Dervish

Mass Effect: Borealis

<Snipped quote by Dervish>

Oh I've seen my share of crazy shit whilst on the path of BUSHIDO. Case in point:

@Zombiedude101

My time in the glorious Red Army has also taught me proper usage of mounted Maxim emplacements.

The Elder Scrolls: Fruits of Contention - Chapter 1 (Completed)

The exploding pipe had all but sealed the deal that the towering Centurion, who had elected to crush one of the Ashlanders before attempting to reach Roze, had elected to decide the Khajiit with the staff was not a sufficient threat as others in its immediate vicinity. Watching it get tangled up on pipework before having burning steam envelop its Mer-like visage made it almost seem pathetic. Do'Karth groped his amulet of S'rendarr, feeling that the divine cat that embodied compassion and mercy had taken Do'Karth's devout following to heart and was keeping him safe. The past few weeks had been a series of near misses that could have resulted in severe wounds or outright demise, and yet things seemed to pass by him, like water parting around a rock in a stream.

"Not Do'Karth's time." he observed, watching the Dwemer construct thrash uselessly against the super-heated steam that, ironically, only existed because of the creations of the Centurion's masters. The Dwemer, from beyond the grave, gave intruders the tools to disable the very thing they left in charge of protecting their secrets. It was no wonder they disappeared from the world; they probably died of collective embarrassment.

Movement caught Do'Karth's keen eyes, and while he could not see his comrade through the sauna-like room, he certainly could see a pair of the Dunmer trying to escape by prying open a door. After letting one slip away in the first place, Do'Karth was determined to put a stop to yet another failure on his own part. He approached the duo, staff resting across his shoulders, his hands clutching the staff tightly, giving him the appearance of someone who was at once relaxed, yet ready to spring like one of the many traps that lurked in the Dwemer ruins. The Khajiit cleared his throat loudly, getting both of the Dunmer's attention.

"This one suggests you cease with the escape plan and come quietly. A number of your allies have already fallen to Khajiit and his friends, and now nothing stands between him and yourselves. This one had attempted to reach an understanding with a few of them, and they had tried his patience by loosing projectiles at him. This one remains unscathed, and they remain corpses. Which would you prefer? Fair treatment, or to find out which of your Gods likes you enough to take your soul?" Do'Karth asked, giving both Dunmer the same dangerous glare other races sometimes referred to as the "eye of fear", given that Khajiit still resembled a number of predatory feral cats cats that were usually alpha predators in their regions. There was an instinctual fear of the Beastmen, one Do'Karth hoped would give him an advantage. He was feeling sore and tired, his leg was throbbing in acute pain, but there was still a job to do. He just hoped to finish it without further bloodshed.

Mass Effect: Borealis

<Snipped quote by Dervish>

Same, Jap team is way more fun to play. You tend to get the competent players more often than not (40-1 is a good server for team play btw) and that more often that not easily trumps the tech advantage that the US does have. There's something satisfying about beating back the US in campaign mode as about half a dozen guys give their best impression of BUSHIDO HOHOHO laughter.



Also, the Type 100 SMG is fucking lethal.

@Zombiedude101

I usually just run into shit like this:



Or in this case, one guy with a flamethrower vs. The 38 remaining Japanese soldiers.

Have we been writing Character Sheets wrong?

I'm not a fan of using images, particularly real-person/celebrity pictures, because I tend to feel miffed at how every character in a supposedly "realistic" RP looks overly fabulous in such setting. Also, unless I draw out the characters myself, most illustrations don't truly reflect the image of the characters I have in mind. Using text gives rise to ambiguity, so it tests the writer's ability to describe a character's appearance with just about enough information for the others to get a good grasp but without being too contrived and specific (which can kill the imagination of others).

@tsukune

This, so much this.

