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After trying and failing to get into a play-by-post of Against the Aeon Throne, I want to prepare for the next time there's an audition for a play-by-post of it here. I want to create a character that fits Against the Aeon Throne's themes and narrative arc perfectly, something that could fit well into any group, and that isn't a solarian as I'm currently playing one in a Dead Suns play-by-post, and I'm honestly struggling to come up with a concept.
While I don't object to spoilers, people have been telling me I really should cut back on them if I want to play instead of GM, so I put the spoiler warning in the title just in case anything from the AP comes up here.
I know that each core theme has a connection with Cedona, the NPC whose rescue the AP centers on, but beyond that, I'm not sure what to make. I'd greatly appreciate any suggestions and advice on how to make the best Against the Aeon Throne PC I can possibly make. Thank you! :)
Well, I've only played 2/3 of AtAT, but so far the entire thing has had a very Star Wars action spinoff feel. Liberating a colony from an evil empire, docking at a station full of scum and villainy, and pulling off a daring prison break are all very Star Wars-y adventures. So maybe watch some Star Wars: Rebels and get inspiration that way?
Are you playing in a Society PBP? If not, I might suggest the R2-D2 role of an SRO Operative or Mechanic. If you are doing SFS, an Operative may still be the best choice as a daring space rogue who has all the right skills to fill in for the other players as needed.
What you probably shouldn't do is play a leader type; because you expect to be spoiled on the details, you may be best off playing the helpful sidekick who does as instructed instead of the guy coming up with the plans, already knowing if they will work or not.
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I'm in an AtAT (WOW I just noticed it even abbreviates to AT AT) play-by-post myself using Role Gate (Pretty nice setup they have over there BTW) and it does indeed have a bit of a star wars feel.
I'm personally playing a Mystic/Xenodruid Ysoki and I'm loving it, playing it up with an anti-high tech attitude and working from a Cultist Background so superstition and ritual respect of others faiths are a big driver of his actions/personality and I'm having a blast.
I took Squox Companion for my first feat to help mesh the character with naturalism and the GM indicated that it would be perfect for us to have animals from the same litter and that we would occasionally pet-sit each others Squox while out of town and I'm unsure if that's part of the existing lore/material but it made me feel like the PC was a good fit for things.
As for YOUR character idea, it all really depends to be honest, the adventure has a good number of NPCs you're supposed to interact with and become allies to so I suggest being sure you invest at least SOME of your creativity towards thinking about and improving how they interact with others when NOT just shooting at them from behind cover. Additionally, it seems there is a good amount of room in the first adventure at least for room to improvise on how to deal with the situations that happen so an adaptable/well rounded PC is advisable.
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Well all you really need is a character would would fit as a crew member of a tramp merchantman.
Han Solo and Chewie (uplited bear or nuar) are a couple of archetypes the crews in firefly or Farscape are oher examples.
This was kind of what I'd originally gone with in the game I failed to get recruited for: a nuar mechanic who later got tweaked into a borai technomancer.
I thought technomancer would be interesting, and nuars are awesome for that, but I also wanted to eventually build a cool DIY maze-core weapon, but it seems like in order to get the most out that I'd need to sink two feats into proficiencies for Advanced Melee Weapons and Longarms, since most Basic Melee Weapons aren't powered, which is a requirement to make an item maze-core, meaning it'd be better for a soldier or an exocortex mechanic, and it feels like the games I've attempted to join get a lot of those as applicants...
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Having mulled over this for a week, I've been thinking about another aspect of this.
I know that, following the "Rebel Alliance" flavor of the AP, there will most likely be opportunities for disguise shenanigans, so part of me feels like being able to impersonate an Aeon Guard would be a good character aspect, but to do that I'd need to be human or human-adjacent, and since I'm playing a human in a different Starfinder game (not AtAT) I feel like I've used up my "human PC" card, and I should play one of the alien species for variety's sake. Astrazoans, borais and endiffans can all disguise themselves as humans, and even half-elves and half-orcs probably could too in a pinch...not reptoids, though, since currently the text of Starfinder paints them as primarily antagonists, with no real suggestions as to how one would behave as a PC, presumably without ties to the overarching reptoid conspiracy.
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Hey Archpaladin --
I thought I'd chime in here. I'd like you to read Willmannator's Guide to Successful Play-by-Post recruitment and use it to give yourself insights as to how GMs approach the recruitment conundrum.
Builds aside, there are a number of things that a potential GM could be looking for from you:
1) Are you a consistent poster? Do you keep up posting frequency? How about post quality? Are most of your posts fun, with RP as well as die rolls?
