How to RP

[oracle-watching.livejournal.com]

I thought our SuperMun's question in this post deserved to be broken out in a fresh post for more detailed discussion, both between us the players and those of you who enjoy reading along.

What draws you to play a given character? What kind of prep work do you do?

Comments

[oracle-watching.livejournal.com]

Answering my own question here, I've known about Babs for years. Like a lot of fans, I first met her through television, both the Adam West series and the incomperable Bruce Timm's animated series. A few years ago, I started getting into comics more seriously, and naturally I was drawn to one of the greatest iconic heroines of all time ... uh, okay, I'm biased in her favor. I admit it.

So I had the background of TV and comics, but that was really just a starting point. I'm a firm believer that encyclopedic knowledge of a character is not enough to make you a good RPer or writer of that character. Sure, you need to know the character's history, but it's possible to be note-perfect on the history and yet fail utterly when it comes to portraying them. When I first thought about RPing Babs, my instinct was to figure out what qualities were at the core of Babs' character.

I'm not sure I can list all those qualities here, but to start with: her intelligence, her determination, and her fierce independence, that refusal to be conquered by obstacles (Jim Gordon's blocking of her attempts at a career in law enforcement, Batman's initial refusal to accept her as a vigilante, the paraplegia resulting from the Joker shooting her). Our other players tease me from time to time about being Oracle in RL, because I happen to be stubborn and bossy, and I multitask like a fiend.

What else characterizes Oracle? She doesn't "run to Daddy" every time she's in trouble. Gail Simone (may she continue to have a long and successful career) wrote a wonderful scene a year or so back in which Oracle threatens Savant, promising him payback of the hacker variety if he ever messes with her or her people ever again. Babs doesn't need to threaten people with Batman, or Nightwing, or Jim Gordon, or even the JLA (though certainly all of these would come to her aid). She is a strong, fierce, independent woman who will not suffer fools gladly. She may need field operatives to help carry out the missions she designs, but as Chuck Dixon wrote early on, her wheelchair doesn't have handles because she doesn't like being pushed. She'll make her own way, and if you're in the way, you're in danger of getting your toes crushed.

Essential reading: The Killing Joke, Hush, the first Birds of Prey collection by Chuck Dixon, any Birds of Prey storyline written by Gail Simone, and the Hunt for Oracle TPB (another great example of how Oracle is no damsel in distress).

Finally, I'd like to point out that Babs' nickname in her Batgirl days was the Dark Knight Damsel. I think this still fits her in some ways. She's a female knight, and to paraphrase Dixon, she's tough enough to hang out with Batman. And Batman doesn't have wimps on his team.

[oracle-watching.livejournal.com]

Some additional words:

As it happens, I've counted two feisty wheelie chicks as friends in my life, and both of them have been an inspiration for my Babs. One of them had polio as a child, and grew up to be a computer programmer; the other has paraplegia resulting from a car accident. She has limited mobility outside of the wheelchair on her good days, something I've used as a framework for Babs regaining sensory and motor function in her legs. I also owe a great debt of thanks to all the RL paraplegics and quadriplegics who've ever participated in any of the online support groups I've lurked on, or who have written about their experiences about life after a spinal cord injury. Special kudos to the RL paramoms: the one who ripped her first-choice obstetrician a new one for treating her as someone who should never be pregnant, as opposed to treating her as a high-risk pregnancy (and special thanks to the obstetrician who did eventually take her on as a patient and delivered a healthy baby); and all the paramoms who have to put up with incredibly personal and invasive questions above and beyond what most new mothers are asked by strangers.

I also owe a great deal of thanks to our _nightwing_ player, who has spent literally hundreds if not thousands of hours in conversation with me over the past two years working out Babs' history as it relates to Dick. I could never pull off a believable RP romance without such a great writing partner.

not sure

[sabrina-dawn.livejournal.com]

As a real life mom, I must say I have enjoyed the roleplaying between Babs, nightWing and Mary. you guys really bring that baby to life.

[oracle-watching.livejournal.com]

*headslap*

How could I have forgotten Batgirl: Year One? Great stuff, especially when looking at the dynamic between Babs and Jim Gordon, Babs and Batman, and Babs and Robin.

[arsenal-arrow.livejournal.com]

As Roy is the only canon character I have, I'll answer for him. ;)

At the core, what compelled me to pick up Roy was just a general love for the character. I felt that there was a lot that could be done with him that just wasn't being done in the books.

