Three more days, Andy. Three more days.

Three more days, Andy. Three more days.

<Snipped quote by Retired>

I fail to see how constantly rooting for a player to miss their posting deadline is conducive to a healthy roleplay.

<Snipped quote by Lord Wraith>

Well, aside from not being serious since I already have a character of my own, the last time I made the joke you posted within two days. Instead of me rooting against you, I'm rooting for you to prove me wrong again.

C H A R A C T E R C O N C E P T P R O P O S A L

T H E B A T M A N

---

^{_{Bruce Wayne .♦ .Philanthropist .♦ .Gotham City, New Jersey, USA .♦ .Wayne Industries}}

Alfred Pennyworth [+]

Butler, bodyguard, and father figure to Bruce since before his parents' untimely demise. Alfred is actually a key part in getting Batman out onto the streets, as he feels personally responsible for what happened to the Waynes but is unable to take retribution for himself. When he isn't posing as the stuffy English caretaker to Stately Wayne Manor, he's usually down in the massive Batcave below, manning the comms channel and aiding in the detective work.

Captain James Gordon [+]

Tough-as-nails cop from Chicago who's trying his best to reform the GCPD. While he's been railroaded at every turn by the combined efforts of Chief Clancy O'Hara and Commissioner Loeb, Gordon's quietly assembling a team of cops that still think they're above taking a bribe, including Harvey Bullock, Renee Montoya, Crispus Allen, Anna Ramirez, Paul Valley and Kate Kane to become apart of his inner-circle.

Lucius Fox [+]

Relegated to R&D's archives department for the last twenty-five years, Fox was hand-plucked from obscurity by Bruce Wayne to become the new CEO of Wayne Industries after proving that the reigning head of the company, Elliot Caldwell, was using the company as a front to deal under the table to the criminal underworld. Fox's innate knowledge of every scrap of military prototypes that have been collecting dust in Wayne Industries' basement floors have helped form the basis for Batman's arsenal, with Bruce and Alfred making the nessescary modifications themselves.

Harvey Dent [+]

A particularly passionate ADA for the corrupt Janice Porter, Harvey and Bruce Wayne were friends in their youth - but the moment Bruce left for his overseas studies, Harvey's priorities changed and his past got alot murkier. Despite Wayne's attempts to rebuild their comradery, Dent rebuffs him and blames Bruce for allowing his resources to go to waste while Gotham's citizens suffered the consequences under regimes like the Falcone Crime Family, the Maroni Syndicate, and Rupert Thorne's considerable empire.

Julie Madison [+]

Dent and Porter's paralegal, and the only member of the D.A.'s office willing to speak with Bruce, Julie's become an invaluable asset into Bruce's education on the complex system of corruption that infests Gotham's streets. While she doesn't suspect why he wants to know all of this, Julie is keen enough to realize the false front that Wayne puts up in the public eye is hiding something far nobler.

Ace [+]

The family dog. Not really what most would consider "friendly".

Salvatore "The Boss" Maroni screamed at the top of his lungs as he was thrust into the open air amidst shattered glass. The masked lunatic that had thrown the gangster aswell as himself out of the top floor of the penthouse grabbed onto Maroni hard and produced that same grappling device that had sent them hurtling into an over 50 foot drop towards the pavement. Firing it again, this time managing to snag a stone gargoyle overlooking the adjacent building, The Batman pressed hard into Maroni's back so that they swung into an arch, heading directly for the building just across the street.

All that Salvatore could see was oncoming glass before a very large and leathery piece of fabric shielded him from the impact. He couldn't see them hit the window, but he could feel it, aswell as the hard landing that both men made. By the time the fabric unfurled itself off of his face, Maroni realized that he was on his back, staring directly at his shadowy assailant, who stood above him. Salvatore growled.

"ARE YOU OUTTA YOUR FUCKING MIND?! WE COULD'A BEEN KILLED JUST THEN, YOU---"

The Batman's boot slammed down onto Maroni's chest, causing him to involuntarily keel and roll over in immense pain.

"Quiet."

With his prey momentarily incapacitated, Batman searched the room ahead of them. A set of office cubicles greeted him in the darkness, evident of a local business. The employees had long since gone home, leaving no one but a janitor who had already ran for the emergency exit. But The Dark Knight sneered as the heat signature-detection feature of the lenses in his cowl picked up the image of an additional few men heading up the staircase, guns drawn. Evidently, Captain Bolton had managed to round up some of his remaining men to pursue them.

Looking down at Maroni, Batman forcibly grabbed him by the arm and pulled him up.

"We're not done."

Maroni wheezed in pain. "What the hell are you talkin' about?!"

Punching the mobster hard across the face with an executed right hook, Batman caught Maroni's body as it fell limp, immediately rendered unconscious. Letting him fall gently, Batman produced a pair of military-grade handcuffs from the back of his belt and dragged Maroni over to a support beam. Propping him up and placing his hands behind his back, the vigilante secured his captive in place, put something into the front of his jacket pocket, and looked towards the door to the spacious room they were in as the heat signatures immediately approached.

Retreating to the darkness on the opposite end of the room, Batman watched in cold silence as the door was slammed open from the outside with a kick. Several of Flass' dirty cops burst into the room, each holding weapons that were far above standard issue for the GCPD. Laser sights, automatic ammunition. The vigilante narrowed his eyes as they searched for any sign of him in vain. Someone had been outfitting Flass' men with the latest in high-tech ordinance. The other precincts didn't have the luxury of such treatment, and it wasn't hard to guess why. Salvatore Maroni had a good majority of the GCPD under his payroll, directly. It was how the mobster had kept himself one step ahead of his rival, The Roman.

