Verad

I have enough of that in my day-to-day, thank you. I'm also uncertain what the value of watching a stream of pre-made macros describing guilds will be. As mixers go, holding one with parliamentary procedures and limited speaking times, coupled with severe restrictions on the number of members able to attend, don't seem like the best way to grasp the character of an FC's playstyle and membership. Especially when the actual organization of contact between FCs will most likely be done in private by the leaders themselves. I'd either be watching things I could see on the RPC or the kind of inter-group collusion that leads to people forming RP councils in earnest. If you're harmless, that's all well and good. As I said, I'd prefer that. Past and frequent experience has shown me otherwise.

I think the statements have been made and the intentions clearly stated on multiple occasions. You and others are welcome not to trust it, but this paranoia just makes people look more foolish then anything in this particular instance. If you don't like it? Don't show up/sign up. That simple. The mass who happens to go I'm sure will have no problem sharing what went on to show people how harmless this whole thing really was. I'm hoping it's harmless. Harmless means unproductive. The real harm of these things is when people start putting their heads together. The itinerary and organization do seem to ensure that FCs can only have a minimum of actual contact outside of their actual speech, so perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps this has been sufficiently neutered out the gate.

Who is we? Royal usage, side-effect of too much academia.

It's not that we aren't reading the thread. It's not that we don't understand the itinerary. It's that we still don't trust the intentions.

You are correct. This is why online roleplayers, with great frequency, attempt to organize storylines and the community on a scale beyond their ability to effectively manage it, as evidenced here. Since you mention history, I should point out that my understanding of the history of these arrangements has led not to good roleplay and interconnected storylines, but power-politicking amongst guild leaders, self-aggrandizement on the part of the organizer(s), and a useful shield for genuinely abusive and predatory behavior. The idea that roleplay is somehow made smaller and less-interconnected without such meetings, summits, councils, conclaves, tribunals, or any of the number of different terms they've gone by in the past hardly merits concern. On consideration, perhaps you are incorrect after all. History repeats, it seems, regardless of whether people know it or not.

But can it be discarded? Yes, but you lose 1000 gil for littering fines per slot discarded.

Pile of Useless Junk - A collection of various odds and ends from Verad's wares. Takes up 20 slots of inventory space. Binding. Cannot be traded, vendored, or entrusted to a retainer. How does he carry all of this stuff anyway? Memoirs of a Master Merchant: The Verad Bellveil Story - A four-hundred page text describing the outrageously scandalous adventures of Verad's early mercantile career. Steel Daggers - A perfectly ordinary pair of finely-crafted steel knives. Why they are in good condition despite Verad's preference for the dubious is a mystery.

The problem is, as Verad says. Many villains aren't logical or have good motivations. That's part of what makes villains scary. They don't play by the same rules as 'normal' people. I think many villains do have good reasons for why they're doing what they're doing. However I don't think it's a prerequisite. Why not? Some of the most villainous people in our history were very logical in their thinking and to them and those who followed them had perfectly good motivations. To some people in the world, your country/culture is villainous (and no, I don't necessarily mean the most obvious example for us western folks). It can be a matter of cultural or historical reasoning, or religious or personal. Just because they aren't necessarily good motivations to you doesn't make that a universal truth. There's all sorts of people and perceptions in the world, and that counts for fictional worlds too. Subjectivity is all well and good, but the point is more that for every logical and methodical villain with motivations that make perfect sense from their perspective if you look at it from that, there are as many who are illogical, irrational, or intentionally lacking in understandable motivation. One isn't better than the other. But both exist.

Banned for not making me a cute pixel avatar despite my never asking for it.

