[Paragon Chat] Roleplaying!

[Shadeknight]

Pfft. American time zones best zones

[LaughingAlex]

Alright alright alright.  Everyone stop, really.

Firstly, no one can really dictate the actions of others, really thats terrible roleplaying, we all know that.  Hell some of us know what that looks like taken to stereotype bad anime levels in CO.

Secondly, again, perspective matters.  Nothing stops someone from telling their own side of the story, and what has happened to them varies from person to person.  To some, the paragon city we go into in paragon chat is a new dimension thats identical to the old, to others, it's a temporally frozen place healing, to others it's the same dimension coming back to life and restoring itself.  All of those and others are FINE.  Because it's based on a different perspective.

No need to fight over this anyone.

[LaughingAlex]

And for the record, one reason so many people love the fire and ice book series, is because it's the perspectives of the characters that matters as much as whats actually happening and you don't always get the full truth of things happening.  Some characters lie, even.  It helps fuel the positive kinds of drama behind good story telling.

[Vr2Lrose]

I do not think  anyone  is trying to change other people's characters I think  some people are hoping  for an explanation to  be declared as "cannon"   for people who want a semi official story. 

this doesn't  force  everyone to use the "cannon"  story-line  especially in a world where cross dimensional transfers,  time/space travel  magic  super science  and pocket dimensions are all commonplace. people are free to make up their own version of events but some people really like "cannon" to fall back on or at least try to make their own version make sense with.

[FloatingFatMan]

Alright alright alright.  Stop everyone, really.

Firstly, no one can really dictate the actions of others, really thats terrible roleplaying, we all know that.  Hell some of us know what that looks like taken to stereotype bad anime levels in CO.

suggestion
noun
1.
an idea or plan put forward for consideration.
"here are some suggestions for tackling the problem"
synonyms:   proposal, proposition, motion, submission, recommendation;


No one is trying to force anyone to do anything. If you think they are, well, that's your issue.

[LaughingAlex]

suggestion
noun
1.
an idea or plan put forward for consideration.
"here are some suggestions for tackling the problem"
synonyms:   proposal, proposition, motion, submission, recommendation;


No one is trying to force anyone to do anything. If you think they are, well, that's your issue.

Wasn't suggesting that people were doing that floatingfatman.

[FloatingFatMan]

Wasn't suggesting that people were doing that floatingfatman.

No, you flat out stated it.

[Shadeknight]

Guuuuuuysssssssss.

pls. stop.

[Captain Electric]

Forgot I posted here. Wow lots of drama over some criticism.

So what did Pocket D look like this past weekend? I had a lot of weekend plans and wasn't able to get on. I would hope that when we're arguing at each other about the D, we're at least doing it over a packed interdimensional nightclub, not DJ Zero's bingo hall at last call.

[FloatingFatMan]

Aside from one dip who seemed to enjoyed shouting profanities every couple of seconds and being a complete douchenozzle to almost everyone, it was fine.

[Acanous]

My own main, Acanous, is a planeswalking keeper of reality with extradimensional senses. He is unaffected by temporal rearrangement (Like retcons) and "Sees" things (like the missing people) because most of him is outside of the dimension, and he carries a thin film of not-this-dimension with him. So if he mentions it, feel free to correct him.

In virute, this actually meant I was more active in open world RP than isolated groups. My other characters don't share this ability, or the causes for it.

[Rejolt]

I've remade my main in DCUO, CO, TSW and SWTOR. Her genetic code gets around...

[Vr2Lrose]

i ve remade my mains on TOR, WOW, Archeage, CO, STO, Neocron, WOD java chats, IRC ffrp, a doctor who amino.

but in my ic resoning my guild was based around an interdimentional portalship and we were friendly with 3-4 timelords and 1 super sayans.  so I could easilly play into anyone elses story ic.

[LaughingAlex]

No, you flat out stated it.

Where in "Firstly, no one can really dictate the actions of others, really thats terrible roleplaying, we all know that.  Hell some of us know what that looks like taken to stereotype bad anime levels in CO." did I say that any of you were doing that right here?

Secondly, here, where am I suggesting anyone is doing anything? 

"Secondly, again, perspective matters.  Nothing stops someone from telling their own side of the story, and what has happened to them varies from person to person.  To some, the paragon city we go into in paragon chat is a new dimension thats identical to the old, to others, it's a temporally frozen place healing, to others it's the same dimension coming back to life and restoring itself.  All of those and others are FINE.  Because it's based on a different perspective." ?

The last part?  Yeah I felt some people were fighting here, perhaps I misread.  Honestly I'm utterly annoyed someone would misread what I was saying here.

I only said, at the last sentence, no need to fight over anything here.

[Captain Electric]

My own main, Acanous, is a planeswalking keeper of reality with extradimensional senses. He is unaffected by temporal rearrangement (Like retcons) and "Sees" things (like the missing people) because most of him is outside of the dimension, and he carries a thin film of not-this-dimension with him. So if he mentions it, feel free to correct him.

In virute, this actually meant I was more active in open world RP than isolated groups. My other characters don't share this ability, or the causes for it.

My namesake character has a similar ability, as do several parallels of him. Some NPC characters in the game had this ability too. Montague Castanella "...has a unique ability. He is unaffected by temporal shifts. Somehow, his brain can perceive alterations within a timeline." Of course he didn't realize he had this ability until Ouroboros--who also have the ability to detect such shifts, merges, divergences--arrived and started adjusting the timeline.

