Gegenji

... Which one's Vath Aegir? The cat or the mouse?

My whole thought on actual prizes for RP situations like competitions and the like has always been that they're sort of... secondary? A bonus? As someone mentioned earlier in the thread, the idea shouldn't be that you're participating solely for the reward. Sure, ICly that could be the reason (and thus the prize itself could be an IC - not actually tangible - prize) but it shouldn't also be the OOC one. The pot for winning the Grindstone is nice, but the main draw is to show off your skills in combat, climb to the top of the ladder in front of an audience, and potentially generate RP. People have made friends, rivals, and probably even enemies through the Grindstone. Started, progressed, or reach plot resolution through the Grindstone. And I feel all of that is far more important than whatever prize is at the top. With the Chrystal Chronicle reporting on the thing too, you also get the victor and runner-up interviewed afterward. That sort of in-world publicity is also its own sort of prize. And - it may just be because us Overseers started doing it - I like to think that being the Champion of the X Bracket (Arbor, Wash, Bridge, Rock) is kind of a reward in its own right - it's recognition for getting to the top of your own bracket, which is pretty impressive in its own right even if they end up losing against one of the other Bracket Champions. Of course actually becoming Champion is pretty great, but I feel like reaching those other positions (bracket champion or even finalist) has esteem attached to it that doesn't require an actual solid prize. That said, another good point that got brought up is that these sorts of events are usually run entirely on a voluntary basis. The staff aren't getting any compensation for the work they're doing, and frequently are also the ones funding the prize at the end. If you're running it often enough (like, even just every other week), unless you have quite a stash of gil saved up or have some outside source of funding... you'll end up having to do a lot of extra work outside the event too just farming up the prizes to hand out at the end. That's a lot of effort being put into the event to have someone who just showed up complain because they came up short. I don't know. Maybe I'm just being rambly and repeating stuff that's already been said but... basically I think the main point of the events is supposed to be an RP thing. The prizes are bonuses being provided by the event coordinators basically out of their own pocket. They can help attract attention and bump up attendance, of course, but they should not be seen as a requirement. As such, the event runners are not obligated to provide more than they want or are willing to provide. If you don't want to provide a physical runner up prize, there's no obligation to.

I suddenly remembered this song during the office Thanksgiving potluck. I figured I'd share: WL6f8ENJm5k

Oddly enough, I think my favorite bit of headcanon is from fellow Lalafell roleplayer Shoshopu. In the lore, Dunesfolk used to travel around on (and live off the backs of) giant beasts. What these beasts are have never really been explained or even hinted at. Just that there's some manner of big creature Dunesfolk used as beasts of burden. Shopu decided her family traveled on the back of the giant Adamantoise (the big ol' turtles) that you can see just sort of wandering around idly in Thanalan. And, really... I like it mostly because it... kind of works? I could totally see little Lalafellin huts and whatnot set on the backs of the shells of the Adamantoise, and they move slowly and methodically enough that you'd figure it'd be a relatively smooth ride. And then she has the added little fun tidbit of her own Adamantoise mount being basically a baby one of the big family-carrying ones that she's raising. It just sort of... flows naturally and makes sense. It's not official canon, but it's reasonable enough that you could think it was.

I don't mind you using it, I threw it out as a potential idea to use after all. Feel free to take it, run with it, and make it your own. And if I can help further, feel free to ask here, shoot me a PM, or snag me in the RPC chatroom if I'm around. :thumbsup:

Ah, if your character actually comes to Gridania, then delving into an actual Amdaporian ruin for knowledge on White Magic (and/or a soul crystal) is also a pretty feasible option. I had one of my characters effectively break into and loot a ruin to get theirs with a couple adventurers/treasure hunters. Wanting to play a White Mage is probably going to get you some "special snowflake" looks regardless, if we're being serious. I would think that it wouldn't be enough that you can't find RP, but there will likely be a few people who don't like the idea because it doesn't mesh with how they want to RP. Hopefully, however, they also won't be the super-vocal sort who will actively complain and/or call you out on it. Though, there's another angle to this. Who would need to know from the onset? There's nothing keeping Y'myrha from keeping the fact she knows White Magic a secret. No matter how she ended up learning it, it's not something that needs to be stated right out the gate - people could just think she's just really good at Conjury. It's not like they would KNOW unless they've actually seen White Magic used before. That way, the only people who would know would be folks you've decided you want them to know. To the people who might balk at her being a WHM, she's just a simple dancer and conjurer. For those that don't seem to mind it, she can show that she's more than that.

