Verad

Some of them admittedly vary based on the descriptive text, which is never quite the same between games. You can see where specific authors had far more negative opinions about the N/D based on the wording. Both the Hunter and Demon corebooks stress that the Child can be just as much a stubborn brat as an unsullied innocent, but the Hunter book's phrasing is far harsher: "An immature, selfish creature" compared to "a constant need for attention" in Demon. Similarly, Bon Vivant varies between "Always seeks excess and instant gratification" and "You may have serious matters to take care of, but there's nothing that says you can't have some fun along the way."

As far as the actual thread topic, choosing between a plutocratic oligarchy in the hands of the Syndicate and a monarchy, however benign in the form of the current Sultana, just seems like choosing different flavors of poison. That's purely from an OOC perspective though.

I'm willing to use the aetheryte and airships for personal transportation, but since Verad gets a lot of junk cargo, I take overland travel times into account whenever I can. Of course, it would help quite a bit if I had a sense of how long travel across Eorzea is meant to take, and how the airships and aetheryte nodes cut down on that time. How long did it take those Doman refugees to get from Vesper Bay to Mor Dhona, anyhow?

This is one of the underlying problems behind applying D&D morality in particular for me - it comes from a system where there are meant to be relatively clear-cut rules for what is and isn't good, evil, law, order, etc. That's fine for D&D because they have a number of mechanical effects to reinforce the concept. It matters whether something is good or evil because there are spells that can detect them and abilities that only work for them. In MMOs that tends to be much less the case. Well, most of the time. There's also the fact that alignment systems tend to have a number of underlying assumptions about what is and isn't moral behavior, even outside of D&D, that might conflict with what's going on in the MMO to which they're being applied. For example, I'm hesitant to use the Nature/Demeanor system of WoD because that system is rooted in a game that is explicitly "Gothic-Punk," and is trying to portray a setting that is cynical and corrupt; accordingly, most of the traits available in Nature and Demeanor selection imply that the character is going to be a jerk in some form. Completely okay for WoD, but in more idealistic settings - and I'd argue that, for all the dark business in FFXIV, it's trying to be quite idealistic - it starts to chafe.

Those must be the result of later editions, last one I played was 3rd, I think, back in the early 00's. They also seem like an effective mechanic for dealing with the usual sudden but inevitable betrayals that I recall being the major plot element of all of our campaigns. Are the two stats interlinked? Like, being more Notorious gives you less Street Cred based on your actions? I feel like Essence could also be seen as a morality system within Shadowrun. Essence is very much about dealing with the human condition, but it's more of a metric of how human you, the character, remain in the face of increasing cybernetic augmentation. Cyberpunk 2020 did something similar, albeit more explicitly, by including the possibility of reaching a state of "cyberpsychosis" when you lost too much of your original self. Obviously, that's not really very helpful within the context of FF14, except that it indicates that alignment and morality systems can model morality beyond "how much of a jerk are you to other people." Perhaps something could be devised, for those so inclined, to indicate the state of a character's connection to Hydaelyn, and what, if any, effect that has on the character.

I'd argue that describes as many players as it does player-characters, but with some affection; I've certainly played more than my fair share of Stupid Blank characters.

Spinning this off from the discussion of the Syndicate's morality, what alignment systems from outside tabletop RPGs do you like to use, if any, when developing characters? How do you feel those systems influence the way you play the character? Do you keep them in mind only during creation, or throughout the course of your character's RP career? Some of the ones discussed in the previous thread, for clarity: D&D: Probably one most people are familiar with in the form of the two-axis system, in which your character is graded along a scale of Law-Neutral-Chaos and Good-Neutral-Evil. Used in D&D where it's mechanically reinforced and there's a clear objective morality. Palladium: Used across all the Palladium gamelines, this alignment system breaks down into specific categories of good, neutral, and evil - Principled and Scrupulous for good, Unprincipled and Anarchist for neutral, and Aberrant, Miscreant, and Diabolic for evil. They each have distinct codes of behavior which I don't recall because it's been years since I've cracked open my copy of RIFTS. World of Darkness: There are two factors here: Nature/Demeanor, in which you pick two traits that describe your surface personality as well as who you "really" are underneath, and Morality, the rules for which varied from game to game but generally involved a sliding hierarchy of bad things that would make your Morality degrade over time. Exalted/Scion: Rather than having a set morality, your characters would value certain Virtues. In Exalted, these were fairly fixed, but in Scion these could vary depending on what divine pantheon your character hailed from - a Greek Scion would value personal excellence and achievement where a Voudoun Scion would not, etc. Having a very high Virtue gave you certain benefits, but could also restrict your behavior to the point of forcing you to act counter to your immediate interests for the sake of adhering to the virtue. Are there other alignment systems you rely on? What are they? I have mine, but it's very gaming-hipster, so I will wait until other people have spoken first.

