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Berrod Armstrong · **07-01-2014, 09:48 AM**

(07-01-2014, 09:33 AM)Roswyn Wrote: I'll be completely honest and say I am totally, utterly and wholeheartedly against this.

A lot of things people don't think about is how everyone else has to act/RP around you now because of the massive change. It's literally waking up one day and you're a different race and look 100% different. It will have MASSIVE detrimental effects on your character's relationships with others. How is your lover supposed to feel when they look at you and see someone they don't recognize? What about family or children when they don't recognize their mother/father? How would your friends and colleagues build the rapport and trust back up again?

It utterly makes NO sense and no one really roleplays it correctly. It forces a certain amount of blending into the RP that I am not comfortable with because I, as a player, understand full well that a Fantasia was used but my character won't recognize this person if she walked by them in Ul'dah. So unless the Fantasa'd character approaches her she'd think they vanished unless she heard a rumour etc.

Even in this world with magic, there is really no precedent for this kind of radical change. My character would be forced to assume it's some sort of ploy or trick or the person had straight lost their mind. Unless there was some motivation or ulterior motivation, she would disassociate. In reality, if this happened to you, you would be massively alienated and this never seems to occur with Fantasia'd characters. People just carry on after about one day of weirdness which is utterly unrealistic.

I would be willing to entertain the idea of some sort of epic tale around it but the scope of people who would be involved in figuring out what happened is much smaller than the amount of people the Fantasia will actually affect. In short, the majority of people your character interacts with will always be left wondering why you're 2 feet tall now unless you tell straight them which is....heavy handed RP to say the least.Â

TL;DR Roll a new character. Don't force everyone around you to focus on your change. Fantasia can DIAF.

Man, the bolded stuff makes for some really great RP prompts!Â

Gets my writin' hand itchin'.

C'kayah Polaali · **07-01-2014, 10:27 AM**

(07-01-2014, 09:48 AM)Berrod Armstrong Wrote:
(07-01-2014, 09:33 AM)Roswyn Wrote: I'll be completely honest and say I am totally, utterly and wholeheartedly against this.

A lot of things people don't think about is how everyone else has to act/RP around you now because of the massive change. It's literally waking up one day and you're a different race and look 100% different. It will have MASSIVE detrimental effects on your character's relationships with others. How is your lover supposed to feel when they look at you and see someone they don't recognize? What about family or children when they don't recognize their mother/father? How would your friends and colleagues build the rapport and trust back up again?

It utterly makes NO sense and no one really roleplays it correctly. It forces a certain amount of blending into the RP that I am not comfortable with because I, as a player, understand full well that a Fantasia was used but my character won't recognize this person if she walked by them in Ul'dah. So unless the Fantasa'd character approaches her she'd think they vanished unless she heard a rumour etc.

Even in this world with magic, there is really no precedent for this kind of radical change. My character would be forced to assume it's some sort of ploy or trick or the person had straight lost their mind. Unless there was some motivation or ulterior motivation, she would disassociate. In reality, if this happened to you, you would be massively alienated and this never seems to occur with Fantasia'd characters. People just carry on after about one day of weirdness which is utterly unrealistic.

I would be willing to entertain the idea of some sort of epic tale around it but the scope of people who would be involved in figuring out what happened is much smaller than the amount of people the Fantasia will actually affect. In short, the majority of people your character interacts with will always be left wondering why you're 2 feet tall now unless you tell straight them which is....heavy handed RP to say the least.Â

TL;DR Roll a new character. Don't force everyone around you to focus on your change. Fantasia can DIAF.

Man, the bolded stuff makes for some really great RP prompts!Â

Gets my writin' hand itchin'.

Ain't it the truth!

Roswyn's right, though. Fantasia is a terrible thing to have in-game. I have seen exactly two people in this game use it correctly. Both times treated the fantasia as a pretty serious, grim piece of magic.Â

In one, a certain malicious scientist transformed everyone's favorite lalafell into a Miqo'te. It took him weeks to be able to stop tripping over his own tail and to re-learn how to fight in his new body. He's still dealing with the ramifications of that. When he changed, no one ICly recognized him. There are people to this day who are ICly convinced that it's all a trick, that this miqo'te imposterÂ is part of some plan to fool people.

In the other, a Hyur was transformed into a Miqo'te. The size difference was much less, and she had a much easier time learning how to move, but differences in her senses and perceptions caused her a great deal of difficulty. For various reasons, people were more prone to recognize her when she announced who she was, but they reacted to her in extremely powerful ways. This was a much more recent piece of RP, so I haven't been able to see the long-term ramifications, but they've basically been the focus of her RP since it happened.

