeat a line, this is called a Snafu, and cancels the bonus you would've gotten from that line.

Backstage Assets
Not all the action happens under the public eye. Behind every stage production there is a loyal able-bodied crew ready to swoop in and give their all for your sake; this applies even to Muses, though in your case you just so happen to be most of that stage crew.
Throughout your journey to the throne, you will invariably acquire some new tricks, tools, and friends you can use to make your show the greatest you possibly can. While you start out with none, Backstage Assets can become invaluable later in the game. To use an Asset, simply declare so at the start of your turn—on a turn in which you use an Asset, you can still perform a normal action with or without lyrics.
You may only use each Backstage Asset once per dance-off, and only one per turn.

THE OVERGAME
Most games of Muse, except the very smallest, take place beyond a crowded street or a glimmering stage. Full-fledged campaigns can span anything from small town to glittering metropolises if the given scenario presents such opportunities. Off the stage, you'll often find yourself chatting, sneaking, wheeling, dealing, and otherwise working your way to the top: you may form alliances with other players to form a world-shaking duo act, or you may try and land a contract with a huge label, or you might take your song to the streets and sabotage other players.
Either way, the king's crown is waiting: it's up to you to find your way to it.

>>20501553
...Freestyling in an RP?

I'm going to play this.

The World Around You
The world of Muse is a tumultuous place, even without the magic of Muses. However, as a Muse—a creature of imagination, and beauty, and sight and sound—you cannot be cut down by guns or knives like most people can. Conversely, however, ending lives simply isn't in your nature: your struggle is in the hearts, minds, and ears of the public; to be listened to, and even perhaps remembered.

Most Muse campaigns take place within a single city, or municipality: be it the dingy streets of Chicago, or the glimmering heights of Los Angeles. Within these bustling cityscapes, the life of a Muse is a struggle for recognition; and your adventures may take you to the depths of the slums to the height of Capitol Records and back again.
It is, generally, the GM's job to set the scene for you—and ones who go above and beyond may even provide a map, for you and your fellows to use.

Your Goal
What precisely your muse desires is up to you to decide—but all muses thrive on fame and adoration, and the roar of an onlooking crowd. One of the Muses' most sought-after prize is the title of "The King". Only a select few have ever held it, and to do so is to command unlimited quantities of all that which muses need. How one becomes "The King" is a hotly-contested matter; but one thing everyone can agree on is that when a new King is crowned, everyone simply instinctively knows it.

The Smooth/Bad Dynamic
To a Muse, reputation is a weapon and a shield; the most delicate of tools, to be handled with all possible care. Most Muses cultivate their images in the public eye very, very carefully; and if you're to get anywhere at all, so should you. More often than not, your public image boils down to one of two images, which are conveniently diametrically opposed and may or may not be color-coded for your convenience.
When you win a dance-off using the Smooth or the Bad method, you will earn one point in that respective reputation. Your reputation is, much like a dance-off, tracked with either Smooth Flow or Bad Flow , up to a rank of 5. You begin the name with absolutely neutral flow—though this will rapidly shift, one way or the other, after your first dance-off.
If you ever gain the type of Flow opposite your current Flow, you will lose one point. If you hit zero, you will simply continue earning the other kind of Flow as the situation warrants.

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Smooth muses are suave, slick, and graceful, and tend to wed a magnificent of style to jaw-dropping grace and balance on the stage. When a smooth muse walks onto a stage, the building thanks him for coming. Smooth muses are all about white suits and sleek fedoras, and never leave a hair out of place.

Bad muses are very nearly the exact opposite of Smooth muses. They're all about black leather and silver spikes, with short powerful movements and a stare that says "Come at me world, and see what happens". Bad muses are, no bones about it, hardcore lords of the street; and if they could kill, crossing one would be the last mistake you ever made.

The Perks of a Reputation
Your public image isn't just a pretty label: it has a real impact on how well you can do during your adventures. Not only does it affect what NPC's think of you, it also dictates what Backstage Assets you get to use: a fair number of assets are tagged with a "Smooth" or "Bad" value: you unlock those assets for use in dance-offs simply by reaching the indicated Flow.

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This is fucking epic. OP, you are amazing.

So I'm guessing the final boss of this is MJ, his flow level is maximum. And it can be smooth or bad depending on what phase of the Eternal Pop King's cycle you encounter him during.

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>>20505113
He was once a man, through his impossible skill and dedication he ascended, breaking the barrier between muse and man. He now holds the power of both, still able to effect the world, as seen by him disposing of enemy back up dancers direcltly but also able to command the spiritual and psychic powers of a muse. Able to inspire, or break. The King is able to use moves normally restricted to one flow or the other with little to no consequence, although he attempts to maintain his current flow persona if possible.

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> mfw

Oh my.

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>>20505113
>implying the final boss won't be James Brown

You ever played the arcade game based on that movie OP?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuvnZc5yr3s

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>>20507038
>final boss
>Not Beethoven

God help you if you don't beat him before he starts playing his Tenth symphony.

You are already dead.

Why the fuck is this shit not on the front page

>>20507040
>not the genesis version
Cmon, step it up.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sB_mOsI-ddM

One bump for this glorious thread.

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>>20507150
>Final Boss
>Not Thom Yorke

Learn2/mu/

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Bumping for justice. Is this archived yet?

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You need to put this on 1d4chan. Have you put it on 1d4chan?

>>20514020

I just put it on suptg

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>>20514038
Excellent.