Cultural considerations and Character Building

[anithri]

As I prepare for the beta, I have been considering what kind of character to play. I'm wondering what would be acceptable beyond the typical Western European vistas. Would a traveller from the Middle East or the Far East be aceptable? What about a catholic type monk? Time travellers from different eras?

[Skyler]

Personally I have been wondering after looking through even if it is possible to have.. a type of char to play, in advance, apart from personality attributes determined upon and the physical body. Castle seems to be largely set upon awakening there with.. amnesia, part of the mystery of the place one supposes. That leads me to conclude that experiences do not in fact extend beyond the castle, its up to you to determine what to make of yourself once there, not to know what it was that you were before, although I might be misunderstanding matters to some degree. Still the way the handbook appears to state it when awakening you would have no idea of the queen or the court, no idea of the concepts of chivalry, as your first quest is in search of clothing you are indeed simply an individual awakening nude in a bedroom with, if you are fortunate, a name to attach to yourself. What about it Skotos sorts, complete misunderstanding on my part or...?

[ChristopherA]

Originally posted by Skyler:
What about it Skotos sorts, complete misunderstanding on my part or...?

You've got it pretty close. When you create a character for Castle Marrach, you'll be led through a 'starting story' that will allow you to create your character and give you some background to gnaw on. However, in the beginning, it really is a mystery, and the answers you'll have to find for yourself.

Originally posted by Anithri:
As I prepare for the beta, I have been considering what kind of character to play. I'm wondering what would be acceptable beyond the typical Western European vistas. Would a traveller from the Middle East or the Far East be aceptable? What about a catholic type monk? Time travellers from different eras?

Presumably you can choose any medieval to renaissance background, presuming that you can persuade other people to believe you ;-)

I'm looking forward to what stories people have to tell about themselves!

-- Christopher Allen

[Jeff]

What sorts of characters are people playing? I am coming in on Friday, September 22, and I would like to know if the characters were mostly male or female, young or old, politicians or men-at-arms. The most dynamic setting will be populated by a variety of people, so what were the trends? What is there a dearth of?

[stealthkat]

I have a question regarding artistic license with our characters. The answer to this may simply be user education for me, so please lecture away...

Twice now I have "added-in" detail that doesn't exist...one was poking fun at someone by telling them they had a hole in their pants to see if they'd look, and the other was to say I had a memory of feeding cats - therefore my character surmised that I must have had cats as pets prior to arriving at the castle. Both times I was asked to ooc if the castle gave me that detail or if it was artistic license.

My question is am I disrupting some upcoming story line, or messing up testing by doing this? I thought that small inobtrusive details such as this might add some spice while hopefully not being so encompassing as to make waves. If the frequency remains very rare, is this ok?

My logic behind the memory is that many castle residents have expressed concern about their lack of memory and why are they here. I thought that since I was a member of the Rememberer's Guild that if I role played meditation I could slip in a small detail here and there about my character...like having cats since there are so many cats running around. This would possibly give hope to those who frustrated at the risk that I am doing something contrary to what Lady Evayne would like a member of the guild to do. My other reasoning is that unconsciously Katherine has such a deep need to remember, that her subconscious is creating "memories" out of elements in the castle.

To recap, is this ok to a point and do I need to keep doing the ooc "artistic license" during the testing phase?

I will seek out Lady Evayne for guidance. However, I don't get to play during "normal" hours being in a different time zone, and tend to miss meeting important people and gatherings.

Thanks for the feedback!!!
Kathy - Katherine

[StaciD]

Hi Kathy,

This is a really good question, and here's the really basic answer:

You can make up whatever you want about your character, but that doesn't mean people will believe you!

To make an extreme example, you could claim your character was a powerful wizard, capable of destroying cities with a wave of your wand, and even go so far as to acquire a pointy hat and robe decorated with moons and stars to make yourself convincing. But without actual magical power to back yourself up, people are going to think you are either deluded or lying. To be even more extreme, you could say you were Superman and run around in tights and a cape--just so long as you realize you're never going to be able to leap over buildings with a single bound.

Memory can be a tricky thing, as you pointed out about the subconcious creating memories out of elements in the castle. Sometimes the thing we seem to remember the most clearly never happened, or happened far differently than we think they did. We fully expect people to indulge in some creation of "recalled" memories--some subtle (like your fondness for cats), some not so subtle (like the above mentioned wizard)--just so long as you realize that we, as the game masters, reserve the right to inform you at some later point that you are completely wrong. http://www.skotos.net/ubb/biggrin.gif

My personal hope is that characters will spend more time developing the person they are now, instead of worrying excessively about the person they were before. At the very least, recalled memories should remain in the scope of the general medieval-rennaissance setting of the game.

As far as artistic license in the setting, again the basic rule is you can push things as far as people will believe. If you tell everyone that the Wizard's Tower collapsed, and it's still standing when they go to look, your character is going to suffer in terms of reliability. But telling someone that their hair is sticking up can result in some fun RP, so long as the other person plays along. It's all a gentle game of give and take.

If you have a plot need for a change in the environment (i.e. I'd like my character to see a picture of a horse that sets him off on a killing rampage), talk to one of the story hosts (or send email to ce@skotos.net to see about setting it up.

Staci D.
Castle Marrach Design Team

[John]

A word from the start. A nice answer and diffrent point of view to the whole culture thing.

[Chel]

::huggles::