Superlion

Name: The Justiciar

Currently Recruiting: Yes.

RP Level: In Ideal, we work for full immersion and consistent in-character interaction but this does not mean we don't welcome OOC interaction, we just want you to do it in brackets most of the time. Typically, if you don't roleplay or have no interest in it, this isn't the SG for you.

Theme/Concept: What is the Justiciar?

"Noun: justiciar jú'stisheeu(r)
Usage: Brit
1. One who does justice in place of the king
2. An agent of judiciary punishment made viable by the basis of justice in Law, though not necessarily sanctioned by it."
-Online freeweb dictionary

"Basically a Justiciar is a half sociopath serial killer for the good side and sometimes has a half sociopath serial killer girlfriend."
- ClydeWithoutTheBonny, The Matrix Online

"Ever seen ACTION AMERICA? thats the justicar on crack in puppet world."
- Andrew Fellings, LOTJ

"A justiciar is someone with an irremovable sense of memory embedded into their heart, a memory of why concepts in place within the modern civilized age are there;a vision of a time when things were still okay, along with the pain of when they began to go wrong."
- Elenna Renthol, Neverwinter Nights

"Being a justicar is like being a dude with a sword, you hit stuff and impress chicks. Except you only hit bad people and you hit them ten times harder."- Joseph Hobbson(WolfgangDanger), Ultima Online

"To each knight the spirit of the Lion's own heart, that he be winged before his Goddess and know himself a Justiciar."
- Leo Dapiaoen, "The fine silver gauntlet."


The concept of the Justiciar is a long lived one that has surfaced in many gaming genre, from table top factions to ffxi linkshells, EVE online corporations and syndicate crews in the matrix online. Though the Justiciar concept in those games was different in ways that would not fit within City of Heroes, in application into it and the Superhero theme, the overall feel of the gaming experience is not much different.

The sort of gamers the Justiciar concept attracts are from a very real stock of person, most often the same individuals who enjoyed movies like "Leon", "The Professional", "Boondock Saints". Maybe even "The Crow". Those who's fantasy world is made absolute and potent by the idea of fighting for a greater good brought about, originating from, a deep sense of pain and loss when observing the dark state of life and the lack thereof. The Justiciar are not your typical glory-seeking heroes of good nature, but rather men and women so very sensitive (or undesensitized)in their most often near-genius level of awareness that they literally -feel- the amount of imbalance in their world. This imbalance causes them pain, and they are driven therein to do something about it.

While the nature of a vigilante (a Justiciar warrior)is ever-existentially that of someone who would stand up against what is wrong, the necessity of their existence as a vigilante is predetermined by just how bad things are in the world(by the necessity for vigilantism itself), which is defined personally by each character's perception. For a Justiciar ecologist, perhaps the destruction of nature to erect great testaments of technology is an evildoing, for a human who's mother was beaten by his father perhaps the greatest evil is abuse of women and instills in him a shifty sense of sexism that sometimes counters the chivalry he has grown to posess. Often, what makes a vigilante capable of the extremities he finds necessary is the fact he has suffered injustice, or evil himself(Such as Batman, Vigilante, Deadpool, several of The Avengers, etc). He knows darkness firsthand. The concept of the Justiciar takes all these sorts of characters and unites them, solidifies them under a system of law and universal Justice they all can agree upon. While this does not mean that in order to fit in within the Justiciar you must be strictly of the sort defined above, those elements -are- the structural foundation upon which the Justiciar was founded and will remain it's governing theme. Maybe your character, like Superlion does not do his work for reasons of vengeance or having experienced injustice firsthand, but for the opposite: A love for the people that the villains he punishes might hurt. All logics or reasons that come to the same result of Justice being needed are cause for working within the Justiciar.

Some things are clear cut. [censored], child molestation. These things are direct evil and immediately warranting of punishment with no need to find justification for hesitation. Murder comes a close second, but the whys and what fors are great complications that any Justiciar must consider in order to justify execution of Justice upon that murderer. While the work of a Zealot originates from the deep need explained above to undo wrongdoings both great and small, it is a sense of self control and perfection in this work that makes him complete. A justiciar won't simply punish someone for an evil directly, it must be fully investigated. Though their brand of what redeems a person and what makes them evil is slightly different from what one might guess (more religious in theme).

Because the Justiciar begin sanctioned militant presence in Paragon, they feel inheritant of all responsibilities to it and to it's government. Their duties as men and women of justice and protectors of Paragon balance on this scale, and further complicate the methods by which they act. In the end, however: Justice comes before the Law.

The duties of a Justiciar are not only to judge the wicked, but to protect the innocent, teach the ignorant and bring enlightenment to the close minded. Often it is a greater deed for a Justiciar to find a home for an orphaned child or inspire belief in good things to a depressed person than it is to punish a thief or reprimand a kidnapper.

