New Britannia Lore

Richard Garriot has created for us a very special and unique place with its own history, lore and rules but not even with 9 games plus spin-offs can tell us everything there is to know about the world of New Britannia or its history. There’s a lot we don’t know but we should not be afraid to explore the possibilities that gaps in lore represent.

With that in mind, any story we want to tell should remain true to what we know about the world we’re in.

Consistency of Character

If there’s one idea I would stress it is be consistent. Consistency is a strong foundation upon which you build a believable story through your character(s).

An important concept behind RP in SotA is that in words of Richard Garriot, “you are you”. Meaning that your character is a representation of your real life self. The most literal interpretation of which is that according to the SotA back story, you the player have literally stepped through a lunar rift and found yourself in New Britannia.

A more flexible interpretation is what I subscribe to which is play honestly. Meaning play consistently according to your character.

The intention of the “you are you” philosophy is that players do not game the system. They do not play virtuously one moment and an evil villain the next for personal gain. This is in part because the game is meant to track your behavior and if you do not play consistently the results will not accurately reflect upon your character.

Unfortunately the “you are yourself from Earth”, while an easy way to describe the intent of honest play, is neither sustainable nor reflected in the characters played even by Portalarium. If in reality, we ourselves stepped through a portal with no way home an in a hostile environment, most of us would not suddenly pick up a sword and start adventuring.

Lord British himself is an example of a character that does not reflect the personality of his player. Richard, who as a game developer vies for features like cannibalism probably would not be a prime example of a champion of virtue.

Naturally, there is nothing wrong with your character being an alternate version of your real life self. The point I’m trying to make here is that so long as you understand the intention of the “you are you” philosophy, there’s no reason you feel obligated to do so.

From Earth and Beyond

According to the SotA intro movie, again we are ourselves from Earth. According to SotA lore however, that is not our only option. Now at this point to explain why SotA lore supports origins other than Earth I would have to give away a minor spoiler. Which I’m not going to do so you’ll just have to take my word for it or read the prequel story in Blade of the Avatar.

If that isn’t good enough for you, we can reach back into Ultima lore. Britannia has had many characters from several different worlds. While most of the ‘avatars’ from Ultima are in fact from Earth, several are not.

In Ultima VII, Gorn was from Pagan as was the master of the forest in Serpent Isle. The population of an entire island also travelled from Serpent Isle to Pagan. Ultima Underworld II has not only the Avatar travelling to and from many different worlds but also individuals travelling from another world to Britannia.

The bottom line here is that Britannia (now New Britannia) has always had ways to travel to and from any number of worlds and not just Earth.

Living in New Britannia

Role-Play by its very nature is spontaneous. We are all acting out our vision of our character according to our vision of the world our character lives in and that world was forged with the vision of someone else entirely. No matter how you slice it, eventually we will all have moments of conflict. Moments where our respective visions collide and will need to find a way for them to co-exist.

Recognizing that inconsistencies exist and dealing with them is one of the many challenges to role-play. Some common issues you may find may involve the player’s perception of time or interpretation of lore.

There are a couple of approaches we can take to reconcile the differences in knowledge and perception between players through our role-play. Let me give some examples.

Player A believes that avatars can only come from Earth through a lunar rift because that is part of the game’s lore. Player B’s character claims to have landed in a space ship from another world. Solution: Character A simply believes character B is crazy. After all, character A would might never believe such a far fetched story. It doesn’t really matter what Player A thinks of Player B. What matters is how their respective characters would realistically interact with each other.

In a sense, in the example above, if character A had insisted avatars can only be from Earth, player A would’ve been meta-gaming as there is no in-game evidence to support that claim which is based solely on player knowledge rather than character knowledge. Insisting that long distance space travel is impossible is simply the character’s opinion.

Next example: Player A reads two history books written by other players but the information in both books contradict each other. Are either even considered lore?

This example is like any conflicting interpretation of events in real life. Both could be completely wrong. What happens though if both books are written by someone at Portalarium? Same thing.

