[Paragon Chat] Roleplaying!

[Captain Electric]

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

Or as Wolverine would say, just another Tuesday in Pocket D, bub.

[Zombie Hustler]

Or as Wolverine would say, just another Tuesday in Pocket D, bub.

Yes. If it isn't a problem for Wolverine to be in multiple places simultaneously in his own universe, then this, too, shall pass.

[General Idiot]

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

And how many Primal Earths are there? Sixteen, at last count. Seventeen, if you count this separately from the original live servers.
Alternately, time travel shenanigans could've happened. Or any other of a pile of different reasons two people from the same place originally might have different stories.

[Shadeknight]

I'm going to plug here, as this may be of interest to people.

http://bit.ly/1gRbBOF

I'll have a proper thread up this weekend.

[AudreyWinter]

Here's my take on it. Feel free to ignore me -- most do.

It was a combination of things that ultimately led to this portion of the multiverse collapsing in on itself. The constant tunnelling of Portal Corporation and other groups and individuals riddled the fabric of the multiverse with weak points. The upswing in Incarnate activity, the approach of the Battalion, the scheming (and, in fact, the defeat) of Emperor Cole -- all of it pushed, pulled and tore at reality.

The death of Statesman was the beginning of the end. It sent a shockwave through the local multiverse, and the weakened fabric simply could not hold any longer. It began to unravel. Reality started to fall apart. Fraying from the edges inward, it closed in on Paragon City in multiple parallel universes. Those who saw it coming fled, taking what and whom they could with them. Those who did not see, or refused to acknowledge the coming darkness, barely had time to notice anything was wrong on that final night. Reality tore completely, spilling countless souls into utter void. Sentient minds had no way to conceptualize the experience. All went dark. The multiverse flowed around the sudden hole where the Paragon Cities had been.

Those who escaped had varying experiences depending on the method and timing of their escape. Some remembered everything. Others insisted Paragon City was just down the highway and that nothing had happened. Life went on for all of them.

A timeless time later, though, somewhere in the void... a power took hold. Scattered scraps, memories and souls began to gravitate together. Bound by their likeness they merged. Paragon City -- a Paragon City fused from the many, E pluribus unum -- burst into being in the middle of the void, and the souls who had been spilled into the emptiness awoke once more.

Most of them had no idea anything had happened. One moment bled into the next for them. But others who had escaped the "end" returned with experiences of their own. Some speak now of a terrible collapse. Others speak of time passing in other places. Yet others speak as if none of that makes any sense to them. They are all true.

Paragon City lives.

[Shadeknight]

I like that take on it, Audrey.

[gammagirl]

That one is pretty awesome

[Lycantropus]

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

And in the 2 to 15 other folks that say the same thing, with wildly different stories from their own "Primal Earth" they quickly realize they aren't the first ones to label themselves "Primal Earth"

The 'spirit' of such Online Co-Op roleplay, I think... through lack of experience (though discussing the concept with my son who does), is accepting each other's truths and incorporating them into the 'mutual story each person is telling' to each other. Okay, that means there's more than one 'Primal Earth' at least to them. There's no 'rule' saying that any given 'Primal Earth's' claim to the title makes it any more or less so.

@AudryWinter, that's a great suggestion, and play as much a role as anything else. If folks are 'freeform' RP'ing then I would think a high degree of flexibility in at least this regard should trump individual viewpoints (even if it's 'true' to that character) in much the same way in tabletop dice-rolling games allow for a player to come back in with someone who should be totally untrustworthy being accepted into the group because their previous character died for some reason.

(more within my realm of experience) More than once in my tabletop games, there's a nasty 'suspension of disbelief' because everyone knows it's a player re-integrating into the group because their previous character died because of bad decisions or bad combat rolls, but accept it because spending X amount of game sessions of that player's character gaining the trust of the group would ultimately detract from the overall story, or there'd be no reasonable logic to accept the character in the first place... again, this is all the players working together to get back to the story, rather than dither over details.

