Ellri

Coruscant Sacked: Aftermath

We do not need hype, @Sep. We have seen it. It was good. And now we'll spoil it all for you:
People Die.

How to keep a character from being Killed

This is where we're supposed to say "don't do anything we would do." right?

More seriously though, common sense and not going too far usually does it... but in some settings, not going far enough can be lethal. There is no single answer, as it all depends on what is happening, who is around, etc.

Roleplaying 'Productivity' Applications

I also like to keep a notepad and pen on my nightstand just in case I have a cracking dream and wake up in the middle of the night full of RP ideas I need to jot down XD

@The Elvenqueen

We keep our laptop like that, for noting down stuff in all sort of documents...

But when it comes to writing, we usually stick to google docs.

Roleplaying 'Productivity' Applications

We use Sketchup for our maps. But then, we found a 2D map to be insufficient.

Oh no! Killing is bad?!

Death is a tool that can be used in RPs, just like violence, love, rape, etc. are tools. Some RPs put more value into each such tool, others put less.

We personally like having limits on how often each of these tools are used. If a tool is overused, it'll lose its value for that RP.

As a foundation for promoting action, few things are as powerful (and dangerous) to use as rape can be. Using it wrong can break both stories and characters.

Coruscant Sacked: Aftermath

@rtron

You can consider Sish to be approved. Feel free to put him up in the CS tab.

Coruscant Sacked: Aftermath

Zanna

Technical data

If she has no current master, we expect this to be well-explained in the bio.

Appearance

Could you please move the picture down here?

Force use

Firstly, look on this list for Force powers. Those are the ones pre-approved for aftermath. Any powers not specified there needs GM approval and good reasoning. The more powerful it is (and we know you love those really powerful ones), the better the reasoning has to be.

Skills

Does she have any skills not directly relevant to interactions with prisoners/sith?

How skilled is she at the various skills? What fields within alchemy has she specialized in? (mechanical, biological, static, etc.)

Bio

First of all:
The disagreement… Is it with the (war) policies of the empire, or is it with Sith training methods?

If the former:
Why are they even in the empire still? There’s no laws keeping them there. Sith who have such disagreements with the empire tend to withdraw to some world to play with their own things.
While its preferred that they do, Sith are not required to directly contribute to the War effort. Nyiss, for example, spent a good number of years not doing anything for the war.

If the latter:
While all Force-sensitives must be trained in the Empire, there is no rule saying that they have to be trained at the Korriban academy. Its perfectly acceptable for a master to train his (or her) own apprentices in private. Its more work, but it provides extra control over the regimen. Force-sensitive Dynastic families are quite common in the empire.
It would not be a bad fit for aftermath to have a Sith in there that isn’t academy trained. It would provide potential friction, which makes for fun times.

If its about being trained in the Force at all:
Have you truly read up on Sith purebloods? Being Sith and using the Force is a core aspect of this species.

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Sith training is not as restricted at the academy. The only real restrictions as to what an apprentice can learn is the lore (s)he can get hands upon. Some will focus on things like esoteric uses, some will take combat, some will be things like interrogation, etc. There is no single field that “everyone” or “most” focuses upon.

Force-users are harder to poison, and with training, they can learn to neutralize virtually all forms of venom and poison. Mind you, alchemy can create “impossible” ones that are far harder to counter, though these will naturally be tied to the dark side, and may thus be more effective upon non-Sith (i.e. Jedi). But that’s a digression.

Any Sith who has risen above neophyte/acolyte, but has not been granted the rank of Sith Lord / Darth is by definition an Apprentice. There is no “technically surpassed” someone of a higher rank. Two apprentices can be of wildly differing power levels, but they are still both apprentices.
A lord (or darth) typically has a quite considerable number of apprentices, but that does not mean they are equally relevant or valued.

Overall, I think there needs to be more here. I suggest reading the Sith Guide - it may inspire some things that are yet to be touched on by any Sith.

I assume when she was taken into the academy, she would already be considered talented with the force and so that statement is a little strange to have in there. Is there a specific talent or something that she displayed that would’ve attracted or had her assigned to the Inquisitor? From my understanding, much later down the road the students are exposed to the darker forms of the Empire/Sith culture like torture to front line combat, even ordering soldiers around. What did Zanna have that interested them enough to single her out to point out that she was to be assigned to that Sith? All is stated is the fact she showed she was Force talented but nothing to detail how or what with.

