Post by Long Haul on Aug 12, 2007 18:26:43 GMT -5
While this is not likely to come up for a good while (since we've got plenty of interesting Interim RP ideas to keep us occupied for a bit), we've decided that our first plot coming out of the Interim period should be something more unusual. There are three general plot ideas, in particular, that a lot of discussion has been going on about, and they all seem to have a fair amount of player support, based on DZchat conversation on AIM, so we're going to lay all three of them before you guys for a vote to see which one you want to do first. The others will remain on the list as potential future plots, but we're not going to want to do things like this too close together, so it'll be a bit before we get to them.
The three plot ideas that have been getting discussed, and that we're putting up for a vote, are as follows:
1) DZ-3 - DZ-3? You know, as in Earth-3, the Earth in DC comics where all the heroes are villains?
In chat, this has generally been called the "Mirrorverse" plot, but "Mirrorverse" has a very specific meaning in Transfandom, so we'd like to avoid that. The idea, though, is simple: just as in DZ there is some force randomly pulling characters from the known canon Transformers realities, so there is an alternate Deadzone universe where a similar force is pulling characters from a group of mirror Transformers realities. Depending on what percentage of the player base wants to do this one, it can be handled as a group of our characters go there, a group of their characters come here, or a switch ala the Star Trek episode, "Mirror, Mirror."
2) Re-aging - Most Transformers fit into one of four general age-categories as far as their personality goes (which may or may not have anything to do with actual character age): Child, Youth, Adult, and Elder. Some characters can be found on the border between two categories, but most are pretty clear-cut. The idea behind this plot is that something occurs to... scramble the age categories of the participants. The changes will be both mental and physical. In Transformers, typically, those characters with child-like personalities are more likely to be smaller Transformers, such as Minibots or Micromasters. Youths tend to just have different paint jobs and facial seams, but they may be a bit shorter or more slender than usual. With this plot, those being moved into the Child category will find them resized to Minibot/Micromaster proportions (player preference) while those being moved out of it will be granted more adult proportions. Those moved into the Elder category may find themselves with more muted colors and the "mature" facial seam set, etc. The specifics, plus what the new category does to their behavior, will be left up to the individual players. Memories, skills, etc, will stay the same.
3) Repaints - This is the one proposed on this board a few weeks ago. Now, not everyone has repaint characters available (some characters here don't even have toys!) and it's possible for someone to want to participate who doesn't like their character's repaint, so the order of preference is going to be: Repaints > Homages/Namesakes > Same or Similar Alt Modes. Considering the last category would let, for example, a jet choose from any other jet or a car choose from any other car, just about anyone who wants to participate should be able to find someone that has caught their attention. Again, memories and abilities will stay the same - just because Perceptor is thinking like Magnificus will not make him an adept pit-fighter (although he might want to get in fights more often). In many cases, the characters will not realize who, exactly, they're acting like.
Now, we'd also like to establish a few things that applies to all of these plots.
These are plots not intended as excuses to behave wacky and randomly with "get out of consequences free" passes. There will be in-game reasons for all of these that follow the logic of the source-settings (which, considering we're talking cartoons and Marvel, does mean we've got pretty wide-ranging options), and when they conclude, characters will still have to deal with any ongoing consequences (even if the worst ongoing consequence is, "I can't believe they saw me acting like that!").
Plots that result in abnormal character behavior can be excellent foils to compare and contrast against the character's normal personality, or be used to explore aspects of the normal personality which would never have come to light otherwise. Really, just what was Kup like as a youth? What would Arcee be like when she's been around as long as he has (assuming you don't buy into the whole 'becomes a goth psychic spider-lady ninja' weirdness)? What does a character do when their skills and abilities suddenly become remarkably ill-suited to their mindset? Yes, there's plenty of humor potential in all of these, and I should hope that the RP that's happened so far should prove that we do like humor around here. But we also like drama, we like exploring deeper issues, such as age relations, and plots like these can be used to explore all of this. We are by no means discouraging the use of humor when doing these plots. We are, however, discouraging them from using them as little more than excuses to behave in random, wacky, OOC ways. Use the OOC, or the alternate encounters, as an opportunity to teach the rest of us players a bit more about the IC for your character, and perhaps you'll get a chance to learn a bit more about it yourself!
Just because a plot is bizarre doesn't mean it can't result in very satisfying role-play, and remember: the original series would often explore deep issues in similarly strange manners. So what happened when the writers of G1 wanted to explore interspecies romance and the question of whether or not machines could have souls, what did they do? Why, they turned Seaspray into a mermaid and Rumble into a tree! And, you know, many of us quite enjoyed that episode! Yes, it was silly, but it was also a fun episode and gave us insight into a character we might not have otherwise known so much about. Certainly, there's no reason we can't do similar here!
