Gaeva Winged Unicorn wrote: Lux, everything you're listing about NPCs isn't from the rules but from the FAQ, the guidelines on how to go about stuff around here.
If these are enforced guidelines, then they are effectively rules. That's how I always saw them, at least.
But if there is a difference, do these same guidelines apply to HVR, or is that more of an open game where anyone can run a side plot (that doesn't affect the main RP area) at will without requesting plot characters? (If it isn't, I think it should be.)
Gaeva Winged Unicorn wrote: Either someone is running a story and asked to use plot characters, or they aren't, that's the difference really.
Hm... Maybe I'm being dense about this, but that doesn't seem like it answers all of the questions I had. Unless you're saying a person just has to request to use plot characters in general, not request each specific plot character? If that's what you're saying, it could stand to be more clear in the way the guideline is written, because that's not the way I would ever have assumed it worked. And if not, then I'm still confused.
Gaeva Winged Unicorn wrote: Anyone can take control of an NPC, that's what they are there for really. And if a character arrives at the forest with their army of NPCs then they're not NPCs anymore, but familiars, and become part of their abilities. If they get their army of NPCs after joining then they really are NPCs and anyone can take them over so it's not to be recommended. I suppose a way around it is to make them part of the character as an ability, and tie them together as one would with familiars. The Balraa example was indeed a plot thing, plot characters really do belong to only one person, so that person can also hand them over where needed.
Maybe the word "familiars" should be changed to "followers," then? And we (you) should probably decide how big of an army someone should be allowed to have, because I'm pretty sure we don't want someone walking in with a million troops. Or a few thousand, even. Maybe some "indefinite small number" would be okay. Enough that a character would always be able to call more out of their reserves to replace casualties, but not enough that they could bring a huge number into any given scene at once. And there's also a question of just how strong any individual troop can be, because with numbers, that will pile up.
And this line of questioning is already leading me to see how complicated this issue of power levels can be. But at the same time, it's also doubling down the importance I see in regulating it. It's also turning into a real can of worms, though.
nightwolf714 wrote: In the end, it may be best just to simply make it an abilities and personality section and, in the explanation of both, say that we're looking for both pros and cons in those sections. Simplifies it but still attempts to reach the goal desired.
That's agreeable to me. Requiring a rounded-out personality section is a world away from requiring a disadvantages section with "disadvantageous" personality traits. If disadvantages are going to be used to balance out advantages, changing them would throw off the balance of the character, but a personality section could be rewritten without that consequence.
But just remember, the rounder the hole, the fewer square pegs can fit through. If this is the route we take, we'll have to accept the fact that some people are going to be excluded. We've always claimed that UV is open to everyone, but maybe it's not open to
everyone.
nightwolf714 wrote: Honestly, I wouldn't want to even see tiers used in advertising certain plots. Partly because for me personally, while I find the tier system interesting, I'm not about to use it a lot. That's one thing I like about writing styled role play versus something like DnD, is the flexibility and looseness of it. I do enjoy DnD, but I get hung up on the formulas and stuff sometimes with it. So I enjoy not having to worry about what "level" my character is with forum styled role play. I'm not against it's mild use, but I wouldn't like to see it become a regular aspect of role playing here personally.
Good thought. I don't want tiers to become exclusionary. They shouldn't be used to decide who joins a plot. Or a thread in general, for that matter. They should be used more to decide generally what to do with a character once they've already joined. Of course, the character's specific abilities should be taken into account too, but the tier should provide a general idea of what they can handle.
Of course, designing encounters to fit another person's character does require devoting a modicum of thought to that character...
nightwolf714 wrote: While talking with Norv, I remembered which character it was that I was thinking about when talking about abilities on here. I was thinking of Amy, a kata which is basically a cat/horse mix. She had zero magically abilities. None. She was a cat/horse and that was in. In vanilla UV, that wasn't too strange of an idea. At least, that's how it felt to me. But as UV went on, abilities got more and more focus and in the end, it felt as though it was required. And suddenly having a non-magical character just didn't seem to fit in as well in this setting. I wouldn't mind seeing it go back to the way it was somehow, where abilities and magic was accepted but wasn't required. I think this also fits in with the tier discussion, as anything beyond the lowest tier would probably require some form of magic.
That's also a pretty big part of why I want to take the focus off of advantage/disadvantage balance and put it onto overall combat power. If a character is just a horsecat or an elf with a sword, I don't think there's any reason to have to explain its abilities in exacting detail. Extraordinary abilities are what should be defined.
Lanadyr wrote:Roose Hurro wrote:Also, on the whole "Edge" thing... I've always enjoyed Tavern threads, and this reboot could allow the Edge to have a tavern, either "just there" for the taking, or perhaps having a "plot" in which characters decide and then go about building it. Perhaps I could solve my Tiffin problem by having him become the "innkeeper"... who knows? I just think it would add some variety to the Edge. Heh. It could even be built near Khee's Garden, perhaps even built around Tiffin's tree. A place where those who arrive at the Edge can relax in, if they arrive close enough to its location. Yes, with this reboot, Deep Forest is ripe for some new areas, new territories to expand it with. Perhaps... perhaps even have Deep Forest "melded" with bits of the worlds its existence may have touched. I remember a character... Grey, I think his name was. A "closet monster" or "monster under the bed" whose realm touched Deep Forest. Perhaps this idea of permanent "portals" for NPCs to "come out of" could be incorporated into Deep Forest's revampment. All I know is, The Edge was my favorite haunt here, and it would be nice to not only mod The Edge a bit, but to perhaps create more "edges" for PCs to arrive at. Or at least more than just: "This is the Wasteland, this is The Forest, X marks The Edge, have at it." Or some such. Something to "turn up the wick," so to speak. Don't know if that would help with joining threads, but I can't imagine it would hurt too much, either. Even though The Edge was not strictly the area where new characters HAD to arrive. Far as I remember.
