H-NA Productions' RP 2 - ERROR:422 (Outgame)

[NejinOniwa]

Why, hullo thar.
This is the Ingame Thread's bullied little brother. He is a bit nervous.

Anyway: Have any questions about the world, or the RP? Or are you interested in joining? Get your answers and your character sheet approved here, for great justice.

Brace for copypasta on Character Rules. There's one new thing in there though, so make sure you read that.

NAME: This one is pretty obvious. Make up one.
CLASS/RACE: If you're a vampire, write that. If you're an old-school Elf, scribble it down. If you're a three-headed monster frog, punch it in. Class is NOT job.
ORIGIN: Just make up some weird country or island or something if you're lazy.
AGE: Once again, pretty simple. Brat or geezer?

APPEARANCE: The general looks of your character. Fatness, pink hair, peg leg or Super-Moe - anything that ways goes here. IMPORTANT: Make sure you write down your Weight/Height here.
PERSONALITY: All random personality traits and quirks go here. This section might be seen as important, since the quality of roleplay is largely based on how well one adapts to one's character. Much innovativeness and fun ideas encouraged!
BACKGROUND: So here you write a little something to make that random planet your character comes from a little less random, and your character's appearance a little less shunkan idou plot device-ish. Once again, tap away at the keyboard as much as you like!

STATS SECTION: Here you have 120 points to spend away with as you like. The base stats will be:
Strength
Dexterity
Intelligence
Karma
Mind

With the last one being stuff like willpower and stress tolerance. You can have maximally 20 in a single stat (unless you have REALLY good reasons to do otherwise).
The rest will be spent on SKILLS and ABILITIES. Skills can be anything from Swordfighting and Navigation to Climbing or Singing. Most skills are pretty self-explanatory but if you have something that isn't all too obvious then write a short note about what it is.
NEW!Job Skills - While some characters will be off-the-road and old-school fighters or so, some will also have had some sort of employment or general work-ism. Given that all these come with a few set necessary skills, which generally encompass the same things, you are allowed to compile all those skills into a single value. For example, a Sailor could have the following skills from his job:
Navigation
Swimming
Sailing
and so on. If you character was a Sailor, then, all these skills would be compiled into a single Job Set, sharing the same value. Important is that one character cannot have more than one Job Set at a time.

Abilities are special stuff, like inborn talents or special effects, and can be stuff like Resistance to poisons and alcohol, Natural armor or (!) Mikuru Beam - it's your choice. I won't dictate point costs much, but use these as guidelines:
Lesser 5p Lagom (moderate) 10p Greater 20p

EQUIPMENT: Here's this section again. It's pretty basic - use you own judgment and get yourself fitting weapons, items and stuff like that. I recommend not having too many weapons as well - the basic issue of carrying the stuff is still De Facto (no hoipoi capsules people ). Now three examples of stuff you DO NOT HAVE:
MOE SLAVE GIRLS.
NUKES.
MECHAS.

since the second two are just cheating, and the first one is just NOT ALLOWED. If you absolutely must, then kidnap another player (although I won't be responsible for the consequences! )

Now some advice on BALANCE:

BASE STATS
6 is bad, 10 is normal, 13 is good, 16 is extreme and 20 is way overkill.
SKILLS
1 is total newbie, 5 is beginner, 10 and you've got all basics down, 15 and you're starting to learn special stuff, 20 and you're good at special stuff, 25 and you've mastered almost everything, 30 and above and you're probably legendary and making up own techniques and teaching people.
Powergaming IS allowed, but i'd not say it's encouraged ; Also, a very low karma will make you eternally followed by misfortune and stuff. Karma is important (and lowering it a way of punishment ) and the only base stat which fluctuates rather heavily depending on your actions. One the other hand it might just also be that little thing you don't care scrap about, like Charisma in DnD - but it's also a way of determining who gets caught in the pitfall, and such; In other words, the DM's bully button. >:3

So there. Have at it, folks! Give this thread your best. ^^

[VonDaab]

I think I took a huge misstep in designing my character.

I've got no ideas how to play its role.

And it doesn't help much the fact that I've never earlier RP'd, so i'm really clueless.

[Smokey]

hey I'm an absolute n00b at RP-ing too, but that didn't stop me...

[VonDaab]

Yeah, but my character is just too silly.
Srlsy, I just cant come up with a way to play with it.

[Smokey]

well just post what you've made and wha'cha got in mind, and we can help out....

