The Local ClusterBoard

I've been thinking.

I think I'm going to delete my factbooks and retcon quite a lot of stuff. I'm not satisfied with how I have things now, and after thinking about it, I don't much like how I made some things work.

Greetings, Unibearia, and welcome to TLC! If you have not done so already, I would advise taking a look at The Local Cluster Mission Statement as well as the FT Advice and Assistance Thread. If you have any questions please feel free to field them here, send a telegram to one of our advisers, or drop-by our Internet Relay Chat channel (linked in the World Factbook Entry above).

Again, welcome to The Local Cluster! :D

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=350938

World building RP I'm doing involving a cult group going rouge in one of the 'metropolises' on Varagoth. They're lead on by their cult master and noble to rampage and slaughter innocent civilians in a blood lust. The Imperial authorities don't want to panic the populace by doing a full on man hunt for their cult so they'll be hiring a group of foreign mercenaries headed by Varagothian officials to conduct a small scale man hunt for the cultists and their leader to bring an end to their mayhem they'll be causing as the RP goes on. If anyone is interested in wanting to RP as a foreign mercenary taking on the pursuit of a well armed cult you can TG me other than that I'l most likely have a OOC thread created for applications depending on the amount of interest I get from others.

Hello to all new people, and Eol sha, are you searching for Jedi recruits? :p

Neornith wrote:

Ok, in my defense it did seem like you were trying to be shocking even if you actually weren't. One thing to keep in mind is how well you can convey the image you have for your nation inside your head so that others look at it and come to the same conclusion, if you don't get your idea across properly they will misinterpret and see your nation not as you intended which is a struggle every player here should keep in mind while world building. My nation for instance has severe punishments for several things, it is not something I openly talk about and is occasionally alluded to in RP to add a little flavor, in some cases sometimes less is more.

Yeah, I get that. I've had my ideas misinterpreted before.

Neornith wrote:

Yeah, sometimes the best thing to do is start out nice and simple, and build on that idea, Avlana for instance started out as me wanting to have multiple avian species in one nation, so I took that idea and slowly built on it, forming each species into Houses, dividing the Houses into specific tasks, creating inner turmoil within the Houses etc etc

Well, the basic idea for Yos Namoi is a xenophobic, matriarchal warrior society on a thick, lush jungle planet.

Yos namoi wrote:

Well, the basic idea for Yos Namoi is a xenophobic, matriarchal warrior society on a thick, lush jungle planet.

So Amazons :p

Neornith wrote:

So Amazons :p

Oh man, I never even realized the similarities. XD

But no, not exactly Amazons. There are men and although they are treated as equals, the society operates on specific gender roles. It's widely believed women are better warriors and leaders, while men are better laborers and salesmen.

It's based around the (not entirely true) belief that women are more agile and have more mental strength, while men are more economic and have more physical strength.

Neornith wrote:

So Diablo II Amazons :p

There's nothing wrong with it you just need to fully make it unique and yours

Jesus, has any idea not been taken?

Vocenae wrote:

There are no original ideas anymore, only original implementation.

There is an old quote, I can't remember the exact wording or who said it since it has been at least ten years since I last saw it, but in the modern era, 'if you have thought of something, someone else has already done it'. The only thing you can do in this case is mold it to yourself. In the end, your nation is not a unique and special snowflake. It is a collection of literature tropes combined together to make some amalgamation that works, and in this case, has to work with the community and the standards that it sets for itself. Remember all the help that was given to you when you were posting as Soleji? That also applies here.

Also, do you [i[really[/i] want a 'unique' idea that is completely original to be posted on a Internet roleplay forum? If you have an idea you think hasn't been done before then you should really keep it off the Internet and work on it in private until it reaches a point where you can do something truly great with it, instead of just floundering about on a Internet roleplay forum.

See also: Step One of the Future Tech Beginner's Tutorial. It may not be entirely specific to this 'problem' (as much as realizing that you, yourself are not special), but it works well enough.

Don't worry, I wasn't planning on doing anything with this nation.

Besides, I lack the artistic skill to ever bringing any of my thousands of ideas to life.

I could maybe be a writer, but that doesn't usually work out well for most people. Plus, my grammar is less than good and I sometimes have to resort to Googling a word because I've forgotten how to spell it.

Genomita wrote:

So kind of like reverse Qunari?

I have no idea what that is so I'm just going to nod my head and agree.

The Ten Thousand Suns wrote:

I won't worry about being original. I think that an old (or plagiarized) idea done well is far more enjoyable than a truly original idea that is done with mediocrity. If we all went for unusual-ness over well done and thought out, we'd all be playing sentient colors and cubes of frozen ammonia. And we'd have nothing to RP about, because the colors and the cubes don't have desires that overlap at all.

First and foremost: Plagiarizing another player is never acceptable, in any capacity, in a community which prides itself on creativity. For one, it violates the fundamental precepts of FT, namely: collaboration, compromise, creativity, and consistency; secondly, it against the NS Terms of Service and OSRS. It is also a consideration of The Local Cluster Mission Statement, as an elaboration on the fundamental principles of FT.

Secondly, while it is true that one should not feel pressured to create the "most amazing concept ever, complete of full originality and raw from the depths of the player's mind," directly ripping from pre-existing canon (film, games, comics, books, etc.) is highly frowned-upon by much of the community; it is one thing to take inspiration from or even build-off from pre-existing canon (as many players have in the past), but simply taking, say, the Imperium of Man or the Hiigarans or House Atreides and just dropping them into NSFT and playing them as they are portrayed in their original source material, with no modification for the fact that the world (the Galaxy) and its history, astro-political climate, etc. is vastly different from the concept's source material? That leads to problems and, more often than not, the player attempting to do such simply being ignored.

I would strongly recommend you take the time to read Step One of "Future Technology: A Beginner's Tutorial," as it elaborates on this specific idea in greater detail. I understand - and grasp - the point you are trying to make, that trying to be "too original" can lead to a player becoming tangled in a quagmire of creation and create a concept so far beyond what is actually needed (or desirable), that they never actually get to roleplay with it; to equate that with it being "more enjoyable" (and, by implication, more desirable) to simply rip from a pre-existing concept or outright plagiarizing another player without a player spending the time to create his own ideas and concepts, however, is simply not how Future Tech works - it is not how this community works.

For over a decade, players have created truly original implementations of a wide variety of concepts and have successfully roleplay with them without the need to resort to directly ripping-off pre-existing sources of canon, much less plagiarizing other players. Because of that, I truly hope you take into consideration the aforementioned tutorial.

Yos namoi wrote:

Jesus, has any idea not been taken?

No they haven't, the obstacle is taking that idea and tweaking it enough to make it yours