The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants

[Ultimo]

So, I'm making an AE arc that includes a group of characters based on the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, from the X-Men.  However, I'm finding it a bit difficult to give them appropriate powers, that simulate what the characters in the comics had, so I thought I'd see what the community would suggest.

 

The general rule is, I always try to make AE enemies using power combinations the players can have, as if I was going to make the characters playable (which I often do).

 

So, here's what I have.

 

Magneto - Defender, Force Fields/Seismic Blast

Toad - Scrapper, Martial Arts/Regeneration

Mastermind - Controller, Illusion Control/???

Quicksilver - Tanker, Super Reflexes/Street Justice

Scarlet Witch - ????, ????/????

 

Mastermind in the comics could create realistic illusions.  The Illusion Control set actually makes relatively few illusions, it depends heavily on Phantom Army, but it's the only Illusion set there is.  Beyond that... I'm not sure what to give Mastermind.

Scarlet Witch's power in the old days was her Hex, which made improbable things happen to her opponents... but I've NO idea how to simulate that in the game.  Any suggestions would be great.

 

I also intended to include other X-Men themed NPCs, including:

Blob - Tanker, Invulnerability/Super Strength

Unus - Tanker, Energy Aura/Street Justice?????   Not sure about this, he really should have a Force Field that makes him "Untouchable."

Vanisher - ??????  Not sure about him either.  His power was instantaneous teleportation, but there's no powerset built around that, and certainly none available to an AE character.

[Octogoat]

My black widow/Scarlet witch inspired character is a fortunate with red tinged powers I don't know how that helps your ae arc but might help your pcs.

[Skyhawke]

The Scarlet Witch's powers also include telekinetics, mind control and telepathy. Maybe a Mind/Mind Dominator?

[American Decoy]

Mastermind - Controller, Illusion Control/Storm Summoning

[biostem]

Wouldn't something like a grav/FF controller better fit Magneto?  I'd probably make Toad a stj/sr scrapper, or maybe staff/sr if you want to give his early cinematic depiction a nod.  Scarlet Witch could probably be an earth/dark controller, with the earth powers colored as red crystal.

[GM Crumpet]

please don't do this. We generic AE arcs as well as players alts

[biostem]

35 minutes ago, GM Crumpet said:

please don't do this. We generic AE arcs as well as players alts

Well, if the OP truly is only creating "inspired-by" characters and not direct copies with their names and costumes, then it should be fine, right?  If they are creating 1:1 copies, then I agree - don't do it!

[Glacier Peak]

1 minute ago, biostem said:

Well, if the OP truly is only creating "inspired-by" characters and not direct copies with their names and costumes, then it should be fine, right?  If they are creating 1:1 copies, then I agree - don't do it!

GM gave clear guidance. CoC says to follow it. 

 

There are three overarching ground rules that must be followed at all times:

1. Anything an Administrator or Game Master says overrides anything else in this document - if they give you an instruction, please follow it.

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/code-of-conduct/

[biostem]

4 minutes ago, Glacier Peak said:

GM gave clear guidance. CoC says to follow it. 

Follow it, sure.  No harm in asking for some clarification though.  I'm sure the GMs/mods/devs don't want to foster an environment where players are afraid to even ask...  The OP could create their characters & arc(s), then report themselves to see if it's acceptable, and make any necessary adjustments until they reach that point.

Edited Friday at 10:52 PM by biostem

[El D]

5 minutes ago, biostem said:

Well, if the OP truly is only creating "inspired-by" characters and not direct copies with their names and costumes, then it should be fine, right?  If they are creating 1:1 copies, then I agree - don't do it!

 

1 minute ago, Glacier Peak said:

GM gave clear guidance. CoC says to follow it. 

 

There are three overarching ground rules that must be followed at all times:

1. Anything an Administrator or Game Master says overrides anything else in this document - if they give you an instruction, please follow it.

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/code-of-conduct/

 

What Glacier Peak said, but more specifically - posting an open written record asking other players to deliberately aid in skirting copyright on the official public forum for the game is bad practice. HC doesn't need to invite any problems that might screw with their agreement with NCSoft and intellectual property is a pretty big one, so the HC devs and GMs don't tolerate or encourage any behavior of that sort among the playerbase.

 

Also, some folks need to watch The Wire and learn the proper time and place to take notes.

[Techwright]

5 hours ago, Ultimo said:

Vanisher - ??????  Not sure about him either.  His power was instantaneous teleportation, but there's no powerset built around that, and certainly none available to an AE character.

