Versions of characters

[Duckbutler]

I'm just curious to see if anyone else does this, too. Creating an identity is the hardest part of making a new alt. Since it's so easy to rename characters and we have so many alt slots, I just create one identity and then make different versions of that same character with different power sets.

 

All the versions of one character identity share a commonality - a specific theme and usually their mode of gameplay. My tanker has like 3 different variations I seriously considered, invuln/staff, shield/fire, and willpower/fire, and then a TW/elec brute variant I briefly considered. All versions of this character are meant to be played as a tank, even the brute. My scrapper was similarly built as "melee damage" and had a few iterations before I settled on one I liked best. The only weird one is the demon who is a mastermind, a brute, and possibly a controller in the near future.

 

Do other people do this? Take a character concept and recycle/refine it while they tinker with power sets?

[Player2]

10 minutes ago, Duckbutler said:

I'm just curious to see if anyone else does this, too. Creating an identity is the hardest part of making a new alt. Since it's so easy to rename characters and we have so many alt slots, I just create one identity and then make different versions of that same character with different power sets.

 

All the versions of one character identity share a commonality - a specific theme and usually their mode of gameplay. My tanker has like 3 different variations I seriously considered, invuln/staff, shield/fire, and willpower/fire, and then a TW/elec brute variant I briefly considered. All versions of this character are meant to be played as a tank, even the brute. My scrapper was similarly built as "melee damage" and had a few iterations before I settled on one I liked best. The only weird one is the demon who is a mastermind, a brute, and possibly a controller in the near future.

 

Do other people do this? Take a character concept and recycle/refine it while they tinker with power sets?

I have seen it done where someone created multiple versions of the same character and treated them as different armor suits worn by the same person, but this was back before the old server shutdown and we didn't have the unlimited rename tokens then that we have now, so I think he just designated the different versions with a number at the end of the name.

[ZemX]

4 minutes ago, Player2 said:

I have seen it done where someone created multiple versions of the same character and treated them as different armor suits worn by the same person, but this was back before the old server shutdown and we didn't have the unlimited rename tokens then that we have now, so I think he just designated the different versions with a number at the end of the name.

 

I've just started toying with this same idea on a cyber-assassin character of mine.  Her name is "Chrome Ninja" so other than being vaguely ninja/assassin themed (which the costume, Stalker AT, and Ninja Run pretty much take care of), the name doesn't exclude any powersets.  I did a fairly obvious Staff/Ninja/Elec Stalker to start with but am now working on an Elec/Ice Stalker.  I can play this as just having different cybernetics equipped.   Could easily work as a Scrapper or maybe even Archery/Ninja(or Martial) Blaster.

[Duckbutler]

I've been throwing roman numerals on the inactive versions since I can only play one at a time and I want to keep the name. 😁

[Techwright]

I've two ways of doing this:

 

1. I create the "evil twin", or a version from another dimension, since we've got Peregrine Island to foster this.

2. For my main, Major Ray Gunn who is a "space ranger", I've used his look as the uniform for other characters, altering the look slightly to denote rank, specialization, or alien nature within the space rangers.

[Oklahoman]

Are you familiar with the Nino-verse and the Snarky-verse?

 

Oklahoman is my main character, but then I created "Okie" to basically just do Hami raids. I gave him an alternate reality backstory of what I have for Oklahoman.

 

I'm almost ashamed (but not really) to say I just created "Okie-Wan Kenokie" (brute katana/inv). Still working on him, but his bio will start something like this:

 

A fair bit ago in a galaxy way,

way over yonder....

[Scarlet Shocker]

On live I had a few different iterations of Scarlet Shocker spread across Defiant & Union (we only had two English speaking shards back then) and here I've created Glass Fox and Vitric Vixen who are effectively two poles of the same character - there's an entire thread about it in the not too distant past if you're interested.

 

I found that the latter combo was nigh impossible to play as a contiguous whole so they are largely retired, but I do love the concept of a glass character that once shattered rebuilds itself in a tougher variant.

 

I got bored with different versions of Scarlet and I found they quickly became autonomous characters in their own right in my mind.

 

What I don't grok with the OP is the difficulty in coming up with an original concept for a character. I find that one of the easiest things to do - often the concept comes first, then the power sets are taken to fit the character. A great example of that is I came up with the notion of the Praetorian Imperial Secret Service; an organization with a singular objective of keeping Emperor Cole's legacy alive at all costs. Then I needed a character who would fit that, fanatical, dedicated, tough, but not invincible, and able to boss the field of play, that fitted my play style. That became a no-brainer; a Plant/TA controller (this was live when that was a very respected combo and I tend to shy away from melee and VEATS weren't a thing) and all I had to do then was come up with a  costume (gold and white of course) and name. Once all the background was slotted into space the name was simple enough; Barbed Quarrel.

