ZindelloTarantella

Leaving Osric to his own devices (so to speak) Tarot went about looking for the perfume in question. While he was surprised, in a way, that Osric would want something like this, he supposed it wasn't too terribly odd. He'd likely met some maiden and wanted to make a gift of it. While Tarot saw little purpose in it (perfumes were nice but typically wreaked havoc on his nose) he still kept them around for the customers that wanted them. Shutting the door almost completely to the back room, he began his search through his carefully organized mess. ============= Osric did well to keep his hands to himself. The associate, Moggie-Moglin, was indeed watching from above, his little whiskers twitched as he looked down on the man with his little black eyes. Osric's discretion was well-timed. Moggie was not in a good mood today. In fact, he was suffering one his hang-overs and was looking to beat the living tar out of anything to make himself feel better. To be fair, despite his thuggish tendencies, Moggie wasn't necessarily a cruel sort of person, er--moogle. Rather, he found though that his size and general appearance (cute and cuddly) left him little choice if he wanted to command any respect. Tarot dealt with a great number of respectable people; merchants and bankers and soldiers and tinkers and tailors amongst many others. But then he also dealt with people that weren't reputable and it was usually these types that required a good swing of one of his many bats to keep in line. Normally it didn't do any permanent damage since one good swing was enough to deter anyone from ever trying anything again, but as Osric learned, innocent or not, the moogle was ever ready to meat out justice of the most 'cute and cuddly' kind. Kupo.

Tarot's Gauntlet. It actually COULD be done easily too, not by making a new item but simply giving us the option to split hands and hide one glove bu leave the other. If I could take on effects though... Thief's Hand Defense 45 Magic Defense 45 Skill Speed +11 Vitality +9 Critical Hit +10 Strength +10 While equipped, 30% chance of converting 25% of physical damage dealt into HP.

I wish I had thought of this before I leveled three separate toons...>.> But seriously, this is a good idea. I would not mind a person doing this so long as they told me what costumes to associate with what character and stuck to them. This sort of thing was done in Champs all the time (where you could have multiple costumes that looked NOTHING alike) and I know I didn't mind it there. Again, as long as I know that you're current IC as 'The Doctor' or your regular character, I foresee no problems beyond the occasional need to clarify for people not in the know.

If they didn't call him Thancred then it might be one of the few times you could say, 'Oh that's m' kid' and get away with it!

That is the thing--you also fight against moogles and everyone in the Scion seems to see them due to the Good King Moogle Mog bit too. I can only assume that moogles can reveal themselves if they want to, sorta like fairies, which is how the mailing system works as well. So if the moogles want to remove the glamour of being invisible they can. Point is, either the game makers forgot that moogles are supposed to be invisible to every but special folks OR they are able to turn the glamor of invisibility off and on and some mortals can just see through it naturally (like having the Echo).

Many of us use double lines in our custom emotes to separate our character's name from the action. This allows us to use custom emotes to rp NPCs in an easily recognizable and understandable way. e.g. /em || Moggie blew a raspberry at the twit. "Kupo!" becomes Crooked Tarot || Moggie blew a raspberry at the twit. "Kupo!" Crooked Tarot || Moggie looks Osric over and says 'You only lose one knee-cap next time you do something stupid, kupo!' Thanks! I appreciate the help on that. I feel that minions could add a lot to RP, if even only just talking points (how the HELL did you manage to get a baby Behemoth!?) but I haven't seen much use of them. I figured it's because folks don't know how to emote them into the game~ Now I know! 8D

