Well, I just finished Doctor Strange. Not bad movie, if poorly structured. And it made me think to ask the question for City of Titans: Where does magic come from?
The movie gives it as "channeling energy from other dimensions", which could work. I remember Enderall, a famous Skyrim conversion, explained it as "bringing alternate realities into existence in ours" with the corollary "bringing down an asteroid is easier than lifting a rock."
What direction is/should CoT take? We know magic is a part of the canon, but no details I remember.
Maybe it's better that way? "mystic gobbily guk" :p What do you think?
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Avatar by MikeNovember
Freedom Force was a game where you got to run around being a superhero, but one of the places where it was different from CoX was that in FF, the game lore had a plot device that was the basic origin of everyone's powers, it was called Energy X. In CoX, you got to pick one of 5 canon origins and it did very little except determine which Enhancements you could and could not use.
In CoT, they're leaving open the question of "what makes you super?" and allowing us to answer that question on our own, with no real over-arching answer available from the game. One person might be using magic as they define it, and someone else's magic might work in a completely different way. As such I think CoT will probably not touch these sorts of questions and they will leave it to us to fill that in on our own.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
Leaving things like this up for players to decide is really always the best way to handle "questions" like these.
I have no problem with the Devs of this game coming up with lore/stories that deal with specific examples of "how certain powers work" or "where certain powers come from" as long as they don't try to say that, for instance, all magic in the CoT universe works only exactly like X, Y or Z. We should be free as players to define things like the original CoH "Origins" as we choose for our own characters using as little or as much of the provided game lore as we want.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I feel it would be nice to have some actual lore to work with in, rather than make your own up. Making your own up, is how we saw people putting the World of Darkness in City of Heroes and then seeing them screw that up. As a fan of the WoD and CoH, I found it so annoying :p
Of course, them giving us lore won't stop that, so it comes down to "Why not give us lore reasons for things"?
I don't read the lore in games so to me, magic could come from an old shoe that belonged to a genie.
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[color=#FF0000]Graphic Designer[/color]
We already know there's going to boatloads of lore in CoT. The Devs have already given us tons of it with many of the info updates on the various factions over the years on this forum. If you want to base your characters 100% off of the lore pre-established by the Devs then have fun with that.
My point is that this game should be open enough that if I want my "version" of magic (as far as my character concepts goes) to work differently from yours or from whatever the Devs come up with in their "lore" there should be absolutely no problem with that. Frankly no matter how good the Devs' lore turns out to be I STILL don't want to ever be locked into having to define my characters by it.
Let me put it this way: Let's say for example you hate "style X" but you love all things "style Y". Now let's say the Devs of CoT decided to try to make CoT as close to "style X" as they possibly could and even geared it so that your characters could only really be "explained" as being people of style X. This would suck for you wouldn't it?
That's exactly why CoT should never "force itself" on the playerbase as far as its lore goes. The lore it provides should only be used as examples - it should never be there as things that we players must blindly accept as absolutely mandatory.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Sometimes I base my characters 100% on a game's lore. Sometimes I don't use -any- of the game's lore. And sometimes I'm like 50/50. The key point is the game's lore (especially for a game like this) should be accepted as an optional guide for character concepts, not as a mandatory outline.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
There is an infinite universe, multiverse, of options. Is it extra dimentional energy? Is it trapped ribbons of faith? Is it esoteric knowledge passed down through the ages? Is it bargains with beings some would call demons or angels? Is it being born with the essence of a long dead deity?
You tell us!
Technical Director
Read enough Facebook and you have to make Sanity Checks. I guess FB is the Great Old One of the interent these days... - Beamrider
All great ideas! Lore like that I would read
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You do understand that Doctor Tyche is suggesting that [b]you[/b] can just as easily create that kind of "lore" for your own character concepts. The Devs don't (and frankly shouldn't) have to spoon-feed everything to you.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Im not implying that he writes it. I was just pointing out that some of the ideas he came up with on the fly were very interesting to me and I would even love to read more on those ideas. Unfortunately, some of the lore they have been producing for some reason doesn't grab my attention.
