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AlyssaRihn · **05-21-2017, 08:39 PM**

[sup]Hi everyone, I'm completely new at RP in general and I have some questions to help get me started with the FFXIV scene.Â [/sup]

[sup]When writing a character what is the most common way to do so. I want Alyssa to be tough but not to the point she seems over the top to everyone else. So where do most people stand on character strength vs the gameplay in general.Â [/sup]

[sup]What in the world is the difference between MRP and ERP?Â [/sup]

[sup]And my character does have a lore unfriendly name, but I've given her back story around it. Is this a problem to most people?Â [/sup]
[sup]Sorry if these are answered somewhere else like I'm sure they are. Thank you everyone for the help!Â [/sup]

Kilieit · **05-21-2017, 08:44 PM**

I can answer one of these!

The M in MRP stands for Mature, which covers everything that might be covered by a mature rating on another piece of media - such as, say, an 18 rating on a movie. Not all 18-rated movies have sex in them, right? Some of them are rated 18 for having violence, or drug use, or strong and (to a kid) scary ideologies, or other extreme scenarios which still might not be suited to a younger person's viewing or (back to an RP context) a younger person's involvement.

The E in ERP stands for Erotic, which... yeah.

TL;DR: all ERP is MRP, but not all MRP is ERP.

Arashin Kujqai · **05-22-2017, 12:08 AM**

I'll take a shot at these \o/

When writing a character what is the most common way to do so. I want Alyssa to be tough but not to the point she seems over the top to everyone else.
and
What in the world is the difference between MRP and ERP?

To elaborate on the M(ature) vs E(rotic) in RP thing.. Think of it like this.... M can be about an investigation of a murder or a criminal act that you'd find in mature films/games. Things that you could consider extremely violent, grotesque, or even inhuman. Overall it's just as above said, M covers majority of the ground for the sense of adult material while E covers specifically sexual appeal from romance to flat out lust. M just covers more touchy subjects, not just particularly sexual related.

As for how to write your character to sound tough, it depends on the character. Maybe it's a Roegydan sea dog and he/she has a bit of a pirate-like accent. So replacing your pronouns with Ye's and adding more slang to your sentence structure could help with that. Maybe you just want to be tough personality not just voice, but not over the top, you could develop that as RP proceeds. Such as making comments to something with more of an arrogant attitude like someone talking about how deadly a primal is or somewhere dangerous and your character responds with just a "Tch... Seen worse" or makes a metaphor describing a worse situation.

You can handle being tough several directions but it really depends on what you'd like for your character. Do you want them to be reckless and ruthless? Start challenging random people or take any chance you can in challenging someone to a fight wherever you see possible(I know a group of badass au ra that already do this just near the chocobo stables in ul'dah). Or maybe you're the type that's overly ambitious even when it's clearly an impossible odd, bring out a positive response that makes you sound like you're more than capable like "HA! That sounds like a vacation to me!" in response to someone talking about a gruesome battle/challenge.

Really the best way to help is if you get some basic details going about your character first. If you can provide some more, but ultimately it's however you feel comfortable and the level you put forth into it is based on how much effort you want it to be shown. Also sorry I kinda combined/condensed both of those questions into one long weird post here >~>;

"So where do most people stand on character strength vs the gameplay in general. "

I'm not sure about what you're asking here....

And my character does have a lore unfriendly name, but I've given her back story around it. Is this a problem to most people?

Eh, not really. A lot of people don't want to bother name changing or haven't gone through the effort to go through it to such extent. No one will slam you for it, or they shouldn't... But if you have a backstory for why it isn't, that's good insurance to keep anyone from being nit picky. My character is a prime example of this, being a miqo'te I should have a name like V'alic Nuhn or something but because my char was an orphan and the backstory behind why he's name Valic Sunblood, he stays with it and isn't a tribal miqo'te anyways. People have alias names too that aren't their actual names, either way you're fine.

Sorry if these are answered somewhere else like I'm sure they are. Thank you everyone for the help!

Don't be afraid to ask anything really, we're not like gamefaqs or something where it gets asked and everyone just sighs and points to an already made thread lol. Though we do have some good guides for some specific areas of lore if you needed any in particular~ Just don't hesitate at all ^.^

AlyssaRihn · **05-22-2017, 01:50 AM**

These are great answers guys!

"So where do most people stand on character strength vs the gameplay in general. "

I was at work when I wrote this..poorly worded. But what I mean is, In the story your character is the Warrior of Light aka a badass. So really what I was trying to ask was. What makes a character over the top strength wise? I didnt plan on making my character super powerful but I am curious.

Lydia Lightfoot · **05-22-2017, 02:48 AM**

Just a bit of an FYI, a looottttt of people don't understand what the point of MRP is and will mistake it for being just another way to say ERP. Don't feel bad about that. At the same time, if your intent is to try and avoid lecherous creepers, you're better off just not using either term (due to how many of them don't know the difference).

