3llusive Wrote:I see this as pretty much the final topic that we've brought up and haven't found some level of agreement on.
Frankly, I don't see a problem with looking at it that way. In my original post I was clarifying that I was just tired of seeing "That wouldn't happen in Medieval times" as a debate point. As I would see it, your answer would fix that problem without damaging the perspective of new prospective players' clarity on what the server is.
I was just sort of going off on a tangent in my last post, I suppose, because calling the server a Fantasy RP isn't really restrictive at all, considering everything from the Warcraft games, to Robert Jordan's 'Wheel of Time' book series is considered fantasy. And that range is more or less where the server falls in, I believe.
I think we should exchange the "It wouldn't happen in the Medieval times" with "It wouldn't happen in the Medieval times of MESALIA".
Maybe at this point rocket launchers powered by Runes aren't possible at this point in time in Mesalia.
Our world, and the world of Mesalia, are two separate things. We need to start working on what kind of -concept- Mesalia is, what is and what isn't, and then use it as a way of judging the content that others are trying to bring in rather than constantly refer to our own medieval times.
Good_Old_Epsilon Wrote:Our world, and the world of Mesalia, are two separate things. We need to start working on what kind of -concept- Mesalia is, what is and what isn't, and then use it as a way of judging the content that others are trying to bring in rather than constantly refer to our own medieval times.
Am I thinking along the right lines do you think?
Of course - that's just simply not what I was trying to argue against. Not to pick at anyone in particular or being mean / excetera, but to bring the other thread into this "Religion in the Religious Pilgrimage" is the prime example of what exactly I wish to counter.
Now, I don't mean the thread in it's entirety, but whoever started bringing up whether or not religion was a big part in the average medieval man/woman's life.
Why should that even matter? I really don't think it should. Whether or not religion has a large part in the average Mesalian's life has really no basis to be referred to in reality, there are too many different factors.
For instance, during the slavery Xitians did their best to break down any culture and traditions the Mesalian's had so that they would be more willing slaves.
Why would religion be excluded from that?
I don't mean to divert the topic into religion, because that's not really what this thread is for, I'm just using it as an example that real life does not always parallel Mesalia in culture and influences.
As for religion, short of outright killing people, one generally cannot defeat their most entrenched beliefs (Mesalian religion was never very systematized anyway). Religion provides a way from people to understand the world that surrounds them, and really especially in a fantasy world, where science (i.e., physics) has a hard time explaining things, I think religion will always be a prominent option.
Also, I've personally never known any homosexual individual (or homosexual character for that matter) who has essentially disregarded the fact that others have their own sexuality in such a manner referred to above... I could personally even see the fact that this would even be brought up (as if it might be anything more than an isolated issue) as potentially somewhat offensive to the wider cause. Please remember that this can be a sensitive topic.
But for me the real issue here is what can be referred to as "internal consistency". We want a world that forms a coherent and convincing setting, which may contain medieval elements and may contain fantasy elements (I'm not interested in prioritizing either of those over the other). So yes, we can state that just because something happened IRL historically, doesn't mean it must in our setting, but it is slightly more complicated than that. This is because the "real world" is our only available model for an internally consistent world, and ultimately from a psychological standpoint it would probably be impossible to divorce our minds from "reality" entirely. After all, we learn what is believable and what isn't from our experience in the "real world".
I would have liked to save this discussion for a blog post, but oh well, here goes: In Mesalia we have recently been moving increasingly towards what may be called a "simulationist" form of RP (we simulate our characters' actions with some concern for "realism", in so much as it applies to our setting). This has been contrasted with the more "narrativist" (which in my understanding is primarily concerned with forming an interesting story) or "gamist" (wanting characters to be successful) forms of RP. Now, of course, all three factors play a role, but I say that we emphasize "simulationist" RP since we tend to value convincing characters who have believable motives for their actions, more than we value characters who are good for simply creating drama or characters who always achieve their goals. I'm paraphrasing the model slightly, and I apologize for the tangent, but I do think this is relevant to the discussion. While we are not a hardcore realism RP, we do tend to stress psychological realism because we believe that this makes better characters. Again, this is a case where it's difficult to come up with anything else that could model internal consistency in this regard other than the "real world" and our own minds (whereas a "narrativist" strategy might have us playing one-dimensional, pointlessly evil characters in accordance with much of the rest of fantasy).
My overall point is simply that even though we certainly need not imitate real history for the sake of it, in many regards the "real world" is the only model of an internally consistently world available to us.
Good_Old_Epsilon Wrote:Could you please elaborate? I kinda got lost a little bit in your words, sorry, my concentration sometimes fails me.
Just going off on another tangent to iterate that things happening in Mesalia doen't always parallel to the way things happen in real life, so sometimes it's a very moot point to try to bring up reality as a debate point.
Pretty much almost non-relating to what you said because I'm easily distracted x3
mcman Wrote:My overall point is simply that even though we certainly need not imitate real history for the sake of it, in many regards the "real world" is the only model of an internally consistently world available to us.
I somewhat disagree with some of your points, mainly the comparison between narrativist and simulationist point of views.
A story isn't a good story without depth. Good stories have deep, understandable characters with real motives and feelings for things they do. In a way, Mesalia is simulationist, but in other ways it's not.
I would call it a hybrid, and I most certainly wouldn't call characters being overly dramatic as a symptom of narrativist viewpoints. Perhaps a /shallow/ narrativist viewpoint, but not what I would idealize as the 'True' narrativist viewpoint.
EDIT: Also, if we were truly simulationist, some of the more unrealistic things I've witnessed on the server, frankly, wouldn't be possible, or allowed. Once again, not a bad thing, just bringing up a point.
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