Staff's Currently Voting On Hybrid Species Restrictions in Character Creation

[Tefka]

We're targeting the amount of species one can have in his or her species that make up his or her character.

The options are 2, 3, or "no, don't restrict this."

What are your thoughts? Obviously this is rare territory, as I'm a pretty staunch defender of your freedom to create your characters as you see fit. However, it's not unprecedented (even though I love defying precedents) for us to wander into this territory (dragons).

What do you think? What's your opinion?

 

[Darth Ferus]

/me looks to new profile for the whole alpha thing.

/me feels sad.

/me votes for two though.

 

[The End Narrator]

I think it should be probably limited to two, after that then it really doesn't make a difference with racial traits or potential traits.

This comes to mind beyond that.

 

[Nimue Stormson]

It's a little hard to say. On one hand it does make your character more diversity if they have a lot of mixes into their species, but at the same time it can be overdone to a point where it's just silly. Unless you have a good reason why the character is so many things in one then it just doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

I'm voting 3 as the max.

 

[Boethiah]

I honestly feel like there shouldn't be any restrictions there.

Abuse falls into its own little pit.

Honestly, people are expected -- and know better -- not to just combine the strengths of all seven races that make up their recipe. Perhaps if there is /any restriction/ it should be that they can only have the 'special' properties of one race in the makeup and then let people go crazy with everything else?

 

[Tefka]

One Staffer brought up that he doesn't think racial lineage should be accounted for by these rules. I explained that as long as we don't include it in the wording of the rule, we won't have to enforce any rules on racial lineage.

Meaning you can be a Trandoshan Geonosian but be related to a human somewhere along the way. I know, this example is very dumb, but it shows you how open we wish to keep the door while maintaining that hybrids should be a bit more... controlled.

 

[Ayden Quell]

I'm against restrictions, but with the amount of half-Epicanthix, half-Hapan and half-Vahla I feel like we're living in the Third Reich, eugenics and all.

 

[Zaahir Asad]

My thoughts;

Should there be a limit to how much of a mutt you can be? No.

BUT.

For sure throw down a rule that says after a certain percent you either don't get any of the racial benefits because you do not have enough of the DNA, or you have to pick one, maximum two that have bred true so to speak.

Your whole ancestry can be a distressing hippy love child mess of every species ever, but one percent zeltron is not going to get you super strong pheremones, empathy/telepathy etc.

 

[Tefka]

I honestly feel like there shouldn't be any restrictions there.
Abuse falls into its own little pit.

Honestly, people are expected -- and know better -- not to just combine the strengths of all seven races that make up their recipe. Perhaps if there is /any restriction/ it should be that they can only have the 'special' properties of one race in the makeup and then let people go crazy with everything else?

I chose this as a subject to go after because I do not feel as if a ruling on this would affect a substantial amount of the characters created here at SWRP Chaos.

A ruling on this subject would do nothing but aid those who might otherwise be abusing it, in my mind.

 

[Vulpesen]

I agree with [member="Anja Aj'Rou"]. As the factory judges say, Abuse and suffer.

If you have ten different races, I expect a few weaknesses and a lot of strengths to be lost in the gene mixing. its simple genetics. The farther back in the ancestry a person is, the more likely his genes will not be present in the current generation... unless your family tree is a family pole.

 

[Jsc]

This seems way to vague. Where is the PvP concern? I need specifics people!

 

[Tefka]

Also many people overlook racial incompatibilities when creating a character.

For example, I know Yuuzhan Vong are specifically stated as incompatible with Humans.

 

[Mrrew]

There shouldn't be restrictions, but there should be logic. If someone wants to be a part vahla part epixhinex part human part kiffar, why not, they're all close enough. They shoudl jsut keep in mind that if they do inherit any of hteir ancestors traits, such as the epixthenex's mental resistance, it would be decreased. Prehaps it woud only be half as strong if you're half epi (just going to call them Epi because I have no idea how to spell it), or only a quarter as strong if your one fourth epi, for instance. Why not, as long as it's not being abused.

