Audi famam illius - IMPORTANT GAME DISCUSSION

[mansionstaff]

Smash Academy has, for about seven years, been known as a school-setting game. The mods have discussed extensively options for the game's future and what directions it can go in to reflect its current state. We would like to introduce that to you and get your feedback. The pathway Smash Academy can take, is ultimately up to the playerbase, so be honest about what you want and what you think would hold your interest.

As Smash Academy ages, it is evident that it is losing focus on the things that defined it a 'school setting' to begin with. Class logs have become less frequently utilized, we're missing social cliques (jocks versus band geeks, for example), and other 'school' elements like the student council and overall feel of an educational institute. Sometimes there is difficulty incorporating certain "character types" easily into a school setting. Consequently, we're proposing moving said focus away from a school atmosphere and onto something new.

Introducing Smash Manor / Chateau / Mansion / etc.
We propose the concept of an excessively large mansion on the floating island. As you might recall, the Isle of the Ancients was introduced late summer 2014 and has been present since. By doing this, we can continue to hold many of the very popular events like dances, festivals, dormitory logs, blind dates, and kissing / memory mistletoe just as they have been. We would be eliminating events such as graduation and prom, but can easily substitute other appropriate celebrations in their place.



This does not mean we would outright eliminate the academy on the ground. We could leave that present and people looking to satisfy the occasional urge for school antics would be able to do so in either an entirely new and additional dressing room, or in the one we are currently using (which might be better in the long run).

Getting to FDC and its various shops, the contest hall, the bars, and so on, could potentially be relocated to a nearby floating island and become convenient for characters to reach, whereas traveling to the academy itself on the ground would be more difficult (in an effort to more effectively shift our focus off of a school setting).

Topics of Discussion

• Questions: what it says on the tin.
• State of the Mansion: how the mansion and living arrangements could be.
• A Whole New World: how the surrounding area and game environment could be.
• Event & Plot Lotteries: player submitted events (ala the game plotting thread in personals, only better organized).
• Challenge Mode: introducing new ways to spice up your rp, and get rewards and perks for it.
• Game Names: the name of the game is important!

Take some time to think about where you want to see Smash Academy go in the future years. Let us know how you want the game to evolve and change.

Comments

QUESTIONS?

[mansionstaff]

Just to reiterate: THIS IS MERELY A DISCUSSION POST.

Nothing is set in stone!

STATE OF THE MANSION

[mansionstaff]

Would you like to see a mansion that starts off a bit rustic, requires the characters to fix it up, and is not as nice as you'd probably expect (or like) it to be. In spite of fixing it up, some doors remain mysteriously locked and some passageways are not able to be explored. As game storyline progresses, characters would eventually gain access to some of these previously locked areas, discovering the secrets of the enigmatic Smash mansion.

Alternatively, characters could just have a new, shiny mansion to live in. Bring your stuffed animals and everything else you need or want. But there would still be locked doors, corridors, and other mysteries that could be solved and accessed over time.

The movement of the academy's network to the island is also something to talk about. In the academy, we have the technology needed for having a network community. Such a luxury might not be available right off to bat by moving to the island in the sky. What would you do if there's no network at all? Or we can just say the mansion has access to wifi and everyone still can use the network as they have been. (Maybe certain events and circumstances temporarily knock it out as applicable.) Or we can use magical devices constructed by Crazy Hand to keep in contact (meaning they could be partially unreliable).

How about housing arrangements? Shared rooms? Single rooms? "Team" floors? Themed floors? Shared chores? Robots or magic handwaving that takes care of housekeeping?

Re: STATE OF THE MANSION

[rivalkidneypunch]

I do think some form of shared housing is kind of nice, as it can make a really good starting point for new characters to build CR.

