Westbrook Canon and City Canon

[Elijah Elliot]

City of Heroes provides a rich, detailed, immersive world that we can roleplay our characters in. The setting, the characters, and the stories that the game provides are often woven into our own characters' stories. Unfortunately, it's not always clear what aspects of City's canon should and should not be incorporated into our roleplay here at Westbrook. This thread and others like it in this forum are intended to give a better sense of guidance for how to roleplay with the material City provides us.

Events
Some in-game story arcs and task forces introduce events that impact how a character might see the world, or even drive the overall City story forward. Unfortunately, City itself isn't entirely consistent on how it handles such things. A good example of this inconsistency is Angus McQueen's arc, which makes reference to stopping an upcoming second Rikti invasion. This arc pre-dates the second Rikti invasion and was never updated to account for it. The game has many such inconsistencies that have arisen over time.

Even outside of those inconsistencies, it's not always clear which arcs we should treat as having happened already and which haven't. As a rule of thumb for life at Westbrook, you should probably consider any major events that are revealed exclusively in high-end content as not having happened yet. Once such events are referenced outside of exclusive high-end content, then we can begin to incorporate it into our roleplay. This isn't a hard and fast rule, though, it is only a guideline. Specific story issues may be addressed in separate threads in more detail.

Our Participation
Early in the leveling process, City sends you up against common thugs and street gangs, such as Hellions, Skulls, and Trolls. The tasks you are given are fairly routine: arrest this thug, recover that stolen item, stop the arson. However, by the time you're fifty, City is sending you up against paramilitary groups, extradimensional threats, and even Incarnates. The things you are asked to do at this point in the game can often amount to literally saving the world. You start the game as someone just starting to learn how to use their powers, and you end it as a Big Damn Hero.

Westbrook is a high school environment. Our characters are not Big Damn Heroes. They are high school students, learning to develop and master their powers. Later in life, they may become Big Damn Heroes, but that day has not come yet. If you're interested in roleplaying your character as a Big Damn Hero, then Westbrook may not be the best place for your character.

The Menders are probably not coming after your character asking for help. You character is probably not being sent through dimensional portals to confront the Praetorians. Statesman is probably not asking your character to go beat down Lord Recluse and his patrons. These sorts of things are far, far beyond the scope of what we expect to see integrated in Westbrook characters' roleplay.

Similarly, you're probably not familiar with the inner workings of Arachnos, the widespread criminal nature of Crey, or the truth behind the Rikti War. There are many things that a Big Damn Hero learns through the course of his or her career that the public at large is either completely unfamiliar with or has only encountered as wild rumor. Your character should probably not be privy to such secret knowledge.

Certainly exceptions exist for specific character story reasons, particularly in the realm of knowledge. For example, we do have characters who know the truth about Crey, because they've been subjected to Crey's experiments. However, lacking specific story reasons, most characters shouldn't be casually aware of this sort of information.

Questions?
If you have a question that is not addressed in this thread or other threads in this forum, please feel free to start a thread in the RP Discussion forum or send a PM to a member of Student Council.