Jump to content

They Are Monsters


Pompilidae
 Share

Recommended Posts

They are monsters: 

 

Spoiler

Through this post, I’ll be sharing a problem I’ve encountered with supernatural characters (in LotC, CAs, etc.) and proposing a solution. Attached will also be some story-telling resources I think suit this topic. This issue is not particular to anyone in specific and exists across a lot of roleplaying mediums. 

 

   I’ve noticed a trend spanning across many servers over many years. Creatures are almost always played as people, but with a quirky dark side. The lore is rarely followed thematically, as much as it may be mechanically, and ends up making the concepts behind said mechanics seem incongruent with the stories that take place on the server itself. 

 

  One such example, from my own community, is the idea that Fjarriagua are just women who kill men on the weekends and are divas the rest of the time; that their disconnection from their humanity as they grow older (or advance tiers) is often ignored. They spend more time among descendants than with their own coven, despite lore insisting the inverse should be the case. On a practical note, I understand one must stimulate roleplay and playing with the same few people can get boring. To this I say:it’s what you signed up for. Part of playing this creature is to form a coalition with others like you. If the lore indicates they find comfort in each other, if they’re pack oriented, what have you; it’s what they are. Going against this and having a character act on their own most of the time without any repercussions only serves to prove the point that lore doesn’t matter to players.

   When a magic or CA is written poorly, it can be exceedingly difficult to extrapolate from.  However, even in vague pieces, there are still points where it must be explicit about things inherent to the creature, at risk of ill-equipping the player for their role. Fjarriagua is no exception. They are coven based. One cannot function on their own for extended periods of time without psychosis, depression, or even violent outbursts from the aforementioned mental turbulence. It is not often convenient to write these out. However, nothing about the CA is convenient. They have to feed often, they become paranoid when left alone and are easily injured by flame. 

   Siliti also form covens; they rely on each other for more than hunting. To share knowledge, or put heads together to scheme, or to perform a ritual. Most CAs, I would argue, are group based; roleplaying is, after all, an inherently social hobby.

  I’m certain some people feel as though their roleplaying experience is deppreciated by a fellow, less thoughtful roleplayer. The same people will often erroneously intertwine OOC feelings with IC actions. We are ultimately people and can pick and choose with whom we enjoy the hobby but if Player A does not like Player B, Player A shouldn’t antagonize Player B in-characterly based on this issue alone. 

   

Why do I mention this? 

 

   Every great storyline has the potential to be completely muddied by OOC feelings, including the basis for how a creature or magic is played out. Spreading a community out in small pockets, which has happened for many communities, only harms the whole in a server that struggles with centralizing roleplay to begin with. The less interconnected and tight knit a CA is, the more they and those they interact with have to lose at an OOC level: the bits of time they have to invest in their hobby and the willingness to continue playing all together, given all of their proverbial eggs are in one community, are at risk. Communication becomes muddied, a game of telephone follows and before you know it: 

 

Your lore is shelved. 


 

What is the solution? 


 

   This is a complex issue to tackle. Most of us join a community because we are intrigued by the idea or know somebody within it. Once we form a part of it, in whatever way we were introduced to it - with the narrative’s health in mind or without it, - it can be difficult to change our play style. 

   Really taking the time to understand the lore and player culture surrounding a magic, CA or even ‘mundane’ communities is going to be beneficial to you, the player, 100% of the time. Understanding the foundations of the lore are going to make your storytelling so much easier. At the end of things, what keeps us coming back is the community and drive for telling a great story collectively. 

 

  I have been writing for nearly a decade. Roleplay is a good, often novel and always entertaining means by which to explore the passion. Any time I interact with someone as a player, I hope to leave them with a good impression: that I helped peddle their story along and the confidence that they definitely pushed mine forwards, as well. I am only writing this because I care about storytelling. Bringing a character to life, giving them a personality and backstory is one of the most enjoyable aspects. Being jaded also tends to come with doing something for a long time. I am not the exception. This post is evidence of that in spades. 

 

   Carrying out a believable and effective villain is much more difficult than playing everymen. These characters are completely opposite to myself morally. It was this added difficulty that forced me to research more into what I was going to be playing as. The more I learned, I was able to extend beyond the lore with what I call ‘yes and’. I am aware this is a popular theatre term. Acknowledging the core of the creature, AND how can I play this out? 

 

For example:

 

Frost mothers would do anything for their coven. For their daughters. AND, they are no longer people. A living, normal mother would be kind and caring. Fjarriagua are monsters, they aren’t capable of love as a human might describe it. I interpreted this as a Mother Fjarriagua being a creature who cannot love, but thinks it can. Anyone who has a Fjarriagua who has interacted with mine knows this. She is as cold as she is emotionally manipulative. However, it is her duty to maintain her coven's livelihood. She will keep you alive, but she cannot love. When it is beneficial, a Mother can be nice but never kind. There is always the underlying question of: What can the Mother get out of this situation? 