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[color=#FF0000]Graphic Designer[/color]
It will be nice to not have to asnwer to MAGI every first few missions again ;)
I was going with "manipulating life essence" for my Necromancer, but man, my science background makes this stuff hard on me :p
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Avatar by MikeNovember
I have many characters who are empowered by 'magic'. There's the 10-thousand-plus year-old priestess of the various goddesses, who channeled so much divinity, that it soaked into her body. There's the stubborn (anti)Valkyrie whose power is in dark seidr and ancient battle-wisdom. There's the Nazi-era archaeologist, reborn and transformed by the power of the Phoenix. There's the descendant of ancient wizard-philosophers, with his arcane understanding of the nature of gravity and his magical artifact. There's the young guardian, whose only means of hiding the mystic object was to stuff it into his death-wound. where it got embedded and healed him. There's the 'black paladin', the latest victim of an ancient family curse. I have the young girl whose origin can only be described as 'magic', spawned and empowered from the mists of 'dreamspace'. And then there's the caryatid. Mmm, and the 'demon' spawned by backlashing magic and the sacrifice of a boy and his kitten.
I have to say that Magic comes from imagination!
Be Well!
Fireheart
To me magic itself "just exists" in the same way that electromagnetic radiation "just exists".
The explanations I have seen here so far lean much more towards usage and/or manifestation of magical energy rather than its ultimate origin. For extra dimensional energy there still needs to be an explanation of how to tap into it so something in our dimension must exists that enables it. Same that the alternative reality thing needs an explanation of how those realities manifest in "our" reality and how to find the other reality with the effect one wants.
To answer the OP:
[img]https://cdn.meme.am/cache/instances/folder391/500x/57558391/ancient-aliens-the-answer-to-your-question-is-always-alien.jpg[/img]
Nah. It's magnets, dawg.
Or... all and none of these because every magical tradition has it's own theory or belief about what magic is, but none really know. I always liked that one. Very encompassing.
But IRL it's magnets. Srsly.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
Sounds like someone is down with the clown.
My personal explanation (not quite a definition) of magic: I have no idea how he does it, [I]and I don't think he does, either.[/I]
But a lot of my magical characters know or think they know more than I do. Many of them disagree with each other.
Foradain, Mage of Phoenix Rising.
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CoH played with this a bit in the Rikti, didn't they?
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Avatar by MikeNovember
Magic is the go-to word when the user of something doesn't understand how that thing works. I think origin stories should be left up to the players. I would actually love for there to be a way for players to integrate their origin stories into the game (perhaps like cross between Champions Online's Nemesis system and CoH's Mission Architect feature). That said, i would certainly appreciate it if there were a variety of magical origins in the game. Magical origins whose lore may be based on various other sources from literature, comics, games, movies, and whatever else, but which are rooted in the unique lore of the game world.
Two reasons for this rationale:
1. Legal issues with intellectual property rights. This was something the CoH devs understood from the start. By now, i doubt there's a single person on this forum who doesn't know what i'm talking about. So i won't go into detail.
2. Mundus Mysterium. That is, the mystery of the world. CoT is set to be one of the most customizable games in the history of gaming. Over time, MWM could add story missions that span every genre. If magic and technology are treated as two different lenses into the fundamental nature(s) of reality, then, as a writer, you have a cohesive framework upon which to setup and play with all sorts of literary devices, like foreshadowing, the heroic discovery of self, rational suppression of superpowers, the horror of the Other, and the discovery of the mystery of the world, just to name a few.
If my character can finish off an enemy by turning him to stone with a gaze, and your character can pull off that same feat by blowing magical dust, then i think that's great! There's variety there. And we may each have our own explanations, as players and as characters, for how we do that. But i think the game world itself should offer actual lore mechanics that players must eventually buy into (even if one of those choices is just "It's magic because it's magic. No one really understands how i do it yet.").
For example, let's say i have a power that brings down lightning bolts from the sky, because i launched a giant power crystal of my own making into orbit using a big ole rocket. That's the start of my origin story for that power. The game code itself has no concept of this beforehand, except insofar as it offers the power customization options to drop lighting bolts from overhead. Through a series of missions, i discover that there are others who can also call down lightning bolts from above. In fact, there's an entire secret society of people who command various powers of the elements. Many of them have different explanations for how they harness the power, but at the root of what they do, they harness the "elementalism" lore mechanic. As a reward for joining their society, i can chose to have that lighting bolt power tagged as an elementalism power. This may then grant certain advantages and disadvantages throughout the rest of the game. Or i can decline to join them, believing that my power comes from somewhere else. Eventually, through another series of missions, i may discover that my lightning power is based on something else.