In regards to the "other Jaguars" matter, you're pretty on the nose I think - if you play it as your splinter tribe being different from their's, it should be fine. It might even drum up some interesting interactions if you want to roll that your tribe might've heard of theirs in passing or vice versa! I also agree with Perth's suggestion. I don't know about others, but usually if you can explain the "how" well enough, I'm willing to try rolling with just about anything once. So if you can figure out the "how" of your character's knowledge of White Magic, I think that'd be beneficial. If you need help for the how, well, a few things that come to mind for me are: A WHM soul crystal found in one of the battlefields of La Noscea. Nym was located there, after all, and was one of the three factions in the War of the Magi. It's not too far of a stretch that they might have either obtained a WHM crystal or one could have been left behind by an Amdaporian combatant. Rather than have it be full-on White Magic, instead have it be something more unique. You don't have to limit yourself to the classes/jobs in the game. So maybe your tribe's dancers are also healers - the dances commune with the spirits of the land and draw forth healing energies that are like conjury or white magic, but not entirely. Perhaps they wear white to show the purity of their profession, further making the uninformed confuse them with White Mages. The last idea does actually touch on the 60-70 WHM quests, so I'll leave it in spoilers here rather than just blurt it out. It's a bit lengthy, though, and rambly - as is my wont - so... yeah. Anyway.

Oh no! I already made a character and I'd prefer a transfer Is there no option for me in that case? Thank you so much for your help! I believe Louisoix might also be an EU RP server? But I'm not entirely sure, so don't quote me on that. Also, I don't rightly know if Omega is closed to transfers or not, so you might be able to move 'em on over. Hopefully someone from the EU Crew will be by to give some more information, though.

Fortunately, there IS an EU RP server! Omega! I believe it might be closed to transfers, but you can make a new character on it. If you want to RP with the US folks, Mateus is the "alternative" server for folks to go to with Balmung being locked down. It's a good server in its own right, though, so don't think it's any lesser because it's not Balmung.

I think the point is more that we either don't or shouldn't have a set standard of what would work as an example. There are many places in the world that have different levels of sanitation at different times in history. So which one would be the "proper" one to use in comparison in this case? With no set analogue for comparison purposes, why wouldn't using Western Europe be any more outlandish than the Inuit? Though, as a counterpoint to my own argument, I'd move that the Inuits might not be that great of an example for dentistry purposes because we have so many examples of in-game sweets that using a low-sweet society would probably not work. Between the cakes and chocolates and candy, there's some pretty solid evidence of more modern levels of sugar intake.

Well, the idea for Chachan's place was to be a combination home and smithy, so maybe you might be able to take some ideas from that? The basic things like the crafting stations are all well and good, but there's some more nuanced stuff you'd want in there. An easy one is storage space for whatever materials and finished products you'd have. So shelving units, chests, crates, that sort of thing. I like having a materials vendor and mender there for aesthetic purposes too, even if they weren't handy to have in the first place. Other potential things could be seating or even a fitting/measuring room if they're going to be crafting armor. I kinda wanted to have the latter in my place but I... uh... ran out of space. :blush: Beyond that, I'd look at the smithing facilities in Limsa and in Kugane for any other ideas.

The wall hedges would make me want to make a little yard maze so bad... but you don't have nearly enough outdoor slots to make a good maze!

This is actually true for me as well - at least for MMOs. I mean, all my characters in other MMOs sort of had a... story background in my head? Like my Night Elf Hunter was actually blind and used his animal companion and his other senses to actually hunt. Or, even earlier, I gave names to my Necromancer's minions in Everquest. But FFXIV was the first MMO where I actually actively sought to seek out RP and RP interactions. I specify MMOs specifically because I've done tabletop RPGs and the like since 2e DnD (aka, the Wonders of THAC0). The earlier ones were just, like... me with fantasy stats (as I figure many first-time characters are, especially if you were elementary school age like I was), but over time I've thought up and sometimes even got to play many different character ideas. What's funny is that I think the seed got put into my head in... third grade, I want to say? I had a sort of after-school daycare thing I used to go to on the regular where we'd hang out and play Sonic Spinball on the Genesis and the like... but one of the counselors did this creative storytelling thing where she told this grand adventure with us kids as the heroes. She'd use stuff we had on us to explain how we solved problems and sometimes even prompted us for solutions. I don't think we ever "finished" the adventure, but that sort of fantasy-group-storytelling thing is what I think made me jump on the idea of joining a DnD game a couple years later.

Allow me to give you the one stuck in mine: UYHXUylYJy8

It should be noted that "modern day" Arcanima is a descendant of both Nymian Scholasticism (Scholaring? Scholology? Scholomancy? Scholomance?) and Allagan Summoning techniques. Which is why the base class can flow into either one from the advanced jobs from a lore standpoint. The Carbuncle, comparatively, is Arcanima's attempts at creating a Fairy or Egi. It's pretty primitive in comparison to the other two types. If I recall correctly, a Fairy is actually a full-blown elemental rather than just an aetheric construct like a Carbuncle. The Nymians somehow managed to learn to create them - and the reason why you kind of need a soul crystal as a SCH is that creating new ones is a very lost art and the existing ones are bound to these crystals. So, unless you learned how to create a wholly new one or extract an existing one from a crystal by the Tonberries (which I suppose is an angle you could take since they're the transformed denizens of Nym and you already learn advanced Scholar techniques from one starting at level 50), there isn't going to be much of a way to just... summon one without a soul crystal.

