Kingdom/Race Creation Roleplay?

[Soulserenity20]

So how are your races coming along?

I've decided on semi-aquatic elves. Blue to green skin, hair and eyes with color shifting abilities. Their lives are based around the Estuary, the sacred transition between the soul and blood of their divine goddess. Their livelihood comes almost entirely from exotic food production and some wood exports. They have a budding "Healing goods" export industry, but its still very rudimentary.

Of course there's a lot more detail than that lol, but for now that's just a taste :)

 

[Mr.Scales ⚖]

I am still thinking of details for my race, all i know so far is that it is ruled by a queen who has a tragic past...Other then that i am still putting out details

 

[Seeking Calliope]

I personally don't use Skype - bad experience.

As for the map, I think it's fine. Yes, there are a few territories that lack resources, but that's pretty accurate, in my opinion, and allows the owner of that territory to come up with reasons why it is how it is. Besides, it's already been stated that players can do things to improve their resources - such as build boats or walls to prevent fire.

As far as why there's an island that came out of nowhere - I think the obvious answer is "magic". There's already a resource called mana, and this is a high fantasy RP. So, anything that doesn't seem accurate by our world's science is explained by this - "The natural mana of the world causes geographical events to occur such as the appearance of an island." Please, don't science this because science usually ruins fantasy and science fiction worlds. Look at Star Wars. Nobody questioned the Force, but than midichlorians were introduced and it was one of the dumbest things to come out of movies 1-3. There are a lot of other things in that world that science disproves, or can't explain, and there's no reason to try - it's make-believe.

 

[Soulserenity20]

Lol well put Calliope :)

So I'm working on the OOC now. I'm trying to get it sort of organised and useful before tossing everyone over there. The basic information is there but once everyone finishes choosing their nations I'm hoping that I'll have it reasonably prepared lol. Trying to make really good use of the new Roleplay system.

 

[Seeking Calliope]

From what I've seen in the past, I'm sure you will make great use of the new system.

Is there anything you currently need from us, or even a few of us?

 

[Soulserenity20]

Well, I need ideas for how the posting is going to work. How do you all want to play this roleplay?

 

[Seeking Calliope]

Here's a suggestion:

Since we're going to be primarily playing the ambassadors of our race, what if we have the main roleplay center around a "meeting of the nations" type thing. We do a mandatory 2 posts per week - 1) post to lay out the condition of our country and request aid, in general or from a specific country; and 2) a post that replies with an offer of aid, trade, or a counter offer (if there's a counter offer we will need to do a colab in PMs or something). Additional posts can be done, but need a tag detailing who is involved and where the scene is taking place.

We could start a new session after a GM post detailing what has happened to each country in the last IC month.

Of course, as stated by Soul in the very beginning, it requires a lot of commitment from the players; reading the OOC, cooperation, etc.

 

[Karakui]

science usually ruins science fiction

So basically, it may as well just be fiction?

 

[Justin]

I will have the Fangels and my nation done by this weekend^^

 

[Seeking Calliope]

So basically, it may as well just be fiction?

No, but there has to be a degree of acceptance, or "suspension of disbelief". To paraphrase Tolkien, it is our job as writers to create a world so fascinating and immersive that the reader, or audience, doesn't stop to ponder if elves are real; one ring can rule them all; lightsabers are factual; faster-than-light travel is possible; or if an island can magically rise out of the ocean.

In a world where elves, faeries, angels, giants, dwarfs, or lizardmen dwell and mana is a tradable resource, why are you allowing yourself to obsess about the geography?

 

[Karakui]

Of course, there's always some suspension of disbelief necessary, even with some aspects of normal reality.

I take offense to "why are you allowing yourself to obsess about the *geology?". As far as I'm concerned, why are you allowing yourself to ignore it? One of the most entertaining parts of both coming up with a setting and experiencing someone else's is deciding / discovering the rules and laws that everything fits into. If everything's just explained with "Coz magic", it gets very dull and disengaging. Not to mention it's very boring to talk about. "Why do elves exist? coz magic." "How does the one ring rule them all? With magic." "How do lightsabers function? Magic." "How does ftl travel work? Magic." "How is that mountainous island not a volcano? Magic." Not to mention of course "There's a mountain almost the size of France of the coast of the continent. Why? Magic." See? Very monotonous. Very disengaging. A good writer weaves rules and logic into their setting so that even though there exist things that clearly scientifically should not exist, it still feels like there's a reason for their existence. The only thing that a good writer assumes is that magic exists. Everything else, from how magic functions to how elves evolved should be logical and not an assumption.

 

[White]

Hmm, would love to participate. You peeked my interest Soul.