And that, really I suppose, is why I was earlier trying (apparently in vain) to say that there really was never a "problem" here to begin with. The City of Heroes time stream is a malleable thing, and your character's perspective (as opposed to someone else's) might not depend on truth or lies at all, but simply who's done which content or who hasn't. So other player-characters having experienced a causality or causalities different from yours is in no way god modding, which was one of the mole hills put forth up-thread.

If it were god modding, some of the City of Heroes lore would not even have been possible, particularly with regard to Ouroboros and whether or not your characters or someone else's had done all of the arcs there. Furthermore, Pocket D's lore places it in its own space and DJ Zero commands doorways to many other realities, as mentioned in Zero's Redcap arc. On top of this, a lot of players had really zany ideas about the experiences of their characters and where those experiences placed them on the world stage--it wasn't exactly the kind of game that discouraged that.

I'll say this more diplomatically. I really never saw the problem here, or at least, I don't see any circumstances that didn't already exist in some form prior to the shutdown. Our ability to imaginatively reconcile our creative differences is what makes us better at sharing public (and imaginary) spaces. When you're dealing with MMO pretendy fun realms, there are some imperfections that come with the package and we're fortunate that City of Heroes has a kind of built-in plot gimmick to smooth them out. The compromises we have to make to help that along aren't tremendous like they might be in other shared RP spaces. Everyone has a lot of space to tell their own story alongside others, and so I don't think I'd ever agree to any suggestion that implied players should limit themselves creatively in a beloved public space. I don't believe their creative expression is problematic in the least, and so I don't agree that the suggested limits above would be doing it better.

[Captain Electric]

Also: bear in mind, lacking any artificial creative barriers and unnecessary self-censorship, like-minded groups will emerge more naturally (such as characters realizing they're from the same or similar worlds). That's an interesting dynamic. It's always more interesting when you take the roleplay where it goes naturally. That can only occur in a shared space where player-characters are at least open to hearing each other's diverse tales. Believing them or not is an IC thing, but players shouldn't censor their characters any more than it would be in the character's personality to (Edit: Within the TOS, of course ). Players should feel free to express themselves, and, like I point out above, I see no reason why that should cause grief for others around them. The gimmick is there to support suspension of disbelief between alternate realities if you pay attention to the lore, and Pocket D sits right at the center of that gimmick. It always has. It's not some bar down the street, and was never written to be.

[Centershock]

Also: bear in mind, lacking any artificial creative barriers and unnecessary self-censorship, like-minded groups will emerge more naturally (such as characters realizing they're from the same or similar worlds). That's an interesting dynamic. It's always more interesting when you take the roleplay where it goes naturally. That can only occur in a shared space where player-characters are at least open to hearing each other's diverse tales. Believing them or not is an IC thing, but players shouldn't censor their characters any more than it would be in the character's personality to (Edit: Within the TOS, of course ). Players should feel free to express themselves, and, like I point out above, I see no reason why that should cause grief for others around them. The gimmick is there to support suspension of disbelief between alternate realities if you pay attention to the lore, and Pocket D sits right at the center of that gimmick. It always has. It's not some bar down the street, and was never written to be.

^ This, right here.

I've been in and out of Paragon Chat and I've purposefully made it so that my characters left Paragon City before shutdown so they could have some kind of life elsewhere. Now that we have an outlet for this, they can slowly come back and at least see what has happened. So I guess you can count me in among those in which time actually passed by. They were just elsewhere.

And honestly, inter-dimensional threads and universes joining together is a common comic book trope/plot device. It is done at some point (/stares at DC Comics) and it's perfectly acceptable. At least I think it's perfectly acceptable. So we should all feel free to have our characters talk about it (what happened in their 'universe' per say). I believe it makes for great roleplay.

[Lycantropus]

In this case I'd go with the "all of it is true" mindset.

If time passed for the character, it did. If there was something that happened to their world, it did. If someone's character is now 'powerless' because of the dimensional shift, then it happened, and if this is the universe your character was always in and nothing has happened and still have all your powers... why not?

To me, at least, I could easily brush it aside as "Wow, something serious went down in some other dimensions. Glad it didn't happen to mine!" or "Wow, something crazy happened in other dimensions too?!" Some people referred to switching servers as 'dimensional hopping' (and as I had Lyc's on different servers, they had different powersets and slightly different backgrounds...)

Instead of being 'distracted' by it, why not try and incorporate it into roleplay?

Serious Swan is friends with Duck of Delights. They played together on the same server back in the day... they come here. SS wants to roleplay that the world ended, there was darkness, and now she appeared here, no idea why. DD wants to ignore that ever happened, so this is their world and nothing has changed. When they meet, they know each other, but quickly realize they aren't the same friends from the same dimension, even though they're exactly alike.

So many RP opportunities for discussing what they think happened to their respective friends from their dimensions, and where they may be... finding their friendship again, and if it's the same even though technically neither of them are different from the ones they knew. (maybe it'll give them opportunities to change little aspects of their character that they may have decided they didn't like, but didn't want to change at the time)

Putting together the pieces as to what happened to whom could be a big server-wide RP event in and of itself. I never did much of the Pocket D style of roleplay back in the day, but it sounds like a lot of collaborative storytelling... This could be another angle to explore.

*shrug* could be fun.

Lyc~

[FloatingFatMan]

And then you get 2 folks with wildly different stories, both from Primal Earth.

[AudreyWinter]

And then you get 2 folks with wildly different stories, both from Primal Earth.

I think where we disagree is that you see this as a problem, where I, at least, see it as standard operating procedure.