What would your ideal RPI be?

Permadeath. Being an RPI does not mean you'll magically always have permadeath. It really is a fantastic feature.

Though I, too, think talking about ongoing events or even detailing past events that nonetheless give away currently relevant things(think an event concerning the intricacies of magick/the secrets of a house/the templarate) should stay forbidden, I do think that speaking about things long since irrelevant should be allowed.

I'll add more when/if I think of it.

RPI by definition has permadeath, so you don't really need to include it as a criteria. If it's not permadeath, it's not an RPI.

For the most part, I like Armageddon as is. I wish griefers were handled more severely, and I wish people who are -not- griefing, but have intelligent complaints, were taken more seriously and not dismissed or criticized for daring to have a dissenting opinion on things.

I wish there was more oversight and accountability by the staff, and I wish there was a way to return to using e-mails instead of the request tool.

I also wish there was more staff avatar roleplay (as opposed to staff PC roleplay, which is a different matter entirely). I actually enjoy interacting with clan bosses, as long as the experience isn't always being talked down to or scolded. Sometimes, it's nice to have a clan boss show up just to stir the pot a little, or even to give my PC a pat on the head for a job well done, or to simply "touch base."

They don't always have to be plot devices or "consequence-dishers."

I really like the world of Armageddon, and most of the mechanics. I've tried some of the other RPIs but they lacked more than Arm lacks. I've found Armageddon to be the best of the bunch so far, even though there are times I want to stab some of the staffers in the face.

Shadowrun.

:Edit:

I just realized this wasn't exactly a "setting" idea thread. 

But if srsly. I'd lose my shit and play the ever loving -fuck- out of a Shadowrun RPI that caught the spirit and setting of Shadowrun. 

Well Lyse, I thought the intention of the OP was to ask what your ideal RPI would be.

My ideal RPI would be Armageddon, with those few changes I said I wished for.

Permadeath, or a system where rezes for non-glitch reasons are damn hard to come by. (I would argue that this isn't a given; Dungeons & Dragons has resurrection as it makes sense in the setting, and you wouldn't say D&D isn't Role Play Intensive.)

Obscured, but understood, game mechanics. Hide away the specific point values behind generally understood terminology (much like Arm does for stats and ability scores), but tell players how the system works. One thing Arm did poorly is that it practically MADE OOC communication a necessity by hiding too much of it system and answering non-IC questions with "find out IC." I probably played a year or two before I learned, oocly, that fails were the way to increase a skill. That's incredibly important and not at all In-Character information! Sure, hide the detailed numbers and equations, but tell players "these are the skills that strength effects. This is how encumbrance effects skills." Etc. Players shouldn't have to seek ooc channels to find out details that are, frankly, important to how they play the game.

Crafting system. Crafting is a great way to keep combatants and non-combatants alike busy. (Crafters, Merchants, Hunters, Guards, thieves, you name it.) I like the ability of players to add recipes and crafts to the game. This lets them effect the world in a very real way, and takes the workload of adding content off of the shoulders of the staff.

Clans / power structures where players could get to, or damn near, the top of the ladder. Unlike the Arm model where a player in any clan can only get maybe 1/3 or 1/2 of the way up the ladder before being stored. Give players in these power positions the autonomy to make bad decisions, and let them deal with the consequences.

Support for new and PC created clans. Have some essential, defined criteria by where a player's homebrew clan can gain staff support. For instance, if you can manage to grow your clan to X players, and raise Y amount of moneys from legitimate, non-twinky means (ie, by selling your goods/services to oher players, not by spam-selling silk pants to NPCs) we will build you a 5 room clan hall, and/or a clan sub-thread on our forums. Defining the criteria publicly is essential here, so that players need to know what they have to do, and staff support isn't as random and arbitrary as we've seen it be in Arm.