The ultimate goal of the Justiciar is progressive: their actions and the effects thereof must greatly exceed the negative effects of that action by means of encouraging growth and prosperity of life and order. That is to say, if a murderer has a family then a Justiciar would have to take into great consideration the effects of that murderer's execution upon his family. This does not mean that the murderer will be simply warned and released, but does mean that actions will be taken in order to assure that his family does not suffer; A Justiciar never does a job half-[censored]. I'm not saying a Justiciar will always make a perfect decision, but I am saying he will always, honestly think it through reasonably. The Justiciar never give execution unless it is absolutely necessary, and certainly don't kill individuals for lesser acts of injustice such as theft.

What makes a Justiciar a Justiciar is a semi-complicated near-spiritual belief of being chosen. That is, you're born with it. The quality defining a Justiciar most prominently (and that which each Vigilante, DC comics passing on the bandanna looked for)is a passionate pursuit of Right over Wrong. Not just a preference or a good heart, but a person who is so utterly possessed with seeking right over wrong that it has taken over a part of them. These are called "Seekers" (or "Purpose Seekers")and are considered "lost children" of the Justiciar brotherhood.

Ultimately, the goal of the Justiciar as a community is to draw together a large group of likeminded roleplayers who can not only enjoy the sort of heavy, mature roleplaying aspect they desire with people who understand it as they do, but also just to meet new people and make new friends. Oh, and lately some of us have a crazy idea to support someone towards getting on Stan Lee's television show.

Activity: We have 14 active, dedicated members that have been in the SG for over a year and a half. We've accumulated around 5 million prestige in that time. Many of our founding members out of that amount are military, however, and cannot always be active. We were very inactive until just a week before December 14th, 2007 and are attempting to reconvene and re-immerse ourselves. Thus this post.

Requirements for Membership: You like people, and aren't afraid of friendships. Other than that, it's best if you're a roleplayer or don't mind roleplay and won't break immersion for others who do roleplay. Having a microphone dosn't hurt, either. Typically we'll take anyone who likes the concept, knows how to get along, work as a team and wants to join.

Leadership: We harbor a 'council' leadership. Once a member proves themselves beyond the 'fickle entry' phase and shows to be a member willing and wanting to dedicate, they're put up to first or second rank with full priveledges. Listing the leaders would just be listing the roster right now. With more members, this may change. Think Justice League as it was before it got very big.

In-Game Contact(s): @Superlion, @Zea would be best.

Out-of-Game Contact(s): Superlion (the poster here) via PM, or Tzadkiel@comcast.net

URL: Currently under construction.

Coalition(s): None as of yet, but we intend to join a large roleplaying coalition very soon.

Other Details: Currently we engage in PvP, standard PvE, missions, task-forces, so forth. We do not currently raid, as we don't have the prestige to accomodate a proper raiding base without destroying our incredibly cool teleporter room. This is soon to change, however, as we've recently hit the 5 million prestige mark.

P.S. Any more elaborate information as to roleplaying theme and current supergroup storyline, as well as the history thereof can be inquired into by anyone interested.

wewt

[ QUOTE ]
Superlion, they mean live in real life events. Conventions. there's no indication that we'll have private GM's here in the game. while I think it's a great idea, that's not what the thread's about... Did you actually read the poll?

[/ QUOTE ]

Oh. Convention things?

Cool. Uh. Ignore my post. Optimism and sleep deprevation caused me to read things incorrectly.

A man can dream, though

A man can dream.

LIVE EVENTS, YEAH! YEAH BABY!!!

ROLEPLAY-LIKE PROTAGONIST ROLES FOR LIVE QUESTS/EVENTS, SELECTED FROM SERVER-BY-SERVER PLAYERBASE, YEAH BABY!!!

YEAH!

Even with all it's bugs and exploitable errors, THE MATRIX ONLINE prospered as the DOMINANT MMORPG for a good eight months purely for the fact that it did HANDS-ON, LIVE STORYLINE EVENTS that changed and altered the storylines of the following events based upon the outcomes. It wasn't "roleplay enforced", it was just so gracefully "in character" even non-roleplayers were roleplaying. It was probably the best mmorpg experience I've ever had in my life outside of NWN or NWN2, as far as roleplaying goes. MXO would've been better than CoH now (and it was for the roleplay factor. We have tons of roleplayers on Virtue, and they're all decent, great folks. But it'd be taken to a WHOLE 'NOTHER LEVEL if roleplay was validated and magnified by hands-on, live events ran by administrators and development team members. ESPECIALLY if one could earn themselves temporary protagonist positions within events. HELL YES.)

"You should play my game 2 earn magic sword."

Me: "Meh. Magic sword, Smagic Shword."

"You should play it 4 destiny and justice."