 

I've not worked in AE since the original game.  Would the third-column power "Combat Teleport" at least help for a homage to this character?

[biostem]

50 minutes ago, El D said:

What Glacier Peak said, but more specifically - posting an open written record asking other players to deliberately aid in skirting copyright on the official public forum for the game is bad practice. HC doesn't need to invite any problems that might screw with their agreement with NCSoft and intellectual property is a pretty big one, so the HC devs and GMs don't tolerate or encourage any behavior of that sort among the playerbase.

Then CoH itself needs to take a long hard look at its signature characters, because if you tilt your head just a little bit, they are clearly expy's of other IP's characters.  My point is that, if we're being charitable, then saying "I want to create something like X" is not the same as "I want to create an exact copy of X".  Also, we've had 20+ years of costume pieces and powers being nearly 1:1 copies of marvel or DC ones.  The existence of a possibility of someone using in-game resources to exactly copy other IPs isn't an issue until they do so, so my answer is - don't create those exact copies;  be creative, and when in doubt. self-report and adjust as needed.  

Edited Saturday at 12:03 AM by biostem

[PeregrineFalcon]

1 hour ago, GM Crumpet said:

please don't do this. We generic AE arcs as well as players alts

How about Supergroups?

 

Did you all finally generic The Marvels?

[biostem]

3 minutes ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

How about Supergroups?

 

Did you all finally generic The Marvels?

This touches on my points - what is considered crossing the line?  I get that making an exact copy is a no-no, and that they can't really specify exact criteria, because people would then just come up to that line, but clearly we already have at least 1 mutant villain faction - so if we filed off the serial numbers, changed the costumes and possibly genders, didn't reuse their names, but kept with the general theme, would that be alright?  

[BlackSpectre]

Parodies and farces featuring exact copies of copyrighted characters are allowed under copyright law… 

 

That said, “inspired by _________” should be perfectly acceptable. Just use different names, costumes, and back stories… and most of the time the powers will not be an exact match anyway. 
 

 

[El D]

31 minutes ago, biostem said:

Then CoH itself needs to take a long hard look at its signature characters, because if you tilt your head just a little bit, they are clearly expy's of other IP's characters.  My point is that, if we're being charitable, then saying "I want to create something like X" is not the same as "I want to create an exact copy of X".  Also, we've had 20+ years of costume pieces and powers being nearly 1:1 copies of marvel or DC ones.  The existence of a possibility of someone using in-game resources to exactly copy other IPs isn't an issue until they do so, so my answer is - don't create those exact copies 0 be creative, and when in doubt. self-report and adjust as needed.  

 

It's not an issue of 'like vs exact copy.' It's the matter of 'players connecting their creations in-game to an outside IP in any fashion is not allowed.' So waving a flag, shouting that they're doing it, and asking other players to help them do it, is a pretty solid recipe for HC staff to bring down the generic bat (or at least motion to it with obvious intent). 

 

Privately knowing your character or AE arc is a homage to [insert piece of media here] is fine. Everyone takes inspiration, even the original dev team that made the game did. Publicly posting about the exact IP - to the point of listing specific copyrighted characters and asking for guidance on how they could be made via in-game systems - is asking for trouble. There's no plausibility in the statement of 'Hey, how do I make Magneto?'

[biostem]

30 minutes ago, El D said:

It's not an issue of 'like vs exact copy.' It's the matter of 'players connecting their creations in-game to an outside IP in any fashion is not allowed.' So waving a flag, shouting that they're doing it, and asking other players to help them do it, is a pretty solid recipe for HC staff to bring down the generic bat (or at least motion to it with obvious intent). 

But the OP never said "copy" - they said "based on".  We have threads asking how to realize various characters in CoH all the time, but this one gets singled out, with a GM even stating not to do it.  What's different?  At no point was creating an exact copy ever mentioned as even a consideration.  If we're going down the route of anyone asking how to create characters in CoH based upon other comic book characters, (but clearly NOT direct copies), then, if they're going to be fair about how they enforce things, we're going to need to generic a few signature characters and start reviewing everyone's characters that ever asked about re-creating specific ones...

[Ultimo]

3 hours ago, GM Crumpet said:

please don't do this. We generic AE arcs as well as players alts

No worries, I'm aware.  The characters are meant to be inspired by the Brotherhood, not to be copies of them.  Kind of necessary, given that the powers are never going to be exact anyway.

