Old characters vs. Young/New characters

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lanyara
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Old characters vs. Young/New characters

#1 Post by lanyara » Sun Mar 14, 2010 8:31 am

To me it seems as if usually younger characters are a lot less afraid to "risk" something than old characters. So in a way, often young characters are more fun to interact with because they aren't so heavily entrenched into certain things yet.

Well, it is understandable on many levels that older characters are more afraid to risk something, I think:

- Breaking the law could restrict in what you can do with your character (or at least it requires of you to have enough gold coins to pay, but even if you pay, the same deterrent will be back in place again, and you'd be less likely to break it if you can not afford it). The scribes guild is a good example because it seems very difficult to have an evil scribe. Or being an outlaw in Arborea for instance. (I have no idea if the scribes guild in Arborea would *want* to have evil scribes at all, or probably ban them anyway, it just seems insanely difficult to have an really evil scribe and stick to it. Just an example.)

- Characters don't really want to change too much. Those who are the hero of today don't really want to be the villain of tomorrow. It would be a bit psychopathic to have a friendly character trying to be .... friends with mostly everyone today, and then tomorrow you try to kill all these friends (even if there are IC reasons for this strange behaviour). Who *really* goes and tries this deliberately? There seem to be so many factors to consider ... losing access to areas is one big deterrent.

I also sometimes wonder if those that like marketplaces would want to lose access from marketplaces/pubs in these areas by becoming extremely evil suddenly ... probably not. But it would be quite a significant change.

How many Sathonys clerics abandoned their ways (no idea if it is even possible, but I couldn't give any example either)? How many Taniel clerics became Sathonys clerics? How many crusaders switched to become servants/slaves of the evil gods?

Granted, these examples are extremely dedicated character concepts and "changing" it would/will have repercussions. But that's just an example ... having character "personalities" and trying to change these would be difficult as well.

If your character is extremely stubborn why would he suddenly stop being stubborn? Perhaps with a proper reason or some event influencing that character ... but this all seems to be a lot harder the longer the background story a character already has. Different events or situations helped form that character.

- Newbies sometimes make "mistakes" which can lead to difficult situations. A good example was a newbie character who went on to say he'd want to worship all deities. Pretty crazy idea for any established/old character or? I mean... how can you worship Taniel and Evren AND Lilith and Sathonys all at the same time
... that's like curing wounds, giving coins to a beggar, cheating him, luring him away... for use in a ritual to turn him into something else. Perhaps the net result would be that all gods hate him, even Lilith if that char would suddenly kill only Lilith creatures ... :D

It's however a quite cool idea as well (worshipping more deities) because I haven't heard it before to this extent. I doubt any old character would have this idea and talk about it ... Older characters may perhaps sometimes do deliberate mistakes (respect to these players) but normally I think they will heavily try to cut back on doing mistakes in general.

I am not entirely sure if I am getting somewhere with this here, but I think taking risks in general by older characters should be more awarded ... somehow.

Now, I have absolutely no real idea how or whether that would be good or bad.

It just strikes me as partially strange that only (or mostly) new or young characters do "different" things. At least compared to the older ones.
Because everyone else seems mostly content with "sticking" to how things are rather than stepping up and trying to change something (even if that fails).
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Re: Old characters vs. Young/New characters

#2 Post by Delmon » Sun Mar 14, 2010 2:42 pm

- Characters don't really want to change too much. Those who are the hero of today don't really want to be the villain of tomorrow. It would be a bit psychopathic to have a friendly character trying to be .... friends with mostly everyone today, and then tomorrow you try to kill all these friends (even if there are IC reasons for this strange behaviour). Who *really* goes and tries this deliberately? There seem to be so many factors to consider ... losing access to areas is one big deterrent.
My character has switched alot...

I know of a tshahark has gone from crusader to shaolin to crusader... I know 2 dwarves that have gone asral cleric to crussie and taniel cleric. Lanyara, you and Matusalem dropped the cleric status. Phelan was a strong warcleric and then changed to a sathos cleric. I feel changes do happen, and for good reasons.

