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[Alizabeth]

I'm sure you would agree, though, that just as players can't make a records search, she can't produce records verifying her claim. So simply saying 'No you aren't' or calling her a fraud is perfectly valid IC. That sort of thing works both ways.

That is also why it is fairly uncommon, I think - leaving aside possible OOC reactions, IC you are unlikely to get much traction unless you do a very good job.

I think that player backgrounds should be taken at face value.  If the player wants to have some twist, that should be communicated to someone OOCly (preferably the character that it affects) before hand.  Say for example, I were to make a freed minmatar slave that came to the republic, but was really an amarrian spy or some sort.  Depending on the circumstance (say, if I wanted to remain friends with said character, I would tell them before the big reveal.  This is EvE, and if you want to wind up a director of UK and then hand over everything to CVA or PIE and claim you were an Amarr plant the whole time, you're perfectly free to do so.

Now that there are CCP actors running around, I think that the urdoingitwrong should be left to them.  If someone makes a character that says they are Heth's brother, I'm pretty sure Falcon is going to slap that one down right quick.  I saw that happen with the Leopold Caine getting arrested RP that happened.  Someone claimed to be an RJD enforcer and an RJD actor said "nope!"

I'll agree that she can't produce concrete evidence of her claim, but by the same token, someone should not be able to claim a records search, either.  In this case . . . I don't know how to proceed since two people have claimed two things that, in the future, should not be claimed.

If Vik can request a records search, then Aliza can just as easily say that she bribed an employee, or they were a GIA mole all along.

[Silver Night]

You can believe that of course. But the thing is, people are under no obligation to go along with your RP, just as you are under no obligation to not have a character that claims to be some PF figures distant relative. Their character saying 'Oh, so you're crazy' is just as valid as your character saying 'I'm Heth's secretary's nephew'. It may not lead to much more RP interaction afterward, but that's the risk in playing that type of character.

That's why I feel entirely comfortable having a no 'ur doing it wrong' rule here. People can offer constructive advice, but at the end of the day, if someone's character is a Cylon (it happened, more than once), that's their business. And it's perfectly valid RP. But they probably aren't going to have a lot of people RPing with them. No OOC 'ur doing it wrong' needed.

The distant relative idea might be doable - but I think a key part of having a useful RP future for a character like that is going to be how you approach people who disbelieve you, and how you approach the character. A contest of back and forth proof/counter-proof is unlikely to get you anywhere. Shrugging it off and then playing an interesting character is more likely to be profitable in the long run, from what I've seen.

[Morwen Lagann]

If I claim to be the son of Empress Jamyl, for example, it requires that we throw out the established conventions of the EVE universe (that clones can't reproduce, and that Jamyl doesn't have any children).

Emphasis mine. You may want to read this thread, and this post in particular from Abraxas.

[Alizabeth]

That's why I feel entirely comfortable having a no 'ur doing it wrong' rule here. People can offer constructive advice, but at the end of the day, if someone's character is a Cylon (it happened, more than once), that's their business. And it's perfectly valid RP. But they probably aren't going to have a lot of people RPing with them. No OOC 'ur doing it wrong' needed.

By cylon, you mean Sansha, right?  Or are we talking actual cylon with the little sweeping glowy eye?

[Silver Night]

Actual Cylon. It's a bit of an extreme example, but illustrates the mechanism I'm talking about, I think.

[Ciarente]

The more a particular thread of your RP crosses other people's, the greater the potential for contradictions, and for godmodding.  For example, to take an even more apparently innocuous example, what if I roll a character who is a distant cousin of the Mayor of Caille? Well, for one thing, it forces people to agree with me that Caille has a mayor. A famous author, or artist? That godmodes  other characters into having heard of me, if they have any awareness of the arts.

Being the distant cousin of a PF character may seem like a bit of harmless fluff and color, but these PF characters are pretty big deals to our characters.  Posting as a relative to Tovil-Toba is like, say, writing a letter to the editor to the New York Times as 'Jane Lincoln yes related to that Lincoln'. People would pay attention to the claim, not the content, and there'd be demands for proof and claims it was impossible.

In real life, there'd either be documentation or you'd be written off as a fabulist. In Eve, there's no such documentation. Requiring people not to write you off as a fabulist because the documentation doesn't exist is godmodding their responses.

This is why it's generally better to be the distant cousin of the mayor of a town or city not mentioned in the PF; or an artist or author who is known locally; or the distant descendant of Tovil-Toba's bridge officer.

[Alizabeth]

In real life, there'd either be documentation or you'd be written off as a fabulist. In Eve, there's no such documentation. Requiring people not to write you off as a fabulist because the documentation doesn't exist is godmodding their responses.

I'm in agreement.  If they want to go that route, that's fine.  But saying they did a records search is an entirely different something.
Example: when I made Sapphire, I had no knowledge of much of the lore, so I made her a malfunctioned trueslave that didn't remember anything.  Slowly she got her memories back and spoke out about Nation.  Kyber simply said, "I think you ran into some mad scientists that messed with your brain."  This was a million times better than "I talked to papa Sansha and he says you're full of shit."

[Ciarente]

In real life, there'd either be documentation or you'd be written off as a fabulist. In Eve, there's no such documentation. Requiring people not to write you off as a fabulist because the documentation doesn't exist is godmodding their responses.

I'm in agreement.  If they want to go that route, that's fine.  But saying they did a records search is an entirely different something.

"There are no records I can find" seems to me to be an entirely accurate statement, ICly and OOCly. The problem seems to be that this character made claims that are, by their very nature, unverifiable. There are, in fact, no records linking her to the Tovil-Toba family.  Rather than RPing with that (records got lost!), or (as I would have done) contacting people OOCly prior to making the claim IC to work out the kinks and problems, Alizabeth Vea doubled-down on the claim by ICly claiming such records did exist and were accessible.

