When using Lore goes wrong.

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

So as Ive said before I am a big fan of using the game lore to integrate my characters into the world. Im far from the only one but it does take abit of effort to do it well. Lets use for example a character I ran with in the last month that while a good RPer, clearly didnt understand the full lore around which he was trying to base himself.

 

He placed himself as in his late 50s- early 60s in apparent age. He connected himself to Galaxy City in his name and was supposed to be an old silver age hero come out of retirement.

 

So I asked him why the new hero name, and he responded by saying that he always had carried that name. I pointed out OOC that Galaxy City was only called Galaxy City post rikti invasion, renamed in honor of the late galaxy girl, and was previously called Paragon heights. So unless he had only strapped on his tights for the first time well into his 40s he had to of had some other name.

 

See the reason I got so curious is because one of my characters named Skylord, is in his origins connected to the late Galaxy Girl who as is well noted in lore acted as a mother to her old neighborhood after retiring, so I have her being my characters foster guardian and mentor in the uses of his powers. Now I took the time to try to zero in her age and am pretty sure she was around 80 when she died. She and Dauntless could of had a secret child etc who would of been in theory the right age to of been this guy I met.

 

However he clearly didnt know even the basic timeline for the game world. And just kind of blah blahd at my suggestions on how to fit into game lore better. It was clear however he really was less about trying to fit into the game world, and force the game world to fit into his idea. So while in theory he and I should of had some good in game reasons to hang out and work together, I just couldnt interact with a guy who wanted to rewrite game history on a whim.

[justicebeliever]

I think you are taking the Roleplaying very seriously...

 

And it's causing you to push others away because they aren't as serious...

 

That's 100% your choice, but I feel bad for the other player who did his best to make a character that sounded fun to him and was criticized for not being accurate enough...

[Terminal]

The incomplete aspect of other people's backstories invites zany elaboration.

 

"You are COMPLETELY correct about the timing thing, but you see, I am also actually a time traveler because back in the Roaring Twenties this Circle of Thorns Psychic in a Speakeasy told me that Dr, Vahzilok was going to kidnap my dog-"

 

Which is appropriate for the genre. A little bit of zaniness and crazy super-powered chicanery can cover a diversity of sins and woes as far as incompatible backstories and histories go, and you can still have your serious roleplay alongside it as well.

[chase]

I truly admire the OP's dedication to the lore, but it does illustrate a problem.  I wouldn't call any timeline in any MMO "Basic."  Half the lore is hidden away in monuments not readily available until you've played and explored an extensive part of the game, yet you're trying to make a character up on day one, often before the full picture unfolds before you.  Its difficult... and very frustrating when you find that your attempt at narrative has fallen flat.

 

Flexibility in molding the collaborative narrative in a way that's helpful for eveyone is key, and sometimes it's tough.  I have characters whose defining teen moment was the Rikti war.  When I came up with them, they were just starting college.  I still have stories I want to explore regarding that era in their lives, so I play them that way still... but there are roleplayers who play the time progression matching the real world, and their "teen Rikti war" folk now have teens of their own...  Obviously, to make that interaction successful, both sides need to ignore the parts of the narrative that don't mesh and focus on the parts that they can have in common.

[Coyotedancer]

'Have to agree with the others here, BB... While I do love what you've done with Berkeley over the years and admire the depth of your knowledge of the game world (Not to mention your memory for the details. I always have to go look this stuff up-), it's just not really fair to hold everyone to that standard.

 

Not all players (Not even roleplayers who like incorporating bits of game lore into their character designs-) can reasonably be expected to have as serious an interest in exact time-lines and obscure details as you do. Even those who *DO* pick out specific niches in the lore to deeply dive into may not know much about other areas of the canon. I'm a pretty good example of that, myself... At this point I know the Oranbegan lore pretty much inside out. I play Circle mages. I like being able to make convincing conversation about ancient history and the whole nine yards. But I couldn't have told you the exact year Galaxy City was renamed.

