Villain Roleplay team starting in January 2025

[wyldhaunt]

Hi all, I'm planning to start and lead a Villain in-character roleplay team starting just after Jan 5, 2025, to run weekly at a regular weekday/time for 1.5 to 2 hours each session. We'll all start at level 1 in Breakout with Villain characters, keep these characters for teaming and leveling together through to all team-based (not league-based) Incarnate mission content.

This is not a themed roleplay team - the characters can have diverse stories and aims. I only ask that no "I am the best and the most egotistical types" join, nor any "I hate everyone and everything" types. In order to make this fun, even though we're villains we should be able to work together as a team. A very firm point: I will not tolerate belittling or demeaning behavior between team members - if that happens, I will not hesitate to kick violating team members and not re-invite. We also should keep roleplay/banter at PG13 - this is not an "ERP" group.

I plan to lead the team through primarily story missions, however will also lead papers/mayhem missions and badge hunts at-level for us to get HP/End-boosting Accolades by the time we finish. I'll also lead us through Alignment/Morality missions in our early 20s to become Villains (not Rogues), so that especially any Dominators and Brutes can enjoy that tasty Villain Alignment power a week later.

Obviously, this is not going to be a farm team, but a roleplay team which slow-levels. There may be times we (as a group, not just me) even decide to pause XP gain so we don't overlevel content. However, this is not a completionist run either - we want to enjoy ourselves, not go through each and every nook and cranny in this vast game.

Also, we will not speed-run, and may not even steam-roll. I've never roleplayed in a MMO (even though I've roleplayed table-top RPGs since 1979), and am hoping to create a team for those interested in in-character banter to enjoy ourselves.

As we level to certain contact brackets, I'll invite us to vote for which content we want to pursue.

To join, you must have a character backstory ready to go, and be prepared to chat in-character except when OOC chat is needed. I would like to go with this method of delineating the difference: In Local and Team chat, unless a chat is prepended with "OOC: ", we should regard this as in-character. In Local and Team chat, any OOC statements should be prepended with "OOC: " (I have my Shift+Enter bound to begin chat with "OOC: " to make this easy for myself; you might want to do the same.) In anything except Local and Team chat, we should be able to use context to determine IC/OOC chat, and I plan to regard that as out-of-team chat in any case. That way we can still participate in Rebirth server-wide chat as normal.

I have two questions (with sub-questions) for people interested:

1) Would Wednesdays or Thursdays work better for you? I cannot commit to running this regularly any other weekdays. If Wednesdays, I would like us to start at 6pm US CST sharp (so that we stop before Wednesday iTrials). If Thursdays, we could start at 6pm, 6:30pm, or 7pm US CST (again sharp; we shouldn't be making others wait for us to begin).

2) After Breakout, what is your preferred way to level until we reach level 6? In other words, should we street-sweep Mercy, do Kuzmin's (then either Firewire or Doctor Weber)? I would like the option to follow Kalinda's or Burke's arcs, but you really have to be lvl 4 to do those because of Mercy's changes these days =( ). I would like us to move to Port Oakes at level 6 so that we can do the Newspaper/Mayhem mission there and do a full PO contact after before it's time to move to Cap.

If you can commit to the parameters I wrote about above, and have an interest, please reply to this thread with your interest, along with your answers to my two questions. I'm not sure this will go above seven respondents, however if it does, I'll pick seven regular players between the respondents, and likely also keep conversation going with possible alternate players in case circumstances with regulars change.

Thank you!

[RagingCheney]

Mentioned on the discord, I'd be interested but the issue for me is timing: while I'm free any weekday (barring unexpected) the earliest I can get on any weekday is 7:30CST or so.

Otherwise I have a character ready chilling in their cell in Breakout.

As for post-Breakout, I have no preferences. I played Burke and Kalinda before the revamp, and have done the new content now as well. I would prefer missions/etc rather than generic street sweeping, unless everyone is that eager to blitz to 6 and get out of there.

So, since time is an issue, feel free to bypass me if needed and I'll just PUG if I'm playing and the group is on.

[Sean1M]

1) Would Wednesdays or Thursdays work better for you? I cannot commit to running this regularly any other weekdays. If Wednesdays, I would like us to start at 6pm US CST sharp (so that we stop before Wednesday iTrials). If Thursdays, we could start at 6pm, 6:30pm, or 7pm US CST (again sharp; we shouldn't be making others wait for us to begin).

Thursday I guess. I'm on AEST and have rather bad sleeping habits (I tend to wake up at 12AM) so later in the day is better for me and 7PM CST is exactly 12AM here.

2) After Breakout, what is your preferred way to level until we reach level 6? In other words, should we street-sweep Mercy, do Kuzmin's (then either Firewire or Doctor Weber)? I would like the option to follow Kalinda's or Burke's arcs, but you really have to be lvl 4 to do those because of Mercy's changes these days =( ). I would like us to move to Port Oakes at level 6 so that we can do the Newspaper/Mayhem mission there and do a full PO contact after before it's time to move to Cap.

I usually don't have issue these days getting to Kalinda and Burke's missions at low level. You just dodge most of the goons and when you get one alone bait them out until they die for a nice exp boost.

Anyway I'd kinda like a mix of both street sweeping and missions to kinda mix in some of our own plot to break up mission direction. As for mission preference. Burke's mission feels more overtly one and done. Kalinda's feels pretty repeatable so I'd most prefer Kelinda's as it would I feel be easier to make our own new plot out of it so as not to conflict with other's story direction.

For what we street sweep and what plot we could attach to it I'll let the group plan that out when it comes to that.

[Kryphon]

I am interested! Easiest days for me are THursday, Saturday or Sunday. Wednesday is really the only day I would be unavailable, at least until Feb. But if the days work out, count me in.

[wyldhaunt]

Hi! I'm posting this both here and in Discord:

1. It looks like all the people who have shown interest primarily communicate in Discord; some have an active dislike for using forums, so I'm moving our communication for this group to Discord rather than here to make it easier for those of us doing this team.

2. Thursday 7:30pm US CT is the winner for date/time. We'll team for at least an hour, up to 90 minutes depending where we are with content.

3. We'll focus on Kalinda's missions first, street-sweeping our way to/from them - expect some deaths until we're level 4 at least!

4. January 9, 7:30pm US CT will be our inaugural meeting, when we'll break out of the Zig! I'll be there a few minutes early, and like an effective villain, don't plan to make those who are there wait for latecomers. =)

5. If you miss us breaking out of the Zig, you can do that directly and join us later. To be clear: you can join us at any time there's a slot available and I have the attention to reply and invite, but please do send a tell when I'm on with Pound. I likely won't pay a lot of attention to the LFG and other global channels while we're running this team.

6. Please have a least a start of a backstory, enough that you know your character's voice in chat. Being in character is the primary focus of this team, so that we can try to experience and learn some in-character Roleplay while still doing game content.