shylarah

Fae Courtis: The Wylde Hunt (Reboot)

@BlackPanther Thank you. ^.^;

Adelon: Steeling the Faith [Open!]

@Vena Sera Looks like it's your turn; Cecil and Ethan can proceed as can Alex's guys, and we can delay Nymira and Asta a little, and cover it after, perhaps?

Fae Courtis: The Wylde Hunt (Reboot)

@BlackPanther Hey, glad you posted, but could you perhaps use a different text color for the unicorn? I can't read it in that shade of blue, and it hurts my eyes to try. @.@

The Otherworld: Faerie Light (Fae Political Intrigue RP) [Fantasy/supernatural/character driven]

@Prince of Seraphs *grumble* Well alright. Don't currently have anything that springs to mind other than tricksters, and I don't want to play only a trickster. I'll be lurking for a while, though, and if I get an idea we'll see what happens.

The Otherworld: Faerie Light (Fae Political Intrigue RP) [Fantasy/supernatural/character driven]

@AdobeFlash Make a fey that was fascinated by the wild west. =P

@Prince of Seraphs Yeah, I'm around, just got distracted by other things. You didn't hurt my feelings. I can understand. However, I do want to play Sini across from Nyx, and unfortunately I've still not seen a resolution for some of my questions elsewhere, so I don't know if I will get to there.

longwinded version

Also my style is such that every character I create goes in a box, and when I need characters I may create a new one, or I may pull something out of the box that's a close fit and adapt it. Sometimes the new version will split into a separate character. Sometimes it will be simply a variant on the base. But a new character takes a lot of time to make, and will not be steady for quite some time. I can get a basic concept down, but my characters always speak to me by playing. Additionally, I have the trouble that if I make a character with too many similarities to one I already have, I will start conflating the two. I have two characters that are musically inclined. One started out as a redhead elfin bard. The version I'm running elsewhere right now is not a bard, though she likes music and was married to one. She's half elf, and has a more or less even temper. I have another character, completely separate, completely different rp style (it's actually a tabletop campaign). This character is a bard and a student of magic. She has a short temper and a drive to prove herself. The half-elf has started showing signs of temper because there are enough similarities in various things that large differences have started blurring, and I hate doing that. This means my options for new characters are limited to what I can create that is entirely different from any of the...I don't even know how many characters I already have, and their dozens of different versions. *scratches head* It's not that I can't, necessarily, and I suppose I can try, but it won't be done for a while. Besides, part of the fun of using the same character in different rps is to see how they handle different situations. This may be the same concept, but I guarantee you execution and details will change. I liked the Nyx/Sini dynamic enough that I want to play with it more.

Sini from the long campaign is an elemental spirit that was actually /originally/ bound by debt to Max -- thus the idea for how he ended up in the fey realm, because her debt summoned her to the mortal realm and she is to remain there for the remainder of his life (though she traded debts with a demon, who then reworked the contract with Max...it gets complicated). Her species reveres the conflict that comes of the clashing elements of the set of planes where they reside, and place a great deal of emphasis on balancing debts, to the point where it's considered rude to do someone a favor without being asked. The 4e version is seeking a worthy leader to follow, and in the meantime travelling and doing good where she can. So different versions can be similar, or very different. Because this setting is nearly identical, I was going to use the same one. I mean...you're using Nyx again.

I love all my characters, and they are like...well, a little like precious treasures and a little like pets with a side of children. I never destroy them. They may suffer, they may die. But the character will always be safe in that box, ready to be used when an opportunity arrives. And when I need extras or bit parts, I will use various characters I already have, a lot of the time, or one of the background characters that I've used before and that have varying levels of detail. It's easier to play a character accurately if you know them well, even for a minor role. It's no disrespect to your rp that I wish to use a character I know will fit, that I've already had to adjust to a nearly similar setting, and that I enjoy playing. I don't currently have any ideas for a new fey-type char that would work well for intrigue, since I used both of them and one rough-fit for the other rp, and it could be quite a while before I come up with an idea. Then there's the time to get enoguh informatino that you have a complete character sheet, because since I learn by using them I either have to pound out background and traits or I have to run them elsewhere to get to know them better, where I don't need to have them entirely solid to start with. I'll think on it, at least. But I don't want to play someone that's not ready.