 

  Here is where my gripe lies. Players that have had the opportunity to play a Coven leader take the idea of motherhood within the context of Fjarriauga very literally, assuming they are doting and normal, living motherly figures. The context is stripped completely. It is in part up to the lore writer to make clarifications. It is also in part up to the player to apply the context needed. If you are playing a monster, the normal social rituals and rules do not apply. These are not people with magic, people with anger issues or even living beings. They’re Undead, pantomimes of the human experience neither living nor capable of leading everyday lives, let alone passing on to the next. The very reality of that is maddening enough. For any character to be alive hundreds of years longer than they were supposed to is a huge mental toll. This is something that also has the opportunity to be played out extremely well. 

 

   When we apply the context needed for these creatures, we open up so many avenues to playing dynamic and fun villains. We open up collaborative opportunities for those in our communities, we push stories along and we keep our many overlapping circles we roleplay with as a whole- alive. LotC is only here because all of us keep it here. Part of telling a good story is being not so good, and accepting the downsides that are inconvenient. Believable characters are flawed, more so for villains. It is okay to depart from the idea that a creature is just a mentally twisted human or descendent. It is equally okay to let go of the need to have something to yourself and to cooperate with the people that make the thing you hold dear possible at all. 

Resources on Writing:


 

 

Link to post
Share on other sites

I think dark creatures play more "normal" to keep from being meta-gamed. They Are Monsters assumes the player-base is going to treat you fairly, which 90% of the time is never true during a random conflict. Of course not all the time, but even subtle details people will take as a whole clue to solve the puzzle they already know OOCly to bring IC. I do not think your point is what I am saying, but my point is role-playing different from a group (whether human, elf, orc, dwarf, ect) only brings trouble usually for the dark magic player. It is up to the ET to bring players conflict-driven story-lines. I would never play a dark magic creature to entertain anyone other than myself ULTIMATELY. And there is usually little time from moderation to effectively help dark magic players have some resources against the common tropes of power-gaming and meta-gaming in all ways that bring advantage the average player.  

 

the common player says, "zug zug zug" 

Link to post
Share on other sites

35 minutes ago, Pompilidae said:

They are monsters: 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Through this post, I’ll be sharing a problem I’ve encountered with supernatural characters (in LotC, CAs, etc.) and proposing a solution. Attached will also be some story-telling resources I think suit this topic. This issue is not particular to anyone in specific and exists across a lot of roleplaying mediums. 

 

   I’ve noticed a trend spanning across many servers over many years. Creatures are almost always played as people, but with a quirky dark side. The lore is rarely followed thematically, as much as it may be mechanically, and ends up making the concepts behind said mechanics seem incongruent with the stories that take place on the server itself. 

 

  One such example, from my own community, is the idea that Fjarriagua are just women who kill men on the weekends and are divas the rest of the time; that their disconnection from their humanity as they grow older (or advance tiers) is often ignored. They spend more time among descendants than with their own coven, despite lore insisting the inverse should be the case. On a practical note, I understand one must stimulate roleplay and playing with the same few people can get boring. To this I say:it’s what you signed up for. Part of playing this creature is to form a coalition with others like you. If the lore indicates they find comfort in each other, if they’re pack oriented, what have you; it’s what they are. Going against this and having a character act on their own most of the time without any repercussions only serves to prove the point that lore doesn’t matter to players.

   When a magic or CA is written poorly, it can be exceedingly difficult to extrapolate from.  However, even in vague pieces, there are still points where it must be explicit about things inherent to the creature, at risk of ill-equipping the player for their role. Fjarriagua is no exception. They are coven based. One cannot function on their own for extended periods of time without psychosis, depression, or even violent outbursts from the aforementioned mental turbulence. It is not often convenient to write these out. However, nothing about the CA is convenient. They have to feed often, they become paranoid when left alone and are easily injured by flame. 

   Siliti also form covens; they rely on each other for more than hunting. To share knowledge, or put heads together to scheme, or to perform a ritual. Most CAs, I would argue, are group based; roleplaying is, after all, an inherently social hobby.

  I’m certain some people feel as though their roleplaying experience is deppreciated by a fellow, less thoughtful roleplayer. The same people will often erroneously intertwine OOC feelings with IC actions. We are ultimately people and can pick and choose with whom we enjoy the hobby but if Player A does not like Player B, Player A shouldn’t antagonize Player B in-characterly based on this issue alone. 

   

Why do I mention this? 

