Magellan

Nothing too surprising here. Aesthetically, fem Miqo and female Au ra seem to have the most diverse options. You can create great looking cutesy characters, and great looking fierce characters. Plus they have amazing emotes. I am sorry to say, and I know this makes me a terrible person: I view all Lalafell as adorable. I even have a character concept for one, and he's a serious character, but I just can't help myself. It doesn't help that their naming conventions are cutesy too. Roe's are the exact opposite. It's hard to make one that's cutesy, they all just have this.. . presence no matter how friendly or not friendly they are. I absolutely love rping with them, but could never play one. I REALLY wanted to love elezen. Really really bad. I love elves. My first character was a wildwood. I live elezen lore. I loved my character... ...but I hate their emotes. And their animations. And the proportions. I would love to love elezen but I just don't my current Raen kind've strikes me as the elezen I always imagined and wanted to be. So yea, from an aesthetic diversity standpoint, Hyur Miqo and Au Ra makes perfect sense to me.

I think what we are seeing here is two main approaches (and several smaller ones) to rp. On the one side, we have rp as a game. Likely influenced heavily by dnd influences. In this approach, level DOES matter, because it's part of the game and what makes it fun. The other approach, likely influenced by forum rp and love of writing, treats rp as a story to be told. In this, level doesn't matter because quite frankly it does not fit in to 'storytelling'. Neither side is right or wrong, just different.

It is interesting to note, nowhere in the Final Fantasy universe, does a characters gear denote strength. Think of the Scions. Do ANY of them wear armor? They wear very basic clothing. Nor do we aS consumers of the story ever wonder about their 'level'. We accept they are strong, because of how they act, and the actions they perform. Sure, you can point to several Garleans as being 'epically geared', but they ultimately lose don't they? They place their faith in the power of their science technology, instead of building the power within themselves. And personally, to me, they never really felt threatening. You know who did feel threatening? Sephiroth. He wore a robe. Kefka. He looked like one of Lady Gaga's backup dancers. Another example would be Steiner, from FFIX. He was dressed up as a tin can to serve as ironic comic relief. This extends to books, movies and television. Rarely does a sense of a characters strength come from what they wear or sense of level. In instead comes from the actions they perform, and backstory. Gear as strength is a pve construct only, in that stronger gear allows you to clear higher level content. A soldier in battle does not see the combatant in a cloth tunic as weaker. It might be the last mistake they make. With all that said , if someone wants to use ooc pve achievement as a way to create and validate their characters strength and backstory, thats awesome and a really cool way to go about it. But it should NOT extend to how they view other RPers, as not all characters are created in the same manner. Many of us prefer completely IC narrative instead.

*Pictures a half nekkid Tiergan doing the manderville.... drools on keyboard* In all seriousness, awesome post Tier. One thing I completely agree upon, and one thing I have a slightly different take on: Agree - In the overall scheme of things, I have not been rping very long (about 5 years). In my first several communities, there were so called 'gatekeepers' of rp, who more or less decided the server rp rules of what was and was not acceptable. These people were always self-appointed, and made things absolutely miserable for us small groups out there just trying to have a good time, and being made to feel like we belonged at the kiddie table. Worse, these rp 'moderators' often were absolutely brutal towards new rpers, simply for not knowing all the rules they had established, which led to dwindling communities and a high level of toxicity. I thank the Twelve that Balmung is so very... very different. Which brings me to the part I slightly disagree on. In other communities, threads like Pet Peeves COULD and often WOULD go downhill very fast. But... it made me realize today that I have faith in this community to handle those sorts of things maturely and responsibly. And having that sort of faith after the toxic atmospheres I am accustomed to is tremendously rewarding. On a personal note, I feel Pet Peeves opens up a dialogue on how to better manage rp disagreements. For me personally, I would much rather someone openly and honestly tell me; 'You know what? I think you're a cool person and even a cooler rper, but your style just does not fit well with mine for 'x' reason.', then the 'veil of silence' that seems to proliferate the rp community sometimes. I mean... I get it. Hell, I do it all the time myself (and hopefully will try to correct that). In the effort of trying not to hurt someone's feelings by telling them you are just not enjoying rp with them, and so putting them off, or being slow to respond to them, I think we often end up hurting people more than just honestly saying; 'You're really great, but our styles do not match. It's not the kind of rp I like, but I'm positive you can find others who's style matches yours.' And for my part, even if I do not spend a lot of time with someone ICly, I am more than happy to spend time chatting with them OOCly.

