OOC Discussion: Personal takes on fluff and the setting

So, I thought I'd start a thread to ask folks about what some of their takes on the CoX fluff as well as discuss it, maybe even help give ideas to some folks about how they view the world around them in Paragon, Praetoria, Cimerora, the Shard, or the Isles and well beyond.

For example, I've lately come to think of the Paragon Protector's tier nine armor activations as their genetic programming basically "overclocking" or "overdrive" to give it an RP flavor (since saying "he/she activated their moment of glory!" sounds a bit silly) as a logical conclusion that a Paragon Protector is genetically programmed to burn itself out either to defeat an opponent or stall them, and at the same time keep the secrets of Crey safe.

Another big one is from playing my archery/energy blaster who's supposed to be an Anime Magical Girl, but real.
In this case, for her I've always played Modern Japan in the CoX universe as basically like a live action, multi-genre anime (magical catgirls everwhere!) with some very PAINFUL deconstructions and limitations. (...Most of them in graves)
Such as one of her traumas was watching a six year old newbie magical girl get crushed to death by a careless mecha pilot, Mecha are highly regulated and reserved only for the most dire situations due to the possible damage and life cost of having one fight, the legal number of registered meta-humans was reduced similar to the WWII Japanese Demilitarization treaties. (which had the consequence of Japan taking a nasty beating during the Rikti war since any one with powers that rose to the challenge... Were all horribly inexperienced and undertrained)
Of course, when I play her like this, anyone else with a character from Japan will wonder what she's been smoking.

So, what are your own personal views on mechanics, settings, and fluff?

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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow City of Heroes is a game about freedom of expression and variety of experiences far more so than it is about representing any one theme, topic or genre.

Where did you get that info on Japan X Rikti?

The Rikti caused massive damage to a large amount of the world during the first Rikti war; only Paragon had sufficient density of heroes to fight them off, and even that suffered heavy damage and massive losses.

I think it's quite reasonable to assume that Japan (along with a lot of other places), got hammered.

I wouldn't agree with the actual interpretation of Japan's hero populace, simply because we know nothing about the world outside Paragon except for a few bits of backstory that all happened in the past. I'm always pretty loathe to try and interpret what I don't know. For example, my Japanese scrapper left the country with her family when she was twelve, and her favourite topic is more rooted in traditional and cultural Japanese stuff, not so much the modern stuff. She's quite westernised, while still hanging onto traditional practices, honour, stuff like that.

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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.

I wouldn't agree with the Japan thing, after all the only place mentioned as having a lower than average level of heroes/meta humans is China, and that is due to Malta.

@Catus Brawler and Techbot:
Well, that doesn't mean anything for YOUR toons. This is about what your outlook on the rest of the world and your takes on what's presented to us.
Mostly I brought up mine as examples and to keep the first post from feeling too short.
Another reason why I like to try to think about what's going on in the outside world beyond the Isles and Paragon and such is because we're clearly presented with heroes and villains from all corners of the globe, in-game backstory tells about global events that metahumans were involved in.
But a lot of times, I see people tending to RP as though NOTHING out of the ordinary (except possibly themselves) EVER happens or happened outside of Paragon or the Isles of interest.

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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow City of Heroes is a game about freedom of expression and variety of experiences far more so than it is about representing any one theme, topic or genre.

I've had to do a bit of interpretation on the Paragon Police Department, due to roleplaying one of its officers.

The main liberty I've taken is the CCA Relations Division. This is a division within the PPD whose job is to maintain communication between the PPD and the city's heroes. They keep track of which heroes work well with the police and which don't, and accept and file official reports as and when heroes choose to submit them. If a PPD detective decides he wants hero assistance on a case, it's CCA Relations that finds it for him. If a hero supergroup assigns someone as its official liaison to the PPD, that person reports to CCA Relations. The division doesn't have anything to do with auditing or regulating heroes (which I believe is the FBSA's job, though I could be wrong).

The CCA Relations Division's staff includes Lieutenant Barry West, Sergeant Douglas Wong, and Detective Jennifer Sula (MIA).

