(07-07-2015, 03:01 AM)Tancred Wrote: [ -> ] (07-07-2015, 02:43 AM)Meena Wrote: [ -> ]1st point: Its been said in the storyline, well shown more so than said that lalafells are as physiclly strong as most hyurian men. They have been shown in 1.0 and other quest lines in 2.0 to be as capable at combat as the next person. In fact, Lalafell in 1.0 could throw people overboard etc in the limsaian storyline.
2nd point:
Yes, 100% agree. I try and encourage it but most people don't rend to bite on it.
1st point: Discounting the fact that physics entirely disagrees with this logic because it's a fantasy world and, y'know, whatever, I'll bite the bullet for the sake of the game's lore, a person who is 3'2 will lose to a person of equal skill that is 6'6. They just will. It's a simple question of arm's reach. Big guy can hit little guy before little guy can hit big guy. If Big Guy's quick enough (not super quick, just fast enough to swing a thing at something running toward him), he essentially gets a free attack. Lalafells don't have super speed to make up for it. I have an Elezen, a Hyur, and a Lalafell and they all run the same speed. Am I going to tell a lalafell RPer that his warrior is not strong and is weaker than other races? Certainly not. But there is a handicap there, even if it isn't strength based. There is. Sorry, lalafell players. Surprise, your arms are shorter than everyone else's, and your weapons are smaller.
But I don't want to get into this, because I'm here to vent with everyone else, not fight everyone about lalafells' war aptitude. Wasn't the point I was trying to make. I'd be equally mad if any race god-moded their fighting skills to emote-kill any passing stranger because they're really into themselves. My whole point was that it's incorrect to assume your character is the strongest person in the room every time they enter a room.
2nd point: I'm an adventure-RPer. I can't do tavern RP for a long time, and if I am doing it, I'd like it to be in a place far outside the 3 big cities. I know your struggle. I only know like two or three people who truly venture outward to RP.
Forgive me for drawing this point out, but you did bring it up, and the argument has been done to death in the Grindstone threads. Suffice to say, since it invalidates the entire point of my charater's existence and others like it, I personally cannot abide it. So I mean, of course I'm pretty biased.
This is a world where fistfighters of sufficient skill can canonically fire laserbeams strong enough to lift them bodily off the ground and channel heat-seeking orbs of aether that explode on contact. (I'm going to hold Elixir Field and Forbidden Chakra over the grittier rpers forever, you can count on it...) A tiny person who hits hard shouldn't be much of a stretch. Give them the benefit of the doubt; not every lalafell player who approaches rp from this angle is unaware of how rare that kind of strength ought to be, to say nothing of its consequences. Some will recognize the disadvantage of reach, or understand that their character is effectively a freak for being able to put out the muscle power of a creature much larger than their size implies, and rp the side-effects, both physical and mental, of training to do so. Like becoming socially and educationally stunted due to monomaniacal focus on training, or losing, despite all their strength, due to rushing in heedlessly; my character has fallen victim to that countless times, despite being, on paper, way more dangerous than most. She's lost more than she's won, and that's done a lot of good things for her character development even as it damages her credibility. To me, experience should beat talent, but it'd be boring if every physically strong character was a roeg or highlander, honestly. To assume other races will lose is godmoding, and inconsistent with the setting to boot.
On another note, I feel like I see way more gritty highlander dudes with a mean sword arm and years of non-rp'd experience far more often than the supposed animu Cloud clones. That could just be the company I make.
I think there ought be some nod to the disadvantages being short entails, but assuming they should lose just because of it before the fight even starts strikes me as a bit unfair. That being said, I agree it is wrong to assume everyone else is weaker. Generally the approach I take is, if they're more experienced, they win if they're creative enough to make up the gap in intensity of training; no amount of training from hell beats actual combat experience. Or I just /roll, because I always lose /roll, lol.
That aside, since you're looking at a wide gradient of believability, things not fitting into one's personal perception of believability is a pet peeve that is pretty easy to understand. The game and setting itself are at odds with our physics and your sense of realism, so you're going to see a lot of people doing all kinds of crazy stuff. I find it funny that a lot of people are willing to accept the existence of magic and aether, but cannot wrap their head around a person of slight build fighting equally with a person who easily dwarfs them in height and baraness, but these are separate aesthetic concepts that don't mix easily; the martial and magical have been held to inconsistent standards even as far back as the earliest editions of D&D, and fantasy has suffered for it. But that's not going to change the fact that people who go into the game looking to play a hero with a certain aesthetic, especially the low fantasy kind, are going to run into annoying inconsistencies. It is difficult to reconcile their view of what should be possible amongst martial archetypes with those of someone who took to Eastern fantasy, where people are driven mad by reading martial arts' scrolls backwards, fly over rooftops, bore perfect holes in your skull from a distance and handle swords with masterful precision using nothing but ribbons. You can fire lasers and block bullets? What is a gunner going to do, or a non-magical archer? It's things like that which can really damage immersion for a specific kind of player, one way or another, if not handled carefully, and I understand it can be frustrating both ways. It's for this reason that I think it pays to have a very flexible idea of what to do in a scene that matches the mood or general grittiness of the environment. If people want to do stuff in a very mundane way, players shouldn't be afraid to craft excuses to make things more low key, or just handwave it so that the scene stays consistent and feels right. Players come from different backgrounds in fiction, but there is nothing to say we cannot interact in the same scenes because of it, if we're willing to meet halfway or trust the other player isn't powergaming simply for the sake of it.