Lilia Lia

Hah, I actually did this once by talking about dark matter being used to fix a hole in a robe. Not the kind of conversation you'd have realworld-wise. I don't actually like doing that though and I'd rather try to build in some realism that isn't necessarily present in Eorzea. For example, we don't all walk around with a goldsmithing bench tucked up our butts that we conveniently withdraw every time we'd like to make some earrings.

Out of curiosity, did he paraphrase like that (i.e. emoting that he's delivering a long-winded explanation) or did he also write out the explanation itself?

Carline Canopy is wonderful. I met two of my favourite people there!

You can tell me whether or not this is related, but I remember RPing with Otto Vann about goldsmithing and him wanting our characters to have a theoretical conversation about the properties of soft metals. And the whole time I was kind of sweating because I was thinking, "well, Lilia's a goldsmith, but I don't know all the stuff she knows..." Then Otto sent me this long article about metallurgy and it made me feel like I was in way over my head all of a sudden. I mean, I think that is a little bit overboard. I've met other craft RPers who do a lot of homework to make sure they can believably play their trades. And it's inspired me to do a bit of research on these issues too. But, when it comes down to it Lilia's just a lot more talented than I am, she knows more than I do, if the two of us were in a room together doing something like weaving or cooking, I'd have a lot of questions to ask her. Here's the thing... Lilia has spent years at some of her crafts, I sure as heck haven't. But I'm just her RPer which makes me a kind of balance between actor and writer. Just as there are actors and even writers who can portray "genius" characters, I think RPers can do the same thing, though it takes some planning in some cases and it will create natural limitations. I think Sherlock Holmes is probably smarter than Arthur Conan Doyle, and he's also probably smarter than any actor who's ever played him. But there are still good Sherlock Holmes stories and good performances of him on screen. The main challenge in RP, then, is the fact that it's so spontaneous and improvisational. But I think this is more about skill with RP than anything else. Do you have a good enough grasp of your character's abilities that you can both write them and act them out in a timely manner during RP? If so, then by all means play a genius who is way smarter than you. It will probably not be easy, but with enough preparation and flexibility you can still play the part.

People just do that in RP and in amateur writing generally. They try to find unusual words to describe things instead of more ordinary words that have the same meaning. There are some words that are almost exclusively used this way. Example, there's no semantic difference between the words "while" and "whilst." But people will still say "whilst" because they like how it sounds vaguely archaic. Now you're starting to touch on writing quirks that actually do require me to hold my tongue, but even so I still wouldn't point this kind of thing out to someone. I find mostly this is something young people do, or at least I remember doing it a lot when I was younger. It's different from grammatical errors in that mistakes of grammar are unintentional, but this kind of thing is something people go out of their way to do. If you can pin it down to a semantic error then it might be easier to point out to someone.

I was at Buscarron's Druthers for some RP with a friend of mine recently since the geographic location of it made sense as a meeting point. I was really surprised to find another table of RPers there as well as someone running around acting like a server. That might have even been you! But yes I loved it there, great environment, lots of tables and stools that you can use, enough NPCs that it feels busy without interfering with your use of it as an RP space. And the background music is also really good tavern music. The only real downside is it reminds me of those horrible horrible Buscarron fetch quests from the MSQ! As for me, if I ever wanted to propose a new RP space it would be the Culinarian Guild with their beautiful outdoor patio full of tables.

This may as well be my confession. I do internal monologuing. However, I also have zero shame for it. Here's the honest truth: I am not a good writer. Actually, I very rarely do writing prompts and even more rarely do I write up short stories for my characters. I do like reading people's stories but I don't do it as often as I could. [...] If I am internal monologuing, it's because I want you to imagine that 'internal monologue' as a facial expression. I always try to give others something more substantial to work off of too, as I can also see the frustration of not getting enough to react off of. I want to speak to this a little bit. I don't think internal monologues are inherently bad and I wish people would stop spreading their opinion on this matter as though it were some kind of objective standard. I know the difference between what my character can see and what I can read. I know that if your character's post reveals a bit of their feelings that this is just to add enjoyment to the scene or give me insight into your character. I actually really like it, too. It's not bad writing, it can be very good writing and it can make the scene more enjoyable. There are people I RP with who make use of internal monologue and literary techniques like Free Indirect Discourse which I'm sure drive some people crazy, but I love them. It helps me understand the character and it helps me interpret the scene. It gives me context for the way their character is acting, expressing themselves, and so on. It's an aid to my imagination, regardless of whether my character herself gleans anything from it. I'd say you should continue to tastefully internally monologue and people who don't like it can just deal with it. Don't go overboard, be reasonable, and stand up for yourself if people criticize it as though it's a flaw. It's not. It's also, I think, a good avenue for introverted characters who want to keep their RP interesting. It's sure a lot more interesting than watching how many adjectives you can cram into a description of them leaning against a wall with their arms crossed, or taking a sip of beer.

Actual confession incoming. I confess that, if anything about your character's backstory is something I find ridiculous or implausible, then I am probably going to avoid any kind of in-depth RP with your character regarding their background. The result is that I am likely never going to have a deep and profound personal connection with your character, even if it would have made sense for that to happen in the context of our relationship. So I guess this comes down to me being very critical of people's character backstories, maybe a little more than I should be. It's just because I actually do avoid situations or stories that don't have credibility in my eyes because they're harmful to my immersion. But it's definitely closed off some opportunities for me and caused me to alienate a few people. (Also, I'm not proud of it. I think it's something I need to work on. That's why I consider it a confession.)