If I recall, magic was their anathema, which the [url=https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Rikti]Paragon Wiki[/url] confirms in the Spoiler Warning section. Which is kinda funny since Hero 1 always struck me as a magically-empowered person, mostly due to Excalibur's empowerment and the Lady of the Lake's influence. So it was surprising that the Rikti were able to him into The Honoree. But I digress.
Well - as you say he was "magically-empowered". It looks like he passively derives his power from magic (due to his heritage) and that he doesn't actively cast spells like the Circle of Thorns or rely on magical knowledge. So it's possible that the Rikti conversion could take hold with him keeping his powers.
"Poor little blighter. Let him go."
"Not till he says what he means by [i]lots[/i] and [i]none at all[/i]."
Spurn all ye kindle.
I suppose when I think "magically-empowered" by Excalibur and the Lady of the Lake, I think that he's full of magical energy that gives him his strength, stamina, resilience, etc, to Incarnate levels. I would figure that would help to protect him, specifically from entities such as the Rikti that have severely limited or no experience at all with magic.
HA! Nasty Hobbitses.
Well, I just like the idea that every magical tradition has a working theory, but none of them has the whole picture. Like the elephant analogy. It makes things interesting and leaves nearly infinite room for storytelling. And it's verisimilitudinous. Like Dark Matter/Energy vs String Theory, or Religion vs Religion.
And then of course, just like IRL, most of them think they're right and everyone else is wrong and must be destroyed. Cause, you know, it's how we humans do.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
I'm fairly sure he was divinely empowered by Excalibur which, as stupid as it sounds, was supposed to be somehow different but CoH never once made it clear how it was different. The whole Mot storyline was the same way, despite the fact that the dark god Mot literally granted magic powers to his worshipers.
An infinite number of tries doesn't mean that any one of those tries will succeed. I could flip an infinite number of pennies an infinite number of times and, barring genuine randomness, they will never come up "Waffles".
'Magic' is a fine term for any 'Science' that we don't understand.
Be Well!
Fireheart
Agreed. Especially with the idea of leaving us room to tell our own story.
Also, thank you for correctly using the singular verb with 'none'
Spurn all ye kindle.
Maybe it's different like American English and British English.
HA! I was an English major, but don't read too much into that. I was drunk, hung over, or asleep in most classes through college. You WILL see grammar fails in my posts :P. At most I have sporadic moments of correct grammar. Probably representing brain cells that actually survived the years of pickling.
And this is all assuming that the lore considered that Hero 1 had an accurate understanding of where Excalibur got it's power from. But in the end they said he was an Incarnate.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
Plot holes in the reality.
What?
Too soon?
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
As an RPer, I like a little more lore in my RPs, so, in my hopes, it will avoid the "I put Mage: the Ascension into CoT!" :p
By your theory, we can have vampires every hero knows about (because that's how it was in CoH, I will guess the same for CoT :p) but then by your theory, we the players can also say "No one knows of the vampires, because they're secret for my Vampire: the Masquerade background!" :p
Magic is just the Force being used by everyone! Throw some Star Wars in there!
See, more concrete things, I believe, will help make a more solid RP community :p
Magic is the left over pieces when the laws of physics go on the fritz
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I think it could be nice to have some theories or schools of the many kinds of magic. Constraints drive imaginations in potentially new directions. But any rules of magic learned along the way could be mislearned or misunderstood. What if Titan City's part of the planet turns out to have no curvature? That points to the existence of the World Turtle.
[size=14]"The illusion which exalts us is dearer to us than ten thousand truths." - Pushkin[/size]
[size=14] "One piece of flair is all I need." - Sister Silicon[/size]
Too easy ;p
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Avatar by MikeNovember
Since the city is in New England, there are at least three magical traditions the lore can call upon: Native Shamanism, Christian Mysticism, Wiccan Animism.
Or, the lore could just mention in passing that only individual magic users can explain the source of their power. For everyone else, it's a mystery.
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I would assume that the magic npc's will have lore that explains the source of their particular magic. Players who have difficulty or who want inspiration could look to those npc's for a ready made definition.
You forgot ... Oranbega ... and the Circle of Thorns ... ^_~
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Wiccan animism if my favorite of those
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Avatar by MikeNovember
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[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
"Sometimes magic is just someone spending more time on something than anyone else might reasonably expect."
