Hey guys,
I was wondering what tips you might have for someone who enjoys Amia but due to work/life commitments can only commit casually.

1) Can Amia even be played casually? or is it a lost cause.


2) What kind of character concepts would suit casual play? Ie. for example if I made a knight commander with RP objectives that would be epic in scale, ie. leading a faction that wont really cut it.

3) What type of RP objectives would be suited for casual play? Ie. I have a lot of fun my Malarite Druid that just stalks the Forest of Despairs and seeks out unsuspecting victims.. I dont reckon I would be able to achieve much more greater objectives *ie bringing down a city or town* with just committing an hour or two a week for example.

3) What tips would you have for not being lost in swift turning of events and plots. As other pcs wont interact with your toon if they don't know them that well due to your toon only showing up once in awhile.


The purpose of these questions is to understand best practice in rping in amia casually yet not having to suffer from Altitis by having to keep creating new characters to be relevant to world.

Looking forward to hearing from you guys.

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Currently starring:
Vinasis D'Magi- Calishite Merchant
Pantheros Sylvanight- Lycanlord of Malar
Artorious Godstrike- Paladin of Torm

1) Of course it can, it isn't be obsessive or nothing.

2) You can really do whatever you want as long as you keep in mind that you might need to have their plans the time that can be done over a longer amount or time or as things that can be quick pop-up things for when you can log on. Also you can totally lead stuff, you just need people who are of the same mind set and understand that the RP will not be the "All day every day!" type but more drawn out in general.

3)Same answer as 2 really.

4) People who will just ignore or completely refuse to RP with your character (regardless of if the RP is of a positive, negative or neutral sort ICly) because they aren't "in their circle" or well known enough for them are basically being self-important asses so I would just not be bothered if they won't or if you really want make it so that you ARE their problem in some way.


Also just for the record I think "altitis" is a rather stupid term used primarily by people who view their own character as somehow so important that they can't let them go away because "oh it would be such a massive loss because all the history and development!" If you like making new characters that end up being short term that is fine, or if you want to play more than one character each of whom gets some of the play time that is fine too. Your characters aren't irrelevant or important or special just because the aren't involved in everything, just like your characters really aren't more relevant or important or special just because you do involve them.

What? That's not what he does, you lyin' saka...

LOL


My opinion, take it or leave it, is for your casual play, stick with the characters that can easily pop in and out of others' lives. Regarding the ones you have, that is. If they're not happening for you, and you feel like some random shit, roll one up and smoke ..er, put yourself into an ongoing DM event. Doesn't have to be any long term commitments, just something to throw a wrench into everyone's plans, then duck out. You can see the damage you caused, when you come back!

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How are you defining "casual play" in this context? A few hours per week? Per month?

Presently, and for a long time now, I've only been able to get in game for a few hours at a time, usually once per week, sometimes twice per week. I haven't found any shortage of stuff to participate in, but I do feel like I'm missing out on faster-moving player-driven plots, which tend to develop more quickly than DM plots (at least, in my observation). I think you'll be fine as long as you have reasonable expectations: you'll probably be able to tag along on plots already in motion, but don't expect to be able to influence their direction. Decisions, for better or worse, are made by those who show up to make them.

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Winner of Amia's "Most Ethical Time Traveler" award 2026

Character Portraits!

Rampant altitis and normal working fella's commitments here.

Non-Lawful characters with positive CHA, or any alignment, with CHA so low it's funny. Easiest to dip in and out of.

Following Jergal is casual friday all week.

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Life should be prolonged only when it serves the greater cause of the death of the world.

Lol @ Krow.. hey it's what he does do...unless there are no unsuspecting victims and then he's 'forced' to find them elsewhere.. =)





While I may like to agree with you re- the Altitis.

I've been informed via a tell from one of those consistent players I respect, that i suffer from Altitis and should think about it. Also other more more consistent pcly have icly and oocly expressed that my toon is much too unreliable to serve xx faction or whatnot because he's always 'traveling' or whatever other ic reason i give for not being there all the time. These are pcs I greatly respect, so I can't help but buy into the fact that unless u put in long hours and consistency with a toon, your toon wont be given much respect icly..or so has been my experience.

I sorta took it to heart really and started playing more offline games during my spare time as I just felt I couldn't commit to Amia due to real life goals I wish to pursue.