Arashin Kujqai · **05-22-2017, 03:30 AM**

(05-22-2017, 01:50 AM)AlyssaRihn Wrote: These are great answers guys!

"So where do most people stand on character strength vs the gameplay in general. "

I was at work when I wrote this..poorly worded. But what I mean is, In the story your character is the Warrior of Light aka a badass. So really what I was trying to ask was. What makes a character over the top strength wise? I didnt plan on making my character super powerful but I am curious.

Oh I see whatcha mean. Typically for FF14 roleplay people tend to stray from your character being "THE" warrior of light. Overall the story makes it out to believe you're the one and only destined hero of Hydaelyn etc... and I guess they assume everyone who accompanies your adventures and etc are just normal adventures or just as equally echo-touched adventurers that can't be tempered and etc.

Basically, it's hard to roleplay the main character in the game when the story assumes everyone else is also the main character. So as far as RP goes, most tend to just create their entire character from the ground up without the warrior of light bs. They use elements from it though on some occasions like my character has some minor echo abilities like to see into the future only mere seconds in advance in tense moments of combat since he's had so much practice/training/study/work/etc with aether and magic. I would just advise creating your own lore that isn't what the story claims but also using the stories current events as the "timeline" we're currently in.

Without me giving spoilers, say for example at some point the end game was Ifrit was a big bad primal that no one could defeat and he was the final boss for FF14 at a time. RP-wise everyone would pretty much just go with the flow and not exactly claim he was defeated or that his threat is necessarily over, they'd if anything assume the time that's in is a current state of conflict. Then say we got a patch after that, Ifrit's dead and they introduce some other group of antagonists that are provoking war or something. At that point, lore-wise we could assume that the warrior of light handled Ifrit and saved everyone etc, and you can use some of the lore from what happened from that point on.. But currently we're at war with some other group. So you could say "oh my character has helped in the conflict against Ifrit and even put up a fight a couple times with him".. But for the current war, the most you could go along with and say is acknowledging the current state of the war going on, not that it has an end or a beginning. This'll be much easier to understand when you finish the game's main story line as it'll clarify a lot of lore and place you in good events to understand.

Tl;dr: Typically most RP-ers stray away from anything having to do with the warrior of light as not to cross paths with canon based stuff with our own ideas. It makes characters more flexible to RP with than having everyone claim they're the warrior of light.

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From that point.... It's solely up to your imagination really. You can have a super strong dark knight that was tainted by the void itself, or just be a regular adventurer or worker of some kind. Ultimately it's up to you within reason, the stuff that's typically frowned upon though are things that take too many courtesies off the lore. Like someone claiming they're a primal, or they're the Azure Dragoon, or they're a king/queen of some nation... Basically anything that makes you god mode to have authority over others or to make you literally OP. Warrior of light "kinda" falls in this category, but more than anything it's just more flexible to create your own character with your own concepts/ideas based on the lore of the game.

Did you have anything in particular interest for your character or any basics come up? Like what race, name, age, interests, maybe what she does as an occupation(if she has one?) or personality, etc. Start simple and then branch it off to grow :p until you feel comfortable enough to just immerse as it and RP with it.

Gegenji · **05-22-2017, 08:36 AM**

(05-22-2017, 01:50 AM)AlyssaRihn Wrote: These are great answers guys!

"So where do most people stand on character strength vs the gameplay in general. "

I was at work when I wrote this..poorly worded. But what I mean is, In the story your character is the Warrior of Light aka a badass. So really what I was trying to ask was. What makes a character over the top strength wise? I didnt plan on making my character super powerful but I am curious.

In further clarification of this question, I have to give a relatively vague answer. How "strong" and "powerful" people play their characters tends to vary from group to group. A decent chunk of the folks at the RPC like to play their characters more low-powered, being of the populous rather than a figure noteworthy in their might. However, that is by no means the majority and even among our own number there are people who play characters that could punch their way through a wall with little effort.

While a majority of folks don't play as "the Warrior of Light" (although, some do or specify themselves of "one" of the Warriors of Light or his allies), there's still plenty who play themselves as having powers likely comparable to his. Going to any of the fighting tournaments (especially those that involve spellcasting) tends to highlight this, even though there are also those who cleave to a lower power base there as well. And people who will smack each other around with rolling pins and fishing rods, so take all that with a grain of salt.

AlyssaRihn · **05-22-2017, 09:04 PM**

Thanks for all the great replies everyone! It definitely helped sort out some anxieties I've had about writing for my character. I might make a character write up in the next few days and see how it goes!