Dis is forever late but I feel like I flailed on discord anyway, thank you, Tyyy! ;A; It was fun RPing with you before, Chachan! Friends! I updated my main post here. I made up a wiki page for Sei and Nenia, but going to be trying to focus on Nenia mostly! Life's gotten quite busy, in a good way! I like to make thought-provoking and character developing stories, and I'm afraid I don't quite have the time to dedicate that to 4-5 alts! ;u; <3 Well, if you want Nenia to make friends with Chachan too, feel free! He's open to making many friends! :thumbsup:

I will agree on that latter point, especially in an event like the Grindstone. Yes, we know we are using a system that is effectively random for the sake of timeliness and fairness. We don't need it lampooned every week by someone coming in with their weapon of choice being cutting remarks or a frozen fish they caught the day before. It's fine every now and then, but making a habit over it is sort of... I dunno, rude to the people running the thing? Bringing it back on topic, though, I think showing disrespect/irreverence to an event (either by mocking it, doing something over-the-top or dramatic to pull attention onto them at said event, or just trolling it) could be a red flag. ... Though, I have had Gogon do the whole Statler and Waldorf thing at the Runestone on a pretty regular basis. Am I raising my own red flag? :tonberry:

I am of a mind that disliking dice rolls is a preference more than a flag. Unless the fact that the person is a dice-roller for combat makes you more wary of RPing with them even in non-combat situations where dice isn't being used. It's ultimately just a preference of dealing with combat and just because someone prefers that sort of combat shouldn't really be considered a red flag for overall RP purposes - just for if you want to do something fighty with them or expect to be doing a lot of combat with or against them in your RP. And, as an aside, I wonder if part of the reason folks don't jump in to help try and handle a fight that breaks out in a public place is just due to either: a.) being afraid of imposing themselves on the RP, or b.) they've been berated/ignored/burned enough times from trying that they just don't give up. But that's a discussion for another thread, methinks.

I think it's the highlights. The purple-blue tips help accentuate the eyes, at least in my opinion.

That's kind of what I did when I did an RP event that had about a dozen people involved (including myself). We split off the group into three "teams" each. I led one and my two support DMs covered the other two. During that, the support DMs had a general idea of what events might happen and basically ran with it as they wanted, and shot me questions via tells and the like when they weren't sure of something. After that, there was another scene which involved a Castrum raid and the group got split into halves - one going inside and the others outside causing a distraction and generally keeping the Garleans busy. Again, it had its own sub-DM who basically was given free reign to throw enemies at the outside party while I dealt with the infiltration team. It all worked... relatively well. Really, I think we had more issues with a couple participants more than with the setup. Alternately, you could just have a sort of "turn order" - let everyone get a chance to do or say something before going through the next "cycle." Kind of like initiative in any table top RPG. This will certainly slow things down as you get into bigger groups (unless you split them up like mentioned above), but it would certainly allow everyone a chance to say or do something. Or... you can just try and roll with it and assume the folks that are posting faster are just... doing things faster. Take the Grindstone. We've had several situations where a handful of speedy posters get through all their matches relatively quickly, and then are stuck waiting on one or two matches where either the RNG Gods have decreed it would be a lengthy parry-fest or one (or both) fighters are taking far longer to write out their attacks. In those situations, we usually just figure that the lengthier fight is, in fact, just taking longer. We don't really bother worrying about how one fighter can go through three matches where they've taken a total of, say... 10-15 actions while the slower match has taken all of six. We just say that this fight is "still going" and let the faster fighter just sort of chill and observe or maybe do a little bit of side RP until the matches catch up. Maybe prod the slower fighters into trying to be quicker and/or shorter in their emotes so that they can finish a bit quicker. Not the most elegant solution, but when you have numbers like the Grindstone you sometimes just have to hand-wave things for the sake of expediency.

It's not that weird of an idea at all! In fact, I figure it would be a great way to have a bunch of merchant characters of different professions and walks of life able to ICly explain why they all have their shops in one place. Plus, rather than having to fit whatever "theme" of the location is (like a tavern or bakery or what-have-you) or OOCly explain that their shop is actually in a wildly different location (what I did with Chachan's smithy for a while before actually landing a house for it), they're free to run whatever shop they desire. It'd definitely be useful for those players who want to have their characters run their own shops but (understandably) can't really have their own location due to the housing limitations. And maybe even promote some inter-shop interactions since they'd all be in close proximity to each other ICly! Maybe get a price war or two going if a couple of the shops sell similar things. :lol: There's a lot of potential here.

"OF COURSE BENCH CAN FLY. WHY WOULD YOU THINK OTHERWISE?"

Oh, it makes perfect sense - especially since he outs himself in the cutscene afterward - but the main place where I think you learn that bit of lore is during the CUL quest line (Around level 50, I believe?). At least, that's where I mainly remember that from - so you may not get that if you didn't level your cooking skills.

Ah, okay, good. I was worried I missed obvious clue or hint along the way. I mean, there obviously are clues, but they were a bit more nuanced than some obvious "PICK THIS ONE" indicator displayed somewhere.