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Approved Character Oski Kita

Julian

Julian

Inactive Member
https://wiki.stararmy.com/doku.php?id=ch ... n_roleplay

Phew, that was truly grueling. I can't believe the extensive lore that's been created for this rpg. It's above and beyond any of my own projects, and I've always been something known for some of my more in depth creations. Kudos!

I can almost psychically sense the birth pangs this character is going to go through. I wanted to enlist him in SAINT as an Intelligence Operative, but found information rather lacking in how I'd go about doing this. I simply gave him the lowest rank provided and listed him as an operative of SAINT. All characters are assumed to have passed Basic Training, and the SAINT page lists them taking on prospective soldiers once they have completed Basic, so I didn't think I was assuming too much by just popping him right on in.

If this train of thought is a wreck and I don't know about it, just let me know and I'll hammer out the chinks and inconsistencies of my little soldier. I wanted to put him in surveillance and intelligence for two reasons. 1) It puts me in a position to be deployed into various parts of the universe and touch base with a wide variety of lore so I can learn as I play. 2) I noticed a few nudges here and there at the nature of stealth and reconnaissance in SARP (An inquiry into phase and stealth technology, an experimental Intelligence Mindy type Power Armor) and I'd love to be a part of helping expand this front of the game.

Cheers!
 
PFFFT! Sagittarius? Good luck on with THAT ONE!

Kidding aside, welcome to SARP. :D I will be your character reviewer for the moment. Just a note before we start, it is usually good to put a "Not approved for IC usage" tag on his wikipage until he is approved. It is a very minute thing, so I'm not going to crush your soul over it. :D Also, if you could make a player page, that'd be awesome. It is a place on the wiki where you can list your characters, what plots you have your fingers in, talk about yourself, etc. This part isn't mandatory, but it is a cool thing if you want to get involved with the community. It can give some GMs a little incite on who you are and how well you roleplay. Anyways, I've rambled enough. ON TO THE CHARACTER!!!

1) I know at one point in time new players couldn't roleplay as Intelligence Operatives because of the sensitive conditions or whatever. That may have changed recently, so I'll let Wes or Doshii worry about it.

2) Misspellings: "Herritage ==> Heritage"
Note: I go by http://www.dictionary.com for all my spelling errors.

3) Hm... technically, in this setting, Norway never existed. I know we've been trying to filter out such Earth-based terminology (like renaming the Japanese language to "Yamataian" and English to "Nepleslian/Trade"), but it seems hard to define an appearance/background if we have nothing to relate it to. Also, even the Yamataian CCG itself has such references. Thus, again, I'll leave this up to Wes or Doshii.

4) I like the way you were heading with his History, but it seems kind of sparse for a 24-year old. Maybe go in depth on his relationship with his sister some more? Did he have many other friends then just her? How was his childhood without his mother? When exactly did she die, btw? You are making me hunger for more.. which is a good thing, but in SARP, unfortunately, you need to devulge a little more details. There is still plenty of surprise and mystery to do in future RP, though.

5) In the Fighting Skill, he should have awareness of the use of weaponry other then his body. Pistols, Power Armor, etc, are such things he would have been trained in during Basic.

6) In the Communications skill, what languages is he fluent in? I'd assume Yamataian, at least, and maybe Trade.

7) The Knowledge skill doesn't really sound like it should go under the name "Knowledge". It kind of sounds like a Rogue ability, but I'm not sure.

I must applaud you for work. The descriptions of his physical appearance alone have stunned me beyond words. Congrats, my good fellow! However, this character is not yet approved for IC usage until the above problems are worked out. I'll send a PM to Wes and Doshii asking for their input on this character as well.
 
Yeah, I was unsure of why I was asked to provide an astrological sign and not a birth date instead. It seems odd especially considering the fact that those signs were all made from observing stars here on Earth. :lol:

Anywho, I'll give you the run down on what I changed up. (Most of these are just affirmatives on what I did, so you don't have to read em if you'd rather not bother.)

1) M'kay, I'm not looking at being cannon fodder here with this character I slaved over. Tense situations and exciting rpgs = happy! Being mercilessly slaughtered in the first rpg I'm entered in and thus losing a character I tried to make alive and diverse = ow, my soul!

2) Got it. Sorry, the text fields on the wiki act really strangely so it's quite an endeavor to spell check it. In the future, I'm going to just write it up in word instead and then paste it there.

3) Score two for hazy concepts I see several references to Earth ethnic values, so I thought I must have just been missing some part of the lore or another. I changed it up to Geshrin instead, assuming that their appearance was slightly more robust before the Yamataian compromise between theirs and the Nekovalkyrja slenderness.

