Poll: Third VS Fourth Age

[Arnyn]

Before you start fleshing out new characters or rebooting old ones, this important question arises!

[Oro]

Alright looks like 4th age it is. Total 17 people answered, 12 to 5. It’s been almost 3 days. I’d saw we know our answer.

Gondor has chosen THE FOURTH AGE.

[Narv]

Mordorians hate this one weird trick!

[Pele Alarion]

All right. 4th age then. On to working on character development!

[Arnyn]

Narv

Well then come get us!

OH WAIT - you can't, cause itty bitty Sauron has gone bye-bye.

So sad.

*throws Fourth Age party*

[Winddancer]

Hey, just because Sauron was defeated, doesnt mean evil was :P Room to create someone even MORE evil! So beware! Muahahaha!! :P

[Burnt Toast]

Mordorians hate this one weird trick!

One trick? Ohhh just you wait. :twisted:

EDIT: why do I always sound like a minion

[Finduilas Faelivrin]

Hey, you Mordorians! Nothing can be worse than these allergies I'm suffering! Ah-choo!! By the way, @Narv, I think you're just swell for opening up our playgrounds again - Cave Troll or no Cave Troll. hehe Hopefully we won't break it whatever Age everyone is in!

[Winddancer]

Ooooh.. Ultimate evil.. lure us all in, get us all exited about being back and then BAM! All gone! :O NARV! No! Put down that button!

[Arnyn]

Where are these sudden Third Agers coming from?

[Winddancer]

From your worst nightmares! :P

[Burnt Toast]

I mean, Mordor could still rp in the third age. This is just for Gondor's Kingdom vote, methinks. I know that's weird hopping back and forth, but eh. Nu Plaza. Gotta party while we can!

[Winddancer]

Oh we know it is just for Gondor (and well any kingsdom that follows suit). And yes we kinda have to stick with 3rd age, cause well, aint really a Mordor in 4th lol. That's not to say we won't have any threads set in the 4th age, cause I plan on doing some WD rp in the free rp thread to sorta tell the story what happened to her after Sauron was defeated :)

[Pele Alarion]

Let the mountains separate the 3rd age in the east from the 4th age in the west. :P

[Burnt Toast]

@Winddancer Makes sense! The Plaza has gone in and out of that, haven't we? (As in not everyone always being in the same timeline).

I think that's kind of fun; provides rp'ing options with a lot of variety by hopping kingdoms XD

@Pele Alarion Ha, handy mountains and their time travel powers.

[Ercassie]

Hey, just because Sauron was defeated, doesnt mean evil was :P Room to create someone even MORE evil! So beware! Muahahaha!! :P

I should think fourth age RP would offer brilliant opportunities for Minions, for that very reason ! After all, third age minions ., we already know they’re/Sauron is going to lose !

In the fourth age, well, who knows ?! And in fourth age Gondor, a minion, particularly of the non-orc persuasion might get further than any third age equivalent would have ever gotten, by claiming some sort of emissary from their surviving people (even if it only a ruse to get in and try to assassinate the new King !)

[Arnyn]

Ercassie's totally right. Although seriously, give the enemy some more ideas, would you?
Windy, yeeeees! See the opportunities the Fourth Age allows? haha
Toast: you think you sound like a minion because you're mischievous! But being mischievous doesn't mean you have to be a minion! (I hope :smiley8: )

[Tangua Fairborne]

Hey, just because Sauron was defeated, doesnt mean evil was :P Room to create someone even MORE evil! So beware! Muahahaha!! :P

I think I would prefer an Evil Minion role. Much simpler to integrate and justify. :)

[Oro]

The original plaza was 4th age and it worked wonderfully for everyone, the revamps and 3rd age was weird because it was hard not to step on the toes of canon. You constantly had to ask yourself “Where were the canon characters during this time and what events were happening” so that you didn’t mess with it too much. I much prefer 4th age even for minions. Give them some new bosses and evil to play with .

[Burnt Toast]

Toast: you think you sound like a minion because you're mischievous! But being mischievous doesn't mean you have to be a minion! (I hope :smiley8: )

Nah, Gondor always in my heart. But I can always do mischief here and hop to Mordor to play minions. Options abound.

[Winddancer]

@Oro On the original Plaza, Mordor was 3rd age. Don't know if that then changed with the realms, but to my knowledge Mordor was always 3rd. And while I dont mind threads with 4th age, you cant really set all of Mordor in 4th, as there would be no Mordor :P

[Oro]

@Winddancer im pretty sure Khazaddum and Gondor were 4th age. Kind of hard to have a 3rd age Khazad dum set after the clearing of the halls. And Aragorn was making edicts in Gondor. I also am fairly sure the Plaza had a note somewhere that said it's official timeline was 4th age. Ill look around.

[Winddancer]

I was saying Mordor, not the rest of the plaza :P We had to stay 3rd age as otherwise there would be no Mordor. I know MT was 4th, but pretty sure Lorien wasn't as otherwise they would have gone to Valinor, wouldn't they?

