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Gegenji · **03-13-2017, 10:09 AM**

(03-13-2017, 03:37 AM)Yunas13 Wrote: It isn't I'm refusing to, it's I'm trying. I'm really tempted to give up the idea of RPing in FF because I've been told no too many times that I'm feeling disappointed and I've been reading up on the lore as much as I can but there is so much I don't really understand as I didn't play in 1.0. I might just focus on doing fanfiction instead or just RP by myself so I can give a little immersion to my play. (did that a lot in Wow).

I think the thing to keep in mind here is that the RPC generally cleaves to a lower level of power/influence for their characters. It also does not speak for the entirety of Balmung, as it itself is but a small section of it. So, most of the suggestions being provided are more to turn the character more towards the type of character that they would be willing to interact and RP with.

However - and I do kind of hate that it's such a lazy fallback term - it is your character and you are free to do what you want with it. And, fortunately, Balmung is populous enough that you'll likely find someone who is willing to RP with your deposed Princess, but it might take a bit of searching and effort to find those sorts of people. The proffered ideas are simply to help make her more... approachable and more engaging to a wider group of people - or so I'd like to think the suggestions are at their heart. They're just offering ways to tweak your character to be able to more... evenly interact with a wider range of players and lighten that burden of trying to find that niche (or failing to do so, as many "I can't find RP" threads seem to attest to).

In the end, the more fantastical the character, the less folks around here are going to like them. Not due to disliking you or your character, but more the simple fact that characters like that tend to... dominate a scene if they're not alongside characters of a similar power/influence level. And there are very few princesses and other high-level movers and shakers among a majority of the RPC regulars. Most of us are shop owners and foot-soldiers and ruffians and thieves. Maybe some minor nobles thrown in here and there, and a few that might be skilled fighters or casters... but the power/influence bar is pretty low around here.

... Sorry if I'm being rambly, I'm trying to tweak what I'm saying to be more... clear-cut but I tend to go on tangents.

Virella · **03-13-2017, 10:29 AM**

I'd honestly just go with something easier...

"Othardian Hyur noble had to flee due to supporting underground rebellion against the Garlean Empire and got found out" is a lot easier to work then having some super complicated background. That's not to say you can't make a super complicated background, but you're really seeming to stab yourself in the foot at this point.

Especially if you don't know much lore, keep it simple!

**Unnamed Mercenary** · **03-13-2017, 11:21 AM**

I think what a couple of us are trying to say is that while yes, if you're struggling to find a concept, looking at other games and their characters is a good way to see the generic archetypes of what makes a character. Things to derive from this are similar backgrounds, motivations, maybe some personality traits.

I would suggest not trying to port a character or concept directly from another game or work. Often times, the wold building just doesn't match up and while a certain amount of kludging can force a square peg into a round hole, there are things that inevitably get stripped or don't fit right and gaps occur.

Many of the players here never played 1.0. In fact, the vast majority of them didn't. If they had, perhaps that game wouldn't have flopped and been canceled and remade. There's a lot of lore in the game, but that doesn't mean you need to have a god-like understanding of it to roleplay a character. For probably every lore-stickler out there, you can find another player who's completely ignored the lore as presented in the game. And both can create characters that fit within the world.

So what do we have that we can use to make a character?

Othardian( Doman noble? A princess from a small Othardian kingdom that's fallen?)
Inspired by FFX Yuna (honestly, I think this works fine. Othard is coming out to be very much a catch-all for all Oriental/Far-Eastern cultures and Yuna's summoner outfit doesn't stand out from that aesthetic)
Left her homeland (This is fine as is. There are plenty of good in-world reasons, like the Garlean conquest.)
Beastmaster (This may be a little more difficult. While we could possibly get a beastmaster class later in the game, we don't have too much to work with currently. There are things like carbuncles. Or chocobo companions. Summoner egi are much less common due to how rare it is to be the job summoner, but it's possible that as an Othardian who may have been exposed to many of those currently unknown mini-primal-somethings, that these could be summoned. There's a lot of information here that hasn't been released and we can't really gauge what we're going to get.)
??? (Remember, this is your character. People here can help, but the final design is still up to you. I can suggest starting with a simpler concept. It's OK o flesh things out as you go and get a feel for the character. It's not like you need a full bio, resume, references and a multiple interviews to RP with someone. I would also suggest keeping other-game references to a minimum. If someone can look at your character and break her down into each reference/piece, then you've gotta worth on the synthesis. It's like making a stew. The ingredients need to be well-mixed so that it's something on it's own, not a bunch of individual pieces broken up and stirred together.)