The character saw a lot of stagnation through the years, even falling into limbo in what should've been an explosion of character development (I mean, of course, the drug addiction). Instead, they used it as a reason to make Roy into an insensitive jackass slut, and later someone we never even saw unless he was screwing something up. In a lot of ways, the character suffered at the hands of DC writers the same way he did with his friends-- a general apathy towards him, and then brushing him under the rug when his antics weren't amusing anymore.

It's also the fact that I relate a lot to the character. I also love the cast around him, the people who regularly interact with him-- Wally, Dick, Donna, Lian, Ollie, even the various villians. It wasn't just the characters themselves, but the muns who play them. I knew, by picking up Roy, I'd see some VERY good RP.

As far as prep, I'd read the entire run of Grayson's Titans, the first 15 or so issues of Outsiders, and several of Roy's team of Titans. Also own both GL/GA addiction issues, and a TPB of the really early Titans days.

If you meant in preperation to write... usually music is the only prep I need. Sometimes poking Roy with a stick and forcing him to put the beer down and get the hell on stage. ;)

[oracle-watching.livejournal.com]

Any kind of prep is open for discussion here. I'm not in panel-moderator mode. ;)

[damage-girl.livejournal.com]

Well, talking with DonnaMun helps, too. Generally I have to be in a good mood for Roy. He's too much of a wiseass for anything else. ;)

[lanternslight.livejournal.com]

I started playing Hal because I was reading Ollie and started playing askollieandhal on Sages. When I joined here, well, Ollie was taken, so I went ahead and took Hal instead.

From there, each of the characters I play either here or on marvel_mansion have a different reason for playing them. Some of them are simply a case of challenging myself... Reed Richards is significantly different from any other character I've played before, and I enjoy playing people who are different, who push my comfort-zone of RP.

It's a combination of favorite characters, and people who push my RPing skills to expand. That's what I enjoy playing, and that's how I chose the characters I play.

As far as prep work, I make sure I at least understand the principals of the character's personality. When you start playing, I've found all you really need is the primary sense of personality in the character, and knowledge of the majorly important moments in their history. For example, if I was playing Spider-Man, I'd want to know the following moments in his history:
The gaining of his powers and the death of his uncle
The death of Gwen Stacy
His marriage to MJ
Kraven's Last Hunt
These are the major turning points in Spidey's history (not counting the many recent manufactured "turning points"). I'd also want to know how he feels about the people he'll be RPing with, but that's usually pretty fast and easy. "Has a great respect for Captain America." "Has a friendly rivalry with the Human Torch." Etc.

From there, other details can be filled in as you go.

[oracle-watching.livejournal.com]

That's where the group aspect of an RPG can really help you, I've found. I don't know how many times one of us has asked the others, "What can you tell me about so-and-so's history?" either in general or for a specific event.

[elfinlantern.livejournal.com]

For me... Well, I fall in love with forgotten characters. This why I play a Green Lantern who has been dead for almost 15 years in canon. A Titan who was only sort of a Titan before Geoff Johns made her less of a joke but is still only cameo girl. And a bad ass martial artist who others have fallen in love with in canon once again. (And let me tell you, finding Shiva's begining is rough but some of it has been cleared up now.)

As for my fourth character... I was asked to play her. And she was never, oddly, a character I liked. Now, though, I've gone out and gotten every Graphic novel I could get my hands on, I read the series, I've read past things - I've delved deeply into the mythos. I'm still trying to piece together how many times she's 'died'. I've got at least four.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_darkknight_/]

Sorry. :)

[elfinlantern.livejournal.com]

Why are you sorry?

It is all to the good. Lots of fun.