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Currently starring:
Vinasis D'Magi- Calishite Merchant
Pantheros Sylvanight- Lycanlord of Malar
Artorious Godstrike- Paladin of Torm

I have had fun with my ranger assassin for casual rp. Really has no lasting connections of any kind he's an artist that uses that ability in his "work". So I'd suggest ranger possibly or simply a tank type maybe that is a professional armed escort. Since you know the server fairly well this would be easy for you to do and not take up to much time. You could really get some decent rp out of it too even, if played right make it so it's all -new- to you as that toon anyways stuff like that might be worth looking into. Rp while hunting of course basically run an adventure or simply make a sign and post it in the Dale, "Armed Escort, Will work for Beer"

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Calypso (Lady Calypso, Caly)
Stormy Dawn (Ar'ellin'ah)
Kisuri'ou Yoru (Ryuko)

Favored Quote:
"This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man." -Shakespeare

Pure chaos characters! Somebody who is just unconnected from reality and does everything his way. He comes totally out of the blue, wrecks havoc one way or another, and goes on with his life - you come back the next week, and the next, and the next, and everybody is already like "hide yo women, hide yo children". These sort of characters are mostly comedic, and they never get to be hated since they are so rarely seen that it's just a relief each time they drop, OOCly. Most characters get to hate them ICly.

If I didn't had time to play as much as I do, possibly I would have certain lizard behave like this, and rarely drop the prankster facade.

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Womans in your town

1) It depends on what you want to accomplish. You can have fun, sure. But if you want to have a serious, major character, you have to invest some time into it.

2) I cannot answer that question, but I can tell you that you should not be starting RP with serious character you are not intending to continue it or finish it. It is rather frustrating when one takes a RP opportunity seriously and the other does not. Don't do that. It feels bad.

3) To have a successful character, as someone once wrote you must have two goals. One should be a short-time, the other a long-time goal. The trick is to make the long-time goal impossible to reach. With a few hours of investment per week you can do a lot actually, if you make up an interesting plot and include a DM into it. For instance Pantheros could kill the Chosen of Malar and declare himself the Chosen One. Then he could rally the Lycantropes and attack a settlement, organizing a hunt.

Of course, if you have little time to play, focus on one character. Altitis + little time to play =

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I disagree with that, mostly on the grounds that it really isn't an issue as long as you handle stuff fairly modularity in each encounter and don't leave stuff at cliff hangers or anything. With that said I don't actually see the issue at all personally, I mean sure it sucks if you get involved in RP and then one of the characters you were involved in RP with disappears although really stuff like that happens in reality too, and just because that character is not there does not mean you can't carry on with what was happening due to that RP, you just need to figure out how things would change and evolve. Plus most players will be nice enough to give you a reason for why there character is now gone, as long as you ask.

Casual RP is very possible on Amia. I agree with most of what has been said up to this point, but I will add another detail: non-casual players can consider the wants and expectations of casual players and, if they want to feel included in on an overall story, find a way to do so that doesn't put anyone out or enforce unreasonable expectations.

It's just my personal opinion based on being a leader of several factions for a long time. It is very disheartening for me when I encounter such behavior. People start some RP, I bite in, I organize everything, I get the attention of a DM and 2 days later I get a tell (or more often no tell at all) "Hey sorry I got bored with that toon." Don't do that.



If only mate. If only. Maybe I'm just a bad faction leader, I dunno. But I like to think that I'm always doing my best to find the balance between staying true to my character, and produce RP for other people.

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To be fair it is a pain in the ass, I personally spent around 3-4 years with characters leading a couple of the drow academies, what it came down to for me though was that you can NEVER be sure which characters will disappear on you even if the players do plan on playing them long term or often shit happens and it always screws with stuff so I always found it best to look the RP the characters are involved in as a somewhat separate thing from just the characters and have ways to continue on with the threads even if a character vanishes on you. That way you aren't left feeling like there was "wasted" RP.

As for the getting an IC reason. >.> I didn't say they make it easy sometimes, but as long as the player is alive and around even a bit you can usually get an answer so that you can tie up loose ends properly.

There are some inherent aspects of Amia that don't really encourage lasting role-play. I personally think that if there were 3-5 official factions in a game like this, there would always be a place to go to role-play instead of spending hours to find another character who will engage with yours over the course of several weeks or months. Of course, Amia isn't homebrew, and I personally don't think this game fits well with 649 religions, 37 races, and 9 alignments. For being true to D&D lore and junk, that aspect is done well- I'm just saying that it's not very simplified for having a max of 64 characters on a server at a time. It's much more possible to have a consistent base of players on the server at any given time if there are only 3-5 factions who have their own area of the island. Of course, Amia isn't going to change to take on a new form that helps players form lasting interactions (it would essentially destroy what Amia is), so I honestly think it's a better use of time to play casually.

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