Rping and good rp and stereotypes, a discussion.

[EDM Entori]

This threads purpose:

• To encourage good discussion about roleplaying character X.
  
• To talk about the good part of stereo types
  
• to talk about the bad part of stereo types
  

I've got a really good friend who wants to play FRC and I've been guiding him along on how to build a background of an elf and what "Fits" what doesn't "fit" etc.

Now in doing so I've heard a lot over the years about certain elves, dwarves, hin who other people here look at and go "HUH?".

Now I get that sentiment, but some people get frustrated and other people. Firstly, the people who get frustrated are those who invest a lot into frc. Not just there to have "fun" for "funs sake" but are interested in watching their characters grow, and they read books by the dozen in research and put just a lot of time into thinking about their characters to the point of stressing on occasion over it.

This is where this thread comes into play. I want to discuss the highs and lows, here and where some people see a low other people might see an high.

Take an elf, who worships Corellon, fights by the bow and blade. - awesome but if that's all your character is going to be then well, snore...

Take that same elf, who has definition has rituals to Corellon private and public, and that player has a private journal on display on the forums. Well to me, despite the risk of metagaming I write journals so that other people know whats up with my character. why hes moody, why hes not moody, how he feels about stuff. The private stuff you can't emote in game, your now providing people on the forums that wonderful "filler" that the movies gives us.

Well Don, isn't that metagaming? Well to me, yes and no. I personally like when a person in game see's something in a journal and then acts on it. Not directly but indirectly speaks something that will draw those emotions out. That is what I'll call story building.

It is also gives insight to how you play those stereo types, and for someone, IE a player, who likes stereo types. This gives depth and well all the touchy feely stuff as an elf/ gnome/ hin etc. Dwarves are ones that I find the most interesting because I just know so little about them.

Now the benefit goes the other way, if you play a non-stereo type character. Well you now give those people who go "huh" another hin made for the ac bonus. Or dwarf tank etc etc. you give insight into what you the player, puts into the character.

Too often people look at "outside the box" characters and go "well thats weird" and its wrong, and often times though, it's because the person who is rping that character doesn't give enough info to the world.

That and people down right deny themselves the benefit of the doubt when it comes to other people, they get angry and frustrated and its people who are vets here. To me it makes no-sense to why a dm X would get frustrated over and evil hin from X destination. Sure it raises and eyebrow but it causes a dynamic.

That dynamic only works when people allow it to work however, and if everyone is evil the dynamic is lost, if everyone in hin, the dynamic is lost. If you don't incorporate what is known about cormyr's history into a cormyrian then you loose a bit of dynamic.

So I suppose it's not so much about playing stereotypes its:

A) allowing people to have the benefit of the doubt.
B) about those same people recipricating and showing their side of things.


Now I'm going to leave my thoughts there, I hope people can have a sensible discussion. If you cannot please do not post, I personally ask the dm team here, that if you disagree in a manner in which -they- find offense. To personally remove it.

[Shamoke]

I rarely criticize one's RP. Giving people the benefit of the doubt is important. We know ourselves better than anyone else. Likewise, my advice to all RPers on this can be summed up in three words:

Know your limits.

^This applies to everything RP. The race, the class, the stats, the personality. Be aware of what you as a player are capable of. Otherwise, situations can become awkward for yourself and those around you. For example, I cannot play characters with high lore, because I am not a source junkie . I respect those who play loremasters well.

It's easier to play a stereotype, because you have so much to go off of. Stereotypes are great starting points to learn about the race/class you are playing. I like playing more unique characters. However, it took a lot of work for me to do it well. I remember when I refused to play chaotic characters because I knew I did it poorly. Now, they are all I play!

We are writers and actors in our own right. We all know what "bad acting" looks like. I for one have never wanted to be labeled as a "poor RPer," so I studied and practiced the craft.

That being said, it is important for us to lift each other up and help out. More so than that, however, is reaching out and ASKING for help. The community is a great resource. I've consulted with Entori on Elf-related stuff, read advisory forum posts, and asked DMs what their thoughts are.

Here's some very general examples of barriers that might hinder good rp from being FANTASTIC rp:

• A Wizard whose player has poor grammar/spelling/punctuation.
  
  
• A Bard whose player has little interest in writing songs.
  
  
• A Paladin or sorcerer whose player does not know how to be passionate and charismatic.
  
