[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/lH5OIM6.jpg[/img][/center]

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[indent][i]"New York City,
Center of the Universe.
Times are shitty,
But I'm pretty sure they can't get worse."[/i]


'Superheroes.'  Vigilantes and mutants and alien gods, jumping across rooftops and cracking skulls in the name of the greater good.  Sure, it was dangerous, but it was all in good fun, right?  They were our friendly neighborhood watchmen, pulling cats out of trees and keeping the bad guys in check.  You might get some broken windows, maybe lose a building here or there, but unless it was a full-blown alien invasion or cosmic demigod or something along those lines, your Iron Men and Thors and Spideys always made sure nobody really got hurt.  That's how we saw it-- cops and robbers on a bigger scale.  It was all just a game to us.

Until last year, anyway.

It looked like your average showdown between Spider-Man and his arch-rival, the Green Goblin, on the George Washington Bridge.  People were recording it on their phones, streaming it on YouTube and sharing the fight on Facebook.  Millions watched and reacted when the Goblin was unmasked and revealed to be OsCorp CEO Norman Osborn.  Social media lit up as a crowd-favorite hero grabbed his nemesis and impaled them both upon the Goblin's glider.  The whole world saw the age of the harmless, fun-and-games heroes come to an end with the murder of an innocent 19-year-old girl named Gwen Stacy.

People had died in the action before, but never that deliberately, never in front of so many eyes and cameras.  The shock of it all turned the City against the costumed heroes, and the Feds began to crack down.

SHIELD stepped up its surveillance, and now you can't walk a block without hearing one of their drones buzzing overhead.  After anti-cape protests broke out into full-blown riots in front of the Avengers Mansion, the team closed up shop and moved to a secluded compound far away from the city.  Reed Richards and his team have started finding more and more excuses to be on other planets, other dimensions, anywhere but the often-vandalized Baxter Building.  Charles Xavier's kids can't set foot in the Big Apple without setting off a fight, either with SHIELD operatives or just your average disaffected New Yorkers.  No one even [i]knows[/i] what happened to Spider-Man-- given how badly he was injured that night on the Bridge, most people assume he died later that night, but others claim he's still out there.  Either way, he hasn't been seen in over a year.

Even if the major players are gone for one reason or another, though, that doesn't mean there's nobody left in the game.  Spider-Man had been New York's most active defender, and without him, other men and women have started braving the SHIELD crackdown to fill the void he left.  Norman Osborn had left a major power vacuum behind-- both in the corporate world and the criminal underworld-- and there's no shortage of stuffed-suits and crime bosses looking to grab their share of the Goblin's empire.  Neighborhoods are being carved up into territories, Hell's Kitchen and Harlem and Soho being claimed as the domain of one hero or villain or another, like the knights of feudal Europe.

And New Yorkers, like the serfs and peasants of olden times, are feeling more and more powerless, keeping our heads down and quietly wondering when the rules stopped applying to everyone.  A knight might protect you and your family, but they might also chop your head off if they're in a bad mood.  No one ever had to worry about Captain America doing something like that, but who can say the same about the Punisher, or the Ghost Rider, or any of the so-called 'Defenders' now?

Things are dangerous now, sure.  Everything's up in the air.  The city feels like a pressure cooker, ready to blow.  Walking around the city, it doesn't take long before you get the feeling that we're all holding our breaths, waiting for the spark that sets it all off.  When that happens, if these new capes really are the new knights of New York, it won't be long before we see if they're worthy of it.

-Ned Leeds, [i]Daily Bugle[/i][/indent]
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[h3][center][color=RoyalBlue][u]Premise:[/u][/color][/center][/h3]

[i]Marvel: Knights of New York[/i] is a city-scale roleplaying game, centered around various heroes and villains from the Marvel Universe.  Taking cues from Marvel's Netflix series, the Marvel MAX line of comics, and the titular Marvel Knights imprint, this game is meant to have a more mature and/or dramatic tone and an emphasis on 'street-level' action, with the stories confined to the boroughs of New York City.

Legendary video game designer Phil Spector once said that his dream game would be a "city-block simulator," where the play-area is limited to a single city block, but everything within said block is fully realized and interactive.  With that design ethos in mind, the reason behind keeping everything within the Big Apple is to encourage players to flesh out the city as much as possible.  Whereas in larger-scale superhero games where each player may get their own corner of the universe to play with by themselves and solo-roleplay forever if they want, putting everyone in the same place will encourage (if not outright force) players to interact with each other, to keep up with what's going on in everyone else's stories and react accordingly.  What one person does with Daredevil, for instance, might immediately affect what another person does with Moon Knight, whereas otherwise the two might never have a reason to acknowledge each other's existence.

