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Social classes in Geas

Posted: Wed Aug 14, 2013 3:57 am
by glorfindel
Hello,

after coming past this again a few days ago again, I do wonder, do we have any social classes at this mud at all? I mean is there actually any hesitation or respect by speaking to high ranking members of certain religious groups ? I find it currently kinda weird to see the following:

Code: Select all

You are at the cathedral of Taniel.
Ysrof[male human] walks in.
Ysrof[male human] looks at Nyrgolf[male elf, archbishop].
Ysgof[male human] tells Nygolf[male elf, archbishop in Common: Hi. You are the Archbishop, aren't you? I find you guys quite swag. Can I be a member? pretty please?
Nyrgolf[male elf, archbishop] rises an eyebrow.
Nyrgolf[male elf, archbishop] ask Ysgof[male human] in Quenya: Do I even know you, human?
I find such things highly disturbing. Honestly, approaching a religious leader, specially the one of your own faith, should have some respect in it, shouldn't it? Same goes, in my eyes, for most high ranked and well known people. A 'commoner' in my eyes would not dare to approach somebody like that, if we assume there's any depth at all.

Re: Social classes in Geas

Posted: Wed Aug 14, 2013 2:37 pm
by ghalt
I had a longer reply, but realized I was probably misunderstanding you.

I would say one should approach higher ranked people wit appropriate politeness or intentional rudeness or lack of tact. Your example which I imagine has been altered to conceal identity sounds a lot like a new player trying to get a class already, though.

One caveat I would list is that there's frankly a lot of ranked characters of one sort or another wandering around. Acting entirely realistic there might be difficult. Real aristocrats were rare and did not visit commoner's taverns. ^_^

Re: Social classes in Geas

Posted: Wed Aug 14, 2013 4:33 pm
by glorfindel
The event I displayed her served only as purpose to illustrate what I mean. I agree that it is more often the high ranking people you do find out and I'm not sure it is so much about nobility, but the fact to see a leader of a faith being treated as a commoner is a little weird to me.

I should say though that I might not've choosen the best example, as it does maybe describe something that misleads people.

Re: Social classes in Geas

Posted: Thu Aug 15, 2013 3:07 am
by luminier
I get what Glorfindel is saying.

PEASANTS, CLEAN MY DIRTY LORD MARSHALL BOOTS. CHOP CHOP

Re: Social classes in Geas

Posted: Thu Aug 15, 2013 6:23 am
by Delia
I kinda have to agree that people tend to respect character power more than character status which is not as it should be. Especially priests should be priviledged, leaders of faith much more so and treated as such even if the characters lack the strength to fight their way out from a paper pag.

Then again, this works both ways. A person having status should not be completely nonchalant about the fact and should play the part as well.

Re: Social classes in Geas

Posted: Thu Aug 15, 2013 7:44 am
by ferranifer
People in high positions either earn their respect through their actions or through culture, education and enforcement.

Players can be educated about this things IC by those that consider that they deserve more respect than what they get. We also have IC mechanisms to enforce the respect if people choose to ignore it. Maybe those that don't behave properly should suffer more severe consequences IC. You can already make that happen. There is a lot of buddy-buddy elbow rubbing between characters that are supposed to be in highly respected positions and the common stranger in the marketplace. Well, if you want to be treated with majesty, then maybe you should start by behaving accordingly too.

Characters that expect to be respected due to their status should carry themselves with pride and dignity according to their positions? Or benevolence and understanding. Either way, if you want your presence to be an event on its own, roleplay it.

A human that just got to know Elvandar for the first time might not know or care about who or what the Archbishop is. Or about elven traditions or social mannerisms. This might be a conscious choice from the player of that character, or maybe he simply doesn't know.

As a sidenote, and this might sound like a stretch but I hope the point gets across: who says that the Archbishop is a respect figure of authority? There is line between what the lore and culture of the game supports and what a player thinks his character should be. That line is drawn by the collective effort of the players and the creators of the game, but I kind of like that it is a blurry line because it opens doors for political struggle. For example, I dislike that the Queen of Elvandar has as much authority in the game's lore as she does. IMHO, if she was a player, it would be a lot more interesting. Also, as an elf I would recognize that the Archbishop has political power (this is widely supported in game already), but I might simply not like authority and choose to display that sentiment openly. In that case, should the Archbishop have IC ways to punish me?

