(08-30-2015, 02:54 AM)Ashe Wrote: I learned a lot about the mongols before I switched my major in college.
I am wondering if it's just the fact I'm RPing a female character (I am a girl who sucks at rping girls >> but she's just so boring. I am comparing her to all of the stuff I do on my Elezen and it's like...she's so lame >.< I can't think of ways to change her.
Thinking that you have to RP the genders in a certain way is one of the most limiting things you can do for your character. I recommend reading and following Oli!'s advice on page 2. It is quite invaluable.
I recommend creating your character concept first and instead of, as others have said, trying to make something that feels "Au Ra-like" or "a good female character." Our characters are not defined by their race or gender. They are definitely attributes that might influence our characters' lives but they are not the totality of someone's entire person.
Additionally the only thing that qualifies a female character as a 'good female character' is that she is written in a way that makes her a person. People aren't walking stereotypes. Thinking that either gender has to be written with certain qualities is both unfortunate and may lead you to dislike that character.
For example, if you have this impression that your female character has to have this nurturing, mama bear like side to her that you would never give any of your male characters, not because you dislike it but because it's just 'meh' then DON'T.
Which it sounds like you are suffering a serious case of 'meh' as opposed to outright dislike.Â
You may want to completely re-write the character. I would. To me, a lack of interest in a character from 'blahness' is even more dangerous than simply hating your character. I'd scrub that character clean and start fresh, but that's just me.
I recommend the concept I mentioned earlier not being based around race, appearance, or backstory. Make it about actions, accomplishments, and personality instead. Examples include:
- Rich, vain noble who constantly wants to help out the poor but comes off as accidentally insensitive instead.
- Traditional tribesperson who is resistant to change and believes everything has to be a 'certain way.'
- A complete loner with no people skills who comes off as a bit too blunt but is earnestly trying to fit in despite it all.
- A dependent and conformist who wants to please people and needs to be directed by others but is desperately trying to break out of this forumla to follow their own path.
So, as you can see, these examples are about how a character acts. They don't tell us anything about gender and race and very little about their background. But with these concepts, we know the type of character we are playing and how they will interact with other characters.
If our concept was something like "A roegadyn raised by lalafells" then that is a background concept only and doesn't tell us anything about the actual character. If this is a RPer's first and only concept of their character then perhaps they are doomed to a path of 'blah' RP because it focuses on backstory rather than who the character actually is.
(08-30-2015, 04:38 AM)Ashe Wrote: She has a backstory and everything. Like...I am pretty good with lore. I've interpreted things with the lore given that ended up being affirmed in Heavensward (which made me really happy with Ashe 'cause it's legitimized a lot of what I was rping on him). Anyways, I don't understand the foreign accent thing with the domans and othard people at all. In the Japanese version of the game, they just speak a more archaic yet understandable version of the language...I never once thought about the language as a part of their characters.
I have a backstory on her. I've rpd with her multiple times but there is this wall with the limited amount of lore that can't be interpreted. I see people RPing their Xaela as like...regular Eorzeans who are all about that city life and it's like...that isn't really possible because they aren't about living in cities or really liking anyone outside of their own tribes (which is what I've interpreted). To get my character out of her tribe, I had her kicked out...
Also, lining up stuff with other Au Ra players sounds easy but with Xaela they are warring tribes. Does that, lore wise, even make sense? Some of the tribes were especially violent--Jhungid is a tribe that held an annual battle against the Kharlu and while they weren't doing that they were enslaving other tribes. That doesn't seem all too friendly to me...
I am surprised no one here has hit that wall with the lore...that or people are ignoring the lore completely >>
There is actually a TON of lore available to those who are Raen from Doma available in the game. RPing a Raen actually seems easy...
But Xaela....I guess it's easy if you ignore the lore >>
Well, I mean, again, to emphasize what I said above...back story is not that important. They are incredibly fun to write and a backstory definitely does shape a character's opinions and identity. But you are not RPing out your character's backstory. You are RPing your character who they are in the present and what is to come. Over focusing on backstory is a common mistake and something that even the experienced roleplayer might be too tempted into doing.Â
I like to come up with a basic backstory at character creation and expand later. I find it can be more important to establish a character's goals, hobbies, talents, fears, strengths, weaknesses, quirks. etc.Â
Anyway, I have to disagree with the focus on lore as well. I don't really think Au Ra have much less than other races. Though I do recognize some races have more than others. I play a Hellsguard for example, and just like Au Ra, we really can't visit our race's homeland. Our characters migrated down from Abalathia's Spine and we know very little about actual Hellsguard culture.
In my opinion, FFXIV all around has very limited racial lore and it's just one of those things we as roleplayers have to make do with. We tend to guess and I think that's okay if we do. Races don't have a hive mind. A race's culture can be broken down into several, much smaller ones.
Now with a wiki! Flickering Ember's wiki