Shadow Gaera

RP-related discussion otherwise not covered in the Character Closet.
User avatar
KingOfDoma
Guess Who It Is?
 
Posts: 2656
Joined: Tue May 07, 2002 7:21 pm
Location: Calgary

Shadow Gaera

Unread postby KingOfDoma » Sun Jun 03, 2007 2:42 pm

... I have but one question.

Why is a setting many people haven't bothered to read up on or ask about being dismissed as stupid and unworthy of anyone's time?

Really, every time it gets mentioned, people are making "bizarro" comments, saying it's foolish, when most, if not all, of these commenters have, to my knowledge, have NEVER made an effort to get to know the setting. This, in my opinion, is wholly unfair. Personally, I think the setting has massive potential, and barely anyone here is giving it credit.

As soon as I can, I will host a transcript. No one uses hello as goodbye, no one wears hats on their feet, hamburgers don't eat people. It's just a dark world where things that went right in the main universe did not go well there. If you don't think YOUR character has a place there, that's fine. Just, please, don't rag on something you don't understand.

User avatar
PriamNevhausten
Holy Order of the Crimson Ballpoint
 
Posts: 2854
Joined: Fri Aug 09, 2002 4:10 pm

Don't you talk bad about my little Checkers

Unread postby PriamNevhausten » Sun Jun 03, 2007 5:24 pm

I think a main argument I've heard is, if everything is different, why are we linking it by name to Gaera at all? Why not a separate world? And if things MUST be Gaera for whatever reason, why isn't Gaera as it stands sufficient? There are a great many possibilities and openings for characters and ideas and movements in Gaera such as it is; I don't necessarily see the need for an entirely new continuity and history and everything.

That said, if you want to run something in Parallel Gaera, go for it--nothing is stopping you. If you want to join a Parallel Gaera game, then join it. That's really about as simple as it gets--naysayers don't matter, as long as they stay on the sidelines and don't directly interfere with what you are doing. Hell, I joined up in SquintzAdam's game involving a "Gaera-2" myself, and I don't do the board RP thing, generally.

But just because you can make and run the world for your purposes does not mean everyone else is compelled to care a whole bunch about it. It's AU, as the jargon goes around here; and we have a great many AU settings whose history is largely considered irrelevant when compared to the RPGWW central setting of Gaera. It does not necessarily deserve to be discounted out of hand, but it also does not necessarily deserve special treatment.

Want it to be special? Run a game with it. Make it significant. It's how Gaera got started in the first place. No one entity has the power to do this--it's the community's, and especially the gamemasters', prerogative to give meaning to agreed-upon imaginary environments.
"You haven't told me what I'm looking for."
"Anything that might be of interest to Slitscan. Which is to say, anything that might be of interest to Slitscan's audience. Which is best visualized as a vicious, lazy, profoundly ignorant, perpetually hungry organism craving the warm god-flesh of the anointed. Personally I like to imagine something the size of a baby hippo, the color of a week-old boiled potato, that lives by itself, in the dark, in a double-wide on the outskirts of Topeka. It's covered with eyes and it sweats constantly. The sweat runs into those eyes and makes them sting. It has no mouth, Laney, no genitals, and can only express its mute extremes of murderous rage and infantile desire by changing the channels on a universal remote. Or by voting in presidential elections."
--Colin Laney and Kathy Torrance, William Gibson's Idoru

User avatar
Spleen
I put a BOMB inside EVERY BAD GUY!
 
Posts: 2625
Joined: Tue Apr 23, 2002 5:07 pm
Location: Demon Realms of Niu-Jiurzi

Unread postby Spleen » Sun Jun 03, 2007 5:54 pm

Priam makes very good points that I agree with, but the fact is that there are people who do dismiss it out of hand; one thing I've heard that rubs me the wrong way worse than "Bizarro Gaera" is "Retardo Gaera". Furthermore, it's not that "everything is different". It's not a different world, it's Gaera as it could have been; the places and people are clearly analogous to Gaera, in nearly all cases showing some kind of change in details.

