COLLABORATIVE WORLDBUILDING MEME

[metamods]

COLLABORATIVE
WORLDBUILDING MEME
While the mods are committed to providing a variety of fun, engaging mod-run events in the context of a mod-guided metaplot, Meta Heroes operated on the ethic that DWRP is at its best when players are given the freedom to run wild and contribute meaningfully to the setting. Given that Meta Heroes offers players a substantial sandbox with lots of freedom, the setting will always grow and evolve with the playerbase.

This collaborative worldbuilding meme will be a recurring spot for players to share the toys they've developed — giving other players more to work with and reference, as well as helping the mods keep track of that information. Over time, the mods intend to add businesses and the like to the LOCATIONS page based on what players develop. The goal behind this is to make all of the information as easy to access as possible.

Below are a list of possible contributions and suggested forms to reply to this meme with. Please feel free to brainstorm ideas that aren't fully developed in the comments of this post! Players can also do this kind of brainstorming at our static OOC DISCUSSION AND PLOTTING post outside of the usual meme hours.

Guidelines

01. Be sensitive to the way players are impacted by real events. Do not reference real people or real events. Do not fictionalize real people or real tragedies. If necessary, the mods will veto any suggestions that cause concern from other players.

02. Collaborate with one another on these ideas.

03. Avoid duplications.

City Locations
Each city in Meta Heroes is designed to reflect its own flavor/subgenre, both in homage to the wide array of comics subgenres and out of respect to the fact that the playerbase loves a wide variety of plot types. To that end, players are invited to develop locations, community practices, and other setting elements to help personalize the cities to your needs. Below is a little reminder of the overall vibe for each of our locations:

LITTLE LOVE is a slow-paced, rural farming town that also features a number of manufacturing plants. Its “supervillains” are largely the products of wayward alien technology or kids who got carried away with their newfound powers. Think Smallville.

CENTRAL CITY is a midwestern city to all things grimdark and urban noir. Organized and violent crime runs rampant. This is where you’d most likely find your Falcone families, your Jokers, and your Kingpins. In addition, this is the most politically active of the cities. You'll also find the people who don't get their own hands dirty, like Lex Luthor, preferring to move behind the scenes.

SUNSET FALLS is a mid-sized suburb in the West, full of magic, mystery, and dimensional weirdness. Think of it as Sunnydale meets Mystic Falls. Hell can't wait to swallow this shithole, err, whole. This is where you’d get your Enchantresses, your Klarion the Witchboys, and your hoards of vampires.

EXCELSIOR CITY is the coastal tech capital of the United States on this Earth! Think Eureka. Disillusioned scientists, angry ex-partners, and technology just plain going wrong! You’d find your Man-Bats, Green Goblins, and Paste Pot Petes here.

For each of these cities, players can contribute things like native NPC businesses, parks, cultural events, and geographic features (think bridges, statues, and art installations). Please use the form below to share setting elements of this kind:

<B>NAME:</b> of the building, park, event, or construction <B>LOCATION:</b> city name, rough area of the city / nearby locations <B>DESCRIPTION:</b> a physical description of what it looks like (and, if an event, what it celebrates). <B>ASSOCIATED NPCS:</b> who (names) or what kind of people (description) own or frequent the area?

Businesses
All players are welcome to have their characters set up IC businesses, charities and organizations, provided they could realistically do so with the resources at their disposal. To start a PC-run business, please fill out a SETTING ENGAGEMENT for approval. (Note: this post has been recently updated!)

Already approved businesses and locations can be posted here to share with other players for their use in threads using the form below. Players can also use this form to establish an NPC-run business that characters frequent, including US-based mega-corporations that are antagonistic, friendly, or anywhere in-between.

<b>NAME:</b> Name of the business or location. <b>DESCRIPTION:</b> A description of the submission. If it is a business then please give us a rundown of its goals and purpose. How many staff it has, the general atmosphere, and any additional details you can think of. <b>PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION:</b> Describe the space (concrete details as well as atmosphere) this occupies and/or link a picture. <b>CITY:</b> What city is this located in <b>INFO POST LINK:</b> Optional! Please link to an external information post containing links and other information if this is something you'd like to put together. <b>CONTACT NAMES:</b> Characters to contact to get involved or who hold ownership. <b>HOW CAN CHARACTERS GET INVOLVED:</b> A description about how other characters can engage with the business or setting element. <b>IC INBOX:</b> Points of contact involvement in the business. If the submission is a location such as a park you do not have to provide this.

Minor NPCs
Players are invited to design heroic and villainous NPCs for use in small-scale plots and to populate cities. These can be allies or enemies, developed within or across guilds. The guidelines below are not strict! They’re merely suggestions as to what players can expect for the day to day.

