Alright. Read through the discussion. Great points made from all sides.
I've written a lot of Marvel. I mean. ALOT. Mostly X-Men but with the success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe I've done a lot of All Marvel; usually based within the Movie-Verse because the comics are all over the place, inconsistent, and have gaping plot holes and the movies provide a great framework. We don't have that option here so much with DC. Yet. I've both created boards, plotlines, and helped others in the process. There are always tangles to pull out. Characters that are too strong to allow people to play (Apocalypse, Odin, Onslaught, etc) or characters who are really powerful and need to be restricted to writers who can handle keeping them in check and not godmoding (Magneto, Vision, Scarlet Witch, etc). That's pretty minor. I doubt anyone where is going to be shooting to play Lobo or some other mega strong DC character.
The other issue that comes up more often than not when I've written on Marvel boards is Key Characters whom nobody wants to play. I'm talking Professor X and Magneto specifically as prime examples. They're old, very powerful, and nobody really wants to take the huge burden of writing those characters. Their lore doesn't fit into our world anymore. They'd be ancient if they were young during WWII and still alive in 2015. When nobody wants to write them the Brotherhood Faction and X-Men grind to a halt. However, by removing them you can stick the team captains (Mystique, Cyclops) into the leadership position and retire the old characters. You can do it however you want. Send them away, kill them, whatever serves the underlining plot the best.
I am all for that tactic when it comes to key characters that nobody wants to play, or are too powerful to allow to be played. I will say that Superman definitely falls under this category. Due to how small this little general roleplay will be in terms of writers, I doubt anyone will pick up Superman. For Batman I think he is totally fine for the roleplay but if we do not have someone writing Batman than a portion of the Gotham Scene will grind to a halt, or the Bat-Family characters will just have to NPC write him which is never fun. I don't think we should kill him unless it serves a concrete plot. I don't think killing Superman is a good idea either. He's kind of hard to kill anyways.
I think a bigger issue is scale. Incorporating the entire DC Universe sounds like more work that our little populace can handle, and unnecessary. With what will probably just be a handful of writers, unless everyone jumps into this roleplay, it would probably be best to limit ourselves geographically; which I think was the idea in the first place. To just keep it in Gotham, and maintain Gotham-esque characters. I wouldn't find it too odd for Green Arrow to be in Gotham. Supergirl doesn't really fit such a singular setting as well, but that doesn't mean she couldn't have come up with a reason to come visit. If there is a Justice League then there isn't much reason for it's members to come to Gotham if Batman, Supergirl, Green Arrow, and company are already on the job of taming the city. I think it's easy enough to just say that Superman and Others are tackling other problems in other areas.
There are more than enough Gotham villains to keep any collection of heroes busy. Plus any that migrate.
Now a tangent: going back to my point about scope, I bring this up a lot when we are talking about the General Roleplays, and I know how much we want to keep everything together here on TheHolo.Net, but superhero roleplays, like DC or Marvel/mutants, are such a huge universe that it's really hard to condense it all down into just a general roleplay. It's a beast all it's own, so we are going to have to accept that it's going to be difficult to nail down. It practically needs a board all it's own in order to make sense of it all. I know you want to get all the details nailed down Jace, and I respect and prefer that myself, but at the end of the day I don't think it's even possible to achieve that by consensus. It's usually something ironed out by a board owner before the writers ever show up. "This is how it is. Adapt your character(s) of choice to fit within it." type of thing.
That's my two cents anyways.
EDIT: Editing for Minnie's response. If we keep things a bit more open ended it definitely is easier to meld and mold characters to fit instead of sticking strictly to canon. That's also a preference of mine because I like putting my own spin on established characters instead of just writing them as they appear in the comics with no deviation. This is something that's also easier by having the setting/plot established without nailing down every character's role within it.
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