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Smiling River · **03-18-2010, 03:36 PM**

http://www.ffxivcore.com/topic/2992-rol ... otten-art

We should all go over there and support what this person proposes. When this site goes public perhaps the writer can edit the RPC website in the article. This article achieves one of the things we all want to do here as members of the RPC, connect better with the general public.

Eltharian · **03-18-2010, 03:36 PM**

The article was also talked about in the newest podcast over at FFXIVCore. Episode 9 I think.

Kylin · **03-18-2010, 03:37 PM**

Finally got around to listening to the podcast. Just listened to the part about RP as I couldn't sit through the entire hour >.>.

I kinda liked what they talked about up until the whole "pausing to go to the bathroom" part. They mentioned how it's harder to do that in an MMO setting than at a D&D table setting. I strongly disagree and doubt anyone here has had any real trouble "pausing" RP in game when they need to afk for something (unless it's an extended afk or disconnect and even those can be worked around). I also disagreed with when he said that the lore already restricted his character. Lore really doesn't restrict a character that much save for preventing you from being royalty or something outlandish like that. If you want to RP being a bard and there's no bard class, you can still do it. It just takes a tad bit more creativity, which is what RPing is all about to begin with.

The written article hit on a lot of great points though.

Verence · **03-18-2010, 03:37 PM**

If people say the lore restricts their character, I instantly and automatically get nervous. Lore is there to provide a background, a foundation, a set of ideas, concepts, and plot hooks that if anything should let you do more with your character. Total inability to work within the bounds of the lore and instead brewing up some secret order of assassins that turns all the wheels of the world behind the scenes just so your character can be awesome, to me, speaks of a lack of creativity and unwillingness to work with what one's given - which is the same thing everyone is given, and for a reason. It sets standards and makes sure we're all on the same page so we can RP without stopping to go "Wait- what?"

That being said, creativity is important as long as it doesn't contradict the established lore or add a bunch of stuff that doesn't make sense. Castiel's example is fairly apt - You want to make a glassblower but there's no glassblowing synthesis skill? OK, whatever, just go for it. Just because there's no Entertainer/Bard/Storyteller/etc class doesn't mean your character can't be a wandering talespinner who earns his living by the mundane enchantments of epic yarns. Unless there's a rigidly defined Bard class, nobody's saying a bard can't also be a swordsman or a spellslinger. And if there is - well, who says your character has to be a Bard? Maybe they're a swordsman with a gift for telling tales and just don't benefit from whatever jobclass bonuses Bards get for doing the same.

As for the "difficult to AFK" stuff... Unless you're RPing a mission or quest that involves in-game fighting, I've never had any problem with saying "BRB guys, need a drink" or suchlike. Or heck, on rare occasions even "Gotta go pick someone up, can we put this on hold until tomorrow? I'll screenshot the log."

**03-18-2010, 03:38 PM**

Not to hijack the thread, but there's something I thought I'd everyone now that we're on the subject of lore. How would you handle something that borders on or is technically lore friendly, but not quite 100% within the normal limitations of playable characters?

For example, say someone wanted to play a necromancer in XI. They figure, since the pirates in Norg and the Lamiae can do it, so can they. So it's not quite like they just decided to pull something out from nowhere, but it's still a bit of a gray area as far as whether or not it's something a PC is capable of. How would you handle it? Would you let them do more or less as they please, or would you object to the idea?

Verence · **03-18-2010, 03:39 PM**

I smell a thread split coming down the pike, but we'll take it as it comes. I've managed to help "canonize" for lack of a better term some moderately out-there stuff in my own RP community so I have at least a little bit of experience with this sort of thing.

Typically, my approach is to look at all instances of game lore and see if it matches up - to use your example of necromancer, we have a few things going for the idea. For one, undead are definite, real things in the setting (though most of them seem to be incidental and not purposely created). We have the Fomor/Shadows/etc who seem to be at least moderately more 'rational' undead, some of which were unwittingly created in the cataclysm that sheared Tavnazia from the Quon continent. The pirates of Norg tend to call the dead in their attacks on ships at sea. The Lamiae make undead servitors of varying types. There is a necromancer living in the Phomiuna Aqueducts who, IIRC, attempted to imbue a mannequin with the soul of his dead wife in an obscure line of quests. And last but not least, in the Dancer history writeup, it is revealed that plague victim corpses were animated by necromantic magic and caused to dance during the Bastokan Blight in a procession known as the Totentanz.

Taken all together, it looks like necromancy holds water. If someone wanted to make a necromancer char, I'd definitely be wary and want to know how they planned to put it all together and make it work, but so long as they didn't stray too far from the points listed above and it all fit, it does seem feasible. To be honest I'd sort of rather they simply stuck with more regular occupations, but if they were really set on it, I couldn't in good conscience tell them no. Now, if they want to go raising armies of the dead to besiege Jeuno... We're going to have to have a talk about this. In the end it's not just feasibility but how gracefully the player carries the concept.

I add the disclaimer that this is simply how Canta Per Me has traditionally handled things, and that practices & standards will vary from group to group.