Some of my fellow apprentices died from the training , even before the cut throat murder to be the 'one' the master delivered all of his secrets to began. - This sentence reads a bit off to me. It might be because I don’t fully understand the subject. Namely as you jumped from your fellow apprentices dying to cut throat murder, do you mean the favorite apprentice? I might suggest going into a bit more depth with her relationship with other apprentices or how they interacted with each and any incidents that stood out to her from other apprentices.

Lightsaber

When she has to fight (which she clearly prefers not to do) how does she combine using the Force (or alchemy) with the use of the the lightsaber?

Relations

Could you try to fit in relations to some of the other apprentices? Say, some more of the Sith?

Force potential

Nice try with the strikethroughed section, Rtron. Nice try.

Otherwise ok.

Personality

The only thing of note here is related to the stuff about bio higher up. If you change things there, the personality will need modifications to match. Otherwise ‘tis good.

Flaws

See personality point. Same commentary as that.

Interaction

This section feels a bit unclear. Is there anything that will get her to trust someone?

Ideas

Nice and cruel… nice and cruel.

conclusion

There’s some necessary work, but it could’ve been a lot worse than it is.

Shiri

Force Powers:

Firstly, look on this list for Force powers. Those are the ones pre-approved for aftermath. Even so, several of them have restrictions, as noted there.

Both Force Stealth and Psychometry are powers that require GM approval to have.

In the case of Psychometry, it is not a particularly common power, but its presence is not something that goes unnoticed. How much it affects a user depends on both how much innate talent is present and on level of training. But even more than those two factors, it is affected by the objects touched. The Jedi Councils especially disapprove of those with a talent for this touching weapons of war, corpses and objects of the Dark Side, as using it upon such, even unwittingly, means running a very high risk of touching upon the Dark Side of the Force.

Someone who expresses a talent for this will be put through extra training simply to have control over when to use it. An untrained raw talent for psychometry can be even more crippling than the loss of a limb or even a complete sense. Jedi with this skill would quite possibly be kept away from the front lines simply to avoid putting them into danger until they have learnt control. It is also a potential point against becoming a Shadow, as while it is useful in investigation, it is dangerous when handling dark side artifacts.

As for Force Stealth, that power is considered a fairly rare power. It is not considered a necessary power for Jedi, and so not taught as part of any standard curriculum. Its also rare for a Padawans master to have it, much less teach it. In order to have this, she will have had to seek out tutelage at a Jedi temple from either a resident master or a holocron (both of these generally require some kind of proving that you are ready to learn). Such a thing is unique enough to elaborate on in the Bio.

It is not necessarily a required skill to become a Shadow, however knowing it will certainly be a significant point in her favor on her quest to acquire this title.

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We would appreciate it if you could move the descriptions of Force powers up to the relevant section, as there is no point in having them listed twice. The section down in the OoC section is for her general potential, not specifics like force power training.

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If you have any desire for Shiri to be considered (by the Jedi Councils) for a specialization like Shadow, any talent for Psychometry will not work out. Jedi with that talent are automatically excluded from consideration for this. Touching an object of the Dark side, or a dead body, or weapons of war, means a high risk of touching upon the dark side for someone with Psychometry. A Shadow is likely to deal with at least two of those three, as well as countless other things problematic to combine with psychometry.

Skills:

Would you kindly break this section up into several paragraphs? Right now, it feels rather like a text wall and it is hard to spot individual skills.

Any skills related to using the lightsaber do not belong in this section, as skill with that is more than a little related to the Force. It has its own section further down.

In situations that will come up in Aftermath, No Jedi will truly be without the Force. The Force is a part of all Jedi (and Sith). Its as much as part of them as their limbs, their eyes or their lungs, but where the latter two can be cut away, the Force is not focused within any single part of their bodies. The Force is everywhere.

The rest of this section seems to delve into personality, not skills. By the way, people generally can’t choose to be strong-willed. That is typically a binary thing (either you are it, or you aren’t).

So it would be appreciated if you could continue describing her skills rather than her personality there. Remember, you need to cover more than what is relevant to direct conflict with the Sith/empire.

Bio

Think of this as her speaking to a jedi master she trusts. It certainly ain’t an interview with a Sith. Thus, secrets are unnecessary here.

You claim she knows nothing of her first 7-8 years of life. It's common for people not to remember events of the first one to four years, but this seems rather excessive. If you wish to have this be a fact, you’d better have a good explanation of why she remembers virtually nothing of that time. Severe trauma to the head could be a cause, but any trauma sufficient to cause such severe loss of memory would affect her still. It would also mean slower development later, as numerous basic skills would have to be learned all over again.