'Everything is true' or 'accepting at face value' to move the story along to the actual point is a mechanic used by writers and storytellers to progress the actual 'meat' of a story and has probably been used since before written words.

I also think it honors the vision of the City story-wise. There was a lot of great 'meta' to draw from, but even the Dev's official news and short story compilations included alternate reality folks.

...at the end of the day, if the multitude of views irritate you, express it through your character. Many realities just suffered an apocalypse and its survivors are now on your doorstep, some resembling friends you knew (and disappeared suddenly, but these seem to be just like them... or not... GO!)

(and looking at the clock I realize I REALLY need to go to bed!)

Don't look at it as a break in immersion, look at it as a chance to explore something different from your character's point of view.

Lyc~

[Mistress Bloodwrath]

Yeah.... I'm up for RP, once I get everything situated here.

However, I will be one of those players whose characters will insist that nothing happened. At all. And as for CO? That's just Earth 2, while this is Earth 1. Same characters, but slightly different in each game.

[Eventine01]

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

This.

The essence here is the same thing as how things worked prior to City of Heroes shutting down. Everyone will have their take, ICly, OOCly, whatever. Not everyone's takes will get along.

However, if you're telling someone outright, OOCly, that their take is wrong, that player and character is not obligated to RP with you. Just like when the game was still running, everyone has to work to make themselves and their characters desirable to RP with, because RP is a voluntary thing. You cannot force a player or character to RP with you. You can only persuade them.

Naturally, SGs will emerge where like-minded people will agree on some sort of canon. That's already happened with some people. But there's no way you're going to be able to boss everyone around and tell them "do THIS or else," or you'll just convince them to avoid you and ignore you, if not persuade them to leave the community altogether.

TL;DR, be flexible and roll with the blows.

[FloatingFatMan]

No one is trying to tell anyone else what to do, it was merely a suggestion that we attempt to come up with some kind of mutually agreed consensus, or just not mention it at all. A suggestion that has passed now as people are just getting on with things and winging it as they come.

[mdlittle]

Well...,

 - The problem with 'mutual consensus' is that with some characters (like gravity controllers, teleporters, phase shifters, time manipulators or those who can tap into other dimensional energies like the nether realm) mutual consensus really isn't a factor that's inherent in their equations. It's kind of hard to nail down consensus with characters who can, quite literally, sidestep the whole issue. With that said, it's quite possible for x amount of time to have actually passed...for them, but no immediate change is noticed by the others. One of my characters would most certainly feel that x amount of time has passed, but then again...he's a dimension hoping wizard, so it's not unheard of that some spell-slinger returns with tales so far-fetched, it's simpler to just consider them slightly addled to completely insane. Needless to say, this is why he's not overwhelmingly social...

"If only you have seen what I have seen..." 

[FloatingFatMan]

The mutual consensus was for players, not characters, but it really doesn't matter any more.

[santander1]

I do! (on request)

You would.  ^_^

 (Hi there)

[Lord Nightmare]

My personal take is that of a legendarily amazing campaign from ADnD known as THE APOCALYPSE STONE.

The gist is that the players, no matter their true intentions, basically take the seed of existence from its resting place which has the same effect as removing the toothpick from the Cheeseburger of Reality. No one but the Gods, the one who contracted them to do this, and the players know exactly what caused the end of times and the players race to retrieve the Stone and return it to its rightful place. However, you always get there too late and the planes of existence have spread apart so much that the prime material plane (IE: Earth) suffers and is utterly destroyed.

For Primal Earth, our version of "The Stone" could be less a physical object and more of an event or being. The events of "Who Will Die" are a perfect candidate and could actually be our catalyst. Events that SHOULD NOT have happened did happen, and so the powers that be and the universe itself had to do the unthinkable and reset back to a time before this occurred. As it geared up to do this monumental feat, portals stopped working, any communications between other dimensions ceased to be, people were trapped with no idea what was going on and what to do, and so the material worlds began undergoing a cataclysm of biblical proportions. Old Testament, real "Wrath of God" type stuff. Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling! Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes! The dead rising from the grave! Human sacrifice! Dogs and cats, living together! Mass hysteria!!!!

