AMIA ARCHIVE • View topic - How would you introduce Amia to a new guy?

Hi people

,

I'm thinking of introducing NWN (namely, Amia) and getting a pal of mine hooked onto it , but the dude doesn't have a shred on Toril lore and would never have rped before but would be interested in the prospects of doing such...

Personally, I can't recall how I started on this and am wondering how does one get another started on roleplaying in Amia without scaring the dude entirely into thinking it's one big encyclopedic hassle of learning (in one go).

Suggestions, people?

P.S : Damn, has the price on the game fallen.

I had absolutely no idea about the lore when I came to play on the server, either. Zero knowledge. Even on a scale of 1-10 I'm really only like a 3 now.

Pitch it as an opportunity to learn about an amazing world. A fresh character out of the box shouldn't know a whole lot of the unnecessary trivial lore anyway, so it works out fine.

Agreed, much of the lore is irrelevant to most characters. Start out playing a character who's relatively uneducated, your friend will have no trouble picking up info about the gods, history, factions, et cetera, just via regular conversation. That's what I did, and after only a few months, I think I'm pretty hip to the Lore now.

Lizzie wrote:

Agreed, much of the lore is irrelevant to most characters. Start out playing a character who's relatively uneducated, your friend will have no trouble picking up info about the gods, history, factions, et cetera, just via regular conversation. That's what I did, and after only a few months, I think I'm pretty hip to the Lore now.

This might be a decent idea. Maybe ask him to play a barbarian or fighter from some extremely remote region where they practice ancestor worship and shun magic (which are both somewhat common amongst barbies). That way, he'd have a great IC excuse not to know about the gods and quite a bit of other stuff.

Quote:

Maybe ask him to play a barbarian or fighter from some extremely remote region where they practice ancestor worship and shun magic

The Anarouch Desert, and the Bedine. Unfortunately that's extremely far from Amia and they tend to keep to themselves, in the anarouch.

I got started by first not RPing at all. I played the campaigns and the hack and slash arena servers with every character combination I could think of to first get a hang on game mechanics. I then picked my favorites, (in my case clerics and rogues) read up on the lore for that specific class, then dove in. I chose a rogue first because that was a whole lot easier. He was stand-offish and introverted, so I didn't do much talking. I mostly just watched other people RP and took mental notes, only speaking when spoken to. When I was finally completely bored with it, I made an obnoxious rogue with true ambitions. After about a month I was confident enough to graduated to my true favorite, cleric.

One problem with this. It was very hard for me to stop power building which is a must on arena servers. After a few fails RP wise (like a PM/RDD), I got the hang of balancing power with RP and now I'm having trouble just finding a character that I really like and not having five different ones active at one time.

P.S. I was recruited to Amia by my cousin and had it in mind when I first installed NwN.

TormakSaber wrote:

Quote:

Maybe ask him to play a barbarian or fighter from some extremely remote region where they practice ancestor worship and shun magic

The Anarouch Desert, and the Bedine. Unfortunately that's extremely far from Amia and they tend to keep to themselves, in the anarouch.

He could be from the tundras of Forstakkr? The deserts of Khem? Even just a wild elf "barbarian" (the dictionary definition, not necessarily the character class) from the depths of Amia forest is plausible, IMO.

Nomads in KHem do practice ancestor worship and tend to somewhat shun arcane magic, preferring natural. It could work.

I don't think you have to go that far. If he's played the core campaign and/or Baulder's Gate, that might help a bit. Even then I didn't know much of -anything- about Forgotten Realms.

Might just want to make a character from a small village outside Waterdeep (my suggestion is Secomber outside Waterdeep
http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Secomber ), help him pick a god that's easy to read up on (Torm is a good one to start with because the concept of 'paladin' is typically known even by non-fantasy gamers http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Torm ), show him the individual deity page from the FW wiki ( http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Portal:Deities ) and explain a bit about Amia. If he's played any other fantasy type game, it's pretty basic: WoW, Dragon Age, any of the Elder Scrolls games... He's just a guy who grew up on a farm, worshiped that one deity and decided he wanted to go explore the world, help people out, be an 'adventurer' etc. Neutral Good is pretty easy for new RPers because it's the whole "Try to be a good guy, but if you break the rules it's not that big of a deal".

Because it's an island, you're not SUPPOSED to know all about the place when you first set foot on it. Beautiful thing about Amia. I read the timeline, but it was more to get a general view of how things fit in with the world events. The whole divergence in the timelines can be a bit confusing, especially if he starts poking around the FR wiki or reading up on the core books, but explaining to him that he doesn't need to really know the history beyond his farm should reassure him that he's not being hampered by it. Tell him to imagine growing up in a small town with no internet, no TV, no telephone, not even a newspaper... world events are myths and legends that half of it you don't believe anyway. It's just a really hard concept for anyone in this modern world to comprehend how tiny your world shrinks to without those things.

