POLL: Super Hero MU Gut Check

[Ganymede]

@tempest said in POLL: Super Hero MU Gut Check:

People making their own character out of thin air and just vaguely describing their powers = Problem.

People playing pre-made characters that most everybody is familiar with, and just vaguely describing their powers = Not a problem.

Yes, there are plenty of crappy FC players, but I as a person know or can look up what that character can or can't do.

I'm still not sure what the limits on Legion's powers are. Or Magneto.

[Tempest]

@ganymede And it's pretty rare for either of them to be played by players, in my experience.

I've never ever seen a Legion PC. I've staffed on 3 superhero MUs and played on 8 or 9 probably?

Magneto gets played, but..his power is generally 'pretty much understood' and the players allowed near him are generally more 'responsible', what with him being the X-Men antagonist (which means he often gets kept as a staff NPC). Yes, there are weirdos who'll try to break out all the crazy 'well with magnetism he can do WTFBBQOMG'.

Everybody has 'PIS' and super dramatic 'examples' of their power use, but they're generally not the norm.

I've never seen an Iceman player try to freeze the planet, though iirc, he's supposedly got the potential to be 'omg super OP Omega Level ICE AGE CAUSER!!!!"

[Tempest]

Just my 2c, but if you want OC heroes, make an OC hero game. FC games should be FCs. Mixing them is asinine.

Honestly, the pure audacity required for a player to think whatever harebrained thing they whipped up in 30 minutes deserves the same attention/etc as a comic book character that's been written for 10, 20, 30, however many years and is known by 80% of the players on the game, and has been in cartoons and movies and whatever else is just...

Seriously? It's dumb. Pure and simple.

Very, very, very few people go to a comic game because "oh man I can't wait to see what OCs people have created!"

People who play OCs on comic games are basically taking advantage of people's kindness to throw a wrench of concentrated stupidity into the cogs. You're a burden on the rest of the game. Staff hates doing OC apps. Players tend to hate having to spend their time with OCs trying to join their teams.

"Oh man, I finally get to do a scene with <Insert Comic Character>! I can't wait to see what angle the player takes them in. ...Oh, jeez...this OC nobody cares about is coming too? Ugh."

If everybody is an OC, hey, I have no problem with OCs.

When you're mixing Spider-Man and Cyclops with 'pile of nonsense somebody whipped up one saturday afternoon', that's pretty weird.

ETA : Something no Jean-player has ever said --> "I sure wish this game had more teenage mutant OCs pining for attention."

OC players go into comic games with an entirely different mentality than the other players.

OC players almost infallibly tend to be seeking 'validation' through attention from FCs, whereas FC players tend to just want to tell stories with other FCs.

[WildBaboons]

Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but I'm getting the feeling that Tempest doesn't like OCs.

<insert gif of Kevin Hart beating a dead horse>

[Tempest]

@wildbaboons said in POLL: Super Hero MU Gut Check:

Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but I'm getting the feeling that Tempest doesn't like OCs.

<insert gif of Kevin Hart beating a dead horse>

Hey, if we're playing M&M, I'll make a character with you guys!

If we're playing "Marvel & DC", how about you pick one of the 10,000 characters available to play?

[Ganymede]

@tempest said in POLL: Super Hero MU Gut Check:

Just my 2c, but if you want OC heroes, make an OC hero game. FC games should be FCs. Mixing them is asinine.

Honestly, the pure audacity required for a player to think whatever harebrained thing they whipped up in 30 minutes deserves the same attention/etc as a comic book character that's been written for 10, 20, 30, however many years and is known by 80% of the players on the game, and has been in cartoons and movies and whatever else is just...

Seriously? It's dumb. Pure and simple.

First, if game designers want to allow both, I'll defer to their expertise and decision. I'm not here to argue whether one or the other varieties are superior. And, as I think someone else said, if you want a game that is purely one way or the other, make it yourself.

Second, I have the temerity to say that, yes, I can concoct an OC that is better thought-through than what other comic book writers can come up with. I mean, that's kind of how new superheroes get created. Sure, not every concept is going to be smashing, but OCs are how you create new stories. And, yes, I think I have the ability to write someone more compelling than 'The Condiment King' or 'Orca'.