***Nero*** · **03-13-2017, 12:00 PM**

One thing that's important to consider is, what kind of story do you want to tell?

Do you want to tell the story of a princess stranded in a far-away land, forced to adapt in a place far from home? The story story of a rebel trying to free their country? The story of a magic-user discovering and interacting with new magic?

Or perhaps the story of a princess rebel stranded in a far-away land, trying to free her country by discovering new magic. A combination is totally fine.

Figure out exactly what kind of story you'd like to tell with this character, and only add elements that convey the story you want to tell. Anything else excess can be added later, but every piece of the story should ideally have some sort of goal behind it. Why do you want this character to transform from one race to another? Why do you want this character to be royalty? Why does this character need to know magic?

Try to justify everything, and I'm sure it will help you have something a bit cleaner.

Aegir · **03-13-2017, 12:19 PM**

What do you want to do with this character?Â

Like~ do you want to lead a plot line where you gather all allies and they meet for regular rps taking them through this princess plot? Or do you plan to have your princess sit in the Quicksand? Is she mostly going to go to cafes and tavern nights? Runestone? Or are you hoping to have her join an FC and join their plotline?Â

It sounds like you got a character that would only work as a plot device for an on-going storyline. Is that something you're up to doing? It's a lot of work~

Uther · **03-13-2017, 01:41 PM**

(03-13-2017, 09:51 AM)Skae Wrote: Not quite correct. Â There are actually several different positions that in English are all called Prince/Princess.
The first is of course children/grand-children/other descendants of a monarch. Â Those are indeed neither elected nor do they usually have any formal authority attached to the prince/princess title.
But there are also rulers of smaller independent territories (principalities) that have the title prince/princess. Â One real-world example is the Prince of Monaco. Â Such a prince/princess does have quite a bit of authority attached to the title.
(There are also a bunch of other uses of the prince/princess title. Â See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince for the whole silly mess.)

There are such a thing as elective monarchies, so there have been elected kings etc. throughout history Â I am not familiar with any elected rulers using the title prince/princess, but they could certainly exist.

On a related note: Â So far I do not believe we have seen anybody use any of the king/queen/prince/princess titles in Eorzea.

I'm in a rush but I thought I'd respond to this quickly, so excuse the brevity and sloppy formatting:

1. I'll give you Monaco. That's fair I guess. But this Rydian place isn't a principality, it's a kingdom, according to OP.

2. I am also not familiar with any elected rulers using the title "Princess", nor am I familiar with any such rulers being elected because of their showing at a dance.Â Of course elective monarchies are a thing, and are plausible in fantasy land, but electing said ruler because they went to the annual ball is not a thing anywhere and reads like a bad disney pitch.

3. Theodoric, the last King of Ala Mhigo. That's the only one I can think of.

It's not that I think OP's story is unworkable. It just needs an overhaul to make sense in this game's world.

***Teadrinker*** · **03-13-2017, 02:02 PM**

Stripping away a lot of what I feel to be superfluous information, the only thing I really want to add is the following. I always ask this with any character I make and offer this advice to anyone.

"Why does my character need this feature?"

If you go over the array of things your character can call assets or strengths or even obtained via 'luck' and you can't answer why or how they need these things to progress the story or how it adds to it then it's usually time for some pruning.

