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What are some things that are common in Eorzea, but rare in the roleplay community? - Printable Version

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RE: What are some things that are common in Eorzea, but rare in the roleplay community? - Qhora Bajihri - 06-19-2015

(06-17-2015, 03:33 PM)Nero Wrote:
(06-17-2015, 02:56 PM)Oswin Wrote: I'd like to see more RPers take into account how ruthless the world is. Life spans are short and death is around every corner.

I'm curious to know in what form you'd like this representation to take, because I'm going to assume you're not necessarily advocating for arbitrary player character deaths.

For me, I just like to see it in backgrounds affected by loss. In some other games/worlds, the orphan/lost family trope is so overdone it hurts. Here, I'd expect the "I still have all my family members living" ideal to be painfully rare.

As far as I'm concerned, though, I don't really need to see loss roleplayed more. It seems to be very well balanced. The player characters who still have their families seem to know they're lucky and play up their luckiness. The player characters who've lost people close to them are numerous, and that's exactly as it should be.

For most things that have been stated by Lore Devs to be common yet aren't, such as illiteracy and not-Miqos, I figure the reason we don't see it in the adventuring community is because of situational appeal. Adventurers find it appealing to be literate. Miqo'te find it appealing to be adventurers. I don't really see any need to change those things in the general RP community. For the RPers who aren't going the adventure-ish route, the more power to them! But I don't see any need to change the way things are done currently.

I say we could use more of anything that people find inspiring for their RP, whether that's coming up with where they get the money for their drunken shenanigans, the state of their character's religious beliefs and how to portray traditions, or whether or not they can get away with slitting the purse of that big guy at the bar. That's all we need more of. Big Grin

RE: What are some things that are common in Eorzea, but rare in the roleplay community? - Flickering Ember - 06-19-2015

(06-17-2015, 11:18 PM)Mae Wrote:
(06-17-2015, 05:36 PM)Suviyo Viyo Wrote:
(06-17-2015, 02:53 PM)Lilia Lia Wrote: I have been thinking lately of how rare it is that I see people playing illiterate characters, even though literacy is considered rare in Eorzea.

You know, I've seen this stated in the forums here a few times while looking around and I'm a little confused about it. Is there anything in-game that supports the idea of a large number of illiterate people? Because... so far... all I've seen are examples of people being pretty literate in general. Books, logs, journals, letters, etc... all being passed around in quests.... Signs and posters on the walls... Wearable "reading glasses".... Books decorating buildings... etc...

There's also a statement in the Hyur character creation about how Midlanders are taught to read very young or "trained in letters from infancy" if you will.

The only thing I've seen to support illiteracy in game was a one-off statement from a game dev without much elaboration (or racial/regional/cultural specifics). Curious if anyone here could point to more examples from in-game text/lore to support this at all?

I'd LOVE to know though, because I'm thinking of having my character be pretty literate... or perhaps a "book nerd" if you will. It would be nice to know how odd/rare that kind of thing actually is amongst people (or Lalafell specifically) so I can RP appropriately.
This is something I don't get, either. We have that statement from the Dev saying that literacy is rare... yet we have so many quests where we're passing notes around for people. Or putting up notices/posters. And then there's the actual Moogle Delivery Quests. And the 'newspaper' NPC's that pop up for some events. There's only one NPC (quest out in the Gold Bazaar) that I've ever encountered that, when trying to give them a flyer for work, actually said "I can't read". Everyone else, you give them a piece of paper and they read it.

I have to say for things like this, I don't go by what the dev tells me. I go by one very important phrase in fiction:

"Show, don't tell."

Now I know fernhalwes is a pretty swell and cool dude. He's given us tons of infos and lore. 
If the author is totally insistent about their character or an element being a certain way, say for example, someone like George Lucas, and this conflicts from what we see in the story. What am I going to believe in as the audience?

What is being shown to me of course!

(Not a perfect example, I know, but it's 4 am T_T)

RE: What are some things that are common in Eorzea, but rare in the roleplay community? - Meena - 06-19-2015

  • How things are actually dangerous in the world. Did you know Diremite venom can dissolve people in minutes?
  • More tribal roleplay - I know, this is a sensitive topic with Miqo'te, but Tribes are there for a reason, right? How is it that over 70% of miqo'te I have met were raised in a city...
  • As others have said - some illiterate roleplayers would be nice.
  • Acknowledgement of city state laws and the like while in those territories.
  • More.. 'everymans'?


