Heroica RPG General Discussion

[Endgame]

Is handing the heroes their megablocks in the first round a quirk?

Among the best, in fact!

[Flipz]

Are there strict rules on how to role play? If someone wants to be a walking encyclopedia, why not? I can see people drawing the line when a character is doing something that adversely affects other players, but I'm not sure what the harm is in being "in the know" for something as trivial as NPC character knowledge, for instance.

Apparently, yes, because Heroica is apparently 4REALZ SRS BSNS.

(Note that in the quoted example by me [i can't speak to the other example], the character recognized specifically mentioned having encountered Heroes before [triggering my character to even bother trying to remember], the incident in question IS likely to be included in the record ["finally, we met a Mopag farmer who directed us to R'kliff" or something of the sort], and the Quest in question was attended by one of Arthur's best friends and involved the faction he's the most loyal to--even if Arthur WASN'T specifically dedicated to being studious and reading the past incidents in Heroica, he at least has a reason to remember. Furthermore, he didn't even recall the man's name--he just remembered "a farmer that helped several of my friends when they were in the area". I don't think that's unreasonable--believe it or not, I DO think about whether or not it's reasonable for Arthur to remember stuff. Case in point, Q70. Or having to ask De'kra about the Veterans in Q66. Hell, the only reason he knew about Alexis siding with the Wolfgang was because Masked specified that Alexis and Arthur slept together, and I figured she'd talk in her sleep Elsa Schneider-style. [if you don't get the reference, go watch Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade immediately, please.])

:thumbup:

I can't possibly support this post enough, this is one of the re-occurring issues that irritates me the most, yet is not seen by many "hard-core" roleplayers as a problem.

I'm sorry, but that time in Quest #38...

Yes, we've established that I was a bad roleplayer on 31 and 38. Can we please let it go? It's not like I bring up Quest 19 every time Haldor says/does something I don't agree with.

What was that you were saying earlier about freedom of roleplaying, Endgame?

[Endgame]

What was that you were saying earlier about freedom of roleplaying, Endgame?

I think pretty much every party has admitted to being either tired and/or irritable in this case, at any rate. (Snickers, anyone?)

Though I'd agree that the line of plaver vs character knowledge can be a bit difficult to tread at certain points, it is also a rather clean cut line. The example in 77 was, in my mind, pretty harmless. There have been far more blatant "offenses" (if you even want to call them that) in my mind.

Edited July 25, 2013 by Endgame

[Kintobor]

Quick question that is total not relevant to the current conversation: who has the Trickster's Mask of the Gender-Swap, and are they willing to sell it with a down payment now and the rest paid off later?

[Jebediahs]

By now the community should be familiar with each other's roleplaying styles. At this point in the game, you should know who not to quest with (whose rp style disagrees with your own).

[CMP]

I feel like that having a very knowledgeable character is fine as long as it's not or completely ignoring what's reasonable for an actual person to be able to recall or remember. Freedom of roleplaying is an obvious necessity, but never forgetting a single detail about anything your character has ever heard is something else.

*Snip*

It's a farmer from a village. I have a hard time believing Arthur can remember him no matter the circumstances surrounding it. If he was on the Quest, yeah, it'd make perfect sense. But this guy isn't dressed up like a farmer, Arthur doesn't know what he looks like, and the only connection he could make is that he's from R'klif and knows heroes. Isn't it assuming a little too that Arthur can place exactly where and how he met a group of heroes nearly two years ago on a Quest he wasn't even on?

[The Legonater]

The issue here is it's all relative. Some people are naturally better deductive thinkers, or have better memories. Some people are naturally good with number and other statistics. Some people aren't. Arthur could easily described as the former, and Docken the second. Maybe they have an eidetic memory. It would make sense in a group this large that someone has it. If anything, that could be considered an RPing decision in itself.

[Flipz]

I feel like that having a very knowledgeable character is fine as long as it's not or completely ignoring what's reasonable for an actual person to be able to recall or remember. Freedom of roleplaying is an obvious necessity, but never forgetting a single detail about anything your character has ever heard is something else.

It's a farmer from a village. I have a hard time believing Arthur can remember him no matter the circumstances surrounding it. If he was on the Quest, yeah, it'd make perfect sense. But this guy isn't dressed up like a farmer, Arthur doesn't know what he looks like, and the only connection he could make is that he's from R'klif and knows heroes. Isn't it assuming a little too that Arthur can place exactly where and how he met a group of heroes nearly two years ago on a Quest he wasn't even on?

