Roles that people have trouble with

[jriley]

You just notice us more because free dwarves are unlikely to be ordinary. We get rich or die trying. We are the hopeless underdogs of a race that only manages to exist because of slavery. Left to our own devices we would die out unless we established our own city. We don't got time to bleed (breed)! All of our actions are steeped in significance because one of our death is the equivalent of fifty deaths of other species. Oh we who bear the burden of being walking storylines I salute you and mourn you. The only thing that keeps me from rage quitting right now is that elves also don't make it to Arm 2. (Maybe that has changed. I am trying to ignore Arm 2's existence as much as possible)

The hard part of being a dwarf is having to justify to yourself or others why you are doing something where as a human just does it for the fuck of it.

Inspired by a couple of posts, I'm compiling a list of roles that people have trouble with, and will try to identify why it is that players struggle in the sorts of roles.

Here is my list

Dwarves - Dwarves are supposed to be stubborn and focused, but instead are often played as gruff and fiesty.  This comes from Tolkien, and players just can't get past that.
Half Giants - Supposed to be socially-shifty dullards with the maturity of a child, but people often play these characters as buffoons.
Children - Zalanthan human children are supposed to be resourceful and self-reliant, but people just end up playing adorable Dickens-whelps.  It got so bad that staff banned people from playing children's characters.

In the case of Half-Giants in particular, I think that part of the blame lies on the people that play around half-giants.  We encourage poor role-playing.  Let's face it, a lot of people who are playing half-giants can't resist the urge to play a humor roll, or a dopey side-kick, attempting a comedic response.  But it actually takes a lot of intelligence to put on this sort of act.  Marylin Monroe, for example, wasn't dumb.  She acted dumb.  She could still drive a car or fill out a tax form or read the Wall Street Journal.  The dumb thing was an act. 
Half Giants can't act dumb.  They're just plain dumb.  They lack the smarts to put on a stupid act. 
I don't think that humans would put up with giants clowning so much.  In game, Giant PCs tend to dominate the conversation in the room that they're in.  This is wrong.  I think that if you were a Zalanthan human accustomed to interacting with giants, you would grow rapidly tired of their antics and would expect them to remain quiet most of the time.  Zalanthan humans are racists who view Half-giants as racially inferior.  You know half-giants opinions are?  No, you don't.  Because you don't care. 

Taken together, most people who play the three roles that I've outlined tend to play extroverts, however I don't think that extroverted dwarves, extroverted giants or extroverted children fit Zalanthas.  I'd guess that most of these characters would have their own motivation for avoiding attention from Zalanthan human adults, and that Zalanthan human adults probably wouldn't tolerate a lot of nonsense out of these sorts. 

[Nahara]

I've personally found 'city elf' to be a mildly troublesome role to figure out. Which, perhaps, may be part of the reason for a supposed dearth of them. Not sure if being more of an extrovert would hurt or help me there. Half-elf or moderately mutant is probably where I'm most comfortable with how others treat me, oddly. Relatively normal human's just a bit overwhelming somehow.

[X-D]

I don't agree with the entire post.

Dwarves  - Dwarves are supposed to be stubborn and focused, but instead are often played as gruff and fiesty.  This comes from Tolkien, and players just can't get past that.

So, your saying that these things are mutually exclusive?

I would have to say you are wrong, being stubborn has nothing to do with pretty much anything else in personality. You can be any one of disneys seven dwarves and  10,000 more past that and still be stubborn and focused.

Half Giants  - Supposed to be socially-shifty dullards with the maturity of a child, but people often play these characters as buffoons.

Although I agree that 99.9999999% of half-giants are played HORRIBLY, I don't agree with your blerb or the rest on the matter.

Again, because I think your wrong on what they are coming across as. Buffoons? If you watch say, americas funniest home videos, you will find that 50% 80% are often very young children. Most people think that very young children, or even people with the mind of a child to be very funny.(You would laugh at retards if it was not considered politically incorrect)

Now, how humans interact with them....I don't really think they would expect them to be quiet. I think they would have learned to ignore them. You simply do not anger somebody that can pull your head off.

[gfair]

Honestly, this sounds like someone venting, not a legitimate discussion, because the logic being presented is, frankly, very flawed.

[Qzzrbl]

Honestly, this sounds like someone venting, not a legitimate discussion, because the logic being presented is, frankly, very flawed.

