(08-20-2013, 02:45 PM)FreelanceWizard Wrote: [ -> ]one of the most "godmode" characters in existence, Superman,
I'd contest that. There are a handful of super heroes who can take Superman in a fight, and plenty of villains have brought him to his knees. Either way, you have a point about the potential for godmode characters to be interesting,
but the examples you gave aren't comparable to the average joe. Superman being the last surviving Kryptonian and Dr. Manhattan being a quantum being. Superman being good at everything compared to a Midlander Hyur makes perfect sense, whereas one Midlander being good at everything compared to every other Midlander makes much less sense. In short, if someone RPs a Kryptonian, he's allowed to be better than the rest of us. If someone RPs a Midlander black mage and then tells me he's also better at using spears than my dragoon, I'm going to take issue with it.
I'm a bit guilty of god-moding myself with Eko. He's not either of the miqo'te clans and he grew up on a jungle island not on any of our maps. Because of this harsh environment, he's extremely strong and agile and his instincts and reflexes are nothing short of amazing. However, I try to counter that a little with a lack of ability with magic or technology, and having little grasp on what it means to be civilized.
Rurufi's sort of painted herself using the stereotypical "super hero" brush; so she's primarily be using her fists to beat up the bad guys. She'll also dabble in just a little bit of everything else, but mainly she'll be focused on being a pugilist who can dispense justice with her bare hands!
(Which makes it pretty convenient that the character who's data I used to make her already was a 48 Pugilist.)
The way I've handled it is fairly simple. My character, Saefinn, sees 2 major flaws in his role as captain and 2 flaws he considers responsible for the death of his old crew. The two flaws are: he's never had a successful battle plan, he reads, he's literate and has a good head on his shoulders, but knew very little about to handle strategy on the battlefield. His other flaw is his ability to fight, he might win a bar brawl with a bit of cheating, but that's about it. He always had other people do the fighting.
After the death of his crew, he felt if he could achieve vengeance, he would need to overcome his flaws. For strategy, the Arcanist guild offered suitable training and he could later aspire to a role as a Scholar. A Lalafell pretty much gave him the pep talk and convinced him to take that path. For strength, well, he saw the strength of the Yellow Jackets when taking on mercenary work for the Adventurers' Guild and after having earned some respect amongst ranks in Limsa Lominsa, he ended up speaking to Commodore Reyner about some advice and he pointed him in the direction of the Marauder's Guild. Getting friendly with high ranking individuals is perhaps a bit risky, but it alleviates suspicion from his illegal activities at least and of course, by doing a little mercenary work for him, it gives him money and experience, which he needs to help him back on his feet.
Other choices? If Musketeer is introduced, as rumoured, I'll probably level it. A pirate needs a gun really.
With crafting, it was easier offering IC excuses, in fact 2 of my choices are based on Saefinn's life rather than the other way round. His dad used to take him fishing as a young lad and he'd end up with cook duties when he was a crew mate. The weaving is in there because I wear light armour, but I've given the excuse that it was a skill his mother taught him when he was young. Fishing was the only 'good' memories of his father and well, he was very attached to his mother, so it was natural he took an interest in her activities...especially when he was kept indoors for bad behaviour.
(08-20-2013, 03:06 PM)Uther Wrote: [ -> ]I'd contest that. There are a handful of super heroes who can take Superman in a fight, and plenty of villains have brought him to his knees. Either way, you have a point about the potential for godmode characters to be interesting, but the examples you gave aren't comparable to the average joe. Superman being the last surviving Kryptonian and Dr. Manhattan being a quantum being. Superman being good at everything compared to a Midlander Hyur makes perfect sense, whereas one Midlander being good at everything compared to every other Midlander makes much less sense. In short, if someone RPs a Kryptonian, he's allowed to be better than the rest of us. If someone RPs a Midlander black mage and then tells me he's also better at using spears than my dragoon, I'm going to take issue with it.
