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Hiro · **12-01-2014, 04:59 PM**

As thetitle indicates this is a lore discussion. Please keep it civil!
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Iâ€™venoticed that Final Fantasy XIVâ€™s Roleplay Community (this encompasses the RPC as well as the RP community as a whole on Balmung and Gilgamesh since the pre-launch beta forum Roleplays that some may remember) seems to fall pretty firmly into these camps with obvious sprinklings in between each extreme.
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First arethe Lore Enforcers/Purists/Adherents, a common quote from these minded players are: â€œWhy Roleplay in a World if youâ€™re just going to ignore the established lore?â€ Most donâ€™t wish to interact with those who arenâ€™t at least trying to work with lore, and a lot simply will not roleplay with you if they discover youâ€™re intentionally not lore compliant. Some people call them hardline, but honestly thatâ€™s just their style, and for the most part theyâ€™re playing the game the way they wish to. I do not mean the obviously rude ones or ones who are quick to pass harsh judgments, but the ones who simply accept the someone is or isnâ€™t someone they wish to include in their roleplay experience and move on.
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On theopposite end of the spectrum are what Iâ€™ve come to call â€œFree Spiritâ€ Roleplayers. Theyâ€™re simply in FFXIV to Roleplay but theyâ€™re not necessarily in FFXIV to Roleplay within FFXIV. They have their own character, their own ideas, their own story and while they may not adhere to lore theyâ€™re fine with glossing over details and fitting in where and when they can. OSme may be porting an Original Concept over from another game, perhaps working some sort of inter-worlds transfer. Some find some form of logic or work around for their concept but in the end they donâ€™t mind simply being there and are there for their own enjoyment. No malicious intent, no trolling, this is just their roleplay time and damn it theyâ€™re going to roleplay how, what, and when they want to.
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Firmly inthe middle of this are those who are a little bit of both, working their own story in while also attempting to appease some lore discrepancies. Sometimes they need to forget lore, sometimes they find perfectly viable loopholes or theories for their character concept. They appreciate some attention to lore themselves and rather than something that spontaneously was lore be damned they do desire to have their character fit into the established world to some varying degree.
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Now, Ibring these up as Iâ€™ve noticed these are more prevalent in some games as opposed to others. Certain communities in games tend to cater more to one side or another in the end. For instance SWTOR has a lot of people who are firmly in the middle, they work the lore to their favor and run with it. Meanwhile in a game like GW2 a very prevalent chunk of the Roleplayers view lore in a far stricter manner. Of course these are simply my understandings and encounters with these games and your experiences will vary.
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What hasyour experience with the viewpoints of Roleplay in FFXIV? Do you think itâ€™s positive or negative overall? Suggestions for improvements? Where do you stand?

Kage · **12-01-2014, 05:16 PM**

In general, while we might call some people "lore-Nazis" or "lore enforcers" in FFXIV I haven't seen it as often as... maybe I'd expect? At least, not in a long time. More people than not people are willing to go to the "the lore has left this backdoor that may allow it" or "well the lore does not say that this -must- be the case."

Most people seem to work the lore to their own or others favors to make the story seem more realistic or more... fulfilling. To make the story better.

I think a lot of us still remember the people/person(s) who just -believe- they know the lore and try to enforce it only to be told or revealed to be just batshit wrong. Quicksand is adventurer only. Certain groups are only allowed to be in X place even though you see them out in the main story. Those types to be few and far between in my experience.

tl;dr I think most people are on the side where they will only be upset if it goes so blatantly against lore it's stupid. Or what they're trying to do is stupid but that's not Lore-relevant. Most people who only think they are hard-core Lore elitists and try to police everyone only seem to just be dicks and are wrong.

ArmachiA · **12-01-2014, 06:03 PM**

^ THat's me. I've always been nice about it though. I have been called a Lore-Nazi a few times by people who have never interacted with me and have no idea, though. Tongue

FreelanceWizard · **12-01-2014, 06:25 PM**

Predominantly, I like to play within the bounds of lore. However, the lore is pretty wide open on a lot of topics, with lots of grey areas and opportunities for the creative to work around problems. I don't like to slam doors shut and lock them, since you never know when someone might have a neat solution to a character problem (such as a nunh of a breeding group that's all adventurers, a potion to ward off tempering, a White Mage trapped in stasis or launched through time, or what have you). I generally prefer that these sorts of bendings of lore be done for good narrative reasons, though, and not just to add One More Cool Thing to a character. If asked for my opinion on a character or plot, that's what I'll say. Smile

However, in practice, I'll pretty much roll with just about anything that isn't godmoding, metagaming, or powerposing. I've RPed with Aether-vampires, people from the future, people from the past (not just victims of the Anomaly at Carteneau), runaway princesses, and representatives of every Job.

