I don't anyone's advocating taking the entire story of the MSQ as written as canon for their characters. Some parts of the story (though thankfully not as many as in other games) very clearly need to be genericized, because otherwise, you'd definitely be stepping on other players' toes.
The problem is that this is a drama bomb of epic proportions waiting to happen. It's essentially a group of players saying, "Hey, this canonical event? You can't have any role other than an extra in it, because these PCs we appointed have those starring roles." It's the same thing as saying your character is the Chosen Protagonist of the story, except it's a group of players anointing some of their own to be the Chosen Protagonists. That's very much stepping on other players' RP; just because a group of people does it doesn't mean it's fair play. It's especially bad if a significant proportion of the RPC does it, because nothing screams "elitist clique" faster than telling other RPers that an anointed set of characters (who will, being chosen by vote, inevitably be the most popular and well-liked characters, or the characters of the most popular and well-liked players) have key roles in what will invariably be viewed as "the RPC's Secret Cabal of RP Masters' fanon" -- no matter how much people claim otherwise.
Now, sure, you can do it in an LS or FC -- and some very successful guilds in a variety of games have done this -- but the end result is that the RP of the group becomes incompatible with other players, since they won't recognize the group's authority to dictate who did what in the game's storyline (nor should they be expected to). That means that any time these events come up in RP, the two sides are going to have an OOC disagreement that can only be solved ICly by both sides RPing that the other's lost a few marbles. You can also solve it OOC by simply not RPing it with other players, but that inevitably leads to insular RP (why RP with people who don't recognize your story?).
Ultimately, the problem isn't the power level of these characters -- in fact, the issue of the average power level of a PC is quite different from the story implications of taking quests IC at face value (you can be a high power character without being a special snowflake and vice-versa). The problem is that it's a group of players telling another group of players which characters get to play key roles in a story that none of us created; ultimately, it's SE's story. No player has the authority to do that, and attempting to assert it will always cause OOC snarls.
I think the best solution is the most common one: the big events in the storyline -- the ones that only one PC or a small group of PCs can undertake -- remain always in the hands of generic NPC heroes. Events that every PC can do (taking down Primals, having the Echo, participating in Carteneau) are things that you can say your character did. Everything in between is a judgment call, with my judgment personally falling down on the side of "make it generic if there's any question about it clobbering others' RP."
EDIT: Aaand all of that being taken into consideration, if we're just talking about player-created stories, the exact same issues exist, with the added complication that getting LS and FC leaders to agree on anything can be quite challenging. For player-created stories, the best way to handle them is to keep them at a plausible level that doesn't stomp on anyone else's RP (no saving the world from Bahamut, please), and weave them together with a system like the Tonberry's Lantern. By simply letting other groups know what you're doing, they can weave it into their stories and RP. Offering an RP opportunity is much better than attempting to enforce an fanon.
(09-01-2013, 01:57 PM)Knahli Wrote: We have a rather large community here. Surely a significant portion of us are open to the idea of following some significant chronicle of events, something that is consistent and that we can all play a part in to varying degrees? What I would like to see is something that was suggested before in another topic, a party of "heroes" that play an important role SIMILAR to that of the main story. They should not be Gods or capable of great things all on their lonesome. They should just be the ones credited to having significant participation in battle, leaderships and/or judgements and can influence the world's(that is everyone who agrees) populace. In addition to that, we could have "masters" and expert roleplayers of varying styles helping to form the foundation of everything that happens and keeping it all framed and tidy to ensure consistency just as Clover had suggested.
The problem is that this is a drama bomb of epic proportions waiting to happen. It's essentially a group of players saying, "Hey, this canonical event? You can't have any role other than an extra in it, because these PCs we appointed have those starring roles." It's the same thing as saying your character is the Chosen Protagonist of the story, except it's a group of players anointing some of their own to be the Chosen Protagonists. That's very much stepping on other players' RP; just because a group of people does it doesn't mean it's fair play. It's especially bad if a significant proportion of the RPC does it, because nothing screams "elitist clique" faster than telling other RPers that an anointed set of characters (who will, being chosen by vote, inevitably be the most popular and well-liked characters, or the characters of the most popular and well-liked players) have key roles in what will invariably be viewed as "the RPC's Secret Cabal of RP Masters' fanon" -- no matter how much people claim otherwise.
Now, sure, you can do it in an LS or FC -- and some very successful guilds in a variety of games have done this -- but the end result is that the RP of the group becomes incompatible with other players, since they won't recognize the group's authority to dictate who did what in the game's storyline (nor should they be expected to). That means that any time these events come up in RP, the two sides are going to have an OOC disagreement that can only be solved ICly by both sides RPing that the other's lost a few marbles. You can also solve it OOC by simply not RPing it with other players, but that inevitably leads to insular RP (why RP with people who don't recognize your story?).
Ultimately, the problem isn't the power level of these characters -- in fact, the issue of the average power level of a PC is quite different from the story implications of taking quests IC at face value (you can be a high power character without being a special snowflake and vice-versa). The problem is that it's a group of players telling another group of players which characters get to play key roles in a story that none of us created; ultimately, it's SE's story. No player has the authority to do that, and attempting to assert it will always cause OOC snarls.
I think the best solution is the most common one: the big events in the storyline -- the ones that only one PC or a small group of PCs can undertake -- remain always in the hands of generic NPC heroes. Events that every PC can do (taking down Primals, having the Echo, participating in Carteneau) are things that you can say your character did. Everything in between is a judgment call, with my judgment personally falling down on the side of "make it generic if there's any question about it clobbering others' RP."
EDIT: Aaand all of that being taken into consideration, if we're just talking about player-created stories, the exact same issues exist, with the added complication that getting LS and FC leaders to agree on anything can be quite challenging. For player-created stories, the best way to handle them is to keep them at a plausible level that doesn't stomp on anyone else's RP (no saving the world from Bahamut, please), and weave them together with a system like the Tonberry's Lantern. By simply letting other groups know what you're doing, they can weave it into their stories and RP. Offering an RP opportunity is much better than attempting to enforce an fanon.
The Freelance Wizard
Quality RP at low, low prices!
((about me | about L'yhta Mahre | L'yhta's desk | about Mysterium, the Ivory Tower: a heavy RP society of mages))
Quality RP at low, low prices!
((about me | about L'yhta Mahre | L'yhta's desk | about Mysterium, the Ivory Tower: a heavy RP society of mages))
