I think it's allowed but not too much.. Don't take out a skyscraper or something, just a small building or a garage. This is unless it takes place in a zone like Boomtown/Rikti Crash Site, because then you can do just about what you want and nobody would really care 
I am the Blaster, I have filled the role of Tank, Controller and Defender
Sometimes all at once.
Union EU player! Pip pip, tally ho, top hats and tea etc etc
You're writing, for your own character - hence you have your own instanced version of Paragon and the Rogue Isles - therefore, you can do whatever you want with it 
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Normal, everyday authors blow up cities everyday. And just look at screenplay writers! How many times has England suffered total annihilation at the hands of an ice age, comet, volcano, hurricane, tidal wave, alien invasion? We shouldn't, by rights, still be here.
As long as you don't try and force your ideas onto other people (i.e. create a crater in the middle of Atlas and assume every character you come across knows the crater is there, and must act accordingly), it's perfectly acceptable.
Take out a skyscraper if you wish, but understand that the skyscraper will still be there for everyone else.
As long as what happens in your story stays within your story, go for it!
I agree with Stasis.
It's your character, it's your story...
Just don't expect others to buy it in a RP environment off hand.
One tip: choose your target(s) carefully.
Area population: The denser the population, the more impact, the less likely people will go "ok, I can go with that"
Time: When did it happen? If it was before the Rikti invasion, landscape wise you'd have little problems, but anything large would have been on the news and have larger 'people' consequenses. After the invasion it could be 'just one of those things'
Location: Landscape damage, like a skyscraper... savest thing to do is pick a hazard zone. (But deform Rogues anyway you want for all I care )
@ShadowGhost & @Ghostie
The Grav Mistress, Mistress of Gravity
If you have nothing useful to say, you have two choices: Say something useless or stay quiet.
I guess I have to go along with several others here. Do as you wish as long as you don´t overdo it. I would pick a house that is already damaged (for example in a hazard or PvP zone) and claim that damage as being caused by my toon. (Doesn´t work as good if there is a history plaque stating otherwise.)
This way everybody should be fine with it (perhaps except someone with the same claim ).
If it has eyes, you can blind it, if it has blood, you can make it bleed, if it has a mouth, you can make it scream.
You can easily knock down a skyscraper in Steel Canyon. There are enough of those big towers so it can be said that one fell down. There just has to be more houses IC than the game shows us. Frag one of the invisible ones.
Nuking the city hall would be hard since people will see that it is there. As a rule go for targets that people can imagine without visible game world going directly against it and then just have a ball.
What happens out there is life. In life people die. Superpowered dudes slugging it out in mtropolitan area can cause plenty of casualties along the way. Tough. If you feel like it you can put a disclaimer in your story warning people about the stuff you think might realistically offend someone.
One nifty way of bringing an event more upfront for others to react is to write maybe an IC newspiece or just recap the events where others can see it. A while ago there was a nightmare storm in Ziggurat due to events taking place IG. I wrote a column commenting it and now people know it took place. Folks can of course think that "no it didn't", that's perfectly within their rights. However some will take it as IC and maybe mingle with the event, creating more events.
One thing to remember is that no event happens in a vaccum. Knocking down a skyscraper will have BIG repercussions on the rest of your world. Never mind anyone elses.
[Corollary : It's your world. You can do anything in it. Any character above level 30 could output enough damage to level a skyscraper. The thing to look at is the after effects, which may change perceptions of you or your perception of yourself. Knocking over a building won't just cause rubble, but a dust cloud, emergency services, insurance, claims etc.
During a 'Super War', this may just be collateral damage, but it leads nicely to a hook of:
'You saved me' or 'You ruined me' for the next story. Once you KNOW you can do it, that's knowledge that will stay with you for a LONG time.]
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Nuking the city hall would be hard since people will see that it is there. As a rule go for targets that people can imagine without visible game world going directly against it and then just have a ball.
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Destroying the UK is hard, as everyone can plainly see it's still here - but it's done regularly in books, films and television alike .
Unless you're writing a factual piece - nothing is real or tangible. The Paragon you write about isn't the Paragon we visit everytime we load the game. They're seperate places, so anything that happens in yours - stays in yours.
Am I making sense?
Edit: If someone reads your story and thinks, "Oh cool! I love the idea of that war taking place!" and asks to use it in their own character development/backstory, then that's awesome - but, my advice would be to think of that as a bonus, and not to write the piece in an attempt to affect anothers' character or gaming world.
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Unless you're writing a factual piece - nothing is real or tangible. The Paragon you write about isn't the Paragon we visit everytime we load the game. They're seperate places, so anything that happens in yours - stays in yours.
Am I making sense?
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Since the question was posted on Roleplaying forum and not Creative forum, I am assuming the story in question would be part of characters current (or back) story. IE. ment to be such that is able to mesh with other characters.
When you are writing just in your own bubble, yeah, what Stasis says is exactly true. Do what you want, it affects no one else. When you write and want to incorporate your story and character with others, you can STILL do what you want. But the less blatant the events are, less The Most, The Best, The Whatever, the easier it is to accept for others.
Blowing up a skyscraper, well, that already has happened with FA at least. So if someone comes up with story "There was explosion and a 'generic building' was destroyed yesterday/last week/three years ago", personally I see that as something that could be widely accepted.
Blackdove
Iron Mongrel's backstory contains a quote that everyone who's tried to find out who he was has met with 'unfortunate accidents'.
