Jebei Dotharl

It's been awhile since I've actually been a part of an online forum community, so I'll appreciate anyone bearing with me while I adjust. I'm Jebei Dotharl and if that name is familiar, it's likely because you've encountered me at Grindstone or in Pearl Lane or you happen to know me through interactions with our Free Company, the Eldritch Collective. I'm going to use this blog to regularly highlight things we are doing or, in this case especially, changes that we've made. The last few weeks have kind of been a whirlwind. Some of you probably know <EC-RP>. It's been around for a long time and plenty of people have strong opinions about us. Recently, there has been a shake-up in terms of leadership -- Nothing negative, nothing bad; an amicable parting-of-ways. In the course of this, it was decided that EC-RP needed a new direction. One that would take it back to its roots. Those roots being grounded, organic roleplay focused on character development and community interaction. Sa'ran Dotharl and I have been left in charge of the Collective to pursue these adjustments. While Leith and Lior Emrys remain available to provide advice and council, Sa'ran and I are officially leading this FC into the future. We look forward to building something great and we hope that the community will help us do it. Already, over the course of our first two weeks of leadership, we have made adjustments to ranks and structure. We've established new rules to help us flourish. And we plan to hold several public events very soon. It's always been a personal goal of mine to play villainous foil to players with more of a good-aligned focus. And it's our "collective" goal to create those opportunities naturally and organically through our interactions with the larger community. I also want to say that I am always available for questions either here or through Discord @47#3049. Thank you so much for reading and I look forward to telling stories with all of you in the near future! -Jebei

In the boughs of the Twelveswood, under the watchful eye of Gridania, sits an estate built upon the ancient stump of a great tree. This place speaks of power. Power, and the responsibility had by those who wield it. --------- Who are we? EC-RP is a roleplaying Free Company on Balmung, Crystal DC, focused on storytelling within the boundaries of FFXIV's lore and setting. Established in 2015, we have been providing a place for those with darker inclinations since A Realm Reborn. Our Free Company is dedicated to leveraging everything we've learned in order to provide storytelling in a lore-friendly environment. Instead of focusing on constant, escalating threats or attempting to keep abreast of the MSQ, we prefer to focus on grounded roleplay that fits into the setting. What sets us apart? Without putting too fine a point on it? EC-RP is different from most other antagonist Free Companies in that it aims to foster an environment that is not simply criminal or cackling evil. The term "morally grey" gets thrown around a lot, but we prefer to look at it as moral realism. A villain does not have to be always evil all the time. Instead, that bent towards the dark can be revealed in other ways. A quiet, more subversive evil that most don't realize until it's too late. We want to tell stories that matter and we want to tell them with the greater community. Our approach to roleplay is to provide unique opportunities for organic storytelling. Every action has a reaction, every choice has a consequence. If you've ever been reading a good book and had the ending spoiled? We hate that too. At EC-RP, we avoid telling stories with predetermined outcomes. Characters and their personalities/growth should guide the RP, not the hand of a player. No metagaming, no OOC frustration over being told to have your character act in a way that would go against it. All of these things get in the way of organic roleplay. In addition, in EC-RP, your voice matters. We eschew the usual IC/OOC hierarchy to instead provide a home where you can and will be able to adjust the direction of the Free Company and it's stories. For anyone interested in joining or obtaining additional information, please feel free to take a look at our website: eldritchcollective.com We look forward to hearing from you!

Koro's not totally off-base either. I've kept my mouth mostly shut about things. Not just at Invitational, but at other tournaments. But I've seen characters who have aether that's over-aspected with ice...Who ignore the downsides or fatal nature of such a thing. People who use, like, blood magic and tribal shamanism; things that we don't really have good sourcing or information on. It's possible that they don't know the lore well enough. That's fine. But I don't think the answer to that is "just let them go buck wild." (Edited because I'm an idiot who can't read people's names.)

For the record, there is *one* tournament held in an out of the way location that is lore strict and employs masks and aliases. So, it's not impossible to create an event along those lines. And you can still have an audience, even with rules in place to prevent people from doing lore-breaky things. (Disclosure: It's called The Masquerade and it's operated by people from my FC. I don't want this to be construed as a plug; just proof of concept.) My experience with the community at large is that *most* people don't want to completely disregard existing lore and are perfectly happy to agree to common sense rules. For me it goes back to my other point: Why RP here? People *want* to live in this universe and *want* to follow it's rules.

For additional clarification, my line is the same as my FC's line: If it doesn't exist already in the game world and it can't be reasonably extrapolated, then it's probably lore-breaky and shouldn't be used.

Hi y'all. I created an account here for the sole purpose of putting in my two cents. Anyone who goes to Invitational or Grindstone should know who I am by now, lol. As an RPer, I like to hew as close to established lore as possible for any game I play. If I'm portraying a Sith character in SWTOR, I'm not going to have them casting Alohamora to open gates. If I'm playing a Spellslinger in Wildstar, I'm not going to have him shooting Esper spells out of his hand cannons. Other people may not care as much and that's their prerogative, but I ask: Why RP in this universe at all if you're not going to follow it's rules? You could just as easily do anything you want in any other universe, so why bother? That's my biggest problem with the use of certain magics. That, and the looming specter of portraying magic that exists in the FF universe, but has yet to be portrayed in FFXIV. Giving people room to be creative is fine; I've seen Red Mages portrayed at least seventeen different ways. But people should be able to find ways to be creative within the constraints of the lore. As to forbidden magic? At Runestone, there was an explicit understanding that you used forbidden arts at your own risk. Especially when it still happened at Fesca's Wash. A rule like that creates more RP hooks than it destroys because, as Warren said, the draw of playing a dangerous character is that it's dangerous. People can be upset that the cops got called, but an IC situation is an IC situation. I get the position that you're in and I'm even sympathetic. I know you guys don't want to feel like you're crippling people's creativity or bullying people. But, for me? Having standards isn't bullying. It's just having standards and those standards are different for everyone.