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+--- Thread: Reasoning for irregular race/nationality combinations (/showthread.php?tid=11112)
RE: Reasoning for irregular race/nationality combinations - Aduu Avagnar - 04-15-2015
I guess I fall into the category of irregular race/nationality combinations. As a Keeper, most of whom are located within the Shroud, I decided to come from Thanalan. Primarily because I prefered the Keeper Lore, and given I started as a THM, I just went with that.
RE: Reasoning for irregular race/nationality combinations - Verad - 04-15-2015
(04-15-2015, 11:56 AM)Reiner Dorn Wrote: I agree, as far as I'm concerned RP is just a writing exercise, one of quick reaction, and heavy improve. To do that well you have to be able to place some part of yourself into a character to be able to relate, to make -realistic- decisions without accounting for the fact that you have minutes to think up the perfect response.
 If a character that someone connects with on a writers level is somewhat of an exception, that they want to be the main character in a story they've written, and then wish to engage them into the world we've made, then I can only say we all pay our 15 bucks to have fun and that's that, I can't judge.
This is not quite what I mean. Partly, I think there is a much wider range of "realistic" responses than most players. Realistically, people are often bizarre and irrational, yet such actions are often seen as being unrealistic.
When I say "realist fiction" I mean an aesthetic drive to display life "as it is" for whatever metric of "as it is" one might have. In this regard, the trappings of fantasy settings - all the aether, the various races, the politics, the melodramatic plots, so on - are very much not life "as it is" because they are things that don't actually exist.
My point here is that to criticize unusual race/nationality/class/whatever combinations for being unrealistic or somehow "inauthentic" in a largely fictional environment full of things that, while inspired, perhaps, by real-world cultures, don't actually exist, is to complain about the speck in one's eye while ignoring the plank in your own.
If one takes the argument to its conclusion, then the mere act of RPing in a fantasy culture is itself inauthentic, to continue to use the OP's term. RPers have merely tared out that they are playing in an inauthentic environment for any number of reasons for the sake of whatever character concept they have in mind.
It also makes me question why we desire authenticity in our characters when I'm not sure we could come to a consensus about what authenticity in a fantastic setting might be. Or perhaps this is just using "authenticity" when the desired term is verisimilitude.
Edit because I can't stop talking: I think my other problem is the notion of "Your character matters first" is that it presumes that a character's, well, character, is somehow separate from the circumstances that produced the character. Take out the race/class combination issue - it's presuming that a character's upbringing and nationality somehow do not affect a character's personality. Somebody growing up poor would have the same character as somebody growing up rich, somebody growing up in a happy home would be the same as if they grew up in a broken home. It's an argument that's pretty heavy on the "nature" side of the good old nature v. nurture debate.
But we know that it's not entirely true, and that while there are some intrinsic personality traits, that upbringing influences character. So it is with race and class, especially of an unusual nature. These things influence and affect who a character is and how they behave, changing their character, and thereby making them interesting.
RE: Reasoning for irregular race/nationality combinations - D'aito Kuji - 04-15-2015
Reading all of this, I feel like I'm the odd person out. Â I play a Miqo'te from the Southern Sagolii who longed for wealth and adventure. Â They stowed away in a merchants wagon, made it to the coast and got aboard a ship bound for parts unknown. Â They arrived in Limsa Lominsa and that became their adopted home.
My Miqo'te is just an ordinary Miqo'te, not biracial, not especially magical, not especially smart, not especially attractive, and not particularly skilled at anything other than melee fighting. Â I did send them down the Marauder path and justified it, in my mind, by deciding that the only thing unusual about them was above average strength (that strength being physical or magical - doesn't matter to them or me).
They are basically just a good, earnest, friendly character who likes to meet people, make deals, and fight whenever they are given a chance.
In the past, I have made characters that stretched the lore (not so much in this game as Miqo'te lore is honestly all I can handle) but I deliberately wanted to make my character plain but honest, average but affable, common but reliable.
