X-Men Game

[ZombieGenesis]

My problem with no alts is that you're probably killing a game before it even gets started. When I opened my DC game I put a hold on alts and I literally had people tell me they'd be back when I open up my alt policy, that they weren't investing time in just one character. Just my experience.

[Ghost]

My suggestion:

• Overall: Mutant only FCs based out of UTOPIA setting. Allow X men/School/Utopia/San Francisco/Brotherhood as IC faction/setting elements.
• FCs: Only if they're mutants. It doesnt matter if they're former SHIELD agents or current, but their core of influence needs to be at Utopia. Reserve major chars and major villains for NPC use only (Sinister, Apocalypse, Cameron Hodge, etc). This means no Thor, Captain America, etc, but there's nothing wrong with people taking on NPC duty to role play as them in events. I'm sure some people would love spending an afternoon playing Thor swinging a hammer at their buddies in a TP.
• OCs: OC mutants only with reasonable mutation spectrums. No claws and time travel and magic and technomancy. OCs must have a power theme. Iceman never developed laser beam powers, but could shoot beams of cold.
• PrP/TPs: Give love for the genre. Mutant civil rights, mutant supremacy, punching at Iron Man for delivering bullshit civil rights mandates on sovereign soil, diplomacy with non mutants, fighting the Reavers, Purifiers, visiting the Shi'ar, etc
• Random Cool Idea#4: Unlockable mutants. Select a group of fringe characters that can be unlocked thru TPs. If the players choose to rescue Caliban? Unlocked. Make it like a fun kickstarter stretch goal element
• Alts: 2 characters per player total, but only 1 can be a starring cast member, such as Storm, Cyclops, etc
• ConflictOfInterest: Since all chars are in one sphere, dial back CoI rules to assisting in benefit between characters.
• System: This will be the big one. Some systems are too chunky and require books/knowledge that is hard to obtain. I ptefer the Margaret Weis MSHRP system (out of print), but Champions might be too chunky. Most HeroMushers are okay with the consent system, but at the least there should be some dice resolution.

[Prototart]

Yeah I mean I personally don't really understand the appeal of having a ton of chars at the same time but apparently it's a huge appeal

I think an alt limit is totally rational and not something people's really fight but "you get just the one" would unfortunately just, like, totally hamstring you I bet

You would need to be pretty clear on alt-interaction rules and pretty consistent in upholding them in a setting with just Utopia and San Francisco tho

Edit: yeah so what @Ghost said way better and way more in detail

(I still don't like systems on FC super places tho)

[Tempest]

The problem is...

Okay. I app Illyana and Psylocke. Neither are 'starring cast members'. One's a ninja, one's a demonwitch. My friend apps Emma Frost and X-23. Okay, she got one starring cast member. One's a telepath/leader, the other's a melee murderbot.

Between the two of us, we just assfucked the number of "cool" available female FCs.

[Ghost]

Alt limits would be necessary. There's only so many mutants before youre forced to create an OC or play BEAK

If you love Beak? More power to you, but getting a roster of appable mutant FCs that would center on Utopia is key, and I think making sure people have a list of mutants to research and choose from to avoid defaulting to WTFBEAK would help.

[ZombieGenesis]

A lot of good stuff in this thread so far! I'm loving it and kind of getting excited. Here are some of my thoughts...

1: I really like the idea of "all mutants being available" in a non Year 1 setting. I'll have to look into that storyline.
2: I'm a big fan of using a system. I could have a FASERIP or Marvel Heroic system up in a few days.
3: Alts will be tricky and may come down to a limit (2 or 3) and staff making judgment calls on if a player can take a specific character based on their other alt(s).

Anyway, I'm heading home from work and will be playing The Division for a few hours but I'm anxious to check back later. Good talk everyone!

[Tempest]

There'd have to be some kind of 'tier' system or something. I don't know how it'd work other than eyeballing it, but like...

You can't let somebody take a 'highly sought after' character as an alt, IMO.

Like if you play Emma, your alt needs to be like...Mercury or Magma or something. ETA : I also think there'd need to be proven activity before giving an alt. Like goddamn, if you want an alt you can fucking prove you're going to play the character you already have.

Anyways. I'm totally okay with Marvel heroic as a 'reference' thing. IE you can do +sheet so and so and see their numbers and stuff for comparison. Not a fan of actually rolling stuff.

[Tempest]

@zombiegenesis said in X-Men Game:

My problem with no alts is that you're probably killing a game before it even gets started. When I opened my DC game I put a hold on alts and I literally had people tell me they'd be back when I open up my alt policy, that they weren't investing time in just one character. Just my experience.

I honestly can't get over this.

"Alts aren't open right now, but they will be later"
"WHAT THE FUCK YOU EXPECT ME TO PLAY ONLY ONE CHARACTER FOR NOW?"
"Uh...yeah..?"
"BYE!"

I can totally understand wanting an alt down the road.

You should not get multiple characters right off the bat.

Like...not even on a WoD game. You're just wasting app-staff's time, there.

[Prototart]

@zombiegenesis said in X-Men Game:

1: I really like the idea of "all mutants being available" in a non Year 1 setting. I'll have to look into that storyline.