...And now I am quite honestly wondering if I could play Nikki/Kat. Personality is, unfortunately, almost identical to Lei (either one's a branched character from teh other, or the two got blurred past separating), but then again, I'm running Kat in a FATE game. And I plan on having a version of her show up in the background for another rp. x.x Eh, we'll see, I guess. =/

~~~~

tl;dr

Curse it, between Fallen London and my current lack of focus in all things, I just can't be concise. Ugh, this sucks. Right, tl;dr: I have lots and /lots/ of characters. New ones can take months to make. If they're too similar to somethign I already have, it can mess up both of them. I learn about a character by playing them, which makes character sheets difficult for new characters. I'll think about it, but I don't currently have loose ideas, and I can't guarantee I'll come up with one, nor be able to flesh it out quickly.

The Otherworld: Faerie Light (Fae Political Intrigue RP) [Fantasy/supernatural/character driven]

@Prince of Seraphs I'm more than capable of playing them in both places, and I've run the same character in more than one rp simultaneously before. In fact, Sini is currently active in an rp that's been running a year or two by now, and I'm using a modified version for my 4e game. I also have Max running in two separate places. I tend to use whichever character fits the setting best and that I'm in the mood for. I don't know if I have anyone else that would fit. I'll have to think on it.

Duska is fine. Honestly I don't have much for her aside from a few bullet points and the name.

The Otherworld: Faerie Light (Fae Political Intrigue RP) [Fantasy/supernatural/character driven]

@Prince of Seraphs O.o Well look what I found. I might be interested. I need to pick up a few more rps, that's for sure, because I've been very bored lately. I am a little concerned because of a certain other thread, but to be fair, the Fey Realm is not exactly a new thing. ^.^;

How close to folklore do you want various fey? Does everything need to have a solid base to be used as a trait? Is using works of fiction as a basis permissible? Would you accept Sini here again? What about Max and maybe Lei? I see Duska in Nyx's background, and I don't mind that at all. ^.^ I might come up with a few others -- I have a whole box full of characters and I am always willing to bring people in as background/minor/supporting chars, or more main ones when needed.

I might be willing to make a court leader, but unfortunately I lack the skill to play a solid, independent leadership role. =/ I'd be willing to try if you need someone, but I might need help for direction. *shrug* Up to you.

It should be noted that advanced is a very loose label, just like casual. In theory, it means expansive lore and lengthy posts. In practice? Elite advanced (where everyone has to write several pages per post) is its own category, from what I've seen, and the only thing the advanced label does is make some people nervous. High casual and low advanced are the same, and I would venture to say average advanced is too, if people are flexible. So you should be fine. Besides, your rp, your rules. =P

@Terminal Oh hello there. *sits on* Haven't seen you in a while.

The best rp moments in your life.

Hm, I have a lot of these, and I've been linked excellent stories from various /tg/ threads. Let's see.

There's the time a friend of mine in an rp I was not in turned a tank into a group of velociraptors with chaos magic.

There's the time my char Wyatt got eaten by a dragon (actually a metal robot powered by a captive god, but...it's complicated). This resulted in another party member realizing just how much he cared for Wyatt, and asking him out. I should note that Wyatt has been consumed by multiple things including a jelly, a toon shark (more than once -- it makes sense in context) and said dragon. Oh, and a toon...was it a squid? Octopus? Something like that.

There was that time two characters had a surprise wedding. ...Let me explain. We had some timeline stuff and history got changed, but people from the old timeline didn't have the memories of the new timeline. /Lots/ of things changed, including various characters' temperaments in the past, but it didn't affect the transferred characters. So apparently the parents were worried about...I don't even remember, possibly an illegitimate heir (groom was an earl and it mattered), and apparently the couple was less cautious about taking precautions. Also they (their new timeline selves) had been involved in planning said wedding, but the two from the old timeline didn't know about it, because they hadn't gotten around to doing it. So yeah...they were surprised by their own wedding.

There was that time we had a fangirl get access to the Tower, the seat of Harold's government. And by fangirl, I mean she shipped the President with his Head of Intelligence. Apparently there's a club. And fanfiction. ^.^;;

