Pre-game rant on characters

[Theomore Tullison]

So this is me with my strong opinion glasses on, I don't expect people to agree on everything I say here, I anticipate that some may disagree rather strongly to some parts, I hope that those that do offers discourse...I hope everyone offers discourse.

I think I am entitled to call myself a veteran of these games. And if someone would say that I am not opinionated, then I'd look at him with a curious gaze.

I've seen things that I like, and I've seen things I dislike. Among the latter are:

1. People re-using characters.
This one I hope not to see. If you showed up in the last week of SA before it crashed, then this does not apply to you. But if you got to play that character for a month or two, perhaps more, then either he was awesome and you are not likely to top that performance, so you better come up with something fresh which most likely will be a lot more fun, because it's all original and new story etc...or he was not awesome, and you've probably exhausted your best tricks failing to make him so, in which case you are certainly better served making a new one. In conclusion: Don't play the same character twice.

This is not the same as playing something similar to things you've done before. Ayleth stats were almost identical to another character of mine, their mannerisms and methods quite similar, but their objectives, backgrounds and present situations differed vastly. And Marq Mooton was the second out of three young noblemen with a quick witty tongue and a weakness for indulging in carnal pleasures, but the contexts they found themselves in were vastly different from each other. If you're good at a particular style, and enjoy it, then by all means, stick to that, but have different goals this time, have different background, be in a different house (if you played SA and/or BITW).

2. People playing unaligneds.
I'll call these selfish wastes of spaces. They take up space without contributing to internal house dynamics. There'll be houses in need of more PC's. And most of these unaligneds can easily be sufficiently attached to the fortunes of a house that they ought to be included on their forums with no change required to their characters. Don't make a mercenary and ask around who might pay you more. Make a mercenary and decide which house that you think would be the most fun one to have hired your services.

3. People that haven't read the books and does not ask questions.
I've played with good people that haven't read the books, and I've played with bad people that haven't read the books. While reading them is something you definitely should do, seeing that they are ten times better than the show and all, it isn't required to be a good roleplayer. But in my opinion, not having done so places the burden on you to fill in the blanks of your knowledge. There is a proper place for bastards, and that is usually outside the door on council meetings. There is a proper place for non-knights, and that's called the squire's tourney. Westerosi feudal customs are not like English/French feudal customs, though the inspirations are clearly visible.

4. Combat types that does nothing outside combat.
You're the best jouster in westeros? How marvellous. But unless you do something besides jousting, then it really is "
how dull"
. This game thrives when players invites other players by creating content that they may stack content of their own upon to build a story. A joust doesn't do that..unless you kill someone in it. Now, if you use your jousting prowess, reputation and attention you garner to attempt to achieve things in the courtroom...then we're talking. See, there'll be plenty of other knightly knights with equally shabby intrigue stats as your jousting expert...use roleplay rather than rolling to sway them.

5. People that use every single timeslot pursuing one objective or the other.
I suppose that was me in BITW, you get VP for goals true enough. But you generally do not get character development. You typically do not give others something to play with. Everything's goal driven and you are playing a strategy game of sorts. The best scenes are ones that are intended as relaxed and just for fun, with no real objective involved. Mostly. It should be noted that certain pivotal events of awesomeness may very well involve the pursuit of objectives. However, in SA, there was a certain flirtatious scene between Ayleth and Marq at the start of things that was just for roleplay fun, but the seed planted in their backgrounds blossomed into something awesome that I think neither had intended or even considered as a possibility when initiating that scene.

6. People that does not engage in meta-discussion.
Meta-discussion being the OOC-section, private message and so on. The OOC-talks build atmosphere. Now I am not talking so much about discussions on rules. But rather, people applauding and commenting on awesome moments, generally being nice to each other and build a friendly community people want to spend considerable chunks of time to be in. It is also the component where one might facilitate future roleplay. I do this all the time, if I see the potential for an interesting scene between another's character and my own, I send a pm about it. It could be so simple as maintaining an OOC-thread, when players might point to somewhere their character is all alone to see if any other PC has that timeslot to spare, or simply state that they are hoping for an opportunity for their PC to engage in such and such (or maybe just whatever strikes the fancy of others) and work out the details. The important part is that players use such avenues when they have open time slots.