However, they don't exist, and aren't accessible. Claiming  they do is an attempt to force other players to respond to RP in specific ways. 

A generally good rule for avoiding this kind of sticky situation with a new character is, in my experience, not to claim anything specific that actually isn't verifiable by other players or agreed with them beforehand. 

The only things you can point to as 'facts' about your character that other players must accept are what shows on showinfo and on killboards. The less intrusive your other claims are, the less likely other people will bother to dispute it, but they always have that option. (Cia was born planetside? Prove it! I, ah, can't.)

Also, what will this player do if a dev actor from the House of Records does turn up and makes it PF that the character is lying or deluded? These are all good reasons not to entangle a back-story with important NPCs, places and events.

[Vikarion]

For what it is worth, I actually have entered "Seraphia 'Chaos' Tovil-Toba" into the Evelopedia, making sure I didn't miss anything, but got no hits. So...no, neither my character nor I can find any records.

Keep in mind, my character's statements have been entirely predicated on the inability to find information. I think that this is perfectly reasonable: you can make claims to such relations, but my character doesn't have to buy them.

I haven't always been on this side of the line. I once did an RP storyline where we (friends and I) blew up a city on a planet. It was a small town, but the response was still "ok, proof?". And, I looked at that, and went "you know, that's reasonable. If someone claimed they killed people planet-side in the State, I'd say the same thing." So I've been bitten by this, but I still think that "proof?" is a reasonable response to assertions of this type.

[Alizabeth]

For what it is worth, I actually have entered "Seraphia 'Chaos' Tovil-Toba" into the Evelopedia, making sure I didn't miss anything, but got no hits. So...no, neither my character nor I can find any records.

Keep in mind, my character's statements have been entirely predicated on the inability to find information. I think that this is perfectly reasonable: you can make claims to such relations, but my character doesn't have to buy them.

IC, it should be pretty simple to do a search on the galnet to find out things about a person's background.  It's easy enough to do IRL.  A name and a little bit of info and you can find out someone's address, their credit history, arrest records, phone number, and a scary amount more for around two hundred bucks. 

I suppose that every character could make a eveolopeia entry for their character upon creation, but you know, :effort:

If the community is going to start demanding proof for every claim that is made, RP is going to get very, very sucky. 

[lallara zhuul]

Just an aside on the Amarrian characters sharing surnames with the Heirs.

The surnames of the Heirs are also names of Regions, therefore the name does not equate any kind of blood relationship. Sharing a surname with a Region might be something comparable to the surname of 'Snow' in the Game of Thrones. A common surname for bastards.

Which would be bloody hilarious if it were true. 

[Lasairiona]

My random two cents for what they are worth (which is pretty much nothing) is this is really none of your business. If you don't like how someone RPs you don't have to RP with them. *shrugs* Seems pretty straightforward to me.

Then again, I would never make any fantastical claims that Lasa is related to someone high and mighty. Never crossed my mind really.

[Alizabeth]

Just an aside on the Amarrian characters sharing surnames with the Heirs.

The surnames of the Heirs are also names of Regions, therefore the name does not equate any kind of blood relationship. Sharing a surname with a Region might be something comparable to the surname of 'Snow' in the Game of Thrones. A common surname for bastards.

Which would be bloody hilarious if it were true. 

It would be, and I would die of a giggling fit.  However, I know for a fact there are some members of the Amarrian RP crowd that say "minor branch of whatever family."

For sanity's sake, if the community only accepts what can be 'proven' (which is damn little) then there is really no point to RPing.  If someone says something, and if one is not sure whether their meant to be lying or grandstanding or what have you, a quick ooc, "yo duder, your character really such and such, or you just messing around."  Get to the truth and run with it.  Else, we can all quit RPing and just write fiction.

[Lyn Farel]

I generally try to avoid threads with kind of claims at all costs when they are used the way they are here on the IGS. Vikarions points are valid to me and can cause a lot of concern and/or uneasiness.

Using a wide big family name like an Amarr house is a slightly less impacting on the scale of PF names. They are refering to Houses, like we refer to megacorps.

In the case of single famous individuals, it's closer to the familial side.

On another note, I tend to consider any background related to PF famous names (houses, or individuals) the same way a GM would consider it as "buying an advantage" for a character sheet. I usually expect the people using it to compensate for it and be subtle and clever about it.

tl;dr : as long as it's reasonably used with subtletly... I can accept almost everything.

I mean - Who says Tovil-Toba even exists? Maybe he's a construct of the Caldari media. Who knows.

That's like saying the Tetatae don't exist.  *Squawk!*  I think we'd be getting in dangerous grounds the moment we start denying PF.

It is not denying PF to me. It is merely an interpretation of it, as absurd as it may be.

Denying that interpretation, however, is denying the possibilities of PF, as silly as they may be.

[Ciarente]

There is a distinction between asking other players to accept at face value something unprovable, but minor and non-controversial (My father was a naval officer; my age when I began pod-training was 18 or 28 or 38; my mother is a civil servant; my uncle is a minor poet) that doesn't affect everyone else's in-game universe, and expecting them to take at face value something unprovable, controversial, and affecting NPCs, identifiable places, or PF. 

I doubt anyone, for example, would have said "I can't find any records showing your character is 24 years old / born on the Lai Dai Station in Torrinos / had a father in Mordu's Legion / all of the above".

The 'point' of RPing, for many people including me, is collaborative world-building, which requires a certain amount of awareness of the places where what you are building crosses over into other people's imaginative space.

Crossing into that space generally works much better if done with sensitivity and tact.