Fear
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There's a difference between not showing fear and laughing head first in the face of any threat. With the Knight example given, there is a difference between him taking it professionally rather than shouting "I AM THE STRONGEST" and leaping headfirst into battle. Brave is not stupidly fearless and while playing stupidly fearless isn't bad, it should be done no matter what the circumstances; being a stereotypical avatar of death when against enemies you know you can beat and then turning reasonable when it's something you know OOCly you can't handle is not cool for my RP flow.
People may play because they want to be bad asses but it bothers me when people go around boasting they're the strongest dude ever to have walked the earth and then OOCly avoiding challenges you know you can beat to keep your persona.
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Why are we discussing how people should play their characters? Ergh.
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Cause it is arrogance to believe we are perfect. There are always things to improve, and discussing with others is key in understanding how they percieve our characters, and what we could change to better represent the kind of character we want to play.
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Strange, I seem to recall this being a game.
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@Khamal:
It's all OOC courtesy, in my opinion.
If someone plays a character that is supposed to be scary, intimidating, strange or mysterious, th…...
I dunno, I picture the new character trying to be scary as Dwight from "The Office" trying to be scary. At creaton your a noob geek wannabe who is TRYING to be scary. No one starts as "The Emperor of Fear".
Does it matter if your level tin ? No. To me, it matters what you've done - done IG, seen IG, experienced IG, not what you scribbled on your character sheet.
and this goes both ways - just as a IG-experienced character might NOT be scared of a newly made "Scary" character…. the new character SHOULD be scared of the been-around rogue. Even if it says "I wanna be a Dreadlord on your app" - You aren't one.
The RARE approved character that is a army veteran or such would be a exception. To use my own self as a example of such a exception - one of mine had a (Approved) background of spending months being hunted by undead, and experience fighting them. Hence, it wasn't afraid of skeletons or zombies. But it was for dam sure afraid of beetles, rats, halforcs, and everything else.
And people can also try to put up a brave front. My current character is scared of EVERYTHING, because without wands 2 dire-rats is a fair fight.
does it show it? No, because it makes damn sure to only be near people who WILL protect it. And when one protector dies, it finds another.
So.. it can appear brave, because it has so many protectors. -
Don't bring level into this,
I say this
Mitchell Deshurr my character was not scared of him (even though he whooped my character ass) because he thought of him as a rowdy barbarian with a title and a really magical double axe. -
Don't bring level into this,
I say this
Mitchell Deshurr my character was not scared of him (even though he whooped my character ass) because he thought of him as a rowdy barbarian with a title and a really magical double axe.Good points.
I replaced "lvl 1" with "new" and "just created" and "lvl 4" with "experienced".
And your deschurr point is similar to my undead point- circumstances matter. -
The last time someone threatened to kill my lower level (by 2) same class character and demanded a duel to the death, they were a dispel rod, a few seeing potions, and a trip upstairs away from getting a free vacation to the fugue. I would have also payed a good amount of gold to ice him.
And boy do I suck at mechanics, because that particular character of mine died to 2 Dire Wolves with the option of fighting them.
Just saying, a way to kill your rivals just might be that level three character that looks like he has no gear if challenged for a duel to the death.
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Okay honestly (And I could be wrong) you don't need an app to have a PC be a veteran. Unless your PC is rather young, I am sure he has seen combat and especially with the elder PC's they have seen alot of scary crap.
For Example: Gorf Elmana (one of my older PC's) was Guard Captain of his town which was under attack by bandits, orcs, and many other things quite often. He came to arabel and was rather unafraid of alot of stuff.
Elizu Visu spent much of his life combatting and controlling undead. As well he spent much of his time travelling so he saw alot of combat as well.
These are two examples of my more veteran PC's. Were they afraid of the things they fought? No not really. Were they fearless? No. They both Feared death, no matter how much they told others that they didn't it was their biggest fears. Can you overcome fear? Yes.