He almost stopped Osric to tell him that he didn't mean ten separate items but rather ten separate visits. He would need to clarify that later. Still, he wasn't going to pass up a chance for a full sale today, especially for a backroom inquiry which was always far more invigorating than any shop-front banter. Grinning as he gathered up the requested pieces, one after the other, the stopped at the request for the perfume. Something like that would be far more difficult to procure on hand, simply because scent was a tricky thing--one may find patchouli a bracing scent that reminded them of the woods and exotic markets, while another may believe that it simply reeked of death. Putting that aside, Tarot would do his best to help with the ninth--it would give time Osric to look around in the back room. "For you? Of course it is," he grinned, tilting his head and motioning the mysterious door that was kept closed, firmly, whenever someone was within the shop. Moving to the door, he stood in front of it, enough to block Osric's view as he turned the handle and pressed a small segment of the wood in on itself, then slid the whole door to the left, revealing not a cramped office but a very large and dimly lit warehouse stocked to the gills with all kinds of things. The whole of the building, in fact, the very store-front itself, was on, large false wall. THIS was the true depth of the Phoenix's Claw, so to speak, and Tarot motioned his patron to enter quickly before someone else came along to spoil the fun. "I'll see after your perfume request up front here--mind your fingers, as always, Osric. Half of those things may be cursed in some way, and I don't know what the hell the rest do--that and if my associate back there finds out you've been trying to slip things away into that robe of yours, he'll take the cost out of your knee caps~!" he gave a pleasant smile that promised a great deal of pain if Osric did try anything funny--it was nothing personal though; he said this to Osric (and every other customer) every time they went back there. Tarot's associate, the moogle, Moggie-Moglin, had a fondness for large clubs and bats, and was even more fond of flying around the warehouse and breaking the joints of people that tried to ferret away things into their pockets that didn't belong to them...

I am certain the notion of playing multiple characters has come up before and I'll dig a bit further into the thread, but in this case, I wanted to discuss minions and if RPers consider them a part of the game. Some folks who have met Tarot know he has a moogle with him a great deal of them time, either floating in the background drinking or sometimes interacting directly with them. The question is, how do you actually do it in the game itself. Like, how to differentiate when the Moogle (Moggie-Moglin) is talking and when Tarot is talking.

Or as it's known in Ireland, Royal Whore Weed. No but seriously, I knew the part about willow bark (thank you Once Upon a Forest), especially in that it can be used to drive off rheumatism. This is entirely OOC when I say this of course, but Tarot smokes A drug in pipe while in his shop. Whether it's illegal or not, I leave that to more intrepid sorts, but I would always say make up your own--there's plenty of plants in Final Fantasy lore and names to use for drugs: Mako, Boko, Whisperweed, Cait-Sith Tails, Gau-Gau, Mysidian Lace, the list goes on with how creative one could be and what their effects are.

"War...War never changes..."

And with this string, your assessment is dismantled! Lo, watch how I pull it! Specifically, nobody here is attempting to establish anything. No one's Captain of the Guard, nobody is creating a freelance body of police. Those of us who play Sultansworn or Yellow Jackets still have IC-NPC people to report to. There's not really any room for people to go above their heads, since we're all pretty strictly adhering to the status quo. The series of events you're referring to can be fully accredited to douches not wanting to let anyone else have fun with THEIR world they were setting up; I can't speak for anyone but myself but I think I'm fairly content to exist in the world SE's created for us. I'd like to believe most of us have no agenda on trying to force civility or justice on the world. This was more a cautionary tale based on what I read in the thread itself. I am sure I saw several references to 'needing an established set of rules' or 'Community'. Communities can't exist without rules and a governing body. Hell, even a housing development has a Home-Owner's Association with people that drive around to make sure your lawn is the right height. This was largely a reference to people who talked about creating a community where everyone agreed to a set of rules and THAT would allow a law-enforcement with weight to it. That when someone that the community knew was playing a Yellowjacket or a Blade said 'You're under arrest' they actually could do something to follow through without needing to ask you, the player, first.

