The Brand New And Improved "Heroes vs. Villains: Marvel" RPG OOC/Sign-Up Thread

[Byrd Man]

It's amazing, it's like your in character as Hawkeye!

You must be one of those fancy method RPers.

 

[Harlekin]

Anyone know what happened to Angel last we saw him IC?

I left Angel during the battle with Chton. I don't know if anyone made any reference to him afterwards.

It really is too bad I wasn't able to stick with him. I had some cool plans for this season.

 

[Optikal]

Well Wolverine was picked up solely to partner Gallaghers Cyclops. But he seems to have disappeared again so yeah.... If he doesn't reappear, then Wolverine will be dropped.

 

[Optikal]

"Excuse me, would you please be so kind as to further our plot which we need to wrap up before the end of the season?"

"NO! IN FACT, I SHALL FORCE YOU INTO A POINTLESS CONFRONTATION THAT HAS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH ANYTHING WHATSOEVER! MWAAAAHAHAHAHAHA!!!"

 

[Byrd Man]

Spot-on

 

[Spider-Man9X17]

I don't think I want to go play in China. It makes no sense and the people are silly (More so than usual.) Unless, of course, Keyser and bk are in on this but...I really doubt it.

I mean, I know it's just a game, but seriously.

 

[Spider-Man9X17]

Can anyone else imagine the Avengers now in place of King Arthur and his knights during the Camelot scene in 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail", complete with an improv Mandarin song and dance.

"On second thought, let's not go to China. It's a silly place."

 

[MichaelChen]

I've reviewed many Mandarin stories, and he's just not a subtle character, except maybe compared to Joker. He does things like sending blob-monsters to destroy the SHIELD helicarrier and invading Russia with giant robo-dragons and forcing Iron Man to duel him on international TV to prove what a bad-ass warrior he is. His last big scheme was to try to muder 6 billion people with a bio-tech weapon.

I can play a subtle character. I've played subtle characters lots of times. I've gotten praise for subtle, nuanced characters in games like Vampire: the Masquerade. The Mandarin of the comics isn't a subtle character. If you really want me to play him as subtle, I can do so. But it should be understood that such a character would be a drastic departure from the books, a version created for this thread that bares only the vaguest resemblance to comicbook Mandarin.

 

[Spider-Man9X17]

It's not really the flair or subtlety you play the character with, it's meshing with the story. We have really kinda of a loose, flowing story style here, but there is also a good bit of continuity and flow. I'm not saying its the characterization, you really have a knack for this, but a lot of stuff just seems to come from way out of left field and doesn't mesh well, or has little explination behind it. I don't know of that makes sense and I'm sure others can explain it better than I. I don't think anyone is out to smear you (cuz you's know it if they were. Believe me, its ugly), just kind of work you into the flow.

 

[Byrd Man]

I can kinda see Spidey's point.

Not saying that it's not in character for him...but a lot of the stuff he does seems to be almost like a parody of a comic villain. Like just slapping Loki and Thor. It might might be in character for him...but still doesn't change that fact that it can be a bit too much at times.

 

[Spider-Man9X17]

LIke the nano-tech mind control all of a sudden. It just doesn't fit with the story and it puts Loki and Thor in a tough place without character consent. It would be like having Hawkeye suddenly producing a nuclear arrow to launch at Kang while having an argument with Doctor Doom because Doom insulted the color purple and Kang made Hawkeye mad once. To just all of a sudden throw this mind control at Thor and Loki in the middle of their story to aimlessly seek out Iron Man with little to no build up hurts the story and the other characters, and makes no sense. The Mandarin is wandering around aimlessly with his hand in about half a dozen other unexplained stories, with the expectation that every other player just instantly play along and change their stoories to accomodate these.

 

[MichaelChen]

The nanotech mind-control isn't "all of a sudden" at all. I started talking about that months ago, even connected it with MU continuity via Contest of Champions II. It's the exact opposite of "all of a sudden", it's the big thing I started working towards from day one. Everything else I did was just to get the dominos in place to mass-produce the nanotech, something I hinted at constantly in my posts. I hinted about building towards this in both IC posts, and in OOC posts here where I summarized my actions to keep people from falling behind. Months of this.

I went about this very much the way a Mandarin story happens in the comics. The Mandarin starts building towards something big. He does horrific things like unleashing a blob-monster to destroy the SHIELD hellicarier. It's horrific, causing many painful deaths, but at the same time it's just a minor part of Mandarin's plan, a typical monday morning bit of work to get certain chess pieces in position. It seems random, but at the same time there are clues to his big plan left behind.

This goes on, the Mandarin doing things that seem randomly horrific, but actually are part of him setting the chess pieces where he wants them. The heroes get little victories, and little clues, but the seemingly random horrors continue as the Mandarin gets everything in place.

