Grumpy Bear

Used to be a time I would complain people were sending semi-developed characters into situations crafter to kill an npc merely due to the fact these characters couldn't be killed.

It smarts that exotic weapons and scientific theory just cannot be brought to bear against Characters. However, in all fairness to our SW Universe, Luke Skywalker blowing up the Death Star with the aid of a modified freighter, Wedge Antilles and a hodge podge of Y-wings could be considered just such a situation hand-crafted to kill NPC's. He survived.

A Character is defined on TRF as; A personality upon which someone has spent significant time and effort developing, and writing about. An NPC is almost the opposite. It is a personality that may be used now and then, but no serious effort is put into developing the person's history, character, etc. NPC's may include commanders for individual ships in a battle, shop keepers on a planet, or any other of a multitude of personalities that may inhabit the galaxy.

Though it is encouraged that people use separate accounts for each of their characters, it is not required. Many people like to play different characters from a single account. Just because a personality does not have its own account does not mean it is not a full-fledged Character.

This actually says it all. We do not need complicated rules or designations like Storyline PC, Fleet NPC, Storyline NPC, etc..

The old way of thinking was to create a separate account per character. Most do but others find it tedious and a time-waster. There are good and bad issues with both choices and, really, it is the writer's choice.

The important thing from the rules is this: That a character is a personality upon which someone has spent significant time and effort developing, and writing about.

So, THIS is the question we really need to ask the writers on TRF. Rather than create a complicated system, simply have the writers themselves list those personalities that they feel they have spent a significant time and effort into developing and writing about that is where we will get our list of TRF characters.

Our Dramatis Personae of TRF.

The content of the stories themselves bear no relation to whether a personality is considered a character or not. Only the opinion of a particular writer.

Why is it important for a writer to inform TRF just who their characters are?

Well, because, quite frankly, NPC's can be killed off. It may be sudden, it may be unexpected but then, it also adds spice to life. Perhaps your plans are thrown into the crapper because of an unexpected death of an NPC, but then.... that's life and people die.


So, I take Slaskia's idea to heart:

Story Bear

Maybe someone can make a master list that's stickied in the Bio section that has links to all the people's bios? This would not only give an easy(er) access to people's bio posts, but also serve as a list of which characters belong to who and not to mention perhaps giving those that haven't written a bio a kick in the pants to write it.

Perhaps not everyone will have a bio as it is still voluntary. At the very least though, it lets people know who the characters of TRF are.

Militant Bear

Admittedly, there are people like myself who tend to see TRF more or less as a literary war game, and hence, we tend to focus on our factions instead of our characters. Why? Because early on, TRF was a tumultous place, with nearly everyone engaged in wars and battles; perhaps some would call these the golden days. Everything was about war, and mustering resources, etc, and we would be fools to not recognize that there are some vestiges of that era still manifesting themselves today. Case and point, there was a forty or so post on if the Confed could own a star destroyer if it had six planets. Maybe this attitude needs to change, but the fact is, it still exists, and some people try to compensate for that (like myself). Some people aren't here for writing or the stories sake, but for the game itself. It's an important distinction to note that not everyone is here solely for writing.

Point. TRF is also a game and a competitive one. The nature of the rules was to move those gaming aspects from bean counting to character development.

Even if you write on TRF only for those gaming aspects, you recognized enough the importance of character and/or development when you brought up your Diplomat Character trumping what was perceived as a weaker character.


The rules state:

Fleets are commanded by Characters; they are attached to them, and their potency is determined by them. For quick link to a character's experience, writers are encouraged to set up a bio for their character in the Biography Forum....

An example of how valuble Characters are, and how important it is to assign them, would be the following fairly common battle tactic. If you can tie up an enemy's Characters in certain points, and then send your more powerful characters to attack their now NPC-controlled Planets or Assets, you stand a better chance of winning than if you simple went head-to-head.

As noted in the rules, success or failure depend greatly on the strength of your character. Just how powerful a character is yours?


And this is, of course, determined by how well and how much they are developed.


So, I must amend my earlier statements that the question may not be in knowing the difference between NPC and PC because what makes a personality a character is simply the perception of the personality's creator.
The list idea that Slaskia gave would really put to rest any questions there.


The real question then, at least for competitive roleplaying, is how a character's strength/power/level is determined?


Simply being mentioned in rp's?
Being mentioned in 5-7 rp's?


I am beginning to think that if a writer adds a character to the list but then does next to no writing/roleplaying with the character, an NPC (perhaps better developed) would then trump the character. Perhaps it is not a PC always trumping an NPC?


A combination of IC attributes (rank, experience, function) with OOC attributes (time invested, number of rp's, etc...)??


Something to think about.