7. People that builds "
unbeatable"
characters.
Actually, this depends. A strong combatant is likely a bit vulnerable in the courtroom. It's about exposing yourself to risk. I don't want to see combat monsters that insulate themselves from non-combat risk. This may be harder from an intrigue perspective, a pretty lady is not about to walk into the melee, and sending assassins after her if she doesn't have guards that could fend them off isn't exactly fair. However, it's easy enough to use the quit action for other PC's to avoid getting swung into a corner they don't want to be, so intrigue has it's limitations.

[Reader]

I appreciate the enthusiasm! I agree on some of the above but not on all of it.

In particular, let it be known that I'm ok with reused characters - many will feel their story had further to run, or simply be too busy in the near term to make a new character. We can tweak them a little to make things fresh.

[Theomore Tullison]

Also, while I'm at it:

8. People playing Dornish and Bravoosi's or anything else out of it's natural habitat in the Riverlands.
Exceptions apply, as the end of the paragraph will conclude. The existence of the Longshores and Coldbrooks does make Ironmen and Northmen not entirely out of it's natural habitat, but they should be contained to those houses. But I will say that I have only ever seen one PC from Essos where you couldn't have taken the Essos out of the character and still have the same character, excepting of course, those whose entire character was "
wohoo, I'm a water dancer"
, but they don't count IMO. It's more of a general observation from my end that far too many people behaves as if being a Water Dancer makes your character so special and awesome that you don't need to add anything else. I am inclined to disagree. If Damon Nettles had "
Dornish"
as his primary descriptive feature, then I'd call him exceedingly dull. As it happened, Damon Nettles had a little exotic spice from the other side of the red mountains that came into play on occasion. This is not so much a "
do not do it"
as a warning that exotic origins must come in addition to a layered character with texture and nuances, they do not work as texture and nuances in and of itself, thus making a water dancer requires twice the effort as a Riverlander Knight.

[Baelon Drakeson]

As you probably expected, I somewhat disagree on a number of these points. :;
):

2. Unaligned characters can be selfish wastes of space. I think the key thing for any character, unaligned or otherwise, is to have strong connections to other characters. Ideally to other PCs, though that's harder to do without knowing what PCs are out there (perhaps we should make a thread for people to share public info of their characters?).
Even if you are not aligned with a house, being connected to other characters will get you involved with the activities in their houses. Just being [insert profession here] for hire gets you nothing. Being [insert profession here] for hire with past experience with house X and enemies in house Y. The key is to have skin in the game. Your character should have a reason to care about what is happening in these houses, and for more than superficial reasons. That is harder and more work for an unaligned character, but doable.

5. Being goal oriented is not a problem. Putting goal accomplishment over believably playing your character is a problem. If your house is on the verge of collapse, it is unlikely that your character will take much time for idle chit-chat. That being said, there is no reason one cannot incorporate idle chit-chat into their goal accomplishment. Part of this has to do with how house goals are structured;
in BitW they had tight deadlines, and often too few people contributing towards House goals to make them feasible without spending a significant amount of game-time on them, and if you wanted to accomplish personal goals as well, and be involved in events... I for one felt like I was juggling dragonets, and that was even after finding ways to incorporate pursuing house goals and personal goals at the same time Having more house members and perhaps looser deadlines for house goals should ease that a bit.

7. I agree here, though I would point out that no character is unbeatable. Still, I am a big advocate on spreading our XP around. Honestly, this system breaks down a bit if people are overspecialized (of course, the opposite is true, too). One thing that I think can help is if there are unavoidable events - every character should be in social situations that matter, there should be unexpected attacks while traveling on occasion, there should be outbreaks of sickness, and so on. It's not just combat and intrigue. These character's lives should be complex enough that having several glaring weaknesses should cause problems.
Also, who cares if it's unfair to send an assassin after a lady? Since when does fairness matter in Westeros? If it's what your character would do, do it. Of course, every action has consequences (often unforeseen ones), and extreme actions often have extreme consequences...