I picked those examples specifically to be hyperbolic.
(I've also been on a comics analogy thing today, it seems.) I think we agree on the point about having narrative support for your areas of expertise, we're just getting at it in different ways. I would say, though, that I'm not sure I agree with PCs in XIV being average joes -- but that's a matter for a different thread, I think.
(08-20-2013, 03:06 PM)Uther Wrote: [ -> ]I'd contest that. There are a handful of super heroes who can take Superman in a fight, and plenty of villains have brought him to his knees. Either way, you have a point about the potential for godmode characters to be interesting, but the examples you gave aren't comparable to the average joe. Superman being the last surviving Kryptonian and Dr. Manhattan being a quantum being. Superman being good at everything compared to a Midlander Hyur makes perfect sense, whereas one Midlander being good at everything compared to every other Midlander makes much less sense. In short, if someone RPs a Kryptonian, he's allowed to be better than the rest of us. If someone RPs a Midlander black mage and then tells me he's also better at using spears than my dragoon, I'm going to take issue with it.
But it's the
comparison here that's bad, not necessarily the "master of all" aspect. Someone saying they're better than someone else is always going to create tension, regardless of whether or not it's justified.
One can have a character that's good at everything without it being godmoding, but of course saying that they're better than everyone else would be godmoding. In other words, godmoding is bad, in any context. That's as far as it goes, IMO.
Context is important too, of course. FFXIV actually
does support "master of all" characters, provided that there is enough investment in the player (and thus, presumably, the character) to do so. What it does
not support is one character simply outshining all others for one reason or another (unlike, say, Aion, where the generals have the ability to transform into superpowered raid bosses). There is an upper ceiling, and most characters will hit one at some point within their lives, assuming they don't meet an early demise first.
I personally enjoy writing about supremely overpowered characters and exploring how they interact with a world full of ordinary people, but that's something I do exclusively on my own time within my own established universe, and would be completely inappropriate in the context of an MMORPG where I'm expected to play nice with other players.
Rinh is going to be my magic user and will eventually learn all of the magic classes. My roegadyn, Burning Ash, will be my war class character. I think I'll split the crafting classes between them too although I haven't decided who will get which yet. This will all be IC; otherwise I'd just level them all on Rinh OOC.
(08-20-2013, 12:55 PM)FreelanceWizard Wrote: [ -> ]L'yhta is a talented spellcaster who was trained in all three Disciplines of Magic, so I'm going to level each of them on her more or less equally -- though probably with a greater emphasis on Conjury and Arcanima to start. She'll not have any experience (or appreciable levels) in the Disciplines of War until someone teaches her how to fight ICly.
To a larger point, I don't think it's necessary to only have one IC class for a character. People in real life are often good at a number of things, and with PCs being "special" and heroic in a variety of ways, it makes sense that they'll have multiple areas of expertise as well. The important thing is to have a narrative reason why your character has such abilities and ensure that the breadth of expertise doesn't turn into a pretext for bad behavior (i.e., godmoding).
Pretty much all this for my character as well. In the end I'll likely focus primarily on one job/class the most, but I think sticking with the idea that she is a "caster" or "magically inclined" is a reasonable way to have a couple IC skill sets. If I want to do DoW classes then I'll likely roll another character for that. To me there is a bit of a personality difference required for DoW or DoM.
My character arete sees herself as a Sage in training, while she might dabble in DOW classes DOm is her main stuff. I'll probably end up leveling DOW classes to see more stuff and well to get more options but I'll always rp her as not as good as a "natural" DOW member.
Also the superhero who'd be "Good at everything" isn't Superman. Its Batman. He's good at every damn skill he could possibly learn. He's the "50 in all classes" guy.
Superman's the player who decides he wants to Play Odin in a Tavern Rp.
Curiosity and adaptability are both very important qualities for Darien. Because of that, it'd almost be silly for him not to do all the jobs. That being said, just because he knows how to do something, doesn't mean he likes doing it. And there will be things that I as a player won't handle as well as others simply because I've focused more on other things.