I also do think some kind of event setup to introduce the change would be a good idea, whether it be fixing up the mansion/establishing communication/etc. or not. It's not gonna be a seamless change either way, so rolling it in with a bit of a bang might work better? So I would not be opposed to the mansion being a spoopy mysterious fixer-upper kind of thing, per se. It makes a nice chance for a sort of event-like ongoing thing for characters who aren't necessarily super action-oriented.

[rivalthunderbolts]

I'm telling you. ROB caretakers.

I'm hesitant about the idea of the locked areas of the mansion, for the sole reason that means this game now has a shelf life, instead of the open ended open world setting that I've come to love. I don't want Smash to have a hard ending planned out.

I'd say leave the network as is and just move the servers to the mansion. That technology already exists on the island already, and the old underground lab could be part of the mansion as like. The X-Men mansion basement kind of thing.

[alouest]

i LOOOOOVE the idea of kind of an open world mansion with mysterious, locked doors and new discoveries every which way! it gives some sort of plot element to work with, to spice things up from the usual slice of life, which has admittedly become a bit droll.

i think it'd be interesting for there not to be a network at first, forcing some more in-person interaction for a time, disconnecting everyone and giving them a chance to make some new friends they wouldn't otherwise. then, they could probably get a network set up by the hands or some such!

i say rooms can maybe be a mix. if people opt for shared rooms, awesome, but there can also be some single rooms. themed floors would be really nice, and maybe splitting housekeeping with rob assistants/mr. game and watches and the actual smash body would be nice. nothing too overwhelming for the players to deal with, but another little realm of possibilities to explore.

let's just not do a d-rank mansion i don't think we'd all fit

A WHOLE NEW WORLD

[mansionstaff]

Something else we propose is setting shifts on the island itself. Much like the seasons around the academy, we can shift and change the environment itself to whatever we want. We don't have to be limited by a conventional gregorian calendar either! The Island could have its own unique seasons and weather patterns (ie we might ask you guys to help make up a lot of fun such things).

The floating island could move physically to an entirely different location through slow levitation, warp bubbles, portals, etc. Maybe it could even float above Kanto or on another planet for a while. Events would equally be opt-in/opt-out, or may affect only a secluded part of the island. The sky is the limit (ha ha).

Would you prefer to have FDC tag along on a nearby island, or maybe play more with the concepts of "working together" to survive? Maybe outside supplies can only be ordered in via Escargo Express?

Something else to discuss is the very nature of the game itself. Currently, Smash Academy is defined as a nexus game with optional jam-jarring. Meaning, characters can freely leave Smash at any time and return to their home worlds, or be "stuck" here on the whim of their muns. While we enjoy that flexibility, sometimes it's difficult still to give certain characters motivation to stick around even if we do "force them". In addition, we currently we see a huge under-utilization of the mechanic of open world-hopping.

So what would be your "ideal" game? A full jamjar, where characters are mysteriously pulled to the island and can never leave? Where they are given the option to earn their exit through unlockables? Where they are given the option to earn their exit only after a certain amount of time passes or a personal quest has been fulfilled? Or would you prefer to still have Smash an open "nexus" styled game, where characters can freely come and go but have nothing realistically tethering them to the game (other than what you make of it)?

...Also thoughts on Loftwings...? Black Chocobos? Pokemon? Other wild colonies of flying mounts living on the island just waiting for some industrious characters to try and tame them?

[rivalthunderbolts]

My personal opinion on the matter is thus:

I still like the nexus element of the game, but the question is how people end up on the island mansion in the first place. So I don't see this premise working as anything other than a full jamjar, say where Master Hand is animating trophies/bringing people here to fight for his own cross canon amusement, and keeping them there until he gets bored and sends htem back. Get rid of FDC altogether, and have the island traveling dimensions/worlds, stopping by for antics/cross canon funtimes. And to link back to the premise, Master Hand could organize battles between the residents.

A NEW FANTASTIC POINT OF VIEW

[rivalkidneypunch]

I like Jeff's idea for a jamjar explanation, but I'd also like to chime in that I prefer the not-fully-jamjar setup to the forced-imprisonment kind of thing.

