Hmm. Purists seem to want savages only, meandering folks want something in the middle, and everyone judges the "leafsuits". I mean; it's pretty specific in the lore that PC Florans are looking for something grander in life than just hunting and surviving. Highlighting relevant bits; A Floran Journey Begins Tired of Floran savagery, you have taken to the stars to pursue a more honourable hunt. Your ship has run out of fuel in orbit of an unknown planet. For too long, your people have been content with hunting small prey. Not you. You Long to stab, but not just any old thing. You have honour. Integrity. You want more out of life, and when you return, triumphant, your cocoonkin will no longer call you weird, and hiss at you. You can feel it in your stems. A Floran's Goal Ssstab. Ssstab, sssmash, hunt. Find glory, make good Floran. Ssstab. Get best kill. Win all of Florans. Sssow ssseeds of discord. Punch all of the prey. Making friends would be nice too. Call me crazy, but, these Floran who've taken to the stars are not your typical savage murderers. Yes; playing an outright tribal should always be an option. *Though I've seen some examples of Tribals even more annoying than any Leafsuit could dream to be* But, if a Floran has a PDA or wants to learn about it's surroundings, or *gasp* even wears clothing akin to it's peers instead of tribal leaves??? I don't think we should be judgmental immediately of that. It's about moderation, both ways. Floran's are one of the trickier races to get a bead on, because they're one of the two "evil" races, next to the Apex. Just, give 'em a chance before making too rash a judgement. . . . WOW this is off-topic; well Floran reproduction! It's plants. They breed like plants via transmitting genes through pollen, likely through direct contact of some specific organ. That's all.
What you've highlighted is the background of the player character in the normal game. This game wasn't created for roleplay, and the player character or characters when not on an RP server are clearly designed by the developers to be unique, uniquely skilled. The player character in the normal game is a super awesome badass interstellar starship captain explorer. The protagonist. Roleplaying doesn't have protagonist so the character backgrounds whilst lore friendly, and evidence of florans like that existing, should not be used as evidence for all, or even most florans being that way. Clearly the floran background is just so it makes sense that a floran would do all the same stuff a human would in the vanilla non-roleplay experience.
I concur that Florans should have room, but there's a difference between playing a Floran who is attempting to better themselves and one who has accomplished off-screen Human levels of civilization. I feel like I'm saying the same thing over and over so I'm gonna try and be blunt: If you play a Floran, or Avian, or Hylotl who is just a Human. Who has absolutely no traits of their race, has absolutely nothing that sets them apart from the other race, you might as well play a Human. The justifiable reasons most people come up with are "adoption" and "SCIENCE!" and these are both very shallow, overused solutions to a fault in character creation and differentiation. If you're a "civilized" Floran chances are you have to put an effort into being civilized. Even the Floran intro posted above leans heavily on 'stab stab' and 'best hunter'. This is indicative that Florans have a hunter mentality. Even when they're not actually hunting something, they approach it as if they are. If they're trying to become a scholar, they "hunt" knowledge. Even then, all chances weigh heavily toward them still having issues with aggression and impulsive behavior. There are actually a lot of good examples of this, at varying levels, but there are also a lot of not-so-good examples of this.
Fel' hit the nail on the head, in my opinion. What surprises me is that, honestly, the kind of RP that goes into making a transition from savage hunter to civilized individual is really bloody fun. I would draw that out for a whiiiile. It gives you something to do. Characters are boring as sin without any driving goals - some kind of constant cause or motive that they work towards - and that's a pretty good one with a lot of levels to it. Why so many people want to play a human with plant-skin/feathers/metal plating is always beyond me. If you want to play a human, play a human. If you're playing something else, embrace the differences that make the races no better or worse than one another, but make them unique. They've all got their strengths and weaknesses (though all pretty much balanced in the end, despite the bias of some), and that's what makes them really bloody entertaining. You get to experience a lifestyle so vastly different from your day-to-day, and race can add a lot to that if you embrace the differences in them from typical humans. After all, the whole point of roleplaying is to play a role. One that is different from yourself. I dunno, I just have a real love for playing characters from vastly different cultures, lifestyles, and mindsets. It's not only interesting and enhances your ability as a writer, but also just really, really fun. also guys pls don't make this into our sixth floran sex thread
As someone who went through this road, couldn't agree more. Also because floran years and hatching fully grown I got to play the character from scratch, with a family that's not just backstory but other people. Also bloody fun.
