RP curiosity...

...for those in RP SGs that are suppossed to be more hero and less anti-hero style, how do you handle it when a character in the SG becomes a killing machine?

Is your RP SG even cannon based? I mean, lets face it, cannon wise, any and every wound/death can be fixed cannon wise in RP. Yet, I've yet to see an RP SG that sticks to this.

IE...OMG! You can't just instantly heal me! You're a godmodder!

When cannon speaking, this is indeed what happens.

What if the morals of the SG is suppossed to be not killing. Slicing up a criminal doesn't mean you HAVE to kill them (even the devs have said the animations are more of eye candy thing as well as the names just sounding cool)...and the players start going all kill happy.

Do you kick said player from the SG? I'm curious how other SGs handle such a situation.

Are these the IC or OOC principles of the SG?

If the other players object wholesale to dealing with the subject matter, or it's expressed in the group's documentation that "HEY MURDEROUS HEROES ARE NOT THEMATICALLY APPROPRIATE THX" then yes, what the player's doing is disruptive to everyone else's play and they should be asked to leave the group.

If it's strictly that the character is violating the principles expressed by the rest of the characters, then it should be handled IC (apprehension by the non-murderous heroes, or an in-character expulsion from the group for the character while the player remains, or the character could become an outright antagonist for the group, etc.).

The offending character's player shouldn't by any stretch of the imagination expect there to be no consequences, though.

And **** the MedCom.

Gameplay/story segregation.

Firstly, what AlwaysAPrice said. But with a little elaboration from me because I can't keep my trap shut.

If the player, OOCly, is not aware of the theme of the group then the leaders should take the player to one side and have a quiet chat of the "are you sure this group is a good fit for you now you know X, Y and Z?" If problems persist after that, then I'd recommend a good verbal dressing-down and (possibly if the player's attitude warrants it) the door.
If the player IS aware OOCly of the theme of the group but does this anyway without it being part of an IC plot device and what have you, then skip stage one, go straight to "if problems persist."

If this is an IC stunt, then another conversation may be in order, depending on how other members of the group are taking it. If they're enjoying the plot and all, no problem, but people have different tolerances for different things. It may be necessary to offer suggestions about who to involve deeply in the plot, and who to let keep their distance. It may even be someone the player wanted to be integral to the plot but... tough luck if they don't like the subject matter. Every player has the right to choose whether to get involved in a plot or not, and the event organizer dude will just have to find a work around. And probably be told that relying a plot on one person is kinda unfun for all the others present. (I learned this the trainwreck way early on in my CoH career. *Hangs head*)

And finally, definitely still with AlwaysAPrice on the In Character Consequences.
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As an aside, referring to the medcom issue... it's kind of a soft god-mod for me, in that if the story requires it to work, it'll work. If not, well, it won't. There is precedent for that in CoH/V, after all. Random Newspaper Mission Dudes will say that piece of dialogue that goes something like "So this guy was mouthing off to Ghost Widow and she puts her hand through his chest. Guy just dies. No mediport, nothing. Creepiest thing I ever saw." So there's room for discriminating fudging of the rules.
And of course, it can lead to some very ingenious ways to take a character out of action without actually making the medport kick in. Or if it does, it being useless, etcetera.

But the precedent has been set. I'm not saying it won't take a LOT of creative bull****ing, but the precedent HAS been set.

Ya, know.. I've never understood why so many people have a problem going along with the medport aspect in the game.. when it comes to RP. Last night I had someone tell me that its just too unrealistic. *jawdrop* Seriously??? Being tp'd to the hospital all auto-like is too fake, but the 7 foot FUTA/DEMON/WOLF catgirl stalking around in the D.... thats perfectly feasible?

I'm not trying to come down or anyone or troll....nothing lke that. I'm just speaking my mind after hearing yet another person mention something about the medcom issue. I understand if you /want/ you're character to be hurt and take time to heal...I've done it.. the way i did it was I let my guy die..getted tp'd to the hosp..and then logged off. Even got a day job badge out of the time it took him to healup enough to leave the hospital.

Just a thought... I'll shutup....for now :P

God modding is a term that gets thrown around waaaaay toooo much. There is /NO/ concrete definition of what is and/or is not god modding. Its pretty much a matter of opinion. I've noticed that for the most part.. if two pple are rp'ing and one of them does something the other person doesn't agree with or didn't plan on happening.. someone shouts GODMOD.. or METAGAMER...