After reading through the larger body of this thread, I came to a realization about the idea of a main-body of authority and why it can't work. How do I know? Personal experience. I have seen games where this was done and it did two things: 1. Made the RP community seem like a group of self-righteous and cliquish pricks to those not involved in the main community. 2. Eventually destroyed the community. I'll pull again from my Champions Only experience here. Champions had a main RP group that was by far the largest. While you could indeed have your small groups, this main group was sort of the go-to if you wanted to be involved in RP. Kinda like how Balmung is a designated server, this group had a massive community of IC chats (which was essentially a radio frequency your hero could tune into to connect with and talk to other heroes, either to shoot the breeze or call for back-up etc). Now this group was great. They had a few appointed individuals that were largely in charge through seniority and having helped established this main ruling body, as well as having the folks that were good at coordinating the events and the like. Costume contests, massive RP arcs spanning months of real-time, all that jazz. But then tragedy. The IC Channel was in-lore of the group established by PRIMUS (the U.S. Government) and had 'dispatchers' who would listen in constantly to make sure the conversations were in-keeping with the government's standards (transaltion: mods who would ensure players didn't do/say anything that was breaking rules or picking fights or flaming). I'm sure you see where this is going. Because everyone had to adhere the whatever these 'dispatchers' said, if you didn't do what they said, you were cut off from the channel ICly. If your character was cut off, you were essentially screwed because then you had no way to communicate with the community as a whole. This would quickly lead to missing events, being shunned ICly (which as well all know can lead to OoC shunning). Eventually, this Utopian RP Group eventually began to be seen as cliquish by all other players of Champions Online (both RPers not involved and even NON-Rpers who saw them as rigging contests and even whole events for the sake of their favored members). I was there until the end, watching it slowly collapse in on itself. Nothing held weight anymore. Players (great players) who had characters that were out-spoken or vigilantes were cut out ICly, leaving only players that followed the rules. Those players didn't want to do anything to risk being cut out themselves so their characters got blase about threats or the same stories were told over and over again. 'Oh, someone planted a series of bombs in Westide? Someone else will take care of that...' I saved that quote to remind myself that it was actually said. In character by a hero that had saved the world and had, at one time, been a passionate leader. OoC, the player told me that they simply did not want to risk pissing off the wrong people by going to events anymore. And so you see, a main body, on paper, will always, always look grand. Karl Marx saw a vision of Utopia too, but we saw what happened with that. (And I mean the actual Revolution and it's results, not actually the idea of Communism). The people cannot rule themselves. It can't be done. And unless you find that very special person that can rule completely fairly and without being HUMAN then no, Utopian RP Communities will sadly always be a myth. Especially where one tries to establish a body of law enforcement.

Here is my own personal team. 1. Crooked Tarot (Original Character) - Acting as the party's [Thief]. High Agility and excellent critical hits, low defense, all that jazz. He would most likely be the main PC of the game since he insists on being in the spotlight and has a flair for the dramatic. 2. Seifer Almasy (Final Fantasy 8) - Acting as the party's [Warrior], he'd be the heavy hitter. Tarot and he would likely start off incredibly rocky since Tarot would enjoy lording over him that he's not only older (and thus smarter and better) than Seifer, but would love to prod at his pride and insecurities. Eventually, I believe that Tarot would soften since he IS younger, and likely at some point would have his ass saved by Seifer which would endear him to the guy. By the end, definitely a mutual (if vaguely antagonistic) friendship would form--probably more like brothers. 3. Angelo (Dragon Quest 8) - Acting as the party's [Healer]. What can I say about Angelo? Tarot and he would likely be brothers-in-snark, without a doubt, especially when it comes to Seifer. Tarot and Angelo would likely start off appreciating each other's cleverness and it would just build from there. Tarot's own dislike of flirts might keep them from developing anything deep for a while though. By the end, they would certainly be excellent friends. 4. Jansen Friedh (Lost Odyssey) - Acting as the party's [Magic DPS]. They would annoy the hell out of each other. To the point where the player would likely wonder why they are even in a party together. Between Jansen's complaining getting under Tarot's skin, and Tarot's vicious replies to said complaining, they likely wouldn't have much in the way of kind words between them. It would probably be because Jansen is useful to Tarot that he keeps him around, and likely because of plot reasons that Jansen sticks around. Jansen would likely be the one to come to Seifer's defense if only because Tarot is set against him. By the end, I see them on speaking terms with mutual respect but it would still be tentative at best.