What's good about Amia is that you can first focus on doing those couple of missions, exploring Cordor and leveling up. Slowly introducing RP while you're out hunting (always good to actually partner up with a newbie) and exploring. It's what Erroch is doing with me right now. Though I'm not that much of a newbie, just new to Amia. ^_^

Hope this helps, especially since i'm new to Amia myself.

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How would you introduce Amia to a new guy?

With a nice forum avatar!

Dev Disco wrote:

With a nice forum avatar!

Introduce fear into them that chickens control their life sounds more like something he'd do.

Dev Disco wrote:

Quote:

How would you introduce Amia to a new guy?

With a nice forum avatar!

Somehow I've got a feeling that was related to my new forum avatar o.O

I've got to say, thanks for the ideas! I suppose I'd go with the NG part though if he's awfully ambitious enough, he could go ahead and play some power-mongering sod.

Loranys wrote:

Because it's an island, you're not SUPPOSED to know all about the place when you first set foot on it. Beautiful thing about Amia. I read the timeline, but it was more to get a general view of how things fit in with the world events. The whole divergence in the timelines can be a bit confusing, especially if he starts poking around the FR wiki or reading up on the core books, but explaining to him that he doesn't need to really know the history beyond his farm should reassure him that he's not being hampered by it. Tell him to imagine growing up in a small town with no internet, no TV, no telephone, not even a newspaper... world events are myths and legends that half of it you don't believe anyway. It's just a really hard concept for anyone in this modern world to comprehend how tiny your world shrinks to without those things.

I sure hope he's willing to start up mild as I believe some newbies tend to get a little hung on trying to achieve greatness despite knowing little. But your post would help me greatly in giving him some ideas.

Yossarin wrote:

I had absolutely no idea about the lore when I came to play on the server, either. Zero knowledge. Even on a scale of 1-10 I'm really only like a 3 now.

Pitch it as an opportunity to learn about an amazing world. A fresh character out of the box shouldn't know a whole lot of the unnecessary trivial lore anyway, so it works out fine.

^
And yet still one of the best story weavers on the bloody server. Some people have all the luck.

Only Tormak and Zia know how massive of a noob I was when I joined Amia.

Damn lucky to be a very fast learner.

EDIT: Of course the fact that my main character is a MASSIVE Mary Sue might give a clue.

"Don't make a Sueling. Have a diety. Fear the chickens. Type properly."

Get NWN and play the game offline first to get a handle on things.
RP with NPC's, they won't answer but hey...have fun.
Read the class descriptions and history on the forums, it does help to have some base knowledge of D&D, your/his character isn't a complete idiot about life on Faerun.
Have fun.
If you play D&D, then introduce your friend to it.
Have fun.

tell them make a normal human, and make it a pure fighter, or at least a tank build. that way they will get their share of amia knowledge and be able to kill things without getting fustrated, at first.

personally I went monk and its pretty obvious why =)

alternatively, don't play a human, and spend some time reading the lore and rules (which is a kind of given anyway)

and I don't know what a sueling is but yes, have a deity, fear the wild poultry, and avoid typo's and <doing this> {when} *shakes head in disagreement* this is all you need.

seriously though, just get him/her to build and make one aswell, that way its the two of you for starters at least, you can RP til your hand drops off but you'll still be level 3 if you don't partay!

reason I say human, I assume you are one, and maybe not like me where I nearly always refuse to play other races, I imagine it would be easier to deal with human RP than elven v drow v necros v paladins etc to start with. but don't avoid it heck no you can't. someone, -will- want one of your bodyparts at somepoint, tis the nature of the game =)

*breaths* also, google : srd d20, and look at some of the prestige classes that arn't avaliable to nwn and amia, for inspiration, and an idea of what sort of character you'd like to end up with. they are mostly possible RP wise, though you ain't getting no special stats in a hurry.

then again, i'm the guy who normally sits here for four hours planing a character (or days in null's case >_>) some people find it easier to just make, log in, and go from there.

-but-, you need some sort of story, even if that story is "just got off the boat, came with my bro here, and the two of us are after gold, and we hate drow with a passion" or something, theres enough to get you started but vague enough to build on later.

the best solution imho is obviously go play dnd for real, and there you go, RP a pleanty (provided you has good DM) and it should come natural to you =)

Glyph wrote:

I don't know what a sueling is

Sueling: A child of Mary Sue. *Nodnod.*

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MarySue

More to the whole thing.

Don't forget the male version as well http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MartyStu

Play on!

Suelings are easily generated with the loading of a suegenerating webpage: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/fatguy.html

I still have absolutely no clue what the hell a sueling is, why its a star trek referance, or why that link is like an ungodly anime character builder...

if you want my real answer to this question, make, log, RP.

