The Question
Objectivism doesn't work.
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Welcome to the return of the Hype RPGs. For those not in the know, SHH used to be home to a pretty lively community of play-by-post RPGs. These aren't mechanics based games like Dungeons & Dragons with dice and hit points and whatnot, but instead more of a collaborative storytelling project. Each player takes the role of a character and plays as that character in the IN CHARACTER thread, where they describe the thoughts, words, and actions of that character and the events of the world from their perspective, but all the posts take place in the same shared world. Put it another way, you are the author of a comic book that you write one post at a time in which your hero is the main character, all in one shared superhero universe. This time around, we'll be establishing what I call the "Superhero hype Universe." Basically, think of it as a shared universe where every comic book hero co-exists, or at least has the potential to exist. Anyone from DC or Marvel is on the table, as are characters from other publishing companies like Hellboy. The only rule for the world at the beginning of the RPG will be that our story takes place "Near the beginning" of everyone's stories. So, for example, if you choose to play as Superman, you have the option of retelling his origin story in your own words if you want, or you can write him as an established character, but still within the first year or so of his Superhero career. If you play as Hellboy, then Professor Bluttenholme's death at the hands of Rasputin's minions, which was the inciting incident of the first Hellboy comic, either hasn't happened yet or happened recently within the last year. Other than that, all of the rules and mechanics and timeline elements are something we're going to develop as we go. People forget that, in the beginning, Marvel and DC were a collection of completely unrelated characters that stapled together a cohesive shared universe after the fact, creating the wacky and varied settings we love, and I want this RPG to be in that spirit.
However, while I said there are no game mechanics like in D&D, there are still rules:
1) All normal SHH rules apply. Anything that will get you reprimanded, suspended, or banned in any other thread is still off limits here.
2) Only one character per player. The old games used to do two, but from what I observed that got unweildy pretty fast. Also I want to avoid a scenario where one guy is hogging Batman AND Spider-Man, y'know? You're totally in charge of your character, their supporting cast, and their own little slice of the universe. You can choose to play as any character from the comics, be it a hero, a villain, or even a supporting character like Jimmy Olsen of Aunt May if you want. If another player has a character related to yours, the two of you do have to cooperate. So, if someone has been playing as Superman for a while, and they've written a bunch of scenes where they've talked to Lex Luthor, and then someone comes along and claims Lex Luthor as their character, they do need to treat those old posts where Lex was an NPC as canon to their interpretation of the character. Characters are first come, first serve, and you state your intention to play as a character through the "audition form" listed below.
3) Do not put words in another player character's mouth or dictate their actions in your posts. The term in the old days for controlling someone else's character was "Bunnying." Don't ask me where the word comes from, no idea, but doing it without explicit permission is a big no no. There is also a concept of "soft bunnying," or writing another character's supporting character. So, for example, if you're playing as Spider-Man, and you write a sequence where Peter Parker and NPC Lois Lane talk without Superman's player involved, that is soft bunnying. Not as egregious, perfectly acceptable if it's just a small exchange of a few words without much consequence, but for anything bigger than "please pass the salt," it is considered customary and polite to ask permission first.
4) No killing. Nameless, faceless NPCs or originally created side characters are fine, but no killing off major characters and DEFINITELY no killing off taken characters. We don't want to remove someone's options, y'know?
5) No power gaming. This isn't about winning, it's about writing a cool story together. If you get too precious about your character's "stocks," expect a talking to from me. We're here to have fun, not massage anyone's ego.
6) Once a major character has been requested by a player using the audition form(we're talking title characters like Spider-Man or Batman), there will be a 24 hour period before the formal approval from the mods. During that time, if someone else auditions for the same character, the mods will decide among themselves through a vote which applicant gets the character. For more minor characters, the 24 hour waiting period can be waived, and this will be decided on a case by case basis. I will be leaning on the side of caution, though, so if your character's name appears in the title of their magazine, expect a wait.
7) We're here to have fun, but you do have to take the act of storytelling seriously, even if you're writing a goofy story. What I mean by this: No "I just happened to find all of the infinity stones in the box on the floor just now and now I'm going to kill God." Even if you're just being goofy, which I encourage, you've still got to put in the work and earn your moments like a writer does.
