Grott

A real point of miscommunication I've noticed from casually browsing this thread (and I say casually because I haven't read every post, so it may have been stated already) is that OP is looking at FC applications the same way one would look at a standard FC/guild application in an MMO for a non-RP group. In these instances, you just kind of grab as many people as you can, essentially getting every able-bodied person who can run a raid or do pvp or whatever so that you can do those things at any time and keep the FC/guild from stagnating or plateauing when it comes to completing game content. The difference with a roleplaying group is that you want to test and interview everyone coming in to make sure they're not shitsters, or even if they're not shitsters and seem like nice people, you want to make sure they'd fit into your theme or existing dynamic. When my FC was more active than it is today, we met plenty of nice people who were interested in joining, but they had a different view of RP than we did, whether that was a difference in how we viewed the game's tone or how we handled situations or simply where our characters' stories looked like they were headed. I agree that some FCs (well, lets say guilds, because I got into this FC in beta and haven't left, so I only have this experience in other MMOs) go a bit over-the-top and don't seem to get that there's always the /gkick function if they invite someone who turns into a lunatic once they're invited, and a lot of times guild leaders needs to calm down and roll the dice once in a while, but there are a lot of shitposters, meta-gamers, god-moders, lore-breakers, and genuinely bad roleplayers out there and you can't blame a guild leader for wanting to deal with them before they're in their guild chat. Back to my point on paragraph 1, since I went off-course there for a little: FCs don't need a necessarily large player base, so long as they get the right player base for the way they want to play pretend. A lot aren't recruiting at all most of the time.

Well, well, well Look what the cat dragged in... Circus, circus, back in town.

Basically, yeah. The reason you get a lot of consonant-apostrophe-vowel in the player base is because players either don't know how to pronounce the first letter in regards to the rest of the name, or just ignore it when reading it and think "Well, better stick with lore" and put it in there just to be lore appropriate. That's why you get names like J'ason or something, which would sound ridiculous pronounced correctly. (Juh-ason or something to that effect.) The double vowel thing mid-name thing is actually pretty interesting though. I didn't know that and I'm sure a ton of players didn't either, but at the same time I doubt we'll see any name changes because of it, or even newer player names shying away from it. When it gets that specific, usually people just stop caring.

I'm always looking for events, since I recently returned to the game. If you've got the room, I'd love an invite. Thanks.

Your profile picture is Lumpy. That's all I needed to see. Welcome... friend.

Maybe not technically, but if you do really plan to RP this and talk about it IC, you should prepare for a fair amount of eye-rolling. Even if it's not exactly lore breaking, some people might take issue with it. That's not to say you shouldn't do it if you really want to, but just be aware of possible social consequences from the more strict end of the RP crowd. Honestly, to the point where I'd make sure you have a set group of people who are willing to back this up and accept it in RP before trying to do walk-ups with "I've been alive for 10,000 years" or whatever, so you look a little less crazy (and not in a good, interesting way) and it's easier for people around you to play along with it. I'm not going to tell you not to do it if that's how you want to play the game, but I've seen a lot of people on this forum and others have an idea that isn't 100% impossible in the lore, but is very far-fetched, and everyone says "No, technically it's not lore-breaking." so they RP it and then no one will RP with them because it's too extreme. While something may not be impossible in the game's lore, sometimes there's a certain social faux pas that comes with it. Play what you want, of course, but I always feel I need to write up a disclaimer every time I see one of these types of threads. I hope it works out and I hope you find a solid group to explore the character with, but be prepared to rework it if it doesn't get the results you're looking for.

I don't know if anyone here still remembers me, I played a lot at ARR launch and I've quit and come back in pretty regular 6-9 month intervals since then. This time I'm looking to stay a little longer hopefully, and make some RP connections instead of just hiding in my little group of 3-5 friends. Anyways, for those who don't remember, I played Uther Skystrider (an Elezen knight in self-exile with a Hyur name) at launch and didn't do a ton with him after I quit the first time, instead deciding to start fresh with alts almost every time I've returned. My friends that I RP with were wondering if this time around I'd finally bring Uther back, and to them I say I look forward to RPing with you all soon, whether you're old friends or new to me entirely. Side note: I might be putting up some short stories detailing where Uther's been and what adventures he's gone on in the last few years since our FC ICly split up, if that's something anyone anywhere has any interest in reading for whatever reason. But it depends how much free time I have.