But I can see things from everyone's point of view in this thread. Â But I do sometimes feel like I'm the only one playing straight (so to speak), but I really don't mind. Â It's probably good that my character is weirded out by all the diversity in people, culture, and behavior.
RE: Reasoning for irregular race/nationality combinations - Verad - 04-15-2015
This is fine. There is nothing wrong with this. There is nothing wrong with unusual characters, or characters that toe the setting line.
The problem is that the Tragedy of the Commons does not inherently harm RP, and sometimes people grapple with that.
RE: Reasoning for irregular race/nationality combinations - Khadan - 04-15-2015
Just going to spineshatter my way in here before elusive leaping back out. (Unless something else catches my eye, of course lol)
As a writey-person who enjoys writing writey things a big part of every little narrative is world-building. Or, if you want, "My world is the river and my characters are all the stones in said river." If writing a story is all about flow (get the references yet?) where continuity is king then the characters in the story should fit or at least be shaped by the river in some way.
Is this a hard and fast rule? Nah, not really. Everyday in our own society you have people who try to break the mold and in fact 'progress' by many of its myriad forms is born of people mold-breaking in many ways. What does this ultimately mean for myself when I engage in writey-fun-times? Well let's take FF14 for example. When I first made my main character I had to do things like establish backstory, consider personality etc etc, the usual stuff. However one of the exercises I engage in -regularly- is to actively deny "This is the story I want to tell" or "This is the tale of unique person in a drab world" and so on and instead plot out the -reaction- of the people around that character.
For example, does the character appear differently than the overwhelming majority of people and what are the reactions of those people upon seeing the character? Do I have to regularly break up the flow of the story to explain that "Yes once again for the one-hundredth time, he's a white-haired-red-eyed-betailed-and-behorned gentleman with a propensity for carrying a sword that's the same size he is and so on and so forth. "Drawing weird looks" is one thing and yeah it's an obvious attention-catch device for said character. But one must at all times consider the realistic reactions of real people to absurd/shocking/distressing exterior stimuli. Not everyone is going to stand about pointing and staring. Depending on how over the top said character is or how divergent they are can lead to conflicts and no I'm not just talking about the initial 'beat up the bar drunks to establish that this is a character that is not to be messed with' trope.
tl;dr is your character a boulder in a stream that diverts the flow of the river around them or are they allowing the flow of the story to take them from the beginning, middle, and end?
RE: Reasoning for irregular race/nationality combinations - Marisa - 04-15-2015
(04-15-2015, 10:08 AM)Sounsyy Wrote: As for Ishgard, I've found one Miqo'te NPC. While this may be an "exception" remember that we only have 1 lonely, single Au Ra hailing from Doma and we've immediately clamored to the idea that the Auri are Doman. She may also be an exception as she is just 1 NPC. We also have 1 Lalafellin Doman. So where do we draw the line of what makes a race an exception to the rule and what makes it acceptable that not-just-one-race-lives-in-one-place mentality? Ishgard seems to be primarily Elezen and Hyur, yes, but that does not mean we won't find other examples of other races living there or even being native from there. MCH guildmaster looks to be Ishgardian Miqo'te? Exception? Or do we now have 2 cannon Miqo'te Ishgardians?
You're the best, Sounsyy! I totally forgot about the MCH trainer. Actually, my favorite thing about him isn't even that he's a miqo'te, but that he kinda implies that Ishgard has secretly been the most advanced of the Eorzean nations this whole time. Well, if you don't count Mor Dhona, which isn't really a nation and is just using tech copied from Garlemald anyway.
RE: Reasoning for irregular race/nationality combinations - Khadan - 04-15-2015
To be fair, though, the Machinist guild master Miqo'te appears only in Heavensward. Until we know if that person is there before or after the player migration it's hard to say if that's representative of population.
RE: Reasoning for irregular race/nationality combinations - Marisa - 04-15-2015
(04-15-2015, 01:51 PM)Casden Reeves Wrote: Really, the only problem I have with people playing cross-breed characters, is to me, it'd be hard to pull off from an RP perspective.
