Human Roleplay Switches

[ace]

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.

[puzzles.]

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

[vellichor]

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.

[cyantist]

[align=center][div style="text-align:justify;width:55%;font-size:10pt;font-family:verdana"]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.

[lexasperated]

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.

[vvintersoldier]

I think Apricity brought up a really good point!! I think the human rp will need some variety like she suggested, so it won't be limited to just a few things. I honestly think more the variety it has, the more easy it can be to get into, and it makes it seem like each group has their own unique cultures and customs that can give them a cool twist!

I also think that powers/tech should stop where the animal rp is at so the shop doesn't get confusing to navigate. I think automobiles shouldn't be allowed, but I think transportation like bicycles should be allowed.

[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"]Gonna put my piece in here really quick.

I'm not sure where exactly to begin, but I'll start with the current human roleplay. I don't like it. Why? Because it's very constricting and bites it's own tail a lot of the times. What we essentially have is Griffingate not wanting to help others & being actively anti-powers, whilst Blackfall wants to do the opposite, with more mutants, essentially. While the conflict between the main groups is interesting and a source of character development, with the few members in the roleplay it's harder for you to do anything with it. Besides that, there's the lack of conflict with the outside world, and with Griffingate v. Blackfall being the only thing keeping it going ... obviously there's a need for a huge change. A whole overhaul of the world, actually.

As I had suggested while the human roleplay was still in early development, we need something that can simultaneously entice members of the animal main game and outsiders looking for a new roleplay experience with humans. I.e., that's where fantasy/sci-fi comes in. Taking a piece out of my favorite works, there's a lot of directions that we can take this, but this is my favorite one:

It's a few hundred years in the future, and the Earth has been thrown into nuclear war between countries. As a result, the government begins to prepare living spaces within ships out in space months in advance to the final show-down. Upper class citizens are given a free ticket into this, while the lower class is kept in the dark, although a few manage to find out and smuggle each other (mainly families) into the ships before they take off. Once the war ends in the countries being blown into smithereens, leaving Earth inhabitable due to the copious amounts of radiation, those in the space ships are shot off into the galaxy. An error in calculation leaves the refugees plummeting into an unexplored planet.

While the majority make it out alive, a few are still gravely injured. Seeking out help with their dwindling supplies, humans explore the planet to find a dangerous, highly populated terrain that they're vastly unfamiliar with. Help arrives in the form of the natives of the planets (tbd), and while most are eager to ally themselves with them, others are staunchly against it. This creates a solid rift between the humans, splitting them up into three(?) groups:

- an anti-alien organization made to colonize the planet and rid it of the natives. i.e., warbound. made up mainly of the rich.
- the current leading alien group that sees the humans as a threat and plans to drive them to the other side of the continent at all costs. because of the conflict between them and the humans, while they do not exactly want to kill them all, they will if it comes to it. PRIMARILY made up of the alien race, very few humans. the humans that come are lower-ranked or prisoners, and are rarely treated kindly. warbound(?)
- the renegades mixed up of humans smuggled aboard the ship and the natives of the planet. they're a very peaceful group and try hard to diffuse the tension between the two, but sometimes fall back on violence and trickery to get their way.
[i]and in the future...
- a true neutral group made up of human and alien scientists. they're here to advance technology and really don't care about the war between aliens v humans, so they fuck off into their own little space to do their thing. highly defended and quiet, but are constantly contacted by both warbound groups for potential alliances. ultimately doesn't have "allies" unless they can get something in return. they also have healers, a farming system, and trade. they're all around just pretty well stocked, but if attacked it's harder for them to defend themselves, which is why they're "hidden". maybe nomadic as a result?
- an extremist group made up of the mutants (alien/human mixed breeds) who have enough of the mistreatment they face on all sides and want their race to rule over everyone else on account of them being far more powerful than either combined. they treat both races as lesser, outlaw mutants breeding out their powers through relationships w/ aliens and humans, and only breed within the confines of their own group. constantly increasing their numbers through this.
this will prompt the mixed breed group to defend them, while the humans and alien groups will fight against the two.