I'm actually finding it somewhat of a turn off for joining games where every character has a picture of a well-made up and presentable real person, be they an actor or model or whatever, and have that describe them as a dirty peasant who just happens to look like a sex symbol. I'm more more inclined to use text only where possible, because I've found even in games where I'm trying to find art, I never find anything resembling what my character should look like unless they're intentionally ambiguous or are a species that looks nearly identical to one another. I also think it's kind of shitty when people use other people's art without crediting them, because I know if I were an artist and I found someone using my art without giving me credit, I'd be pretty miffed.

ANYWAYS, BACK ON TOPIC WHEEEEEEEEE

Character sheets don't exactly have an exact formula and it depends on GM preferences, as you know; a lot can vary between one to the next, other than having specifics about names, ages, physical appearance, etc. From that alone, there's no set right or wrong way to do it.

As I mentioned in that Boy and Girl thread I am not a fan of having Sexuality listed as one of the fields to fill out in a character sheet. Unless you're playing a group romance roleplay or a smut based roleplay... why is it necessary? You should never set out in most roleplays with the intention of your character hooking up with another character, and all the sexuality field does is emphasize that's what you're after and plays matchmaker between characters with matching sexual preferences before the game even starts. That's going to make them gravitate towards each other more than other characters, sometimes at the expense of meaningful interaction, and make the romance seem extremely forced and pre-determined. If your character takes interest in another character, express that in game through their words and actions and see how it all develops. Don't get me wrong, I love romances in roleplays and I can appreciate how crappy it can be for LGBT people to try and find people of a similar orientation, but for most roleplays, your primary goal shouldn't be trying to tie your character up in a romance, especially when something like a life threatening quest is the order of the day.

"Oh yeah, I am one of the chosen heroes of legend or whatever... by the way, I'm gay/straight/into werewolves and I know that every day could be our last and I'll barely get to know any of you, but who else wants to cuddle by the campfire at night? Any takers? Oh, you want to know my skills, haha, that's funny."

I know. Gross exaggeration, but you get the point.

Onto stuff like clothing, usually I keep that in the character description because I treat it as the initial appearance of a character, and clothing is an expression of personality, status, wealth, experience... all sorts of stuff. It tells you a lot about a character at a glance, and no one wants to memorize each character having five different outfits. I am willing to wager that most roleplayers (myself included) couldn't begin to describe what another character's outfit looks like off the top of their head without referencing it. Sure, it's a suspension of disbelief that they wear the same outfit each day (and let's be honest, in some fantasy settings, that's totally appropriate), but you kind of have to take liberties with this medium.

Things need to be easy for people to recall and remember and reference, just like you really shouldn't be playing anti-social loner characters who go against the grain in group settings because literally no one will want to interact with them and probably lead to the player dropping out due to feeling excluded and unpopular.

(An aside, on that note, I've literally seen roleplays where a player tried to make their character go literally in the opposite direction to one city when the game is set in another that was outlined in the OOC and made a huge stink about not having any freedom of choice. Do NOT make a character for a roleplay that has values and traits that will make them incompatible with an RP setting, it shouldn't have to be said, but I see it way too often.)

Does this mean your character can't ever get new clothes or change outfits? Of course not. You can describe different outfits in their inventory, or even update their appearance in the character sheet if you felt so inclined. The important thing is describing the outfit in a scene so everyone knows that your character changed into a suit from his traveling attire or whatever so they know what to visualize.

On that note, there's some articles of clothing or accessories specific to a character that are extremely personal and symbolic in nature or related to their culture and never really change, so they absolutely belong in the Appearance field. For instance, I have a character that wears amulets that are religious in nature and wears a bandana all the time that's pretty much a part of him, kinda like how Marcus Fenix from Gears of War always wears a do-rag. This character also wears robes that are specific to his culture and aren't really available in local stores.

As for inventory and skills, it all goes down to the particular game and character sheet, but it's safe to say, anything your character has listed in inventory can be left behind for a scene. Your AK-toting example, for instance, probably wouldn't carry it literally everywhere he goes (like the middle of a peaceful city), but he has access to it most of the time.