That's fair, but I think it depends on who you're RPing with. I've been approached by strangers about apparent lore-breaking without realizing I was doing it before, and I try to stay pretty close to the lore, so I can't imagine what new RPers who intentionally lore-break get from strangers. Or they could do it and never get approached for lore-breaking. I guess it depends where you are and who you're with.

This is a completely fair rebuttal, and I can totally accept that. At the same time though, I feel there's an appropriate middle-ground to be reached between "You can do whatever you want!" and "No, you're an idiot and that could never happen in this game!" My main concern isn't having a ton of lore-breakers running around and doing what they want, it's that a lot of the people who say "RP what you want" are already in established cliques in the community, so they're not worried about what actually happens when you RP what you want. They'll tell everyone their ideas are special and should be accepted, but they're not there to actually RP with them after everyone else says "You're lore-breaking, don't talk to me." And this kind of stuff happens mostly, though not always, with newer RPers and it discourages them from coming back. I just find it a bit misleading. But I get what you're saying that it prevents a really ugly through-the-mud discussion about what is and isn't okay, especially since a lot of people are just picking and choosing the positive comments and are going to do what they want regardless.

RP is done everywhere. From my experience, it's done in /say, /party, and in linkshell chat most of all. A lot of people will do a combined FC/LS thing and have FC ooc and LS ic. I think that's what you're asking...? If you're wondering because you don't pass RP conversations very often out in the open, it's because player housing has now dominated the RP scene. Some of us still choose to do the most of our RP out in the world, but it's becoming a rarity, or a special-event-only type of thing for a lot of people, though it'd be unfair to say no one does it. The Quicksand is still very active, and The Grindstone on Saturday nights always draws a big crowd. So, I guess the answer you're looking for is "No. All RP is not done in-game through LSes, though some is." I hope this response helped. Wasn't exactly sure what you were asking for.

So I've been skimming this thread a bit and I have to bring up an issue that comes up with all of these types of "Can I RP ____?" threads: People saying "You can RP whatever you want. Don't let people tell you how to play the game." I realize this is meant in the nicest possible way, but it's really misleading. Yes, you can RP however you want. But to answer that way to every question about whether someone should or whether it's lore appropriate really gets on my nerves. I feel like it insults the intelligence of the OP. They know they can. Giving a fluff answer that essentially has the same functionality as saying "You're special! Everyone is special!" is just kind of unnecessary. No one thinks the RP police are going to take them away and throw them in a hole for life if they run around saying they're Professor X. That's not the issue. One time, like three years ago, a guy showed up saying he was RPing a character from DCUO, who literally was transported to Eorzea by Lex Luthor from Metropolis. Now, he was clearly new to RP, and when he asked if that was something he could do, people gave him this "You're the best, and your opinions are the best." response and then no one wanted to RP with him because he came off as a lore-breaking crazy man. It's totally misleading and it hurts far more than it helps. So, for future reference, when someone asks "Can I RP this?" can we start giving the honest answer on whether it's socially appropriate or it follows the lore? Sorry, this kind of went off the beaten path of the thread, but it's just something that came up here as well and I thought I'd address it while one of these types of threads is popular. If you're reading this as a mod or admin or whatever and think this should be in its own thread, shoot me a PM and I'll take care of it. Just felt it was an issue worth addressing.

In my opinion, presentation is everything. I honestly can't think of a way that "I'm a voidsent" can be presented to me, personally, without me taking a step back and scratching my head and double-checking the lore, but I'm sure it can be done. Like I said, I think presentation is everything but the crazier your idea is, the harder you have to work on presentation. Anything's possible I suppose.

You're not alone. Had this guy since ARR launch, and no one's rolled their eyes at me. I'm also not RPing a voidsent though.

Well, now I feel like I'm beating a dead horse. Apologies.