Gorf walked out into the middle of the Phoenix Legion during the war begging for peace so they could fight a common enemy, even though he knew and was afraid he would probably die.
Elizu entered the East Way Graveyard shortly after Clar Banda Ascended and helped hold off undead while others escaped though he feared most coming back as Undead or dying period.
It all depends on who your PC is. If your PC is rather self Centered I would expect him to give into fear and run. If your PC is more Paladin like I would expect him to Fight until everyone else is safe no matter how scared he is.
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Always remember our characters are "human". If you play a character that is fearless cause he does not care about dieing, he's a psycho, cause everyone is afraid of death.
If you do not want to rp fear because it is not cool, it's fine. But do not hide behind excuses.
On a side note @dripster13:
Okay honestly (And I could be wrong) you don't need an app to have a PC be a veteran.
As far as I know you do. You need either a background, or to play the guy enough that someone would consider him a veteran. Otherwise when you start you are a lvl 1 nobody.
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That's what I meant as a Backround not as a someone who was a veteran and well known in Arabel. I know you sorta need that. I am saying you don't need an App to play someone who was part of an army for however some-odd years. There is a difference between a Veteran Soldier and a Well known veteran.
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I've decided to try to portray fear more in my characters. Its quite fun, actually. I feel like people who play characters that are trying to be scary (and have good reasons to be) really appreciate it.
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If you play a character that is fearless cause he does not care about dieing, he's a psycho, cause everyone is afraid of death.
If you do not want to rp fear because it is not cool, it's fine. But do not hide behind excuses.
Well, outright wrong on the first part.
Not everyone reacts to fear by cowering in a corner and peeing themselves. It is much more interesting if a character reacts to fear in more specific ways, and is much more rewarding to work out when they are afraid then.
Fear IS a natural instinct, it is something that keeps animals alive. Doesn't mean people give into it easily however. I do think it is always good to try and show -something- when your character is afraid, even if they're so stoic that their face becomes even more impassive from an effort to appear calm.
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Adventurers spend their days killing monsters, it would not be reasonable in many cases for them to show fear in the way many people expect.
If my fighter had just killed fifty orcs in a field would they cower when a single half orc emotes growls and makes a diceroll? no. even if for some reason he was scared such a person would have a psychological mechanism for dealing with fear in the face of real danger as their training and experiences has given them so many examples of them conquering over situations with a very real chance of death. Take a special forces soldier as an example, if for some reason he became afraid his response would not be to cower and cry while in battle.
If your character is some kind of adventuring equivalent of an admin support worker or an errand boy for the court then yeah it would be good if they showed a little healthy fear, but it should be fear of the person, their reputation, their percieved threat and if you think they may follow through rather than an automatic fear of any old character that happens to threaten you.
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That's what I meant as a Backround not as a someone who was a veteran and well known in Arabel. I know you sorta need that. I am saying you don't need an App to play someone who was part of an army for however some-odd years. There is a difference between a Veteran Soldier and a Well known veteran.
DMs have told me that level 1 characters have just started adventuring/fighting, so no "he used to be a general" or anything else highly demanding of great martial skill.
And what the guy above me said, adventurers are not commoners. A few might be a bit cowardly(for their line of work, compared to regular people they're still VERY, VERY brave), but the vast majority accept the fact that they might die a young and horrible death. If a PC has charged into a castle full of vampires and werewolves by choice, even though being entirely outnumbered and came out alive, why would he be afraid of a single vampire in a back alley? It's the villain's job to make his character frightening, and not the victim's to necessarily act afraid.
I still don't understand the reason of this post. To me it seems like people are just going: lolclichebadrper instead on focusing on having fun and doing their best to make things interesting with what they've got, be it a stupidly fearless rogue or a cowardly warrior.
Also, when you threaten to kill someone, don't be surprised to take an FD to the face on the spot no matter how spooky your character might be acting.
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If you play a character that is fearless cause he does not care about dieing, he's a psycho, cause everyone is afraid of death.
If you do not want to rp fear because it is not cool, it's fine. But do not hide behind excuses.