EDIT:
8. This kind of goes with #2 and #7 - one dimensional characters are boring. Want to be Dornish or a water dancer? I personally have no problem with that. Still, have a reason for being in the area. Have a reason to be involved. Have things to do other than being awesome at your chosen thing. Z is right - being awesome at something is not going to sustain a character. In my opinion, complexity is the key. Your character should have opinions, and share them. Your character should have friends, and help them. Your character should have rivals/enemies, and confront them. Don't try to do it all at once, and of course the complexity and relations can (and should) grow throughout the game, but you have to start with something. Here's a good one- give your character internal conflicts. You want A and B, but pursuing A may cause problems for getting B. A few classic versions of this are honor vs. pragmatics, family vs. friends, and freedom vs. commitments.

[Theomore Tullison]

Well, the threshold for sending assassins to target the weak point of a schemer requires considerably more animosity than for a schemer to target the weakness of a combat brute. She just needs to want something from him.

My point with goal-driven is that goals tends to be something which does not actively engage other PC's when pursued. Unless of course, the goal is an alliance with a house with other players that have taken charge of it's politics. My other point is that, the best goals are the ones that materializes during play. The realization that this is what the character really wants is awesome. Beaten to death example, I know, but the love story of Ayleth and Marq in SA developed despite other goals they were pursuing. I encourage people to keep themselves relatively open-minded as to what kind of story you want to star in. More than anything, one should attempt to use at least two time slots per day with the singular purpose of exploring your character. No tangible objective to achieve at all, just let the story flow and the characters develop.

Now mind you, Marq had this one thread where he did this while seducing a PC girl, which qualifies even if he sort of had the tangible objective of getting into her pants...but it also was Marq being Marq (shameless womanizer), so yeah. The encounter did not advance any objective (besides his desire to make the eight), though it could have had a further impact of the story, but the other player left the game shortly thereafter, so no confrontation. It could have been the seed for later fun. And cause problems between Marsten and Coldbrook.

As for exotic characters, yes, they need the reason to be there, and they also need to deal with the culture clash. Honestly, I dare say that you probably ought to be motivated by playing a foreigner and dealing with such issues as that brings along for it to be worth the effort.

Lastly, unaligneds, yes, PC's needs connections. But I'll bring you back to your words on point 5, Symon having to deal with everything himself...now what if Ingraham were to be attached to the Kytleys and spent a time slot or two helping out with house objectives? He could still be Ingraham, he could still be mostly unaligned in spirit, but he'd help out the Kytleys in some minor capacity, thus freeing up time for Symon to do other things.


For my part, I'll probably have a limitation of say, no more than two time slots on average per day spent on Tullison objectives, the rest of it I'll use for my own fun. If that means that Tullison objectives fails to be reached, then so be it.

[Ser Jorah Holt]

Also, have goals for your character that don't necessarily intersect with the house. Characters would be very dull if all they do is for the house

[Baelon Drakeson]

Well, the threshold for sending assassins to target the weak point of a schemer requires considerably more animosity than for a schemer to target the weakness of a combat brute. She just needs to want something from him.

I would hope so!

My point with goal-driven is that goals tends to be something which does not actively engage other PC's when pursued. Unless of course, the goal is an alliance with a house with other players that have taken charge of it's politics. My other point is that, the best goals are the ones that materializes during play. The realization that this is what the character really wants is awesome. <
snip>

I agree with that. I just think that a lot of it is personal play style. That moment may be awesome to you, but other players may get the same thrill out of finally concluding a difficult negotiation or leading a raid on enemy territory. Of course, goals and motivations should serve to encourage that sort of interaction, not pull people away from it. If the latter is happening perhaps some better goals should be sought.

As for exotic characters, yes, they need the reason to be there, and they also need to deal with the culture clash. Honestly, I dare say that you probably ought to be motivated by playing a foreigner and dealing with such issues as that brings along for it to be worth the effort.

