Official Canon vs Player Canon

So, looks like we've got a hot subject on our hands. So let's get ready to RUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUMBLE!

In the blue corner we have Official Canon. This covers the story and lore in game that it provides for us, the website information, and to a lesser extent the comics.

In the red corner we have Player Canon, which covers things established by the players over the course of nearing 4 years of EU serverdom. This can be from player buildings and companies to events and groups.

So, where does the line get drawn between player canon, non canon and god-modding? Is it ever established for a bit of player canon to over-rule official canon, is that even right or should be allowed? What kind of limit and sense of disbelief do we carry for ourselves on the various subjects? What points of contention have arose over official and player canon?

Ding ding!

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The way I like to do things is use official canon as a basis for any player canon I construct. Basically all the elements that the game holds true, so do I. It's in the gaps (and there are a lot of them) where I find areas to build and create stuff that suits my own needs but also gels with game canon. In fact a lot of game canon itself I've found to be absolutely perfect for my needs anyway. I suppose I adapt my canon to suit official canon, this also allows my canon to fit better with others.

For me official canon is a kind of universal constant. It's something everyone ought to be able to agree on in order to minimise conflicts. The tricky part is when player canons conflict. In such cases a degree of compromise must be reached between the RPers.

In cases where player canon conflicts with official canon, official canon wins every time. The game is the reality in which your characters exist. The only legitimate way of denying that reality is if your toon is a conspiracy nut or mentally ill.

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Official Cannon except where it is blatantly stupid.

I'm looking at you Talsian technology!

Player should add to and fill holes, but not override official, except where official is off its rocker!

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Brawling Cactus from a distant planet.

What EternalKnights said is exactly my opinion of it too, coulden't of put it better.

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I tend to side with official canon. The plots I build tend to use the main background, or to not override it.

The worst bit of player canon storyline I can remember was probably FFM's uber-Nictus, but I think he can argue a case for even that, it just wasn't the kind of thing I'd have done.

I've retconned characters because they started breaking too much plot, and I dislike characters that can. It's a slight bone of contention there with Ghosty over Grav Mistress. Her canon dictates that, to be honest, almost all normal plots can be punched out of existance by her in a wink. Makes creating plots rather difficult. That's why I retconned War Crow out of the mess I'd got him into.

Player housing? Doesn't bother me terribly. That said, Crow's courier business and Velvet's modelling company have offices in buildings, not entire buildings. The one large scale construct I have 'in-game' is actually in London, so doesn't interfere much with official canon. Both Shadowe and Nevermore placed their Batmanesque mansions outside the city limits, eliminating the need to justify their existance.

Not sure what's up with the Talisorian stuff. I just treat them as energy/force field technology weapons.

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Disclaimer: The above may be humerous, or at least may be an attempt at humour. Try reading it that way.
Posts are OOC unless noted to be IC, or in an IC thread.

Yeah, i have to say, i thought the talsorian stuff was a reverse engineering of rikti tech, which is in line with the teleporters and war walls.

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offical canon should be treated as the fundematal laws /constants that make up the world .. just like gravity , blue skys , late trains and no buses ..

these are the fixtures on which we as players can hang our RP ...

the RP may block los to a bit of canon once in a while but the canon remains there unchanged ....

now there are huge holes where there is a lack of canon ..
like how many and what other versions of earth exsist ...

and time travel really is full of missing canon ..
we do need to somewhat agree those areas ..

or you can have 100 char turn up saying .. no i am the true Zortel and this is my UV legion of heroes...

we need more canon , so we can all clearly see the worlds limits ....

interestly at GG last night i ended up talking to three players all owners of ultra high tech equipment ..all suppling the hero market .. now how often do you get the ceo's of MS IBM and Intel in one location for a off duty chat ..

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The worst bit of player canon storyline I can remember was probably FFM's uber-Nictus, but I think he can argue a case for even that, it just wasn't the kind of thing I'd have done.


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Hey! I've seen FAR FAR worse than him, and in my defense, I was relatively new to RP at the time.

He CAN be made to work though, with a few changes... After all, who says what he claimed was true? Bear in mind though, that when he was around, ALL he did was <bleep> Ellie up, and wind Jester up. And explain to me how the latter was a bad thing?

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@FloatingFatMan

Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

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The worst bit of player canon storyline I can remember was probably FFM's uber-Nictus, but I think he can argue a case for even that, it just wasn't the kind of thing I'd have done.


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Hey! I've seen FAR FAR worse than him, and in my defense, I was relatively new to RP at the time.

