User blog:Inferno Pendragon/Shared Universe - How We Can Improve It

Villains Multiverse has grown from its beginnings as a small group devoted to largely non-canon User Battles to a long-running society devoted to trying to set a standard for ourselves not dissimilar to professional RPing companies or some independent comic book groups: why? because we've all spend a lot of time here and have put a lot of effort into this project.. naturally we want it to work..

However as we prepare for Villains: Gen 2  we need to think seriously on how we can improve the franchise as it were and avoid the problems of Gen 1 - to do so we must work together from the very start.

Thus I give you this Blog - a Shared Universe is not easy to achieve but one good way to do so is to mention locations, characters and events in your stories that relate to others within the multiverse, that way it gives an illusion of the "shared universe": this means every writer should know that when you create a character or story on this site you are giving permission for other writers to mention them in their work and even adapt them (within reason) UNLESS you specifically state that you do not want them to.

In short if you don't want your characters, locations and events to be expanded upon by other writers do not post them here, unless you have a good reason - that way we can show we are not just about "me and myself" but are a truly "shared universe".

That's not to say everyone can randomly alter the canon of other users, you must respect their in-universe "rules" just as you would any other story - yet by including a name or linking certain characters together we form a stronger and often easier to control "multiverse".

For example, if you have a character who had to be sent to a psychiatric ward and they had superhuman abilities it's very likely they'd end up in Valley High Sanatorium.

Likewise a soldier or mercenary following "Warcry" is likely to be involved with (or opposing) the ISDF and almost all characters not of mystical and/or cosmic origin are likely to have access to the V-Net on a daily basis following the introduction of SIM.

Balance-Keepers, Light-Keepers, Pegacorns, Secrets, Absolutes, World-Walkers, Alpha, Omega, Golden Empire.. there are so many existing things we can expand upon so perhaps we can start doing this more often and we avoid the "villain of the week" syndrome as well as help other users (and ourselves) to write more stories and crossover potentials.

Stay strong.