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+--- Thread: Dealing with PC reality over NPC reality (/showthread.php?tid=6295)
Dealing with PC reality over NPC reality - Seriphyn - 02-04-2014
This can cover a broad array of topics, but basically, with someone with my particular RP style (abiding by the lore given out by NPC dialogue), how does one negotiate particularly 'player realities' versus what the lore posits?
The immediate example that comes up is the number of male miqo'te player characters. The lore says that male miqo'te are extremely rare and hard to come by; indeed, there are as many male Miqo'te NPCs as there are fingers on one hand (NOAH dude, and the Forgotten Springs dudes; haven't done all the job/class quests). Go to Gridania, and all the Keeper NPCs are female. Go to Limsa Lominsa, and all the Seeker NPCs are female.Â
So how does one rationalize this? My character sort of said (just said IC in fact) that it's just an Adventurer Guild thing...out in the world you'll hardly see them, but within the guilds (Quicksand, Carline Canopy, etc.), they're all over the place just because that's the nature of how adventurers are.
Curious to hear ideas not only about that, but any other 'NPC vs PC lore clashes' that people might come up with.
RE: Dealing with PC reality over NPC reality - Ildur - 02-04-2014
Player Characters are only a very tiny fraction of the whole Eorzean population. So even if you had a thousand Miqo'te men in a plaza, they are still pretty rare. This is because besides the visible citizens (the in-game NPCs) there are thousands upon thousands of invisible ones that are not despicted because of practicality (thousands of NPCs in the streets would require bigger maps, it would consume more computing resources, etc). Basically, Player Characters are extremely rare as far as the universe is concerned.
Specifically, however, that doesn't help the problem of 'why' there are a thousand Miqo'te males in a plaza. The easiest solution is to blame the Calamity: it has changed the face of the world, destroying communities and forcing people to work together more than before. This means traditionally secluded societies or individuals will have to venture out to the world. Male population is still low, but you just get to see more males because they had to come out of 'hiding'.
The same principle can be applied to basically everything (at least that I can think of). Why are there so many paladins? Because the Sultansworn are recruiting more to recover their numbers. White Mages? The Padjal are teaching or taught someone and that person taught a bunch of other people. Summoners? An increase of the beastribes summoning their Primals means more adventurers and people rushing to defeath them. And so on and so forth.
RE: Dealing with PC reality over NPC reality - Cato - 02-04-2014
It can be a pretty tricky situation but generally speaking the canon lore is by far more important and relevant than what we as role-players seek to bring to the table. The lack of rarity for male miqo'te is largely due to game mechanics. It wouldn't make for a popular MMO if people were locked out of a playable race due to an abundance.
My advice would be to locate role-players who are willing to see the game world as it is intended to be seen and create meaningful, character driven role-play alongside them. Never let people force you to adhere to 'server lore' or make you feel like you have to cave into their requests to ignore the established canon in order to justify their chosen character concept.
RE: Dealing with PC reality over NPC reality - LiadansWhisper - 02-04-2014
(02-04-2014, 01:08 AM)Ildur Wrote: Specifically, however, that doesn't help the problem of 'why' there are a thousand Miqo'te males in a plaza. The easiest solution is to blame the Calamity: it has changed the face of the world, destroying communities and forcing people to work together more than before. This means traditionally secluded societies or individuals will have to venture out to the world. Male population is still low, but you just get to see more males because they had to come out of 'hiding'.
Completely OT, but now I have a mental image in my head of Bahamut whelping out male Miqo'te by the thousands.
Thanks, Ildur!
RE: Dealing with PC reality over NPC reality - Vairemont Malveaux - 02-04-2014
Like Ildur said, the player Miqo'te population is a fraction of Eorzea. If you put yourself in you're character's shoes, your daily interactions wouldn't just involve players. NPCs are as much living, breathing people to your PC as any other PC. When you run through Limsa, all the female Miqo'te NPCs there are ambient characters going about their daily lives. Most of them can be presumed to have stable jobs.
And like he said, you can easily blame the Calamity for thrusting Eorzea off balance. Additionally, many roleplayers, especially Miqo'te, favor wanderer type characters. This works well with what I was saying earlier. Perhaps it's not as rare as it used to be to run into male Miqo'te, but look at how few of them have stable, rooted home lives in the city, as opposed to the female ones. The males you see are still by and large rovers, which fits the lore quite nicely. For bachelors, anyway. It would still be rare to come across a Miqo'te with children running about.
Females of course are given to any lifestyle, not to discount them.
RE: Dealing with PC reality over NPC reality - ansemaru - 02-04-2014
There are a couple other male Miqo'te NPCs, for the record- there's a fairly minor Seeker named A'aba Tia who can be found in the Waking Sands prior to the Titan boss fight, as well as the ACN guildmaster. Other than them, though, the only male Miqo'te NPCs that do show up are G'raha and the three Seekers of the U tribe- unless, of course, you count the Coeurlclaw King from the Quarrymill region FATEs. (Minor though he is, he's the only example of a male Keeper of the Moon who actually shows up as any type of NPC.)
RE: Dealing with PC reality over NPC reality - allgivenover - 02-04-2014
Very few of the entirety of the male Miqo'te PC population are roleplayers. The way I see it, PC players that are not roleplayers pretty much don't exist in in my character's perception at all, thus even though male Miqo'te remains a fairly popular roleplayer choice the sum of all npc males and PC roleplayer males still makes male Miqo'te fairly rare to come by.