- Raymond Joseph Teller
- - - - -
[font=Pristina][size=18][b]Hail Beard![/b][/size][/font]
Support [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/52149#comment-52149]trap clowns[/url] for CoT!
Which means the City of Titans will be magic.
And, no, that's not a dig criticizing them for how long it's taking.
That's respect for them putting in the crazy amount of time it takes so that all us armchair warriors who pick them apart and criticize them can have a real new home. Not just something they threw together fast.
That's right, I said it. Magic comes from Missing Worlds Media.
(Drops the mike...)
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
One more time I'm quite sure CoT will provide enough lore/story content so that if you want to define things like magic in terms of something "concrete" that the game will provide then knock yourself out with that. But by the same token I don't think a game like this, which almost by definition must cater to a multiverse of ideas and concepts, should ever try to -dictate- any one specific definition for how ANYTHING works.
Let me put it this way: If this was going to be a Star Wars based game I would expect it to come up with a fairly well defined interpretation of the Force and how it works within the game. But since CoT is not going to be based on any specific preexisting universe it shouldn't try to impose anything on us beyond providing its own homebrewed optional "examples" based on its own internal lore/stories.
I get that what I'm saying might make things "chaotic" from the point of view that every player who plays CoT might have their own definition of what a "vampire" is or might bring RP elements in from hundreds of other games. The trick is not to try to force everyone else to play the way you want them to - you just need to find the people most "like-minded" to you and play with those people. Let everyone else do whatever they want to do and be happy with that.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
My interpretation of magic has been, for a long time, that it's always user defined. So the user understands their own magic. Another magic user might never understand how perform the feats of another art. Or what might be a simple a feat as waving a hand for one might require the sacrifice of 100 toads, or their livers. And a person might be able to train a novice in any given art, or their maybe a cultural or heritage limit on the art thus you get groups of people who understand magic in the same way.
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Another part of this question, and this may get dicey ;) In an arc I'm writing, the villain collects artifacts from various gods of various religions. Part of the issue is, how does one wield both the Trident of Neptune and the Staff of Hel at the same time, since Norse and Roman mythologies conflict :p
Though I'm going with way more obscure gods, a native american god and the Mayan sun god, since roman, greek, and norse are so overdone.
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Avatar by MikeNovember
Who says they have to conflict? There are infinite dimensions/universes in the multiverse after all. ;^p One Earth could be formed from the body of a giant, and another could be generated from the primordial Chaos.
[img]http://multimedia.3m.com/mws/media/1020817P/3m-venture-tape-cloth-duct-tape-1502.jpg[/img]
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[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Magic comes from your imagination. Use it.
If Ripley could duct tape a rifle and flamethrower together you should be able to do the same with two divine artifacts...
[img=500x500]http://static1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130806234629/avp/images/e/e4/Ripleyweapon_21.png[/img]
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
LOL beat me to it. ^_-
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
Who says there's infinite dimensions/universes or even a multiverse in CoT?
Why break my lore of just one earth? :p
No one break my lore of a flat earth!
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[color=#FF0000]Graphic Designer[/color]
Can a "comic book world" even exist as a non-multi alternate reality "mono-verse"... a single [i][b]uni[/b]verse[/i] if you will...
I think that defies the very definition of the "comic book" genre. ;)
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
yeah, there's always interdimentional silliness in comics.
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Avatar by MikeNovember
The Universe is bigger than your puny continuum! 'There are more wonders between heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.' Perhaps even 6^6^6 dimensions of reality?
'Remember, no matter where you go, there you are.'
Be Well!
Fireheart
I remember that there was a story plot in CoX that explained Arachnos' "Mu" and also gave some background on magic in general. Basically, magic users are descendants from one of two tribes that were at war with each other. Also, gods and hell are in there somewhere. Yep, Hell exists in CoX.
Leaving things "open" by way of just a lack of information or a lack of elaboration is very frustrating, personally. I want a greater level of depth sometimes in stories or universes, but at the same time, overwhelming someone with just a tidal wave of information isn't useful (although, you might be able to achieve a feeling of wonder by revealing just how much stuff you *don't* know about the world). You might be able to hide a lot of openess in that vast expanse of "stuff", tho.
