on the "Let's go Hunting" and other RP situtations

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glorfindel
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on the "Let's go Hunting" and other RP situtations

#1 Post by glorfindel » Sun Mar 22, 2015 9:35 am

Warning: What's going down here might be partially a rant, but bear with me, I think it's important.

I've had it with the "let's go hunt some creatures" mentalities I've seen around the mud for ages. I've done it myself and I've tried get out of that trap. It's, in my opinion, one of the worst things that can happen for our mud, people going 'Hunting' and meaning actually going to hack/slay mode on some npcs. I'm not blaming anybody, but I want to offer my view and hopefully get some insight / talk open for people.

First: Why is "let's go hunt some whatever / Let's go train on some whatever" bad?

It's bad for one reason: Because it lacks any RP. If you go training, realistically that would mean you go on a sparring and people try to better themselves by trraining against each other, including instructions and whatnot. That is fine. But, on geas the term 'training' usually means to bash some green-skin variants in and kill them till morning comes. That is bad, in my eyes, because it destroys any meaningful RP and goes just for Hack/Slay mode. People going on for hours just mindlessly smashing stuff. And sorry, 'killing evil because it's on our agenda' is no excuse.

Second: How could this change?
A few simple things I personally think would improve the situation (and am not offering a golden solution, I don't know one. I offer things that I think have bettered the game for myself in hope it helps others to improve their experience):
- Ask yourself in a given situation why your character is doing something, e. g. killing an orc. Ask yourself what the consequence of these actions are for your character. Someone who slaughters thousands of orcs is likely renowned for it and most probably has their own bit of hatred/disgust/whatever for them. Showing a reaction of some sort while going after the thousand and one orc, would improve the situation.
- If gathering a hunting party, instead of 'let's go hunt some orcs' going "I've seen fresh orc tracks near the tower west of Elvandar. I fear the worst and would like to check it out. Anybody willing to lend me a hand?" => improve, same result. You can even make up stuff like you saw a bunch of gremlins assaulting a farmer and you went after them, or that they snatched something from you. => all better then "let's go hunt".
- If you are a more experienced character in the party, offer some lore about the place you are at. Like stop and explain some wall carving, tell why people are frequenting the place, spread a war story... whatever. Immerse the young ones, even if that means slowing down. Usually there's a lot of time while resting up and sometimes you even delay for a longer time because everbody is caught up over something that was discovered.
- Attempt to find ways to change the situation on site even if you know OOCly you can't. That be trying to cure wolfmen-children, trying to capture an orc and finding out how they get their 'larder-food' ... whatever, get a little creative.

For me, all in all, it boils down that when 'hunting' is commenced, I usually find myself extremely bored quickly because there seems to be no reason at all why something is done. But then, if any party member stirs a bit of history about the place or something... I see people are welcoming these sort of thing. Why not try to improve it?

Aslak
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Re: on the "Let's go Hunting" and other RP situtations

#2 Post by Aslak » Sun Mar 22, 2015 1:52 pm

Basically, "going hunting" is often the only thing to do in Geas. It is the only real way to improve your skills, gain combat XP etc etc.
Sure it is nothing great, but unless the system changes about such things, giving the same thing a different name will only make it more colorful for a moment or two. It still remains the same old grind.
Cleric guilds are even required to perform that grind on a very regular basis.

glorfindel
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Re: on the "Let's go Hunting" and other RP situtations

#3 Post by glorfindel » Sun Mar 22, 2015 1:57 pm

Sorry Aslak, I think you missed my point, maybe I was not clear enough :)

My post was not about "going hunting" as an activity, it's how you sell it. Meaning, actually try to justify why you are going out to hunt. Literally "let's go hunt" is what I was talking about.

ferranifer
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Re: on the "Let's go Hunting" and other RP situtations

#4 Post by ferranifer » Sun Mar 22, 2015 3:01 pm

"Remember that troll den we cleared out last week? Apparently we didn't find their spawning ground. They are all over again. Want to try to go deeper this time and see if we can expunge them from the face of Forostar once and for all?"

Proceed to chop trolls to pieces for 4 hours straight while searching for secret entrances to their spawning pool.

"A scout reported that the orc bandits have managed to reform again and assaulted a trading caravan. I fear the worst for the life of the traders, but we should at least try and see if there is any left alive."

Chop, chop. Roleplay seeing an orc scout escaping over the ruined tower wall to return another day leading a new band of orcs.

"Remember that bone dagger we recovered from the Old City? Well, I had it checked by a Mage and apparently he could divine traces of magic that predate the necromantic emanations of the rest of the City. We should try to dig for other similar remains and try to throw some light into the matter?"

Smash, smash. Roleplay picking up some bone dust and rusted trinkets from the rubble piles in E-A.

That kind of stuff.

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luminier
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Re: on the "Let's go Hunting" and other RP situtations

#5 Post by luminier » Sun Mar 22, 2015 5:17 pm

I remember one time when I was younger poDax told everyone that we needed to find some terrible creature in the troll cave west of the ogre cauldron and that we needed to remain quiet or the cave would collapse on us.

The cave there is really unstable via room emotes.

I remember -actually thinking- that this all existed but it was actually just a story poDax had fabricated. It was fantastic.
The right man in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world.

Skragna
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Re: on the "Let's go Hunting" and other RP situtations

#6 Post by Skragna » Thu Mar 26, 2015 4:23 pm

Recently, I've been trying to apply the term 'hunt' only to areas where hunting seems reasonable, IE wargs, or moles. It's a bit of a stretch, but the Amward is another place he likes to 'hunt', as there's roving bands of enemies there.

Vaylon
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Re: on the "Let's go Hunting" and other RP situtations

#7 Post by Vaylon » Sat Apr 04, 2015 5:51 am

I'm new to Geas, but I have noticed several people mention, when discussing the game OOC with them, that "hunting" is paradoxically detrimental to roleplay and also the only way to gain certain skills. If people want Geas to be a game about roleplay, then they should find some way to encourage roleplay mechanically.

From what I've seen of games in general, roleplay and game mechanics will never truly be able to co-exist until someone figures out a way to make game mechanics solely dependent on good roleplay.

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luminier
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Re: on the "Let's go Hunting" and other RP situtations

#8 Post by luminier » Sat Apr 04, 2015 7:44 am

Did you have any suggestions Vaylon?
The right man in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world.

Zehren
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Re: on the "Let's go Hunting" and other RP situtations

#9 Post by Zehren » Sun Apr 05, 2015 4:18 am

A possible way to enforce RP being more prime would be the removal of bland old boring hunts as a possibility.

-every single combat area would have a number of different possible scenarios attached to it
-scenarios would be generated at random (from list of available scenarios) after X period of time of last scenario solved. The time period would be significant. At the very least eight hours (that's two days of IG time, right?) - preferably a range of eight to forty-eight hours.
-no enemies would respawn during the inter-scenario period. (Though surviving stragglers would still walk around all forlorn.)

A scenario system would also make for a more space-efficient way of expanding stuff later on. Instead of having to create new areas, new scenarios could be created for those already in existence.
Drayn wrote:Zehren, the Karmassassin!

Skragna
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Re: on the "Let's go Hunting" and other RP situtations

#10 Post by Skragna » Wed Apr 08, 2015 10:05 am

This? THIS I LIKE.

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