NPC Patrol and crossing

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ferranifer
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Re: NPC Patrol and crossing

#41 Post by ferranifer » Wed Jul 07, 2010 11:51 am

You guys do know that when you team with people of opposite beliefs, everyone's spider sense tingles, right? This is something that doesn't happen if your beliefs are similar so I guess most people don't realize it, but this situation will almost inevitably lead pretty much instantaneously to a favour check request. I find it quite funny how everyone knows IC exactly what's happening when they get that message as if they all had superpowers.

So I guess one has to be smart at hiding it, know what you're doing, and of course stay away from teaming with goodies altogether.. without actually knowing for sure WHO is a goodie around you, so you might as well just avoid teaming with anyone at all. Also, don't forget that mistrust works both ways for "shady" characters; or should the baddies trust the first guy that "confesses" being an evildoer in disguise? Maybe the baddies should favour check the guy then, hah?

Recapping: you're playing a loner that's constantly scared of being detected at risk of losing everything you've devoted time into. I'd agree that it sounds quite in character, but what a shitty early (and late) game experience if you ask me. And a completely new player will have absolutely zero chance of making it through all of this process, which means they either leave the game (bye bye playerbase) or turn into goodies.

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Re: NPC Patrol and crossing

#42 Post by luminier » Wed Jul 07, 2010 12:46 pm

TO ARXTHAS

Aight Im going to explain this once more because it's getting preeeetty tiresome. Yes I said it's possible to play a Sathonite with black karma secretly. I also said it's easier to play a secret baddie when you act neutral (By neutral I mean having the intention of going evil but not actually going evil right away, because thats a dumb idea). Then I gave a guide to acting neutral. No it's doesn't solve your "favour check issue" but it solves the issue of remaining a secret until you are ready.

To be honest there are quite a few references to stupid things people have done. But that wasn't what this topic was about. I didn't feel the need to derail it even more. If you still want to know Ill PM you a lot of the more funnier ones. Also I meant stupid actions in general not stupid actions taken while trying to remain a secret. Stupid actions taken while trying to remain hidden is anything that isn't what i put in my points at the bottom in bold.

Naga did a lot of under the table things that you didn't actually hear about until he chose to reveal it. Just because you know what he did now, doesn't mean that at one time it wasn't a secret to everybody.

I refuse to play by the rules. That makes me laugh. If wizards have a problem with how I play they can talk to me about it.

Larger picture is unanswered. Again as I said I gave people a way of making their evilness work. <sarcasm> If there is so many ways of finding out if someones evil, make a new topic so we can systematically remove them all and make it completely impossible. </sarcasm>

My claim is that being secretive is possible. You claim is that it isn't. I know it's possible. I wrote a guide saying how it's possible. Yep I just showed how it's possible. Therefore I showed that your claim was invalid. And my claim is valid since I've proved it was valid by my IG actions.

"And this you mean using social skills?" I would answer that if I could understand that sentence. I could talk... to people and seem normal if thats what you meant. Oh and I worshiped Sathonys too.
"Or plain hiding?" That would be kind of weird for anyone to do and I don't recommend it because it's overtly suspicious.
"What does 'respect' karma/reputation mean in this case?" Well it means know what your karma and reputation is at all times so you can keep your karma neutral and your rep at an acceptable level in order to trick players.
"You mean that no clerics were around?" No I don't mean that.
"Or that your 'evil' character did not do anything actually evil?" Killing, maiming, sacrificing, disgracing, the list goes on. It's not evil to him =D
"What does respect karma values mean?" See above
"What tools are available?" Ask a priest NPC what your karma is. As a person NPC in a town what your reputation is.
"Can you give anyone except yourself as example?" I like to speak from personal experience and I don't want to reveal things that I maybe other people don't want revealed.

Ok then I could move the guide to a different thread. Make it easier for you.

Examples of what I have seen? Like I said don't want to derail this more so PM me if you really care.

Intelligent enough for what? It's not exactly personal to state a fact. I've seen stupid things happen, I said I had done some myself. How is this personal or trolling.

And I wasn't talking about Roleplayed intelligence or stupidity but since you brought it up I would assume only the best and brightest go far in the evil world. Being an idiot gets you killed. Much like it does anywhere else.

Is it a good idea to make fun of unintelligent players? In my experience saying that someone did something stupid and pointing it out will prevent further similar stupid actions so yes, I do.

