@three-eyed-crow
My persona favorite recasting is a rather recent one on GH, James Franco was such a genius at being evil Franco, but I don't think he could pull off borderline crazy but trying to be good Franco as well as Roger Howarth does.
the only time I ever hated a re-cast was when Michael Zaslow left Guiding Light, for me he will always be the one and only Roger Thorpe.
@thatguythere said in Rosters: To PB or Not To PB?:
I think I might be the only soap opera fan on the board, through that i have gotten used to re-casting of roles.
See, I view soap opera recasting as a necessary evil to ensure that storylines don’t get derailed just because an actor decided to move on. The MU equivalent to that is getting a new player for a character. There’s no need to change the PB in the process; it’s just a digital image.
I think I'd rather not have a PB at all vs. staff picking one for me or not otherwise having some ability to change it later.
For me, PBs are kind of malleable anyway. I try to pick out either random photos of non-famous people or people if they have some amount of fameballery its not necessarily high profile in North America. I take them as suggestions and not really gospel so highly famous PBs in any scenario kinda clashes with how my imagination is processing things.
I do use the soap opera thing as a general analogy for roster characters pretty often, when talking to players. For people very uncomfortable with playing a roster character, often they hate the idea of not living up to others' ideal of what the character should be, or being a close enough interpretation to a previous player. Talking about the whole different actor taking on the same role helps a lot of people be reassured about that, particularly when most other players are willing to roll with anything jarring to immersion when someone just has a different take on a character.
I personally see PBs as being interpretive, so I lean towards letting people change them, but I can understand other games that see them as a more hard definition and wouldn't want them changed.
@gangofdolls I actually kind of prefer non-super-famous PBs too, or at least relatively unrecognizable pictures of super-famous PBs. I am, however, also a hypocrite on this and frequently use Chris Pine and Chadwick Boseman as PBs and have used Bruce Willis and Vin Diesel in the past.
The only PB I like is the stuff on the spoon. Say no to PBs!
Almond butter. Stuff is like crack.
Warning: snappy turtle is snappy.
Creating the world of Aesca.
@bananerz said in Rosters: To PB or Not To PB?:
@shincashay said in Rosters: To PB or Not To PB?:
Almond butter. Stuff is like crack.
Or Nutella.
Nutella and chocolate cups.
@kanye-qwest To be fair, they have a natural disadvantage here.
Most people are spared the public sharing of that particular look. It is... well, ^ that's about right in almost everybody's case.
Sometimes when I write up a roster character I have a PB in my head so hard that I feel compelled to have it added to the character's page.
However, once a character is officially on roster, I make a point of becoming Elsa, and let it go. If someone wants to change the PB, well, it's their character now, and they can do what they like!
I find that with PBs, folks tend to have preconceived ideas as to the characters based on that PB, you see the same PBs across multiple games, people getting very precious about said PB (but it'll wreck immersion if we have 2!). TBH, you probably don't have the rights to use that image and likeness either, but that's something entirely different. Imagine though complete strangers taking your image and likeness, plastering it across the internet in weird text fantasies. You probably wouldn't like it, and it probably isn't treating them like you'd want to be treated.
This is a fantasy fun time, I get it. But ultimately it's a text game, and personally I wouldn't mind a game without PBs so I focus more on the text of the game. Or, I should use historically accurate public domain images.
I'm guilty of all the above. I'm going to change. No more.
Warning: snappy turtle is snappy.
Creating the world of Aesca.
@bananerz said in Rosters: To PB or Not To PB?:
I'm guilty of all the above. I'm going to change. No more.
I used to use artwork for PBs. I was told that was weird.
It's all weird, dammit. Why is that hard to grasp? 
@arkandel I just deleted my few images. Bye! There's one original artwork still on the character.
And yes, it's all weird. Very skeevy when you think about strangers using your photo/name for some undead werewolf slash game.
Warning: snappy turtle is snappy.
Creating the world of Aesca.
@bananerz said in Rosters: To PB or Not To PB?:
Very skeevy when you think about strangers using your photo/name for some undead werewolf slash game.
For a random person, sure. But for an actor? That doesn't strike me as skeevy at all. "Dream casts" are a pretty commonly-accepted thing - even so far as to be officially supported on IMDB. To say nothing of all the celebrity memes. Yes, technically it's a copyright violation - but most MUSHes are a walking copyright violation of rules and/or setting anyway, so this seems like a weird place to draw a hard line in the sand. I view it as free publicity for the actor so I don't feel too guilty about it. (There have actually been times where I've been all: "Who's that?" and looked somebody up that I otherwise wouldn't have.)
It is skeevy. You're using an image of a living person in a way they haven't accepted or approved.
To put it in another way, would you be fine with your image being used by strangers with no control, perhaps in ways that truly go counter to your own personal beliefs?
Just because someone is in the public doesn't mean you have a right.
Warning: snappy turtle is snappy.
Creating the world of Aesca.
@bananerz said in Rosters: To PB or Not To PB?:
Just because someone is in the public doesn't mean you have a right.
I never said I had a 'right' to do it - I said it was a pretty commonly-accepted practice. Nobody has a 'right' to do fanfic either. Some authors are pissed off by it, but others see it as a flattering homage. YMMV. If you think it's skeevy, that's your prerogative. I respectfully disagree.
@bananerz said in Rosters: To PB or Not To PB?:
people getting very precious about said PB (but it'll wreck immersion if we have 2!).
This gets me, how small of a world to people live in to not run into folks that look like each other, not even counting those that were related my rather my HS class has two guys that looked close enough to be brothers but were not related at all. Both in college and in a past job I have had friends that looked close enough to me (poor bastards) that people thought we were brothers though neither were related in any way. Hell on the ex co-worker one he sent me a Christmas card this last year and there was picture of him and his family inside I tossed the card but save the pic and it was laying on my living room table about a month ago, my own mother asked me who I was in the picture with and I looked at it and gave the answer and said I don't remember ever being in a picture with them though, then i realized I wasn't and it was the former co-worker.
People can look like each other sometimes very closely that shouldn't break immersion because if anything it is more believable than everyone looking distinct.
@bananerz said in Rosters: To PB or Not To PB?:
would you be fine with your image being used by strangers with no control, perhaps in ways that truly go counter to your own personal beliefs?
I mean, as long as they aren't claiming to be me or that whatever they're doing is also my belief/intent/whatever then there's no real problem.
The problem with image copyrights comes when they're used to promote or sell things--because then you're implying the person whose image it is is in favor of you buying/acquiring/making use of something.
I mean, would I be made mildly uncomfortable? Probably, because that's a gut reaction. But if I stop and think about it logically, it's not really something ethically or morally problematic, IMO.
