Vor

A Tolkien based RP: Out of the Past

Was planning to write a shortish post today/tomorrow.

Rise Of The Elder Dragon (Vor x Valchyrie)

And posted! Should be interesting to see how this expedition goes ;)

Rise Of The Elder Dragon (Vor x Valchyrie)

He woke up with a groan; his body was still tired from the ordeals of their journey, but his mind knew it was time to get up. It was a habit that remained from his soldiering days - when on duty you learned to sleep when you could and where you could, often for only minutes at a time before having to rouse your body from sleep. Ironically, this skill of his had proven just as useful during his march through the Shiverpeaks.

And so, he got up, splashed some water onto his face from and looked at his crooked expression in the broken mirror. Garret wasn't exactly a handsome man, but there was a hardness to his features that some women had found pleasing in the past. A mop of black hair covered his head and stopped just shy of his shoulders. His brown eyes were bloodshot and looked tired, but that was not too unusual as they looked lazy and uninterested in the best of times. Though he kept his oval face clean-shaven when he could, it was now covered by a thick stubble that obscured a scar or two. He would have to shave it at some point, but he felt too lazy to do it at the moment.

There was nothing else noteworthy of his features and Garret had always considered himself an unassuming man for precisely that reason. In fact, his naturally-pressed lips and frowning brows made him look as if he was perpetually scowling at something in disappointment, giving him an all-around unpleasant appearance. Coupled with his worn clothes - a dusty dark coat, pants of a similar colour and a dirty white shirt - he looked like those haggard beggars that crowded the poorer quarters of Divinity's Reach and spoke in a drunken haze about the good old days. Not exactly the kind of man you'd hope to take on a quest to save the world, but so what? Nobody better looking had volunteered, Garret thought with a smirk.

Wasting no more time with vanity, he left his room and went downstairs to pay what was due for his short stay. Though hungry, he was weary of trying Charr food and for good reason, Karra assured him. Still, he managed to haggle for some loaves of hard bread that looked somewhat edible and a small cask of Lion's Arch ale. They had supplies on the wagons, but when going on such a journey it was better not to rely too much on others.

"Good luck, pink-skin," Karra told him as he prepared to depart, "some of the boys told me you're part of some caravan. You travelling somewhere dangerous?"

Garret shrugged. "No idea, but it's probably so. Why else would they hire so many people?" It was a rhetoric question, he knew that the Charr innkeeper had even less of an inkling than he did. "Still, it's good coin, so who am I to complain?"

"Well, you take care. You're a good sort."

"Is that why your friend tried to kill me last night?"

Karra laughed, a strangely feminine sound coming from such a fearsome looking creature. "Ah, you humans! After you showed us that you had a pair of balls between those scrawny legs, we knew that you're alright. We Charr value actions, not empty words as you humans do." She waved her hand, brushing the matter aside. "Say, you a fighter, a guard? What they'd hire you for?

"I'm a wagon driver, actually," Garret said simply, "they hired me to deal with those Gods-forsaken beasts called doylaks."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Oh? A wagon driver got the best of Scaarin, who was one of the best in the Blood Legion back in the day and fought alongside Tribune Brimstone himself?"

"He was drunk and I was lucky, that's it."

Karra said nothing, but her expression made it obvious what she thought of that. She handed him the loaves of bread and the cask, which he strapped to his backpack, and then bid him farewell. For some strange reason Garret felt a pang of emotion as he left the tavern. In a way, he had enjoyed that place and the Charr's hospitality, while harsh, was genuine. It was more than he could say for most humans he knew.

The weather seemed to have cleared, with only the puddles and muddied roads indicating that there had been heavy rain the night before. Garret made his way to the city's gates quickly, anxious to get this journey started. He knew that the more he debated whether he should go, the bigger the chances of him running away became. It still seemed like a good idea, but he had nowhere else to go. Even if he made a run for it, he couldn't just go back to Diviity's Reach - some men there would be very unhappy to see him unless he came back with a hefty sum of money. The other option was to try his luck here in the Citadel, but that was likely to get him killed before long. Truthfully, he didn't have much of a choice in the matter.