To me.. this is ********. In /my/ opinion.. if your one of these people who has a character that just can't get hit, or if they do get hit. nothing can hurt em... to me.. /thats/ metagaming..or godmodding. For a healer to heal someone.. OMG.. imagine that.. they do what THEY'RE MEANT TO DO!!! LMAO. To me.. thats just someone that didn't let people know what the jist of the RP was and then got upset when it didn't go the way they had planned it out in their head.

my idea of godmoding is if someone does something to my character or something that effects him/her directly without my consent.

example: "*Lorenius hits Lilith hard in the face with his mace, shattering her jaw and sending her tumbling to the floor*"

that's a no no, and will be responded with a harsh bit of godmoding back such as: "*stands up, healing her jaw back into place and casting a spell, exploding lorenius from the inside*"

oh no, kaboom....he dead.

not really I wouldn't respond like that, but still...that's my idea.


erm, my SG isn't technically...canon, but then again, can any SG be canon unless it's a direct copy of one of the CoH canon SG's such as vindicators/phalanx?

erm...yeah....

I understand that this thread is about SGRP but I hope nobody minds a bit of my internal RP as a bit of a threadjack.

I have several villain characters. My main is a claws/regen that has soloed to 45. He is a science robot that thought he had killed his creator. It turns out that his creator's body was on the ground in front of him because that's what happened when he transferred his mind to his creation.

As far as "killing" goes. My char kills his enemies. He's using claws. Claws tear people up. He does not allow any of his targets to have a chance to teleport back to any hospital before he turns their brains to mush.

As far as I'm concerned my char is a true killing machine. The concept of anyone returning alive is ridiculous. If they teleport, they teleport and are DOA no chance of recovery.

I understand that this is not the consensus amongst COX players, but it's my game cash, my RP.

Sorry for the derail.

In situations like this IF I am playing a character that can help(according to the power set they have or the background, etc) and IF said character would be willing to help... I will send the other person a /tell and ask them exactly how far they are willing to go. Sure, under normal means my /Pain corruptor CAN heal most any wound and can even "ressurect" a person, but nothing is worse than having a story hook solved or ruined in 5 seconds by the click of a button. So, I ask the person how much they are willing to be helped(it is their character and their story after all) and then ask them to give me an idea of what is preventing further help, so I can RP out something to explain why my powers are not working to their fullest(A magical curse, an advanced nano plague, some dimensional barrier, whatever). Just like it is not fair to allow someone to maim/kill you character out of hand, it is unfair to ruin someone's story hook without their approval as well.

As for the medi-port, meh, I really don't use it in my characters stories/rp, instead I try to come up with character background reasons to explain their recoveries.

(( It would depend on how hardcore a "killer" the PC has become. If he is say the Punisher and currently a member of the Avengers...yeah he would be booted. From a gamer perspective though, let the person know that they aren't fitting in IC style of the SG/VG before you give them the boot. They may not even now they are crossing the line for your SG/VG))

On killing sprees: Our SG is based around a company, so the sponsored heroes and their actions are a major concern to the company.
Any stepping out of line is first taken to a tribunal to see if their actions were justified, and whether further action should be taken.
If they've "gone rogue", we'd make an effort to bring them down ourselves.
It will be dealt with IC as far as possible.


On healers and mediports:
sometimes they need to be fudged around for the sake fo dramatic effect. If we didnt, then things will get stale fast.
I heard from a friend recently that the similar Clone concept in fallen earth had resulted in the creation of the "magic cure bullet", where any problem, from life threatening injury, to a hangover, would be cured by kurtcobaining yourself. Things became very static.

I've always considered mediports to be a last minute thing, so unless theyre about to die, it wont trigger. So you can be 99% up to the point of death, and you wont be ported out, allowing major injuries to be sustained, and dealt with in whatever the way the plot requires, without them being scooped up and dumped in a hospital bed.
Mediports, like all teleporters, can be interfered with canonicaly, so it can be fudged if someone does need to die.

Healers i've seen both good and bad. Good would be someone who actualy asks OOC before running into something and starts screaming about how they can click their heels and fix everything, even bob's herpes.