Staff accountability. The United States is, contrary to popular belief, not a democracy - it's a Constitutional Republic. The difference is that the government (not citizens) of a Constitutional Republic is limited in its powers by a well-defined set of rules. The admin of said RPI should be held to a similar set of rules. These rules could define whether or not they're allowed to actively play characters in the game, and what types of roles they would be allowed to fill. They could define what sort of favors admin are allowed to bestow on players, and under what circumstances. They would define what sort of punishments an admin would be allowed to bestow on a player, and for what offenses. (No complete karma gank or ban for a minor reason.) Additionally, these rules would outline a process by which a player could appeal a staff decision. (ie, a player would be allowed to, without consequence, submit an appeal on a decision which could then be voted on by other non-staff members) All of these rules would be made public to both players and staff as well. Additionally, staff roles should be kept flat (with the possible exception of legal owners of the game). Staff might be seperated into coders, builders, storytellers or whatever, but they're all peers. None of this Nyr is above accountability because he outranks everyone bullshit.

tammany hall era new york. for real.

I once played a mud that would've been absolutely awesome if it was still around. It began as a pay-to-play project by Vr1. The plan was for AOL to be it's distributor and it was at the exact time when it was becoming painfully obvious that MUDs are not economically viable. The game remained open beta albeit for 3 years, while officially cancelled in development Then finally shut down when Vr1 got sold to some other company. It was so damn awesome. It was called Vr1 Crossroads. I am pretty certain that some of the people who were part of its making, were part of creation of the Secret World mmorpg.

So the world is two fold. One you have the physical world. The city built on a massive gathering of laylines. In it various secret societies have infiltrated groups in, which fight for control over the city. There you have Men in Black types factions that use technology and special Ops techniques. You have mages who use ... magick. You have psionicists, you have mad scientists, you have people from the future, the undercover aliens, etc. There is basically a bunch of factions each with its own twist, divided into three categories of Magick, Clandestine, Technology. Clandestine is shady/martial arts/picklocks/batman/007 style gizmos. Technology is built a killer robot type thing. Each faction has a deep background lore and very often there is a piece of secret lore hidden in one faction about the other. It's very interesting.

The fun part about it is that majority of the city is controlled by law and you cannot really fight there easily. It's filled with NPCs of various bodies. A character is capable of accruing influence in various fields. So for example, if he bribes/coerces/mindbends enough policemen NPCs, he can purchase a license to kill. Which basically means cops turn off surveillance on you for so many hours, during which you can perform one PKill. If you bribe enough people in telephone companies, you can run traces on cell phones. If you bribe enough people in criminal orgs, you get access to blackmail materials on other npcs, blackmarkets, access to certain bars and dives, if you bribe students/professors, you can get access to techie shops, or if you get good with artists, you can get into hermetic/shamanic shops, etc. It's all very interconnected. There used to be some real "undercover" fights over the Mayor. People would blackmail him and then keep trying to ward him up or pump him full of drugs, so others wouldnt be able to mindcontrol him and stuff. So that's one side of the world.

The other side of the world is the Dreamworld. To Gain magick in physical world, you have to sleep at laylines. You dont have to sleep there, you can sleep anywhere. But to connect to a layline you have to spend at least an hour sleeping in that location. Either way, sleeping sends you to dream world. The more lay lines you connect yourself to, the more powerful you are. But of course, if you're just sleep in random locations, sooner or later you will find yourself either unable to wake up due to deadness, or stripped clean and your body fucked to shits.

Dream world is the world of full magick. If in the physical world magick is tangible. reagants, ingridients, enchantments, voodoo dolls, etc. In the dreamworld magick is full on. Fireballs, flying, magickal shields, dispels, demons, conjuring, etc. The NPCs dream as well and sometimes you are able to find out what NPCs fear (and can be blackmailed with) by influencing their dream selves, etc. Killing and fighting is easier there, since if you die in the dreamworld, you just wake up.

If you die in the physical world. Your body is gone. And you are sent to dream world. If you die there, you are completely dead. There is a slim chance of being able to have a body built for you and resurrect yourself. But it basically means you have to have some pretty powerful, influential, and rich people to build it for you in the physical world. Needless to say, if you got real enemies, that means you'll be spending a lot of that time fighting for your life in the dreamworld, dodging summons and attacks.