 

Yeah... I over think shit sometimes!

 

 

[Yomo Kimyata]

9 hours ago, Oklahoman said:

Are you familiar with the Nino-verse and the Snarky-verse?

 

I really didn't enjoy Snarky the Duck very much.

 

[Scarlet Shocker]

1 hour ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

 

I really didn't enjoy Snarky the Duck very much.

 

 

Sounds like a new kind of vampire

 

Snark-Thing wasn't so bad. Kind of obscure, but underrated

[UltraAlt]

16 hours ago, Duckbutler said:

Do other people do this? Take a character concept and recycle/refine it while they tinker with power sets?

 

Not so much but sort of.

I have characters with the same name across the servers. They are all essentially the same character but they have different power sets but all still related to the original concept.

The main character that I do this with is one from a Champions campaign. 

 

I also have characters are cross with the same or similar names across servers that have different archetypes but are essentially the same character.

This character concept and variations came from a Call of Cthulhu game. He started as an adventure. Later he took on a pulp hero alter-ego. Later as more was revealed in the campaign and items of power became available (and because in the US because someone tried to reveal his identity), he created an alternate "masked" alter-ego. To complicate the issue, he retained his first pulp hero form when adventuring outside of the US while utilizing some but not all of the additional equipment that he and another player character had crafted for him.

 

In general, if I'm going to make a new character, I'm making it because I have and Idea and I fit into the the City of Hero rules.

It is less likely that i will decide, I want that power set and built a character based on a power set, but that happens as well.

[lemming]

4 hours ago, UltraAlt said:

I have characters with the same name across the servers. They are all essentially the same character but they have different power sets but all still related to the original concept.

The main character that I do this with is one from a Champions campaign. 

I could have typed that verbatim...

 

Two of my champs chars got this treatment across servers though in both cases, scrapper/stalker variations.  

[Duckbutler]

I like having a concept that's tabletop RPG worthy. IE, detailed enough to feel really unique but not so set it's inflexible. Then I also want to experiment with the sets almost every time I sit down to play and that's the part that gets me in trouble! It's been neat seeing how the characters have evolved over time, though. The concept changes a bit each time and the costumes may get some color tweaks.

[SeraphimKensai]

On live I had a broadsword/Invuln scrapper that was an angel. In it's story progression (in my head), it was corrupted by a demon, so the next version of it was spines/Invuln. This corruption later spread and it became a spines/dark armor scrapper. This was all back around i1.

[Greycat]

So, my original character when I started playing COH back in issue 3, Memphis Bill, was based off a character I was playing in a PnP game of Silver Age Sentinels - *that* character's general (power) idea coming from a New Universe character (Dennis "Scuzz" Cuzinski, D.P.7.) The comic character's main thing was their mutation that caused their skin to constantly excrete acid (and they could also make "spitballs" which could damage things.) The SAS version used the "acid skin" idea to be able to - as one of his teammates commented - "make an area smell *really* bad for the bad guys," at various strengths, incapacitating them (or if he'd ever been pushed to that point, probably sending them to the hospital, or morgue) - basically a walking acid cloud. He was also exceptionally strong and resistant to damage.

 

Well, since I picked up COH while that game was on (what turned out to be a permanent) pause, that was the first character I tried to remake - or at least something close, and the closest thematically to the powersets was a Fire/SS tank. There was no way I could pretend it *was* those powers, really, but it was "close enough."

 

Tried a spines scrapper, since that did toxic - that didn't last long.

 

COV came out and at some point Brutes had Dark Armor - which, with the fear and general "cloud" look (especially when we got power customization) was closer. So, Red Bill, alternate universe version where he's basically a gang leader (longer backstory to him, but good enough for now) came about.  And then, when tanks finally got dark armor... another remake, and he's been the "close as I can get" version since then.

 

(Side note, yes, I still want a toxic armor set.)

 

Sometimes it's been the same name across servers, sometimes not (see Red Bill.)

 

My first 50, Therra, has had ... a *lot* of variations. Just from her own story, she's been an Elec/Elec blaster, then a Peacebringer. Related directly to her story, there's a Corrupter version which was made to be a clone and ruin her name by the CoT... but they couldn't copy her powers (and were later eliminated by that clone, who went on hunting the original character.) Another version became an elec/elec brute from a point where her storyline branched (her partner's technological bits took him over and she was forced to put him down - then blamed the government, businesses, basically took over until she was trapped and exiled to our dimension/timeline.) And then, of course... when more electric stuff came out, new versions emerged.