That's a similar sort of thing, if you know them/researched them, then you can 'ignore' their reality, or worse, know the Truth about their reality.
Maybe Syra only 'thinks' she knocked a building down, DC are well known for 'click' "the last four pages never existed".
I'm surprised nobody mentioned the entire Requiem War yet...
What war?
*thwacks TT for mentioning "The War"*
Thanks for your input so far guys, it's been helpful. ^^
As for the "different Paragon" thing: if this was to go ahead, then it would be part of Syracuse's story on Union. It "would" be taking place in the world, so to speak, rather than outside of it.
I'll just see where things go. The newspaper article things seem like quite a nifty way to tie things up, but I'm leaning towards setting it in somewhere like Warburg. Can still have things go kersplode, but it isn't stretching too much that exists.
Yeah, this story is going to be significant in the real backstories of oh, about four characters.
I'm going to help Syra write it incidentally. And by help I mean sit in the back of the car and repeatedly go "you're doing it wrong!". >_>
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Yeah, this story is going to be significant in the real backstories of oh, about four characters.
I'm going to help Syra write it incidentally. And by help I mean sit in the back of the car and repeatedly go "you're doing it wrong!". >_>
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If you add the odd "try this" in there, it'll be fine 
@ShadowGhost & @Ghostie
The Grav Mistress, Mistress of Gravity
If you have nothing useful to say, you have two choices: Say something useless or stay quiet.
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As for the "different Paragon" thing: if this was to go ahead, then it would be part of Syracuse's story on Union. It "would" be taking place in the world, so to speak, rather than outside of it.
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Unless you specifically asked the devs to change the game world to suit your story, nothing in your story - no matter if it affects one character or 40,000 - would happen in the same Paragon/Rogue Isles that we visit everyday.
You can change Paragon/Rogue Isles, but you'll be changing your version of the world, not the actual world . That's why you can do whatever you want to it, and suffer no repercussions ingame.
Between Weasel and myself, we've blown up half of Crey's Folly, moved Manticore from Brickstown to Perez Park and changed the geography of Atlas - but in-game, Crey's Folly is still there, Manticore hasn't moved and Atlas looks exactly the same every second of everyday.
As long as you aren't taking someone else's character (without permission)* and changing the game world for them, you can move this, eradicate that and add another zone wherever you wish.
* As I, and many others, have used the signature characters in stories, I think it's safe to say that they're free-range. Can be picked up and killed/moved/altered in anyway you want.
Ah, sorry Stasis; what I meant is that it would take place in Syra's story, but I'm not expecting the world to change.
A little like how someone can have their character hunt down about three hundred Vahzilok in a story, but the world wouldn't alter.
/em flails
Really unsure how to word it. Stupid head colds.
Maybe: There is the game-mechanics world, that no one can change in any significant way, but there is also the Paragon City that lives in our imagination when we are logged in. It is a shared imaginary vision by many of the roleplayers, and in that world changes can and do happen.
And when you want other people to share your vision and imaginary Paragon City with, you have to write your visions and changes to it accordingly.
So that indeed, in my imaginary world where my characters live and breath, there was explosion a few days ago and one heroine was reported dead. In there was invasion by Requiem's forces. In that world there was beautiful blue flower flourishing in Steel Canyon's University's Park. There, I can find a secret door in one statue's back. In my imaginary Paragon City some characters are millionares and weird scientists, angels and demons, detectives and vampires.
The game mechanics world doesn't have secret doors, nor hidden laboratories, no exotic flowers. In game mechanics world the vampire is just a scrapper, the demon is a fire blaster and the millionare is level 18 character with 200k influence.
Now, I'm not expecting everyone to play like that. We all should play in the way we enjoy. This is how I like it, and in my Paragon City changes happen.
I am a dreamer, after all .
Blackdove
What Syra means, I think, is that she doesn't want this to be a story that people read seperately but she can never make reference to IC inside the game.
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Really unsure how to word it.
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Not the best thing to say when talking about writing a story .
But aha! I get it now. You can always make IC references to the story, just need to be sneaky with the wording.
i.e. One of my characters is supposed to be an ex-Paragon Protector, and will reference it. However, another character could also be an ex-Paragon Protector, but had never met my character. That doesn't mean either of them have to keep schtum about their backstories - it just means that they both have to take it with a pinch of salt and remember that other characters will have conflicting backstories.
Luckily, we have very little canon in this game, and so any backstory is plausible. If, however, someone was to come along with a character claiming to be Statesman's wife - there might be a bit of confusion - but there are always alternate universes/delusions and other characters entirely.
Creative licence is, I think, the best way of playing it out. Well, that or lying .
Now get on with the story, you two!
Edit: Because I forgot half the post.
Simply put, what's your view when it comes to harming either of the cities (Paragon or the Rogue Isles) when it comes to stories? Not creative work that has nothing to do with in-game events, but one that fleshes out an existing Hero?
I ask this because I might be writing something dealing with Syracuse - and, to a lesser extent, Eres - but I see a fairly significant battle taking place along the way. One that, you know, might end up with a few dozen people dead/injured, with the odd building collapsed.
Just curious on what peoples' view is when it comes to this. Is it ego-gaming? Perfectly acceptable? Something that should be avoided? Or a part of life we should all embrace like a tender little child?
Excuse the wording, I'm high on painkillers.
D: