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Post by Sofia on Jul 23, 2020 23:42:18 GMT 1
Helping my sister renovate her apartment, so will be posting rather sporadically in the rpg for a few days. That said, Tambri asked me two questions the other day that I think it'd be great that we discuss as a group, just to make sure everyone gets their say in how the holt rules keep evolving  I'm therefore tagging all members both active and on confirmed hiatus, so no one misses out on reading this. Tag: Flint Silvergill Badger & Jaseio (leaving out Anna since I've talked to her offline and she's fine whatever we decide ) First question to discuss:Panda would like to bring in an elf who's pregnant with a half-human child. Yay or nay? Second question to discuss (quoting Panda to avoid misinterpreting): "Would I be able to create 2-3 characters from Northern Call that appear at the same time, though 2 of them as NPC's (unless another person wants to play one then I'm up for collaboration)" We haven't had any elven NPCs yet, so I'm not sure how we'd handle them as a group, if we'd allow them. Any thoughts? |
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Post by Flint on Jul 24, 2020 7:47:13 GMT 1
1, given that we already have a half-human with Milo I don't see why not. There's of course no pressure to handle it as a complicate birth and a child with genetic defects like I did! And with Crispin around even childbirth wouldn't be an issue.
2, Personally I wouldn't mind NPC elves, as long as they don't get more / as much attention as the actual chars. From my experience they can be good to fill gaps, especially in small groups like ours - say, even just having them mentioned ocassionally as hunters would help to reasonable assume we got enough food for everyone. They should have throughout character sheets though, so that we don't end up with split-personalities when different people play them.
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Post by Sofia on Jul 24, 2020 11:26:27 GMT 1
Agreed on the first question. Now, for the second question, how would we want NPC-elves to be handled? Like our NPC preserver Shinefind (aka everyone plays the character, writing what the character says/does in their own posts) or do we want to handle it differently? Like, have one person responsible for moving an NPC around per thread or just having one person temporarily play that NPC? Do we want the NPCs to be up for adoption? What did you have in mind with how the NPCs you'd be introducing would be handled Tambri? Any thoughts from Silvergill, Badger & Jaseio? Leaving this discussion open until the end of the month, so people will have a chance to read and comment |
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Post by Silvergill on Jul 24, 2020 14:13:59 GMT 1
I agree with basically everything Flint said! Having npc elves (that of course do not take precedent over player elves) would open new opportunities. We would be able to mention in passing or interact and reveal things about player characters that are either too small to make a whole thread to rp over and also allows us the small things that we want full narrative control over. I also think it may be fun to have the option that, if someone ends up becoming very inspired/attached by the npcs, there should be an option for EVENTUAL adoption, after discussion with mods and perhaps agreement with the whole group. That player would also have to respect what everyone has already done with that npc. Thats basically all my thoughts, thanks for tagging me Sofia |
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Post by Tambri on Jul 24, 2020 18:33:25 GMT 1
Firstly, let me just explain these are just thoughts and creative ideas I have had recently, and not, currently, planned as characters. Though I'm starting to lean towards a couple of ideas I have floating around, including the pregnant character.
Basically, the pregnant character was EITHER human mother or elf mother, regardless, half-elf/human child. The NPC idea was, for example, a small family traveling together gets brought here together or finds their way here, whatever ends up happening. So it'd be like, the PC would be... say... the child. The NPC's being the parents. Or any combination within those three.
the way I would picture the NPC sheets being done up is enough to show personality "hyper child, constantly asking questions, never paying attention to tasks because constantly thinking about other things. Insatiably curious about the world" and having family ties (if any) and what not there, but allowing skills to be all average or below average (in this example, due to lack of focus) and then if they're adopted later, the player can start to tailor them to what they want, including, again for the child, any developing magics that haven't shown up yet.
If the NPC is an adult, then maybe recognized but not necessarily lovemates with the father of the child, but could just be good friends. Let that relationship develop if the adoptive player wants, so on so forth.
Basically have the NPC sheets filled out enough that the character is known, but flexible enough that it can be changed/tailored to a player's desire.
I also am of the mind of a trial period for NPC adoptions. Basically, the adopter can play as them for a few threads and so long as they don't change the personality too much (going from a grumpy, cranky personality to suddenly hyper and fully of joy, for example) and if they can't get it right, then they aren't allowed to adopt the character.