SafetyGoggles · **03-13-2017, 02:12 PM**

Hrm... the first question isn't 'how much lore should I respect', but 'how available do I want my character to be'?

Like all things, there is a spectrum in rp, from the super lore strict to the 'what is lore?' It's not up to anyone other than you where you fall in that spectrum, but the closer you are to the middle baseline of lore friendly, the more rp you'll have available to you.

I've been in a community where there was a game of thrones themed guild as an example, and I'm sure they had fun amongst themselves and if that's what you're looking for that's great! Just realize your character may not fit into the wider community.

I will say working with the established lore can seem very daunting at first, but can be very rewarding. Ask a lot of questions, whittle away the aspects of your character that don't quite fit, and strengthen the ones that make them exciting members of Eorzea.

Or find a small group that's loose on lore and go crazy. Ultimately the choice is up to you! But rp is fun so dont get discouraged!

Aya · **03-13-2017, 03:02 PM**

I see a lot of time being spent on a back story and discussion of it that would probably be more productively put toward simple RP.

I've said it before, and I am sure I will again: character backstory is one of the least important aspects of roleplaying.Â Precious few people will suddenly become interested in RPing with a character because of their backstory, few will even be interested in learning anything beyond the most basic elements.

It can provide inspiration for story writing.Â It can provide depth of knowledge about a character.Â

But when it comes with actual RP, most people care a lot more about the here and the future than the "back then".Â If you want to RP, stop thinking about it, and just get out there and do it! Smile

Seye Qhesu · **03-13-2017, 04:50 PM**

(03-13-2017, 03:02 PM)Aya Wrote: I see a lot of time being spent on a back story and discussion of it that would probably be more productively put toward simple RP.

I've said it before, and I am sure I will again: character backstory is one of the least important aspects of roleplaying.Â Precious few people will suddenly become interested in RPing with a character because of their backstory, few will even be interested in learning anything beyond the most basic elements.

It can provide inspiration for story writing.Â It can provide depth of knowledge about a character.Â

But when it comes with actual RP, most people care a lot more about the here and the future than the "back then".Â If you want to RP, stop thinking about it, and just get out there and do it!

I am going to be blunt and just say I am fully in disagreement with you that a back story means nothing. Think of it like a tree trunk. The backstory grows and branches out to help discover if your character will have strengths and weaknesses, fears, past trauma, and more. You can always just mess around in a character creator and find something you like and build from there but then you will wonder the personality and how they got to be like that.

Everyone is free to of course RP what they want but please don't say a back story has no real importance. I mean,if you are constantly changing the background of your own character to fit the theme of this months fashion then yeah,a back story will probably just be a hassle. If not? Thinking on one can really help but a character.it doesn't even need to be elaborate and can always be branched out as time goes on ideas come. You can even trim old ideas for new ones.

Warren Castille · **03-13-2017, 04:59 PM**

Backstory is unimportant for roleplay, but is important for characters (mostly).

Random people you meet in walk-up roleplay won't care about your carefully-laid tracks of childhood experiences and meaningful non-events that only happened off-camera and away from the current moment. Does anyone often find themselves rehashing about their history with people in real life? You're not roleplaying your history, you're roleplaying their current existence.

Conversely, having an idea of what your character has gone through helps keep them consistent, which is incredibly important in portraying a "living" character. Me personally, I tend to give myself a rough guideline and nothing beyond that: It doesn't matter to me what my character's parents' names were, or what he did during his teenage years. If I need to explain something, I can revisit the framework and come up with a reasonable conclusion that fits the narrative.

Note that this is not me saying that I just throw things into my backstory kits as the need arises. That's just metagaming in an unfair or attention-hogging way. More, I think that "My character grew up as the son of a carpenter" is perfectly suitable to begin roleplaying. If you suddenly find yourself needing more depth, you can provide it: "One time I helped my dad put together a house, so I'm familiar with how foundations and the like work."