RE: Dealing with PC reality over NPC reality - C'kayah Polaali - 02-04-2014
Well, with Seekers specifically, there are a lot of Tias. Not all of them would stay back home on the farm. With the chaos over Eorzea over the last ten years, going out and adventuring is an excellent way to "open up a new hunting area", so to speak.
And then there's all the Nunhs running around. While I recognize that there are relatively few roleplayers playing adventuring Nunhs, I just handwave them by rationalizing that they've been replaced and simply haven't admitted it.
Keepers, on the other hand? I don't know. I do know that Keepers in the Shroud were probably hit pretty hard by the Calamity, so you're seeing (as Ildur mentions) a bunch of them because they simply had to come out.
RE: Dealing with PC reality over NPC reality - allgivenover - 02-04-2014
I'm honestly not sure why a Nunh would go adventuring at all.Â
However, there's plenty of room for civilian, non-adventurer Nunh RP.
RE: Dealing with PC reality over NPC reality - Vairemont Malveaux - 02-04-2014
You'd think Keeper males would be even more compelled to stay at home, since there isn't a male hierarchy dictating their role like there is in Seeker tribes. I would venture to guess that Keeper males would be just as rare as Seeker males, and the family Matriarchs would rather the males stay home and take care of the family. Do all the cooking and whatnot.
At that point it's more speculation.
RE: Dealing with PC reality over NPC reality - Seriphyn - 02-04-2014
I forgot about 'the Calamity' plot device...which is derp because I actually had my character say to the person he was roleplaying with that it was the Calamity.
To diversify the topic a bit, how do people interpret the Lightning Strikes event? I see a few people RP in the Lightning and Snow outfits, which don't really fit in the Eorzean aesthetic framework. My character goes "That's a funny outfit, is it Garlean?", but I wonder what else it can be interpreted as?
RE: Dealing with PC reality over NPC reality - McBeefâ„¢ - 02-04-2014
(02-04-2014, 02:24 PM)Seriphyn Wrote: I forgot about 'the Calamity' plot device...which is derp because I actually had my character say to the person he was roleplaying with that it was the Calamity.
To diversify the topic a bit, how do people interpret the Lightning Strikes event? I see a few people RP in the Lightning and Snow outfits, which don't really fit in the Eorzean aesthetic framework. My character goes "That's a funny outfit, is it Garlean?", but I wonder what else it can be interpreted as?
I honestly treat it as Canon, because it's such a small thing, and it will gone soon. "I got this skirt from a world hopping, grumpy, pink haired lady" isn't too much more crazy sounding than, "I ventured into the eye of a vortex and slew a primal god of wind to make this sweet ass couch". FFXIV is kind off a silly world, I think the people in it have to learn to accept a lot of crazy things.
RE: Dealing with PC reality over NPC reality - allgivenover - 02-04-2014
I ignore the lightning stuff, unless other RPers bring it up, then I just have Li say he's heard of it but knows nothing beyond that.
The thing about the Lighting event is that it being canon or not has no relevance to the lore at all really.
RE: Dealing with PC reality over NPC reality - allgivenover - 02-04-2014
(02-04-2014, 01:07 PM)Vairemont Malveaux Wrote: You'd think Keeper males would be even more compelled to stay at home, since there isn't a male hierarchy dictating their role like there is in Seeker tribes. I would venture to guess that Keeper males would be just as rare as Seeker males, and the family Matriarchs would rather the males stay home and take care of the family. Do all the cooking and whatnot.
At that point it's more speculation.
The statement that Miqo'te males are rare is in fact only found /under/ the Keeper of the Moon heading. It was only after ARR launched that we were able to confirm for sure that Seeker males were rare.
It's very easy for Keeper males to be out and about in the world. Keepers are loners by nature, do not have a hierarchy that determines breeding status, and have recently been forced to move into the cities, along with many other refugees. It's possible that breeding males are forced to stay home, under matriarchal rule, but that's why I killed Li's tribe off. I don't want to be in a messy situation when we finally get more lore.
RE: Dealing with PC reality over NPC reality - Ildur - 02-04-2014
Remember there's this FATE in the Shroud that directly contradicts lore (once again) and has a male Keeper take over the Coeurlclaw Poachers. Apparently Squee has this big problem where they can't keep Miqo'te lore consistent with the game.
Anyway. On the topic of Lighting: it's a canon and it does have an effect on lore: it stablishes that travel between FF dimensions is possible, or at least travel between two specific ones. The effects this have on roleplay, however, are quite limited to the creation of characters who hail from that particular FF dimension and nothing more. Everyone else can just treat it as gossip, rumors, and journalists trying to make quick money with outrageous stories about a foreigner fighting voidsent and Garlean machinery.
The armor pieces and weapons can be justified in any way, really. I like to think the outfit was designed by the Weaver's Guild (for whatever reason) and some people just bought it. Each player will justify their outfit however they think is best, but that's my 'default' take on the matter. You can do something similar with the weapons, though the axe made of solid ice might be a bit hard to justify. Maybe it's a magicked piece of those blue aether structures west of the Moraby Drydocks.