How to avoid a favour check
1. Don't spend a lot of time around clerics
2. Don't give them a reason to want to check you
3. Be nice to clerics (a smile goes a long way)
4. Don't hide from them or cower in fear when they make some gestures
5. It is actually against the law in some areas to perform checks without consent. While it is suspicious use the law to your advantage.
6. Use my guide because it will make most of these needless.


You might be interested in hearing which players broke the rules, but, it's already been dealt with and really none of your business anyways.
The right man in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world.

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arxthas
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Re: NPC Patrol and crossing

#43 Post by arxthas » Wed Jul 07, 2010 2:35 pm

luminier wrote: Aight Im going to explain this once more because it's getting preeeetty tiresome.
Yes, I agree. I almost did not write the last post since I felt I had to explain too much in the basics of reasoning.
luminier wrote: Yes I said it's possible to play a Sathonite with black karma secretly. I also said it's easier to play a secret baddie when you act neutral (By neutral I mean having the intention of going evil but not actually going evil right away, because thats a dumb idea). Then I gave a guide to acting neutral. No it's doesn't solve your "favour check issue" but it solves the issue of remaining a secret until you are ready.
This is the.. what.. 5th time you write this? It has been out of scope every time.
luminier wrote: To be honest there are quite a few references to stupid things people have done. But that wasn't what this topic was about. I didn't feel the need to derail it even more. If you still want to know Ill PM you a lot of the more funnier ones. Also I meant stupid actions in general not stupid actions taken while trying to remain a secret. Stupid actions taken while trying to remain hidden is anything that isn't what i put in my points at the bottom in bold.
No thank you, I do not need more references to stupid things. Just defending your claim should be sufficient.
luminier wrote: Naga did a lot of under the table things that you didn't actually hear about until he chose to reveal it. Just because you know what he did now, doesn't mean that at one time it wasn't a secret to everybody.
No, not everybody. But a huge population. At the time he was doing it.
luminier wrote:I refuse to play by the rules. That makes me laugh. If wizards have a problem with how I play they can talk to me about it.
Well..
"I refuse to accept the fact that you can't pretend to worship an acceptable deity while actually worshiping someone else. If thats illegal that needs to be changed because that is horribly foolish. I used the technique and so did others. I was not condemned for it."

It is against the rules. You are required to accept it. Not accepting it is refusal. You are laughing at yourself.

And yes, the wizards can contact you. In this particular case though, it should be fairly obvious since you already confessed. Unless you are lying there is only the punishment left.
luminier wrote: Larger picture is unanswered. Again as I said I gave people a way of making their evilness work. <sarcasm> If there is so many ways of finding out if someones evil, make a new topic so we can systematically remove them all and make it completely impossible. </sarcasm>
But you can not just choose a couple of things to leave out. If there is a single thing that gives you up your idea does not work.

And you only need to defendy our claim - so You must be the one systematically going through each and every possibility that your claim does not hold that you see. Not me.
luminier wrote: My claim is that being secretive is possible. You claim is that it isn't. I know it's possible. I wrote a guide saying how it's possible. Yep I just showed how it's possible. Therefore I showed that your claim was invalid. And my claim is valid since I've proved it was valid by my IG actions.
No..

I said karma checks are bad for the game (in response to what Ferra wrote). You said they can be easily solved by just trying to be secretive. I question how well your solution works and what it is. I have not made any claims on that so far. Please, all this is in the notes.

I think Ferranifer maybe should have started a new subject called "My reflections on returning to Geas" since it had less to do with the NPC patrol - but OK, we've done it a million times before and it is at least remotely relevant.