 

   Every great storyline has the potential to be completely muddied by OOC feelings, including the basis for how a creature or magic is played out. Spreading a community out in small pockets, which has happened for many communities, only harms the whole in a server that struggles with centralizing roleplay to begin with. The less interconnected and tight knit a CA is, the more they and those they interact with have to lose at an OOC level: the bits of time they have to invest in their hobby and the willingness to continue playing all together, given all of their proverbial eggs are in one community, are at risk. Communication becomes muddied, a game of telephone follows and before you know it: 

 

Your lore is shelved. 


 

What is the solution? 


 

   This is a complex issue to tackle. Most of us join a community because we are intrigued by the idea or know somebody within it. Once we form a part of it, in whatever way we were introduced to it - with the narrative’s health in mind or without it, - it can be difficult to change our play style. 

   Really taking the time to understand the lore and player culture surrounding a magic, CA or even ‘mundane’ communities is going to be beneficial to you, the player, 100% of the time. Understanding the foundations of the lore are going to make your storytelling so much easier. At the end of things, what keeps us coming back is the community and drive for telling a great story collectively. 

 

  I have been writing for nearly a decade. Roleplay is a good, often novel and always entertaining means by which to explore the passion. Any time I interact with someone as a player, I hope to leave them with a good impression: that I helped peddle their story along and the confidence that they definitely pushed mine forwards, as well. I am only writing this because I care about storytelling. Bringing a character to life, giving them a personality and backstory is one of the most enjoyable aspects. Being jaded also tends to come with doing something for a long time. I am not the exception. This post is evidence of that in spades. 

 

   Carrying out a believable and effective villain is much more difficult than playing everymen. These characters are completely opposite to myself morally. It was this added difficulty that forced me to research more into what I was going to be playing as. The more I learned, I was able to extend beyond the lore with what I call ‘yes and’. I am aware this is a popular theatre term. Acknowledging the core of the creature, AND how can I play this out? 

 

For example:

 

Frost mothers would do anything for their coven. For their daughters. AND, they are no longer people. A living, normal mother would be kind and caring. Fjarriagua are monsters, they aren’t capable of love as a human might describe it. I interpreted this as a Mother Fjarriagua being a creature who cannot love, but thinks it can. Anyone who has a Fjarriagua who has interacted with mine knows this. She is as cold as she is emotionally manipulative. However, it is her duty to maintain her coven's livelihood. She will keep you alive, but she cannot love. When it is beneficial, a Mother can be nice but never kind. There is always the underlying question of: What can the Mother get out of this situation? 

 

  Here is where my gripe lies. Players that have had the opportunity to play a Coven leader take the idea of motherhood within the context of Fjarriauga very literally, assuming they are doting and normal, living motherly figures. The context is stripped completely. It is in part up to the lore writer to make clarifications. It is also in part up to the player to apply the context needed. If you are playing a monster, the normal social rituals and rules do not apply. These are not people with magic, people with anger issues or even living beings. They’re Undead, pantomimes of the human experience neither living nor capable of leading everyday lives, let alone passing on to the next. The very reality of that is maddening enough. For any character to be alive hundreds of years longer than they were supposed to is a huge mental toll. This is something that also has the opportunity to be played out extremely well. 

 

   When we apply the context needed for these creatures, we open up so many avenues to playing dynamic and fun villains. We open up collaborative opportunities for those in our communities, we push stories along and we keep our many overlapping circles we roleplay with as a whole- alive. LotC is only here because all of us keep it here. Part of telling a good story is being not so good, and accepting the downsides that are inconvenient. Believable characters are flawed, more so for villains. It is okay to depart from the idea that a creature is just a mentally twisted human or descendent. It is equally okay to let go of the need to have something to yourself and to cooperate with the people that make the thing you hold dear possible at all. 

Resources on Writing:


 

 

 

In my personal experience, I have not been roleplaying for as long or for as much as you may have been, but the little that I have been able to experience upon joining LoTC and subsequently the Frost Witch community allows me to say the following with complete security: players often deliver interpretations of the lore that they are using mindlessly and what this leads to is the conflictive issue that you have pointed out. Whereas each one of them may live up to the expectations of roleplaying the piece's mechanics as adequately as they possibly could, this does not accentuate that they are also abiding by the foundational and primary aspects that their lore has settled thematically. It is exactly as you described. Frost Witches, Undead, whatever they are, they are oftentimes (if not most of the time) executed without an ulterior reasoning or an ultimate goal behind their storyline, and that is why their lore and their group sinks into inactivity.

 

On a practical note, I understand one must stimulate roleplay and playing with the same few people can get boring. To this I say:it’s what you signed up for. Part of playing this creature is to form a coalition with others like you. If the lore indicates they find comfort in each other, if they’re pack oriented, what have you; it’s what they are. Going against this and having a character act on their own most of the time without any repercussions only serves to prove the point that lore doesn’t matter to players.