@Karakui I think that is unnecessary. There is a planet out there in space that is a single entire diamond. Even now we do not have much of a single clue to how our fundamental understanding of physics, gravity apply to the seemingly all consuming black holes.
I admitt that I have not read every single of your posts, what I wish to say is that I feel that you seem to try to place everything into a shape that would require the universe to function like ours and I would like to point out that, in a different setting, it all could work different. An ancient believed myth was that the sun circles around the earth, why could that not be the case in this setting? (keeping in mind that there has been no explanation whatsoever)
Gravitation may also work completly differently. Magic would, in fact, change the enviroment and strap a huge difference on an entire world, we would have to practically figure out what magic is and what it consists of.
Now, give it time, worldbuilding can take a lot of time and I can guarantee you that Soul has definetly earned my complete belief in terms of world building, she has a huge passion for it that, I find is admirable. Besides, would you not agree that the world building aspect, that is always influenced by everybody to some extend, is part of the beauty of roleplaying?
Having nothing to discover is rather boring, don't you think?

Now about Tolkien.
His books became popular in the 1960s, he died in 1973 and there is a lot he never finished: The unfishied Tales of Middle-earth.
This one was published in 1980s, collecting fragmented piecesof the story itself, some of it may have been part of another book.
He also never finished his third revision of the hobbit.
There is obviously a lot left unanswered, unfinished and I personally do not think it can be used as a good example.

So basically, it may as well just be fiction?

Yes. This is true. A fusion core, fusion energy, a single fusion generator is, if my memory are remembering correctly, enough to wipe out more than a single star system. Space is also a vacuum, means that it is rather quiet.
Also, stealth is impossible, you would still see the heat swelling in the distance, even if the ship is black.
Space works very different from any science fiction writing. Space in our existence is rather boring and difficult to deal with.
Kada knows a lot about it and the difficulties of space faring. Could poke him and ask if he would like to answer questions.

 

[Karakui]

None of what I have said assumes the universe functions like ours does. Simply that it has to function in some way and if you just explain everything with "coz magic", it's all pointless.

 

[White]

None of what I have said assumes the universe functions like ours does. Simply that it has to function in some way and if you just explain everything with "coz magic", it's all pointless.

mhm, of course, but it always takes time and a lot of thought process to prevent contradictions.
I really don't believe we could expect such before the roleplay has a history set up.

The issue with Nation Roleplays cab also be that the GM's need to be quite open with ideas and their nation's backgrounds. These things will also influence what makes sense. Sadly everything interacts with one thing or another somehow. THink about it, the earth we know is the way it is through billions of years. It is a lot of work.

 

[Seeking Calliope]

Of course, there's always some suspension of disbelief necessary, even with some aspects of normal reality.

I take offense to "why are you allowing yourself to obsess about the *geology?". As far as I'm concerned, why are you allowing yourself to ignore it? One of the most entertaining parts of both coming up with a setting and experiencing someone else's is deciding / discovering the rules and laws that everything fits into. If everything's just explained with "Coz magic", it gets very dull and disengaging. Not to mention it's very boring to talk about. "Why do elves exist? coz magic." "How does the one ring rule them all? With magic." "How do lightsabers function? Magic." "How does ftl travel work? Magic." "How is that mountainous island not a volcano? Magic." Not to mention of course "There's a mountain almost the size of France of the coast of the continent. Why? Magic." See? Very monotonous. Very disengaging. A good writer weaves rules and logic into their setting so that even though there exist things that clearly scientifically should not exist, it still feels like there's a reason for their existence. The only thing that a good writer assumes is that magic exists. Everything else, from how magic functions to how elves evolved should be logical and not an assumption.

Let me start by apologizing for my word choice. I should have phrased that differently.

Next, let me answer why I'm overlooking it. It's simple really. It's because we, as a group, haven't decided the fundamental governing rules of this world. As White mentioned, gravity, geology, and even the composition of the air and atmosphere has not been discussed or determined, yet. I personally would prefer to focus on the RP and not worry about this minutia, but if it is important to other players, I'm more than happy to contribute ideas and come to a consensus.

My suggestion as to an underlying process through how everything works was to have it relate, in some fashion, to magic, or mana. It was a simple suggestion.

Now, before we continue, I feel like this needs to be addressed. Discussion should not be arguments. We all need to read what is written with a mindset of trying to understand what the person is attempting to say. We shouldn't twist what someone says or focus completely upon one word or statement and ignore the entirety of what someone wrote. This needs to be a mature and respectful discussion among a group of equals.


This is not directed at anyone in particular (besides Soul):
I feel like there needs to be guidelines to how we speak to each other, and those people who are unable to follow the guidelines need to be removed from the game.

