Fork This Life!

First things first: not bad news. Also, not good news. It's bad for me but good for others, really. The simple thing is, i'm too imaginative. My mind runs wild with ideas in my free time, and I can't exactly write stories around all of them, can I? Some of them I don't have the knowledge, but for the rest, I don't want to have more than the two novels i'm already writing. And I predict, that without anything strange happening, those will go on for a LONG while. And so, I thought I'd write my ideas up here so they don't disappear. Other authors, feel free to use them, just make sure you reference me in the synopsis or something.

1) Haven't really thought about this for a while, so what I remember is sketchy. Basically, the idea is somewhat based on the light novel 'world customize creator'.

The MC is transported to another world, and like any good reader of light novels and reincarnation stories, tries all the standard keywords, status, log out, options, the usual stuff. Upon trying 'options', he is informed that he does not have administrator access, but as he was the first to ever try using the command, he is awarded the unique magic system 'options magic' or something along those lines.

The idea I had around the magic was that he would be able to see all the various statistics of objects and equipment: size, shape, hardness, attack power and so on. And each statistic would have a slider. By reducing one slider, he could open up 'points' on the object that he could use to increase other sliders. For instance, by decreasing the size of a sword, he could drastically increase its sharpness, weight or hardness. Or perhaps decrease its hardness to massively increase the size. But at the same time, making something too soft or small or whatever would start consuming points as well. Just imagine the applications for electronics... it would take miniaturisation to a whole new level.

I didn't really have any ideas for plot in this one.

2) The idea for this one was to be a cultivator in a game like world. The MC would reincarnate into this world with all his memories, and due to coincidence or circumstance end up with the monk class. He would on a whim try absorbing the energy around him and condense it into a dantian. He succeeds, thus becoming able to use qi insteak of a monk's ki.

No ideas for plot beyond that.

3) This one I reckon has some potential. I got this idea when thinking about how to do an SAO-esque idea while still being original. What I came up with was that instead of 'If you die in the game you die in real life', it's 'everyone who didn't go into the game is dead in real life', leaving the gamers and the game devs the only survivors of the human race. As for how this happens, got no clue, came up with this a few mins ago. Further plot? what's that?

4) The idea for this one is a cultivator, through coincidence, ends up on modern earth. Earth, of course, has no cultivators. The story revolves around various governments attempting to control him and him trying to live a quiet life while simultaneously attempting to find ways back to the main world of cultivation. Possibility of him getting there eventually with some appropriated technology from earth.

5) I didn't do this one because it would require too much thinking. Game like world, title system. Titles in this world all have various effects, some useful, some fairly useless. The goal of the MC in this one is to collect as many titles as possible, useless or no, and (just came up with this but) eventually gets the title (or unique class) 'title collector' after collecting a hundred titles, which gives him an increase in stats (either percentile or flat increase) per title he has.

...You can kinda see now why I didn't want to write this one, can't you? Name idea is - 'I need titles' or 'I gotta get titles'

6) Got a name for this one if you wanna use it - Epic of the bard. It won't change much in this one if he/she is reincarnated or transported into the world, so do whatev for that. Basically, the protagonist gets the unique ability to give buffs to other people by singing songs - each song gives a different effect depending on the lyrics and general tone. Naturally, the protag picks what he/she thinks is the most obvious class with an ability like that - bard. The only problem is, while he/she has heard hundreds or thousands of songs back on earth, he/she can't remember the full lyrics of more than a few songs.

Naturally, this causes other adventurers to completely dismiss him/her as a potential party member, especially because of common sense that says that the bard class has no combat potential. Later on - potentially much later on because of how hard it would be for him/her to level up - he/she unlocks the class skill 'musical memory' allowing him/her to perfectly recall anything musical. All of a sudden, there are hundreds of songs perfectly clear in his/her memory, allowing him/her to become instantly more useful. Now there's just one thing - how will he/she get others to believe him/her?

7) I pretty much got this one when I though how game-world central most of my other ideas were. The idea of this one is reverse reincarnation. A resident of a game-like world/fantasy world dies and is reincarnated into modern earth. Growing up in extreme confusion with an entirely different common sense to the other residents of the planet, the protagonist has to grow up through the trials of being regarded as a child, psychological councelling, and worst of all: school.

Oh, and they may or may not still believe monsters exist in this world and have thus been secretly training their body from a very early age. Not really sure if magic should be allowed, but that's up to whether you want to involve shady organisations wanting to 'aquire' him/her for research.

8) This one is very different from the others in two ways: one, it's set on earth, and two, the MC is female. Also, no game-like system. So, the apocalypse happens. I'm thinking some newly developed bomb becomes unstable and explodes, obliterating one/most of one of the contininents and blanketing the planet with this 'undiscovered particle' or something. Everyone starts getting special powers: super strength, speed, telekinesis, ice creation/manipulation, etc. Except those who don't manage to survive this mutation, die. It also affect the planet's wildlife and plant life, causing the majority of them to die out.

