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[Laerise [PIE]]

Okay, here's one thing that confuses the hell out of me.

If I were to totally disregard my ingame experience and go by the stuff I read on public forums...

Why the heck is more than 50% of the whole capsuleer community either ex-spec-ops, run-away slaves, had their parents killed by amarr/minmatar/gallente/caldari/orcs ?

Is it just a personal misconception because these examples burn themselves into my mind like a red hot iron poker, I'm confused 

[Ulphus]

Well, I ended up in Spec-Ops because that was the button I clicked during char-gen.

My mother is still alive, (though dad died in the wars) if that helps, and I visit the clan lands fairly frequently, including occasionally taking people I've met in space to visit.

And apparently someone made an offer to the aunties to marry me off...

[Havohej]

Ever played Dungeons and Dragons?  Well, I'd say about 80% of new DnD players wanna be an elven ranger who's uber with a bow.  This is mainly because so many heroic characters in novels from the fantasy genre are elves.  Who use bows.  And can clip your sister's tampon strings at 200 yards while she's wearing pants.  :legolas:

I think the EVE version of that is players who are new to EVE and/or new to RP in general go for commonly romanticized sci-fi character archetypes based on the tiny bit of backstory presented to them during the initial chargen process.

That's not to say that NO experienced RPer makes a 'run-away slave' character, mind, just that it seems to be a more common choice among newcomers for the reasons mentioned.

[Casiella]

I wonder whether any group of RPers doesn't have that sort of isssue. That includes the whole spectrum, such as those who don't consider themselves "lolrpers" but have something resembling an IC background for their characters.

For the record, Casi is the daughter of a Sebiestor bureaucrat and more-or-less stay-at-home mom, but that may not be entirely relevant.

[Silver Night]

I don't have parents because I was grown in a tube. 

+2 for Spec-ops via character creation for me and another of my characters, though. Silver used to fly for spec ops teams, getting them on the ground and whatnot, though. He runs like a sissy from actual in-person fighting. The other character doesn't much fly, and is terrible at it, and her job entails having those spec-op skills to draw on, so I think that works out?

I would agree that a lot of people go with the archetypes they know. Plus, everyone wants to be the hero of the story.

[Havohej]

He runs like a sissy from actual in-person fighting.

I tend to play Havo the same way in terms of fist fights.  He's a capsuleer, a competent combat pilot, not a genetically engineered super soldier space marine golden gloves boxing karate master.  I often tease that our character sheets are lacking physical attributes for a reason 

[Casiella]

Given the wealth and power of capsuleers, plus the chron in which Tibus Heth's violent past gets circular filed by a Caldari news organization, I'd assume that capsuleers have personal security staffs for use in some situations, at least outside the station levels reserved for them.

[Misan]

I vaguely remember the original character generation (or the revised one a few expansions ago anyway) listing Misan as special ops. That said, I tried to avoid drawing on it for on the ground things, and instead consider it as describing the training she received during her time in the RMS. So more about flying covert or agile ships, not the SWAT/SEAL style stuff. She does have some physical combat proficiency, but more because of the Thukker upbringing and self-reliance angle of that.

Both of Misan's parents are alive and well, by the way.

In my own personal experience I haven't seen those character types that frequently, but I agree with what has already been said about the tendency to go with recognized archetypes.

[Seriphyn]

Seriphyn's backstory has been retconned more times than I like to admit, but yeah, I agree with what people have said here; everyone wants to be the hero, and being raped by Amarrians when you were younger gives you a great framework to hate them when you grow up.

I think Seriphyn started...I can't remember, he wasn't very fleshed out but very Mary Sue as extension of myself. Was new to RP I guess, the chat style...but yeah, he's an aggressive, violent egomaniac character that can subdue and hide the egomania to be replaced with humility and bashfulness if he wants to, while his parents are alive and well, and in frequent contact. Just took me 2 years to get something like that, heh.

[Ashar Kor-Azor]

Dear Laerise,

Common tropes are all too often shit, and it is the role of the wider community to educate newcomers that some tropes are common enough and could use avoiding for a bit.

Also, both the arch-liberal character type (mine) and the arch-conservative character type (yours) act and talk a lot like a common trope.

While common tropes can be redeemed by execution, and I am prepared to say that we redeem the ones we draw on okay when we're at the top of our respective games, the only way to curb shitty execution is through education. It's the only silver bullet we've got left in the bandoleer.

-Ashar, circa late 2006.

[Nascent]

[deleted]

[lallara zhuul]

Most of them just are chargen options.

Like Cyberknight. 

[Mithfindel]

Even with the chargen options you could make a whole lot of interesting mixes, specially now when there's no minmaxing involved. Khanid Cyberknight trader? Civire Mercenary courier? Gallente (Martial) Artist? And, um, whatever ancestry the slaves have, I'm not a breeder.

[Gottii]

One ex-slave reporting in.

Honestly, I didnt really design Gottii for RP.  I wasnt sure I was ever going to arrrpee in EvE,  It really wasnt what caught my eye in the game originally.  Even the name wasnt exactly what I would have picked for an RP character. 

Basically, I picked Slave Child cus I knew I wanted to be a combat toon, and it gave me bonuses to Per and Will. I tried hard to be an Achura male, but I couldnt really look myself in the eye. And, really, the sunglasses won me over.   

So, when I decided to RP eventually, I kinda had to throw together a character and personality from the toon I had to work with.  It was something of an RP exercise, but one Ive enjoyed for the most part. 

[Ciarente]

Cia is not at all risk friendly, but as for stereotypes ...

In my defense, she didn't start out with such a terrible childhood ... eldest daughter of a diplomat and heir to an old established family on her home planet, and a former non-capsuleer pilot who tested into the capsuleer program when it started.  Initially I never meant for her 'missing father' storyline to be resolved: Jorion Roth/ Evarion Yates, I thought, would be her 'white whale' - and provide me with an excuse to have her talk IC to all sorts of people.

It worked like a charm, but I found my ability to invent new reasons he couldn't be located/recovered couldn't outstrip the inventive ways Vikarion, Silver, Celes, Istvaan, Math'ra, Garion and others came up with to find him.

I also made a decision as a player, starting out in Eve, to say 'yes' to just about every RP opportunity that came up, which meant I had t play Cia as a character who'd go along with things a ... sensible ... person wouldn't. I made her quite naive and trusting, and not at all assertive, and then had to work out just what kind of background would produce a person like that. It was around then her mother became the famous society beauty Cia couldn't live up to or meet the expectations of, and her father became the Jorion Roth we all love to hate ...

Other characters ... trained ones: one ex-marine pilot, who actually started as a no-skills RP alt marine working for Cia; Camille, Cia's little sister, whose skills are limited to market trading; an ex-slave who doesn't have any complaints about slavery; a Blood Raider who is definitely not an emo vampyre; and an ex-military planetside transport pilot who likes redheads and beer.

No-skill RP alts: one caldari marine; one Gallente tabloid reporter; one Intaki priestess who occasionally preaches in local; a free Minamatar psychiatrist, an Amarr doctor, a Gallente doctor with a drug habit, a Gallente engineer with a drinking problem (now deceased);  and a Gallente policeman.

With the exception of Cia (and the Blood Raider) they all have a pretty normal background, family wise.