[VonDaab]

Well there's the problem, I got nothing.
No ideas at all.

I just don't seem to have the imagination for RP's.

[Smokey]

welll....eeuhm...it would help if you could think of something (you've seen in fantasy stuff, anywhere like LOTR...) and start from there...

I go watch cool anime now, see y'all in hour or so
*puts in GITS SAC DVD in the DVD-RW drive*

[NejinOniwa]

Hey, hey, hey...
We've barely started and we're losing confidence? Ah well. Bound to happen. But fear not - now that my compulsory social time is over (I was forced to watch the Eurovision Song Contest national qualifiers with my family ; ) the demon's here to halp! >:3
First off, remember a few words of wisdom from our friend 4chan/b/ - EVERYTHING IS A REPOST OF A REPOST. Simply, you don't have to be thinking in original ways to pull something good off - a good ripoff can do the trick just fine as well, while people trying too hard at originality might just fall into the enormous pitfall of FAIL.
Thus, my tip is to find characters with similar characteristics and in similar situations, and then see what you can use for your own. And while it might sound depressing to say, the fact that there are limits to man's logic simply tells us that most things we may just realize all by ourselves and think of as the greatest idea ever, most likely have been realized and thought before. 4chan/b/ may be the worst place on the internet, an ocean of piss and a radioactive pit filled with scum, camwhores, oldfags, newfags and total stupidity, but just the fact that it allows the more prominent sides of humanity to be openly represented allows it to yield some of the more impressing wisdoms available to its userbase. You just have to realize it.

Anyway. Back on the subject, if you haven't read much fantasy stuff I realize you're pretty hard out, so as another example of a small, tricksy character that still manages to be pretty damn useful would be the Kender Tasslehoff Burrfoot of the Dragonlance series. Read up on it, and perhaps get yourself a copy of the first Dragonlance book (or the newly-released animation) and you might understand what I mean. And while the natures of your characters' structures may be different, I still believe it would match pretty well with the situation.
Other things to look for would be, naturally, similar anime characters; Currently I'm not getting any perfect matches for ideas, though. I can allow you to change some of the elements of your character, though, since you've posted nothing yet - that might enable you to add in one of the classic plot-device transformation-to-bigger-form abilities, like that of Natsume Maya from Tenjou Tenge, Nel from Bleach, and others. This also fits in pretty well with the "moe-powar" element you've put into it - despite it being somewhat of an alien element in most RP situations.

Unfortunately, guys, today I also have some Seriose Business for you. Cue, loads of criticism that i hope to be constructive and not bash you away from this project.
Crucial thing #1: The style and flow of the RP is really, really important. Sorry to say this, smokey-kun, but your first RP post is a typical example of an RP's No Can Do's, especially in a situation as this where you've gotten far far ahead while some of the players might not even have gotten the opportunity to read in on the setting. Also, summarizing events can be really annoying for other players, since it doesn't give them the ability to react - that's why I prefer sort of a "step-by-step"-mode when RPing.
And the second crucial thing I'd like to say here - PLEASE REFRAIN FROM META-ROLEPLAYING.
Yes, it's true that you, as players, know what's going to happen. You know there's going to be a quest, and that a possibility for rewards exist - otherwise there wouldn't be much of a reason for an RP. But think in the mindsets of your characters! That's the most important thing there is when RPing - For example, to take Smokey-kun as an example, what is Crazy Ox most likely to do in the situation he's in? First of all, think of the character. He's a nomad, a shaman, a desert traveler, with a murky and somewhat blooded past. How is he likely to be as a person? Is he likely to be trusting, witty and opportunistic constantly, or is he likely to be somewhat suspicious against everything, with not much knowledge of how things go in the cities? Is the travelling mage Techno likely to be a outward person with a happy smile on his face showing his magic to his companions just because 'hey, they're my companions', or is he likely to be somewhat cautious to everyone since he knows that if his secrets are discovered they might even put him to the torch and set an army after him for being dangerous, and like Fai of Tsubasa Chronicle, never use his magic unless nothing else possibly can work?
Secondly, consider the situation. Crazy Ox is, while not as totally stoned as Eliano, still pretty drunk, and not very likely to be thinking with his clearest head. Is he likely to even care about his companion to the left? And if he would, wouldn't he rather shove him up again, and give him another mug of booze? Would he really act suspicious by drawing a heavily drunk man he's never heard of or seen before up to his room and attempt to extort his secrets from him? Frankly, the only person I can see doing that is Haruhi Suzumiya, and if she was in a world like that she'd have other things to do anyway.
Lastly, consider their knowledge of things. Yes, you know most things about the others' characters - but the important thing is that YOUR characters themselves, DON'T, unless so specified. You as a player know that VonDaab's Imp is flying around under the roof, but your characters haven't even seen her once - and in fact, the only character that could even at first sight recognize that as a possible reality would be Inuchi, and perhaps Techno - neither Ox nor Lenoria-san, or my Eliano for that matter, has any knowledge whatsoever of magic and the such, and at first sight a flying midget wouldn't be anything but a really bizarre hallucination. Just like that, a random drunkard rambling about a stolen boat could with no great amount of cynicism be taken for just that - a rambling drunkard. "Oh, another of those people," you'd think, and just go on with your dinner, perhaps sparing a thought to get him off the floor.
When RPing you put yourself in the role of someone else than yourself, embracing every aspect of that being at your best. You can allow your own personality to flow through - and that always will happen, since nobody is perfect - but you can't let your knowledge do that. I mean, if Luke Skywalker said, "Look here, Obi-Wan, I know you're supposed to be an old friend of my father, but since you're going to die at the end of this movie anyway I can't spend too much time learning stuff from you, so just give me my lightsaber already, ok?" or, "Man the Deathstar wouldn't even be a challenge if I had Strike Freedom Gundam instead of this damn X-Wing!", sure, that would be pretty funny as a parody, but if you saw that in the actual movie you'd go, "Wtf?" and wonder what the hell was going on. Those mistakes can't be allowed to happen.

