Have you joined the Permission Group for it yet?
Go to Settings, and on the left-hand side under My Account you'll see "Permission Groups". There's one in there called "General RP - Gotham"... if you join that, the doodad should (in theory) show up.
If it doesn't... I guarantee it's somehow Batman's fault. (Hate that guy.)
Oh right, I think I'd done it wrong.
Hopefully it works now
... what are you looking at?
Connor? This can only end brilliantly!
How would you guys feel about having a list of "obscure enough that probably no one is going to write them" characters for us to use as NPCs?
It was awkward the other day working out whether I should use a really really obscure cop character in my thread with Green Arrow, or just make somebody up. I imagine that's a problem we're all going to bump into, if Barbara is hanging out at the precinct, if Bruce Wayne is going to be dating famous women, if Oliver Queen is going to get accosted by tabloid journalists, if Hal Jordan and Jervis Tetch and so forth are going to be working at Wayne/Queen in need of background characters to flesh out their posts, etc.
Obviously we don't want to be taking opportunities away from people, but as long as we stick to the obscure / background / supporting characters I think we should be okay in that regard... and having a small list to pick from is probably easier than sitting there on a case by case basis wondering if Character X is obscure enough that you can get away with using them without stepping on any toes.
I dunno - I lean toward just making up an NPC rather than using a character, but then on the other hand I'm going to be leaning pretty heavily on writing Jim Gordon as an NPC just due to playing Barbara, so.......... :shrug <--still need to upload this
Btw I hope you didn't take me writing Oliver's exit into our thread as me writing you out, I figured from what you'd written that he was on his way out so I ran with it. I plan on Barbara getting into a spot of trouble later in the Narrows (the title of the thread after all) so if Oliver or ?? Someone else? is there too.....?
oh what a tangled web I weave
I don't think there's any harm in certainly mentioning other characters that aren't being played and the way they behave, like Jim for you, or Clark (and Jonathan and Martha Kent) for me. And I don't really think there's much harm in NPCing the civilian characters that aren't claimed.
For example, I wouldn't NPC Superman, but I might at some point NPC Jonathan and Martha, assuming that nobody out there desperately wants to claim them for the adventures of an elderly couple living on a farm.
I think Jim Gordon, the Kents, Alfred, your character's spouse/partner, and so on are special cases. You can't avoid interacting with them, so unless someone picks them up as a character, NPCing is your only option.
When it comes to something like adding an NPC detective to the crime scene you're roleplaying though, that's a little fuzzier. It probably doesn't make sense to NPC someone like Harvey Bullock or Renee Montoya, because if someone decided to play a GCPD detective, those are the well known characters that they are most likely to go for. It would make much more sense to go with someone like Carlos Alvarez, who is one of the more supporting/background characters: still a familiar name (and better than just making one up IMO - the whole point of this is to use canon characters, so lets use 'em), but not someone that anyone is likely to come in and RP.
What I was getting at was a list (or wiki page?) that says which characters we already have as NPCs, and maybe gives a little bit of info on the version/interpretation of the character we've gone with so far. If Holly is having conversations at breakfast with the Ben McKenzie version of Jim Gordon, it's going to be weird if Peter writes a more Gary Oldman inspired version when Batman has his beside the Bat Signal conversations.
Also, having a list encourages people to recycle the NPCs we already have, instead of making up new ones willy-nilly. That'll help stop us getting carried away and having too many NPCs in the long run.
I'm planning to sort out the DC part of the wiki this week, so this is easily something I could set up a framework for.
I think only for the really well known characters, a bit of framework could be useful. To be honest, like Superman. Obviously, Kara references Superman a fair bit, and I'm sure Connor will as well. And like you say, if Connor is thinking Man of Steel 'Oh look, a building I've haven't knocked down yet' Superman and I'm thinking Christopher Reeves 'General, care to step outside?' Superman, things will clash a little.
(Although we can agree, right, that no other playby but Christopher Reeve should be used for Superman, riiiight?)
B-but Brandon Routh!
For Superman, I think it depends on whether or not someone actually steps up to write him. NPCing elements of him (phone conversations, remembering arguments you had, etc) is one thing, but if either Kara or Connor are going to end up having a heart to heart with Clark, it would be a shame to not have someone writing the character: those kinds of situations are just better when you've got someone to bounce off.
