Background Story

[Monketh]

Originally posted by Gronomist
One thing that I find is a problem with people who demand background stories for online games is this - You may have gone to the best school, or you may be a deadly assassin, but when you start, you\'re still the same stupid n00b that everyone else is too, and you still have to learn how to walk, jump, fight and so on. Whatever you pretend your character is, was and will be, it is always limited to the features of the game. Background stories are not necessary to play an online RPG, as you basically start out at the beginning of your life, and you advance from there. In maybe two or three years, you\'ll be able to write a good story about yourself, going from when you started out in Hydlaa, exploring the world as it developed, finding the new monsters and getting killed over and over again. Another thing is a biography. It tells simple things like where you were born, what your parents do, how your family is like and such. A background story doesn\'t. It descibes your life until the day it is now, and since we all start around the age of like 20 something (or at least we look that way), your background story must only contain things like childhood memories, and so on. When playing an online RPG, you play your story. You don\'t write it.

I\'ll be pl\'ing until I can play my character with all the abilities I present in the backstory.  I simply refuse to give in, and I won\'t.  As far as the character is concerned, he doesn\'t exist until his skills do at some level, and won\'t be visible until then.

This does, of course, mean I\'ll have to learn a heck of a lot of magic to make up for technology, but that\'s ok, and I\'m going to do it regardless.  Starting fresh & new isn\'t the only option.

[dfryer]

Why don\'t you just start playing your character from a less-developed stage?  Seems a poor excuse for powerleveling unless your character has a reason to be so driven.  I think the intent is for character creation to provide some ways of specifying who you are and to have that make an impact on the actual ability of your character.  You won\'t be more powerful than the average n00b, but you might be different.

[Monketh]

Originally posted by dfryer
Why don\'t you just start playing your character from a less-developed stage?  Seems a poor excuse for powerleveling unless your character has a reason to be so driven.  I think the intent is for character creation to provide some ways of specifying who you are and to have that make an impact on the actual ability of your character.  You won\'t be more powerful than the average n00b, but you might be different.

Well, not having been raised with sword-fights and the like, he wouldn\'t by defualt be good with that sort of stuff anyway.  But I\'ve been playing my character in MB, and to suddenly lose completely whatever skills he has would seem rather odd, would it not?  Going from being able to wield a sword and defend himself some of the time, to being able to defend himself none of the time for no particular reason just seems wrong.  Not to forget that having a variety of futuristic gear is difficult to rp when you have no effects, others usually won\'t accept them if you just say you do.  I don\'t mind being as powerful as a newb, but I\'d like to continue to rp my character.  So I\'ll have to gain sufficient use of magics in the game to compensate for what would be technology, and to get there, I\'ll have to PL.  It isn\'t like I\'m using it as an excuse, it\'s more like I don\'t want to make more accomodations in my story to the engine.

[Kiva]

Well Monketh, perhaps this is a good time to realize that perhaps your character aren\'t so much more better than all other characters. Noone starts out with being uber l33t at something, compared to what other people are, no matter how good you are in that story of yours. If you wish for such a system, then online RPGs aren\'t anything for you. Tabletop RPGs however are what you want.

[Xordan]

Monketh isn\'t the only one who\'ll be doing that. I\'ll be pl\'ing non stop until I reach the point where I fit in with my backround story. Yes, it would be better if we wrote a sort of \'rolling character history\' where you just write about everything that happens during your ingame experiences. But unfortunatly, no mmorpg I\'ve played caters for this roleplaying stuff, so you have to make it up yourself, pl, and then carry on from there. From what I\'ve seen and heard from mods, ps won\'t be any different for a long time. If you just wrote as it happened, everybody would have the same history, as everyone does the same thing. Which is boring, and turns the game into a hack \'n slash.

[Monketh]

Originally posted by Gronomist
Well Monketh, perhaps this is a good time to realize that perhaps your character aren\'t so much more better than all other characters. Noone starts out with being uber l33t at something, compared to what other people are, no matter how good you are in that story of yours. If you wish for such a system, then online RPGs aren\'t anything for you. Tabletop RPGs however are what you want.

Ah, but you see, I\'ve never played a table-top rpg and have no intention of doing so.  Since I can\'t go around the engine, (well, at least not morally) I\'m going to work within it\'s limits.  There\'s nothing wrong with that.  I like computers and what comes with them.  The internet is my favorite hobby.  It doesn\'t matter to me if you think every character should start out equally.  In the real-world people don\'t start out equally, and how would you have characters like barons that have inherited land except if they have to work within the engine to make the story work?  Does this mean there would be none?
So yes, until I can create with the magic of the game engine what would be tech., I\'ll PL.  It might take a while, I might create other more normal chars during that time (possibly abandoning the first one), but I\'m going to do it.  The engine is there, but I don\'t have to live by it.  After all, isn\'t the fantasy genre supposed to be just that?

edit: Of course, I forgot the other possibility; Take him off Vodul\'s world permanently to some other job.  Naturally, that would kill name-recognition, and a decent amount of effort.  I could intertwine him somehow with a new character, like some sort of mystery.
Anyway, I\'ll figure it out when the time comes.