  
• A Red Knight whose player sucks at tactics .
  
  
• A cleric whose player constantly makes the character exercise poor judgment.

Hopefully my point has come across correctly. Now, a bit of thanks:

In paying further tribute to Entori, I would not know what I know about Elves were it not for his insight and his posts on the forum. I would also have to pay tribute to DM Dachsund. While we never interacted, his NUMEROUS posts on Elven lore built a solid foundation for any player to easily learn about Elves. I learned a lot about Dwarves from Dornak Firebeard's player.

Know your limits. Utilize your resources, and you will be successful.

<3

[Aseanamous]

In my opinion, almost every form of RP is good. There isn't anything that makes one person's RP better than another's. Some of us know the whole background of our character and could write story upon story about it, but just choose not to because we may not be the best of writers. I know that's how I am. With Zeek, I could have told you why he was a spaz, why he acted childish, etc... I had every little detail about him planned out, but I just never cared to write it for multiple reasons. I would much rather have someone personally ask my characters ICly about his history/past/what makes him tick, than post it on the forums. I think the problem is that people are upset with how others react because that's not how they want them to. People get annoyed when another character doesn't respond to them, but maybe that's just their personality type. Perhaps they're just shy or awkward, or they're too stuck up to talk to you. It's not because they're bad RPers. The only way you can truly have a bad RPer is if someone is doing the following that Shamoke said:

Jul 1, 2012 21:53:42 GMT -5 Shamoke said:

• A Wizard whose player has poor grammar/spelling/punctuation.
  
  
• A Bard whose player has little interest in writing songs.
  
  
• A Paladin or sorcerer whose player does not know how to be passionate and charismatic.
  
  
• A Red Knight whose player sucks at tactics .
  
  
• A cleric whose player constantly makes the character exercise poor judgment.

<3

There are a few exceptions where you could have a something like a wizard with poor grammar, but you'd have to explain it. Perhaps they have poor grammar in one language because it's not their native language, or perhaps the bard doesn't write songs; he performs in another manner. Ultimately, if you're gonna have something that somewhat goes against the typical class stereotype, you need to have a reason for it. Things that are simply not okay would be to make a Paladin that commits evil acts or make a druid that hates nature. Other than the few blatantly obvious things that are against the rules, no form of roleplay should be considered better or worse than someone else's.

[Pedantry INC]

I like to give people the benefit of the doubt as much as I can, it is something to remember that while we see mostly adventures because it is a player based world, adventurers are a rare breed - far outnumbered by the 'typical' people of the realms. Thus it's not strange for an adventurer of any race to be nothing like what one expects from their race on any given tuesday.


There is something I find funny about stereotypes and that is that sometimes they actually really don't apply! Dwarves are a big example, often played as loutish, drunken, trap stomping loudmouths dwarves are actually as a society quite reserved people! On top of being a reserved people, they're also quite capable of intelligence and have a mechanically inclined nature. Crafters of armors and weapons aside, traps aren't that alien to a race that is often considered to be in the realms of pinnacle craftsmanship. Do they like drinks? Oh sure! Are they always drunk? No, not particularly! So this is a really funny stereotype to me, the drunk scottsmen dwarves that bumble around. My boss is from Scottland, she just drink a fair bit, but I've never seen her bumble! haha.


Elven stereotypes are a bit more tricky, there's really good extensive guides for each of the elven subraces, all 9/10 of them if you count the exotic versions from places such as unapproachable east and dragon magazine. I liked the note in one source that 'elves are very independent and respect each others individual right to express themselves as they see fit' and that 'elves do not change quickly, but in their long lives, they do change, life would be stale without some variety with so many long years'.

One random note that I find amusing about elves is the "short" stereotype : faerunian elves share the same height tables as humans.


I've not done a lot of reading on halflings and gnomes, I do adore forest gnomes but as they aren't playable here it's a bit of a moot point. Fascinating though that most gnomes don't even know that forest gnomes exist! Such a reclusive, yet refined little people, they're hardly bigger than brownies, smaller than the smallest hins by far.



I find that variety is the spice of life, and I love to challenge myself with very different RP - one thing that helps me a great deal is taking the time to do some research. It doesn't take long to do a few searches on google to find the relevant source material, and you can buy some source books as pdfs from various online stores. I find that this greatly helps with immersion, both my own and for players around me. But then again that comes to giving people the benefit of the doubt and allowing that adventurers are one in a thousand, so they might be a little different. Somtimes as someone that researches a lot I do find it difficult, but in the end, so long as we're all having fun, it's better to go along than be a spoil sport!

