chase

well, welcome! And since I haven't made my pitch in quite a while, there's a great little FBSA wiki out there that's an excellent home for character profiles. I'm not any sort of official for it, but I strongly encourage its adoption. https://fbsa.wiki/

What would she do about it? Well, probably her two biggest motivators are her desire to be human again and her overly-developed sense of obligation / "unhealthy sense of guilt". The guilt is what ultimately leads her to accept her fate and thwart the big baddie. To have this path described above to be chosen, I see two possibilities: She's unaware of the cost of her transformation back to human until afterward, and her guilt drives her to fix it. She's aware of the cost, but the sense of guilt isn't there. maybe a friend-therapist did too good of a job in the "You don't owe the world a thing" message. Has to be a friend-therapist, she can't afford to pay one. Keeping with the theme of dark futures: An Uchecked Sense of Guilt. - I've always tried to emphasize her mind as her greatest asset, (also the source of her greatest problems) and she'd still have that, so I COULD see her actively working with the midnighters to find the threat's weakness and confine/destroy it. I imagine the knowledge that she caused death and pain to so many would put her guilt into overdrive. Although her magical affinity left with her transformation back she could still be a researcher and supporter. It starts with skipping sleep and meals to pursue any hero's research as if lives depended on it- ("I didn't realize the cost of my own problem and this could cost lives too and I can't let others die and... and... IJustNeedToGetThisDoneOK?" ). Sure, some people would grow concerned but... dammit, she IS good at what she does and there's always another crisis. Surely someone's making sure she doesn't go too far. Rather than enjoying her human form, she'd be loathe to look in a mirror- her human appearance constantly reminds her of the cost that others paid for that luxury. She'd grow dangerously thin and sunken-eyed from self-neglect, her skin deathly pale from lack of sun. Her pulled back hair, tied into a minimum-effort tail always seemed just a day past-due for a washing when it was visible at all. An oversized black hoodie with the hood raked as far over her features as possible was her wardrobe of choice. As Tabby, she rarely let people get close so there will be few people that feel close enough to intervene. Heck, to an outside observer, this self-neglect hovers just on the cusp of calling for an intervention but never crosses it. They might think differently if they saw beneath the hoodie. As Tabby she'd sometimes resort to self-inflicted cuts for "blood magic" since her more rapid healing made such scrapes minor, but now in her human form that practice has manifest as an increasingly dangerous cutting disorder. Low iron probably explains a lot of her pallor... and maybe that hand tremor's not from a borderline Tantrum Energy Drink overdose after all... No, Nobody sees that. Most don't even know she was once the quirky catgirl that hated to be called Tabby. Fewer even know her name's Tabitha- she's just the midnighter archives' go-to ghoul girl you want when you need research done with the speed and dedication you'd expect if someone's life was at risk. You're just not expecting the life that's really on the line. ============ Or A Guilt-Free Life "The world doesn't owe you a think. You didn't volunteer to be the ward that would seal away some great evil, you shouldn't be expected to just perpetually stay on that job for life. Save yourself and move on" That message was eventually driven into Tabitha long enough for her to believe it, so when she changed back and things went awry, she just embraced those words even tighter. Even when her friend who offered those assuring words, Marzaana, died in the aftermath, she believed them. Sure, she missed good old insane Mary Zane terribly, but she didn't feel RESPONSIBLE for it. She didn't owe the world- or anyone- anything. Now, after it all was over- after fighting so hard just to be NORMAL again- she'd begun to realize just how damn boring "normal" was. Yeah, just being able to take a semester of college without interruption was nice, but mundane jobs are just SO MUNDANE. As Tabby she could step into the aether and step out wherever she wanted. She could manifest bolts of arcane energy, cause things to hover, heck, she could WILL HERSELF UNSEEABLE. She absolutely did NOT MISS being a human-cat monstrosity- the real life manifestation of a furry's fantasy pinup SHOULD be gone for good- but the magic-- the power- That should have still been hers. She shouldn't have needed to give that up with her transformation back. She shouldn't need to pay a price. The world had no right to take it back. That was part of her. That was who she was. And it would be hers again. Every possible discipline, every tome she could find, every quasi-mystical lead was tried and tested. She could learn the material and execute the actions flawlessly, but she cast no ripple in the aether-- no eddy in the mana permeating through the world- it was as if anything that should be magical in her essence was taken from her. No. Stolen. She would just have to steal it back. She knew the rituals, she just needed the tools- secured away in the midnighter archives-- it'd be a short borrow, nobody would miss them. It would be wrong to take the power of someone doing good, of course, but her research have given her the forbidden names of many things- dark and evil and absolutely undeserving of the power they held. She would summon one of them, imprison it, sever its power, and take it for her own. This second disaster would be far worse than the first, but we'll never know if Tabitha's mantra would leave her feeling absolved of guilt for it. She won't survive it.