Be that as it may, I would agree with him that there are very, -very- few properly portrayed children PCs and half-giants.

I think most dwarves I've seen have been fine though.... I don't remember anywhere in the docs stating that dwarves weren't allowed to have personalities.... So long as their eye's always on their focus.

[Semper]

Maybe some constructive stuff on how to better understand these 'trouble' roles would be welcome. I for one have difficulty with elves, dwarves, and half-giants, and see only a handful in my entire time playing that felt true to the documents. Truth to say, it is -tough- roleplaying these races, and I give a lot of props to those players who actually try and keep with the documentations.

[Qzzrbl]

Maybe some constructive stuff on how to better understand these 'trouble' roles would be welcome. I for one have difficulty with elves, dwarves, and half-giants, and see only a handful in my entire time playing that felt true to the documents. Truth to say, it is -tough- roleplaying these races, and I give a lot of props to those players who actually try and keep with the documentations.

Yeah.... Same here.

The only insight I could offer is about human children.

Ahem.... At around thirteen, you're considered an adult, or not far off from that.

Act like it.

k thx

::Edit:: Can't seem to find the docs supporting it.... But I know I've seen it somewhere.

Will post when I get it.

[Armaddict]

::Edit:: Can't seem to find the docs supporting it.... But I know I've seen it somewhere.

Pretty sure it was a post by...Sanvean, I think?  It was awhile ago, if that's the case.

[Reiloth]

Merchant Roles. I love my characters, but I hate the amount of time required by all parties involved for everyone to be happy. I feel like if I don't play 5-6 hours a day, i'm behind. Not to mention if you don't have that time to commit, you're the jackass.

Yet another example of "Armageddon: The Grind".

[Tuannon]

I agree with Reiloth.

Also complete 'd-bags', I cannot bring myself to be a complete stone killa or immoral (amoral?), no matter how hard I try.

[Barzalene]

I agree with Reiloth.

Also complete 'd-bags', I cannot bring myself to be a complete stone killa or immoral (amoral?), no matter how hard I try.

Me too. And I don't like that. The one time I played a really mean pc, I ended up getting promoted. The problem is, once promoted I fell into my rl managment style, which is often pretty even handed and conciliatory. I'd like to think that given enough time I'd have found my mean again. Alas, I got carrued before I could find out.

It's really hard to overcome all that social conditioning to play nice.

[Cutthroat]

I think extroverted anything fits Zalanthas. The idea that humans all treat half-giants a certain way that the OP describes is not supported by the documentation. There are plenty of ways to be racist towards half-giants, and I've not only done it myself in the past, but seen it done by others. Racism against half-giants tends to go along the lines of exploitation - whether it is an elf tricking a half-giant into paying 100 coins for a rare piece of preserved kank dung, or a templar promising sexy half-giant prostitutes to all half-giants that join the militia, racism is happening, because those characters keep in mind how absolutely gullible half-giants are supposed to be. I don't think it's necessarily wise to brush off or ignore the needs of what is essentially a child that could throw a very violent temper tantrum.

::Edit:: Can't seem to find the docs supporting it.... But I know I've seen it somewhere.

Will post when I get it.

Here is a post supporting the idea that PCs are never actually children: http://www.zalanthas.org/gdb/index.php/topic,7901.0.html

Specifically:

2. For characters 13-17 years old it MUST be stressed to the player when the character is accepted that this PC is to be played as a young adult not an old child.  On a world like Zalanthas where death is common and poverty is near-universal few people have sheltered childhoods (or anything that would even resemble a childhood by modern standards).

Merchant Roles. I love my characters, but I hate the amount of time required by all parties involved for everyone to be happy. I feel like if I don't play 5-6 hours a day, i'm behind. Not to mention if you don't have that time to commit, you're the jackass.

Yet another example of "Armageddon: The Grind".

I wouldn't worry about it too much. The truth which is said many times on the GDB is that consistency > quantity. If you're playing the same hour or two every Monday, the same hour or two every Tuesday, etc. then you're easy to catch, and people will get used to you and will know how to find you more easily.

[Malifaxis]

Half-Giants are, hands down, my biggest fucking pet peeve on this game.  When I played half-giants, I gave it my damnedest to be an utter imbecile.  If given an order, I'd look at how I could potentially misinterpret the order due to phrasing or something I had heard IC'ly recently.  If given a situation, I'd knee-jerk react to it no matter what.  I had idiotic superstitions, an amazing lack of forethought, and did my absolute best to be a highly powerful lump on a log that had all the cognitive ability of a dog on xanax.

