Leif_Roar

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Bad stuff happens in life everyday, if you can't laugh about it and dont cry about it a lot of questions spring to mind.

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True, but that doesn't mean that tragedies are a comedic free for all. No matter how bizarre a man's demise was, you don't crack jokes about it at his funeral. There is a time and place for laughing about things.

For the original post, here and now wasn't really either.

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Depends if someone is roleplaying a dick.

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Not really. Playing a jerk gives you no excuse for being a jerk. Playing characters whose IC behaviour becomes OOC annoying is bad roleplaying, as that is not respecting the other players and getting one's own fun at the cost of other people's fun.

Roleplaying is a social activity and good roleplaying requires people to cooperate to create fun for all the participants. There's no "I" in "roleplay" (on the other hand there are the letters to form "parole" there. Make of that what you want.)

Here are the Seven Commandments of Roleplaying, as dictated to me by the final GM. While it's written from the point of view of Irc based roleplaying where operators can kick trouble-makers, most of them are still valid for CoH roleplaying.

Euthan sat hunched over an old chess set. He was alone in the old store room; unless you counted the skulls that had been placed carefully along off-setting lines about the room. It made more sense to count them than it might seem: not all of the empty eye-sockets were blind.

Lanky, ginger-haired and with a face full of freckles, Euthan looked out of place among the morbid display. He looked more like a carefree college student, more interested in Guiness than in necromancy. He certainly did not look like a rising star in the Skull's leadership. It was easy to underestimate him and some of the half-blind skulls in the room belonged to rivals that had done just that.

The chess set he was toying with was crudely made, but that was part of its charm. The black pieces had been carved from the headstone of an executed murderer, the board was made from a piece of his coffin. The white pieces; well, if the murderer had been cremated rather than buried, there wouldn't have been any white pieces.

There was power in the chess set. A child's power. Euthan smiled a thin, self-ironic smile, thinking back to the time when he had been excited by such trifling magic. Had he really been that ignorant? That powerless? He shook his head and on a whim moved his remaining knight forward to threaten the white king. He studied the position for a long moment, then smiled in satisfaction. He had just felt a faint trembling in the lines of darkness that stretcheh along the rows of skulls. Death had just entered the room. It was about time.

"I know you are here, dead man. You might as well come forward." Euthanos said and leant back in his chair, grinning with anticipation.

A man stepped out of the shadows by the side entrance and into the muted light of the slow-burning candles that lit the center of the room.

He was sickly looking; his skinned sallowed and seemingly pulled taut over his bones; his cheeks sunken and his fingers thin and boney. His hair was blond, but so lackluster it seemed almost grey. It was as if all the colours of him had been muted, sun-bleached by time. Only his eyes were fully alive, narrowed, quick, glittering with suppressed anger.

There was a faint whiff of chemicals about him; naphtalene and benzene; moth-balls and preservatise. To Euthanos' trained senses that was just an undercurent -- the whole man reeked of death; the cold, neutral smell of salt and dry ash.

"Where's the girl?" the man asked curtly.

Euthan frowned, annoyed by the man's cliched insistence on dealing with trivialities when there was so much power to be found within him. Heroes, so predictable in their inane concerns.

"See for yourself, de Carteret." Euthanos said and reached to press a switch besides his chair that had been prepared for just this moment. Behind him, a spot-light came to life.

Euthanos watched the man's face in anticipation; knowing the sight that had just been revealed. The girl they had taken as bait and killed. At first it would seem as if she was just standing there, but then he'd notice how her feet was not touching the floor and how she was swinging very gently. Or maybe he would notice the look on her face first; the blue lips, the glazed eyes, the muscles contorted with the pain.

The man's reaction was disappointing. He only looked matter of factly at the girl for a second or two. His jaws set a little more with anger, his eyes narrowing a little bit more; but there was no shock there, hardly even surprise.

"I see." the man stated curtly, and without even an angry outburst or an insult, he started singing. It was a broken, staccato singing; the man had forgotten the words, and most of the notes, but still it held great power. The unearthly sound washed over Euthan, crashing against him like a great wave breaking on a hidden skerry, and for a moment he felt fear.

Then he sensed his defenses working; the power of the song diverted, flowing around him, and the fear turned to elation. The mambo had told the truth; this revenant knew the chants of Charon, the music of Styx. What secrets this man would be the key to. What power. Euthan started laughing.

The man stopped singing when he heard the laugh. He frowed and watched Euthan with wary anger.

