Khadan

I think the biggest key to avoiding taking a lore-based uppercut to your chops is to simply not take too many far-reaching liberties with the lore in the first place. Many see SE's FF14 lore as "too little to work with" or at least not clear enough and in this I somewhat agree; there are some things that are very much not defined that could use some serious embellishment. That being said, however, the things that SE does give us are pretty substantive and with a bit of historical knowledge applied and some potential 'logical deduction' if you will, one can easily make calls while still sticking into the boundaries of the lore. i.e. back in 2.0 I had made my character a "Temple Knight" of Ishgard, or at least former Temple Knight to explain why he was in Thanalan. But this was long before there was ANY mention ANYWHERE of Temple Knights being a thing in lore; I looked long and hard and nothing. I don't think Temple Knights as an Ishgardian concept were introduced until 2.4 or so, in fact. Also hoping SE isn't raiding my hard drives for content because this isn't the first time this has happened. Hell it's not even just the third time >=| So there was an example of me using the themes and concepts within the game to come up with a character concept that, even if SE had NOT made the Temple Knights a faction in the game, I still would have been okay since in my character's story his sect or "regiment" had all been wiped out, anyway. Truthfully my only concern was if they were going to call them "Temple Knights" or "Templars" which in either case is an easy fix to maintain story continuity. =) The point is that taking liberties with lore for the sake of trying to be unique or special is like building a runway on a plateau: You only have so much ground available to you for taking off and landing and the more you stretch the lore the less runway you have and thus run the risk of sliding off and crashing into a canyon never to be heard from again =P tl;dr headcanon responsibly because the more you put out there the easier it will be for SE to inadvertently shoot holes in by just doing their jobs.

Training. Lots and lots of TRAINING. Like combine SEALs, IDF, Spetznaz, and the SPARTANS (the Greek ones) from the age of 12, stir in a near fanatical belief in a warrior goddess, a never-ending overly powerful enemy (dragons), and a license to murder as many of these as you possibly can in a short amount of time and you'd have about the level/intensity of training we're looking at, here. No magical 'awakening', no magical items that do all the work, and no amplifier artifacts. Just good ol' fashioned hard work and study. Later on he acquired a soul crystal from his deceased sister (that he killed) which belonged to their Grandfather. Though the way I play out soul crystals is more of "hey this is the book of techniques but if you're an unskilled mook then it's useless to you". I.e. to be a warrior like the Dragoon you already have to be an effective fighter etc. Nothing comes for free in my writings lol.

I feel I'm somewhere in the middle of what I'm sure will be a very polarized topic in the posts to come. So I want to preface this with what I hope to be common sense and should go without saying for most people: I don't have the time, patience, or inclination to police anyone's pretendy fun times. If/when I run across roleplay that is just so objectionable I can no longer stand to be in its presence let alone interact in it? I'll do the polite thing and just excuse myself. As stated, no time/inclination/patience to 'correct' someone's pretendy fun times therefore I can only logically be accountable for my own. Now as it happens this is not a common occurrence because, even though I'm very lore-strict with my own RP, I'm also very tolerant of those that are not, within reason. Now be that as it may, I still count myself as a 'writer' or better yet, 'writer-type-person-whom-engages-in-writey-things'. So things like narrative, character development, and story continuity are very important to me. Someone might ask "what about adaptability in terms of RP with others", and typically what they mean is 'how do you handle strange characters and/or strange occurrences'. Normally I say I handle it with rather good aplomb, however if the person or the occurrence is just so far out there that it literally shakes the setting and breaks the scene I do get rather bothered. The reason is simple: as before I stated I care about narrative and and story continuity. If a character or an occurrence is so far away from the established game world (to use a tired example we can go with the usual fairy-demon-vampire-cat-girl-with-angel-wings-one-white-and-one-black-with-a-fox-tail-and-super-mystical-powers-that-make-niisan-her-bedroom-puppet-in-an-eyeblink) it's not an issue of 'respecting their RP' to me, it's an issue of "How do I handle this person who just disrespected the narrative and practically crashed the story continuity into the ground because they demand validation?". The usual attitude seems to be "we have to respect all people's RP", which I more or less agree with with. Though 'respecting someone's right to do $thing' is NOT the same as 'agreeing with them doing $thing', it's just a sort of silent agreement that you won't publicly shit on them for whatever their choices are. The caveat to this that I propose is that when your character or the actions of your character literally break the continuity of the scene or threaten current narrative you are actually disrespecting other's RP by virtue of being there, as well. This is very much a two way street. Again for the record I'm not going to chastise or publicly denounce these theoretical individuals because that requires more effort than I'm generally capable of mustering. I will engage my right to seek more agreeable pretendy fun times elsewhere, though. Obviously the example was an extreme one that is probably in the <1% of situations. Most of the time it'll likely involve authority figures and 'whose interpretation of lore is 'more better'; in the case of the Ishgardian Miqo'te Dragoons etc. tl;dr respecting RP isn't just you tolerating things you find questionable, it's also about people who play 'questionable things' respecting others who do try to play in the sandbox, as well.

