[Interest Check] Super Humans

[Okami]

Alright, this isn't really an interest check for a role play, it's an interest check of a concept.

Autumn is one of my favorite times of year, I like being cold more than being hot, the plants I'm allergic to go dormant, the trees are really pretty, and my superhero TV shows come back.

Arrow, The Flash, Agents of SHIELD, Supergirl, Legends of Tomorrow, those shows. They're fun to watch because of the action and recognizing older/more obscure characters from the comics.

Anyway (why do my paragraphs keep starting with "A"?), as I was walking my dog I got to thinking, the writing forum I use to go on had a lot of super human role plays that were usually really fun, a lot of the community were big Marvel or DC fans.

Now onto my question, would you guys be interested in a super human roleplay? What I'm imagining is OCs, fan characters, or canon characters from different companies could be used. I call it "super human" because it wouldn't just be superheroes, you could be a villain too, any villain as long as (s)he hasn't been taken yet.

I don't have a plot down yet but I do a basic world and a few original "guilds" or organizations. Depending on what characters join I could also include ones from the comic like The Justice League if necessary.

But like I said, I'm not doing anything else with it unless you guys are interested.

I can't wait to hear your thoughts!

[K_H]

I've done something like this before.

In fact, it was one of the first RPs that I participated in.

Go for this idea; it's an awesome one!

[Chevaleresse]

i would ban canon characters, personally, though expies that aren't explicitly the original character would be ok. I'd also come up with a setting that had the freedom to allow a lot of the crazy over the top stuff rather than just trying to jam characters from different canons together (unless it's explicitly a multiverse RP, which is cool too.)

[Felicity]

Warning

Powers can get fucky. It takes a dedicated host to keep track of every characters capabilities as well as the standard challenges of hosting an RP. If you're up for it, I wish you the best.

[Okami]

i would ban canon characters, personally, though expies that aren't explicitly the original character would be ok. I'd also come up with a setting that had the freedom to allow a lot of the crazy over the top stuff rather than just trying to jam characters from different canons together (unless it's explicitly a multiverse RP, which is cool too.)

Yeah, so far the only thing the world I was thinking of has is a giant city with different divisions that doesn't even have a name yet. I would probably say it's gonna be a multi verse superhero roleplay as the last time I did one of those I was playing as a Gijinka of Ninetails from Okami who was trying to kill The Joker as he irritated her... A lot. It was chaotic and fun.

I'm not sure how to quote multiple people so Dobby, I would probably have a Google Doc that has everyone's powers/weaknesses and their character outlines for anyone to view but only I can edit.

Edited October 15, 2016 by Okami

[Combat]

I'm with Adamance in it might be better to try to keep canon characters out of it. As awesome as someone like Dog Welder is, canon characters might start to out shine and OCs in a RP, which can be a little rocky. A show stopper character tends to be great on their own, but when combined with other show stopper characters causes hell to break loose.

(By the way, you press multiquote on the quotes you want to talk about, and after gathering them, you press reply to _ quotes.)

Edited October 15, 2016 by Combat Medic

[K_H]

The Google Docs thing seems like the best idea to me.

[Okami]

Alright, I think I may start toying with a layout for Google Docs. I think I'll keep cannon characters (fan characters would be fine like if you're a Flash fan and want to use your own Meta Human) to a minimum unless someone really REALLY wants someone.

What do you guys think about having different organizations? It would be like the D&D alignment system with lawful goods, lawful evils, and so on. The chaotic neutrals could have one but it would probably be just like three guys in a tree house discussing what to do. Like a clubhouse, but with god like humans.

[Chevaleresse]

I would imagine there'd be a few organizations on all sides.

[Okami]

This is what I have so far, it's pretty basic but it's late here and I'm sleepy and should go to bed.

Let me know what you guys think and feel free to suggest stuff, it's a very big WIP so new stuff will be easily added.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/14OVBbR_dWGM6bAItyLRodNGw1_ZdeiC5kSebdDZg3PU/edit?usp=sharing

It should be available for anyone to view.

[K_H]

That video you hid is quite adorable.

[Sutoratosu]

I'll bite onto this, for now. I've already got some idea of what to do for an OC...

but word of warning, this won't be easy. Like, at all buddy. Superhuman RPs of the "Heroes and Villains" flavor do not have a track record of surviving very long on this forum, with the most recent one to fail being The Awakened by mah boi Flux a few years back. Like Dobby said, powers tend to get fucky, and even with a public G-doc, you're still gonna have to monitor things very closely from the background to keep stuff in hand, or set up some set of mechanics like stats to govern combat and various interactions, and as Murdoc and Combat Medic point out, it's extremely easy for canon Heroes to very quickly outshine OCs and the like due to the vast myriad of feats most of them have to their name in their own universes, I mean hell, Flash alone, even though one would only assume him for superspeed (Which is a gross oversimplification of how Comic Book Flash's powers work, btw) and nothing else at a glance, has accomplished feats of such high magnitude as making the very flow of time itself his bitch at multiple points and interfering with the past, present, and future using his abilities. Hence, it's not a matter of if, but when such a thing will happen if they aren't outright banned.

then you have on top of all that, Reborn's standard issue of people not taking enough initiative on their own, which in a presumably open world form setting like this... causes a fuck ton of problems right off the bat.

