Request for the Shadowguard

Alyn_Stark

Date: Tuesday, 18 Oct 2011, 1:11 AM | Message # 1

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Names and personal details, as well as pictures will be found later. This is a basic request for the crew of seven who serve as Stark's elite personal guards and their weapons.

I. Arkanian male

Sniper
Favors the X-45 sniper rifle and the Karpaki Fifty.
S-5 heavy blaster pistol as backup sidearm
Cybernetic left hand with miniaturized power pack and holdout blaster in pointer finger. Good for one shot.

II. Noghri male

Close-combat/silent killing
2x Fighting sickles
8x Ballistic knives
DX-2 disruptor pistol

III. Human female

Former Malkite Poisoner

Extensive knowledge of a myriad of poisons

4x Vibro-knives

IV. Echani female

Master of Echani martial art
Primary weapon vibrostave or vibrowhip
Neuronic whip backup weapon
Skilled pilot and mechanic

V. Epicanthix male

Exiled member of Mecrosa Order
Force-sensitive
Trained as shadow assassin
Force pike preferred weapon

VI. Mandalorian male

Specializes in explosives and heavy weapon

VII. Shi'ido female

Still considered young; only capable of changing skin tone and imitating minor humanoid species
Infiltration expert
Can utilize any weapon at hand, but is expert with no weapons

Alyn Stark
Lord of Kinyov
Senior Captain, Retired, Republic Navy
Head of House Malos (former)
Licensed bounty hunter
Majority shareholder, Lorrd Engineering
Owner, Stark Defense Conglomerate
Civilian Medal of Honor recipient
Representative, Lorrd (10 BBY-9 BBY)

Karth_DeQora

Date: Friday, 21 Oct 2011, 3:51 PM | Message # 2

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MAKE IT SO.

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Jace Varitek: In Northern California we just have gangs of vigilante interior decorators.

OrionKarath

Date: Friday, 21 Oct 2011, 4:17 PM | Message # 3

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APPROVE

Orion Karath
Manager from June 2009 to Present, Administrator from December 2011 to Present
My posts here, pre-2009 archives here

Jace_Varitek

Date: Friday, 21 Oct 2011, 5:09 PM | Message # 4

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I'm going to suggest we hold off on this until this request is resolved first. It's easiest and more logical to handle them in chronological order, I think. Or you can just call it approved now, since the votes for it are in. I'm just interested in knowing more about the character before I come down on this, and I don't have enough time to read his background at this moment.

Jace Varitek
Manager/Administrator from January 2003 to Present
My recent posts here, pre-2009 archives here

"When my information changes, I change my opinion. What do you do, sir?"
—John Maynard Keynes

Furthermore, a dancing Wookiee:

Alyn_Stark

Date: Friday, 21 Oct 2011, 5:11 PM | Message # 5

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It's whatever you all would like to decide. I can't use any of these folks until I draw up actual profiles and pictures anyway. I know the background is rather long; probably one of the longest I've done on this site.

Jace_Varitek

Date: Tuesday, 25 Oct 2011, 11:42 AM | Message # 6

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Didn't mean to knock the background—indeed, I appreciate detailed character histories and encourage them. As for the request, I APPROVE of everything but the Shi'ido. We've never approved shapeshifters before* and for good reason, I think. I'm doubly reluctant to have one as an expendable NPC who can behave with more abandon than a playable character. This is a bit of an academic point though, as I remain against the concept in general. Shapeshifting is just too problematic in an RP, in my opinion.

Alyn_Stark

Date: Tuesday, 25 Oct 2011, 8:01 PM | Message # 7

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I understand the concern of having a shapeshifter, even a junior one such as she is designed to be, in the roleplay. Before you completely shut it down, I would like one last attempt to defend my reason though. First, the work that I put into gathering pictures for the Shadowguard as a whole and designing them just so, rates them as more of a PC group in my eyes than specifically NPC, to the point where I'd hardly call them expendable.

The second, and more important point though, is that I've noticed that the assassin-type is very, very underplayed here. Oh, to be sure, we have characters labeled as assassins who can pop up and drop another NPC with a sniper round to the head from two miles away, or blow up the target's home with proton torpedoes from half a city distant (I've been guilty of this one, once), but the subtle assassin; the insidious, slip-inside-your-home-as-someone-you-trust is hard to do; the true silent infiltrator type. It's far too easy with six of the Shadowguard for someone to say, "Oh, I don't recognize them. BAM! Captured!" or even "Well, my security measures make it practically impossible for a sniper or a poisoner to gain access to a vantage point or even my kitchens." This is reasonable, of course, as nobody wants to be an assassin's target, especially if they see it coming OOC. The Shi'ido though, I believe, if played by certain limits, puts this type of cold-blooded killer back on the menu. She (in this case) could take on the form of a trusted adviser; a family member, or even a dear friend. The target of course, could engage the person in conversation and pick up through a lack of knowledge in some way that something was amiss, but I feel it adds an element of intrigue and danger to the class as a whole.

Jace_Varitek

Date: Tuesday, 25 Oct 2011, 11:26 PM | Message # 8

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The point isn't a bad one but the answer to it is predictable; namely, other than ostracism, there's no way a person can be prevented from approaching the RP in bad faith because, as you said, they will always devise some IC excuse for OOC motives (i.e. "I want my character to live"). But this is precisely the problem—both sides can approach the RP in bad faith, and if both of them do I feel strongly the rules should favor the one who's defending, not attacking. That is, even if a shapeshifter would be useful in circumventing people who RP in bad faith, the fact remains a shapeshifter is still vastly more easily put to use for malicious purposes by those same people. I think this is apparent. And to anticipate the notion we could permit it in some cases but not others, time and again we've seen this end in disaster in the RP (from the Viceroy Kruus to, more recently, the headaches over Basilisk droids, etc.).

I appreciate the PC/NPC distinction and I don't necessarily disagree, though whether I do or not I attempted to preempt the PC/NPC distinction by mentioning it was rather academic because, for the reasons I've said, I'm against shapeshifters in either case.

Alyn_Stark

Date: Tuesday, 25 Oct 2011, 11:31 PM | Message # 9

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Fair enough, fair enough. I'll replace her.

Jace_Varitek

Date: Thursday, 27 Oct 2011, 11:32 AM | Message # 10

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Well, the rest of it is still APPROVED.