Canon/feature characters

[Arkandel]

What provisions in policy or mechanics should be in place for some of the following things to work:

• Successfully mixing canonical characters (Batman, Luke) and original ones in the same game.

• Power balance - can OCs be as powerful as FCs?

• Thematic integrity - can the Avengers be led by or consisted mostly of OCs?

• Character development - how much freedom should FCs have? Can Rand al'Thor find true love in the arms of Jane Sedai?

• How does history revisionism work best? Is it okay to soft/hard reset FCs when they get a new player?

Add your own to the mix!

[Coin]

@arkandel said in Canon/feature characters:

What provisions in policy or mechanics should be in place for some of the following things to work:

• Successfully mixing canonical characters (Batman, Luke) and original ones in the same game.

For this, I think you need to integrate them all as much as possible. Mix things as much as possible.

I once had a whole write-up of how the Kree are actually the descendents of the first exploration sent from Krypton--explaining their phonological name ("kree"-ptonian), their enhanced strength (a byproduct of living under a sun that gave them powers, though not as much as a yellow sun would have, over the course of millions [thousands?] of years and generations), and even their naming scheme (I mean, come onnnn, Mar-Vell, Kal-El, Yon-Rogg, Lor-Zod, Chan-Dar, Lor-Van... at most we can say the Kree got rid of the weird patronymical style and the Kryptonians did not). (Skin color--and also the far lower power leveles--can be millions [thousands?] of years of evolution based on where they live--or even just in-breeding with the native species.)

I also had written up how Namor was Prince of Lemuria instead of Atlantis and was "technically" under the rule of Arthur Curry, but had for all intents and purposes struck out on his own and, while they shared sympathies due to similar origins as hybrid human-atlanteans, they were fundamentally different in philosophies, leading to different nations, and the Lemurians were one of many off-shoots of Atlanteans, etc, etc.

Basically, I think you gotta go back FAR and dig DEEP for it to work well. also, these are all very macro examples, but there's no reason Luke Cage can't have been experimented on by some organization that is a subgroup of Cadmus, for example.

• Power balance - can OCs be as powerful as FCs?

Absolutely a decision that needs to be made by the game developers as soon as possible (and I would say before even beginning to work on this stuff). It will heavily decide who will be interested in your game and who will be absolutely turned off. Neither answer is wrong.

• Thematic integrity - can the Avengers be led by or consisted mostly of OCs?

This is a little bit like the above. Again, something you need to decide early on. This is especially important when it comes to OC vs. FC viability as narrative capital in the game: if OC and FC are worth the same, and Batman can be an Avenger and Wolverine can be in the Justice League, then OC should have the same prerogatives (even to the point of the Avengers being unrecognizable--is it important for them to be recognizable or is it just a name? Game devs need to decide that).

• Character development - how much freedom should FCs have? Can Rand al'Thor find true love in the arms of Jane Sedai?

I personal find this to be a no-brainer, but as long as the person follows the characterization they've offered in their app (since characterization is so wild and all over the place in source material in general, especially comic books) then they should then be allowed to veer in different directions than canon as long as it more or less follows that characterization. This is a slippery slope, because who's to say what is or isn't in character for someone? Personally, I like the "let them do whatever, see what happens" approach.

• How does history revisionism work best? Is it okay to soft/hard reset FCs when they get a new player?

I wuld personally suggest it's okay to soft-reset some things but there should be a list of important events/relationships and qwhen the character switches players there should at the very LEAST be a notion as to why some things have changed.

Or an in-game reason why the character is completely different, say, alternate universe counterpart!

Add your own to the mix!

[Altair]

@arkandel said in Canon/feature characters:

Power balance - can OCs be as powerful as FCs?

I tend to think OCs should start at their "origin story," or near to their origins, but with the provision that there is no cap on how far they can go so long as 1) it is fully backed up with RP 2) they don't build their character to rip off/become a wholesale replacement for an existing FC and their niche. If your OC becomes a Cap sidekick with jetpack wings, that doesn't really leave Falcon much to do.

Thematic integrity - can the Avengers be led by or consisted mostly of OCs?

While I do like to see the canon characters fulfilling their canon roles in teams, in practice games should really allow "whatever will keep the RP rolling." Mothballing the Avengers just because no one wants to app Steve Rogers and Tony Stark never leaves his TS room is a waste of a team, if there are active players on unconventional characters who are ready and willing to do stuff with it.

Character development - how much freedom should FCs have? Can Rand al'Thor find true love in the arms of Jane Sedai?

As long as it makes sense within the character's personality as written, I see no issue with going in an original direction, especially when some characters have canonical portrayals or relationships that 1) were dumb in the source material to begin with 2) love interests that no one ever apps. I don't really get on a MUSH to exactly recreate what a comic writer was already paid to write, anyway.

How does history revisionism work best? Is it okay to soft/hard reset FCs when they get a new player?

This one depends on the RP. Some characters come to you in a ruined state from the previous player, and no one should have to deal with that. I do think having a conversation with each of the people who had connections with your character previously, in order to facilitate an IC transition that makes sense for everyone is courteous, however.