I understand that some characters struggle with the "why would they willingly stay here" motivation bit, but with a jamjar setting, I think some character types would struggle as well, since realistically some folks wouldn't be all that okay with being forcibly stuck on an island, but there wouldn't be any kind of progress they could make on what would be a huge part of their motivation -- escaping and going home. Plus, I think completely cutting out the world-hopping nexus stuff would be more of a limiting factor than a helping one.

Maybe a system that's only mostly-jamjar or something? I admit I like the monkey's-paw style idea mentioned above where players earn the right to leave (or think they've earned the right to leave but monkey's paw), so there's lots of room for players to say their "I don't wanna be here" character has had terrible luck with actually getting home while other characters can use the world-visiting for plots, etc.?

[rivalthunderbolts]

WHAT IF.

What if they're not completely jamjarred here at all. What if the existing characters are relocated here, and new characters find their way to the island through mysterious warp pipes/warp rings/sling stars/some other vidya gaem mode of interdimensional transportation. Add a place in the mansion, like say a big hall of warp pipes or something. They can all take you home. Only problem is... none of them are labelled.

So that could be a player event. Trying to figure out where all the pipes go, and ending up in every other video game world along the way.

A DAZZLING PLACE I NEVER KNEEEEW

[raw_angel_power]

I was really appreciating some of the backstory elements that were being dug up about Smash's past recently, so maybe we could keep those while reworking them into the new school-deemphasized setting? I'm mostly curious about what the big point is in bringing smashers to this world. Why does Master Hand invite them here?* Is it just to watch them duke it out, or is there a greater underlying purpose that isn't immediately obvious? When it was a school, the reason Smash Academy came into existence was to train smashers to become ultimate fighters because of some war that took place- I think it was Subspace Emissary. Correct me if I'm wrong or not remembering right for any of this.

I think all of that should still be incorporated as far as mysteries go, though with less of a 'this is a school for getting stronger.' Instead, we need to take out the school from that sentence. 'This is a _____ for becoming a better smasher.' Probably not, 'This is a mansion for becoming a better smasher'. It has to be something else. The mansion seems to be mainly a living arrangement, or a key aspect of the setting.

My main concern is, 'so how does smashing fit into all of this? After all, this is a Smash Brothers-based game!'

It might be cool to have tournaments for our characters to work towards. Really big and sensationalized tournaments where everyone in FDC can see it being broadcasted. These would be a staple of the game. I don't know how often these can happen, but it should be done at a frequency everyone is comfortable with. My thought is starting it out bi-annually and adjusting depending on how well it works out. Of course, it's a completely optional event, but still a really big deal. And not just tournaments, but other broadcasted contests. Or... non-broadcasted contests. If motivation for characters to stay is an issue, then maybe the reward for becoming a tournament champion is SUPER HUGE. Oh look, you won your own private island. Not into that? What about a cash prize that's ENOUGH to buy you your own private island? Or maybe you can go all genie on this and they get a wish granted. Any wish. See back for details.

That said, it makes me wonder how FDC fits into this, and how the smashers' relationship to the city as a whole is. I personally perceive it being that smashers are almost like celebrities, or by being a smasher it denotes a measure of prestige among the commonfolk. Kind of like... major sports players who also happened to save their world? Not like, royalty or anything, but depending on how successful the character is or whether they're like, MARIO or someone big-name like that it makes them seem REALLY COOL to your regular old goomba joe. I'm curious about other people's thoughts regarding their status in the city.

I ALSO PERSONALLY THINK FDC SHOULD BE WITHIN EASY ACCESS OF THE MANSION BUT THAT'S MAINLY SO THEY HAVE MORE TO DO WITHOUT NEEDING TO WARP OR MIGRATE OR WHAT HAVE YOU. FDC should still be an important element in the game.