Third, whether or not an OC gets any screen time or attention is up to staff and the players: (1) staff to provide opportunities; (2) the creator to engage the OC in the events; and (3) the other players to be inclusive. And I agree with you that OC players should not walk in and just expect that other players will want to include them in their FC RP (after all, we all just gotta get that Cyclops-Jean Grey-Wolverine threesome RP In there), but if FC players are just going to nose out OCs they are part of their own problem -- namely, being arbitrarily cliquish.

Finally, what I'm getting at is whoever ends up playing Legion or Magneto is going to need to be the sort of player that reins himself or herself in for the enjoyment of others because both FCs seem to have expansive power sets. And, from what it sounds like, that sort of player is rare on superhero (and WoD) games.

[Roz]

Let's be real, there are a lot of super shitty comics characters that have been written. There's no way for there not to be, just given the quantity of comics characters throughout the history of the medium.

Also, I have staffed on two different games (X-Men Movieverse MOO and its quasi-sequel X-Factor NYC) where FCs and OCs both existed without issue. It's not a magically impossible thing. It did probably help that both games were on the lower end of the power scale. (They were, as might be inferred from the name of the first game, grounded in the movieverse rather than the much more powerful comicsverse.)

[Bobotron]

@tempest
Way to ascribe a lot of stuff to people. I've played and staffed back in the day on superhero MU*s with OCs that were not that at all. Now, the settings were built to allow OCs to affect things. I'm sorry the tumblrina fandom 'MY OC IS DA BESTEST' has got you so worked up on this topic.

[Ghost]

I'd just like to point out that one of the benefits of playing an OC is not being harassed or bound by rampant canoneers.

In playing an OC, you shield yourself a bit from people making demands on character relationships, romantic or not, based on existing canon. You also protect yourself a bit from people pushing their OOC fandom, romanticized or not, onto your RP.

One of the drawbacks I see in OCs is that sometimes they don't really fit into the setting. Like any game, a player should take care when creating a character to make sure that the character us a good fit. A good example would be a pacifist OC with the mutant ability to make spaghetti out of thin air on a game that is focusing on the action and fighting of two groups of mutants who regularly shoot lasers at each other.

Each approach has its benefits and drawbacks, but with picking characters that fit the intended feel of the game and staff who reign in overpowered concepts as being NPC only, balance is possible.

[Lithium]

The problem with FC centric games is everyone has their own idea of what an FC is like based on what comics they prefer, who was writing those comics at the time, and who they interacted with.

There's been so many retcons, reboots, and rewrites that it is just... impossible (in my opinion) to make an FC character that everyone will agree with. Which means it's just an OC with special powers (and usually much stronger than any OC can be). How many times have we seen FC's re-written to be alternate gender, or alternate sexuality, or alternate timeline, or whatever?

To many.

So the idea that an FC is somehow /superior/ to an OC is just silly really. Every FC that exists on any MU is an OC, it's not going to be faithful to the comics, because the comics aren't faithful to themselves.

That is why I prefer all OC games. Every character is just as important as any other character. Or at least closer to a parity.

It's also why I prefer super/comic games that use a hard system, so there are rules that define what people can, and can't do, along with some randomization to help resolve conflicts because people don't like to lose but if the dice say you lose, then it's easier to accept because blame can be shifted to the dice, and you can move on from that.

[3543thrh67]

@ghost To make sure a bit is fit for the theme/setting is 50% on player and 50% on staff, since approving applications seems to be a common thing.

[Ghost]

@icanbeyourmuse Agreed. And I say this out of genuine concern and not out of some snide manner. I always feel a little bit for players who make characters that don't really mix with the general flow of the game, then watch them frustrated that they can't seem to find a fit:

• "My character's a pacifist who doesn't have any combat skills, but all of the events are combat events!"

We see this a lot, and sure, there's a million different ways to assume what's happening when this happens (could be they want the game to be X when it's Y, or that they're unwilling to see the fun in playing a pacifist character IN combat, but whatever). I think this is just a good way of pointing out that you should scout what the general flow of the game is about before committing to one particular concept, or at the least, be willing to scrap-and-replace if your idea isn't working out.

@Lithium : My favorite bit of this are the ICEMAN fans. For years, Iceman has been romantically linked to many, many women (Including Mystique), but within the last 4, maybe 5 years, Marvel wrote him in as actually being gay. So I've been on a few comic book MUs and seen that wrestled with.

