Flipz

I am aware. I've discovered that I like people owing me money. ...oh god, I've turned into Gurnam. Once I'm at Expert Class level, then yes, I will. But only mechanically.

"Any advice?" he asks, pulling up his own chair.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endgame_%28play%29

Against his better judgement, Arthur passes the old man 70 Gold. "Use it well," he says simply.

By that logic, the Heroes should all be stuck in garbage bins or else partially paralyzed and confined to a chair or else the aging servant of the above. And nobody can leave the room and nothing anyone says makes any real sense. And the whole thing would be written by Samuel Beckett.

Why settle for a model? Build your OWN full-sized car powered by Power Functions, and have a 100% gasoline-free vehicle!

Shadows, that poll was genius satire. As I was about to post in the poll topic, that sort of election (with candidates who are only cosmetically different and a bunch of stubborn idi--er, people--shouting at each other) is a PERFECT illustration of actual practice in American elections. For all the legal freedoms and advantages we have (and I AM thankful for them), the American political system is still completely f***ed up; our politicians are so damn stubborn they prevent almost all meaningful change, and certainly prevent anything from happening within anything resembling a reasonable time frame. Then again, perhaps that IS representative of the majority of Americans...I wouldn't know, I'm almost always in the minority on these things.

That's an excellent example of internal (read: behind-the-scenes) backstory development--but don't lock yourself to it. (I mean, just look at what the internal development for mine was! ) Just roll with what you have for now, and try different ideas until you find what ultimately fits.

It's very special, and a great example for the rest of Heroica. Not all defining moments need to be big, and that's a beautiful way of putting it. The most interesting characters are the ones who are the most real. And Grimwald is very real. Don't ever apologize for how you roleplay your character.

As in, "The only ones who are still alive." And still that only counts if they've been KO'd once in the battle already. In fact... Sword of the Zepher - (WP: 13, Wind-elemental; user is automatically revived after first KO of battle, but must fight from the Back Row for the remainder of the battle. Suitable for Boomingham and Dragon Knights only) There you go.

Zepher. Are your characters completely incapable of attacking from the Back Row unless someone specifically orders them to? At this rate, I'm going to have to re-write and re-shoot my Theatre bit on NPCs...

I disagree, slightly; we all have these moments, but they aren't as big--nor as tragic--as we tend to make them in fiction. Look at Tarn Valco, with his mentor/father figure Rystael (I apologize if I butchered the spelling ). I'd argue that Tarn has several defining moments involving his relationship with that character, but none of them seem to be overly big or tragic. LordoftheNoobs' character Grimwald Gjinko is likely the same, whether LordoftheNoobs has explicitly defined him that way or not. That is another tip I should note: don't be afraid to deliberately pull from yourself, because I guarantee you'll end up doing it anyway without even realizing it. If you don't feel the need to create a "defining moment" from scratch, good, just run with your impulse; odds are you are subconsciously pulling one or more of these moments from yourself or someone very close to you, and your understanding of how that moment defines the character may be even stronger for it (to say nothing of the potential self-insight you can gain, if you so wish).

Yes, I've FINALLY made a new play in the Theatre. And it only took me, what, over ten months to do it? That's not so long!