Everyone starts fighting over the now limited food resources, of course. That is, except for our MC, who is busy reading in her basement without realising what had happened. Her power? She doesn't need to eat.

9) Damn this lag! -  It's the world's first VRMMO, and gamers everywhere are pumped. Sales are off the charts, and everyone eagerly jumps into the long-awaited 'new world'... Only problem is, the game's servers can't cope with the amount of people online, and everything starts getting real laggy. People remain alive for a few seconds after death, players frequently are teleported to earlier positions and sometimes attacks just don't do damage.

Chaos ensues, both in the game, and in reality.

10) Most useful cheat: BGM - MC in another world, has only one special ability: they hear music constantly, all based on what sort of situation they're in: calm music in town, fast-paced action music in combat, etc. And thus, they can predict ambushes and when monsters are nearby from a simple change in music. This person looks and sounds like a nice guy, but somehow this music is too peaceful: He's going to stab me in the back all of a sudden later.

11) Level DOWN - can't believe I forgot this one. Game like world, doesn't matter if it's reincarnation, transmigration or a native. The MC was born at max lvl, with quite OP stats. Only problem is, whenever he kills something, his exp goes down... Eventually, if he continues to fight, he will become a lvl 1 scrub.

12) The hero appears to be busy, so I'll have to save the world myself - A bit of a long title, admittedly. Basically, the MC is one of the 'NPC's in a fantasy world RPG type game, and the 'hero' is a player - either from a futuristic world where VR and advanced AIs are possible, or one of those settings where it's actually a godlike being transporting their souls to another world when they go into the game or something.

Anyway, it would probably be more interesting if the novel starts from the POV of the player. So, this player guy, he's a completionist, one of those complete-every-side-quest-collect-every-unique-weapon type of guys, and he inevitably keeps getting side-tracked by one quest or another (which are either procedurally generated, or it's a real world so there's always more problems to solve), but in the meantime the final boss is gathering strength or whatnot. Finally, the real MC (perhaps a random villager, a knight or just a normal adventurer) gets sick of it and decides to take his place and save the world himself. (would be funny if they occasionally ran into eachother or something)

13) House of Reincarnators - Imagine a fantasy story about a house. In this house live several people, a dog, a cat, a lizard, a fish... the list goes on. All of them are people from earth who have reincarnated into this world of magic and have found each other. Even some of the plants around the house and a few of the household objects are actually former humans. All the powers they could have...

14) 1% - Earth, 2237. Seventy-two years after somehow, everything was turned on its head. Every electronic device on the planet shorted out, even the ones that were manufactured to resist EMPs. Panic ensued and many died as planes and satellites began to rain from the sky, but that was only the beginning. Then came the monsters. People quickly realised that guns still worked, but with manufacturing lines disabled, ammo became a rare resource over the next decade, constantly used up to protect the cities.

They were pushed back by the monsters. Cities were abandoned. It began to seem like the human race would be eradicated. But word began to spread - if you kill a monster without the use of modern weapons, you gain access to the system, and through it, the ability to gain great power. For the first time in centuries, people began to flock to blacksmiths, the very same people who they once dismissed as holding onto a redundant practice. Bows replaced guns, bayonets were exchanged for knives and swords, and bullet-proof vests for suits of armour.

Slowly, humanity established strongholds - places where no monster could set foot. The functions of the system were explored and carefully researched, more than anything else had been in human history. Everyone knew about experience, levels and stats; that much was common knowledge. Then they found skills - abilities that could be obtained by performing certain actions or accomplishing certain deeds, and gather proficiency by practicing the skill. Knowledge of classes soon followed - any amount of them could be gained, but only the current one could gain proficiency and thus unlock class-specific skills.

They discovered that you could gain any number of titles by accomplishing certain deeds, but equip only one to give an additional effect. And finally, the unique trait. It could be anything - a static increase to a certain stat or multiple, a stat multiplier, a unique skill, title or class, proficiency gain rate increase...

'Well, that's what they told me at school, at least. I'll never experience it personally - I'm way too average at everything I do to be a good adventurer' - is what I thought, until I just happened to step on and kill an ooze while running home one day. They're practically harmless - but still a monster, and killing them would still give you access to the system. But access to the system didn't mean anything, not unless you were skilled or had a good trait. I took a look nonetheless.

