C'kayah Polaali

There's been a lot of good advice in this thread, so I'm not going to say much more than simply "Yes, do all this!" One thing that hasn't come up here, however, is that walk-up RP especially benefits from the "yes, and..." RP habit: When you walk up to someone and start yakking at them, try to do so with an overly open mind. No matter how they respond, try to make your response to them be in the form of "Yes, and...", as opposed to "No". I'm not talking about your actual words here, mind you. Just your attitude. See the difference? Now you, personally, may feel that a half-Lalafell half-Au Ra Ishgardian Dragoon is as likely as Elvis living in a condo on the moon, but you're getting RP out of playing along with it. And hey, from your point of view, said Dragoon might merely be an entertaining crazy person! Going along with their RP doesn't mean you have to accept everything they say as the truth! I'm personally a big fan of walk-up RP. I like hearing people's stories. That said, I do what Verad (and a number of other people in this thread) suggest: I send people OOC /tells asking if they want to RP. Sometimes we'll discuss our characters a little, so that we can roll into the RP having heard rumors of the others. Sometimes we'll talk about why they might interact, so we can roll into it having a purpose. Mainly, though, talking OOCly before walking up ensures that the other person is both there at the keyboard and interested in RP with you. The only thing worse than trying to RP with someone who simply walks away is trying to RP with someone who simply doesn't respond - until 30 minutes later when they send you a tell saying "Sorry, I was cleaning up a Wagnerian quantity of cat barf!"

Here you go: http://www.bisoncentral.com/ There'd be some basic differences - EkheiBalduin mentioned riding a chocobo instead of horses/motor vehicles, and the issue of predators is different - but I'd imagine most of the day-to-day aspects of caring for the animals could be lifted straight from that.

That sounds like a fantastic idea, I'd love to see that happen! I haven't seen anything like that so far for FF, but you'd have a lot of thankful people if you made one...

I mainly just play as a healer, so the macros I use are healer-oriented. Aside from the obligatory raise macro, I use target-of-target macros for my offensive spells: /macroicon "Aero II" /ac "Aero II" /ac "Aero II" This will try to cast on my target's target, falling back to casting on my target if this is not possible. This lets me target the tank and heal them, throwing in DPS spells against their target without having to retarget. It also works fine for soloing. And because I'm a smartass, I use a provoke macro if I'm tanking: /macroicon "Provoke" /say Over here, motherfucker! /ac "Provoke"

Chortle! The only picture of C I had that it would recognize also contained Aya Foxheart, so you get a 2-fer: C'kayah is 31, so this isn't too far off. Aya's in her early 20s, so again, pretty good. Here's one of Kenthy, who's (IIRC) 22 in-game, so it's doing pretty well for us so far:

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."

I equated consistently breaking those policies with being an asshole. We all engage in asshole behavior from time to time. You do it. I do it. That's not the same as consistently engaging in this behavior. Honestly, it takes effort to earn a permabannable amount of warnings from the minor rules violations. I'd have to insult someone 25 times to earn a permaban. If I really put myself to it, I could earn a permaban if I belittled someone a mere 10 times in a year. You want to toss out the occasional insult to "prove a point" "in good faith"? Be my guest. You won't do anything except make work for a mod for the first four insults. Hit your first temp ban at 5 insults, and you can complain to your friends about how everyone's missing your point. But 25 insults? 10 in a year? That's not breaking the occasional rule to prove a point. That's not acting in good faith. That's a consistent pattern of behavior. That's getting into the territory where I, personally, would take a good long look at myself to decide if I'm really the sort of person I want to be. Because it's clear that I wouldn't be the sort of person the RPC wants to have around.

Because Asshole is a statement that is different for everyone. Not in this context. The policy guidelines are very clear.

Honestly, why would anyone feel justified in consistently skirting the boundaries of what's allowed by the rules? I mean, read the minor violations. They pretty much all define asshole behavior. Posting a bunch of off-topic stuff in someone's thread? That's asshole behavior. Insults? Asshole behavior. Why would being an asshole be a good thing? Rather, why would the rest of us think it's a good thing to keep assholes around? Everyone has bad days. That's not the point. The current warning system seems to be well thought out to allow for that. Everyone acts like an asshole from time to time. The warning system allows for that. Acting like an asshole because you've had a crappy day doesn't make you an asshole - especially if you recognize that you acted like an asshole and apologize for it. Assholes are assholes because they consistently act like assholes. Why would it benefit this forum to keep assholes around?