Parts of it are less, like, absolutely canon and more me saying "you can extrapolate from this" and "change the ending of this"

So the nerd stuff:

There was an X-crossover called Necrosha where one of Selene's minions got ahold of the Techno-organic/Technarch virus or whatever and used it to resurrect, like, every mutant who's ever died and then sacrificed a bunch of them to become a goddess for maybe ten minutes before X-Force murdered the crap out of her. A New Mutant char (Cypher) came back to life, and it's hinted at the end that who knows how many actually went back to being dead - so you could just really easily say that, like, basically none of the ones who actually had names went back to being corpses

Second Coming's ANOTHER X-thing, and at the end of it, the bad guys put this giant energy shield/dome around SanFran and crazy powerful Sentinels start coming back in time to murder all the Mutants left since most are in that area and in particular really really really want to kill a kid named Hope. And at the very-the end of it Hope gets mimic-all-the-powers-around-her powers and kills the main bad guy and tears down the shield and then somehow new Mutants start to be born (but only like, seven until everything got derailed for AvX) - so just say "that's where our timeline splits" and, like... she just ends up with the Phoenix for a couple of minutes and kills the bad guy and tears down the shield THAT way, and then yes-more-mutantses.

So squish both of those together and tada you've got a canon game that didn't cutoff like 15 years ago, where people can do OC Mutants, and where everybody's more or less playable

[Wolfs]

I wouldn't have a problem with a no-alt policy for the first month or two of the game. That's more than enough time for interested people to app who they want as a primary character, then if they really want a second one they can see who's left. It should be open season by then.

As for activity, don't do some thing where you need to have a logged scene or whatever once every so many weeks. Figure out tiers, come up with reasonable activity levels for each, and have it go by the calendar month.

When it comes to proof of activity, leave out player voting. If someone's in a log beyond just a cameo (this might have to be checked, though), it counts.

Also, on a personal note I'd love an in-game logging system that automatically goes into a real-time log somewhere online, and I'd love some sort of pose code that separates each player's pose with something. These two things did make UH very convenient, and having a separator of some kind (along with, even, an identifier for whose pose it was) felt so much easier to follow a scene as it was going on.

[Prototart]

Also after/because of Second Coming the X-Men are officially superheroes for a while and Cyclops gets a Presidential Medal of Freedom for the X-Men having saved the city

But that was mostly in SF and it could change super super fast with Mutants being born again and a ton of people who were supposed to be Mutants now having powers - as soon as that happened big in the X-books they were back to building for-profit Mutant prisons and shit

[Ghost]

I agree with a temporary no alt policy

I dont think that most people would find unreasonable to be limited to 1 character for a few months to let the FC roster pan out. It would avoid a snatch and grab.

Last thing you want is within a week of the game opening to find out that only FUCKIN BEAK is available because everyone got greedy.

Let's be honest with ourselves. Being able to grab 2 ASAP would definitely result in people grabbing the best two ASAP that they could find so that no one else gets them first.

But if you have 20 players, that means FORTY FCs could disappear in the blink of an eye.

[scourge]

Just a suggestion but how about a 'temporary no second FC' type of policy? If people really want a second character so badly right out of the gate, make them create an OC if they already have an FC.

[Ghost]

So 2 chars total. Out of the gate you can take 1 FC and 1 OC?

That sounds reasonable to me. That should also sound reasonable to anyone who wants to support the player base in finding FCs to play from a community standpoint. It's fair.

[Wolfs]

That could also create a healthier FC/OC mix if it goes well. Some will just do one or the other, but some will try both.

ETA: not that there needs to be an in-game explanation for more mutants coming out of the woodwork in the case of new OCs, but the theme could potentially even deal with something happening that leads to a sudden boost in those with mutant powers. A mutagen of some kind, some villain doing a thing, just natural evolution, Sinister Gone Wild (don't forget the censor bar), etc.

[Ghost]

I'm gonna get my Destiny2 (Iron Banner, yo) on and then might start working in google drive on prospective mutant FC lists.

@ZombieGenesis do you really think you can code the Margaret Weis MSHRPG system into code? If so, ive got all the books and could probably turn out about 20+ FC +sheets in no time.

[BobGoblin]

Perhaps a suggestion regarding the Alts.

Allow players to have a "spoof" bit so they can multi scene with their one/two chars. I find for myself it isn't that I want more chars but when the opportunity presents to rp and I want to multiscene having that bit to do such with is needed. Offering a "bit" for such to skin over with the app or private char to be involved in more things might appease both sides to a degree.

[Wolfs]

@ghost My sympathies. From what I've seen, Iron Banner is full of players who are spawn-camping, and the token system for IB gear is a shitshow compared to how D1 handled it.

[Lotherio]

@ghost tons of faserip marvel canon stats done up ... Ben Reilly's mshrpg stat pages

[scourge]

There's always adapting the events of the Children's Crusade crossover to undo No More Mutants. Just a little tweak to say Scarlet Witch undid the spell wide-scale instead of just on Rictor.

And I'd really have to say a non-system/non-dice game would work a lot better.