Playing the Game: Crossing over - part duex

This was actually the last topic I posted on here in the blog - coming quite a few months back. Not counting the unfinished (by request) post that comes in between, of course. I normally wouldn't touch on this subject again, mostly because it's what I did last. But some conversations and incidents in-world and in-story have inspired me to touch on it again and try to clarify a few concepts.

If you're one of the regular readers of this blog, I'm probably preaching to the choir here. You understand the limitations of gaming in Secondlife where we have to take some liberties in how we see the virtual worlds around us and how we interact with people. The folks this, and the last post, is directed at may never see it. Which is kind of unfortunate, since this entire series is intended to help people have fun with us in the shared stories in Secondlife.

I talked about Set Pieces and Crossing Over (without the douchy John Edwards) before, obviously, but one of the things I've realized in hindsight is that crossover, in our context, is kind of a misnomer. A crossover in the Comic or TV series sense, is when characters as themselves show up in a different series. TV shows, for example, use it to launch spinoffs all the time. They also use it when two series can reasonably exist in the same "universe" and share a common continuity.

Crossovers in the Comics are actually closer to what we're talking about than, say, characters from two cop shows on the same network showing up in each other's stories. Superman battles the Incredible Hulk is a real crossover in this respect. They're not from the same campaign. Two wildly different, and mutually exclusives, back stories worked into a comic just to tell a specific story.

I should probably have used a different term in the previous post. Maybe integration would have been better. In the Comic, or Video Game, sense, a Crossover here would really be more like an episode of Star Trek where Enterprise drops through a time-space vortex and has to fight off an Imperial Star Destroyer while trying to find their way back to the Swirly Thing.

For a single story, it works. It really is a cross over between two different campaigns. It's an anomaly for both campaigns, but they've got some kind of explanation that lets it fit into both and become part of the canon.

Ultimately, though, that wasn't what I was referring to in the previous post. What I'd called a crossover, was kind of, I don't know, Crossover Lite, maybe. Or maybe Set Piece Lite. Hard to pin down. You're playing your character, in your campaign, and they're playing their character, in their campaign, and you're just sort of glossing over enough "conflicting details" so it can happen without breaking either story. I don't really have a good term to describe it. But, with a little flexibility on both sides, it can work. Bias goes to the "Locals" so it'd be up to the visitors to adapt, but it's really not that hard. If something seriously conflicts with "your" reality, nod and smile and edit it out of your character's chronicle.

Now, what brought about this revisit, other than not being happy with my own definition of Crossover in the context I was using it, were recent situations where individuals, or groups, were trying to integrate parts of their own character's back stories into our campaign. It's actually a pretty common occurrence. You're wanting to play your character from, say, your pencil and paper Star Wars game in, say, Babylon 5. Obviously, you can't come straight across, but you're a freighter captain, so it's easy to just tweak the details a bit, and viola, you fit in just fine. Your origin may be from somewhere else, but you've tweaked your background so you're appropriate to the campaign.

As mentioned before, some campaigns are much more suitable to this than others. "Big Galaxy" campaigns have a lot more room in them to place "obscure minor races" than do restricted campaigns like Firefly.

So, what is the point of this rehash?

The simple fact is that if you want to integrate into a campaign, rather than just the kind of crossover I was originally referring to, you'll need to adapt. The larger the scale of what you're trying to adapt, the more work it will take. You've been playing the captain of a tramp freighter in Trek, or SW, or Bab 5, and want to play the same ship and crew in Firefly? Simple. Re-image any non-human crew you might have into Human form, drop the FTL drive, and pick a local port of call. Something small scale like that is very easy to do. Individual characters are a piece of cake. But in any case, you're having to make some changes to your back story in order to fit into the existing campaign.

Personal trivia: The original "Seana" character wasn't Human. I adapted her to the Firefly campaign by tweaking around a lot of details in order to fit. I still play an adapted, from a homegrown pencil and paper campaign, non-Human, version of the original, on Bab 5.

There are some concepts that simply won't work. Some things can't be integrated into a given campaign. While you might be able to work the Klingon Ambassador into Babylon 5 by placing Qo'noS somewhere out beyond the edge of known space, you can't do the same in a Firefly campaign. There are just some things that will break the host campaign and the GM's not going to allow it.

There's a couple of things to look at when you're trying to integrate.

• How big is is what you want to integrate, compared to the campaign? It's easy to adapt an individual, single ship, or even small mercenary fire team, without having to make a lot of arduous changes. Businesses are much the same, at least until you're reaching Haliburton or General Motors scale. Your company builds spaceships? Shiny. Unless you're declaring yourself the biggest and best in the galaxy (without having talked to the GM's first), it should be no big deal.
• How much of an impact, in terms of campaign continuity, will it have on the existing campaign? If the answer is "None" than there shouldn't be a problem. If the answer is "it will be a massive change to the host campaign" then chances are you're not going to be able to do it. Adding a small transport company may well alter the RP, but it won't change the overall concept of the campaign. Adding a government to rival the United Alliance of Planets, is a pretty major paradigm shift.
• Finally, how much are you willing to adapt your 'introduction' to fit the existing story? It's your creation, right? Chances are, the GM's understand how much work you've put into your concept and back story. They empathize. But you're trying to integrate into something that already exists - often someone's interpretation of some existing campaign/story/universe and they probably put as much work into creating their campaign and back stories and environment as you did. You're the one that will need to do most of the adaptation. If it's not worth it, then accept that and move on.

In a similar vein, there's the concept of the Incarnation. You have a character that you really like and want to play them everywhere you can. Same name, same AV, same basic character. Problem is, you want to play in Star Wars and Babylon 5 and Firefly and Doctor Who. By forking, or incarnating, the character, you can. While the name and AV are the same, the concept is ever so slightly changed in each separate version so you you can play within the confines of whatever story you're in. In some cases, the differences are so minor between the incarnations that you're doing more Crossover Lite than a fork.

You can do the same thing with back stories. If the homegrown mega-corporation you introduced in the Star Trek story doesn't fit in Firefly, just tweak it a bit. Say, roll back its history so it's a new up-and-comer, rather than the mature Big Dog.

Ultimately, it comes down to this: Most admins are willing to cut people some slack, but unless you're running the show you've got to play by the ground rules the local admins and GM's have set. If you want to play something from "outside" their campaign, it's up to you to not step on their stories. If you want to become part of their stories, be willing to adapt. If you want to do your own thing, understand if you're asked to put it off camera.