If asked for my opinion, I would say that even the NPC's get it wrong in the fact that there is no shared traits. For instance, A miqote/elezen character either looks like a miqote, or an elezen. The gene pool did not mix at all.
Same for any over mixed racial characters.
Hrmm... personally, I went with the theory that a half-breed would have a high chance of genetic defects. For Marisa and Mishka Stormsong, instead of the common-sense route of halfway between a Hyru and a Miqo, we decided to go with small and underdeveloped, even compared to normal Miqo'te. Basically runts, if you will. And they probably can't reproduce, either. Â
The way I see it, a cross-breeding *might* produce healthy offspring with strong traits from both races, since none of the sons of man are genetically that distant. However, its probably more common that it just produces weak offspring. Â
But I guess this is another case of me trying to insert real-world logic where lore gaps exist.
RE: Reasoning for irregular race/nationality combinations - Marisa - 04-15-2015
(04-15-2015, 02:38 PM)Kayllen Wrote: To be fair, though, the Machinist guild master Miqo'te appears only in Heavensward. Until we know if that person is there before or after the player migration it's hard to say if that's representative of population.That's certainly true in the aspect of him being a Miqo'te. However, I'd argue that Ishgard's heavy use of gunpowder cannons and harpoons probably indicates that they're at least interested in technology, especially if it kills things. Â
Which, if true, I applaud SE for. Most fantasy settings represent theocracies and religious fundamentalists as being firmly against technology, which is bizarre because in the real world, religion has usually been the driving force of science in the last thousand years. In fact, during the 'dark ages', the clergy were about the only people doing real, methodical science.
Sorry, accidental double-post!
RE: Reasoning for irregular race/nationality combinations - Sounsyy - 04-15-2015
(04-15-2015, 10:43 AM)Kismet Wrote:(04-15-2015, 10:08 AM)Sounsyy Wrote: MCH guildmaster looks to be Ishgardian Miqo'te? Exception? Or do we now have 2 cannon Miqo'te Ishgardians?
This is kind of off-topic, but I've been confused as to why people think the Miqo'te in that Heavensward Tour video could possibly be the MCH job master. As the video flies through Ishgard, we see many random placeholder models (wearing AF2) purely meant to populate the city just so the video looks good. I don't think that one lone Miqo'te is an exception to that just because he was in a workshop.
Not to say that invalidates the rest of the point in your post, btw. It's just that one thing that's kinda bothered me ever since that video came out. XD
For political correctness (since you have a valid point) I edited my original post to say "Miqo'te working in airship shop" instead of "MCH Guildmaster" until we know more.
(04-15-2015, 01:52 PM)Tasa Rhyzul Wrote: Problem was I still loved RPing as an axe swinging sailor and decided that I'd just stick with it. So now we have an improperly named Elezen from a city that has none.
So began my long journey of justifying it through extensive background and a bit of handwaving. Truthfully I don't think an Elezen kid that got adopted by a captain and his crew is nearly as bad as some things, like a miqo'te/Roegadyn Dragoon for example, but still.. It's far from correct.
Would I do things differently if I knew lore from the start? Probably. Do I regret being a special snowflake in that I'm a Limsan accented Elezen who is a warrior? ]
One of the three Great Pirate Factions is led by an Elezen named Carvallain, captain of the Kraken's Arms. His mother (or father?) was a fortune teller in Limsa Lominsa. Captain Rhoswyn also employs at least one Elezen into the Sanguine Sirens. So again... goes to show you... there are no race locks anywhere - in any city-state. Especially Limsa Lominsa, which is at the world's center for all trade and sea travel. All merchants and goods seeking to sell their wares from foreign soil must first pass through Melvaan's Gate in Limsa Lominsa. The rest of Eorzea is under Lominsan Blockade. Limsa Lominsa is also the only city-state which allows Beastmen and Beast Tribes into their city since the first Primal Summonings. So an Elezen from Limsa is more than acceptable.