 

If I were making The Galaxy Avenger, I'd probably go looking for a general history of the area and it might come up in that reading, but if it didn't? I wouldn't necessarily know that it was an important detail. If I were someone who just wanted a connection to the game world and wasn't really interested in Deep Lore Immersion for its own sake, I might not consider it all THAT critical.

 

So... yeah. It's not necessarily a Good Thing to demand that everyone put the same emphasis on exact history as you do. It's just not practical, and you'll end up losing out on interactions with what might otherwise be very entertaining players. I'm not going to have Tavaris refuse to speak to another Oranbegan character because their player got some possibly-obscure bit of the history wrong. It's not like I haven't willfully "bent the rules" on that myself a few times (*coughs* Kai's very existence-)... And honestly, I'm just happy to see someone else giving one of my beloved body-snatching ghosts a try. XD

[Zolgar]

Using the lore certainly went wrong in this little story of yours, but it didn't go wrong where you think it did.

 

It went wrong with you.

 

You basically told someone their RP was wrong, and told them how they needed to change their character for their RP to be "right". They don't know you, they presumably didn't ask for your input on their character's origin. They likely have a solid idea of who, what and why their character is, so being told by some rando that it's wrong and should be done another way is not going to be well received.

 

You weaponized your lore knowledge against this person, though perhaps not intentionally, and when they didn't live up to the standards you held them to, decided you couldn't RP with them.

[Phantom Marvel]

I'm a sucker for lore and using the elements of the game's canon where I can, but the fact of the matter is, not many people take CoH's lore seriously when creating their own characters. At best, it's a grain of salt for them to base things around, and at worst, it's ignored completely for the sake of their own stories.

 

At a glance, even Phantom Marvel would be no exception to this experience. That said, it's become highly accepted to just let it go when it comes to lore and RP. Additionally, given that the Rikti Invasion that changed everything originally occurred in 2002 (https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Rikti_Invasion_(Narrative)), and the general consensus for the current year (in order to avoid splintering the already confusing-at-times lore) is that it's 2019 where things have continued in a business-as-usual mode, that gives plenty of time for heroes that were around post Rikti invasion to have aged well. Additionally, it's quite literally been so long that teenage characters born in Paragon City wouldn't even know what a world without War Walls was like (kind of a scary thought!)

 

Anyway, that's all just food for thought and some of my opinions sprinkled in.

 

To stay on topic: my favorite minor aspect to RP out, personally, is the recognition of Security Levels and their purpose. A friend of mine even wrote in his bio a somewhat flowery, but extremely well written, short story about his hero identification card.

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

Using the lore certainly went wrong in this little story of yours, but it didn't go wrong where you think it did.

 

It went wrong with you.

 

You basically told someone their RP was wrong, and told them how they needed to change their character for their RP to be "right". They don't know you, they presumably didn't ask for your input on their character's origin. They likely have a solid idea of who, what and why their character is, so being told by some rando that it's wrong and should be done another way is not going to be well received.

 

You weaponized your lore knowledge against this person, though perhaps not intentionally, and when they didn't live up to the standards you held them to, decided you couldn't RP with them.

 

Whoa now think your being a tad too aggressive here. I didnt attack them in game, verbally assault them or in anyway insult them or their character. I merely pointed out that a character that in their bio was to have recently come out of retirement age in their late 50s early 60s would no matter if you RP it as 2012 or 2019 would of been quite old to begin with if their starting hero name was meant to be based on galaxy city existing and being a homegrown defender of it.

 

Lets say for example said character is 59 for easy math. If we are going with it being 2019, and the rikti invasion and destruction of paragon heights occurred 17 years ago, this character would of been 42, already middle aged and if  a mutant would of likely had their powers for as much as 20 years. Even if we say he didnt put on the tights till he was lets say 22 agian for easy maths,  that would be 20 years before the destruction. and renaming to Galaxy City in homage of she who put herself between those in need and an alien armada even as oh so mighty Statesman ordered those trapped to be abandoned including his own daughter.

