Literal-Ghost

Whoops, been a while since I've posted.

Pretty much just 'do what you want', like everyone else has said. Though I would expand a little on what Edvyn posted, regarding 'How will this character interact with others?' If there is a roleplay trope that I would recommend avoiding, it's the 'antisocial lone wolf' kind of character, but even that is more because people take this trope and then don't play with it in a smart way. I've seen it happen before where someone will have a concept for a character that they get very excited about, only to sabotage themselves when they are unable to draw others to that character because their personality is unappealing to others. It's one thing to see a hard edged, sarcastic, antisocial character in a piece of media, where the characters around them are written to tolerate or even enjoy/respect their behavior. It's another to expect other actual people to want to interact with a character who, for all intents and purposes, is just a prick for no reason. This isn't to say that it is impossible to play that kind of character trope, but the problem comes from a) when that trope becomes that character's singular defining feature on the surface, and b) when a player fails to recognize their character's antisocial behavior as a negative personality trait. If you do choose to make a character with a more dour personality, think of what value they would have to other characters, and of other facets of their personality. Do they have a specialized skill that would draw others to them? An interest, a hobby? Something they would like to talk about if given the chance? If this character has a bad attitude, then what is a reason why someone would want to hang around them and seek out their company? Or you could even take that trope and spin it. Why does this character behave this way? Did they experience something that they're having a difficult time coping with, and they project it in an unhealthy way? If so, do they exhibit other behaviors as a result of their trauma? Do they have a hard time relating to others for some reason and push then away to protect themselves? Do they see their behavior as something they don't really enjoy and want to change, but their negative tendencies still slip out in spite of their best efforts? Think of setting up your character in a way that would attract another character's attention another give people hooks to engage. Remember that RP is a social activity. There aren't really 'good' or 'bad' character tropes, and it can be fun to draw from multiple tropes to help you fill out the meat of your character. But a trope in itself is more like a fluid category that your character can happen to fall into, instead of a concrete rule/building block of a successful character. Don't feel too bound to stick to any specific tropes, and don't feel like "my character is x trope so they can't have y personality trait". You have the freedom to experiment with your character and see what you enjoy and what feels natural, and then rework them if your decide you don't like what direction they're going in.

Baeyl Teken'gym - Angry drunken crime mom pisses off tree, turns her life around shortly after and channels her sadness through the healthier venue of slaughtering voidsent and ashkin instead. Svanhilda Ealdgyd - Baby left on a mountain grows up to be a trapper, becomes a solider for two different causes, only to decide that authority is bullshit, goes full circle and enjoys life as a trapper again and doing odd jobs. Hikari Inamoto - Child born as a result of the occupation of her home nation would rather be hanging out with Morbols all day; has social anxiety so bad that she has a fursona she made up just to help people under. Qorchi Hotgo - Local archer attempts to steal food from power grandpa, gets punched so hard in the head that she goes blind in one eye and has an aetheric awakening; changes professions. Kidd Hammersmith - Kid slings dog shit at a war criminal's door, somehow becomes his smithing apprenctice/adopted daughter, turns out more functional and healthy than Most would expect. J'Rahgah Buhdi - Is it really so bad to not be in Gyr Abania anymore?

There are several Keeper NPCs in canon (Leih from the Archer quests comes immediately to mind, she's super fair skinned) that don't have dark black or grey skin tones and instead have a more peach or brown palette swatch. If you have the option in character creation, it's canon. Most people probably wouldn't heckle you for your skin tone choice, anyway.

As an aside, how is finding loopholes or finding a way that a character could obtain some skill/knowledge less creative than sticking to the black and white (eeeey) of the lore? A lot of bits of lore are up to speculation, or just not well defined, and there is nothing saying that the red mages and their knowledge stayed holed up exclusively in Ala Mhigo for centuries, especially if other races have been able to go freely to and from Gyr Abania (prior to the most current events). It's not like it's Ishgard, for Highlanders. It also seems to be the nature of Red Mages to actively want to spread their philosophy and practice of magic to other magic users to have less devastating effects on the environment, so I feel like that leaves a lot of open room as to how a character could get to know of Red Magic or meet a Red Mage.

Does the presence of the original founders of Red Magic in Ala Mhigo mean that we could canonically have Ala Mhigan Elezen (or other races) who had survived the War of the Magi and had descendants born there?

