Vansin

I encourage people to look upon this with a measure of leniency, considering that this is a good-faith attempt to make something creative and competitive. Attaching money changes literally nothing about the basic assumptions you should have going into anything like this. Remind yourself: -You will probably not win, even if you think you deserve to win. -You will find the subjective nature of the judgement calls offensive (when they don't favor you) -You will likely have to interact with someone you don't want to, for the purpose of competing and being judged. Account for these things in your mind now, so that when they happen you can not whine and complain about them. If you go into an experience like this intending to have fun and determine not to worry about what results you get, you can have a fantastic time writing competitively and fostering the communal feeling of this site. If you join this with a chip on your shoulder about the sanctity of your impressive roleplaying or the dicey moral dilemma of a prize purse which, depending on participation levels, might pay for an entire take-out meal, you're gonna have a bad time.

Harelia had no money left. She’d intended to turn this nice boy down after seeing what he could tell her about her night-to-be at the theater, but when his exclusive green tickets flashed before her eyes the tall young woman gasped in delight. “Yes! We’ll take them!” She said joyously, then turned to her captain with a pleading expression, ”Won’t we, Captain? It’s backstage.” Though Harelia had long ago been raised in wild lands, she had been inured to city culture at a young age and, now that she regularly won wealth on the seas, was developing a taste for not just for the things money could buy, but for the experiences too. “We can meet the actors! And the Queen is going to be attending the play too! You know her people didn’t buy her those regular tickets. What if we go backstage and she’s there?!” Harelia would have been happy just to meet the actors, but the captain was a cut above normal temptations. @vielle @KittyvonCupcake

Harelia’s brow raised at the royal gossip. ”The Queen? Of Svanhild?” How had the captain managed to get tickets to such a ritzy event? Harelia knew she rubbed shoulders with the nobility, even worked for them on occasion. But to attend a play with the Lady of the Queendom in attendance was a higher honor than Harelia expected for a ship’s captain. “That’s incredible! Does the Queen usually go to these sorts of shows? Will her whole court be there?!” She considered breaking the news to this unsuspecting ticket-hawker but she’d learned in her time at sea that a good lie, held long enough, could produce a richness of information and opportunity. “Are you one of the actors? If I bought a ticket from you, could you take me backstage?”

“Greetings to you, Ser John...” Harelia said, her voice trailing off as she looked up at the posters and down at the pamphlet. Of Thieves and Thrones was the show she was scheduled to see. Her ticket was already bought and paid for, and in the captain’s purse. “Why I’d love to buy a ticket to your show!” she said, unslinging her red backpack from her shoulders, opening it, reaching her arm inside and twiddling her fingers, conjuring the sounds of gold coins clinking (there were no coins, she’d spent them all) but then all of a sudden she appeared to catch herself, “Oh but I don’t know what it’s about...” She pretended to realize, “is it any good?” She threw her bag back over one shoulder and looked innocently at the Ser.

"I'm going ashore!" Harelia yelled back, throwing her vine-engraved staff over her shoulder and a parting wave of her hand to whoever was watching her walk down the gangplank. A few crewmen and women hollered distant goodbyes as they sealed up the ship and prepared to disembark themselves. Their magnanimous captain had bought them all tickets to a theater performance on the fancy Silkflair Lane but Harelia, ever the wanderer, sought to explore the town on her own before the night-time show. As she exited the docks, she spied the dejected figures of her crewmates Bruno and Jessibel returning from their abridged shore leave. Though she greeted them cheerfully they had little cheer to return. "Can't you speak to the captain for us?" they asked mournfully. Harelia frowned sympathetically. "I already have, but she wouldn't hear of it. And frankly, I agree with her." The pair were flabbergasted and made scoffing noises but Harelia waved their protests aside. "Come on. If your lovers' quarrels keep interrupting crew dinner then this is what you have to expect." "It wasn't so bad, was it?" Jessibel sighed. Harelia frowned. "Do you know how long it took to get the prune stains out of my white pants? You threw our table at him Jessibel!" "I did?" she looked stricken by what she'd done. It was even more impressive when you remembered that the tables were bolted to the floor. Bruno shook his head. "But I caught it!" he said, omitting that he had then broken the table in half in fury. The two of them had been born in barbarian tribes, stolen, and raised in a traveling circus before serving on the Prosperina. Their fury was as useful in battle as it was inconvenient at dinner. Now it was Hariela's turn to shake her head. "Not good enough, Bruno. It's better that you stay on the ship. Imagine what would happen if you had one of your rows at the theater? In front of all the captain's noble friends? Think of how ashamed she would be! Are you even thinking of her, or just of yourselves?" Harelia didn't like scolding the crew, least of all innocent Bruno and Jessibel. They hadn't gotten the chance to grow up like normal people, and they were forever childlike because of it. When she thought of how two sweet people could be so mistreated, she felt like breaking a table herself. "No!" they both shouted at once. The thought of betraying the trust of their captain was painful to their pure souls, as Harelia knew it would be. At once she could see they understood, and she smiled at them. They soon parted, with Bruno and Jessibel headed for their dull night guarding the Prosperina, and Harelia entering Cal Eternis. The sheer magnitude of the city always astounded her. It was the sort of city that made you believe you were living in a golden age. The streets were clean, the people good and cheerful with pockets full of coins, and there was food everywhere. She liked to walk through the streets and smell all the cooking meat until she couldn't take it anymore and bought some. Today she bought spiced ribs and got her hands shamelessly greasy eating them. She tried to find a fountain, but the streets were so crowded she could barely see five feet from herself. With a start, she dodged a column of soldiers, whose first rank officer tipped his hat at her in apology and smiled. She smiled back, but he wasn't allowed to slow his march and she turned with a laugh into the crowd of shoppers pouring in and out of the market. The market was somehow even more colorful and lively than the rest of the city, with bright banners flapping in the warm mid-day wind and everybody talking all at once, all the time. Once in the market Harelia did what she usually did: she spent all her money. She bought: -A cape -Two pairs of white pants -Four apple tarts (two for her, two for the captain) -Six boxes of Vanoran tea (not nearly enough, just all the guy had) -Ten apples (for her pet, Apollon) -Three adventure books (to read to Bruno and Jessibel) -A fancy customized scimitar (to hang on her wall) After arranging the delivery of all these items her last purchase was a colorful foreign bird, who she released at once and, with her magic, convinced to sit on the end of her staff so she could chat with him as she continued to sight-see. She learned about his homeland and taught him about human cities. The bird found that he liked statues, though Harelia wasn't quite sure he'd understood what they were for. Nonetheless, he was a good companion. Though glad to be free, the bird confessed that he had fallen in love with another of the birds in the market, and so as the afternoon waned Harelia bought the foreign bird's lover, and freed them both. The female bird flew away at once without a chirp in the male's direction. "Go get her!" Harelia encouraged, as the male bird squawked in dismay. She stood in the market, watching and laughing as the birds darted away. @KittyvonCupcake @vielle

