FCs on Comic MUs

[Ganymede]

@arkandel said in FCs on Comic MUs:

@ganymede said in FCs on Comic MUs:

I mean, unless you're Alan Tudyk, you get only one Disney animated character. And you get only one Marvel character.

Chris Evans.

Those movies don't count.

[Sunny]

Oh ffs. Are we going to be presenting 'people should only have 1 alt' as 'the proper way to play' versus 'if you have multiple characters you're bad at this'? Ugh ugh ugh. Come on, people. There are plenty of valid reasons for people to want more than one PC.

Setting the policy to 1 does accomplish things and it's not a bad policy choice if those things are what you desire. The things it accomplishes are not end-all be-all superior to other modes of play.

There are reasons people do it differently.

[Arkandel]

@ganymede said in FCs on Comic MUs:

@arkandel said in FCs on Comic MUs:

@ganymede said in FCs on Comic MUs:

I mean, unless you're Alan Tudyk, you get only one Disney animated character. And you get only one Marvel character.

Chris Evans.

Those movies don't count.

Josh Brolin.

[The Tree of Woe]

The problem on Super-Hero games is that KNOWLEDGE has traditionally been prized and looked for, but INTENT has been a secondary concern, at best.

The person who demonstrates an encyclopedic knowledge of Superman Obscura gets to play Superman, even though he doesn't really give a flying fuck about Truth, Justice, and the American Way. The idea that the obscura is something you can learn about while playing the character or something staff can help you learn, it never comes up.

That's how you get a Shadowcat who gets into Lesbian BDSM with somebody's OC or Magik with a penis, because you checked for knowledge but not for intent. You can have impeccable knowledge about a character's history and just NOT GIVE A FUCK ABOUT IT.

So, flip the playbook. Check for intent first and foremost and treat knowledge as the secondary concern, and encourage players to learn more about their FC as they play if there are gaps in their knowledge.

[Ganymede]

@arkandel said in FCs on Comic MUs:

@ganymede said in FCs on Comic MUs:

@arkandel said in FCs on Comic MUs:

@ganymede said in FCs on Comic MUs:

I mean, unless you're Alan Tudyk, you get only one Disney animated character. And you get only one Marvel character.

Chris Evans.

Those movies don't count.

Josh Brolin.

Jonah Hex is a DC line.

[Arkandel]

Thanos + Cable

[Ganymede]

@arkandel said in FCs on Comic MUs:

Thanos + Cable

Fair.

Okay. So, you only get one Marvel character if that's the Marvel stuff controlled by Disney.

There. You happy?

[Ganymede]

@the-tree-of-woe said in FCs on Comic MUs:

So, flip the playbook. Check for intent first and foremost and treat knowledge as the secondary concern, and encourage players to learn more about their FC as they play if there are gaps in their knowledge.

See, why bother?

Superman isn't hard to understand as a character trope. Why do I need to know much about him beyond his general capabilities and vulnerabilities? Maybe that's why I'm just no good on these games.

It's also why I like OCs: they have no history. I don't need to memorize or be compelled to study generations of comics in order to be given a pass by raving, rabid comic fans. I can just play a PC with a power-set.

[The Tree of Woe]

@ganymede There are some things someone playing him would need to know in the broad sense -- his relationships with Lois Lane, Supergirl, the LSH, why he and Lex Luthor hate one another. There are stories that they should be encouraged to read if they haven't but yes, the pivot point needs to be that games need to prioritize checking that someone wants to play a Decent Man Who Saves People over whether or not they have a detailed knowledge of every little thing Superman has done. A Wiki can fill in that gap.

[Ganymede]

@the-tree-of-woe

Here's an idea: for the FCs that you plan to use on a game, staff should write out those wiki-pages.

Seems to be a good way to make sure that people know what sort of Superman you want, the essentials of his background, and so on.

Also, good to point out which version of the superhero you're using, i.e.: which Robin is it? (I want to play Carrie Kelley.)

[Social Diseases]

@ganymede said in FCs on Comic MUs:

One alt.

Just one alt.

I have not seen it done before, but it certainly isn't as if you can keep a straight face while saying the status quo works in any meaningful way. I'm sold.

[fatefan]

@ganymede said in FCs on Comic MUs:

And this is my stance because no one has ever provided me with a satisfactory answer to the question: "why do you need to play more than one feature character on a game?"

Here is the one arguably valid response to that I can offer: when the comic subgenres differ significantly enough that it would be tricky for character A to be involved but character B would be a solid fit.

For example: if someone's looking to get a hardboiled/noir groove going, Punisher or Daredevil or the Question might be awesome FCs to play. However, Superman or Wonder Woman or Reed Richards might not work so well. (Is it possible to play any of this second list in such an aesthetic? Sure, but the hill's a little steeper, I'd say.) Naturally, some characters are super flexible regarding subgenre overlap and the player for such a character might have less 'argue' room for alt need.