I also thought about a kind of 'tier' system like you see in the tournament community. It seems a bit risky to implement, though, because while it would be really interesting to see IC drama arise when characters are placed into a rank and given different privileges and status (better rooms than lesser tiers, more concessions, more fans, etc.) because of it, there's a high chance that if not done carefully, it can give rise to... OOC drama. Which is not what anyone wants. Still, I think it's worth considering. IF anyone is into this, it can be based off something like individual performance in Smash events. Thoughts? This is a very underdeveloped idea, but it has potential to make things interesting.

*Also, maybe we should address how people arrive to Smash. Do they have to be invited by letter? Magically poofed? Maybe it's seen as an honor?

MORE FOOD FOR THOUGHT: I'm very interested in having focus be given to character movesets, their final smashes, etc. Or customizing their stats, kind of like what was implemented in SSB4. Kind of like ye olde Smash Fundamentals, before I was even around. Maybe a character doesn't think their current setup is working out, so they rework it from the ground up and try new strategies to win in the next tournament? Personally, I think building these sorts of things would be fun, especially for those who don't have a preexisting moveset and want to consider how their character might work if they were in the new Smash Brothers game. Of course, this can also be a completely optional thing that you only have to do if you care about it enough. Forcing it on people is just lame.

I hope I'm making sense. I have a headache that is making me completely delirious. I feel like I still have more to say but can't formulate them into connecting paragraphs. If it doesn't, please harass me until the cows come home.

Re: A WHOLE NEW WORLD

[kumagypsy]

I will have more to post later but for now I wanna put down that I'd hate to see FDC go away, because I just love the idea of a city full of hapless NPCs that have to put up with Smash's BS all the time. I like that Smash has something bigger they have to protect whenever something terrible happens. Plus we've done a lot of worldbuilding in regards to adding stuff to the city.

I would also like to keep the optional jam-jarring thing around. I've never really had a problem with it because I've chalked it up to Smash/FDC being in a weird place where time/space doesn't work like it's supposed to, so some characters come and go as they please and others can't get back to their world because they're just unlucky, etc.

Also Melia would totes volunteer the spaceship she rode in on for taxi services.

[rivalsolarbeam]

After reading through things and stewing a bit on it, I wanted to try and bring up something I was toying with last night.

I know the purpose of a revamp is to cut out the school element but... Personally, I'd like the school element to stay, even if it is no longer the primary focus. And I don't think it needs to be! There can be a mansion (maybe the ultimate room mate shuffle occurred and suddenly it's just an entirely different building/part of campus/etc.), and all of the above new concepts can still become the primary focus of the game, such as a floating island and having to figure out how to make things run smoothly and picking up new roles for characters to play. The school just kind of becomes a background element, like it more or less has become now, more as another option for people to toy with for off screen (or on screen if they want!) things.

Maybe having it there can be a draw for characters to willingly come up to the island, because oh hey it floated over and oh hey do you want to come hang out in our floating city and school and stuff? Because I think the way we handle jam-jaring works fine right now, as I wouldn't want to see it go full jam jar.

So basically, a "new" setting but with an old backdrop for people that want to have that, since there are definitely characters who are only here for the schooling. Why not adventures AND schooling, if they want it? Maybe the floating island up there just scoops up the whole school and dumps it on another island, have fun nerds. Maybe they acquire more npc teachers as they go along, or characters can teach things if they want to. Etc. etc.

(Hi I have a lot of characters that are only here because they are going to school/are attached to the school/are here because other people are going to school. Also this post is kind of incoherent, sorry.)

Re: A WHOLE NEW WORLD

[monotreme_101]

I do prefer the option of not jam-jarring dudes in unless you want to. For example, Joel has to be jam-jarred in or he'd go back to his terribad world and that would be that. But Sonny travels back to Kanto or the other regions every so often to visit friends and family. Jon travels to the Pokémon regions too, to visit Riwane or do Badges and such. I appreciate that flexibility, to corral or let loose my dudes as I see fit and I think that's kind of an appealing thing in general.