As a final note, anyone who absolutely does not want to participate doesn't have to. This is a consensual RP game, after all! In those cases, we'll come up with alternate plots to keep them occupied in areas that aren't being affected. There's also the option of participating, but not having your character be one of the affected characters. However, we can't really come up with the specific alternate plots until we know who won't be playing, and we won't find that until we've decided on which plot we're going with and have started sign-up.
For those with multiple accounts, please only vote with one account.
The three plot ideas that have been getting discussed, and that we're putting up for a vote, are as follows:
1) DZ-3 - DZ-3? You know, as in Earth-3, the Earth in DC comics where all the heroes are villains?
In chat, this has generally been called the "Mirrorverse" plot, but "Mirrorverse" has a very specific meaning in Transfandom, so we'd like to avoid that. The idea, though, is simple: just as in DZ there is some force randomly pulling characters from the known canon Transformers realities, so there is an alternate Deadzone universe where a similar force is pulling characters from a group of mirror Transformers realities. Depending on what percentage of the player base wants to do this one, it can be handled as a group of our characters go there, a group of their characters come here, or a switch ala the Star Trek episode, "Mirror, Mirror."2) Re-aging - Most Transformers fit into one of four general age-categories as far as their personality goes (which may or may not have anything to do with actual character age): Child, Youth, Adult, and Elder. Some characters can be found on the border between two categories, but most are pretty clear-cut. The idea behind this plot is that something occurs to... scramble the age categories of the participants. The changes will be both mental and physical. In Transformers, typically, those characters with child-like personalities are more likely to be smaller Transformers, such as Minibots or Micromasters. Youths tend to just have different paint jobs and facial seams, but they may be a bit shorter or more slender than usual. With this plot, those being moved into the Child category will find them resized to Minibot/Micromaster proportions (player preference) while those being moved out of it will be granted more adult proportions. Those moved into the Elder category may find themselves with more muted colors and the "mature" facial seam set, etc. The specifics, plus what the new category does to their behavior, will be left up to the individual players. Memories, skills, etc, will stay the same.
3) Repaints - This is the one proposed on this board a few weeks ago. Now, not everyone has repaint characters available (some characters here don't even have toys!) and it's possible for someone to want to participate who doesn't like their character's repaint, so the order of preference is going to be: Repaints > Homages/Namesakes > Same or Similar Alt Modes. Considering the last category would let, for example, a jet choose from any other jet or a car choose from any other car, just about anyone who wants to participate should be able to find someone that has caught their attention. Again, memories and abilities will stay the same - just because Perceptor is thinking like Magnificus will not make him an adept pit-fighter (although he might want to get in fights more often). In many cases, the characters will not realize who, exactly, they're acting like.
Now, we'd also like to establish a few things that applies to all of these plots.
These are plots not intended as excuses to behave wacky and randomly with "get out of consequences free" passes. There will be in-game reasons for all of these that follow the logic of the source-settings (which, considering we're talking cartoons and Marvel, does mean we've got pretty wide-ranging options), and when they conclude, characters will still have to deal with any ongoing consequences (even if the worst ongoing consequence is, "I can't believe they saw me acting like that!").
Plots that result in abnormal character behavior can be excellent foils to compare and contrast against the character's normal personality, or be used to explore aspects of the normal personality which would never have come to light otherwise. Really, just what was Kup like as a youth? What would Arcee be like when she's been around as long as he has (assuming you don't buy into the whole 'becomes a goth psychic spider-lady ninja' weirdness)? What does a character do when their skills and abilities suddenly become remarkably ill-suited to their mindset? Yes, there's plenty of humor potential in all of these, and I should hope that the RP that's happened so far should prove that we do like humor around here. But we also like drama, we like exploring deeper issues, such as age relations, and plots like these can be used to explore all of this. We are by no means discouraging the use of humor when doing these plots. We are, however, discouraging them from using them as little more than excuses to behave in random, wacky, OOC ways. Use the OOC, or the alternate encounters, as an opportunity to teach the rest of us players a bit more about the IC for your character, and perhaps you'll get a chance to learn a bit more about it yourself!
Just because a plot is bizarre doesn't mean it can't result in very satisfying role-play, and remember: the original series would often explore deep issues in similarly strange manners. So what happened when the writers of G1 wanted to explore interspecies romance and the question of whether or not machines could have souls, what did they do? Why, they turned Seaspray into a mermaid and Rumble into a tree! And, you know, many of us quite enjoyed that episode! Yes, it was silly, but it was also a fun episode and gave us insight into a character we might not have otherwise known so much about. Certainly, there's no reason we can't do similar here!
As a final note, anyone who absolutely does not want to participate doesn't have to. This is a consensual RP game, after all! In those cases, we'll come up with alternate plots to keep them occupied in areas that aren't being affected. There's also the option of participating, but not having your character be one of the affected characters. However, we can't really come up with the specific alternate plots until we know who won't be playing, and we won't find that until we've decided on which plot we're going with and have started sign-up.
For those with multiple accounts, please only vote with one account.
