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Thread: Gotham Reborn?

  1. #21
    TheHolo.Net Poster

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    Alright. Read through the discussion. Great points made from all sides.

    I've written a lot of Marvel. I mean. ALOT. Mostly X-Men but with the success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe I've done a lot of All Marvel; usually based within the Movie-Verse because the comics are all over the place, inconsistent, and have gaping plot holes and the movies provide a great framework. We don't have that option here so much with DC. Yet. I've both created boards, plotlines, and helped others in the process. There are always tangles to pull out. Characters that are too strong to allow people to play (Apocalypse, Odin, Onslaught, etc) or characters who are really powerful and need to be restricted to writers who can handle keeping them in check and not godmoding (Magneto, Vision, Scarlet Witch, etc). That's pretty minor. I doubt anyone where is going to be shooting to play Lobo or some other mega strong DC character.

    The other issue that comes up more often than not when I've written on Marvel boards is Key Characters whom nobody wants to play. I'm talking Professor X and Magneto specifically as prime examples. They're old, very powerful, and nobody really wants to take the huge burden of writing those characters. Their lore doesn't fit into our world anymore. They'd be ancient if they were young during WWII and still alive in 2015. When nobody wants to write them the Brotherhood Faction and X-Men grind to a halt. However, by removing them you can stick the team captains (Mystique, Cyclops) into the leadership position and retire the old characters. You can do it however you want. Send them away, kill them, whatever serves the underlining plot the best.

    I am all for that tactic when it comes to key characters that nobody wants to play, or are too powerful to allow to be played. I will say that Superman definitely falls under this category. Due to how small this little general roleplay will be in terms of writers, I doubt anyone will pick up Superman. For Batman I think he is totally fine for the roleplay but if we do not have someone writing Batman than a portion of the Gotham Scene will grind to a halt, or the Bat-Family characters will just have to NPC write him which is never fun. I don't think we should kill him unless it serves a concrete plot. I don't think killing Superman is a good idea either. He's kind of hard to kill anyways.

    I think a bigger issue is scale. Incorporating the entire DC Universe sounds like more work that our little populace can handle, and unnecessary. With what will probably just be a handful of writers, unless everyone jumps into this roleplay, it would probably be best to limit ourselves geographically; which I think was the idea in the first place. To just keep it in Gotham, and maintain Gotham-esque characters. I wouldn't find it too odd for Green Arrow to be in Gotham. Supergirl doesn't really fit such a singular setting as well, but that doesn't mean she couldn't have come up with a reason to come visit. If there is a Justice League then there isn't much reason for it's members to come to Gotham if Batman, Supergirl, Green Arrow, and company are already on the job of taming the city. I think it's easy enough to just say that Superman and Others are tackling other problems in other areas.

    There are more than enough Gotham villains to keep any collection of heroes busy. Plus any that migrate.

    Now a tangent: going back to my point about scope, I bring this up a lot when we are talking about the General Roleplays, and I know how much we want to keep everything together here on TheHolo.Net, but superhero roleplays, like DC or Marvel/mutants, are such a huge universe that it's really hard to condense it all down into just a general roleplay. It's a beast all it's own, so we are going to have to accept that it's going to be difficult to nail down. It practically needs a board all it's own in order to make sense of it all. I know you want to get all the details nailed down Jace, and I respect and prefer that myself, but at the end of the day I don't think it's even possible to achieve that by consensus. It's usually something ironed out by a board owner before the writers ever show up. "This is how it is. Adapt your character(s) of choice to fit within it." type of thing.

    That's my two cents anyways.

    EDIT: Editing for Minnie's response. If we keep things a bit more open ended it definitely is easier to meld and mold characters to fit instead of sticking strictly to canon. That's also a preference of mine because I like putting my own spin on established characters instead of just writing them as they appear in the comics with no deviation. This is something that's also easier by having the setting/plot established without nailing down every character's role within it.

  2. #22
    Minnie Starshine
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    Yeah, I definitely want to write my own version, take the ideas and write my version of that character. Especially with Supergirl as she's different in nearly every writer's run anyway, from what I've seen.

    We could just appoint somebody in charge like a board owner and follow them?

    I'm not 100% no Superman is a fair rule IF anybody wants him. I get the logic, but he IS one of the two main tentpoles of DC (unlike, say Professor X, who's a major character, but not on the same scale). Saying no Superman is like saying no Spider-man on Marvel in terms of how major the character is. (I did lots of Marvel writing too ).

  3. #23
    Just to clarify guys... I wasn't suggesting there be no Superman, I was pitching how I would write him, with the intention of me writing him.