I underlined a few things that I would find concerning because it seems that this is where there might be a disconnect due to subjective interpretation. I've been accused of rudeness before when I speak in as neutral a 'tone' as I am, now. The problem that this line of reasoning perpetuates is that it becomes an issue of tone policing and that never ends well. If you mean like blatant rudeness like calling people morons for disagreeing with you or making long-winded statements about their personality based on your own claims then yeah, I think that's pretty rude and should earn a slap on the chops. As Natalie and FreelanceWizard state, though, calling someone's argument stupid isn't an insult, it's kind of a tactless way to put it, yes, but it's not an insult. Ad Hominem or 'To the man' is when you attack the person rather than the argument or statement. I'm all for tackling arguments while tackling people, which does happen on occasion, isn't usually all that beneficial. I would put out that there's one caveat to that: pointing out someone's being a demonstrable jerk over a patterned series of events isn't necessarily an insult, either, though as I've learned recently that does seem to fall under the purview of the admins to handle that.

Nat, did you know that people have managed to have discussions - complete with dissension and conflict - without falling back on petty insults and the like? There are examples stretching waaaaaaaay back in history! I understand what you're trying to do. You're worried that you'll fail to consider the words you write, and you'll get shut out of this community. But you're going about it all wrong. Dissension is good. On that you and I (and pretty much everyone here) can agree. Conflict is fine. This discussion we're having right now? It's got dissension and conflict. Notice how neither of us has had to resort to insulting one another? This is not a black and white issue, where there is one side that is filled with free-spirited people tossing around insults in the spirit of free speech and another side filled with 1984-esque thought police. Trying to cast it as such is simply ludicrous. "Your right to swing your arms ends just where the other man's nose begins." Ironically I think what she's saying is dissension in the sense that disagreeing with people and the in general 'popular opinion'. I don't think I've ever seen Natalie come off and call someone a jackass directly, for example. What she, and to the same extent I, are likely worried about is if disagreeing with the hive mind and holding an opinion that is for some reason 'unpopular', is going to be used as leverage to oust people from the 'community' because of a status quo being maintained in the hugbox. That, I feel, is a very relevant concern. I.e. the forums are either for discussion or they are for agreeing with what everyone says all the time no matter what because disagreement (or dissenting opinions, if you will) hurt people's feels or some such nonsense. She's of course free to correct me if I'm wrong. For my part I'd much rather have a community with open discussion, debate, and discourse is not only common but encouraged while people who act unreasonably and go out of their way to shut discussions down for no other reason than 'just because' are the ones slapped down. As I learned as a youngin' in critical thinking circles "No topic is off limits to discussion; always exercise your right to be skeptical" This, as you can imagine, really rubs some people raw as it has in the past. That doesn't mean I'm going to stop being that way, but knowing if that's going to be a bannable offense is certainly a major point of concern. No one is advocating for "Why can't I be a dick to people and get away with it!". ;-P

So everyone's getting a blanket reset as of the induction of this ruleset? I suppose if that's the case then a clean slate is fair. That and anyone who has a history of naughtiness will likely climb the ladder pretty fast, lol.

