Another mud I played had an idea for a set of challenge characters to be developed. An Imm or a very trusted player would roll up the basic characters, post a list of them on a thread, and email the specific password to the player who got one of the characters to play. One character per player.

The concept is a series of strange race/class/ethos/religion(pick any or all of these for the "strange" componet) based characters developed and listed in a thread. People may respond to the thread saying they would like to give it a try. Once enough people have respond so that all the characters are in play they are randomly distributed to those who signed up.

Good idea to have at least fifteen of them and of course in this case they can have overlapping backgrounds. You could have twins that truly despise each other to the point of attacking each other on sight yet are both lighties.

You can have a hydrophobic(or maybe simply too fussy to get his nice clothes and wonderous hair wet) Storm ranger whose choice is mariner. Well maybe not this disadvantaged but you get the idea.

The names of the characters would be listed in the thread so other players know something about them just not who plays them and where they will end up taking them.

It is a nice thing since it brings out some interesting roleplaying even among those who did not secure one of the characters listed. Especially on characters that may be life enemies because you can always try to ally with one or play both sides against each other.

A simple premise about why everyone knows about these could be a simple as the larger amount rumor mongering that naturally goes on around in Thera.

Definately leave cabal choice open because that is part of character development. It was challenging to level them to hero and to keep them going as long as possible. It refreshed a lot of veteran players by giving them challenges they would have otherwise never done.

Cheers,
UncleArzzra.

I think where this idea has merit is in the ability to create a grouping of characters with "overlapping backgrounds". Under the current RP system, folks roll up individual characters in a vaccuum (so to speak) that initially have nothing in common with any other characters in the game. Not that this is a bad thing, but I agree that your idea might make things just a bit more interesting.

For example, maybe you have a group of five characters from Balator who grew up together in the orphanage. They all "come of age" at the same time; one is a big, burly, blond warrior type, devoted to protecting the innocent who absolutely can't stand dwarves. Another is a mousy, dark-haired girl with an amazing singing voice who secretly longs to be a mage but has no aptitude (and makes no secret of her infatuation with big, burly, blond warrior). The third is a handsome politician-type who is secretly in love with mousy girl and is jealous of anyone who has dealings with her. The fourth is a somewhat dim-witted dwarf who speaks with a lisp and can't seem to remember anyone's name, but is an amazing swordsman - he also worships the ground that handsome politician-type walks on. The fifth is an average girl who has marked each of the others for death because of some inconsequential perceived slight that occurred over the years they spent together at the orphanage.

If I give you that much information to build on, I'm sure there's five of you out there who could flesh out the roles and create a really interesting, very interactive RP / PK experience for a lot of folks - not just the five characters we've "created" together. After all, mousy girl would spend a lot of time telling her groupmates just how awesome big, burly, blonde warrior is, and politician-type would always want his group to include mousy girl - even if it makes them a foursome - and then get jealous if the other two groupmates even talk to her, etc.

I could come up with dozens of similar scenarios: a group of mercenaries guarding a merchant's caravan who were brutally defeated by a horde of giants, a group of seven castaways on a deserted island in the Aryth Ocean who were "rescued" by a passing pirate ship, four boys from a small farming village outside of Arkham who grew up together and were all in love with the same girl who was "accidently" killed by a visiting conjurer, etc.

Kastellyn the Devourer of Magic, Lord of Legends

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Would everyone play it out until the end? No. But that'd be more than alright. And I also think there'd be an incentive to sticking with it.

Cool.

Is the fact there are already specific characters you want to.. kill, hug, sneeze at, taunt, set up for failure... etc etc.

Right from the get go there is tension already between you and other characters beyond the standard race/align/affiliation issues. That can be a HUGE motivator to continue playing to see where you end up.

Also since the basic premise for the characters is disseminated to the entire mud it makes for some bizarre interactions as people try to either support you or capitalize on knowing your weak spots. Damn those rumour mongers who let Thera know your secrets.

Also you get to take the premise and develop it how you see fit making for some interesting character PBFs for study. Other players can peruse them to see if you had similar ideas or went down a road they never thought of.

It is a lot fun.

Will this lead to said characters forming a perma the Imms consider as against the rules? The idea has some merit, I give it that, but how will it be made to work and how much Immortal effort will it take to maintain? CF hasn't done this sort of thing before, so it's rather interesting to see how it would work out. I like the idea too, but it should be established how it will work with the permagrouping rules to clarify the matters.

You'd put in a request to RP one of the characters, and list your top three choices (or whatever). I'd pick who got which character. If you and your buddy were trying to work a permagroup, you might actually end up being mortal enemies.

I'd also make sure to sketch out the roles so that they wouldn't really lend themselves to permagroups (i.e., none of the roles would involve "Let's you and me group up and gank down everyone we see and steal their newbie breadz!").

All that being said, the point of the permagrouping rules are to prevent 2 or 3 folks from grouping / ranking / PKing exclusively. In a nutshell, they're only really interacting with a few people, which is counter to the atmosphere we're trying to create. This exercise is pretty much in the opposite direction, so I'm not too worried about breaking the spirit of the permagrouping rule.

Kastellyn the Devourer of Magic, Lord of Legends

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I think it's an interesting idea. If it comes to fruition, let me know if you need some help coming up with psuedo-roles or twisty backgrounds/plots for characters like these.

The one problem I had with area backstories is that they never really progress.