Funny you should mention this. I'm designing some new characters for UV, and I've got a plan for two of them to start up a combination coffee shop / machine shop together once they get settled in. I see no reason that they couldn't move that business to the Edge to hop up newcomers on caffeine, fix their weapons, and send them on their merry way (in addition to
continuing to serve the rest of the Forest, of course). And the best part? These two are supposed to be semi-retired, polyverse-travelling adventuring types anyway (about Tier 3 each, maybe Tier 2 as a pair if they're having a really good day), so they'd be doubling as the Forest's first line of defense! Let me give this some more thought...
I support this endeavor. If there's going to be an Edge, I like the idea of there being a natural gathering place there. It does give people a reason to meet each other there.
ddpej wrote: My stance on overall effect vs. raw power is based on the difficulties of defining what does and does not qualify as "power" as well as the idea that different players and characters have different goals -- and both of those are rooted in the variety of options for character conflict. Physical threat is certainly one form of multi-character conflict, but it isn't the only one; consider mind games, battles of will, social reform, etc. Furthermore, conflict is often very much internal rather than or in addition to external/multi-character, and to limit characters to a specific level of a specific definition of "power" is to throw out an entire subset of potential story conflicts. As for power, well. Influence is power, in the right context, be it widespread or not -- just as brains or mental fortitude or bravery or yes, magic and physical strength can be. Why the insistence that only the latter two matter?
I'm not saying only the latter two matter. I'm saying I only want to limit, or at least regulate, the latter two. I don't think characters should be restricted in how much influence they can gain, or how clever or brave or personally resilient they can be. Though, to specifically respond to one of Viz's examples, if someone can engineer a technological device that lets them shut down a supposedly more powerful character, that should be listed as an ability, because that's not something someone should be able to just pull out of their pocket.
Basically, we shouldn't have deus ex machinae in RP. A character shouldn't be able to just pull a solution to a problem out of nowhere. If a character is described as an elf with a sword, it's reasonable to assume that the elf can use the sword, and also has the mental capacity to gain political influence and demonstrate bravery, cleverness, and resilience. It's also reasonable to assume that the elf can be killed in any way a human or any other living creature could be killed, so having a sword isn't such an extraordinary thing that the elf would need some special disadvantage to make up for it. However, if the elf gets surrounded by a pack of orcs and suddenly throws a grenade at them to escape, that would be a deus ex machina if it hadn't been previously declared that the elf had grenades, whether as an ability on his character sheet or because he had previously bought some grenades in RP from
Entropy's Grenades and Baking Soda Emporium! (Bring your friends! Bring your children!). And if he gets surrounded by an army of orcs and starts throwing fireballs, his profile needs to say that he can throw fireballs, and give some indication of about how many fireballs he can throw or what throwing fireballs costs him, because if he can throw infinite fireballs, this problem becomes a non-problem.
Of course, we
could just go completely libertine and let people do whatever they want, but I don't think Gaeva will agree to that in a million years. Just think of the chaos! Think of the children!
ddpej wrote: I am uninclined to support public polling on anything administrative. I've seen it done, and I've seen it blow up far more often than not. People, as it turns out, are not all that good at differentiating what seems like a good idea for them and what would a good idea for everyone.
Depends on the community, I guess. This one's not really used to democracy, so I guess we probably shouldn't put things to a vote. Still, this discussion seems to be leading to some good ideas, or some ideas that seem good, anyway, so gathering opinions can be beneficial.
I'm mostly just leary of rules expansion cutting into creativity and making things feel oppressive. I think any rules added need to be carefully considered from every possible angle.
nightwolf714 wrote: Perhaps we can do a bit of compromise with the edge. Make it a suggested starting area instead of required starting area. It would be an area where those new could feel comfortable starting out at to get a feel of the place. However, if they want to have a character that, for example, lived in a cave in the mountains, that would be okay. Just that the edge would be more, shall we say, tolerant of newbness? That's a bad way of putting it. But make it so that, for those who are new to forum role play it's a good place to start and have advice on improving if desired. Just an idea to toss out there for discussion, though to be honest I'm not sure how well it would work. I also think that, rather the edge goes or stays, the character profiles should be kept. It would just be a matter of l posting the profile, having someone look over and okay it or not.
I think the Edge is a good place to develop a character through RP, anyway, if you can get activity. Maybe we could go about it in the opposite way of what we have been. Instead of dropping a completed character at the edge and playing it until it gets accepted, people could bring newly-conceptualized characters in there and play them until they know enough to finish filling out the profile. This seems like a useful purpose.
Though, I think people
can do that anyway, but it isn't advertised, and I think you still have to wait to get accepted after you've finished the profile.
Regarding your profile design:
I like the format. Seems like it covers the areas that need to be covered, and the optional points make sense to be optional, though I'll say something about traits in a minute.
The personality section is good overall. But if we're going to require personality flaws, we need to say so specifically. "Please round out the character with good and bad traits, as nobody's perfect."
And traits, if I get my way, should be more semi-optional than optional. "If the character has any exceptional abilities, list them here, along with the limitations of those abilities." Might need to be a little bit direct about it so they don't think this is something they don't have to do. Don't want to have to go from playing nice to dropping an ultimatum.
).