I've been slowly re-hauling my wiki, as well. Adding in family relationships which are part of the big story going on right now, etc, and if I can scrounge the motivation I'll finally fill in some of the history lol

So just to reiterate since I didn't see it in my quick scan by of the first post this morning. Do your 'warning points' in the scope of the big 20 ever fall off like they're supposed to, right now? I.e. 2 weeks and your warning percentage goes down etc? Or is getting a black mark on your record, no matter what the offense was, damning for life? To continue your example with the DMV, the 'strikes' on your driving record don't count against you forever! =P

As FreelanceWizard just stated, how do you tell the difference between someone just messing around and being an asshole? I'm willing to bet both you and I have very different views on that as well as anyone else here, too. @FreelanceWizard: If the policy is in fact to give the benefit of the doubt by default then good, you have my support. Giving the benefit of the doubt is likely something both the users and the admins should be abiding by, anyway. On the topic of trust? I would posit that as long as the aforementioned benefit of the doubt is given and (hopefully) received, then trust is usually the likely end result. It's true that by even coming here there is a modicum of assumed trust and, of course, respect towards the admins since at the very least they've been around the block a bit. With that in mind, though, I would say that building/keeping trust is oftentimes fairly easy but even easier to lose through simple mistakes. If you and the admin team are adopting the 'benefit of the doubt' as a policy, though, I think you'll find a lot of cooperation engendered between users and admins. No one likes base assumptions, I imagine. Admins is people too! =P

I'm going to echo Natalie here and say that warnings are something that, while necessary, shouldn't be taken so seriously unless it's an actually serious thing. The scale seems to go from 0 to 60 in seconds flat rather than a gradual scale with some good peer review like "What's really a big deal vs. this IS actually a big deal". One thing I've observed having been in a few different RP communities and even moderated some is that "tone" isn't something that should be policed since, unless it's blatantly obvious that the person's 'tone' is intended to be egregiously offensive or inflammatory, no one can say for certain, really. That's really only one small facet but I can say with absolute confidence that tone policing is not going to lead anywhere but to headaches and having to be so heavy handed that the mods end up hating the job or being hated by everyone; when your peers despise you then you'll likely find that you can't even sneeze without someone finding fault in the action and loudly voicing it. On top of that I think the major thing is that we all need to remember that this is a website based on a video game where we all engage in pretendy fun times and this is focused towards the pretendy fun times aspect of it. By that I mean it's a good exercise to take a step back and make sure we're not taking ourselves too seriously. People are passive aggressive online pretty often, it happens and, really, it's how we cope without jumping up and pointing our fingers to scream at one another. The rules being how they are now though, there's a bit of wiggle room that could be abused in regards to what people find "petty" and what a "negative comment" actually is. These need to be either heavily defined as to what is and is not considered to be in that umbrella or reworded to state something like "When you are posting a history of this behavior you'll get a warning" etc. Otherwise someone who is feeling extra sensitive that day could take you disagreeing and giving reasonable statements as to why you disagree as "Harassment" and so on. So for now I'd say the rules need either iron hard clarification and need to be iron hard on both the user and admin side or give a bit of leniency so someone misconstruing statements can't abuse the system, etc.

*Au Ra group walks into the tavern where Kayllen is drinking or otherwise hanging out* Auri Group: "..." Kayllen: "..." Auri group: "Let's find a place to sit." Kayllen: "... *squints*" Auri Group: *sits at the table next to Kayllen* Kayllen: *engages Terminator-esque body scan; Horns... Check. Scales... Check. Tail... Check. Analysis: Possible Heresy* Auri Group: "Why is that hyur staring at us...?" Kayllen: *stands up abruptly* "Excuse me." *hurries off to make sure he's not losing his mind and, if not, then how can these not-dragons be used?*

Ayup, as it's been stated: Many non-sultansworn/free paladin Isghardian Knights around. Mine in fact is one of them though he's transferring to Dragoon and such through RP and story. Also Temple Knights > Sultansworn *shots fired*