Although I tie my characters to CoH Lore in various ways, I tend to ignore anything incarnate-level or that aspect of the future direction the game held. I just have no interest in such cosmic power levels so it's unlikely that any of my characters would be solely responsible for a substantially-different future timeline. I certainly have at their own power leve "what if'" moments where their decisions have an impact, just not at a global level. Tabby will have her "superman 2" moment- her opportunity to break her transformation and be who she really wants to be with every fiber of her being, but doing so will release an evil that will almost certainly end lives- not the world... not millions, but will result in deaths. There's certainly stories that can be told- what if she doesn't realize the cost when she's faced with the decision? Who's affected and how do the survivors' lives change because of it... Chase Arcanum is the closest I have to a "knowing (well... learning...) cosmic secrets" character as I've ever bothered to make- something of a lite Sorcerer Supreme, but when faced with hints of a possible convergence of realities, I never imagined he'd have any chance to impact something so massive, but might instead focus on weaving threads of reality among those most important to him allowing them to find each other and perhaps hold some ghost of memories from a reality that was no-longer. In his lore, his strict scientific mind left him limited to kinetic or illusion spells where he could imagine scientific truths like the conservation of energy still held sway, but if the convergence occurred, his effort to exert some control over it would drive him to madness and, in doing so, unlock his full and most dangerous potential.

All of you in this thread made this community a family- I guess I'm that weird uncle that shows up on holidays, sneaks caffeine and sugar to all the nephews and nieces, give them the "best gifts*" and then disappears unannounced until the next family gathering- even if you change the locks. Thanks for being awesome, everyone. And for not changing the locks. * "Best Gifts" are rated by three criteria: - the highest potential noise level - the most loose pieces. - the pain level of said loose pieces when stepped on If LEGO ever makes a functioning drumset kit, it's game over.

I'm going to switch and play devil's advocate: Should Event Progression (Lore) Even Matter? Why do we have to assume that ANY of the world-changing events that we encounter in the game have already occurred? I rarely encounter many people in-game that claim to be the sole actor responsible for arresting Dr. V or taking down Countess Crey FOR GOOD. I've not found someone who claims they have Vanessa DeVore's mask in their rogue's gallery while she rots away in the zig. Few have the arrogance to claim that the events of a story arc was theirs and theirs alone, because in an MMO we all know that down that path madness lies, as we all often could lay claim to those events. It's a death-knell to collaborative storytelling, not a path forward. So does it REALLY matter whether it even happened or how much time has transpired? There's Vaz or Carnies or Crey or oh-so-many other baddies still around after every event... yeah we can argue they escaped or released on a technicality, but the frequency of those events would make a laughingstock of the whole law enforcement system and really lend ammunition (heh) to the vigilante's "No prisoners" argument. And "it happened once and everyone else is just experiencing a simulation of it.. for training or testing purposes" to justify the shared experience? That's... just... no. I can't begin to deal with that hot mess right now. Instead, what if we played at a baseline of "this is the world as we see it today" and the specific TF or storyarc events are "what's yet to come." For those of us who have encountered them, we keep it vague- if we make it part of our story at all. For collaborative storytelling to work, we DO need a baseline "shared illusion" of the world our characters occupy. Yes, we can handwave away many incompatibilities, but there's a natural tendency to want to "get the facts straight" early so the need for handwaving is limited. So yes, many people spend a lot of time chronicling all the story points and plot developments to present the world "as it exists today" with all the events of the game having already taken place. But - at the risk of diminishing the herculean effort of the chroniclers- should that even be our frame of reference? What's more reasonable: Expecting every new player (and veteran player that hasn't seen everything*) to craft a backstory that accurately reflects every plot point and world development and time progression that ever occured in all of the task forces and story arcs, so they can RP in the world that a well-seasoned level 50 encountered. OR Expecting a level 50 (who's seen all these developments- AND knew the world that existed before those developments) to use the lore immediately available to them all as a common baseline. Anyone invited to join the game today can't really be blamed for assuming that the destruction of Galaxy city is a very real and very recent event, with the city still struggling to help, house, and feed relocatee's, and those dispossessed easily fuel the rise of street gangs like hellions and skulls. Do we really need to re-educate them that the events they're seeing occurred mid-September 2011, with the release of Issue 21, 13 years ago and is all ancient history so they should rethink how their character ties into the world? That early-teen orphaned survivor of the destruction would have been at best a toddler then. Dr Vaz has been imprisoned for oh-so-many years and his wasting disease is a distant memory. Any Lost that might remain are stragglers, as the cure has been around for over a decade. Even veteran players can't be expected to know everything, with all the many paths to level 50. I may have no reason to know that Vanessa DeVore is ultimately separated from her mask and imprisoned in the zig (um... spoilers? 🙂 ) but everyone that sets foot in the higher-level zones will see the carnies still hard at work, presumably doing Vanessa's bidding. Which would seem to be a more reasonable "lore" to build a narrative from? Who's better equipped to adapt to fit the encounter- the newb, or the one that's seen it all? Which one adds more flexibility for a game world that will change very little over the next five years? Do we want events we encounter "now" to be rigidly tied to a past? What will we do with our veterans of the first rikti war when they all hit retirement age? (Seriously asking for Chase Arcanum- he was 30-ish when that war started and his retirement fund took a nosedive after a bad tip on the demonic blood market. It's never recovered.)