[faraday]

I think that there are all kinds of ways to handle FCs. None is more "right" than another, but each have different pros and cons.

Allowing FCs to be featured and special is true to the implicit meaning of "FC", and usually implies a greater degree of power and responsibility. But then it tends to overshadow the OCs, leading to sour grapes and people left out in the cold of metaplot. Making them on the same level as OCs, on the other hand, kind of detracts from their mythos. Does anybody really want to see Luke Skywalker as a level 1 Jedi in post-ROTJ timeframe? Or Captain America slumming in a bar every night just because the player has nothing better to do?

My only personal hard stop is on history revisionism, because IC continuity is important to me. If something was RPed, then it happened. I don't care who takes over the character after that point, the character's history is set in stone. I can't even imagine how I would RP my character if suddenly their BFF had never been their BFF at all, or the shared adventure that shaped their relationship with someone had suddenly never happened. Retcon like that on a global scale I find completely revolting. But I know comic games do it all the time and they somehow survive, so... to each their own.

ETA: I don't think anybody should be chained to relationships moving forward if they take over a character, but I think it needs to be addressed ICly ("Wow, Cap is acting strange all of a sudden - is he having a mid-life crisis or something" or "ZOMG did you hear Han dumped Leia!") rather than trying to rewrite RP history.

[Seraphim73]

I'm gonna do it... it depends.

I think it depends on the game you want to run (and consequently, play). I think that one of the first game design decisions that a game set in a canon universe has to make is: how closely are we going to cleave to canon. Everything flows from that decision.

If you decide to cleave tight to canon and treat it like an alternate timeline where it's trying to "repair" itself back to the story everyone knows (but players can make a difference in how things happen, for instance), then you're going to want FCs who maintain thematic integrity (you can have OCs in The Avengers, but it's always going to have Cap and Iron Man and whoever you define as integral in it), who stick with their canon relationships, and who might need soft resets with new players to get back closer to their "canon situation."

If you decide that you're just picking a starting point and whatever happens happens after that? Then I think you can let the canon Avengers retire or join the Justice League or whatever, you can let them find true love wherever they like (so long as they continue to follow the characterization approved by Staff, as @Coin mentioned), and there's no need for resets unless someone does something totally whacky (in which case I figure it's a retcon)--and all resets should be explained ICly, as @faraday mentioned.

There are a couple of points that I think should be handled the same no matter the game type, however. First, I believe that unless someone is specifically called out as The Best at something, then OCs should be able to match them. If, however, they are called out as The Best, I think that OCs should have to be at least one step below them at all times. Second, unless you're on a comic book game, I think that FCs should be NPC quest givers only. They shouldn't be played (except by Staff as necessary to provide plot hooks to the PCs). Because while Han Solo hanging out in a bar chatting with people makes sense, Rand al'Thor doing it casually, or Lexa kom Trikru, or Commander Adama, or whomever... just doesn't feel right to me.

[Arkandel]

@coin said in Canon/feature characters:

• Power balance - can OCs be as powerful as FCs?

Absolutely a decision that needs to be made by the game developers as soon as possible (and I would say before even beginning to work on this stuff). It will heavily decide who will be interested in your game and who will be absolutely turned off. Neither answer is wrong.

See, in most original works this doesn't matter at all, because newly appearing characters' power levels can flactuate tremendously but it's done with the intention of being used in a specific way - usually sporadically or in mostly their own book - or with an end goal in mind. So for instance you could create someone like Sentry who's more powerful than Thor or the Hulk or Lobo who could exchange punches with Superman and it's not a bad thing; it just depends on how they are used.

The thing is though is that on a MU* it does matter.

At a glance sure, a lot of OCs are going to be Mary Sue kinds of characters, but so could FCs; you could play up Superboy or Wolverine as whatever idealized perfect avatar for your personal empowerment fantasies as you like.

It's really the frequency of their appearances that can throw things off. Lobo isn't normally showing up everywhere, and the fact he'll steal the spotlight like oh-my-gawd is sort of baked into the character so if you're reading a book he's staring in that's probably because you explicitly bought the book knowing what you were getting into.

On a MUSH we know how messy things get - and the power level itself is only one of the issues, but I'm not sure they're due to the FC/OC disparity either. I mean sure, Thor could solve every problem Daredevil has ever had - he could stomp on the Hand pretty handily (hah-hah), but so could a cosmically powered OC.

If there are issues there should be one of three reasons:

1. The high-end characters, FCs or OCs, are restricted to the lucky few. Call me cynical but that's probably the most common reason.

2. The FCs are just played badly - and I mean 'badly' by whatever yardstick you choose to judge that from. Maybe Iron Man is played by someone crappy, maybe he's always shagging up with Black Widow, maybe he's a villain. Dunno.

3. The setting feels off because OCs are way more important than FCs. I can kind of see that if Batman and Superman are constantly outshined by DeathsquadRIP and Fragolas it could rub some people off the wrong way.

TL;DR: I think the power gap itself should absolutely be determined and made clear very early on, but also it probably doesn't matter too much on a day to day basis unless other things are malfunctioning.