Has your character ever been involved in a purposeful, compelling story?

My characters feel like nightclub attendees. Has your character ever been involved in a purposeful, compelling story about superheroes? How did you achieve this?

Help!

Yes, I have. It wasn't easy, and the story, while compelling to most of us involved, got halted half-way through.

I think the key attribute needed is something at stake that goes beyond one character, or even two character's personal lives. In the case of the story I mentioned, it was the loyalties of an anti-villain being torn between red-side, and blue-side; with a blue-side supergroup working to create a set of circumstances for the anti-villain to cross over, and the counter-efforts of NPC red-siders to permanently corrupt the anti-villain to the red-side. It involved a half dozen players at one point, some with larger roles, some smaller; several AE arcs, stolen technology, NPCs both canon and unique, military style raids and sleuthing, spying, and conspiring. Great fun, until other circumstances took the wind out of our sails.

As I see it, the most important ingredients are a storyteller -- a player working with you who has some imagination and the trust of a few friends to arrange a story and make decision about how things turn out (a peer game-master, of sorts) and a few friends dedicated to following the story where it leads.

Kind of sad, really. None of my characters ever seem to take flight with others so much as they do within my own mind. As such, I just bottle all of them up and use them later as inspirations for other endeavors. Such as tabletop RPG storylines.

Not really all that bad, though. If I were only in it for impressing others, well, I'd have stopped playing this game a long time ago.

Long story short, most MMO-based RP characters are like snowflakes. They're beautiful and unique...and immediately melt when they touch anything else.

Well, there was the time an evil spirit showed up. It had the ability to skin people alive, then wear the skins to become that person. Mind you, it was my character whos skin it was wearing...

And then there was the sub-storyline where one of my characters was killed, chopped up, put into baggies, and mailed to an unstable empath. It was one of my villains that did it.

Then there was the time my poor half-demon character was bound by an enemy, and forced to to horrid things. Every time the heroes killed him, he was drug back to life against his will through the binding. Also, he lost his eyes as punishment for failure during all that.

Come to think of it, this is probably why someone once told me "I'd hate to be one of your characters". I can't seem to start a good storyline without putting some serious bloodshed of my own characters on the table to kick things off.

In my head, sure. On the forum boards of the SG's I've joined, absolutly. A couple of my guys have been in several death investigations of my fallen comrades, friends, or catastrophes.

I agree with Andrea. It takes a strong story, and a good storyteller to keep things interesting. You can't have a half-cocked theory or just one or two scenes you want RP'd out. Planning out the story before you pitch it to whomever you are going to RP with is always a good idea. Know what you to say, happen, or what kind of action you want is good to have inhand before going ingame. But make sure the path you take in the story can be flexible. Remember, you are going to be incorportating, ((hopefully, other actors, and as we all know, all actors have their own way of doing things. So make sure the story can have numerous curves in it, instead of just the straight and narrow road.

And be creative! Make sure the story is something folks will want to be involved in. Make the people involved interesting, dynamic, and colorful. Playing the loner, or the "Batman" type needs a Superman, Robin, or Wonder Woman to keep the dialogue going when the main character goes all "broody".

Make sure you aren't the only Storyteller too. Let one or two folks in on the some or most of the story, just in case something happens, and the story has to progress without you. Not knowing what direction to go in during a lull in the story causes it to die more often than anything else.

All of mine have. You just have to hang out with the right people.

Yes, and as others have said, it's who you play with/interact with that makes it possible. When you find the people willing and are able to do such stories and RP, you continue grouping with them.

It takes time to find them though. Sometimes it's an SG. Sometimes you're lucky enough to stumble onto it in a PUG. You just have to keep looking and not give up. They are out there.

I've tried on a number of occasions to have this happen with more than 1 of my characters.

Sadly, only one of my characters ever did. :/

Quote:

Originally Posted by BackAlleyBrawler you *******!!!!

I agree. You just have to have people who want to see a story arc through to the end and have at least 1 person making sure things carry on. Really there needs to be somebody there to ask "My character picks up the piece of paper he finds. What does it say?" A 'DM' type player running things is a must in my book for long term story arcs. While I know there are other ways to play it and they do work, All of my successful arcs have had at least 1 person behind the scenes to ask about things. Someone in a storytelling role, even if one of their characters is directly involved.

Then again, there are plenty of 'story arcs' I just wrote out of my head who didn't involve any other characters except Joe NPC... but that's mostly from my personal belief that when I'm playing a comic characters, he deserves stories. I mean, Wolverine is in the X-men lines and his own title... and the Avengers... and every other comic series released by marvel. Ok, maybe he's a bad example.