As far as the characters who aren't really well known... I think what's more important is how much they get used in our story. If Green Arrow, Green Lantern, Kid Flash, and Supergirl are all potentially going to share/recycle the same GCPD detective/s, that framework info is useful regardless.
It shouldn't be a long list, so we might as well just put everyone on there.
I am so conflicted. I really liked Brandon as Superman, but he's Ray Palmer in my brain.Originally Posted by Lilaena De'Ville
Except that Ray Palmer on Arrow is more like Ted Kord in the comics.
I don't know who Brandon Routh is.
I even think referencing him can be tricky though. For example, I write very specifically Jonathan Kent is still alive. But in some versions, he's dead. It'd be nice to have a concrete version, even to reference.
And I love Brandon Routh in, like, everything he's in. He's always awesome. But his Superman was basically Brandon Routh playing Christopher Reeves playing Superman. Which I loved, because I love Christopher Reeves and the original movies. But it still shows even they thought he was the best
Brandon and Superman Returns deserve more credit than they get for how much they drew on the Reeves movies. The result wasn't perfect, but their heart was in the right place for a lot of it.
Kinda tempted to register a Superman account now though, just so I can use Dean Cain to annoy you.
In terms of the Superman stuff then... rather than a "he is an NPC and here is how you use him" thing, it sounds like what we need is continuity notes. That's sort of general setting information, like knowing that Barbara Gordon was never Batgirl, but that we do have a former Robin in the form of Jason Todd, or knowing that Green Lantern is brand new / was never part of the Justice League, but Barry Allen has been around long enough to have had a sidekick, etc. I can definitely make sure that kind of info is available - probably makes more sense to break that stuff down by "group" (Bat Family, Team Arrow, Flash Family, etc) rather than by individual characters.
Yeah, keeping track of our references/how we're playing characters is a good idea and we're talking about the wiki, right?
That information should be available in the character plotters, too, which makes those a good resource.
This all sounds like a good idea to me
Except using Dean Cain. *scowls*
I like the idea of creating a resource that allows people to review the NPC's in use in the setting. It was the sort of thing that was started for Ossus, here. And, taking a cue from that thread, perhaps we could provide a little blurb on locations in the setting, too, for the same reason. In my first post with Connor, I described Gotham Library, and I just recently discovered Barbara Gordon is a librarian. Now, I hope my description doesn't clash with what she had in mind - indeed, Barbara may be in a different library entirely - but, going forward, people would be able to refer to what I'd described should their characters ever wind up in Gotham Library. This way we get to loosely map out frequently used locations, and the NPC's that inhabit them. I reckon something like this would be an invaluable tool to someone just getting acquainted with the setting.
Barbara is definitely at the Gotham Library, and I love your description
I've started pulling some of this together. Still tinkering with the format at the moment (so please don't go crazy adding stuff just yet!) - just wanted to give you guys the gist of what I'm aiming for.
The Supporting Characters has the little character blurbs as discussed. For some people (eg. Jerry Hennelly) it's just as simple as a name that people can reference. For others, there's a bit more detail, that can be expanded on the more we roleplay with these people. There's also some information on some generic NPC gangs that people can use, so that it isn't always Nameless Thug #7. I have put little images - I know they don't count as proper image claims / playbys, they're just there for flavour/inspiration/same page purposes... if someone wants to use that particular actor for someone else, we can jump off that bridge when we come to it.
Planning to do pretty much the same thing as that for locations and organisations and stuff too. (Edit: Have now started to do so. Am putting these lists onto the actual category page, so if/when there are any proper pages or articles for stuff, the list will show up all nice and handy at the bottom.)
I've also started putting together a little Timeline. I'm trying to keep things as super vague as I possibly can, since timelines get wonky at the best of times, and DC timelines especially so.
Completely unrelated tangent... does anyone have any interest in doing a police character at all? I have a few ideas, but I don't want to do 'em on my onsies.
Last edited by Captain Untouchable; Oct 19th, 2015 at 09:33:14 AM.
It's like that, and that's the way it is.
Bloody hell, you've been busy! Great work, Jace. I know you said you're still tweaking the format, so any contributions I have to make will be posted here for the time being.
As for a police character: nothing springs to mind, right now, but if inspiration strikes, I'll let you know.
I added the Crows to the gangs, hope I did it right.
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