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Please note qualifier: 'which I can remember.'

Okay, so Doc T used to break canon fairly hard most of the time, but he did downplay it a lot.

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Bear in mind though, that when he was around, ALL he did was <bleep> Ellie up, and wind Jester up. And explain to me how the latter was a bad thing?

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It was only a bad thing when the rest of us had to deal with your angsty Ellie plots!

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Disclaimer: The above may be humerous, or at least may be an attempt at humour. Try reading it that way.
Posts are OOC unless noted to be IC, or in an IC thread.

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now how often do you get the ceo's of MS IBM and Intel in one location for a off duty chat ..

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Mind you, how often do you get the CEOs of MS, IBM, and Intel being super-powered crime fighters? (Though there is a rumour that Gates wears his underwear on the outside of his trousers...)

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Disclaimer: The above may be humerous, or at least may be an attempt at humour. Try reading it that way.
Posts are OOC unless noted to be IC, or in an IC thread.

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Yeah, i have to say, i thought the talsorian stuff was a reverse engineering of rikti tech, which is in line with the teleporters and war walls.

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I'm going on about it being monomolecular ¬_¬

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Brawling Cactus from a distant planet.

Not sure it is, having played with it. Is there anywhere written down that it is?

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Disclaimer: The above may be humerous, or at least may be an attempt at humour. Try reading it that way.
Posts are OOC unless noted to be IC, or in an IC thread.

it's a force blade, why is that unlikely? over and above force blades being so?

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Not sure it is, having played with it. Is there anywhere written down that it is?

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Think one of the devs said so.

Or at least so people keep telling me.

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Brawling Cactus from a distant planet.

Aha... unattributable comment by dev... It's a force blade. You can think of that as 'monomolecular,' but not in the original sense of the term used in sci-fi.

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Disclaimer: The above may be humerous, or at least may be an attempt at humour. Try reading it that way.
Posts are OOC unless noted to be IC, or in an IC thread.

Buses.

There are no buses in the city seen on the streets. We see bus stops, but no buses.

I've always played it that there is buses, because the PTA's train system is no where near as extensive as needed to serve an entire city. I don't think we see Taxis either, but a city without taxis? That's like the sky being pink unless its clearly defined that there's no need for them.

Player Canon covers things such as the items in shops, the menu at resturants and such. It's been pretty much accepted for three years now that eating the Spring Chicken Salad at Up-n-Away is a Bad Idea. Same that ordering the Rocket Kids Meal will get you a cool little variety toy, much like a Kids Club or Happy Meal.

The fact events and in game canon happens in an odd flux can be seen as a point where you get canon and player canon clashing heads. The Rikti Invasions should damage city blocks but they don't, we have two different versions of Boomtown, there's the old 'I defeated Vazhilok/No I Did!' thing too.

An interesting point to raise is when -new- canon comes out that directly contradicts established player canon (or in Blizzard's case, older canon) and how that is then resolved. I don't think we've ever had the latter issue.

This was a random burst of thoughts, brought to you by someone who's possibly crazy, but it's food for thought.

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I don't think we see Taxis either, but a city without taxis? That's like the sky being pink unless its clearly defined that there's no need for them.



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I have seen many Taxis. They are yellow and appear every so often.

*clue link to a picture of a CoX taxi*

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Bending canon slightly is alright. For example, Blitz and the Unbroken Column (which I am a part of too) isnt really official canon, but its there, and fun.
I think the general thing that can be applied is 'if its god-moding, its bad'. For example, vampires that are suddenly immune to absolutely everything. I ran into TWO in Pocket D in one night, and a couple more dimensional/demonic undead beasties. My priest, who is a human, armed with a gun, lots of holy ammunition and basic skills with holy flame, basically got bounced off the walls, as 'Oh look we're immune to holy light too and holy bullets dont work either.'

/rant. Anyways, with canon as with most other things. Make it fairly sensible, dont drop one on other people and try to make it realistic.

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Bending canon slightly is alright. For example, Blitz and the Unbroken Column (which I am a part of too) isnt really official canon, but its there, and fun.
I think the general thing that can be applied is 'if its god-moding, its bad'. For example, vampires that are suddenly immune to absolutely everything. I ran into TWO in Pocket D in one night, and a couple more dimensional/demonic undead beasties. My priest, who is a human, armed with a gun, lots of holy ammunition and basic skills with holy flame, basically got bounced off the walls, as 'Oh look we're immune to holy light too and holy bullets dont work either.'

