Post by shimura on Nov 24, 2007 0:30:30 GMT -5
Sorry to start this in a new thread-- the Tutorial Course thread seems to be locked and I can't reply in it.
Before I continue, a brief introduction: I am Shimura (which will be my character's name if I decide to Roleplay here). I have been paper-and-dice roleplaying since 1985 (yep, I'm a old-timer), GM'd since 1987 (West End Games released the Star Wars d6 based RPG that year) and I've been forum roleplaying since 2002 (I dabbled with it off-and-on since 1998, but I was not serious about it).
I only write this to let y'all know I'm not a complete and total noob when it comes to roleplaying. I'm not the best roleplayer nor the best GM, but I do have RP experience.
I understand what is trying to be accomplished with this, but unfortunately it begs some questions:
1) Hair Color: What if you want to roleplay an older character with gray streaks, or all gray? Or a white patch of hair (which, at least here in the real world, is an extremely uncommon but possible trait in Asian peoples)?
2) Eye Color: if each nation only has a certain eye color, then there would be no way any one nation could disguise themselves as another without colored contact lenses (!) Any urchin fire nation soldier should be perceptive enough to identify eye color as a means of differentiating between the different nations-- creating a severe wrinkle in the Fab Four's attempt at "blending in" to the Fire Nation, as we are now seeing.
In "The Headband", Aang's teacher would not have suggested that Aang was from the colonies-- she would have KNOWN that he was neither Fire Nation at all. Period. End of story. Perhaps this is a little detail that the writers didn't pick up on, but do we have to perpetuate it?
3) Blending in/ Standing out: This is a little bit of a problem for me. And again, I understand the gist: We're trying to get away from 15 year old Metalbending Yuu Yan archers with white hair, red eyes, who live in the Northern Air Temple. I also understand this thwarts the ultra-munchkin uber-benders that want their characters so horrendously powerful that there's no point of even roleplaying them. But... almost every one of the player characters I've ever made has had some small (emphasis on the word small) trait that makes them just a little bit different. On the Star Wars website I roleplay on, I'm able to satisfy this by making an alien character (most are all humans)-- this makes my character a part of the Star Wars backdrop and "blend in", yet still be "different". But I obviously can't do that here.
That's when I look to scars/tattoos/eye colors/hairstyles to make my character unique and different, yet still able to blend in to the setting.
So the question is: how "stock" must the character be? How far can one deviate from the total norm before it's unacceptable?
Before I continue, a brief introduction: I am Shimura (which will be my character's name if I decide to Roleplay here). I have been paper-and-dice roleplaying since 1985 (yep, I'm a old-timer), GM'd since 1987 (West End Games released the Star Wars d6 based RPG that year) and I've been forum roleplaying since 2002 (I dabbled with it off-and-on since 1998, but I was not serious about it).
I only write this to let y'all know I'm not a complete and total noob when it comes to roleplaying. I'm not the best roleplayer nor the best GM, but I do have RP experience.
I understand what is trying to be accomplished with this, but unfortunately it begs some questions:
1) Hair Color: What if you want to roleplay an older character with gray streaks, or all gray? Or a white patch of hair (which, at least here in the real world, is an extremely uncommon but possible trait in Asian peoples)?
2) Eye Color: if each nation only has a certain eye color, then there would be no way any one nation could disguise themselves as another without colored contact lenses (!) Any urchin fire nation soldier should be perceptive enough to identify eye color as a means of differentiating between the different nations-- creating a severe wrinkle in the Fab Four's attempt at "blending in" to the Fire Nation, as we are now seeing.
In "The Headband", Aang's teacher would not have suggested that Aang was from the colonies-- she would have KNOWN that he was neither Fire Nation at all. Period. End of story. Perhaps this is a little detail that the writers didn't pick up on, but do we have to perpetuate it?
3) Blending in/ Standing out: This is a little bit of a problem for me. And again, I understand the gist: We're trying to get away from 15 year old Metalbending Yuu Yan archers with white hair, red eyes, who live in the Northern Air Temple. I also understand this thwarts the ultra-munchkin uber-benders that want their characters so horrendously powerful that there's no point of even roleplaying them. But... almost every one of the player characters I've ever made has had some small (emphasis on the word small) trait that makes them just a little bit different. On the Star Wars website I roleplay on, I'm able to satisfy this by making an alien character (most are all humans)-- this makes my character a part of the Star Wars backdrop and "blend in", yet still be "different". But I obviously can't do that here.
That's when I look to scars/tattoos/eye colors/hairstyles to make my character unique and different, yet still able to blend in to the setting.
So the question is: how "stock" must the character be? How far can one deviate from the total norm before it's unacceptable?
