RuneScape Forum Archive | Talking point : Lore in-rp.

Nov

2013

Last Deterro

Posts: 512 Steel Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

There's been a bit of interesting discussion on the forums the past while - some good, some bad. Some constructive, some flame-y. This is an attempt to actually bring people together so we can have a talk-around about a few interesting points. Namely...

What is your opinion on lore in RP?
If you introduce 'new' elements to a RP, how do you handle them?
Do you think there should be any limits on what somebody adds lore-wise?
How do you, yourself, decide what strays "too far" from lore?

That's it from me! When I've got some proper free time, I might put my own personal opinions on the topic, but I thought it might be nice for everyone to get together in a more constructive manner and discuss a rather odd part of the RP community that might not get too much light otherwise.

Discussion is fine, difference of opinions are expected, but please don't go harassing other people. This is meant to bring people together, not push them apart.

Thoughtcrime doesn't entail death. Thoughtcrime IS death.

11-Aug-2019 02:06:10

Vekon

Posts: 2,037 Mithril Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Lore is a guideline for us as RPers to use, not a strict code and set of rules to abide by. That being said, being sure to follow certain elements of lore is important to maintain the fantasy of the setting, which I think is important.

New elements should serve to enhance the RP experience for those involved in the RP. There should be "limits" in the sense that one shouldn't deviate too heavily from the very baseline of RuneScape's lore.

An exception to this would be, IMO, if the community at large decided to change/ignore a more or less "vital" piece of lore to better the experience of RP. At the end of the day, RP is ours , and should enough people feel it reasonable to make changes, then so be it. I think a hard limit would be related to changing the progression of RuneScape's lore on a scale like powerplaying Gods or something of the like.

KANDAR VICTA

Axel Vekon, the Eternal Emperor, the Archmage, the Lichslayer, of the Holy Kandarin Empire.

#

HouseVekon

11-Aug-2019 05:17:39

Jan

2018

Quael

Posts: 3,628 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

1. Since I have created The Quest Collective , one of the most active role-play group at this moment, It has became a rule and guideline for the type of role-play used. It is strict but with loopholes and used with an open minded way to bypass some possible limitation towards some situation. (I.E.; Extinct race, other game Dragonic race, ect.)

2. That depends on what the new element is. My best example for this answer is custom race. When I got asked about this by several new rpers in my group, I've looked into it deeper to see how I can allow them the freedom to keep their custom race. And a solution was found, within the lore of the game. So while adding this new element to my group, it has given my rpers more freedom than what most would give them. Another element is a more D&D based role-play, giving dice-roll to rps, and allowing the option to use them or not.

3. This is a tough question. If I had to pick, I'd say it should be adding themselves as a specific and long running rulers. This is due some problems dealt in the past that doesn't need to be brought up in a longer story. But this is one, another would be a custom history; being history that "everyone knows" but is not within the in-game role-play. Although I do believe in adding aspect of both Rs3 and OSRS lore, which works great as I've done them, custom-history tend to force people into knowing it, if you didn't well the outcome is never good.

4. The decision comes from the three questions I ask myself. "1. Does it make sense in the in-game lore perspective? 2. Is there anything that can prove this wrong or impossible? 3. Is there is a possible loophole?" I believe that everything is possible within role-play, so long as those questions are looked into.

Duke of Fort Forinthry

Interested in role-play? check out: The Quest Collective

11-Aug-2019 16:33:37

Oct

2012

RiDaku

Posts: 6,003 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

I feel the RP Guide and Help thread would've been more suited for a talk like this instead of a new thread, but it works here too. This is definitely something I'm passionate about, so I'm probably going to make a post or two answering these. Let's start with..

Last Deterro said :
What is your opinion on lore in RP?
This one is the easiest to answer. Lore is roleplay. There is no roleplay without lore. Even if you make something completely from scratch with no inspiration from anywhere or borrowing from any game/historical event, you still have to make lore for the roleplay. So, lore in RP is just.. yeah. The answer is yes.

Last Deterro said :
If you introduce 'new' elements to a RP, how do you handle them?

Borrowing from Advent's response, this is a really really vague question. New elements in to RP could be.. literally anything. So, yeah, let's go with custom race , and custom magic . Custom races have some of the most readily available sources out of anything you could suggest. There's the Tower of Life, there's the World Gate, there's the Abyss, there's the Void, there's self-experimenting, there's other-experimenting, there's gene splicing and mutations and there's even just flying through space riding a giant pig god. How I go about helping people incorporate their race depends on the type. Like furries/anthros would probably come from the Tower of Life since that's based on fusing two races together.