Greetings! Please enjoy a cupcake and complimentary beverage of your choice!

Hello! Please feel free to add me in game (Sayuri Kanno) as I think I fit the description of 'friendly and helpful' as you've outlined ^^; Welcome!

*Slowly raises hand to remove asshat and kick it under the carpet.* Eheheh nothing to see here, nothing to see... *stomps on lump in carpet*

This thread is meant to be a counterpoint to the RP pet peeves thread. I think the pet peeves thread is actually a good resource for talking points on things that might bog rp down, but in the interest of balance, what are some things you love? I'll start: Au Ra - okay, I know this isn't specifically rp related per se, but I personally feel SE absolutely nailed this race. Both male and female look fantastic. As I'm wandering around on my Monk, I just love seeing all the creative looks people came up with. I especially feel warm and fuzzy when I see fellow Raen milling about. This site's welcoming committee - I love that all newcomers here have a crew ready to welcome them with open arms Huggable Lalafells - lalafell players that play their characters as cute as they look. I seriously cannot even contain my squee. That feeling when... you've just had a solid rp connection with someone new, and mere seconds after the scene ends, you get a /tell along the lines of: 'that was fun! Can we do that again sometime?' It can be pretty frustrating sometimes feeling like you're chasing dead end after dead end, so those times it does work out are all the more rewarding! What are some of the things you all love about rp and/or this community?

This. I get pretty offended when people seem interested in Claire, find out she's in a committed, monogamous relationship, and are OOCly like 'oh uh... Claires neat. I gotta go.' *never hears from them again* On the subject of IC romance, people who meet, fall in lovs, and get married within two weeks of knowing each other. What exactly have you built this 'marriage' on. ERP? It's one thing if your character is very impulsive. That'd make sense. But shouldn't characters typically show a little more restraint? Finally (gosh all my pet peeves seem to be romance related, and yet I love romance rp) people who find a SO for their character, and then pretend like no one else exists. Even at events they only have eyes for this one person. God forbid you have a single character around them. You're no going to be able to get much conversation out of them as they are jamming their tongues down each others throats.

I'd just like to say a hearty thanks to everyone. Literally, everyone! For staying on topic and not creating a fantasia flame war. It's really refreshing to see people say 'yea, okay our styles are vastly different over this very divisive item, but we'll respect that about each other and deal with it in out own ways. And, I've got great ideas on how to deal with it myself moving forward. Double woot!

omg so much this! It really weirds me out that people are perfectly fine icly with such a drastic change to their bodies, when there is so much good rp to be mined from 'wow, I feel completely different.' It's a great opportunity to grapple with themes such as racial identity, identity of self, and how much of physical appearance makes a person who they are. I really like your echo explanation there could be a mass ripple of echo that displaced people in mass all at once. I think I might use that as my head canon to make sense of things on an IC level. Thanks!

@Lilia: Perfectly put. It's not that I don't want to rp with these people; they seem like perfectly lovely folks and rpers. It's that their interpretation of lore would force my character to look at their surroundings in a completely different way we're I to accept it.

To clarify (because there seems to be a little confusion) I'm not talking about people who use fantasias for an ooc transformation, and become completely different characters. That's awesome that Square let's us do that (and I have, since I didn't want to lvl my Au ra from scratch ) Some pretty good advice here and I thank people for it.

I don't want to open up the 'are fantasias lore debate again'. If people want to use them icly; great. Please, stay on point. What I specifically want to know is: if you do not accept fantasia as canon (like me) how do you icly handle the plethora of fantasia stories circling around right now when they become focal points of the rp? I've tried ic spacing out, looking at people like they were crazy, or being called away on a linkpearl and leaving scene early. But it just kindve... puts a damper on rp when two different interpretations of lore collide like that. So what do I do? Lay low icly for awhile until all this blows over? Enlighten me.

