Rufus Wightman

How many people are playing characters that would reasonably do that? How many are playing characters that have faced those things in other venues well before they met you? And is there a rough percentage of players that should be roleplaying as the former and not the latter? Some sort of guideline, perhaps? Like I said, it's pretty impossible to try to police another player's behaviour. In the case of the OP, if there's an event happening, someone might not want to be locked out of it. And that's understandable. In the case I describe, you do make good points. It's not as though I expect that my character is superior to all others, and that the power they wield, however it's manifested, should be able to strike fear into the heart of foes. Gods, no. That'd be some kind of silliness on my part. It's all luck of the draw, I suppose. It'd just be nice to feel like any attempt at intimidation wasn't just ignored because reasons.

So what is your character afraid of or intimidated by? He sounds pretty secure in his abilities, what with the darkness powers and stuff. That's a very good question! One I do, indeed, have an answer for. Rufus is actually quite insecure when it comes to his abilities. Even if he strives to make use of and master them, there is always some small part of him in the back of his head that worries that he may become controlled by the darkness. As for what he'd be intimated by? True, being trained for combat, and generally being quite good with a weapon, the pickings tend to be slim. But he knows his limits. If he was to be faced down by multiple opponents, or one powerful opponent (of any race, for that matter. Lalafell can be damned scary!) then he'll rethink his position. Better to live smart than die dumb, I suppose? A savvy merchant can also cause him to pause a moment. Even growing up in Ul'dah, he is still rather wary when he buys anything in the city, considering most will try to swindle you for every gil you own. On a more personal note, he's also intimated to some degree by the people he calls friends. More accurately, anyone who falls under that description that he feels he may have wronged in some way. It's a self-esteem thing.

Should be fun! On the back of Rufus's right hand is the Three-Speared symbol of Halone, pressed and burned into the flesh. He mostly wears gloves to cover this. Find out why, sometime! He has an unnatural fixation on Garlean-made gunblades, considering them one of the most amazing things to ever be designed by anybody anywhere ever. Despite the whole 'darkness' thing, he is actually still quite sociable and interested in meeting and getting to know new people. He was, at one point, the target of a Monetarist cell. A decent portion of the time, he tends to use big words in conversations, even if he doesn't truly know what they mean. He knows how to use them in the right context, and that works for him.

Greetings and Salutations! I'm not exactly "new" around here, I should mention. I've been RPing on XIV for about a year and a half, give or take a few months at this point, and I've tried to get out into the community as much as possible. With that said, it never hurts to try and make others aware of my character to increase the chances of getting random RP, right? It's become quite the chore, for a number of reasons as of late. But moving along from that, allow me to offer a brief introduction! I don't want to give too much away, after all! I play a character named Rufus Wightman. He's a 27 year old, male hyur midlander who works for the Jackal and Hide Free Company. In days past, he was once a Free Paladin, but a short while ago, he was afflicted with a dark magic - one which latched onto his very being, and began to eat away at him. During this time, the darkness within his own heart awoke, and began to plague him with nightmares and the likes. He's since taken steps to gain dominion over this darkness, seeing no alternative and no way to return to his former Paladin-hood, having lost the job-defining Soul Crystal. He's begun to embrace what he has become, and endures despite it. Even with this going on, he strives his best to remain as friendly and approachable as possible, as he gets bored rather easily without social interaction. I'll leave a link to Rufus's full RPC page, just in case I happened to pique your interest. If not? Thanks for looking anyway! https://wiki.ffxiv-roleplayers.com/pages/Rufus_Wightman

Honestly? There's almost no way to police other people's behaviour. If their character is going to act like a smart-allecky hard ass even in the most dangerous of situations, then there's little else you can do about it. People don't like it when someone tries to show dominion over their characters, I guess. Regardless of circumstance. Too many times now have I tried to use my character's powers of darkness as an intimidation technique. Let's be fair, if someone approaches you, eyes glowing bright red-orange, with darkness trailing from their entire body, most would probably cack themselves and run. I don't think it's worked to far, either. At the end of the day? Yes, there are some RPers who need to back down when their character is outmatched, but only they themselves can control it.

I'm just gonna go off the assumption that this topic covers more than just FFXIV RP. In which case... 1. Looking back, as most RPers would find, my first forays into RP were fucking atrocious. The kind of thing I'd slap myself silly for trying these days. But it's nice to see how I've improved over the 5 or so years I've been RPing. 2. I'm honestly not that great when it comes to progressing my character. I can never really seem to find the right hook or moment or willing participants to form any kind of development plot. It's kinda sad, in all honesty. 3. I tend to get quite bored rather easily when I'm trying to RP, but there isn't much to be had in the way of interactions. Say I'm at the Quicksand, and it's bustling. I try to approach someone, and the attempt is cast off for any number of reasons, I'm rather quickly to get fed up and just leave thinking, "I can always come back tomorrow, I guess..." 4. I put FAR too much effort into food-preparation emotes. To the point where I actually make myself hungry just reading it back. 5. I sometimes worry that my range of vocabulary is not as wide as it could be. I often get the feeling that I'm repeating myself when it comes to emotes. I suppose I just find a few select words that work well for me and stick to them, but the amateur writer in me is silently criticizing away for it. Top fun!

DRK RP is a pretty sharp sword to fall upon right now, to be honest. Even though HW launched months ago, I've little-to-no doubt that people are still discovering the class, going through the quests, maybe not even reading them, who knows? Anyway, with people still in the dark, pun intended, about the lore of the job, it's unsurprising to see different takes on the way it's presented. The main gripe I have with more DRK RPers is the choice to be super edgy and as dank as possible. It's really uninteresting, and doesn't do much to make a character approachable. I don't know much about 'voidsent' DRKs, but... sounds a bit sketchy. I have the utmost respect for those who treat the DRK as it is presented within the story, because let's be fair, the DRK quests are fantastic. They give you just about anything you could need to understand the Dark Knight, and how they work. I RP DRK in the way it is presented in the story, too. Emotion-driven, but not overly cynical. Controversial, I know. But what can I say? If the WoL can be a goodie-two shoes while being a DRK, my character can at least not be as dour-faced as a 90 year old nun.

I would just like to take this opportunity to celebrate how I'm not the only one who has a great amount of difficulty in engaging randoms in random RP. Most of the time, the "walk-ups welcome" can be disturbingly hard to get a reaction out of. If it isn't AFKing, it's blanket ignoring. And if it isn't blanket ignoring, it's too edgy for public. I'd mostly filed it down to an assumption that I'd get approached and have better response rates if I rolled a female toon. No evidence to back it up, of course. Just a base assumption I've made after hearing about the experiences other people have had while playing women characters. To be quite frank, I don't got time for that. I'd rather be male and lonely, as opposed to female and inundated with creepy tells.

Oh yeah, wouldn't you like to know? Nah, but in all seriousness, Rufus is right in the middle of his late-twenties. 27, to be exact. And it's EXTREMELY difficult to make a hyur midlander look remotely older than 19. It's the moustache, I think.

I figure I'll throw my hat into this ring, because who's going to stop me? NOBODY, THAT'S WHO. Anyway, I never used to use quotations marks before coming to FFXIV. But upon seeing it was pretty much the 'in-thing', I began to pick it up. I can understand why others don't choose to use it, but I definitely think it goes a way to help define what is IC and isn't. As for adding emotes into /say, for some reason, I try to avoid that, preferring instead to close it into a /emote. I dunno, it just seems more convenient that way. Or more recognizable, I guess? Either way, I don't mind what someone chooses to do. RP is RP, and as long as a good story is told, it don't bother me none!