How long has that Elven queen been mourned for now? :P

If enough people really worked hard on playing out characters related to xxx, it'd be great to see them immortalised in some way like Odrirg and Voralia city. Not a great alteration to any area, but a little addition that pays tribute to the better roleplayers that had an affect.

Maybe not an ideal reward for all involved - but something to think about.

I vote the first area to be sourced is Velkyn Oloth. Some people will be infiltrators from the Underdark army, some will be ex-dungeon humans who were forced out. And others still, people who have been dungeonised or threatened by the Velkyn Oloth team. There you go, three opposing sides, with many possible roles and interactions!

Yhorian

Anti-paladin who is cursed with hauntings by those sentient beings ,inherent to Thera, he slays that do not get absorbed into his unholy weapon. He will try to find ways to avoid that. The build up of ghosts fades after each of his deaths. (affects what he will target to level up on and requires some RP to show the hauntings)

Paladin who feels that everyone is evil to some degree, including himself. This drives him to find a way to purge Thera and reset it to a pristine condition. Oh, did I mention he is quite deaf and myopic being prematurally aged by a curse of an innocent he caused the demise of accidently? Also is afraid of clowns/dolls due bad memories.

Evil warrior who spends most of his time thinking about or actually hunting for his lost love, a unicorn that saved him as a child. His family saw the occurence and from then on he was ostricized and viewed as tainted. He can not bring himself to harm anything bearing the unicorn symbol or wearing something that is pristine white. He may or may not be insane.

A kind thief who donates half his current wealth whenever he comes across an orpan or a beggar. Does not trust banks one iota since the Gnomes of obviously control them. Unfortunately he is a kleptomaniac and truly can not help himself from stealing the odd bit from each and every party member he has. Oh, did I mention he is unable to speak whenever a woman is about and tends to be unable to hide either as he stares at her? He is strangely attracted to ALL females regardless of race.

I wouldn't mind jumping in on this and perhaps helping to write the background roles. I think I'm starting to get the hang of what makes a good role. :)

That's basically IC info distributed in an OOC fashion.

CF already has a great roleplaying system in play. The MUD gives many options to RP, and if you are a stellar roleplayer that finds a way to get tired of it, you can always step it up to the next level. I don't think the IMMs have shunned any spectacular roleplayer from getting the bonuses they deserve.

I think the fun part of the game is meeting the other people and getting to know their character. I don't think it would be fun if I already had an RP box to fit in.

So you want immortals to come up with your race/class/ethos/religion & role and then you play it?

I remembered what they were called on that other mud "Oddballs" character race/class/regilion/ethos/disabilities/role combinations that were different.

It was coordinated by a veteran player who set them up taking suggestions from the player base in general as well as his own ideas. I think there were about fifteen maybe twenty generated all told.

Anyone who wanted to play an Oddball responded to the Oddball thread but would have no idea which Oddball they would get.

It is simply a way to bring in character ties and development to the game that is outside the normal comfort level of most players. Also to create more intertwined characters who have some investment in the success/failure of specific other characters. You could have brothers in this case since you would know they were most likely NOT played by friends. Great for family rivalries; friends or serious.

Basically a bunch of ideas are thrown together:
Arial Ranger Neutral Neutral fears heights.
Felar thief city ties who hates darkness.
Human warrior allergic to feathers and fur but is fond of both Arials and Felar as companions.
Human evil transmuter who can only group if a good is bridged by a neutral, karma is an issue.

etc etc.

Some can be fleshed out more than others but once a list is made then people volunteer to play one. Then the characters are randomly put out. Usually the characters are fleshed out a bit more than I did for examples, definately with a name, and a brief synopsis from which to base a role.

It is basically a way to give more varied and challenging character archtypes into CF. It also provides a focal point(s) for other characters to base their interactions with.

It can be a lot of fun and very rewarding to have something set up like this. Breaks people out of their molds and gives lots of opportunity to experience CF in a totally different way.

The only difference is that they make up them themselves instead of an oddball thread and the fame needs to be self-gained.

You can't do the intersecting story lines without something like the
set up they are talking about... or cheating. I think the connected backgrounds would be awesome, and if they are come up with by the Cf population and distributed by the imms I think it would even work out relatively fairly. Players would more than likely crank up thier RP around these guys if they play it up, AND people would get interested in how it al works out/keep up with the characters stories even if they aren't playing something that would be involved.

It would be like Cf soap operas and if a group came up with a long running, well done. interesting story, it might go in as part of theran history ...

If the characters are given out by imms, less likely for it to be abused (and if they players are all reasonably good role players, the story connections would all but guarantee the imms would be watching .. both limiting the amount of abuse possible AND increasing the likely hood of rewards for kick ass RP... maybe a smackdown for breaking role. The players .. knowing they'd be watched heavily will likely REALLY crank up the RP .. causing folk not in the "group" to crank up thiers or go away.)

The more I think about it the better it sounds to me.. but hey that's just me.

On the 'vet's already play characters like this' hand... If people could work up connecting roles, and email to the imms they were doing this that might work to.. BUT you'd have a much greater likelyhood of abuse...

Currently the system works so, that backgrounds aren't tied in the beginning, but rather, become tied during the game. I'm not opposed to the tied childhood beginnings etc., but it'd require Kasty or some other Imm to arrange the pairings and the implementors to accept such behaviour. The pre-given concepts with pairings sounds cool enough to try, but it does need immortal arrangement activity and implementor approval of the system to happen. This kind of pre-given roles is something new to CF and I think that the system could potentially enrich the RP atmosphere if done right.