<b>NAME:</b> <b>ALIAS</b> <b>AGE:</b> <b>GENDER:</b> <b>POWERSET:</b> In addition to Confluence-begotten powers, science experiments are known to go wrong and technology allows some people to go toe-to-toe with PCs. Not to mention magic is starting to run rampant. <b>BACKSTORY:</b> What shaped them into the person they are today? <b>MOTIVATION:</b> What drives them? What are they going to be caught doing? Be as silly or as serious as you’d like. <b>ANYTHING ELSE?:</b> Reference images.

WHAT CAN WE DO WITH THESE MINOR NPCS?
Players can freely use player-created minor NPCs in logs and plots. Please be courteous with other people's toys; it's not a good idea to kill a minor NPC made by or frequently used by someone else without talking to them or pitching an idea in metaooc first. These are intended to flesh out the setting and give superpowered characters something more specific to fight against.

As a reminder, guidelines for what kinds of plots require approval can be found at our newly updated PLOTTING page. Thwarting small schemes, bank robberies, and plots without civilian death or widespread destruction — as well as silly things like everyone suddenly losing their left shoe — don’t require mod approval. Players are free to reference them or run them without running them by the mods. The crux is that if person or property is going to be damaged substantially in a way that other people would notice, players should be communicating with the mod team.

WHAT IF I WANT TO APP A SHORT-TERM VILLAIN CHARACTER?
You sure can! Players have multiple options for how to execute this. One route is to submit an application for the character and include plot plans within the application. Another is to contact the mods at the MOD CONTACT page. Lastly, players could submit short-term villain requests to the PLOTTING page.

Comments

QUESTIONS

[metamods]

If you have questions related to ENGAGING THE SETTING, you can feel free to ask them here. This includes clarification about the city necessary to facilitate your worldbuilding responses, but also any light brainstorming questions you might have.

Outside of the operation of this meme, you can always ask these questions at the SETTING ENGAGEMENT post with the subject line 'GUIDANCE,' or at the FAQ.

[codicies]

Is it all right if I create a toplevel in this post for everyone to brainstorm school NPCs, since it's starting up this month?

[metamods]

Totally cool to make a toplevel, but this is the worldbuilding meme from July! Today's one is here.

Also how did you get here, is there a bad link somewhere?

[codicies]

OOPS. No, i think i just scrolled too far down the tag for the worldbuilding meme. Commenting from the phone can be tricky sometimes.

Luckily, since this is from July, so my mistakes are hidden away from the general populace :B

[metamods]

🤐👍

[codicies]

I am not a clever woman.

Central City/Wayne Investigations

[the_caped_crusader]

NAME: Wayne Investigations
DESCRIPTION: The only staff is him, the world's greatest detective. It also happens to be where he lives. But appearances aside, Wayne Investigations serves to 'look into' the kinds of things that the crooked police force of Central might not. It also gives him a convenient excuse for his night work.
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: It's a shitty studio apartment, barely 600' sq. ft. In the heart of Central's Slums, it's both his place of business and his home for now. It, like the area, has seen better days.
CITY: Central City.

CONTACT NAMES: Bruce Wayne
HOW CAN CHARACTERS GET INVOLVED: Hit up his inbox or send him a message personally. Unless you know he's Batman-- then you have a short line up the chain.
IC INBOX: Inbox

LOCATION: Sunset Falls Public Library

[unkindled_madness]

NAME: Sunset Falls Public Library
LOCATION: Sunset Falls, within easy walking distance of a public park and the elementary school
DESCRIPTION:
The library is an old building which has been added onto several times. It is easy to get lost in, with staircases that seem to go to different floors for different people, and doors between the additions that occasionally open out onto random locations in Sunset Falls instead. The reading rooms will sometimes theme themselves according to patrons' wishes, but underfunding means the magicks haven't been refreshed in years. Most of the time nothing happens. Sometimes they manifest unwanted illusions.

It features a notably large Magic & Occult section, including a locked display case of living (but usually sleeping) books such as the Necronomicon. An occult group rents out the large reading room every Thursday. They keep getting sacrificial blood in the carpet.

Children's hour is hosted on weekday afternoons by the resident ghost, although he sometimes has trouble manifesting for the entire hour.

The computers are dated, but useable. You can also check out board games, but they are all Ouija boards.

ASSOCIATED NPCS:
- Dolores - The head librarian. Helpful and pleasant, she seems like a perfectly normal human being, except that she doesn't appear to age and no one can remember a time when she didn't work at the library.
- Hank - A tentacle monster. Extremely chill, they are happy to help you reach things on high shelves. A pro at restocking.
- Ola - A fae who lives in the nearby park. They sometimes work the checkout counter, and patrons can checkout books via fae deal rather than library card. Most choose the library card. It's unclear whether Ola is officially on staff.
- Cat - A cat lives on the premises as a mascot. No one will tell you the cat's name; they insist you must ask the cat. However, no one has ever heard the cat speak. It does not always obey the laws of physics.