While my hope is that [i]Knights[/i] can become a long-term ongoing game, the current plan is to run it short-term as a single 'season,' with everyone's individual story arcs tying in one way or another to a single overarching plot-- in this case, the aftermath of the George Washington Bridge incident and the disappearance/presumed death of Spider-Man.  If the game is a success, then upon completion of this central arc, a new one will be proposed and voted on by the players to start the next 'season.'

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[h3][center][color=RoyalBlue][u]General Information:[/u][/color][/center][/h3]

[url=https://discord.gg/AnRJU4]Discord Server[/url]

[b]Gamemaster:[/b] [@AndyC]

[b]Expected Launch Date for IC:[/b] November 27th

[b]Game Admission:[/b] Public; applications will be accepted or declined based on quality

[b]Posting Guidelines:[/b] Standard Guild rules apply; [i]Advanced Section standards are expected.[/i]  Activity can be adjustable and negotiable, but barring real-world difficulties, one post per week is the general minimum expectation.

[b]"Canonical" Standards:[/b] While [i]Knights of New York[/i] is not based in any particular incarnation of the Marvel Universe, it is expected that players draw influence from existing incarnations.  One may mix-and-match between 616 Marvel, Ultimate Marvel, Marvel MAX, the MCU, the various animated series, etc., but radically different reinterpretations or completely original characters are not permitted.

[b]Explicit Content:[/b] While this is meant to be a darker game dealing with more mature material than the MCU, it is [i]not[/i] an Adult/18+ game.  Sex, violence, drug use, etc. are not taboo in this game, but blatantly over-the-top or 'pornographic' displays of such will not be permitted.  Assume somewhere between a "Hard PG-13/Soft R" rating, or the extent on what you could get away with on a Netflix show.  When in doubt, it's better to be [i]im[/i]plicit rather than [i]ex[/i]plicit.

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[h3][center][u][color=RoyalBlue]Rules:[/color][/u][/center][/h3]

[hider=Character Selection]
[list][*]Players are allowed to pick a Marvel character and draw inspiration from any 'main' incarnation of the Marvel Universe.  This may include the standard '616' Marvel Comics Universe, the Marvel MAX and Marvel Knights imprints, Ultimate Marvel, the Marvel Cinematic/Television Universe, the 20th Century Fox X-Men Universe, and any of the animated series.  This does not necessarily mean they have to be exactly like said incarnation-- players can tweak the details of a character's history or personality to better suit the story or their own particular writing style-- but drastic alterations such as flipping a character's alignment or completely re-writing their personality (ex: turning Daredevil into a villain, making Frank Castle a pacifist, etc) is not permitted.  Unless given special permission, characters from explicitly alternate timelines such as MC2 or Marvel Zombies are not allowed.

[*]Keeping in mind the 'street level' theme of [i]Knights of New York[/i], it is preferred that players only pick heroes or villains with a limited range of influence within New York City itself (or neighboring counties like Westchester, in the case of the X-Men).  While world-level characters like Thor or Doctor Strange do exist in this universe, the general rule is that they are off 'somewhere else' as far as the story is concerned.

[*]Given that 'neighborhood' heroes are relatively new in this universe (see: Timeline and Lore), "legacy"/replacement characters such as Miles Morales or Kate Bishop are largely discouraged.  However, this is not set in stone, and with a solid enough pitch, a legacy character may be given special permission from the GM.

[*]Players are permitted one character to start, but if they prove to be reliably active in the IC thread, they may be allowed a second character, as per the GM's permission.[/list][/hider]
[hider=Timeline and Lore]
[list]
[*]The timeline of the game will be largely be determined by the submitted character sheets of each player.  However, the general rule of thumb is that while the idea of the superhero has been around for decades in this universe starting with Captain America in the 1940s, their prevalence in society is a relatively new phenomenon.  The Avengers have been around for roughly a decade and the X-Men even longer, but 'neighborhood' superheroes only began appearing about five years ago with the emergence of Spider-Man.

[*]While each player is responsible for establishing the basics of their characters' history, an exhaustively detailed timeline is not necessary.  Players should, however, keep in mind that any event posted or referred to in the IC thread is considered 'canon' (ex: the Avengers were founded by fighting the Chitauri in 2012) and cannot be contradicted later (ex: the Avengers were founded by fighting Kang in 1998).

[*]If a player writes something in IC that is decided to be contradictory or otherwise harmful to the game's lore (ex: Captain America died and was never unfrozen, Peter Parker was working for HYDRA all along, etc.), it is within the GM's rights to ask the player to edit or remove that element completely.  Only the GM is allowed to do this, however, and any disputes should be handled either over private messages or through the game's Discord channel.[/list][/hider]
[hider=Stories: Central Arcs, Solo Arcs, Crossovers, and Events]
[list]
[*][b]The Central Arc[/b] is the primary story that sets the tone for each chapter of [i]Knights of New York.[/i]  When selecting a character and thinking of what stories they wish to tell, players should think of what sort of effects the themes and consequences of the Central Arc will have on that character and how they will respond.  Upon its resolution, the players and GM will discuss and vote on a new Central Arc to begin a new 'season' of the game.