at this point you must be wondering, what?? how the hell are aliens and humans having sex??
- the aliens in this world will be humanoid, allowing interspecies sexy times to happen.
- fORBIDDEN RELATIONSHIPS?? le gasp
- also, there's literally a group where aliens and humans are hanging out all the time anyway.

now, you must be asking: what will these mutants look like?
human genes WILL be dominant appearance-wise, but everything else is up to you. you want them to have antennas? go the fuck ahead. a tail? hell yeah! polka-dotted pink skin? go for it! but most of all, they're gonna have powers. which is what makes them so scary.

lastly, pros to this world:
- shit ton of world-building.
- lots of creative freedom.
- more of an acceptable excuse to have powers.
- a horrendous lot of conflict, which means...
- chances for character development!
- wacky territories n shit

cons:
- gonna be soO much drama
- unless we want these aliens to look like the guys from avatar, we won't have chances for faceclaims since they won't resemble humans appearance-wise.
- slightly op mutants, but over time there will be solutions to that
- oof. triggering topics such as racism, but it's humans v. aliens.

also!! on this ship, humans WILL bring their own livestock and herbs, but they won't be bringing transportation. this opens up cool shit, like riding alien horses?? aND regular hoRSES? imagine all the alien cows. anyways, as far as weaponry goes, that's tbd. the guns the humans have will eventually completely run out because of the lack of materials needed to create bullets. as my friend [member=883]Elumina[/member] suggested, they'd be used like bats for blunt-force shit. [/i]

---

to end this, though, i want to say that i genuinely don't think worlds with radiation will work, because radiation negatively affects humans, i.e., chernobyl. it can't make them magically develop powers, because it would mainly end in disabilities that would need a lot of help managing, which they won't have if they all were hit by radiation at once. furthermore, i think the introduction of other races and another world would be best. that way we have creativity in how we want to work the lore and the attributes of them, if that makes sense.

sorry if this got carried away. i genuinely am in LOVE with this idea, and while i started this wanting to point out flaws n shit, i got swept up in the excitement, because world building is ridiculously fun. sorry for the mouthful!

ALSO, REAL QUICK, this whole thing was inspired by Fallout and Mass Effect. Fallout for the government and the nukes, and Mass Effect for the aliens. Also, obviously Avatar.

[vellichor]

I definitely agree that radiation is a bit difficult to deal with. I know that irl obviously it has some p bad consequences but maybe it could be a from a weapon custom made for BoB? I know ya'll were talking about the Cold War and possibly going from there but what if on top of everything going nuclear and all that, there was some kinda weapon the general public didn't know about at the time? Or the mass destruction could've caused an atmospheric change that brought in some kinda foreign material that caused the powers and mutations? For example, it could've been a weapon made from some kind of new element that was created and it was intended to be some kinda biological warfare but then it went wrong and rather than causing people to get sick, it made people gain powers or something like that? Idk that's just something kinda random but I thought I'd throw it out there.

Personally I feel like if we had some kinda alien species it'd def have to be limited? Also tbh I don't love the idea of having pre-made groups, as I feel like that was kinda the problem with the human rp before. Having all of them so close together and with such similar history will prob make for some p similar groups, which was definitely a problem we had with the old human rp imo. I feel like the members should honestly come up with the groups as a whole so that they're more invested in them overall and so that each one is very distinct from the others, especially with us only having around 2-3 groups. I can also see the v intense sci-fi elements pushing some people away? Whereas if we just do general post apocalyptic with subtle fantasy and sci-fi elements that can be worked in if someone wanted to, that'd leave a lot more open to everyone. I also feel like having hundreds of years of custom made history is going to make things harder for people to jump into, for the reasons some stated before about not having a good reference of events and whatnot.