We have in-universe shipping in the current campaign too, but it helps that the party became nuclear terrorists by accident (crazed and vengeful spirit had a nuclear warhead we didn't know about and was trying to blow up a government meeting. We stopped her, but got in trouble anyhow) and then because we were facing a lot of difficulty because the nuclear war that the planet is still recovering from was only two centuries ago, a documentary was made about the party showing them as people and what we're trying to do. ...We're totally vigilantes though.

That one time my character became the avatar of a goddess by accident. She's not even religious!

It's not happy, but the time my one character got killed and then resurrected. Honestly Maxwell the squishy and stupidly altruistic doctor and sworn pacifist and Malie the invisible soul-eating demon who thought he would be easy to manipulate and ended up falling for him are an adorable couple. <3 There's also some ethical struggling because...well, pacifist plus souleater. ^.^;

There is the time the party faced snow fairies (nasty critters that will drive you insane or just kill you outright). They made the ground slippery, but Kat has high agility, so she actually did /better/ because her checks were so high they gave her bonuses to other actions. She has a low fight stat, but still managed to do four shifts of damage (a very solid blow) to one of them. With a jacket. Because it's totally an area attack when you throw a large, heavy winter jacket over something the size of your finger.

Then there was the time she rammed a dragon. With a tank. Of course it ended poorly because I asked to compel her trait "didn't think it through", but it was fun.

That one time Nikki (Kat before she had her name change and lost her nekomimi traits for a different worldsetting) hijacked a tank.

That time the same character accidentally turned two other characters into gods (powerful artifact designed to make gods. They were being careful, but they were wary of her, and accidentally got too close. Oops!)

Just about anything that involves Nikki/Kat is bound to be fun, actually. The whole adrenaline-junkie doesn't-think-it-through deal makes for an excellent way to get into trouble, and her love of pranks is icing on the cake.

What is too much lore?

@Gowi@ScreenAcne
*waves*

@Ganryu I like you. You have the best response here.

@Ellri I love lore. I love complex, detailed worlds. So either I want to be able to find the information somewhere, or have the DM tell me when I ask, or I want to be able to come up with my own ideas. I hate it when things don't line up properly. However, for making an rp, you have to keep in mind that not everyone agrees, and some people don't like lengthy discussions on what the impact of a single group trying to gain control of all the magic crystals will do to the world in general. And then there's groups where people are fine with having profiles for various nations, including culture, economics, government, religion, major exports, military, and general temperament, as well as in-depth descriptions of many deities, and complex relationships (I kid you not, but this rp was two entirely separate campaigns, one two hundred years after the first, and we spent years on it as well as two of us writing various stories in the setting. Including one of the main DMs, who is very good at this sort of thing and won NaNo with his tale of the nuclear war that took place shortly after the conclusion of the first rp). We have an entire forum to keep track of it, and no, a lot of it doesn't have direct relevance, but it's nice to have around.

So in the end, it depends on what you're going for. If you're doing sandbox, set up a basic framework and turn people loose. If you have an established setting, let the players know the information their characters would know beforehand, and add to it as needed as new things come up. Pay attention and either correct or work with mistaken assumptions that conflict with things you've decided but not revealed. Flexibility for things that are not plot points is always a plus, and a willingness to discuss ideas with players is good as well. If your rp is going to be heavily plot driven, all that applies and you need to make sure everyone involved has a solid motivation for doing what they will be doing, even if it's not something they want to do. It's not necessary to have everything fleshed out, but make sure you say "welp, I actually haven't constructed x nation yet because I expected you guys to fight, not flee the country, but sure, let's make it now" or find a /good/ reason why it's not possible to go there. There's ways to work around undefined lore, but arbitrary rules and railroading is frustrating.