As for custom magic , it heavily depends on the source of the magic and what it does. Time magic is something I've seen here and there, but it's only been introduced from the Elven Council (Enchanted Key from Meeting/Making History) and the Needle, and so it's something I'd expect only to come from very old elves. Animate Rock is just handed out from the Ardougne wizard tower, and so golemancy would be more readily available.
(Cont) The Sicarius |

They think they are "the many", and I "the few". They think this gives them the right to walk over me.

Want to Role-Play? Click Here!

12-Aug-2019 17:29:05

Oct

2012

RiDaku

Posts: 6,003 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Last Deterro said :
Do you think there should be any limits on what somebody adds lore-wise?

How do you, yourself, decide what strays "too far" from lore?

These two feed in to each other, so I'll leave them combined.

Absolutely. There's a thin line between believable, and unbelievable, and it's that line that should be the limit. Some things are believable because quests elaborate on them and can grant allowance to something (example; Wights), some things are believable because gameplay elaborates on it and can grant the same allowance to something (example; spiritual mages). Sometimes the two come together and give you a lot to work with (example; Summoning, the Spirit Plane, and beastial communication/control.) Ignoring the presence of certain NPC's when roleplaying is believable, as sometimes they occupy roles that would make certain genres entirely obsolete or impossible. I'll always encourage ignoring Chieftan Brundt in order to run a Rellekka RP, so that there can be an actual interactable chieftan for key issues instead of playing the NPC, or an advisor that automatically gets approval from the NPC.

Some things, however, are not believable. Inserting ones self, or ones family, in to the lineage of NPC leaders is one that I found out about at the tail end of last year, and I'm still just baffled on how that was ever acceptable. Maybe it was grandfathered in. Suddenly adding new numbers in to a limited, restricted race (ex; Dragonkin, Ilujanka, White Dragons). They're going extinct and we've seen pretty much every Dragonkin that still lives, with the Ilujanka similarly dying on their home planet and only one White Dragon still living. Adding a +1 so you can roleplay one seems harmless until other people do the same, and then you're left wondering why there's a panic surrounding their races at all when there's a colony of them living up in Eagle's Peak or something. The Sicarius |

They think they are "the many", and I "the few". They think this gives them the right to walk over me.

Want to Role-Play? Click Here!

12-Aug-2019 17:29:29 - Last edited on 12-Aug-2019 17:49:58 by RiDaku

Vekon

Posts: 2,037 Mithril Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

RiDaku said :
Time magic is something I've seen here and there, but it's only been introduced from the Elven Council (Enchanted Key from Meeting/Making History) and the Needle, and so it's something I'd expect only to come from very old elves. Many more examples of time magic exist in lore/quests

Celestial dragons AND the QBD demonstrate the ability to freeze time and attack you in the time freeze, and it's wholly canonical

Gypsy Aris pauses time in Recipe for Disaster as well as sends us to another dimension

The Balance Elemental is a being that ignores the flow of time as we all noted in While Guthix Sleeps; it talks about knowing us in the past and future

Aeternam is a druid who shattered herself across the flow of time (also is 1/5th of the Balance elemental)

There's more in the quest One of a Kind

RiDaku said :
There's the Tower of Life,
The Tower of Life has been pretty much debunked as noncanon by Jmods, if that's something you care about

RiDaku said :
Inserting ones self, or ones family, in to the lineage of NPC leaders is one that I found out about at the tail end of last year, and I'm still just baffled on how that was ever acceptable.
Which NPC leaders, if I could ask? How come you thought this was so absurd given how 42 generally ignores the influence(or lack thereof) of most NPCs anyway?

RiDaku said :
Suddenly adding new numbers in to a limited, restricted race
Do you feel this way about mahjarrat also?

KANDAR VICTA

Axel Vekon, the Eternal Emperor, the Archmage, the Lichslayer, of the Holy Kandarin Empire.

#

HouseVekon

13-Aug-2019 00:56:06

Oct

2012

RiDaku

Posts: 6,003 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Yeah, I ran out of space for the time magic stuff. Of course, Celestial Dragons and the QBD aren't freezing all time, since it's only the player character that gets frozen. Gypsy Aris is similar to Angela from the Eragon series in that she's weirdly absurdly capable with no background. The Balance Elemental was tied up with the Stone of Jas. Doesn't change my point.