That it is "possible" is extremely weak. The chance that 20 yellow-eyed, red-striped snakes start singing mozart in the Arborea harbour is "possible".. There better be some utilization too, right?
luminier wrote: "And this you mean using social skills?" I would answer that if I could understand that sentence. I could talk... to people and seem normal if thats what you meant. Oh and I worshiped Sathonys too.
You are meaning things. Not me. I am asking if that was the reason. Not if you could talk. Or are you saying the ability to talk is what makes it possible to stay secretive? It's kind of vague.
luminier wrote: "Or plain hiding?" That would be kind of weird for anyone to do and I don't recommend it because it's overtly suspicious.
But the idea was that you explain how to stay secretive.. overtly suspicious stuff seems like the opposite. Yes, I know. I wrote it. But you need to cover your point, not necessarily answer mine guess (if that does not contribute) as opposed to my critisism of your claim.
luminier wrote: "What does 'respect' karma/reputation mean in this case?" Well it means know what your karma and reputation is at all times so you can keep your karma neutral and your rep at an acceptable level in order to trick players.
That you are keeping track of your karma and rep won't make your faith secret. It will make you know your karma and your rep.
luminier wrote: "You mean that no clerics were around?" No I don't mean that.
Okay, so a bunch of clerics was around too. Cool. What happened when they started casting?
luminier wrote: "Or that your 'evil' character did not do anything actually evil?" Killing, maiming, sacrificing, disgracing, the list goes on. It's not evil to him =D
Okay, so not that either. It does feel silly having to ask about every possiblity rather than you just explaining it right away.. Please.
luminier wrote: "What does respect karma values mean?" See above
Unfortunately it did not explain anything..
luminier wrote: "What tools are available?" Ask a priest NPC what your karma is. As a person NPC in a town what your reputation is.
So you know how to find out your karma.
luminier wrote: "Can you give anyone except yourself as example?" I like to speak from personal experience and I don't want to reveal things that I maybe other people don't want revealed.
Ok, fair enough. But that also makes it impossible to argue against.
luminier wrote: Ok then I could move the guide to a different thread. Make it easier for you.
I'm fine. You do what you feel is best to convey your point, but a badly written text is not going to help.
luminier wrote: Examples of what I have seen? Like I said don't want to derail this more so PM me if you really care.
I am not sure where you want that to lead. You opened saying that it is possible to stay secretive..
luminier wrote: Intelligent enough for what? It's not exactly personal to state a fact. I've seen stupid things happen, I said I had done some myself. How is this personal or trolling.
Intelligent enough. Means "in general". But anyway, it is you who wrote coined the word in this thread.. are you asking what you wrote?

"If you are a person with any intelligence you can guess that being evil is in fact "bad" and frowned upon by the general population."

... is what you wrote. In other words, I meant that people are intelligent enough to understand that being evil is bad and frowned upon by the general poulation.

And no, personal experiences are not "facts".
luminier wrote: And I wasn't talking about Roleplayed intelligence or stupidity but since you brought it up I would assume only the best and brightest go far in the evil world. Being an idiot gets you killed. Much like it does anywhere else.
But if you were not talking about Roleplayed intelliegence you were talking about the players intelligence. A player might choose to play a dimwitted mage. A dimwitted mage might die because he is unintelligent. You are examplifying my point :-)
luminier wrote: Is it a good idea to make fun of unintelligent players? In my experience saying that someone did something stupid and pointing it out will prevent further similar stupid actions so yes, I do.
As a way of "re-inforcement learning"? If you believe that making fun out of unintelligent players is good, then I simply have nothing more to add.We are way different.
luminier wrote: How to avoid a favour check
1. Don't spend a lot of time around clerics
2. Don't give them a reason to want to check you
3. Be nice to clerics (a smile goes a long way)
4. Don't hide from them or cower in fear when they make some gestures
5. It is actually against the law in some areas to perform checks without consent. While it is suspicious use the law to your advantage.
6. Use my guide because it will make most of these needless.
This list was all I needed. And you complained there's so much to write.. :-(

1. Suspicious.
2. If they make it systematic like they used to, this advice does not work.
3. A skilled cleric will have you favour check'ed regardless.
4. Yes, that would definetily put you in the box.
5. The law is enforced mainly by NPC's. Crusaders and the like never cared much about being banned from there previously.
6. Does not qualify.

In other words, none of this works very well against a slightly aware taniel priest. 0/6. I'll give you credit for the general "not giving yourself up in the open", but it is far away from a systematic/solid defense from favour checks.
luminier wrote:You might be interested in hearing which players broke the rules, but, it's already been dealt with and really none of your business anyways.
Then it is kind of weird to still refuse accept the fact that you can't pretend to worship an acceptable deity while actually worshiping someone else.

And yes, it is of my business since I am a victim. If someone does not not RP it hurts everyone, including me.
luminier wrote: Evil detection? Have you heard of you know... trying to be secretive? Killing people and helping Sathonites and worshipping Sathonys and throwing bodies into a pit isn't secretive. Neither is having a horrible karma *wink*.
Was your original reply to mine..

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Re: NPC Patrol and crossing

#44 Post by luminier » Wed Jul 07, 2010 3:11 pm

tl;dr
The right man in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world.