I think I'd like to echo this as well. Very well put. Personally I always lean towards plot-driven RP. I also prefer combat and action with some intrigue and political manipulations. Even the occasional espionage plot and setting if I have a character that is good for such things. I guess if I had to give a reason I'd say it was because slice of life to me is the interlude between action, it's the kind of things that your character does on a mundane level even when you're not online to play them. They're eating, sleeping, training, crafting, or whatever it is they do when they aren't being whatever it is they are primarily (unless of course you are a crafter ICly and that's it, etc then cheers). I think a bit of 'slice of life' is necessary to the adventuring/fighting/soldiering type, too, it 'humanizes' them in a necessary fashion as most characters aren't joyless, emotionless, kill bots. They're people with thoughts, feelings, experiences, and emotions that if written well exhibit all of the aforementioned things because of how their lives have gone. Slice of life is the perfect time to examine those facets of your character and really shine them up. I mentioned this in another thread recently but ultimately what I feel we are trying to accomplish is the telling of a really deep and meaningful story that people will be able to relate to with characters that are deep and interesting as well. Slice of life is a great tool to expose that facet of the characters while plot drives them forward, it's a great chance for those characters exhibit what their experiences have made of them thus far and become even more, later. That said, the more plot the better, for me. =P

Since we're just speaking of like personal opinion and such during these kind of situations I guess I'm one of those rare ones that lets the other person's writing dictate how I feel their character's 'power level' (for lack of a better term) is in relation to mine. My main a pretty competent fighter. He's no god of battle but then most people aren't. He just has training and experience which accounts for a lot compared to an un-trained and inexperienced individual. For example, if someone is 'starting shit' as you might say, it would depend on how their writing reflected that character. Do they seem nervous or confident? Are they being described as someone who is just trying to get attention and show off some swagger or are they a calm and collected killer with a singular focus? All these things and many more will eventually shape my responses and such to that person and, in a perfect world, who will prevail in said confrontation. I'd prefer to not use dice if at all possible since it is just kind of 'lazy' feeling to me. I mean I fully understand why people do it and I even agree, but if two people are good at the whole writing thing then just let it carry your narrative. I do like the idea of some OOC communication, though. It shouldn't HAVE to be necessary but again that's the whole 'perfect world' mentality. Ultimately I think a lot of people's trepidation with "RP Combat" or "Freeform" is the notion that "If I lose then my character dies or worse, is humiliated!" Priorities, right? That's not always true and most if not all people who hedge when it comes to the idea of IC conflict and combat will cite some anecdotal circumstance where they got burned by some person who was a huge jerk. Ultimately these are relevant to the person but not everyone is everyone else and to write something off completely because someone gave you a bad experience once is kind of limiting yourself. Take a chance, be open, be flexible, and as a general rule that I take to heart: Defeat doesn't = death; Defeat can actually mean MORE quality RP comes of the situation. How does your character handle the defeat? Do they escape? Are the saved by friends in the nick of time? Do the guards show up and break up the fight? Or was the confrontation just till someone yielded or first blood etc? Otherwise I guess it's safe to say just don't get into an RP combat situation where 'character death' is the inevitable result for either one of you until you've established how it is to go down beforehand. That kind of foreshadowing in plot is in fact essential to most writers. You lay down or have a rough outline of what is supposed to happen then build up all the good stuff until that conclusion. We're all adults, here, right? Let's worry less about what happened that one time however long ago in that one game with that one person and just try to focus on having fun and telling a great story with some great characters. =)

Kayllen in game is about my complexion, maybe a little paler but pretty close. I have an alt that is a more 'middle eastern' complexion. No reason other than geographical, really. I don't place too much importance on skin color irl and that's carried over to in game in probably every game I've RP'd in. I admit that it's probably easier to identify with a character that's your own or close to your own ethnic background, though, #justsociologythings

As tempting as your offer is, I couldn't bear to ever leave my Gilgamesh family. 3: But if I ever do wind up on Balmung for any reason I'll be sure to find ya! Nah man, bring the wife and kids, too. We'll take every meat shield FAITHFUL HALONIST you can provide. :thumbsup:

That's disgusting. AND HERESY. *torches and pitchforks*

It is interesting that Thaumaturgy seems to be melded with what most might consider "sorcery", i.e. the calling down fire and lightning to smite your foes as one in the same while they seem to be separated in other fantasy genres. Perhaps the whole black mage/thaumaturge vs. white mage/conjurer is supposed to be seen as the whole Yin and Yang duality of destructive vs. sympathetic magics or some such. Though really that begs the question: What is 'bad' magic? Final Fantasy goes through great lengths to make it clear that Aether is Aether is Aether, that it doesn't have any particular... 'intent' beyond the will and use of the person wielding it. So is magic only thaumaturgy by classification of its use or is the TYPE of magic being used what makes it thaumaturgy over just 'more magic'? Same with conjury, arcanistry, and so on.