A recent incident with a friend and an over enthusiastic healer went like this:
(friend had an "accident" that caused her to lose an arm. arm was replaced with prosphetic in hospital. This happed some time ago, and had time to heal up)
"I'm a healer! I can fix her arm!"
"She's been to a doctor already, we don't need the help, thank you."
"No, im a healer healer!"
"Take your new age crystal crap and shove it up your ****."

I know people are proud of their character's powers, but please, check with people before you run off on your florence nightingale bit, it may just annoy them.

Any MMORPG (or for that matter, any RPG period) can run afoul of the "my RP style vs. your RP style" issue, in my experience. One reason I never used to bother with RP servers when I played WoW was that my suspension of disbelief didn't extend to "okay, let's go back through [dungeon X] and kill [boss Y] again, he wasn't wearing the helmet I wanted".

In response to Scooby Don't PoV, it is valid in the sense that he (as much as the rest of us) is paying to play a game, and is free to enjoy it in his own way (within the parameters of "playing nice", as dictated by the moderators and so forth, of course). That being said, presumably we each RP with like-minded fellow gamers within the game environment, so that within our respective RP experiences there is a certain degree of common understanding (so as to avoid the childhood cops and robbers exchange of "you're dead", "am not", "are too", in some more mature but essentially equivalent form). To each their own, and the beauty of virtual gaming is we can each "edit/abridge" events in our own minds to best suit our personal enjoyment of the game, and if two players have a conflict of RP perspective's, they can hash out OOC how to address in IC.

That being said, here's my 2 cents on the specific points that have come up here:

Killing machines/Anti-heroes in a group of Heroes: There are various RP ways to address this. Hulk, Wolverine, and assorted such "ragers", even the Punisher and the original Ghost Rider, managed to exist in the context of their respective teams despite their behavior. The group can RP trying to restrain the character's impulses, verbally or physically, or they can turn a blind eye ("we don't like his methods, but sometimes you just let him off his leash and let him go nuts"). If your player group is particularly strong on the RP and feels up to it, they can even RP the character's "removal" from the group (kicking the character "in story" without actually kicking him out of the SG literally, and playing out the relationships accordingly).

If the *player* is the issue and simply not co-existing well with the group, that's a different story, and if no mutual understanding can be achieved, a parting of the ways might be necessary, hopefully amicably if possible.

Healers/Mediports
On healers, if a character's powers allow him to heal people (or himself), then from my point of view, that's a valid in game "reality". Let's be honest, if one superbeing can generate blasts of cosmic radiation or rip a hole in reality, is it so far-fetched that another one can repair catastrophic injuries or even bring back the dead? If your SG's play style is "grittier" than this (which can be a bit tough to do, since in a MMORPG environment the core setting and themes are established by the game itself, not the game group), you might put limitations on what powers/origins, etc. are suitable to the group. I think that's perfectly valid, myself, just be polite about it - after all, who says a super group can't be all mutants, all boys/all girls, or some other common theme or exclusion?

On mediports, these don't bother me personally because they've been rather plausibly incorporated into the setting and the technology has been explained to some degree. I tend to view it that since the player has to "release" to teleport to the hospital, there is at least a mental component to activating the device, but that's just my own way of envisioning it to suit my own RP sensibilities. As for coming back from the dead (i.e. one player feels he killed so and so, but they come back either right away or at a later time)... why not? Let's face it, the reality of super hero comic books in general is that death is not necessarily permanent. Nearly every hero and villain in comic book history has died, come back, or at least recovered from a crippling/debilitating injury (most have done all of the above repeatedly).

That's one thing I love about CoX - the genre of comic book super heroes and villains allows a considerable degree of plausible dismissal of some of the standard aspects of MMORPGs (returning from the dead, repetitive content/"repeater" villains) because the genre itself by nature supports them to some degree.

Personally, I think as long as everyone plays nice there's always a way to satisfy everyone's RP and gaming needs/wants, even if it's by turning a blind eye to certain things that don't fit our personal "vision". Again, falling back on the comic book genre for support, if Peter Parker can have a crossover with the Spectacular Spider-Ham and the Demon and Lobo can take comical turns trying to kill "the thing that cannot die"... anything can be explained, dismissed or allowed.

I use the same rationale to forgive Die Hard 2... the fact that John McClane acknowledges in character that it's ridiculous that he's stuck fighting terrorists two Christmas holidays in a row lets me forgive the implausibility factor.

I bet there are some cannon-based RP groups for pirates or Napoleonic War characters.