If you are picky about your setting, and don't want people tampering with the vision you have in your head, then you need to be very involved in discussing it and answering questions. Anything that's not a huge reveal should be accessible somewhere, be it a post or by request. If there's a core concept you can't share yet but that restricts things, that's a fair reason, but let players know that if they ask for information on that concept. Make sure that you have the details you want worked out ahead of when they're needed, and be able to make up more on the spot when needed, and make sure everything fits together.

You don't have to tell everything right away in any case, but it's a good idea to know it. In Ganryu's example, we might not need to know the king 300 years ago if not relevant, but if there's some statue of the king in the square with his name, our characters would probably be aware of who he is, so the knowledge of [name] being king and possibly a timeframe should never be a surprise to the characters later on. Finding out the king didn't really die and went into hiding instead and now works as a traveling musician would be a surprise. If he still uses the name he had when he was king, you /might/ wanna mention that the minstrel shares a name with the king whose statue is in the square, but don't have to say that it's the same guy.

Of course, all of this assumes that players want consistency and structure. My personal opinion is that rps, like any other form of storytelling, should make sense unless the point is not to make sense. It's not always necessary to know why, but there should be a reason behind the scenes. If there's a lot of lore, making a structured reference that can be consulted as needed might be a good idea, but note that players don't need to know every detail if they join late to keep them from getting discouraged.

tl;dr WOO LORE! ALL THE LORE! I like knowing, I like people that are willing to discuss and work together to make more lore as needed, I like being able to help create, I like details. I like being able to ask and theorize and plan. I absolutely hate being told I can't know something that my character would know. If my character has a good reason to know some fact, you can't plan that fact to be a surprise to the player without a very good reason and a skilled execution, and I've not seen it done well often. ^.^

Adelon: Steeling the Faith [Open!]

Wyth sniffed the offered hand, whiskers tilting forward, but quickly lost interest. Now was not the time for introductions. Now was the time for finding his girl. She had been taken, she was in danger. Had he been a person, he would lament the fact that moorcats hunted primarily by sight and sound, and wish for the nose of an animal more suited to tracking scents. As things stood, he was agitated because he did not have the means to find her on his own, and the people with him were being maddeningly slow about their part of the task. But the feline stopped suddenly as the soft sound of slow, heavy footsteps reached his ears. A breeze brought with it a scent he'd picked up before, sweat and lingering fear, and with it a faint trace of something dear. With a soft growl Wyth took off down the street. Not the first alley, nor the street on the other side, but the next corner, that was it! His tail swung out behind him as he made a sharp turn and charged out of sight. Moments later there was a scream of pain, followed by a furious growl.

The bearded man was miserable. With the young halfbreed taken in, his position was secure, at least for the moment, but her accursed animal had put up a terrible fight, and then when they'd tried to just run for it when it was mostly down, the beast had somehow found the energy to leap after his brother and bring the younger man down. He was lucky he'd escaped with just a set of shallow slices himself. So he found the company of the others annoying and had wandered off to be alone with his bottle of liquor, which he'd already put a good dent in.

He was not so drunk that he didn't try to flee at the sight of the very monster he'd barely escaped from barreling toward him, but the cat was faster. He couldn't help it; when the animal swatted him across the back with a heavy paw, leaving another set of deep gashes and knocked him to the ground, he screamed in agony. The reply was a dreadful snarl and far too many large teeth right next to his ear. The man struggled to get back up again and managed to find his feet, only to find himself stumbling into the wall with the force of the cat's next blow, which laid open his leg from hip to calf. When he tried to put weight on it, the leg collapsed.

When Ethan, Cecil, and the guard caught up to Wyth, the furious moorcat was gathering himself for another attack. The man had hurt him, had hurt and frightened his girl, and had taken her away. This made the man a threat and a dangerous predator, and Wyth intended to kill him.