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[Kaleigh Doyle]

So how, precisely, do you determine your character's non-pod power?

As a general rule, I try to limit my character's impact on the universe to avoid putting myself at odds with other player's backgrounds. If I were to make my character "a great house lord in the Amarr empire,  owning most of Aridia and Genesis regions, with a power that only rivals the heirs and the Empress herself.", this requires other players to accept that <most of aridia and genesis are under your control> and that <you possess enough influence to rival the heirs and the empress>. Now, were I to take the same character and explain that <he is an influential son of a famed general in the Amarr Military> with <holdings on several planets>, the believability factor is a lot higher, simply because it doesn't require other players to accept as much.

You would find yourself a much higher chance of being at odds with someone else claiming to have as much influence in the former example, and greater improbability of someone claiming to be the son of the same influential general. The fact that in the latter example, our son has land on several planets implies a measure of flexibility as well, allowing other people to also use that planet for their background.

The problem with all this is that power is arbitrary and out-of-pod ability is an unmeasurable variable based on game mechanics. We can only judge the influence our character has based on their access and ability to achieve their goals in space, which means those super awesome lords that destroy entire planets for fun can get nuked in space all the same.

In many RPGs with a decent RP community this can become pretty problematic, as you have 'Desiree Ravenbeak the beautiful emerald-eyed child of dragons, raised by <famous canon character here> to be a battlemage of terrible power', but in EVE this seem to be less prevalent. I'm pretty sure there are three reasons for this.

1. The game itself is a bit of an 'idiot filter' (As I lovingly refer to it) so you don't get a lot of the young kids that are responsible for it.

2. The community are, by and large, elitist assholes. And I love you all for it, because on the rare occassions one does make it through we all join forces across the political and social borders which divide us to mock them until they regret having made their pseudo-Heir character known to us. Which is great.

3. CCP beat you to it. You're alright a nearly immortal demigod that earns more ISK in a day than the average planetary defense budget.  In fact, you kill the average planet's population once every month or so. You command ships of destruction so great that you can wipe out fleets without a thought, and you are able of jamming decades of knowledge into your brains with a few weeks of skill training. Making yourself a child prodigy seems rather pointless after what you as an average capsuleer take for granted.

I agree that these points can have an influential factor when deciding on a character background, but I think sometimes it has more to do with the maturity level of the player. With a general understanding that a character's power doesn't dictate their ability to be engaging to interact with is certainly a first step forward. I think especially in competitive atmospheres like EVE, the need to be invincible or not show weakness (in any way) is certainly a prevalent issue that rears its ugly head on the IGS and amongst the established RP sub-communities.

The attitude rears its ugly head most often when these individuals are actually engaged in a story (fluff plot) that they are invested in (derive importance to be involved in), and meta-game/power-game/whatever to gain that advantage when the situation doesn't favor them. It's that 'need to win' spirit that overtakes the 'need to tell a story, regardless of the outcome' that makes me :vomit:.

[Saxon Hawke]

I've evolved Saxon over the years, but he is certainly from humble beginnings. I hadn't thought a lot about when I started talking with some Intaki RPers and said "The first time I came to Intaki I got blown up in the first belt I warped to."

So there it was laid out for them to see, Saxon was not a native-born Intaki. So it was eventually revealed that he was born in Syndicate space and made his way into the Federation Naval Academy under false pretenses. He was eventually found out and his Naval career was done in.

He bounced around a bit and eventually formed the ILF. That, too, was an evolution. First I was just the CEO, but the ILF was always more of a movement than a business, so I came up with the title "Isha" which is a variation on rajah, the Sanskrit word for ruler.

When the organization got bigger, I dubbed my directors Isha and took the title Mahesha (a variation of maharajah meaning ruler of rulers). A period of growth later and I needed a true second in command. He became the Mahesha and I took my current title of Suresha (which loosely translates from its Sanskrit origins as Supreme Ruler of the Gods).

Now, Saxon certainly doesn't see himself as a supreme ruler of Gods and in our our development of the Intaki lexicon we've translated it "esteemed leader." I do role play Saxon as someone who has become a person of wealth and influence. Planetside, he has several large estates and (in keeping with my in-game standings) is someone who does meet with Senators and the like to lobby his positions.

[Vieve]

How do I determine my character's non-pod RP power?

Via the "how can this shit sound convincing?" rule.

Vieve's beginnings were similar to Saxon's, minus the whole Intaki and Syndicate bits and likely a fair bit more.

I never intended to RP in EvE.  (Never intended to join a corporation either, but that's a whole other story.)  I created Vieve after a year of short-lived Caldari alts, most of which'd been tossed for some vague reason or another after a few months of life.  The very last Caldari alt of that batch'd had gotten her ass repeatedly handed to her by Gallente gankers¹, so it dawned on me ... hey!  Maybe I should try a Gallente character!²  That way I can roam around and look at things wherever I want without a problem!³


So, I created a Gallente combat pilot.  Tadaa!

A week or so in, after I'd gone through the FNA and CAS tutorial (I'd learned enough as a Caldari alt to know that industry skills were useful) and was preparing to head out to an unfortunate part of Essence to start FIO missions, I ran into this new Caldari player named Ana Kerst. 

She'd gotten one of the random "personalized" Strix recruitment e-mails that Gervais used to send out, and felt she needed some advice on how to respond to it through a RP perspective.  Since there was a "Vieve Tisserand"  in Balle local, looking all Gallente-French, she took a shot on my knowing about this RP stuff.  She opened a chat and started RPing a flustered researcher type at me.  No warning, nada.

