Rant About RP.

[Frith-Rae]

Just out of curiosity, and I bring this up because I saw a "Dev" say it...

Lore wise dragons are genderless, that was totally a Player made up thing. Amon stated that dragons were genderless, I thought!

sooooooooooo

Well as others have stated - Dragons do indeed have genders now. Though I dont know they were intended as "genderLESS" (not the same as asexual) brecause the early answer was always more related to "only dragons can tell" so to speak. But no at least now, NPCs refer to male and female dragons.

However, when it comes to "where baby dragons come from" - asexual or genderless does NOT mean you can't reproduce. So..you still have wehre baby dragons come from.

As for death and reborn - thats from the lore. The "Gifted" of Istaria got that way because they died to their mortal life and were reborn as gifted. So basically, technically by lore, every player character has died and been reborn to be gifted.

Whether that negates their ability to have children is up for debate, but it does suggest that hte lore argument for gifted having children - is that the children may not be gifted as they didn't die first.

Its why many of us (esp. us early lore people who didn't have asmuch lore as now and only a few truths - the Gifted thing being one of them) have death-stories of our characters "before being Gifted" and then a rebirth scenario. Its also why, for example, Frith-Rae "lost" her entire family when she was reborn because they either did not die or were not reborn as Gifted (at the time It was not clear that gifted shared the realm with non-gifted so I honestly thought everyone, NPCs included, running around in istaria were all gifted).

[Frith-Rae]

No, family and mates aren't required to have interesting characters but it can still be interesting with them
I think the matter is more that, perhaps, a bit too many people adopt sons, siblings, parents,... while they could be friends or even see about making them blood related. In these case research and discussions can be good.

And this is why Frith-Rae never had children of her own and never formally adopted anyone as HER hatchling. She was adopted "Auntie" to dozens, if not hundreds, of hatchlings though. Just as the idea of a "female mentor that always was there to lend an ear or lecture..LOL".

While I did have a couple of mate-relationships (though only one real bonded mate - she misses him still, as do I even though I still speak with him hehe) it wasnt until after MONTHs and MONTHS of RP interactions.

Because in RP I take "relationships" just as seriosly as I would IRL - and someone is not going to be my mate without our characters seriously interacting and getting ot know each other and making s ure its a right fit. And that both players are going to stick around.

The main reason we never had "hatchlings" (and why I never tried again to have a mate in game after Allon left) was the fact that so much becomes dependent on other players for your character to RP.

And very few players are going to stick around year to year to year - whicih leaves your charager either in permanent grief because of XYZ mate/mother/father/sister/brother/child is now gone or constantly havingto reset your story and pretend those people never existed.

To me its better to never rush into any of those HUGE relationships like that for IC because of the fickleness of other people (no offense to anyone!).

But Yes chio, it is possible to have great and deep and meaningful RP without having a mate/child/famly member.

However I would argue that you at least have to develop IC Friends of some sort - else noone is there to care about your characters Deep RP.

RElationships are essential to the RP dramas - but theTYPE of relationships is irelevant .

[Nambroth]

A gendered person trying to play a non-gendered intelligent being might seem a bit difficult, not to mention, just plain weird. That and genderless dragons removes the possibility of playing relationships, whether it is a mated pair, or a parent+child (mother/child, father/child) or even brother/sister roleplay.

None of this is possible if dragons were truly genderless.

It just seems so... weird... to even imagine how to play a genderless but living creature that's intelligent.

With no disrespect intended, for some people it's no more 'weird' than playing an intelligent character of the opposite gender.. or an intelligent character of a completely unrelated species...

Gender has NOTHING to do with love or relationships, for some. And that's as derailed as I will get today!

Carry on.

[LOVWYRM]

very wise words Nam!

[Dhalin]

With no disrespect intended, for some people it's no more 'weird' than playing an intelligent character of the opposite gender.. or an intelligent character of a completely unrelated species...

Gender has NOTHING to do with love or relationships, for some. And that's as derailed as I will get today!

Carry on.

When playing the opposite gender, you at least have an idea of how that gender would act. Since genderless intelligent beings do not exist IRL, attempting to play one might seem weird, was the point I was trying to get across, as there's nothing to base it on. You have to just guess how a genderless person might react to situations.

I, myself, have RP'd opposite gender characters before. When making them talk, making their decisions, etc, I loosely base them upon what I've known women to do, say, etc IRL. It isn't perfect, but I've been told that they didn't even know the difference until I told them, and some of these people are usually pretty good at knowing the difference.

And as far as playing an intelligent character of "another species", well... most tend to play them as though they were humans (much to my annoyance IMO). I've seen many dragon RPers who've RP'd their dragons (outside of Istaria, I mean) and having them act just like humans with the occasional 'catchphrase' thrown in.

