Roleplay / Freedom City Play By Post

"Like a Saturday-Morning Cartoon that airs on HBO."

Created in 2007 and currently in its fifteenth year of operation, Freedom City Play-By-Post is the oldest and most active play-by-post setting on The Internet for Mutants & Masterminds, the superhero role-playing game by Green Ronin. Taking place (mostly) in M&M's default Freedom City setting, in the present day, the game has become a massive Shared Universe, involving dozens of active players with over a hundred Player Characters. Most of the staff are fans of both superhero comics and TV Tropes, and they welcome characters who draw from the common tropes and themes of superhero comic books.

The default game setting is the "World of Freedom" described in Freedom City and its supplements. In 2016, Bedlam City from Plain Brown Wrapper Games was integrated into the FCPBP game world. In 2019, the city of Vibora Bay was imported from the Champions setting.

This isn't the place for bloodthirsty Iron Age vigilantes, or for superheroes who think that the whole idea of superheroes is silly. The feel of our Player Characters falls somewhere between the Silver Age, the Bronze Age, and the Modern Age. They're all basically the Good Guys. Character concepts should pass tests like "Would people buy a comic book about this character?" and "Why would anyone talk to this character?" If your character would fit into the DC Animated Universe, then they'll probably fit in here, too.

Many of the tropes in this game can be found on the pages for the Mutants & Masterminds role-playing game, or the Freedom City setting for that game. This page is intended for tropes unique to FCPBP and its characters.

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This play-by-post setting provides examples of:

• Action Girl: The superhero genre is brimming with this trope, and FCPBP is no exception. Most, if not all, female PCs count. Examples include, but are far from limited to, Crimson Tiger, Lady Horus, Salvo, Justice and Velocity.
• All There in the Manual: Green Ronin has published a couple dozen supplements for the Freedom City setting, and most of the active players have read all of them. However, the FCPBP timeline diverged from the canon one between the 2nd and 3rd editions.
• Alternate Company Equivalent: Most PCs, intentionally or not. See the individual listings in the Characters section for details.
• Ancient Egypt: Several PCs have origin stories that begin here, including the Scarab, Set, Sekhmet and Lady Horus.
• Animal Superheroes: Ani-Earth's Infurceptors visited Earth-Prime in pursuit of the Factor Fur. They included Avengemouse, Calico Angel, Feline, Foalcrum, Jackalope of All Blades, Jestnut and Lambkos.
• Anthology Comic: What the site would be, if it were an actual comic imprint. The Moderators encourage players to run their characters as if they were the protagonists of a monthly superhero comic book. One of the first questions in the auditing process for a new PC is "Why would someone buy a comic about them?"
• The Assimilator: The Communion, a player-created Expy of the Ultimate Marvel version of Galactus. The Collective is a Hive Mind which uses mass Mind Rape and Unwilling Roboticization to transform entire planets into Applied Phlebotinum.
• Ax-Crazy: Generally averted. PC Villains were banned in part because the Moderators grew weary of explaining to some players the difference between a Super Villain and the protagonist of Grand Theft Auto.
• Badass Normal: FCPBP has surprisingly few of these active at any one time. Crimson Tiger is the longest runner, having overtaken the original Arrowhawk, who has retired. Badass Abnormals (like Arrowhawk's daughter and Affirmative-Action Legacy) tend to be more popular.
• Bat Family Crossover: The most common type of crossover story arc at FCPBP, given the sheer size of the site, and how difficult it is to coordinate a major story arc with dozens and dozens of players contributing.
• Beware the Superman:
  • Averted. Except for the Iron Age in the '80s and early '90s, Freedom City has always loved its superheroes.
  • The "Terminus Babies" (see Mutants, below) are about as close as the setting comes to this trope, and they're not even official Freedom City canon.
• The Big Easy: Vibora Bay is located in the Florida Panhandle along the Gulf Coast, and the city's flavor is equal parts Southern Gothic and "New Orleans, The Theme Park Version".
• Black-and-White Morality: Often Subverted, much to the annoyance of older heroes with stricter moral codes. FCPBP stories aren't explicit, but they are, at times, "for mature readers."