Aveline · **03-18-2010, 03:39 PM**

Back in the days of tabletop roleplaying, my friends and I always had this standing rule: If you can explain your concept so well that it could fit into a game manual and not look out of place, have at it.

This means, if someone wanted to play a necromancer character in a game that did not allow for players to technically be necromancers, they would have to first of all, build from an existing job class and second of all, explain WHY, out of all the millions/billions of people in this realm that aren't necromancers, they are the unique snowflake of the bunch.

Sometimes people could pull it off, and we would end up with a player-character that was unique and interesting and really fun to play with. But most of the time it was just someone who thought they had found an "easy" way to play something awesome, but hadn't really thought it all through.

In an MMO, it would be even harder to integrate because you don't have a personal GM standing around to say "Oh ok, sure we can change ____ spell to become a necromancer talent." The endeavor would rely a lot more on the group's willingness to pretend.

In all honesty, when RPers tried things like that in XI, it tended to lead to poorly played god-moding. One common example was the unstable, dark and brooding but very strong loner (usually a dark knight). I can't count how many times one of them would threaten to murder another player character in game, or insist that the player characters weren't safe around them in the city. Not only was that completely impossible to be true (we can't PVP in cities in XI, and even if we were to collectively pretend PVP anywhere other than a battlefield game was possible, there are still armed guards everywhere...), but it came off as improbable (why would so many lonely DRKs join a linkshell just to tell everyone to go away or they'd murder them?).

So getting back to the necromancer example... my short answer is that it would entirely depend on how the player approached it. If they saw NPC necros like in the TOAU expansions and said "hey that would be a cool theme" and just wanted it for flavor text (as in, I blow up stuff with black mage spells on weekdays but in my spare time at home I re-animate neighborhood pets) that would be more plausible than someone who said, "I am a necromancer now and my heart is filled with the icy evil of UNDEATH! Tremble before me or I shall raise a skeleton army against San d'Oria!"

Nanapariri · **03-18-2010, 03:40 PM**

Verence Wrote:I smell a thread split coming down the pike, but we'll take it as it comes. I've managed to help "canonize" for lack of a better term some moderately out-there stuff in my own RP community so I have at least a little bit of experience with this sort of thing.

Typically, my approach is to look at all instances of game lore and see if it matches up - to use your example of necromancer, we have a few things going for the idea. For one, undead are definite, real things in the setting (though most of them seem to be incidental and not purposely created). We have the Fomor/Shadows/etc who seem to be at least moderately more 'rational' undead, some of which were unwittingly created in the cataclysm that sheared Tavnazia from the Quon continent. The pirates of Norg tend to call the dead in their attacks on ships at sea. The Lamiae make undead servitors of varying types. There is a necromancer living in the Phomiuna Aqueducts who, IIRC, attempted to imbue a mannequin with the soul of his dead wife in an obscure line of quests. And last but not least, in the Dancer history writeup, it is revealed that plague victim corpses were animated by necromantic magic and caused to dance during the Bastokan Blight in a procession known as the Totentanz.

Taken all together, it looks like necromancy holds water. If someone wanted to make a necromancer char, I'd definitely be wary and want to know how they planned to put it all together and make it work, but so long as they didn't stray too far from the points listed above and it all fit, it does seem feasible. To be honest I'd sort of rather they simply stuck with more regular occupations, but if they were really set on it, I couldn't in good conscience tell them no. Now, if they want to go raising armies of the dead to besiege Jeuno... We're going to have to have a talk about this. In the end it's not just feasibility but how gracefully the player carries the concept.

I add the disclaimer that this is simply how Canta Per Me has traditionally handled things, and that practices & standards will vary from group to group.

I think it depends on what a group will allow. I briefly wanted my villian character to be trying to become a necromancer as part of a sotryline for my LS. I only was OK with it myself since I figured I'd have input from the other LS leaders and she'd be acting more like an NPC for the storyline in this capacity. After talking it through we decided that it would be overpowered and chose another option for it that wouldn't seem over powered and the LS wouldn't misunderstand as us getting away.

**03-18-2010, 03:41 PM**

Mythis Wrote:Back in the days of tabletop roleplaying, my friends and I always had this standing rule: If you can explain your concept so well that it could fit into a game manual and not look out of place, have at it.

That's more or less exactly how most groups I've played with handled it as well, and it works great. The only problem I could see with using that in XIV is, for MMOs, usually the game manual is fairly light on fluff. In the FFXI manual, I don't think any of the job or zone descriptions got more than a short paragraph. So I would image it would be a lot easier to come up with a convincing description of a Super Saiyan in XI than it would be in, say, Dark Heresy. Not to mention the fact that, like you said, you don't have a GM to turn to decide these sorts of things.

I don't think it'll be that big of a problem in XIV though. The people who want to invade San d'Oria with their army of zombies or duke it out with Archduke Kam'lanaut over the skies of Jeuno DBZ style are free to go right ahead, as long as their guild rules allow it. If not, they're free to move to another guild. or start their own.

Article promoting RP in FFXIV

RPC has moved! These pages have been kept for historical purposes