Honestly, just practice. I carry a notebook around with me everywhere, and I'll jot down ideas as they occur to me - this is more important than you'd think! Try to remember all the times you had a good idea and then forgot it. Now imagine having all those ideas written down for you to use later. I'll get ideas from pretty much anything. Stories, books, movies, plays, operas... If I'm playing in someone else's arc and I see something that's cool, it goes into the notebook. Dreams. anything. A good creative exercise is to take a story you like and try to alter it as a RP premise. For instance: A small caravan is traveling along a dusty road in Thanalan, when it is attacked by a large force of Brass Blades. The caravan guard at first attempt to resist, but eventually surrender. One of the travelers in the caravan is a minor noblewoman who's accused of conspiring against the Sultana. The captain of the Blades is convinced that she's carrying details of a plot, but he can find nothing on her. He brings her in, figuring that a few weeks in the gaols might loosen her tongue. Meanwhile, two of her servants have snuck away in all the confusion, and one of them is in fact carrying the details of the plot. The noblewoman, you see, had given her servant instructions to carry the details to an old man who'd once been a knight under her father's command... Sound familiar? It should. Now I'm not saying you should make a story based on Star Wars, but you can see how any portion of this could make an interesting event. What if your characters stumble upon the servants? What if they're on the caravan as innocent travelers? Maybe they're Blades, or maybe they've been hired by the Syndicate to help the noblewoman... The more you do this, the easier it'll get, and pretty soon you'll be in the enviable position of having simply too many ideas to actually play out. Keep at it!

With regard to Any links in your signature in which can be interpreted as advertising., where do links to a FC fit into this? I've included a link to my FC in the past, with the idea that this would drum up members and RP for us by advertising it.

At first C'kayah thought the package had been misdirected, until he remembered the name that Nero had gone by in the past. Sebastian Redgrave. He turned the envelope over in his hands as he walked back into the squat, blocky house. His fingers massaged it, feeling the lump inside. A lump the size and shape of a linkpearl. Oh, this is simply too good to be true, he thought to himself. He padded down the stairs, his soft-soled boots silent on the steps, and set a kettle on the stove. It was mid-day and the headquarters for Tylwyth Narah were cool and quiet, most people either resting or out. He set the envelope on the bar while he ground coffee, then prepared a pot and set it aside to brew. He picked up the envelope again, holding it gingerly by his fingertips, and held it over the spout of the kettle. He slowly moved it back and forth through the column of steam rising from the spout until he saw the telltale wrinkling, the glistening shine that told him the wax holding the envelope closed was soft. He set it back on the bar, carefully teasing it open with the sharp point of his knife. Inside was a letter and a linkpearl. He poured himself a cup of coffee, then unfolded the vellum and began to read. He picked up the coffee, blew on it and sipped, then set it back down while a smile slowly crept across his face. The man has been swept off the board. Whatever else might have happened, Melkire had come through on that, while Roen Deneith had managed to escape Taeros' pit at some point before Melkire's attack had taken place. C'kayah picked up the coffee again and sipped. This was simply too good to let sit. Ul'dah today was a different animal than it was a year ago: merchants without strong Syndicate affiliations had begun to disappear. He still possessed a charter, but he knew it was only a matter of time before either the Syndicate or Crofte - or both - revoked that. No matter, he thought to himself. The charter had let him grow fat and wealthy on the coin of Ul'dah, but Tylwyth Narah would survive that loss so long as he was able to take advantage of opportunities when they arose. And the loss of Taeros was a powerful opportunity, indeed. The man had had creditors, he knew. Taeros' estate was likely bankrupt without him, while the mansion itself had already been sold. The Miqo'te made a mental note to check on the status of Taeros' butler. He had heard nothing but good things about the loyalty and resourcefulness of the man. He chuckled to himself then blew on the coffee again, imagining Kenthy with a butler. He refolded the letter, tucking it and the pearl into his vest. Pouring a second cup of coffee, he carried both cups upstairs to the suites where he and Kenthy sometimes slept. There was a new power vacuum in Ul'dah, it was time to plan how best to exploit it.