[lanterns-light.livejournal.com]

Well, when I first started out I'll tottaly admit I was way bummed that Batman and Superman were taken. Of course, it stands to reason that they would be and, to be honest, I'm glad they were. One of the benefits of playing in the DC Universe is it's incredibly rich history and vast array of colorful and interesting characters. I challenged myself to find someone else that I might have fun writting and, at the time, was a freak about the JSA so I thought someone from that camp. I sorted through the options and decided that Alan Scott (at least what I knew of him at the time) best fit my writting style. CONFESSION -- I hardley knew anything about the background of the character. I took a chance and decided to play him and, as I've said before, I'm very glad I did. It turns out that he went from being someone I was interested in because he was in the JSA to his becoming one of my favorite characters. Since then I've managed to take on a couple of other "fatherly" roles so I decided that if I was going to pick up another character it had to be a baddy. Looking around, and learning from my experience with taking on Alan Scott, I decided to go for someone with depth and complexity that I look for. Black Adam fit the bill because, as I see him, he's an anachronism with beliefs that might have worked well for him thousands of years ago but the Earth's just more complex now so he's struggling to play catch-up while truly wanting to do the best for his people. Anyway, that's the basics. I don't know if that's helpful for anyone, but there it is.

[straight-arrow.livejournal.com]

I tend to only play characters that I have a great affection for already. I've always been a fan of Green Arrow, and I had just recently discovered Quiver when Watchtower was forming, and that reminded me of all the reasons I loved him. I was also at the time hooked on the "Straight Shooter" storyline. That was pretty much my prep. I tend to play it by ear a lot ;)

Cyborg was much the same thing. The Titans looked like they were having a lot of fun, so I decided to mun a Titans character. Of the characters that hadn't been taken at the time, Cyborg was the one closest to my heart. I knew him from the Wolfman/Perez series, so all I really did was hit the Titans Tower website and update myself on recent history.

Zoom was a combination of wanting to play with the Flash-mun of the time and finding the idea of the new Zoom really interesting. I hadn't actually read ANY of Hunter Zolomon except the two-page spread where he decides to become Zoom, but I was hooked. I did a lot of online research to figure out what actually happened with him, since I was out of touch of Flash continuity.

Light was a plot corner I'd run myself into. I came up with a plot involving LexCorp and the GA villain Drakon. Drakon ended up with a vial of combat-drug (basically the stuff Lex was taking in Superman/Batman), and he auctioned it off. Now, the plan was to have people submit villain-schemes as an OOC auction, but the bidding was thin on the ground, so I came up with my own plot, and I won the auction. So then I was committed to playing Light. So I...did nothing but reread Identity Crisis and twiddle my thumbs. Light is actually a good example of how and why NOT to take on a character.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_man_of_steel_/]

My turn, I guess.

Coming relatively late into Watchtower, the idea intrigued me enough that I tried to find a non-used JSA character, since I know *MOST* about current JSA continuity. Sand really fit my temperment, and there was a lot of untapped storyboard in his background that I found very workable. I still have a lot of fun playing him, especially now that he's GETTING SOME. :)

The problem was, Sand's abilities to RP were very limited, so I began sniffing around for another character to play. When I whined about it in an OOC post, serendipity struck and Gordon offered me the Man of Steel. I was like, whoa. One of the BIG THREE, and I was only at this for a couple of months. But it stuck, and Big Blue, at heart, was also much like the kind of person I WANT to be. So in a sense, I didn't choose Superman...Superman chose me.

Nightshade was a left-field choice because the early-90's Suicide Squad is my all-time favorite comic, and there had been rumors of a Squad reunion in Watchtower, so I came up with the idea of having Nightshade be meta-guard at Alcatraz...and now she's doing Watchtower Elite, after very brief discussions about possible JSA or Birds of Prey membership.

Taking over Light was also based on a plot idea that I had that not only reunited Light with the Fearsome Five, but also linked him with Sivana (who runs the 5 now in the Outsiders comic) as linchpins towards revenge against those who wronged him. Problem was he wasn't my character, but the plot idea wouldn't go away. When Mike abdicated Light, I did cartwheels. That was what became "Cry for Vengeance"

So I've been pretty lucky with a mix of characters I chose and characters that fell into my lap.

[theotherlantern.livejournal.com]

Hmm.

Well, I was hesitant to come here at all, since my DCU knowledge was essentially Dark Knight Returns, some Kingdom Come and the Antimated Series up to JLU, with a little prompting from the game of Heroclix to learn about the characters I had figurines of. Massively intimidated by canon, so I had to be dragged here. Plus, didn't quite grasp how LJ RP worked, either, so there was that working against me, too. But I've been a pretty avid online RPer for years before I did it on LJ. LJ has pictures, where it used to be all text. So it pretty well sucked me in.

I started with Plastic Man, because I've gotten good reviews for playing manic goofball comic relief characters, and I figured he wouldn't be much of a stretch as I learned how to do all this.