Me: "DESTINY -AND- JUSTICE?!?! HELL YES! SIGN ME UP! FOR EIGHT ACCOUNTS!"

Even after MXO got all it's bugs fixed when it got passed to the new development team and company that handles it, it fell far down the list of most prominent MMORPGs because there were no longer those fantastic, exciting, incredibly fun hands-on, live events. Check your charts, read backlogs! It's so terribly true it's not even funny.

I can name entire guilds stuffed into Ventrilo chats from World of Warcraft that have ranted with me about the loss of hands-on, live roleplay events whom I know would buy a copy of CoH at the drop of a frickin' hat if they knew it would happen here. I'd buy another copy of CoH even though I have one, just to feel safe.

Then another. And then I'd hack the crap out of FRAPS so I could constantly make music videos of my participation in hands-on, live roleplay events.

SOMEBODY SUPPORT ME ON THIS! ENTHUSIAM, COMPEL! COMPEL! COMPELLLLLLL!

I still want to know how to put decorations onto other decorations.

After hearing several anti-roleplayers (and anti-mature roleplayers)rant their misconceptions on the Help channel for the past few days, this newcomer to the City of Heroes Virtue server roleplay scene(though an experienced roleplayer of 8 years) has something to say.


You've seen the little banner and slogan on the back of White Wolf books and many other RPG games --- "Games for Mature Minds." You've read the books themselves and seen stuff that would turn TSR'S Legal and Editing Departments pale as ghosts. You've even been considered "mature" yourself. But what does that really mean?

That's an important question.

Consider the BDSM, highly sexual imprint on "mature roleplay gaming" for a moment. Is that stuff mature? The cover sure claims it is -- even more so than other heavy roleplaying material. Is there anything in anthropomorphic "yiff" roleplay that wouldn't send Beavis into a conniption of laughter? Is the community of Master-and-Slave roleplay "adult" material or simply prurient? Would you hesitate to show any of your half-cybersex logs to your mother? Is roleplaying anything other than a bunch of hacks, cobbling together pornography and juvenilia and peddling it to pretentious goth wannabes?

If you've even bothered to read this far (and I don't give a damn about people who don't - call me whatever names you want, guys, but I think everyone will know the truth when you break out the old war stories about how your 50th level paladin whipped the holy bejeezus out of an entire orc colony), you've probably got an opinion on the matter. But whether or not I may have insulted you this far (which isn't my intent), let's take a -real- look at it, shall we?

(Author's Note: This whole essay is going to sound supremely pedantic, arrogant and self-righteous, but believe me, I've seen enough miserable games nominally run under the title of "Mature" and "Roleplay" to know what I'm saying here. So sue me.)

Mature roleplay, at it's core, deals with some pretty mature themes. Most commonly the world is dying, assisted in the throes of it's mortality by a humanity too dulled to care and an aspect of the cosmological evil (satan or however else it manifests in the game itself), hell-bent on making that death come all the quicker. The heroes of such settings, if such can be said, are nigh-rabid self-righteous monsters trapped between socities and products of a nightmare spirit world too vast to understand. The valiant are truly creatures of intense emotions like Love(for what they choose to protect) and Rage(against what hurts the innocent), creatures often predisposed to punish first and let someone else sort out the casualties later. They are further divided along cultural lines (in our case, origins) that, as ancient and indelible as they are, would do any modern-day hate group proud(such as what we see going on with the X-Men and their struggle not to become prejudiced against humanity.)

As a supernatural being, you're damned if you do(because you're assuming the right to judge) and damned if you don't(because the greatest victory of evil is for good men to do nothing). You're just a little bit less damned if you do.

And yet, many times, that complex personal tragedy is lost, buried under a miasma of splatterpunk bloodlust purveyed by an infantile "storyteller" in a Metallica T-shirt and black Reeboks. The endemic horror of the world we face in City of Heroes vanishes under a thin veneer of slapstick "villains", hurled headlong against a pack of slack-jawed social retards (and their characters)in a mind-numbing exercise of Power-listing and halfhearted emotes.

This is "For Mature Minds?" This is adult-oriented? No; this is advanced dungeons and dragons in which the characters have superpowers, each episode plotlessly seguing into the next with a new stream of thugs and villains.

Roleplay can be so much more than this.

"Mature" roleplay can be so much more than this.

Mature gaming is not using the word "[censored]" in game context. It is not liberally sprinkling homosexuality, hermaphrodites, BDSM, and alternative religions among the ranks of our characters. It is not vociferous use of slang, and it is not knowing the real-world names of the drugs or sexual perfoirmances your character engages in. Mature gaming is elegantly simple: presenting a difficult situation and reacting to it as an adult.

