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Valence · **10-18-2016, 05:42 AM**

(10-17-2016, 08:10 PM)Kilieit Wrote: Welcome to a train of thought that leads to never roleplaying anything interesting, ever, because it's "too risky" or makes you a "special snowflake" (didn't we get over the term "special snowflake" and the concepts behind it in, like, 2013?).

By this logic, I wouldn't be roleplaying an Au Ra.

I'd reiterate what everyone else said to you on the previous page.

I for one, find the lore complying stuff to be way more interesting than special snowflakism. Just a matter of tastes and all..

Also no, Au'ra is not special snowflakism. Some things are risky considering the low amount of lore we know for Raen especially, but again, it's not like some other races haven't a clear lack of info either...

Aaron · **10-18-2016, 09:06 AM**

Do people IC even /know/ how many DRG there are left? Tbh all this talk can be bypassed with IC ignorance unlike the more obvious stuff like being a WHM.

Unless your character is a fellow DRG or someone who actually took time out their day to explicitly find out how many DRG were left for... reasons? Or anything specific of that sort (You can be from Ishgard and not know how many DRG there are, if it's anything reminiscent of an actual military some things are kept secret from the public regardless of political stature). Like just think, if for SOME REASON no matter how stupid, a Dragon goes "Hey bro, I ate a adventurer that was talking about how Ishgard? Yeah they don't have many DRG anymore. Let's go burn everything to the ground 8D" I'd be questioning how the hell a random adventurer (which our PCs are really in the RP world, least the majority) knew the exact number of an elites division of a military.

If some random approaches you and goes "Yeah I'm a DRG", it's perfectly plausible for a character in return to go "Oh? Cool, I heard the numbers were shrunk and some retirement stuff but nice to see some are still kicking."

Anyone that approaches you because you're still a DRG for whatever lore bent reason you can come up with (And said reason isn't you know... completely left field) probably has nothing better to do than harass you for your occupation simply because of a two digit number (which you never even brought up) stamped in a book.

cuideag · **10-18-2016, 10:13 AM**

Going to add on to Aaron's point because it's exactly what my thoughts are.

Anyone who dumps on your character or your RP especially IC is probably doing so just for the sake of being able to UM ACUIALLY... you, and, let's be real, that's worse form than anyone who is rping a job. Unless they happen to have the roster of the 30 or 10 or whatever of the Official Ishgard Order of Dragoons and know EXACTLY who they are then uhhh... yeah I wouldn't worry about it. Keep on, yall, you're fine.

Edit: not saying anyone who rps a job (any job frankly I don't care) is doing anything wrong, just so yall know. Tell your stories, and don't feel obligated to retcon yourself when word of God doesn't tell us anything.

ExAtomos · **10-18-2016, 10:44 AM**

(10-18-2016, 03:16 AM)McBeef Wrote:
(10-18-2016, 03:02 AM)Zelmanov Wrote: to me 30 is a large enough number to fudge. You'll never run into something with 30 + Dragoons in RP all at once. Only rub I can see here is that thirty is TOO small for any Dragoon to /NOT/ know another dragoon. Its a high school class and you'll at least be able to know their name and appearance ESPECIALLY because there are your teammates, your brothers in arms, your peers, your equals.Â

Honesty...? Part of this I think is the fact that the world Square Enix has created is far to small to handle the number of players on a server. Like, if this were a single player game, 30 would seem like a big number. However no one at Square Enix treats the lore as if there are actually thousands of adventurers running around.So they pick a small number like 30 to make the player feel cool for being one of a small group.

Like, I scale everything up quiet heavily. Would the grand tournament between all the Eorzean city states really just be like a dozen soldiers? No, not in my idea of it.Â

For another example, I think must of us can agree that the Ul'dah in our minds is much larger than the space we see. Our RP's constantly invent little warehouses and alleys and such. Otherwise the Goblet would be larger than the actual town.Â

Don't worry about the number, it will never come up and it's variable. Scale things up to fit the world we RP in, a giant bustling place, not the small maps with a few dozen NPCs.

I actually wrote about this in a post I made to tumblr about why I don't rp as a/the WoL.

Quote:Basically, it doesnâ€™t make sense. All of the cutscenes show ourÂ one character dealing with Big Stuff Going On in Very Powerful Ways. While some npcs will say something along the lines ofÂ â€œbring 7 of your adventuring friends to fightâ€ before certain battles; it is me (whichever character) against X Enemy in the cut scenesâ€¦ not all X thousands of us. (Can you imagine all of us trying to escape in the tunnels in 2.55? I meanâ€¦ weâ€™d be an army at that point and wouldnâ€™t NEED to hide.) I canâ€™t rp out that we are all Scions and fighting primals cause it makes no sense to me given the storyline weâ€™ve had. Am I being too literal? Perhaps. But to do otherwise is not fun to me.

I think McBeef hit the nail on the head; it really seems as though the story and lore in XIV is set more for a single player experience than an mmo. Perhaps it can be said that the game is not written as though intended for the scores of roleplayers on Balmung, but instead for that guy on X server who just enjoys the story and who can just handwave off the incidental encounters his character has with other players. I think in a way that the story itself downplays the fact that this is an mmo. So here we are with a chunk of lore that is not conducive to group rp. If you were by yourself in this game, a limit of 10 DRGs is perfectly fine.