There are two problems. First, the CCA Relations Division is not mentioned anywhere and is entirely a player invention. Second, I just can't get the name right. I've tried a variety of titles, none of which really sound right. "CCA (Citizen Crimefighting Act) Relations" seems official-sounding enough, but I'm still not happy with it.

Why did I create such a thing? It just seems like something that would have to exist. Paragon is full of heroes, running around doing their own thing. Someone in the PPD has to be trying to make sure the heroes and the police are complementing each other, not getting in each other's way. Not to mention that heroes are going to generate a lot of paperwork for the PPD, and someone has to take care of it.

Anyway, interested to know what people's thoughts are.

My most major contention is the notion that somehow, Arachnos is incompetent. I understand that Recluse's biggest schemes are somewhat nutjobby, but I readily believe in the ability of the Arachnos Forces to maintain the minimal amount of peace neccessary for the Rogue Isles to survive.

Somebody inside Arachnos, apparantly through sheer force of will and duct tape keeps the troop population high and maintains training standards. Public Works facilities are not in disrepair, the threat of Arachnos retaliation keeps most of the various factions from all out war. Currently, Arachnos is the beating heart of the Rogue Isles and trying to label the organization that does so incompetent, is in my opinion, ludicrous.

Before Marshall Blitz went nutso, The Etoile Islands were a nuclear state, for crying out loud. The spider theme is silly, the politics rediculous, but somehow, somebody on the inside is making it work and keeping it a real threat.

I agree completely. Sure, there will be incompetent members of Arachnos (just as there will be in Longbow, Vanguard, the PPD etc), but as an organisation they must do a very good job in general to be able to keep any semblance of order in the Rogue Isles. Something like that would probably require a fairly Verinari-like approach for anything to work.

While I can agree and understand this, part of me feels that it almost seems Arachnos is actually incompetent partly BECAUSE of this.
They spend so much energy just trying to hold it together, a lot of their schemes end up being 'all or nothing'.
But, in truth that could be said about all villain groups, indeed, Lord Nemesis can be appreciated for having apparent secondary objectives he can accomplish when the big prize falls through. (Or is it a primary objective for when his secondary falls through?)

Though the other big thing is a lack of game play and story segregation. the Knives of Artemis, for example, isn't supposed to have maybe more than a couple hundred members, but at least half of that is defeated EVERY KoA centric mission with no sign that they use some kind of hospital teleport. And the same could be said about Malta, or Council, or Circle of Thorns (who apparently were demi-gods prior to the Mu-Oranbegan war, if the fluff is to be believed), or countless others.

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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow City of Heroes is a game about freedom of expression and variety of experiences far more so than it is about representing any one theme, topic or genre.

Has anyone else ever attempted to RP with somebody who is firmly convinced superpowered people don't exist anywhere outside Paragon City of The Rogue Isles?

Quite a long time ago, I started a new character and found a sewer team, which happened to be an RP team. We were all having fun, and it was all good stuff. But this one guy on the team (who was very much new to the game, BTW) was RPing a transferred cop from the NYPD. He was supposed to be a new detective for the PPD. He stated several times that he had "never seen anyone with super powers before." This is just as ludicrous as any time a citizen states that "they've never met a hero before." Yeah right, lady. But his whole concept revolved around his character's strong opinion that heroes shouldn't be "wandering the streets like a criminal, using violence against people at their whim, without any sort of license." Which as we all know, is not true. Heroes (at least in Paragon!) are very much licensed, and even paid for what they do.

Anyway. The team didn't berate the newbie... but we did subtly try to convince him that his character was both a bigot to superpowered people (which to be fair, he did rather seem like it), and somewhat blind to the world. I mean, in a city like New York, there has to be SOME powered individuals, and there's nothing that says someone that can fly wouldn't decide just to be a lawyer or grocery store owner or head chef at a fancy French restaurant. How could he NOT see a bright blue mutant walking down the street, or some alien hero beating off thugs in any given alley?

Have any of you ever found people like this, and if so, how did you manage to RP with someone who was not only convinced there were NO powered people ANYWHERE but Paragon, but also refused to act otherwise? Personally, it aggravated me, but I had fun basically making the guy re-conceive his character traits from a street-smart detective unused to heroes and biased against them, to a racist, somewhat stupid cop who hated even the concept of a superhero.