 

All I had suggested was the guy consider adding in his bio a previous hero handle, and that he adopted the new one to honor either galaxy girl or more recently the ruined galaxy city.

 

However can we not agree that saying in their bio they defended galaxy city for decades is just utterly ignoring the world we are playing in? Galaxy city at most if it was renamed within the year of 2002 was only around a decade when it was ruined. And was only ruined towards the end of live, so at most its been only 7 or 8 years since it ceased to be.

 

Initially we had a civil conversation, neither of us ever got rude or aggressive in our word choices, and when I felt he was tuning out and clearly just didnt care I simply said good day left, and put him on ignore.

 

Ive never lacked for good RP partners Ive never felt the need to not ignore those that do not groove well for whatever reason. I dont use ignore as a tool to be rude but to simply avoid those who for whatever reasons do not click with me. Usually it involves being a whiny morale killer on a TF and even then I ignore usually rather then kicking them off the team outright unless I feel they are not also trying to carry their share of the load.

 

Paragon wiki exist, this guy wasnt some newb to the game he clearly had some understanding of the game lore, just a very shallow one and clearly no real interest in deepening it, thats fine. Nor am I under some obligation to RP with them on their terms, or even associate with them in game.

[Zolgar]

Do me a favor:

 

Re-read my first post.

I had no intention of malice or aggression to that post, I was pointing out to you that where this RP interaction went wrong was with you, not the other RPer. You took this as aggression.

 

Now, put yourself in this other RPers shoes for a moment.

Someone you don't know informs you that there is something wrong with your character, whether or not there actually is. This is a character you have established their history, you know who they are, you know why they exist. This rando suggests you change your character to suit the lore as they know it. How will you react to that? how will you handle being told (no matter how politely) "Your character's history is wrong, you should change it."? Because I can almost guarantee you that that's what the RPer heard, just like you heard aggression in my response.

 

Now, I imagine you're probably kind of like me, and if this particular incident happened to you, you'd go back and double check the lore and make adjustments as needed, but you might not be super receptive to the idea when broached, because "who the hell does this guy think he is, telling me how to change my character to fit his version of the lore."

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

Do me a favor:

 

Re-read my first post.

I had no intention of malice or aggression to that post, I was pointing out to you that where this RP interaction went wrong was with you, not the other RPer. You took this as aggression.

 

Now, put yourself in this other RPers shoes for a moment.

Someone you don't know informs you that there is something wrong with your character, whether or not there actually is. This is a character you have established their history, you know who they are, you know why they exist. This rando suggests you change your character to suit the lore as they know it. How will you react to that? how will you handle being told (no matter how politely) "Your character's history is wrong, you should change it."? Because I can almost guarantee you that that's what the RPer heard, just like you heard aggression in my response.

 

Now, I imagine you're probably kind of like me, and if this particular incident happened to you, you'd go back and double check the lore and make adjustments as needed, but you might not be super receptive to the idea when broached, because "who the hell does this guy think he is, telling me how to change my character to fit his version of the lore."

 

First off yes saying it went wrong with me is attempting to put it all on me. I fully acknowledged in my first post that the guy and I clearly did not jive and so I went on my merry way. Nor did I even say the other guy was someone in the wrong, just that by choosing to ignore lore he made it impossible to really RP with when my own character I was on was steeped heavily in the history and lore of paragon heights and later galaxy city. And I was very civil in my discussion once it was clear he was not really interested in the lore I knew we could not really  RP because his character simply could not be perceived as being in the same universe as mine.

 

Had I been on say ol Berk here I could of simply adapted, treated it as a timey whimey wrong dimensional turn at alpha centauri prime, and must be on Earth xL-Z73 or some such where things went differently while being in a group with that guy. When in doubt that is my go to for such things in a game with time travel and portal tech.

 

But based on your posts in this and another thread its pretty cler to me Ive offended you and you are trying to act otherwise. such as your comment on another posters being well said and more polite and eloquent then how you would of put it comment.

