Character Things

First question, if a character dies how will replacement characters be handled?

That's my only actual question regarding that.

The other things I've got are a number of character concepts and I'm having a difficult time picking one and would like feedback on which you guys think is the most worth pursuing.

Security Characters

A Serbian veteran of the Yugoslav wars, a hardened killer who is largely part of the ISG for financial gain as killing is the trade he knows best. (Milos Savic)

An English veteran of Afghanistan, a professional soldier who has never quite been able to re-adjust to civilian life, he simply sees the ISG as chance to be in the environment he thrives in. (Nigel Myles)

A French gendarme who longs to do something more with himself, the nature of the ISG intrigues him and he sees it as a way to be in the history books. (Jean-Raymond Savoie)

Researcher Characters

A Ukrainian journalist who hopes to keep copies of the footage he takes within the Zone as ammunition against the government in order to cause more discontent and protests, a politically minded individual in his heart of hearts. (Ilya Soskin)


Doctor Characters

Some kind of military medic, still needs fleshing out.

Some kind of humanitarian aid worker, still needs fleshing out.

Scientist Characters

American physicist, still needs fleshing out.

Some kind of biologist or anthropologist (studying Zone life, studying those who live IN the zone.)

Lestrade wrote:First question, if a character dies how will replacement characters be handled?

That's my only actual question regarding that.

One character from each role will have a satellite phone with them that is used for contact with the UN. We'll use those for reporting our progress on the mission each day, and we'll have to ICly climb to a tall place to even get service with those. We will also use those to call in reinforcements (AKA new people coming in the server, or new characters from people who already were in it to start with), which will come in through the marshes. Everytime a new character is introduced, the group moves down to the marshes to meet them, which will also allow us to find new quests while backtracking, fight some more enemies and find things we missed on our first pass in a map, all that good stuff.

Lestrade wrote:Researcher Characters

A Ukrainian journalist who hopes to keep copies of the footage he takes within the Zone as ammunition against the government in order to cause more discontent and protests, a politically minded individual in his heart of hearts. (Ilya Soskin)

All very nice concepts, apart from this one- no ukrainian residents are allowed into the ISG because, well, the UN isn't even supposed to be in Ukraine to begin with. I say just go with whatever character concept you feel you'll have fun with the most.

One character from each role will have a satellite phone with them that is used for contact with the UN. We'll use those for reporting our progress on the mission each day, and we'll have to ICly climb to a tall place to even get service with those. We will also use those to call in reinforcements (AKA new people coming in the server, or new characters from people who already were in it to start with), which will come in through the marshes. Everytime a new character is introduced, the group moves down to the marshes to meet them, which will also allow us to find new quests while backtracking, fight some more enemies and find things we missed on our first pass in a map, all that good stuff.


All very nice concepts, apart from this one- no ukrainian residents are allowed into the ISG because, well, the UN isn't even supposed to be in Ukraine to begin with. I say just go with whatever character concept you feel you'll have fun with the most.

Okay- so how is the ISG supposed to communicate with the locals? Google translate and a basic language class aren't going to cut it for getting nuance across and they absolutely will require a native speaker if they don't want to get absolutely fucked.

How is a basic language course not going to cut it? They don't need to be 100% completely fluent, just enough to understand and speak basic ukrainian.

Absolutely will miss subtle nuance in language, i.e. is this guy joking or threatening you?

Is this guy being sarcastic or is he being friendly?

There's a lot you miss if you only have the most basic grasp of a language.

A native speaker would be ideal, but you definitely require someone who is fluent enough to notice things like that.

Those are things you can distinguish by body language, tone and by using a pinch of common sense. If you have a few armed bandits shady individuals cornering you and the rest of the group, it's safe to assume they're not there to give you a tour of the place, even if you and your compadres don't speak 100% fluent ukrainian. And even then, that's a price we will probably have to pay in some situations. As for the guide stuff, even if the ISG is a cut faction and even with the assload of changes we did to them in this server's lore, they went into the Zone without any guides and we plan to keep it that way.