8) Any character from Marvel or DC is an option. Any Dark Horse character who is not a licensed property is an option; Hellboy and The Goon are allowed, Ghostbusters and Star Wars are not. Almost any image comics character is allowed, except for Invincible; any series that relies heavily on satirizing existing comic book characters, like the Guardians of the Globe in Invincible, is off limits simply because it just raises too many meta-fictional questions about the verse. Furthermore, anything that explicitly takes place in a world that is not ours, like One Piece or Elfquest, will not be allowed.
9) Multiverse and time travel stories are off-limits unless they're already baked into the concept/backstory of the character, like Power Girl or Booster Gold. In those cases, they should remain primarily a backstory element. That is not to say these ideas will never appear in the RPG as a proper story element, but the narrative threads they weave get too convoluted to allow them without moderation.
10) There is no limit to the power levels of the characters you choose, but the more powerful the character is, the more important it is to write them in-character. If The Avengers ask Galactus for help, his answer should usually be "no because I don't care." If you're playing as one of the Endless from Sandman, you do have to remember that you're an aloof cosmic being who can only interfere indirectly and prefers to give cryptic mystical answers to questions.
11) If you go more than two weeks without posting, your character will be considered an NPC again and will be up for grabs for a new player.
12) No graphic descriptions of anything gory or sexual in nature. We're not here to gross each other out, and while we are here to have fun, it is not THAT kind of fun. I was 14 when I joined these RPGs, and you don't know the backgrounds of your fellow players, so be careful.
To apply for a character, please fill out the application below:
"SUPERHEROHYPE" RPG SEASON I SIGN-UP FORM
Screen Name:
Character you would like to play:
Abilities and traits:
Brief biography of the character's history:
List a few reasons why you have chosen that character:
Color and font you plan on using for your character's speech:
Please provide a sample post with original content in the style that you plan to write your character in:
Do you know how to post pictures on the hype boards?:
Welcome to the return of the Hype RPGs. For those not in the know, SHH used to be home to a pretty lively community of play-by-post RPGs. These aren't mechanics based games like Dungeons & Dragons with dice and hit points and whatnot, but instead more of a collaborative storytelling project. Each player takes the role of a character and plays as that character in the IN CHARACTER thread, where they describe the thoughts, words, and actions of that character and the events of the world from their perspective, but all the posts take place in the same shared world. Put it another way, you are the author of a comic book that you write one post at a time in which your hero is the main character, all in one shared superhero universe. This time around, we'll be establishing what I call the "Superhero hype Universe." Basically, think of it as a shared universe where every comic book hero co-exists, or at least has the potential to exist. Anyone from DC or Marvel is on the table, as are characters from other publishing companies like Hellboy. The only rule for the world at the beginning of the RPG will be that our story takes place "Near the beginning" of everyone's stories. So, for example, if you choose to play as Superman, you have the option of retelling his origin story in your own words if you want, or you can write him as an established character, but still within the first year or so of his Superhero career. If you play as Hellboy, then Professor Bluttenholme's death at the hands of Rasputin's minions, which was the inciting incident of the first Hellboy comic, either hasn't happened yet or happened recently within the last year. Other than that, all of the rules and mechanics and timeline elements are something we're going to develop as we go. People forget that, in the beginning, Marvel and DC were a collection of completely unrelated characters that stapled together a cohesive shared universe after the fact, creating the wacky and varied settings we love, and I want this RPG to be in that spirit.
However, while I said there are no game mechanics like in D&D, there are still rules:
1) All normal SHH rules apply. Anything that will get you reprimanded, suspended, or banned in any other thread is still off limits here.