Personally, I've been playing Warren for years and years and his backstory is probably five lines to summarize. It's not necessary for anything but my own framework, and if I play my character correctly I won't ever need to explain why he knows or does what he knows or does.

Aya · **03-13-2017, 04:59 PM**

(03-13-2017, 04:50 PM)Kiri Rokuyari Wrote: I am going to be blunt and just say I am fully in disagreement with you that a back story means nothing. Think of it like a tree trunk. The backstory grows and branches out to help discover if your character will have strengths and weaknesses, fears, past trauma, and more. You can always just mess around in a character creator and find something you like and build from there but then you will wonder the personality and how they got to be like that.

Everyone is free to of course RP what they want but please don't say a back story has no real importance. I mean,if you are constantly changing the background of your own character to fit the theme of this months fashion then yeah,a back story will probably just be a hassle. If not? Thinking on one can really help but a character.it doesn't even need to be elaborate and can always be branched out as time goes on ideas come. You can even trim old ideas for new ones.

First of all, disagreeing with "back story means nothing" does not only not put you at "full disagreement" with me, it does not put you at any sort of disagreement with me at all!Â I completely agree with you. [The negation in here is really confusing... I'm agreeing that back story is meaningful, fun, and useful in its own way, I have never, ever, stated otherwise - and given the time and effort I have gone into to write stories about my character's lives, it would be a very silly thing for me to say Smile

]

As you describe, it can lend very fruitful depth to a character.Â I would also not advise revision of backstory, especially not frequently.Â This is very different from refinement over time.

Lets just take the current suggested case: the character in question could begin being roleplayed as an Au Ra Princess of an Eastern Kingdom recently arrived in Eorzea and looking to start a new life.Â This is sufficient for role-playing purposes, and additional depth and detail (while not harmful) are unlikely to actually create more immediate role-playing opportunities.

If next week she then becomes an Au Ra raised in the Shroud on Conjurer's Stories and the Good Intentions of a wizened Miqo'te, but is otherwise the same character, we're really not doing anyone any good at all.

But if she, instead, adds definition to the kingdom that she is from, or her family, or her retainers who have traveled with her and so on, this is refinement that does not detract from the original telling.

All I am saying is that if you're looking to roleplay then a basic background is sufficient enough.Â Just get in there and RP for a while, and you'll get to know your own character a little better as you do, and you can continue to refine the story as you go.Â

Spending more and more time on the story, trying to make it more complex and detailed, may be pleasant enough in itself, but it is not going to contribute to those initial forays into RP, and may in fact detract from it if it becomes over-thought.

Seye Qhesu · **03-13-2017, 05:41 PM**

(03-13-2017, 04:59 PM)Aya Wrote:
(03-13-2017, 04:50 PM)Kiri Rokuyari Wrote: I am going to be blunt and just say I am fully in disagreement with you that a back story means nothing. Think of it like a tree trunk. The backstory grows and branches out to help discover if your character will have strengths and weaknesses, fears, past trauma, and more. You can always just mess around in a character creator and find something you like and build from there but then you will wonder the personality and how they got to be like that.

Everyone is free to of course RP what they want but please don't say a back story has no real importance. I mean,if you are constantly changing the background of your own character to fit the theme of this months fashion then yeah,a back story will probably just be a hassle. If not? Thinking on one can really help but a character.it doesn't even need to be elaborate and can always be branched out as time goes on ideas come. You can even trim old ideas for new ones.
First of all, disagreeing with "back story means nothing" does not only not put you at "full disagreement" with me, it does not put you at any sort of disagreement with me at all!Â I completely agree with you. [The negation in here is really confusing... I'm agreeing that back story is meaningful, fun, and useful in its own way, I have never, ever, stated otherwise - and given the time and effort I have gone into to write stories about my character's lives, it would be a very silly thing for me to say ]

As you describe, it can lend very fruitful depth to a character.Â I would also not advise revision of backstory, especially not frequently.Â This is very different from refinement over time.