Oh, definitely. Also, the "
traveled to Essos, became a water dancer, now I'm back"
kind of thing doesn't usually work on it's own either... why did you go, how has it shaped your personality and relationships, why have you come back? Something like that is going to be a defining character trait, and it should affect everything - but it's not a thing on it's own.

Lastly, unaligneds, yes, PC's needs connections. But I'll bring you back to your words on point 5, Symon having to deal with everything himself...now what if Ingraham were to be attached to the Kytleys and spent a time slot or two helping out with house objectives? He could still be Ingraham, he could still be mostly unaligned in spirit, but he'd help out the Kytleys in some minor capacity, thus freeing up time for Symon to do other things.

That's kind of what I meant by connections. Kind of the way Corrigon acted on Dulver interests, but I would say go a step further. I think Maester Leopold is a prime example of this - he's not a part of House Marsten, and isn't really welcome there, but he is connected to the house. He has history and relationships that can be played on- a friend in Gareth Stone and an enemy in Lady Isobel. Even yet a step or two further would be even better - have personal connections in multiple houses. Maybe Maester Leopold was best friends with one of the other Houses' Maester back in their Citadel days. Maybe he once took a trip to Bartheld lands and provided key insights to cure Edmund of some pernicious malady, and befriended the lad. Perhaps he traveled to Hammerstone before Maester Thomnas joined House Kytley, and had an illicit relationship with Lady Hawys, and now Ser Morys has a lingering dislike of him. Still even better yet is if Gareth, Edmund, Hawys, and Morys were PCs. That is what I meant by connections.

[Theomore Tullison]

Adding Corrigon to the Dulver roster wouldn't change him at all is my observation. And Leopold, why can't he be on the Marsten roster? Sure, Isobel hates him with a passion, but need all members of a house necessarily be on the same team?

[Jon Cobb]

Wow, lot's of ranting going on here. So here's my rant:

If you want me to engage your character in roleplay, do two things:
1. Be generous with public information about your character's personality and goals. This can be done both in a public bio and by making your thoughts known in an RP thread, but the important thing is to make me aware of what your character has to offer RP-wise. I have limited real life time to spend on this game, and trying to invent reasons for my character to get in touch with yours is not a productive use of my time.

2. Also, make a character that relatively normal people would want to socialize with. This is a sliding scale of course, but a problem for me in BITW was that a fair number of the more active characters were outwardly just too self-centred and unsympathetic for Damon to want to spend time with them or to care about their goals. Not everyone finds enjoyment in playing or playing with PCs whose every waking breath seems dedicated to lying, cheating and conniving their way to the top (or whatever their goals may be).

As a counterpoint, I believe I was making some headway to productive future interactions with some of the quieter characters (e.g. Rykk and Roland) through IC actions and conversations in the course of the melee and the murder mystery. I find this sort of slow build-up satisfying, so the relatively slow pace didn't bother me at all (and, in fact, things didn't really slow down until the murder mystery started spiralling out of control).

[Reader]

Poor old Roland, quiet? He had >
200 posts and almost every time-slot used. :;
): He was one of the most active characters!

Appreciate I slowed a down a little once I took on sub-narrator role.

[Theomore Tullison]

Yes, well, when it comes to #2, I think you may want to cut some slack. There's a fair amount of players that try to portray their characters as pleasant to socialize with, yet fails for one reason or the other. I have a feeling I didn't get Ayleth quite right in that regard for example. As in, I played her too overtly. Yes, she was a bitch. But she was also supposed to hide it very well and be a genuinely nice and likeable person most of the time. And she may have been bitchy a bit too often. Though maybe it was just that she needed to get all this stuff done, and couldn't find time to bring out her softer sides.

But that brings in Zorb's advice that he tends not to follow himself: ask others how they perceive your character. Get feedback.

And Roland was dull :mrgreen:

[Jon Cobb]

Poor old Roland, quiet? He had >
200 posts and almost every time-slot used. :;
): He was one of the most active characters!

Appreciate I slowed a down a little once I took on sub-narrator role.