Really, it's not even the "opposite" of Gaera, which is I think where a lot of people get their comments that it's stupid. It's a Gaera where several important things are different, both in the setting and in the individual lives of the characters involved: King Charles' father, King Franklyn, never died, and Charles himself is a political prisoner. Franklyn's despotism and human supremacism make Doma a darker setting to RP in. Characters in the setting are usually changed from the form they take in Main Gaera, but not necessarily are reversed totally or even changed for the worse; the setting gives the opportunity to explore what a character may have been like if his/her situation was different, from growing up in a darker Doma to avoiding a tragedy in his/her background to adding a tragedy to his/her background (having grown up without a father, the Shadow Gaera version of Ake Tanner grew up destitute and became a ruthless thug) to having just a little more shuffle in his/her genetic code (see the Shadow Gaera version of Seryntas, thoroughly sane), to a complete turnaround of views (Cha's vampire character Selendrile, evil in Main Gaera, is a force for good within Shadow Doma, partnered with a tolerant, activist version of Vleian Sunstrider, my monomaniacal elf-supremacist commander from the Wargame), if the character is even changed at all.
"Tell you what, Leto, I won't fight with you. Zeus' wives are pretty tough customers. You have my permission to boast openly that you have beaten the daylights out of me."
-Hermes, the Iliad (Stanley Lombardo, translator) Book 21

User avatar
Kai
Fighting the Iron Law of Oligarchy Since 2006
 
Posts: 2408
Joined: Thu Oct 28, 2004 12:32 pm
Location: Indianapolis

Unread postby Kai » Sun Jun 03, 2007 6:42 pm

All I can offer is the reason I haven't played there myself.

I don't feel a need to make Shadow Myrnal or Shadow Holly or Shadow anyone, since odds are if I spent the time and effort to create a character, I made him/her that way for a reason. There's also the fact that I'm a big believer in every little thing counting toward the formation of a person.

What this means is that the important events in my characters' lives are generally what got them where they are, got them the powers they have or the motivations they hold. Without the history each person has, they aren't that person anymore, and to me that makes them less interesting.

For example.

Let's say that Myrnal's mother was never involved in organized crime. That means Myrnal was never born, because that's how her parents met.

So we'll change something else. Let's say Myrnal's father never died. At that point her mother and brother might not have died later because they'd have had one more person there to protect them.

Or we could say that he did, but her village was never raided. At that point, she never makes her way to the people who encouraged her to become a mercenary, and likely remains a commoner like everyone else who never had some Great Traumatic Thing in their childhood.

Or we could say that all of these things happened and instead of being freed from Nikumu, she's still under his influence. At that point she's no longer playable and even if she is, she isn't Myrnal.

I could do this with all of my characters. None of them go anywhere I find particularly interesting. The only interesting thing I can think to do is create some goofy mockery of the original character, such as my suggestion that Myrnal becomes a dance instructor and active member of the PTA, thus neatly becoming Ms. Farmer from Donnie Darko.

I just don't find it interesting, and while Spleen hasn't done this Charles has, at least once, tried to pressure me into sitting in on chat sessions in the hopes that I'll be persuaded and join. That pissed me off and forced me to dig in my heels even further. Part of my dislike for Shadow Gaera is that the people who want me to play there have had no respect for the fact that I'm not interested.

That's the real bottom line here. I'm not interested. If other people are and other people enjoy it, that's their fun. It has nothing to do with me.

User avatar
Besyanteo
Would-be GitP Bard
 
Posts: 4612
Joined: Sat Nov 09, 2002 8:56 pm
Location: Virginia

Unread postby Besyanteo » Sun Jun 03, 2007 6:42 pm

I was in your RP with Chuck, yourself and Zem. In it everyone but Zem's character made a regular habit of eatting humans, the focus of the thing was how the man is gettin you down, despite how we're all uber-powerful demon or vampire lords, killing the weak and stupid humans with imputiny.

So, it's White Wolf Gaera. It's not that there's a problem with the alternate universe concept. It's that, after having played the setting with you and others, I find it sucks. I did everything I could to be over the top and "no" while playying, kind of expecting to be told to stop being an arse and take things seriously. I really did not expect to be maintaining the status quo.

User avatar
Spleen
I put a BOMB inside EVERY BAD GUY!
 
Posts: 2625
Joined: Tue Apr 23, 2002 5:07 pm
Location: Demon Realms of Niu-Jiurzi

Unread postby Spleen » Sun Jun 03, 2007 7:18 pm

Okay, first of all, "yourself" in that was me, in case anyone was confused as to whom Jason was talking to.