Still struggling with a dead PC and discord crashing my tablet, but sooner or later I'll get back to the forum/discord RP.

It's a difficult element to really nail down. In general, I play newbie heroes who are still a little star-struck at the company that they encounter day-to-day. Sure, some (Tabby) may try to (poorly) play themselves off as less awestruck than others, and others (Misosazai) may be trying to display an aura of competent-mercenery, but there are usually cues given to show this is all an act. My FBSA Jr Caseworker- she's been thrown into the deep end from her first day at the FBSA, so she's probably the most jaded I've ever played, and I'm still foguring her out. I had her panic more about having her first teenager case rather than that teen being a chronologically-displaced individual with signs of immortality. That other stuff's so weird, she's not even going to try to wrap her head around it, but damn it, trying to be relatable to a TEENAGER- that's within the realm of reality... so that's terrifying. More often than not, though, I (rightly or wrongly) tend to mirror off the other player - if they're showing no interest in dwelling on their own specialness, then my doing so may just be an annoying distraction. I'll drop some subtle cues that all-may-not-be-as-well with my characters- that there IS something there, but if it isn't picked up on, I let it drop. There's also the question of how long someone continues the "newbie" schtick. Since I do tend to RP infrequently, I don't advance my characters' story as frequently as others. Tabby's been a freshman in PCU for "a few months" since the launch of Homecoming. She's shown elements of being star-struck by *real* heroes several times now, and probably could for some time longer, but for people who do roleplay thier characters as following a more strict timeline, seeing her "fangirl out" again like she did when Homecoming arrived might seem a bit out of place.

I can't stress this part enough- it's PARTICULARLY important for mature and dark subject matter. You will get people arguing that this isn't some therapeutic roleplaying and downplay it. Don't. McSpazz covered many of the great empathy-driven reasons, but in case you're as "dark" as your dark roleplay and just don't care, I'll argue self-interest. The roleplaying community is already fragmented and relatively small. The community interested in dark subject matter is even smaller. If you get a reputation as an unsafe contributor, it won't be long before you have trouble finding willing participants. Take care of the team you have. I'd also argue that you should make this an active part of any roleplay. Although it's particularly true in things you see as bordering this subject matter, sometimes you might not even be aware just how close it may be or how it may impact others. We've mentioned therapeutic roleplay a few times so far in this thread- mostly to say we're NOT practicing it here- but patterns will dovetail here. Oftentimes, rather than deal with a sensitive topic head-on, it can be more safely explored through a substitute- a common superhero trope of being visibly different from normative standards can be a safer way to explore body image issues. Likewise, "Involuntary transformation" can be an avenue for exploring feelings arising from sexual assault and the feelings of being permantly changed by what they've gone through. Although I've used this knowledge to shape how I appraoch a character like Tabby- who IS a survivor of involuntary transformation and will joke that she's the poster child for body image issues- it doesn't need to change yours-- but it does mean that your non-dark, non-mature roleplay might still trigger some negative sentiment in someone that's familiar with and possibly used this in the past. Having aftercare gives an outlet that COULD shape your approach to the story, but will also let that person address what might otherwise be a simmering issue that manifests in other ways. I'd thought I'd done well in navigating this topic with Tabby over the years. It's tough- metaphors (is metaphor the right term) like this aren't perfect- those with body-image issues relating to parts of her story may be working toward enbracing their differences, but an assault survivor isn't trying to embrace the scars that they feel now separates them from others- it's far more complex- but hopefully they're not letting those scars define them or stop them from living full lives-- they're finding a path forward. Two different expected outcomes sharing a very similar situation. Three, actually-- perhaps more- until recently I had never considered that feeling "trapped in a body that's not my own" also resonates with some trans issues-- or that a simple character "learning to accept myself for who I am" could feel so triggering to survivors of controversial techniques attempting to align one's gender identity with their birth identity. This isn't a call to have you change the story you imagined for your character- this isn't a warning to "avoid this concept or trope". That would lead to quite the impossible minefield to dance through, but aftercare gives you the opportunity to address any misconceptions, possibly learn from each other, and maybe bring your community closer together. And once you see how useful aftercare can be in approaching symbolic borderline situations like this, you can see how essential it is in dark and mature topics where the symbolism is stripped away and you're dealing directly with very real and very triggering issues.