But things like half genosonians half transdoshan... I hope nobody has ever tried anything like that. Bug+lizard=nothing. If two species are close enough to breed, then why not let people make characters of that combination, as long as they're not exploiting it to get more strengths or storngers strengths. As long as those are kept balanced why limit it more?

Tl;dr: Don't restrict it, just make people realize that they can't be one twenty-fifth every fancy near-human species and have every single one of their traits. But also don't let people be half Herglic half Yodaling.


Edit: There was like 5 new posts between me starting to write this and me clicking post... So a lot of the things I just said were said just before I said them.

 

[Soeht]

Honestly, I think it's rare enough that it can easily be handled case-by-case. The people that are likely to do this are complete newbies to the board that are a little excited and want to get straight to their power fantasy (Nothing inherently wrong with that, but still a potential issue for others).

Though, I believe something that is a little more applicable to the entire site and would help instill the culture of not min-maxing would be to do something such as: add a rule that requires every character to have the same number of weaknesses as the number of strengths in the bio (counting species strengths).

 

[Boethiah]

[member="Tefka"]

In that case then I'd prefer it to be 'regulated' reactively rather than proactively because It'd be absolutely tedious for all parties to have every character sheet combed over.

 

[Tefka]

There shouldn't be restrictions, but there should be logic.

In a perfect world, yes. But in this world, restrictions help aid logic.

 

[Zaahir Asad]

Alternatively just start smacking down on every character regardless of species who RPs right off the bat as having any sort of amazing power, be it racial or that they've watched too much Avatar. This will be a lot of work for the RPJ. I volunteer to be the jerk who goes around telling them they're horrible. Perhaps in hilarious gif format.

 

[Darth Kentarch]

My opinion is that people usually do this to look human or a certain kind of species, while getting the advantageous traits of another. For instance I could make Kentarch a Half human half Firrerreo, so he can regenerate when hit by a lightsaber or shot in the chest. It can be a hard decision and banning might not work, because anyone can claim to use Eugenics, genetic manipulation, chroming, gene splicing, or what ever to gain the same effects. So the question now is what are we looking to stop? People with weird looking, or stop unreasonable species cross breading? Or stop people from using half breeds and cross species PC who use this to illicit an advantage in the RP. If its the latter I say stop and resrtict it, if its the former I say no.

[member="Tefka"]

 

[Ellie Mors]

I believe that it isn't necessarily the amount of near-humans involved in hybridization, it is the fact that there are non-human species blended with near-human races and even species that do not mate at all, for the sake of having every last strength and only one or two weaknesses. I believe the rule should be primarily towards those who try to blend non-humanoid species with near humans and humanoids in order to exploit all of their strengths. I've not reported those whom perform this because they were new and I tried to communicate the necessity of using the codex for new species and sithspawn.

[member="Tefka"]

In that case then I'd prefer it to be 'regulated' reactively rather than proactively because It'd be absolutely tedious for all parties to have every character sheet combed over.

This is in reaction to 7 or 8 characters whom have genetically impossible characters. They have several species intermixed that are not biologically compatible with near-human and human species, such as sentient trees that are combined with Vahla, Epicanthix, and a sithspawn species.

This is coming from a genetic stand-point as far as being biologically compatible, I needn't bring up the issue of mating that makes this entirely impossible or the fact that making a sithspawn race or any custom race must be submitted and approved to the Codex prior to use in any role-play.

 

[Boethiah]

I'm also a bit arbitrary when it comes to Roleplay but one thing I'd like to ask is how would this be dealt with?

I assume you wouldn't force approval now on character sheets and It'd probably be overwhelmingly tedious to have admins check character creation daily for inconsistencies. Of course you could rely on reports but there are things to consider.

For one what of people who get reported after the fact? Like people who've been roleplaying those characters for a while.

I've witnessed two people abandon developed characters because aspects that affected their roleplay greater were taken away OOCly leaving little explanation ICly as to how other than they had to pretend it was something else all along.