 

To me civility is a constant must and as such even when as with the player Ive not named and I didnt jive I was never in any way rude nor did I press the issue.

 

It began like hey interesting name I was born in the heights myself and sure do hate that it was ruined for a 2nd time. He was like 2nd time? I was like yearh I mean it was wrecked twice in less then a decade the people trying to rebuild there sure got a damn hard hand in this life. He pretty much was at that point clearly not really sure what I was talking, that was when I switched to ooc and tried to discuss the lore and offered some civil critique of his bio and concept. news flash if you really dont want people to read and offer their opinion/critique of your bio, dont write one. If you really want to RP only your own ideas, stick to a static RP group. Thats not me being mean thats me saying exactly what Id be doing if that was my goal.

 

To RP with random peeps in pugs the lore is the only guide book we really have to keep us on the same page. That doesnt mean you need a degree in paragon history but when you find your bio and concept are just not in sync with the world your only real option is adapt in some way.

 

 

 

 

[justicebeliever]

...news flash if you really dont want people to read and offer their opinion/critique of your bio, dont write one. If you really want to RP only your own ideas, stick to a static RP group. Thats not me being mean thats me saying exactly what Id be doing if that was my goal.

 

To RP with random peeps in pugs the lore is the only guide book we really have to keep us on the same page. That doesnt mean you need a degree in paragon history but when you find your bio and concept are just not in sync with the world your only real option is adapt in some way.

 

I don't write my bios for anyone to critique.  I don't make my costume to please others.  I don't select my powers for another's amusement. 

 

I hope I’m clear - I really respect your gift/talent/craft at role playing.  I love that you are so steeped in the Lore.  I bought both CoH novels, read all the Lore AMA, and collected all the comics, but I definitely don't have your gift.

 

Regardless though, I am not playing this game for anyone's approval.  I play to have fun.  I play because being a superhero makes me smile, and I love writing stories for my heroes.  If you feel you must critique me, then please, have the courtesy to get to know me as a player.  Run a couple of missions with me, humor my pathetic role play attempts, lower yourself to my level so that I have sense of what value your judgment brings.  Then if you have a helpful word to share, I'll listen.

 

But if you are making value judgments on my worth as a player based on my bio and not spending some time getting to know me, then I'll pass on the comraderie, because we really aren't comrades in arms then.

 

[TheBlindGirl]

A brand new character has just completed the Galaxy City tutorial on the real world date of June 23rd, 2019. They have had no other adventures since. It just happened to them. The dust of the fallen buildings hasn't been cleaned off their jacket as they speak with Matthew Habashy, who fears for the safety of his wife, still missing from the same incident. When did the destruction of Galaxy City take place in the game's timeline?

 

The vast majority of characters have completed few, if any, incarnate trials. Has Tyrant detonated a nuke on Praetoria yet?

 

How long has Sam Wincott been missing in the Hollows? Has he been rescued yet? Which heroes were on the team that rescued him?

 

It doesn't matter what your answers were, because every answer is wrong. The game's timeline is already intractable. If you can't roleplay with the punches, you can't roleplay.

[justicebeliever]

It doesn't matter what your answers were, because every answer is wrong. The game's timeline is already intractable. If you can't roleplay with the punches, you can't roleplay.

 

I'm truly sorry to do this 2 posts in a row (being sincere here), but I don't understand your point here.  I mean the words and sentences make sense, but I’m not getting the point.

[TheBlindGirl]

Try answering the questions about the Hollows.

[justicebeliever]

Try answering the questions about the Hollows.

 

I don't understand the point of that though...is there a point you are making?  If not, fine.  If so, it's completely unclear to me...

 

[TheBlindGirl]

I could spend multiple paragraphs explaining, and then get lost in the weeds of a quote war for three pages over pedantic nitpicking. Or you can answer the question and I can show you in about three or four sentences. I'm not gonna do the first one.

