Playerbase poll! pretend this is a modjournal, okay

[implying]

Hello, Exsilium! Just a quick poll, here. We're considering a revision to the rule that disallows doubles of characters in game. Here's the phrasing as it stands now:

Only one incarnation of a fandom character can exist in Exsilium at a given time. For example, if someone were to play a canon AU version of a character (say, Communist Superman from Red Son), then the place for Superman would be taken and could not be applied for by another Superman.

Essentially, this means that there are no doubles of existing fictional characters, although exceptions are made for well-known characters in literature, such as fairy tales, gods in mythology, and most recently, various incarnations of Sherlock Holmes.

The proposed change would be to allow any and all canon AUs (not including characters from different points on the same timeline). That would allow things like Tony Stark of Marvel 616 playable alongside our current MCU Tony Stark, as well as Star Trek TOS Captain Kirk alongside our current 2009 Captain Kirk. Note: there would be no cap on the multiples allowed, here. If a canon has 4 fleshed out and appable versions of a character (to use Tony as an example again: 616, Ultimates, MCU, Noirverse, that one universe where everyone is a zombie, etc…), then we could potentially have all 4 in game.

Please only vote once/with one journal! The poll will be open for a week, until May 31st, and results will apply to this coming app round.

Poll #13505

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 91

View Respondents

Should we change the rule to allow multiples of characters, or keep it the same?

View Answers

Change it!
57 (62.6%)

Keep everything as it is!
34 (37.4%)

Comments

[pixieboots]

I have to admit doubles in games is not something I’m super comfortable with, if only because I think it can lead to overly bloated casts or a big influx of one or two popular characters, which can then be hard to deal with ICly especially if you play someone who would have issues seeing another version (or lol five) of themselves around hanging out with their in-game friends, etc. It can make it harder to build traction if you're the new dude or find meaningful CR if you have to step over someone else's pre-existing stuff to get there, unless everyone involved makes a really big effort to be on the same page and/or the doubles are just really really that unrecognizably different if that makes sense. And obviously part of the deal of RP is that most people drop characters eventually and new muns pick them up and CR has to rebuild continuously, but I feel like that process might be harder to play through if new versions of one character are able to just keep cycling through while all the others are still in game, even.

THAT SAID THOUGH i think with some safeguards in place to facilitate ooc communication between affected muns it could really work and be fun even though for now i going to go ahead and vote to keep things as they are and wow I’m really tired I apologize if this is incoherent