• Guy playing straight Iceman mildly uncomfortable with gay players/characters trying to determine if the character is gay
• Gay Iceman struggling with only a small representative population of gay characters in canon
• WHICH TIMELINE IS THIS? GAY ICEMAN FROM CURRENT CANON, STRAIGHT ICEMAN FROM THE MOVIES? AAAUGH.

[3543thrh67]

@ghost I admit I'm one of the ones that play the 'non-combat that fusses about most scenes being geared towards fighters.' Though, the main reason (besides combat just not, at all, being interesting to me) I don't join those sorts of scenes is because a lot of people 'play to win,' and either leave my character out because he or she is not a fighter or I feel guilty for going as a hinderance over benefit.

[Ghost]

@icanbeyourmuse I think Elixir from the X-men is a GREAT example as to how a non-combatant character can be utilized during action sequences. Elixir is pacifist. He's a healer (though one hand can kill, one can heal). He ended up getting placed on X-Force, which is the X-Men equivalent of the SEAL TEAM SIX MURDER SQUAD.

So in a lot of sequences, he's hunkering down and trying to stay out of harm's way while pulling wounded people to safety, or diverting to help innocent bystanders.

So one good way to handle this on a MU would be to incorporate a non-combatant squad in TPs or other missions. Heck, an all-non-combat TP consisting of characters running through rubble and burning buildings alongside a superhero fight without ever having to throw a single punch could be really enjoyable for the people who don't like to roleplay combat.

Edit/Afterthought: All it takes is a little creativity and inclusiveness to accommodate these character concepts, but YES, I totally agree that there are people who play to win, and it makes combat events hard to sit through.

[Vorpal]

@lithium said in POLL: Super Hero MU Gut Check:

So the idea that an FC is somehow /superior/ to an OC is just silly really.

To my mind, at least, it seems to be a sort of re-packaging of the Appeal to Tradition fallacy, where canon is tradition (because it was written, because it has been around for a while, etc) and therefore anyone who belongs to canon is inherently superior to everyone who is non-canon. Even if we're talking about Jimmy Olsen as Elastic Lad.

It reminds me of the RP stagnation that happened in a Final Fantasy VII game I briefly helped GM (and then promptly left for the reasons that I am about to explain.) The setting took place seven years before the events of the game, and the head GMs were so fixated on canon that they had basically set up a rigid timeline. As such, AVALANCHE (in this case, the AVALANCHE that you see in Before Crisis) could never have any victories that were significant, SHINRA could never suffer damaging losses, nothing could substantially deviate from canon, the Status Quo of Midgar could never change.

Which basically meant that people were stuck playing characters who had no consequence in the game because they were not FCs, and they just had to sit around and twiddle their fingers and wait for Cloud to come and save us all. Any significant actions in the game could only be performed by people who played approved FC.

That joke of a game perfectly epitomizes the extreme worship of canon and FCs and takes it to its total logical conclusion. When you make a game where other people will play, it is understood that a setting is a place from which to start, and that things may play out differently. If you're setting your game before the events of Final Fantasy VII, you have to be open to the possibility that Cloud will not be the spiky-haired savior (because the player/s playing cloud could end up totally wrecking the character, or he could die being an idiot). That maybe the world will get destroyed (because everyone was an idiot), or that a whole different band of scruffy heroes will save the world (because some people managed to not be idiots).

[3543thrh67]

@ghost That DOEs sound a lot more fun (less so when it is just coded combat). Basically.. giving more utility types stuff to do in combat RP seems fun. whether I play a healer is by whim but it would be neat to see someone who can do mental 'attacks' not be in combat. I'm more DC inclined so my examples are more towards that. I would enjoy seeing more types of characters who use mental warfare. Scarecrow is one that comes to mind for mental warfare.

The 'play to win' sorts is probably WHY I dislike combat RP. I use to like it. I know I use to because I've played warrior types before. They are also why I don't do 'social' combat with people as well. I, often, purposefully make my characters fail, even if I have the dice to pass it. I have characters who concede to someone they pick a fight with just because they realized they were a shit person with what they said or did.\

Edit: I mean MY character being the shit person not the person they picked a fight with.