It isn't that hard to base a dragon on a human personality, and give it a few quirks that you would imagine a dragon would have.

Gender, however... it affects more than you'd realize, IMO.

And yes, I agree... one doesn't need gender-related activities for interesting RP or even relationships. But... genderless characters? I think that's going a bit far. No matter what, I would think that you'd see some gendered qualities coming out in a character, some masculinity/femininity arising in the RP even if it is unintended, even if the player Were trying to play a genderless character.

[LungTien Temeraire]

Male and female dragons don't exist more IRL than genderless sentient beings, as far s I know So, I don't think we'd guess how gender-determined dragons act and react as much as genderless dragons would do... if they were genderless, ther would still be the question, can they reproduce by themselves or do they need to be two? some IRL animals can reproduce alone by themselves, indeed.

[Nyoko]

Not to backtrack since I'm only now reading this but...Slee is his own Uncle?

[Shian]

Not to backtrack since I'm only now reading this but...Slee is his own Uncle?

Yup. And every dragon is related to another according to Tsar's web of chaos that was posted forever ago.

I think Shian ended up being her own grandmother once or something crazy like that but I forget why or how.

[AguaRush]

/with out reading whole forum randomly inserts her ideas.

I personally have always liked the lore standing of dragons being "genderless" to like other races other then dragons, simply because they just can't tell. If i looked at a snake or other reptile, with out being all scientific i would have NO idea boy/girl? id simply be like o.O snake! RUN! :P

I see this to be very similar with dragons, personally i think in RP : naka just wouldn't know!. less that is when rping (which i do this) the dragon has a feminine sounding voice, or a more slim body or feminine characteristics (i try to be very clear with feminine mannerisms and such , this is also why i do not rp any male characters because I am a female so i don't think i would do them justice xD)
any how.
my point being, i love that other dragons would be able to tell and in my mind they do. but naka it becomes clear to them when spoken to, or in the way the dragon acts. /no offense to "tom boy" dragonesses intended/ or "girly" males for that matter/

any ways.
another thing with rp iv noticed at least with dragons is.. when an dragon / ancient / adult/ or maybe even hatchling. is growling and angry, or doing something like dragon like and fierce,

most (not all) naka that react to them like they are an angry DOG>

idk about you... but if i was being growled at by a dragon who in istaria is bigger then A HOUSE and can't even FIT inside. i would need a new pair of PANTS.

not saying rp should get that inappropriate to where naka are little babies, but come on.
If an angry dragon is growling at you shouldn't you cower just a little bit EVEN if your naka is brave/stubborn. *grins*

humor me.

off topic/in topic post. sorry xD

[Dhalin]

There's a difference between "True Genderless" dragons and "Naka can't tell what gender it is", as the latter means they DO have a gender, but only dragons can tell each other's gender unless the dragon says or does something that gives it away.

And yeah, this isn't specific to Istaria itself, I've seen this in AD&D Roleplay Chatrooms back in the mid-90s.

At that time, AD&D 2nd Edition was the current D&D version, and in that version, dragons were anywhere from 150-200 feet long from the tip of the snout to between the rear shoulders, and their tail was anywhere from 75-200 feet. To give you a good size comparison, the largest of dragons, the Great Wyrm Red, was just slightly larger than a Boeing 747 airliner.

(Edit: a Boeing 747 is 230-250 feet total length (~70 meters); a Great Wyrm Red was nearly this long without its tail and likely had a similar wingspan, if not slightly larger wingspan. The Airliner weighed 800,000 lbs (378,000 kg) when loaded fully with passengers; a dragon would have weighed more since it was not likely made of lightweight materials and half full of air).

You'd have humans, or demihumans, or whatever, trying to claim that they "kill" a dragon with a 5-foot long blade.

No matter how many times GMs and other moderators tried to point out that a single person killing a dragon with a sword is like a rat killing a human with a toothpick, none of these idiots would ever listen. "But but but the stats!" they'd say when they'd bring their utterly ridiculously overpowered optional book-laden characters in, the multiclassed level 40+ characters and such. *rolls eyes*

Some people lack any common sense or sense of realisticness. Yes, yes, "It is just a game! Its just a fantasy! Its just an RP!" well... it has to be SOMEWHAT realistic or it turns into Dragonball Z-type crap really fast. And I'm not a fan of DBZ, so... yeah.