    In terms of characters like Batman and Superman (or Professor X and Magneto), I see them in the context of a forum roleplay as being the sort of.... Admirals in Star Trek, or the General in Stargate, or that sort of thing. They aren't the main characters of the story that we would want to play: they're the person that sets up the story for the main characters, who sends them on the missions or provide the context. Those are pretty much my roleplay bread and butter. John Glayde when I set up Dorn Force, Vansen Tyree when Rogue Squadron was on his ship, Delgado Xaanan on Corellia, people on Cloud City, Avengers stuff for Mutants Unite... I write those characters, because I'm that guy that likes to be able to sorta... set things up for other people to do stuff. A lot of my roleplaying background is in stuff that had a GM, so yeah, being the guy who sets up other people is something I naturally gravitate towards.

    I will happily write Superman to help paint the broad strokes of the storyline... and to help out with Kara's story, too. You just need to look at the number of people's dads and uncles that I write on these boards to know how up for that sort of thing I am. Just felt that, being the big/important guy that he is, I should check to see if people were okay with it... an there's some unease, which I'm perfectly cool with.


    Edit:

    Just to flip the idea on it's head for a second, what if it was Batman who ends up worrying that people "aren't good enough"?

    Batman has always been a more critical/analytical judge of people's capabilities anyway, so it makes much more sense for him to be the one that decides Kara is "not ready", and I think that Superman - being empathetic to his friend's emotional struggle - would sorta grudgingly go along with it, up to a point. He'd let Batman send him just to earthquakes and boss fights, because Superman trusts that Batman knows the superhero community well enough to ensure that things are covered. Superman might also have been the one who nudged Kara towards Gotham and Green Arrow... where better to "prove" yourself to Batman than in his home town? That fits with Batman's pessimism towards Kara from some of the animated movies over the last few years.

    And, if Batman is "otherwise occupied", it makes it nice and easy for people like Green Arrow and Supergirl to come in and keep the streets of Gotham safe while Bats is focused on a "bigger mission". Maybe he's chasing down a lead, off hunting the League of Assassins, and all of that sort of stuff because "I've been fixated on Gotham for too long... the rest of the world needs me too", which sorta fits with a lot of Batman portrayals re: the Justice League too. If a situation in Gotham is deemed risky enough that he knows his help is needed he can show up, but the rest of the time he can be a face on a screen, a hologram in the Batcave, an occasional consultant on forensics/etc.

    Also, Batman is probably easier (narratively speaking) to rattle. It could be a completely made up (rather than canon) girlfriend that something happens to. It could be Alfred getting put in the hospital, and Batman deciding that he needs to "be more careful" if he's going to keep people safe. It could just be something that forces him to relive what happened to Barbara and Jason Todd in some horrific way - an Arkham Knight style Scarecrow fiasco that forces Bruce to reevaluate his life? Doesn't even need to be a specific thing, we can just refer to "the incident" that made Batman even more stoic and withdrawn.

    That'd allow someone (again, am happy to write these kind of "facilitating the story" characters) to write Batman as part of the story, but in a way that allows the rest of us to handle the majority of Gotham stories without him. Batman is busy with other things, so he's left Gotham in the hands of ... I dunno... the "Outsiders", to steal a canon team name.
    Last edited by Captain Untouchable; Oct 12th, 2015 at 11:41:13 AM.
    It's like that, and that's the way it is.

     

  4. #24
    Minnie Starshine
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    If you want to write Superman (or Batman), I'd say go for it, and go with whatever idea takes your fancy. If you're writing them, I think write it as you want to see them written. That's the fun part. That's what I'm planning to do with Kara, anyway.

    My idea for Kara is that she sort of is being sneaky being in Gotham. I like the idea Clark has been forcing her to live an ordinary life with Ma and Pa Kent for a while, and Kara is climbing the walls bored. She's got a whole new planet to explore, and superpowers. So being like sixteen, seventeen, she's persuaded she needs to start living a civilian life. So she applies for college in Gotham, because they 'have a program she wants to do'. But it's actually because she knows Clark stays out of Gotham mostly because he leaves it to Batman.

    In other words, she figures it's where she can start superheroing without getting caught .

    Of course, it doesn't go according to plan, but that's the fun part.

    I love the idea of Batman being critical of Kara though. It'd be fun to see him kick her ass in training with no powers just to demonstrate why she needs to learn a thing or two...

  5. #25
    TheHolo.Net Poster

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    Okay so, after chatting it out a bit on AIM, I'm going to be writing Batman as the one who is all "this mission is too dangerous for you" guy. He'll still be in Gotham, but he's sorta in that mindset where he's "focusing on the bigger picture", and trusting Green Arrow, Supergirl, et al to keep the streets of Gotham safe.