I'm not a big anime fan, but there are a few I really like. The one that really got me into the medium was Serial Experiments Lain, which defies coherent explanation. It's a fun cyberpunk SF series that ends up delving into some surprising areas. [video=youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9kYAEyVjEY The character designer for Lain went on to make a really strange anime about a poor student and an alien called Niea Under 7, which is also fun to watch. The thing that both of these shows have in common (and it's something that I haven't really seen in most anime) is a deep exploration of what it means to be connected to other people. [video=youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNtF2BBJDww A third that I really enjoyed was Bubblegum Crisis, both in it's original form and the later reboot. The reboot looks better, but the original series definitely went a lot further in both it's exploration of what it means to be alive as well as how well realized the characters are. Both definitely delve into that same field: what does it mean to be connected to other people, so I guess you can see a trend here. Anyways, I highly recommend these. [video=youtube] [video=youtube]

You've never seen 2001 or Doctor Strangelove? Go watch them! Now!

Romance novels.

Just stop after the first two. The third? No. For me, I've never seen Twin Peaks.

"Hmmmm... A new player has emerged on the field. Now how can I turn this to my advantage?"

C'kayah can cook. He can cook very well.

Oh, hell yes! Though it's still plenty fun and doesn't seem that dated (phone/modem sounds aside)... Others: The Gateway series (Gateway and Homeworld) - point-and-click graphic/text adventures based on Fred Pohl's Gateway books Chuck Yeager's Advanced Flight Trainer (first and only flight sim I've played where I actually managed to experience inertial coupling!) The whole Escape Velocity series. 'Nuff said. I'd have thrown Elite into this a few years ago, but we've gotten Elite Dangerous, so that's dandy!

This may sound harsh, and it's not meant in that spirit at all: If a roleplayer is trying very hard to contribute and get stuff going, and their efforts are failing, then it might be a good idea for them to examine what they're doing. I remember when Aya first came to RPC. She made a few posts looking for RP, and then posted an open RP which I responded to. Much like anyone else. But what stood out to me was that she was both a really good writer and just a really positive person interested in building constructive, collaborative RP. Since then she and I have RPed on occasion (far less frequently than I'd like), and it's *always* a positive experience. In the time I've known her, I've seen her go out of her way to reach out and RP with new players. This is why she has 30 rumors on her wiki and a bunch of positive rep. This is why people banter in a friendly manner with her. She's done the legwork to develop acquaintanceships and friendships with these people. It's honestly acquired. Personally speaking, I'm not as extroverted as Aya. I prefer one-on-one RP over crowds. Yet I've still managed to develop a lot of connections with C'kayah, and my wiki has a ton of rumors for him, too. I credit two things to this: When I first arrived in FF, I started offering my character as a foil for people - a supporting character in their story. People love getting the chance to let their hero shine, and I would help them do this! The other thing I do (which I continue to do to this day) is I habitually examine people who look like RPers (i.e: People who are walking, or sitting in the QS, or wearing something that looks well thought out) to see if they have RP tags. The ones that aren't actively RPing? I'll send them tells: "Hi! I noticed you're a RPer! What sort of RP do you like?" My friends list is packed because of this. My FC is filled with people I've met this way. It works. A lot of people like to pretend that social skills are innate. That we simply emerge from the womb with whatever social ability we will have. It's not true. Social skills are skills. They're learned. If you're not getting the interaction you want, then look at changing your skill set. It works.

Others were raised by wolves. I, on the other hand, was raised by chairs.