TL;DR - You ARE your character, not yourself in another world. And slow down - neither Auto-pilot nor CRUISE CONTROL will help you if you don't even know where the road is.


Man, what a rant.

Added after 12 minutes:

Oh, oh. Forgot a few things.

In light of the "Slow Things Down" policy, please refrain from doing too much slapstick-style one-on-one action. It might be okay from time to time, but remember to give the whole group an opportunity to read through and react before you go on. No plan is perfect, and improvisation is crucial to RPing as well. ^^

Also some Syntax-related business: To get some nice Order into the whole business, while writing posts try keeping to the following guidelines:
Punctuate and format. Seriously, bad grammar is such a turnoff. And long, long posts from side to side for rows and rows over and over have little charm, while the same post divided by space and paragraph will be much easier to read.
Individualization by Color. Last year we had the procedure of using color to identify expressions of our characters - for example, dialogue would be formatted as "Character-specific color and citation marks!" and the same characters internal thoughts would be Lettering in the same color, and italics... . This worked pretty well, from what I saw, and is also a way to flesh out our characters more. Therefore, next time you post, pick a color for your char's dialogue and thoughts, and stick with it. I've picked Dark Red as Eliano's color, by the way, to start things off.

Now, TO THE HEAVENS AND BEYOND!!! WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK WE ARE!!??

[Smokey]

Right...Sorry 'bout that...
(I've got much to learn here....)

BTW I'll pick Green as a color...

[VonDaab]

Requesting permission to completely remake character.

[NejinOniwa]

If you're up for it, then, I guess there's little I can do. Since you've posted no RPing, the only damage done will be the loss of a character which I thought, at least, was pretty funny to make to fit in. But I guess that just like playing a Psi as your first chara, this thing is pretty hard on you to as a first go. Naturally, permission granted.
To ease the burden on you I'd recommend a somewhat more "native" character - simply, from the area covered by the map (or close to it). The first thing that came to mind was a Halderan soldier, since their system is pretty well-defined and makes up for easy creation of a character - but I guess you already have an idea, so go for it.

[VonDaab]

Well I was thinkin making a bit more "normal" character, a character that doesnt fly, is normal human sized and doesn't exist only for the comical relief.

Btw, how's the so called "fantasy races" avaible in this world. I mean, is there like elves and dwarwes, etc..?

Oh, there's so many questions now.

How much has gunpowder(or something similar) technology been researched?
And what would the time-era be if compared to this world?

[NejinOniwa]

Ha! Good thing I picked this for stage, otherwise I'd be frantically scribbling things together right now. Well, here's what I'll give you...