RE: What are some things that are common in Eorzea, but rare in the roleplay community? - Kellach Woods - 06-19-2015

I'm kinda not into the whole "why aren't people playing everymans" because the very definition of everymans requires the player to ignore 90% of what's happening and just say "Sigh life is hard" without the power to do anything about it.

Now imagine if ALL your RP was essentially going to the Quicksand and lament that life is hard because taxes etc. what-have-you.

You'd get bored of it but more importantly many others would get bored of it and just not accost you anymore. And since you're an everyman you can't exactly pop up elsewhere! It's not like an everyman would travel to Limsa on a whim, or Gridania.

Anything that happens to that person immediately makes them a not-exactly-everyman, doubly so if they decide to do something about it.

RE: What are some things that are common in Eorzea, but rare in the roleplay community? - Caspar - 06-19-2015

(06-19-2015, 04:00 AM)Flickering Ember Wrote:
(06-17-2015, 11:18 PM)Mae Wrote:
(06-17-2015, 05:36 PM)Suviyo Viyo Wrote:
(06-17-2015, 02:53 PM)Lilia Lia Wrote: I have been thinking lately of how rare it is that I see people playing illiterate characters, even though literacy is considered rare in Eorzea.

You know, I've seen this stated in the forums here a few times while looking around and I'm a little confused about it. Is there anything in-game that supports the idea of a large number of illiterate people? Because... so far... all I've seen are examples of people being pretty literate in general. Books, logs, journals, letters, etc... all being passed around in quests.... Signs and posters on the walls... Wearable "reading glasses".... Books decorating buildings... etc...

There's also a statement in the Hyur character creation about how Midlanders are taught to read very young or "trained in letters from infancy" if you will.

The only thing I've seen to support illiteracy in game was a one-off statement from a game dev without much elaboration (or racial/regional/cultural specifics). Curious if anyone here could point to more examples from in-game text/lore to support this at all?

I'd LOVE to know though, because I'm thinking of having my character be pretty literate... or perhaps a "book nerd" if you will. It would be nice to know how odd/rare that kind of thing actually is amongst people (or Lalafell specifically) so I can RP appropriately.
This is something I don't get, either. We have that statement from the Dev saying that literacy is rare... yet we have so many quests where we're passing notes around for people. Or putting up notices/posters. And then there's the actual Moogle Delivery Quests. And the 'newspaper' NPC's that pop up for some events. There's only one NPC (quest out in the Gold Bazaar) that I've ever encountered that, when trying to give them a flyer for work, actually said "I can't read". Everyone else, you give them a piece of paper and they read it.

I have to say for things like this, I don't go by what the dev tells me. I go by one very important phrase in fiction:

"Show, don't tell."

Now I know fernhalwes is a pretty swell and cool dude. He's given us tons of infos and lore. 
If the author is totally insistent about their character or an element being a certain way, say for example, someone like George Lucas, and this conflicts from what we see in the story. What am I going to believe in as the audience?

What is being shown to me of course!

(Not a perfect example, I know, but it's 4 am T_T)
That's a good point. Despite his word, nobody bought Greedo shooting first, so Word of God only goes so far if it makes no waves in the game itself.

RE: What are some things that are common in Eorzea, but rare in the roleplay community? - Lilia Lia - 06-19-2015

(06-19-2015, 04:21 AM)Meena Wrote: How is it that over 70% of miqo'te I have met were raised in a city...

From what I've seen a lot of this is intended to explain why some players don't have tribal names.  If fantasia came with a free name change it would be less of an issue.

Also, characters need to kind of explain why they aren't currently in a tribe.  That's easier to do account for with a city origin.

I agree I wish there were more tribal roleplay, and hopefully the Au Ra end up having a lot of that since we were given so much good tribe lore about them up-front.

RE: What are some things that are common in Eorzea, but rare in the roleplay community? - Manari - 06-19-2015

(06-19-2015, 04:21 AM)Meena Wrote:
  • More tribal roleplay - I know, this is a sensitive topic with Miqo'te, but Tribes are there for a reason, right? How is it that over 70% of miqo'te I have met were raised in a city...