[Chioxin]

Ya well, the way a lot of dragons play anyhow... growling might as well be treated like a puppy dog growling anyhow =P

[Shian]

I personally have always liked the lore standing of dragons being "genderless" to like other races other then dragons, simply because they just can't tell. If i looked at a snake or other reptile, with out being all scientific i would have NO idea boy/girl? id simply be like o.O snake! RUN! :P

Which is great if you're all for realism, but when you're interacting with other players it just gets annoying to have to correct them on your gender all the time. When was the last time you had to talk to that snake?

another thing with rp iv noticed at least with dragons is.. when an dragon / ancient / adult/ or maybe even hatchling. is growling and angry, or doing something like dragon like and fierce,

most (not all) naka that react to them like they are an angry DOG>

idk about you... but if i was being growled at by a dragon who in istaria is bigger then A HOUSE and can't even FIT inside. i would need a new pair of PANTS.

That's because such a sight is rare for you. Rare or new things are scary.
Dragons in Istaria are far from being rare. When you get used to something's presence you stop being afraid of it. If every naka became afraid of dragons just due to their size, they'd probably die of stress just because how often you run across said dragon.

[neva]

Funny thing about Genderless characters is that we as, humans tend to give everything a gender, because that is how we know the world. We even give computers and cars genders. After all if it is "intelligent" it is automatically a male. If it is not "intelligent" we call it a female.

Thus computers = Males
Cars = Females

The Sslik are by cannon of Istaria, Genderless. However for production reasons, if I remember reading this right in the lore, they tend to decide who is the 'alpha' and who is the 'beta', and the 'beta' gets to carry the kid. XD
This to us would come across as: "Ok. Alpha = Male and beta = female." They also have words for mother and father, but crap if I can remember them as I write this and I am feeling to lazy to look it up. XP

As such, I have had Azkain, a character I use to RP on Order (and probably will still), who has told someone once (minus the sss's): "We Sslik do not see gender the way the other races do. We are, in your culture, genderless. However many of your kind call this one 'he', because of this ones traits."

Another fun fact about Sslik: They say 'This one' or 'That one'. X3

So I see Dragons who want to play genderless very possible, but the culture of the world /will/ attach a gender to them to make it easy on themselves. That is just what we people do anyhow. We love to label stuff. XD

Anyhow, that is my two cents worth on genderless characters. They can be done, but someone, somewhere, will attach a gender to them lol.

[LungTien Temeraire]

After all if it is "intelligent" it is automatically a male. If it is not "intelligent" we call it a female.

Thus computers = Males
Cars = Females

"Ok. Alpha = Male and beta = female." They also have words for mother and father, but crap if I can remember them as I write this and I am feeling to lazy to look it up. XP

Not wanting to relaunch a man/woman debate, but I personally disagree with this.

[Ssilmath]

To chime in on the dragon + growling = autoscary thing...

To 99% of the population of Istaria, yes. A growling dragon is scary. But consider who the players are. Gifted. Beings who cannot die and who can rapidly attain the ability to call tornadoes down upon the heads of their foes or cut an armored foe in twain with an adamantine sword. They have faced down scarier foes than a dragon and 'lived' to tell about it. Some of them may have fought and killed dragons. Why should a dragon growling at them do anything more than get them riled up and aggressive right back?

As for a 'lowly' humanoid being able to kill a dragon. Smaller creature are more agile and harder to hit than you would think. Especially when they would have access to speed/strength enhancing spells, or magically enhanced armor made of the strongest materials known to reality. And every armor made of scales has points (Joints, between scales, inside of the mouth, eyes) where weapons can pierce. It takes just a few inches of penetration into the chest cavity to kill/incapacitate a human. 5 feet of diety blessed, arcane enhance adamantine (Probably further enhanced with an element that is antithetical to the dragon) penetrating into the chest cavity or cranium might have a similar effect, don't you think?

Seriously, I get tired of how overblown people make dragons out to be. Especially when they try to use that as an excuse for dominating others in either RP or actual play.

[AguaRush]

Which is great if you're all for realism, but when you're interacting with other players it just gets annoying to have to correct them on your gender all the time. When was the last time you had to talk to that snake?



That's because such a sight is rare for you. Rare or new things are scary.
Dragons in Istaria are far from being rare. When you get used to something's
presence you stop being afraid of it. If every naka became afraid of dragons just due to their size, they'd probably die of stress just because how often you run across said dragon.

Right, i mean i don't have a problem with that. Im not saying when or if rping no naka would know. Personally it doesn't bother me a bit I'm not saying all naka should rp like they don't know. And i know its annoying, even being on chaos Agua is commonly mistaken for a drake :P Personally iv always wanted to be able to select in character creation the sex of your dragon even if its just for people search so they could look and know.
What i more so meant was that i don't think changing the model of dragons would be necessary. there was once a debate long ago or suggestion to make female dragons bigger then males but personally i think thats silly

Im not saying naka should just be afraid when a dragon flys into a clearing, that would be ridiculous id they were scared all the time because yes in istaria dragons are common. Im just saying its kinda silly to not be afraid of an angry dragon.

