If Only They'd Look Closer (Ali Q&A)

[Ali ibn Farid]

Actually, you can look closer! Feel free to ask me things.

[Kezia]

Biggest opportunity you feel Ali missed?

Biggest change from concept to execution?

Biggest mechanical regret in Ali's construction?

[Lamis Naaji]

Curious about Ali's place in the order, honestly. How'd he fall in with them?

[Ali ibn Farid]

Hrm. Well, dice hate plus misreading the rules lead Ali to do much worse in the last event than I wanted. If I'd read more carefully, I'd have stopped after 2 shots, and at least not have infamy. He also had a respectable pool, so his odds of hitting were fairly good; alas, dice.

I did also manage to avoid any shreds of plot. I think this must have been a skill on my part; I did a bunch of threads with Soraya, but only heard a little about her plot. I wonder if I should have done something differently!

Hrm hrm. Have you played any late Bioware games? Where you have a dialogue wheel, and there are options that say "flirt" on them, or have hearts next to them? I almost always hit those, and sometimes that affects my pbp play. Such was the case for Ali.

I'm not sure if I have any mechanical regrets except for "shoot, why didn't I somehow have more xp?"

[Ali ibn Farid]

Curious about Ali's place in the order, honestly. How'd he fall in with them?

Aha! This is a sort of interesting backstory bit that, in the way of many interesting backstory bits, never came up.

Ali used to be basically a petty street rat. He was spotted by a member of the order standing up to other street rats for what was right, and consequently getting the crap beaten out of him. Ali was supposed to be a little rough, a little low, but always doing the right thing. That... was probably big picture true, not small picture true.

I hope that's sufficient. I know I've told you about my complete inability to retain LBS knowledge, somehow. Seriously, I need to figure out a way to anchor the bits that I come across or something.

[Soraya al-Menjari]

Did Ali have any threads with working as a City Guard? Or as an Ebonite Templar? They never actually came up in the threads with Sora~

[Ali ibn Farid]

He had 2 as a city guard; one was required for the disadvantage, the other was because patrolling seems like a good way to have interesting things happen!

As a Templar, no. He does keep quiet about that. It's the sort of thing that he'd almost certainly mention to Soraya at some point. I'm not sure how distinctive the swords are; could anyone who sees his weapon be possibly knowing that he's an Ebonite? But being an Ebonite informed a lot about the character, anyway, mostly with how he felt about people, and the state of the city.

[Al-Haddar]

Just how many conflicting loyalties did Ali ibn Farid have (one for the Ebonite, one for the Khadi, one for himself...)? Did that end up locking him out of some plot hooks, due to stuff like "I can't do that without breaking my guard cover" for example?

[Ali ibn Farid]

Both good questions that I'm not sure I have good answers to!

Ali didn't have much loyalty to the Khadi. Trade that for one for the city. I was a bit inspired by the Ebonite write-up in which they're basically good, but they have a sacred duty to guard a rock, and can't be spending a bunch of effort doing other things. This was horribly confining for Ali, who took on guard duty as a way to make the best of a bad situation, a way to use skills and help people, at least a little.

During the course of the game, his loyalties never came into conflict. It's certainly possible they could, and if reprised, that they might. I suppose we'll have to see how that turns out.

I don't think it locked him out of plot hooks; Ali was interested in helping people, and not interested in hurting... good people. I feel like that's enough to get involved in a lot of things.