But it is an interesting topic! And so there shall be a spin-off.

I personally don't think you should concern yourself with breaking character on an IC level; rather, the stalking and problematic material is coming from the player, who is using the character as a vehicle to express it. You should handles this on the OOC level first rather than attempt to engage on an IC level. That said, if you feel it necessary to handle this IC - people break character under unusual situations all the time. Yours would be far from the first, and having her normal attitude change in response to this would be normal in and of itself.

I did say the point was a pedantic one, but I have known people who took the philosophy of IC over all to place themselves into some very unpleasant romantic situations in which they, on an OOC level, were having no fun, yet felt compelled to continue out of the sense that the IC connection was more "natural." So perhaps it's not as much an obvious matter as one might think. This gets more into the issue of whether RP in general should happen spontaneously or if OOC communication in the form of pre-planning is a more desirable goal. I can't really say I have a clear answer for that beyond "sometimes." I can say, however, that for as much as suspicion may be warranted based on what you described above, that's because of the element of the request coming from a stranger, not that there was an OOC request at all.

Part Tonberry. Just think of the power!

I have, in the past, had a couple of players push romance on my characters quite heavily - not this character, because have you seen him? - and in at least one instance, the person was explicitly doing so because they were lacking a specific kind of emotional connection outside of the game, and said as much. It's not fun, it can lead to quite a bit of guilt and hurt feelings, and the OP shouldn't just wait for the stalker to leave her alone, but actively discourage it. That said, I think all RP romance is "pushed" to some degree. I'm actually highly suspicious of the notion that it can happen naturally. How long that push may take can vary greatly, of course, whether it be a months-long development or damn-near-instantaneous based on the desires of the players involved. But I think it does require a conscious effort on the part of the players to some degree. What differs between that and the kind of thing the OP is describing is whether or not that push is desirable or not, and whether both parties consent to it - for any number of different reasons. To be clear, I'm not suggesting there is no IC/OOC divide at all in saying this, and that all RP romance is rooted in purely OOC motives, but I do think there's a choice on the part of the player rather than the character. Some of the people I have turned down for RP romance in the past would have, on a purely IC level, have fit the criteria that my character found attractive; nevertheless, I turned them down because I felt something was off about the player, or because I simply didn't like the player's RP aesthetic. Conversely, there are characters that would not have been automatically attractive to mine based on the criteria I had laid out for them initially (which sounds clinical, but I just mean that there was a general notion of "this is what the character likes, this is what they don't"); however, because the player's writing style clicked well with mine or the player had a particularly healthy perspective on playing that made it seem like they would playing a romance with them would result in interesting stories. So, with some OOC communication and consent, things were nudged in that direction accordingly. I feel like I'm losing track of my point, which I admit is largely pedantic. My claim here is that RP romance doesn't really happen "naturally," as if it were an organic development. At best, I think it happens unexpectedly, when you encounter a character with qualities appealing to yours and a player you are comfortable playing with. But there's always a conscious choice on the part of the player to go in that direction.

Elezen Name: Verad Bellveil Elezen Clan: Duskwight Gender: Male Timezone: CST Looking For? Customers. Lots and lots of customers. People with a sense of humor. Is this guy even a little lore-compliant? Says right there on the profile: "Verad Bellveil is a terrible Duskwight." Noisy and bombastic and extroverted, with a name of Hyuran descent. There are reasons for this. He doesn't discuss them. What are your RP limits? Surprisingly few for what's a really elaborate gag character. Really as long as he's allowed to keep existing and suffer for my amusement I'm okay with it. ERP is fine, but make sure you're sober when you consider the option.

It happens, and I think it's largely inevitable. Sometimes that's a good thing, sometimes not. For my part, I try to keep at least some emotional distance, if not total detachment, from my character. It's necessary when I need to make him look like an idiot as I very frequently do. I can always tell when I'm getting too close in that regard because he stops being funny. Then I make him suffer more, and the problem is solved.

This is exactly what I've been hoping for.