This is another prompt in the same vein as my last one concerning Dissidia. This one is actually pretty similar however I'm extending the scope a bit to include more than just Final Fantasy games (though rules is rules and you'll see why). In this prompt, the name of the game is to create a Party, but YOU get to pick who is involved. There's a few outlines to the whole thing though. 1. The party must be at least four characters (including your own) and no more than 5 (including your own). 2. At least one party member MUST be from a previous Final Fantasy game. This can include but is not limited to spin-offs (though 'Final Fantasy' must be in the title of said game, i.e. 'Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles'). ALL characters, however, must be from Traditional-style RPGs (sorry, No Master Chiefs or Gods o' War :thumbsup: ) 3. For each character you chose outside of your own you must describe what their relationship over the course of the game would be like. A general idea of how they feel about each other when they first meet, how this changes over the course of the story, and then how they feel about each other by the end of the game. (For bonus points, say how they would work together in battle.) 4. The characters that are not your own must have been playable at some point in their respective games. (Seifer Almasy would be OK, but Kuja would not be, for example.) Feel free to throw in any more details, especially about WHY you chose that particular character for the party, how they would add to the group dynamic and the like. Have fun with it and let your imagination wander! :moogle:

Tarot's Pride outweighs his Greed. While many might think of him being greedy since he does indeed snatch up every ounce of profit he can, his Virtue helps to cancel that out. His Pride is his real vice, which is his Pride in his own abilities and judgment. He feels that he knows best--that he knows what is Right. It may not be good or nice or bad or evil--just that he will always knows what is Right and Best. It's probably why he handles his money the way he does; he feels that he knows how best the money can be spent, so he siphons every bit he can from the wealthy and then spends it on the poor how HE sees they need it (most of the time) rather than give it to them directly. It may not be the most potent or terrible version of Pride, but it is a chink in his armor. His Virtue is charity--he gives to the poor to genuinely help them and make their lives better. It's the whole purpose behind his actions at the end of the day. He wants the world to be a better place and so he does everything he can (if in the shadows) to ensure the happiness of everyone around him, even if it means having to be cruel or selfish on the surface.

I agree on the hand stuff, for sure. Land is a bit more dubious since yeah, you might need time to learn when, say, a particular fruit is at its prime, or where to mine for a particular ore, but these are things that can be taught. For instance, as a farmer, if you are told when the season to pick apples is, you know when to expect to see them as being at their ripest (I know I may be simplifying things but the fact is, that is more or less how it works). Actually making something FROM said apples, however--knowing how long to cook them to get the taste that is right, or developing a particular kind of stitch that is stronger than another. Learning how to stitch very quickly, or how to effectively cut corners without actually losing quality--these are things that a craftsman must learn more or less on their own.

Re-reading what I wrote when presented in the light you gave does make one thing occur to me. While they may be excellent in these skills, how much would their SOCIAL skills suffer? Wizards are notorious for being anti-social to the point where it's almost a trope; spending all your time shut up with books is the high fantasy equivalent of nerdom, which is NOT a trait known for having a particularly high social skill level. Nowadays that isn't the case as much since 'Nerd' or 'Geek' has shifted in its meaning, but you get my point. So if your character is dedicated to learning all of these things before they hit the age of, say, 25, that would leave very little room for social interactions, leaving you at best socially awkward or at worst, crippled. Hmm, this is an interesting angle. Glad you helped me see it! 8D

Help Myself Cast: Instant Duration: Varying Cooldown: 120 s Cost: 50 TP Range: 1.0y Tarot removes all beneficial status effects from the target and applies them to himself, resetting their durations once they are applied. This includes but is not limited to enemy specific status effects. It also heals him for 10% of the enemy's current HP. And for the Trait... Heart Stealer There is a 15% chance that Tarot will inflict the Charm status on an enemy instead of dealing critical damage.