[Arnyn]

Ahh, you two cuties, so caught up in the past. If I didn't know better, I'd call you Gondorians. Being stuck in the past is suppoed to be a Gondorian thing, isn't it?

I guess it doesn't really matter which kingdom was set in which age... *quotes frozen* The past is in the paaaaaaaast! Because we definitely know Gondor is Fourth Age on this revamp. :smiley8:

[Baphởmet]

Perhaps Mordor in the 4th age is run by Bauron, a mysterious maia who looks exactly like the old guy but is definitely not him. And maybe his second in command is the not the Witch King, but the Witch Jack (you thought I was going to say something else, didn't you?).

[Winddancer]

So I get the 4th age was picked, but what year is it then? And more importantly, how many years is that after the destruction of the Ring?

[Turin Ringhûn]

Based on the back story I have for Turin, and how old I have Turin right now, it’d be 17 4th age. But I seriously doubt we’d go that far.

[Galastel]

Based on how old my characters are, it's no more than two or three years since the destruction of the Ring. I am actively referring to the War of the Ring as something in my characters' fairly recent past - they still very much feel the effect of the war on their lives. I'm using the same characters I had on the old plaza, when we were playing in the 3rd age. Since they're not, for the most part, of pure Numenorean blood, and thus don't have superhuman lifespans, I can't actually have a very long gap there - they'd become too old to play.

[Turin Ringhûn]

I had Turin being born in 3004 3rd Age. That lined up with him being about 22 when I joined years ago and we were in about 7 4th age. When the revamp happened and pushed us into the 3rd age, I attempted to play Turin as a child, but it didn’t mesh with what I’d already made for a back story. So I played Turin’s dad and brother, but my heart just wasn’t in it.

If we went back to about 5-7 of the 4th age, I’d have to do some major edits about Turin’s family to get it to work. I could push his date of birth back no problem, but considering I have him essentially being orphaned as a kid, due to the war of the ring, it wouldn’t really work. But that’s the interesting challenge of trying to get everything lined up. So I’m essentially ignoring it.

[Galastel]

Heh. I actually had the same issue with my initial character on the plaza. Galastel was also a war orphan. (I actually did have her orphaned as a kid, raised by some distant relations, and joining up at 17.) Then we went back to 3rd age, and I actually liked playing her aunt and father more (mostly because I grew up and what kind of character I enjoyed playing changed). So now I've got the aunt and the father, who didn't die after all. Arinelle was 20-ish (24, but I can play around with it a bit) when she joined the army. She can't be more than 30 now, because I want the opportunity to play romance, and she's on normal human lifespan.
Also, for characters progressing from 3rd age to 4th, the War of the Ring is this big life-changing event. Sort of really disappointing not to explore the fallout. Not to mention, if you do a large timeskip, the characters will have changed so much they're no longer the same character at all. That last one is really the main thing for me.

Actually, what's going on in Rivendell and the Shire? If Elrond and Frodo are still around, we can't be later than 3 4th age.

[Winddancer]

Wasn't trying to mess things up, just needed to know what the consensus was as Thea has been rp'ed as if it was just a few years ago that the war happened, so was wondering what it actually was.

[Turin Ringhûn]

Galestel, in Rivendell, Aig set the date to 3007 3rd Age. I don’t know about the Shire though.

As for what year we’re in, I know Arnyn had mentioned maybe 5-7 4th Age in the Ranger HQ ooc, but I don’t know if it was officially ever set.

[Moriel]

@Turin Ringhûn @Galastel et all, all the threads in Imladris that have established a timeline are TA 3014 (same as before the plaza died). Aig initially put 3007 but then changed it to 3014

[Turin Ringhûn]

Thanks Moriel for the word on Imladris.

In other news, I was just going through the Tale of Years again to see if my orphan history could still work if I push Turin’s date of birth back to 2994 TA (so he’d be 32 if we go with 7 4th Age, and I can make it work. Like I said earlier, I would have to do some editing of history, but I can make it work if need be.

[Arnyn]

We never settled on a date. :) I'm not gonna make that decision for everyone else... Why should I...

I do agree though that not too long after the War of The Ring is best... Most interesting too perhaps?

Whatever date we choose, there's no way it will work for everyone's character. So everyone will have to show some flexibility there, depending on the version of their characters they want to play. Either change the backstory timeline, or accept whatever age your character is if you don't want to change the past timeline at all, and deal with inevitable things that don't really add up.

For example, Arnyn was about.. 27 when I stopped playing her on FA plaza. But I don't want her to be in her thrities now. :smiley8: I still want to play her as about 27-28, so I "changed" her past age by a few years as if she resigned as commander at 25 (because let's face it, 25 might be young for the position but then so is 27), but kept it vague so it can still work whatever date we end up going with. I know others have played it like the ERC was more than two years ago, and why not if that works best for their characters! It's in the past, does it really matter whether everyone plays it as either 2 years ago or 5 years ago? Let the people do what they want with that? No? Whatever works for the characters and the writer... When RPing together and referencing the past, we'll just have to accept a few incongruities. I know I can live with that more than I can live with a 35 year old Arnyn.

