Let's Get an Avatar RP Off the Ground (Brainstorming)

Recently I\'ve been rewatching the original Avatar The Last Airbender series with my 9-year old niece, and I found myself getting interested in an RP on this world once more.

It\'s not like several people haven\'t attempted to do this. But every time, these R Ps slowly die down before disappearing. However, I know that there\'s an RP waiting to be made in the world of Avatar, the right story just needs to be found.

Which is why I made this thread. Not only to wager interest and get some people really interested on playing in this RP, but also to develop a story that will hopefully hold that interest until the very end.

In my opinion, I think we should do something taking place during the time of the original series, if not for the fact that there\'s a bunch of nooks and corners one could visit and revisit in there.

Yay! I literally just finished watching Legend of Korra yesterday.

Personally, I really like the more modern setting of the second series myself (Always a fan of 1930's-ish settings), especially since it lets non-benders be more equal with benders. But if everyone prefers the older era I'd still be interested.

I am interested in the concept. Would be looking forward to playing a Water Bender and do prefer the age of Aang or before instead of that of Korra.

I'll call my interest here as well.

I'm also with Nman on the setting preference, not only because The Roaring '20s was a cool time, but also because it would allow a nicer variety if air benders weren't all but extinct.

Definitely interested. I also have to throw my lot in with the Korra group. Much as I love the setting of Aang's time is interesting but given the airbenders being virtually non-existent and the relative ineptitude of non-benders at the time it feels like the Korra era has more opportunities for characters and story telling

It would present more character opportunities... but what about age? That setting seems made for more adult characters.

We could go before Aang and thus, before the genocide of the Air Nomads. Additionally... ineptitude of the non benders? In the Last Airbender we got Ty Lee and Mai, swordmasters, badass fire nation archers and others I'm probably forgetting at the moment. In Korra we got the equalist which were basically using Ty Lee's abilities which were a thing that already existed or otherwise, just using big mechs.

Whoa.... Ooohkay. I guess I'll sit back here with some cookies and tea.. and popcorn.. watching... (puts on glasses) the last time I watched Avatar, was not pretty. I'm pretty sure I went beserk over the stupidity of leaving the earthbender girl behind...

Depends on the plot and what's appropriate more than anything. The cast's ages in the shows were more a consequence of the target audience, which affected the situations they got into. And unless we're dealing with every character being a chosen one, prodigy, savant, war orphan, or having one hell of a nightmare for a background, most characters would probably be in their late teens or early twenties at the youngest to be competent and have a "normal" background anyway.

Those are extreme examples, though, and highly unrepresentative of society at large. As you know, the empowerment that comes with modernization and the ever-changing balance of power between benders and non-benders was a major point of the second series, where the overwhelming majority of each population consisted of non-benders being lead by benders. It's an interesting aspect, I think, as the dichotomy between the bending and nonbending populations was never really emphasized too well in the original. If the game has, for instance, a more urban setting then that difference in apparent and actual social stratification would be fun to play off of.

Not to mention that a lot of cool shit was invented during the shows. Setting it before them means no metalbending, no lavabending, no non-nomad airbenders, no badger-mole-spider-sense-thing, and no lightning gloves

There was also Sokka, Tao, Kiyoshi Warriors, Freedom Fighters... non-benders were hardly ineffective in ATLA, they just weren't the focus of the narrative.

All I have is second-hand info since I never saw past Book 1, but isn't lava-bending still very rare in Korra-era? As in only two characters can use it? Besides which there was lava-bending in ATLA, though it seemed like an Avatar-exclusive power.

Could also compromise and have the game between the two eras, explore what possible conflicts cropped up between Ozai's downfall and the Equalists' uprising. Definitely interested in any case.

I'm very interested. As far as timelines go, I honestly haven't seen past the first season of Korra in spite of absolutely loving what I did see. ...I wasn't able to see the episodes in order when they aired and I don't want to watch them out of order, so I've got this idea in my head to just buy the dvds and watch those, but... haven't really gotten around to it. Sooo... basically, I'm inclined to go with an earlier era, just to try to stay as far away from spoilers as possible.