I've also noticed this since way way back in 1.0 (however, we has almost no lore then), and it not only bothers me, but it also bothers Manari IC'ly. I understand that it's mostly due to people wanting the storyline they made up for their character not meshing with the in game lore to make sense, or because they wanted a different name, or some similar reason. But even so, when almost every single Miqo'te RP'er has a story about why their tribe was awful and they left, or they were raised by Hyur, or something similar, it just starts to feel lore breaking.... but I suppose the sheer massive amount of male Miqo'te around in RP is lore breaking enough on it's own, yes?

I've found a FC that has a few tribal Keepers in it, and I love it there, but this trend has effected Manari IC, and it has started to really negatively alter her perception of Seekers of the Sun even more than before. She is thinking to herself "Seeker life must truly be terrible if every single one I've ever met left their tribe."

RE: What are some things that are common in Eorzea, but rare in the roleplay community? - Caspar - 06-19-2015

(06-19-2015, 10:25 AM)Manari Wrote:
(06-19-2015, 04:21 AM)Meena Wrote:
  • More tribal roleplay - I know, this is a sensitive topic with Miqo'te, but Tribes are there for a reason, right? How is it that over 70% of miqo'te I have met were raised in a city...


I've also noticed this since way way back in 1.0 (however, we has almost no lore then), and it not only bothers me, but it also bothers Manari IC'ly.  I understand that it's mostly due to people wanting the storyline they made up for their character not meshing with the in game lore to make sense, or because they wanted a different name, or some similar reason.  But even so, when almost every single Miqo'te RP'er has a story about why their tribe was awful and they left, or they were raised by Hyur, or something similar, it just starts to feel lore breaking....  but I suppose the sheer massive amount of male Miqo'te around in RP is lore breaking enough on it's own, yes?

I've found a FC that has a few tribal Keepers in it, and I love it there, but this trend has effected Manari IC, and it has started to really negatively alter her perception of Seekers of the Sun even more than before.  She is thinking to herself "Seeker life must truly be terrible if every single one I've ever met left their tribe."
From a modern human perspective she's probably not wrong, haha. XD

I mean I figure the reason why so many people avoid tribal RP is because they are uncomfortable with the unusual social structure. Then again, I'm one to talk. Whenever given a round hole, I use a square peg. I've almost always played outsider types who didn't fit in to their society. I can't really throw stones. Granted I'd welcome suspicion or dislike by the "family oriented" lalafell, but the ones I encounter are already really welcoming of other races, as is somewhat supported by the lore, and usually sociable, so it's pretty hard for that to happen.

RE: What are some things that are common in Eorzea, but rare in the roleplay community? - Shoshopu - 06-19-2015

(06-17-2015, 02:53 PM)Lilia Lia Wrote: playing illiterate characters
(06-17-2015, 07:22 PM)Griffith! Wrote: Combatant characters who aren't good at combat?

I'm three pages late to this party but one of my alts, Awyrbyrt Fyrilsunnsyn, is both illiterate and not that good at combat! He's 16 years old and a little babby White Wolf in the Twin Adders. He's gonna git gud soon but he is definitely the biggest loser right now and he is so much fun to play(and his dad, a naval engineer, is super embarrassed his estranged bastard son grew up not being able to read)


I second-- third--?? I share the sentiment on the almost-complete lack of racism. I understand it's for ease of roleplay-- our FC is an adventuring company associated with the Maelstrom and is a very diverse group-- but strangers could stand to be a little more racist, right .... I never thought I'd write that in any context ever.

Related to racism, Shoshopu and Fyrilsunn should really turn a lot more heads than they do, even if a good 70% of the time they just appear to be really, really good friends.

RE: What are some things that are common in Eorzea, but rare in the roleplay community? - Lilia Lia - 06-19-2015

(06-19-2015, 10:25 AM)Manari Wrote: I've found a FC that has a few tribal Keepers in it, and I love it there, but this trend has effected Manari IC, and it has started to really negatively alter her perception of Seekers of the Sun even more than before.  She is thinking to herself "Seeker life must truly be terrible if every single one I've ever met left their tribe."

I'm curious - because I share your concern - how do you RP tribalism while living outside of the tribe?  Is the company like a mini tribe?  That sounds interesting.

RE: What are some things that are common in Eorzea, but rare in the roleplay community? - Manari - 06-19-2015

I think the word "tribe" causes some stereotyped images in people's minds. Just because Miqo'te live in tribes doesn't mean they all wear loincloths and dance around a campfire with bones in our hair. We see the U tribe in Forgotten Springs, they have houses and a nice community and are essentially just a village of people. Our FC has a house in the Shroud's housing district because that's the only place the game lets us put houses.