I don't mind leaving NPC's as a virtual blank slate either. Letting the personality be left out of it. If they're being used enough to develop much of a personality or be in a large number of threats as a contributing role, then someone ought to consider actually adopting the character since it's likely going to be the same person constantly using them. Preservers are easy. Always hyper and wanting to help. But with NPC elves, as long as it's "And NPC will join us on the hunt." and then during the hunt "NPC fires an arrow and it strikes the boar in the hindquarters. "Puckernuts!"" type thing
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Post by Sofia on Jul 26, 2020 20:51:04 GMT 1
Laying the groundwork for potential new characters is great, even if they're only ideas that might never be actual player characters It seems all active players are pro-NPC-elves, so I'll add that to the rules as soon as we have a clear idea of how these NPCs would work in-game. So, we have a couple of options, as Tambri listed above. To me (and this could just be me) having blank slate NPCs who remain only background elements (e.g. hardly any dialog, no fleshed out personality, no close relationships outside of the Player Elf they arrived with) would be kinda odd, especially if they hang around a long time. At least for me it'd be hard to rp with, since this is a small group of elves all pushed together, not an established tribe where we "need" to fill out a certain number of characters. Having a pretty "unknown" NPC only works if they're a total loner character, like Edgerunner has been, and they can't all be antisocial loners, right? Because of this, I agree that an NPC can have more 'vague' or blank info than a player character, but I do think they should have enough information to be able to be added to the Get to know the tribe-thread and for all elves to be able to write something about them in the Relationships-thread (note to self: Need to update my characters' Relationship threads XD). Having elves of all ages discover magic later on is definitely fine, both for Player Elves and NPCs, but as has been said already, it's important they have some 'shape' to them re: personality/skills/appearance so that their presentation in the game can be consistent + so that any potential adopters have some idea where to start when trying to play them (having a bit of a "trial period" for that would also be a good idea, yes, both to see the player in question understands the character but also to let the player try the character out and see if they enjoy playing them). Maybe we could treat NPCs kind of like Player Elves whose player are on hiatus? Like, mention them occasionally in posts, and writing their names in bold instead of using the tagging feature, to make sure other players see that said elf has been mention in said thread's time/place, to avoid double posts. NPCs could of course also be _played_ in the threads, like hiatus-elves whose Player has given someone permission to do so, but making sure to mention them now and then in threads they're not actively in could make them more "present" in the holt. Oh, and I'd also suggest we keep the number of allowed NPCs a fair bit lower than the number of Player Elves. Otherwise we'll end up in a holt where 50% or more of the elves are NPCs and that can end up feeling like a bit of a ghost town XD |
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Post by Tambri on Jul 27, 2020 0:12:17 GMT 1
Agreed.
For example, I bring in character concept "bob".
Bob arrives with "Jim" and "Mary". Bob is lifemated to Mary and Jim is their child.
That makes sense. But not everyone is going to arrive here with someone else. The beacon seems to not care if they take one person away from someone while in their presence.
But since some tribes exist on this world, it might be more reasonable that more than one show up.
But obviously not everyone can.
I've got concepts and ideas for my next player character but I have not settled on anything yet. It is all very much still thoughts on paper.
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Post by Sofia on Jul 27, 2020 17:04:38 GMT 1
Yeah, the beacon is very spotty on who it picks up - could be one person right out of a crowd of hundreds, seeing as the beacon is broken as all hell XD I'm perfectly fine with people bringing more than one elf from one location at the same time. For example, No-Sting and Swift-Wind showed up together from the same place. I just meant that I'd rather not see the holt get overrun by NPCs since that tends to lead to a lot of juggling and "gaps" in how the group works. Maybe no more than 1/3 NPCs for each Player Elf? Like, if we have 9 elves with players, then we can have a maximum of 3 NPCs around, to keep things manageable - would that work for everyone? Have fun with your next player character! No stress with it, bring them in when you feel ready and that it's the right time |
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Post by Tambri on Jul 27, 2020 19:31:37 GMT 1
That makes sense, though I would suggest Shinefind not be included in the max NPC's considering, it's... well... the only one.
Though... I wonder what would happen if another one appeared? lol
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Post by Sofia on Jul 28, 2020 0:18:55 GMT 1
Yeah, I was only thinking elf-NPCs counted in that maximum. Preserver, human and troll NPCs don't demand as much rp - seeing as preservers are fairly "easy" to rp and seeing as the humans and trolls won't be living in the holt (unless someone wants to play a human or a troll, but that would of course automatically _not_ make them an NPC). In short, I was thinking no more than 1/3 NPC elves for each Player elf, while preservers, trolls and humans don't count in that number. Having another preserver appear could be a fun plot for the future We'll see what we feel like doing later on, if someone has a good idea for a preserver's personality that isn't just "protect highthings". |
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