Perhaps I'm stepping across the line here, but I am really saddened by some folk's rush to prove they are not unique and special (it feels damn similar to a kid's rush to prove that they ARE the special chosen one above all others; almost as though this is the jaded adult version of it. "I had my hopes and dreams squashed out of me by the time I was 25, so you gotta suffer too!") that they tear down other people on their crusade of self-righteousness. Please, be kind to each other.

Oli! · **10-18-2016, 10:58 AM**

(10-18-2016, 10:44 AM)ExAtomos Wrote: Perhaps I'm stepping across the line here, but I am really saddened by some folk's rush to prove they are not unique and special (it feels damn similar to a kid's rush to prove that they ARE the special chosen one above all others; almost as though this is the jaded adult version of it. "I had my hopes and dreams squashed out of me by the time I was 25, so you gotta suffer too!") that they tear down other people on their crusade of self-righteousness. Please, be kind to each other.

I think there is an ongoing confusing of the idea of enjoying lore-based consistency, and the idea of tearing other people down for the sake of it, which is in fact inconsistent with the idea of being kind to each other.

Aaron · **10-18-2016, 11:08 AM**

Lore based consistency is really only as good as the knowledge that your character knows ICly when you think about it.

Kilieit · **10-18-2016, 11:13 AM**

(10-18-2016, 05:42 AM)Valence Wrote:
(10-17-2016, 08:10 PM)Kilieit Wrote: Welcome to a train of thought that leads to never roleplaying anything interesting, ever, because it's "too risky" or makes you a "special snowflake" (didn't we get over the term "special snowflake" and the concepts behind it in, like, 2013?).

By this logic, I wouldn't be roleplaying an Au Ra.

I'd reiterate what everyone else said to you on the previous page.

I for one, find the lore complying stuff to be way more interesting than special snowflakism. Just a matter of tastes and all..

Also no, Au'ra is not special snowflakism. Some things are risky considering the low amount of lore we know for Raen especially, but again, it's not like some other races haven't a clear lack of info either...

I... uh... wasn't seriously suggesting that roleplaying an au ra makes one a special snowflake, hahaha.

I was using au ra as an example to point out that roleplaying something we know nothing about shouldn't be a one-way ticket to "well you deserved it for being a special snowflake" when you're forced to retcon something later. It's a regular part of roleplay, and deserves a regular amount of sympathy (and leeway) when something new comes out that screws up a lot of what people were doing.

Like I said before, I thought we collectively got over berating people for being "special snowflakes" in 2013. I'm genuinely shocked to see the term being used unironically in this thread.

Oli! · **10-18-2016, 11:17 AM**

(10-18-2016, 11:08 AM)Aaron Wrote: Lore based consistency is really only as good as the knowledge that your character knows ICly when you think about it.

Disagree.

Roleplay is an activity designed for the enjoyment of a player. If something happens that the player doesn't like, regardless of whether it is known IC or OOC, the activity stops doing what it was designed to do. That would be like saying OOC discomfort should only happen for OOC things, which anyone who has had an unwelcome IC advance would disagree with.

People's ideas of enjoyment do not always mesh, which leads to threads like this one.

Koen · **10-18-2016, 11:39 AM**

(10-18-2016, 11:13 AM)Kilieit Wrote: Like I said before, I thought we collectively got over berating people for being "special snowflakes" in 2013. I'm genuinely shocked to see the term being used unironically in this thread.

A special snowflake, as far as I understand the meaning of the phrase, is someone who makes their character part of some special order or otherwise relatively exclusive group that they see as 'special' to make their character interesting and attract people towards interacting with that character. A special snowflake does this in place of things like making their character have a well-written backstory, deep personality and room to develop as a character, often abandoning the lore or common sense for the sake of "Oh, but that'd be super cool".

It's a lazy way to make your character 'cool' that shows a lack of creativity or effort in making a character, and it's perfectly okay for people to not want to interact with a character if they think it's some lazily made special snowflake. I know when I came across a pregnant Azure Dragoon in full armour with a pet dragon in her purse in the Coffer & Coffin, I wasn't keen on RPing with her in the future and wrote off the character ICly as a crazy person.

Kilieit · **10-18-2016, 11:46 AM**

I've been roleplaying since I was four, and online for over 10 years now.

I know what a ""special snowflake"" is supposed to be.

I just think the term is completely useless. It doesn't describe a useful problem with an actual solution. It describes something that's easy to stigmatise so other people can feel better about themselves by putting others down.

Have my rant on Mary Sues and Darlings. I understand the problem you're trying to describe. I just don't think ""special snowflake"" is a clever, kind, useful, or in any way good way to talk about it - it's diluted so much so that it's meaningless, over-applied and under-defined to the extent that it's essentially become a bullying tool.

Aaron · **10-18-2016, 11:55 AM**

(10-18-2016, 11:17 AM)Oli! Wrote:
(10-18-2016, 11:08 AM)Aaron Wrote: Lore based consistency is really only as good as the knowledge that your character knows ICly when you think about it.