[justicebeliever]

I could spend multiple paragraphs explaining, and then get lost in the weeds of a quote war for three pages over pedantic nitpicking. Or you can answer the question and I can show you in about three or four sentences. I'm not gonna do the first one.

 

Well, I am not your student, and you are not my teacher...so if you are uncomfortable making a point that is clear and doesn't need to be didactic in nature, then so be it...

[TheBlindGirl]

So you're confused enough to demand an explanation, but not confused enough to facilitate one that isn't vulnerable to tedious nitpicking. That is a very specific amount of confused. It kind of implies that the tedious nitpicking was your actual goal.

[justicebeliever]

I have no interest in nitpicking...but as stated we don’t have teacher/student relationship where I am willing to be led along didactically.  I’m always willing to learn...so if you have truth, speak it.  If you wish to assume that I desire to pick on you, I can’t stop it, but the danger in assuming things is that you are often wrong.

 

Finally, if you feel afraid that your point will be nitpicked publicly, you are welcome to PM it to me and it can remain between us...

[TheBlindGirl]

If I were your teacher, I would explain in as much depth as was required, because it would be my job. As I am not being paid to do so, I am not going to explain to someone who refuses to exert even trivial effort in understanding me.

[justicebeliever]

I am sincere in wanting to understand what posters are saying.  I assume you are more than just a screen name, that you are a real person, with real feelings, and that you, like me, wish to contribute positively to the conversation and foster a sense of community

 

These are actual non-trivial efforts on my part to turn the conversation into a more polite area.  I assure it will be my last if rebuffed

 

If you want to be understood, then please post and do so.  If your goal is to continue to be insulting or didactic , I suppose I can’t stop you, but I feel comfortable assuming it would be a poor look for you.

 

If you want to continue down the insult path, then I apologize for making the mistake of assuming you wanted to be understood.  See it can be dangerous to assume other’s intent.

[TheBlindGirl]

Quote the post where I insulted you.

[justicebeliever]

Quote the post where I insulted you.

 

Asking me to answer a question before you'll give me an answer is didactic.

I could spend multiple paragraphs explaining, and then get lost in the weeds of a quote war for three pages over pedantic nitpicking. Or you can answer the question and I can show you in about three or four sentences. I'm not gonna do the first one.

 

Being didactic is insulting.  It's very definition is being condescending.  Calling me pedantic is insulting.

 

If I were your teacher, I would explain in as much depth as was required, because it would be my job. As I am not being paid to do so, I am not going to explain to someone who refuses to exert even trivial effort in understanding me.

 

Calling someone lazy is insulting.

 

 

And I am the same real person using this screen name in the other thread we've been going back and forth.

 

If asking for civility in discussion and clarity of meaning is nitpicking, then yes, I am captain nitpick.

 

Honesty would be nice.

 

Calling me dishonest

 

Here's one where you have a trifecta - calling myself among others demanding, narcissistic, and lazy.

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/index.php/topic,5427.msg43966.html#msg43966

 

Clearly at this point you have no intent at a grown up conversation.  I'm going to put you on my ignore list, and you are going to post something here that will make you feel vindicated, because getting the last word is what'll make you happy.  So please enjoy your "victory lap" over the evils of polite posting, because if you get the last word, then clearly you are right, even if no effort was made to communicate in a mode all can understand.

 

I've not used any labels to describe you, so go ahead and fuel your "righteous indignation" by some other means...

 

[TheBlindGirl]

It is instructive to note that justicebeliever posts multiple paragraphs of misleading and in many cases blatantly false accusations before declaring that he is going to take his ball and go home, attempting to paint me as unreasonable for responding, even though of course reasonable people respond to public accusations against them. The people who shout the loudest about politeness are very reliably the ones who are only nominally polite. Justicebeliever consistently mischaracterizes people who disagree with him (he did it to Varden in the thread he linked before doing it to me - less vitriolically, which is unsurprising, given I have considerably less patience for people who are misleading in this manner) and sees hidden insults and accusations lurking in every shadow.

