[WIP] Ivan Moretti - Halp

[Thayr]

Hola,


So, I've decided to, well...make an encounter character thing, for Mhen'Ga. The idea is that this will be something to the effect of the taur, that you can meet, except you can fight the character. I have, well...many, many questions. The first of which is, well...do you need / want a vardump, and if you do want a vardump, do you have a comprehensive explanation of each section?


https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TCQ_VxGfHg-cBaaUDkGNPVy1pctEPYo9PVQkIxPLdsA/edit#


Insofar, all I have is a partially made appearance and vardump (Which I admit is not much at all) but I honestly would rather get the annoying technical bits out of the way before making a character.


If this is annoying, my apologies, but thanks!

 

[Etis]

Need permission to see the doc.

 

[Thayr]

Need permission to see the doc.

Well, I feel like a moron now.

Sorry, should be good now.

 

[Etis]

Don't focus on variables much. For a writer, they are derivative from the description, not vice versa.

 

[Trogdor]

Er. Wow. That got gruesome real fast.


I don't have a problem with it, but writing an extremely violent/gory character is going to get you the stink-eye from the uppity-ups.


All I'm writing is a blood-sucking crab, and I was told to "just don't get too descriptive with the blood-sucking part" (This coming from the guy who wrote Shade getting her face blasted off and Kara getting blown up into chunks, go figure).


Anyway, and especially because you're new, just be prepared for a negative, possibly rude reception.

 

[Wsan]

I have a feeling this character is going to be rejected on the grounds it's too violent; nobody's playing a sex game to see a description of flies lingering around one of the girls you might have had sex with as a result of bullet holes in her throat. Also needs a lot of integration work with the parser.  Also, rigor mortis doesn't relax the muscles, it tenses them (often with horrifying results). As for flies hanging out on the corpse, I'm not sure that flies would flock to it before rigor mortis could set in but you can handwave that by saying it's a jungle.


All in all I'm not sure why you wrote the character - if I were to make a guess it'd be that you wanted to show the world is not always a happy-go-lucky fuckfest for Steele and that in a universe as vast as TiTS' you're going to run into both unsavory characters and situations. Thing is, we usually display that with sex instead of murder (much to the chagrin of some posters). I don't hate the writing or anything, but I don't think the scenario belongs in TiTS. But hey, I could be wrong.

 

[Etis]

All in all I'm not sure why you wrote the character - if I were to make a guess it'd be that you wanted to show the world is not always a happy-go-lucky fuckfest for Steele and that in a universe as vast as TiTS' you're going to run into both unsavory characters and situations. Thing is, we usually display that with sex instead of murder (much to the chagrin of some posters). I don't hate the writing or anything, but I don't think the scenario belongs in TiTS. But hey, I could be wrong.






 







 

Myrellion has a lot of dark stories. War and all. And Steele's fuckfest can end badly as well. Actually, even Mhen'ga has at least one bad end when you are killed and dismembered (Carl's quest). Also, the camp in Vanae lands describes in details the massacre, done by Vanae. So... Nope. It fits. It is darker than most stories, but not really out of place.


And, BTW, some of the sexual stories are not much better than straightforward murder for me.

 

[Savin]

And, BTW, some of the sexual stories are not much better than straightforward murder for me.

Emphasis on "for you," since >opinions and >subjective.


Anyway, as was mentioned, could tune down the specific descriptions of the dead Vanae. Otherwise don't see much objectionable about what's there so far.

 

[Savin]

 I wanted to write my own horribly grimdark character when I first got here. I think it involved something like 6 murders, mind-scarring torture, and a dead fetus. Yeah, it was bad.

O_O

 

[Ethereal Dragon]

O_O

yup... my same response... :magical:

 

[Thayr]

Alrighty, so...go a bit less on the dead shtuff, and, well, bit less on the gory stuff. That I can do.

All that would be left would be a very unimaginable shooting, and that's it. Granted, I wanted to get graphic, but OK then. To be honest, I wrote it because I see, well...I see a place that can end very, very badly. So I thought-up one such way, a hunter, and poof. You have the Wild West.

 

[Couch]

We have one fucking planet that isn't a violent shithole, so you write Coldsteel the Hedgeheg for it complete with calling the PC "kid".  Excellent.


Your writing quality leaves much to be desired as well.  Cut back on the number of similes and comma splices, use less prose.  Sentences like "The Steele name, despite all recognition, is still just a name, and you figure that this man probably doesn't know it." are extremely awkward.  They're not how people talk and they're not how they exposit.  Especially since immediately afterward he talks as if the quest is already common knowledge, right before insulting the player.

 

[FrankenApple]

Oh... so he brutally kills stuff. Well then. You know what? I can't even comment on that. Couch can attest, I wanted to write my own horribly grimdark character when I first got here. I think it involved something like 6 murders, mind-scarring torture, and a dead fetus. Yeah, it was bad.


To be fair, though, I did move away from that idea pretty quickly... :$  

And I thought that my bounty hunter who got torn apart and then saved by a gray goo was to much...

 

[Trogdor]

We have one fucking planet that isn't a violent shithole, so you write Coldsteel the Hedgeheg for it complete with calling the PC "kid".  Excellent.

Ehhh. The Xenogen camp. Crazy Carl's robot's pile o' bodies. The gunship. Mhen'ga is certainly less violent than some other planets, but New Texas is probably the only planet that lacks graphic violence.


Thayr, if I might make a suggestion, write a character synopsis (a high-level summary of description, personality, and interactions with the player) before you dive in and start writing dialogue and stuff. If someone's going to take issue with something your character is doing, best to resolve the issue before you've spent a ton of time fleshing it out.

 

[Noob Salad]

Are you trying to write Space Kelt?

 

[Etis]

Stuff like "You decide it’s best to tell him; after all, curiosity might have killed the cat, yet one knows how that saying ends." would probably be better of being something like "Eyeing the dead vanae, you decide it might be wise to not push the ausur and introduce yourself first."






 

Both have one problem - they are implying player's reason to do stuff. Which can be totally out of character for you.  Why someone who breaks into a pirate base and quotes They Live in front of the pirate army would be suddenly wary?

 

[Thayr]

I think I might shelf this, then. I need to better understand the style of writing that's more common, read through it a bit more and pick through all that fun stuff. Unfortunately, what I write is more often description, description, description, which is not at all easy to read through, nor is the most stirring of writing styles. There's also the fact that yes, I am writing a, well...moderate to very severely violent character for a planet that has a nice atmosphere.

 

[Karretch]

Unfortunately, what I write is more often description, description, description, which is not at all easy to read through, nor is the most stirring of writing styles.

I don't know the exact phrasing, but a good rule is don't describe everything in intricate detail but let the world, characters, and actions give leads to what you mean for people to fill in the blanks.