Another issue I failed to touch on is age. This again has happened in all MMOs that I've played in, where I've seen people in their early 20s (I'll pull from Champions Online this time) be: Master detectives, munitions experts AND know magic enough to blow up buildings. And this is without adding in things like what a comic-book setting and wave away like alternate universes or time travel. I like the idea of the overlap in crafting/gathering for the reasons given and since they rarely enter into mainstream RP (I've yet to see anyone thundering around in, say, the Grindstone proclaiming how amazing their fishing skills are), I forgot they were there. I think that Final Fantasy XI did at least that much right in that you could combine classes but the secondary class could never exceed half of the level of the main class. That is, if you were a levelr 50 White Mage, then your secondary would never be above 25. Pathfinder/D&D etc does it well. By multiclassing you're hurting yourself as much as you help. You will never learn the Level 20 special skill for the class if you take even one level in another class. I think that the main problem is reconciling time. It's easy to say 'I've been doing this for years' in a game that has only been around for a year. No one can say 'No you haven't.' Not saying that the person claiming their character is uber experience if deliberately god-modding or anything, mind you, but that it is just something we take for granted and don't give much thought over.

Faye pretty much covered my point. Part of the fun of playing a criminal is not getting caught; so after you do it long enough you kinda feel entitled to NOT get caught. That's the thing though; at least in Ul'dah, we (the players) have been provided with an out by means of bribes. It may not work in Gridania, but in a place like Ul'dah, you could always get arrested and then hand wave it fifteen minutes later by saying 'Oh, well, the Blades speak my language. -jingles gil-" And yeah, most people see 'Criminal Activity = Arseholery' instead of 'Criminal Activity = Going against the law'. Yeah sometimes being an arse IS against the law but most time it's just being a troll/bully. And yeah, a character MAY be a troll/bully but they're more likely to get a good punch in the mouth and forced to choke on their own teeth than arrested for it outright.

This is a topic that is actually pretty near and dear to me. Granted I'm sure it's been touched on before by far better people than myself but since it isn't in the obvious first few pages, I'll bring it up here. Essentially, here is my question; how do you handle a character that multiclasses? I've found this subject to be a bit touchy at times, so I'll approach this delicately. I have found (and this is just my experience) that in games that allow a player to swap classes on a whim (Final Fantasy XI, Champions Online, Final Fantasy XIV, The Secret World), that roleplaying characters tend to also have all of the multiclassed abilities. Now, on the surface, I understand this completely. I build my character's skill sets around what I see them having. For instance, I took up some Arcanist so Tarot could have magical 'tricks' and took Lancer to reflect Tarot's skills with a staff. Once Rogue/Ninja drops, he will move to that and likely stay there for the foreseeable future. But here is where my question comes into play. I know full well that a number of people like to complete everything. Max all classes because they are there and to get all the amazing gear etc. I know I likely will too since I love playing dress up. But what about all those skills? Is it okay that your character who has played as a dragoon suddenly 'has some knowledge of thaumaturge'? That sounds reasonable. But then he is a lancer, and a thaumaturge AND a Monk AND a Bard AND a White Mage AND a Paladin. Suddenly, the character is ranked alongside someone as powerful as Louisoix simply by their complete breadth of knowledge in every aspect of adventuring. Now, I know what you're thinking; 'Oh Tarot, why don't you just play the way you want, and I will play the way I want and we can be friends! 8D' (And yes, you totally think in emotes! I CAN READ YOUR MIND EMOTES!) Well, yeah, sure we can, but part of the problem is a bit of player ego mixed with logic. One more or less must assume that time passes in Eorzea despite us maybe not noticing it. Days pass--technically weeks and months pass while you're leveling. Within the game's system, you're actually taking quite a long time to level cap any given job. Now, add in something else. How you divvy your time. If you're character is a Paladin, and they decide, 'You know, I should learn how to use a lance'. That means they are dividing their attention between the two weapons to learn them both to a point where a player can consider them 'useable as a threat'. But then he/she decides they want to pick up magic too. Suddenly, their attention is divided three ways--because even though you have learned a skill, you CAN lose ability to wield a sword if you don't practice. What all of this leads to is this; giving a free pass to a character becoming skilled or well-versed in every class/job especially in the course of a week or so to the point where they can use said class/job effectively in battle decreases the viability of any player. It makes the players that specialize in a single class or two essentially useless in out of dungeon RP and it makes suspending disbelief in the characters that do learn this plethora of classes that much more difficult. How can a White Mage be something special when Chester B. Arthur over there can heal AND exploded things AND stick things without any consequences? If you were going to pick one to be on your team, who WOULD you pick? You'd pick Chester because Chester can do all those things when he really shouldn't be able to, right? I know I would. Wrapping up this rant explaining my feelings on the subject, I want to hear others opinions. I've discussed this with people on both sides of the fence but never within the same community. This provides a good opportunity to hear the opinions from folks that have played FF XIV (and possibly XI) and what they think on the matter. Again, not saying that the 'All I Learned' style is necessarily bad or wrong. I just want to hear how folks handle this situation or explain it--maybe there is some logical answering that I missed and if there is, I would like to hear it! :thumbsup:

