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Author Topic: Idea: Family Member Characters under other player control (yay?)  (Read 7751 times)

Publius Valerius

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I'm fleshing out Silas' family background, and will likely be adding a few siblings and extended family members.

I think it might be a super neat idea to have one of these under independent control of another player.  No better way to make an "alt" a 'more real character than to have someone with their own agenda and personality writing them and doing their own thing.

As to not force the Sabik thing I'll likely have some family members who stayed loyal and broke away as soon as they could. While the family name is ruined in the Kingdom, I imagine they could probably try and make a fresh start in the Empire or State even. 

I'd be giving up the keys to the castle in the sense that the character would be yours and your alone; I'd acknowledge the relationship and contribute mutual backstory but what they do with themselves is all up to them, and certainly doesn't have to relate to me at all.

I remembered interacting with Verone's younger brother at some events and thinking how interesting it would be if they had been two separate players....

Does this sound stupid or maybe some non-fail in there somewhere?


+1. I really love this Idea.; but as Nicoletta Mithra already mention, be careful which person you hand over the Charackter. As general... If you need a chart for your family tree.... Just ask, I could make one on the wiki.
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lallara zhuul

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If you are Sabik, your family would probably be considered possible terrorists in all of the empires.

They would be pariahs everywhere where there is Amarrian religion... which is pretty much whole of the cluster.

Of course they would be capsuleers and would have won the genetic jackpot.

So you would double your Mary Sue there.

Could you give them amnesia as well?
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Ava Starfire

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Ava has a sister, and because of her, Ava constantly hears "why cant you be more like your sister?" which I always thought would be fun.

If I had an open character, I might do this Silas, cause it DOES sound fun... maybe Kat will run with it!

Also, confirming that I am Aldrith's long-lost twin sister. I thought the resemblance was obvious!
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Desiderya

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If you're good with the player behind the new character it's a very interesting thing to do, talking from experience here.
+1
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Silas Vitalia

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If you're good with the player behind the new character it's a very interesting thing to do, talking from experience here.
+1

Share! What was good, what was bad?

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Silas Vitalia

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Of course they would be capsuleers and would have won the genetic jackpot.

So you would double your Mary Sue there.

Could you give them amnesia as well?

Trollpost best post!

I think you'd be more likely to find capsuleers in the same family as they share more genetic traits, so having a few siblings in a large family being pod pilots seems reasonable to me. 

I don't really follow the Mary Sue jibe, so *shrug*

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Halete

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It's an idea I've done, seen done well, seen done badly, and all parts of the spectrum in the half of my short life that I've been RPing for.

The idea works very well if there's some mutual trust between the players and good communication when it comes to building an organic backstory (with elements often being ironed out as they come up on-the-fly).

I'm far too occupied, but I like the idea and have enjoyed it in the past, I'd just suggest that you choose somebody you have good synergy with as a writer.

Edit: I'm guilty of only flicking through the thread and I see that Desi shares very similar sentiments to me. :P

I'll go one further then.

Both players need to iron out and be in agreement of the backstory as I pointed out. This means you should be prepared to relinquish some of that creative space, effectively meaning allowing someone else to effectively mold some of your character's past. This can be an issue for some people. Whether it is to you is another matter.

As I mentioned '... on the fly'. You'll be RPing and some question will come up - the answer to which you haven't fully tacked down - something which effects 'new character' and Silas. In this case you'll likely have to shoot a quick PM at each-other. To this end it helps to be available at similar times. This becomes especially collaborative with those 'eureka!' moments where inspiration strikes for some tidbit you can work into your character's back story seamlessly, as some further justification for how they've shaped as a character.

These are what you could consider the negatives - but they're still not strong negatives. It all comes down to synergy, availability and organization.
« Last Edit: 19 Dec 2012, 09:54 by Hatele »
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Desiderya

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If you're good with the player behind the new character it's a very interesting thing to do, talking from experience here.
+1

Share! What was good, what was bad?

Not much bad to say, really, as the characters weren't tied to each other aside having the common background. The alt status made it difficult for me to get into the character without falling overly much into Desisms in the beginning, as I usually develop things like this over the period of playing. But that's basic alt woes, at least for me. Good was and is seeing how the two characters in question develop over time. They do share similarities, not just visual, but yet they go different routes. The relationship between them is interesting, to say the least.

Basically it's long-term roleplaying without the ever changing ~relationship~ baggage that usually makes things ... weird. (subjective opinion here, guys, don't lynch me).