[*][b]Solo Arcs[/b] are storylines that pertain to one particular character and their subsequent supporting cast.  These should still be influenced in some way or another by the Central Arc, though they do not need to be tied directly to it.  Despite its name, it is not necessary for a Solo Arc to be purely self-contained; indeed, it is generally considered poor etiquette to not mingle with other characters and have Arcs affect each other (though it is required that players ask each other for permission before jumping in on another player's Arc).  Ultimately, the final resolution of a Solo Arc should only affect the player's own character.

[*][b]Crossovers[/b] can be team-ups or fights between two or more characters, and while they do not necessarily need to affect each other's Solo Arcs, they should still be tied in one way or another to the Central Arc.  Crossover Arcs can include any and all NPCs from the supporting casts of each character involved (ex: Wolverine can interact with Foggy Nelson if he is doing a Crossover with Daredevil), but may not pull in from other unrelated supporting casts (ex: Hawkeye and the Punisher cannot go rough up J. Jonah Jameson)  A Crossover Arc's resolution should affect the players involved, and should preferably have a substantial effect on the resolution of the Central Arc.

[*][b]Events[/b] are city-wide occurrences that will affect everyone involved and have a permanent effect on the landscape of the game as a whole.  This can be a major catastrophe like an alien invasion, a sweeping policy like Mutant Registration, or a conflict like Civil War breaking out between heroes.  Players are not required to participate directly in an Event, but should be affected by it nonetheless.  Events will be rare occurrences, either acting as the beginning or ending of a Central Arc, and the start of an Event will be clearly notated by the GM.[/list][/hider]
[hider=In-Character Rules]
[list]
[*]No Out-of-Character chat is permitted in the IC thread.  Any questions, comments, suggestions, or other OOC writing should be kept to the OOC thread, the Discord server, or private messages.
[*]Players are using established characters with years (or even decades) of material to inform their writing, so it is expected that they remain true to the material.  While it is not necessary to have extensive encyclopedic knowledge of said character, and there is room for stylistic differences between writers, it is expected that players are at the very least casually familiar with how a character acts and speaks, and should not write them as a self-insert or in a way that blatantly contradicts their established personality.
[*]Activity should be confined to the Five Boroughs of New York City.  Brief excursions are allowable if a story arc demands it (going to a SHIELD facility, the Xavier Mansion, etc.) but the primary action of the game is meant to be within the City itself.  Unless given special permission by the GM, visits to other planets, time-travel, etc., are not allowed.
[*]The writing expectations for this game are at least two well-developed paragraphs as a minimum per post.  More than that is encouraged, but players should not feel pressured to write novel-length chapters if they do not want to.  Proper spelling and grammar are expected, and while minor errors here and there will be overlooked, blatant misspellings and bad punctuation will be brought to the player's attention by the GM.  This is not meant to shame the player, but to hold them to a high standard.
[*]Players are required to post at least once every two weeks to be considered active.  Extensions may be given in extenuating circumstances such as holidays, vacations, sickness, etc., at the GM's discretion.  If a player does not meet this deadline, the character will be considered inactive, meaning they will be considered available for other players to pick up.  The offending player may pick up the inactive character without having to re-apply upon their first infraction, but will have to submit a full application again afterwards.  After three offenses, the player will not be allowed to apply for the character again.
[*]'God-Modding' is not permitted in this game.  This involves taking control of another player's character in a way that is completely self-serving and done without the other player's permission.  The only time this is permissible is if the other player has gone inactive and taking control of the character is necessary to complete an interaction.
[*]Metagaming is also not permitted.  This is making your character aware of things happening outside of the game, giving them information they would have no way of knowing, or taking advantage of the game's rules to give the character some sort of advantage.  Deadpool be damned, the Fourth Wall stays [i]up[/i] in this game.
[*]Killing another player's character or prominent NPCs without their explicit permission is strictly prohibited, and will result in the offending player's expulsion from the game.[/list][/hider]
[hider=Out-of-Character Rules]
[list][*]No In-Character writing is allowed in the OOC Thread.
[*]Respect the GM.  The GameMaster is the arbiter of the game, and therefore has the final say on what is or isn't permissible.  If the GM asks a player to change something in their post, to stop behaving in a certain way, etc., the player is expected to comply.
[*]Respect the other Players.  Constructive criticism is allowed, but flaming and shaming other players for the sake of running them off is not.  Remember, quality-control is the GM's job, and if it is necessary for someone to step in, the GM will do it themselves.
[*]Respect the Thread.  The OOC Thread is meant for workshopping character applications, questions and comments pertinent to the game, and on-topic discussion of the game and its Arcs.  Spamming, GIF Wars, and other such behavior clutters the thread with unnecessary junk, and will not be allowed.  That sort of thing is better served in the Discord chat.[/list][/hider]