Newbie question on hero backgrounds...
By
Ashtoreth_NA,
Posted on: 2010-07-10 11:28 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
As with anything there is a spectrum of opinions and playstyles, from serious to silly. Over the years we've had some great examples from both ends of the scale, such as Ascendant's incredibly funny performance pieces to the more serious darkity-dark roleplay of antiheroes.
The game itself tends to be mostly on the serious side with glints of humor (which I prefer over downright comedy), but I've found most roleplay is fairly lighthearted. I have seen it both deadly serious and puckish (and have done both myself), so you just kind of have to wander around and see what comes up.
Even on Virtue, though, there are lots of people who don't roleplay. If they do, generally they'll have "RP" in their character description somewhere.
The Alt Alphabet ~ OPC: Other People's Characters ~ Terrific Screenshots of Cool ~ Superhero Fiction
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I've seen these. They really don't roleplay all that much on teams. I have never put that in my characters' description; if you can't see that I'm roleplaying then either I'm doing a bad job of it or you really don't understand what roleplaying is about. Roleplaying isn't just standing around chatting in local.
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Originally Posted by Ironik
Even on Virtue, though, there are lots of people who don't roleplay. If they do, generally they'll have "RP" in their character description somewhere.
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There are so many different concepts running around that you really get all kinds, from absurd to dramatic and everything in-between. I'd suggest going with whatever you prefer. However, there are also as many different opinions on what makes for a good character, so be prepared to have different people have sometimes polarly opposed reactions.
As for myself, I'm decidedly in the "serious" camp, and I simply don't take goofy characters seriously, no pun intended. I don't roleplay, but I'll always roll my eyes at characters like "Tanks Alot" or "iPwn" or "Hertz Donit." No offence meant to the people who play them, I just HATE characters like that.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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That's why I added the qualifier. It's just been my experience that the truly hardcore roleplayers put the "RP" tag in their character bios.
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Originally Posted by Gaming_Glen
I've seen these. They really don't roleplay all that much on teams. I have never put that in my characters' description; if you can't see that I'm roleplaying then either I'm doing a bad job of it or you really don't understand what roleplaying is about. Roleplaying isn't just standing around chatting in local.
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The Alt Alphabet ~ OPC: Other People's Characters ~ Terrific Screenshots of Cool ~ Superhero Fiction
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Not all of us do. I find doing that a bit silly. RPers RP; you don't need a sign saying so.
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Originally Posted by Ironik
That's why I added the qualifier. It's just been my experience that the truly hardcore roleplayers put the "RP" tag in their character bios.
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Oh, no. That's not what I mean by "goofy", that's just "non-RP". Names like that usually annoy me.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
As for myself, I'm decidedly in the "serious" camp, and I simply don't take goofy characters seriously, no pun intended. I don't roleplay, but I'll always roll my eyes at characters like "Tanks Alot" or "iPwn" or "Hertz Donit." No offence meant to the people who play them, I just HATE characters like that.
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Goofy would be "The Chaste Avenger", whose origin is that she was originally going to develop the world's best high-tech chastity belt, but feature creep left her with a general-purpose armored power suit. She fights crime, and aims to promote responsible choices in promotional relationships.
It's an in-character story, the name fits the background, and in-character, she might well act in ways that fit her background, whether or not these were entirely normal for heroes. It's just a bit silly.
As an example from another game, one of my WoW toons is named "Merisioux", and (using an addon, since the game itself doesn't have descriptions) her character background is long, ludicrously overdetailed, has amusingly improbable typos ("... has left an indelible mark on Meri's gentile soul."), and the like. Silly. Rich with character background detail, which is consistent with how she's played, just... silly.
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/this.|
Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
Not all of us do. I find doing that a bit silly. RPers RP; you don't need a sign saying so.
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But, as mentioned - you'll find a whole range out there, both on and off virtue. I've seen people get thoroughly annoyed that you ((don't put your OC stuff in parenthesis)) even when answering a question in broadcast, I've seen people who don't care and go with the flow (if the team's RPing, they do too, if not, they just go with it.) I'll tend to slip in and out of it depending on what's going on, but what I'm saying should give a clue ("Ow. I think I broke something" is definitely in character, "anyone have another red" obviously isn't, and most people seem to be able to track pretty well.)
And of course, some people think RP stands for ripe pears, and wonder what you're on about, they just want to shoot stuff.
My background is from WoW, where even on servers that nominally enforce RP, there's not always much of it. I'm finding CoH hard to RP in as a hero, simply because it's hard to GET anywhere if I stay in character. Step step kill muggers step step more muggers step step gang step step muggers. I'm this close to seeing whether I can just hand people transit tokens or something so they stop walking around where all the muggers are.
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Dangit Bill, what did I say about agreeing with me? |
Originally Posted by Memphis_Bill
/this.
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If I can agree with EvilGeko on occasion, I can agree with you every once in a while. So nyah. |
Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
Dangit Bill, what did I say about agreeing with me?
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My characters tend to be at least 90% serious, but I have no problem with having a wacky character on the team. Its usually a lot of fun, much more so than someone who doesn't talk in character.
There's plenty of examples in the source material, Tom Strong meeting Warren Strong (his funny animal rabbit counterpart), Superman teaming up with Ambush Bug, Batman and Batmite, and so on. A good superhero with an understanding of the complexities of the parallel-dimensioned multiverse they inhabit should be able to take anything in their stride.
And I tend to put ((RP)) in my bios just so you know that whatever comes out of my mouth is in character. Some characters have speech patterns that make this fairly obvious, others don't.