Well, outright wrong on the first part.
To add to this.
Sure almost everyone is afraid of dieing. But experienced combatants might not thnk that halforc on the street is a threat to their existence.When my character who ust called Durdyn the Vulture an asshole to his face when passing him alone on the road, and comes into town and some random guy in a cheap-painted black helm growls "Move out of my way", my characters response is not likely to be fear.
Of course, such can backfire as well, remembering the time she stood up to a wizard who teleported into the market asking who killed his assasin, and got Powerword-killed as a result.
Just be consistent.
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A characters story should also be a journey. The oldest way of telling stories is the home, away, home approach. In short, you start out, something happens, you journey out, and you return home a different person.
Corynt, if people remember him, was a bad ass, fearless Purple Dragon Scout. He was the sidekick of a warwizard, and in general he was quite a scary person. Alot of people saw him as bad ass, and fearless.
When he first was created, two harper veterans and a Deschurr retainer took him out for a night on the town. They entered the Three Bars (Evil den of the Unseen Hand, the thieves guild of Arabel) with the intention of brawling, they eventually found a Myrkul Cult layer, and asked for a cup of suggar. They were characters in the 10+ range, who had conquered just about everything, had killed dragons etc.
The guy started scared, and eventually threw up due to being scared shitless.
It made sense, and it created a sense of progression with the character in question. That being thrown into the deep end of the pot eventually gave him enough selfconfidence to deal with said fear.
I am not saying that you need to be a huge coward. But in order to be brave, is to overcome your fears. Fearless, if you are, should be portrayed in the extreme, whether your excuse is being slightly insane or stupid in regards to knowing you can die (low wisdom) or an extreme force of will (supported by feats like Iron will), it should be an actual trait.
In short, you should portray an actual personality. I am pretty fearless in most regards. But if someone puts a gun to my head, and tells me i am about to die, i would likely feel differently.
I have far too often seen characters, fearless individuals have balls because they know they can always respawn. But when on a perma death dm quest, SUDDENLY they become cautious. Thats playing your ooc emotions, not the IG ones.
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I agree with Jagged.
For example: Most of my characters were shit-scared of Helmar Bloodchurn, even if only one of them saw him just once. He had a reputation that made people shiver and look behind them each time his name was mentioned. This really rubs off to others.
You don't need to be scary even, get some wingmen to spread tales about how crazy dangerous and scary you are and it just might stick.
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I don't care if the Dm appears with a Necromancer summoning undead you'll get different reactions even if all the members of the party are level 1
PC1 "By Mystra light were all going to die!"
PC2 "The Bitch Dies now!"
PC3 "By my estimate it time we run!"
PC4 "Torm lights will give me Strength against any evil!"
PC5 "I claim any magical items on her" -
I am going to take some of what has been said already in this thread and piece it together-If you want people to be afraid of your character, don't be afraid yourself to pull the trigger on pvp.
I'm going to use an example from my character past, a would be assassin named Tate. He was only around for a couple of weeks, but I'm sure if any of the players who ran into him back them are still around, they likely remember the name. Mechanically, he was shit, a 10 strength fighter rouge in leather armors. However, one altercation during the ring quest led to him trying to beat the shit out of one of the characters on the quest with him. He was chased out of the gnomes home by the rest of the party, and likely would have lost the one on one fight anyways, but less then a week later I was lingering about in the market in disguise, and a group of 6 or so pcs acknowledged he was there and moved their conversation to the tired traveler. He never made it past level 5.
This is something I used to say a lot back in the day, and I will be honest I have gotten into a few arguments about it since not everyone agrees-but its my belief that if you are acting scary, and toughy good guy is acting like you are nothing, you should at the very least beat the shit out of him, and are likely justified for a pvp death on your hands right then and there. If you aren't willing to pull the trigger, then you have no one to blame but yourself for not being scary.
As an add on, if you yourself are afraid to engage in pvp because you might loose, then your complaints about others fear are ridiculous.