Most of the HGs I seen played are either played as fully intelligent humanoids (this is most commonly the case, and is continued in game to this day) or as complete assclowns with a character depth equal to a malformed thimble.

Fucking pisses me the fuck off.  HGs should be karma 6, easy, because it's goddamn obvious that most people can't fucking grasp how to play one correctly.

[Marauder Moe]

Half-giants are a really tough balancing act.  Also, I think you really need to interact with one a fair amount before judging them as playing too intelligently.  Don't forget that they are supposed to be pretty good at mimicry.  A half-giant who spends a lot of time around a well-spoken person will sound convincingly well-spoken themselves.  You really need to pay closer attention to notice if/how there's a lack of originality and comprehension about what they're saying before you run off to the forums and moan about half-giants not being played stupidly enough.

Furthermore, they are still adult, sentient beings capable of self-sufficiency.  They're not robots that have to do/believe everything they're told and have to be told to do everything.


Dwarves... well, I think the "Dwarves." thread covered my thoughts pretty well.  They're not meant to be bland, soulless, machines either.

I'll add, though, that I had an extroverted dwarf character.  He felt that making (certain) friends and being socially active and visible were conducive to his focus, and so he was.

[Marauder Moe]

Oh, as for children, well... that's most certainly a horse long dead and well beaten.  I still remember the exact PC that caused the staff to implement that policy, though. 

I thought she was well-played and very entertaining, but I did see how the concept was rather exceptional to the setting.

[brytta.leofa]

I find half-giants very hard to get involved in.  I don't be a half-giant, I just watch him.

[jhunter]

I disagree with what the OP said in regards to dwarves. I also believe that HGs are the toughest to play properly. I've tried but it seems that no matter how I try to go about it, I'm not happy with how it is coming acrosss to others. I pretty much feel the same in regards to -most- HGs I've interacted with. There are very few good ones.

[Thunkkin]

Perhaps this should be titled, "Roles that people bitch about."   Or even more accurately, "Roles that people disagree about."

The most amusing thing is how much I disagree with some of the pompous bitching that declares "this is how it should be" and then gets it, in my opinion, quite wrong.  Perhaps instead of railing at other players, players should write their own RP guides with positive hints and ideas and then post them for feedback.  Nah.  Let's just make sweeping statements about how everyone else gets it all wrong and how much they suck.

[Reiteration]

Perhaps this should be titled, "Roles that people bitch about."   Or even more accurately, "Roles that people disagree about."

The most amusing thing is how much I disagree with some of the pompous bitching that declares "this is how it should be" and then gets it, in my opinion, quite wrong.  Perhaps instead of railing at other players, players should write their own RP guides with positive hints and ideas and then post them for feedback.  Nah.  Let's just make sweeping statements about how everyone else gets it all wrong and how much they suck.

Everybody disagrees here on the GDB, so there isn't much point in naming it that. Never seen a thread where the first three people went "I agree!".

[Semper]

I think the problem with many of these difficult roles is that there is no history, IG support, or background really to get a good understanding of them.

For example, what the hell does the average non-slave half-giant's childhood look like, and what are common experiences for them? Not to mention the utter lack of documentation for dwarf and city-elf tribes.

If not for Arm 1, at least in Arm 2, I hope they flesh out these racial backgrounds a lot better. It would be a bonus if we got some better documentation in Arm 1 too though.

[Hot_Dancer]

I use to have a hard time with a city elf concept. Being more or less glued to Allanak seemed like an incredible handicap.
There was no solid support for a city elf tribe, the Heruch Kemad had always been elusive to get into/app into to say the least.

Ding. Staff adds a city elf clan.

Add experience playing the game for the last ten years and having a good idea of what the various play areas have to offer..
the various endings you can suffer.

Being cuffed to Allanak all of a sudden doesn't seem so bad. It's an incredibly diverse playing sphere that is well worth a character's
span from beginning to end.

I got a little tired of competing with beetles and bamuk in the desert, they do not offer much of a challenge.