2) Did you read the recruitment, answer my questions, build an appropriate character? This is the number one place where players will get themselves eliminated. I will tell you that you did build a theme-appropriate character for ATAT, and you did read my recruitment. This is one you have locked down already, and that will put you ahead of the pack when the next GM comes along.
3) Do you engage the other players, and build relationships with them? I'll admit that I'm a lingerie-checker. I go through people's posting history, and look for posts that provide RP hooks for other players. This is a rare quality in PBP, and it really helps to build chemistry.
4) Do you push gameplay and move the story forward in interesting ways? Once again, a rare quality in PBP that I am always searching for.
5) Do you have a strong sense of your character's personality, and does it come out in your posts? I like players who know who their characters are, and who have a strong feel for them as people.
★ --- ★ --- ★ --- ★
As the GM who most recently reviewed you in recruitment, you should know that you came really close. I usually select my teams around a couple of key players, and then build from there. In this case, I wound up picking two people as my first selections: Prosper's enthusiastic and gentle astrozoan, and Professor Spec's Oso Xaursi. Professor Spec was my 'new player' selection, and he built something off the race I wrote, so he was an auto-selection. Prosper brought so much happy energy that he was the other auto-select for me. Everyone else was selected to build some chemistry off those two.
I wanted a fairly balanced team mechanically, but I was also looking for personalities that would spark off of each other, and build chemistry. It's more art than science. A lot of it is guesswork. In the end, I rejected a number of solid applicants because of how I envisioned the group chemistry.
By all means, apply for the next PBP to come along, and good luck! Remember that everyone gets rejected, but eventually you'll find the one where you click.
Yours sincerely,
Hmm
Sometimes it just comes down to numbers. I did get selected for the game HMM is running. I felt like my character was awesome and an easy choice. But there were probably two dozen others just as good or better. Maybe on a different day or with a different GM the submission you made would've gotten in. I wouldn't personally change the character you had in mind, if that's what you want to play then refine that character with HMM's advice above.
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Hey Archpaladin --
I thought I'd chime in here. I'd like you to read Willmannator's Guide to Successful Play-by-Post recruitment and use it to give yourself insights as to how GMs approach the recruitment conundrum.
Builds aside, there are a number of things that a potential GM could be looking for from you:
1) Are you a consistent poster? Do you keep up posting frequency? How about post quality? Are most of your posts fun, with RP as well as die rolls?
2) Did you read the recruitment, answer my questions, build an appropriate character? This is the number one place where players will get themselves eliminated. I will tell you that you did build a theme-appropriate character for ATAT, and you did read my recruitment. This is one you have locked down already, and that will put you ahead of the pack when the next GM comes along.
3) Do you engage the other players, and build relationships with them? I'll admit that I'm a lingerie-checker. I go through people's posting history, and look for posts that provide RP hooks for other players. This is a rare quality in PBP, and it really helps to build chemistry.
4) Do you push gameplay and move the story forward in interesting ways? Once again, a rare quality in PBP that I am always searching for.
5) Do you have a strong sense of your character's personality, and does it come out in your posts? I like players who know who their characters are, and who have a strong feel for them as people.
Thank you, this was very helpful!
As the GM who most recently reviewed you in recruitment, you should know that you came really close. I usually select my teams around a couple of key players, and then build from there. In this case, I wound up picking two people as my first selections: Prosper's enthusiastic and gentle astrozoan, and Professor Spec's Oso Xaursi. Professor Spec was my 'new player' selection, and he built something off the race I wrote, so he was an auto-selection. Prosper brought so much happy energy that he was the other auto-select for me. Everyone else was selected to build some chemistry off those two.
I wanted a fairly balanced team mechanically, but I was also looking for personalities that would spark off of each other, and build chemistry. It's more art than science. A lot of it is guesswork. In the end, I rejected a number of solid applicants because of how I envisioned the group chemistry.
By all means, apply for the next PBP to come along, and good luck! Remember that everyone gets rejected, but eventually you'll find the one where you click.
Yours sincerely,
Hmm
Thank you. I confess that part of why I posted this thread was because I felt kind of jealous of the others that got picked, and from what I saw in your recent thread showing the campaign, you're right about that chemistry thing (especially Prosper, since I know his talent both as a fellow player in the Dead Suns game I'm in where he was the eccentric shirren ex-pirate Grix, and when he stepped in to become the GM for the game when our initial GM had to depart.).
I'm glad you folks are having fun, and honestly, looking at that guide you posted reminded me of that. Part of me has been desperately scrambling to find play-by-posts of any of the APs to sort of "tick all the boxes" in my Paizo book collection as a way of justifying the cost of my subscription to myself, and that's been making the game feel like work, and when your fun starts feeling like work, most people will tell you you should take a break.
I need to rediscover what makes this fun for me. Again, thank you for the kind words.