@faceless I agree with you on most of that, but I think that Emilia Clarke can do both, but that she's more of a Period face than a Modern face.
I'm even willing to take sweaty seconds on that survival-snuggle with Jon Hamm.
And that's a great Imgur post.
Channing Tatum: Modern face.
Jennifer Lawrence: Modern face.
Tom Hanks: Modern face (although did well in WW2 roles).
ScarJo: Modern face.
Tom Cruise: Modern face.
Rachel McAdams: Modern face.
Matt Damon: Modern face.
Kristen Stewart: Modern face.
Mark Wahlberg: Modern face.
Julie Andrews: Period face.
Daniel Day-Lewis: Period face.
Meryl Streep: Period face.
Tom Hardy: Can go either way, but gives good period face.
Emma Watson: Likewise, can go either way.
There feels like there is a strong (but not direct) correlation between Modern Face and American Face.
Harkan Kirthak on A Moment in Tyme. He started out as your typical high school "my character died, let me introduce his brother," character and ended up with such a rich and tragic history. Sure, a lot of that history was insane, but in my defense, I was pretty young at the time. So he started out as an Andoran-noble-born Child of the Light (sorry, Whitecloak). A junior officer. He connected with another Child of the Light, an Inquisitor, only for her to be killed by an Arch Inquisitor. Thus started Harkan's feud with the Inquisitors. He also intercepted a courier delivering a heron-mark sword to a new Blademaster, and when the man used the sword to defend himself, took it for himself, believing that he had defeated a Blademaster. He eventually gained proof that the Arch Inquisitor had killed the Inquisitor over false accusations (I don't even remember how), and so when he killed the Arch Inquisitor, he had political cover, although he was forced to leave the Children of the Light. He fought along the Blightborder for a while, married a Cairhienin, helped her fail to take the Cairhienin throne (she died in the attempt), went back to the Blightborder, and then joined the Queen's Guard at 36 (after I had played him for... 10ish years at this point?). He eventually became a Captain, then was forced into retirement when Gaebril took power in Caemlyn, and came out of retirement to become Captain-General for Elayne. I eventually killed him off at age 50, having played him for 15 RL years and 31 IC years across four timeline reboots. He gathered a fascinating crew of NPC guards over the years, and in all that time, never once told an outright lie. He just wouldn't do it.
Volkare Previn was a Zabrak Sith Trooper on Knights of the Old Republic. He fought as a teenage guerrilla when the Mandalorians invaded Iridonia, and then enlisted in the Revanchist's forces immediately upon the planet being liberated. His fall to the Dark Side was a slow one, as reasonable, violent actions piled up, and more violent actions became more reasonable. His fall was spurred on by his beginning a relationship with a Sith Acolyte (he originally slept with her because a) she offered, and b) he thought it would help his career, but they eventually became a very effective partnership), and being around her and her madclaw Wookiee Sith Master. Said Wookiee ripped off one of Volkare's arms to show how little he thought of the relationship (he got a cybernetic replacement), but eventually the devious violence of Volkare's plans impressed the Wookiee, who became a (grudging) second patron. Volkare became an officer, murdered his boss's boss in cold blood to secure his boss's advancement and his own (and to have something to hold over his boss if necessary), learned to use a lightsaber (not particularly well), and generally made life good for his subordinates and hard for the Old Republic. The fact that the Sith Acolyte's player became my wife years later, of course, has absolutely nothing to do with how fondly I remembered playing Volkare.
@auspice said in The Eighth Sea - Here There Be Monsters:
I will nip a dozen harassing players in the bud if it means healthy players can go out and play in the open comfortably.
I will do it gladly.
Yuuuup. Confirm, discuss, act, inform. Keep good players.
@kanye-qwest said in Regarding administration on MSB:
I agree with @Apos. After Auspice's turn in this thread calling people who didn't realize she wasn't using "mod voice" stupid, any subsequent MOD VOICE is just going to come off flip at best, and snarky at worst. Find a more mature way to do it.
So... people were upset that she wasn't being clear when she was being a moderator and when she was being a poster, and when she makes it clear, it's "flip at best, and snarky at worst?" And immature?
If you disagree with the statement, that's one thing, but Apos found a way to state it that wasn't a blatant personal attack:
I think it would read a thousand times more helpful if a mod just said, 'Speaking as a moderator, this thread is way off track and we need to split it."
@auspice said in MU Things I Love:
I don't think I'm a scary drunk.
I am a quiet drunk.
It's the quiet ones you have to watch out for.
@bored said in Regarding administration on MSB:
You can't bemoan toxicity existing and imply it's holding some vague population of presumably more enlightened folks (hah) from coming here, while also claiming that you're totally fine with the Hog Pit being a thing. It doesn't add up.
I disagree with this quite strongly. I think that you can think that having the Hog Pit is still alright -- or even valuable -- while wishing that the toxicity and vitriol was contained within it, rather than spilling out into other sections of the boards. From what I recall of Faraday's argument (sorry, distracted by Battlefront II), that's what she's saying. Whether or not it is, I certainly think it's possible, and would be beneficial for the forums in general.