Not that any of the above examples -couldn't- be dealt with in a mature manner (I am not denouncing the sort of roleplay people choose for themselves, but so many newcomers to the worldwide roleplaying scene seem to think that mature roleplay is nothing but elitism and cybersex - which is wrong);quiite the contrary! How does a character react to a drive-by shooting she witnesses? How does he react to "coming out of the closet" to his supergroup? Or to acknowledging his forbidden love for another Warshade? How does she respond to regaining consciousness after men attempted to [censored] her, finding herself drenched in the blood? How does he deal with the mutant hunter that just shot all of his "furry" friends for their pelts or bounties? In fashion, "mature roleplay" can be achieved simply by rationally exploring what the character in question would do.

You see, mature roleplaying (and mature storytelling)is more than a simple smattering of R(or X)rated movie standbys. It's your motivation (why is this element here?), your intent (what does this have to do with the story?), and your end result (how do the players react?). Anything else is gratuitous.


Here, in no particular order: are a few of the concepts that make the game (as a roleplaying game), the hidden treasures that make learning all that game history and cosmology worth-while. At least as I see them.

1. There are heroes in this game. Yeah, let's start with this one. The concept of tghe antihero has been real popular in modern-day society. In fact, you pretty much can't escape it. But in City of Heroes, it's socially acceptable to be a hero in the most idealistic, literal sense. Not necessarily like Captain America or some other caricature - but like a firefighter, an honest cop in a bad district or an underpaid social worker. A person who has problems and difficulties but still does whatever he or she can to make things better. Develop your character as a -human- first, mix in the superpowers and you'll find yourself with a real hero. No, you don't -have- to be one of the real heroes. But you -can-. That's something not every mmorpg out there can offer.

2. There is a palpable evil in the universe. They key word here is "palpable." It exists. It's not just a 'bad feeling' or a religious supposition. Some people can touch it. However, it's existence does not instantly imply that all moral issues are necessarily black and white. Nor do I say that it is the source of all evil; that would be a pretty naive viewpoint in light of human or sentient humanoid behavior. Suffice to say that this dark entity exists and that it's presence has certain unsavory ramifications, not the least of which are driving home the point that City of Heroes is an -epic- as an RPG story, and that bad things are about to happen. Important things to remember.

3. Human/sentient humanoid nature is complicated. I hate comic-book villains who call themselves things like the "brotherhood of evil." Almost nobody thinks of himself as evil, and those few who do aren't the ones you should worry about. Life is sort of a Jackson Pollock painting filled with various (and proverbial)shades of gray splattered across each other. Even given the existence of a vast spiritual embodiment of corruption, the most terrifying people are the ones who feel such a palpable entity of malveolence without knowing or caring that they do so. And they always have a reason. Always. In this way, apathy is closer to a real aspect of "evil" than "evil" is.

4. Love is good. Yeah, I know I've gotten on the angst parade's shitlist by saying that, but it's a proven tenet nontheless. Love literally makes people stronger, it gives them confidence in their convictions and makes them feel worthwhile. It's a foundation of unity and cooperation. It's what keeps many heroes going when anybody else would have given up and slouched off into apathy centuries ago. Don't be afraid to roleplay some degree of love with your heroes, whether it's love for what they protect, brotherly/comradic love for their supergroup members or real, romantic love for a significant other.

5. Explanations are allowed to be simple. When you get right down to asking "Why?" or "How?" in City of Heroes, you are allowed to go into as much scientific and/or philosophical detail as possible - or none whatsoever. There's poetry in simplicity, if you do it right.

6. Explanations are allowed to contradict one another. Another beautiful thing about this game is that any character's beliefs could be the right ones. Creation could be benevolent, malevolent or just a big joke. The players are kept guessing about the truth of the balance of good and evil in the universe they interact within, and even the story leaders needn't know -all- the answers ahead of time. It's kind of freeing that way.

7. Finally, Evil is not responsible for the actions of humanity. No way. It dosn't hypnotize fathers into hurting their daughters or cause the thugs on the streets to rob anything with two legs and a purse that looks like it can't defend itself, but something -else- does. Asking yourself these sorts of questions is important for building an In-Character atmosphere for your in-game persona to develop opinions and thoughts on, as these personal ideas and beliefs are what fuel the the tenets of "mature roleplay" we discussed earlier. But more than anything, Evil (or Satan or whatever else)dosn't make any human in this game turn bad. It dosn't -have- to. Those things are already going on. If a person is some kind of villain, that dosn't indicate that the devil or whoever else made him do it. It just means that he did it....and that the Devil noticed. I can't emphasize this point enough; there's nothing terrifying about a real-life atrocity than the fact you can't pass the buck. You can't blame God, or Nature, or anybody but another human, sentient being for the state of the world in City of Heroes. We had problems long before any Rikti aliens or whatever else messed the place up further.

Think about it.


(Next weekend I'll write a thorough essay on "Heroes and Antiheroes". Stay tuned.)