Vekon said :
RiDaku said :
There's the Tower of Life,
The Tower of Life has been pretty much debunked as noncanon by Jmods, if that's something you care about

It's not. Something I care about, that is. If it's non-canon, they can remove the quest and the tower from the game, else it's an available resource to be used for roleplay. I'm more than certain they could work it out or rewrite it to still be what it is while fitting in with the lore they added afterwards, but just like the Elemental Workshop, they've decided not to put any more effort in to it.

Vekon said :
RiDaku said :
Inserting ones self, or ones family, in to the lineage of NPC leaders is one that I found out about at the tail end of last year, and I'm still just baffled on how that was ever acceptable.
Which NPC leaders, if I could ask? How come you thought this was so absurd given how 42 generally ignores the influence(or lack thereof) of most NPCs anyway?
The Grey family, apparently, is part of the direct lineage from King Raddallin. It's of the same effect as "Saradomin personally made me this sword, and Armadyl cried on it", which is entirely different than "They're not here [right now]"

Vekon said :
RiDaku said :
Suddenly adding new numbers in to a limited, restricted race
Do you feel this way about mahjarrat also?

No. Mahjarrat are able to reproduce, and their crisis is solved as of Children of Mah. The Sicarius |

They think they are "the many", and I "the few". They think this gives them the right to walk over me.

Want to Role-Play? Click Here!

13-Aug-2019 01:43:34

Oct

2012

RiDaku

Posts: 6,003 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Expanding further on the Mahjarrat point;

Zemouregal (the 2nd) prides himself on keeping a close eye on all other active Mahjarrat. However, even he notes that the named ones are just the Mahjarrat he's able to track. He didn't know of Kharshai, and the Kharshai trick isn't unique to him since it was affecting Jhallan too when he was in the form of a Muspah. Additionally, fan-made Mahjarrat have been made canon (looking at you Ptolemos), with Ptolemos' fate left vague, allowing for the character's story to exist without conflicting with the game. As previously stated, Mahjarrat are able to reproduce, and can even do so with a human, and presumably other races as well since there's no actual biology going on with them. The extinction threat for the Dreams of Mah was the cracked-glass power drain going on, as they weren't necessarily created with any real idea in mind, however that doesn't mean they can't sustain themselves off of various sources and use those sources to produce more of themselves.

After the Children of Mah quest, the cracked-glass issue is solved, as well as the "glass ceiling" being removed. This means that the Ritual is done and they're no longer driving themselves in to extinction (outside of rivalries). The Sicarius |

They think they are "the many", and I "the few". They think this gives them the right to walk over me.

Want to Role-Play? Click Here!

13-Aug-2019 02:07:45 - Last edited on 13-Aug-2019 02:16:59 by RiDaku

Vekon

Posts: 2,037 Mithril Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

RiDaku said :
Tower of Life That's fair
RiDaku said :
Grey family Is that really so significant, though? I'm not sure if there are any strict benefits other than having a "claim" to the throne(which really isn't much). I'm not sure the significance of King Raddallin's rule; plenty of noncanon RP families have made their marks on the world to an equal or greater degree. How different is it from saying a family is from a lineage of House Lansing/Cleeves/Aren/etc? I wouldn't compare it to straight up powerplaying Gods.
RiDaku said :
Mahjarrat Valid, my mahjarrat lore isn't really up to snuff so I was curious

KANDAR VICTA

Axel Vekon, the Eternal Emperor, the Archmage, the Lichslayer, of the Holy Kandarin Empire.

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HouseVekon

15-Aug-2019 22:01:44

Nov

2018

Lord Pyro I

Posts: 4,255 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Vekon said :

RiDaku said :
Grey family Is that really so significant, though? I'm not sure if there are any strict benefits other than having a "claim" to the throne(which really isn't much). I'm not sure the significance of King Raddallin's rule; plenty of noncanon RP families have made their marks on the world to an equal or greater degree. How different is it from saying a family is from a lineage of House Lansing/Cleeves/Aren/etc? I wouldn't compare it to straight up powerplaying Gods.

I've found that having put themselves in the position of being the "true" heirs to the throne did make a considerable difference to their ability to rule the kingdom (just look at how many greys ruled the region afterall, especially in the later years).

So I would say it was significant in and of itself, I'm not sure how helpful it is to compare it to other issues you might have. As for "powerplaying the gods", i think the major issue is that gods are simply so powerful that acknowledging them as being present within rp spoils any concept of dramatic tension within the story you are writing. How can any enemy even a dragon threaten Falador when Saradomin is on hand to smite it with a wave of one hand? "The greatest endeavors are achieved because of their selfless intent"

#WarIsComing

17-Aug-2019 07:53:21

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Talking point : Lore in-rp.