"Three elves, three humans, and a dwarf, all armed... haha, it's been a long time since I've encountered heroes of Heroica!"

Considering he was the ONLY helpful Mopag in the whole area...not a stretch for him to assume this is the same Mopag. (And really, if there's an issue with Arthur recognizing him as a Mopag, well... )

[Waterbrick Down]

:thumbup:

I can't possibly support this post enough, this is one of the re-occurring issues that irritates me the most, yet is not seen by many "hard-core" roleplayers as a problem.

I'm sorry, but that time in Quest #38...

Some of us may have a problem with it, but we sacrifice our minor annoyance so that others who play the game for different reasons might also have an enjoyable time.

By now the community should be familiar with each other's roleplaying styles. At this point in the game, you should know who not to quest with (whose rp style disagrees with your own).

Fully agree.

[CMP]

Considering he was the ONLY helpful Mopag in the whole area...not a stretch for him to assume this is the same Mopag.

My point is that I don't think a character shouldn't be able to make connections this clearly when all the information he has to work off of is "A Mopag farmer helped these heroes in R'klif," which is I detail I can't even imagine anyone remembering unless they actually experienced it. Doesn't your character being able to know (mostly) everything that goes on in every Quest kind of take away from the experience of being there and being able to actually go through it for those that were originally on the Quest?

Maybe it's just me. I like the idea of Quests being almost story or legend-like, even to other heroes, being able to say 'I was there' or 'I did that'. It's like if a random hero walked up to Arthur asking in vivid detail about his outbursts in Quest 53. (Not taking a stab at you Flipz, just giving an example).

[Dannylonglegs]

As far as RP goes, due to his bat's and his own intentional eavesdropping, Sylph knows just about anything anyone says when he's in the hall. He usually doesn't act on this knowledge, even going so far as to play dumb when encountering people he's heard of (or, more often, he just doesn't care) but that's my excuse if I ever know something I shouldn't.

~Insectoid Aristocrat

[Flare]

Jebediahs - you probably don't want to have the aqua gear equipped, because you'll be causing water elemental damage which is most likely ineffective to the kraken... Just saying

[CMP]

Jebediahs - you probably don't want to have the aqua gear equipped, because you'll be causing water elemental damage which is most likely ineffective to the kraken... Just saying

He's a Sage, he can't deal physical damage anyway.

[Sandy]

Are there strict rules on how to role play? If someone wants to be a walking encyclopedia, why not? I can see people drawing the line when a character is doing something that adversely affects other players, but I'm not sure what the harm is in being "in the know" for something as trivial as NPC character knowledge, for instance.

I'd love if people could just go with common sense on this matter, but apparently that's not possible. The two examples I quoted are harmless, yes, but totally irrealistic.

In Arthur's case, he instantly made a connection between a Mopag soldier and a farmer some other people met two years ago. If the man had said his name, it would be slightly more possible to make that connection, but not this time.

And Sarge saw a zombie boy, and immediately coined him as the zombie boy from a quest he wasn't on. Like there was only one boy who had ever been turned into a zombie.

Again, it's relatively harmless, but sucky roleplaying.

Imagine a situation where a QM has put a villain from an earlier quest to pose as friendly towards another party of heroes, and they instantly go "Oh, you're not fooling us - you're the bad guy from the quest my friend went on! I recognize that nose from his description!" That's where the problem lies.

[Rumble Strike]

Maybe it's just me. I like the idea of Quests being almost story or legend-like, even to other heroes, being able to say 'I was there' or 'I did that'.

That's exactly how I see it too. There should be a sense of mystery (or perhaps mystique is a better word) about each Quest, in terms of what exactly happened. I know we have a record in the library of each quest, but it would not contain everything. That's why the sequence in Quest#75 worked so well, when the heroes told each other of their exploits and adventures.

[Pyrovisionary]

PLAYER KNOWLEDGE VS. CHARACTER KNOWLEDGE!!!

Seriously, what you are doing is piss-poor roleplaying. You can't possibly recognize people who have been on quests that you weren't on, especially not before they have even introduced themselves. The Library does not provide illustrated guides to each past quest, so saying you read about someone there is not an excuse.

No harm done this time, I guess, but this is not the first time I've seen this happen, and it's getting quite annoying. Your characters cannot be walking encyclopedias, that's just not plausible.

EDIT: Sorry to burst like this, but I'm tired and cranky.

Sorry, I phrased that wrong. Sarge did not coin him as Shaun, rather remembered hearing about a zombie child from another Hero.