 

[Justin]

How about we stop going on with this for no reason, because whatever Soul says goes, since she is the GM and if she wants something in this or doesn't want something in it she'll let us know. Because this discussion is pointless if no one has asked Soul about this. The rp hasn't even started yet and everything is not set in stone, so this whole thing you guys are talking about is not even worth it.

 

[Seeking Calliope]

Shattered, I know you're trying to defuse something, but I don't think you're going about it in the best way.

The only reason I started talking about this is because there are about six posts, or more, between Soul and Karakui of how he disliked the way the resources were distributed, etc. It seemed, to me, that Soul was contemplating redrawing the map, redistributing resources, and having people choose territories all over again.

I agree this discussion has run its course and there's really no point in continuing it until we receive feedback from Soul. It is my understanding, though, that Soul wanted our opinions and input in how the world worked and how the game worked. I fully agree that what Soul says goes. Soul, I guess I might be a bit confused as to what you want us to discuss and what, if anything, you have set in stone.

 

[Justin]

Yes I know. Its just that my plans with Shattered are not going to work now.

Anyhow thats acceptable I guess. I did come quite late to the party here. Still it sucks.. XD

Oh Akashi we can still work out our plans, I mean the nations can still have a Treaty of working together. It's not like they have to be right next to one another for it to work. Whatever nation you pick, The Fangels would be down for working with your race^^

 

[Justin]

Shattered, I know you're trying to defuse something, but I don't think you're going about it in the best way.

The only reason I started talking about this is because there are about six posts, or more, between Soul and Karakui of how he disliked the way the resources were distributed, etc. It seemed, to me, that Soul was contemplating redrawing the map, redistributing resources, and having people choose territories all over again.

I agree this discussion has run its course and there's really no point in continuing it until we receive feedback from Soul. It is my understanding, though, that Soul wanted our opinions and input in how the world worked and how the game worked. I fully agree that what Soul says goes. Soul, I guess I might be a bit confused as to what you want us to discuss and what, if anything, you have set in stone.

Well yeah you're right on that one, well anyway I am going to go back and work on putting up The Fangels on the official OOC and work on more stuff helping to build the world lol.

 

[Karakui]

Let me start by apologizing for my word choice. I should have phrased that differently.

Next, let me answer why I'm overlooking it. It's simple really. It's because we, as a group, haven't decided the fundamental governing rules of this world. As White mentioned, gravity, geology, and even the composition of the air and atmosphere has not been discussed or determined, yet. I personally would prefer to focus on the RP and not worry about this minutia, but if it is important to other players, I'm more than happy to contribute ideas and come to a consensus.

My suggestion as to an underlying process through how everything works was to have it relate, in some fashion, to magic, or mana. It was a simple suggestion.

Now, before we continue, I feel like this needs to be addressed. Discussion should not be arguments. We all need to read what is written with a mindset of trying to understand what the person is attempting to say. We shouldn't twist what someone says or focus completely upon one word or statement and ignore the entirety of what someone wrote. This needs to be a mature and respectful discussion among a group of equals.


This is not directed at anyone in particular (besides Soul):
I feel like there needs to be guidelines to how we speak to each other, and those people who are unable to follow the guidelines need to be removed from the game.

I agree, we have gone off track a little bit. I had intended to try and establish such laws of reality before people built too far for such laws to be discussed, but the discussion turned into "is it better for a setting to have laws or be chaotic"?

I've known for a while I'm not very good at saying what I mean, so I'll try and summarise what I was trying to say earlier:

It's clear this world is heavily affected by the action of magic. I think we should determine how magic works, and how magic affects the environment now, before people have spent hours working on nations, so that we have much more flexibility in how we decide magic works.

My thoughts on the topic: Mana should be a crystalline form of Magic. When Mana is destroyed, Magic is generated. It can be destroyed like any other crystal - burn it, crush it, put it in a stew. Magic is a form of energy that can be manipulated at will by magicians, but that also has passive effects on the environment. Typically speaking, an item high in Mana will have generally exaggerated effects. A magic-infused mountain might grow much larger than a normal equivalent, a magic infused arrow will fly much faster than a normal equivalent, a magic infused pig will create much more bacon than a normal equivalent. When Magic is "used" it becomes "depleted". It floats about in the atmosphere like a gas and has very minor effects on the troposphere - if enough depleted magic gathers, you might wake up one day and find your house is being attacked by a very large thunderhead. Depleted magic can be precipitated out of the atmosphere in rain, where it seeps into the ground and forms Mana crystals once more.

@Shattered♦Secrets™ You should probably work on your execution of the execution of discussions / arguments. Word it badly and some of the more volatile participants will probably think you're acting superior.