Well, I can't attest to the general consensus, but whenever this is brought up on the Lore Forums, elven life spans are:

Unusually Low (Beggars, Sickly): 80-150

Average: 150-300

Above Average (Nobility, Mages, esp. monarchy): 300-500

Unusually High (Telvanni, Psijiics, and the like): 500+, usually past 1000.

Yeah and them nasty Orc's won't get past 60 without magic and butt-cushions and all that. <_<

I do believe incredibly old characters are awesome, but only when villains or npcs, or maybe a character who just helps the main party doing what they gots to, ya smell me?

Very true, very true. There are, fortunately, non-cliche ways around old characters being uber. However, you'd need to be creative about it or it'd just sound stupid. A way I sometimes do it is to make them do too much in a relatively unimportant or personal situation, so that they don't have the strength to be uber in actual fights or other kinds of action. Hve them be wounded badly by something unexpectedly (but reasonably!)

So should we toss "Ancient Characters" into the "should primarily be played by experienced RPer" category?

No.

Ancient characters are nothing more then a normal character but with more experience, they can usually have a deeper personality, are usually more mature and should be well weathered. In my opinion, to get better at Roleplaying, you need to experiment with your styles, sticking to just playing a certain character of a certain age limit would do nothing but to teach you how to play that character at a certain age limiting any experience the Rper can get with playing ancient characters.

Besides, just because someone who has experience in Roleplaying doesn't mean to say they wont be able to [censored] up Rping an Ancient Character.

I'm not sure if you'd consider an Altmer in her 130's ancient, but the way I handled her was I gave her wonderfully good fire spells [her line of expertise] and she svcks at almost everything else besides Alteration and fighting with longswords and is majorly weak to cold. She gets horrible sick if she stays in Bruma for too long.

Ancients aren't always that uber if you do 'em right; I'd think most would spend most of their time studying their interests and be horridly deficient in everything else so that they have to rely on other party members for backup.

That's usually how I do all my characters, really, and so far it works nicely: give them a line of expertise where they're good to excellent and have them fall at or below average on everything else. My fighters are awesome fighters, but pit them against ranged mages or archers and they need backup or they die. Assassins, as uber as some think they are, rely heavily on striking first, fast, and before they can be seen. Put 'em in a brawl in broad daylight and they fail. That sorta stuff.

My, I really do have a knack for straying off my original subject if I talk too long, don't I?

Anyway, back on topic, if your old character is a human or beast race and not a vampire, they'll also suffer from the drawbacks of simply being old, so they'll really need help against younger, stronger enemies. Elves and vampires and werewolves each have their fallbacks of simply what they are too, despite not having to suffer from frailties of age, and those help balance out a character if kept in mind.

Generally, I think that if anyone with common sense does an old character with those things in mind, they'll be fine. I've seen some people here that have never RPed in their lives before that can do decently with these even, though they're admittedly rare. And like my dear Uglius mentioned: Just because you've got experience doesn't mean you can't still [censored] up. [Just look at me, lol]

True, anyone can [censored] up anything, but the chances are at least slightly reduced by having a bit of previous experience. It's also just as true that a noob can do things wonderfully.

And Aulakauss: yeah, probably most people would just study their own intrests. So a 2000 year old wizard would be phenominal until he couldn't use magic.

Which brings me to my next point:

"Every hero has a weakness."

It's true. The more crippling and pervasive this weakness is, the more interesting it is to read about, and the more entertaining to see it be overcome.

A boring weakness: A character is very self-centered and vain. It's been done. It's been used since the hero tales of old, and just dosen't have the fresh ping it did back in 2000BC. It can be done well (I've seen it on these very boards), but really be careful.

A slightly better weakness: A character has had a brutal and scarring experience. This has shaped him/her to have fits where they become violently angry, lashing out at people close to them, sometimes hurting them physically, eventually causing their loved ones to distance themselves. This causes lots of internal pain and conflict, and that pain can be (like everything else in this thread) used to forge links with certain other characters while causing strife between others. Again it could be done horribly. But the baseline I think has a better chance than pride.