[SunnyJ]

This is my take on the OC vs FC thing.

OCs should not expect to have people lining up to play with them just because they got approved by staff. Other players are not evil, or assholes, if they are just not interested in your new character when they have a sizeable selection of other characters who have been part, in some way, of their lives. Maybe they will turn around and give the OC a chance when they realize that just because someone picks Wolverine doesn't mean they can RP an interesting Wolverine, but getting angry over it, or even frustrated, is silly, imo.

I levy the same criticism towards people who pick famous characters like Xavier and complain nobody wants to RP with them when they make their Xavier a MovieVerse, Time Travelling, James McAvoy (<3) sly Professor. Although I really liked that character, I can see people wanting Good Ol' Charles in the mansion.

@Vorpal This is no Appeal to Tradition fallacy. This is 'I grew up with Iceman, and I want to interact with Iceman and be his best buddy for a few months'. OC Players cannot fight nostalgia with an OC and expect to win just on the merits of thinking they are awesome. I get they think their ideas are awesome, but sometimes other players just don't see it. Expecting everyone to be "OMG YES AN OC I NEVER MET BEFORE" to be the reaction, or else they are assholes, is just not fair, or reasonable, to say nothing of belittling just how much the love for some of these characters colors people's very desire to even play on Hero MUs. OCs sometimes have more difficult entry costs, and that is inherent to the nature of those games. Find the players like @Ganymede, who are plenty, and work from there! There are a lot of different people playing these games.

On customizing FCs:

I don't mind when people change their FCs a little, or if the Wolverine in the game is a left-leaning Bernie Sanders supporter or Emma Frost is just starting a new line of shoes for mutants with Jumbo Carnation. What I am interested in seeing is how the other player got to that point by following what I think are the 'guidelines' of that character's personality. If someone RPs Cyclops as some dumb jock who loves memes and slips on a banana peel every day he walks into the Danger Room, I would surely stop RPing with him.

Want to RP a bi Cyclops who has forsaken his laser beams and is learning Comic Book Kung Fu with Psylocke because he recently killed an innocent mutant? I am all in.

[Vorpal]

@sunnyj said in POLL: Super Hero MU Gut Check:

@Vorpal This is no Appeal to Tradition fallacy. This is 'I grew up with Iceman, and I want to interact with Iceman and be his best buddy for a few months'. OC Players cannot fight nostalgia with an OC and expect to win just on the merits of thinking they are awesome. I get they think their ideas are awesome, but sometimes other players just don't see it. Expecting everyone to be "OMG YES AN OC I NEVER MET BEFORE" to be the reaction, or else they are assholes, is just not fair, or reasonable, to say nothing of belittling just how much the love for some of these characters colors people's very desire to even play on Hero MUs. OCs sometimes have more difficult entry costs, and that is inherent to the nature of those games. Find the players like @Ganymede, who are plenty, and work from there! There are a lot of different people playing these games.

To be honest, I never start a game or an OC with the assumption that people are going to fall head-over-heels for my character. Nobody knows who the hell Y is, except me, and it really is up to me to prove whether or not the character is worthwhile for someone to make an acquaintance of. That's something I've always accepted and I don't really get put off by people's reticence in engaging with an OC. I do, however, find absolute loathing as a de-facto stance towards all OCs to be a sign of... well. The wheel may be turning, but the hamster inside the water bottle and turning purple.

[ThatGuyThere]

@tempest
How would an OC be different than someone like the Osprey, (1 marvel appearance in the Fantasic Four no less, issue #177 for the courious.)
He appeared for a total of two pages and likely had less than 30 minutes of thought put into him.

[Bobotron]

@ghost
It takes player initiative to do this. In the old heydey of TF MU*s, a lot of coded combat scenes had non-combatants doing stuff. I played a field medic who, well, did field patch jobs and dragged morons who got KOed off the field so the Decepticons didn't kill them (not that they could, in a condeath game, but... it fit the setting). People played non-combat characters and found stuff to do for them during combat scenes and plots. It also helps if your coded systems have stuff for non-combatants to do, like buffs, healing, etc. So you get a little less 'useless' feeling out of it.

@SunnyJ
YOU REFERENCED JUMBO CARNATION OH MY GOD I LOVE YOU.