When he arrived at the Black Citadel's gates, he found that most of the expedition had assembled, though there were noticeably less wagoners than the day before. So, he wasn't the only one who thought about going back, the only difference being that these men actually had possessed the sense to abandon this mad quest in time. Well, his mother had always said that he was a fool, so he shook his head and drew nearer. He noticed a few familiar faces, other doylak handlers that he had spoken with on their journey, as well the helpful old man that had guided his doylak yesterday. They told him that they had slept in their hastily made camp, instead of braving the insides of the Citadel; a mistake, Garret thought, but it meant that they had already prepared the supplies for their trip and that was not something he was going to complain about.

“Here take this, laddie.” The old man, Symon he said his name was, offered him a long length of oak wood, a quarterstaff which could also double as a walking stick. “We’re goin’ to have a long road ahead, might as well have somethin’ to support yerself with.”

“Thank you.” Garret said with a nod, he had been somewhat ungrateful last night due to his mood, so he thought he could afford to be at least a little less of an insolent arse this time around. “What news? Have they said where we’re going?”

The gathered men began talking over each other almost at once, each one trying to put his own spin on the story, but it basically amounted to “we know nothing”. People said that washerwomen were horrible gossips, but wagoners were no better and even though their information was limited, their educated guesses on the situation were not. How “educated” those guesses were was another matter entirely…

What he gathered was that the silent men and women that had led their caravan were revealed to be members of the so-called Vigil, one of the three Orders that were behind this expedition. Now Garret at least knew who he was getting his pay from, but there was little to indicate what their motives were, so he was still in the dark. The other thing of note the others told him was that it had been decided that they would take with them only one third of the remaining doylaks. First of all, about fifteen people had deserted, which meant there were less drivers to go around and secondly, the larger number of beasts would only slow their march. Thus, only the most docile of doylaks would remain, given to the care of the more experienced wagoners, like Symon.

Garret would have to carry a rather oversized backpack, a rolled up tent, as well as his own traveller’s pack. He wasn’t exactly thrilled about the proposition, but what was he to do? He had been given a chance to flee and yet here he was, it was too late to turn back now and certainly not with half the city watching. His name was sullied enough already, he couldn’t bear the shame of cowardice yet again in this foreign land. At least Symon had given him this damned walking stick, which would certainly come in handy, especially now that he’d been given so much things to lug around.

He examined the actual members of the Orders that had gathered slightly to the side and were in deep discussion. He saw the Sylvari woman from yesterday, as well as the serious-looking duo from the Vigil, but there were others – humans and Asura and even a couple of Charr. It was strange to see former enemies consulting among themselves, but as Garret himself had pointed out in the tavern last night, the wars between the races were a thing of the past, why should any grudges remain?

While waiting for the order to move out, he packed his things as best he could and tried to assess how much effort carrying all of it would require. The others had seen that he was a well-built man, young compared to most of them, so they had given him a greater load. It was fair, he supposed, but it didn’t mean he had to like it. If he’d stayed in the camp that night, there was a chance he could have avoided this extra weight, but he had forfeited that chance in exchange for a bed. He sighed. Nothing ever came without a price, did it?

Are we expecting too much from newbs?

@Dervish You know, I haven't looked at it from that perspective, mainly because I have very limited experience with Free/Speed post RP's. The closest I've been has been RP in MMO's, which did indeed take up a lot of my nights as a teenager and helped me improve as RP'er, though not necessarily as writer. As for the few Free RP's I've participated in, I guess I was blessed by having some very competent writers involved; what struck me was how concise these people were. As you said, there's not a lot of room for description, so you have to make the most out of those 2-3 sentences to get your point across. Honestly, I find that immensely hard and it's easier (and faster) for me to write out a few paragraphs rather than trying to cram it into a couple of sentences.