In the end, I say go for it if you have confidence in your hosting skills, but just know what exactly you'll be getting yourself into trying to do this on this particular subforum

[K_H]

I'll bite onto this, for now. I've already got some idea of what to do for an OC...

but word of warning, this won't be easy. Like, at all buddy. Superhuman RPs of the "Heroes and Villains" flavor do not have a track record of surviving very long on this forum, with the most recent one to fail being The Awakened by mah boi Flux a few years back. Like Dobby said, powers tend to get fucky, and you're gonna have to monitor things very closely from the background to keep stuff in hand, or set up some set of mechanics like stats to govern combat and various interactions, and as Murdoc and Combat Medic point out, it's extremely easy for canon Heroes to very quickly outshine OCs and the like due to the vast myriad of feats most of them have to their name in their own universes, I mean hell, Flash alone, even though one would only assume him for superspeed (Which is a gross oversimplification of how Comic Book Flash's powers work, btw) and nothing else at a glance, has accomplished feats of such high magnitude as making the very flow of time itself his bitch at multiple points and interfering with the past, present, and future using his abilities. Hence, it's not a matter of if, but when such a thing will happen if they aren't outright banned.

then you have on top of all that, Reborn's standard issue of people not taking enough initiative on their own, which in a presumably open world form setting like this... causes a fuck ton of problems right off the bat.

In the end, I say go for it if you have confidence in your hosting skills, but just know what exactly you'll be getting yourself into trying to do this on this particular subforum

*clears throat and points to the ongoing "Lightgivers" RP*

I believe you forgot about this one, Strat. It's still alive.

Edited October 16, 2016 by K_H

[Sutoratosu]

*clears throat and points to the ongoing "Lightgivers" RP*

I believe you forgot about this one, Strat. It's still alive.

I didn't forget it. Lightgivers does not match the "Super Heroes & Villains" formatting of traditional comics and other media given the fact that by default, Lightgivers are supposed to, on paper, universally be on the side of good and the Correators are highly selective about who they grant the power to in the first place, and in actual practice functions more like the Jedi and Sith alignments of the force from starwars in that while many LGs stay on the side of good as intended, some are drawn into less dubious paths and embrace baser emotions such as greed, pride, and self-service and turn on the very beings who gifted them their abilities in the first place.

Not only that, but Lightgivers system is primarily magic-based, and while true, some superheroes and villains do function off of Magic and supernatural anomalies, such as Hellboy, Scarlet Witch, Dr. Fate, Zatana, etc., the vast majority of traditional Superheroes one thinks of, such as Spider Man, Superman, Captain America, began as outlandish 50s sci-fi origin stories such as being bitten by radioactive spiders and developing anything other than a nasty case of cancer, being an extraterrestrial hailing from a different planet altogether, or being experimented on by your country in the name of creating the ultimate super soldier to defend democracy and freedom across the globe. Put together, all these mingled Sci-fi and Supernatural (as well as elements from other genre, such as horror) backstories combine in a single multiverse to create what is known as "The Kitchen Sink."

Ergo, I did not include primarily Magic Abilities RPs like Brailen's Gifted, Lightgivers, etc because compared to The Awakened, they deviate too far from the traditional format; rather than mixing Sci-fi and fantasy together into a Kitchen Sink Sci-Fantasy, they remain almost totally fantasy-based, shown by the fact that LG takes inspiration alot more from the Force in Star Wars and Semblances in RWBY than the power systems present in DC or Marvel. Plus, I wouldn't point to that one if I were you, it's barely a month or two old, and already it's starting to stall and run out of steam... so even if you consider it's inclusion to this valid, you're only helping to further the fair warning I'm trying to give Okami about what she'd be getting into around here.

[K_H]

I didn't forget it. Lightgivers does not match the "Super Heroes & Villains" formatting of traditional comics and other media given the fact that by default, Lightgivers are supposed to, on paper, universally be on the side of good and the Correators are highly selective about who they grant the power to in the first place, and in actual practice functions more like the Jedi and Sith alignments of the force from starwars in that while many LGs stay on the side of good as intended, some are drawn into less dubious paths and embrace baser emotions such as greed, pride, and self-service and turn on the very beings who gifted them their abilities in the first place.

Not only that, but Lightgivers system is primarily magic-based, and while true, some superheroes and villains do function off of Magic and supernatural anomalies, such as Hellboy, Scarlet Witch, Dr. Fate, Zatana, etc., the vast majority of traditional Superheroes one thinks of, such as Spider Man, Superman, Captain America, began as outlandish 50s sci-fi origin stories such as being bitten by radioactive spiders and developing anything other than a nasty case of cancer, being an extraterrestrial hailing from a different planet altogether, or being experimented on by your country in the name of creating the ultimate super soldier to defend democracy and freedom across the globe. Put together, all these mingled Sci-fi and Supernatural (as well as elements from other genre, such as horror) backstories combine in a single multiverse to create what is known as "The Kitchen Sink."