Another is an overabundance of piety. Now, piety is a good thing, but like all virtues, a large dose can be bad. I'll use an example, it's just whipped up so if it svcks be gentle:

After a massive and epic adventure, four people, thrown together by circumstance and palpably distrustful of the others, get to the place they need to be. They see on the pedestal before them a Daedric artifact with power beyond anything they can muster. They approach. Just as the rogue, a Dunmer, reaches for the artifact, eyes aglow with greed, the cleric stops him. He says that such unholy power cannot be allowed to ever leave that place, and that it must be destroyed. The two argue, distracting them from the danger of the approaching guardians. The Rogue turns to see the source of the noise, and the cleric murders him, restating that the artifact is too dangerous. The group, already tenuously held together, dissolves and, divided, the guardians kill them all.


Love may sound cliched, but it can work if done right. Fear of dying, also.

My personal favorite heroic weakness is racism, and/or religious intolerance (which often comes with piety). If you're playing an RP set in Leyawiin, or shortly after the Allesian Slave rebellion, that'd be a great one to throw this in.

It is true that even an experienced RPer can fail at something. I myself found the old character Father Tristan, who was a 60yrold human priest, to be difficult to rp. I also found the child Jacob to be difficult for me to rp. I can't, apparently, manage any characters well outside of ages of late teens and forties. And I have been labeled as capable of rping nearly any type of character by quite a few people. Obviously... I cannot. Which pisses me off kinda, as I usually get into my characters rather well.

However, older characters with more experience may not be uber in the fact that they have experience in their field. And, they find it harder to learn new things. In fact, it is more realistic to have an older character. Not every character can be some twenty-yr-old hot shot. However... it takes considerable skill or luck to manage an uber character in an un-uber way.

One weakness, to add to Lycanthrope's list, that I have found to be utterly spectacular for control of uberness and expansion of personality is this:

Lack of self-confidence.

No matter how powerful you are, your power is worthless if you feel it to be worthless. A 2000yrold mage can cast the greatest of spells, sure, but only if he is confident in his abilities. If he feels he might fail, he will hold back on the spell and that could have drastic consequences. Lack of self-confidence can turn the most powerful person in the world into the biggest baby.

@FC4: You're not alone. Whenever I join a Political RP, no matter what my intentions, I can never convincingly play someone who ISN'T a fiftysomething year old Machiavellian with the whole "megalomaniacal chessmaster" thing going on and an expansive spy network who likes to stay behind the scenes. My largest deviation ever has been one with a soft-spoken voice. While in an Adventure RP I tend to be more varied, the fact is that not being able to RP a vast number of different characters is one of my biggest flaws.

Mournhold Rp. <3


:P

Muahahahaha!

;)

Considering this is a stickied thread, can we refrain from posts that are not constructive to advice on rping, so as to make use of each post we have left until the 200 limit.

I would like to expound on the assassin note. Realistically, the civilian:assassin ratio is about 1:700, and that's generous, even for Tamriel. RPing a hardcoe assassin with a dark personality and dramatic past may be fun, but it's not that interesting, and quite overdone, from what I've seen. Forgive me if I offend, I'm just going by what I've read. Half of the Imperial City's entire populace is not a member of the Dark Brotherhood.

And thank you for the guide, I shall take note!

Well, my assassin has become a bit of an alcoholic drug addicted assassin, so that keeps it interesting.

Another weakness that usually goes over pretty well is self-loathing. Everyone deals with it differently. some are violent, some are snarky, some are introverted, some are really big on self-mutilation.
A bit late, yeah, but it's one I really like.

Interesting issue on classes. There are a lot of classes that are overused, not just assassin or ninja characters. You know what classes aren't used enough? Everymen. A guy with a regular day job, or even an interesting job that people actually have. How many people have ever played a fireman character who gets thrown into these adventures? I'd be willing to bet none of you have. I know one guy who played a doctor. A doctor who had epilepsy, no less.

Reactions to events should be realistic. Sometimes people think "what would I do here?" but you shouldn't. You should think "what would [character] do here, and can they?" For example, if your everyman is jumped by a group of thugs, don't expect him to quickly and efficiently kill them all. Chances are he's never killed anyone, and dosen't know how to fight with much else than fists.