And FDC is a great, multipurpose plot device. It gives the characters places to go, things to do and something to look after. Maybe it could be utilized in different ways, though? Like what if, instead of just fixing up a mansion, there's work to be done on the city, too. If the place was just picked up and moved wholesale to a flying island, who's to say that parts weren't lost? Damaged? Deleted or corrupted? (Hey. Vidja gaems and all that shiz.) And it's up to our intrepid brawlers to set things right. (Spoilers: Everything is fixed by blowing into the cartridge.) But, you know. Maybe that's where resource gathering can come into its own, too - you have to find stuff to repair things, after all.

Also, flying mounts are good by me. Maybe a group project could be assembling a bestiary of sorts? Documenting what wild species actually populate the place and how they can be befriended/used. That could be a fun ongoing player plot for those who are academic and like to study things and people who like to get out and explore and find things. (Lookin' at you, trainers!)

EVENT & PLOT LOTTERIES

[mansionstaff]

This isn't anything quite new, so much as we're proposing a better way to organize the really great events and plot ideas we get on a regular basis. Right now they're submitted monthly in personals under the game threads but we're wondering if an entirely separate page might be a better way to structure them. Once the month has passed sometimes great ideas fall to the wayside.

What do you think about a separate page to submit events and each month we'll run an "event/plot lottery" to pick out what we think can run?

CHALLENGE MODE

[mansionstaff]

Something else we propose to keep game ideas fresh and fun is something akin to the Smash Brothers challenges only reformatted for RP purposes.

Players will anonymously submit challenges (example: thread out someone getting their arm stuck in a vending machine. thread out use of trophies gone wrong. thread out a smooch. match icons with someone five times in the same thread. three crack/not-serious tags. meet double-triple-quadruple the activity check requirements. post a meme in the ooc community. have your character make a gross misunderstanding about another character. subject them to a whacky transformation. goad captain falcon into punching you and live. discover a new floating island. get into a fight over what to name the new island. start a log with the letter "X" in the title, survive a great Excite Bike Migration, etc.) and once a month during personals/CR meme we'll compile and post a list of a group/block of challenges. Players will submit threads that meet the challenges and be rewarded with IC powers, or access to locked doors in the mansion, the ability to world-hop, travel back home, see a castmate, or something. WHO KNOWS. WHATEVER YOU COOL PERKS GUYS LIKE TO BE REWARDED WITH.

We could group unlockables & rewards like this:

• PERSONAL (CHARACTER) UNLOCKABLES: special powers, smash balls, etc whatever.
• PERSONAL (PLAYER) UNLOACKABLES: free AC strike, etc.
• LOCAL UNLOCKABLES: rooms in the mansion, new local locales on the island or nearby islands.
• REGIONAL UNLOCKABLES: warp pipes to home worlds, etc.

We may reasonably put lock-limits on either per player, per character, or per month to keep things fair/to manage pacing better, depending on how all this works out.

Once that group/block of challenges has been met, we'll make a new one and the process can start anew.

What do you think?

[rivalthunderbolts]

I honestly don't know how I feel about this. I think on the one hand it's an interesting way to get people prompts who otherwise have no idea what to do at a given time.

On the other hand, I'm not thrilled about the reward ideas. It feels to me like it will just end up with private plots going on all the time, with players getting access to parts of the mansion that others don't have. Not to mention new characters who show up and already are compartmentalized into groups who don't have any of the IC perks that veteran characters get by virtue of being around longer. For current players that's sort of a given, but for new players, I fear it might end up a barrier to entry.

And having locked parts of the mansion that contain mysteries implies Smash is going in a direction where there's going to be a set story with an endgame and eventual hard ending, rather than the open ended slice of life kind of thing.

Also when it comes to things like free AC strikes, I feel like the people who would end up winning those are the people who would need them the least.