Also, by having a fleshed out and consistent inventory that only gets edited when gear is used or acquired and skills outlined prevents players from pulling a fast one and suddenly having items that weren't previously disclosed.

Imagine, if you will, a character is in a room without a weapon and a bunch of baddies break in, and the whole scenario is put together to show how your character will resolve an encounter unarmed. Then the poster says they pulled out a gun from their gear bag that they "kept hidden for situations such as this".

For this reason, with my games, I have gear limits and tiers. Everything a character owns when traveling is disclosed, and for cases like my Elder Scrolls roleplays, only common or reasonably obtainable weapons and gear are permitted, because if you don't restrict people, you'll have that one asshole who is like "And they have full Daedric armour and weaponry lol".

Basically, character sheets act as a shield that prevent people from pulling a fast one on the GMs and game at large. Most roleplayers are pretty upstanding, but rather than inviting argument of players doing something against an unwritten rule, cover your ass ahead of time and say this and that are forbidden to keep everyone on the same page, no excuses.

Professor Oak Asks: Boy or Girl?

I always make sure in my more recent roleplays to specify sex rather than gender. While I'm pretty liberal minded when it comes to LGBT stuff, for the purposes of roleplay and quick visual identification, male or female is pretty much necessary because telling me something like androgynous or one of the 50ish other Tumblr-made genders won't really help out in that regard, especially depending on setting.

As so far as roles either sex play in a roleplay, honestly depends on the setting. As others have mentioned, historical real world settings are probably going to be majority male if it's combat oriented, and that goes in for some fantasy or otherwise fictional settings, as well... although that depends entirely on what setting we're talking about. Let's say you're doing a roleplay based around let's say Wonder Woman and the Amazons. Pretty big No Boys Allowed club there, or you're playing a high fantasy setting based around an elven culture that is more or less matriarchal or whatever.

But exempting all of that and say you're playing in a more or less egalitarian setting where males and females are on equal footing, I honestly go either way. I get an idea for a character in my mind, and I decide pretty early on if they're going to be male or female based more on feel rather than ability; the character could be either sex and still work.

I've found that so far, my female characters tended to have a harder upbringing or history than most of my male characters and are largely shaped by those events and how they overcame them. Two of my most played characters are female, one who is a ruthless, untrusting and determined warrior grew up in a broken home that didn't love her and she found a surrogate father figure in a mentor figure that taught her a lot of the skills she'd need to survive out in the world to find her brother, the other an idealistic young woman with brilliant mechanical skills who joined the military, saw combat and became traumatized from the experience and witnessing war crimes, and couldn't cope with life back home so she became a mercenary to try and figure her life out in a life that's somewhat familiar. While both have the whole broken family thing going on, that's pretty much par the course for most of my characters (male or female) and I am genuinely trying to write more characters with perfectly happy and mundane upbringings because the broken home thing is par the course for most roleplayers.

Here's a drinking game for you; go through any RP's character tab and take a drink for each one that features dead or abusive parents and surrogate parental figures and a drink of water for every normal childhood. I'll see you in the morgue.

For everyone who says they don't feel comfortable writing a character of the opposite sex because they don't feel comfortable with it, I highly encourage you to give it a try sometime. I put it off for so long because I honestly felt the same way, that I'd fuck it up or create a character that was more of a stereotype than a real person. I took the chance and ended up with one of my most rounded, fleshed out and believable characters that I love enough to have had art commissioned of her. Thing is, writing for guys and girls is pretty much the same process, just with minor differences here and there that make sense when you come across them.

Quoting George RR Martin in an interview,

'Yes, you're right I've never been an eight year old girl,' he says, 'but I've also never been an exiled princess, or a dwarf or bastard. What I have been is human. I just write human characters.'

‘Some women hate the female characters,' he says. 'But importantly they hate them as people, because of things that they've done, not because the character is underdeveloped... Male or female, I believe in painting in shades of grey, all of the characters should be flawed; they should all have good and bad, because that's what I see. Yes, it’s fantasy, but the characters still need to be real.’

