Mulitversal Ideas

Hello all! This isn't so much of a fully fleshed-out roleplay concept as much as it is a possible idea for a roleplay that could be worth discussion.

To be honest, as of currently, I can't run a roleplay as I'm dedicated to one of my own, so feel free to use this idea for yourself.

Alright, it might not be the most original idea, but the key is its execution. Basically, its a multiversal crossover roleplay, where you play a character from a story medium of your choice, be it a novel, comic book, video game, anime, etc. This is directly inspired by other roleplays like this that I've been in before, but their execution hadn't been so great. The main issues seemed to be that there wasn't much progression of events, and with the absurd characters that were used, things were lighthearted and comedic, which was alright, but it was also quite chaotic and conflicted with characters that were being played more seriously.

I feel for a roleplay of this kind to work, there needs to be a focus, a central focus that drives both the plots and brings the characters together. The plot and the characters should all compliment each other, rather than conflict.

In order to give players the freedom to choose their characters yet keep things coherent, the way I figure it, it would be best if the players that were participating to organize the ideas together. Like, the players will all have to offer what sort of characters they might want to play and unite their ideas to create a plot. Like, a bunch of reality warping characters come together to fix issues with the time-space continuum, or a bunch of mercenaries are hired by an interdimensional employer to hunt down a certain target, or a bunch of random characters find themselves trapped in a labrynth in an unknown location and must work together—or against each other—in order to escape. Or heck, a bunch of characters have to play out the plot of a video game like Super Mario Strikers or something. The Canon's the limit.

I imagine a lot of these roleplays focus around combat, although somehow I feel that a roleplay doesn't need combat to be interesting. At the same time, a bunch of characters talking in a club setting or something doesn't feel like it would go anywhere unless there's an opportunity for a lot of character development. Personally, I feel it would be most interesting if the variety of characters have their own different strengths to keep a balanced team, like some are great fighters while some are skillful at what they do (puzzle-solving, inventing, detective work, cube-stacking, etc.) while some may have certain unique/supernatural talents despite otherwise being non-batatants (foresight, reality warping, empathy, advanced logic, etc.). I feel things would be most interesting when we see how pacifists act in combat situations and fighters have to take a step back in situations that they're unfamiliar with, or when characters relate to each other's experiences or conflict with each other's ideas.

Settings could honestly be anything, depending on the plot, but I feel in a situation with nothing but canon characters, original locations seem out of place. Locations could be pulled around out of entirely different mediums, or perhaps we could see each of the worlds of each of the characters as the other characters are unfamiliar with each setting. We could have our group be in Airstrip One at one moment, Gensokyo in another, proceed to New York City before escaping Black Mesa. I imagine players would have to agree on which locations they want to have appear, as locations should probably be relevant to the plot somehow, should provide challenges for the characters (like when a superhero or anti-hero has to abide by Big Brother's rules, lest they endanger people other than their invincible selves or the math-whiz finds himself face-to-face with a Predator) and it would be recommended that there is at least some common knowledge about the location among the players, and if otherwise, players can easily learn about the setting so they may roleplay in it correctly. I don't imagine everybody is familiar with Testing Sphere 09 or Spacetown. Iconic locations are probably the name of the game, like the Mushroom Kingdom or Middle-Earth being some of the most obvious examples (although locations don't have to be THAT well known, just equally interesting and significant within that canon).

As a note as to how a roleplay like this should operate successfully, I feel close collaboration between the players is key. I highly suggest that the players maintain a close connection through third-party software like Skype so they can freely discuss their ideas, talk about their characters or just have friendly chats and make friends. Although there might be a GM to make sure everything runs smoothly and they give the final OKAY on everything, brainstorming should mainly be the responsibility of dedicated players working together. After all, the GM alone probably can't just assume what the roleplayers will enjoy the most, and this roleplay shouldn't be for the intention of fulfilling the GM's expectations, but for fulfilling the expectations of all the players.

Of course, these are just my own ideas about how a roleplay like this should be executed. As I had mentioned above, there would need to be a lot of pre-roleplay collaboration to truly get an idea as to what sort of plot there would be and what sort of characters would be in it, so feel free to collaborate on those ideas and I can always contribute, but I won't claim the responsibility as the main organizer of such a roleplay, I've got my own to stay dedicated to. Therefore, I'm proposing anybody else to consider this idea and use it, as long as they inform me that they are doing so. They can even disregard my suggestions for the execution, and—although it would be disappointing—that would be fine with me.

So, why not throw ideas around? Perhaps focus on plot ideas and what you're willing to throw on the table for characters you'd and how they would contribute to said plots. You could even incorporate settings into your ideas, like 'have everybody face off in the Hunger Games' or 'have everybody fall into the Underground from Undertale' or what have you. The Canon's the limit.

So it's a bunch of unoriginal characters doing whatever their writers feel like?

Isn't that just the Multiverse?

More or less, but with different execution. Like, it would still be character-driven, but the characters are more essential to the plot rather than just tagging along. Plus, everything would be on a much smaller scale (seems sort of counterintuitive when you have the word 'multiversal' in it, but this execution is designed with functionality in mind).

Really, this roleplay concept isn't intended to be original—far from it, actually—but it is intended to be both fun and functional. This is more like a scaled-down version of the Multiverse with a slightly different frame to it. Heck, the name of this thread is based on that roleplay.

It doesn't seem like it offers anything the Multiverse doesn't. Depending on your framing and conceptualization, Gambit's Bar can be an existential crisis or a quiet evening. The only advantage I see to your idea is being able to consistently interact with particular characters/writers without having to schedule, contend with RPG's broken chat, or fear being interrupted by random godmod waifu characters.

So I guess the idea isn't bad. I'd just rather see the Multiverse's revival be successful.

I've seen a few RPs "branch off" of the Multiverse because the writer thought it was getting enough traction to be its own thing or would be too fragile to run in such a volatile setting.

The Omni Grand Prix
The Unseen World: Case Files From The MCU
Murder Most Foul (don't ask me about this one, it's closed)