Then while reading Rebirth, I started getting interested in the whole Green Lantern thing, after being less than impressed with 'oh, it's Unlimited-Wish Man!' as a power. A friend of mine had described Kilowog as a guy who basically just uses the ring to fly close enough to people to crack their skulls with his fists, and that's my kinda brick. Plus, 'poozer.' (although they tend to overuse that in the current GL Corps series - he's using 'poozers' every other sentence, and it's less fun that way).

While I was asking about Kilowog, it was suggested that I try John Stewart. As a fan of JLU, it intrigued me (unfortunately, Shayera Thal in the DCU has no interest in John, unlike JLU, but that's another story). As a big fan of Black Panther thanks to Christopher Priest, I was sick of seeing RPers treating black characters like they're all thug-lifers or Shaft, and the massive amount of crap luck he's had makes for interesting angst to play with, so I thought I'd give him a shot, too. Playing two Lanterns, I thought, might be dicey, as I was used to strict rules against having your characters interact with each other, but if you're trustworthy with it, it can work all right.

[theotherlantern.livejournal.com]

Can't remember which came first, but I knew I needed a villain, and since I have a fondness for guys with weirdo heads/headgear, I always thought Black Manta never got props, so I picked him up - turns out he was a lot nastier than I knew, but I rolled with it, and I've had some pretty intense stuff going with Aquaman's player.

I was extremely hesitant to play the Flash when I was asked repeatedly to, as I had VERY little knowledge of him outside of JLU, but I took that as my starting point to try to hammer out how I'd play him. Playing two wisecrackers, how to differentiate? Then I hit my Marvel allegory, and it was okay. Flash is Spider-Man, Plaz is Deadpool. Flash is funny and flirty, but relatively decent and there are places he won't go. Plaz has NO COUTH AT ALL and will gleefully sleaze the joint up. Then, I got comfortable with it.

Two-Face was the only DC character I'd attempted to play before, because I loved him in Batman:TAS, and that's when I discovered I'm not particularly good at coming up with Mastermindy plans. I knew I could do the character, but not so much the plotting. When he became available, I decided to take a stab at him again... and that's when I did some research and found out that, in Hush, he was all healed up and what-not... and the idea of Harvey Dent trying to reform and be a good guy was really intriguing, so I'm still running with that at the moment, although we do need the villain in him to rear its head eventually.

Dr. Mid-Nite, I strictly picked up while I was dragging my longtime RP friend into playing Power Girl, because I wanted a JSA character to play with her, and Mid-Nite had the shortest history to learn. Somehow, though, he's become one of my favorites, as he's a real stretch for me to play, but I'm enjoying the opportunity to play a Christian Who Is Not a Huge Dick About His Christianity.

And now Katar Hol is just because Hawkwoman's player rules, and I love the idea of badass guys who beat the crap out of people with maces and can make big bird helmets look scary. The research has made me realize how much there is to play with here, and he's not the Hawkman that Carter is, noticeably, and I've had to get my head around that.

I play too many characters.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_harley_quinn_/]

Well, for me, I think it helps my Harley with the fact that I love Joker as a villain. He's like, the best bad guy EVER. This is long before the first movie came out, in fact I was mad that Jack was selected to play the Joker because I didn't think he could be that funny. I really wanted Robin Williams to play Joker. I thought he could pull off the random insanity that personifies the Joker.

So yeah, Joker love. And much cartoon love when the animated series was on. The good one, not the new one where the Joker looks like a monkey and runs around in bare feet. So when Harley showed up, well I fangirled her big time. I mean, if I was crazy and amoral I'd love the Joker too.

Well, I'm sure a self-confidence problem would help too. Or a huge masochistic streak.

I'd been reading jla_watchtower for about a year when I decided I wanted to play too. I thought about created an OC but decided to look and see what characters was available and Harley was so I grabbed her up.

I don't come from a RP background but from fan fiction. Still, I love getting into my characters head and figuring them out so I basically did the same for Harley. I searched for different Harley fan sites, read about five different biographies for her. I found quotes and scans to help me out. I also asked the lovely people at the Watchtower and they helped a lot. The Beast Boy-mun was kind enough to scan a copy of Mad Love and send it to me, which I've read over and over.