All things considered, exploring an era before the events of The Last Airbender might be fun. It seems like it keeps the most room open for character possibilities, having both non-evil firebenders, and airbenders that exist. Similar possiblities for just after the series, but without airbenders. All that said, the Korra era is still a really cool setting, if people really did want to go with that.

So very interested^note like I was going to start an interest thread in a couple of days now that I'm free of some RL obligations.

Timeline-wise I'm happy with pretty much everything. Though I think one of the inter-Avatar gaps (interregnum? intercorpus?) would be best. The ten years after Roku, the sixteen while Korra was at the South Pole training, possibly the 100 Aang was frozen. For justifying a mix of benders and nationalities I'd say after the 100 year war would be best though. (And some silly part of me wants us to take option E: all of the above, Cloud Atlas style.)

EDIT: Though we could go for Wan's lifetime way, way back.

The other option I guess is some kind of AU.

Also, Stratofarius your avatar is so on point.

edited 24th Jan '15 4:04:47 AM by Luthen

Aw, gee. Thanks.

There were non-evil firebenders even during Aang's time... I mean, Zuko? Iroh? They weren't evil. Okay, the former was evil for just a season, but he was pretty chill during the other ones.

Very interested. I think I may just import my character from another Avatar RP that died a horrible death.

Eeeh, for my part playing class struggles between benders and non benders isn't really something I'd consider very fun playing out. And even during the time of Aang there wasn't what one would consider a bender based tyranny going on besides the actual tyrannical government that was the Fire Nation. The Earth Kingdom, biggest of all nations, is led by a non bender King and has been for a really long time. Northern Water tribe leadership appears to be bender made, but Southern Water Tribe was basically led by Sokka's dad, Hakoda, a non bender warrior. As the G Aaang traveled the world, they found tons of mayors, traders and other important people that seemed to be nonbenders. And once again, Jet, Ty Lee, Sokka, Tao, Mai and many others showed that you can be an awesome warrior and more than match a bender in combat.

Thus, yeah, I'd still push for a time period in the series before the making of Republic City and the modernization that Korra brought to the setting.

I'm interested, but I'm not sure how a character like what I'm planning would work in a pre-Iceberg setting, since I'd want to play a member of the Foggy Swamp tribe. I'm pretty sure, however, that prior to the Gaang showing up in the Foggy Swamp, they mostly kept to themselves.

I'm interested, although I don't really care about the time period. Probably using a bender with a more unorthodox technique, possibly an elemental prosthesis like Ming-Hua.

I might be interested as well, but I'm sort of at a loss as to what kind of character I'd want to play. Maybe once some ideas about the time period and other characters start bouncing around, I could start to form some ideas.

Let's settle on a story. Do we want to go for a Walking the Earth feeling like in the original show, or a more restrained setting like Korra?

I'd prefer being set to a particular region or city, mainly because it allows for much deeper development of the area than if we're just passing through a bunch of random places to see what's up.

Well, thinking on the perspective of storylines, the Walking the Earth bit from the original series made sense because of what the story was about: the Avatar traveling to master the elements, and defeat the fire nation. So if we were going to go with that, what other reasons could there be to have a random group of people doing the same?

On the other hand, part of what made Republic City work in The Legend of Korra was that it was a place at the head of industry, and where people from all walks of life gathered and became one. It makes sense to have a wide variety of benders and non-benders alike living there. If, for the sake of argument, a city based RP wasn't set in Republic City, what sort of city would it be? What nation would it be in, and what would the current situation in the city be like? If we were to answer these questions, we may also narrow down the type of era we'd want the story to be set in as well.

I don't know if I'd play as one myself, but I for one kind of like the idea of there being random airbenders along with the other three elements, although I suppose that would limit our potential time periods to either before the Hundred Years War or during or after the second half of Korra.

I'd like roaming the Earth more than sticking to a single place, probably. >.> Nman, it appears we will forever be opposites in what we like out of Avatar.

Korra did have some traveling around to different places besides Republic City. It's true that we'd probably have to stick to either a roaming or one place format at any one time, but I suppose there'd be nothing preventing us from changing between the two at some point. The Avatar world is a big place after all.

That's right. It doesn't really have to be absolutes. We could start out in one place, have a few minor adventures at our 'home base', but then get swept up in a greater ordeal that takes everyone out into the wider world.