And even if I'm not okay with something, I just bow out. There's room enough for all sorts of RP, and what works for me doesn't have to work for everyone. Life's too short to get angry about people who RP differently. Smile

EDIT: So what constitutes lore bending versus a breaking that I'm not okay with? To quote Justice Stewart, "I know it when I see it." Smile

My usual rules of thumb are: Does this fit with the feel of the setting? (Angels don't. Twilight-style vampires don't. Magitek cybernetics do. New types of potions do.) Does this violate the Three Thing Rule? (Don't be a Black Mage Magitek Engineer Celebrity Pharmacist Prince from Belah'dia Sent Through Time to Fight the Garleans.) Is anything like this hinted at in the lore? Does this seem like something that could plausibly exist in the lore?

Flickering Ember · **12-01-2014, 06:31 PM**

Is there a "There's no lore in this game so why bother caring about whether or not a character is lore compliant?" camp? Because that is my group. I love working lore into my characters but I just can't in this game because SE hasn't given me anything to work with. Okay, saying there is no lore in this game is definitely an exaggeration but there is very little and there are next to no lore boundaries.Â

You can pretty much do anything as a character concept because the universe is established as high magic with very little limits. I love this game but its lore is one of its weakest points. We have great patch updates, class balance, a lot of things to do, beautiful scenery, a sprawling story....and terrible world building.

Most things about the world are shrouded in mystery so depending on your perspective as an Rper, that either makes for few possibilities outside of generic concepts that could work in any fantasy world or it gives you the sky as the limit.

ArmachiA · **12-01-2014, 06:34 PM**

I'm gonna have to disagree, as someone who has dug into lore I'm going to say this game has a RIDICULOUS amount of it.

It's doesn't have everything - I play an ex-priestess and there is literally nothing to go by with that -- but it's one of the most lore rich MMO's in existence.

FreelanceWizard · **12-01-2014, 06:40 PM**

Yeah, while it's a bit of a tangent, there's more lore in this game for a lot of things than it seems at first glance. It can just take some effort (and doing the entire MSQ, Hildibrand quests, Coil, and lots of FATEs and leves) to get to it. There's also a lot of lore implied by elements of the setting; the Sunken Temple of Qarn, for instance, says some things about Belah'dia, just as the Crystal Tower instances and their associated quest lines make some points about the later parts of the Allagan empire (and Coil, especially Final Coil, makes some very salient points about the Allagan empire generally).

I entirely agree, though, that the lore is fairly inaccessible for a new player. It's not like WoW where you have a curated wiki and a bunch of graphic novels you can read to get up to speed. That's a reason why I'm trying to keep the wikilore project going. Smile

ArmachiA · **12-01-2014, 06:50 PM**

Oh, I really need to throw my hat into that Wikilore project, I have yet to and that's dumb of me.

Hiro · **12-01-2014, 07:16 PM**

Might aswell throw my hat in there now.
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Iâ€™msomewhere between the lore and making it work camps. I personally find many of the RPC members are pretty firmly in this area as well. I appreciate the lore in FFXIV as I do any other FFXIV game, I look for it because I enjoy seeing the easter eggs and similarities the Lore team throws in there. Sometimes theyâ€™re cute comparisons and hints, sometimes theyâ€™re just there for the laugh factor, sometimes itâ€™s just a tribute. When I first started FFXIV on the roleplay forum pre-beta we all made our assumptions of the game and its future we knew some things based on the scraps the lore team gave us like the idea of Domans before they were named or even given a launch/release date/time, prospective classes and so forth. I figure a lot of us on those forums were very like minded, we sort of had to be, itâ€™s hard to be of a â€œsuper pro loreâ€ camp if weâ€™re already throwing our characters into the ring before anything has been truly finalized post beta.
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Ipersonally love taking the lore ball finding a loose thread and pulling on it. My main underwent several changes and concept evaluations as the story from 1.0 onward progressed. The dark absolute sell-sword slowly turned into a disgraced ronin (as soon as Domans were hinted and first discussed in 1.2. From there things got a bit less clear and the ronin reverted back into a sell-sword with hints at being a ronin. I liked having a loose base to work with and adjust and add whenever I could, that being said a character who was tight lipped and shared nothing of his past or history with anyone made this easy. Final Fantasy FFXIV and most of the FFXIV games and lores have so many strange things in them that allow for cross interpretation. Could Sephiroth somehow pop into existence? The Aether is arguably on the same page as the Life Stream so why not? Itâ€™s implied Eorzeaâ€™s realm is one of many in the Dissidia Universe, could any of the other characters be brought over? Could an original character from any one of those worlds be brought over? Things like that are within believable limits and depending on what you consider lore, some are possibilities for certain.
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All thataside while I prefer my RP one way I am firmly of the belief that everyone needs to have fun in the game their own way be it roleplaying or not. How and why and what they believe in aside, as long as they arenâ€™t imposing themselves or their ideals and beliefs on anyone they canâ€™t be doing wrong. Some of my friends claim that itâ€™s a pretty damn Canadian thing to say though, some believing that blatantly ignoring lore to shoe horn in a character is an awful thing to do. It may bother me depending on how it is done and why, but I could never really say they were doing it wrong.

