Remaint -> RE: ~*Getting To Know You*~ (It Lives Once Again) (10/13/2015 19:07:18)
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I do like playing an ''npc'' character. The sort of supporting, static character who helps the protagonist along, but with some very odd attributes. Say a good Nazgul Ringwraith; doesn't stand 'steamroll' chance against elves, wizards, Maiar, Aragorns and so forth, but has great combat potential--provided one knows how to use it. A skilled swordsman and a fairly okay sorcerer is what a Nazgul Ringwraith would play as. Such a class opens up much possibility to describe real martial and fantastic martial technique, which I like to do. The hobbits won't allow me to story-tell masterful swordfights and magic shootouts. It's not that I want to have immense advantages over others, but I simply want them to work hard, work creatively to be able to bring down my character(I find magic is quite cheap and lazy, so magic resistance is the standard story-obstacle). Additionally, I enjoy world-building and reading actual history. In actual history, people are really quite well armed and powerful sometimes. Looking at Cortez and his 200+ against the indigenous empires, Commodore Perry and his cannon-armed ships in Japan, the Imperial British Maxim gun equipped troops in Africa, etc. And it certainly took great strategic planning to use technology or diplomacy when one was so very outnumbered. The colonial/imperial period is what I take as model in developing my own lore, which I then add underworld and mystical elements. 1500-1922 is really fascinating technology-wise; you have swords, metal armour, cavalry, artillery, rapid-fire, slow-fire guns, stone-age tech and all sorts of ironclad ships in the centuries. I also want what people perceive to be usually bad guys to have a chance at glory instead of eternal failure in fiction. That's the stories I like, stories of high adventure, great discovery, shocking battles and afterlife/eldritch interaction. I keep it in my head to try for such a storyline when picking characters for roleplays. My idea of compelling story is 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea(Book), Journey to the Center of the Earth(Book), Pirates of the Carribean. Proverbial nail's head is on the other side of proverbial plank, that Sigil drove into ours! No one here favours overly potent characters. People here only disagree as to how powerful a character must be to be accepted. Bastet's character wields no ranged ability(Sigil's character can out-brawl her through technique), Drayco's is generally vulnerable to everything a human is, and neither is proof against non-mystical, mundane projectiles. (Elephant hide is pierced by mere arrow, dragon's likely not different) Regarding Bastet's knock-out punches, an ordinary human can do the same with throat punches.
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