Best posts made by Nymeria

@testament said in Blood of Dragons:

I admit I'm slightly surprised that people are still playing it, given what's already been said, at length, about it.

Strange, isn't it? Or could it be that some things that have been said simply aren't true? And that other things that have been said are things that some players actually like about the game?

It is not for everyone. If you want to be able to destroy or create new Houses, assassinate the king or otherwise change the course of history, it is not the game for you. If you think that everyone should be able to play an unusual concept (female warrior, skinchanger, a character from outside Westeros, etc) to the point where you are likely to encounter one in every scene, then this is also not the game for you. If you want to start playing right away without going through an approval process, then it is only a game for you if you're willing to play a pregen.

But we have been told on many occasions by players that they appreciate that we are strict when it comes to keeping the setting canon and believable and strict when it comes to character approvals.

Though, yes, as @RizBunz said, +jobs sometimes take too long. We always try to give first priority to approvals, but since it is just myself and Balerion doing those, if we're away or busier than usual IRL, lapses happen.

@misadventure said in Blood of Dragons:

It does bring up the interesting topic of player agency versus anything that seems to be in the way of successfully expressing that agency, eg

• knowledge of the larger picture (staff knows more than players)
• inflexibility in story (staff can't or won't try to arbitrate results outside a slim range)
• obscured or unstated means (staff know how to do things and how much you need, players don't)
• a desire for a clear outcome (player actions, like RL, will often produce muddled results)
• it is unclear what are acceptable outcomes and tradeoffs for players (would you be willing to have your House destroyed because you didn't commit enough to a goal, or were outmaneuvered, or would you always suspect railroading, favoritism, or players with more time than you, more friends etc)

Those are some very good points and some of them are tricky to work with. I can readily admit that we have had issues with making it clear to players what they can achieve -- those players who are happy to ask a lot of questions often get a lot of things done, those who are less forward find it harder. The most successful players (in terms of getting plots approved and achieving things for their characters) are those who look at the road map we have (aka the known history for the period) and see how they can work within it.

@kanye-qwest said in Blood of Dragons:

But why can't there be female fighters? Game of Thrones has tons of females who fight.

To start with, we are strictly based on the books, disregarding the TV show entirely. In the books, they are much rarer within the Seven Kingdoms (which excludes wildlings and female fighters from Essos). Brienne, a few Mormont women and Obara Sand (and we do make some more allowance for women having weapon skills in Dorne).

@sunnyj said in Blood of Dragons:

@kanye-qwest I think she referred to limiting these concepts as opposed to outright prohibiting them. Fact is that in ASOIAF there are not many female warriors, and they are almost exclusively from exotic or bizarre cultures. If I make a Mormont woman, I would be kinda pissed if I was told I can't be a fighter, but a Lannister woman that fights is very bizarre. Limiting these concepts isn't bad, in theory, but... "in theory" is a one hell of an asterisk.

Yes, the concepts are highly limited but not outright forbidden. A Mormont woman who is a fighter could be possible, but since the game takes place exclusively in King's Landing and Sunspear, the trick there is justifying why she is hanging around at court in King's Landing.

Now, how do they decide who can or cannot make an exotic concept like Oberyn, for example, or Brienne, that has me curious!

Essentially, we use character levels. Available characters are either Open, Restricted or Limited (there are additional types as well, but they cannot be applied for, like Features or Closed characters -- the latter are dead, stuck on the Wall or otherwise unplayable) and while anyone can get an Open character, we start asking for a bit more with Restricted and Limited. A certain amount of experience with MU*ing and with the setting, for example, and logs as well. For Limiteds, you need to play on the game for a while as well, as those roles are too major/too unusual to have anyone jump into straight away.

A full-on female fighter, for example, would be a Limited concept. A female character in Dorne who has skill in archery and/or with knives could be an Open character.

@hamstersonpcp said in Blood of Dragons:

There's no accusation. Just what I consider an apt metaphor illustrating the problems with that approach in a MU* environment. The characters GRRM focuses on to tell his stories are, almost universally unusual, outliers, exceptional. The tone isn't even that different from numerous graphic novels. I'm struggling to think of even one 'average dude' in the SoIaF saga who's a main focus, or many PoV chars who aren't wargs, the cleverest, amongst the most dangerous, or tiny girl assassin badasses. Every time this comes up people fire back with 'While you wouldn't want an army of X or Y would you?!?' as if it's a logical counterpoint to take 'every noteworthy char is frankly exceptional, and most players (not all) want to be exceptional' and assume everyone would app that identical exceptional trait. If that's lazy, it's not meant to be. It IS, however, geared towards 'simple and equated to an experience in the hobby prolific enough to be almost universally understood'.

There are quite a few fairly average PoVs in ASoIaF that just happen to end up in extraordinary circumstances -- for example, Catelyn, Davos, Sam, Arianne (a princess, but otherwise not exceptional in any way) and Theon. And what is so special about Ned other than his position in society?

But yes, there are of course many exceptional characters too, and it is tough to balance it in the right way on a game. I do think it ruins immersion and believability if there's a number of "Briennes" running around, for example, and that's why we made the choice to have quotas on Restricted and Limited concepts. That said, we also say that the basic philosophy is that a player character is by default at a minimum above average in terms of their abilities.

@Derp Whatever.

@kanye-qwest said in Blood of Dragons:

But it does seem like, as has been hashed so many times, if there's an arbitrary restriction on # of badass outliers, no one is going to be truly happy with how those are distributed.

This is absolutely true, it is an issue for some (maybe many) players. In our case, we just felt it was a preferable problem to what happens without those restrictions.