Then he finally has whatever he wanted, which could be mass Extremis virus, or all the parts to complete a giant robo-dragon, or the special jewels to make a series of orbiting satelites to blast the entire world with hate-rays. And he unleashes it, whatever that is, the big thing that all these seemingly random horrors was really just a set-up to.

There was zero, absolutely zero "all of a sudden" about the nanotech. Nor was there anything "aimless" about what he was doing. It was all done in the same semi-mystery style that most Mandarin stories use, where horrific things are done that seem superficially random, but all are actually done towards a goal, and little clues are left to that goal at each horrific event.

But at the same time, I get it: you want to move along the Norn story along, and my job here is to help move the Norn story along. I have altered my post accordingly. What more can I do?

 

[Keyser Soze]

I don't know exactly what your post was about, MichaelChen, as in my timezone all these developments happened overnight, and were resolved by the time I got out of bed today. And the fact that you willingly changed your post means you're all good in my book.

But just to explain a bit more why I think there was unhappiness with your post, I don't think it was simply a matter of bullying or demanding you "change your character" to fit our image of how you should play him. Your portrayal of the character of The Mandarin is good, that's why I wanted to work with you here in the first place. It's not that in principle I utterly reject to play along with any of your story ideas. But I hope you understand, in OOC we have people saying "When's the season gonna end?", and it's essentially our Norn story holding things up now, creating a need to wrap thins up quickly and efficiently, while still hitting all the necessary beats.

I saw this scene with the Mandarin as a "You scratch my back, I scratch yours" kinda thing. It helps advance our plot, but with the whole "I owe you a favor" thing it gives you a subplot to potentially revisit next season, and we all benefit from getting to work with each other. I could have made it that Thor and Loki needed to visit some NPC villain to help them access this Norn, but I specifically made it the Mandarin so we could get a chance to work with you and you'd get more chance to RP with other players. But mind-controlling us and sending us off on a lengthy side mission would have seriously hurt what we're currently trying to do with this storyline - IE finishing it.

I was aware of the nanotech, and though when Dr. Doom recently used nanotech to attack The Cabal, it buzzed harmlessly past Loki, unable to recognize him as human, I didn't just no-sell your idea and say it didn't work on Loki. I am willing to play along with your concept, and an idea I had stemming from it came to me that I was going to PM you about when the time came. Just the timing of pulling the trigger on it at this particular moment would have hurt our story. So thanks for changing.

 

[Spider-Man9X17]

I feel a....Cap/Thor Secret War parody...coming soon...

 

[Byrd Man]

So what if Iron Man might not have had enough time to fly from NYC to Latveria, confront Iron Patriot, then fly back to NYC for the meeting with Mandarin just as the others Avengers arrived. It's a based off a comic book, ***holes.

 

[Spider-Man9X17]

This is a highly regarded, well planned and expertly written RPG, jerk, not a Bendis comic!!! FIX IT!!

 

[Byrd Man]

Who's to say I'm not Bendis?

 

[Spider-Man9X17]

The Hype has Anti-Bendis defenses.

 

[bkhedr]

Seriously. If Bendis tried to post here, his keyboard has instructions to eat his fingers.

 

[Optikal]

I kinda like Bendis, actually... Now if it wass Loeb on the other hand

 

[bkhedr]

I like Bendis' ideas. His execution (witty banter aside) is terrible. Honestly if I had my way Bendis would be that guy they keep at the end of the hall over at Marvel. He'd give them broad story ideas to run with and leave the actual writing to actual writers who, hopefully, won't be prone to vast unexplained power fluctuations in their characters and execution that just feels slapped together.

Seriously aside from that first New Avengers Annual I've never read any Bendis 'action' that doesnt amount to someone screaming "AAAARGH!!" while something that I just can't make out goes on on panel. Man even Bendis' Daredevil work is great idea, crappy exectution.

Siege doesn't count because the action seens are drawn by Coipel so they are bad ass.....but Bendis' witty banter has no place in an epic battle like that, so Bendis ruins it again.

If that wasn't bad enough the man, despite his own words to the contrary, has no respect for Marvel's established canon. Its just a toy to him. A toy he's being paid to break.

Loeb's a different story. Man has some serious talent in this genre.

But he was replaced by a Skrull at some point in the recent past. Its the only explanation for his sudden uber suckitude.

 

[Byrd Man]

Loeb as a Skrull makes perfect sense! How else can he go from The Long Halloween to....to....Ultimatum.

 

[bkhedr]

The only logical explanation

 

[Spike_x1]

I think it happened some time when he was writing Superman/Batman. The first storyarc was a lot of fun to read, but you could still feel the beginnings of his grasp on decent comic storytelling and consistent characterization slipping. And "Loeb's" writing only took a sharp nosedive from there on out.

Poor guy's probably being probed by Skrulls as we speak.

 

[BnKRPG]

Roster Updated you filthy ****es