As usual with my McSpazz follow-ups, I'm going to go a little introspective here... and while I believe I'll be within the forum rules and some of this will not be new, I'm going to spoiler elements due to the sensitivity some people may have to the material. I'm a combat veteran, and in the closing hours of the war, my unit occupied a rather horrific location- a bottleneck where evacuating forces were subject not just from coalition airstrikes, but their own forces blocking their retreat and our own ground forces. We were surrounded by death and decay for days. I have used my experience in shaping how I portray my veteran characters, but if I were to put it in a bio I'd never include more detail than the above. If I was in a mature RP group and it made some sense to share tales of darker material, I might: The above would normally be enough for most RP I'd engage in, but unless I truly knew the audience and the safety of the venue, I would guard myself in how I share elements that are all easily too vivid to me. The other players aren't therapists. I don't know their thresholds or motivations, and I, frankly, don't intend to cater to somebody else's morbid fascination with death and killing, if that's what they're there for. That's how I feel on a good day, at least. But see- it's never been the details of death and destruction that haunted me. It's the fact that the death and destruction didn't haunt me that haunted me. I've heard the same often enough to know I'm not alone. It's not what we faced but how we faced it that bothers us. So many well-intentioned people will tell you it's the brain's survival mechanism. It gets you through the hard times. That's supposed to make it better. It doesn't. It just makes you want to double-down on the details, going further. They just don't get it, I didn't make it repulsive enough for them to understand- that stuff should NEVER have been easy. It's a natural impulse to want to be understood, and so you want to make the tale darker until they get it. If you don't keep reminding yourself of the audience and venue your tale's taking place in, you risk going too far.

Age verification is a big part of it, yes. For all our joking aside on being able to identify a preteen rather quickly in chat, you can never be too sure who exactly is in your audience and whether they're mature enough for some content. People should always be mindful of that.

I do agree to an extent. Even on the RP-preferred server, you'll meet many people that do not have interest in roleplaying, and even people with the roleplay flag enabled may not be interested in roleplaying at that particular moment, so it can be challenging for an established RP clique to know when someone's interested in joining their current conversation. It's a very awkward spot for both groups, with both risking being ignored, receiving some form of rejection, or just being manipulated by malicious sorts. That's a big chance to take. So... I don't really blame the cliques for being insular and wary of outsiders. I don't blame the people that feel too jaded to try to find new RP communities. It's safer than dealing with rejection. Still, I don't think these communities are all "we have our 5 regulars, who cares about the rest?"- or I hope they're not, and I do not think we as a roleplaying community should be satisfied with a "I've got my X regular friends to RP with, who cares about the rest?" Roleplaying is a creative art of acting, storytelling, self-expression, improvisation, and often introspection and empathy. It's something that should be encouraged and fostered and developed over time. That can't happen if we all keep to ourselves. I don't want people stepping out of their safe zones- that's unfair to ask of anyone, particularly for what's to be a recreational activity. I want to see those safe zones expanded.

Fully understandable. RL work has me hammered. Although I won't lie, this thread did inspire me to start re-imagining a Praetorian clockwork Mk-IV victoria-series fanmodded with catgirl accessories by one of Tabby's stalkers that utilizes this clockwork speech. Codename [TAB]-E

Boot to the head! I was thinking about that skit when I wrote it.

Welcome home, Shy Punk. As you're probably guessing by the traffic on the forum, the Roleplaying forum itself isn't as active as I would have expected, based on the original game forums. Don't get discouraged. Many people organize, post events, etc, in discords- City of Roleplay is one of the most active I've found. There's listings of RP supergroups, events, and players seeking connections. Although I find activity under atlas park and Pocket D, on the discord you'll often find almost-daily announcements for various events- often DJ's at specific supergroup bases/ player nightclubs. (If you're not familiar with the base codes, you can now enter a person's supergroup base with the appropriate base code, leading many people to build locations that others can use for roleplay- from nightclubs to city blocks to orbital battlestations to a nice zen garden. There is also an IC supergroup recruitment faire within a month (IIRC) that can help with introductions to many great roleplaying factions. Keep an eye out for more on that.

A "broker" type character. They deal in magical antiquities, obscure objects of alien origin, high-tech confiscated off imprisoned villains, nanoviral genetic splicers combined with a growing gene inventory. They're not the master of any of it, but they know how to get it and they know the right people to then customize it to a particular client. Probably a defender, the powers are the various tools they keep on hand that can enhance their allies in-battle- at least for the short-term. A showcase, perhaps... or... for the more nefarious salesman... "first one's free, but there's more where that came from."