Throwing rocks and broken glass? You guys are brutal lol

Certainly, but when it becomes a judgment on RP because players are supposed to "see sense" and go back to the more historically efficacious weapon, it becomes less of a fun thing to talk about and starts being an indictment on the people who chose it in spite of the historical use of the weapon. Then when there's the assumption that people made that choice because they're ignorant of the real use of the weapon, and not that they might be choosing based on different criteria, it becomes even less so. Luckily no one suggested that making judgements in RP for people's 'weapon choice' is or should be a thing =P I can see how you'd think that would be the case, but you wrote a very strongly-leaning post consisting of several huge paragraphs that seem to indicate that people picking greatsword or Dark Knight are wrong because reasons. I'm not responsible for your interpretations. Though rather than assuming something is a way you could just ask to gain clarification. It would save these threads from baseless accusations. I'd rather not have people start whispering about "toxic behavior" just because I stated a preference on writing and tropes I don't personally care for. I don't have the time in my day or the energy to sit there and pass judgement on people for how they RP, I can only account for myself. In the end, when we talk in these threads without actually having a source cited from SE about whatever in game topic, or a historical/current source to back up our claims we're all just spouting opinions. Some opinions can be wrong or misinformed, as well, but I'm not the kind of person who is going to pretend that my opinions are somehow law. They're just what I think at the time and are, of course, open to discussion.

Certainly, but when it becomes a judgment on RP because players are supposed to "see sense" and go back to the more historically efficacious weapon, it becomes less of a fun thing to talk about and starts being an indictment on the people who chose it in spite of the historical use of the weapon. Then when there's the assumption that people made that choice because they're ignorant of the real use of the weapon, and not that they might be choosing based on different criteria, it becomes even less so. Luckily no one suggested that making judgements in RP for people's 'weapon choice' is or should be a thing =P

Can we split this into an off-topic discussion of the historical use and implications of Great Swords so that the people discussing the class can stay on topic, then? Because I'm not sure how well the Greeks and Nords and Germanic folks relate to Eorzea, a world with magic and dragons and sentient potatoes. Well the original topic did include: I would say that historical anecdotes and discussion are part of the overall point of the thread. If we're talking about preferences, even, then we discuss why people preferred a certain weapon in the past since those things would be dictated mostly by historical references as none of us lived in a society where relying on said weaponry was the mainstay. We can argue "because we like it better" but unless discussion and historical reference is actually banned then why try to stifle that?

That's a great point! I would add that even with the invention of plate armor you would have examples of shield use, though most notably was with jousting and such, though I believe that plate was invented because of mounted lancers but I don't remember the source on that other than 'some history channel crap I watched as a kid'. Otherwise, yeah, you didn't see a fully plated person generally using a sword and shield or, if they did have a messer sword or falchion it was likely as a sidearm only while their main weapon was employed first and/or most commonly. However you would see people in say a breastplate and chainmail using a shield, or what you might call 'half plate' depending on where you're from etc. The notion of shield walls was seemingly less practiced post Roman era though whether that was from lack of military discipline and education or because other tactics rendered it obsolete, I'm unsure. I think the Germanic and Nordic peoples employed some 'shield wall' style tactics, though it likely resembled the Greek style 'huddle' more than the Roman Scutum line. You may know more than me on that, though! =)

Definitely good points. In the 'usual' fantasy setting when dealing with 'demons', I find that the common theme seems to be doing things you, as the reader, find distasteful or abhorrent. I often speculate when writing things involving 'demons' whether for FF14 or just other fictional settings that I'm working on, if it isn't really the blood or the death sacrifices but rather the act of doing something 'wrong'; compromising yourself or your morals or at least the morals of the society at large which, if found out, would surely result in your being made a pariah at best or killed at worst. The demonic entity may actually require you to compromise yourself so that they in turn can compromise you for their own gains etc etc. But that's headcanon'y stuff as well though I enjoy the speculation into such things 'just for fun'. =P

I definitely agree with that. I lived through the Death Knight pandemic, after all!