"Look! Over there! There's Maroni!", one of them yelled, signaling two of the men to his opposite. "Get him out of here before that freak comes back! We'll stay here and keep watch!"

As the two men approached, The Batman produced a detonator hidden within his gauntlet. Waiting precious seconds as the cops inched closer to Maroni's unconscious form, the vigilante waited for them to discover the handcuffs.

"Uh, Lieutenant? He's bound to this thing. We're gonna need to..."

Hitting the detonator hard, Batman leaped forward with a roll as an explosion of smoke immediately hit the two cops from within Maroni's jacket. Seizing control of the situation as the smoke coated the entire room, The Dark Knight hit the side of his cowl and switched his cowl's surveillance mode so that the lenses could isolate the smoke and make the room clear to him alone. Immediately slamming his knee into the chest of one of the cops with a rising strike, The Batman spun mid-air and sent four projectiles directly into the hands of two of the other armed officers. He'd taken to calling them "bat-blades", though one of his associates had given them perhaps a more fitting moniker: batarangs. Landing behind the officer he'd struck, Batman downed that one with a hard elbow and immediately followed that up with a brutal headbutt, knocking him into one of the cubicles. Shooting his right leg out, Batman spun for a hard sweep, sending a second one to the ground fast enough for the officer to hit the back of his head. Opting for a palm strike against an oncoming enemy's jaw, the vigilante simultaneously reigned a flying high kick down onto a fourth officer's face, knocking both to the ground. As he regained his footing, he looked down to his chest and noticed the red targeting lasers start to cross his path.

"THERE... *COUGH* THERE HE IS! SOUTHEAST CORNER OF THE ROOM! OPEN FIRE!"

Dammit.

Bullets sprayed the walls behind him as The Batman somersaulted forward, counting himself lucky as a bullet barely grazed the armor plating covering his right shoulder. Leaping into the air, he kicked off of the wall to the south of the room and produced his grapple gun yet again, firing a line directly into the northern wall. Directing a spin kick into an officer as he attempted to reload his weapon, Batman pulled at the line hard, catching the two leading figures of the group by the chest and waist as the steel cable slammed them into the adjacent wall. As another officer rose from the ground, still partially unconscious, the vigilante grabbed a stapler from one of the nearby cubicles and launched it directly into the man's head, sending him back to the ground. One remained. And he was firing off into the distance, having already lost the trajectory of his target. A batarang flew from the smoke and forced the weapon from his hands, embedding it into the window with a spiderweb crack. The officer's eyes widened as he looked at his unreachable weapon, failing to notice the figure that approached him.

"Tell Commissioner Loeb. Tell your fellow men. Tell everyone..."



"I'm coming for them, too."

Alright, so. I think the easiest way to solve lower activity rates is to inspire more interaction opportunities. And the most effective way to do that, without arbitrarily forcing people to start writing collaborative posts together, is to incorporate linear story elements into the RP.

My suggestion, as I've laid out in the Discord, is to utilize mini-events or "sidequests." As has been the status quo over the last several years, these games now tend to have end-of-season GM events that are wide-spanning crossovers able to pull in every player and character at once. As was witnessed in the previous two games, these are very successful and positively viewed. And they tend to bring together players who may not have ever written together in that particular RP. I say we take that concept and miniaturize it down.

A sidequest would be relatively simple: one of the GMs puts up an IC post detailing some sort of natural crisis or criminal act in a section of the world some of our characters would be close by to. For instance, half-a-dozen high-skilled individuals breaking into a California facility where weapons-grade plutonium is held. That GM would then post in the OOC announcing that this is a mini-event and that any player who can reasonably get their character there to react to this crime-in-progress may choose to do so, and would list a small checklist of what would likely need to be achieved in order to resolve this sidequest. For example: prevent the theft of plutonium, with a bonus objective of apprehending those responsible. The players that choose to respond can then resolve this sidequest as they see fit without further GM action. If multiple players respond, they now have an easy opportunity for their characters to interact. If only one player responds, that's fine, too, as the sidequest still serves to make the world we're writing in feel more lived-in.

If no one responds, though, after say a week or two, then the GM will then write a second, closing post in the IC detailing the success of the criminal's plans. No one resolving the mini-event would mean "consequences" in that civilian life could be lost, or the criminals could now be even more dangerous the next time. In the same example as above, the criminals now have weapons-grade plutonium and could return in several weeks now holding the city of Los Angeles hostage by the threat of a dirty bomb - thus upping the stakes for a future sidequest. These are the sorts of "consequences" that make the world feel lived-in and real - it's not just what our characters do that build the world, but also what they don't do - while at the same time not feeling like a punishment for choosing to ignore a particular sidequest.

This method, I think, should spur a lot of interaction with minimal effort - GMs would only need to write a single, relatively brief IC post for each sidequest, or two if it is not resolved. It would also help expand upon the world we write in, filling out the backdrop events and giving more opportunity to include these sorts of stories that often don't make sense in our solo arcs. And, further down the road when it makes sense for a year one story, these sidequests can be used to introduce minor comic book villains that may not be utilized otherwise. And, they can even be used to tie-in to the overall season-ending event, whether directly or indirectly, so we can truly feel like said major event has been built up to. There's a lot that can be done with this method that doesn't require any drastic change.

As someone who went into this RP with the intent to fully interact with others this time, but can't always rationalize teaming up with certain characters under normal circumstances, these sidequests could be very beneficial.

Introducing a new sidequest every two weeks or so could be a great way to improve activity, inspire inter-player interaction, and create new, interesting story beats that feel even more like the comic books we all love and enjoy.

Is this series still available to be joined up? I have a few characters in mind I'd like to play