Any perceived conflict in lore, past, present or future is like any other interpretation of events and they can’t all be reconciled. All you can really do is decide for yourself what you (and your character) believe. That belief in itself doesn’t make anything true but that belief provides your character a foundation to work from.

For myself, I simply dismiss that which makes the least sense and take that which does make sense and try to reconcile that. SotA’s lore regarding the origins of avatars for example and the intro movie establishing conditions by which avatars have come to New Britannia. I regard this as the set up for the single player game and in that it works. For multiplayer it simply makes no sense at all.

The intro movie is one example of what for me cannot be reconciled with Ultima lore as I know it. Another example which is difficult (if not impossible) to reconcile is a player’s perception of time. Player A’s character has lived in New Britannia for 50 years.. Player B’s character for 20 years.. yet both players know they each started playing at the same time. What do you do?

The short answer to time paradox conflicts? Just let it go. We each have our own story and we tell it like we want to. Sometimes it’s best to just let each player tell their story their way. There’s no point in confronting each other about our perception of time as it relates to our characters and doing so may be seen as interference by the other player. Not only will it ruin the experience for the story teller but also for those listening to the story.

Some Avatars really are from Earth

Not everyone role-players full time and let’s face it, some people don’t do it at all. Fortunately, SotA’s back story provides an explanation for potential out of character dialogue between characters.

A lot of players will be playing Avatars from Earth, either in the vain of “you are you” or perhaps for some other reason. This allows their characters to retain knowledge of modern day Earth and it would not be unusual for such characters to talk about their old home.

This is something we should all bear in mind and try to be understanding about. Normally coming across two or more characters talking about the latest movie they saw would break immersion but in SotA there is legitimate reason for those kinds of discussions to take place. It’s part of the world we will be role-playing in.

Multiple Characters & Separation of Knowledge

Whether you are only playing one character or many, it is important to remember that each character you play is its own person, as are you. You are in control but your characters may often have no way of knowing what you know. Likewise, each character’s memories and knowledge are unique to them.

Often when deciding what your character is going to do you might ask yourself whether or not the character is acting out of their knowledge or your own. The difference can often mean your character will respond differently in any given situation. Acting out of player knowledge can be a bad habit or even meta-gaming if your character(s) don’t have a legitimate reason to possess that knowledge.

By the same token, your characters know more about the world they are in than you do. This may be a little harder to deal with so let me give an example.

Let’s say we have two players. One player might say they are going to groom their horse starting with a hard brush followed by a soft brush, they’re going to pick their horse’s hooves, feed it oats and so on. They might go to great lengths to describe what they’re doing because they have that personal knowledge.

The other player on the other hand just says “I’m taking care of my horse”. We can readily assume all the details are taken care of properly because the character (rather than the player) has that knowledge. Relying on character knowledge is perfectly acceptable and even encouraged in situations where player knowledge is inadequate. However, it is up to you to establish what your character(s) know.

There are two approaches to dealing with multiple characters. Allowing your characters to interact with each other can be a slippery slope especially when there is no 3rd party involved. The use of multiple characters to share resources can be considered cheating by some and is often frowned upon, even more so when your characters have no reason to interact.

Family members or characters belonging to the same group (ie guild) provides a legitimate reason for characters to come into virtual contact with each other. SotA facilitates family ties by forcing characters on the same account to share a family name. Without this kind of connection there is little justification for unrelated characters to ever meet and so they should not share uncommon knowledge or items.

An alternative approach to item sharing is using a legitimate 3rd party. For example, I had a crafter character who would make custom weapons and armors which would then be put up for sale on a vendor at a reasonable market price. One of my other characters would then purchase those items at full price from that vendor. My characters never came into contact with each other, the full price of the items changed hands and there was always the (theoretical) chance the items could be bought by someone else, a legitimate business transaction.

Simply not allowing your characters any kind of interaction may sometimes be a challenge but it is also the easiest way to play honestly. Without a legitimate 3rd party or close ties of some kind, explaining a connection between characters is often difficult and it’s probably best to simply have no connection at all.

When all is said and done, it is up to you the player to decide how you want to play. The most important thing is that everyone is having fun.