"Hah! Did you think your music could harm me, Hugo de Carteret? Me! I who have drunk the water of the Lethe from my brother's skull. I who have eaten the heart of Anpu the jackal. I who know the eight mysteries of the thugee. You thought you could hold power over me?" Euthan asked, roaring in helpless, elated laughter. The power that would be his!

The revenant did not answer, only stared coldly at the laughing Skull and reached into his pocket and took out a small silver snuff-box. He opened the box and took out a small pinch of tobacco; sniffed it into his nose and waited for Euthan to stop laughing.

Eventually Euthan did. The lanky necromancer rose from his chair, towering over the slightly dimute de Carteret. Euthan smiled broadly, basking in triumph.

"What now, dead man? What will you do now that you find yourself powerless? What will you do now that you know true power. Will you beg? Will you tremble? Will you worship?" Euthan's eyes shone with crazed ambition. He knew he was rambling, talking only to prolong the moment, but this moment was just too sweet not to savour.

"I think I will change the tune." de Carteret said evenly and returned the silver snuff-box to his pocket.

There was a great deal of noise.

When the noise had faded, Euthan was slunk sprawling back in the chair, dead. The front of his shirt was soaked with blood. The look on his frozen face was of surprised disbelief mixed with disappointment, as if he had lost a game of cards due to cheating.

Hugo paused for a moment, studying the game of chess Euthan had been playing. He looked over at the girl he had been unable to rescue, then to the corpse of her murderer. He shifted his grip on his Webley revolver and brought it down forcefully, smashing the black king to pieces.

He put the revolver back into the pocket with the snuff box and gave the poor girl a final look before turning around and walking away. There would be a reckoning.

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How do YOU make the game work for you, in RP?

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I separate between "game mechanics reality" and "IC reality." In the game mechanics reality Gabbleduck goes through hundreds of minions in a long evening; IC reality he might have deafeated against a handful. In the GM reality he's got Focused Senses, Lucky, Swift, Combat Jumping etcetera. IC reality he's just supernaturally quick, has protective plates of horn on his body that deflects some hits and has got very, very good footwork and technique and mostly fight as a boxer (although as a boxer with claws.) GM reality he has gotten new powers, more hit-points, does more damage, has a higher level etc. IC reality he's gotten better, but only the kind of limited improvement that comes from honing one's technique and getting more experience. GM reality he does the same mission archs and fights the same elite bosses and AVs as everybody else. IC reality he fights against "private" bosses and do "private" missions -- the GM missions are just representative or symbolic of the IC missions.

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How do you explain XP, inf, prestige?

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I don't. Inf, sometimes, I hand-wave away as "favours owed."

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What are your views on the hero licence and the asociated Security Level?

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There is an IC bueraucracy complete with licenses, security levels and similar; but there are those who can work around it (such as Nevermore.) They got their own ways around the security checks between the zones and similar.

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Shops and enhancements, how do you make them work? (if at all)

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Don't exist. Gabbleduck's improvement doesn't come from enhancements, but from training and experience.

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Exemping and SK?

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Batman and Robin.

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Training up/leveling up?

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Doesn't exist. Gabbleduck has probably never spoken to either Backstreet Brawler or any of the other "government heroes."

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Respecs?

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Changing his fighting style to improve it.

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The RP that has been put forward by Noir fits in with the surrounding story of the game. (I'm going by the references to "Destined Ones", having needed to have escaped from the Zig, then proved yourself to Arachnos.) Which does kinda limit the free-form opportunies slightly, no? (By free-form I'm basically meaning in direct comparison to GG...)

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I don't really think it does. Sure, it takes a few minutes to hurry through the tutorial; but compared to the time most roleplayers spend on designing the costume for even the most throw-away alt, I don't think it raises the threshold that much.

As for the "straight-jacket" of the Zig entry and "detsined one"; well for roleplaying purposes we can just ignore it. For my characters, once they're through the tutorial it never happened. Same with the "destined one" thing. I'll go through the missions and talk to the contacts; but the missions and what the contacts say will only be vaguely reflected in the IC reality.

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For the Commando....um....haven't come up with one yet. Something suitably butch, though.

o.O

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How about "[censored]"? Very military name, that.