IRL, there are a variety of systems of magick employed, from utilization of the human will (chaos magick), petitioning of spirits and gods via ritual (taoist magick), crafting of charms and enchantments (european?), etc. These systems can be expanded upon and developed into a sort of theory if you bothered to investigate it, but, there's also *SO MUCH* stuff out there. Old deities are forgotten and rediscovered and the old religous practices of forgotten civilizations are adapted into new forms of magic. For instance, in Christian demonology, there exists the demon "Leviathan". Leviathan is thought to have possibly come from Tiamat, an old Sumerian god.
So, yeah. You could write a few systems of magic in use, expand upon them and their mechanics and just heavily imply that we are dullard children wading into the ocean of the terrifying unknown. CTHULHU WHEN
It depends on what you mean by conflict. If it means "one mythology is true and the other isn't", then only one of those two artifacts is likely to be genuine, and so there is no problem. OTOH, if it means, "the two pantheons are at war with each other", then yeah, you might have a problem if both artifacts are sapient. How good did you say your character's Diplomacy skill is?
Foradain, Mage of Phoenix Rising.
[url=https://cityoftitans.com/forum/foradains-character-conclave]Foradain's Character Conclave[/url]
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Then how does one approach "only one artifact is genuine" if both seem to have effects?
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Avatar by MikeNovember
But, if we don't reveal the one great truth, then all magics can work, and hopefully work together, in peace. Nobody is denied their ideas.
We don't need no stinking 'truth'.
Be Well!
Fireheart
If both have effects, but only one is genuine, then the other is a real artifact, but its provenance is not ultimately what it was thought to be. Perhaps one (or even both!) was actually the work of a talented but mortal mage. If the power levels are to high for that to be plausible, perhaps you are actually dealing with the trident of Ægir or the staff of Hades, misnamed by the mortals who believed the wrong mythology. And perhaps both are genuine, and the artifacts of two mythologies that are somehow both real, and we're back to "how are the mythologies in conflict?"
Ultimately, it's up to the storyteller what the "truth" is within the context of the story. Individual characters within the story may know some of that truth, or none of it, or maybe all of it, and they may or may not be telling the truth as they see it. But whatever the storyteller decides is true, should be consistent with itself. Even if the listeners never get to hear that truth explicitly stated.
Foradain, Mage of Phoenix Rising.
[url=https://cityoftitans.com/forum/foradains-character-conclave]Foradain's Character Conclave[/url]
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And that is the secret to having thousands (I hope!) of storytellers getting along.
Foradain, Mage of Phoenix Rising.
[url=https://cityoftitans.com/forum/foradains-character-conclave]Foradain's Character Conclave[/url]
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Personally I think it should be like this... magic comes from all sorts of places and there a different kinds of magic. One type of Magic has nothing to with another type but they both exist at the same time. There could even be a mage who can use two kinds of magic at once.
not my video just one I lke ===> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6-SdIN0hsM
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Right, magic itself just exists and the different practices are just different tools in how to use/utilize it, possibly even using different frequency ranges. The same way that EM-radiation just exists and the different frequency ranges has different properties and need different tools to fully utilize.
That's pretty much it, plus add in the "sufficiently advanced technology indistinguishable from magic" angle (we have a faction which is just this).
Technical Director
Read enough Facebook and you have to make Sanity Checks. I guess FB is the Great Old One of the interent these days... - Beamrider
We would probably need a bunch of fiction to reinforce the idea, tho.
Devs! Quickly! Write a novel of 500 pages and 150,000 words! >:U
Ah, yes. Heinlein.
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
I think I'll take the universalist approach of "there's a greater truth which we can't discern" :p Hades and Hel and Neptune all draw their power from something even more mysterious.
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Avatar by MikeNovember
All magic is derived from the quantum energies that create reality itself. The different schools access those energies in different ways, and thus, science itself can be seen as yet another school of magic.
That's my storyline and I'm sticking to it!
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Yes it can. :p My mention of it though, was only because by saying there is one, players can't say there isn't one and it thusly ruins their game experience, if we go by the idea that saying "this is the history of magic" ruins the magic character concepts of some players :p
dude... stop trying to put real science in a super hero game... it doesn't work...
not my video just one I lke ===> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6-SdIN0hsM
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Sure it does. As a background element behind those heroes and villains who use it. Those who don't can just sigh and shake their heads... all the while wondering how all those gadgets really work.
Foradain, Mage of Phoenix Rising.
[url=https://cityoftitans.com/forum/foradains-character-conclave]Foradain's Character Conclave[/url]
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*grin*
Be Well!
