>I was pretty ambivalent about Vahrtznif.
>
>Mostly, I liked him and enjoyed him. You are clearly a smart,
>clever, and experienced player who set out to make an
>unconventional character. So I hope you don't mind if I give
>you a little bit of constructive criticism to help your next
>character, or to help anyone who felt inspired by Vahrtznif to
>try something wacky.

Nice, I never thought I'd be described as experienced!

>On the one hand, Vahrtznif was pretty fun to watch sometimes,
>and he was consistent in his own brand of unmitigated
>nonsense.
>
>On the other hand, some of the stuff you did came pretty close
>to griefing (i.e. repeatedly spamming a crowded event) to the
>point that I once came very close to pulling you aside for an
>OOC warning chat.

That's because some of it WAS griefing. I had already planned to be a minor annoyance at the Ceremony of Loss, but I scaled things up quite a bit after one of the attendees told me to remember that chaotic and stupid were not the same thing. The nature of the tell was OOC, and the text spam was designed to get on that particular character's nerves. I know the IMMs don't like that kind of thing, so I was prepared for whatever punishment you decided to throw my way. I will admit I was surprised at how well you and Whildur handled it.


>On the freakish third hand, I wanted to do *something* with
>Vahrtznif but couldn't really figure out what.

I was trying to interact with you to show the IMMs that Vahrtznif, although impulsive, could sit around, listen, and obey for questy stuff. After all, I think some of my notes made my goals pretty clear. I was a bit worried that you thought I was declining your offer for a Vahrt-related-quest when I just up and left you hanging, even moreso when I came back with the items I had gathered and couldn't get a hold of you. The scene made sense from Vahrt's perspective, but after it happened I kept thinking that there was no real way for you to understand what was going on in Vahrt's head.

>The role was thoroughly entertaining and witty, but it made
>next to no sense and most of it seemingly had zero connection
>with the character. This made it very difficult for me to
>engage your character meaningfully when you dropped by the
>shrine, especially when your dialog made no sense. Maybe that
>was your goal?

The first 6 chapters of the role were supposed to answer some choices about Vahrt, such as:

Why Arkham for a duergar?
Why anti-paladin?
Why carry around mandolins?
Why is a supposed actor not joining heralds?
Why entropy?

while also showing the world from Vahrtznif's perspective (senseless; which was supposed to reinforce why he went entropy).

>Roles don't need to be masterpieces, but we do need them to be
>direct in telling us what your character's story is all about,
>what you expect, and what you want out of your character's
>life. Otherwise, we just don't know what to do with you -- so
>we tend to do nothing.

I kinda had a feeling this was a problem, which is why I through in the Mannifred Notes chapters eventually. One issue there is that I only added one of two written chapters, and didn't notice that until later in Vahrt's life.

>I can tell you this: You would have received a lot more love
>from Rahsael if you had a role earlier on that made sense. For
>a long time, I'd dismissed you as being the "chaotic stupid"
>type that Entropy has tried to move away from. At the end, it
>became evident that there was a deeper and sadder story there
>that could have been brought to life. But by then, your
>trajectory was more or less set and there weren't enough
>"lucid Vahrtznif" moments to fix things.

This was something difficult for me, as a player. I wanted to RP Vahrtznif as booksmart (for a duergar), but totally lacking common sense. In a way, I was aiming for stupid and chaotic rather than chaotic stupid. That was a challenging aspect of the character.

>As you can see, I had strong feelings about this character,
>both good and bad.

Great, that's the kind of reaction I like.

>But ultimately, you seemed to be having fun and most others
>seemed to be having fun with you. That's what really matters.
>I wish you the best with your next, and I hope you continue to
>help bring fun and wit to this game.
>
>P.S. If you're a reader, I'd recommend "A Confederacy of
>Dunces." Vahrtznif reminded me a lot of Ignatius J. Reilly.

I'll have this read before I roll up my next, thanks for the suggestion!