(09-08-2015, 04:14 PM)V Wrote: "You're just a regular person"There's a bit of truth to that, but behind each of those people there's army of folks who are either so unspecial they aren't even given names, or only existed to die. Â Ysayle had legions of unnamed heretics, Raubahn the unknown Twin Flames, Aymeric had tons of bodies near him, the good Crystal Braves are at the moment just really loyal folks, and Edda was special because of how terrible she was at what she wanted to do.
My problem with this logic is that we're shown in the lore time and time again nobodies from nowhere rising up to the challenge and making themselves special/powerful.
Examples include but are not limited to:Â
Ysayle, Raubahn, Aymeric, WoL, Thancred, J'moldva, the good Crystal Braves, Edda, etc.
Eorzea is a land where ordinary people have extraordinary potential; it's literally in the air.
Those are all major characters in some form. Â And it's fine to have a few major characters, it's fine to be good at something (or so terrible at it you kill your friends), it's fine to have potential. Â Not everyone needs to be a civilian.
The issue is when everyone is a major character, and they start stumbling over each other. Â It works in D&D, smaller groups, and FCs because everyone is roughly the same strength in different ways. Â You get a good balance of everyone being awesome at something everyone else isn't and they can cover each other. Â But once you move out into Open RP, and everyone is a IC level 50 swordsman swinging whirling blades of death, it's less going on a balanced adventure, and more absolutely stomping someone else's content.
There's been a few times by simple merit of being on the lower end of the adventurer scale of power that I'm just absolutely locked out because everyone else is Major character level. Â There's RP events made with the idea that everyone going there is already incredibly powerful in some form. Â They can shoot off Fire 3 while another person Holmgang's the big beasties breathe, and the archer shoots out it's eyes with precise marksmanship. Â Meanwhile, the novice adventurer can maybe shoot a Blizzard 1 and take copious notes during that fight, safely from the massive boulder they're cowering behind.
What it ultimately comes down to is balancing the overall party strength, recognizing your audience, then adapting.
You become too skilled when the environment you're in suffers from your skill.
On the note of my personal beliefs, I'm of the Age vs. Skill camp. Â The older you are, the more I feel you're allowed to be skilled in without veering in Main Character or unfun territories.