[Kiva]

Originally posted by Monketh
In the real-world people don\'t start out equally, and how would you have characters like barons that have inherited land except if they have to work within the engine to make the story work? Does this mean there would be none?

That\'s a relatively simple question. Real life has been running since the beginning of the universe, or maybe even longer. PS has barely even started yet. So you have noone to inheirit your land or skills from, and you have noone to teach you what you know. However, you have the opportunity to go out and seize the land and learn the skills far before anyone else gets that chance, and you can make a name of yourself. Not by writing a good story, but by living a great life.

[Monketh]

Originally posted by Gronomist
That\'s a relatively simple question. Real life has been running since the beginning of the universe, or maybe even longer. PS has barely even started yet. So you have noone to inheirit your land or skills from, and you have noone to teach you what you know. However, you have the opportunity to go out and seize the land and learn the skills far before anyone else gets that chance, and you can make a name of yourself. Not by writing a good story, but by living a great life.

According to PS\'s written history, however, everybody didn\'t just all appear at once.  \"Living a great life\" is very important of course, but very few are actually going to log and record it, you know that.  Like I said, I don\'t have to let the engine ruin my fun.  My character cannot be created initially because the creation system won\'t allow me to take away almost everything in exchange for certain advantages (which would not be availible through to creation system, anyway), I don\'t like to make too many compensations for the system, and I\'ll work within the laws of the engine to create that character.
I\'m stubborn on this matter, what you say isn\'t really going to effect me much.

There\'s another issue I disagree with you on, I prefer character skills over player skills.  Can\'t remember the words to that spell?  Why should you have to?  Your character may not remember either, then you\'re in trouble, but as a player, noone should be forced to memorize that kind of stuff.
But this is all way off-topic...

[DepthBlade]

Almost everyone will be PL\'ing like mad even if you aren\'t doing it for the same reasons as Monketh and others The ones not doing the PL\'ing are just lazy.

  Yes I probally will have to as well, just to get my guy up to good fighting standards so I can back my words to a degree Also it will most likely happen that I will work with evil alligned people to get stuff done and learn and educate more upon the new release. That will be temporary if it occurs *stares at Seperot*

[Dali Llama]

I have always felt that taking the time to research as much as one can about a given game\'s environment, customs and mores is mega-important. Only by this means can I sit down to craft a backstory for who my character is and what role they wish to accomplish within that world. I also don\'t believe that every character in a given game is a \"hero\" figure. Nontheless, 99.9% of players always cast their characters as the great white hunter who is going to save the entire universe! There has to be butchers, bakers and candle-stick makers as well as heroes, people...   . Therefore, I usually go out of my way to create a peasant who has to seek the knowledge of his craft through the school of hard knocks, maturing into an adult who is worthy of being called friend and ally while never aspiring to greatness other than within his own personal sphere. Usually that character is a magic user who is more of a teacher, with no desire greater than to master his art and help others to attain their goals as well--as long as those goals are rooted in the here and now and not some pipe dream of being \"the one\"!

A backstory is very important to me, but I don\'t feel that the average person\'s character story needs to be in the library or on public display. For me, creating a backstory is more a personal thing, an outline for me to role play that character with. I create positive and negative boundaries that the character must not cross to be effective within the game-world and true to itself. I feel that a character\'s story needs to unfold as one interacts with the game world and its people. I don\'t go around boring people with my backstory. They can easily pick up on who I am and what I stand for just being around me in the environment of the world we inhabit. If they can\'t, I didn\'t do to good a job of creating my backstory in my estimation.

Role playing to me is not something I do in a game; it\'s who my character IS. It\'s what defines that character and the way he interacts with his fellow world-mates. I never play female characters because quite frankly, I would not know the first thing about conducting myself as a female character...   . By the same token, I never play a pure melee warrior because I\'ve already been that irl in the Marine Corps. The third rule I have set for myself is that I don\'t play a given game to be the richest, or have the most uber stuff or attain the highest level offered in the shortest time. I let these things happen as they happen, as the story develops and my character \"ages\", so to speak. For me interacting with fellow players and exploring the world are far more important than materialism and capitalism.

Fantasy games for me are for living a vicarious life that I could not possibly live in the real world. That is primarily why I love Wizzies and Sorcerer type characters so much. They give me a chance to play with magic that no longer exists, although I think it might have, to some extent, in our distant past. Sadly, most of us move too fast and are too capitalistic and materialistic this day and time to worry about such things...

Anyway, that\'s my take on the matter, for what it\'s worth.

Cheers!
Miago

[FESFES]

I just realized somthing. Since I am \"evil\" and all my story would have to be dark and mean. So this would mean I would have to be evil and mean IC, wihch I have no problem with , but would I still have to be mean to people who are friends and arent in my guild?
That would really suck not having freinds out of my guild cuz of that. Maybe I could bend my story a little? Hmmm, but then it wouldnt be as good *ponders while walking back an forth*