Strange Lore Questions

It seems extremely appropriate to discuss this on a thread risen from the grave. It also seems that everyone has their own interesting take on it. Thanks to all.

[quote=absimiliard]I have always had the impression that the Player Character is in fact a very special snowflake. I’m pretty sure this is because FL is very much a single-player game – the social actions are really bolted on and require some good RP to avoid being jarring. (just try discussing who founded the Department of Correspondance at the University – or look at how we all get kicked out of Court…)

Anyhow, I do love the RP, but the game is obviously meant to be about one heck of a special snowflake)[/quote]

Perhaps the problem is that I have honestly never been that person before. In my more callow days, I died so much in the name of casual entertainment that Sean Bean is probably my spirit guide. So if a game tells me that I clutch the lily, I immediately start trying to work out how and why, and what is happening behind the scenes.

And probably like everyone else, it has occurred to me that I should just quit my career and set up as a quick-change artist in Mahogany Hall. There can’t be anyone faster than Yours Truly. But this isn’t as tricky to deal with as the nature of Death, which is set up early as a plot pivot, and is clearly deadly serious.

I meant, a stiff penalty. Bloody esprit d’escalier.

I have somehow acquired the notion that the Stolen River runs with lacre, and that anyone going to the Forgotten Quarter is taking their life in their hands by attempting a crossing over a river of life-destroying melancholy. Also, Dockers are well hard.

Is this, ah, entirely incorrect?

Pretty sure it’s just water (or at least between water and the river Ankh).

[quote=absimiliard]I have always had the impression that the Player Character is in fact a very special snowflake. I’m pretty sure this is because FL is very much a single-player game – the social actions are really bolted on and require some good RP to avoid being jarring. (just try discussing who founded the Department of Correspondance at the University – or look at how we all get kicked out of Court…)

Anyhow, I do love the RP, but the game is obviously meant to be about one heck of a special snowflake.

As for dying, my impression was that bodies just re-animate. Going to the Mirror Marches is fairly obviously a bodily assumption into another plane of existance, however ending up insane at the Royal Beth is obviously Not such a thing. (and, just to cover all the menaces New Newgate is obviously in our plane of existence)

Now, all that stuff above, just my $.02 – so take it with a gallon or three of Salt. (after all, this Is Me we’re talking about, everything is about Salt)[/quote]
In order:
The player’s status as a special snowflake really depends on the storyline. the court, i believe, actually has this cycle going on frequently- people climb to the top, do something too daring, and get exiled. the question of who it involves is variable, though. The truth of the matter is, the making your name tracker itself is usually only guilty of making you an excessive polymath- the primary exception being the university storyline. The side stories obviously have you being a special snowflake, but that’s more from the nature of the story than the nature of you. [also, IIRC, no one actually establishes the department, they just try to set it up and fail. the real issue would be the constant turnover of provosts, i believe.]

The side stories must make you a special snowflake, because lots of the stories wouldn’t make sense massively instantiated. it’s hard to write about something where you actually make a difference while also leaving open future PCs.

[I’ve always been of the opinion most named people are actually nearly as multi-talented as you, or superior in one aspect, and often the fact that you win is because you have other advantages. white moves second, but gets extra peices to make up for it, so to speak. Febuary, for instance runs a hundred expeditions to your one- the loss is such a triviality the revolution doesn’t even hold it against you a little, even when you capture her camp and equally hostile moves.]

In other words, you’re special- but less so than you’d think. 90th percentile plus, not &quotthe strongest human.&quot

As for dying, my impression was it varied. Bodies do sometimes just reannimate, but that takes longer, and the wear-and-tear leads to an early tomb-colonist status… A fast route is a charitable soul tending to your wounds, or, more cynically, picking your pockets and then doing the above, or someone who cares about you doing the same, and that happens sometimes too. alternatively, though it never happens to you, a particularly hated individual might be let to almost come back to life and then killed again, or maimed while they’re dead. there’s only so much the unusual vitality can do for you.

Interesting points. Grazi. I will definitely grant that a succession of people rising through court and each getting kicked out is plausible – a poor example on my part. Certainly we are clearly in agreement that the side-stories are often special snowflake issues. Sure we can all get a Clay Man sedan chair. However many of those are clearly single-player storylines.

And that’s actually what I mean by being special. I’m not actually talking about how good you are at anything, though I think your estimate that the PC is a polymath in the 90th percentile of every area of human endeavor is a good one. I’m more using it in reference to how much of what takes place are single-player stories.

Your insight on dying is welcome to me. I’ve never let my Absimiliard die yet, the only time I’ve ever met the Boatman was during the recent ES reward bit – which I thought was very cool. So I mostly have formed my opinion from watching the NPCs and reading the forums.