• Canon Immigrant:
  • Several characters played at FCPBP were created for and/or played in other games over the years, especially the signature character of the site's former owner, Doktor Archeville.
  • The "Terminus Babies" concept created by Kit on the official Mutants & Masterminds forum was integrated into the FCPBP canon, and it served as the Mass Super-Empowering Event for several PC heroes.
• Canon Welding: In 2016, Bedlam City from Plain Brown Wrapper Games was integrated into the FCPBP game world. In 2019, the city of Vibora Bay was imported from the Champions setting.
• Cardboard Prison: PC Villains were banned in part to avert this trope.

• Catchphrase: The players who often meet in the chatroom and/or in-character make up a lot of these, including "Stab-Punch!" and "KISS HIM/HER, YOU FOOL!"
• Comic-Book Fantasy Casting: FCPBP players periodically discuss which real-life actors they would cast as their character, and some even use real-life headshots for their "out-of-costume" character pictures.
• Comic-Book Limbo: The fate of characters whose players leave the site, or when a character is otherwise no longer played. While the characters are assumed to still exist, chances of them warranting much more than a brief mention are low.
• Comic-Book Time: Played straight for the individual stories as a matter of necessity, given the play-by-post format, but Averted for the overall Shared Universe timeline, which moves forward in real time.
• Crapsack World: Averted on Earth-Prime. The main universe of the Freedom City setting is an optimistic place, where most people are basically good, and most people love their superheroes. Other dimensions, like Erde and the Terminus, on the other hand...
• Crisis Crossover:
  • The demonic invasion, when Hellion's father came with a demonic host to bring him home. It wasn't technically a Red Skies Crossover, but the skies above Freedom City were red...
  • The third Grue Invasion, when they finally activated their experimental bio-weapon, Atlas. (Oh, Crap!.)
  • The "Halloween Special," where the fight between Hades and Baron Samedi spilled over into massive waves of undead and cultists flocking to Freedom City.
  • "ArchEvil" had Doctor Archeville's Superpowered Evil Side finally take over and unleash a number of magical and scientific monstrosities in the name of "reshaping" the world.
  • There was the time the Gorgon showed up in orbit, threatening to encase the Earth in gray goo due to the taint of the Terminus.
  • The "Hot Zone," where the city came under quarantine after a villain released an airborne mutagen that resulted in most of the city developing superpowers...control not guaranteed.
  • The Day of Wrath, where Curator's androids turned out to have replaced several heroes and caused brief chaos throughout the city with the help of the Foundry's robots, followed by the rescue of those replaced.
  • The Terminus invaded Earth-Prime again in 2018. As with the canon invasion of 1993, this invasion provided the origin story for multiple PCs.
• Cross Player: Despite the real-life gender gap among the players, the gender ratio among the PCs is more or less even.
• Dysfunction Junction: FCPBP has no shortage of emotional problems among the cast. (Or the players, for that matter.)
• Elites Are More Glamorous: Players who stick around over the long haul gain not only in-game bonuses, like power-ups or extra character slots, but also nifty titles like "Gold Status."
• Everybody Has Lots of Sex: Superheroes work hard, play hard, live fast, and die young. But the staff requires that it be kept off-screen and PG-13.
• Evil Counterpart: The world of Anti-Earth, where everyone who is good on Earth-Prime is evil. It includes the "Young Imperials," who are are the Evil Counterparts to Young Freedom.
• Fiction 500: Several PCs rank among their number, including Asad, Ace Danger and many more.
• Fictional Country: Players have created a few.
  • "New Freedom," a metahuman dictatorship on the coast of Antarctica.
  • Socotra, a mashup of Latveria and Madripoor off the coast of Yemen. The resident President Evil is Typhoon, a hydrokinetic, Powered Armor wearing Expy/mashup of Doctor Doom and Magneto.
• Fifth Week Event: Several times a year, the Moderators announce "Vignettes" - short stories about a certain topic or in a certain style. Players can write the Vignettes about their characters for extra power points.
• Fire-Forged Friends: Many PCs bond this way, in times of danger and havoc, leading to deep appreciations of each other. Recently, the young heroes Archer II and Facsimile started bonding in this way, after having spent a short time antagonizing each other.
• Five-Man Band: On Young Freedom, Edge was The Hero, Blue Fox was The Lancer, Midnight was The Smart Guy, Wander was The Big Guy, and Cobalt Templar was The Heart.