[highknight]

I don't know a whole lot about the other non-human races, but I have had occasion to do a lot of studying of elves. That's why my post is about them.

Even with elven adventurers, it would still be unusual to see one go as far as not worshiping the Seldarine. Sure, there are very few "evil" elf gods (drow gods don't count) and you can't be a paladin of a Seldarine god. Does that limit your roleplay? Only if you let it.

You want to be an elven paladin of the Seldarine? Fighter/CoT-slash-Cleric/CoT. Win right there.

You want to be an evil elf in the Seldarine? Still unusual, but go with Shevarash as a patron deity. Murdering drow at any cost.

I'm just saying, don't go against the "stereotypes" just because they are. There's a lot of fun to be had playing an "elf" elf.

Disclaimer: These are the opinions of DM Highknight, a rather opinionated guy on many aspects of Forgotten Realms roleplay. They are not the opinions of the DM Team and should not be taken as such. Ermahgerd!

[highknight]

Addendum:

Wanna try something new? Make a human that worships a non-Faerunian/Mulhorandi god.

Make that guy a warrior of Clangeddin.

Make that woman a priestess of Hanali.

Make that guy a...can't believe I'm saying this...Erevanite.

Paladin of Yondalla? And you're human? w00t!

Just something else to think about!

[mastersenge]

This one is a cool example of one of those really unusual elfy folks that whorship a super awesome powerful human diety...

www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20011104b

Its just an example of being way against the stereotype. It's not at all common but it happens.

[Shamoke]

Jul 1, 2012 22:34:08 GMT -5 Aseanamous said:

There are a few exceptions where you could have a something like a wizard with poor grammar, but you'd have to explain it. Perhaps they have poor grammar in one language because it's not their native language, or perhaps the bard doesn't write songs; he performs in another manner. Ultimately, if you're gonna have something that somewhat goes against the typical class stereotype, you need to have a reason for it. Things that are simply not okay would be to make a Paladin that commits evil acts or make a druid that hates nature. Other than the few blatantly obvious things that are against the rules, no form of roleplay should be considered better or worse than someone else's.

Precisely, and beautifully said. What you are referring to is an "outside the box" character, or a blatant non-stereotype. They are extremely difficult to play. I play a BEARDED, city Elf, and it is god damned hard sometimes! I find myself wanting to fallback to the Elven stereotype, when that is NOT my character. Not to mention the flack one can take from other players who pass judgment rather quickly (ic is fine, but ooc is unacceptable).

Quite awhile ago, Kottle made an AMAZING post about how poor spelling/grammar breaks rp. His idea didn't just apply to spelling/grammar though [and I recognize that poor spelling is merited sometimes (I play a Dwarf )].

What Kottle was essentially saying was "Any time one has to 'pause' to understand what a character says or does, it breaks rp/immersion." At that point, it's no longer about rp, because we have to "step outside" of our character to think about something in an ooc mindset. Sometimes, there is nothing that needs to be done. Sometimes we create characters that are so unique, people can't keep up with us! A few fantastic examples would be Joseph Dugan and Vorel Lorak: Two exemplary rpers playing two amazing characters who are fecking hard to understand! While Josephspeak and Vorelian are difficult to interpret occasionally, they are done INTELLIGENTLY with a rather precise formula behind them.

As I have stated before, practice makes perfect with roleplaying one's character, but practice also makes perfect with understanding others' characters. I have found that rp posts on the forum have helped me not only shape Shamoke, but also enlighten the community as to my rp style and rp skills. The more you do in the community, the more credibility you build for yourself.

[elysiumfields]

My opinion of server role play is, in the majority, very high.

There one thing that has always struck me as mind boggling but have never discussed (especially at a lower level, say up until 14 or 15), is the overwhelming level of lore and knowledge some characters have about absolutely everything from item knowledge to Planes, Deities, local and world geography.

For example before we lost the server I had a cleric tell my character about his home land of Vaasa and the bloodstone trade (also as if Ti didn't know what he was talking about), then explain the nature of planes when we went to the wizard tower in Suzail... How would a young human cleric (Almost all of the adventurers are), serving the local community know about planar beings, arcana and world geography?

