Talk:Alt Policies
I think we should limit some types of characters to only one or two, perhaps. Only two green Lanterns at a time, for example. Can be any two...Raynor, Jordon, Stewart, Gardner, whatever, but only two can be played at a time. Likewise should probably say almost no other colors of Lanterns, other than perhaps Sinestro since he's a traditional Earth villain. This might apply to GL adjacent characters like Jade as well. It doesn't make sense to me that Earth would draw that many Lanterns outside of an event scene; it's a backwater sector mostly.
Another idea was for putting some limits on types of characters. I did like how UH used to do things in that respect. Say, 3-4 slots. Maximum of one OC slot, one VFC slot. Then an additional slot that can only be used for someone who is considered a support character...someone like Harvey Bullock or Alfred or Jimmy Olsen, who are unpowered and not superheroes or villains but are nice to encourage people to app so we have them. I feel like encouraging a villain character is nice, perhaps with lowered requirements for logging in since villains are harder to get into social RP often. We could open up the OC thing later, but I feel like we want to limit that to begin with to no more than one per player. And that way if someone doesn't want to get a villain or a OC, they can just have 3-4 FC characters. Though major FCs should be limited to one per player too perhaps? We'll need a list of people we considers major FCs that are restricted to one per player.
Also we need to consider our rules on alts in groups; no more than one alt in a group is usually fair? I mean, I can see allowing some leeway, like if you ant to app an Xmen character who's on the official team, but also have a mutant student who's not involved in the Xmen team stuff. But that seems like a slippery slope for interactions.
And I know Owl has a whole post on this she'll probably be porting over. :)
--Metahistory (talk) 20:15, 4 July 2020 (UTC)
I am not a fan of playable VFCs, or if they are, I really feel they should be heavily limited to ones who can reasonably be expected to be able to play well on the grid.
Players don't like PVP. This is MUSHing, its a hobby with a bunch of nerds who don't like feeling like they are bullying anyone, and it's one thing to beat up an NPC emitted badguy in a scene and another when it's another player's actual character. Also, people don't like losing: villains are meant to lose.
So, if there are allowed villain PCs, I think they should be:
- Highly limited to a specific list we come up with in advance, and probably given a title that isn't Villain. Maybe 'Special Character' or something.
- They should have a slightly longer timeout if there's an alt timer
- ????
- Profit.
--OwlCity (talk) 7/4/2020 11:03PM
My concern with that is that villains also drive plots when they're being played by active players. That was mostly why I felt there should be a specific slot that is only for those sorts of character, as they are hard to get into RP but I wanted to leave the option over for people who really want to drive things along by playing Lex Luthor or something. We could make a list, but I think that'd be better as the characters we would not allow played than ones that are playable and fold it into the banned list, maybe. Or make a separate villains banned list perhaps.
Also, another limited character set should be Flash. There should be no more than two Flash characters that exist at the same time - Barry, Wally, whomever. I'd be tempted to say one, but I don't want to kill possible mentor teen play there. I'm also considering if we should just add to that caveat that those two characters cannot join the same team; we don't need two Green Lanterns in the same group, or two Flashes, or two Kryptonians. Spread them out; have some teen characters, whatever. That way each gets to shine in their own plots.
--Metahistory (talk) 22:14, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
I wonder if forcing them to spread out won't cause other problems.
Hear me out, we're having problems in the Bat Sphere on HAM because Gotham is traditionally a low-power sphere, but in the interest of "spreading things out" and "making more fun for everyone!" suddenly the BOP have a lot of powered members. Which is about to make my life a living hell helping run the Court of Owls plot.
I worry "spread out the Kryptonians!" will mean say, Supergirl ends up on the Birds of Prey or something BS like that, making it harder to do plots for the Birds she doesn't just steamroll. I don't see where two Green Lanterns on the Justice League is a problem, as long as one has seniority... like at say, Kyle and John, who have and can work well together in the comics. I think forcing "types" of characters apart is going to cause more problems than it will solve.
I think there should be game and group limits, surely, on certain types of characters. I'm also wondering if certain teams shouldn't have a strict "power level" limitation... for example, you don't want Superman on the Defenders.
--OwlCity (talk) 22:33, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
I understand what you're saying, but I also would point out how the HA BoP group is being handled is pretty unthemely for the characters they're allowing in. Traditionally it's a low powered/street level thing, with the high end being someone like Black Canary or Poison Ivy or something. Just because Supergirl can't be in the JLA doesn't mean she gets to jump into a group like that, not when something more appropriate like Young Justice or Teen Titans is available. I do agree a power level limitation or description of who is allowable in groups would alleviate the problem somewhat. Not perfectly, but yeah. It's just having two Green Lanterns in a group is focusing a lot of power in that group, and I'm concerned if we do that we're going to end up with two GLs and two Kryptonians and two Flashes that basically dominate any scene because they're all high end powered characters. --Metahistory (talk) 23:00, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
Mm. But if we're doing a combined JL and Avengers, and whatnot, and cutting down the groups overall... I worry forcing a split will either force high powered characters into low powered groups, or leave them without a group at all (see HAM and Tim/Conner/Bart/etc).