Sorry, been without power all morning, although it looks like @Auspice has covered most everything -- just figured I'd toss my two reale in.
Homosexual characters are absolutely okay. Like women on ships, they may be looked at sideways by some people -- PC and NPC, but if they do their job well, most people won't have a problem with it (just like if the character was anything else... do your job, no problems).
@GirlCalledBlu and I recognize that we tend to get excited on games and try to forge ahead faster than we should. We've got @Avarice and @Auspice watching for any such tendencies, and we're watching ourselves as well. Having other folks on Staff should also help us with burnout.
I don't think Ares is perfect for pirates -- too much melee, and Ares is really based on ranged combat -- but I think that Ares is pretty awesome in general, and so are pirates, so....
@TheOnceler Because we're playing Hollywood versions of the various faiths, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity share the same Faith mechanics (gaining Blessings and getting Guidance), but obviously different flavor. We're not at all opposed to having a few Jewish characters and even a Rabbi wandering the grid -- although a whole crew is probably a bit much for the setting.
@Arkandel We're definitely playing with the line between science and superstition -- a lot of sailors in particular, as you've noted, should totally expect some of these strange things to be real (although perhaps not all). The more scientific are likely to think them utterly mind-blowing. It takes all kinds, and we want all kinds.
The Eighth Sea is a game of piracy and the supernatural, of wooden ships, iron men, and the dark myths that slipped through the cracks of civilization. It will explore the edges of reason and the tensions between civilization, outlaws, and the unknown.
While individual conflicts continue to brew across Tortuga, the crews will have to set aside their larger differences to find the cause of The Storm and, together, work to return to the world of the real. The focus will be on CvE conflicts, although there is no prohibition on individual CvC action (piracy and the supernatural are dangerous). We are playing a Hollywood version of history, with similarly Hollywood interpretations of real-world religions and myths. There will be darkness, but there will also be swashbuckling and derring-do.
And now how about some details:
Check out the wiki at www.the8thsea.wikidot.com or come aboard at 8thsea.noderunner.net:4005
EDIT: Changed the connection address, thanks @Sparks.
Coincidence.
In small sample sizes, things do not happen at the rates at which they should based on statistics. Maybe it's just because we notice them when they happen... but maybe they really do happen more often than they should based on statistics.
Like @SG and others, I start with a concept: rules-bound fighter pilot, foppish swashbuckler on an info-gathering mission, flirty mercenary out only for himself, defecting Imperial Army officer. This will usually also suggest what the character is going to do (the pilot is going to try to make sure others follow the rules and is going to fly, the swashbuckler will get involved in everything to get as much info as he can, the mercenary will flirt and will do most anything he's paid to do, the defector will join up with the Rebels and try to instill some professionalism into them), as well as their primary skill set. Alternatively, I could have a story that I want to tell (an honest Republic Senator seduced by the Empire), but in many ways that's a concept all on its own.
After that point, I start filling in some details in their background (the pilot's mom is a local politician so he grew up in relatively high society, the swashbuckler learned how to buckle swashes with the circus, the mercenary is hideously burned which makes it hard to flirt and makes him harder for it, the defector is a grav-ball nut and a closet geek with a tabletop wargame army he had to leave behind), which also lends itself to background skills if the system allows for them. This work also tends to inform a character's weaknesses (the pilot probably isn't much of a brawler, the swashbuckler probably doesn't go in for stealth, the mercenary isn't good at empathy, the defector isn't particularly doctrinially flexible). Some of these may be mechanical, some may be RP-only. This is also when quirks come up (the pilot is a stress smoker, the swashbuckler loves his hat, the mercenary has a gorgeous voice, the defector uses proper titles for everyone).
I like to leave the background relatively open-ended, because that's the best way to leave holes to fill with other players (get your minds out of the gutter). If you know exactly what your character has done in the past and why, not only do you get into the problem @Arkandel mentioned about having already done everything, but it's harder to mush around events you do know happened to arrange connections with other characters.
Sometimes I see the character's looks in my head immediately -- sometimes I even have a PB in mind while I'm designing them. Sometimes, however, I get to the end and have to think "What are the character's defining characteristics," like @ShelBeast was mentioning, and come up with a look based on that.
I will often re-use concepts, but the differences between games always make the character themselves different: I've used the flirty burned mercenary on what... 4 games now? 5? But on one, he was a hidden Seanchan agent infiltrating Andoran society as a Domani mercenary, on another he was a straight-up Seanchan warrior (who ended up a Rebel Warder, oddly enough), on another he was a simple Domani mercenary with no ties to the Seanchan, on another he was a Viking warrior traveling to England... I think that's it, just 4 versions.
There are a couple of tropes that my characters often fall into, because that's the sort of RP I like to get involved in. The plurality (maybe majority) of my characters are either a bombastic politician or a hardened soldier. That lets me get into either politics or combat storylines, and I enjoy playing those tropes. Luckily, they're pretty broad tropes, so the characters within them can be wildly different. I've also been known to go wildly outside them, like the naive would-be Aes Sedai, the sneak-thief, and the utter fop with no interest in combat and no skill in politics.
