My Development
I'm rather irritated at a few things, and that might be because I'm the walking wounded but it also might be because when people are only human they don't add everything to the wiki that might need to be added. Some things are a given, or so I thought, yet I find myself explaining them over and over again. I've wrote literally hundreds of articles for the wiki from the Starting Guide to Signature sizes, to all my races and the gnosis and Gods I've gotten done so far. I'm always adding things to these articles, and sometimes I'm taking away things that others add without permission.
There is such a thing as creative control and like every author I guard my concepts jealously. I always kinda chuckle to myself when someone flounces off site claiming they don't want to write within the restrictions of this world when their great American (or insert country of origin) Novel with THEIR characters and THEIR setting is waiting. To those people, I simply say good luck. I understand. Go write it. Go develop your own game. We're proof it can be done. We did it. I doubt there was luck involved too. We have hours, each and every Founder and contributing 'first class' (to borrow Mike's term) member, to show for the fact it isn't luck.
It's a lot of hard work. You have to do a lot more serious writing than garbage writing to get it done too. That's one of the reasons I haven't participated in any more NaNoWriMo's or any of its spawned offspring anymore. I find it takes less time to actually write well than to sit down and puke out 50,000 words in a month that you then have to take the next three or four moths revising. It seems insane to me. What's the sense in that? Sure its fun, but its not THAT much fun.. not like producing something you can be proud of right off the bat. There's an art to writing and development, one that can't be duplicated without hard work. No one stumbles into writing. Writers write and understand this...
But back to the topic of this scrap.
So if you come onto this site, start a character and then get into a state I dub 'unholyhellpissed' because the race doesn't conform to your concept, then I have very little sympathy. There are atypical characters who aren't at all like their race. I play a few. But there are racial constraints too. A human simply can't have the longevity of a Nuit. Nor can a single souled race have the dual soul advantage of an Akalak. You can't make Kelvics smarter than they are capable of being because they are animals that assume human form, not vice versa.
I don't have time though to flush out every concept and write as thoroughly about it as I want too. If people make assumptions, that's their fault not mine because I've always been here for questions. If they play something WRONG they need to realize they are doing it and that its no one's fault but probably their own. I'm not trying to attack anyone here, but recently I've been the subject of several unholyhellpissed people in chat who have taken a base race and made it something its not. Or they've misused a skill, or even a language. When I point out these issues they tend to freak. And I'm not even being snotty when I'm doing it. I have no reason to be. There was a whole string of people that don't seem to listen or weren't around when I gave an explanation and didn't know. I understand that.
The first and most classic example that comes to mind is kelvic telepathy between bondmates. No. They don't have telepathy. Do I play a kelvic that has a telepathic bond between her and her bondmate where they can talk through it? Yes. Why? Because my PC died and was brought back by a god by stealing part of her bondmates life force through a forbidden/lost magic called unity (that my PC doesn't know!) and tied to him. If he dies.. she dies. If she dies.. he dies. That bond can never be broken except in death. Its screwed up. It's restrictive. But yes they can hear each other's thoughts. If nothing else happens to your kelvic pc out of the normal, then you cannot be rping your kelvic as having the ability to talk mind to mind through a bond. You can if you are both followers of Syna and stand in the sunlight. But that's a whole different story.
The other thing I want to talk about is languages. People mistakenly think languages can be learned easily. The truth is we have no real point system for languages and we don't really have a way to quantify how folks learn. We probably need to develop one... but its not been a high priority. Your PC starts out with three languages... probably a racial, probably a common, and then something they may or may not know a few words in. Kelvics being able to communicate with their kind of animal does not count as a language. Its a freebie thing like a konti gift. It's not even a language really. Dogs howling tells things to each other... same as sniffing each others butts. Its a form of communication, but its not a language per say.
Okay.. so that being said, the other thing I have issues with is Pavi. I can't tell you how many times I've explained this to people, but Pavi is a visual language. If you know Pavi, you know Grassland Sign. Its one and the same language. Drykas pcs have to be really quite at times so sometimes when they are hunting they use only sign, but when they use their normal language, its nearly impossible for them to talk without using their hands. Why? Words have numerous meanings and hand sign or grassland sign tells the speaker and those listening what cues to look for. Let me give you an example. Someone tells someone else in Pavi "You're late." Then they often follow with a handsign that's grassland sign. That handsign can signal 'concern' or 'anger' or 'frustration' or any number of emotions. So when you are talking to someone, you are using Pavi as a base language and the handsign to inflect emotions. You can talk to someone with just the handsigns, but you'll never sound anything but simpleminded and you'll never have a complete vocabulary or a way to actually state things completely. Hunters use grassland sign while hunting, but they only need it for simple things anyhow. You can sign lots of emotions, but they'll make little sense unless the Pavi is backing them to explain and give cues as to what the emotions mean. I've literally explained this a zillion times to people... over and over. It's not something I can write into an article and make it make sense nor is it a priority, but that's why Grassland sign is not listed as a 'language' of its own on the language list/chart. It's Pavi. I designed it this way to give Drykas characters an added dimension to their arguments and conversations. Most use it wonderfully well.
Okay, I have a lot more to say, but I have a Wind Reach meeting in chat in about three minutes I need to be there for. If anyone wants to come to the meeting, our staff meetings are always open to players after the half hour mark... so at 530 anyone can join. It's in the Wind Reach forum in chat. |
by Fela Meason on August 7th, 2011, 4:41 am 