 

  

37 minutes ago, biostem said:

But the OP never said "copy" - they said "based on".  We have threads asking how to realize various characters in CoH all the time, but this one gets singled out, with a GM even stating not to do it.  What's different?  At no point was creating an exact copy ever mentioned as even a consideration.  If we're going down the route of anyone asking how to create characters in CoH based upon other comic book characters, (but clearly NOT direct copies), then, if they're going to be fair about how they enforce things, we're going to need to generic a few signature characters and start reviewing everyone's characters that ever asked about re-creating specific ones...

Exactly, the characters would have powers similar to the comic characters, but their appearances would be different.  Or, if I can't get the powers the way I like, I might go the other way, and have them resemble (but not copy) the comic character, but have somewhat different powers.

 

For example, I might make a character based on the Black Knight (Marvel), but change the cultural frame of reference, and make him a Samurai, or perhaps a Roman Gladiator or something.  Similar powers, different character.

Edited Saturday at 01:48 AM by Ultimo

[Scarlet Shocker]

If you are capable of writing a good arc, make it with original characters. It'll be more interesting for people to play

[El D]

46 minutes ago, biostem said:

But the OP never said "copy" - they said "based on".  We have threads asking how to realize various characters in CoH all the time, but this one gets singled out, with a GM even stating not to do it.  What's different?  At no point was creating an exact copy ever mentioned as even a consideration.  If we're going down the route of anyone asking how to create characters in CoH based upon other comic book characters, (but clearly NOT direct copies), then, if they're going to be fair about how they enforce things, we're going to need to generic a few signature characters and start reviewing everyone's characters that ever asked about re-creating specific ones...

 

My immediate thought is that Homecoming didn't have a direct, public agreement with NCSoft before, though I have no idea how many threads like this have been made since the announcement. Homecoming has also had a steady influx of new accounts given the amount of 'X joined the community!' automated messages I've seen, so that's also more incentive to mention that this kind of stuff is not tolerated going forward versus any new players getting the idea that it's acceptable.

 

As for the signature characters, while some might be similar to various other fictional characters - to the point where any possible inspiration may be obvious to anyone familiar with them - the game doesn't go around explicitly stapling that to them or use it to advertise their content. An argument could be made that Manticore took heavy inspiration from certain DC heroes but he doesn't say 'Hi I'm Manticore - think a fusion of Batman and Green Arrow!' when you click on him in-game. Which is the point where OP slipped up. Regardless of how divergent the AE arc became, how much the names/costumes/gender/etc. got shifted around, the core will now always be 'INSPIRED BY MARVEL'S IP (WHICH YOU CAN MAKE IN COH)' because they outright stated that's what they were doing.

Edited Saturday at 01:56 AM by El D

[biostem]

1 minute ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

If you are capable of writing a good arc, make it with original characters. It'll be more interesting for people to play

I'm pretty sure that was the OP's intent all along...

[biostem]

1 minute ago, El D said:

Hi I'm Manticore - think a fusion of Batman and Green Arrow

The only difference is that those conversations took place decades ago, behind closed doors.  My point is that we should be focusing on what the OP, (or any other player, for that matter), does with the information provided.  If they do the boring thing and just do 1:1 copies, then that's on them and they should be genericed and possibly banned, but if they use that information as a jumping-off point to create their own faction and characters, (though still inspired by the BoEM), then there's zero issues...

[Ultimo]

9 minutes ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

If you are capable of writing a good arc, make it with original characters. It'll be more interesting for people to play

I like to think I can write a decent arc (though, the 5 mission limit rather constrains things).  I just like adding little "easter eggs" in missions.  In the arc I'm planning out, the idea is that you'll likely end up rescuing a group of mutants who are being held as prisoners... for being mutants.  It's a classic X-Men thing, so I thought it might be fun to include some characters where players might get the reference.  It's not critical to the story or anything.

[biostem]

15 minutes ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

If you are capable of writing a good arc, make it with original characters. It'll be more interesting for people to play

As the saying goes "there is nothing new under the sun" - If you provide us with a character, I'm almost 100% certain we can find some other character in fiction/comics/fantasy/sci-fi that came before, and is a very close match to them.  My point is, you may not view something as original, (or "original enough"), but that doesn't mean it is actually a copy or infringing.  Again, let them create their characters and arc(s), and then the devs/mods/GMs can rule on them if and when needed...

[JJDrakken]

4 hours ago, GM Crumpet said:

please don't do this. We generic AE arcs as well as players alts

 

Problem with that, he always making "copies" of DC/Marvel stuff. He's always asking how to make so n so on AT General.