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Re: NPC Patrol and crossing

#45 Post by arxthas » Wed Jul 07, 2010 3:22 pm

:-/

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Re: NPC Patrol and crossing

#46 Post by Desiderea » Wed Jul 07, 2010 7:16 pm

Honestly, I've hardly ever gotten my favour checked. Isengorn's the only one who really seems paranoid. ;) Just act like a normal, "good" person, and people will have no reason to suspect you. But, of course, all it takes is one curious cleric to find out you're a baddie, and then you're pretty screwed with regards to maintaining a low profile. What does one do then once it becomes known that they're evil?

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Re: NPC Patrol and crossing

#47 Post by luminier » Wed Jul 07, 2010 10:41 pm

Feign ignorance. =D
The right man in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world.

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Re: NPC Patrol and crossing

#48 Post by lanyara » Sun Jul 11, 2010 9:16 pm

Ok, again a huge reply I do here ... no need to read it all. :P
Just act like a normal, "good" person, and people will have no reason to suspect you.
Won't always work.

Example: visiting Asador. I haven't tested it (I don't even have a character who would have any IC reason to go there, though of course one could become an unwilling "guest" visitor) but I think visiting Asador alone can worsen your reputation in Elvandar. Typically, in many situations (but not always of course) those with a bad reputation in Elvandar also have bad karma. At least it works as a first "pointer of suspicion" and "ask beggar name" has become very wide-spread.

While a low reputation can be a bit of a problem sometimes (NPCs refusing services perhaps), the revealed "bad" karma is immediately a pointer against anyone who has done something bad in his or her life specifically. More or less.
all it takes is one curious cleric to find out you're a baddie, and then you're pretty screwed with regards to maintaining a low profile. What does one do then once it becomes known that they're evil?
Didn't even always require a curious cleric per se on his own.
All you need is a guild agenda to get rid of all that is evil, and supportive clerics who ICly have to assist this noble goal. Or even the law - and the law has all the rights to do so, because anyone who is evil, is really extremely evil today ... more or less. Of course I am exaggerating slightly here, because pretty EVERY other player I met or saw was extremely lenient. Really hardly anyone used it as a reason to insta-kill any other character. :)

Lanyara, as cleric however, did not have any other IC choice than to assist crusaders who did request favour checks (it was only IC logical too, from my point of view by the way, no complaint at all, because those who are revealed to be "evil" are, right now well, really "evil", as they worship an "evil" deity and would have bad karma - hence such a request against anyone suspicious can by definition never really be ICly wrong for an extremely "good" character to do. You do a good deed, you try to screen potential evil doers, and drive them away from good societies, or at least are made aware of them).

If the target does not stay in the same place, then this is a bit suspicious, and naturally those who avoid "unappreciated favour checks" often have to hide something - like worshipping an "evil" deity. Ok, that is easy to see.

In my opinion, this will *always* happen when a suspicious target is somewhat strong.

In some situations it is not even required.

Example: When you see a darkelf today, you instantly know that this guy is up to no good - because this guy must worship an "evil" deity by definition.

Perhaps newbie evils aren't as easily revealed, it may be possible to be and remain sneaky, but from my experience so far, in most situations those newbies will get bored of playing eventually anyway. You would basically play on your own all the time. You don't have many to associate or interact with in the long run, and you have the constant pressure to keep a low profile.
Which often also makes you perform on your own - alone. :)

Playing on your own in a MUD is pretty boring.

But right now, if you are found out to be more or less evil, harassment in some way will start. Most players will as a result not want to bother performing on the "evil" side of the MUD at all, and it is completely understandable. Why should they? It is just a hassle. And there are many examples of evil characters who simply gave up playing, despite being "powerful".

For the ecosystem of the MUD, I don't think that this is a healthy situation.
A few experienced players may be able to still perform that way, but that's about it.

There is also the question of "what to do" when you are an evil character. Let's say you are a Satho cleric. Now what? Hmm. Often, it is a PvP heavy life. It would be nice to see a Satho cleric roleplay without heavy PvP.

That was difficult back then, and it seems impossible today. :)

Sathos were always PvP heavy, but they had a somewhat larger share of the world in the past too in my opinion. Nowadays, what else would you want to do as a Satho cleric? I think from all the more or less somewhat recent Satho clerics, there was only one who tried to play "sneaky" and that character wasn't seen since a long time in "good areas" eventually. Some of these players don't even have other characters, so these players don't really play.

And I think this is bad!

Does playing sneaky work for the weak evil characters? It may work, but it seems to be extremely difficult, so difficult that hardly anyone wants to try it in my opinion.

Currently, Satho clerics mostly perform outside of the "good" societies, and when they do certain actions like raiding the alchemist guild, it will alienate them even more from the "good" side. If the alchemist guild would have been in Arborea or Elvandar, it would have been surely harder to raid and less frustration for some "good" characters.

