Graf
Explorer
Personally....
I don't think that we should designate someone as liberator at 1st level. Or at any level. If you're still playing her after 20 levels and we get to the point where the character and the world have developed to a degree that having a massively powerful PC uniting the gith against the illithids is where we want to take the campaign then Dunamin, or whoever's been overseeing everything, should get all the effected DMs and Players together and see what would be best for everyone in the setting.
I have seen literally dozens of "Joe Bob is the chosen one" games go up in smoke.
It's frustrating for the other players, it limits the DMs options, if the player drops out or gets bored of their character the whole campaign stops making sense.
I have heard stories about it working too, but those are usually very tight real world groups with one DM who runs the game for years. And even then the DM struggles a lot with the tension; very few people want to play the-guy-who-carries-king-arthur's-standard.
This is a living game. People may differentiate themselves in play in one way or another, but starting off someone as the equivalent of a gith messiah?
I just don't think that's the way that a living campaign should be structured.
I am fine, of course, with people playing around with the idea of you being the liberator in character. You could have a Githzerai monk who's convinced that you're the messiah, or weird prophesies related to you, etc.
But just saying OOC at the start of the campaign "I'm Jesus Christ to Gith" is a bit overboard; especially in a living setting where there will be other people playing Gith characters who may want elements of ambiguity or to focus on something besides your character.
Once someone is "the single perfect chosen one" it is very hard to get other players not to interpret it as "there is this one person, who is superbadassawesomedude, unlike your lame chumpy character. If you're lucky s/he will save you 'cause you can't do it yourself".
Torment used the whole Gith/liberator thing as a fulcrum to talk about the development of the self; that was what was compelling about it in story terms. [sblock=Spoiler - don't read if you haven't played torment, take a month off, play torment and come back]You could both gain enlightenment or at least travel toward it, and guide someone else along as well.
In the process undoing (or at least somewhat mitigating) a wrong you'd perpetrated ages ago.
Shifting the focus to some sort of external thing... ?
[/sblock]
If I were the character judge and I got a submission along these grounds I might give the following suggestion(s)
I don't think that we should designate someone as liberator at 1st level. Or at any level. If you're still playing her after 20 levels and we get to the point where the character and the world have developed to a degree that having a massively powerful PC uniting the gith against the illithids is where we want to take the campaign then Dunamin, or whoever's been overseeing everything, should get all the effected DMs and Players together and see what would be best for everyone in the setting.
I have seen literally dozens of "Joe Bob is the chosen one" games go up in smoke.
It's frustrating for the other players, it limits the DMs options, if the player drops out or gets bored of their character the whole campaign stops making sense.
I have heard stories about it working too, but those are usually very tight real world groups with one DM who runs the game for years. And even then the DM struggles a lot with the tension; very few people want to play the-guy-who-carries-king-arthur's-standard.
This is a living game. People may differentiate themselves in play in one way or another, but starting off someone as the equivalent of a gith messiah?
I just don't think that's the way that a living campaign should be structured.
I am fine, of course, with people playing around with the idea of you being the liberator in character. You could have a Githzerai monk who's convinced that you're the messiah, or weird prophesies related to you, etc.
But just saying OOC at the start of the campaign "I'm Jesus Christ to Gith" is a bit overboard; especially in a living setting where there will be other people playing Gith characters who may want elements of ambiguity or to focus on something besides your character.
Once someone is "the single perfect chosen one" it is very hard to get other players not to interpret it as "there is this one person, who is superbadassawesomedude, unlike your lame chumpy character. If you're lucky s/he will save you 'cause you can't do it yourself".
Torment used the whole Gith/liberator thing as a fulcrum to talk about the development of the self; that was what was compelling about it in story terms. [sblock=Spoiler - don't read if you haven't played torment, take a month off, play torment and come back]You could both gain enlightenment or at least travel toward it, and guide someone else along as well.
In the process undoing (or at least somewhat mitigating) a wrong you'd perpetrated ages ago.
Shifting the focus to some sort of external thing... ?
[/sblock]
If I were the character judge and I got a submission along these grounds I might give the following suggestion(s)
Personally I suggest making your kicker: Hunted by the Illithids (for reasons unknown).
You can play around with the idea you could be the Liberator, without really having the fact that you're Anakin Skywalker/Ran al'thor/Harry Potter be an immutable OOC statement.
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