Still a lot of my Harley comes from how I think of her, as well as my own brand of weirdness. I can't help but think she's always got a soundtrack going on in her head, and she watches way too many cartoons. And I can't help but think she was screwed up before she met the Joker.

For Christmas I got a huge amount of the Harley comics, and I'm slowly working my way through them all. Still, I have a really odd sense of humor so that probably influences me in a big way.

[alt-minds2.livejournal.com]

Heh. Well, at first, I didn't want to play...So I brought the character I played in the DC Heroes game Gavin ran into here, hoping y'all would go "MARY SUE!" and be glad I didn't trot her out often.

A miscalculation, but a good one.

As for Connor,

[Error: Irreparable invalid markup ('<ljuser=straight_arrow>') in entry. Owner must fix manually. Raw contents below.]

Heh. Well, at first, I didn't want to play...So I brought the character I played in the DC Heroes game Gavin ran into here, hoping y'all would go "MARY SUE!" and be glad I didn't trot her out often.

A miscalculation, but a good one.

As for Connor, <ljuser=straight_arrow> had a hell o a time trying to play BOTH Green Arrows. Now, seeing as my intro to Ollie and family came from Kevin Smith's excellent stuff, I jumped at the chance to get in on the action. I know the Connor I play is a bit off from the comic book version, but I just hope the spirit and the effect is pulled off. My "research" mostly consists of reading Buddhist boards and magazines in addition to hitting the comics.

I started playing Terra for the Strangers plot, and THAT was fun, especially when I scared the heck outta Gar-Mun by swapping personalities in mid-chat. If Aurora and Connor are my "Jedi" moments - then Terra and Magenta are my "Sith" aspects. Judas Contract and Terror of Trigon were the first Titans stuff I read, and it struck me cold to realize how <i>evil and nuts</i> Terra was. I didn't think on it until the Strangers play was over, but I realized that the rogues that got swapped into the heroes' lives were the inverse, the mirror image, of those they replaced. Tara and Aurora weren't an exception.

Magenta, I know, is VERY far from the comics version. I did what i could with the very minimum i could find. Mea Culpa.

[revenge-pact.livejournal.com]

I like playing villains. I feel this provides balance to the game on the whole. (This is not a slam on those people who are shipping various characters, because you guys are to my mind uniformly doing an excellent job there. It's just not my thing.)

I like playing these guys because they're not me, and it's fun to explore that set of life options. Lex Luthor isn't who I am, not even close, but he's so interesting - a guy literally one step removed from being Earth's greatest hero, except he was raised by a fuckup and learned through his bad experiences that the only thing that ultimately matters is power. And here's the thing: even though Lex is a total asshole, he still probably helps out the average man on the street with his inventions and economic boosts via Lexcorp just as much as Superman does, if not more. And he never gets any fucking credit for it, and he's got a point, and he just deals with it really badly, which is why he's a bad guy.

On the other hand, Joker is just fucked up. But that's fun too.

As for my hero characters - yeah, I definitely go for the more grey-shaded ones. An ex-villain in Major Disaster, an imperious bastard like Aquaman, or Brainy, who is of course a Dickhead For Justice. I could never really play a straight-arrow character like Hal or Jay or the like for very long without getting bored fast.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_robin_/]

*Uses the Zero Hour icon 'cause it's just awesome and never gets enough use!*

I've always had a great amount of affection for Robin - all three of them, but Tim especially. I read his own title religiously - even now, when it's at its suckiest and I can no longer bear to follow any of his current canon.

Tim's a more three-dimensional Robin with his own unique history, in the way Jason never was. Dick was a very fleshed-out Robin too, but was getting too old for the role. I was sorry when he became Nightwing, because I'm someone who's not comfortable with change, but it really was for the best. Nightwing's character development after that was amazing and I enjoyed his title for a long, long time too.

Plus, I think I like playing support roles - being in the background providing assistance where needed. Though as Tim I can also tinker with my own stuff on occasion, so I'm not stuck just playing Batman's shadow.

It also helps when you've a group of awesome rp'ers playing the rest of the Bat-clan! *grin* I love every single one of them dearly.

