Arelith

I know Irongron has written up a long and detailed post about playing outcasts, but from what little experience I've had with outcasts, I don't think I've seen one who has opted for the "grew up on Arelith and pulled an Evil" path, so we're sort of left with the basic problem of "why can members of ordinary society instantly identify this person as outcast regardless of their origin?"

Do you have any feelings on how to play/frame outcast status if you AREN'T from Arelith? Does anyone have any examples of strategies they've seen that were particularly effective or memorable to convey it beyond the letters at the bottom of the description?

People can just tell to avoid any questionable stuff.
The explanation why it is so seems to be left up to the outcast's player, which is cool as they can have some fun with it.

Personally, I'd go with a brand.

-XXX- wrote: ↑

Thu May 19, 2022 8:05 pm

People can just tell to avoid any questionable stuff.
The explanation why it is so seems to be left up to the outcast's player, which is cool as they can have some fun with it.

This is sort of what I meant. Are there any particular ways people have seen that were particularly fun or interesting that they also felt made sense?

I think the impetus is upon the Outcast player to play along and and make it work.

When I have played an Outcast and had people react to my Outcast tag, I always took the opportunity to roll with it and say something along the lines of “Well; I see my reputation has proceeded me. Even on far away Arelith, folks know about my deeds in [whatever place]…” and so on.

The same applies for Outcast from Arelith “Ah, it seems people still remember my grave robbing and animating in the Dale Lands.”

I've seen things like brands, marks, gang tattoos, or even short bios in the character profile explaining how they might be known which can be occassional hooks for UD characters that can't see the outcast marker.

Otherwise outcasts can easily get away with just having a strong aversion to going anywhere actually civilized and it works itself out in that way too without having to overthink it.

I seen one interesting outcast, he wrote about mass murder in his bio, that’d make him famous enough.

xf1313 wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 06, 2022 11:27 pm

I seen one interesting outcast, he wrote about mass murder in his bio, that’d make him famous enough.

I always think smaller when I think of an 'outcast' as a server defines them, but I think it's more interesting to think of it that way, not less. Mass murder is a pretty high benchmark, and sure, stories about that are going to circulate. But think about all the folk legends you've heard in a bar or amongst your friends throughout the course of your life, and picture a world where if you want something from somewhere else Amazon doesn't exist to have it at your doorstep in 2 days and you have to go get it yourself, which naturally creates a 'news network' in the taverns.

Now picture, for example, that someone burned down an orphanage, and moments after the fire burned out, that same person animated the bodies in there and wiped out the village militia, robbed the jeweler, and took off with their ill-gotten gains. It's not quite as broadly generic as 'mass murder,' it's isolated to a small village militia and an orphanage, but it's something people would talk about, that you could reasonably expect to hear stories of in a tavern somewhere else.

You could be an unidentified thief famous in their hometown for always getting away and only leaving a calling card... or you could be a thief who got caught and branded when you tried to steal from a particularly cruel noble, heedless of their reputation and the potential consequences. Perhaps, as good as you were, the resources at their disposal were better. Perhaps you even ...

You get the idea, I think, so I'm gonna stop here, and just say that I agree with the sentiment that it's on the player of the outcast to take the tag and make something relevant and interesting of it when it comes up. I don't think that's an unfair expectation, since it's part of creating the character, just like picking a power to worship is part of playing a divine caster if you want to cast all your spells.

I had a character with tattoo marks which marked him as an (ex) member of the Wharftown Boys. Very well known local gang, definitely going to be barred from any civilised place. No embarassing questions were asked and any awkwardness was avoided. Why are the Wharftown Boys still hostile to him? Because he defected, obviously. Easy peasy.

Otherwise, I think the outcast system is a 'don't overthink it' sort of thing. You're an outcast, and the other person recognises you as such. You don't need to get any more specific than that unless you want to. Trying to cheese the other player by asking 'how do you know I'm an outcast?' is a corny move, because you're intentionally leveraging a system that requires mutual trust to work in your favour and create an awkward situation for the other party. Similarly, the person detecting you shouldn't presume how and why they know you're an outcast: getting sudden accusations that you're an animator instead of a mass-murderer from a guy you've never met or heard of is hard to swallow, especially if you're doing your utmost to make the vagueries of being an outcast 'work'.