Ergo, I did not include primarily Magic Abilities RPs like Brailen's Gifted, Lightgivers, etc because compared to The Awakened, they deviate too far from the traditional format; rather than mixing Sci-fi and fantasy together into a Kitchen Sink Sci-Fantasy, they remain almost totally fantasy-based, shown by the fact that LG takes inspiration alot more from the Force in Star Wars and Semblances in RWBY than the power systems present in DC or Marvel. Plus, I wouldn't point to that one if I were you, it's barely a month or two old, and already it's starting to stall and run out of steam... so even if you consider it's inclusion to this valid, you're only helping to further the fair warning I'm trying to give Okami about what she'd be getting into around here.

Thank you for clarifying what you meant.

[Okami]

In the end, I say go for it if you have confidence in your hosting skills, but just know what exactly you'll be getting yourself into trying to do this on this particular subforum

Plus, I wouldn't point to that one if I were you, it's barely a month or two old, and already it's starting to stall and run out of steam... so even if you consider it's inclusion to this valid, you're only helping to further the fair warning I'm trying to give Okami about what she'd be getting into around here.

Thanks for the warning, it'll probably be hard as this will be the first roleplay I host but if it succeeds I have a feeling it will be really satisfying to watch develop and if it doesn't I have more pointers on how to make a successful one.

And wow, it's stalling after a month or so? Where I come from if a roleplay lasted a WEEK it was considered super old and successful.

Since school isn't really busy as of now I'll sink my teeth into this and get to work on finishing up my concept.

[Code: PIRULUK]

Is your idea more Marvel/DC-influenced or WORM-influenced?

Also, what's your scale? Small-scale or world-level? Superhero stories are usually one or the other - world-level lets you bring in bigger badder enemies while small-scale lets you focus more on things like morality and justice. Anything in between doesn't really work, in my experience. If you're going world-level, you're going to need to put in much more effort into worldbuilding and setting development, but if you're going small-scale, you'll need to do more work in character development to make NPCs which are worth interacting with.

[Sutoratosu]

And wow, it's stalling after a month or so? Where I come from if a roleplay lasted a WEEK it was considered super old and successful.

Yeah, see, around here, we uh... we got a rather peculiar cycle going on. We don't have rapid-fire, new RPs popping up every other week like some places due to our much smaller community compared to a dedicated site.

Rather, we have a Nursery Ward and a Life Support Ward; the RPs that make it past the birthing stage (Interests checks like this), and survive their time in the Nursery (OOC creation, Character rolling, First Chapter) almost always go on to be admitted into the LSW due to old age... few recover at that stage, most succumb to the decay of time. We've had some RPs that have died before they got off the ground, but alot more that for a time at least, were somewhat successful before old age caught up with them and their bodies gradually shut down.

Not a pretty situation or analogy, I know, but it describes Reborn's RP cycle more aptly than any other way I can think of.

Anyways, if ya need any help, there are plenty of people you can ask, such as Myself, Murdoc, Hukuna, etc., and answering questions like the ones Acquie is asking will certainly help you flesh this out and advertise what your overall vision and plan for it is as well

[Code: PIRULUK]

Reminder that most of those that go from reasonably successful to dead are usually due to the host getting lazy/busy/disillusioned

Looks at Aftermath and Idols and cries

[Okami]

Is your idea more Marvel/DC-influenced or WORM-influenced?

Also, what's your scale? Small-scale or world-level? Superhero stories are usually one or the other - world-level lets you bring in bigger badder enemies while small-scale lets you focus more on things like morality and justice. Anything in between doesn't really work, in my experience. If you're going world-level, you're going to need to put in much more effort into worldbuilding and setting development, but if you're going small-scale, you'll need to do more work in character development to make NPCs which are worth interacting with.

I actually don't know what WORM is but as I grew up with a major comic book fan as a father and the shows and movies I'd be comfortable with saying Marvel and DC are my inspiration.

As for a scale, that's a bit tough. I've never actually had to think about that before, originally Born Different (my original idea for a title) was going to take place on a relativly small island nation run by the UN known as "Land of the People" or LoP (because I'm bad with acronyms and names). It would have a major city capital with suburbs, farm land, and all the other common features of a nation. But as you said, anything between small and large don't really work so I'm a little hesitant to keep this idea.

[Code: PIRULUK]

An island nation can work, it's along the lines of the small-scale. The main characteristics of being small-scale are that a) generally all the heroes know each other, generally your villains aren't all that powerful, c) you'd need to manage public opinion of the heroes along with the heroes' duties, d) international politics aren't a thing, though local business politicking is, e) your heroes will spend more time doing things like stopping everyday crime than they will fighting off megavillains. The culmination of all of the above is a narrative that has its greatest strength in its moral ambiguity: without a costumed alien swinging meteors everywhere, all you're left with is small-time thieves/murderers, and all of them have their own personal backstories, which means there's less of a clear-cut "bad guy". The onus then falls on the host to manage these backstories and NPC interactions. Both ways will require a lot of work, so make sure you know what you're getting yourself into.