There are RPers on my list!

[xenologer]

I am not currently playing with the vast majority of you, therefore I come bearing mutants and magic and MAD SCIENCE!

Metro City is here for excellently tongue-in-cheek superhero shenanigans for all your modern kitchen-sink supernatural roleplaying needs. We care about having comedy with our drama and diversity among our characters. I know that for me, a lot of boards can get so bogged down in being gritty and dark that the impact is lost because there's no dynamic contrast. If there's a little comedy (or a lot) thrown in, those dramatic notes stand out a lot more and it's easier to appreciate them, in my opinion. I know that I've learned a lot about comedic writing from being on this board.

Part of the comedy around Metro City is that we like to lampshade comic tropes. We actually factor in "trope coverage" to some plot decisions, because if we're going to be a superhero setting well naturally we'll eventually need to have twins who both have complimentary powers (check) and a teen hero team (teen swarm check) and a villain/hero romance (check) and Obligatory Clone Plot and Obligatory Alien Plot (check) and Obligatory Power Loss Plot (we have not done all of these yet but we keep them in mind as options because we respect our heritage).

We're writing in a comic book style setting, which means occasionally that we have to poke fun at our roots a little, just to make it clear that we know when they deserve it. We also try to improve on our roots by having characters of all races, genders, orientations, and ages, which is not something the big comic publishers have historically been terribly great at.

Now here is the Obligatory Ad Posting.



Daring, virtuous heroes.

Despicable, vile villains.

Dark, unknowable renegades.

Which one are YOU?

Three hundred years ago, Metro City was built around an ancient meteor impact site that emitted a strange radiation signature. Only within the last few decades was it discovered that this energy was tied to the emergence of superpowers in the world. Nowadays, heroes, villains, and renegades battle it out for control of the city's fate.

Metro City is eager for new storytellers. Come on down and see what we're about!

Details about the game are found here. Contact an admin here.

Comments

[elf]

It looks interesting. Does it welcome newbie online-RPers? I'm poking around through the archives and character lists, trying to get a sense of how it works, and can't quite figure out where to start. (Read some of the rules etc, but there's no simple "If you'd like to play, START HERE" post.

What's a renegade? Just someone who's neither hero nor villain? (I think I'd like to play a renegade.)

[xenologer]

The hero/renegade/villain thing is not general to online RP. That's just an us thing. A "hero" in this case is someone who has chosen to register with CAPE to receive the benefits of doing so. A renegade is someone who has not dedicated themselves to Villainousness but for whatever reason is not registered (and there are characters who are renegades as far as the out-of-character classification of people but who consider themselves heroes).

To give an example that touches on all three groups, there's a character named Dynamo who's a musician. His stage persona Dynamo is a supervillain. He doesn't actually do any real villainy, so he's out-of-characterly a renegade. In fact, he may go register with CAPE at some point, which'd make him (OOCly) a "hero."

And yeah! If you are new to online RP that is totally cool. Everybody has to start somewhere. We don't get too many such players just because we do a lot of our advertising in places where people are already RPing online, but there's absolutely nothing wrong with coming in from outside of that.

The main difference between play-by-post and a GMed tabletop session or LARP is that first and foremost there is often no GM. There are threads which are GMed (Caged Bird Sings was one such plot, and Operation Shieldbreaker is the plot going on right now that has a GM), but many are collaborative in the sense that people will either plan the outcome amongst themselves beforehand, or they'll just sort of wing it until their characters clash with each other or an NPC... at which point they'll either negotiate an outcome or they'll just write what their character does and have to trust that their threadmate will be cool about it.

So like, if my character takes a swing at another character, provided neither of us has superspeed or anything, I can either say, "What would he do if X?" or I can just post and see what the other player decides happens on their character's end--whether he gets hit or finds some way to dodge or whatever.

The fact that we've got a loose system (a list of power levels with promotions to higher levels based on level of thread activity) is also an us-specific thing. Some boards don't have approval processes like ours, but considering how tricky it can be to power-balance a superhero setting, we do have sheets go through our character mod to make sure that new people have someone whose job is explicitly to give them a hand.

[elf]

I looked around at the board, did some googling for other online RPs (gah, they're hard to find... there's no *label* difference between text-based forum RP and things like City of Heroes and Champions Online.), checked out a few different rulesets and character templates. So I've got a general sense of how it works, but that doesn't help with, "would *this* board be okay with *my* style of awkward newbie mistakes?" (Looks like maybe yes?)

Should I pester you with total-newbie questions (because I know you), or write to the appointed mod-person?

[xenologer]

I will be gone for most of the day at a LARP, but you absolutely may either pester me or pester me and whoever else is around in the Metro City chatbox.

I'm Cobalt in the CBox, and Spleen is Boreaspleen.

Totally up to your comfort level, though. If you'd rather talk to me a bit before you introduce yourself, that's totally cool. If I am not around, the others are available, too.

[elf]

Things I don't know:

Where do the character pictures come from? Just crawl around Flickr or Google images and look for something appropriate, or something else? (I'm looking for images. Apparently, I've picked a hard concept. Gah.)

Is it reasonable to make a full character outline and then submit it, or should I really talk to someone first? (I've got plenty of practice writing up character backgrounds and making them reasonable within games. I just don't know how much connection with the world/other characters is expected. I won't have any problems leaving spots for hooks to connect to.)

Where would I post first on the forums?

[xenologer]

The pictures are often either actors or models, just because those tend to be people who have publicity images up. If you have art or something that is also totally okay. If you want links to some sites to use to find someone to represent a character whose appearance you've already got in your head, I can hit you with some of those resources. Just found one or two new ones recently, so yeah.

You can totally just make a new character and start from scratch in the community. If you want your character to already know a person or two, you absolutely can talk to those people beforehand and hash out what kind of history your character and theirs might have together.

In fact, it is totally okay to propose and post a character concept and get them approved and then ask (either in the CBox or the OOC forum), "So is there anyone that y'all think my character might already know?" or "Whom should my character meet first!" because those are two ways to get threads that are both totally okay.

[inverarity.livejournal.com]

I used to be heavy into message RPing, and even ran some long-duration superhero games. Sigh... I am tempted, but I am not sure I'd stick with it.