To be totally honest, I feel like our world-building should be less concerned with making a complex, detailed history, and moreso just setting up a place where people can rp and make their own history. I think the simpler and easier to stand history and 'lore' we have, the better off we'll be in the long term. I know we need a reason for powers and we need a reason for humanity being sort of torn apart but I don't think adding a bunch of lore is a super great idea for future roleplayers. We don't want them to feel burdened by a bunch of pre-determined plots and groups. Instead, I think it's better to leave it more open and just in a simple map so that people can determine what plots they want and what they want to do. If they decided to do a massive world plot later on, they can, and that history would be added, but I feel like custom history is better made through just rping. As for different groups having different history, if we don't have cars and things, it's very possible they haven't talked to each other since the fallout. I don't think they all need to have the exact same formation story or the exact same ideology, because that's very limiting for people trying to find the right group for them. To be totally honest, the more complex and restricted we make this, the more difficult it will be for people to rp in. I think for now we just need to focus on making a world that it's possible to rp in without having to worry about if someone's messing up the lore or something like that. It just needs to be friendly for people to jump into imo.

Sorry that this is so rambly but basically I think that we need to give the world variety while making it easy to jump into for new people. I agree we do need some explanation for why things are they way they are, but I think in order to give us the variety we didn't really have the first time around, we need to let different groups be voted on rather than pre-made by members or by staff. It can be said that, at some point after the fallout, everything sort of fell apart and the remaining people weren't in as much communication, hence why they develop different ideas about the new powers and whatnot and why we can have a variety of groups.

edit;; ah i believe this has been said before but I wanted to add it. If we're making a totally new world, that can take tons of time. While we obviously don't want to rush anything, I also don't think it's realistic for the member base to wait for months on this. I think the closer we stick to the real world, but with deviations in the history at some point (like the Cold War idea) is our best bet tbh. We can always find reasons why things were added to the world but making an entirely new one would be extremely difficult and time consuming and honestly it could get confusing for new members.

[Elumina]

A few friends on discord encouraged me to post my idea, and im sorry if its not as fleshed out as some would like.

if we had, a dimensional rift, where humans developed differently, dubbed 'mutants' by the inhabitants of this dimension. They came over to this dimension in league of exploration, and then we went to theirs in the same mindset. The rift closes. the rp takes place in our world, where people have settled down, the rift itself has been searched, no signs of going back
this opens up a few opportunities, blaming the mutants for ever exploring the rift, families have probably or most likely have been torn apart by the exploration teams, some on one side, some on the other.
but if we stopped the area at the level of weaponry and tech that would be acceptable by staff. this rift would've been opened in the 16th or 17th century, closed halfway through and then rp could take place about three or more years later.

This leaves things open ended for groups, with their own histories, ideals and reactions. This also solves the problem of radiation. Groups that I have seen suggested, would possibly thrive on this, along with reworked versions of Blackfall and Griffongate. This could also work for either a normal world map, or something entirely new, though I myself am partial to a new map.

Originally i was going to stand by and wait, see if i liked the revamp enough to stay. I might try to take a bigger stand, I don't know

[impy.]

Carkus' post: Personally, I don't like the idea of actual aliens from outer space (and the intermingling, though Mass Effect is a good series from what I've heard, just not my kind of genre). I just have a really hard time getting into the headspace to actively play and take part in something that different from our world now. Even further removing the game from reality makes it even harder for me to grasp, understand and stay interested.
Making an entirely new world, again, is not in our best option, not if we're wanting to boost numbers and activity pretty quickly. Like April said, an entirely new world would mean months of development and planning.

April's post: Because I've been trying to get my thoughts together lately and actually,, kick myself in the ass to respond to this thread-- I do agree with radiation being restricting/limiting! However, if it wasn't just nuclear war that fucked the Earth up- there are some people that thoroughly believe in things like Mercury Retrograde. Taking from astrology and real big events that affect the Earth, we can reasonably twist things to fit what we want. I honestly don't think we should restrict the game a whole lot- even I don't want to be restricted.

I'll take an example with a concept that I'm currently attempting to transfer over here from FF- The Darkness. My thoughts (so far) on it is a form of radiation poisoning and something else. So whether that something else is supernatural, entirely natural, or some mutant of both- there's leeway. Real world radiation poisoning causes significant health issues and disabilities, twist it and it becomes mutations of otherwise healthy people. And that goes for vampires and such- who's to say that just because there was nuclear meltdown there aren't still vampires, werewolves, changelings, etc. They're here in the real world/people genuinely believe in them. Things don't have to be that far removed from reality to make 'sense'.

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?