Dec 1, 2011

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Blue Milk & Cereal: Will You Create A Back Story For Your Character?

No day would be complete without the breakfast of Jedi: Blue Milk & Cereal.  Every morning, the team at Ask A Jedi will get Force-induced thoughts coursing through your head with delicious issues from around the galaxy! Join in the discussion below to make your voice heard!

From the very beginning, BioWare has stated that one goal for TOR is to re-create the table-top roleplaying experience in digital form. For example, group conversations were added to mimic the exchanges that players have out of character when sitting around a roleplaying table. Every player has an opinion on what should be said to a non-player character, but only one person can actually speak to them. For those who have had the good fortune to play Dungeons & Dragons or even the (now defunct) Star Wars table-top RPG know how incredibly fun these exchanges can be.

I don’t know if there is truly anything better than becoming completely invested in your fictitious character’s personality and actions. Playing with friends who are just as invested as you are in their characters can lead to some truly great experiences. It’s just fun to lose yourself in another person and imagine that you are part of a great rebellion against an oppressive regime or that your sister has been captured by marauding bandits and you have to track them down to rescue her.

Ah…nostalgia. Anyway, one of the best ways to really get into your character is to create a back story or at least decide on some personality traits for your character. BioWare has kindly given us a good starting point for our back story in the form of the legendary opening crawl, but that may not be enough for some people.

Personally, I am determined to develop a really good back story so that I can get invested in my Sith Warrior. My question to all of you this morning is are you going to do the same? Let us know if you plan to work on a back story for your character before launch!

Will you create a back-story for your character?

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Nov 17, 2011

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All The Galaxy’s A Stage: RP, Cliques, And Entitlement

All The Galaxy’s A Stage is a regular column at Ask A Jedi with some lofty, creative goals.  On one hand, we will be discussing and exploring meaningful topics to support the role-play experience and community.  On the other hand, we also want to introduce the casual Role-Player to the writing-acting experience that can add so much more to an MMORPG like Star Wars: The Old Republic.  Share your perspectives and experience as we co-create magical story in that galaxy far, far away!

In my experience there is merit to checking in once in a while to be clear on why you do what you do. I was thinking about why I RP the other day and the answer was simple.  I like to have fun, and co-creating story with others has resulted in some very memorable and fun experiences.

That said, in preparing for launch and the impending escalation of RP activity I also got to thinking. What kind of role-player am I? If I were to rank why I RP I think this would be my top three:

  1. To have fun as I co-create the very best story I can with friends
  2. To make new friends and have my imagination stretched by the creative genius of those I meet for the first time
  3. To encourage newcomers to RP

It should be obvious to any regular reader of this column that I really take number 3 seriously. After all, I’ve been writing for Ask A Jedi for a few months now, and have taken great pleasure in having a platform to share some of my perspectives and reflect some of my experiences from over 30 years of role-playing.

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Nov 10, 2011

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All The Galaxy’s A Stage: Metagaming

All The Galaxy’s A Stage is a regular column at Ask A Jedi with some lofty, creative goals.  On one hand, we will be discussing and exploring meaningful topics to support the role-play experience and community.  On the other hand, we also want to introduce the casual Role-Player to the writing-acting experience that can add so much more to an MMORPG like Star Wars: The Old Republic.  Share your perspectives and experience as we co-create magical story in that galaxy far, far away!

There’s a concept in role-play known as metagaming.  For those of you new to role-play, this is the use of knowledge by a character that they should not have access to.  Wikipedia defines metagaming as, “the use of out-of-game information or resources to affect one’s in-game decisions.”  When this approach is consciously taken by a player it is usually to gain some advantage in the game or RP scene.

Imagine the following scenario.  A character of yours is killed by another character.  You then create a new character who has detests the killer of your old character, and may even invest lots of time in creating a backstory to justify this hatred.  This would be metagaming.

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Nov 3, 2011

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All The Galaxy’s A Stage: RP Tracker – SWTOR-RP Wiki

All The Galaxy’s A Stage is a regular column at Ask A Jedi with some lofty, creative goals.  On one hand, we will be discussing and exploring meaningful topics to support the role-play experience and community.  On the other hand, we also want to introduce the casual Role-Player to the writing-acting experience that can add so much more to an MMORPG like Star Wars: The Old Republic.  Share your perspectives and experience as we co-create magical story in that galaxy far, far away!

For this month’s RP Tracker I would like to highlight a new feature that the team at swtor-rp recently released; the new swtor-rp Wiki is now live.  From what I understand the wiki design team opted to spend several months configuring, coding, and testing the best possible Wiki they could.  In my opinion, this effort was undoubtedly worth it.  As a member of the RP community I would like to extend a big thank you to the many spies that died to bring us…Oh wait, wrong context.

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Oct 27, 2011

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All The Galaxy’s A Stage: Jedi And Emotion – One Character’s Perspective

All The Galaxy’s A Stage is a regular column at Ask A Jedi with some lofty, creative goals.  On one hand, we will be discussing and exploring meaningful topics to support the role-play experience and community.  On the other hand, we also want to introduce the casual Role-Player to the writing-acting experience that can add so much more to an MMORPG like Star Wars: The Old Republic.  Share your perspectives and experience as we co-create magical story in that galaxy far, far away!

For sometime now I’ve been contemplating the line of the Jedi Code that reads, “There is no emotion; there is peace.”  The brilliance of the writing behind this line is that it is very much open to interpretation.

My experience is that the less you understand about the underlying mysticism of the Jedi philosophy the more likely you are to emphasize the literal wording of the Jedi Code over the potential of deeper meaning.  This line of the code, in partcular, is quite literally a mystery within a mystery within a grilled cheese sandwich.  And given the tendency for this line to be interpreted in so many ways I thought I’d take this opportunity to share one perspective.

Disclaimer:

This article contains my observations and opinion. I do not claim to have any official knowledge of this subject, and I am neither a writer or authority on Lore for BioWare’s Star Wars: The Old Republic.  What follows will directly oppose some Expanded Universe canon.  In addition, your opinion may be different than mine.  You are encouraged to comment accordingly!

I’m going to ask you, dear reader, to indulge me and read the entire article before commenting.  What I am about to relate is the interpretation I’ve opted to take concerning the above line of the Code for a Jedi Master, called Sa Chi, that I currently role-play.

Denying Emotions?

Many posts I’ve read on this topic tend to get fixated on the idea that Jedi should have no emotion.  I’ve even seen RP that read runs along the lines of a Jedi Master telling their Padawan that they are supposed to spend a lifetime denying emotions, suppressing them.  And with this in mind I would like to present Sa’s first lesson:

No Jedi is going to reach enlightenment in the Force through suppression, aversion or denial.

From the first days of their training as a youngling or Padawan, Jedi work on learning how to release the false beliefs, attitudes, and values that cause emotions to surface in the first place. Emotions are a symptom, not a cause. With time, patience, training and persistence a Jedi can release much of the hidden baggage that leads to overwhelming emotions.

"You must unlearn what you have learned." ~ Yoda

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