Buscarron, my boy. He's just a really nice dude and he looks out for anyone who's in trouble, even the beast tribes. He's such a good guy that even the criminals of the Shroud will band together pick up arms for him. My guy Buscarron is here living the dream, owning his own tavern and (presumably) living in it, too. He just wants to have a place where people can get a little peace and rest and have a nice time.

Depends on how it's handled? Primals are a reoccurring threat, so there is a demand/a sense of urgency to handle them whenever they crop up, and it hasn't been unheard of for groups of otherwise regular mercenaries to take down Primals before (The Company of Heroes). The game also addresses that the Warrior of Light should bring other people along for some of the Primal fights. I can't recall which ones specifically, but I do remember several instances of Alphinaud or another NPC suggesting you form a party of your most trusted confidants before engaging with a Primal. I'm guessing in the 'canon' of the single player game, those other party members may be suggested to be regular adventurers. There's no real reason why regular mercenaries can't/wouldn't take up arms against a Primal, to be honest, but I wouldn't make it a regular plot point or have your FC advertising itself by saying "YEAH, we go PRIMAL HUNTING!" Regular ol' joes going out to kill Primals and coming back to talk about it is a feasible, but rare instance. If you have a group of characters who trust each other and have planned out some kind of strategy for taking down a Primal, and the players who participate are ready and willing to take losses if it comes to that, sure. If not, or if you want to make it a regular thing, maybe stick to hunting notorious monsters or voidsent or something.

What if there was some kind of trial you had to do if you used a jump potion, similar to The Smith's tutorials? I could definitely see jump potions being an attractive alternative to a new player who wants to do content with friends, but doesn't want to sink a month+ into getting their character through MSQ for that. Older content feels like almost an entirely different game than 3.0 and onward, and even with some efforts to streamline the MSQ a little more, there are periods where it just drags and not a lot of very interesting things happen that may keep some new players interested in continuing their subscription. That stretch of level 50 quests at the end of 2.0 is especially arduous...

Your mileage varies. I think that maybe a part of it is that most people who like to roleplay for writing and aren't just looking for ERP tend to keep connections longer and are less prone to actively advertise that they're looking to meet new people to RP with. It could be that they're more likely to be comfortable and established in a group of friends already. On the flip side, people who are just looking for ERP and romance may be presumed to burn through RP partners quickly, so they may be more prone to making new connections. Or maybe they feel the need to advertise themselves more so that people who want to RP with their character know what they're getting? Though this is just speculation. It may also be that an experience meeting an RPer that sticks negatively with you stands out more in your mind. I think I've personally encountered way more people who were interested to RP just to play a character, rather than ERP or look for someone to have a romance with. But yeah, online RP communities have definitely always been like this.

I don't think it's going think happen. If SquE's goal is to have a more even spread player population across the board, I don't think they're going to put a big shiny sign over a specific server that says "hey, you should join here" to a particular demographic. (Legacy server aside). If it does happen, I don't see it happening at least until NA server populations are more even across the board. I also don't really see it happening unless it justifies each Data Server getting an RP server, and it would probably be a new server entirely for each one.

Baeyl's favorite place is probably Buscarron's Druthers. It was a safe haven during a dark part of her life. She's actually pretty sentimental for South Shroud as a whole, but the Druthers and Rootslake especially (Morbols aside). La Noscea as a whole is also very beautiful, but the frequent fog there makes her feel uneasy. OOC, I LOVE Urth's Reach, The Vault, Amdapor, and Azys Lla.

Will you stop being so darn obtuse with this trash anytime someone rolled on Balmung says something you don't like? Server's too damn full. That's the long and short of it. Some of us who are saying the solution is to set up shop on anothrt server actually are considering moving and not just sitting around where it's crowded, but confortable. Hell, I personally rolled an alt on Jenova just yesterday to see what things are like out there. Jeez, man, it's been 2 days and this over reactionary crap is so stupidly unhelpful.

Made an alt on Jenova yesterday to scope things out there and figure out if it would be nice to be active there, and I wanted to sketch her. tiny lizard grandma.

I would love to see more cross-server features, and it does seem like things are heading in that direction. But that's going to be a gradual change and for the time being, there's a new expansion coming out in a month and SquE is preparing for the influx of server traffic they'll have from that. People are overreacting to a temporary lockdown, on a server everyone knows has had overpopulation issues, and they're acting entitled to be accommodated to when the needs of this particular server's playerbase aren't as important as they think they are. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