Sorry for the double post, but someone asked a question.

Starting an RP.

There's a lot of tips on how to RP good in here, but nothing on how to start it up.

There's really no right or wrong way to start up. There is definitely an archetype, though, so I figured I'd show it.

In general, RPs tend to go like this:

Title

This is where the plot description goes. Here's where you'd put the backstory. What's going on, who are the major groups, what do they want, and if why is something that you don't want to be a big ending twist then also put why. Make it fun to read, let it grab their attention.

Rules
-Rules are usually
-placed in bullet format
-like so.
-It includes some common sense stuff (no killing other people's chars without permission, etc)
-As well as specific rules for your RP (like if you need everyone to do something).

Character sheet template
Here's where you'd put the character sheed template. Chances are it looks like a normal sheet, but you might have something specific you want done, like if everyone has a special ability of some kind. Afterward you'd put the sheet for your own character partly for an example and partly because you need to show your character.

Then you can either drop it or do the first in-character post.

So that's the general archetype of most RP startup posts.

There should also be a section or subsection of the OP (if not several) that contains information as to that particular RP's "gimmick." Because, let's face it, most RP's operate on some sort of novelty factor that attracts people and makes them go "hey, I want to play in this!" Be it the setting, some weird crossover, unique rules, a genre-blender, an entirely new genre, and the like. A perfect example is the Siege RP, which goes to great lengths to explain the unique milieu of the game to new players; or, for that matter, the first Political and War RPs, which basically had to help conventional RPers understand that they were RPing groups of people, and armies, not necessarily individuals. Though that's been subverted, by and large, by the modern distinction between genres in that category.

Also, I find that a wonderful technique I picked up from RPs two years ago, when I first joined, was the Dramatis Personae or Character Page, which listed all the characters with a brief description and their "actors," or the RPers. Such a great concept, though it has fallen out of vogue for some reason, could really come in handy for people in RPs like Siege, which have a large, large cast of characters and ingame backstory that may seem completely impenetrable to prospective "noobies" joining midgame. The same applies to Story Summaries -- seriously, how easy would it be for a good OP in each new thread to briefly outline the main events of the previous thread, especially in RPs where the average post is almost a page and a half in Microsoft Word?

Most good RP's have that, Seige of Sentinel has that, both of mine have/had that, The Longest Journey has that, the Dragons saga has that, though it still might be somewhat confusing for someone who is looking to join up, so basically, a lot of RPs already have story summarys, or a what has happened so far bit.

Lycanthropic Nerev, this isn't really a guide about making rps, just about HOW to rp. Hence why that subject was not covered.

But yes, Dragons employs that summary aspect, as does End of Era and the like. However, Dragon's does it differently, as the Backstory section of the rp OP, where plot and stuff goes, is where I write a short and succinct summary of the past thread. So the OP is never the same twice, and the summary is not presented in a chunky bullet format.

And you are right, LN... people should focus not on what they do, but what on their character would do. Unless their character is based off themselves, which happens often. But Tamriel doesn't have firemen. So make the common classes more lore correct and plausible.

I know, just giving it as the example. Something like merchant, bookseller or trader or the like.

An idea to help new comers. Maybe a section on common abreavations used like:
rp (obvious)
ic
ooc

This is a good guide fer newbie - RPers... Sadly, I knew most of those things already. All of them, and more, actually. Heh.

Perhaps a section for Magic/Would be mages? Mages are widely different from Thiefs and Warriors afterall, more so than Thiefs to Warriors... Gah, I like mages, heh.

Hrmmm... Also, someone starting an RP soon? I'd rather begin in a new one than join an old one (or create one).

Those three are the only one that are beig used I think:
rp= roleplaying.
ic= In character
ooc= out of charcter.

I've heard that question way to often anyway....

I actually really like this Idea. honest to god, I'm involved in the mind-bogglingly complex siege of sentinel and i have even lost track of people some times. I think i'll add this in. really handy!

All the more reason why we need to kidnap adventorous putty, chain him to a chair and force him to stay on the computer to roleplay with us.

"It eats the gruel when the post is finished!"