Needless to say I wouldn't do this with a player I don't know well and trust to not fuck things up OOCly. Aside that, IC rivalries or hostilities between family members can be so entertaining. ;)
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Morwen Lagann

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As an example I'm personally familiar with and interact with on a regular basis - the three surviving members of the Tyrathlion family are played by two separate people - Repentence and Mortis are played by the same person (Reppy), and their sister Charity is played by a close friend. Other members of the family were played by Reppy in the past - including the mother Vara, and Charity at one point as well.

With Morwen, only her mother has a playable character ingame atm - her father is out of the picture for the foreseeable future due to certain parties not playing anymore preventing me from doing anything with that line of ~stuff~.

I've not had any trouble keeping Morwen's mother as a separate character - and people who have had the opportunity to interact with her (with or without Morwen also present) have seemed to enjoy it - my only disappointment here is the lack of opportunities to use her, because well, I'm a horrible person and embarrassing Morwen in ways only her mother can is rather entertaining to me. :p
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2) Most of the former group appear lesbian due to a lack of suitable male partners to go around.
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Karmilla Strife

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True Amarrian family RP could be very interesting. I've had fun with House based RP before. Lots of opportunities for political maneuvering.

I've done this before and really enjoyed the experience. I'd like to echo what some others have said already. You want to pick someone you trust, I actually had my wife play the character when she wanted to try EVE out. Depending on how long you want the character interactions to last, you want players who will be active and interested for the duration.

Pros from my experience:
*Great way to build up your own characters background. We had to come up with a lot of shared history before playing family members.
*Having another person play a family member yields a very organic experience. Great for character growth.
*It's nice having an RP interaction that with someone with a shared background and where the relationship is already defined and agreed upon by all players. Typical RP pretty much involves building relationships with other characters from scratch. This lets you skip a lot of the typical "hello. How are you? What do you do? Oh you're part of X faction?" interactions and get right to something with more substance.

Cons from my experience:
*If you get invested with the RP and said person loses interest, you get stuck with half finished stories, or have to make something up for why that interaction is gone.
*Potential for abuse.

Overall I think it's worth the effort. And I wouldn't mind being a part if you're interested.
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Arnulf Ogunkoya

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As it happens Arnulf has an IC half-brother that he has an established history with, Asvard.

At the moment I have left his account inactive to cut down on expenses, but I had toyed with the idea of finding someone interested in playing him. It would have to be someone I really trusted though, and that's hard to come by in this game.
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Silas Vitalia

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Thanks for responses.

One of the interesting and potentially liberating aspects is that this would likely be set up as an antagonistic relationship; once mutual background is established and worked out, the strings are cut and the owner does whatever the hell they want.

I'm less interested in someone else controlling a 'supporting' sibling because it's probably boring as hell for them to be in that sort of relationship and in another character's shadow.   

The pitfall is also that this character is always going to be 'tied' to my character in ways that might be limiting.  It might be fun for a while, but I'm having difficulty imagining someone would really want to be shackled as my sibling for the life of an eve character?

Unless they are written well and have a life of their own, of course.


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Arnulf Ogunkoya

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Silas, I would argue that purely antagonistic might get a bit boring as well.

Familial relationships can be an interesting blend of love, frustration, trust, annoyance, misunderstanding, acceptance and denial. Just supportive or just antagonistic doesn't really do them justice. In my opinion anyway.

Also, how well would this person know your main? For example. Arnulf & Asvard only really met In Arnulf's early 20's and Asvard's mid to late teens. They get on well enough but Asvard is less of a Matari traditionalist than his brother & Arnulf is a bit more of an intellectual.
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Silas Vitalia

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Silas, I would argue that purely antagonistic might get a bit boring as well.

Familial relationships can be an interesting blend of love, frustration, trust, annoyance, misunderstanding, acceptance and denial. Just supportive or just antagonistic doesn't really do them justice. In my opinion anyway.

Also, how well would this person know your main? For example. Arnulf & Asvard only really met In Arnulf's early 20's and Asvard's mid to late teens. They get on well enough but Asvard is less of a Matari traditionalist than his brother & Arnulf is a bit more of an intellectual.

Excellent point. Shades of grey of course, and family relationships -are- difficult. 

I really have to work out the timeline and see, I suppose.  I've had a treacherous backstabbing sibling character I've been working on for a while that might work as well.   Think sibling rivaly in an Amarr Holder household, and plenty of....disagreements especially when Patriarchs pass away and inheritances and control of family assets are concerned.

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Victoria Stecker

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If I still played, I think this would be awesome fun.

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