Jaliqai · **12-01-2014, 08:16 PM**

I like to think that I fall pretty firmly into the middle on this one. While I don't begrudge either camp - save, of course, the obviously antagonistic jerks that belong to allÂ sides of the lore argument - I think (in my opinion) that being to the far end of the spectrum either way tends to limit the breadth and diversity of your potential RP experiences.

On one hand, I think being too strict on lore and putting your blinders on towards everything that isn't directly mentioned or represented within the game in some form cuts you off from a lot of people or experiences that may be perfectly reasonable to presume possible, yet don't fall neatly within one of the pre-determined "boxes" of provided lore. And as mentioned by a lot of people already, while this game does have a ton of lore, there are equally as many holes and/or grey areas left to interpretation. That leaves a lot of unknowns to work around. While it's certainly "safer" that way, considering how unlikely it is for established lore to be changed around in future updates, I also personally find it more limiting and frustrating in not only the types of characters and situations that you can interact with, but also the types of characters and situations you can create.

Likewise, almost completely disregarding lore seems to me to have similarly alienating effects. By more or less establishing and roleplaying out your own head-cannon, you're disregarding certain rules that a majority of players in the community choose to play by to some extent. If you're doing this in a closed group setting where all members are in agreement on that set of rules and expectations, then that's perfectly fine and you're unlikely to run into major problems. But take that character to the public and it can be uncomfortable for people outside of said groups interacting with those types. Essentially, you're forcing them to either choose to abandon their rules and conform to your own (which can often have awkward implications for that person's character) or avoid an encounter altogether. And many people choose the second because it's 100% simpler to avoid an incongruence than to jam a square lore peg into a round lore hole, so to speak.Â

Of course, these are just my personal opinions on the matter. I can totally understand arguments from both sides of the spectrum and I've always been an advocate of everyone playing and enjoying the game the way they want to. I just choose not to play that way. I prefer to characterize my views on lore as being lore-friendly, but willing to find creative (yet logical) ways to fill the gaps. I'm also willing to do a little gentle bending from time to time in the spirit of artistic license.Â

Xheja's a good example of this. There isn't a ton of highly detailed Void-related lore, especially when it comes to things like what the Void is like, summoning Voidsent, their motives, etc etc. So I creatively filled some gaps and took some liberties, trying to stick to the established lore as much as possible.Â

I know that not everyone in the "strict" camp would be willing to accept this kind of lore-bending and improvisation, and I respect that. But at the same time, if I didn't, I wouldn't have been able to create the kind of character that I envisioned and wished to play. Just the same, there are characters that IÂ don't feel comfortable roleplaying with because of incompatibilities in lore interpretation. But I'm never going to send someone a /tell in-game and talk down to them for a half hour relentlessly because theyÂ don't fit neatly into myÂ perfect little RP world (because that totally happened to me on n'hadiya rather recently and I really just wanted to kick the guy in the shin, not cool).

tl;dr xheja's philosophy is errbuddy just do you, and don't be a jerk to to errbuddy doin' them.

Sounsyy · **12-01-2014, 08:26 PM**

I don't think I really need to say which camp I'm in...

But in case I do, looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooremongerrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! <3

There is so much lore in this game! Yes, you have to do a bit of work to find it, but that's because it's realistically dispersed in the world.

Blue · **12-01-2014, 08:35 PM**

(12-01-2014, 08:26 PM)Sounsyy Wrote: I don't think I really need to say which camp I'm in...

But in case I do, looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooremongerrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! <3

There is so much lore in this game! Yes, you have to do a bit of work to find it, but that's because it's realistically dispersed in the world.

Lots of search, yep!

And some findings are just priceless...

[Image: 547d095122c3927cf8e9f4b5.jpg]

Verad · **12-01-2014, 08:38 PM**

I'm in the camp that says generic concepts work no matter how out-there the lore gets, so I rely on those instead of fussing about the small details of the lore, making adjustments as necessary - "necessary" being when compliance would be more entertaining than non-compliance.

Aya · **12-01-2014, 09:00 PM**

Yes Verad exactly that! ^^

There really are no hard and fast rules though and different things always strike players different ways. Just have to do your best to navigate such conundrums and have fun!

ArmachiA · **12-01-2014, 09:09 PM**

Honestly, I think most people are in the "Bend, never Break" camp. I've even seen our resident LoreMonger Sounsyy bend a character around lore so it fit, completely. Lore isn't a box, it's doesn't stifle you. Work around it, think outside of it, but don't break it. If there's evidence in lore for something you want to do take it an run with it. Whether or not people think your character is a special snowflake is another matter entirely (And subjective, some people just use "Not lore compliant" as an excuse for their whining), but work with the lore man. There's no reason to work against it.

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