Maybe what you are looking for it for some people to shake things up. I personally enjoy that some of the asrals are being "war"clerics and fighting the trio of good guilds. I kind of hope the sathos and asrals team up and try to invade elvandar. I wouldn't mind a few characters deciding they can't stand the goodies anymore and challenging us. --or-- someone could challenge the rangers, or beat up the shaolin. Maybe the scribes could take on a "neutrality of action" principle and never kick people out of the scribes?

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Re: Old characters vs. Young/New characters

#3 Post by ganandorf » Sun Mar 14, 2010 4:04 pm

I think switching from good to evil is easy enough to do. But don't expect to be a sathos cleric right away (if ever) being a follower of one wouldn't be too hard. Hell I know of two crusaders who are already followers and have done pretty well.

Switching from evil to good imo is impossible. As a human i think it's going to be pretty hard to get people to trust you again. As a darkelf... i remember someone tried 1 or 2 years ago and it was...impossible?
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Re: Old characters vs. Young/New characters

#4 Post by Arwenth » Sun Mar 14, 2010 5:29 pm

lanyara wrote: Characters don't really want to change too much. Those who are the hero of today don't really want to be the villain of tomorrow. It would be a bit psychopathic to have a friendly character trying to be .... friends with mostly everyone today, and then tomorrow you try to kill all these friends (even if there are IC reasons for this strange behaviour). Who *really* goes and tries this deliberately? There seem to be so many factors to consider ... losing access to areas is one big deterrent.


Sometimes character change is gradual and people don't see it happening out in the open because they're not close to characters in question. What people see in the market place or a character acting officially might not be all there is to the character so changes happen without the general mud populace being aware of it.
How many Sathonys clerics abandoned their ways (no idea if it is even possible, but I couldn't give any example either)? How many Taniel clerics became Sathonys clerics? How many crusaders switched to become servants/slaves of the evil gods?

Granted, these examples are extremely dedicated character concepts and "changing" it would/will have repercussions. But that's just an example ... having character "personalities" and trying to change these would be difficult as well.
They are extreme examples and from my understanding do happen. I don't know of any Sathonite clerics who just decide to hang up their robes and stuff but from what I've been exposed to ICly there have been some other drastic changes like darkelves converting back.
There are former Crusaders however who've decided to be evil, one of whom became a darkelf.
If your character is extremely stubborn why would he suddenly stop being stubborn? Perhaps with a proper reason or some event influencing that character ... but this all seems to be a lot harder the longer the background story a character already has. Different events or situations helped form that character.
I think that right there sums up why older characters don't just change.
It just strikes me as partially strange that only (or mostly) new or young characters do "different" things. At least compared to the older ones.
Because everyone else seems mostly content with "sticking" to how things are rather than stepping up and trying to change something (even if that fails).


Like you previously said the longer a background a character has the more RP and influencing events it would take to change them. New characters have more flex room because they haven't interacted with others long enough for people to start expecting them to behave a certain way based on past behaviour. For an older character, certain things just wouldn't make sense and it would in my opinion weaken RP to have someone just have a random change with no rp/events to support it.
ganandorf wrote:I think switching from good to evil is easy enough to do. But don't expect to be a sathos cleric right away (if ever) being a follower of one wouldn't be too hard. Hell I know of two crusaders who are already followers and have done pretty well.

Switching from evil to good imo is impossible. As a human i think it's going to be pretty hard to get people to trust you again. As a darkelf... i remember someone tried 1 or 2 years ago and it was...impossible?
I personally don't think it should be easy to switch from either side, not just being accepted on both sides by other players, but the character themselves. Switching in ideology should be easier than switching in practice.

For example if Arwenth left the Crusade today to become evil she shouldn't just be cool with every evil thing there is. There should be some sort of internal conflict because there's been a lot of teaching and such to the contrary of what she's now doing.

As for getting people to trust you and such, I think a good way to go about that would be to talk to a particular person on the side you want to switch to and get them to at least not suspect you of foul play out of the gate. It's easier from what I've seen in general (like in regards to karma and certain things) if there's someone to vouch for you, I know Arwenth has vouched for people before a couple of times...
“He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.”

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Re: Old characters vs. Young/New characters

#5 Post by lanyara » Fri Mar 19, 2010 11:44 am

The crusader and darkelf example is a bit too extreme perhaps because both have not much free room to really act.
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