Really, the only character besides Shadow Jeridan (who, apparently, was purposely WTF) who has eaten a sentient being is Selendrile, who is a vampire and did that before joining the Resistance; my character clearly doesn't as he's an elf druid and a vegetarian. Furthermore, we didn't kill a single human in that RP, as Selendrile and Vleian do not take that action lightly, and the pervading feeling of "the man getting you down" is only to be expected in a plotted RP featuring a mission of a movement to overthrow the government. The only one being significantly over-the-top was Bes, on purpose, and I didn't say anything because I thought he was just trying to find Jeridan's personality in reverse and having trouble playing it convincingly; my character noted several times that Jeridan gave him the fucking creeps. I didn't realize that Jason was just trying to mess with what was for the rest of us a viable and interesting RP session.

I understand and accept Ashley's reasons for not participating in Shadow Gaera RP. She puts a lot of thought into her characters, and her argument against wantonly rewriting their backstories just to see what happens is a perfectly valid one (however, one needn't do so to play in Shadow Gaera, and I apologize if that wasn't made clear; you can keep your character exactly the same and playing him/her will be different because the other characters and the setting have changed. You don't need to change the car you drive to make driving on sand and driving on ice feel different). I would appreciate it if other people would voice their lucid, personal reasons for not participating (or for believing that the presence of the setting somehow detracts from RPGWW) rather than fill the chat window up with "BIZARRO! BIZARRO!" and openly and reasonlessly insulting something that is still a collaborative work between several of the members of the forum.
"Tell you what, Leto, I won't fight with you. Zeus' wives are pretty tough customers. You have my permission to boast openly that you have beaten the daylights out of me."
-Hermes, the Iliad (Stanley Lombardo, translator) Book 21

User avatar
Besyanteo
Would-be GitP Bard
 
Posts: 4612
Joined: Sat Nov 09, 2002 8:56 pm
Location: Virginia

Unread postby Besyanteo » Sun Jun 03, 2007 7:46 pm

No, no one died that session. Yes, everyone there did present themselves as eatting people. Zem was the only one who made a point of sayying "She's kidding", so I can't help it if your character misrepresented himself. And, for god's sake, people were walking up walls. Literally. Again, Zem was probably the only one who wasn't actively doing strange or broken (in terms of any system we might use, if anyone had bothered to put one into use) things. ... I will admit, Selendrille does half the things he was doing in the main setting as well, but frankly the way the setting presented itself in the first and only time I have ever used it was not a dark place where thigns are harder and people have difficult lives, or any other such thing you're talking about... Rather, the whole thing is a furry drama RPer's wet dream. And like it or not, this plot of Chuck's means that that's the theme the rest of any use that setting sees. Onoes, human supremacy. Evil humans. Grr. Stupid weaklings.

I'll also note that Ashley's complaints have been mine before, with Elemaer. You didn't take that seriously when I voiced that either. So long as you guys do this stupid thing of trying to pressgang others into your settings, no one is going to want anything to do with them. I'm not sure why that's only valid when Ashley says it to you, but whatever.

User avatar
PriamNevhausten
Holy Order of the Crimson Ballpoint
 
Posts: 2854
Joined: Fri Aug 09, 2002 4:10 pm

Unread postby PriamNevhausten » Sun Jun 03, 2007 7:57 pm

I gotta say, a name means a lot. Shadow Gaera? As I recall, the six overused words on the internet for usernames are Shadow, Dark, Dragon, Death, Angel, and Fire. Unless you want the world to be associated with unfounded angst and sophomoric cynicism, a name change may be in order.

Oh yeah, don't let me forget to address Cha's post directly instead of bearing down on a tangent, as I did: Okay. I won't bitch about it. =D Since the issue is not the setting itself, but the social reaction thereto.

My reason that I wouldn't bother with Parallel Gaera (as I am now calling it) is because, well, my characters in Gaera Main would either have no place of significance in PG, or be exactly the same as they are in Gaera Main--and if I am going to create a new character for the setting, and Gaera Main doesn't work for whatever reason, 2nd-gen Gaera exists and is perfectly acceptable.

For that matter, we can TURN Gaera Main dark. Isn't it an absolute monarchy in Doma? Aren't there some of the more powerful beings in the world there? How are taxes levied? What are the policies of the state? There is always the possibility of a revolution, which can easily turn the whole state bloody, and can destroy old alliances and forge new ones. There is so much more going in Gaera Main that we haven't even looked at.

Parallel Gaera, though, if it's really that bad, would probably not be stable in the 'first' place. If the reign is oppressive, Gunnir is nearby and many of its graduates would probably not take that shit--it would be but a matter of time before the royalty was taken down, by assassination, war, or revolution. If all its people are so miserable, then the country is no good except to the King himself, and then you have dissent in the ranks amongst those who are employed in the castle. Again we have the seeds for a timely displacement of the rulership. And saying "Well, the people don't know that" doesn't fly, because there's divination magic about. You can't help but have transparency in your work. And having wards on important things will only give objectors specific targets to work at.