If however this is merely an excuse for not fleshing out those years, we have an alternate solution that will not affect her as much later in life. Simply put it as a standard childhood, specify when she was recruited to the Jedi order and do a quick description of a fairly standard time as an initiate. The years as a padawan, especially the last years of this, however, will need more detail.

These vague mutterings about slavery need one of two things:
Much, much more detail.
Complete removal.

A child slave doesn’t just “happen” to escape from slavers. They will lack both the training, skills and tools to do so. The typical slaver may not be a genius, but he (or she) isn’t an idiot either. Having been a slave will marks someone for life, potentially both physically (scars, brands, tattoos, etc) and mentally. “We didn’t dwell on it” is quite simply utterly implausible. For the vast majority of slaves, life is terrible.

There is a significant issue with the speed at which she progressed through the Jedi ranks. The time spent as an initiate is long intentionally, as it is as much about patience and ensuring the initiate has truly taken to heart the Jedi values as it is about the practical skills taught. As mentioned in the Jedi guide, this period typically lasts five to six years. I could see this going as low as three for a particularly dedicated initiate (by dedicated I mean not only dedicated to learning but dedicated to the philosophical, semi-religious aspects as well. A True Believer if you like.)

A three year Padawan is technically possible but rare. In order to achieve this, she must have run into some extraordinary circumstances that resulted in all five of her trials being passed in the field. Such circumstances would be very much worthy of detailed mention in the Bio. Otherwise, it is more likely she would be a Padawan for at least four to six years.

You are left with a number of options (feel free to think of more we haven’t mentioned - but these are the more likely ones i think).

• Keep the slavery, elaborate on it, but make her older in order to account for the extra years. This allows her to keep her current skill set entirely.
• Get rid of slavery, become a jedi much earlier, stay 19. This allows her to keep all her force skills, but gets rid of the skills gained as a slave (though she could learn them from a Jedi if she chose to).
• Keep the current timeline, but become a padawan much later and never become a knight. This will mean dropping many of her Force skills.
  UTTERLY UNBIASED SUGGESTION: GO WITH OPTION #1 AND GIVE XID TO LEA!

Flaws

Could you break this text wall up a bit?

How is “high pain tolerance” a flaw? What has given her this?
Willingness to sacrifice herself (when she shouldn’t) for others - That is a flaw.
How does she have a criminal mindset? How is this a flaw.

Remember that a true flaw does not include a description of how it doesn’t really affect the character after all. A flaw isn’t full countered.

Again, this section is a delve into her personality, not her flaws. You’ve got far more about her personality in section that should cover other things.

Species traits

Though nice, the current info is rather useless. It’d be nice to see the more pertinent info, in particular what happens when a Lekku is damaged. The Sith will probably do that at some point, after all.

Torture

Why is she good at this? What makes her so? Simply saying she’s good at it is insufficient. Provide reasons and explanations.

Personality

There’s far too little about her personality here. Fill it out, like with pieces like those you’ve put in sections not meant to cover personality and motivations.

What are her long-term hopes and wishes doing here (ideas for future specialization)?

Escape

This section does not add up. On one hand, you want her to escape. On the other, you clearly state that she won’t do so if any prisoners remain in the prison. The odds of them all being able to escape are near-zero. That setup would not fit with the purpose of Aftermath (to explore the nuances of the light and dark sides, as well as the differences between the Republic and the Empire).

Conclusion

Shiri as a whole doesn’t add up. It seems to us like you’ve tried to make her fit too many concepts at once. We suggest reading the Jedi Training and Life Guide again, and sticking more to what it tells you.

Formaroth: Battle for the Throne

'tis your turn again, @TheDuncanMorgan.

We couldn't sleep...

Some ideas and thoughts about RPG - as a community, as a writing forum, but mostly just in general

Nice post, @Vor. We quite agree with your sentiments even as we have those we put up earlier. After all, the status quo isn't some simple thing with only one definition.

There are some RPs that use collabs heavily still... both the RP we GM and the one we're currently in has plenty of collabs (mind you, the one we GM hasn't quite yet reached the IC stage, but it will have plenty of collabs. Nice, long ones. And probably shorter ones too. and single-player posts.).

Oh and Hank... there's something that feels off about that last sentence before your ending question... Something subtle. Something... Capitalized.

Formaroth: Battle for the Throne

'tis your turn in the collab, @TheDuncanMorgan.

We kinda forgot about that doc for a few days.