Roleplay, Plots and the World.

Yea, but I doubt Liz would survive the combined forces she'd find arrayed against her if this went through with it's previous Death Toll.

Yea, you warned it was going to be a big plot, so did Alpha with his Arachnos Attack plot (Which I'm still using as an example of how to do somthing on this scale right).

Yet it never forced anyone to participate, never. And while a Paladinic hero would feel terrible no matter who died, it'd jsut be mroe abckground nosie of the hundreds who die every day anyway!

There's a difference between a big plot and god modding everyone into having to be involved, which is what would happen here.

Ah, and those of us who wern't online at the time get to just flutter in the wind?

Actually, my apologies. My snarky response wasn't warranted.

But here's the problem. It's not about notification, it's about being forced to participate. It doesn't matter if you notified the entirety of the Unionverse, the event still forces participation due to its scale and the emotive subject being around children. These two things radically change the Unionverse to such an extent that no-one can ignore it IC anymore.

Twenty seven dead works fine.

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The previous figures displayed by our News show/paper were incorrect, the current figures show twenty seven as dead after the shocking discovery of a Armageddon standard bunker under Saint Johns’s Faith School.

Ok, I admit grinning at that Nicely played. Right...back to business as usual?

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Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

Let's just hope we all learned what we needed to from this, it's acceptable otherwise.

Utterly fine in my eyes.

Well what it comes down to how evil is too evil? I mean I understand why some people don't like this kind of thing. But psychotic villains are part of comic culture, one example being Carnage from spiderman, plus some of the stuff the likes of Dr Doom plan could be nasty if they ever worked out. Even recently in COH we have evidence of this with the likes of Tyrant and some characters in those arcs who not only would kill children and patients in hospitals but also do go around dragging families off the street and executing them. So nice no but it is part of comic culture. All that happened here was somones villain follows the pyschotic nuts villain type not the more common im evil but dont kill anyone type.

I know some of you guys just dont want to deal with said characters. Again thats fine but the trouble is some villains are that evil, others simply cold and calculting they will kill kids etc for either a laugh or because they can. Again not trying to ressume an argument as I have found it interesting in a way as its the first time i've pottered about in a big plot. But what if somone gassed a subway station or such?

I mean trying to limit a villains villany is a bit undermining and no i'm not saying give a villain powers to destroy the world as some would. but same as heroes are a respected RP thing so must villains be. Because well without villains, even the occasional nuts ones there would be no need for heroes.

Why I am going on about this a bit is I have a feeling this could happen again, to a few villain players i've known and quite innocently too. so perhaps there should be a note on what is considered too evil for the colletive union RP community I guess. And no not after an argument just an idea to prevent somone else falling into this problem.

would just like to point out that as Heroes, it's illegal for you to kill a Villian out right anyway. Yes the Court is an exception in most cases of this rule, since most of them are either dead or demonic anyway in the eyes of the Law.

As any toon who is unkillable, as in does not have one singal weakness, I can fully understand why people wouldnt want to deal with something like that, but there are ways around it. There have been unkillable villians in the past, and they get locked up in some secret and almost inpenetrable prison deep underground. This means they get punished, and yet are allowed the oppertunity once in a while to escape and once more terrorise the world. I myself have realised the errors of unkillable characters, and have given my people weaknesses that can and have been exploited.

Im not having a go at anyone, ive made the 'unkillable' mistake myself, im just saying killing a truely evil person isnt the only option.

What's "too evil" is an impossible question to answer, really. Everyones view will be different.

Artform, not science.

And to my eyes, it's the wrong question to ask. I've played a villain who will use psychic powers to perform depraved acts on their victims, and that's been too much for some people - and I don't hold it against them in any way. They've always had the opportunity to avoid the plots, and I took great pains to tone the character down. But he was no less despicable for it. I was always careful to keep his actions low-key, off the radar, utterly ignorable if someone didn't want to deal with him.

The point, though, is that if you are planning to have someone do something atrocious, then it is your responsibility to leave an "out" for people who choose not to get involved. And if your plotline "demands" the widespread circulation of knowledge of the atrocities, then common courtesy demands that you make people aware of such an impending horror well in advance. Announce it on URP, create a "WARNING to Union RPers" thread on the forums, do everything you can to let people know in advance that something is coming that will be common knowledge and possibly strongly emotive, and then listen to what people have to say. You don't even have to advertise the details - just let people know that something is going to happen that may engender a wider response.

With the Unionverse we're trying to create as realistic an experience as we can, and we have to give and take on our ideas. CB has done a good job with the adjustments he has chosen to make, and now the attack he created can become part of Unionverse lore and history, and I'm very happy to accept it. I do have to wonder how differently this thread would have been if he'd first asked "I'm going to insert an event where some kids die in an attack on a school, how many is too many?"

I just wanted to say a quick thank you to CB for toning down the death toll on his sub-plot. It's now at the level that I feel I can have my characters acknowledge without then having to be involved in a plot that I don't really want to go into.

I'm sorry that the St. John's plot is the one that's been used as an example throughout much of this debate, but I expect that that's simply because it's the most recent, and highest profile example of what this threat was created to examine.

Right, back to the main point of all this... I don't think there's a problem with having a villain committing a truly evil act. In some cases, if it's done carefully, I think it can really add to any plot that's running. But as has been mentioned already, I think the key point is scale. I would suggest taking real world news as a guide on what works and what doesn't for plot size.

For something smaller scale kidnapping, robbery, murder of one or two people - while certainly unpleasant, is generally something that tends to be local news level and therefore comparatively small scale. Of course there are exceptions that get thrown into the national news, but when compared to actual crime statistics they are few and far between.