Audition Night: Crafting a Back-Story: The Present as a Key to the Past "...and so, one of the interdimensional beings turns out to be--now get this--Henry's great-great-grandfather! Can you imagine what we could do with--" "Yes, yes, thank you, Mr. ...?" "Please, call me Steven, sir." "Well, Mr. Steven...erm...perhaps our guest judge would like to share his opinion?" "...Ah. Er--there are no words, Mr. Spielberg." "Ah. Well put, Mr. Fox." "So, does that mean I--" "WANNA KNOW WHAT I THINK OF HIS IDEA?" *ka-chik!* "Hello? Hello? Is this thing on? What am I s'posed to do with this thing, anyway?" "Erm, Mr....Everyman is it?" "Yeah?" "Could you please just share your backstory with us?" "Eh, sure. Why not?" "OK. Part numero uno. Alright, so y'all are familiar with those guys over in the place a bit away from here? Well, after that stuff happened and the guy got me out, I talked to a guy, who turns out had told the other guy to get me out, and the guy tells me to go tell a guy the guy wanted to talk to him. I had nothin' better to do, so I told him I'd tell him. Anyway, I tell the guy, and he tells this guy to go get Lord somethin'-or-other, that they had somethin' for him to do. Anyway, that guy tells the guy the guy escaped, and so the guy tells me he wants me to go tell this other guy about the whole thing. I told him I'd tell someone who could tell the other guy, since that one guy had told me not to leave town. So anyhow, I went back and told the guy what the guy had told me to tell him, and told him I needed to tell a guy who could tell the other guy. That's when I got a letter from this guy, seemed smart enough, askin' me to tell people what he wanted me to tell them. Well, I told him, sure, long as I didn't have to leave town. Anyway, I told the guy that that one guy had wanted me to tell about the escape of that other guy, and by the time I had done that, the smart guy told me to tell a bunch of guys what he and two other guys had written letters to tell me to tell them..." **Four hours later...* "...and then the guy tells me, no skin off his back, and then the other guys showed up, and they told me some nasty stuff but still asked me to stay with them, but I told them no, I needed to leave town, 'cause I didn't need anyone to tell me that it was not gonna be pretty. So we sail off, but then later this guy tells me about you, and I decide to tell you everything. Any questions?" "..." "..." "..." "..." "...thoughts, Simon?" "MOO!" "Mm. Well-said. Now, I may not be a professional judge, but I think even I'm qualified to say--" "NEXT!" *giggle* "..." "<...And that's how I escaped the vampire pirates.>" "I see. But how, may I ask, did you get back to Eubric?" "Du-uh. Isn't it obvious, Pike-man?" "<The girl is right. The answer is obvious.>" "...It is?" "<Sea turtles, mate!>" "You wanna know how I got these scars?" "Erm...that IS why we're here, yes." "So do I..." "Hi, my name is George Lucas..." "There, he is! Get him, we shall!" "We'll see how HE likes the 'space between spaces'!" "The power to make crappy retcons is insignificant next to the power of the Force. Death by tray it shall be!" "This show just got interesting." "Erm, forgive me for asking, but...who are you and why are you judging MY show?" "Are you batty, old gnome?" "Halfling--" "Whatever. I've been singing here since Grogmas, after a chance encounter with a heroic force led from my life of hopeless poverty to my meteoric rise to stardom!" "Whoa-whoa-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh...Didn't even have to try; I'm always a good time! Whoo!" "You know me, Pike-man, my man! They all do! I'm the greatest star Olegia has ever seen! I'm....Carly...Swift!" "...oh dear..." Backstory is important to good characters, no doubt. It anchors the characters by helping to narrow down the range of possibilities for their personality and perspective. However, backstory can also be an anvil weighing the character down, creating a lot of baggage that prevents the character from fully realizing their potential choices. This is especially true of bad backstory. Let's start with some incorrect choices. First of all, backstory, once set, should rarely be changed. The life of Mr. Lucas serves as more than enough of an example on this point. For this reason, it's important that your character's backstory should be expressed in nonspecific terms--if at all--during the earliest period of character development. Yes, knowing key events of your character's life is important, but if you have a complete timeline of your character's life within the first few months of playing them, you're probably overthinking them. Remember, the strongest characters are played from the heart, not from the mind. Even if you have a great deal in mind for your character's history, leave yourself open to some change: only let your character express the tiniest snippets of information about their past at first. This way, WHEN (not if) you realize some portion of your prewritten backstory is unbearably stupid, you can always re-interpret what's actually been revealed in some different light. For example, one of the earliest backstory choices for Arthur Justus Regulus VII was that he literally came from the land of Minecraft via planeswalking. No, you are not hallucinating, that was his initial character conception, in its entirety. However, most of his early comments about his past were vague enough that they were able to be reinterpreted, leading to the conception of the Zut'tau'ri, a race of former Chaos-worshippers who now use their unique knowledge and perspective to create arcane items and devices from materials with naturally-occurring mystical properties (in spite of eschewing Ether themselves). This brings us to a second point: shared history. One of the important advantages of a loosely-defined backstory is that it allows that backstory to become intertwined with that of other characters. Pulling from the example of Arthur again, the looseness of the re-interpretation allowed Arthur to, later, determine that his ancestors, in fact, had contact