A passing knowledge of facets of life unrelated to that character is totally fine, but when you see characters who are barely of adult age, fresh from leaving home to set out and make their name it feels as if they should have a naivety to at least some parts of their life and worldly knowledge.

Yes there are know-it-alls in the world, and many of us here have an extensive knowledge of the game, the system and the pantheons, but just because you know it extensively it doesn't mean your character does or should know.

Going by the painful economy we live under and lore, a level 5 bard of average intelligence should have between 7 and 10 lore points, about enough to recognize level 2 items when taking 10. Now you can go into the semantics of taking 20, but I have yet to see anyone in game role play taking 20 rounds / 2 minutes to fully examine an object.

There is also the argument that Lore covers all of D&D's Knowledge skills - arcana, nobility, engineering etc. Should that lore score count for all of those areas or do you distribute knowledge gained in accordance to one's role play or is it just a dice roll (most times not even that)?

So in short I'm guess I'm trying to say that it's ok for other characters to teach you things in game and it's even better for your character to be ignorant of some facts, deities and religions in order to give the characters who specialise in that area a chance to create a richer role play environment.

[iangallowglas]

Jul 3, 2012 10:36:52 GMT -5 elysiumfields said:

My opinion of server role play is, in the majority, very high.

There one thing that has always struck me as mind boggling but have never discussed (especially at a lower level, say up until 14 or 15), is the overwhelming level of lore and knowledge some characters have about absolutely everything from item knowledge to Planes, Deities, local and world geography.

For example before we lost the server I had a cleric tell my character about his home land of Vaasa and the bloodstone trade (also as if Ti didn't know what he was talking about), then explain the nature of planes when we went to the wizard tower in Suzail... How would a young human cleric (Almost all of the adventurers are), serving the local community know about planar beings, arcana and world geography?

A passing knowledge of facets of life unrelated to that character is totally fine, but when you see characters who are barely of adult age, fresh from leaving home to set out and make their name it feels as if they should have a naivety to at least some parts of their life and worldly knowledge.

Yes there are know-it-alls in the world, and many of us here have an extensive knowledge of the game, the system and the pantheons, but just because you know it extensively it doesn't mean your character does or should know.

Going by the painful economy we live under and lore, a level 5 bard of average intelligence should have between 7 and 10 lore points, about enough to recognize level 2 items when taking 10. Now you can go into the semantics of taking 20, but I have yet to see anyone in game role play taking 20 rounds / 2 minutes to fully examine an object.

There is also the argument that Lore covers all of D&D's Knowledge skills - arcana, nobility, engineering etc. Should that lore score count for all of those areas or do you distribute knowledge gained in accordance to one's role play or is it just a dice roll (most times not even that)?

So in short I'm guess I'm trying to say that it's ok for other characters to teach you things in game and it's even better for your character to be ignorant of some facts, deities and religions in order to give the characters who specialise in that area a chance to create a richer role play environment.

+1

We have lore-masters among our veteran players as well as our new players. I have always felt this is the most easily abused skill on the server, because it's so ambiguous. Because of this, I tend not to raise the lore score of any of my characters above 10, playing dumb is just easy for me. ;D

I start my characters with only the lore they would have in their home region, a basic knowledge of the gods of their race, and some introductory knowledge of the lore of their class.

As I increase a characters lore skill, his knowledge of a few topics will increase to reflect the increased lore skill. They don't know everything about one subject, much less everything about every subject.

I feel the total points put into the lore skill should be divided into areas of expertise (knowledge religion, knowledge architecture, etc.), and not be one big, "I know everything" skill.

With regards to RP and stereo types. Play what you want to play, just don't be totally ridiculous with your character or play one that is from a setting outside the world of the Forgotten Realms. But most of all, just make sure your having fun. You don't have to follow the herd to be a good or even a great roleplayer.

[Deleted]

Jul 3, 2012 10:36:52 GMT -5 elysiumfields said:

My opinion of server role play is, in the majority, very high.

There one thing that has always struck me as mind boggling but have never discussed (especially at a lower level, say up until 14 or 15), is the overwhelming level of lore and knowledge some characters have about absolutely everything from item knowledge to Planes, Deities, local and world geography.