[hawk-shay.livejournal.com]

WELL. My turn! Prepare for a big, whopping case of TL;DR. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Shayera is, hands down, my favorite DC superheroine (I know, I know - it is NOT OBVIOUS AT ALL, haw haw). Why the heck I relate to her so well is anyone's guess - I am, obviously, not a badass alien cop - but for some reason I've always been really drawn to the character. I like the whole reluctant hero thing, and I've always liked the idea of someone coming to Earth for the first time and going through major culture shock and all the ups and downs of adjusting to life in a culture that's literally alien to them, and the Hawkworld series was the first superhero-genre comic that I ever got really into, so there you go.

The other characters I play - Rose and Thorn, Sonia, and Holly - were actually all suggested to me. I've always been intrigued by Rose and Thorn, and Richard plays a great John Mercado; Sonia was brought in for a Watchtower version of the 'Mystery of the Batwoman' movie and I liked her too much to just let her go, and I picked up Holly just to RP more with Catwoman, who rocks. (Also, I just adore Holly; she's another of my favorite DC characters ever.)

Prep work is pretty basic; read old comics, etc. Of course, there are no old comics for Sonia, since she's animated, which makes getting a grasp on the character kind of difficult - all there is about her is in the movie, and honestly, there's not a lot. In some ways it's kind of nice, since I don't have to worry about fucking with established canon, but I have to be more careful to avoid the Mary Sue trap, I think.

Rose and Thorn required some research into MPD, which wasn't too hard since my mom's a psychologist *g*

I like complex characters in general - more for me to sink my teeth into - and I really like badass female characters like Shay, Sonia, and Thorn (and to a certain extent, Holly).

And... that's all I can think of to say at the moment. Plus my best friend is over and has Seinfeld DVDs, so it's time for me to go.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_darkknight_/]

Simply put, I think Batman - especially as Frank Miller and Jeph Loeb have redefined him - is one of modern writing's most complex characters. Who wouldn't want to play a man of such intelligence and such focused anger and determination that he's an unstoppable force even without superpowers? Batman is all about the attitude. How cool is that?

He is, however, iconic, and because of that I feel I have to do a level check all the time on what I pose and what I plan. A man smart enough to outwit Superman is way smarter than I, so I keep reading Batman graphic novels, checking history online, and watching what others do. The biggest prep work for me is communication with the other players.

I feel extremely lucky to have this character with a collection of writers as talented as this game.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_darkknight_/]

With regard to Jesse Quick, I learned of her when someone I was seeing offline conviced me to play her against his Flash so we could RP together. Since then I've come to know Jesse as one of the most badly written characters in the DC world - they did her soooooooo wrong so many times - with some of the coolest potential ever. Jesse happens to have my favorite superpower - superspeed - and is the only hero (other than Supes) who can fly at superspeed as well as run at superspeed. She also has that adrenaline-laced superstrength. In fact, now that I think on it, she has a lot in common with Superman: she's got a lot of power at her fingertips, but meanwhile she's happy being a hard-working normal creature who enjoys her life at work (because I think she loves running her father's company as much as the hero business).

By the way, I was one of the people who begged Flash's player to take the character, and the thing with Wally and Jesse just ... well, it didn't just fall into place, but we let the RP carry it. I think it's been fun. And I think Wally's player writes the character better than anyone at DC.

Jade I took because a friend of mine was playing Kyle Rayner at the time. I don't know her well, but I love her openness, her complete confidence in herself, and her loving nature. She's Jesse's opposite in a lot of ways. Plus she's Alan Scott's daughter, and he's sooooooo cool. :)

Lois...well, I took on Lois as a favor to Superman's player. Much as I love Superman, I don't know nearly as much about him in canon as I do Batman, so I know even less about Lois. Catch-up time. And wow...talk about being surprised about a character. I LOVE her. She's feisty and fun and far more than a damsel in distress, plus writing articles from her point of view lets my inner journalist have room to play. I'm so grateful that Supes' player talked to me about Lois because she has totally become a surprise favorite of mine. Of course, now I'm having to play catchup where her background goes, but that's fun too. :)

My two original characters were made to fit a bill: Kip was there to help Oracle during her pregnancy and maternity leave, and Catalina was there to be a pain to Green Arrow (one of my all-time favorite DC heroes). Both are people I really enjoy playing because of the players with whom I've interacted (let me note that I think our Ollie rocks the kasbah in RP and any Oracle/Nightwing interaction makes me happy too). I like to keep these characters on the down low because they ARE OCs and I think the roost should be ruled by the canon DC characters, but they're there for flavor.