Human Roleplay Switches

[Orion]

Madi's Quote:

yoooo lit lit lit !!
alright, hopping into the actual thread finally with some map considerations. i know hayden has a version of this as well with the territories slightly larger, but here's a look at it within the spain-germany-france limitations (roughly):



this would place "blackfall" in germany/denmark area, "griffin" in france (basically), and leave some wiggle room for the third and unofficial groups. i'm thinking the areas to the right would essentially be relative wildness/desert/destruction: not really fit for large groups or supporting ideal life, but some nomad groups and little units might exist in the wilderness zone. russia and beyond, the most destroyed by the cold war gone bad, would be nuclear winter state / utterly uninhabitable. the border between the dead zone and wilderness is roughly than it looks, with spots of complete coldness cropping up as you get closer to the russian area.
then, a third official group could go in spain's little corner, or be located on uk/ireland/sweden. really, those three sections i see as being "potential group zones" to give space for a third group + any unofficial groups.



the unofficial polls to intro some of the other things i wanted to jot down officially before i forget:
— i think we should stick to 3 but i'm pretty sure that's already been established as the expectation
— okay ! so, with the debate around human rp fulfilling everyone's needs and wants, i think maybe a general board might be good? on one hand, it may detract from the groups and ideally we could make everyone happy with the group dynamics, but it might be a nice outlet just to get ppl in the human world. they could play their non-fitting plots or just one on one stuff to their heart's content if they don't like post ap.

[ i fear these photos might be large so i apologize in advance ]

Nice nice, I like it. I feel as if right now though, we don't necessarily need divided general boards. Our other RPs board is not as used as I'd like it to be and if things would like to go there, then that's fine with me. Looking inactive is what pushes people away.

Ace's Quote:

[align=center][div style="width: 60%; text-align: justify"]I'd like to say that I think a custom map would still be easier to fit in different groups, with divergences in history and territory, with what would make logical sense etc. For example, if we stick to Europe it wouldn't be feasible for a group to be in America, even if the territory makes more sense there.

As for transportation I don't think we should allow cars, maybe scooters or bicycles, even motorbikes, but not something that will take too much horsepower or electricity. This links in to limitations of technology and powers/mutations. We could go with the same post-apocalyptic scene we've put together before, with perhaps a heat wave or natural disaster wiping out most of the Earth, and now that radiation (or some other dangerous substance) has cleared out, the people who are left alive are ... different, not quite human anymore.

With the post-apocalypse, cars and electricity would be difficult to find and acquire, though more stone-age weapons like knives and bows/arrows would be easy to make once you've learned how to carve wood, make use of stone etc.

The reason why I don't like basing everything off the real world is because it's hard to decide which bits of history to include, as some people's characters might be based off one thing or the other, and if we handpick certain events we might render some characters' backstories redundant. I feel like we should come up with a a custom, post-apocalyptic universe where each group can come up with their own history as to why/how they were formed, and there's more freedom to creating characters.

Of course this limits things, such as you can't have a character that is a reincarnation of a WWII solider, but you can easily get around this by having that character be a reincarnation of a solider from another war that happened in this universe.

To accommodate those who want a more general, human roleplay we can include general human board that is separate from the boarded groups, and therefore is in a different world where everything is more free-for-all, perhaps powers/mutations are not limited to shop options in that board, though that can go up to a vote.

God yes. I have to agree with this and that's my main point when it comes to the fact of the European map. There's A LOT that would need to be changed. With a custom map, we can do whatever we please.

Limits in Tech / Transport! I'd honestly limit it to things w/ batteries or mechanical ran. That's where I really draw the line for things. No cars, but boats and horses.

Also, I'm going to point out saying things are scarce will not do well. Everyone wants their character to be the special one to have such and such rare item, so I'd rather not say there's a limit on things we want to prevent having in the first place. Putting a pay wall on it will also seem a bit off. Though, I can change that if need be, but I highly doubt I will put an item under such a paywall when we don't need it in the first place.

YES. The war thing is perfectly fine! Reincarnating a veteran would be amazing in this world too. After all, there's no world without some conflicting history.