The actions have become somewhat more extreme, and at the same time the share of the world has decreased for them in my opinion. Of course, new features have made it into the game - I still would like to see the whole ghoulism concept extended. I remember another MUD where you had to play as a zombie after having died for some time (if you were an evil character)

With a decreased share of the world, I think evil characters have it very hard to come up with a really great plot or agenda - what should they do? Fighting NPCs like the patrols often attracts goodies too. Plots are often extreme too - kidnapping Gwenlanea would be pretty nice, but it would surely put them further onto the evil side.

Having spies, scouts or evil thieves would also be quite important. Or evil mages.
But I think this is not really possible right now.

Also, I think due to karma leakage, you can find out if someone in your team has bad karma. Just by teaming right now. Bad karma alone isn't an indicator of anyone worshipping an evil deity, of course, because you can have bad karma and not worship any deity at all.

But it definitely is a pointer working against these characters in some way or another - all those character who have bad karma.
it solves the issue of remaining a secret until you are ready.
Well, it may of course be possible to remain secret and such. But it is still quite difficult. I wouldn't really be able to give an example of anyone who played for a long time this way, today, and had success ...

The neutral faction which tries to go to the "evil deities" often perform as neutral, or worship a "neutral deity", because it is so incredibly hard to roleplay nothing else than a mere follower of an evil deity.

Hardly anyone will actually go and perform on the evil side in my opinion. There may be a few who try, even fewer who not give up, but most of the time the only ones who can manage are those who are very experienced.
I refuse to accept the fact that you can't pretend to worship an acceptable deity while actually worshiping someone else.
I think the deeper issue here is the question of the gods. I think gods should be dumber, and hence not all-knowing. That would immediately solve many, many problems IMHO. :)

All-knowing gods would simply mean that admin or wizards would have to continually monitor (!) against loopholes or anything that does not "fit" into the framework. That is bad in my opinion! The time could be used for other things, like coding great additions to the game instead.

Of course, the second question I would like to ask is, how difficult should it actually be to roleplay a simple worshipper of an evil deity right now.

Let me try to give an example of what I believe might happen as a Lilithian.

- When you are not revealed, it is more or less "frowned upon" to "fiddle with the karma" system right now. Gods are currently supposed to be "all knowing", and Lilith probably would not appreciate it if you go and do "good deeds", or have a glowing white aura yet worship an evil deity (OOCly, I don't agree with such a system by the way, because that removes options from "evil" characters - they lose the ability to do "good deeds", if such a rule would exist, and I think this is not good to have).

So basically, right now, you must retain bad karma in such an environment more or less.

Now, you can play for some time, but you always keep the low profile. And you have some success with it for some time, but mostly, you are on your own.

Of course you can not really team with good characters at all due to karma leaking right now, as that would reveal you. The good chars would say "why has my karma decreased? I only teamed with that strange fellow... might it be that this guy has horrible karma? Hmmm."

Perhaps you could team with neutral characters, I don't know. I have no idea if that affects them negatively in any way, but you can be assured that the moment it affects them negatively, will be the moment where they don't *want* to team with your character anymore.

Ok, now, can you secretly do anything? Hmm. I don't think you can ... perhaps juggling is not an evil action ... :)

You also can not really enter PvP because you would quickly become outlaw that way - if you try to attack someone with the intent to kill.

You also can not really spy because it is trivial to find out who you worship and the all-knowing gods might know anyway.
This is akin to George Orwell 1984, together with the watchtowers, reporting every movement ... Ok, ok, I troll and exaggerate here. I just had to make the reference to the "Big Brother" in 1984, because I really feel anything resembling that is not ideal to have in a game that should be enjoyable ;-)

But I honestly think that this is making the environment as a whole too difficult.
Now, let's continue, and ask what happens when you are found out to be an evil Lilithian?

You are no longer allowed in Arborea due to being an evil guy.
You can not really enter Ironhold or visit Lilithian monsters because they will attack you (in the past the amulet may have helped but I don't even know if that is still in the game). And if they attack you, and you fight them... well, I think you lose faith. But it wasn't your fault ... the silly monsters just try to kill everyone!

You are a Lilithian, and by current law of Elvandar you may may perhaps enter there without being killed, but at this point we assume you are revealed, and you are also "evil" because you worship an evil deity, and that gives the "good" characters more than ample reason to act against you.