Beware the gabbleduck my son, beware the heroyne and shun, the murderous siluroyne

The three longbow agents huddled in the dead-end of an alley that was wedged in between two old, derelicted apartment blocks. The brickwork had been chalked white once, but what little chalk remained had long ago been blackened by sooth and countless grafitties. The only distinct colours in the alley were the red and white of the longbows' uniforms, and even those had been muted by a week's worth of dirt and grime.

Two of the agents were facing the mouth of the alley, guns at the ready. The third, a young woman with hair that had probably been blond the last time she washed it, was kneeling next to the end wall, working on a dented, red and white radiotelephone.

"They're still jamming our frequency, sergant. I can't get through." the woman with the radio said, her voice barely louder than a whisper.

"Keep trying, Thomson. But keep your voice down. This is a silent op." one of the other longbow hissed back at her, his voice hardly audible.

Three stories up among the shadows, Siluroyne hung from the underside of an old fire-escape like a red-skinned city-sloth, holding on to the old aliminum walkway over her with fingers and toes. She suppressed a giggle, craning her neck back for an upside-down view of the three longbow agents below. Silly people. They weren't being silent at all.

On a whim, Siluroyne decided to show them how to be silent, and let go of the walkway with her fingers. Swinging out from the wall she let go with her feet, falling in a graceful arch.

Agent Thomson squinted at the radio and turned it back to one of the backup frequencies. A few stray drops of rain landed on her head. For a moment her brain was a blank, the weariness of eight days with virtually no sleep slowing her down. Then she remebered the head-phones, picked them up and held them against her ear. Still just static. More raindrops landed on her and the radio.

Thomson squinted at the raindrops running down the side of the radio, her weary mind slowly gathering the energy to wonder why the rain was red.

"Sergeant?" Thomson turned around.

The sergeant and Tatcher lay crumbled up, each at opposite side of the alley. There was blood; a lot of blood. A teenage girl was sitting hunched down over Tatcher. Foot-long spikes of bone jutted from her knees; dark red, wet. Her face was mishapen, a horror of bone plates that extruded into rows of spikes and vicious barbs running down between her eyes, along the brows and jaw.

Thomson had seen worse. It was the eyes that got to her. Surrounded by needle-sharp thorns, the creature's eyes were the bright blue, innocent eyes of a child.

"You're very pretty." the creature said, and the whispering childish voice sent a shudder through Thomson. The creature's eyes hardened with the needle-sharp jealousy of a child.

"Do you want to play a game?" Siluroyne asked. Slowly, the longbow agent reached for her gun.


Siluroyne climbed slowly up along the wall of the building, leaving red smears along the hand-holds. She was pouting. The pretty lady hadn't been very good at playing. She had hardly even screamed.

Soldiers:
Bruce
Bruce
Bruce

Spec OPs:
Bruce
Bruce

Commando:
Bruce

/bind q "petsay_all Rule six. There is... NO rule six!"
/bind j "petsay_all There's nothing Nietzche couldn't teach 'ya 'bout the raising of the wrist."
/bind k "petsay Crack can!"
/bind x "petsay G'day, Bruce."
/bind b "petsay This here's the wattle, the emblem of our land. You can stick it in a bottle, you can hold it in your hand.$$petsay_all Amen!"

Oh, there are a few of us around. Normally we keep a low profile, infiltrating and waiting until the time is right for us humble Scandinavians to overthrow the English-speaking dominance and institute mandatory saunas and pickled herring for everyone, and banish all sports except cross-country skiing.

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If someone can come up with a reason why two dozen people who all want to take over the world for themselves would get together to discuss the latest gossip on who Lord Recluse is sleeping with... then I'm in. Otherwise... CoV is just a computer game.

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What's the point in dispatching a hero with a particularly fiendish death-trap if you don't have anyone to tell it to?

Villains are people to (well, for the most part,) and even the most diabolical mastermind will have some social instincts. Why, even the esteemed Doctor Fu Manchu or the dread Emperor Ming the Merciless -- world class evil overlords whose evilness and ambitions are beyond question -- have been socialising enough to end up as fathers.

Of course, not all villains are masterminds vying to conquer the world -- some of them would settle for a private island in the Caribean, a small European kingdom or similar, more realistic, ambitions. There are also the usual complement of thugs, henchmen, trusted and not-so-trusted lieutenants, mercenaries, hit-men and tax accountants.

RP between villains doesn't have to be all "Mwahahahahah. Pathetic earthlings. Soon I will rule you all. Mwahahahahahah!" It can also be "Do you know what Madonna's 'Like a Virgin' is really about? It's about this girl that's..."