Puzzle's Quote:

i am waaayyy less eloquent than ace (altho i agree w all of her points!!) but i do have one tiny lil thing id like to add.

i feel like either transportation options like cars are in the rp or the scale of the map is greatly reduced. i know liquid time is a thing, but on horseback it would take ~20 days to go from one side of france to the other (altho this might be off i didnt spend much time looking for sources lol), and that feels like too big of an area for one single group to possess especially with the amount of people currently in the human rp. it still feels iffy /with/ vehicles, frankly, but i feel less cautious about it.

thats the only major concern i wanted to bring up, p much all my other opinions r shared with ace sldkfslfksdkjf

Smaller space on the custom map I will introduce in a few. It's fixable for all of our scenarios and can be customized to our liking. With the real world, we cannot make things smaller.

Apricity's Quote:

So I’ve read through a lot of this but not all of it so I apologize if anyone’s already mentioned this! So one thing I think we really need in human rp is variety. Right now I feel both groups are very similar, which will make it harder for people to find their “niche”. I brought up the idea on the discord but I know not everyone has that so I’ll repeat it here, but I was thinking it might be interesting to somehow incorporate ideas of various genres? Not necessarily exclusive to groups but so that something could be more fantasy/sci-fi/strictly post apocolypse if it wanted to be. For example, someone with an earth elemental might have powers like an earth bender in Avatar and call it magic but another might say they use highly advanced cells to manipulate metal and call it technology. The reason for this could be different cultures they’ve developed (in the case of groups) or simply different mindsets/backstories (in the case of characters), much like it is in the animal rp and in real life! People might see the exact same thing but think totally different things about it due to preconceived ideas or past beliefs. Basically I think this world needs to be just as open as the animal rp so that we can attract many different people, not just one type.

I’m pretty indifferent about the maps so I won’t comment on those for now haha. I think what y’all have talked about so far is good tbh.

Edit;; Sorry, I just was looking at the thread again and decided to add this! I think powers/tech through powers should stop where it does in animal rp to make things consistent and easy when navigating the shop/site. We can say if we include cars/motorized vehicles elsewhere but as far as biotech goes, I think we should stick with any complex metal limbs have to have an earth elemental, for example. Tbh I think we just went to keep it as open as possible so we aren’t constantly asking tons of hypotheticals for hundreds of character ideas. Basically if it’s a power, your character can use tech to do the exact same thing. For example, telepathy could be caused by some kind of implant.

Different themes would be perfect. The current groups we have now are too close together (see Carkus' comment).

Also agreeing that tech should stop at where animal roleplay stops. (AKA batteries, stone-age weapons, and mechanics like said above.)

Cyanist's Quote:

I'm going to be addressing what I think would make a good background because I'm a nerd for cold war history. The most obvious and probable kick-off point for a nuclear war would the Missile Crisis of 1962. The letters between Kennedy and Khrushchev could of arrived late, the naval blockade was attacked, some small change to the event which led to the US/USSR launching missiles at each other instead of de-escalating.

From that position, the US and USSR would receive most of the bombing, leading to a dead zone is Russia and the US, potentially. The resulting nuclear winter would, from scientific data & estimates, last ~20 years with the global temperature being a degree cooler than it was before the nuclear war. This would mean that the nuclear winter would end in 1982, leaving around 40 years of history that people would be able to play around in. Of course, it also allows a decent timeframe for civilizations to be established and conflicts to form, people to born solely after the bombs dropped.

Of course, the timeframes could be extended/shortened depending on what people want. Russia would still be radioactive, but the world would likely be beginning to return to pre-human states, massive forests and the like. Plant growth taking over abandoned cities like they should of done in Fallout cough cough.

As for powers, high doses of radiation mutate DNA which could lead to the powers? I'm honestly not sure about this one, powers aren't really my forte.

This is sort of what we were stuck with last time but in a less specific and non-involving actual history way. Even so, I'm still impartial to the idea. I'm afraid for this to fail again if we stick with the same ideas from before.

