(02-07-2017, 06:09 PM)Valence Wrote:(02-06-2017, 07:09 PM)Kilieit Wrote: Usually my characters undergo a lot of changes in a year's worth of development, so... that wouldn't really work for me. ><
The lore is a tool to use in order to bring about enjoyment, and while in the huge majority of circumstances I'm happy to defer to it (because it's exciting and compelling and engaging), this is one situation where sticking to it to the letter brings me nothing but frustration and confusion.
What kind of "lots of change"?
Three main categories:
- Connections. They meet new people, fall out with old people, get married, divorced, have kids, lose family members, etc etc etc. If one Valentione's day is spent primarily moping to other players about being single, and the next is spent happily with a partner, how am I supposed to roll them into one? If a character says to mine, "haha last year you were really sad and now look at you", am I now supposed to tell them "no that happened before my character met yours (outside the time bubble)"?
- Plots. These are usually sequential i.e. feed into one another directly; plot B could not arise if plot A hadn't resolved in the way it did, and plot A would never have happened if plots X and Y hadn't come together in the way they did. When these plots are tied in any way to the time of year, things get really difficult, really quickly if you start trying to flatten years together. So you ban your players from ever mentioning the season, weather, yearly events, their own namedays? The "butterfly effect" means such seasonal stuff can often spiral out into longer-lasting, wider-reaching plots, and it gets impossible to then start trying to tell everyone it can't have happened like that because "last year's" version of that event was outside the time bubble - or to just perpetually continue stretching the remaining 11 months out into infinity.
- Personal development. Telluric Medic's previous incarnation, the WoW character Ursala Earthwielder, was a prime example of this. Ursala began as a character who was patient to a fault, extremely unreactive, and disinterested in personal grievances - despite having an underlying streak of care for others, and a talent for healing. So her first ever Winter's Veil as an RP character, she sat it out, like she always did. Through developments, she grew first into someone with a growing curiosity regarding other people and their affairs So, the next Winter's Veil she poked her head in a bit to try and see what "the point" was. She didn't really get it. She certainly didn't enjoy it. This was discernable to other characters. She continued to develop - a series of events forced her to face up to the existence of others' emotions, the consequences of callousness, the merits of a smile. So by the next Winter's Veil, she at least made a token effort with presents - already having understood from the previous year that presents were expected - and although the holiday grated on her still, she had begun to understand "the point" of it. This continued for the 7+ years I actively roleplayed her for - in her last Winter's Veil she was actively organising a story evening and present exchange for a local orphanage. I don't think any two of her Winter's Veils were even comparable, because her personality, outlook, and attitude had grown so much in the intervening time (a year's worth of almost-daily RP is a long time). The beginning of the time bubble is a time before development that occurred during RP can have happened - so how could I decide which was the "true" Winter's Veil when all of them demonstrated important traits about her character at the time; traits which would not carry the same meaning if blended together or forced out of sequence?
![[Image: tUzrT.png]](https://puu.sh/tUzrT.png)