As with many things I've encountered since, the right answer might have been just to say "go away, you freak!".  But I didn't. I rolled with the dialogue and the stuff I pulled out of info windows and Google.  Vieve started her IC life as something like this:

"How do I know all this about Strix?  I grew up in the capitol, and you really have to work at not knowing things about the government if you grow up there, especially if your folks ... ah, Maman's a Senate science policy analyst⁴, and Papa ... honestly, I'm not sure what he does.  We don't talk about his work, and I'm not sure I should be talking about that with a Caldari, especially if she's not a traitor.  And you said you weren't a traitor, right?"

Things sort of devolved uphill (or evolved downhill) from that point, usually via improv in response to questions brought up during interactions with other players.

¹It didn't occur to me at the time that my adventuring around low and null sec might have gotten me pegged as an alt scout/spy.<sup>3

2</sup>These being the days when one's choice of race and background actually meant a damn as far as what skills you started with.

³I never claimed I was smart.

⁴Since my employment history includes stints in joint government/private industry/university engineering, science education and international economics outreach programs, I figured I could fake being a "Federation Senate science policy analyst" enough for EvE purposes, if I ever had to.  Never thought I'd need to.  Silly me.

[Silver Night]

Via the "how can this shit sound convincing?" rule.

I have a 'Can an iPhone do it?' rule when figuring out what neocoms are capable of. 

[Lillith Blackheart]

Via the "how can this shit sound convincing?" rule.

I have a 'Can an iPhone do it?' rule when figuring out what neocoms are capable of. 

Sweet Zombie Jesus, if your character's necomm can only do what an iPhone can do, twenty thousand years later, not only do you have a crappy, low-end model, but it also gets crappy reception.

[Silver Night]

It's more for determining a lower bound.  

No doubt neocoms can do things iPhone's can't, but the idea is the reverse probably isn't true.

[Lillith Blackheart]

Well, lately they can't hold a call, so there's at least one thing the neocom has on it.. rimshot

[Syn Callibri]

Born into slavery; she was torn away from her family when she was young, they are nothing more than memories and faces in her dreams. When she reached womanhood, the Amarrian that owned her said that she was his one "sin" and she bore the brunt of his "lessons" for many years.

One day the revolution came calling, galvanizing her faith in the ancient god of her tribe. She watched as the bodies of her master and mistress were consumed by the fires set by her...and smiled for the first time. Saved from starvation by Roger Lynx, she has become his most loyal friend, he holds a special place in her heart.

She is devoted to "Vulkor" the ancient patron of her tribe...and "savior of her soul"...

http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1352348

I guess Syn's "power" comes from her relationship with Roger Lynx (her best friend) and Wrisk Varta (her other best friend) and the events that take place in the RP thread above.

[Horatius Caul]

Horatius is from the House Caul - a very minor noble family from Chaven, operating under a feudal fief of the Sarum Family.

His brother was first in line for inheritance, the main reason for H being allowed to enter capsuleer training. I'm quite sure that being cloned and a Holder in the Empire leads to a lot of legal issues, so Papa Caul decided to split his bets - make one son a secure noble, and the other a wealthy space pilot. When his brother died, Horatius became first in line and now governs the house's assets.

[Senn Typhos]

I tried to keep all of Senn's non-pod abilities to the two things most common in Caldari society, namely children that know war too well, and the craze of sacrificing in the name of effectiveness in combat.

He was born out of an independent company capitalizing on the tube child projects, which was dissolved when it lost funding, thereby leaving several groups of nearly-born individuals in limbo. Through some bungling and last-minute scrambling on the part of the government, they all ended up (fortunately) in orphanages for raising and competency screening.

From there, he trained in the government combat pilot program, tested for pod pilot candidacy, and graduated from there. The issue came with how difficult it was to find employment with most of your records being effed in the process of the original birthing company being razed - dead companies don't stay around long. So he was forced to live as he could, which led him to the grey-legal world in a tale I've not yet completed.

So, essentially, his "power" comes from military training that, while not advanced by any standard, was designed to cull the weak by breaking their spirit. He's capable of enduring without question, and his his demeanor has become quiet and stoic, making him ideal for corporations in need of stern enforcers. Not only that, but it maintains feasibility simply due to the fact that real soldiers endure everything I've put him through to earn his soldier's mindset. The rest of his powers originate from his sudden interest in implants, stemming from too many instances of his basic pod implants and human body failing him.

Recently I had a chance to see how his reserved nature played out in an IC setting. It was somehow hilarious, which I think I attribute to the number of "eccentric" characters in EVE coming into contact with a near-mute security officer with unsettlingly obvious eye implants.

[Borza]

Bog-standard 'middle-class' background, competent enough to get into Republic Fleet special forces training and graduate.

[Valdezi]

Mammal is the son of diplomats and trained in logic and Moral Philosophy, so if he has any power it's a skill in logic and semantics.

He is also an accomplished poet.

[Casiella]

Mammal, as long as one can pull off the social interactions implied by that background -- and I've no doubt of that -- then that sounds like a particularly fascinating background.

[Silver Night]

I have a character, Hilion Narath, who (if you believe everything he says) is way overpowered.

Mostly his power is in lying, though. Constantly.

[Jakiin]

I have a character, Hilion Narath, who (if you believe everything he says) is way overpowered.

Mostly his power is in lying, though. Constantly.

That actually sounds great for a laugh or an interesting story. So long as it's made clear that it's because the character is lying through his teeth and not because the person behind the char has no idea how to regulate these things.