    In the meanwhile, we're going to have a storyline in the background that involves Queen Consolidated being run by not-Oliver, and they are going to be involved in some shady black ops government research contracts and such on the side. A lot of their business is going to be taking place in Gotham City (another reason why Green Arrow is here), and it'll spill out into the vigilante community and make everything all... sticky? Lets go with sticky. Also, Deathstroke is going to be involved in that, in a sort of mysterious mercenary capacity.

    Nothing is meticulously/extensively planned out, so we can super-easily accommodate anyone who wants to come in as anything... just a pencil line for us to follow along at this point, rather than anything being set in stone.

    Edit:

    I snuck a little post in because Ollie is awesome and I could not help myself. I will now shush until Kara and Slade have punched each other enough times for me to need to swoop in heroically (and handsomely) to the rescue.
    Last edited by Green Arrow; Oct 12th, 2015 at 05:37:38 PM.

  6. #26
    OMG Kara, you're coming to school in Gotham?

    We should totally hang out and stuff.

  7. #27
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    I think asking Peter if he still wants to play batman first would be the polite way of doing this. If he has no interest then go for it. But taking Green Arrow, Supes and Batman for one player right off the bat (haha) is a bit much and could be off putting for people who maybe are catching up on this conversation and thinking about getting involved.

    edit: if you take the Flash as well its getting a bit crazy!



    oh what a tangled web I weave


  8. #28
    I'm not writing Supes: I abandoned that idea when people weren't keen on the way I pitched him. Also, since Peter still has the Batman accounts registered, I may not be doing that either: I've already sent him a message about it. But thank you for assuming the worst, and that I was going to do it without his consent. That makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

    Also, Wally West is the Kid Flash, the sidekick, not the full-blown Flash. I explicitly didn't go with Barry Allen so that someone could still come in and play the full blown hero if they chose. Picked Wally because I'm a big fan of him from Young Justice, and thought he might be a cool school friend for Kara - obviously, regular Barry Allen (being a big boy, and playing with the big boy Justice League) isn't a fit for that.

  9. #29
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    Sorry Jace, you didn't say you'd abandoned the idea of playing Superman (unless I missed it), and you typed "I'm going to be writing Batman..." Not assuming the worst, just giving a friendly suggestion.

    Using the image of TV's Flash made me assume you were going to be playing...the Flash. Silly me!

  10. #30
    TheHolo.Net Poster

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    My bad - I assumed that the account name would make it pretty obvious who he was/wasn't.


    Anyhow!

    I have spoken to Peter, and he's on board with writing Batman again, so yay. His take is that Batman would still be very focused on Gotham, but there has been "so much crime lately" that he's forced to accept that he's going to need help, which leaves room for the Birds of Prey, the Outsiders, and that sort of thing. He's a bit of an Arkham style Batman, so he's willing to let people handle their own stuff without proactively meddling... but if he thinks someone isn't up to the task, he will step in "for their safety". So if Kara is gonna keep picking fights above our weight class, there may be some batarang interventions saving her butt in the future, I think.

    As far as Green Arrow goes, his main reason for being in the city is because of Queen Consolidated and it's off-the-books R&D shenanigans. Batman will have caught wind of this stuff going on, and will have reached out to Oliver to see if he wants to handle it personally. Bats will be helping out with the investigation, but Oliver will be taking point for "it's personal" reasons. Over time though, Queen Consolidated's stuff will start oozing out and getting it's chocolate in the rest of Gotham's peanut butter, and that's where we all sorta converge.

    I was thinking it might be cool to use "The Outsiders" as the name for Green Arrow / Supergirl / the other vigilantes in Gotham. If you're not familiar with the term, the Outsiders are a group of heroes in Gotham that Batman approves of / tolerates - similar to the Birds of Prey. Seems kinda fitting, since we're all from "outside" of Gotham, etc.

  11. #31
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    Barbara Gordon checking in. She'll be the niece of Commissioner Gordon, named after his wife, and raised by them. She was going to college in Metropolis but is taking some time off and returned to Gotham. She lives with her aunt and uncle and works at the library, and runs an investigative blog under the pen name Oracle.

    Edit: took me a minute to remember why this account has only one post, lol. I had the old one renames to Barbara Nolan and switched her into a Mutants character, then reregistered the name for when people were last talking about reviving the scenario
    Last edited by Barbara Gordon; Oct 12th, 2015 at 09:14:29 PM.