Disagree.

Roleplay is an activity designed for the enjoyment of a player. If something happens that the player doesn't like, regardless of whether it is known IC or OOC, the activity stops doing what it was designed to do. That would be like saying OOC discomfort should only happen for OOC things, which anyone who has had an unwelcome IC advance would disagree with.

People's ideas of enjoyment do not always mesh, which leads to threads like this one.

Then you do the sensible OOC thing and back out the rp? If you clearly don't like what another character is doing don't rp with them? They pay a sub just like you do. I agree OOC can be discussed to a mutual understanding but in the end some people just don't wantÂ to understand the other person.

A whole lot better than going out your way to influence what they do if they didn't even ask for a second opinion. But I'm getting sidetracked, because this thread is basically asking for a second opinion.

The entire premise of this thread is basically "Since this says this that means should we all do this now?"

^ the answer is quite simply, no. You don't have to change your entire character.

In RP your character doesn't know they're being controlled by somebody behind the screen. The world they know is only as vast as what knowledge they possess IC. So yes, if someone's gonna talk about how such and such us a DRG IC when only 10 or whatever are left, that person questioning it better be toting a roster with names in it or be a DRG themself with a good reason on why the other person can't be a DRG.

Koen · **10-18-2016, 12:02 PM**

(10-18-2016, 11:46 AM)Kilieit Wrote: I've been roleplaying since I was four, and online for over 10 years now.

I know what a ""special snowflake"" is.

I just think the term is completely useless. It doesn't describe a useful problem with an actual solution. It describes something that's easy to stigmatise so other people can feel better about themselves by putting others down.

Have my rant on Mary Sues and Darlings. I understand the problem you're trying to describe. I just don't think ""special snowflake"" is a clever, kind, useful, or in any way good way to talk about it - it's diluted so much so that it's meaningless, over-applied and under-defined to the extent that it's essentially become a bullying tool.

Call it bullying if you want, but I don't think most people see it as that or have anywhere near that intent when using the phrase. I know I don't. I just see it as the same as describing someone's character as Chaotic Neutral or any other alignment. It's a term that, while having a broad range of wiggle room for the type of character it can describe, gives you a general feel for what the character will be like.

It's simply a way of describing a character's archetype without having to go in to too much detail. The only difference between a special snowflake and someone RPing a "typical merc" is that special snowflakes don't advertise themselves as such. If you've interacted with someone whose character is as flat and interesting as an A4 piece of paper, Spongebob shenanigans not accounted for, I think it's perfectly okay to say to a friend, "So and so's character is a special snowflake" in the same way that someone who interacted with my character could say "Koen is a typical 'old soldier' type".

AlionLucada · **10-18-2016, 12:05 PM**

(10-18-2016, 11:46 AM)Kilieit Wrote: I've been roleplaying since I was four, and online for over 10 years now.

I know what a ""special snowflake"" is supposed to be.

I just think the term is completely useless. It doesn't describe a useful problem with an actual solution. It describes something that's easy to stigmatise so other people can feel better about themselves by putting others down.

Have my rant on Mary Sues and Darlings. I understand the problem you're trying to describe. I just don't think ""special snowflake"" is a clever, kind, useful, or in any way good way to talk about it - it's diluted so much so that it's meaningless, over-applied and under-defined to the extent that it's essentially become a bullying tool.

There is no solution, and it doesn't matter how long you've been RPing. There will always be people who are lazy when it comes to their characters are are willing step outside lore boundaries to be unique.

Oli! · **10-18-2016, 12:08 PM**

(10-18-2016, 11:55 AM)Aaron Wrote: Then you do the sensible OOC thing and back out the rp? If you clearly don't like what another character is doing don't rp with them? They pay a sub just like you do. I agree OOC can be discussed to a mutual understanding but in the end some people just don't wantÂ to understand the other person.

A whole lot better than going out your way to influence what they do if they didn't even ask for a second opinion.

The entire premise of this thread is basically "Since this says this that means should we all do this now?"

^ the answer is quite simply, no. You don't have to change your entire character.

In RP your character doesn't know they're being controlled by somebody behind the screen. The world they know is only as vast as what knowledge they possess IC. So yes, if someone's gonna talk about how such and such us a DRG IC when only 10 or whatever are left, that person questioning it better be toting a roster with names in it or be a DRG themself with a good reason on why the other person can't be a DRG.

You're missing the idea of enjoyment in a shared space. People like having everyone under a shared umbrella; that's why we pay attention to any amount of lore (and argue over it) in the first place. Some people want everyone to follow the lore, and some people want everyone to be accepting Â (which, yes, is a collective umbrella on its own).

Neither argumentative camp is "better" because they are advocating for the same thing: bringing other people into their line of thinking. Neither is provably more "correct" or less "damaging."

***Teadrinker*** · **10-18-2016, 12:20 PM**

[Mod Hat]

Let's keep it on track folks. We're skirting off into unnecessary and off track territory.

[/Mod Hat]

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[Discussion] Welp Dragoons, it was a good run, but we are all now either retired or dead

RPC has moved! These pages have been kept for historical purposes