It's honestly a pretty handy metric to follow. If you can write a real feeling male character, you're able to write a real feeling female character. Just treat them like they're a real person with independent hopes and dreams and what not and the rest will fall into place. Just don't emphasize the fact they're a female; they just are. Hopefully your mother doesn't go around affirming to everyone that she is in fact a woman doing woman things.

This is part of the reason I am not a fan of when roleplays put a sexuality section in the character sheet... why should it matter? Sexuality is just a part of who a person is, and that's something that should come up naturally in a roleplay through context, not hanging a sign around your neck saying "I prefer these kinds of genitals". I mean, unless your roleplay is sexual or romantic oriented to begin with, it shouldn't be a thing that's front and center. I'm all for romance in roleplays, but I rather see it unfold naturally between characters rather than being an advertised feature.

Likewise, it's the same thing for your character's sex. Last thing you probably want to do is emphasize ultra-feminine characteristics to try and convince the reader you are in fact playing a real woman who enjoys putting on lots of make up and is super proud of her breasts and cooking skills while fighting in high heels and so on so forth. It's not to say that kind of character can't exist or even be played well, but either the author is deliberately making a sexualized character who fully embraces stereotypical feminine traits or they're an alien who never had a mother, sister, or female human friend to relate to.

Honestly, if you like wearing sneakers, worn out jeans, eating pizza and playing video games and having fantasies of murdering boatloads of goblins with a claymore, chances are there's quite a few women out there who think the exact same thing. If you're worried about being offensive with playing a female character and coming across a situation where she'd probably like to put on make up, dress up nice, and head out... that isn't offensive or stereotypical. It's a part of who the character is. Likewise, maybe your character is really a nurturing sort with a soft spot for kids and small animals. Once again, it's a character trait that could go either way. If you want to play a badass warrior woman... well, what do badass warriors like and do? Chances are, it applies to either sex.

Point is, don't be afraid to try it. Obviously, the advice applies for women who are hesitant to play men, as well; just the specific stuff is interchangeable. Hell, the previously mentioned female character I had art commissioned of? One of her defining traits is she's an incredible mechanic who feels more at home in the guts of some machine covered in oil and grease than talking about overly personal stuff with the people she lives with and she pretty much is a high functioning alcoholic who swears a lot, keeps her hair short but styled, and listens to alien metal music for the sole purpose of keeping people away from her work area. Doesn't mean she doesn't enjoy cleaning up, wearing nice dresses, and heading out on the town, just her job and most of her interests happen to align with skills and career choices that society sees as typically male dominated.

Anyways, sorry for the wall-o-text, had a lot of opinions on the matter.

Mass Effect: Borealis

<Snipped quote by Rtron>

Battlefield? Hah, Rising Storm's where it's really at.

@Zombiedude101

I also play the living shit out of that.

Nearly max leveled both Japanese LMGs and one of the sniper rifles. I don't usually get to play US because people flood to play the US all the time.

The Elder Scrolls: Fruits of Contention - Chapter 1 (Completed)

For my next post, should I roll for attack of the neyerdowells trying to bust open the door?

Mass Effect: Borealis

Sorry about the lack of writing, it's been a shit week, plus Battlefield 1 and Pokemon have eaten me the past two days. Working on Tonka bits now.

The Elder Scrolls: Fruits of Contention - Chapter 1 (Completed)

I'll try to write up a post today or tomorrow, folks! Sorry I've been slow, I've been battling a cold and dreading the weekend. From about Sunday to Tuesday I'll have no access to electronics because my school felt the need to hold all the graduating class hostage at a religious 'camp' with the intent of having everyone 'bond' with one another. That'll probably go over as well as can be expected.

@Graviloquence

I'm gonna say Roman Colloseum crossed with Lord of the Flies.

Mass Effect: Borealis

Oh fuck.

I didn't realize people were waiting on me.

I'll get on it soon.