First off, the "Fantasy Races".
Answer is as follows: YES, they exist. NO, they are not available. I know, I'm sully, but to explain the situation more in detail, ever since the Xenocide Wars many, many millenia ago, the non-human races have secluded themselves from the outer face of the world by different means. I won't go into it since that's a major spoiler point, but over the world there exist Enclaves of the more prominent races such as elvenkind hidden by powerful mechanisms, while other races were entirely wiped out or pushed to the brink of extinction.
Thus, the nonhuman sentients left to this world are living for themselves - and none at all, or diminutively few, are ever seen outside the enclaves; let alone among humans. Thus it is a disturbingly small chance to encounter one of these beings, wherefore I see it as inappropriate to RP one without the proper knowledge. (Which I and I alone would be having.)

The second and third questions are a bit tricky.
EWAR is a world that is divided. That means other parts of the world have different progress. Also, some parts of the world know of and use Ra, thus greatly differing in their scientific progress as they not use much of traditional science but rather magitechnology.
Because of this I won't go much into the parts of the world off the map for this RP. Covering Quarmote and around-lying areas, though, are pretty easy. Easier, at least.

While gunpowder or any similar equivalent doesn't exist in Quarmote, the Halderan military's special Exper units use a great deal of scientifically experimental weapons - and being a very large economic force in the country, they also supply the market with technology and chemicals. Minituarization is advanced enough to make analogue clockwork devices the size of a normal watch, and sophisticated artificial coloring chemicals exist. Healer Expers have developed somewhat advanced medicinal technology, and some attempts at Bio-weapons and modified poisons have been successful. Experiments with Nitroglycerin have been performed as well, but due to the lack of control that we as well experienced before Alfred Nobel came along, the use of it is extremely limited. Electricity is accepted as a phenomenon and some understanding of its mechanisms exist, but there is hardly any usage of it due to materialistic limitations.
The spread of the technology is thin, though, because of economical reasons, as well as military secrecy. Some chemical formulas have been sold to major merchants and companies in Peltair, as have some of the more advanced devices, but the sky-high import price doesn't make them very attractive products; and Peltair has little ability to produce them on their own. Similarly, due to the long-time hostility between Haldera and Vassica, with the exception of some naval trade there exists no form of exchange at all between the nations - and least of all with advanced technology, which is the only thing Haldera has to counter the vast Vassican supremacy in military strength number-wise.

I believe the Time-Era question is hard to answer, but mainly what's above should answer it. It's sort of a rough mix, something like a 16-1700's with a touch of 1800's and minus gunpowder and plus lots of weird stuff. At least that's what goes for Quarmote.

[Smokey]

Ah so the anti-hangover-cure (coffee) exists, i assume?

[NejinOniwa]

Not where you are! How do you expect to grow coffee in the desert, eh?

Added after 21 minutes:

To remind you all - desert covers 70 percent of the continent. Mountains make up for another 15 percent; they may be somewhat colder and contain some usable valleys, but little land inside - and only the 15% of the continent, largely consisting of the coastline and some larger lowlands, are usable for cultivation. With the exception of the small mountain valleys, the cultivated areas are the following:
HALDERA:
The Bloodmarsh around Haelsport and surrounding areas; Nath, Telum and the rest of the South; The Alyn and Thevan Valleys around Alcir, and other valleys in the surrounding Sakrim Lardomni mountain range; The land around Lake Osine southwest of capital Osinia, which also contains the royal preserve; and the area between Lake Zamicron and Luthisport in the far east.
PELTAIR:
The Sandisdale valley, and some of the lower valleys in the surrounding Watcher's Range mountains; the entire flow of the Aebairun river, from the west end of Watcher's Range connecting to Fort Milsvide, Ost, Izcrath and Sempara;
the outer parts of the Windmarsh surrounding Ost; the canal delta around Izcrath (these things are enormously spread, and are the sole reason for Izcrath's xbox hueg size on the map, btw); and lastly the Thiram area in the west.
VASSICA:
Casa Boña canal delta (same reason for map size as Izcrath); the entire North-west region which consists of almost nothing but small villages and farms; the South-west region around Tavacruz and Tava-di-Mienna; and lastly the vast oasis spreads around Charn.

Needless to say, "Cultivated Lands" in this case means quite forcibly so - basically, everything that's not built on sand will be torn down and replaced by farmlands, even if it's just a single yard. Water isn't too hard to come by, but the vast part of the land is totally useless for growing anything but Cactae. Scientific efforts have been made with some success to create desert-living hybrids, with outcomes like the Cactus Grapes and Hornwheat. Quarmote is living hard, but it's doing it fairly well.