Fireheart
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[color=red]PR, Forum Moderator[/color]
[url=http://cityoftitans.com/forum/desvipers-creative-impulsivity]My Non-Canon Backstories[/url]
Avatar by MikeNovember
As far as coming up with "explanations" for how my characters can do what they do in a game as generically open as CoT I pretty much take the [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solipsism]solipsistic[/url] point of view. I don't let anything outside of my own head tell me what my limits are.
Now certainly I'll often cherry-pick bits and pieces of game lore that suit my purposes. But I'll never let game lore get in the way of a good idea. ;)
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I always tried to work the good ideas into the lore. :)
No matter how awesome it may be to say Spider-Man has found his way into the Star Wars universe, doesn't mean it makes sense for Star Wars :p
If this was going to be a narrowly-defined Star Wars or Spider-Man game I might agree with you. My point was that CoH/CoT are specifically games that are so wide open and supportive of pretty much ANY conceivable character backstory that the -need- to work your characters into the lore is not really a necessity. Basically you can use as much or as little as the Devs have provided and it's all good here.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Which they don't need to do. Nothing wrong with defining some lore. It doesn't need to be 100% open.
Take mutants for example. Either people hate them as a whole or people love/accept them as a whole. Makes no sense to have one character who's concept is "mutants of the world are widely accepted as normal people" and another who's concept is "The people hate us mutants. They want us dead. They vote to make giant mutant killing robots a reality."
Let the Devs of CoT define as much Lore as they want. Doesn't mean anybody here has to use -any- of it. That's the way a game like this should be.
P.S. You do realize that even in your mutant example the "truth" could be one of your stories and "a sadly demented crazy person" could be the other. Specifically mutants might actually be "widely accepted as normal people" in this game world but you could still play a mutant character who's delusional and paranoid enough to think "everybody's out to get him/her".
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Yes, but that then makes the character delusional and paranoid rather than "that's how life is for a mutant"
It's a RP issue I saw in CoH often, as some would RP it one way and others the other, because the game gave no clear answer to a rather simple question.
Perhaps, but it would be my [b]choice[/b] if I wanted to follow the Lore like a lemming or if I wanted to turn the Lore on its ear...
RPGs should never force their players to believe exactly whatever the "accepted" status quo of the world is. In fact usually the most dramatic story-telling comes from doing or believing something no one -expects- of you. ;)
Where you saw "confusion from the lack of certainty" I saw "freedom to RP my characters [b]any[/b] way I wanted" because there was no mandatory hardwired "dogma" I had to adhere to. I guess we'll have to continue to semi-disagree here...
Following a game's lore, especially an "generically open world" game like this, should always be a player's choice... not their requirement.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
But in CoH, there was a whole milieu of supers, they were not all Mutants, so there was no point in singling out Mutants for special attention. Mutants and their place in Society was not an issue that needed Lore. The same is true of the other Origins. No need, in Lore, to decide the difference between Mutants, Magicals, and Naturals, beyond assigning which branch of the [url=https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/FBSA]FBSA[/url] was responsible for you and which Enhancements you could use.
CoT is letting Origin go to the Players and not making it a factor in the game, so there is even less need for Lore definitions, limitations, or Societal reactions. Time to break out the Alien Mutant Technomage and roleplay it in whatever fashion satisfies your soul.
Be Well!
Fireheart
I disagree. Marvel even shows it can. Mutants may be supers, but they're the next step in evolution, meant to replace humans. People don't want to be replaced.
Aliens. People hate aliens. Even if there is that one nice one. :p
Also, making an alien mutant technomage (Dabbler?) isn't the point :p Getting some lore set points is.
I just disagree with the idea that no lore makes for a better RPG. By that standard, the Star Wars RPG is best when one can just say "I'm an Elf from Middle Earth who was turned into a glittering vampire by my sire, Edward Cullen, who is force sensitive."
:p That's what no lore allows and it makes for terrible RPG.
But, if Backstory and character 'Lore' is in the hands of Players, then it becomes OUR responsibility not to be irrational about it. There's no need to equate 'Mutant' with 'Homo Superior', since these ideas are not in the Lore. The Lore has no need to propagate 'Fear of X' in the populace.
Besides, the most popular use of any 'rules' (or Lore) is to subvert them.
Be Well!
Fireheart
It's not subverting them, if half the people do it :p It's just changing it.