For example before we lost the server I had a cleric tell my character about his home land of Vaasa and the bloodstone trade (also as if Ti didn't know what he was talking about), then explain the nature of planes when we went to the wizard tower in Suzail... How would a young human cleric (Almost all of the adventurers are), serving the local community know about planar beings, arcana and world geography?

A passing knowledge of facets of life unrelated to that character is totally fine, but when you see characters who are barely of adult age, fresh from leaving home to set out and make their name it feels as if they should have a naivety to at least some parts of their life and worldly knowledge.

Yes there are know-it-alls in the world, and many of us here have an extensive knowledge of the game, the system and the pantheons, but just because you know it extensively it doesn't mean your character does or should know.

Going by the painful economy we live under and lore, a level 5 bard of average intelligence should have between 7 and 10 lore points, about enough to recognize level 2 items when taking 10. Now you can go into the semantics of taking 20, but I have yet to see anyone in game role play taking 20 rounds / 2 minutes to fully examine an object.

There is also the argument that Lore covers all of D&D's Knowledge skills - arcana, nobility, engineering etc. Should that lore score count for all of those areas or do you distribute knowledge gained in accordance to one's role play or is it just a dice roll (most times not even that)?

So in short I'm guess I'm trying to say that it's ok for other characters to teach you things in game and it's even better for your character to be ignorant of some facts, deities and religions in order to give the characters who specialise in that area a chance to create a richer role play environment.

Just a nit-pick...but..a level 5 bard has an automatic +5 lore check. So if they had never put any ranks in lore and had an average intelligence they have your numbers, otherwise..closer to a +15. Bards in NWN are the Loremasters.

[elysiumfields]

More fool me for never playing a bard

[Thrym]

Well... This 'Loremaster' thing pops up every once in a while. Honestly, I know where people are coming from. A level 1 character isn't an expert on stuff, yes.

But the thing is: The FR are not in the Dark Ages. Yes, Bob the Farmer likely doesn't know what a lantern archon is, likely not even what an archon is or that the House of the Triad is an upper plane and not the temple in the nearby city.

But a level 1 cleric of Tyr? He knows that. Because when you're actually part of the church, this information is freely available, and if you put ranks into lore, your character apparently read it. This information is not obscure. Think of real life pilgrimages and how people actually go on those to better understand their religion.

In the FR, a mid level cleric an actually visit the place his god and his divine servants life.

He can call said divine servants and ask them questions.

And that isn't even going into actual divination magics. Clerics spend a big part of their live trying to understand the will of their gods. They have these spells available. They're going to use them to go learn it, and they will write down what they learned during it for their fellow believers.

Will there be hyperbole and exaggeration? Woo boy, of course. The information will obviously not be perfectly accurate. But seriously: Even if for some reason, your new cleric never listened to another cleric preaching about the nature of his god, it's realm and it's servants, he could seriously have just gone to the Temple Library and read up on the pilgrimages of hundreds of mid level clerics who went 'Yo, Imma go to the heavens now!'.


And wizards?

Let me put it like this: I'm a nerd. When I learn something awesome, I'm likely to immediately skype it to someone who cares about the same stuff.

Wizards are nerds. Who have access to instanteous travel. When one of them finds out something cool, there's a good chance he'll excitedly teleport to the next mage academy and tell EVERYONE.

What I'm saying is: Yes, level 1 characters should not know everything. They should even occassionally believe stuff that is just wrong, because the book they read on demons was written by a devout evil cleric who tried to make them sound far more powerful or the wizard who zapped into the mage academy to tell everyone of how he found a new school of magic was just feeling lonely and wanted attention.

But they can, and I'll go so far as to say should, know things related to their profession. A level 1 cleric of an LG god should have heard of the more common types of archons at least, a level 1 wizard should be able to explain to you what the difference between a summoning and a creation spell is, et cetera. Does that mean there's no progress on what they know? Of course not! The level 1 cleric might know what a lantern archon is. He likely can't (yet) summarize you the entire list of archon traits though.

[catmage]

I have a ton of notions for characters worshiping gods from other pantheons, but the deity clicker doesn't let us pick 'em. Is there a way around that, because I would like that, very much yes.

Jul 2, 2012 6:43:17 GMT -5 @highknight said:

Addendum:

Wanna try something new? Make a human that worships a non-Faerunian/Mulhorandi god.

Make that guy a warrior of Clangeddin.

Make that woman a priestess of Hanali.

Make that guy a...can't believe I'm saying this...Erevanite.