This leads to another issue: if this is the case and we say "no more than 2 of each concept"... does that mean we can have Dick and Damain because they apped first, but no Carrie, Tim, or Jason?
--OwlCity (talk) 23:08, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
Here's my thoughts:
VFC's don't work. Except for a few examples as already pointed out. These would be VFCs that can/will work with hero-groups from time to time, and can also run their own stories/archs without always conflicting with heroes.
A couple examples off my head of these would be: Talia al Ghul, Mystique, or members of an official Thunderbolts team with Waller running them.
VFC's generally don't work though. For a multitude of reasons.
- They prevent players from NPCing them in scenes (if we are going the consistency route, then we can't have players spoofing VFC's, period) even if they are not apped/played
- Most VFCs don't have sustainability because of their limited RP scope, they're usually dropped within a few weeks, or a couple months at best
- As stated above, most people don't like PvP. It's fine to have the enemy escape once or twice during a Plot, but overall people want to 'win', be it hero or villain. 95% of the people who play VFC's still want to win, or at the very least 'break even'.
We can make a short-list of appable 'Special Characters' if we want, but overall we should not allow VFC's as characters.
If we want to go the 'in-between' route, we could look at the possibility of 'loaning out' a VFC for a time, not as a char bit itself but if, say, Flash's player wants to play Victor Creed and run a month long plot for X-Men in which Creed is the main antagonist, we could have a board or something that alerts other players/scene-runners Creed can't be spoofed until the plot is over, just as an idea. DeadWeather (talk) 12:49, 2 August 2020 (UTC)
How about a compromise, somewhat inspired by DW (above): X number of alts (2 at start; maybe we raise that number over time as we are open longer), +1 Plot Character. But, Plot Characters require at concept app the inclusion of a plot in their concept. You can pick them up, app them, play them doing anything you like. But there's a plot they were approved for. Staff will be evaluating the progress of that plot every month; if you are found to not be making any progress, you will be contacted, and unless you have good reasons, the character will go back in the toy bin for someone else. Staff may pick up the plot and continue/finish it, especially if there is interest from other players. But such Plot Characters do not count against the alt limit, and do not have standard activity requirements. They have their own sort of thing. But you can only maintain one plot character at a time, and if you are found to have not handled a prior plot character well, we reserve the right to deny future apps for the same or other plot characters.
Thoughts?
--BlondieWiki (talk) 20:13, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
I would say 2 FCs, 1 OC/AFC. I'd like to really limit OCs to start as we don't want to end up with a surge of OC concepts that dilute the FC character pool. But I do want to encourage AFCs to be played, as they're usually social characters rather than involved in plots or supporting other character plots rather than having their own.
No VFC characters is best, but we can allow, upon submission of an approved plot, for a player to check out a villain for the plot and ONLY that plot. Don't need to make it a slot of its own, and that limits us having to deal with bad plot running, because we've approved the plot as written out, so if the runner flakes or something, we know exactly how it was supposed to end. I don't want to add to our work having to check up on players to see if they're actually running a plot, so perhaps a timeline with a finish date would be good as part of the submission, or something decided on when it's approved. Easier to track if they've gone past that point. If someone flakes or there are +concerns registered about their handling of the plot that are born out in investigation, we can deny them future plots/villains as needed.
However...I would be willing to allow a traditional 'villain' who is being played as an anti-hero, provided it is clear that they are considered a hero FC for that play. Mystique, Venom, Harley Quinn, etc. These characters would be subject to being revoked if they are being played as villains and not heroes, however, i.e. if anyone files +concerns on their behavior - they should not be committing crimes, attacking fellow heroes, destroying property, working with known villains, or otherwise acting like villains.
As for limiting numbers, we would be making a list of specific character types that we're restricting to no more than two. Currently, I'd say Kryptonians/Noble Kherubim like Majestic, Green Lanterns (only one or two in a sector), and Flashes. I don't think we need to limit Robins as they're not on the same power level by any means. For Marvel, I'm less sure what might be limited...Gamma characters like the Hulks? Quasars should be limited to 1 at a time, because canonly there only is one. I would also ban certain types of characters, i.e. no other Lantern types (maaaaybe Star Sapphire as a hero but the others have no reason to be on Earth outside of TPs).
Honestly, this is partly because I want to encourage these characters to be seen as unique and limited...it's hard to considering a Kryptonian or Flash as interesting when there are five of them running around that can all do exactly the same thing and are all very powerful. Exceptions could be made for hybrids like Connor Kent or Jade. --Metahistory (talk) 22:11, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