Imagine a situation where a QM has put a villain from an earlier quest to pose as friendly towards another party of heroes, and they instantly go "Oh, you're not fooling us - you're the bad guy from the quest my friend went on! I recognize that nose from his description!" That's where the problem lies.

You get hundreds of villains and that sounds ridiculous as you're trying to say but how many Zombie children have heroica ever encountered? Again, sorry.

Nonetheless, I'm not the best of players, and I didn't reread what I had written, I was tired and cranky and couldn't be bothered.

Again I apologise.

Edited July 25, 2013 by Pyrovisionary

[Scorpiox]

Yes, we've established that I was a bad roleplayer on 31 and 38. Can we please let it go? It's not like I bring up Quest 19 every time Haldor says/does something I don't agree with.

What was that you were saying earlier about freedom of roleplaying, Endgame?

I apologise for using you as an example again, Flipz, it wasn't really necessary or a polite thing to do.

But really... I'm sure that everyone could create a massively long Sherlock-esque deduction to work out everything they wanted their character to know; but that doesn't mean that we should all do it. In the same way, it would be possible for me to write pages and pages of exquisite nonsense about why the moon doesn't exist - but that wouldn't make a single word of it true. Incidently, there is a big difference between a good, well structured argument and a right one.

What's the point in having a hero recognise an extremely minor NPC from a quest before their time anyhow? It's unrealistic and also breaks the concept of roleplaying to some degree. Remember, folks, one is not just an extension of one's character - it takes far better writing to turn up a lack of knowledge and slip that in rather than just make one's hero a huge genius for the sake of ease. Roleplaying in itself is the concept of acting as another living thing, and thus one must take into account natural and likely mental and physical limits. Unless you're Brickdoctor, obviously, the key is trying to separate one's emotions and personality traits from the character one is playing. I.E. Don't just end up placing yourself into a fantasy setting. For this, one needs to know when to draw the line between a realistic inference and just plain lazy "I recognise him".

And on another note: we need FAR more stupid characters in this game. Not uneducated characters, we have plenty of those; but rather ones who don't argue great tomes of philosophy and do what they're told on quests without questioning the morality of the job.

[Tachyon]

And on another note: we need FAR more stupid characters in this game. Not uneducated characters, we have plenty of those; but rather ones who don't argue great tomes of philosophy and do what they're told on quests without questioning the morality of the job.

Do I count ?

[Scorpiox]

Do I count ?

As far as I know, you're not a character.

But if you're referring to Mizuki... then yes, I suppose she fits the bill.

[Pyrovisionary]

And on another note: we need FAR more stupid characters in this game. Not uneducated characters, we have plenty of those; but rather ones who don't argue great tomes of philosophy and do what they're told on quests without questioning the morality of the job.

Sarge does what he's told and walls of text end up just being skipped when I'm reading and never written by me anyway.

We do have far too many walls of text anyway. And even though they're usually good roleplaying. They piss me off like nothing else. What's more, they're usually pointless too. Some characters just have their heads in the clouds asking what the meaning of life is, what their purpose is, etc.

We need some truly bad characters. PC's who will kill because they enjoy it. We have too many merciful reasonable characters.

Edited July 25, 2013 by Pyrovisionary

[Flare]

Sarge does what he's told and walls of text end up just being skipped when I'm reading and never written by me anyway.

We do have far too many walls of text anyway. And even though they're usually good roleplaying. They piss me off like nothing else. What's more, they're usually pointless too. Some characters just have their heads in the clouds asking what the meaning of life is, what their purpose is, etc.

Yes, I agree, its really annoying.

[Pyrovisionary]

Yes, I agree, its really annoying.

If we're striving for realistic characters, maybe we should think if making a speech is in human nature?

[TheBoyWonder]

The occasional walll of text is good, like the two Romulus have done because he needed to justify something. But some people go Overboard, and as such I ignore their entire text.

Some Characters do challenge ethics though. Mizuki and Ellaria are the first that come to mind.

[CMP]

The speeches are easy to just ignore, though, and in some cases they fit the situation.

[Kintobor]

Karie comes off as uneducated, but she's actually quite intelligent (go back to her deducting Fleur's identity and her figuring out which dog Arrow was.) I think it comes down to this: are you here to roleplay a fantasy character or not? If you want to tell a story, as PC's, unless you've encountered the person or heard about them, you shouldn't know who they are. That way, the QM has full reign to screw the party over.