Perhaps not with PvP, but you will find it very hard to interact peacefully with anyone. Unless you don't really do something bad - you can perhaps breathe, but that's it. :)

Ok, I am not saying that it is impossible to be an evil worshipper here, but it seems like so much hassle ..... for what gain would any player want to really do that?

Playing secretive may be possible but hardly anyone will do so.

I've traditionally never really been a PvP heavy player. I have nothing really against PvP - although I think heavy PvP alone often encourages powertraining - but I think if other character types can not interact with each other, without being soaked quickly into PvP, then this is bad for a MUD. It is also bad when players feel that an atmosphere is too conflict-heavy. Ok, players should lighten up and not take things too seriously. So you two here lighten up! :)
I've seen stupid things happen, I said I had done some myself.
This is something I agree with a lot!

Players often make mistake. Or, let's say it more neutral - players did actions, which had consequences, and these consequences often made playing harder.

I am also quite convinced that several code changes were inspired by players and their actions ... :)

But is this sufficient reason to hold against any player? Players learn too. Everyone does.

Somewhere else I wrote that new players should not really have to "clean up" where other players "left" the game or at least really abandoned the character. That's just bad to have for new players ... new players often have it hard on their own anyway.

When I say "mistakes", I think that depends on the point of view. One example here may be recruiting certain characters into a guild, which then worsen the situation for the guild in one way or another, or doing the opposite here - and not recruiting anyone. Which can also be bad for a guild.

On the one hand, quite some guilds struggle with having active members, on the other hand they should "screen" for fitting and good members, and this screening often takes time, dedication, and so on. In other words, playing time.

I think this is not good. It is also a reason why I started another thread about clans, since joining guilds should in my opinion not really become that difficult.
[...] you can guess that being evil is in fact "bad" and frowned upon by the general population.
That is true, but I think this is not ideal for the evil side. They lose the freedom to depict themselves as the "not so bad guys".

I also think that there is a bit of an over-focus on good vs. evil right now:

If someone rescues a village from an undead plague, then I don't really care how he does so if I am living in that village. Whether it would be the paladin that kills the undeads, or the thief that backstabs the necromancer behind that plague and kills him, or whether it is the necromancer on his own who sends the undeads home, or destroys them - I think all these three methods should be possible, without any box thinking happening like that "the paladin is good, the necro is evil, the thief is somewhere between these two". Or just by associating with any deity alone ...

Ideally, my preference would be that the system allows sufficient freedom to do precisely so, without interfering too much in that process - such as by taking a side OOCly. If I would worship an evil deity, would I say my deity is evil? That doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to me ...

The IC stuff, the roleplay, is totally fine. But the system shouldn't become the final judge about it IMHO.
I would assume only the best and brightest go far in the evil world.
Being an idiot gets you killed. Much like it does anywhere else.
Hmm. I think players should be able to make mistakes, no matter if good or evil.

Of course, for the evil side, mistakes are quite severe - not only because it may get you killed, but because you could lose your share of the world.

But the evil side also has a hard time recruiting folks too. It is not a really great situation IMHO. Can they recruit newbies? I think that is difficult for them. So they can perhaps recruit experienced players, ok, and this can work. But even the experienced players have it very difficult.

Then there was also the old notion of encouraging new wannabes to train up before they join any such guild. I also think this is not ideal ... it encourages too much powertraining. IMHO it should be the opposite, roleplay considerations should come first, and whether someone is strong or weak should really make almost no real difference - if they enjoy playing, and remain active, they will become stronger anyway. And if they don't hmm...
Is it a good idea to make fun of unintelligent players?
I don't think there exist intelligent or unintelligent players at all.

There are just players. :)

As for characters, of course there are really dumb characters. The old tshaharks were really extremely dumb. Other characters are slightly senile ...

I'd even extend this concept to the IC world, on the karma situation.

For me, at least OOCly, there aren't really good or evil actions.
There are just actions. It's the game gods who want to group and classify actions into good or evil right now.
In other words, none of this works very well against a slightly aware taniel priest.


I think it depends a lot on the character in question too.
I have never met or seen Tehanu and Tatiana. Would be nice to see different situations handled by them IC.

Anyway, I think we are going a bit too off-topic and I happily helped derail my own thread. :)

In the past days, the crossing was the best hotspot for interacting with other characters. You could meet evil characters just as well there.

Having the NPC guards not go to the crossings would open this spot up a tiny bit at least. Of course there are other, bigger problems, but NPCs shouldn't become too influential in a game world for players IMHO.
Best race: halflings.

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