In regards to RP-derailing healing powers... or any power, for that matter... the good RPer has one very, very powerful phrase in their arsenal.

"Tries to."

That way you put the result of the RP'ed action on the RP scenario's co-ordinator.

Lets take the example of the blind person being healed by an empath.

Empath Y: Okay, this might feel wierd.
Empath Y tries to reconstruct Blindgal's damaged corneas.

At this point, Blindgal can decide what's best for her character's story... whether she SHOULD be healed, or whether there's a curse on her eyeballs to forever be a lame duck, or that perhaps there just isn't enough remaining healthy tissue to form a working cornea even with magical healing powers. Perhaps several treatments over a number of months might work, though!

Tries to. It's a powerful phrase.

Depends on the situation. I do note that the world of CoX has significantly more advanced medical technology than our own. Even without the advanced healing technology, simply being able to teleport the wounded directly to the hospital is an extreme improvement over ambulances in terms of odds of survival. That part is mostly a handwave on my part, but it's as much to fit the genre since being "realistic" isn't as fun.

In the real world, knocking somebody unconscious tends to cause internal organ and brain damage, internal bleeding, broken bones, etc. These injuries can be life changing and permanent. If comics were realistic, the Joker would be a drooling simpleton with the number of times Batman has beaten him across the head. No amount of madness or willpower can repair brain damage. There's a reason professional athletes, especially ones in injury prone sports like boxing or American football, are often plagued with health problems by the time they retire. The damage adds up and the body can't fully heal a lot of the abuse they heap on it, especially as they age.

In the same vein, injuries in the real world are much more serious than in comics or movies. In the movies, being shot in the leg or shoulder is treated like a flesh wound. In the real world, a leg wound can kill you in under a minute. You open up one of those big, hard to miss femoral arteries, and you'll bleed out fast. Get hit in the shoulder, and that bullet will travel through a mass of bone and muscle and nerve, leaving a trail of shattered bone and mangled muscle, as well as risk severing the big arteries there too. Even if you don't bleed out, you probably won't be able to use that arm for a while. You punch someone with your fist, especially if you hit their skull, the effect on your hands will be similar to punching a brick wall (the bones of the human skull are among the most durable materials found in nature. The 27 small bones in your hands and fingers are not). The human body is fragile.

But that'd be no fun, so we ignore all that. And all of us do, for reasons of genre and simple reality that it'd be a rather short game if we tried to be realistic.

As for damage caused... well, besides mediporters, the vast majority of enemies in CoX are in some way augmented, armored, or superhumanly durable. Even the Hellions and Skulls are using really crappy Superdyne, allowing them to at least take a pounding. Freakshow don't feel pain thanks to being hopped up on Excelsior and cybernetics. Arachnos troops are wearing advanced body armor and usually augmented somehow. Council and 5th Column troops, especially the higher level ones like the Cor Leonis, are supersoldiers and described as being capable of sustaining quite a bit of damage. Rikti troops are genetically engineered and wearing armor, if not powered armor. Vanguard troops are wearing enchanted impervium. Even Malta troopers are wearing advanced tactical armor and using military grade enhancers. I always figured that those Longbow uniforms double as lightweight body armor. Dunno about Scrapyarders, though I think it's mentioned there's an awful lot of Superdyne users in their ranks, and it wouldn't surprise me if they used improvised hillbilly armor. Most of the stuff in the game can take more damage than a typical human.

By the same virtue, I tend to assume most heroes/villains are using some kind of protection. I usually RP that the classic "supersuit" costume worn by my characters, especially the ones who aren't explicitly bulletproof, also have some kind of underlayer of highly durable, light-weight armor. Enough to take some damage, and not tear on the thorn bushes. I often RP in fights that characters who are down are just stunned or dazed or down, and not being brought back from the abyss several times. For one thing, it saves the trouble of explaining why blasters don't have their own special revolving door in the here-after.

But this is a tangent.

As for how I deal with it... it really depends on the situation. If somebody has healing powers and that's a big part of their shtick, and don't use them as their own personal walking deus ex machina, okay, I'm cool with that. I mean, saying you can heal people is no more out there than saying you can fly, shoot fire from your hands, or lift a car. Just ask OOCly first if you're going to do something major with your powers. That's my usual policy.