 

And those are only two sets of examples... so, yeah, I do it a lot, either due to powersets, storyline, sometimes bringing a character into another game and then back into COH to see what matches *that,* ... I do it a lot.

[Techwright]

22 hours ago, Oklahoman said:

I'm almost ashamed (but not really) to say I just created "Okie-Wan Kenokie" (brute katana/inv). Still working on him, but his bio will start something like this:

 

A fair bit ago in a galaxy way,

way over yonder....

 

That name!  As soon as I saw it, I felt I wanted to see someone from Georgia or Florida create Okee-Wan Fenokee.

[WumpusRat]

I haven't made any characters with "multiple forms" yet or anything. Though I do have one that I COULD do something like that for.

She's a bot/ff mastermind who pilots her bots remotely (she's a bit of a coward, and doesn't want to get punched in the face by some super-strong person intent on killing her, so she just controls all the bots from her little command center elsewhere), so the "main body" is just another robot, that I tried to make look as close to the tier-1/2 bots as I could. Same arms, legs, etc. It's just there to provide bubbles and buffs to the other bots, that deal all the damage. 

 

In theory I could have her create a singular bot (that would probably be much larger) that has a wider array of functions, and so could make it into a blaster, sentinel, or something else. Or a melee-version of the robot for a brute, tanker, or something else.

Edited April 18 by WumpusRat

[Gobbledygook]

8 hours ago, SeraphimKensai said:

On live a spines/dark armor scrapper. This was all back around i1.

Did you hate yourself back then? Are you ok?

[Kaika]

I actually do this quite a bit

 

My stalker "Kaika" is normally Db/invun, but I also have alternate version where she became a PB named "Ghostflame". I have another alternate version where her mutation advanced and changed and now she in a TW/Bio scrapper going by the name of "Void Rat" to hide her identity, or something along those lines, still need to finish the back story. I even have a Preatorian version of her a Arc/nrg sentinel named "Woodwind" though you could argue that's technically a different character. My blaster "Unluck" due to her natural origin makes her rather flexible power wise,  she is normally a AR/Nin but goes undercover in Arachnos as a Bane, and has another alternate character where she becomes a warshade. Basically the idea is that they are all from different story archs, in the characters overall story.  Different variations based on different situations.

 

I try to make sure every character can stand on their own though design/description wise, but try to leave hints to their identity, or even outright say it if I feel it doesn't take away from isolated story. As much as I find it fun I can't expect anyone to follow my own little internal lore for my characters, but there has been one or two occasions where someone has picked up on it.

 

 

[MonteCarla]

I've done this once with a character I really enjoyed playing - Jenny Foxgloves (Nature/Ice Defender).

I'd got her to 50 and Tier 3+ incarnates in everything, so I remade her as a Plant/Storm Controller and levelled her up to 50 again.

(This was her winter form as a nature spirit, since Plant Control produces spiky thorny effects compared to the lush foliage of Nature Affinity) 

 

I'm considering doing that with a couple of other characters who I've capped out on, and kind of miss playing. Same character, but with different powersets. 

[Marshal_General]

On 4/17/2024 at 3:44 PM, Oklahoman said:

Are you familiar with the Nino-verse and the Snarky-verse?

 

Oklahoman is my main character, but then I created "Okie" to basically just do Hami raids. I gave him an alternate reality backstory of what I have for Oklahoman.

 

I'm almost ashamed (but not really) to say I just created "Okie-Wan Kenokie" (brute katana/inv). Still working on him, but his bio will start something like this:

 

A fair bit ago in a galaxy way,

way over yonder....

You mean, A fair bit ago in the Echo of a Galaxy City, way way over yonder. ?

[catsi563]

I do this regularly along power themes

 

White Lotus the assassin leader of a ninja clan uses swords bows shuriken and has ninja fighting for her along side ocult magic she uses

 

Bale Fire is basically EVERY fire power archetype in one go

 

Panda is the same but with Darkness powers

 

North Winds is storm and ice and weather

 

Shattersky is all electric and storm powers

 

 

[Gobbledygook]

5 hours ago, Techwright said:

 

That name!  As soon as I saw it, I felt I wanted to see someone from Georgia or Florida create Okee-Wan Fenokee.

Not only am I from Florida, but I also happened to have been born at the University of Florida Teaching Hospital (Shands) in Gainesville. AKA The Swamp