Lexa's Quote:

[align=center][div style="width: 500px; font-family: verdana; text-align: justify;"]Here's my two cents on the matter:
Maps & Realism; I do still think that real-world maps would fit the post-apoc human board better. With a custom world, it would take a lot to form a cohesive world that works - history needs to be completely remade from scratch unless you want a world that's patched-up and filled with tons of holes. This is a lot of work that can take years. Simply creating groups with their own histories of how they were created/formed would open up a lot of issues with cohesiveness within the world. Using the real world as a base, we have a cohesive timeline that we can base our associated groups and histories on. If there is an American group, as mentioned, that exists in the world - have them be moved to a location in Europe, perhaps in the UK/Scotland area. Nothing major needs to be changed. They can still have an Americanized culture, citizens, et cetera but their physical location would be in the habitable areas of Europe. For example, their ancestors could have sailed to Europe after discovering that it's less irradiated than US soil, and set up a village there - from then on, the subsequent generations would have grown up in a mostly Americanized environment and culture. As Impy said before me, the map of the world can be a custom map. Because most of the known civilization has been wiped out during the war, it's more than possible to do this.

Transportation; As mentioned in the discord, I am very much against vehicles and automotives in general. Cars, trains, motorcycles - perhaps bicycles could be allowed if there is a manufacturer who has discovered old-world blueprints or manuals but a lot of time would come into producing them (and producing them in mass would be very difficult). In a post-apocalyptic world, finding enough fuel or gasoline would be very difficult, especially considering there are locations that have been bombed - which would mean gas stations in those areas would've gone up in flames. There are other modes of transportation, horses and carriages, caribou, donkeys, mules - for me, these would seem more interesting and set the tone of the RP and the world itself. It's a little out-of-place to see a car driving down an irradiated freeway already backed up with cars that the old world left behind.

Mutations/Powers; I am all for having powers and mutations being explained by irradiation messing with human physiology and capability. Even in zones that were not bombed, radiation would still sweep through them because the winds would have picked these up and carried them around the globe - especially if several of the biggest continents like the Americas and the USSR were bombed the most. I like the term 'mutants' for the setting of this RP, and I like the way Griffingate and Blackfall have differing opinions on them. This offers up a lot of huge plots and opportunities. Have a group that looks down on mutants but allows them in as long as they serve the Crown in one way or another, have a group that doesn't oppress them and are more tolerant - hell, have a group made up of mutant refugees with the odd non-mutant or two or five in another location like the supernatural city in the unlisted territories (this would be so cool and personally I'd love to put a character in a mutant-filled neighborhood).

History; I definitely agree with the deviation from the Cold War. That allows us to have a set timeline prior to the bombs that we can all agree on. Starting from the Cold War, this is where reality deviates. As Cyan mentioned (lov u bby), the Cold War could have been the timeline were the world went to, quite frankly, shit. That gives us the clean slate we need to rebuild society. Civilizations that have survived look for less-irradiated zones and find themselves in the heart of Europe. Form there, they grew - they established their presence. Unofficial groups can pick their spot - hell, we could have a universal map that we can constantly updated and that would be really cool - Griffingate and Blackfall are flush against each other as the two biggest post-apoc super-civilizations, and of course there will always be smaller nations scattered around, settlements, cities, towns, villages that can all have their own culture. I'm deviating, I tend to get sidetracked and babble (RIP) but what I'm trying to say is - now, associating this with a real-world map gives us a static timeline up to a certain point: Cold War and onwards. From there, that's what we build the world in, and it's definitely gonna be easier than creating a world from scratch. One person can list down when each group was created and established, Griffingate and Blackfall histories need only a few touch-ups, and any other existing settlement can just add the dates as well. It will be much easier and more cohesive to base it on real-world events up to a certain point, and then start the rebuild from there.

General Board; I definitely agree that there should be a General Board for other roleplays that don't quite fit this realm (e.g. high school roleplays, college roleplays, PAFP roleplays, et cetera) to allow others to roleplay anything that their hearts could desire. Another note, I am personally a big fan of having a General Board because, back on FF, it was the first board I ever got into before I even made it to extended. I joined a lot of advanced roleplays here and really improved my writing - I met a lot of friends, some of which I still speak to now, and it holds a special place in my heart. I definitely, definitely agree to a General Board where people can post thread-based roleplays. Heck, I might even restart an old roleplay I was once a part of based around the PJO series.

I hope this all made sense! I'm definitely not good with words and I tend to babble - and when I babble, my grammar turns sideways REAL FAST.