• Gender Bender:
  • Doc Otaku once tested a Gender Reversal Ray on Avenger, Dark Star, Doktor Archeville, Geckoman, and Wesley Knight. Hilarity Ensued.
  • Earth-XX is an entire (player-created) Alternate Universe of gender-swapped characters.
• GMPC: Technically, Any PC has the potential to become this for any given story thread. Players are allowed to GM their own threads, so the lines between "Player" and "Game Master" blur at FCPBP. The overall atmosphere of the game is less "competitive" and more "cooperative." However, the Moderators have the final authority over any use of, or change to, any characters or locations from the canon setting.
• Harmful to Minors: While some PCs have backstories including traumatic childhood events, the minimum age for FCPBP PCs is 16, in order to avoid this happening on-screen.
• House Rules: FCPBP has them. They are constantly evolving. The Moderators are generally reasonable people, receptive to player input and willing to change.

• Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: Bee-Keeper II, before he Took a Level in Badass and became a Lethal Joke Character.
• Kid Hero: The students of the Claremont Academy, especially the members of the resident Super Teams, the Next-Gen, the Alterniteens, and Young Freedom.
• Legacy Character: FCPBP has a lot of them. Many are legacies of characters from the original Freedom City setting, including Scarab III, Raven III, Archer II and others, while others are original legacies unique to FCPBP, such as Arrowhawk II. While no one character has claimed the name Centurion II, and likely won't, he has inspired several legacy characters, including Phalanx, Triakosia and Legatus.
• Long-Runners: FCPBP has been online since October of 2007.
• Mr. Fanservice: At any given time, the Claremont Academy tends to have more than its fair share of male students with world-class Charisma scores, manifesting all along the archetype spectrum, from Tall, Dark, and Handsome, to chivalrous and chaste, to free-spirited and artistic, to endlessly cheerful.
• Most Common Superpower: Surprisingly rare. It's usually the men who are pretty boys, especially at the Claremont Academy.

• Mutants: The "Terminus Babies" concept created by Kit on the official Mutants & Masterminds forum was integrated into the FCPBP canon, and it served as the Mass Super-Empowering Event for several PC heroes.
• Not Wearing Tights: The Moderators specifically want to avoid this trope. This is a game about "superheroes", not "people with powers".
• The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: The Moderators also want to avoid this trope. Player Characters should fit better into the DC Animated Universe than they would into Heroes.
• Play Every Day: This certainly isn't required, but it does help. Hitting 100 in-character forum posts inside of one calendar month would gain a character the maximum possible Experience Points for that month, and pulling it off once will get the player into the "100 Club." This would require an average of 3-4 posts per day. Such a posting rate would also allow the player to start earning Veteran Rewards in under 6 months. But most players are not so prolific.
• Psycho Rangers: The Spectrum Knights are a player-created NPC villain group, a more politically-focused Expy of the Red Lantern Corps whose Revolution Will Not Be Civilized.
• Random Number God: FCPBP uses Orokos to resolve and keep track of die rolls.
• Retcon: Usually Averted. Once a character is submitted and approved, they are a part of the FCPBP canon from that day forward. Exceptions are sometimes made, most often when a player is permanently banned from the site for bad behavior. In one case, a very active and well-liked player wanted to play a Legacy Character whose Super Hero Origin story would have been incompatible with the story established by a former player who had wandered off before making any significant impact on the site canon. In this specific case, the Moderators chose to retcon the previous player's character out of existence to make way for the new version.