And yet people enjoy the works of Lovecraft, and the appeal of those monsters are based largely on the inability of the human mind to understand what they are and their motivations. Madness comes not from the creatures, which are probably perfectly well-adjusted manifestations of the color Z, but from the protagonists as they struggle with the revelation of their own cosmic insignificance and their failure to comprehend. And if we move from the realm of the inhuman to the more personal, raise your hand if Othello's Iago is your favorite Shakespeare villain. And Iago has no motive. He says "I hate the Moor" and all, but the more you read his soliloquies on that subject, the more you realize he's kinda making up the hatred as he goes along - sometimes he's bitter that Othello got the promotion, sometimes he loves Desdemona, sometimes he thinks Othello slept with his wife, it goes on. In Coleridge's essays on Shakespeare, he praises Iago for his "motiveless malignity," and it seems an apt way to put it. There's nothing understandable because there's nothing to understand - Iago's doing what he's doing for its own sake, and all the justifications are after-the-fact. A bit like what's going on in the Mary Sue thread with the idea of power fantasies, we're seeing a collision here between contemporary tastes in the portrayal of villainy and the needs of RP as a medium, and getting "This is the right way to play a villain" conflated with "This is the right way to write a villain." There may be a correct way for the former, but there really isn't one for the latter. Edit: Also, a note on players engaging in the trappings of villainy for sex, since that's OP's problem. It's not really to my tastes, first because it's a very conservative form of villainy - only villains do nasty things like sex - and second because of the all-too common problems with the portrayal of rape in roleplay. I try to skip it as a primary goal.

The Socratic method never actually works, you know.

Forgive me for pulling a greentext, truly, but: >Comics >No authors at cross-purposes I've read enough mainstream comics and heard more of the same from friends to know that's so, so untrue.

Again, these are very specific, culturally-informed tastes regarding what is and isn't acceptable fiction and what qualifies as a compelling narrative. Go back as far as or even slightly less than a century and you'll find people arguing that yes, of course a narrative about a being higher than everyone who has the final say can create a compelling narrative. Indeed, it creates what a lot of readers would consider the most important narrative. In short, if you frame Superman as God, as you have in the paragraph above, then only in the past one-two centuries or so are you going to find a readership that's sympathetic to the claim that this is somehow a bad story. Go into the future another decade, another two, another generation, and you're going to find these arguments shift dramatically again. They always do. Right now there's a shift towards not liking characters or narratives about people who are greater-than-average. That's fine. But it may change, and when it does, it won't necessarily be for the worse. It will just mean people value characters who are marked as greater, or special, because of intrinsic worth rather than personal achievement than they do now. Of course, I have to say the above with a grain of salt, because there are hugely popular stories out right now about characters who are marked as being "special" in some way. Divergent series, Harry Potter, most of the urban fantasy novels on the planet - we're actually still pretty okay with "special" in fiction. RPers seem to get a bug up about it more than the average reader.

Good villains aren't relatable. You wouldn't necessarily find their motivations understandable from your own point of view. They can often be remote and avoid interacting with players entirely. They don't need to be clever, and they don't need to be sneaky - brute force works just fine if you sell it right. This is not sarcasm. I actually believe this.

Self-obsessed writing can and has been quite commercially successful; Twilight and 50 Shades are very self-obsessed. The usual distinction between commercial success and aesthetic quality applies. But, to be clear, self-obsessed power fantasies can also be aesthetically successful, critically successful, and commercially successful (although for pre-commercial texts like medieval romances and the epics I suppose "culturally successful" might be the better term). While I don't agree with the politics of the movie, American Sniper is a good recent example. Poets did quite well talking about themselves before the modernist movement made poetry inaccessible to the reading public. There's a fair bit of precedent in the commercial sphere for self-obsession and power fantasy to intersect and make a good bit of money in the process to both popular and critical acclaim. But you mention "My Immortal," a text that will never go anywhere near a publisher, not simply because of its aesthetic failings but because it's fanfiction. It's not a commercial text. It is, in someway, unable to be legitimized through the usual channels. I wonder if the author-function has something to do with this.