A lot of good responses here. A follow-up question: Those of you who prefer lengthier healing times: How do you balance the play such that every scene in which your character is involved doesn't eventually become about the injury, especially when it's a serious one? As an example, I had a character on WoW temporarily lose the use of his legs after losing a particularly nasty fight. I was game to try it at first, but it rapidly became exhausting on an OOC level both accounting for the scale of the changes being made in his movements and in how it would affect his mindset. Further, it seemed like every scene focused on his state, which appeared to drag on the RPers around me and made me concerned that I was overplaying the injury for attention. How, then, do you balance the need to portray injury with the need to not make every scene exclusively injury-related?

For a variety of different reasons, some planned, some not, Verad gets injured on a fairly regular basis. This is a bit tricky for me, because I've always had trouble getting a feeling for the best way to RP convalescence. I admit I speed the process along much farther than would be the case IRL, due to a mixture of a willingness ot accept magical healing options and a simple OOC desire to keep things moving and not force myself to be the center of attention through scenes that always seem to be about pitying my character. I'm therefore curious as to how people handle getting hurt, and for how long they handle it. Do you try to adopt real-world healing times and physical therapy for the sake of immersion, or speed things up for the sake of expediency? Do you allow magical healing, and if so, how much? And how much do OOC concerns like the ones I mention above influence your decisions?

A combination of the following: Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler (Discworld) Scheming entrepreneur, good at selling ideas, mostly just sells garbage. Elan (Order of the Stick) Dramatic but weirdly charismatic idiot. Shelley "The Machine" Levene (Glengarry Glenn Ross) Desperate sad-sack.

I mostly just need to keep up with whatever random junk Verad is selling at the moment. Keeping the wiki updated in that regard gives me an incentive to keep making new things to sell. I should probably add more Relationships as well, and dumber rumors. Or other people can do that! I am quite lazy in that regard.

Mostly-harmless eccentrics with a tendency towards the verbose. I am perfectly happy typecasting myself.

Didn't I just sell you a bunch of blank books?

I've been having a pretty good time pestering the locals of Ul'dah to buy my wares, but I feel like it's about time to move on to something more in-depth. I had previously intended to run with a PvE FC while roleplaying outside of the company, but I'm finding that I'm unable to keep up with the grind necessary to stay competitive with the group. That being the case, I'm looking around for RP Free Companies and Linkshells. While I'd prefer something with a mercantile/criminal focus in Ul'dah, I am perfectly happy having this character get in over his head with a group with a completely different focus if they don't mind him trying to sell junk. Contact me here, or in-game, or in messages, or through the chip implanted in my head by the government, as you see fit.

My character literally sells plot devices. My relationship with the fourth wall and preserving its structural integrity is, accordingly, quite spotty. Correcting a spelling mistake or a misunderstanding about something that was mentioned in a post hardly even rates.

I am not an altoholic, but perhaps this will be useful. I stay focused on one character because I am terrified of the time investment required for a fresh alt. Between the length of the story quests and patch content, and the incentives for leveling new classes and jobs on the same character, I'm pretty solidly discouraged from making a new character. Of course, I'm looking at this from the perspective of PvE. Your post indicates you're looking at character concepts and roleplay. That makes things a bit trickier. In such instances I usually think about the time I have available and how likely I am to actually see the character used in roleplay beyond a few scenes at most. There are a lot of concepts I have that I like but will never use because I suspect they'd wind up largely decorative when put into actual play. Obviously, the above attitude requires a pretty cynical outlook on what will and won't be received well in RP, but it's served me well in keeping me focused.

"I haven't the slightest. I was informed of an excellent deal on some rotted - " He paused, seeing a look in her eye at that particular phrase, and corrected himself. "On some bad fish that would suit the cart very well, and all I had to do was carry it out free of interference." That he had nevertheless caused a mob to spontaneously break out in spite of these instructions did not seem to bother him; the only consternation in his face was from the loss of his "reward," and it seemed to vex him greatly, leading him to scratch a perfectly-badly-trimmed beard in consideration. "So I don't know, you don't know, perhaps the merchants don't know - do the employers know?" He glanced up at the sky, an act that would have looked quite grand were he looking up at anything but the scuffed plaster and stone of the Limsa alleyways, the tiniest strip of sky peeking out between buildings. "Does anyone know? Is there, in fact, a product at all?" A mob was news, after all, and news travels fast, bad news faster, and by that logic surely they would have heard if they were in trouble by now. "Or were we paid to upend bad fish?"