(This assumes, of course, a broadly inclusive approach to comic themes rather than a focused one, like where everyone's involved with the X-Men or is riffing on Batman: The Animated Series.)

[The Tree of Woe]

@ganymede I 100% agree with you. Character backgrounds and powers writeups can be provided by staff, ON A WIKI, liberating players from the onerous chore of having to write them up themselves, only for them to be trashcanned when you're done playing that character.

Prove basic knowledge, interest, and intent. And if it doesn't work, nothing is lost.

[Ganymede]

@fatefan said in FCs on Comic MUs:

(This assumes, of course, a broadly inclusive approach to comic themes rather than a focused one, like where everyone's involved with the X-Men or is riffing on Batman: The Animated Series.)

An expansive approach to comic themes is a terrible premise.

For example: if someone's looking to get a hardboiled/noir groove going, Punisher or Daredevil or the Question might be awesome FCs to play. However, Superman or Wonder Woman or Reed Richards might not work so well.

It's up to staff to set up what the "groove" is. If you're going for over-the-top cosmic action, you're going to want Star-Lord, Iron Man, Silver Surfer, etc. If you're going for hardboiled, you're going to want to have the Defenders, Punisher, Spider-Man (in my opinion), and the street-level superheroes and villains.

I think the latter theme provides the better storylines, but I don't have much experience with the former.

[Ganymede]

@sunny said in FCs on Comic MUs:

Oh ffs. Are we going to be presenting 'people should only have 1 alt' as 'the proper way to play' versus 'if you have multiple characters you're bad at this'? Ugh ugh ugh. Come on, people. There are plenty of valid reasons for people to want more than one PC.

I'm sure there are, and none of them sound very convincing to me. That's fine. I'm also not convinced the Penguins are going to 3-peat, despite the plethora of valid reasons to believe otherwise.

I'm just suggesting that, for an FC Comic Game, you go with one alt only.

[Social Diseases]

@ganymede said in FCs on Comic MUs:

@fatefan said in FCs on Comic MUs:

(This assumes, of course, a broadly inclusive approach to comic themes rather than a focused one, like where everyone's involved with the X-Men or is riffing on Batman: The Animated Series.)

An expansive approach to comic themes is a terrible premise.

It really is. Places that allow absolutely anything end up having little to nothing of quality. They're always slapdash, crude, and often incredibly contradictory in every context because they're trying to allow for any possibility in an attempt to attract players. And on those games, every time, there will still just be one or two groups/spheres/themes -- however you want to label it -- that attract the largest concentration of players anyway.

My suggestion for a place was, and still is:

It's primarily an X-Men game. It's located on the west coast. They're living on Utopia, the island in San Francisco bay they had for a while.

If you want to play someone who is not an 'X-Man' (or a mutant on Utopia, or an aligned 'super' on Utopia or in San Francisco), they'd better actually be in the area.

And no, Spider-Man did not just move.

[Arkandel]

@social-diseases said in FCs on Comic MUs:

It really is. Places that allow absolutely anything end up having little to nothing of quality. They're always slapdash, crude, and often incredibly contradictory in every context because they're trying to allow for any possibility in an attempt to attract players.

And it's also easier to set up since it's essentially a sandbox.

Frankly to me certain kinds of games are impossible to play. If I don't know some basic fundamental things are set in stone (such as the current public history and roster of the Justice League) then it's all silly. Do we know what the Skrulls are? There should be a definite answer to that. Hell, is there just one version of the same character? If there's an adult and a teenager version of Peter Parker around there'd better be a thematic answer, rather than "well, two people applied".

And don't get me started on mixed universe approaches, especially when they are poorly documented ("so there was a rift, and here we are!"). Ugh.

[Social Diseases]

I think the addendum I at one point suggested for Utopia was "at the end of one of the stories, use that for the cut-off but instead of how it ends say the Phoenix Force or whatever undoes that 'No More Mutants' shit"

If there's some random character somebody has a hard-on for that lost their powers they're back because that hurts nothing, and it lets people make mutant OCs and it justifies the conceit of the entire X-franchise that people are scared of them because this is the future of humanity and there are millions of the bastards, and one day they'll replace us, rather than just "this bunch of super-people is worse than this other bunch, because shut up."

[fatefan]

@social-diseases Also, to help spur movement toward setting up such a game, Volund has a suite of potentially useful code that might account for everything except whatever kind of CG might be desired. https://github.com/volundmush/mushcode

[Sunny]

@ganymede I agree with your premise; it was not the suggestion of this sort of game being one alt only that I was objecting to. I think for a FC game, or for any number of other games, one alt is absolutely the best policy. In each of those cases though, it's for the purposes of getting a particular desired result, rather than 'people who play multiple characters are bad', which this discussion started down the road on. There is absolutely no reason that someone playing characters across several games should even be mentioned relating to this discussion, because it's irrelevant, but there's folks shaming over it.