I imagine this is in response to my post, so I'd like to address these points here. I know a lot of the folks who created Backstage, and I was fairly heavily involved in both communities. The interesting thing that happened with chatsubo/OOC is that there very distinctly was not this sort of discussion. People didn't decide "Wow, chatsubo/OOC sucks, I'm going to make a stink about it". They simply cut down on their participation in the site. They still played the game. They still communicated through other means (the Eve version of linkshells, etc). When Backstage was created, a huge chunk of those people just switched to it. The key point here is that the vast majority of these people never talked to the mods on chatsubo/OOC about this. They simply saw behavior that they were uncomfortable with for long enough, and stopped participating. I know it a perfectly rational world, you would expect everyone who started to pull away from your community to talk to you, first. At least to tell you that they're doing it, and tell you why. But historically that's not what happened with chatsubo/OOC. The chatsubo/OOC mods that I knew were uniformly surprised by what happened, because they weren't seeing the signs leading up to it. People were participating in the forums, and continuing to do so despite the shifting culture of it. It was a classic example of a punctuated equilibrium, though: as time went on, more and more people were pulling away from the forum, and only participating in a very limited way in order to eek out some value from it. But when something else (Backstage) popped up to specifically address their concerns, they left en masse. I'm not suggesting you step down, nor am I suggesting someone creates a FF version of Backstage. What I am suggesting is that we learn from the examples of chatsubo/OOC and Backstage, and apply those lessons towards fixing this cultural shift with an aim towards improving the RPC.

I've certainly noticed a change in the tone of the RPC, and it's a big part of why I don't participate nearly as much with it. I know there's a big chunk of Tylwyth Narah that likewise tends to avoid the site, for the reasons Merc gives here. There's a telling parallel that can be drawn with the Eve Online RP community, which I used to participate in quite a bit. In the early days of the game, there was a commonly used RP forum hosted on chatsubo for OOC communication among the RPers. It was pretty similar to the RPC. For a few years it operated relatively smoothly, but as time went on it started to go down a similar route as RPC: Discussion threads started veering away from debates and became flames. This was tolerated at first because the Eve RP community prided itself on being just a little more thick skinned than the typical RP community, and because everyone knew the chatsubo/OOC mod team was pretty thinly stretched. However, after a while, some people started theorizing that the mod team was being more permissive with one clique than they were with everyone else. At this point things blew up, and a lot of people stopped using the site. After a little while, there was a mass exodus from the site to a new one, Eve Backstage. Eve Backstage was originally created specifically to address what a lot of people saw as the shortcomings of chatsubo/OOC: Moderation was not transparent, and there was a culture of permissiveness towards borderline insults. While the official rules of the forum are pretty standard, there's also a FAQ covering expected behavior which is pretty remarkable. I'm sure a lot of people here would read the guidelines in that FAQ and snort, thinking "that's so hippy-dippy", but you have to keep in mind that those guidelines were created specifically solve a problem. And those guidelines are moderated against. But what's interesting about Backstage is that all the moderation is transparent. Moderators will moderate a thread and (with very few exceptions) stick the offending posts in a special forum that's publicly visible. Likewise, there's another forum on the site that's publicly postable specifically for discussing how things are being moderated. Is this something that RPC could benefit from? Probably. Ultimately, it's not my site and I'm not a mod, so it's easy for me to say "Yes, do this". It's telling, though, that chatsubo/OOC is basically dead at this point while Backstage continues to thrive after half a decade of vigorous use.

I've GMed freeform mass combat a few times before, as well as roll-based combat, and I always end up doing the same thing: Before combat, I'll post an order of initiative. Usually it's simply alphabetical, but sometimes the order will take into account surprise or an initiative roll. We then go down the list and each person posts their action. I like following the "You post your action, the person you're acting against posts the response" standard. I pretty much always allow someone to attempt to defend no matter how many people are attacking them - an N-vs-1 fight is already plenty slewed towards the side with N people, so allowing the 1 to defend against each of the N attacks doesn't harm things unduly. I tend to not take these into account. With freeform combat, the receiver of an action dictates what that action does, so it's up to them to decide if they're going to be splattered by a God-tier character's attack, or if they'll somehow rise to the occasion and channel the rage of Halone and block that attack. I let people choose their targets. For the most part, I'm good with people being able to move and engage different targets at will, but if someone's a good distance away I'll take that into account. Again, with freeform, it's up to the players. Not terribly. Keep in mind this all pertains to freeform combat. The main thing about freeform combat is that everyone involved must trust one another. If it's clear that this trust isn't there (or if someone abuses the freeform system enough that people start complaining), then I'll recommend we go to a simple roll-based system. I'm personally not a huge fan of those, but it's better than having combat devolve into angry arguments.