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Jack Kelly · Posted: Sun Dec 23, 2007 5:46 pm Post subject:

But like Raeydn said ealier, couldn't it be argued that the outlandish stuff ends up being fun. I mean, I'm all for rules and guildlines to a species, but makeing the charater your own, bending a few things, crossing this and that, the creativity of RP. Maybe just an undead bartender's look on things.
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Zari MelGair · Posted: Sun Dec 23, 2007 6:05 pm Post subject:

I agree with you there. Whats the fun with everyone being this or that, and nothing original?
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Ceinwyn ab'Arawn · Transcendent Spammer Joined: 13 Dec 2004 Posts: 5017

Zari, I only posted that as one source of information. Of course it is not set in stone. I didn't intend for it to come off as an attempt to create a rule. Don't take it that way.

It just gets annoying when people go for godliness by mixing everything with great power and being a hybrid.

I mean hell, on that note, Ultime had martians in its lore. Why not just roleplay one of those? Confused

Halister Marner · **Site Programmer** Joined: 05 Oct 2006 Posts: 2232

I believe people may be mistaking the definition of creativity in roleplay.

Creativity and depth are two entirely different things, both of which are needed.

I could run around on Halister as an undead wolf/vampire/drow/ninja, however others would treat me as a character lacking any sort of depth and developmental insight.

To create a memorable and highly interactable character, you need to balance creativity and depth, you can get away with a very simplistic character if you flesh out that characters background, personality, wants and needs, and overall state of mind in a unique and captivating way, however a character that is a mix and mesh of various things shows lack of true depth in exchange for adding several mediocre characteristics.

For example, you can take a character from a film or book who starts off very one dimensional, a peasant or a suburban child, and then progressively becomes a very complex and intriguing personality. Take that same situation, and have it involve an alien/cowboy/astronaut, and as a reader or viewer, you would begin to roll your eyes and possibly put the book or movie back.

While it is possible to create an outlandish concept and introduce depth to it, the amount of times I've personally seen it done in Ultima Online, or any other online medium, are very very few.

The universal rule of thumb when creating a character that's complex and interesting is to add to personality, emotion, and history, otherwise your left with a proverbial Paris Hilton of MMO characters, interesting to gawk at, but ultimately more shallow than a childrens swimming pool.
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Teh Glouris Lrod Kujabis · Transcendent Spammer Joined: 29 Dec 2003 Posts: 5740

Gabriel Sruentus · Visitor Joined: 29 Nov 2007 Posts: 13 Location: Montreal

Since I'm an oldie (though absent for a long time) and I was in charge of the vampire sect in OES for 3 years and spent a few months trying to integrate lycan rp, I'll offer my perspective.

In the summer of 99 there were many vampire roleplayers. I remember there being 6 players who claimed to be the original ancestors of all vampires of two white wolf clan. As well there were 4 others that roleplayed vampires from the Blade series. As well as innumerable Blades with the name Blade.

This situation made roleplaying between the different people very difficult. Eventually I encouraged the offical stance of "you play a vampire our way or no way", I'm not overly proud of that decision, but through cohersion(we don't want to rp with you), appeals (begging for a person to change their background or make a new character), bribes (offering positions in the Tal'mahe'Ra or it's branch guilds) and ridicule (mocking the 'fake' vampires in character) some consistancy was made in the vampire roleplay.

Because everyone was playing more or less on the same page, plots and roleplay with intellectual depth was possible. But not only that, but the personal plots could be added to and built on by others as we were all following more or less the same lore.

Eventually the policy was slackenned a little as I realised I had a 2 by 4 stuck up my ass about roleplay. The change was made that though OES vampires and their progeny were roleplayed a certain way, in a world of magic like Sosaria it was not impossible for other blood drinking undead to exist who did not follow the same rules. In other words the concept of different species of vampires was used. In OES we called ourselves Cainites (in WW it was after Cain the founder but in UO we used the word to say we originated in Caina), Stygian vampires or Zemyazans. There was a Bram Stoker's Dracula based species and one founded on the blood of Daemons. Though there were some complications and arguments, especially from those who did not rp vampires ("How do we know how to kill you?") I would say the live and let live policy worked rather well for harmony. A few around might remember at that time there were at least a dozen vampire based plots, at least 2 dozen books (including the book of vampire geneologies that was 'stolen') and much rp on seeking cures for vampirism (something I did not approve of but to each their own if it did not damage my personal rp).

