(08-13-2017, 06:47 PM)Kieron Lohengrin Wrote: When I DM a storyline or scene I give my players a choice of when they want it to be set. Unless they specify otherwise, it usually defaults to the "present day", i.e. they already freed Ala Mhigo and Deltascape / expert roulette shenanigans ongoing, but sometimes they want to play out a very specific life event in their toon's recent past. Sometimes people also just want to do slice of life things like living with the Mol tribe for a while. Aetherytes make travel time a non-issue, if PCs so choose.I'm glad you brought this up as this is another one of those things I've wondered since we've gotten the new continent. While I can easily write over having to travel to the east via a boat or some form of travel that involves me going from point A of Eorzea to point B or Othard and then just go there via aetheryte cuz screw it. I always wondered how many players RP out the fact they aren't attuned to the aetherytes in Othard period. If we're speaking on the terms of casual RP, we can just easily come up with anything, hopped aboard a merchant ship, got a ride from a lominsian friend, flew by chocobo and somehow didn't get swept up into any issues for a good few days during, or you just tele'd to the aetheryte because.... Whatever the case may be, long term seems to make this part more of a main factor in you having to know that your character needs to attune to this new continent's aetherytes(assuming they're not from there originally) to be able to go there as frequently as you desire. I understand the cost and amount of anima this would use of course would be a bit draining to just easily do back and forth, but I'm more concerned about writing the "why did my character decide to go to Othard?" or the "How did they get here in the first place?". Casually it's easy to come up with any reason just for the sake of it and have fun, plot-wise it feels like you need to invest a bit of story in the travel itself to make sense.
I never tell someone "you can't do that because we're still stuck in X event." And if they want to try playing out something non-canon / one-shot with their characters for a while I'm also cool with that. The best way to think of it is like the official vignettes that Square Enix writes and publishes on their website - "Here's some aftermath for what happened to your character after that ingame cinematic. Also btw yes they canonically fill out orphan sticker books a lot"
I guess what I'm saying is... I can't imagine maybe character types just waking up one day and going "I feel like going to the FAAAAAAAAR east.... yeap!" and then just doing it "because". I've been spending a bit of my story in writing how to travel that way too, and it's starting to feel a little iffy. It feels both forced and at the same time it feels as though it couldn't happen any faster than I wish it could.
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