DC Discussion Thread
Since the Canon Characters thread is long, and has a slightly inappropriate thread icon (), I figured I would start another! Also, I wanted to toss out a couple of thoughts / topics for us to chew over.
As and when we finalise stuff and raise new talking points and issues, I'll edit them into this first post so we can keep track of what we're doing and what we've decided.
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Timeline
We often seem to trip over timelines in our roleplaying. In Star Wars we aren't always sure what year it is; in X-Men it's still three or four years ago; and when we initially discussed DC, we had a lot of trouble working out how old Batman was, how long certain vigilante's had been active, and things like that. However, for the most part comics don't worry about that sort of thing: if they did, Bruce Wayne wouldn't be chasing criminals, he'd be chasing kids off his lawn with a walking stick.
Maybe we could take our cue from that, and try to avoid getting too specific about numbers? Batman has been Batman for "a few years"; Bruce Wayne is "in his thirties"; Carter Hall was a superhero "a few decades ago"; that sort of thing. The more vague and fluid we keep things, the easier it will be to squidge things into people's backstories.
Also, both Batman and Green Arrow have critically acclaimed graphic novels called Year One. Perhaps we could have all of our current threads in the spring of "Year One", and just ease our way through the seasons and years as and when the story demands that we do, rather than trying to keep pace with the real world or anything like that.
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Non Player Characters
When we initially discussed this setting, we talked about how we wanted characters who interact with lots of people - Commissioner Gordon, Alfred, and so on - to be NPCs, so that anyone can write them.
Are there any other characters we want to reserve in this sort of way: perhaps an NPC reporter (Vicki Vale?), police detective (Harvey Bullock?), etc? It would probably be useful to agree upon some basic details for all of these NPCs, to make sure we are all portraying them consistently and so on.
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The Rest of the World/Universe
At the moment, our focus is squarely on Gotham. Keeping things confined to one city is a great idea, and the majority of characters can be ported across to Gotham without too much difficulty: it's no different than the approach taken by TV shows like Arrow and Smallville.
However, there are a few bits and pieces from the rest of the world that we might want to think about, talk about, establish, etc. For example, if we want to separate ourselves from the real world, do we want to agree upon an (NPC?) character to be the President of the United States? Perhaps Lex Luthor would be a good choice, particularly since there is no Superman to get in his way?
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The Golden Age
In the backstories for some characters, it's established that there has been a previous generation of superheroes. Dinah Hall (Black Canary) is the daughter of the golden age Black Canary and Green Arrow, and she was adopted and raised by Carter Hall, the golden age Hawkman. Kendra Saunders is a police detective, who is the reincarnation of the golden age Hawkwoman.
In order to explain why there aren't more costumed superheroes running about the place, we could borrow some ideas from Watchmen and The Incredibles. Perhaps there was a Justice Society of superheroes a few decades ago, and perhaps there was some sort of incident / accident that caused the government to outlaw superheroes. The Department of Extranormal Operations (DEO) might have been created to enforce that ban, which is why they're so focused on unmasking vigilantes. They might also be a little bit like the superhero relocation program from The Incredibles: keeping tabs on those with superpowers, and covering up any power-related accidents.
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Two Girls, One Cup
Or rather: two heroes, one superhero name. Both Oliver Queen and Jason Todd have previously gone by "Robin". Oliver Queen and Larry Lance (Black Canary's father) have gone by "Green Arrow". The modern Flash and Blue Beetle have golden age characters as well as having successors; at least two people have gone by The Question; several people have been known as Clayface; and there are dozens of other characters that people could easily want to roleplay where their alias / code name is the same.
That may not seem like a problem at first, but it could be if we start doing flashbacks to fill in periods of backstory. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to share an alias without sharing an account?
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Originally Posted by Dasquian Belargic
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