My trait was 1%. I didn't understand what it meant, at first. Then I looked around my status some more. I had 1% EXP. I looked at the classes list - which should just have the 'classless' class, except it didn't. It had a massive list of classes, some of them common classes like 'warrior' or 'ranger', but others I'd never heard of. All of them had 1% proficiency. It was the same with skills. Even skills I shouldn't be able to have - warrior's 'whirlwind' skill, which was unlocked at 10% proficiency, for example - were listed there. The majority of skills I can't use due to not having enough mana, stamina or health, but I can use the basic ones.

That's when I realised, for me, everything starts at 1%. Well damn, screw studying!

15) Switch - Another long, mind-numbing day at work. I don't enjoy it, but it pays the bills and puts food on the table. I get home and make myself a meal - something simple and nutritious. I sit down at my desk, my heart and mind relaxing as the computer starts up. I scroll through the seemingly endless list of games on my PC, selecting the one I had been playing for the last two weeks. I've long since finished the campaign, but there's always more you can do.

After about an hour I'm finished maxing out my character and gathering all the collectibles. I could start again, try a different class or try joining the other side, but for whatever reason I just don't feel like it right now. Saving and quitting, I scroll again through my games, seeing if there is one I haven't played yet. There isn't. If there is one I want to replay. None seem to appeal. I'll have to get something new, then.

Somehow, none of the games I find in the store jump out at me, and twenty minutes of fruitless searching later, I - weirdly enough - find myself playing this niche in-browser flash adventure RPG. The graphics aren't anything special, the storyline is practically non-existent and there aren't any unique features to speak of. But even though i'm not really enjoying it, I just get caught in the grind. Three hours later it's almost midnight, and I'm just considering finishing up and going to bed when I ding to level 20.

Another one of those annoying tutorial boxes - Surely I'd outgrown them by now? - pops up, notifying me of a new feature. Figuring it won't take more than a few minutes to test it out, I click on the 'switch' button. The screen flashes brightly, making me shut my eyes lest it blinds me - what is this crappy design!? When it dies down, I open my eyes again and to my absolute confusion nothing seems to have changed, apart from my character's attire - is that a suit?

Navigating my character out of my in-game house, I'm struck by a few things. The first thing I notice is that the medieval town-scape has changed into a sprawling metropolis. The second is that it's now night in-game, whereas it had been day just moments ago. Time travel? Maybe this game is more interesting than I thought. But after playing around a bit more, I find that the game seems to have switched to an entirely different genre - some sort of real life simulator. And who wants to play a real life simulator? If I wanted that, I'd just... go outside.

I look out the window, finding to my dismay that sunlight is streaming through. It had been night just minutes ago!

...Did my window look like that?

I walk up to it. It most certainly did not look like that. I look out the window. Medieval town-scape. I look down at myself. Armoured adventurer. I sit down at the computer and open my character's status. That's me, isn't it? I thought the city looked familiar... Hoping against hopes, I click the 'switch' button again...

Now here's where it can diverge into two paths. a) he can't switch back until he reaches level 100, but anything he does in the 'real life simulation game' before then will become reality when he switches back - he can do as little or as much as he likes. Time will not pass in the game unless he's playing.

b) He can switch back and forth as often as he likes, and can play the game as much as he likes on either side. Time will only pass on the other side if he's playing the game. He can possibly switch characters on either side at level 100?

16) Nobody told me! - I honestly have no idea how I forgot about this one, as it was one of the earlier ones I came up with. The premice is that everybody is always forgetting to tell the MC about things, or just assume he already knows. So, throughout his earlier life, he's always missing out on birthday parties, sleep-overs and events, and he even got into trouble with the law, as nobody told him of the existence of taxes.

But after a few years, he somehow gathers the money to buy himself a small house, and lives mostly unaffected by his unusual affliction. Until the neighborhood goes awfully quiet. He doesn't pay much attention, as he rarely goes outside except to buy groceries. Until about a week later, that is, when soldiers bust down his door. They're almost more surprised to see him than he is to see them: with his life, he's used to unexpected events.

Turns out, a war had started, and with his city being right near the border, everyone got evacuated - except him, who somehow missed the memo. Without anything else they can really do, the soldiers take him in as a POW. Still, he doesn't get treated too badly - three meals a day, although bland, freedom to exercise, talk and play games with the single other POW, who was a hopeful looter that didn't quite manage to get out before the soldiers came.

Fast forward a decade, and he's absolutely ripped - and a master of checkers, chess and a few other board games. Then everything goes quiet again. He finds his cell door, along with all the other doors in the facility, unlocked. The other prisoner is gone, and there's nobody in sight, again. After some searching, he finds a newspaper that tells him the cause - the entire planet has been evacuated due to massive mutations in wildlife worldwide that rendered many animals and plants immune to most firearms and with increased reproduction rates, they were quickly overrunning the planet.

The onset had been so quick that no thorough analysis could be made, but it was theorised that the mutations could have been caused by a combination of drug-resistant super-viruses and natural evolution attempting to produce countermeasures to humanity.