Re: Social classes in Geas

Posted: Thu Aug 15, 2013 10:51 am
by amrat
ferranifer wrote:People in high positions either earn their respect through their actions or through culture, education and enforcement.
I agree that characters expecting to be treated with respect need to play the part. Clearly showing that the behavior was unacceptable using IC methods is not only the correct, but also probably the most intuitive and efficient way to fix this. And it has also clearly worked in the past for several characters.

The problem with that, as is with anything where you put playing your character and his views or status ahead of "playing the game", is that you are effectively shooting yourself in the foot. The end result most likely varies between not making new friends and thus gains to your side to flat out making enemies. And out of all the characters in the MUD the Taniel Archbishop is most likely the person who the least can afford that.

In the real world churches and other such organizations have always had a lot of power which to use to uphold their status and they have taken responsibilities that they've had the power to handle. In Geas you basically only get the responsibilities. In practice this means that the Archbishop has much more to lose in this situation than the random unaligned. Balance of power-wise it would make sense for the Archbishop to beg for the chance to wash the other characters feet for the off chance that he'd help them in a fight against some tundra undeads or to catch some thief. The actual power dynamic is the exact opposite than how it is supposed to be played out.

Sure, good roleplay is good roleplay but it tends to end badly.

Re: Social classes in Geas

Posted: Fri Aug 16, 2013 7:18 am
by louis
ferranifer wrote: In that case, should the Archbishop have IC ways to punish me?
The Archbishop has already possibilities to punish you.
amrat wrote:In the real world churches and other such organizations have always had a lot of power which to use to uphold their status and they have taken responsibilities that they've had the power to handle. In Geas you basically only get the responsibilities. In practice this means that the Archbishop has much more to lose in this situation than the random unaligned.
I think that the position of the Church of Taniel in Elvandar is rock solid, because massively enforced by code in several means.

Re: Social classes in Geas

Posted: Thu Sep 05, 2013 5:43 pm
by Nylessa
Oh goodness. Where can I start on this. This is an issue that plauges RP everywhere, its not just muds, or geas.

A king of an entire empire could be ruling everything but there will still be those commoners who'll act tough or treat the king lesser then they should just because.

In my experience outside of geas, most Roleplayers are within the age range of 15-18.

Now, i'm not going to say its explicitly because of this, but most teens in that age range are usually novice or inexperienced role-players; they take their IC goals in mind and also have them as OOC, and they also don't take into IC intimidation, or character status; Why would they? Not many teens these days actually appreciate authority, so when they're faced with it in games; they sure definitely don't or won't appreciate it on the game they're having fun on, its their fantasy after all.

But there are adults and experianced roleplayers that do this too; and while in the rare case a character might have a reason to, most of the time, they do not, but they do it anyway because they feel they could get away with it OOCly.

This is something that i used to do a lot myself, and have practically practiced forcing myself into taking the IC action my character would, everyone has their faults with roleplaying I suppose.

One of the best ways to encourage the acknowledge of postions is to make them known and, sadly, this is one way i've used, is to publicly punish or humilate those who are in a lesser postion having belittled you.

Even if that could lead to people disliking the character, it solidifies their postion, and could even creature future RP, but theres many ways to do it; for example, someone new to RP could easily just be ignorant of those postions, and simply be told about them IC, with a light punishment to add on to it to make it legit IC.

Now, there are of course those unknown people who are actually very strong that might show up, sometimes people get overlooked and even if theyre known as just as a commoner, when this underdog shows up, and perhaps a fight does happen? I just roll with it, unexpected things do happen and i -love- that.

Granted with geas's player base, thats unlikely.

Hopefully all the people im telling about geas will join up.

Just know that this isn't just a problem in geas, its a problem in roleplay everywhere.

Re: Social classes in Geas

Posted: Sat Sep 07, 2013 6:21 am
by Zehren
Zehren went about calling most folks peasants for some time.

Was great fun.
Most responded well to it.

Re: Social classes in Geas

Posted: Tue Sep 10, 2013 7:28 pm
by golub
glorfindel wrote:"I do wonder, do we have any social classes at this mud at all?"
The ways you can punish someone based on your social class are too few/non-existant. There is no "punish <low-class>" command.