That, people, is how it should be done, if at all. None of this "Hi! It's Bob! I'm a Miqo'te now!"

Yangh · **07-01-2014, 10:32 AM**

Aww! But bob was my most favouritist character evar!

Kage · **07-01-2014, 10:41 AM**

Who are these Miqo'te and where can I meet them?

I have indeed met some of these challenges in regards to relationships in RP. Some people have vetted Kage and others are very, very skeptical. Some find it great amusement and others do not trust him one bit. It was entirely expected. It was and is meant to cause Kage strife. His family disowned him. Friends are either confused or suspicious. Some have sworn to lend him their aid should he figure out a way back to his original form. Others think he is an imposter because of both his appearance and the recent actions that he had to take for someone he loved.

I won't even go into the physical changes and adjustments since C covered that pretty well.

One day... one day in the far future Kage is going to be able to meet the one-who-should-not-ever-smile-for-fear-of-the-Calamity-coming-once-more.

Sapphos · **07-10-2014, 11:10 PM**

I really like Fantasia IC, I think it'd be a great Â thing for transgender people in Eorzea, that said it's costly/rare.

A'sih · **07-11-2015, 04:33 AM**

I think the correct way to go about Fantasia is to say it's an incredibly rare substance as mentioned before through comments and 'flavor text'. Perhaps it can only be made by an herb of some sorts that is extremely hard to find. Those who sell it put it up for a very high price, something no one without a fat wallet can afford. Only other option is to make it yourself, and that requires a vast knowledge of botany, Alchemy, and possibly DoW magics to enchant the contents, granted you can obtain such contents.

The Fantasia can work by having the person who takes it enter a brief coma. In this coma they enter a stasis or a dream where they can imagine what they want to be. And once they are finished, the Fantasia takes place and changes their body to what they want to become. This would be consistent with the 'flavor text' where they lie down for the evening and wake up a new man or woman.

This keeps people from abusing this to increase reproduction in dying species such as the Miqo'te (( In-game, they are suppose to be rare and few in numbers. I know, any RP server you'd think they were popping out of the womb like popcorn )) via money / resource disparity. And the second note will also prevent others from using this to bolster war efforts by turning an army of men into cute little lalafels, because they'd not only have to drink it, but then have to want to be a lalafel, two unlikely things to happen.

I do agree this procedure does bring a strain on a roleplay scenario by having someone 'poof' into someone else in the blink of an eye. But in a world where magic can be used to bring someone back from the dead, conjure the elements to your bidding, and furthermore summon demons of unimaginable power to your will.. I think Fantasia is the least of most people's concerns. A lot of crazy things happen in Final Fantasy, and having someone grow a tail and cat-ears should only be a mild shock.Â

Just need to look at this through the lenses of the characters living in Final Fantasy and not through the lenses of our current society, because in our world, half the shit that goes on in Final Fantasy would have everyone in a mental institute.

P.S. I would have Fantasia bring some harsh consequences. As if obtaining it wasn't bad enough, perhaps it can shorten your life span due to the increase activity in cellular productivity. Maybe it has a decent chance to sometimes malfunction, making it unreliable. There's many ways to go about doing this, but somethings needs to be done because otherwise, as mentioned in previous comments, people would be drinking this whenever they get their hands on it, and that's not how such a potent spell should be treated. There must be a balance. A great spell with such potential MUST have extreme drawbacks. The pros and cons must have equal weight.

[[ Thoughts and / or feedback would greatly be appreciated! I do like the idea of Fantasia due to the creativity it brings forth to roleplay. Not everyone has to agree with me, but those that would like to voice constructive criticism to develop this idea, I'm all ears. ]]

Flashhelix · **07-11-2015, 05:16 AM**

Fantasias aren't canon, developers have said so. I like to leave it at that and disregard the countless excuses people think of for not listening to them.

That being said, race-changing in Eorzea is too frequent not to achknowledge, but I refuse to let it be the center of my RP. Oskwell's attitude towards the whoe situation boils down to "Oh, you're an X now, huh?" and then next topic. I've yet to see any roleplay regarding race changing that was actually interesting, even though I've seen interesting characters do it. "Oh, look, I've got a tail/a dick/breasts/muscles/horns now!" has never screamed "MUST ROLEPLAY" to me.

Chill Man · **07-11-2015, 05:17 AM**

Just do whatever you want. It's your RP, enjoy it however you will as long as you aren't going out of your way to offend or bother others.