4) Thank Zeus! The new player guide made it sound like you guys didn't want too much entered in prior to the start of the rp, I kept it pretty sparse (by my standards) but Oski's background has been significantly fleshed out now. I had ideas that I'd reference in rpgs, but I figured I was going to have to just leave them in my head.

5) Those skills were there, but I was hazy on where they went. Power armor was sited under Physical and his arms training was listed under Survival and Military. They've been moved.

6) Could you point me at a list of viable languages? I put down those you suggested as well as one from his background, but I'm not entirely sure what's out there. He should have a decent base set if he's going to be deployed into other territories effectively.

7) Another one I was unclear on. Rogue seems to be aimed more at street skills. I was looking for some kind of mental discipline category for these, perhaps I'll suggest that once I think over it's realms of influence a little more clearly. At the inclusion of memory as an example of Knowledge, that just seemed the most viable choice.

Phew, apart from my oversight on a spelling, it looks like most of my problems were the result of misinterpretation. Anything else you want me to hit? I might go back over the background one more time to make it a little more succinct. All the important information's there, I just need to compact it a little bit.

Oh, and my profile is on the wiki now. Not much, but it does its job for the time being while I learn wiki code.
 
I hereby give the OK for this character to be a SAINT dude.

Norse is fine.

Languages (IRL equivalents): Yamataian (Japanese), Trade (English), Seraphim (Latin, sort of).

It's fine to put those skills under the knowledge skill area. There's some flexibility with the skill classifications.

Sorry for the short post, kind of rushing around here. Hope this clears things up for Fay.
 
Hey, Julian. I'm going to apologize in advance because I'm likely about to piss you off some.

1. Cut your history down at least by half. Don't get rid of that text, just save it. Basically, your writing is great, but there's just too much. Other people use your profile as a reference, and reading all of that is a pain. Boil it down to the basics — names, a few dates, couple important events, then stop. That's all you need.

2. Revamp your skills to remove the focuses, then boilerplate the text for the skills you have to have as a SAoY soldier. Basically, those focuses break the system currently in place — creating a "subskill" under a primary skill and remove a separate primary skill (meaning six skills with one subskill instead of seven, or five + two instead of the full seven).

Don't worry about not being able to do things. You can establish stuff he's good at through RP, and most GMs are lenient about what they allow.

3. I hate to be a jerk, but delete your username page and make it say instead "Julian", which is your forum name. No one will know who Nihil Ex Machina is when they look it up.

Everything else is good.

This character is pending.
 
I actually disagree with Jake here...character history is fuel for GM to work into plot hooks, and I don't see the problem with subskills, provided the main points of the standard skills are still in there somewhere. It's good to see a player writing skills instead of using copy-pasted boilerplate skills.

I mean, the last thing we should be doing is trying to force a unique character concept into a cookie cutter mold.
 
EDITED

Okay, never mind. I get what you two were referring to. That list was something hard to come by, but I've found it. Hmm... the only glaring problem I see is including the Medical training and the Equipment training.

I'll juggle things about and see if I can wind up with someone that looks like they've effectively gone through two different bouts of training.
 
At the risk of being overridden by Wes, yes, you're wrong.

We use the boilerplate skill text specifically to ensure new players can't godmod in any fashion. That's why the way your skills are right now is still not acceptable.

Can characters gain new skills through RP? Yes.

Can characters know things other than what's in the skills, perhaps things listed in the history? Yes.

Can characters subskill something under a main skill at the loss of another general skill, to ensure balance? Yes.

You're getting creative. I love that. I hate to be the guy to tell you no. But the reasons I'm telling you no are bigger than you and me. I'm telling you "no" to protect the game. This is the gateway for new players; me and the other reviewers are here to ensure you conform to this RP and how we play it.

Does that stifle some creativity and innovation? Yes. That's a calculated risk we take to protect the game and avoid appearing bias against one player or another.

Add some of those things to his history. Say he does parkour and all that in the history. That's totally fine. And he can always grow new skills through the RP. That's highly encouraged, in fact! Not enough players take advantage of that.

Also — can you add some dates into your history, once it's cut down? The Timeline should give you some perspective on what happens when.
 
Okay, I'm still missing something here. Please forgive me, I'm not trying to be belligerent, I'm just still fuzzy on where my character breaks down from being diverse and becomes godmodish.