Around this time AoS came out and polymorph became permanant (it used to last only up to 2 minutes at gm mage and less at lower skill). So there started to be more players to rped werewolves and werebears. I do not think we ever set down firm rules in OES on lycan rp but most of the rp was borrowed and altered from White Wolf. Most lycans I rped with had been born that way or awakenned to their lycan ancestry. There were both good and evil lycans, notably I remember the were bear paladins being impressive when they made a charge.

So all this to say, though strict rules have a place in groups who claim to be related, thus encouraging rp between them, there is room in UO rp to accept a diverse amount of origins, powers and weaknesses by claiming a different species. Though in my experience making different species discourages interaction and community depth. The question you have to ask is "do you want to be part of a comunity of similar creatures or do you want to push forward your personal story line and creativity?"
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Cear Dallben ZOG · Posted: Tue Dec 25, 2007 2:06 am Post subject:

ultima does not have martians.....that was a totally different game. and pretty awesome. Worlds of Ultima is kinda like ultima escape from mount drash. however.....Ultima does have trekkies........
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Thomas Hunter · Sage Joined: 07 Nov 2007 Posts: 572

And you have to admit that the Trekkies ROCK... They truly get into their characters, and play them to the hilt. Nurse Chapel... damn she is hot... Probably played by some 50 year old balding buddha guy but on screen.. I love those pixels...

But more to the point, I am kinda putting the plot on hold while I am doing more research on Lycan. I don't want to make my main RP char one I can't play the way that I want because of his being a Lycan.

When I worked this char, I gave him Ninja skill so that he could shapeshift into Lycan Form. However, I don't want to limit his RP potential, so am wary about locking him into a condition he can not control, and that might serve to detract from his designed and stated purpose. He is a seeker of truth that gathers information from talking to people of all walks of life. Being Lycan would mean that some people would be afraid to talk openly to him. I don't want to limit him that way.

So he will be cured of an infection that he recieved from a dog bite in Umbra. Thanks Molly for the poultice. It was not the Lycan disease, but just a bad infection that made him delusional.

I am currently building a character that will be lycan from birth. As he develops I will return to the story line. In addition, I am working on revising the ruleset, combining the lore from many sources.

Have any of you read Laurel K. Hamilton, her Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series was very descriptive about Vamps and Were animals. Alot of the lore that I was using for Thomas came from that, and not from the movies. I have read all of the series until it became more pornographic and less about Vamps and Lycan.

The whole reason for starting this story line was to encourage RP between several groups, while not requiring they travel to Fel for massive battles risking Life and Limb. This was supposed to be a filler plot, to give individuals a chance to interact with others in a non-committal and fun way in a safe and controlled environment. Realizing that the holidays limits a lot of players time, this was just supposed to be fun for whoever wanted to participate for whatever time that they wanted to contribute.

I did not anticipate that it would or could have lasting impacts on my char. So I am making a char to play the plot line, and will kill him off when done. I don't want to bend any rules or godmode/metagame. Just want to have a little fun. But like I said before, it is more fun to play with others, and not just with myself. (Sick evil grin inserted) After the holidays, and if I can drum up some people wanting to play with this, we can pick it up again.
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Doireann · Posted: Tue Dec 25, 2007 9:19 pm Post subject:

I have read the same series, and I would recomend if you use some of the stuff in there, keep reading even when it gets a little pornographical. (Alot?) There is a lot of information on were-animals when it gets to that point and more rules, social structure and inter-relations inserted that you might want to familiarize yourself with. Also a few came out that weren't as bad, and finally! the series is back on track.