My characters also tend to talk a lot. I've played a few who don't, but I always have to struggle to cut words out of my poses and replace them with body language. Apparently, I like to communicate through text. Go figure.
As to @SG's comment on specialist vs well-rounded, I like to be "good" at one thing, and then 'not bad' at a bunch of others. This lets me be primary (or often secondary due to someone who really specialized) at one thing, and back people up at others without being useless. This is why I like open sheet games... it lets me see how specialized other characters are, and how well-rounded I can make my character while still being "good" at their specialty.
@faraday Agreed on all points.
I generally think it's more important to know what tech can do than how it does it (Can you teleport through shields? Can you teleport through solid rock? Can you block teleportation with other tech?) because this is the sort of thing that informs how it can be used in plots (as @Collective noted).
Maybe there's a similar balance with culture. I know that there's a tipping point where you're giving too much information about the culture ("OMG, don't you know anything? Gravball is only played with 5 people. Didn't you read page 13 of the Culture section?"). I also know that most games are well short of this point (in my opinion).
(I also-also know that I like parenthetical comments.)
@faraday I agree, I think that just as with tech, there is a tipping point into "too much detail." I think that that tipping point is further out with culture/entertainment than it is with tech, but that may well just be me. I think that knowing how the tech works doesn't necessarily make for richer characters (but it can make for richer stories), but that knowing how the culture works definitely makes for richer characters.
For example: Clone Trooper 4646 and Clone Trooper 1231 are talking.
4646: "There's a great grav-ball bar down the street, we could totally hang out there since we're off-duty."
1231: "Grav-ball? Man, I can't stand that stuff. Limmie is where it's at."
Sure, that's nice, but if you know something about grav-ball (football-ish) and limmie (soccer)?
4646: "There's a great grav-ball bar down the street, we could totally hang out there since we're off-duty."
1231: "Grav-ball? You want to watch people line up for two hours and play for one? I don't know how you can call yourself a clone trooper and not love limmie, man. It's the beautiful game, it's small unit tactics in a ball-game. Everyone always moving, having to adjust on the fly?"
<insert argument back and forth on the relative merits of the two games and how they relate to being a clone trooper>
Now, I totally agree that you can say that a character is "listening to Caprican music," and that alone can tell you a great deal about the character (especially if they aren't Caprican), but I love being able to dig into the nitty-gritty of why a character likes a given thing, and what that says about them. Then again... I'm a nerd.
I think one important point that @ThatGuyThere made that got a little lost in other discussion is the need for original sci-fi to talk about daily life at least as much as tech. What do people do for fun, what do they do for careers? Not just the PCs (although that's incredibly important, obviously), but also the generic person on the street. This is why modern-day games are so easy: we all know what our character can do if they've got 15 minutes to themselves, or an hour, or an afternoon. We know what food is like, we know what music is like, we know what sports and games are out there. And this is all incredibly important for other genres too.
For BSG: what music does a rich Caprican listen to? How is it different from what an Aerilonian farmer listens to?
For Star Wars: what type of people enjoy grav-ball (either the type in zero-g or the field version) versus what type of people enjoy limmie?
For Game of Thrones: what sort of games do kids play, and what do bored nobles do to pass the time?
All of this information can really enrich the world, and the characters living in it, a whole lot more than knowing how a teleporter works.
@auspice Don't you know? Cats always land with all four feet inbounds.
@surreality Yes, yes, yes. Good examples too.
@faraday said in Character Information: Wiki or Mu*?:
And yeah, I don't know who "Sean Teale" was at a glance either, but all it took was one photo on a wiki page and now the new guy on BSG is cemented in my brain as "that guy from Gifted". That is the power of wikis for me.
This is actually one of the major dangers (Major Danger salutes) of wikis for me. Because just because the new guy from BSG looks like "that guy from Gifted," does he have the same voice? The same accent? Some of the same personality quirks?
I've fallen into that trap myself when picking PBs at times, incorporating personality traits or quirks from some of the characters that actor has played--and I ended up disappointed with myself as I was playing Vin Diesel the Whitecloak, or Drew Boley (Diego Boneta's Rock of Ages character) the Space Rocker. I've noticed other people doing it too, and before PBs, it was a lot less common.
@faraday I've mentioned this before, but I like my descs to say something about the character rather than just describing them. I don't always manage this, but for say... a swashbuckler, I might use more purple prose (while trying not to go overboard, because that definitely gets old fast), but a by-the-book pilot might have more of a just-the-facts description. Word choice is big for me here.
I also have problems where the PB is never -quite- right for what I picture in my head... maybe the character has facial hair that the PB doesn't, or they don't have facial hair that the PB does, or maybe they have a nasty facial scar that the PB doesn't have (and my 'shopping skills aren't advanced enough to add).
@thenomain Not just back in the day... there are a few of us who still have a love of multi-descers. I've been known to create a dozen or so descs for a character, because I'm a nut-job I also know that most people don't read any of them. So I do tend to pose something about what my character is wearing, because no one is going to read the desc.