Paladin of Yondalla? And you're human? w00t!

Just something else to think about!

[The Tallest Dwarf]

Over the years of roleplaying we're told a lot of things. Some of it is excellent advice, and some of it stems from a lack of experience.

If someone tells you, for instance, that "You limit how you can interact with females/elves/dwarves/X due to playing a male half-orc/female dwarf/X" then remind them that the only limits for creativity and good roleplay are the ones others impose upon themselves.

PS:Provided the rper in question is still roleplaying what is acceptable by FRC standards, of course.

[bhagavat]

Lots of good postings here. FRC basically taught me to RP. The server I played on before first coming to FRC had everyone running all the time, and no rp during quests really due to that. Obviously I had some RP ideas, and have read a lot of the forgotten realms fantasy books, Drizzt etc.

Seeing the depth of RP here got me doing more research to bring those books to life somewhat. Knowing little about elfs or dwarfs has kept me from RPings any at first, still dont feel ready for elves, but the forums, other online resources and good 'ol lore FR lore junkies in game have helped me make some fun characters.

As for new RPrs, they are usually easy to spot, and just want to say, its not helpful to make them feel stupid beucase you RP with them and they cant give a well educated rp back. a few kind tells can keep them learning from all you pro's. ;p

*special thanks to Torgar for keeping me (Brakk) a proper stout.

[Lokarn]

About lore; IMO there are some topics that should require DM interaction to know anything past basic common [for adventurer's] knowledge about.

You should not know everything about every demon lord, you should not know everything about every god, you should not know everything about every spell, and you certainly should not know all of it at the same time! It takes years to fully master any topic of study, so much so that if you plan to be a lore master on gods, then your lore on other topics should be diminished, especially when the two topics don't have similarities.

I get so tired of every PC knowing everything about a every single god in a pantheon, and every god in every pantheon. You should think about what your character knows, and how they know it. You should also be able to explain IC how, or why your character knows it.

It takes time to read books, massive amounts of time to sift through the inaccurate, wrong, lies that exist in books. How does your PC have the kind of time that would take to know all he knows?

You want to be a lore master? cool play one, but "role play" him too. Not just the knowledge from clicking the skill when you level up from killing that 100000th orc, but role play the part of studying the knowledge, the library, the dark lost ruins etc, etc.

[iangallowglas]

Jul 15, 2012 16:29:43 GMT -5 Lokarn said:

About lore; IMO there are some topics that should require DM interaction to know anything past basic common [for adventurer's] knowledge about.

You should not know everything about every demon lord, you should not know everything about every god, you should not know everything about every spell, and you certainly should not know all of it at the same time! It takes years to fully master any topic of study, so much so that if you plan to be a lore master on gods, then your lore on other topics should be diminished, especially when the two topics don't have similarities.

I get so tired of every PC knowing everything about a every single god in a pantheon, and every god in every pantheon. You should think about what your character knows, and how they know it. You should also be able to explain IC how, or why your character knows it.

It takes time to read books, massive amounts of time to sift through the inaccurate, wrong, lies that exist in books. How does your PC have the kind of time that would take to know all he knows?

You want to be a lore master? cool play one, but "role play" him too. Not just the knowledge from clicking the skill when you level up from killing that 100000th orc, but role play the part of studying the knowledge, the library, the dark lost ruins etc, etc.

+1 to this, totally agree

[Deleted]

Jul 15, 2012 16:29:43 GMT -5 Lokarn said:

About lore; IMO there are some topics that should require DM interaction to know anything past basic common [for adventurer's] knowledge about.

You should not know everything about every demon lord, you should not know everything about every god, you should not know everything about every spell, and you certainly should not know all of it at the same time! It takes years to fully master any topic of study, so much so that if you plan to be a lore master on gods, then your lore on other topics should be diminished, especially when the two topics don't have similarities.

I get so tired of every PC knowing everything about a every single god in a pantheon, and every god in every pantheon. You should think about what your character knows, and how they know it. You should also be able to explain IC how, or why your character knows it.

It takes time to read books, massive amounts of time to sift through the inaccurate, wrong, lies that exist in books. How does your PC have the kind of time that would take to know all he knows?

You want to be a lore master? cool play one, but "role play" him too. Not just the knowledge from clicking the skill when you level up from killing that 100000th orc, but role play the part of studying the knowledge, the library, the dark lost ruins etc, etc.