![[Image: Maurader-lvl-30-Two-Man-Crew.mp4_snapsho....56.10.jpg]](http://www.dannykang.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Maurader-lvl-30-Two-Man-Crew.mp4_snapshot_00.43_2012.09.25_09.56.10.jpg)
RE: Reasoning for irregular race/nationality combinations - Faye - 04-15-2015
While I wholeheartedly agree with everything said in the initial post, I believe we all already know why people do this--people want to have their cake and eat it, too. Why not be a super cool and strong Ishgardian dragoon and be a sexy cat boy/girl (which is why it's always Miqo'te...)?
![[Image: 2649625d2abe63c7d66c958aa9c476dd6cae917d...f1ea0c.jpg]](http://www.quickmeme.com/img/26/2649625d2abe63c7d66c958aa9c476dd6cae917da286a25713a7de36fef1ea0c.jpg)
Ultimately it's just folks choosing self-gratification over believability, which as the OP stated isn't inherently bad and doesn't mean I won't RP with anyone, I just may not always think it's the best decision, so I try to shy away from it myself.
RE: Reasoning for irregular race/nationality combinations - Verad - 04-15-2015
No, no I really don't know for sure why people do this. What is the source of your insight?
RE: Reasoning for irregular race/nationality combinations - Chris Ganale - 04-15-2015
(04-15-2015, 07:41 AM)Meena Wrote: We have 0 confirmation that there are even Miqo'te in other countries but this one. Â We only know for sure that the races in Doma are most likely limited to: garlean Citizens (being predominately Hyur and Elezen of conquered countries and areas. one miqo'te and one lalafell. There was also ONE Roe mentioned who adopted a garlean naming convention. But other than that. Hyur.) and Au ra and Domans (hyurs). Â I'm not saying you cant be whatever you want, I'm just saying the integrity of the lore is at stake when you move too far away from what we have confirmation of.
Supra-late reply but I've been at work all day.
Presumably the one miqo and one lala you refer to is from the instanced version of Castrum Centri? That's good that you're aware of that one, but have you paid attention to the assortment of Garlean enemies that come up in duties post-2.4? And in the NIN questline in particular. I saw more miqo Garleans in those instances than I did of the other races.
RE: Reasoning for irregular race/nationality combinations - Hyakki - 04-15-2015
(04-15-2015, 08:06 AM)Gegenji Wrote: There is confirmation that, yes, there is a Miqo'te and a Lalafell that came from Doma
Who is this cat? Where is this stated? I'm aware of Yamimi Farwalker as an Othardian lalafell but I haven't seen any far-eastern Miqo'te NPCs. Not to say there couldn't be any but I haven't seen an official representation.
If its the soldier mentioned above (I believe the miqo'te from the postmoogle quest was also NIN/ROG?), that doesn't necessarily mean they're of Doman origin, they may have been trained in that style of combat. Gekkai the Blind shared his knowledge of ninjutsu and the Doman military with the Garlean Empire and personally trained the Imperial Shadows when he defected to Garlemald.
But what do I know, my character's a reverse weeb Lominsan wannabe that's having more fun with an axe than she ever did with swords and daggers.
RE: Reasoning for irregular race/nationality combinations - Gegenji - 04-15-2015
(04-15-2015, 03:49 PM)Mamushi Wrote:(04-15-2015, 08:06 AM)Gegenji Wrote: There is confirmation that, yes, there is a Miqo'te and a Lalafell that came from Doma
Who is this cat? Where is this stated? I'm aware of Yamimi Farwalker as an Othardian lalafell but I haven't seen any far-eastern Miqo'te NPCs. Not to say there couldn't be any but I haven't seen an official representation.
I just took that from something someone else said:
(04-15-2015, 07:41 AM)Meena Wrote: We only know for sure that the races in Doma are most likely limited to: garlean Citizens (being predominately Hyur and Elezen of conquered countries and areas. one miqo'te and one lalafell. There was also ONE Roe mentioned who adopted a garlean naming convention. But other than that. Hyur.) and Au ra and Domans (hyurs).
I don't actually know if there's more information on it or if it was made up, I just assumed that it was confirmation on there being a Doman Miqo'te. All I really know about is the Lalafellan Doman.