Perhaps a way to get interest in the setting might be to run a campaign that IS this revolution. Get people involved in the setting's Grand Opening, as it were--throw a big party, get folks into the place, and hope they become regular customers. Maybe, then--maybe, people will find the saturated-with-suffering feel of the setting plausible.
"You haven't told me what I'm looking for."
"Anything that might be of interest to Slitscan. Which is to say, anything that might be of interest to Slitscan's audience. Which is best visualized as a vicious, lazy, profoundly ignorant, perpetually hungry organism craving the warm god-flesh of the anointed. Personally I like to imagine something the size of a baby hippo, the color of a week-old boiled potato, that lives by itself, in the dark, in a double-wide on the outskirts of Topeka. It's covered with eyes and it sweats constantly. The sweat runs into those eyes and makes them sting. It has no mouth, Laney, no genitals, and can only express its mute extremes of murderous rage and infantile desire by changing the channels on a universal remote. Or by voting in presidential elections."
--Colin Laney and Kathy Torrance, William Gibson's Idoru

User avatar
Spleen
I put a BOMB inside EVERY BAD GUY!
 
Posts: 2625
Joined: Tue Apr 23, 2002 5:07 pm
Location: Demon Realms of Niu-Jiurzi

Unread postby Spleen » Sun Jun 03, 2007 8:33 pm

If anyone feels "pressganged" into Elemaer or Shadow Gaera or any other setting, I'm sorry, because that's never been my intention. I can come on pretty strong when I'm trying to get people to join an RP; it's something I've been trying hard to cut back on and I'm sorry if either that older tendency of mine is coloring your perception or you don't think I've stopped doing that.

"Shadow Gaera" was called that originally because it was based on the phyiscal description of the Plane of Shadow in the D&D cosmology, except as we fleshed it out it became very different from that, and is now an alternate timeline rather than a linked parallel coterminous plane. Not everyone in Doma is unhappy enough to do anything about the situation there; it just seems to be a large number of PCs that are, especially the nonhumans who are segregated from the rest of the population in ghettos.

We tried a revolution in Doma in Main Gaera. It was called the Malachian War. It wasn't particularly successful as a device, and got several people mad.

The revolution in Shadow Gaera is coming; the seeds are sown in the particular RP that Bes referred to, that we'll be posting a transcript of.
"Tell you what, Leto, I won't fight with you. Zeus' wives are pretty tough customers. You have my permission to boast openly that you have beaten the daylights out of me."
-Hermes, the Iliad (Stanley Lombardo, translator) Book 21

User avatar
Kelne
EXTERMINATE!!!!
 
Posts: 3606
Joined: Tue Apr 23, 2002 2:02 am
Location: New Zealand

Unread postby Kelne » Sun Jun 03, 2007 8:48 pm

Well, Chaz, I hear you say it's not just opposite, but I think that, one way or the other, that's the idea that's been planted in peoples' heads. I get that Doma's a malevolent, oppressive place. Opposite, certainly, but believably so, given the right circumstances. However, when I go on to read that Riva is a haven of tolerance and enlightenment, as is Valth, and Vaniyakna is a paladin (yes, I know, Shini was surely mocking you, but it seems to have been accepted nonetheless), I think 'opposite'.

Ironically, I ordinarily have no problem with placing established characters into new settings, and occasionally speculate as to what path they might be treading if a few key events in their lives had turned out differently (or if certain campaigns had ended... badly). But in the case of Shadow Gaera, the world is fundamentally changed, while still containing enough of the same elements that I have to either screw with their backgrounds or their personalities in pretty major ways to allow them to fit in.

At that point, I might as well either make up a new character from scratch, or copy and paste a personality onto some completely different person. There is a certain amusement value in Emperor Redwyn as played by Kelne. "No, I'm not going to be peaceful and tolerant towards the Domans. They're a pack of closed-minded bigots with delusions of grandeur, and if we have one more border incident, there'll be some serious escalation."

I think the major problem is the lack of a brief when it comes to Shadow Gaera. Beyond the fact that Franklin Domanada is alive, well, and Eeeeevil, not an awful lot has been fleshed out, which leaves people able to assign labels like 'Bizzarro' and so forth. I think it might be worthwhile stepping back a bit and working out where the initial divergence from Gaera took place, what the differences are and what remains the same.