Something bigger could be something like a plane crash, or a terrorist bombing of a flight. This is something which would have a much higher casualty rate and would be reported over the whole world. The Lockerbie bombing for example had reprecussions that are still felt, and while it certainly managed to make some political relationships decidedly frosty, it's not something that managed to spark a full scale war.

Which leads me on to: 9/11. As I'm sure everyone is well aware, this is something that is still causing major geo-political issues nearly ten years on with no immediate sign of that changing.

In terms of scale in CoH plot, this would be far too big for a player run thing because it requires a response from everyone who shares in the rp side of things. It's a world-changing event that's on the same level as the Rikti Wars, and as such, in my opinion it's not feasible to be run by a player. To me, something like that would be Dev-plot only. The first two examples I gave are something that while tragic and emotive for those involved, are not something that has the scope to change the world in such a significant way that would require an acknowledgement and response from every single player.

So really, when it comes down to it, I'd say it's not about numbers. The thing that should be considered carefully is what kind of effect would it have on the world. If it's Rikti War or 9/11 scale, then it's just going to be too big.

How far is too far? It’s hard to tell. I reckon one of the reasons plots like this come up is because we can’t achieve any real villainy in game. We’re always at the behest of the Big Bad without the opportunity to be the Big Bad ourselves. Kinda the same reason people end up with Uberpowerful characters. They want to advance beyond the boundaries of the game world. But that’s a completely separate debate.

I think there are two things that affect this: scale and publicity.

The first has been covered in detail by this thread and I liked how Cass summed it up. 26 people is a tragedy but one that can be left to others to deal with. 1,000 is an atrocity and calls upon the nation to respond. It’s made all the more emotive by having it be children, something that is guaranteed to press a lot of buttons and leave a distasteful flavour in some peoples’ mouths.

The other thing is publicity. In a recent plot, I had a villain collapse a little known alternate dimension, an entire world. But because such a thing doesn’t hit the newspapers (only a handful of people even knew about the existence of the dimension) the whole hero/villain universe isn’t alerted to the disaster. Likewise things that take place in arcane circles or happen off world or underground, they won’t make the headlines. However, with this one, the press were all over it, alerting the entire world.

Should we not attempt grand villainy? It’s a tricky one. This plot seems to have escalated to a ‘Dev Level Event’ as Pious called it and that’s where it becomes world altering. The problem with huge threats in roleplay is that they inevitably have to be neutered because in the end, we can’t alter the reality of the game world. Could I have The Atavist summon his Netherworld god to Earth so it could consume every soul? Sure, but he’d have to fail because it’s too reality breaking. Plus, there’s no good Cthulu models in game.

I’ve seen this kind of thing before on a smaller scale where a prominent building was supposedly blown up but others refused to acknowledge it. The alternative is that people explore villainy in other ways such as corporate menace or people suppression without needing to resort to blowing huge tracts of land up. Praetoria is a good example of how real villainy can be kept under wraps from the public at large.

I guess it’s up to the conscience of every GM to decide how the events will affect the wider RP world. Anyway, enough rambling from me.

With some previous postings in this thread, CB honestly did the right thing in retconning the deathtoll, specifically because in Northern US states, schools usually aren't in session until after Labor Day. Now, his death toll count can reflect a handful of students, some faculty, and not just ALL students. (Also: Yes, in the US, bigger cities usually have schools that accommodate larger student populations - so for Paragon City, the student populace could easily be over 2,000...even with it being set in a city that has been through TWO Rikti invasions. Granted, Paragon is SUPPOSED to be in Rhode Island, which is the smallest State in the Union - but it's quite crowded for its land area!)

However, when it comes to the authorative side of creating such a sub-plot, for apparently such an evil character, postponing this event and THEN unleashing it would've worked out insomuch as the sheer timing of it all. Distasteful and vile as it is, even for CoH standards, it's a legitimate threat ALL heroes have to be on the lookout for, and for truly evil characters a very possible route to inflict terror, pain and suffering upon the masses.

It doesn't have to be viewed as a 'dev-only plotline', either. CB's newspaper article could be a clipping from an alternate dimension, a piece of paper from the future...hell there's all sorts of ways that particular situation could've unfolded. It's been amusing to read all the uproar over this particular piece ... given the sort of villains presented to us in CoH/CoV already. I'm pretty sure the Rikti didn't hold back during their invasions in regards to schools. I don't see why anyone's villainous character should have to be portrayed as any less villainous than any of the NPC villains.

Given how all of Union participates in all these RPs, how your server has created this "shared-world" view for RP events, it's obvious that such a discussion thread about these wide-scale events has been a good thing. As an outsider looking in, however, I must say that the unwillingness of the majority of the RP populace to even acknowledge that something like this can be pulled off by a player-character is ludicrous. I must repeat what I said earlier - given the timing of CB's newspaper posting, his action to retcon numbers was the best thing. However, if he had held back his posting to say - like on September 23, or October 5th, both of which would be a full day of school - something like this could've happened on a larger scale. Also, from my earlier posts and from what I've stated previously in this post, the event wouldn't necessarily have to be dealt with the entire Unionverse RP community as it could've occured in an alternate dimension, the future, or hell could've been a media hoax.

It's apparent such a subject is too much of an emotive event for the Unionverse RP community as a whole, however. I guess that's a good thing, but if I was RP'ing a villain on the Union server, in such an environment...I'd feel that a great disservice had been delivered upon me, I'd probably piss the whole lot of you off, and completely withdraw from the RP community.