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Oh yeah. It's just necessary to do OOC so often. :/ Joining an RP super/villain group might help.|
Originally Posted by seebs
My background is from WoW, where even on servers that nominally enforce RP, there's not always much of it. I'm finding CoH hard to RP in as a hero, simply because it's hard to GET anywhere if I stay in character. Step step kill muggers step step more muggers step step gang step step muggers. I'm this close to seeing whether I can just hand people transit tokens or something so they stop walking around where all the muggers are.
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But, just as rp servers in WoW make it difficult to follow your own story arc because they have the official WoW arc that you MUST be railroaded into, CoX has that double. There is so much of the world history that no one in game TELLS you, it's just assumed that you looked it up somewhere. So many 'heroes' who've been intending on turning evil forever...And the best destiny you can end up with is being Statesman/Lord Recluse sidekick. Nothing very grand about it.
Supplementing play with forum stories might help. CoX has a very easy mechanism for screenshots. Also, the teamup mechanics are the best I've seen.
My pet peeve is people who refuse to acknowledge it when I tell them my character has unlimited power. If I rp attack them they are of course disintegrated beyond the ability of any hospital or magic to restore. Yet despite this they refuse to delete their characters and still keep playing them as if nothing happened. ~Mandu, 07-16-2010
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Originally Posted by Gaming_Glen
I've seen these. They really don't roleplay all that much on teams. I have never put that in my characters' description; if you can't see that I'm roleplaying then either I'm doing a bad job of it or you really don't understand what roleplaying is about. Roleplaying isn't just standing around chatting in local.
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I used to do this, and still have the tag on many of my older alts. Though I admittedly tend to dump the RP and using ((OOC)) on teams that don't RP themselves. It just became easier to adapt to the play style of the group than to enforce mine on them. I can hand-wave it as an aside, a what-if, or a guest writer that never read an issue of the book before and has no concept of the fourth wall.
Roleplay in this game is best described to me as roleplay in real life. for the most part, I am playing as whatever I have on my character sheet at the time. Though, as is customary in all but the most obsessed groups, there are times where you wind up just rolling dice and talking.
The Chaste Avenger sounds gleefully amusing. Despite the fact that the CCA may make it hard to publish, we suffer no such over-regulation on our imaginations here. Go nuts!
MY FAREWELL GIFT
It is never truly gone, as long as there is someone left to remember.
I always assumed putting 'RP' in your bio was a signal that you DO RP, not that you ARE RP'ing.
It's not so much "RPers RP" as "RPers cross here".
It's just a flag so you can more easily tell where the RPers are.
I always but this tag in my bio, and frankly, I never RP in random teams (PuGs), but it's a clue that others can come to me later and RP with me. Or know that if I'm talking a little strangely, it's because I'm RPing and people won't simply assume that I have a brain tumor.
"The Hollows was a cover up; it was really caused by Blue Steel experimenting with Foot Stomp." - Steelclaw
<-- boy
On servers like Pinnacle, where there's a sizeable roleplay community (or rather, _quite_ a few small, semi-isolated roleplay groups) but also a large number of non-roleplayers, putting the "[RP]" or "((Roleplayer))" or what-have-you in their Character Description is more of a way to help other roleplayers find them. Sort of like having a rainbow sticker on your bumper in certain places.
On Pinnacle I can definitely vouch for the fact that there are some silly roleplayers and some serious roleplayers, and there have been a lot of schisms due to butting heads. Someone takes offense at someone else, etc, etc, etc.
And, of course, there are some roleplayers who get along with either, but aren't exactly just one or the other exclusively.
Just as there are those who like to roleplay more than they like to do missions, or those who sometimes will drop all pretense of roleplay just to grind at maximum capacity.
In any event, welcome seebs! I do hope you enjoy yourself, and find a community which really improves your experiences here!
Other than a few goofy speech binds and some (mostly annoying) speech patterns, I could never get into full RP. It just feels too weird to me. I save most of it for out-of-game, writing stories and bios and time-lines, etc.
Dec out.
And since he was mentioned, we give you.... Ascendant's Phone Calls!
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/36641/My-Little-Exalt
Always great stuff, and to this day you can still "hear" the NPCs at the tram talking on their cells saying "Ascendant? No, I'm sorry, you must have the wrong number." 
Dec out.
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Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
Not all of us do. I find doing that a bit silly. RPers RP; you don't need a sign saying so.
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Originally Posted by _Psi_
I always assumed putting 'RP' in your bio was a signal that you DO RP, not that you ARE RP'ing.
It's not so much "RPers RP" as "RPers cross here". It's just a flag so you can more easily tell where the RPers are. |
As for seriousness level, eh. I have characters whose backstories range from 'She was a goddess, but then she decided to be an evil robot instead because that's cooler,' to completely serious, world domination types, complete with manifestos about social revolution. I know characters covering an even wider area of the spectrum, too. They're all out there in the zillions. If you play a super-goofy character with a bunch of people brooding into their whiskey, they might shut you out, but the same goes for talking about how Vahzilok killed your wife on a team full of joke characters.
Having Vengeance and Fallout slotted for recharge means never having to say you're sorry.
Hi, I'm new to the game. I've been roleplaying in various games for a long time, but I like to try to be good about suiting the style of the RP community. I'm told a lot of RP players are on Virtue, so I'm planning to play there. Here's my big question:
Do people tend to be really serious, or really silly, or what, in their RP and character backgrounds? I haven't been playing long enough to see enough to imagine that I've got a general feel for the community. I tend to come up with silly character concepts more often than not, and clearly, superhero and supervillain roleplaying invites a certain amount of silliness, just because, well, honestly an awful lot of real superheroes and supervillains are pretty silly. More so the more you try to actually think about them.
If I have a ridiculous character background, will people feel like they're being griefed or harassed, or will it be contributing to the fun?