 

However, I wholeheartedly disagree with this. There are many factors that you haven't taken into account whilst elaborating on this specific paragraph and these are vital towards the creation of a storyline or group. If I decide to join an alternative cult or rather coven in this case, it is because I want to add to my roleplay instead of substracting interactivity and potential opportunities to progress one's character growth and development. Locking and restricting players behind groups that, Frost Witches as an example, are incredibly unreliant and inactive at times is not only unfair but extremely harmful towards the environment of the group. There is something that every single player should have when it comes to lore, and it is the freedom to orient their character towards whichever direction they feel most attracted to: in the explicit case of Frost Witches, regardless of their narrative-imposed concept of coven-work, there needs to be a balance between the story and the practicality that it has. From what I have been to experience first-hand, it is simply impossible to be fully expectant of a group shutting themselves off the rest of the world and players due to the mere justification that "it is intended to be this way because the lore says so". Does inactivity on the group's part not play a part in this case? Because I, myself, have suffered from stagnancy on the community's part and I have been led to dismotivation and lack of interest for the piece and its adjacent roleplay due to the fact that there were simply no active players (either at the time or in general). 

 

Anywho, what I am trying to get across is that you cannot deprive a member of your community from detaching from your nest to undertake their own journey. Freedom is necessary, at least to a certain degree.

 

The rest of the points I very much agree with.

 

12 minutes ago, Nozgoth said:

hot take: nobody cares

 

lol shut up esoteric cosmology rp larper (this is said with love)

Link to post
Share on other sites

13 minutes ago, Nozgoth said:

hot take: nobody cares

bless god for taking Noz away from his garden... 

(; 

Link to post
Share on other sites

there are no micro covens.

when i first joined, i had issues finding active people of the same CA that my persona even knew, and it gets a bit impossible when you're pack-oriented but your RP is limited to the people who log in once every few months. my only option was to work on starting up my own community while having casual interactions with those of the CA whenever one would get online.
 i'm still working my ass off on making a stable community of fjarriagua, but our whole thing is to hide ourselves amongst the mundane, hence why you'll see some of them doing rp that seems "mundane" from time to time in order to get what they schemed for, via ulterior motives. asking us to avoid 99% of the roleplay just to hang out with 2-3 other fjarriagua who get online once every few months restricts so much RP it makes the CA straight up unplayable.
the issue here is activity which is slowly getting fixed now that covens are starting back up

Link to post
Share on other sites

Hey there. I just want to throw my thought into this, I feel like this is a biased post however very informed and interesting. I think if you spend more time within the main coven @Diogen runs you'll get a better understanding as to what the Fjarriagua are all about. Personally Fjarriagua are not my cup of tea, however I've explored other dark magics and found one's that work for me. Lets be honest, in every character you take on there's a bit of you in it. However, I do NOT believe that oocly people have changed their CA to a normal being with some dark elements. I also believe that its a bit controversial to then talk about the Frost Witches as mico-covens, when the only coven I know of is the one in Serheim where its a Queendom. 

 

Please reach out to me if you have any questions or want to know more of my thoughts, I respect your opinion and ideals as I would anyone else's! 

Link to post
Share on other sites

19 minutes ago, _mady07 said:

Hey there. I just want to throw my thought into this, I feel like this is a biased post however very informed and interesting. I think if you spend more time within the main coven @Diogen runs you'll get a better understanding as to what the Fjarriagua are all about. Personally Fjarriagua are not my cup of tea, however I've explored other dark magics and found one's that work for me. Lets be honest, in every character you take on there's a bit of you in it. However, I do NOT believe that oocly people have changed their CA to a normal being with some dark elements. I also believe that its a bit controversial to then talk about the Frost Witches as mico-covens, when the only coven I know of is the one in Serheim where its a Queendom. 

 

Please reach out to me if you have any questions or want to know more of my thoughts, I respect your opinion and ideals as I would anyone else's! 

 

See, I cannot agree with this either. What I'd like to point out first is that this seems a personal opinion regarding their own experience and how they think that the roleplay that has been adjacent to the group -that they lead- should be roleplayed. It is going to be 'biased' to a certain degree. Anywho, please do not use Diogen or Serheim as examples for successful or thematically adequate cultural settings for the Frost Witches. I mean no offense, no harm, and nothing more than the truth: his and your group never received direct involvement or any sort of teacher guidance from his or your respective mentor. There wasn't ever a chance or opportunity to be taught about the ideals of Frost Witch roleplay. You simply can't claim that by going to his group and his group alone, that "we will understand what the Fjarriagua are all about". 

 

Like I said, I don't mean any offense, but are you hearing yourself? What would either of you know when you didn't have a competent teacher, and you willingly refused to indoctrinate yourselves under the rest? The problem here is not activity. It is the people.

 

I think y'all are missing the point of the whole post, as well.

Link to post
Share on other sites

 Share

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    No registered users viewing this page.



×
×
  • Create New...