[Elumina]

Elumina's post: It may be that, like you said, it's not very fleshed out but I'm having a hard time grasping what you mean exactly? I understand there being a dimensional rift (like a new world) that would bring mutants over but would it take place in the 'mutant' world or the human world?

I said the rp would take place in our world meaning the 'human' world(custom map or not), three or more years after the rift closes, what might be considered the 16th or 17th century. Technically both worlds are human. The humans of the first world decided to give the explorers a label.

[nefarius]

Coming back into say that I like Elumi's idea quite a lot! <33 It would combine everything that we'd essentially want in the human rp game.

[vellichor]

I really like Elumi’s idea as well! We may need to move it forward in time a little bit though so that it’s in a modern century? I know I’m good with things being older but I know there are some people who wanted it in a newer century. Like maybe the rifts just impact electricity and some forms of energy so cars and things can’t work or smth. I personally think either way would be fine tho.

[Elumina]

perhaps technology stopped at the 19th century, keeping things within rules, while ideals and morals and culture (clothes, language etc) moved forward? We could say that the rift opening/closing pulled all energy from the world electricity wise.

[crim]

Note: I hope that anything I say from here on out doesn't come across as rude - I'm just trying to be completely honest and get my opinion out there.

First of all, there's a lack of progress being made. I understand that world building takes a bit of time so that everything is perfected, but looking through this thread, there are a lot of separate ideas and even more backtracking. Keeping at this rate, we are going to continue to get relatively nowhere with this rebuild. You all have a lot to contribute and that's fantastic but... We need to pinpoint.

I'm going to say now that I haven't gotten the chance to read through everyone's replies fully, although I have skimmed and have a lot of information from that. Unfortunately, I don't have the attention span to read so many blocks of text, especially when there seems to be a lot of repeating and, as I said, super spread out ideas. I have, however, noticed that there is a real problem regarding the map.

Personally, I don't think the map matters much as of right now. However, I do think that sticking with a certain area (such as Europe) is the smarter move, as there is then a set history. Otherwise, history would have to be endlessly debated as well. Considering we can't agree on a general idea, coming up with a specific history that makes everyone happy would be difficult. And sure, real life history could be kept with custom maps, but it's not as realistic. I can go way more in depth with my opinion on this, but I'd prefer not to, seeing as how I just said the map shouldn't be the priority.

The priority should be the general idea, regarding post apocalypse and what not. A decision has to be made there on what route the majority would like to take, as that's the most important part of the rebuild, and then more specific aspects can be decided from there that make the most sense. As of right now, a lot of ideas are being thrown out there, and while they're good, it's causing a lack of focus. I think the best approach would be moving from one aspect to the next (of larger importance to smaller).

Going from that, I see that the majority of people prefer postap, which is understandable because I know a lot of people who prefer more realistic human roleplay rather than fantasy and other out there concepts. I think we should delve into this, so I'm asking a question: why would you guys like/dislike postap? What are the pros/cons? What do you want that wouldn't be realistic in that setting, if anything?

This is something we should definitely begin to get into.

Thanks for hanging in there with me y'all. I love the human rp and want to see it thrive (': but I also hate the feeling of wasting time.

Edit;; I definitely feel like I'm missing something lmao but /: it is what it is. I don't have the time to look back right now so feel free to... let me know any important details.

[nefarius]

[align=center][div style=" background-color: transparent; border: 0px solid black; width: 550px; min-height: 9px; font-family:; line-height: 110%; text-align: justify; color:; padding: 20px"]I respectfully disagree. I think "throwing" around ideas gives us a broader understanding of what members want, and what we can combine to make something that everybody is content with. This is for the purpose of making the human roleplay more popular, after all. The more ideas the better.

Furthermore, Orion is trying their best to pay attention to all of these wonderful ideas by taking the time to respond to them one-on-one, so I think for the most part we're moving along the discussion as we go. People are also taking the time to put forth criticism on these ideas to make them better or to point out the obvious flaws. It's progressing beautifully.

[member=883]Elumina[/member] I like that! So basically the rift opens, and the sheer power of it caused power to go out? Do you think it would make sense for humanity to try to progress forward in technology as a result to try to combat the mutants/aliens/whatever we're calling them, but something in their magical makeup also messes with electronics? Could be a bit of a one-up on the humans.