He was active, but he didn't seem to spend as much time as some advancing his own schemes (=quiet, in this instance). And he consistently came off as a far more likeable character, which would have endeared him to Damon had BITW continued. :;
):

[Ser Jorah Holt]

Adding Corrigon to the Dulver roster wouldn't change him at all is my observation. And Leopold, why can't he be on the Marsten roster? Sure, Isobel hates him with a passion, but need all members of a house necessarily be on the same team?

To be fair, Corrigon to all intents and purposes had been added to the Dulver Roster. I had access to the their forum and I don't think I actually spoke to any of the unaligned. Had BITW contined, I would probably have requested being made part of the house (or whatever house Erryk Dulver ended up being part of). I suspect Ayeleth and Corrigon would have had dealings because of Erryk in the future.

For the first couple of months, I was the only unaligned character and it wasn't really an issue. It was only when we had all the new characters join whom some of which just seemed to be there. Corrigon had reason to be there, even if it wasn't immediately obvious. It was why I kept calling attention to the point that he was generally avoiding House Tullison. In fact, I had Roland trying to figure out who he was.

Maybe there should be some more impetus to being part of a house - such as showing that house support could pull your ass out of the fire, whilst not could leave you high and dry.

If you really want to play a mercenary or wandering priest, then you can, but still have to state which house they are connected to.

This time, that won;
t be a problem as I am playing a character whom is definitely part of a House.

[Theomore Tullison]

Oh, and:

#9 People that doesn't have avatars.

No words needed. I prefer colored drawings/paintbrushes, like Baelon and Jon Cobb. And my own obviously. But pick your own style, and use the maximum (150x150) size allowed. I have some deviantart links in my bookmark tab if anyone wants a selection suitable for a medieval-ish setting.

[Baelon Drakeson]

Oh, and:

#9 People that doesn't have avatars.

No words needed. I prefer colored drawings/paintbrushes, like Baelon and Jon Cobb. And my own obviously. But pick your own style, and use the maximum (150x150) size allowed. I have some deviantart links in my bookmark tab if anyone wants a selection suitable for a medieval-ish setting.

Agreed on all parts! Well, my avatar is slightly smaller than the full 150 in width, but close enough for jazz.
An avatar says something about your character, and gives them a bit of depth that can't easily be replaced.

If you are having difficulties finding a pic, let us know and we can help out. If nothing else, look up pictures of characters you think of as similar in appearance (and tone, ideally) to your character. that's how I got my pic - it is cropped from a pic of Daemon that was posted on Deviantart;
I found out later that it was a modification of a pic of Rhaegar.

If it helps, I still have all of the character portraits that were used for BitW (though I would prefer that the PC character portraits are not reused, that would be confusing). If you have a pic you like but it is too big (in dimensions or in filesize), I can help out with that as well.

[Dunstan Tullison]

Would you prefer if I found another picture for Dunstan since this one was used in BitW?

[Reader]

I think this one suits him.

[Baelon Drakeson]

Would you prefer if I found another picture for Dunstan since this one was used in BitW?

Oh! No, I meant that using the avatar of an original PC like Damon, Symon, or Roland, etc. for a new character would be confusing.
I suppose that using a an NC image for a different character could be confusing too.
If it was the image of a minor NC or less present PC (e.g. Ser Willain) were reused as someone else that wouldn't be too bad either.

Using Dunstan's BitW portrait for Dunstan is not in the least confusing.

EDIT: I am tempted to try to edit out that little piece of a letter next to his chin though...

[Dunstan Tullison]

Oh! No, I meant that using the avatar of an original PC like Damon, Symon, or Roland, etc. for a new character would be confusing.
I suppose that using a an NC image for a different character could be confusing too.
If it was the image of a minor NC or less present PC (e.g. Ser Willain) were reused as someone else that wouldn't be too bad either.

Using Dunstan's BitW portrait for Dunstan is not in the least confusing.

EDIT: I am tempted to try to edit out that little piece of a letter next to his chin though...

I just used this portrait automatically, but must admit I like it, and will keep it if no one objects. As far as the letter goes, I could remove it but my image manipulation skills end at MS Paint:)

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