🤩 If this character fits your aesthetic then count me in, Princess @vielle

I for one will die to defend Vielle's right to a medieval fantasy setting.

Congrats! What's your prewriting process?

I saw this reddit thread today too. The correct answer is "never have I ever"

This is like my RP religion in a single paragraph.

I know you were trying to be very basic with this but what you just said is essentially "If a character is not OP, it can't be OP" "Balanced" is the very term we're trying to dissect here. What is balanced? Don't answer, because whatever you do answer will be subjective and therefore not a good working definition everyone can use. At least, that was my previous point. I have to also seriously disagree with this: I think power scaling on the fly is actually THE solution, albeit perhaps not in the way you think of "power scaling" For most, power scaling means "sure kid, I may be a godlike force of nature but I'll limit myself to just sword techniques so I don't kill ya." Which, agreed, is lame as fuck. However a real RP artist can power scale with style by manipulating a situation around a character instead of having that character manipulate itself. "My godlike force of nature relies on the phases of the moon, and as it turns out our battle is taking place during a new moon, during which time he's barely more than a regular human in ability." This method is neither demeaning to your opponent nor a flex on the part of your character. The godlike character can be written to experience a lot of fear during those times, heightening the dramatic tension. The other, less powerful character might be extremely motivated to win this fight because he knows as soon as the moon reappears the comeuppance will be severe. All in all this method of adjusting situations instead of characters to create game balance is at the heart of what makes a great roleplayer. I think power scaling rocks, and should be used more often.

@Die Shize Extremely well said, I read your post after I made my own and there's plenty of overlap. I'm going to post it anyway, but you said it first! The conversation about OP powers always devolves into discussions of splitting hairs: "this is OP, but this variation of that is not" The variety and frequency of these comparisons shows that while they are the answer to Rabbit's question, they are not the answer to the most important questions: what is OP? How do I spot OP? How do I stop OP? And the very simple and actionable answer to those questions is: OP can be defined as "actions which infringe on the enjoyment of your fellow writers" Note that I specified actions and not abilities. Like the old adage "guns don't kill people, people kill people", we could say "powers aren't OP, people's usage of powers are OP" If we stop asking "hey, is this an OP ability?" and instead ask "Okay, what do you intend to do with that ability?" we can really determine if a writer intends to use their character's abilities to grief other players or simply enhance a story. Then we turn to the other players involved and ask "will this power ruin the fun you're intending to have? Will the power present roadblocks you don't want? (as compared to roadblocks you do want, like every story ought to have) In my time on Valucre I have pointedly and egregiously defied the mild powers rule. My major PC was a prophet through whom I gave myself access to unbeatable god magic at any time I chose, with no restrictions. And it was all canon. I have never once been accused of being OP. There's a reason for this, and it's that I never used those characters/powers to do anything aside from set scenes for other RPers to enjoy, and provide missions to other PCs for the purpose of creating storylines. Any conversation about my character's power level would be purely academic, because I never used the powers I awarded to myself for any purpose but to enhance other people's experiences in a consensual way. I support the mild power level of Valucre as a concept for the masses, because frankly the majority of people in this hobby treat RPing not as storytelling, but as an analog RPG video game with an informal rules framework they can exploit for...I don't even know what, honestly. Because of this strange but ubiquitous cultural truth of RPing, blanket rules need to be created and enforced until the day comes when all people write RP to tell stories and not to accumulate PC power out of selfishness.