/rant. Anyways, with canon as with most other things. Make it fairly sensible, dont drop one on other people and try to make it realistic.

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Hold on a tick. I was one those vampires and at no point did either of us state we were immune to everything, nor did we god-mode.
I think what happened there was a conflict of preconceptions. My 'canon' on vampires appears to be different to yours. However I've constructed my canon to allow for many different interpretations. I simply used the bloodline idea, in that bloodlines are founded and posses varying traits, thereby not stepping on anyone elses toes. My character is of a bloodline which is unaffected by religious iconograhpy or holy relics. Of course my character has his weaknesses, but any denial of such is merely IC bluster.

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Bending canon slightly is alright. For example, Blitz and the Unbroken Column (which I am a part of too) isnt really official canon, but its there, and fun.
I think the general thing that can be applied is 'if its god-moding, its bad'. For example, vampires that are suddenly immune to absolutely everything. I ran into TWO in Pocket D in one night, and a couple more dimensional/demonic undead beasties. My priest, who is a human, armed with a gun, lots of holy ammunition and basic skills with holy flame, basically got bounced off the walls, as 'Oh look we're immune to holy light too and holy bullets dont work either.'

/rant. Anyways, with canon as with most other things. Make it fairly sensible, dont drop one on other people and try to make it realistic.

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You're also forgetting that a lot of vampires state that the religious aspect is just superstition, because in order for it to affect them, it would have to actually be holy, rather than (in their eyes) just crazy men with 'special' water.
Does holy water and crucifixes really have power over undead or was it just a way of making the frightened and gulliable see them as powerful?
This is of course all a point of view in roleplaying but is just as valid as your own, so if that starts happening, just invite them to a team and talk with them OOC about it. If they really are godmodding, then you'll know as soon as you start talking OOC with them.

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Stating that negative effect actions can be taken in Pocket D conflicts with ingame canon. Though I've seen it 'happen' time and again.

I guess if both parties agree, then player canon can override ingame canon during circumstances. Just makes stuff like that annoying for outsiders that reject that player canon.

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@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.

Pocket D is kind of a tricky one really. The game canon tells us that there can be no fighting there, but just how do you stop it? Sure there could be some kinda of technomagical field that prevents use of powers (also non-offensive abilities work), but how does it stop you smacking someone in the mouth?

Personally, I allow physical contact such as punches or kicks; but disallow powers use. Makes more logical sense to me as otherwise, if physical contact were prevented, then why would you even go to a nightclub?

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@FloatingFatMan

Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

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Stating that negative effect actions can be taken in Pocket D conflicts with ingame canon. Though I've seen it 'happen' time and again.

I guess if both parties agree, then player canon can override ingame canon during circumstances. Just makes stuff like that annoying for outsiders that reject that player canon.

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I have to agree there. I've seen countless 'fights' in Pocket D. It is a little irritating. Especially since the suppression field is supposed to be capable of nullifying even deitic powers. Personally I quite like the idea the DJ Zero is far more powerful than he lets on.

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Regarding D's, I've reasoned that Zero creates an overlapping dimension for each patron as they enter, that allows interaction with other people, but prevents any harmful contact. What this means is that, if two chars shake hands, they shake hands. But if one tries to stab another, the attack passes right through the victim's body without effect. For me, the interwoven dimensions created take all Zero's concentration, or a significant portion of it, which is why he never comes down from floating over his speaker.

I've no idea what the general roleplaying community thinks of this, but the few people I've given my theory to have taken it as a feasible explanation and have accepted it. Out of curiosity, what do the rest of you think?

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Regarding D's, I've reasoned that Zero creates an overlapping dimension for each patron as they enter, that allows interaction with other people, but prevents any harmful contact. What this means is that, if two chars shake hands, they shake hands. But if one tries to stab another, the attack passes right through the victim's body without effect. For me, the interwoven dimensions created take all Zero's concentration, or a significant portion of it, which is why he never comes down from floating over his speaker.

I've no idea what the general roleplaying community thinks of this, but the few people I've given my theory to have taken it as a feasible explanation and have accepted it. Out of curiosity, what do the rest of you think?

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I actually quite like that idea. It ties in nicely with Zero's dimensional portal ability. Although I would reason that the club itself is a focus point for Zero's power, allowing him to produce these multiple subdimensions without significant effort on his part. That way he can float there all day without rest.

Incidentally, y'know the puddle of mist in the corner of the dancefloor, I read somewhere that it was supposed to be the 'field' and that MM pets will attack it.

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