[Orion]

Essentially this would be adding mutated humans earlier on in the game, correct Elumina? Because honestly, if we work with a blank slate world w/ the same history and just add in that aspect + new groups, that may work... Even so, people could still be confused by these changes and get things mixed up.

I'd have to agree with Carkus, Crim. Throwing out general ideas is essential now because we need to focus on some of the bigger ideals before we get to the smaller ideas. The map is a huge part of this. It can limit culture, territory choices, and create new ideas as we progress further. See my custom map for ideas(the Cove, no man's land, trading post, etc etc).

I will be setting up ideas in clumps w/ all of your contributions, distributing them, and then allowing the polls to take the path of how human RP will roll.

[vellichor]

aa so this is a little off topic but I wanna just put this out here as like a warning I guess?? sorry if it's a little blunt but I'm not sure how else to put this.

So I've never seen huge, complex lore work out well on an rp site. I've been on a few that've tried it in the past and it usually ends up having tons of continuity issues and problems in the long run due to being restrictive and things like that. I think having a map is good, I think having the reason for the fallout is good, and I think having a set of simple rules is good. However, anything beyond that (like adding a more complex history not created by the rpers) usually makes things way more confusing rather than clearing anything up. It makes it hard for people to jump in and makes it hard to create characters because there's so much restriction. This isn't always the case but I would say it is most of the time.

That doesn't seem to be the direction we're going in but I just wanted to give that warning. Once we start adding our own lore and creatures and things like that that aren't just created by rpers, you're making another thing on a guide that someone will have to read and keep track of and follow, which will make things more difficult. For that reason, I am strongly against any sort of super complex lore beyond the basics (basically what we absolutely need to know) for human rp. The more open we are, the better off we'll be. As time goes on, the rp will create it's own lore but it has to be open enough for people to do that to begin with.

Due to that, I think our best bet is to have a simple post ap. world that somehow gets destroyed and has powers added (via biotechnology, some kinda rift thing, it really doesn't matter as long as the explanation is simple), and then we let people out into the world. It's assumed that it had the same history as Earth up until the deviation of these events, to make it easy to reference past events and locations, and everything is relatively easy to follow. Because powers are available, so is the interpretation of sci-fi and fantasy elements in various groups, which allows for as much freedom as possible. As long as you can get it in the shop or it's an element established in the simple lore, you're free to use it as a new group or character. Keeping this simple and easy to understand is the key. Anyone should be able to read any guide and have a decent idea of what's happening without too much confusion or having to constantly reference other guides for a complex history they need to keep track of.

Again, that doesn't seem to be the way this conversation is going but I just get nervous because I've seen so many sites try to do some huge lore and everyone puts in so much work but things like that really aren't super effective in the long run due to continuity problems and how difficult it is to get into, no matter how interesting the base concept is.

I also agree that throwing out ideas is the best thing we can do right now! We can gather them all here and then properly vote on them to make actual decisions! There's no way with this many people that we'd actually be making decisions in a discussion chat like this tbh. 

[ace]

Right now, I think we're focusing too much on lore. If we develop too much of a history/backstory it makes it harder to jump-in and therefore less enticing for people to join. I think we should just go in with a blank-slate universe with simple explanations for why certain things have happened.

A post-apocalyptic world is a nice place to start, perhaps no one knows what happened, and the powers/mutations are a result of natural selection and adaptations which would make sense, because surviving humans would adapt to the new world they've found themselves in. We don't have to include much in history, except maybe what wiped out a majority of the humans also wiped out things such as electricity and modern technology and that's why currently there are only stone-age type weapons and materials.

I feel like that's all we need to set up a semi-realistic, easy to jump in roleplay where people can essentially make up the history of their groups as they go along. The world itself does not necessarily require a history because I know that with Griffingate/Blackfall it was difficult to understand, and as someone who's never done well with history/geography on a whole, I was hesitant to even delve into it because it was unfamiliar to me.

I don't even think we need to worry too much about a map until we pick our boarded groups.

Starting with an essentially blank-slate post-ap universe would give room for human roleplay to grow, and for people to expand on their characters however they wish. Reincarnation of a war veteran? Sure, there must've been a war before the apocalypse. I think this is simple to understand and easy to jump in, which would make human roleplay more attractive and less restrictive to potential roleplayers.