Even if I cap out everything, IC, he'll have his preferences and his particularly focused skills. Everything else will be "well, yeah, of course I know how to do that, but it's just not me, you know." And anything that's "just not him" he won't be that awesome at because a) he doesn't care about it enough, b) he's put in the majority of his efforts elsewhere, and c) so have I.
He's going to be a physical type fighter first and foremost. I haven't decided on his favorite job yet, probably Lancer, but I've been sticking with Gladiator and Marauder. But as a closet intellectual, he'll still be very curious about magic and want to see the inner workings of such things.
Several classes will be out of my reach simply because of how I intend for my character to be. As an example, he isn't bright/interested enough to become an Arcanist nor is he, ah, fashionably talanted enough to pick up weaving.
He is also horrible with whatever skill that requires an actual weapon but could get better if someone took the time to mentor him...if it happens, it'll happen IC.
I'll be starting my character out as a PUG -> Monk with a rather untamed/dangerous talent in magic simply to be able to go THM later.
I am one of those people who take great delight in trying everything and maxing as much as I can so picking out what I wanted IC early one was important for me.
(08-20-2013, 04:43 PM)Domos Wrote: [ -> ]He is also horrible with whatever skill that requires an actual weapon but could get better if someone took the time to mentor him...if it happens, it'll happen IC.
I'm sure S'demyx wouldn't be too much of a brutal teacher who would most likely beat the crap out of L'ohke instead of actually helping. Besides, just spray him with water, he'll flip his sh*t.
Ah, i forget to add, my character most probably will get on top with every Disciple of Land (the 3 gathering stuff) and that will be IC.
He's a scholar, not only job wise but character wise, so i will play that out as just another fields of knowledge he is "exploring". Pretty much like someone who is going to study botany, zoology and mineralogy.
I'm most likely going to start a THM ,and go for BLKM and possibly expand into the realm of red mages if given the chance. though thinking about it this isn't really set in stone so i might be something completely different,but considering my IC personality some form of mage will most likely be my final choice.
(08-20-2013, 04:50 PM)Koyu Wrote: [ -> ] (08-20-2013, 04:43 PM)Domos Wrote: [ -> ]He is also horrible with whatever skill that requires an actual weapon but could get better if someone took the time to mentor him...if it happens, it'll happen IC.
I'm sure S'demyx wouldn't be too much of a brutal teacher who would most likely beat the crap out of L'ohke instead of actually helping. Besides, just spray him with water, he'll flip his sh*t.
So utterly tempting and yet I am not sure I want to risk L'ohke's life because he can't help bein' a smartass to S'demyx.
To stay on topic though, there is a lot of ways to handle the issue, and to me it'd depend on how I'd created my character...
As an example, K'ahna is completely useless in anything BUT magic, while I have a third on the wings that probably wouldn't touch to save their own life.
Deitrych's going to be a jack-of-all-trades in the martial skills due to following adventurers around in his youth, being the Robin to their Batman. This will give him the skills to do any of those, but he's not going to excel at any of them except the lance. He could take an amateur in any of them, but against a master, he'd be screwed if he didn't have a lance. He'll also have some limited training in Conjury, but he'll only be able to heal scrapes and bruises; anything worse will require good old fashioned first aid or a handy potion.
For crafts, he'll mainly just have cooking and fishing to aid in his journeys.
Meanwhile Seth will have dabbled in Conjury and the Arcana, taking whatever he can from them to make his Thaumaturgy stronger. He's all for the power of destruction. He'll also have some limited ability to smack people around in hand-to-hand, but he'll hardly be considered a Pugilist.
For Seth's crafts, he'll only have Alchemy IC. Since he's a spoiled rich boy, he'll have other people do all the gathering, cooking, and such for him. So while you may spot him out doing these things OOC, he won't really be doing so. Menial manual labor? Pshaw, never.