And Kaylin in TA was about 24 and she'd just had a kid. But I'm not playing her as a 40 year old with a teen now. No way! So I just checked with Karis, who's writing her husband, what we could agree on together (since we DO have to agree or writing together won't work at all), and we decided they're still about the same age as we left them but they never actually had the baby. Happiness all around.

[Galastel]

Arnyn yeh, that looks like the wisest solution. Time was always a bit weird on the plaza anyway: years could pass for a character - there'd be winter RPGs and summer RPGs, midwinter ball after midwinter ball, but the year would remain the same.

[Nessa Saelind]

One of the best parts of being in your mid 30s and retconning (I sound like a Marvel/DC author now ) your character now is that I learned to purposefully keep things short and vague so if edits come (and they will come) it can be easier to fit everything in.

Since I'm now older and hopefully smarter than when I first created my character I won't have any great issues while I edit the bio when we finally settle for a year in the 4th age. Or an approximate period of years - whatever we eventually decide to settle on. (On that note should we have another poll or suggestion throwing session?) I'd have to coordinate with @Turin Ringhûn on a few things, but I get the feeling these editing pains will be more painful for him than me. Sorry :P

[Arnyn]

Galastel, yup! :smiley8: It's got pro's too! If you don't want to, your character never has to age! Just builds up more and more experience.

Nessa We're all hoping we're a bit wiser, I think. Let's not dig too deep, there. *g* Take it away on the whole brainstorm session etc, I'd say. Either lead people here to throw in their two cents (you could post in City hall to get people here?), or make a new poll, or... Nu plaza has an open floor, after all!

[Nessa Saelind]

Arnyn - depends on how important this whole which year are we in time vortex matters to folks. :-) I'm with the Everything Goes, I'll Adapt Team here

[Arnyn]

Haha yes, I feel you, Nessa!

[Winddancer]

I don't mind which year you guys go with, but it would be nice if we could come to an agreement so that we are all in the same year when we rp in the Market/Pub/Rangers/HoH and so on :)

[Red Daghul]

I think at this point in the sites life it may be best to leave it kinda up in the air (my thoughts being more towards where Arnyn is saying) if in the future we feel the need to set a date and play from that then we can. I know that I have written on another site that is really really good with date and time (as in it is moving forward with season and such), but we would have a hard time doing that unless the whole plaza decided to adopt that kind of thing.

So my thought and suggestion is we go for anywhere from 2 to 5 years after the plaza shut down, but keep it kinda vague till we see where this all lands.

[Winddancer]

I dont mind leaving it for later, but would like to know sorta generally when the year is. You say 2-5 years after the plaza, but what was it then? I was thinking it was about 2-5 years after the war :P

[Galastel]

I think officially the plaza used to be in 3014. At any rate, it couldn't be later than 3016, since in 3017 we'd start stepping on LotR plot (Gandalf is in Minas Tirith, Gollum is released from Mordor). 2-5 years after that, we'd be smack in the War of the Rings. All of 3019 there's still Plot - Aragorn's wedding, Theoden's funeral, the Scouring of the Shire. The earliest we can be playing is 3020, 3021 making a bit more sense.

(I had to look it up, but we should be clear for the discussion's sake, the Fourth Age doesn't start with the fall of Sauron, but with Frodo, Elrond, and the rest of them departing from the Grey Havens, three years later. Took me by surprise, actually.)

[Winddancer]

But if we are doing 4th age, then the earliest we can rp is after 25th of march 3021, right? And does it then go to year 1, year 2 and so on, or does it continue with 3022 and so on?

[Galastel]

3021 of the Third Age is 1 of the Fourth Age. I've no idea how it's sorted out with the year starting in March and the age ending in October.

[Turin Ringhûn]

I’m for 5-7 of the 4th age (S.R. 1426-1428, Because Gondor starts the fourth age almost a year ahead, could be S.R. 1425-1427).

We could possibly ignore the difference in starting, and just go with sr 1422/3022 as year 1 so that way it’d be more uniform, but whatever.

[Nessa Saelind]

3021 of the Third Age is 1 of the Fourth Age. I've no idea how it's sorted out with the year starting in March and the age ending in October.

Time keeping is arbitrary that's how we sort it out. :D We could mark the end of the 3rd age with the year 3021 and start year 1 F.A. in March... The new years did start in March? I think I remember that correctly.

[Galastel]

New year starts on March 25th, Fall of Sauron. Which makes things even weirder - the year doesn't even start on the 1st of the month.

[Winddancer]

This is breaking my brain lol :P Though I doubt it will be 3021 or 4th 1 anyways, would it? Would it not be a few years later? I was thinking at least 2 after the war.