[jriley]

Half-Giants are, hands down, my biggest fucking pet peeve on this game.  When I played half-giants, I gave it my damnedest to be an utter imbecile.  If given an order, I'd look at how I could potentially misinterpret the order due to phrasing or something I had heard IC'ly recently.  If given a situation, I'd knee-jerk react to it no matter what.  I had idiotic superstitions, an amazing lack of forethought, and did my absolute best to be a highly powerful lump on a log that had all the cognitive ability of a dog on xanax.

Thank you.  I feel like this method of playing a half-giant is more consistent with the docs.

There are plenty of ways to be racist towards half-giants, and I've not only done it myself in the past, but seen it done by others. Racism against half-giants tends to go along the lines of exploitation - whether it is an elf tricking a half-giant into paying 100 coins for a rare piece of preserved kank dung, or a templar promising sexy half-giant prostitutes to all half-giants that join the militia, racism is happening, because those characters keep in mind how absolutely gullible half-giants are supposed to be. I don't think it's necessarily wise to brush off or ignore the needs of what is essentially a child that could throw a very violent temper tantrum.

Yeah.  Actually, you make an excellent point.  But here is where I think that the average player fails -- in the same way that a Zalanthan human child would have learned to be quiet and self-reliant by the time they reach their teen-age years, I think that the average half-giant would have learned to stay out of the way more.  I think that half-giants who are a little bit too bubbly would be murdered before reaching maturity. 
I also think that exploiting a half-giant would be more difficult than you imply.  After all, they don't accumulate wealth that you can rob them of, and they require quite a lot of supervision in order to keep them on task, as Malifaxis post suggests.  At the end of the day, they don't have a lot of loyalty to you and will be willing to switch sides once your back is turned without taking the time to think through their actions.

Merchant Roles. I love my characters, but I hate the amount of time required by all parties involved for everyone to be happy. I feel like if I don't play 5-6 hours a day, i'm behind. Not to mention if you don't have that time to commit, you're the jackass.

Yeah, I agree with you.  I really love playing mercantile types.  This was good for me while I was unemployed.  It almost seems to me that certain roles somewhat require you to take time off of work and family in order to play them well.  So true.

Also complete 'd-bags', I cannot bring myself to be a complete stone killa or immoral (amoral?), no matter how hard I try.

Yeah.  I've heard other players complain about this.  Not sure what I could say that would help.  Would it make you feel any different if you knew that some other players have a masochistic bent to them and somewhat enjoy it when you beat up on their characters?

The one time I played a really mean pc, I ended up getting promoted. The problem is, once promoted I fell into my rl managment style, which is often pretty even handed and conciliatory.

Actually, this is not unrealistic.  History is filled with examples of outlaws who turned responsible either when they had children or were forced into leadership positions.  You may very well have handled the role well. 

I'll add, though, that I had an extroverted dwarf character.  He felt that making (certain) friends and being socially active and visible were conducive to his focus, and so he was.

Yeah, this is a good point.  I like the fact that you're playing an extroverted dwarf as a deliberate decision to fit in character rather than just playing that way as a default.

Maybe some constructive stuff on how to better understand these 'trouble' roles would be welcome. I for one have difficulty with elves, dwarves, and half-giants, and see only a handful in my entire time playing that felt true to the documents. Truth to say, it is -tough- roleplaying these races, and I give a lot of props to those players who actually try and keep with the documentations.

Sure, coming up soon.  Sorry.

I think most dwarves I've seen have been fine though.... I don't remember anywhere in the docs stating that dwarves weren't allowed to have personalities.... So long as their eye's always on their focus.

Oh, absolutely.  I think the game would be worse of if everyone started playing their dwarves in the exact same way.  I think it's good that dwarves each have personalities.  My complaint is that they all seem to have the same personality.  They're all Gimli, basically brash hard-boiled pirate Scottsmen.

[jriley]

I've personally found 'city elf' to be a mildly troublesome role to figure out. Which, perhaps, may be part of the reason for a supposed dearth of them. Not sure if being more of an extrovert would hurt or help me there. Half-elf or moderately mutant is probably where I'm most comfortable with how others treat me, oddly. Relatively normal human's just a bit overwhelming somehow.