Lets just take the current suggested case: the character in question could begin being roleplayed as an Au Ra Princess of an Eastern Kingdom recently arrived in Eorzea and looking to start a new life.Â This is sufficient for role-playing purposes, and additional depth and detail (while not harmful) are unlikely to actually create more immediate role-playing opportunities.

If next week she then becomes an Au Ra raised in the Shroud on Conjurer's Stories and the Good Intentions of a wizened Miqo'te, but is otherwise the same character, we're really not doing anyone any good at all.

But if she, instead, adds definition to the kingdom that she is from, or her family, or her retainers who have traveled with her and so on, this is refinement that does not detract from the original telling.

All I am saying is that if you're looking to roleplay then a basic background is sufficient enough.Â Just get in there and RP for a while, and you'll get to know your own character a little better as you do, and you can continue to refine the story as you go.Â

Spending more and more time on the story, trying to make it more complex and detailed, may be pleasant enough in itself, but it is not going to contribute to those initial forays into RP, and may in fact detract from it if it becomes over-thought.

The way you worded it

Quote:character backstory is one of the least important aspects of roleplaying.

Aspect of Roleplaying. This means that it is part of the overall sense of Roleplay. Not just your interaction with other characters but the time and practice used to create a character you want to Roleplay with. Just be careful with the terms you use. They can be confusing to people who are trying to follow along with the thread.

And Revisions happen quite often. RP partners disappear without a word, lore confirms something unknown which breaks a story, etc (Hai Dragoon :3 ) So it isn't something that can be avoided and is at full digression of the player.

ArmachiA · **03-13-2017, 08:55 PM**

Okay OP. I'm going to try to help you out. Hopefully you'll read this because it's going to be long.

I call this essay: Why You Don't Want to Be George Lucas.

BUT FIRST, Let's talk about Yuna.

Getting inspiration from a different character is actually a great idea! In fact, I understand your love for Yuna because I myself designed Armi after her when I first started MMO-RPing. I made a lot of mistakes with her too, mostly that I was trying to copy her 1:1 in a universe where she didn't fit. It made my character completely unrelatable (remember that word, it'll come up later) and she wasn't really a person, she was just a copy of someone I wanted her to be.

What do you like about Yuna? We may like different things about her, but for me if was her quiet strength. How she understood her role and chose to accept it, even to the point of never telling her friends how scared she was. She was brave, but she was vulnerable. I also liked the fact she was a Priestess and a Summoner. Summoner and Red Mage are too of my favorite jobs in the franchise so I was obviously drawn to that.

Here's what we know about Yuna.

A martyr who wants to do the right thing for the world, even if it means killing herself in the process.
Quiet and reversed but also open to people she's very close to.
A Talented Summoner trying to get all the Summons in order to get rid of Sin (At least for a time)
Somewhat Naive. She constantly believes in finding the best in people even when she really shouldn't.
Devout as all hell. Girl is a Yevon priestess through and through. At least at the beginning

One of the things you can see here is I didn't list her appearance. Her appearance DOESN'T MATTER. To be Yuna-like you DON'T have to make her look exactly like Yuna. For me, I tend to keep her somewhat friendly appearance in Armi, but I don't make Armi look exactly like Yuna. You don't have to, that "Yuna Aura" will come across if you do it right.

Now for the rest. There's obviously parts of that you should be going "Well, that won't work." There's no Yevon. There's no Sin. There's no world that need saving by one person (Well... Our Hero Mary Sue of Light I suppose...), there's no Summons in the way FFX has them. The rest are just personality traits, so those are easy enough.. but the others? You need to decide how important those are to you. If they are important, you need to be able to retrofit them into this world.

Which leads us to: Keeping a character grounded. How not to be like George Lucas #1

The problem a lot of people are having is your character is... alienating. Unrelatable. There's no real way to relate to a Queen/Summoner/Race Changing Hyur-Au Ra. In Fiction, it's really important to make sure your characters are relatable. You probably found Yuna VERY relatable which is why you want a character like her right? But you're stripping the parts out of Yuna that make her relatable (Her weakness and her vulnerabilities) and stuffing things in that make her less so (Being a Princess who became that way because of dancing, race changes for no reason).