After getting bitten by a muto-rat, he is infected as well, but through some coincidence of his physique and some sort of crazy placebo effect by way of him not knowing of the virus' lethality to humans, he ends up being transformed into the ultimate human - able to run at speeds nearing 80 kmph for over an hour, withstand small calibre rounds with little more than a bruise, benchpress 800kg comfortably and go with little more than half an hour of sleep.

How will he survive on an earth where the phrase 'Law of the jungle' has never been so apt? And will he ever see another human being again?

17) Nerd OP, plz nerf - In a classroom of high school students, there is a single person that stands out from the rest. Short with a freckled face, thick glasses, dentures and a meticulously arranged desk - this person is a nerd. He is shunned unanimously by every social circle in the class - nay, the school - but that never stops him from getting a perfect score in every subject, every year, without exception. Even in PE, although none of the other students had ever seen him do anything in the classes.

Rumour had it that his parents had somehow bribed the higher ups in the school, although admittedly no details were known.

One day, light started shining from the ground of the classroom, and the surroundings changed in an instant.

A few of the people in the class surged with excitement, expecting to have been summoned as heroes.

They were wrong. Terribly, woefully wrong.

Instead of a castle, a cave or even a dungeon, what surrounded them was a pure, but not blinding, white. In front of them was seated a gargantuan man, looking down upon them with cold eyes.

He spoke. "I have summoned you to fight for my amusement. The thirty of you will be pitted against one another in a free-for-all tournament, competing in various trials of skill, strength and intellect. The individual who fares worst in each round will be eliminated from existance, with the final winner being returned to their home... Wait."

He waves his hand, and the students feel themselves being pushed to either side by an unseen force. A single student flies out from among them as if yanked by a rope, to dangle in front of the colossal being. "Intriguing. But there will be no suspense in this competition as it is if there is such a disparity between the contestants."

Nodding to himself slightly, he looks back down to the students. "Change of plans. All twenty-nine of you will be pitted against this singular individual. As before, the one who fares worst among you will be eliminated... But if the one who fares worst is this particular individual..." He points to the student still hovering before them. "All remaining participants will be sent home."

The student in question is set down in front of the rest, who focus deathly gazes upon him. It is the nerd.

"The first trial will be physical combat."

Their surroundings darken, and the twenty-nine students find themselves in a large room filled with various types of weapons and armour.

"Physical combat?" One of the jocks guffaws. "We'll be home in a minute, guys."

(Insert short debate between students on the morality of killing the nerd, students decide to kill one for the good of the many, pick weapons & armour and move towards the portcullis)

As they approach the portcullis, it retracts into the ceiling. Passing through it, they find themselves in a circular arena. The nerd is already waiting for them, garbed only in flexible leather clothing and wielding a short spear.

"Begin." The gigantic man looks down at the arena from above.

Raising their weapons, the jocks run towards him, yelling. The rest of them brace themselves against the sounds.

A minute later, they are all dead.

"Trial one, ended. Winner, you." Intones the colossal man, before sighing. "...But we both knew this was going to happen."

"Can I go home now?" The nerd says, wiping the blood off his glasses with his shirt. He is positively drenched in blood... none of it his.

"No. That was only trial one." The colossus rebuts, before intoning again. "Felix Ward, eliminated. All other participants, restore."

All the dead people get up, the trials continue, nerd OP in everything, etc etc. I'm thinking he's deathly afraid of cockroaches or something silly like that, and the others know it, but they have no clue how to use it against him the whole time. These synopsys are getting longer every time.

time for something different.

18) God RP - When they found the old forum, it was empty. No posts, nothing. When they tried it out, it felt more like a game than roleplay, as a bot would describe the results of their actions. But then, slowly, gradually, the descriptions became more and more detailed. Sketches. Coloured drawings. Photorealistic images. Then short gifs. Videos. And finally, a 24/7 video feed. At this point, they have no choice but to recognise that something is out of the ordinary.

But will they acknowledge that this truly is a new world created by their actions? What will they do? what should they do? Leave it alone, or try to make the ideal world? And what do they do when one of them goes rogue?

19) The final flame of ignis - It always was a rebellious one, never listening to to the higher fire elementals. They always told it to never leave its flame outside. 'Leave it in the volcano, where it's safe', they said. 'If you leave it ouside, then you could be extinguished through it.'

Well, good thing that it ignored them. Because now, it's the only fire elemental left burning, and it's up to it to not only re-ignite their kind, but find out how and who extinguised them in the first place. The water elementals seem the obvious culprit, as they have always had a relationship like... well, fire and water. But then again, it should be impossible for any water elemental to survive in the depths of the volcano. In hiding from an unknown enemy, its singular advantage lies in that its enemy does not know it is still burning.