with the people of De'kra the Echo (or, more precisely, their alternate-universe counterparts, but for the purposes of Heroica they may as well be the same), which is where the Zut'tau'ri learned many of the technological skills they had to rely upon after denying Chaos. This opened up a whole new realm of possibilities for the two of them, and raises several interesting questions about both characters and their backgrounds. Also important is openness to player feedback: originally, Arthur was just an average denizen of his land, and his parents were just as ordinary; however, Tanma's feedback about Arthur's technical skill and manner of speech (which he interpreted as signs of noble birth) gave rise to Arthur's family being the ruling family of the land, and moreover, a family that has fallen from grace. One should always be on the lookout for others' interpretations of your character's actions; look them over and steal whatever you think will work best. But even as you develop your character more and more, always keep some space open; this will allow you to keep adding new things as you see them. "Borrowing" others' ideas about your character is one of the most organic and powerful methods of character development--provided you don't actually change anything. This is an important point to make note of: the reason you are keeping your backstory loose is because you don't want to have to change things later. Changing a character's backstory has the negative effects of killing off your character, without the positive benefeit of providing a completely blank slate: as roleplaying master Waterbrick Down puts it: The same holds true of complete character rewrites; after all, if you think about it realistically, how much of a relationship would you really be able to forge with someone who keeps lying to you about their entire history? At best (i.e. the George Lucas scenario), everyone ignores you and your roleplaying and your character development slows to a crawl as nobody bothers to interact; at worst, your character development becomes, essentially, "pathological liar", and your character development dies completely. An attempt to change characterization one of the FEW cases in which I would actually approve of amnesia, but ONLY as an alternative to outright retcon--keep in mind, though, for it to work, it has to be complete or nearly-complete amnesia (with ALL of the complications and setbacks that brings), and you really only have ONE shot at it in your roleplaying career. Really, it's better to just keep a loose, fluid characterization and backstory, and try to roll with what you're given instead of trying to manipulate the outcome. You may notice that I'm using the word "characterization" a lot. That's intentional. Most of us, if we stop and thing about it, have a core set of experiences that shape who we are as human beings. Characters have these moments, too. In fact, it's usually a good idea to establish one or two (in your mind only! Try to leave things open to change!) life-shaping experiences for your character when coming up with the character concept. However! The life of a Hero is a momentous and life-altering path; whereas most real people have a dozen or so "core experiences" when you first meet them, the vast majority of your character's core experiences should be the Quests they partake in (see, for example, Karie Alderflask's interaction with the Apprentice, or Haldor Skovgaard's development after Quest 49, or the reaction of almost any character who went on Quests 19, 53, and/or the Dastan Trilogy). Also, as I said, it's always a good idea to keep these experiences under wraps as much as you can--I don't mean you have to be overly mysterious, but try not to delve TOO deeply into the past too quickly. Karie Alderflask is, again, a good example of this; we've seen that she was once an actress, and that there was some incident in her life that changed that, but we don't know exactly what, leaving open the possibility that we'll find out when someone from that past--or, perhaps, someone uncannily similar to them--appears in the present. This last point is important: by creating these hooks, QMs can potentially create situations that tie neatly to them. Endgame has a particular knack for this as a QM; his interaction with the already-established elements of Johon's dead parents and untapped Etherial potential is exactly how backstory should be revealed: as a way to heighten the connection of the character to their situation, raising the stakes for them personally. As an important side-note: Raising the stakes for your character is ALWAYS a good way to make them more interesting; links to backstory are just ONE of several ways to do this. At the same time, there IS a need for SOME concrete background and characterization, lest your character lose their coherence. As a general rule, your character should have a defined stance on SOME philosophic, political, and/or religious issue, and should have at least ONE solid reason for that within their past. The character needn't be OVERLY firm in their belief (after all, some peoples' core beliefs can change over time, or in the face of a major upheaval in their life), nor does the complete story behind their belief need to be defined to the last detail; what's important is that the character has an opinion that differentiates them from any other standard Hero of their class, gender, and race, and that you have some idea as to why they think that way. It may seem annoyingly vague and nebulous, but that is literally all the backstory you need to create a roleplay-driven character; everything else is just detail that can (and should) be developed over time and character interaction. One final word: don't put TOO much stock in backstory. It's important, but ultimately it's just a base for the truly interesting and engaging elements of roleplaying: characterization and, more importantly, character development. If you've got a person instead of a puppet, you're doing just fine. EDIT: More notes and discussion on backstory may be found here.