Agreed; I (and not anyone, really) likes seeing any simplification or abandonment of a race's lore and culture. Especially Chron's post; this is a Floran I'd take seriously; the current examples I see, however, can't. (with a few rare exceptions) It's either a plant suit, the most hated of subraces currently, or it's a tribal. It's the tribals who take it over the top that really get me anymore; as soon as I see one with that goofy mask, wielding a spear, I already know the scene; -He/she/it is going to see some kind of technology; a radio, computer, hologram, etc. -Is going to be either; A) Completely dumbfounded and frightened by the scary talk-box, or B) Stab it. -Wacky misunderstanding fish-out-of-water joke complete! Both plant suits and "primitive" being mistaken for "drooling idiot" are both equally tired tropes.
About the plant suit thing, one of my characters probably fall into that category, but I was just wondering how bad it is. ok, so, my Floran is actually and honest-to-goodness plantsuit. Y'see, he was taken into a human organization that converts it's people into loyal drones with little free will. This is done by using hypnotic commands to overwrite a persons self and replace it with an artificial personality, programmed to be the perfect servant. His tribal personality and instincts were replaced with a different set of values, dictated by said organization. He's basically an A.I. in an organic body. He could really have been any race, I just chose Floran at random, unaware of the whole plantsuit phenomenon. Although it has been fun doing the reverse of most Florans. Instead of trying to act civilized and overcome their tribal natures, he joined a tribe and is trying to better understand his own race.
I'd note any number of things. The creation of a massively influential faction that doesn't exist in the lore. The fact that he's programmed mentally and biologically, not artificially (kind of undermining the whole cloning thing that was done to save him). Why an organization dedicated to absolute order through dominance and brainwashing would waste the time and resources doing it to the most chaotic and biologically obscure race. There are a lot of issues here. A lot of issues. However. He does have an advantage over others in that I suppose he is technically a developing character. Not a developed one.
Oh, yeah, I know. He has a lot of work to be done. Now, about some of your concerns; 1. about the cloning. He backed up his memories on the clone up to a certain point (about a year and a half ago, before his station was stolen), and the programming happened before that, so it still takes effect. 2. He was a prototype. a failed one, actually. It was proven that you couldn't program Florans without inducing massive mental disorders. But since florans were so tough and would make good fighters, it was considered worth a shot. 3. The organization is not strong, or even still functioning any more. It was nipped in the bud by the miniknog, in a retaliatory stroke so inconsequential to the whole ministry that it is most likely forgotten. so yeah, like I said, he's still very, very much in development, and thanks for the input.
http://community.playstarboundrp.co...n-depth-by-professor-oak-ic-ooc-khaltor.5172/ On Floran biology: it's not PERFECT , but it's something. Think i may revise it some time in the future. Think my Glitch article is better, personally.
The thing about that article is it's still just the conjecture of one person. I could hardly support such a thing as more than hypothesis. And while entertaining to read, I imagine that most Floran players have payed little attention to it in way of headcanon. Personally, the biology/inner-workings of an entire species is something I'd prefer to leave vague and up-for discussion than in the hands of any one person. Buuut... this thread's been more about cultural issues and people playing barely-Floran Florans, and a bit of discussion on character development, rather than that of straight biology (as it's pretty much confirmed Florans have no differentiation in gender, the biology lesson's passed.)
It's been discussed and modified by the staff as well. It's ICly a 1-man article, OOCly the moderators helped. Spoiler
True, that's why i said i'd like to revise it sometime, leave some stuff a bit more open-ended and utilise some lore from the item descriptions in order to find some additional information.