Vexander · **05-22-2017, 09:14 PM**

Part of it will also depend on what skills you want your character to possess and how those translate into the Lore of the world. For example, it is not difficult to make a character who is a Paladin, because by lore the Sultan-Sworn broke from tradition and began offering adventurers the opportunity to learn their ways and serve the realm as, 'Free Paladins.'

By contrast, White Mages and Black Mages are the extinct jobs of ancient nations which began a war so devastating to the world that their arts drained the land of so much aether that it caused a Calamity to plunge the planet into the 6th Umbral Era. There are White Mages today, but they are few, carefully controlled, and entirely of a non-playable race, the Padjal. The only exception is the Warrior of Light. There are also several wielders of Black Magic in the world, but they're primarily outcast Beastmen and a few people dismissed as lunatics. If they were known as Black Mages and actively wielded the art they'd be arrested, tried for criminals, and executed.

So I'd advocate thoroughly researching the lore of any class you think you'd like your character to be. Most you can, within reason, create a workable story around, but Black Mage and White Mage are the big two offenders in the various RP communities. At least, they are until such time Square decides to write their lore as moving in a direction where they are a bit more tolerated and more are being trained. Which might happen in Stormblood if we're lucky, since Red Mages used both White and Black magic.

Kilieit · **05-22-2017, 09:33 PM**

In terms of jobs, I wrote up this describing how easy (or not) the various job stones are to get ahold of (excluding Stormblood jobs, although I'd speculate they'll be RDM/3 and SAM/4). Most people I've met whose characters use job crystals ICly don't tend to go above Rank 3 as I described them there, unless their character's backstory is specifically tied in to a Rank 4 crystal.

If your character's abilities are within the realm of a class, though, you'll probably be okay in most people's books. Class characters don't have to be underpowered or boring - just as job characters don't have to be overpowered and attention-grabby. Classes are just less likely to immediately turn off a (honestly, pretty small) sub-set of the community.

Vexander · **05-22-2017, 09:44 PM**

(05-22-2017, 09:33 PM)Kilieit Wrote: In terms of jobs, I wrote up this describing how easy (or not) the various job stones are to get ahold of (excluding Stormblood jobs, although I'd speculate they'll be RDM/3 and SAM/4). Most people I've met whose characters use job crystals ICly don't tend to go above Rank 3 as I described them there, unless their character's backstory is specifically tied in to a Rank 4 crystal.

If your character's abilities are within the realm of a class, though, you'll probably be okay in most people's books. Class characters don't have to be underpowered or boring - just as job characters don't have to be overpowered and attention-grabby. Classes are just less likely to immediately turn off a (honestly, pretty small) sub-set of the community.

I read the article and its pretty good, though I think you might've rated Astrologian a bit high. If its getting a hold of a Soul Crystal then, yes, that's probably where it belongs. If its learning how to be an Astrologian, then the ending of the 50-60 AST quests shows us that the teaching will be spread, so really, it wouldn't be difficult to learn it from scratch.

Kilieit · **05-22-2017, 09:56 PM**

Yes, the post's about getting ahold of a job crystal, on account of this being its title:
â€œJust how obscure is that job crystal in lore terms?â€: a heirarchy

Sources used were the lore book sections on both the astrologian job and Sharlayan, in conjunction with the in-game Astrologian quests.

Silmanos · **05-22-2017, 11:57 PM**

(05-22-2017, 09:44 PM)Vexander Wrote:
(05-22-2017, 09:33 PM)Kilieit Wrote: In terms of jobs, I wrote up this describing how easy (or not) the various job stones are to get ahold of (excluding Stormblood jobs, although I'd speculate they'll be RDM/3 and SAM/4). Most people I've met whose characters use job crystals ICly don't tend to go above Rank 3 as I described them there, unless their character's backstory is specifically tied in to a Rank 4 crystal.

If your character's abilities are within the realm of a class, though, you'll probably be okay in most people's books. Class characters don't have to be underpowered or boring - just as job characters don't have to be overpowered and attention-grabby. Classes are just less likely to immediately turn off a (honestly, pretty small) sub-set of the community.
I read the article and its pretty good, though I think you might've rated Astrologian a bit high. If its getting a hold of a Soul Crystal then, yes, that's probably where it belongs. If its learning how to be an Astrologian, then the ending of the 50-60 AST quests shows us that the teaching will be spread, so really, it wouldn't be difficult to learn it from scratch.

One thing to keep in mind this teaching was only started within like the last year in lore. So with that anyone not of Sharlayan birth would likely be able to do nothing more than the most basic of Astrologian spells. I actually really like that write up though Kilieit and will keep that on bookmark for future use. Though iirc from the Bard questline I thought there was actually now a contingent of Bards within the Gods' Quiver. I'll be the first to admit though I really didn't pay attention to the 50-60 quests.

Lots of newbie questions

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