Several back in the day, and a slightly smaller scale one recently.

The huge huge huge huge necessity is finding other characters that actually log on more than once a week, don't get abandoned for a new shiny alt after two days, and are willing to do something other than flirt, tell their backstory, or emote buying drinks. I've had pretty lousy luck with this end of things for the past year or so.

Sadly no, but not for lack of trying. I've found some great people to hang out with, chat with, and go run missions with...but I have yet to find those elusive role-players who will make the game worth sticking with in the long-run. My interest in the game has waxed and waned over the years due to this.

((I've been lucky enough to find people who will put up with me and my characters. I've had several stories involving different characters over the years. I've posted most of their stories on these boards or on sg boards. Almost everything I post in stories either is played out in-game, or has in-game ramifications.

As others have said -- it's entirely about the people you find yourself hanging with.))

Yup. As others have said though, it takes a lot of coordination, and players who can show up on at least semi-regular intervals are a must, as quality plots are incredibly difficult to start and finish in one night. We've had a lot of success, but also a lot of misfires for any one of a number of reasons, mainly necessary characters not showing up, and lack of planning and/or people not paying attention to plans. Players who also whine about not knowing what a SG/VG is planning to do but who also utterly refuse to take any initiative to look on forums or even read the freaking message of the day never fail to amaze me.

*puts in shillin' cap*

Anyway, a ways back, I started a teenage runaway type character, Black Anna. Wasn't really a villain per se, just on the run from police due to a bit of a misunderstanding. Anyway, at first she joins up with a vampire group, thinking they're a gothic industrial band, and hangs out with them. That group sort of faded, so I re-rolled the character. Then she joins this revolutionary type group. Then the vampires re-formed, so Anna started bouncing back and forth between both groups. Then an ebil vampire tried to bomb a vampire friendly bar. Then Anna actually turned into a vampire. Then Anna's vampire friends got blamed for the bombing (the IC logic didn't make any more sense, either). Then the vampires got meaner (Anna's been described as a court jester that doesn't know she's the jester) and I started losing interest in Anna. Then Twilight hit, aaand it was fun while it lasted.

And then there was the time my costumed supervillain VG, the Supreme Society, attacked a school for superteens, the Destine Academy, and kidnapped a few students to try to brainwash them. Long story short, the SGs involved dropped off the face of the earth, but some of their players stuck around. So in the end, the prime student we actually wanted IC, Aria Force, ended up with a hardcore case of Stockholm Syndrome for the villain who watched over her during this time, and she's beeing with the SS ever since.

And then there's the time my evil Billy Batson character, Tim Tetherson, was angry IC with other members of the Society. So Tim starts starts using his powered form to be a hero. During this time, he gets his first ever “girlfiend” who's also a superhero, but neither the Society nor the hero girl's friends liked the idea. So Tim gets caught by the SS and put to trial for being a traitor, which leads to him accidentally losing his powers. (The followup to that is my only AE arc, fwiw, meant for outside parties.) Eventually, the hero girl is killed in action, (the Society had nothing to do with that) and Tim got his memories of the girl erased by my telepath, Agonus. Turns out the aforementioned girl the Society kidnapped, Aria, was a friend of the late heroine, and she's been playing detective to find out who mindwiped Tim. She calls out Agonus on it. Agonus says he can't restore Tim's full memories, but there's another crazier telepath the SS knows who may be able to do so. Agonus leaves it to Aria that if she restores Tim's memories, she's responsible for his actions. And that's actually where we've left off.

good luck D.B.B.

Yes. Its about 300 pages of PDF, and it was the result of several like minded friends months and in some cases years after we met. It is truly who you meet and what you do with it. I'm on a bit of a break playwise but I know I will be looking out for people to RP with when I get back into it.

I find most of my interesting plot villains are the bad guys I write for other's RP plots. They tell me they need this guy, I do this guy and turn it up to 11.

Yes. Several times. I'm very lucky to have had (and still have) groups of excellent RPers who not only can begin a good RP story or plotline, but stay and see it through to the end. It helps that many of them began as tabletop RPers.

Yeah, I'm often fortunate enough to be involved in interesting stories; while a lot of them don't go anywhere, I'm happy for the interaction and the chance to experience/influence/think about the stuff that people are pursing, even if it really has nothing to do with my characters. As far as I'm concerned, that's the best part of the game: interacting with the imaginations of the other players.