2) Only one character per player. The old games used to do two, but from what I observed that got unweildy pretty fast. Also I want to avoid a scenario where one guy is hogging Batman AND Spider-Man, y'know? You're totally in charge of your character, their supporting cast, and their own little slice of the universe. You can choose to play as any character from the comics, be it a hero, a villain, or even a supporting character like Jimmy Olsen of Aunt May if you want. If another player has a character related to yours, the two of you do have to cooperate. So, if someone has been playing as Superman for a while, and they've written a bunch of scenes where they've talked to Lex Luthor, and then someone comes along and claims Lex Luthor as their character, they do need to treat those old posts where Lex was an NPC as canon to their interpretation of the character. Characters are first come, first serve, and you state your intention to play as a character through the "audition form" listed below.
3) Do not put words in another player character's mouth or dictate their actions in your posts. The term in the old days for controlling someone else's character was "Bunnying." Don't ask me where the word comes from, no idea, but doing it without explicit permission is a big no no. There is also a concept of "soft bunnying," or writing another character's supporting character. So, for example, if you're playing as Spider-Man, and you write a sequence where Peter Parker and NPC Lois Lane talk without Superman's player involved, that is soft bunnying. Not as egregious, perfectly acceptable if it's just a small exchange of a few words without much consequence, but for anything bigger than "please pass the salt," it is considered customary and polite to ask permission first.
4) No killing. Nameless, faceless NPCs or originally created side characters are fine, but no killing off major characters and DEFINITELY no killing off taken characters. We don't want to remove someone's options, y'know?
5) No power gaming. This isn't about winning, it's about writing a cool story together. If you get too precious about your character's "stocks," expect a talking to from me. We're here to have fun, not massage anyone's ego.
6) Once a major character has been requested by a player using the audition form(we're talking title characters like Spider-Man or Batman), there will be a 24 hour period before the formal approval from the mods. During that time, if someone else auditions for the same character, the mods will decide among themselves through a vote which applicant gets the character. For more minor characters, the 24 hour waiting period can be waived, and this will be decided on a case by case basis. I will be leaning on the side of caution, though, so if your character's name appears in the title of their magazine, expect a wait.
7) We're here to have fun, but you do have to take the act of storytelling seriously, even if you're writing a goofy story. What I mean by this: No "I just happened to find all of the infinity stones in the box on the floor just now and now I'm going to kill God." Even if you're just being goofy, which I encourage, you've still got to put in the work and earn your moments like a writer does.
8) Any character from Marvel or DC is an option. Any Dark Horse character who is not a licensed property is an option; Hellboy and The Goon are allowed, Ghostbusters and Star Wars are not. Almost any image comics character is allowed, except for Invincible; any series that relies heavily on satirizing existing comic book characters, like the Guardians of the Globe in Invincible, is off limits simply because it just raises too many meta-fictional questions about the verse. Furthermore, anything that explicitly takes place in a world that is not ours, like One Piece or Elfquest, will not be allowed.
9) Multiverse and time travel stories are off-limits unless they're already baked into the concept/backstory of the character, like Power Girl or Booster Gold. In those cases, they should remain primarily a backstory element. That is not to say these ideas will never appear in the RPG as a proper story element, but the narrative threads they weave get too convoluted to allow them without moderation.
10) There is no limit to the power levels of the characters you choose, but the more powerful the character is, the more important it is to write them in-character. If The Avengers ask Galactus for help, his answer should usually be "no because I don't care." If you're playing as one of the Endless from Sandman, you do have to remember that you're an aloof cosmic being who can only interfere indirectly and prefers to give cryptic mystical answers to questions.
11) If you go more than two weeks without posting, your character will be considered an NPC again and will be up for grabs for a new player.
12) No graphic descriptions of anything gory or sexual in nature. We're not here to gross each other out, and while we are here to have fun, it is not THAT kind of fun. I was 14 when I joined these RPGs, and you don't know the backgrounds of your fellow players, so be careful.
To apply for a character, please fill out the application below:
"SUPERHEROHYPE" RPG SEASON I SIGN-UP FORM
Screen Name:
Character you would like to play:
Abilities and traits:
Brief biography of the character's history:
List a few reasons why you have chosen that character:
Color and font you plan on using for your character's speech:
Please provide a sample post with original content in the style that you plan to write your character in:
Do you know how to post pictures on the hype boards?:
ROSTER:
TBD
TBD
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