In this case, I'd be inclined to place the divergence in Riva, with the dragoons not having falsified religious texts and gone on a dragon-killing rampage. Thus, we have a unified, enlightened government and population in Riva, with the dragoons forming a loyal military.

Fast-forward a few decades to when Franklin is due to be assassinated. Only instead of carrying out their desperate plan, said assassins have long since packed up and moved to Riva, a friendly, largely human nation willing to take in refugees. Franklin lives, though there may be other attempts on his life down through the years. Shadow Doma takes form.

Valth, meanwhile, remains Valth. Insular and unconcerned with the doings of the other nations of the continent. Barius also remains Barius. But Lezone really was killed on the orders of the Doman monarch. And everyone in the international community knows it. So while Vaniyakna is still a sneaky, vicious bastard, his public facade is unchallenged.

Perhaps Franklin has also sponsored assassinations in Nekonia and Inustan, in an effort to destabilise those nations.

Anyway, a bit of food for thought.

User avatar
KingOfDoma
Guess Who It Is?
 
Posts: 2656
Joined: Tue May 07, 2002 7:21 pm
Location: Calgary

Unread postby KingOfDoma » Sun Jun 03, 2007 9:18 pm

Image

User avatar
Archmage
REAL DOCTOR. FROM AMERICA.
 
Posts: 442
Joined: Mon Jan 08, 2007 10:43 pm
Location: Indianapolis, IN

Unread postby Archmage » Sun Jun 03, 2007 9:21 pm

What's the thematic purpose of Shadow Gaera?

Gaera is our stock fantasy setting, part Tolkien, part Final Fantasy, part whatever else struck us at the time. Magitek Armored Corps is a science fantasy/anime-inspired mecha setting. Dark Future, when it was used, was a cyberpunk/White Wolfish setting in a more Earthlike realm.

What niche does SG fill? Why does it need to exist; what value does this setting bring to our community's RP?
Image

User avatar
Spleen
I put a BOMB inside EVERY BAD GUY!
 
Posts: 2625
Joined: Tue Apr 23, 2002 5:07 pm
Location: Demon Realms of Niu-Jiurzi

Unread postby Spleen » Sun Jun 03, 2007 9:29 pm

Kelne gives interesting ideas! Thanks a lot, Futureman.

One of the problems I came across trying to think about the ways that larger institutions (countries, etc.) within Shadow Gaera are changed is that they're not my work. We can say whatever we want about Shadow Doma, because Cha's its established expert. We have some ideas about a couple places, but we don't want to use them in the setting without the creator of the Main Gaera version's okay (or permission to do whatever we want).

I think it was established that despite the almost definite joke Shini was playing on us, Shadow Barius is pretty enlightened, though (and secretly aiding the resistance within Doma). Dunno about Riva and Valth.

EDIT: Brian posted while I was writing this.

First of all, I submit that providing fun RP is enough of a niche for any setting. That said, I do know where you're coming from. I've always felt that, thematically, it's a darker fantasy world than Gaera, where we can blur the moral line like we don't do as much in Gaera RP; also, PCs will be more likely to be aligned against other PCs than in Main Gaera, which could create more interesting plots. People in Main Doma tend to be all on the same side in most ways, and I think it puts an interesting spin on it to have one group within the city oppose another.
"Tell you what, Leto, I won't fight with you. Zeus' wives are pretty tough customers. You have my permission to boast openly that you have beaten the daylights out of me."
-Hermes, the Iliad (Stanley Lombardo, translator) Book 21

User avatar
PriamNevhausten
Holy Order of the Crimson Ballpoint
 
Posts: 2854
Joined: Fri Aug 09, 2002 4:10 pm

Unread postby PriamNevhausten » Sun Jun 03, 2007 10:05 pm

To add to the stack: Why does 2nd-generation Gaera need to exist?
"You haven't told me what I'm looking for."
"Anything that might be of interest to Slitscan. Which is to say, anything that might be of interest to Slitscan's audience. Which is best visualized as a vicious, lazy, profoundly ignorant, perpetually hungry organism craving the warm god-flesh of the anointed. Personally I like to imagine something the size of a baby hippo, the color of a week-old boiled potato, that lives by itself, in the dark, in a double-wide on the outskirts of Topeka. It's covered with eyes and it sweats constantly. The sweat runs into those eyes and makes them sting. It has no mouth, Laney, no genitals, and can only express its mute extremes of murderous rage and infantile desire by changing the channels on a universal remote. Or by voting in presidential elections."
--Colin Laney and Kathy Torrance, William Gibson's Idoru

User avatar
Archmage
REAL DOCTOR. FROM AMERICA.
 