Grumpy Bear

I'm saddened people have a stronger opinion about what forms the difference between PC and NPC than a discusion about an ideal government.

That's because 1). it's easier for roleplayers to solve roleplaying problems than the world's problems. Besides, since there is no life after death, why worry about stuff that isn't going to be fixed in your lifetime? and 2). When Beff put forth the thread, he also interjected his own position and has yet to shit on another's. That tends to encourage communication. The other thread simply posed an exercise and then proceeded to shit all over any answer given. After a while, it becomes "WTF?! Then YOU come up with your fucking utopia!"

I like my nickname, it makes me smile.

I am in agreement with Beff and Omnae. I really like Beff's idea of distinguishing between story PCs and Faction PCs. He explained it to be better over IM, and it does address your concerns, Corise.

However, I think that Om is right in saying that the PC/NPC distinguishment is the opinion of the writer. I also think that PC shouldn't always trump NPC, especially if NPC has a lot of experience and PC has next to none. Of course, accidents happen (Death Star, for example). So I'm not sure how I would integrate the two. Certainly, I think a list would help. Perhaps even give characters ranks, like the Force factions do? Of course, the ranks wouldn't determine who wins and loses necessarily, but they can help in determining relative experience of two competing RPers.

Pretty much in agreement with everything Om said...again...

A character's strength should have something to not only do with the character's history so far within TRF, but also on the quality of the RPs, and the ideas injected into the immediate storyline.

Perhaps it is not a PC always trumping an NPC?

There are cases when NPCs should clearly triumph over PCs.

Case and point, a TNO NPC naval officer should trump Thorn leading a fleet, because Thorn has nothing to do with naval combat, and essentially focuses on the exact opposite. If someone tries to have a diplomat PC try to override a NPC naval officer based on the sole fact that their person is a PC, they should be at the exact opposite. By common sense, a naval officer, whether or not it's a PC or NPC, should triumph if it's an effort of pure strength (at least in my opinion).

The ideas put forth though, but each side, should also influence in way or another.



It strikes me that we might to instead have something like classes which grant certain benefits to PCs and NPCs in a dispute. Like a naval officer will automatically be stronger in the naval or military department, while someone like Groder Stu should be more effective at swaying groups of people or even individuals (the skills are related), and etc.

Militant Bear

It strikes me that we might to instead have something like classes which grant certain benefits to PCs and NPCs in a dispute. Like a naval officer will automatically be stronger in the naval or military department, while someone like Groder Stu should be more effective at swaying groups of people or even individuals (the skills are related), and etc.

You may be onto something here.


Possible Character Classification


Diplomat
Military
Rogue
Government Leader
Force User
Spy
Media
??

I like the idea about classes in general, but this discussion of PC trumping NPC, my guy doing this better than your guy for X, Y, Z seems almost approaching The Math Faction again. Not in that it involves math at all, but depending on how things progress it could return to the rigidity of the Math Faction but instead of "I have 2 x your fleet firing on your fleet so your entire fleet is dead in two posts, hahaha I am l33t!!!" you have "I have a PC who's only trait is diplomat so he trumps your PC who is primarily military at diplomacy automatically and the planet decides to side with me". While I agree in theory that a PC who is primarily a diplomat would normally/theoretically be better than someone who is primarily a military officer, I think the quality of writing should come into play as well and no guy should automatically trump another guy (after all, everyone makes mistakes, even experts).

Add God to that list ^_^

Why don't we build character sheets akin to other RPG formats but formatted to TRF? We could have attributes reflective of what goes on at TRF.

IE

Fleet Muster: 2 Destroyer Squadrons
Planet Captures: 17
Force Status: Knight (Jedi)
Story-Centric Threads: 4

Etc

Btw, I hate this idea.

No, the simpler the better. I have always believed that if your adversary can't do the footwork of reading up on who is going against, why should you do their work for them?


Even the classification of characters has it's drawbacks for it only shows the function/class of the character currently.


I thought of "God" as well. But just because your character is called a "God", if he's got next to no character development, a pisspoor government lackey would probably kick his ass. ;)

Beff: I hate that idea as well.

Honestly, I don't think we need to go into half of the direction this thread is going. A PC, by default, is protected from being killed - as per rules. An NPC isn't. We would know if a player is trying to push the button on what classifies an NPC, if player started saying "You can't kill him, he's a PC!" - despite the fact that supposed PC has only been mentioned once, seen twice, and has near to nothing to it's name... clearly it's not an NPC.

And just to make a precaution, all bios and PC-worthy effort/work should be completed prior to a character venturing into a thread - for exactly the above reason.

Either way, I'm sure something will be worked out on the subject; but as for me, I'm quite happy with my little net of characters, of whom I have created biographies for.