The FC itself is a clan made up of Keepers of the Moon who have lost their tribes. We all were found, or found the clan, and came together to form a new tribe. So we all have our tragic backstory. It's really the only way to have a FC like this unless you have everyone make new characters specifically for this kind of group. A true Keeper tribe would have to be made up of a few close families living in a small community. Manari's IC hangup with this trend of Miqo'te forsaking their tribes is that she is so passionately traditional and loves her history and traditions so much, that seeing Miqo'te to scoff at and even hate their own ways just hurts her.

RE: What are some things that are common in Eorzea, but rare in the roleplay community? - OttoVann - 06-19-2015

(06-17-2015, 03:33 PM)Nero Wrote:
(06-17-2015, 02:56 PM)Oswin Wrote: I'd like to see more RPers take into account how ruthless the world is. Life spans are short and death is around every corner.

I'm curious to know in what form you'd like this representation to take, because I'm going to assume you're not necessarily advocating for arbitrary player character deaths. Major injuries from the many monsters that prowl around unchecked? Disease? Poverty?

As for the subject matter, curiously enough I don't believe I see much of artisan-centric or gatherer roleplay. There are plenty of player characters who are adventurers, merchants, and self-proclaimed jack-of-all-trades, but a dedicated alchemist character? A dedicated armorer? A dedicated weaver? A miner who wants to strike it rich? A botanist who wants to cultivate rare flora? Hell, a travelling fisherman? Sure, these mundane aspirations aren't too interesting on the surface, and having a character who is a noncombatant can make certain situations awkward, but I think there is a good amount of material to build a character off of these concepts.

Lilia and I are dedicated RPers towards Goldsmithing and Weaving. Its even how Otto introduces himself lately since I dropped the shitty UlDah politics IC. I flex those Mater GSM/WVR rings in my rp. But its incredibly rare. Most people are content to be generic adventurers "who take on odd jobs here an' there for a bit o' gil to drink mead at the tavern", and theres nothing wrong with it but its everywhere.

So few artisan RPers. Even fewer artisan RPers who can even remotely have a discussion about the actual crafting process. Sadly most people who rp crafters of some sort, can't even tell you the boiling point of water IC or OOC (if they are an alchemist or a culinarian for example), but thats its own problem. It reminds me of people who roleplay combative characters but never combat rp. Sure.

Ive actually ran into one other "fashion designer" rper who couldnt name or explain a single crochet stitch method of any kind for any application and they just expect to be taken seriously on it. The majority of crafting rp becomes super shallow, and doesn't rise above the level of tavern-tier rp, because no one does any OOC research to back up any IC crafting discussion. This is why most people dont both with crafter rp.

RE: What are some things that are common in Eorzea, but rare in the roleplay community? - Gegenji - 06-19-2015

(06-19-2015, 01:01 PM)OttoVann Wrote:
(06-17-2015, 03:33 PM)Nero Wrote:
(06-17-2015, 02:56 PM)Oswin Wrote: I'd like to see more RPers take into account how ruthless the world is. Life spans are short and death is around every corner.

I'm curious to know in what form you'd like this representation to take, because I'm going to assume you're not necessarily advocating for arbitrary player character deaths. Major injuries from the many monsters that prowl around unchecked? Disease? Poverty?

As for the subject matter, curiously enough I don't believe I see much of artisan-centric or gatherer roleplay. There are plenty of player characters who are adventurers, merchants, and self-proclaimed jack-of-all-trades, but a dedicated alchemist character? A dedicated armorer? A dedicated weaver? A miner who wants to strike it rich? A botanist who wants to cultivate rare flora? Hell, a travelling fisherman? Sure, these mundane aspirations aren't too interesting on the surface, and having a character who is a noncombatant can make certain situations awkward, but I think there is a good amount of material to build a character off of these concepts.

Lilia and I are dedicated RPers towards Goldsmithing and Weaving.  Its even how Otto introduces himself lately since I dropped the shitty UlDah politics IC.  I flex those Mater GSM/WVR rings in my rp.  But its incredibly rare.  Most people are content to be generic adventurers "who take on odd jobs here an' there for a bit o' gil to drink mead at the tavern", and theres nothing wrong with it but its everywhere.

So few artisan RPers.  Even fewer artisan RPers who can even remotely have a discussion about the actual crafting process.