Posts: 442
Joined: Mon Jan 08, 2007 10:43 pm
Location: Indianapolis, IN

Unread postby Archmage » Sun Jun 03, 2007 10:26 pm

Spleen wrote:I've always felt that, thematically, it's a darker fantasy world than Gaera, where we can blur the moral line like we don't do as much in Gaera RP; also, PCs will be more likely to be aligned against other PCs than in Main Gaera, which could create more interesting plots. People in Main Doma tend to be all on the same side in most ways, and I think it puts an interesting spin on it to have one group within the city oppose another.

All of these claims are based upon a remarkable lack of evidence.

Why can't we "blur the moral line" in Gaera Main? Furthermore, how do you know it doesn't ever happen? (Amanda is presently running an RP that is gritty enough that tonight's game, which I joined late, left me feeling vaguely sick.)

PC against PC happens, but PC against PC doesn't work if people don't have the balls to GM. It's one thing for two PCs to spar verbally (or physically) or try to sabotage each other in a CI. In a GMed game, having party members working against one another is unproductive; it doesn't make the game more fun unless they're doing it in a subtle manner. Ham-fisted PC head-butting just wastes everybody's time. If a PC vs. PC conflict is going to have meaning, one of the "PCs" almost necessarily needs to be an NPC in control of the GM, or the game grinds to a halt while two PCs working on opposite sides duke it out. (And if they're directly opposing one another, why are they in the same party?) It's one thing when PCs have disputes in a GMed RP (hell, it's frequently entertaining), but if the party's left hand is trying to cut off the party's right, it has to be coordinated through the GM to work at all.

Here are a few sets of PCs that are either enemies or who clearly don't get along:

Kamos Mazuo and Enlil or Will
Hakaril and Kristoph Akina
Tessei and Tassi Wells
Jak Snide and any drow
Shakti and Chancellor Vince
Eve Valerian and Stephan Hyral
Zea and Glykeria Aurelius (2Gen)
Malcolm and the entire cast of Drawing the Line (even Karis)

This is just a partial list, but keep in mind it's also been heavily discouraged that people create characters that are incredibly antisocial or combative. I shouldn't have to explain why playing misanthropic loner #247 is probably a bad idea. This isn't an RP community where we have evil PCs for good PCs to battle against; we have GMs run plots so that PCs have antagonists to struggle against.

Think of Ash Fanrico, who thought it was a good idea to create a new greviously offensive character for every RP he was in--someone that was going to die by the end of the CI, because when Freddy Krueger walks into a bar full of adventurers and tries to cause trouble, why shouldn't they kick his ass?

I don't think everyone in Doma shares this overarching, unifying set of ideals the way you seem so willing to assume. Doma has bigots. Doma has fascists and anarchists. Doma has intolerant evangelicals. It's just that their presences are frequently downplayed outside of plotted RP, because what's the point? How many people want to play more than one character who is irrationally racist or intolerant of others, if they even want to play one? Such characters are occasionally interesting, but they are poor for socialization and party cohesion. People play characters like that all the time, but they frequently have a change of heart in the name of character development. But if, for example, your character thinks elves are the lowest form of scum on the planet, what can you really do with that character in the presence of an elf short of spout hate speech and maybe start a fight?

If you want Doma to have more intolerant people, or to demonstrate that it is not super-happy cotton-candy kingdom full of heroic PCs, play someone who isn't like that. Even better, play an antagonist who isn't like that, and run a plot based on his or her efforts to sabotage the city's happiness.

That's an excellent way to summarize the argument I'm tired of hearing--it's the "Doma is Candyland" argument.

If you don't want Doma to be Candyland (which it isn't, and I personally think you would only make that argument from ignorance), do things to make it not be Candyland. Creating a new setting does not "fix the problem," assuming you believe one exists; it exacerbates it by encouraging people to continue assuming Doma is Candyland, and that if they want to get out of Candyland that they should play in Shadow Doma, because that's the only way to escape the immutably fluffy setting that "everybody else seems to want."

