Character Development Thread--Discussion

Cheers for that. Where are they usually located?

To be determined. We haven't quite got all the locations figured out yet.

So I decided not to watch Black Panther today and I'm gonna wait until Thursday (my birthday) to see it (I have hearing sensitivity and plus I don't do well in large crowds and it's still opening weekend so it's gonna be crowded).

Now, on the topic of locations, I was thinking some abandon places (like an abandoned airport or mall) and a beach! If not that, maybe, like I said, a futuristic city (in my case Atlanta cause I live near there and I don't know shit about other cities).

There's an entire abandoned town which is likely to include numerous malls as well as schools, theatres, civic/administrative centre, suburbs, playgrounds etc.

No biggie to put an abandoned airport in somewhere.

Got a tentative region map, tell me what you think.

Looks pretty good, so far. Need to select a relatively low-lying area that can be the Sun-Dried sea and determine what's located where.

I'm envisioning the "Wastelands" as only a sterile environment, not an actual desert - there would be streams and rivers and it gets just as much rainfall as the neighbouring areas (so there's the possibility that there will be shallow depressions filled with stagnant "standing water" as well), so it needn't be separated from more verdant areas by much.

Though the forest and rainforest, as different microclimates, would probably be a reasonable distance apart. I pick the overgrown, wilderness-has-reasserted itself, town would be closer to the forest region.

Added my skvaders to the page too.

I just had the idea to add a few lifeforms from my setting to the thread, but the "creatures" folder seems to be getting very full, so I will only add a plant.

EDIT: on the map, maybe the Necropolis hill could be up the river, so there could be a way to reach it without passing through the more dangerous regions if one manages to get a ferry.

edited 18th Feb '18 1:22:09 PM by EternaMemoria

Well, I contributed a mook species of my own to the bestiary.

We are going to eventually get to the point where our characters are going to stumble upon the scene of Cool vs. Awesome when it comes to our varied wildlife.

I'm not sure why people are adding so much wildlife to begin with, honestly. "Fighting random animals" isn't really the sort of adventure I'm personally seeking.

Have you ever played Skyrim?

Begin Joking Mode

RPG rule # whatever: Between any given points A and B, there is approximately a metric shit ton of random encounters involving vicious woodland creatures, slimes, bandits, vicious woodland slime bandits, and the occasional dragon, all of which is inexplicably carrying a net worth of a kings ransom in gold/crystals/whatever, useless junk, several thousand rounds of ammunition, and oversized swords.

Now unless you want your character to be mugged by AK-47 toting slime squirrel bandits— where was I going with this?

edited 18th Feb '18 7:21:42 PM by WillDeRegio

It is, however, exactly the sort of adventure my characters are looking for. Professional hunters and all. Though for a number of the beasties, Layi will answer "what's that?" with just, *rifle shot* "lunch". And in that, say, a skvader, a zebreer, and a and mundane deer serve more or less the same purpose.

edited 18th Feb '18 7:34:50 PM by KillerClowns

Random encounters are tedious and a waste of everyone's valuable time.

You tell me that when you've woken up the day of a session you're DMing with a bad hangover and a realization you ain't properly foreshadowed the plan you'd set up previously and need to make an encounter right fast. (Though in my defense, I have a list of weird shit from the bestiary so it's at least memorable when you, say, encounter a tree with hallucinogenic pollen and a desire to strangle you with noose-like vines. Also, I do agree with you abstractly and video games have no excuse — just had to say that.)

edited 18th Feb '18 8:11:32 PM by KillerClowns

I agree that the bestiary is getting over-inflated, and I do wonder if it is necessary to have a list of creatures, instead of letting each author introduce them when it feels interesting to do so.

Darn, I completely missed the boat on posting for QR this weekend. Will, poke me if I don't do it tomorrow.

My big concern is that that the bestiary is growing at the expense of getting other bits sorted out prior to starting.

Do we have sufficient major areas now? (as opposed to sub-locations within the broad categories) How satisfied is everyone that we're ready to start?

My thought was that authors that introduce creatures to the story as we go can add them to the list so that anyone encountering the group can get a quick synopsis of what they're dealing with rather than having to hunt for some post buried earlier in the thread.

edited 19th Feb '18 9:55:13 AM by Wolf1066

Adding creatures as we go along is what I would prefer. I have some specific creatures in mind, but as they’re mainly to progress the story, adding them to the page seems...domineering.

edited 19th Feb '18 11:34:52 AM by TroPartner

Maybe we could streamline the descriptions? Make them one or two lines instead of ten?

I streamlined my creature entry. The adult male and possibly the female of the species can get their own entry if I decide to add them later.

Ok this is off topic of the locations and stuff, but I had to ask this question cause as much as I joke about spreading the gay agenda, I also want to be super considerate to you guys, so how many of ya'll have LGBT characters? I'm asking so I don't keep having my characters flirt with straight or taken characters, lol.

edited 19th Feb '18 1:33:19 PM by Masterofchaos

Out of the three characters likely to pop up in Adventure, Sophie's a lesbian (or possibly bisexual; either way, she prefers other girls), Samantha's straight but not into romance period, and I'm not sure on the last one (given her situation, she probably doesn't think about it much).

That being said, anyone's welcome to try flirting/whatever with them. Makes for interesting character interactions, and that's what I'm here for.

On the subject of the bestiary: To be perfectly honest, that seems like something that should be updated as the thread goes along, if it's to be on the page at all.

Haven't given too much thought to it for most of my characters. I think Rip and Oswald are probably gay, Davey, Connie, and Joseph are more likely straight. But it's all a little nebulous, malleable, and most often just doesn't come up, which I think is an extension of myself as the writer.

I make straight characters. Though even with that in mind, don’t expect to hit it off with any of the characters I’m bringing in. One of them’s not even legal, so...