Go watch Star Wars: A New Hope sometime. Then go watch The Phantom Menace. The first thing you're going to notice is how hard the latter lays it on us that Anakin is the super duper special. From the get go, we aren't really relating to Anakin as a character because he's only there to be "special". He can build robots, can race pod-racers, has all dem midichlorians, and may be the prophesied one! He just kinda goes with the flow too, he doesn't have much of a personality. His personality is "He's special" and that's what you're doing with your character.
In A New Hope - Luke isn't some chosen one, he's reckless and has a temper and he makes rash as hell decisions. We don't really know much about his traits - we don't know if he's an awesome Jedi because it doesn't really matter.

You always want to make sure your character is relatable. It's really important or you'll find yourself getting frustrated no one wants to interact with her. No one wants to interact with perfect. No one wants to interact with someone who is just "special"

So we get the the harder parts - what can you cut out to make her less special and what do you absolutely want to keep in?

It's cool so imma do it, How not to be George Lucas #2.

In the Prequels, it just kind seems like whatever George Lucas thought was neat, he was going to put in - whether it fit or not. It made the trilogy feel like "Wow look at backdrop I thought of, neat huh?". He thought Jar Jar Binks would work, not even caring about the tone of his movie. He probably wrote the most forced romance in the history of media. Anakin was barely a character, and his direction on how Hayden Christensen should play him pretty much killed that kids career. Hell, he told everyone to have that sort of wooden robotic acting because he said so, and the only person who made it unscathed was, arguably, Ewan Mcgregor.

You need to have consistency with your character. Don't throw in a bunch of stuff just because you think it's cool. Do you want to have a character based on a Queen or on Yuna? You can't really have both. Find the tone you're going for.

Also for the love of god, please come up with a different way she became a Princess. Make her capable! Don't make it because she looked pretty dancing. You're killing me here.

Listen to criticism, How not to be like George Lucas #3

The prequels were legit awful because George Lucas refused to listen to anyone when it came to his vision. He wrote the script for part one DAYS before it was to go into filming and he never let anyone look over it! WHY.

You need to be able to listen to what people thinks and find a happy medium.

Which brings me to - My idea for your character!

Just stay with me here.

She just just be an Au Ra. Straight up. She's from Othard, there's nothing wrong with her being an Au Ra. Just keep it. There's no reason to overly complicate that.
Instead of a Princess, have you ever just considered her being a spiritual leader for her Tribe? This ties into Yuna being a devout follower of Yevon. You can come up with all kinds of lore for this tribe. Maybe only women of faith can lead it and she was chosen for next in line. She's a protector and a guide, and is willing to sacrifice anything for her people.
Instead of... dancing... she became the next chosen because she somehow stared down the face of Ifrit and came out of that alive and... with an egi! So she's a summoner. You'd have to work out the details with people who know more lore about where she would have had to go to find Ifrit, but she could have went on a spiritual journey and came back with an Egi. This gives her agency and strength. Makes her capable beyond... looking pretty and dancing.

None of this takes away anything you want to do, it just makes her more grounded in the lore of FFXIV. She's still like Yuna, she still a leader of her people.

Really think on how to make things work. For the love of God, don't be George Lucas.

Ellmida · **03-13-2017, 11:13 PM**

(03-13-2017, 03:02 PM)Aya Wrote: I see a lot of time being spent on a back story and discussion of it that would probably be more productively put toward simple RP.

I agree in at this point it is overthinking it and to get a better idea for your character it might be good to just jump in and get a feel for your character and other player characters before you really solidify your backstory. That way you can have a better understanding of what people mean rather than hearing opinions on if things will or won't work.

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I will not let my legacy die with me....(background check)

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