Edit: Well, as far as I can tell, 2gen exists because it's essentially a way to see a vision of the future of Gaera. The majority of the characters who exist now that have human-like aging get to take a back-seat, many of whom are by now practically the "legendary heroes of old," and their kids get a chance to prove themselves.

I'm pretty sure that the original 2gen idea was "let's play the children of our characters." There's not much to that in itself, but the idea of being able to create characters with very specific ties to pre-existing characters opens up some interesting RP questions, like "what's the future ruler of Doma going to be like when she grows up?" and "how does Hakaril Silvar's parenting work out?"
Image

User avatar
Spleen
I put a BOMB inside EVERY BAD GUY!
 
Posts: 2625
Joined: Tue Apr 23, 2002 5:07 pm
Location: Demon Realms of Niu-Jiurzi

Unread postby Spleen » Sun Jun 03, 2007 11:45 pm

It's funny that the arguments Brian made for Second Gen Gaera are basically like the formation of Shadow Gaera: Rather than the future, we have an alternate present; instead of speculating on Ake Tanner's parenting, I can speculate on Ake Tanner's life without a father. That's what I think we're trying to do with Shadow Gaera more than anything else. The stuff about the theme of the setting I answered was because Brian asked me. I don't think Doma's Candyland, but it is very far from the tyranny in Shadow Gaera. A Resistance in Main Doma doesn't make any sense to play, and it's an interesting bit of fantasy trope that I'm glad we get to use in Shadow Doma. I don't really think that it needs to be that much more than that to be fun to use, frankly.

I'm not asking that Shadow Gaera become a staple of RPGWW RP. I'm still just asking that I be allowed to bring it up and not be laughed at; we can't make it a viable setting with its own definite merits if whenever someone asks me about it, someone else in chat goes "It's nothing important, just a stupid idea of Spleen's you needn't worry about paying attention to." As long as we can all agree to that, I'm happy.
"Tell you what, Leto, I won't fight with you. Zeus' wives are pretty tough customers. You have my permission to boast openly that you have beaten the daylights out of me."
-Hermes, the Iliad (Stanley Lombardo, translator) Book 21

User avatar
Kelne
EXTERMINATE!!!!
 
Posts: 3606
Joined: Tue Apr 23, 2002 2:02 am
Location: New Zealand

Unread postby Kelne » Mon Jun 04, 2007 7:43 am

Well, Spleen, I think you're looking at this in the wrong way. Yes, these people are the experts on various nations in Gaera Main, but you've set up a situation where you and Charles are the experts on a new setting. Whatever alterations you make will have precisely zero impact on Gaera, and I don't see that anyone has much cause to complain if you decide to simply take the ball and run with it. Anyone who uses the setting will be playing characters, not countries, and it doesn't sound as if anyone other than yourselves has an interest in running anything in the setting.

By all means, canvas people for thoughts. But the final decision lies with you. If you decide, for instance, that you want Barius to be much like it is in Gaera, then simply state it. I think it's more interesting that way. And it certainly hurts the dark grimness of the setting if both Barius and Riva are havens of light.

You say that the enlightened Barians are supporting the revolution out of the goodness of their hearts. But maybe that's what they want people to believe. Perhaps they're supporting the revolution so that they can move in and take over in the aftermath. After all, following Franklin Domanada's reign of terror, will the people really want his son, who could well be an equal bastard for all they know, on the throne? Or might they instead support a foreign leader, with an established and mostly positive record?

Now, on to the bitter truth. Although I'm happy to help with the brainstorming, I'm really no more inclined to work up a character than most of the others. I think a lot of what you're looking to accomplish could just as easily be done in Gaera itself, with the added advantage that it impacts the established setting.

You want an RP set around overthrowing a tyrant? There's always the aforementioned Vani. See if you can kick Shini into collaborating on something. You might not even need his direct involvement in sessions until pretty late in the piece (I ran the assassination attempt on Mally without Adam even being present until the fight itself). I don't give the conspirators very high odds of success, but win or lose, the consequences would be interesting.

Failing Vani, I note that Curatori Faiyar has a dictator in power, who seems intent on leading the nation down a dark path. Or how about any drow city you care to name? Now there are some vicious, repressive societies. Still, by MAC era, Igalan drow are largely reformed. That process had to have started somewhere.

Or you could hijack some location which is largely undefined. Perhaps one of the dwarven holds has a tyrant who has clawed his way into power through nefarious means? The possibilities are endless, and I haven't even left Igala yet.