In picking my skills, I tried to compromise between the foundation he'd have as a Star Army soldier (Weapon knowledge, maintenance, procedure, operations, etc) with the intelligence-specific ones he'd use as a scout and SAINT operative to which I've geared him (Intelligence gathering, perception, cryptography, etc.) and finally add a spice of his own personal experience (There are only four of these, actually: Writing, a tad of programming, parkour, and Tai Chi)

That boilerplate you two mentioned (I had no clue there was one until I knew what I was looking for) helped to show me a few glaring inconsistencies that he had. I was close on most of them, only having to add knowledge to an existing area, but totally misplaced Medical. I got rid of Leadership since he won't have to worry about coordinating anyone any time soon, and added this medical experience there.

The ones that are lacking, I'll have him pick up as time goes on. I figure if people can be exposed to math their whole life and be bad at it after eighteen plus years, there can be things he did poorly at in Basic as well.

If I'm still not on the right track of what you're asking me to do, could you be more explicit with what I'm missing? My current impression is that I've given him an assortment of skills that ignore the basic ones he should have as a soldier, which is what I geared this last change to.

For all I know, though, you're asking me to bullet them like the example article does. The reason the skills look the way they do is that's how it is described in the player guide on skills. I pick seven areas, and explain the skills he has there and the place he picked them up. I've done this in each situation and left plenty of room for him to grow. For instance, it looks like technological situations are going to kick his butt for a while.

Where the dates are concerned, I can do that easily. I actually structured it around the timeline already. Yuuki actually got her transfer on the year the Yamataian race was purportedly propagated. I figured it would make sense under the tenet that she was signed up for a trial for researchers to experiment with correcting her damage in the process of the transfer.

As for cutting it down. I had it short as was asked by the creation process, then Fay asked me to expand it to meet his age (which I spent a few hours doing), and then you asked me to cut it back (which I could understand and did, but was nevertheless frustrating), and then Wes argued otherwise (which was relieving that my work might not go to waste, but still frustrating having to go in and readjust it again), and now it's being stated that I should shorten it still. As far as I knew, Wes was the site owner, but I don't know how you guys delegate power here. Could you two (possibly Fay as well since he spurred the longer one in the first place) sort this out and give me a definitive answer so I'm not toiling over shortening and writing for hours?

Personally, I like the in-depth one. It covers the high points that shaped his growing up and making Oski who he is. If it's decided that's still too much of an eyesore for everyone, I'm more than happy to keep it down and let others explore the background I've created through the rps. Like I said, I just need a definite answer here from everyone so I'm not rushing to and fro.

Again, I don't want to be confrontational here. I'm honestly just confused by multiple opinions by different people where I don't know who's in charge on the background, and I feel like I'm not clear on what I'm being asked to fix on the skills since I have all the important abilities there from Basic.
 
Basically, what you did, as far as I can tell from reading, is make every skill he has have him be better than everyone else. the way it's worded makes him sound like you're trying to be a badass ninja guy, which is fine in some cases, but not for a fresh from basic Santo Hei. He has the skills of a veteran, which makes him seem overpowered. wether or not you will play that way is a nother story, but from what i've read, yes, this character does feel a bit overpowered.

Try removing the 'better than' parts, and maybe explain that he is less predictable, or that he uses a unique style, which, while possibly better, does not mean he can beat anybody. Someone with immense skills in another area, such as Brawling (which you mentioned) should still be able to best him, despite his difference in technique. otherwise this is just way too overpowered.
 
EDIT:

Okay, I didn't like the tone I struck with the way that was originally worded. Thanks for pointing out that issue with the phrasing. It's true I made him out to be more experienced than he is. I'm used to writing characters for roleplays that remain relatively static in their abilities, so I give them a position I feel comfortable using throughout. I took a serious pass over his skills and brought down the specialties and flairs that made him just a little too much so. He still has the adage he'd need in Intel Ops, but now with actual space to advance.

Is this more what you were looking for?
 
No. Dump the language you have in his skills right now, and go with the boilerplate. If you need to be expansive about his skills, use the history.

I apologize again for being a hardass. But because you're a good writer, lesser new players are going to look to a biography like yours and try and use it as a justification for letting them get away with things. That's ultimately what I'm trying to prevent — setting precedent. Once you're a veteran player who's trusted on the site, you get more leeway.

Also, break the paragraphs in the history section up some, so they're smaller. For you, I'd say two to three sentences a graf. Then you should be square.
 
My bad on having him put the languages in the Communication skill. If memory serves, that was something he lacked, and I remembered that the boilerplate had it in there so I mentioned it.
 
Character approved! Thank you for being patient with Jake and me.

Consider joining the Eucharis, as the Genei is winding down to close (the GM is entering the military).
 
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