Yeah, I get that.  I had trouble playing city-elves for like the first year that I played.  But then I started to find my niche.  There are a few things that I had to settle on:

Most people who play roles in Arm either want to be bad-assed, criminally-accomplished, successful crafters, socially important or to live a long time. Because of their coded-stat situation and the fact that human authorities, human criminals and human soldiers will never take them seriously, it's pretty safe to say that a city elf will never achieve any of this.  If you're going to play a city elf, you have to resign yourself to playing what most of us would view as a "roleplay only" role.  Personally, I've had a lot of fun playing an elven drunkard, an elven spice-head, an elven beggar and an elven spy.  Even then you cannot expect too live too long because someday the militia/templar PCs will just get too bored and decide to waste you.  If you can learn to enjoy this sort of role, then you can be happy with an elf.  If you cannot learn to enjoy this, then I agree that you're better off playing a human.

I'm not saying that if you follow this advice, it will make you into a great elf, I'm just pointing out what's helped me to have more fun with the role and to get recognition from other players.

Oh yeah, one more word of advice.  I think that people who play elves need to realize that their characters are constantly exposed to racism and will likely tune it out most of the time.  You're used to being insulted by humans and it doesn't bother you.

Maybe some constructive stuff on how to better understand these 'trouble' roles would be welcome. I for one have difficulty with elves, dwarves, and half-giants, and see only a handful in my entire time playing that felt true to the documents. Truth to say, it is -tough- roleplaying these races, and I give a lot of props to those players who actually try and keep with the documentations.

Fair enough.  But as a disclaimer, I felt fairly confident pointing out a couple of complaints about the game, but by no means am I trying to tell people how to roleplay.  Since you asked...

Half-Giants - Don't talk to much.  Don't make jokes that other players are going to laugh at.  Occasional jokes hurt nothing, but pounding a few jokes in a row makes you into the goofy side-kick.  Don't be too useful.  Players should understand that they cannot rely upon your character without supervision.  If people begin to follow you, lead them into ruin.  If people begin to trust you, change sides.  Your character may likely have been beaten or abused by humans while you were still young and still learning your place in the world.  Your character may mistrust humans and may have an irrational fear of them.  Make agreements and then forget to honor them.  Spill people's secrets.  While you understand basic math, counting and cooking, these sorts of tasks absolutely test your mental abilities and it takes you much longer to do something like making a sandwich than a human would.  Don't plan anything.  Panic occaisionally and freak out.  Make irrational conclusions about your physical environment.  You do not understand planning, finance, politics or mechanics, and these things don't interest you.  You cannot follow adult human conversation.
If you want to make an elite soldier, a wealthy hunter or a ninja bodyguard, you're probably better-off playing a human.

Dwarves -- Don't talk too much.  Don't engage in recreation.  You understand human politics, humor, conversation, and finance but these things don't interest you unless they have something to do specifically about your focus.  Humans really don't interest you unless they have something to do with your focus.  You don't change course easily.  Be prepared to waste lots of time pursuing courses of action that a human would immediately perceive as wastes of time or dead ends.  You lack diversity.  Diversity doesn't interest you.  You don't understand human popular culture unless it has something to do with your focus.  As long as you're pursuing your focus, it wouldn't bother you to be naked in public.  As long as you're pursuing your focus, it wouldn't bother you if bugs were crawling on your face.  You don't think that chocolate tastes good.  You don't have an opinion on chocolate.  You don't know who Lady Gaga is.  If you lived in a democracy, you don't vote. 
If you want to make an elite soldier, a wealthy hunter or a ninja bodyguard, you're probably better-off playing a human.  Joining one of the game clans is likely out of character for you.

Children - play the same way as you would play an adult except talk less.  You have less experience and therefore less confidence, poorer judgement and worse-decision making skills.  You are tough and self-reliant.  You've traded sex for food at least once.  You've beaten up somebody smaller than you at least once.  You're more open-minded than you will be as an adult and more socially liberal, by Zalanthan standards. 

[boog]

I think that a lot of the documentation can be personally interpreted and really to be quite honest, none of the HGs or dwarves in game that I've met and have interacted with have been badly roleplayed -- in fact, I enjoy my interactions with them far more than I do of other human or elf PCs.

I wonder where this thought came from, though. You should play for your enjoyment, and if you're not enjoying it, don't play it. But definitely don't let other people tell you you're doing something incredibly wrong unless you know you are or have been told by staff or a clan leader about characteristics, mannerisms, etc.

[Qzzrbl]

I think your view on dwarves is a bit strict....

Drinking at the bar, socializing, making friends, etc., etc., etc.... All of those very well could help with the dwarve's focus.

All depends on the focus....