Even though like another pointed out if they are gifted they have nothing to fear.
But like i said personally even if i was gifted and not afraid of death, i can't imagine being chewed on a dragon would feel nice xD

[LungTien Temeraire]

Without fear there is no courage (*says a certain dragon in a sadly not very good movie), so bipeds may be afraid of angry big dragons while still standing their ground :P

[Dhalin]

As for a 'lowly' humanoid being able to kill a dragon. Smaller creature are more agile and harder to hit than you would think. Especially when they would have access to speed/strength enhancing spells, or magically enhanced armor made of the strongest materials known to reality. And every armor made of scales has points (Joints, between scales, inside of the mouth, eyes) where weapons can pierce. It takes just a few inches of penetration into the chest cavity to kill/incapacitate a human. 5 feet of diety blessed, arcane enhance adamantine (Probably further enhanced with an element that is antithetical to the dragon) penetrating into the chest cavity or cranium might have a similar effect, don't you think?

"A few inches" into a human's chest cavity, let's see...

Your average human is roughly 6 feet from head to foot.

Let's say by "a few inches", you're talking 3. Three inches is enough to pierce the heart of a human. Okay, sure.

6 feet = 72 Inches. Three inches is roughly 4% of the length of the human's entire body.

Now, let's assume a D&D dragon. 200 Feet. Your average sword is 5-6 feet long in the blade (the handle isn't likely to do any piercing and the handguard would likely stop it before it goes deeper). That's 2.5% to 3%. Let's also consider the fact that unlike a human's body, a dragon's torso is quadrepedal, thus, the heart is a bit deeper in unless approached by right behind the front shoulder, assuming dragons have similar anatomy to other quadrepedal creatures.

And how exactly would a human get up that high to actually land that type of strike on a dragon? One could argue that they could use bows and arrows. Your average arrow is only roughly 2 feet long, that's even less penetration. Not to mention, slipping an arrow between two scales would be quite a bit harder to do, especially at range, than attempting the same with a sword. It is possible that maybe a crossbow might have the power to penetrate the scale outright instead of slipping between them, but then again, you'd need a perfect shot, otherwise you might not actually hit the heart.

So, a human trying to melee a creature of that size? That's sheer crazy right there. The worst you could do is maybe hamstring the dragon. That's it.

Now, sure you could throw magic. Okay, that's at least acceptable. But, the whole topic I presented earlier was humans claiming they were taking down dragons with swords.

Want to take down a dragon? You use a ballista. You don't walk right up to the thing and poke it in the foot with a sword.

Seriously, I get tired of how overblown people make dragons out to be. Especially when they try to use that as an excuse for dominating others in either RP or actual play.

It isn't about making dragons overblown, it is about trying to be at least somewhat realistic, and it is about players who don't even think or use proper tactics against the foe they're fighting and they expect to win by stats alone. Just because to-hit, damage, and health numbers say you can kill something that big with your bare hands doesn't mean you can actually do it realistically. Well, as realistic as one can get with magic and the like flying about, anyways.

Again: There's a limit to how much you can stretch reality and still be 'acceptable'.

[Ssilmath]

<Sigh> Is it time to bring realism into a fantasy discussion again?

That aside, keep in mind that dragon has a very different body layout compared to a human, as far as ratios of torso depth to body length is concerned. Even compared to a 747, 5 feet of penetration is pretty significant and is going to tear open lungs and major arteries. Now, that is not likely to be achieved through slashing, so a spear or horse powered lance would be better.

However, there are many other vulnerable parts where slashing weapons could kill without needing to penetrate very deep. The throat and carotid arteries would be vulnerable, as would the veins, arteries and nerves running through the hips and groin. The spinal column would be possible to access, as the armor plates there would require gaps to allow the dragon to curve its spine. Every opening in the skull is very vulnerable and 4 or 5 feet of penetration will kill.

As for getting a dragon on the ground, taking the fight to its lair is a one viable option without spells, but characters with Fly or Spider Climb (Once on the dragon) would have no problem, and the spell Downgust brings them down to your level. A Ranger should have no problem putting longbow arrows into the eyes of a dragon.

None of this is to say that a dragon would be an easy opponent, or even anything but a very risky venture. But it is certainly possible to kill a creature like that with melee weapons. The scariest thing a dragon will ever face is an experienced and well equipped party that has time to prepare. Or, in Istarias case, a heavily multiclassed biped with access to roots, stuns and a big honkin weapon that knows how to strike at the vulnerable bits.

[Chioxin]

*Makes the mental note to .... stay away from Ssilmath!!!!* =)