RP Shop talk

Characters are offered whatever they need to solve some urgent problem in front of them - not explicitly a wish, but it might as well be. All they have to do in return is join this entertainment program for a bit. Characters are told whatever it would take to get them to agree, but are warned not to discuss anything about their wish or the game mechanics with anyone else or they lose the right to their wish, because they've been given extra information and that's against the rules. This is a lie; it's to prevent characters from immediately discovering that they've all been told different things and thus suspecting that this is actually a trap.

Once they agree, they're transported to a giant high-tech facility that provides housing and replicators for them while they "play". The facility is completely automated and no one but them is there, but there are tons of sealed doors everywhere and a voice that gives needed instructions, so whether they're actually alone is questionable. At intervals, the characters are given a mission and transported into a game world to complete it. Missions include such things as "Fight your way through the goblin hordes to slay the goblin king", "Be the first team to deliver this big, heavy orb to a particular location in this alien city", "Retrieve the giant crystal from this cave system", and all sorts of video-gamey objectives like that. Each game has a time limit and at the end of that time, once everyone's back to the facility (with consequence-free resurrections for all who died), characters are scored. Once you get 100 points, you go home and receive your fabulous prize. Everyone can be a winner if they work at it for long enough!

First issue: Time hasn't stopped while you were away, even if you were told it would. You know that Final Battle against the Lord of Darkness that you wanted a magic sword for to slay them once and for all? That already happened. Your side lost without you there, and they think you were a coward who ran. Or for those who didn't have the fate of the world resting on their shoulders, a missing persons report was filed and everyone's been frantically looking for you all this time. Also you didn't get the prize you were promised. But that's okay, because a few days later you're called back for a Bonus Round, and if you score 100 more points you'll receive... And so on, repeating forever.

Second issue: A ways into the RP, the facility comes under attack, the black void seen out all of the windows flickers and vanishes, and the horrible truth comes to light; the facility is on the surface of a rogue planet traveling through hyperspace, from where it can pull people from other universes. The facility is being run by an AI, who's caring for its creators who are in cryo-sleep on the planet. The creators were once the rulers of this galaxy until they were overthrown, and when they rule the galaxy again this planet will be parked somewhere as their new throne world. The time limits on the games are because that's how long the planet's shields can hold up against the automated orbital weapons platforms that now orbit every planet in the galaxy just in case some stunt like this was pulled. Oh and all those games? The "goblin king" was actually the goblin queen, and now that race will go extinct because there's no one to lay new eggs. That orb the characters delivered to that alien city? A bomb that blew up their planet, and now the survivors who were in space have come for revenge against the groups of people who were so obviously eager to get their bombs placed first...

After that revelation, characters will have to deal with the situation. If they continue to fulfill the missions, then they're paving the way for a race of horrible people to rule the galaxy with an iron fist, but they'll be richly rewarded for their efforts. If they defy the AI, their lives can be made a living hell: replicators that will only make food that tastes like used gym socks, missions to worlds of acid and lava, the sound of dripping water constantly playing through every speaker in the facility, and so on. The characters have options though: the facility's computers can be hacked to access new areas and control more systems, and eventually the characters could find the control room and shut the whole place down. There are empty bio-domes where characters could plant food from the various game worlds and stymie the AI's attempts to punish them, or even just save some of the creatures from the worlds they visit. There would have to be multiple ways that characters could influence the situation, some obvious some not, otherwise this is just characters hopelessly dancing to the whims of the resident jamjar god.

Various other thoughts and issues:
- Timescale: because each "game" would take a while to thread and be possible to fail, a sliding timescale might be good - week 1 is 1:1 in the facility, week 2 is the 3 hours in the game, then switching back to 1:1 for the next week. This might be confusing for people though.
- The Facility Layout: to make gaining access to new sections of the facility something other than a random number generator and a list of rooms, it'd be best to have the whole thing mapped out, so characters can go "We can open Door #1 or Door #2 this week. Door #1 connects to a small space bordered by other rooms. Door #2 connects to a space with rooms on only two sides. I think Door #2 might lead to a whole new area." Obviously, this would be a massive amount of work upfront.
- The Games: basically one or two entirely new worlds each month. A good chance to use one-off wacky ideas, but potentially a lot of work to keep coming up with new ideas.
- Characters with useless skillsets: members of the high school swim team are probably not going to be much good in a firefight. There should be some way of granting characters new skills, such as someone spending some of their points to buy someone a skill, maybe through an implant of some kind.