I've got a Lalafellin alt who I roleplay as a Brass Blade. I simply have NOT had the time to level her PLD to 50 and grind out AK and WP for the Vermillion set's pieces and the Sipahi Turban. Instead, I stick her in rust red haubergeons and gauntlets and such. It gets even worse with this alt of mine because she's also supposed to be a capable thaumaturge and conjurer, and yet I've barely leveled those classes at ALL compared to PLD. So I understand and sympathize with those in similar situations, even if I raise an eyebrow from time to time with people who haven't leveled the main class/job of their main character.
Peer pressure, being what it is, tends to be unavoidable. Folks will inevitably run into social norms/standards/what-have-you that settle into place that arise not through any malicious intent but from individual decisions as to what said individuals want and/or don't want. It's a shitty situation, to be sure. Keeping an open mind helps, of course, but I'd really not care to see folk's preferences laid by the wayside to accommodate other people's preferences because at that point we're still playing favorites, except then we're doing so deliberately.
...I'm intrigued about this perceived "gritty Europhile hyur blood and iron sort of rp" you mentioned. Putting aside my curiosity as to what "Europhile" has to do with anything, are you referring to the distinction between what's commonly referred to as low fantasy and high fantasy? Because that's worth a thread all on its own.
(06-25-2015, 03:18 AM)Caspar Wrote: Melikre: I seem to have misunderstood you. I got the impression you equated something as mundane in a fantasy setting as ranged physical blows as outlandish as the miqo'te example and would avoid it at all costs due to OOC bias. That seemed unreasonable to me so I pointed it out, but if you're saying you'd roll with it despite it not being *personally* your style, as long as a reason for it that makes sense exists, then I can't really claim you're overly inflexible. That's more or less how I do things with less overt suspicion; if a player does something out of the boundaries of their stated profession, I just usually ask for some elaboration OOC so I know how to respond and whether my character should know about it. I would be discouraged to see people with visibility on the forum avoiding skilled rpers with detailed explanations as to why their character can do things outside of the canon class, simply because their approach to rping did not mesh with the gritty Europhile hyur blood and iron sort of rp that seems overwhelmingly popular these days and yet is not held up in the slightest by the setting. It inevitably happens regardless of what people talk about on the forums, but I want to stress openmindedness, not simply avoiding having a preference entirely.
That and what I always stress, that it's okay to not suck or be mundane, and the overwhelming pressure to conform and "not snowflake" on the forum is stifling to creativity sometime. I see things that reduce what is considered acceptable play, such as people relying on IC level to determine proficiency in a job, as to a certain extent part of that. In any case, I don't mind people using the approach but only because I'm lucky enough to play PVE obsessively too. It isn't always fair to people who do not progress, and I want to help others feel like their character has the appropriate credibility for the given rp at hand.
Peer pressure, being what it is, tends to be unavoidable. Folks will inevitably run into social norms/standards/what-have-you that settle into place that arise not through any malicious intent but from individual decisions as to what said individuals want and/or don't want. It's a shitty situation, to be sure. Keeping an open mind helps, of course, but I'd really not care to see folk's preferences laid by the wayside to accommodate other people's preferences because at that point we're still playing favorites, except then we're doing so deliberately.
...I'm intrigued about this perceived "gritty Europhile hyur blood and iron sort of rp" you mentioned. Putting aside my curiosity as to what "Europhile" has to do with anything, are you referring to the distinction between what's commonly referred to as low fantasy and high fantasy? Because that's worth a thread all on its own.