Em here just lurking

[damnjuanhessohotrightnow]

oh my god has the excite bike migration become a Thing now

[rivalkidneypunch]

I'm not, like... hard-opposed to a reward system, but I am kinda hesitant? I am worried that it might create a sort of gap between players -- like new players might end up missing out on a lot of plot/CR because it centers around exploring an island that only a small group of veterans have unlocked access to, etc. Especially in the case of challenges that are... limited? Like, to use the above as examples, only the number of people Whit can handle threading with are gonna get punched by Falcon, and I'd assume only so many islands can get discovered in a month.

I'm just tossing out blind wild ideas, so take them with a grain of salt, buuuut maybe I'm gonna pitch some other ideas?

- Make local unlockables game-wide, not character-specific, possibly with bigger groupwide requirements? (Like... x characters have to meet AC, x logs must be played to completion, etc)
- Make big rewards things you have to apply for, like extra character slots? Like, "okay you can have some smash balls if you link us [a major character development you partook in/CR with x different characters/4x the AC requirement]" so there's less dependency on doing plot-important or time-sensitive stuff and new players don't have to wait a month etc. to get one thing to sort of catch up to the veterans?
- Roulette-style things where people don't necessarily know in advance what they have to do to get a huge unlockable? Like when AC goes up include a "if this month your character did x, link it and win a free ipod get a smash ball" or whatever?

[alouest]

i have to agree with jeff and snap up-thread that the exclusivity factor of these prizes are quite... worrying. the idea itself is awesome, don't get me wrong, but the reward system does make me a little uncomfortable.

maybe make the rewards... still fulfilling, but less of a barrier to players? that's a difficult balance to strike, though. character unlockables could be new items applicable only for their next fight or smash run, like a smash ball usable whenever they'd like from the get-go.

free ac strike for players raises the same concern for me as it would jeff, but at the same time, it could allow for players to use their free strike to take a good break without worrying. then again, it could make people really flake out for a period and force the game into a lull for that period. more people using their ac strike, the less activity for people who don't have one. definitely keep the ac strike thing to one player per challenge, and definitely don't make it a very common thing, is my opinion there.

as for local and regional unlockables, i disapprove of those entirely. the open roaming of smash is what is most beloved to me, and unlocking new things should be a player-wide thing, not a player-exclusive thing. it gives privileges that set the scene for total unbalancing, and that's disconcerting.

Re: CHALLENGE MODE

[monotreme_101]

I have similar concerns as Jeff in regards to AC strikes being offered. However, I was thinking one way around this might be to make them giftable. Say for example I meet whatever requirement there was for earning one - triple activity or whatever it might wind up being - but I know that I don't really need it. Yet I know for a fact that Wingaling the Fruitfly has crazy finals this month and their work schedule is getting huge and they're moving apartments and their grandma is visiting and really there's no way that they've been able to gain activity and also they don't have a hiatus posted because they're just that snowed under or figured they could handle it and realize last minute that Oh No They Can't. Or maybe they post up AC samples but miss the required comment number. I could be like "S'ok, bro. I got this." and pass along my good fortune.

GAME NAMES

[mansionstaff]

Let's talk about game names! Here's a list we came up with:

smash land
smasha firma
smash manor
smash isle
smash rising
smash without borders
smash gaiden

This is definitely not the end-all-be-all of name ideas though, and this thread is open for any suggestions.

[icequeen_aran]

I'm kind of partial to "smash rising" and "smash manor".

[rivalkidneypunch]

five nights at crazy hand's
smash yellow version: special pikachu edition
indigo prophecy
smash 2: the smashening

[awakeningwill]

Cuz mods said it was okay for people to make their own top levels for general thoughts and such, here goes?

Forewarning that I have never played at any other game, so I really have no frame of reference for how anything works anywhere else. That said, reading all the ideas did have me really excited. The premise sounds really cool, and the community does need to get rejuvenated.