But again, this just bring me to the point that it's all very subjective. Trying to pigeon-hole a creative process such as writing seems like a pointless exercise, that's why I'd say the OOC aspect of it is a lot more important, which seems to be the prevalent opinion in this thread.

A Magic System?

@kapuchu Ah, a fellow Sanderson fan! I think it might be hard to go back to Mistborn after reading the Stormlight Arhives, that's what I did, but the drop in quality was noticeable; he's a much better writer now than when he put out Mistborn (not to mention his earlier works).

Anyhow, the magic systems in his settings follow a similar logic, they're all part of his Cosmere after all, so the same basic rules apply. That's the thing about him that I like - he follows the constraints of the system he's built, thus making even crazy feats of magic appear appropriate to the setting. I believe that's an important thing to keep in mind when creating such a system yourself - have a number of set rules that you can use as guidelines, so that you can know what characters in your setting can and can't do beforehand. This is especially important if you plan to use this in an RP, as players will always find a way to break your system

As for drawbacks, what I was thinking is that you could maybe play with the idea of Intent. People often have certain intentions, but when it comes to realising them, we typically get vastly different results than what we expected. So let's say a Sorcerer wants to conjure a bolt of lighting from his fingertips. Provided he has the required focus and strength of will, their Intent will transform into reality and some hapless bastard will get zapped. But what if they don't have the necessary willpower to do this? What if their Intent is too vague or maybe they think they want to do one thing, but subconsciously intend to do another? In that case, I'd say the Sorcerer might accidentally conjure a thunderstorm instead of a lightning bolt or summon an angry storm elemental, that sort of thing.

Dunno if that makes sense, but it's basically the saying "be careful what you wish for, you just might get it". So all in all, not only does a Sorcerer have to be careful about their mental exhaustion, they also have to be very careful when considering just what their Intent is. Maybe that's what happens when magic "fizzles", you get something that you didn't quite intend.

@Shoryu Magami The system you describe sounds intriguing, but as you yourself said, it's hard to discuss it in more depth without having access to more information about your setting. I will say, however, that you've been teasing us with your project in various threads and topics, so I hope that once you consider it to be ready you'll share (parts of) it with the rest of us :)

Forgotten Realms: Adventures of Faerun

@Aristo Well, he's got a giant morningstar to clobber people with, so I'd say he'd be more of a melee combatant rather than a caster chilling in the backline!

Seriously though, I'm a fan of a more subtle approach to magic (yes, even in D&D) so I was thinking he wouldn't have all those flashy Cleric spells you normally see. He's more about prayers, rituals, breaking curses, that sort of stuff; the more overt use of his powers would be against the undead and perhaps some healing since Kelemvorites are apparently good at that, but that's about it. So if you want to rain down fire and brimstone on the nonbelievers, by all means go ahead and roll a caster.

A Magic System?

Whenever I see a magic system I'm always interested in how the writer explains the sociological implications of it. Like, what determines if a person is a Sorcerer or not? Is it a hereditary part of their bloodline, an outside force granting them powers or is it a skill that anyone can pick up with practice? I've always found the popular notion prevalent in fantasy that magic is privy only to a select group of ubermensch as boring and overused. Yeah we get it, magic flows in your veins or perhaps you have a sixth sense or something, making you automatically superior to most other characters you come across. As I said, boooring. (that's just my opinion in general, not slagging off anything in particular)

So yeah, when it comes to your system, I'd like to see an explanation about what makes one a Sorcerer and how it sets them apart from others. Sure, you can always say that it's "just magic, it happens", but since you're already going fairly in-depth with the system, I don't see why you shouldn't touch upon this as well.

Another thing, apart from mental exhaustion and such, usually there is some sort of price/restriction associated with spell-casting so that it remains somewhat balanced and interesting, otherwise people can just use magic willy-nilly to solve all their problems. Tolkien keeps magic users rare and the whole thing is shrouded in mystery, it's not something that the Fellowship can call upon at any time; George Martin uses blood magic and the idea that you have to give up a life in return for power; Dragon Age has these demons in the Fade that can take over your body if you're not careful (as well as blood magic, which seems like a popular concept these days); the Source in Jordan's Wheel of Time can burn you out if you draw too much; Brandon Sanderson's magic in Mistborn uses metals as a fuel and so forth. These are just at the top of my head, but I think it's important to have some drawback to using magic, because this keeps it interesting for the readers.