@Girona I agree with a lot of what you say. I would much rather rp out my character's path to strength, then have it happen off camera, oocly. Therefore, where they are in their personal growth matters to me, not level. I've also enjoyed rping a 'path to weakness' story arc. A character who starts strong, is brought low, and has to rebuild

Because so many Highlander refugees overcrowd the streets of Ul'dah, I think it'd be perfectly feasible some of them would try their luck out in the sands, in nomadic fashion.

Taking a step back from this, I've sneaking suspicion most of us in this thread are talking about extreme cases. It would be discouraging to think people have a hard fast rule of 'no lower level can be powerful', but reading people's comments I do not believe this to be the case. Just as most of us don't want to end up rping with that guy (or girl) who is Uber ultra levels of strong, despite having just arrived oocly in Eorzea, having no grasp of lore, or even what constitutes as 'strength' in this backdrop. That's just bad writing. I wouldn't want people to use my ooc lvl to ascertain my character is a monk. They should only deduce that based off of IC look or actions. Just as I'd rather people judge my character's strength (or lack of) based off of IC actions. When I RP, I'm expecting others to react/respond/critique my writing skills/talents, not what I've done PvE, which I hold as completely separate. To each their own I guess :0)

Lol sorry ^^; my phone formatted weirdly. Twas not my intention. (Hopefully it won't do it again). I guess my confusion lies in the picking and choosing of OOC mechanics. To me, if someone looks at my character and says 'lvl 50 monk.', then they should also be saying 'lvl 9 conjurer. Lvl 43 bard. Lvl 34 dragoon.' Which forces upon me a degree of power and Mary Sueism I frankly don't want. But. .. lvl matters, right? Additionally, I should RP that I have 2 retainers, behemoth and magitek mounts, 2 dozen minions- should I RP all the times I died while leveling? Oh god.. are we all just zombies and Eorzea is actually an apocalyptic world?

So... for people who equate ooc level to ic experience... do you just not have a backstory? To have a backstory seems completely arbitrary if it has nothing to do with who your character is in the here and now. Does your character just get plopped down in the middle of Eorzea fully grown? My current character, a Doman monk, didn't train in Eorzea. Nor will she. Her particular set of skills is completely different from Ul'dah pgl guild training, so how is level even remotely relevant? A characters life experience dictates their weaknesses and strengths. Not some ooc mechanic that again, can only be acknowledged via meta - gaming. small mod edit: made the text small default size

Welcome welcome The best way to get involved is to literally jump right in. And keep jumping til you like your surroundings and don't feel the need to jump no more Feel free to add Sayuri Kanno if ur looking to add peeps to play with!

I realized I was not tank material when my reaction to having aggro stolen was: 'fuck it. If they want aggro so bad they can *have* aggro.' Clearly not a very good tank mentality still, it's fun to derp around with friends. Like many others, I'll echo you should DRK your rp class if it fits your character, and PvE a class you find more enjoyable

Sayuri would be water. Just pure, simple water. And yes she would drink it . Claire would be 5 hour energy. Or bailey's and coffee. And yes she would drink both too

I say go for it. Best case scenario: you help grow an awesome cpmmunity. Worst case? You come back to Balmung full time

The problem with treating ooc level aS ic is it seems to indicate that the character had this yellow brick road of achievement. Whatever happened to setbacks? Or abject failure? Maybe they started out in the pugilist guild but failed the teachings, so learned their own style. You know... like the guy from the monk quests that goes rogue. On gear: does the fact that my scholar wears a lvl 50 robe make it okay for her to summon a fairy, but if she changed into her moogle footie pj's she suddenly wouldn't be able to?

Really what "gear" does a person need to be a good fighter? The raid gear doesn't really say "I'm a highly skilled hand-to-hand combatant" any more than a guy in some level 20 greens. Not ICly, at least. And functionally a lot of the raid gear is just ridiculous, with all of its dangly whatsits and various additions. Maybe someone feels pretty satisfied that they "look" the part in the pants they picked up from a lowbie quest and a shirt that dropped from Sastasha. Lol. Yea. If someone tried to rp with me wearing some of the end game stuff, I'd be inclined to think they were actually icly a bad fighter who didn't wear functional gear and was maybe trying to overcompensate. Rarely does true strength flaunt and brag (unless ur Hercules. Or Garlean. But the Garleans keep losing and Hercules wore a loincloth)