• Shared Universe: The premise of the entire game. All story threads take place within the same 'Verse, unless otherwise indicated.
• Shining City: As with the canon version, the FCPBP version of Freedom City is this. It is a city populated by heroes, the home of the Freedom League and by far the most active part of the setting.
• Shout-Out:
  • Chris Kenzie (Geckoman) and Liz Lawlett (Spellbound) are deliberate references to another character whose mythos loves Alliterative Names. His origin story involves a rocket crashing into a field, and he wears a large yellow letter on his chest.
  • Octoman, Geckoman's biggest fan and the closest thing he has to a legacy, is Ben Wang.
  • Wail was named after Keith David and Phil LaMarr, the voices of Goliath and Green Lantern John Stewart (respectively).
• Show Within a Show: Husband-&-wife duo Fast-Forward and Hologram host Supercrime!, an Expy of MythBusters that airs on the Discovery Channel. In one episode, the duo (and some accompanying heroes) went on a trip to 65 Million BCE to explore dinosaur-related superhero stories.

• Space Cop:
  • The Star Knights are a canon Freedom City Expy of the Green Lantern Corps.
  • The Praetorians are a player-created group. They're basically what happens when the Nova Corps wakes up to find out that they Slept Through the Apocalypse of Xandar, and they respond by retooling themselves into the Legion of Super-Heroes.
• Space Opera: The setting has expanded to incorporate adventures IN SPACE. Roughly 1/3 of the PCs aren't active on Earth at all.
• Superhero Gods: There are several among the PCs, most notably Seth and Sekhmet.
• Superheroes Wear Capes: Depends very much on the character concept and actual costume of each hero. Notably, Phalanx founding member of Young Freedom and current member of the Liberty League, and one of the world's strongest heroes, wears a yellow cape.
• Superhero School: Freedom City has two:
  • Canonically, there is the Claremont Academy, an Expy of the Xavier Institute. It is an Elaborate University High, a Boarding School for teenage supers. (It is also usually the most active part of the setting.)
  • There is the player-created Nicholson School, an Expy of PS238, for younger supers. It is not primarily a Boarding School, but it does offer housing for those students who need it.
• Superpowerful Genetics: Several PCs inherited their powers.
• Super Team: The setting has several already, and the players have formed more.
  • The Freedom League (Justice League, Avengers): A primarily NPC team, although a few PCs are members.
  • The Interceptors (New Warriors, The Outsiders): This team has suffered several complete overhauls of its roster, with Jack of All Blades being the only constant member and the only remaining founder.
  • The Liberty League (Infinity, Inc.): The heirs to Golden Age legacies, and some characters who were actually there for the Golden Age. The team itself is an heir to the legacy of the original Liberty League, a canonical NPC team active during World War II.
  • Young Freedom (Titans, X-Men): A team of Claremont Academy students (see Superhero School, above). Most of the teenage PC heroes belong to this team at some point. As old students graduate and new ones enroll, the roster changes regularly. It is a counterpoint to the NPC Kid Hero teams, the Next-Gen and the Alterniteens.
• Talking Is a Free Action: Especially in a play-by-post game. There are no other players sitting around the table to interrupt each other, so everyone gets a chance to ham it up. However, since Experience Points are awarded based on number of in-character posts made in a month, not by the length of individual posts, most players avoid full-blown walls of text.
• There Are No Girls on the Internet: Averted. Though cis men still make up the majority of the FCPBP player base, there are many prominent female-identified players and moderators.
• This Is Your Brain on Evil: Jack of All Blades died. He got better! Lately, though, he's Not Himself...Oh no! He Came Back Wrong! Corrupted by Hellfire! (He got better from that, too.)
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: Mostly played straight, as PCs are not meant to be the kind of heroes that kill, but see What Measure Is a Non-Human?, below. Standout examples of heroes that follow this rule include Queenie, Phalanx and Legatus.
• Vice City: Bedlam City is hopelessly corrupt and falling apart at every level.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Robots, undead, demons, cosmic horrors, and the like are explicit exceptions to this game's policy against killing.
• Where the Hell Is Springfield?:
  • Averted. The location of Freedom City is officially left open in the books, but the developer stated that it was envisioned as being near Atlantic City, New Jersey, and FCPBP adopted that location as canon.
  • The location of Bedlam City is also left open in the book, but FCPBP placed it in Wisconsin, about halfway between Milwaukee and Green Bay.
  • FCPBP kept the canon location of Vibora Bay in the Florida Panhandle.
• Wide-Open Sandbox: Freedom is a big city, in an even bigger multiverse.

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