Also, since I mentioned Sanderson, I wholeheartedly recommend you check out his magic systems, he's one of the best in the game when it comes to that sort of stuff.

Are we expecting too much from newbs?

@MiddleEarthRoze@Buddha

Nah, I agree with you guys. In general, the quality of writing is far better in Advanced than in Free for various reasons. As I said, writing in Advanced requires a significantly bigger time commitment than writing in Free and since writing is a skill, the more you practice the better you get. Maybe the Free section wasn't the best example, but what about Casual vs Advanced? If you take some random threads from Casual and Advanced and plop them into an unnamed section with no tags how easy will it be to determine which is supposed to go where? I'm willing to bet that the distinction between the two won't be easy to make. The line between Casual/Advanced is often blurry and arbitrarily determined by the GM and whatever group of RP'ers they've gathered.

Ultimately, it's down to the people who are participating in the RP. You can have as many advanced tags as you want, but if the RP consists of posts that are 2-3 paragraphs in length then that's not an Advanced RP. (by my standards, of course, which is again something entirely subjective) Likewise, I've seen many RP's in Casual that are superior in scope and quality than ones in Advanced and which shouldn't be dismissed as being "just Casual RP's". People flock to a given tag, be it Free, Casual or Advanced, because they hope to find like-minded players, not because they're experienced or skillful enough to apply. Anyway, what I'm trying to say here is that the section one RP's in shouldn't be the only metric by which you measure someone's skill.

This brings me to the point that being a good writer doesn't automatically make you good RP'er, which I believe someone already mentioned in this thread. Technical skill and a big vocabulary aren't enough, RP'ing is a lot more social than pure writing. You need to communicate with others, be constructive, accept criticism, make concessions and so on. I've had the opportunity to meet and chat with some (locally) famous writers and I was surprised how many of them were complete assholes. I'd never RP with such people despite their literary skills. That's the main reason I think having different categories is important to a healthy RP community, which unfortunately has the side of effect of some people clinging to their label in a vain attempt to prove they are better than others. But you know what, life is full of such people, so fuck 'em.

I've veered way off-topic, so I'm stopping here. At the end of the day, writing is a hobby for most of us, so it's supposed to be fun. As long as you're enjoying yourself, what do you care what people are labeling you as?

Forgotten Realms: Adventures of Faerun

Woohoo, let's get this show on the road!

Are we expecting too much from newbs?

I don't even know why the various sections get associated with writing skill, it's something that has been a pet peeve of mine for as long as I've used RP'ing boards. A guy writing a two sentence post in Free can be a better writer than someone who's putting out novella-like posts in Advanced. I view it as more of how much time you're willing to invest in an RP. Advanced obviously demands a larger chunk of time, because you need to go in-depth, whereas Casual or Free is a easier to deal with and work into a busy schedule. Either way, they are categories, not a social ladder - you don't have to work your way up from the depths of Free to "ascend" to Advanced.

RP at the level you feel like, skill and experience hardly factor into it. I started out RP'ing when I was 13 as well, my first ever RP was in the Casual section (by the Guild's standards), but I realised I prefer longer, more detailed stories so I went into Advanced without giving it much thought. I certainly didn't have the skill most of the participants had (one of them went on to become a published writer), but that didn't stop me from enjoying myself, plus I learned a lot.

How you behave yourself on an OOC level is another matter entirely. From my experience, most people on the internet don't care about your age, your gender, your sexual preference, your nationality, your skin colour and so forth. It's all about your attitude; if you behave like an asshole people will perceive you as an asshole, if you behave like a chill guy people will perceive you as that (regardless of what you might be IRL). That's the great thing about the internet, you can be whatever you want to be without being weighed down by the burdens inherent in physical communication.