[blockquote][b][url=/profile/Zonnonn]Zonnonn[/url] said:[/b]

Ah I get ya now, think I was a little bit confused about the spirits but it's all clear now! I like how you had to appease the spirits by doing things they liked. Would there be any repercussions to not appeasing them, or was such a thing out of the question. It'd be cool to see what a Loa feuding with the character would look like - no cool powers for you!

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Ha! Yea actually, the idea was that you'd only have the powers of the Loa(s) you had appeased between battles. It could have been really interesting and nuanced but I wasn't very creative with it so I just ended up with four set actions that I'd perform. Forging, studying, pranks (usually pickpocketing) and good deeds (usually giving to beggars).

[blockquote][b][url=/profile/Zonnonn]Zonnonn[/url] said:[/b]

But I disagree with you on one thing... You're definitely not 'not that great at RP', all these ideas are bloody awesome. I'd definitely like to see this in a Profile or even a Guide if you choose to revisit it, it's such a cool concept I think all areas should be explored.

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Thanks man, I am actually pretty proud of a few of my RP ideas, but it kind of ends there. Lol. What I meant was that I'm not great at playing them out and developing them. When I have a gameplay idea I can playtest it to see how well it works. I'm proficient enough with the game that I can even create challenging strategies and know that, while difficult, they are viable. Conversely, I can develop or scrap them them when I find that they are unbalanced. I'm pretty confident in these decisions because I'm pretty decent add the game.

RP doesn't work like that for me. Like, I'm pretty sure the above idea could be interesting in the hands of someone creative enough to come up with more than one way to appease each Loa...it should really be an organic thing that develops differently in different situations. Instead, I had a list of four predetermined actions to perform and never added to it. Which frankly, felt kind of tedious and boring in practice. Of coarse, I wouldn't be confident in the decision to scrap the idea and write it off as boring and tedious because I'm actually like 99% sure it was just poor execution, you know? With RP I'm like a guy who can't aim trying to make an archer build. Lol.

Btw that's why I like your style of asking questions. It's really helping me think more critically about the story I'm trying to develop with these vague outlines of characters. RP is a lot more abstract than gameplay mechanics so it's a very clever way of encouraging people to explore their own interpretations without accidently pushing your own ideas on them. I'll probably always be a bit more scripted with my roleplay then some of the people who are really good at it...but that script gets longer and more interesting every time I talk to you!

[blockquote][b][url=/profile/darksabrz]darksabrz[/url] said:[/b]

If you can find it, I highly recommend reading The Complete Book of Necromancers from TSR for second-edition AD&D.  They had some pretty intriguing insights into the ways necromancy can be viewed.  One of my favorite kits in the book is called the Deathslayer, a fighter/necromancer kit that specializes in using necromancy as a means of "fighting fire with fire", using it as a tool in their arsenal against the undead.  Granted, for Skyrim that basically becomes fighting other necromancers or vampires, but it's still one of my favorite RPG book reads, as is Hollowfaust: City of the Necromancers for third-edition D&D's take on the Scarred Lands campaign.

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Dude, Skyrim is FULL of Draugr. It may not be as elegant as instantly turning an enemy necromancer's zombies on them, but re-raising a defeated undead to fight other undead is still pretty cool. Something like Soul Tear that immediately raises a slain foe might help make it feel more like taking control of them rather than killing and reanimating them with your own necromancy. For a fighter, or even a paladin class that could be RPed like more of an advanced Turn Undead spell and wouldn't level conjuration for a character that may not want to do so. That's a really cool idea man. What a great thread. Lol.

[blockquote][b][url=/profile/Zonnonn]Zonnonn[/url] said:[/b]

Scripted RP isn't better or worse than any other type of RP, some people just like it more than others. It's not a bad thing to 'limit' your RP - sometimes I get so caught up in an idea that I keep adding and adding to it and by the end I've got something that isn't true to the base idea.

A good strategy I find for fleshing out an idea is saying 'what would happen if it went wrong?'. What are the repercussions of the actions that define the character? What would happen if a Paladin didn't appease their god, or even went against them? If a Warrior got a life-changing injury how would it adjust them? If a Thief got caught and sent to jail how would they cope? It doesn't even have to be a scenario you could enact in game, it's just that we get so caught up in what our character has to do - they're goals, limitations and history, that we have a path set out for them on day one. But I think we can all attest to the fact that life never follows that path, and how you adjust to that fact is what defines us. It's the same for characters.

Went on a bit of a tangent there, hope I got my point across! And I'm happy I could help mate, I hope this has helped you on your journey to even more awesome roleplaying :)

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Nah man, that's a really great perspective on character development. Not just good advice in video games, but applicable to literature/art and poignant in real life too. I thoroughly enjoyed that tangent, through you're right...we kind of hijacked the thread. Lol. PM me if you have any more insights, and I'll do the same.

[blockquote][b][url=/profile/Vezrabuto]Vezrabuto[/url] said:[/b]

Hey im contemplating getting expert Restoration for my necromancer to use Circle of Protection effectively.

So the question is would it be fitting for a Necromancer to use Circle of Protection, keep in mind im not talking about an Evil Overlord here something like in the picture. Just a Scholar specialised in Necromancy.

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There are different kinds of Necromancy. Ranging from simply using corpses as flesh puppets to the manipulation and preservation of one's very soul through Litchdom. The typical zombies are somewhere in the middle and could easily be roleplayed as either empty husks manipulated by the kind of Necromancy that's almost just a form of advanced body-telekinesis, or they could be an imperfect resurrection of the (now) tortured soul that had inhabited the body during its life. The latter is a little more disturbing, but ironically enough, also more in line with the kind of necromancer who'd use restoration spells since it's less about just moving bodies around and closer to actually giving (or at least partially returning) that person's life. In fact, striving to understand the human condition and gain some kind of power over life and vitality would be a very interesting motivation for a necro/resto scholar to have. You could draw a lot of inspiration from real life artists and scholars like Leonardo Da Vinci and Andreas Vesalius who famously studied cadavers to make great strides in both artistic realism and the medical understanding of anatomy.