Aris · **07-11-2015, 08:10 AM**

I think everyone else has answered your question quite thoroughly. As you can see, there are many mixed opinions about it! Personally I don't agree with it used on a regular basis, but I have two friends who use it ICly all the time and are having much more fun roleplaying than I ever have haha. Blush

Whatever makes you happy! It just makes me sad as I find it difficult to roleplay with them because of this.

Welcome back! Tongue

Dis · **07-11-2015, 09:55 AM**

I've used a Fantasia's effects for an IC context.Â After Glioca had a literal fight with herself at the edge of the Void, all of the color bled out of her hair and eyes, leaving them white/silver respectively.Â Once upon a time, her eyes were a lovely shade of purple, and her hair was black for a while (dyed from it's more natural red).Â I've never directly used Fantasia in RP as an actual Fantasia.Â

I don't see a problem with it, however, if a person wants to use it to advance their plot, or take their character in a new direction. That said, the devs did say it's not an IC/in-lore thing, but I've seen some really good takes on it, so I'm in the 'do what you want as long as it's plausible/you're happy with the results' camp.Â It might create conflict with people, but even conflicting RP can be good RP sometimes.Â If others don't agree with it, well, ultimately they have the option of cutting contact.Â It might be a good idea to just ask those you RP with consistently if they'd be comfortable with a change, or how their character might react.Â

If there's an overwhelming nope response, it might be time to either find a different circle of people to RP with, or look at a more drastic change to your character, or even a character death with a new character coming up in their place (I've done that last one).Â Either way, do what you feel most comfortable with, and what works the best for you in-RP and in-story.

Qhora Bajihri · **07-11-2015, 01:56 PM**

We've got a thread necromancer on the forums lately. At least this isn't from 2010, but it is from last summer. Tongue

For me, it's just overused. If I only saw it every once in a while, I probably wouldn't be fazed, but I see IC Fantasia use constantly, and for me, it's tired.

For people who are enjoying the possibilities it opens up, though, I say the more power to them.

allgivenover · **07-11-2015, 01:59 PM**

I just choose to ignore it because for me the world doesn't make any sense if it's any sort of common.

Lilia Lia · **07-11-2015, 02:30 PM**

(07-11-2015, 01:59 PM)allgivenover Wrote: I just choose to ignore it because for me the world doesn't make any sense if it's any sort of common.

I've been surprised how easy it is to do this.Â As long as people aren't shoving their fantasia stories in my face (which doesn't seem to happen) it's pretty easy to just sort of "skip ahead" with the person and not have RP related to "reacting to race change" if you don't want to, or don't enjoy that kind of RP, or (like many of us) don't accept Fantasia or any kind of IC race changing as remotely plausible.

A'sih · **07-11-2015, 06:31 PM**

Oh, wow. I checked the month and day, but not the year. Sorry for the necro, lol. Un-intentional. Didn't feel satisfied with all the responses, so I figured it was still going.

Shoshopu · **07-11-2015, 06:46 PM**

(07-11-2015, 05:16 AM)Flashhelix Wrote: Fantasias aren't canon, developers have said so.

One guy on the localization team told a relative of theirs in a dinner conversation, that the relative then posted on tumblr, that the Fantasia probably wasn't meant to be taken as canon... That's not even devs, plural. Nor was it a definite answer. Other than that I don't know of any instance someone working on the game has spoken on the state of Fantasia in the lore. The significance of the localization team's input into the lore of the game isn't to be underestimated, but don't overstate it either.

All that aside, I don't have a big wall of text to contribute to the discussion, but I'll offer my opinion. I'm not wholly against Fantasia-- or much of anything, honestly, as long as it exists in the game in some form somewhere or is a reasonable stretch from something that is. It's definitely not something to be taken lightly, either, that being said. A couple friends of mine have used it in RP, but under the stipulation that the character who sold it to the other already deals in rare potions as it is, and the Fantasia is a very, very expensive and rare item which they've only ever had pass through their hands once or twice in all their years of business. I think that's fair. Neither of them bring it up in conversation, it was a very quiet RP that was mostly kept on the down-low and just within our own circle of friends, and honestly, if that's how you're going to RP something, I'd say almost anything goes as long as it's alright with the people involved.

To anyone who argues "if it exists why don't we see it being weaponized/used more often" etc, that's why, I would say. It's very rare, expensive, difficult to make, etc. Just not efficient to use at all except for very specific or special cases (such as, as someone pointed out, transgender characters? which is what my friends had used it for in their RP). Of course, as much as it's mine or anyone else's right to use it in RP, it's the right of others to not use it in their RP if they don't want to. I just tend to be pretty chill about it as long as the storytelling/writing around it is good and it's fun for the people involved.

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