 

 

Asking me to answer a question before you'll give me an answer is didactic.

 

No, it isn't. The purpose of the question was to make it easier for me to answer his. That he reacted to it as though it must be some condescending trap to make him look dumb says more about him than me. The idea that maybe my offer was sincere apparently never crossed his mind.

 

Being didactic is insulting.  It's very definition is being condescending.  Calling me pedantic is insulting.

 

I raised the possibility that someone could start a tiresome, nitpicky debate, and justicebeliever makes the assumption that I must be referring exclusively to him. Now he did, in fact, do that, but my original assertion was that such a thing could happen at all, not that he would personally be responsible for it. Given that I came into this thread largely to agree with him, I did not particularly anticipate that he, specifically, was going to try and drag an argument out until everyone was sick of it and would hopefully forget that he was the one who insisted on having an argument over nothing. I did anticipate that it would happen at all, however - it's a common problem on the internet.

 

Calling someone lazy is insulting.

 

The word "lazy" does not appear in any of my posts except this one. I pointed out that no one was actually attempting to perform a task under discussion despite the fact that we all have access to the code to do so. Justicebeliever assumes this was an accusation of laziness. It is actually a demonstration that clearly we all agree it would be very hard.

 

 

Calling me dishonest

 

The rest of this post ably demonstrates that he is, in fact, dishonest. If correctly identifying bad actors as bad actors is "impolite," then that is a compelling case for "impoliteness."

 

Here's one where you have a trifecta - calling myself among others demanding, narcissistic, and lazy.

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/index.php/topic,5427.msg43966.html#msg43966

 

This is a link to his own post, quoting several of mine, almost all of which were very clearly aimed at people other than him, and what exceptions exist are just your paranoid assumption that insults lurk in hidden sub-text where none ever existed. My reference to narcissism was in response to a direct quote from someone other than justicebeliever, I never called anyone lazy, and the accusation of being demanding hardly proved to be misplaced (and was also a vague implication, not a direct accusation against him, specifically) - justicebringer had demanded repeatedly that I argue purely on his terms despite steadfast refusal to extend the slightest bit of effort to meet me on mine. My terms being, I will remind the audience, that he answer a simple question. I didn't want to (and still don't particularly want to) write a post addressing each of the possible answers and why all of them are wrong, so I asked him to give the answer he thought was correct in order to save time. Really, just trying to give a correct answer to those questions is pretty likely to prompt the realization that none of them work. They are paradoxes.

 

I've not used any labels to describe you,

 

Note the hypocrisy: Apparently "didactic" and "insulting" don't count as labels, but "narcissistic" and "demanding" do, even when applied to someone completely different and no specific individual, respectively.

 

I'm going to put you on my ignore list, and you are going to post something here that will make you feel vindicated, because getting the last word is what'll make you happy.

 

And this, apparently, is what constitutes "politeness" to justicebeliever. It becomes clear why he was afraid that my question was a trap designed to humiliate him: He deploy such traps himself. He appended this comment about "victory laps" after spending multiple paragraphs attacking my reputation. Obviously I am going to respond to such accusations in order to disprove them, and his attempt to make that appear petty and bullying here is misleading.

 

It is perfectly typical for the people who shout the loudest about the importance of politeness to actually be very rude and accusatory, using nominal politeness as a ploy to try and make others seem unreasonable for actions as simple as defending themselves from accusations or just disagreeing with justicebeliever in the first place. Vanden outlasted justicebeliever by refusing to be misunderstood. Good for him and all, but the expected standard of behavior in a genuinely civil discussion should preclude attempts at strawmanning altogether.

 

Justicebeliever's approach in nearly every post he's made to me across both conversations has been to refuse to answer questions, then make up what he thinks the reason for my asking was. It shouldn't shock anyone to learn that his guesses were wrong.

[Defeat All Snakes]

Greetings Praetorian citizens, what is going on in this thread?

 

By the Emperor (Cole)