In all honesty, I tend to have more problem with people who say they kill all their opponents. If you're using your in-game victories for that number, it means you may well have a three figure tally after a single team mission. Saying "Yeah, I killed them all!" and then saying that you accept zero responsibility for that... yeah. That's godmoddy. That's worse, in my mind, than saying "You can't hurt me at all, nyah nyah" or "Ha! I kill you dead!" Because how can I arrest you if I'm a good guy who just saw you murder dozens of people, because there's no way I can force you to jail. You'll just quit or say "No you don't" and I can't stop you. Or if you're a villain, how are you not a smoking crater?

I dislike psycho-killer mass murdering villains and serial killer villains, and find them incredibly boring.

As far as the medical transporter technology goes, I've played it that certain classes of characters have them; heroes, villains, and higher level NPCs. Strikes me as a little silly to think that each and every Hellion or Troll or Lost or whatever fringe NPC group has that same technology.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doc_Reverend ...I dislike psycho-killer mass murdering villains and serial killer villains, and find them incredibly boring.

While I've grown fond of playing megalomaniacs, I do play the occasional homicidal lunatic. And for what it's worth, we don't really think the goody good types are the life of the party either.

good luck D.B.B.

I've got opinions on a few of the topics raised in this thread.

Brand, as you probably know, I have a RP SG that is very much about classic style heroes. And you've seen and worked with my main, DH, both IC and OOC.

DH is now a reserve member of the House of Heroes. His willingness to take the life of a villain or criminal goes in direct conflict with the ideals of the group, particularly the SG's leader and some of the officers. It's why he isn't considered part of the active roster. He's mostly brought in grudgingly when his talents and abilities are needed.

We had a situation quite a while back, where one of the officers of House of Heroes (then an officer in another SG in your coalition actually) confronted DH about reports of a rampage through Skyway, where he was taking out Lost by the dozen. It didn't end well as they got into a big fight there in the street. That led to a bunch of characters viewing DH in a very different light for a while there, when the end result was that DH actually cut her up in that fight with his katana.

Those were all IC interactions, and there were IC repercussions for DH. His relationship with that other character is a tremendous source of tension in the SG. He's since taken a step back from his darkest times because of other RP elements in his life, but he's still viewed with suspicion and distrust by at least some members of the SG. These are the consequences of his actions, no matter what regrets he may have of how that night ended. It stays with him to this day, and he will never be a full-fledged member of the roster because of it.

Now all of this involves a certain amount of trust between the players involved. In this case, I had been RP'ing with the other player for a while and the end result of that encounter was actually her idea. If this was someone new to the SG and this was the first time they RP'd with us, we'd pull them aside in an OOC manner and remind them that this wasn't what we look for in our SG and that it wasn't welcome.

Hypocritical? Some might say so, but I view it as part of a larger whole.

That storyline was acceptable for us because it was part of a much larger picture and so we chose to see where it would take us. If a new player to the group chooses to make that one of their first RP storylines, then it makes up a much larger percentage of the SG's interactions with the player and character, IC and OOC. As a result I'd be far more hesitant to allow that to go on as part of our group than if one of our established members, because we simply haven't seen that they have more depth in mind than that. And in either case, the players must also be willing to accept the consequences for their characters' actions.

If IC, DH had been tossed from the SG for what he did, it would have been justified and I would have removed him. That's the consequences for his actions and that's something every player needs to look at when they do things in RP.

As far as death goes, I believe that most of us in my SG(s) view a defeat not as a death but incapacitation. Basically they've been beaten into unconsciousness and require medical attention or the situation could worsen and potentially lead to death. Death is death. You don't come back from that without serious intervention and it's not something to be taken lightly. We've only had one character actually die in our SG.

When it comes to Godmoding, I view that as any attempt to force another player to accept that your character has some kind of major ability that is simply above and beyond anything involved in their in-game powers. The term probably comes from games like Doom, where you could have a Godmode that made you invincible and all-powerful.

An example would be a fire control character that ignores psychic defenses of any kind to manipulate people telepathically as though they're Professor X's more powerful uncle or something, to the point of telling you what your character is really feeling and what they are going to do. That's not only godmoding but poor RP, as that person is not leaving any room for another player's actions, choices, or background as to what will or won't affect their own character.

If that same player created an alt version of the fire control character that had both fire and psychic powers, then you have room to start moving in that direction a little, but you still can't just claim you're an all powerful psychic being with other players having no say in what their own characters do.

That's an example of godmoding that I've actually seen in this game in RP.