As far as things in Doma not being all sweetness and light go, in the aftermath of the war, I came up with a group of disaffected people who were seriously annoyed at the conduct of the war in general, and at Charles's role in it in particular. The fact that demons were soon back to roaming the streets of Doma more-or-less openly didn't help matters. Time hasn't made them any less disillusioned, but it has made them more organised. In fact, if it weren't for the fact that there are precious few viable candidates to replace him, they might well have taken a shot at deposing him by now.

Add to such groups the usual disaffected nobles with their own axes to grind, plus the downtrodden of society who are ambivalent at best about who their ruler is, and Charles's rule isn't exactly grounded on bedrock.

User avatar
FF Fanatic 80
Driver of the OOC Bus
 
Posts: 1865
Joined: Mon Apr 22, 2002 7:11 pm
Location: New England

Unread postby FF Fanatic 80 » Thu Jun 07, 2007 6:25 pm

I have no idea if this will help, or hurt, the current discussion going on, but figured I'd chip in my 2 cents on this.

Second Gen:
I'm not fond of Second Gen Gaera. This doesn't, to me, feel like something that needs it's own RP world category. It's too close in time and too similar to Gaera Main. I do have fun on occasion playing my younger characters with others, and understand people enjoying the chance to play as their younger characters as well. But it's just not unique enough to hold my interest, outside of the occasional 'what if' whim about the future.

There's also the fact that, were this to be a maintained settings, keeping the goings on from it canon, in relation to Gaera Main, would be a nightmare. I think things like this, and Past Gen, need to be called or labeled as something else. Cause most of the 2nd gen RP's are not "Normal" RP worlds, but more like isolated "what if" stories for Gaera Main, for the most part. Past Gen has it's own unique issues similar to this.

Shadow Gaera:
The above is how Shadow Gaera strikes me as well. It's too similar to Gaera Main, and just feels like a "what if" story that's better suited to a fic on the fanfiction boards.

M.A.C.
THis setting has never bothered me, oddly enough. Unlike 2nd gen or Shadow Gaera, where the world is near-identical to Gaera Main, the setting in M.A.C. is in a world entirely unlike the Gaera of the Past. While there are references or structures from Gaera Main, like Doma/etc, you could rename every country and the setting would still work on it's own, and probably not be recognized as an offshoot of Gaera Main.


I think my thing on M.A.C. brings up the key problem with Shadow Gaera. It's not unique enough. No matter how you spin it, or change things around, it's basically Gaera Main +/- Stuff.

Stuff like M.A.C., or Elemaer, are different enough to fulfill a certain niche. M.A.C. for futuristic, Mecha style future, Elemaer for an alternative high-fantasy world. Shadow Gaera and Second Gen just feel like playing Gaera Main with the GM using special house rules.

Hopefully some of that made sense. =X

User avatar
PriamNevhausten
Holy Order of the Crimson Ballpoint
 
Posts: 2854
Joined: Fri Aug 09, 2002 4:10 pm

Unread postby PriamNevhausten » Thu Jun 07, 2007 9:01 pm

I think things like this, and Past Gen, need to be called or labeled as something else.


I believe the term you are looking for is Alternate-Universe, or AU as it is said on these boards; and 2g Gaera and past-gen (and Parallel Gaera) are acknowledged to be AU, to the best of my knowledge.
"You haven't told me what I'm looking for."
"Anything that might be of interest to Slitscan. Which is to say, anything that might be of interest to Slitscan's audience. Which is best visualized as a vicious, lazy, profoundly ignorant, perpetually hungry organism craving the warm god-flesh of the anointed. Personally I like to imagine something the size of a baby hippo, the color of a week-old boiled potato, that lives by itself, in the dark, in a double-wide on the outskirts of Topeka. It's covered with eyes and it sweats constantly. The sweat runs into those eyes and makes them sting. It has no mouth, Laney, no genitals, and can only express its mute extremes of murderous rage and infantile desire by changing the channels on a universal remote. Or by voting in presidential elections."
--Colin Laney and Kathy Torrance, William Gibson's Idoru

Idran1701
None some call is air am
 
Posts: 42197
Joined: Wed May 29, 2002 9:37 am

Unread postby Idran1701 » Fri Jun 08, 2007 2:21 pm

Yeah, Priam's right. The past of second gen definitely isn't necessarily the same as the present of first gen. That fact's a major part of my second gen characters, in fact; her backstory would be much different if events 20 years ago in second gen were the same as events in the present day in first.


Return to OOC RP Discussion

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 6 guests

cron

Yalogank