Why? I think the original post has some real value in questioning how and why we are willing to deride the power fantasy. I can look to my left and find a shelf full of books that are power-fantasies with self-indulgent special characters that are considered classics. So what the heck happened? It's not that writing got "better," I can tell you that. We aren't in some teleological state where we've discarded the power fantasy as being lesser.

I have consciously avoided research in the following areas: Combat: This is the big one. I know that a lot of people are very invested in realistic representations of combat. I just want to try to hit the guy and not get hit back by the same guy. Economics: You'd think I'd do this since I'm playing a merchant character and whatnot. I have not. Of course, Verad is not a very good merchant, so perhaps this is accurate anyway. Law and Legal History: I'd rather just make up weird and/or perverse laws as I go. The Particulars of a Trade: Some time ago I had a character who was a jeweler and gemcutter. I tried to research lapidary and work it into my RP. I gave up because it became pedantic and nobody really cared. I might still do this if the particulars give possibilities for a story rather than restrict them, but I've found that they more often wind up being used as displays of learning. The above can also be taken as my general attitude towards research in RP in general. When it's used to say "This could happen in RP," that's fine. When it becomes "This shouldn't happen in RP," I have trouble with it.

Rather, we should be naming men Jennifer.

As for Aya, obviously a chocolate chip cookie.

YOU CANT DO YOURSELF Radical Freedom!

Mystery meat

Allergy to criticism like, say, critiquing the implications of a commonly used term in RP theory?

Sure, why not.

Event 6: Another Fine Mess 1. The Other Foot: Thanks to the No-Eyed Man's propaganda, anti-Ishgardian sentiment is starting to affect trade in the Exchanges. Between contract disputes and a greater-than-usual quantity of Ul'dahn mercantile skulduggery, to be Ishgardian, or to be suspected of being Ishgardian, has the potential to be a bad thing. Even worse, offering payment for the return of Dravanian relics is one of the worst things the No-Eyed Man could have done. Where once the markets had been devoid of holy items, now they are flooded with fakes, counterfeits, and items of dubious value (Verad would be proud). The possibility that any one of these items might be real has led to the creation of informal swap meets in the exchanges. Is it possible to take an item that poses a real threat out of the hands of the unwary without rousing the anger of the Ul'dahn mob? 1. Osric Melkire 2. Coatleque Crofte 3. 4. 2. MIA: Verad Bellveil and Kyrael Astares have gone missing in action following an investigation. A message regarding their whereabouts was sent to Kiht Jakkya shortly before they went out of contact, but how to handle looking into the home of a prominent Monetarist? 1. Kiht Jakkya 2. Rinh'li Nelhah 3. Enju Abbagliato 4. Aya Foxheart And, of course, once their whereabouts are actually found, recovery may require a separate group with a different skillset entirely. 1. Anstarra Silverain 2. V'aleera Lhuil 3. Orrin Halgren 4. (Note: Kiht Jakkya is the source of the information in this case. Speak to her first regarding inclusion before signing up to either half of this event for IC approval.) 3. Good Old-Fashioned Corruption: Give enough Blades an opportunity to exploit the downtrodden and they shall be even more thoroughly . . . trod upon. Hence the reports of Blades harassing Ishgardian merchants and confiscating their wares for "relic inspection." Confront them and fix the problem. There's always more Blades to go around. 1. Kale Aideron 2. Klinzahr irnachtwyn 3. 4. Proactive Events! 1. Dead in Drybone: Evangeline Primrose has made a deal with the Dravanian cells in Ul'dah to gain their trust - bring them the head of Verad Bellveil. But why bring Bellveil's head when there are plenty of freshly dead people in Drybone waiting for the lichyard, all with perfectly good heads of their own? 1. Evangeline Primrose 2. Jaques Guillaume 3. Vaughn Antain 4.

Ah, Gladwell. Of course, he recognizes that there is also the possibility of one choice being vastly preferred over any others with the ketchup analogy.