Glorfindel's example given: Someone addresses high-class the wrong way. How to regulate? It is too hard. There are no such effective mechanisms.

Never has someone successfully punished the low-class *despite* being inferior.

(E.g. taniel church-condemn feature was never used successfully, at least not in long-term... but it's at least one of the few, rare ways at all possible - however associated with huge social costs!).

So power just comes down to character strength/skills and "combat tactics", where everyone is equal. Same for other societies than elven. The claimed possibility for "enforcement" is based on something that everyone has equal access to.

The (few (any!?)) methods available are too weak.. So regulating the world towards a class-society is very hard unless there are tools for that.

Re: Social classes in Geas

Posted: Tue Sep 10, 2013 7:46 pm
by ceinna
golub wrote:
glorfindel wrote:"I do wonder, do we have any social classes at this mud at all?"
The ways you can punish someone based on your social class are too few/non-existant. There is no "punish <low-class>" command.

Glorfindel's example given: Someone addresses high-class the wrong way. How to regulate? It is too hard. There are no such effective mechanisms.

Never has someone successfully punished the low-class *despite* being inferior.

(E.g. taniel church-condemn feature was never used successfully, at least not in long-term... but it's at least one of the few, rare ways at all possible - however associated with huge social costs!).

So power just comes down to character strength/skills and "combat tactics", where everyone is equal. Same for other societies than elven. The claimed possibility for "enforcement" is based on something that everyone has equal access to.

The (few (any!?)) methods available are too weak.. So regulating the world towards a class-society is very hard unless there are tools for that.
The issue with all of this is that the players are the problem, not coding. When you enter a rpi game, this entire post should be irrelevant. Sadly, that isn't the case. I have no advice, only sadness and an understanding of the frustration.

Re: Social classes in Geas

Posted: Tue Sep 10, 2013 8:47 pm
by ferranifer
I wouldn't say it's so cut and clear regarding it being 'bad roleplay'. Not only the player that plays the 'high class' character could be misled and wrongly interpreting the way society works to his advantage/understanding, but also the 'low class' character could simply not care about how 'high class' someone is at all. In the first case, it's a player imagining power he actually doesn't have. On the second, it's a character that should get punished by society and won't (as Golub mentioned).

There is a lot of space for interpretation of how society works in this game. You can call that unfortunate if you want, but I challenge you to describe a RPG where this isn't the case. We all invent/imagine how the stuff that isn't regulated by actual in game rules works (coded or player driven). In Glor's example it's rather obvious, but as a generalization, it's not that clear.

On the other hand, there are mechanisms in place in the game where characters of certain groups that claim to be in positions of power can actually exert that power. The Court is one of them. IF those characters/organizations are that powerful and respected... make it count IC? Change the laws. Demonstrate the extent of your position's influence if you really have any and make it count. if you think your position doesn't have enough support from the game code to exert that influence, then ask the wizards about it.

Re: Social classes in Geas

Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2013 1:29 am
by Delia
One practical difficulty I have noticed that, let us take Taniel church as an example, that it can be really hard to tell if someone is a "lowly" pilgrim or the archbishop. Perhaps it is meant they are strictly uniform or they are just played that way? Then again, I loved the little detail that Ewelyn wore different clothes when she was a cardinal. Were they custom or guild I do not know.

Most of the gray masses can be swiftly identified as belonging to the gray masses and with some groups such as the Asrals and Crusaders the uniformity is common sensical enough. Usually it is the non-guilded people who display their rank or lack of there of.

Re: Social classes in Geas

Posted: Mon Sep 30, 2013 12:29 am
by illiad
One related observation I have made that bothered me a bit about this mud is that on numerous occasions, my character addressed various people in positions that would merit a certain measure of respect, and almost to a person, they insisted on being treated in a manner less formal that it seems they should merit.

In my opinion, their preference to be treated in a less formal manner adversely impacts the social system on the mud in general. If some people of high rank/station encourage the general populace to be less formal, the others of high rank/station that try to preserve the traditionally held social class structures appear to have a stick up their @$$ by comparison. Also, it confuses the general populace as to what the generally accepted behaviors are.

I think if you are going to accept such positions, preserving the traditions and the social system should come with the territory.