By the logic of "no lore let the players decide it for their background" then everyone can make "the best in their field, strongest hero in the world" concept, which obviously can't be wrong, but then ruins the RP in any group sense :p
You know... we have a word for people who do that... they're called god moders...
not my video just one I lke ===> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6-SdIN0hsM
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The lore shouldn't be responsible for keeping god moders in check, the RP community should
not my video just one I lke ===> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6-SdIN0hsM
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God [u]modders[/u] believe they can [u]mod[/u]ify anything to suit their own story. They often meet resistance.
God [u]mode[/u] is when they succeed.
[size=14]"The illusion which exalts us is dearer to us than ten thousand truths." - Pushkin[/size]
[size=14] "One piece of flair is all I need." - Sister Silicon[/size]
You're -still- not getting it. I've never said that having NO Lore at all makes for better a RPG. It strongly depends on the SETTING of each given RPG. Lore is simply -more- important in some games than others.
Look if this was going to be a RPG with a specific setting/venue (like your Star Wars example) then YES I'd expect everyone to conform at least A LITTLE BIT in terms of not trying to play elf from Middle Earth. But do you really not get that games like CoH and CoT are VERY UNIQUE in terms of being very "open" and allowing much more freedom in this regard? The strength of a game like CoT lies in precisely the fact that we don't -all- have to be Jedi and believe in the Force. You could literally play a vampire or an elf and the GOOD RPers will come up with a good reason why those things are in a superhero world. Do you really think CoT needs to be hyper-structured the way a Star Wars game should likely be? I rather just play a Star Wars game directly if I'm going to be FORCED to play a Jedi or a Sith although ironically I could probably come up with a good reason why a Jedi or a Sith would be walking around Titan City easily enough. ;)
I just don't get your insistence that a game like CoT needs to be rigidly hardwired to a specific set of circumstances that EVERY character must follow. If you really need -that- much hand-holding in terms of what your characters are supposed to be then I'd seriously suggest you stick with a game that in fact has very rigid expectations like that. Meanwhile I'll enjoy CoT for what it is - a superhero setting where ANYTHING is possible.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
I spent some time in the character creator for CoX playing around with the idea of making a toon that was a power-armor-wearing Adepta Sororitas (like cross between Iron Man and a nun) from the Warhammer 40,000 universe, who got lost in time and space due to a warp storm or something. She was supposed to have a futuristic rifle and a cross-hairs-shaped tattoo over her one eye (or just a cybernetic eye with a gowing crosshairs in it), and her name was "Cross-Eyed Mary". I just never really got into playing her and deleted her after a while.
Edit: and my Mastermind was a character Dave Foley played on a sketch from Kids in the Hall.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
I think leaving room for headcanon is one good thing CoH and CO had in common. Heck, CoH itself is effectively a headcanon of the original Champions PnP RPG. As long as you have a good, internally consistent foundation to work from, players can spin off from there. (Internal consistency buffs Resistance to Godmodding, too.) It can be fun to read between the lines of the lore and infer some RP plot points, too. When in doubt, suggest instead of proscribe.
(Speaking of anti-mutant sentiment and inferring lore… I had an interesting conversation with a Champions PnP contributor on the CO forums over anti-AI sentiment in CO, since there were no android NPC heroes like Citadel or Luminary, but plenty of villainous Destroids, VIPER-hacked Snake Gulch robots, and Mechanon drones to beat up. I've had a story idea simmering on a back burner about Mechanon, partisan media, and the act of Congress that gives AIs limited rights as citizens, but alas, CO will never get Foundry support. He said the idea probably wouldn't fly so well in older PnP editions, but the MMO adaptation has retconned so many other things, I probably could have made it work.)
Twitter: @SisterSilicon
That is one of the things I like most about the CoT Lore-as-Written: Legally, all sapient beings (including AIs) have the same rights as humans. Individual nutcases or groups thereof may disagree to the point of taking violent action, and concerned non-nutcases may disagree to the point of trying to change the law, but as it stands the worst the government in the Titanverse can legally do to your weird character without cause is try to have it sent home if it is an illegal alien.
Foradain, Mage of Phoenix Rising.
[url=https://cityoftitans.com/forum/foradains-character-conclave]Foradain's Character Conclave[/url]
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Avatar courtesy of [s]Satellite9[/s] [url=https://www.instagram.com/irezoomie/]Irezoomie[/url]
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