I just don't bother. If it's clear enough to me what the person is trying to convey then I won't risk upsetting them by correcting them. This would be entirely different if the person were asking for my feedback on a piece of writing they did, of course. But in casual RP I just disregard typos, poor grammar, spelling. I guess the exception here is where it's not clear to me what a person means. If their grammar is so bad that I can't figure out what they're saying, I'll ask them to rephrase it and maybe explain what was confusing about it, but even then I don't think I'd specifically start telling them about the rules of spelling or grammar. Anyways, I won't assume that anyone is RPing in FFXIV because they want to improve their spelling or grammar skills, so I won't bother correcting them unless there's an explicit request for feedback or criticism. It's just not worth the risk of hurting someone's feelings or giving them a reason to perceive me as nitpicky and critical. Better to just let people live with their mistakes and learn them without my input. As an addendum, though, I'm very good at not letting things like poor spelling and grammar bother me. I'm sure there are people who are less tolerant of it and for those people I can definitely understand the temptation to interject and make corrections. I just hope those people understand that it causes them to be perceived a certain way.

I'm having a hard time even understanding how that would be anatomically plausible for a lalafell, since their torso is like 90% of their bodymass.

This is more or less what I was getting at. Striking the "teleportation" thing out just creates more story possibilities. But, other people are giving reasons that I can still treat teleportation as a non-option if I see that as appropriate for my character, so that's going to be good enough for me. "Adventurers can teleport all day because they are adventurers" still seems distasteful to me but I can just not bother with it. I just wanted to find a way around "I should teleport" being the obvious solution to every possible plot element involving my character's location being inconvenient. Having to get from point A to point B is a big part of adventure RP to me. Trivializing travel with "we can teleport whenever we want" just ruins a lot of it, even though it's in the official lore. It's tempting to try and mitigate story elements that we think are limiting our own stories. So in that sense wanting to remove teleportation from my RP is just an attempt for me to improve my story rather than me wanting to trample on other people's interpretation of the lore. Sure, I live in a world where people use "glamours" to completely change their race, and it takes less time to teleport to another city than it does to walk down the street. When this starts making my story less interesting I start wondering whether there are ways I can exclude these lore elements. If I can't teleport, and if it hardly comes up when others can, that's good enough. Making it a non-option is the important part though, because I want it at least be a bit of a big deal if I'm in Wineport and need to get to Mor Dhona. To give another example of this, I think being able to use linkshells pretty much as cell phones is sort of lame. It's in the lore, but I still avoid using it just because it doesn't suit the setting to me.

On the topic of RPing travel, I'd really like to be able to have an RP that takes place on an airship while traveling from one place to another. Prolonged travel is always a great premise for a story, and periods where there's nothing to do but wait for your arrival are great instances for interaction. But like you Virara, I'd rather just say "TWO HOURS LATER" or something. How long does an airship trip take, anyways?

That does make a lot of sense to me. I guess my main concern is just the dramatic and story consequences of teleportation being so real and so convenient. It seems to me like it makes life far too convenient for people and I'd prefer if it weren't real for that reason. It kind of trivializes the world geography. As an aside I don't think all RPers are "adventurers" though I'm sure many (or most?) are.

So to shift gears a little bit, how inconvenient is it for most people? "A fraction of people can use it habitually" because the recast time "varies" is pretty vague. I still don't see why airships would exist if everyone could only teleport once a week, for example, except for people who need to travel between city states several times in a week. In order for that level of infrastructure and for travel by chocobo to still be relevant, I'd say most people would find teleporting to either be very uncomfortable, very risky, or very rarely available to them. The reason I'm asking this question is mostly to gauge how other people view teleportation. Can your character teleport every day? Multiple times a day? Do you actually RP it having an adverse physical impact on your body? Also curious whether anyone plays a character who simply cannot teleport.

I guess my main issue is that so much of the world doesn't make sense if teleportation happens and is simply twice the cost of an airship ticket. Why would passenger travel by airship even exist and not be completely obsolete? Why would chocobos exist for individual use outside of transporting goods? How would prisons work? Would it even be possible to detain people at all? When I think of hypothetical RP situations relevant to my character or even her backstory, the reality of teleportation would make it much different. For instance, part of her backstory involves being stranded somewhere, and being stranded is theoretically impossible in a world where teleportation exists. To me it seems like one of those game mechanics that's not meant to actually have a real effect on the world. A world where people can instantaneously teleport across the globe would be very different from the world we know, and from the Eorzea we see. It's almost like saying that I can carry 25 suits of armour around with me at all times IC. Yes it's a game mechanic but, story thing? Really? And while I realize it's specifically acknowledged in the MSQ, it also seems kind of like the world mostly carries on as though teleportation either doesn't exist or is somehow inconvenient or difficult. (EDIT - Scrolling up to Sin's post, I see the Lore team has addressed all of this, so, I guess that satisfies me of the reality of teleportation and that a fraction of people can use it... but that also makes me feel even more justified in being able to say that my character cannot do it.) Anyways, even though it's commonplace in gameplay, I actually rarely see people actually using it in the course of their RP, so I should be able to safely disregard it as an option in situations where I'd like for travel to actually be difficult. And no, "I better put on a sweater b/c it's cold in Dragonhead" is not what I mean.