*Adds Ether Core to Quest reward.*

Nodding at Dyric's assessment, Arthur looks curiously towards Thothwick, the Metasimian finally having made his way back to the Hall. No. The enigma. "Why did he bother?" he wonders, accidentally murmuring aloud. "After all he said against Witches, and against Zoot...after all I did...why? Why bother to check for my pulse?"

Yes. It's happened with sleep as well, and I think Blinding got one once as well.

Still one of my favorite Zepher Quests to date. In other news, some essential QM lessons I've learned even though my Quest is still in planning/building: 1.) Your players are always plotting against you. ALWAYS. 2.) You will never, EVER be able to prepare for everything your players throw at you. 3.) That little detail you worked on? That one that took you an extra two hours to create, that may be your personal favorite bit of the project? Your players will either a.) complain bitterly about it, or b.) ignore it entirely. Just my thoughts.

Why on earth would you print them out when you can just build them?! Seriously, though, that's how I figured out WBD's plank puzzle from Q28; I built the setup in LDD and moved the planks around until I figured out the solution.

Arthur nods to Skrall. "Guess I just have to take it one day at a time." Seeing a new Quest on the board, Arthur is dismayed when he reads its contents. "Dyric..." he calls. When the Assassin finally arrives, Arthur nods toward the notice with a look of glum concern.

I see your song and raise you some REAL American music...complete with MORAL MESSAGE! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKxRj0BnJRo

Well, congratulations, Scorpiox, you finally got Arthur to snark at you. Happy? And in front of Ellaria and Alexis, too...

Arthur, in spite of himself, opens his mouth for a biting comeback, when Skrall enters the Hall. "'Scuse me for a moment, would you, Dyric?" Arthur stands up, walks over to Alexis, and wraps his arms around her, giving her a kiss on the back of her head. "Arthur Justus Regulus VII, Sorcerer of Heroica," he says to Ellaria by way of introduction, "and apparently turncoat and scoundrel for refusing to fight something I legitimately believed in at the time, and in spite of risking my life to protect the party from it and turning my blade against it after it betrayed me. But of course, no one in this Hall has ever made that sort of mistake at all. No, I'm the only imperfect Hero on Olegaia." Not sticking around to hear Haldor's inevitable comeback, Arthur gives Alexis a squeeze and then continues up to Skrall. "Skrall." he says by way of greeting. He was not pleased with himself after his outburst, but the Nord had been impugning Alexis' honor. He had had to do something, right? He sighed and spoke to the Hunter in a low voice. "I was telling the truth, you know. I really did believe in Chaos. But you were right, back in the Temple; I had totally deluded myself as to what it really was." Arthur ordered a tankard of ale from the bar and took a sip before continuing. "But that begs the question: if I wasn't serving Chaos...what was I serving? And is there anything worthwhile I can learn from the experience?"

They could try to stop Wren from becoming a god oh wait. You came so close to convincing me to kill off Arthur when you made that comment about it being the perfect ending for him, you know. Because you were right. It would have been a good ending for him. He's made a lot of bad choices, and those have caught/are going to catch up to him. But at the same time, part of Arthur's lost-ness and searching for connection and meaning in a crapsack world really speaks to who I am as a human being, and a part of me desperately hopes he can find a happy ending (even if it comes with a heavy cost), because that part of me believes it means my own search and struggle for meaning in a meaningless world is not completely in vain. Wait. I'm doing it again. Bringing heavy philosophy into a role-playing game. Sorry. I'll stop now. Anyway, I don't really know what Arthur's end would look like. Who knows? Maybe he'll actually live through to the end of the game. But I do think that next time he's got an interesting and relevant way to die (it would very much have to tie into who he is as a person, as Wren did), it probably will be the end for him.

I really wish I had my alt available to run Masked's Quest; my primary goal for my second character is to run Alchemist and Paragon. Also, Skrall had better come talk to Arthur before either one of them leaves on another Quest.