Tarot would never mention it, but being from the Brass Blades afforded one no advantange beyond the occasional flattering word and offer for a discount or 'gift'. The fact was, Tarot loathed the Blades. Not because of what they did to HIS business--his own business was far too deeply rooted and successful to ever have the Blade put anything more than a small damper on his operation, even if they tried. No, he hated the Blades because of what he did to other peoples businesses. The people who could barely afford to stay open, let alone pay off a group of-- His eyes looked down at the book as he clicked his teeth gently on the mouthpiece of his pipe, looking at the image carefully. Replicas were easy enough to get ahold of, but Tarot had never been one for going for the cheaper (and safer) route. The book was likely worth its weight in gil and already made the exchange profitable enough, without adding in his usual finder's fees and outrageous interest rates. And yes, he did indeed gouge the hells out of his customers. Especially Brass Blades. Thankfully, Osric had somehow found his way into Tarot's good books, between banter and proving that he was not more crooked than Tarot was when it came to his oh-so-lofty position. Of course, Tarot wasn't stupid. He found out soon enough that Osric was with the Immortal Flames. Still, the game was fun and it was a decent excuse to drain a little more gil out of the smart-ass man every now and then. "I can get it for you, of course," he nodded, exhaling with a drawn out nod. "It might not be fast but I can certainly get it. I know a person who knows a person--that sort of thing." He'd send word to the Fogfens. This sounded like something she would have laying around. "Always happy to be of service, of course. You know, I am offering a special." He flicked his free hand, a card with a series of little squares printed on it appearing between his fingers. "Make ten purchases and get a special, complimentary surprise."

Working in a the dangerous world of the Black Market and all things done dirty and cheap, Tarot knows that names are mostly aliases. While most people throw their names around like they're fireworks on Moonfire, he also knows not to question them about names unless he feels it's 'okay' by the way the person acts of behaves. More often then not, he'll likely call you a nickname anyway, since that is how he keeps tracks of the dozens upon dozens of customers he has, both legitimate and otherwise. Depending on how he feels about you, that's how demeaning or affectionate the nickname can/will be, and it IS subject to change (though very unlikely).

Howdy guys! I want to say thanks to everyone who has participated so far! I hope you had as much fun as I did! Now then, I added a little more to the prompt, so be sure to check back at the top to see what the new additions are! They include attack descriptions/quotes, EX Mode description/Quotes and EX Burst Description/Quote! I also added in Tarot's Long quotes against people that have responded to this thread! :thumbsup:

I think I need to establish a place to find Tarot in game, at least until I find a system to getting around to finding all ya'lls! Or I could just mail you in game!