  12. #32
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    Jervis Tetch, scientist, working on MIND CONTROL. Has an upsetting relationship with his mother and an unhealthy obsession with the works of Lewis Carroll.

  13. #33
    Supergirl
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    Welcome aboard everybody!

  14. #34
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    Wow, I go away for one weekend and I miss everything! I'd very much like to be a part of the DC reboot, here, and, before anyone can say it, I shot dibs on Hal Jordan as Green Lantern.

    Idea would be when he first gets the ring. There is a period of time between when he first gets it, and when the Guardians call him to Oa and he gets his training. I think that'd be a good point in time for me to start with him. If possible, I'd love to continue playing Alan Scott, the golden age Green Lantern, who has been retired since the 50's, and most everyone has forgotten.

    And... I've got some ideas for Eel O'Brien, too, if y'all don't mind. I'll be very busy at work, today, but when I get home I should be able to do a more detailed write-up of what I'm planning, as well as what possible baddies I could play, too. I don't want to take too big a slice of the pie, but, every hero does need a few baddies to balance them out. =)

  15. #35
    Supergirl
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    I think those ideas sound great . I don't know who Eel is but the rest sound awesome. Hal just starting out will be great fun too, and stops him being too powerful right away (sort of what I'm doing with Kara too).

  16. #36
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    Eel O'Brien is the small-time burglar/thief who falls into a vat of some chemical or another during a heist, and becomes Plastic Man. =)

  17. #37
    Supergirl
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    Ah. A fate that could never befall a girl. If she was like "I'm Plastic Woman!" people would be like "You and half of Hollywood."

  18. #38
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    Just being devil's advocate for a minute: that idea for Hal Jordan is awesome, but it does limit the options for anyone else being a Green Lantern (especially if you have Alan Scott as well)... kinda hard to be someone's successor if they are still brand new. Similarly, having a Barbara Gordon who has never been a vigilante makes it a bit tricky to introduce her Batgirl successors and the Birds of Prey.

    Not saying those characters shouldn't happen exactly the way you want them to. But, it seems a bit silly to rule out ideas because "someone might want to play that character", when we're already doing the exact same thing. Even with character death as a plot device... that would be just as easy to work around as if someone wanted to play John Stewart - death isn't exactly a permanent thing in comics. Just food for thought!



    Re: Hal Jordan - I really like the idea that he isn't part of the Corps yet... but what's his motivation for being in Gotham? Is he just here because Alan Scott is here, and he's trying to get answers about his seemingly magical green ring? Or, since both of the green-themed California coast superheroes are going to be in Gotham, do you want to play the friendship card and say that Hal is here helping Oliver with his investigation into Queen Consolidated?

    Re: Barbara Gordon - Would you like to have her involved in the Queen Consolidated investigation at all? Maybe Barbara has posted some stuff on her blog that leads Oliver Queen to go visit her in his civilian guise to find out what she knows (kinda like Oliver and Felicity at the start of Season 1), or perhaps he visits her as the Green Arrow instead (and it's a bit more of a Flash / Iris West vibe)? Could be a good place to start, at least.

    Re: Alan Scott - Back in the day, I think we had it that a) Alan was on the Wayne Enterprises board of directors, and b) I was going to be playing one or two of his Golden Age peers. Do you still want to have that connection between GBC and Wayne Enterprises? Would you want to connect it with Queen Consolidated so that Alan can interact with Oliver's investigation in some way? And would you still like some fellow oldies for Alan to interact with?

  19. #39
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    Barbara won't be Batgirl, so anyone else who wants to be Batgirl ...can. I hope that clears that up. In my opinion it makes things more open rather than restricting anyone.

    We aren't sticking to a strict comic book continuity (even if there was one everyone could point to) so if any of the other Batgirls, or all of them, or the Birds of Prey show up then we'll figure out how to include them.

  20. #40
    Supergirl
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    I don't think it matters. We can easily justify any new Green Lanterns if anybody wants to join, and just make it so they came before Hal. Just like having Wally West as Kid Flash, and not The Flash, doesn't limit stories for people who want to tell it in the era when Wally is The Flash (yes, I know about that ). Or Supergirl being young and new, instead of Power Girl style, for example. I say we just work with whatever people want to do. And whoever gets first dibs can guide the story for that character.

    To try and keep track, by the way, am I correct in assuming we currently have:

    Green Arrow
    Supergirl
    Kid Flash
    Batman
    Barbara Gordon (not yet Batgirl?)
    Mad Hatter
    Green Lantern (Hal Jordan)
    Green Lantern (Alan Scott)
    Plastic Man
    Deathstroke

    as taken characters? Any I miss?

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