Amen.

As someone who spent years developing a 'knowledge is my only strength' type pc, I can sympathize with this. I have gone on expeditions to unearth lore that have failed more often than not to garner anything useful.

On the other hand I also own books containing information so rare that myself and a handful of other characters might know.

In the end though i'll say that even owning one of the largest libraries in Cormyr, it's just a roleplay tool. You wont walk into the library and actually learn anything obscure without dm assistance. My character who lives in a library and is a noted loremaster doesn't really gain any mechanical advantage over someone who doesn't and isn't, without DM intervention.

[Savoie Faire]

Stereotypes exist because they are common to that class/race/gender/alignment. This is not to say that you must play a stereotype. It is intended to point out that when you do deviate from a stereotype you immediately set up a question in the observer's mind: why? Why is this one different than the rest?

Almost all of the 'great ones' have been stereotypes with a twist, meaning that one or two characteristics are exaggerated or out of line with the 'typical' character of that type.

For example, ambitious Banites are a dime a dozen, but an ambitious Banite who is also lecherous and promiscuous, and very good at it, stands out. (The girls like bad boys and powerful men! Win-win!)

Hin are famously rogues and are among the finest pickpockets in the land. So when a hin pure-classed Ranger sits among a crowd, expect to see characters move to sit farther than his arm can reach! (And then try to convince others OOC that he has no rogue levels at all!) I've also seen other memorable non-rogue hin, but they are rare.

Dwarven wizards are rare, but can be awesome characters if the player can deal with other dwarves' comments on his nimble fingers and frail body. One particular dwarven wizard stands out not only because he was awesomely roleplayed as a stereotypical dwarf in all other respects, but because he was one of the best wizard characters to dungeon-crawl with.

Elven Paladins: there's no such thing! (Wanna bet?)

So, if you can create a character who completely defies stereotypes, can you take the additional leap to creating characters which embrace the stereotype with a twist?

[EDM Entori]

Jul 19, 2012 22:39:32 GMT -5 Savoie Faire said:

Stereotypes exist because they are common to that class/race/gender/alignment. This is not to say that you must play a stereotype. It is intended to point out that when you do deviate from a stereotype you immediately set up a question in the observer's mind: why? Why is this one different than the rest?

Almost all of the 'great ones' have been stereotypes with a twist, meaning that one or two characteristics are exaggerated or out of line with the 'typical' character of that type.

For example, ambitious Banites are a dime a dozen, but an ambitious Banite who is also lecherous and promiscuous, and very good at it, stands out. (The girls like bad boys and powerful men! Win-win!)

Hin are famously rogues and are among the finest pickpockets in the land. So when a hin pure-classed Ranger sits among a crowd, expect to see characters move to sit farther than his arm can reach! (And then try to convince others OOC that he has no rogue levels at all!) I've also seen other memorable non-rogue hin, but they are rare.

Dwarven wizards are rare, but can be awesome characters if the player can deal with other dwarves' comments on his nimble fingers and frail body. One particular dwarven wizard stands out not only because he was awesomely roleplayed as a stereotypical dwarf in all other respects, but because he was one of the best wizard characters to dungeon-crawl with.

Elven Paladins: there's no such thing! (Wanna bet?)

So, if you can create a character who completely defies stereotypes, can you take the additional leap to creating characters which embrace the stereotype with a twist?

YOU HAD TO SAY IT!

[Lokarn]

I am working on a steroetypical PC, with a twist. So far he is my favorite PC to play. He has been around a long, long time. Since 2007 I just kept him low level for various reasons.

I recently remade him, so I could play him again now, instead of waiting.

Grush'nak (Half-orc) is strong, big and "dumb" The twist is best discovered by role playing with him. Much more fun that way.

[Grozer]

Jul 20, 2012 0:25:50 GMT -5 Lokarn said:

I am working on a steroetypical PC, with a twist. So far he is my favorite PC to play. He has been around a long, long time. Since 2007 I just kept him low level for various reasons.

I recently remade him, so I could play him again now, instead of waiting.

Grush'nak (Half-orc) is strong, big and "dumb" The twist is best discovered by role playing with him. Much more fun that way.

And its a blast to RP with towering Grush!

[Lokarn]

Haha, thanks guys. Honestly most PCs are so quick to dismiss him so they never get to see his deeper intellect.....