The real issue, for me at least, is that by making voidsent commonplace for RP characters, you kind of devalue its place in the lore, even if you're not necessarily directly lore-breaking. The Void, and things sent from it (to an extent), are supposed to be very mysterious and very dangerous. A lot of players interpret that in different ways (I prefer the Lovecraftian cosmic horror/forbidden knowledge approach, but some don't) but no matter which way you interpret it, your vision of it can get kind of skewed by someone claiming they've got a voidsent BFF hanging out in their kitchen. Your intentions are harmless I'm sure, and you're just trying to make an interesting story arc. I get that, but it's best to kind of leave well enough alone and look for a new route to making your RP goal a reality. On a personal note, a lot of my character's story is focused on the supernatural. There's a lot of ghosts and gods and voidsent going on with his field of study. He, like many others, has been researching it diligently for years, and it'd irk me a bit if I ran into an RPer claiming to be voidsent or have a voidsent friend just hanging around. It's just not the right outlet for that kind of thing, and it can affect the RP of others in a pretty jarring or annoying way. Sorry. I hate to kill your buzz, but from the looks of it, I'm not the first one to dislike it in this thread.

This is a weird one, but try it if you're bored: Played at the same time as (the second one at half volume)

So, at first I saw this and thought "Oh god. Another secret society." But as I read on, I have to admit I got pretty interested. What OoO does is pretty much what my character, Abodo, has been doing since 2.0's launch all by his lonesome, so it's definitely up my alley. Unfortunately, OOC my schedule has been a bit hectic lately, and IC Abodo is missing and my FC and my alt are following a trail of Lovecraftian bread crumbs to find him, so I won't be able to delve into whatever cool ideas you and your group have for a bit, but I'll definitely be in touch. This is something I'd be into exploring with some new folks. If this piques your interest, I have a short and sweet wiki page about my character linked in my signature so you can decide if I'm your sort of dude or not, and you can contact me OOC any time in game or via PM. If I sound like a crazy man you'd prefer to steer clear of, that's fine too. No pressure. Best of luck with your LS.

Amazing work. Thanks for doing this for all of us.

Welcome back! A lot of people seem to be returning recently (myself included), which is pretty exciting. The more the merrier. My first character was Ishgardian, so I love seeing more people embrace it. Anyways, enjoy being back.

Well, for Abodo (starting at 4:24) Good ol' Vincent Price. And for Tancred (He talks through the whole thing, but the inflection I'd give Tancred starts at 0:31)

"Lalafell Investigator Proves 'Pearl Lane Poltergeist' Just a Regular Wind Tunnel"

From the looks of it, you've already got a lot of sick tipz n' trix to make a successful FC storyline, but I figure I'll throw in my own brief comments. Not going to answer all 4 questions because I don't have the time to write it and you probably won't want to read all of it anyway. I'll just relate my own experience. So anyways, my FC is similarly beginning a potentially long storyline, and for the first time in recent memory it doesn't revolve around the game's main story. What we found, and this is pretty circumstantial, is that you can make it fun without revolving it around a single individual by giving everyone a big part to play. I'll use us as an example: We all recently came back from a long hiatus, and we've basically begun what we call "Misericorde Phase 2" in which really none of the original members are around anymore. They've since been Fantasia'd and name changed to our current characters, but we keep them around with Skype RP and reference them with our current characters. Our big scenario right now is: The original members are missing, and where have they gone? Everyone gets to be equally involved because it's multiple characters (our characters) that are missing and we basically have a big, loose framework of how it's going to play out in the end, but we're doing pure improv up to that point. This way everyone is important and everyone has a voice. We seriously passed around a non-functioning linkpearl for two hours last night, building on each other's descriptions until it became way cooler than it started. You just have to make sure your group is one that jives well together to begin with. If one person has a different world-view than everyone else (for instance, we're kind of the cosmic horror/gritty realism types, so a jpop catboy might want to take his story to a different direction) then the story might veer off to a place that upsets others, and begin to feel one-sided. Sorry, this is very anecdotal and super rambly. My point is A. Keep it loose, B. Know where you're going, C. Know your people, D. Improv can work out really well if you feel like you've put yourself in a corner, as long as A-C are accomplished. Hope that helped. Maybe it didn't. Idk, I'm not a mind-reader. Side note: This is also coming from a very small FC, and we've known each other a while. It might not work for your dynamic, especially the idea of improv-ing your way out of corners. But give it a try if you want. It's just a game after all.

I remember the 2013 census. Really cool stuff you're doing here. Glad I got to participate in this one. Can't wait to see how it plays out. With the new race and Ishgard's recent bump in popularity, I'm curious to see how things have changed in the past three years. Your hard work is definitely appreciated.