I find I'm shifting more and more toward Chachan's crafting background as of late. Like, he had his whole "becoming a Free Paladin" arc and still tries to help people in that regard... but he's also spending more time crafting solutions - weapons, armor, lacquers and the like. He still does participate in the combat and such, but he's becoming more and more like... I dunno the whole "legendary smith" trope who creates the weapon of power needed to defeat the big bad. He just also isn't afraid to strap on a few of his creations and step onto the battlefield himself.

EDIT:
(06-19-2015, 01:01 PM)OttoVann Wrote: Ive actually ran into one other "fashion designer" rper who couldnt name or explain a single crochet stitch method of any kind for any application and they just expect to be taken seriously on it.  The majority of crafting rp becomes super shallow, and doesn't rise above the level of tavern-tier rp, because no one does any OOC research to back up any IC crafting discussion.  This is why most people dont both with crafter rp.

This is actually my biggest concern with Chachan at times. I'm basically running off my basic knowledge of armor/weapon composition and what goes into them wrought from playing DnD. And sometimes a quick Google search for various things - like the melting point of cobalt - all stuff Chachan would know innately, but I haven't a clue on myself.

I still try my best, though, looking stuff up and at least trying to make it look like the kid knows what he's doing. Worse comes to worse, I can always fall back on generic handwaving (* Chachan rambles on about the various pros and cons of multiple alloys) if I can't find some readily available information. Just... don't expect me to be able to be able to identify all the different kinds of hammers a smith uses or something without having to take a moment to look it up. Blush

RE: What are some things that are common in Eorzea, but rare in the roleplay community? - OttoVann - 06-19-2015

(06-19-2015, 01:07 PM)Gegenji Wrote: EDIT:
(06-19-2015, 01:01 PM)OttoVann Wrote: Ive actually ran into one other "fashion designer" rper who couldnt name or explain a single crochet stitch method of any kind for any application and they just expect to be taken seriously on it.  The majority of crafting rp becomes super shallow, and doesn't rise above the level of tavern-tier rp, because no one does any OOC research to back up any IC crafting discussion.  This is why most people dont both with crafter rp.

This is actually my biggest concern with Chachan at times. I'm basically running off my basic knowledge of armor/weapon composition and what goes into them wrought from playing DnD. And sometimes a quick Google search for various things - like the melting point of cobalt - all stuff Chachan would know innately, but I haven't a clue on myself.

I still try my best, though, looking stuff up and at least trying to make it look like the kid knows what he's doing. Worse comes to worse, I can always fall back on generic handwaving (* Chachan rambles on about the various pros and cons of multiple alloys) if I can't find some readily available information. Just... don't expect me to be able to be able to identify all the different kinds of hammers a smith uses or something without having to take a moment to look it up. Blush

Theres nothing wrong with not like, not knowing off hand the primary difference between various hammer shapes and forms, tbh I don't know half the names of common jeweler tools or weaving tools. I can probably name more variation blacksmith hammers than those things combined, but im a hobbyist at that so I cheat.

Researching here like Chachan (and myself does - constantly), is what makes better crafter RP. No one does it though really. Very few.

RE: What are some things that are common in Eorzea, but rare in the roleplay community? - Lilia Lia - 06-19-2015

I don't go into it in as much depth as Otto does, but I do RP an artisan character.  For me, if I'm ever researching the "crafts" it has more to do with learning the historical differences and setting peculiarities... enough that I can write the character without making stupid mistakes or oversights.

There are things Lilia knows that I don't, and it's my responsibility to educate myself to a realistic degree so that I can portray her faithfully.  It's kind of like when you're watching crime dramas and all of a sudden a computer geek character shows up and starts talking in technobabble which just shows you that the show's writers have no idea what they're talking about... that's the kind of absurdity that I try to avoid.  But, if you handed me a needle and some fabric I wouldn't be able to produce the real-world equivalent of three-star crafting.  

Some of this is also laziness because you can get complacent if you never RP crafting with others who are like you.  Now that I've RPed with Otto I feel like I have to be a little more prepared to be familiar with the practical real-world aspects of crafting past my basic "I took sewing class in middle school and know how to put patches on things" level of weaving knowledge. 

This kind of depth is interesting and I think it's fair to expect some level of sophistication with it when someone is making it a central part of their character, particularly if it's their defining trait.  It just deepens your RP and that of everyone around you.