Glyph wrote:

I still have absolutely no clue what the hell a sueling is, why its a star trek referance, or why that link is like an ungodly anime character builder...

if you want my real answer to this question, make, log, RP.

A "Mary Sue" is a character that is the personification of the player. As a result, said character is uberpowerful, unable to do any wrong, unkillable, and always -ALWAYS- the winner. "Mary Sue" is usually referencing female players, while Marty Stu revers to Males.

Classic Example:
GM invites his girlfriend to come play D&D with him and his buddies. She makes a human female, but writes up this entire backstory where she's the long lost princess of this mystical magical kingdom, faeries and unicorns and all. As a result she ends up completely dominating the game and kills it. Any time the GM tries to tell her 'no' or 'you can't do that' she pitches one godaweful hissyfit making his life as well as the other players lives miserable.

A "Mary Sue" is a trap that is very easy for new RPers to fall in, being unable to separate themselves from their characters. If the single slightest 'bad' thing happens to their character they take it as a personal attack upon themselves.

What's almost funny is that some of the greatest RP characters I've ever met would fall into the "mary sue" category, except they were played brilliantly. What makes it a Mary Sue/Marty Stu is the player, not the character.

-=edit=-
Oh, and the star trek reference is because the character "Westley Crusher" is an obvious "Mary Sue" for Gene Roddenberry.

*gets off her soapbox and goes back to lurking in the shadows*

If you look at the links above you'll see that the Star Trek connection is actually thanks to a fan writer fond of the original series but not the dumb fan magazine's stories, filled with stupid self-insert characters. She wrote a parody of these dumb stories, in which her super special character was named Mary Sue. That's the Star Trek link. Wesley Crusher may be a Mary Sue but that's not the origin of the term and certainly not the main link to Star Trek.

*tosses in 2 cents*

Tell your friend it's fun.

First build: Use the recommended, be a human fighter. **You want to just get in and play around at first. You can build better later.

Back Story: Oh sure you can be all complicated and take a week putting all the pertinate information into a folder and have it all ready for any and all questions like I do now. BUT I started with a human fighter/paladin who lost her memory and landed in Cordor. It was perfect because I didn't need to know lore, the RP converstations were interesting. Fun.

Tips: Read the forums.
*Find a faction that seems interesting to you and go chat with them.
* Use in game tells to ask if another player would mind if you asked a couple questions. (I get random Tells and am always happy to help.)

And finally, don't worry about builds & getting pwnd. Have fun first.

So long as he doesn't roll a holographic cleric called Doctor he should be fine.

Get him to make a PC that is an Amia Island local. The 'lore' that he can RP about will be easier to understand in practice then the Lore he has to trawl through nerd-pedia to get.

Also make sure you introduce them in setting that is really neutral... if he and Amia go out to a fancy restaurant right away then they will both make too much efffort... a pub with mates is a good start... maybe simple dinner and movie after that? And tell him to pick 'cool' stuff he likes; dire maces are cool, fancy abilities... things a nice type like Amia will find racey

If it was said already, I am sorry, but I was not reading the whole thread and I am at work.

But anyway try not to take what is written on ForgottenReamsWiki to heart. It is mostly (some 98%) updated with 4.0 and the server's timeline is from 3.5. Here, for reference, Amia's Timeline in canon Forgotten Realms: http://www.amiaworld.net/phpBB2/viewtop ... 61#p717361.

The most fun I have (had) on Amia was when I made a character that had no idea about Lore and I and the character were learning as we played.

Just like a bunch of people, I started with absolutely no idea of the lore of Toril or FR short of what I'd read in a few books (The Icewind Dale Trilogy, The Halfling's Gem Trilogy and War of the Spider Queen). I just made a character and dove in head first.

Your friend already has you to help show him the ropes and he'll make more friends who are more than welcome to help him out, I'm sure. I mean, hell, if some of the jackhouses who are on here can do it (myself included), then anyone can.

When I joined Amia I had no idea about lore (hells, I tried to call out a girl for pickpocketing me when I was dead ... in my defence it did say that I spotted them), but was guided by two good friends ^.^ (again, blame Drakos Vek and Genar Detkasa :twisted:

).

Just play and have fun!

Personally myself with Mathan, i started off not knowing a thing about... anything. Builds, Gods, Lore. Eventually i met people and became a blackguard, then became a Cleric of Velsharoon, now i'm the High Priest D:

jimbono1 wrote:

Personally myself with Mathan, i started off not knowing a thing about... anything. Builds, Gods, Lore. Eventually i met people and became a blackguard, then became a Cleric of Velsharoon, now i'm the High Priest D:

A classic rags to riches romp the whole family can enjoy...

How would you introduce Amia to a new guy?

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