I still feel really hesitant though, mostly because keeping memories + removing the school setting complicates the motivations of a lot of characters for being around. And I don't really have an interest in playing a jamjar. Not to mention I'd have to completely retool a lot of planned character development if I wanted to keep the same dudes, if I could even justify it at all. In the end, it feels like if I played at this new setting, it'd have to be with a completely fresh slate - at which point, it might as well be a pure reboot for me. Like, the change is potentially good for players who have characters that struggle with a reason to stay, but it feels like it messes up a lot of the characters who just want to be at a school.

Like, I'd personally feel more comfortable if there was a school setting option attached to the game officially, partially for smoothing over the transition and also just because... I dunno, having the school be purely dressing room flavour feels like it takes away the legitimacy of what happens in terms of continuity? It could just be a permanent portal to the school and whatever happens there is more or less treated like an offworld log or something. I know that moving away from the school as a setting is important to transition the overall game, but it makes me really anxious after investing so much in it. Plus, I've always liked jobs being imposed on certain characters. I guess cuz it gives them a general thing for them to do that's not purely self-driven adventure mode.

I guess overall I just feel really nervous. It feels like I'm going to need to pick out a whole new roster - I don't have that many muses to begin with, and I survive very poorly in PSL if I need to drop existing characters that I'm still invested in. Anyway, I guess those are my personal thoughts. I'll keep trying to digest all this.

[rivalsolarbeam]

I'm still trying to wrap my brain around how I feel about a lot of things, so I won't be adding anything yet, but all of this feels pretty close to some of the thoughts I can identify presently.

PREMISE

[mansionstaff]

AKA how everyone arrives in the game/what the heck they're doing here. General consensus I've seen so far is to keep the current flexibility of a nexus setting with optional jamjarring. For the sake of covering all the bases, I'm just going to throw every idea in here that I can. We can mix and match ideas, but let's talk about what you'd like to see in a premise for Smash Bros themed Floating Island Adventures.

A) The character trophies (per the ones in the basement/bunkers) are actually something of a spirit totem and have pulled characters from their respective universes to this Smash Bros 'verse to (fulfill a personal quest, mission or goal/x amount of time has past/fill in the blank) before they are able to return back to their home world (This is a "jamjar at first then freedom of nexus" option). Maybe they can go to other character's worlds in the meantime but not their own?

B) Characters come willingly or randomly, similar to the current premise; your character has heard of a mysterious floating island where tournaments take place and they can win exorbitant prizes, or get a wish fulfilled, or come on the promise of "finding strength", or have bragging rights, or whatever... or jamjar gods warped them in because a wizard did it. If the latter they are "free to leave" at anytime, at mun's discretion. (In other words, it will be entirely up to you to decide why your character is here and how they got here and what places they have access to and when.)

C) This universe is something akin to Brofist TV where characters pulled in are already known of and seen as celebrities (whether they realize it or not) by the local natives in FDC. The mansion is where the fighters reside and a separate island is where a huge colosseum-styled stadium (bigger than the current one) they fight (or hack-fight or have bake-off competitions or race) annually/bi-annually/quarterly and the natives come to place bets and cheer on their favorite fighters in probably a totally cheeky way that teeters on the 4th wall. natives are muns of the game in the game ok no. Prizes and rewards (trips home? wishes granted? money? bragging rights? personal strength? see option B) await the winner.

D) Master Hand is actually a malevolent child disembodied floating hand looking to collect cool "toys" for his amusement to do at his whim (see original Smash Bros) and send back to their respective worlds when he gets bored. This would really only work as a pure jam-jar set up.

E) Your character is made aware they are from a video game and they don't actually exist. Surprise, enjoy your existential crisis and then your time doing whatever you want to do and blaming everything on "game mechanics". no lets not do this

Re: PREMISE

[vela_nova]

I REALLY like the sound of idea B there. It keeps a lot of the open ended nature of Smash Academy, keeping the premise similar enough that it could be adapted over. Each character can be there for different reasons, or have been promised certain things, or can even be jamjarred if they want. It keeps the best of both worlds.