And in the final moments, the world just stops. Frozen in time. Praetoria, Primal Earth, Croatoa, Pocket D, Ouroboros.. all are just stuck as they were. The universe prepares, it slowly works things back to before things went bad, and does what it can to prevent this from happening.

And that's where we come in. We've reset back to before that godforsaken Obelisk was found, and it has ceased to be. Everyone goes on with their normal lives, as if nothing had happened. But some feel this strange sensation, an inability to shake the idea that yesterday wasn't how they remember.

[Hazukichan]

No one is trying to tell anyone else what to do, it was merely a suggestion that we attempt to come up with some kind of mutually agreed consensus, or just not mention it at all. A suggestion that has passed now as people are just getting on with things and winging it as they come.

I will admit I only read the first and last posts in this thread, but I still think your initial suggestion has merit. The world is simply more interesting if we infer that people are still going about their lives and getting into peril, heroes still have things to do and evildoers of all the good old flavors to thwart. I've been playing it mostly that way -perhaps with a mysterious lull in things around the launch of ParaChat, but since then it seems to have narratively picked up again- and it just doesn't make a lot of sense to me to go "welp, the city's all empty and nothing's going on... so uh... that's boring" when we could be collaboratively imagining and portraying virtually anything, from minor scuffles with ganger punks to excessively epic galactic-level crises... which was always kind of this game's strength on the RP field, no?

So I would suggest we who find this notion appealing, do indeed go on and enjoy the game and its roleplay-scape that way; if others disagree and insist on being very loud about it, then we can move elsewhere in the world, or ask them if there's some reasonable compromise to be made, or -if there is a critical difference in opinion and conduct compatibility- ignorelist them rather than argue and both get upset and/or bother all of the other people present. I try not to overuse ignore -it's a powerful tool, and so demands responsibility- but better to use it than endure persistent person-to-person friction and potential loss of motivation to come online any more at all, I think? I mean, two people who don't see each other might still contribute to the overall community in their own ways.

[Nyghtshade]

Here's my take on it. Feel free to ignore me -- most do.

It was a combination of things that ultimately led to this portion of the multiverse collapsing in on itself. The constant tunnelling of Portal Corporation and other groups and individuals riddled the fabric of the multiverse with weak points. The upswing in Incarnate activity, the approach of the Battalion, the scheming (and, in fact, the defeat) of Emperor Cole -- all of it pushed, pulled and tore at reality.

The death of Statesman was the beginning of the end. It sent a shockwave through the local multiverse, and the weakened fabric simply could not hold any longer. It began to unravel. Reality started to fall apart. Fraying from the edges inward, it closed in on Paragon City in multiple parallel universes. Those who saw it coming fled, taking what and whom they could with them. Those who did not see, or refused to acknowledge the coming darkness, barely had time to notice anything was wrong on that final night. Reality tore completely, spilling countless souls into utter void. Sentient minds had no way to conceptualize the experience. All went dark. The multiverse flowed around the sudden hole where the Paragon Cities had been.

Those who escaped had varying experiences depending on the method and timing of their escape. Some remembered everything. Others insisted Paragon City was just down the highway and that nothing had happened. Life went on for all of them.

A timeless time later, though, somewhere in the void... a power took hold. Scattered scraps, memories and souls began to gravitate together. Bound by their likeness they merged. Paragon City -- a Paragon City fused from the many, E pluribus unum -- burst into being in the middle of the void, and the souls who had been spilled into the emptiness awoke once more.

Most of them had no idea anything had happened. One moment bled into the next for them. But others who had escaped the "end" returned with experiences of their own. Some speak now of a terrible collapse. Others speak of time passing in other places. Yet others speak as if none of that makes any sense to them. They are all true.

Paragon City lives.

And some few rode it out in Pocket D, drinks in hand.  No unraveling universe could best DJ Zero.