New religious system

[aragog]

I like the newest changes with the religious system and I think it will add a lot to roleplay - thanks to wizzes at this point

What I currently do not like all that much is the favour check of clerics as I think its a bit too easy. With the new religious system I would prefer the favour check the be more difficult (if you spend too much time with the wrong char it will affect you anyhow), so perhaps the favour check could be changed that it only works on a helpless person?

I would like to know what other players think about that.

poAragog

[jezz]

The fourth option in this poll will quickly make it useless

[vurdijak]

Instead of the person having to be helpless, maybe the check could have a random fail rate, so that 1 out of every so many checks gives a message like 'no favour preference can be detected from this one' with a significant delay afterward during which you cannot check again.

OR

The mental stats of the person being checked could be taken into account, maybe with discipline playing a significant role. If the person being checked has high stats and is lucky, could the cleric receive a wrong message (tricked into thinking the person follows their deity), or just receive no message at all. Then maybe a long time delay before they can check this person again.

OR

The deity gets angry because the cleric is wasting their time, rare but happening randomly, and the cleric's favour, karma and/or a variety of other things could be reduced. This might only have a chance of happening if the cleric uses the favour check too frequently, maybe over once per day?

I dont know how the new system works, so these ideas are pulled directly from you know where, and I am forced to vote 'dont know' on this one.

[Naga]

Random favor checks by clerics who just happen to be in the same room for a few moments ruin the potential of ever being a hidden follower of any deity at the moment.

[Vargrahim]

I would have to agree with Aragog on this one. As fun as it may seem to discover a new evil person, it is no fun if it happens too easy. And it makes no sense not to exploit the oppurtunity when it's there either, if you have a good character.

It's mostly bad for evil characters, which I think are too often discovered early in their career. It would be more fair if it was not so easy to be "discovered" since that normally have quite devastating effects on your character's possibilities.

[isengoo]

It's impossible to run from a favour check all of a sudden? They are considered extremely rude and pervasive ICly, so moving to disrupt them should be no big deal.

[aragog]

You can run away but if you come back the cleric probably has the miracle ready and will check you as soon as you re-enter the room. Besides that most players won't be able to notice what a cleric is actually casting.

[Naga]

It's impossible to run from a favour check all of a sudden? They are considered extremely rude and pervasive ICly, so moving to disrupt them should be no big deal.

If they happen to discover anything, it is instantly justified in the mind of every "good" character.

[jezz]

And if you leave the room, then you are for sure an evil character and suddenly there is a good reason to knock you unconscious and do the favour check

[Vargrahim]

And if you leave the room, then you are for sure an evil character and suddenly there is a good reason to knock you unconscious and do the favour check

Who taught you these things, you evil bastard? =)

[Delmon]

Plus, I believe the check follows to another room once they start on someone. And Jezz has a good point. If you run... well there you go.

[Abharsair]

Plus, I believe the check follows to another room once they start on someone. And Jezz has a good point. If you run... well there you go.

No, it doesn't follow one.

And while I agree that in a perfect world it should be easier to hide one's true belief, Geas is not ready for this. Why? Because too many supposedly non-evil characters consider worshiping an evil deity to be nothing more than a mere inconvenience due to the restrictions of teaming with the followers of those deities, and they have no problem to socialize with those people, sit with them on trees or comfort them about how mean the good characters were to them.

As long as the social acceptance of those characters doesn't change and being revealed as a follower of those deities doesn't actually make one a social pariah (and with that I mean the interaction with non-evil characters), there is no reason whatsoever to make it more difficult to reveal them. If being revealed as a worshiper, spy, or informant for the evil side starts to have noticeable repercussions other than the disdain and hostility of the fanatically good characters (which right now there aren't), then we can make it harder to discover them. Or to make it more clear: if there's significantly more risk, there will be more cover. As long as there isn't, it will remain the way it is. So basically it's up to the neutral/slightly good characters to change the game mechanism by changing their behavior.

[chara]

I know of at least one little character who managed to avoid all favour checks, even with Crusaders chasing after him for some time.

[Alamar]

I don't mind that priests can check favor quickly, but I think that they should pay attention to what they find. I have seen a player who received a "thumbs up" from a question about his reputation and another "thumbs up" for a favor check from Taniel... and even then the priest STILL said that the unnamed character was evil and could not be trusted.

I will say that since the favor check is what it is, that what it finds should be trusted by the players perhaps a bit more than it has been. If you check in with your god to see what the god thinks of him and god says "He's okay in my book" then probably you should take his word for it.

(I am not talking about Alamar or an alt, this happened to someone else entirely and it made me feel pretty bad for him).

-poAlamar

P.S. Some can remember the days when Crusaders checked favor as well and that was an absolute witch hunt. From what I have seen (from a distance I admit) is much tamer than those days. It's nice to see that the game has evolved so much from when I started.

[tessa]

I have seen a player who received a "thumbs up" from a question about his reputation and another "thumbs up" for a favor check from Taniel... and even then the priest STILL said that the unnamed character was evil and could not be trusted.

Problem with that are the players that 'openly' follow one god, but 'secretly' follow the other. IE; players that sacrifice to one god to appear good, but spy for followers of a different god. Those sorts of cases suck, because, to put it bluntly, the person takes advantage of code limitations (they -should- be following the god they're actually loyal to, rather than some "fake face" god, but since code can't be applied to RP situations, they can skip around it), and it leaves the judgmental people in a tough spot.

That's not to say all people are like that , but it does eventually get to a point where players have to ask if the person is geninuely good, or just gives coins to beggars and sacrifices to <god here> so they can continue sending spy mails to <group here> without being exposed for being what they actually are, thanks to the few individuals who do just that.

[Alamar]

Fair enough. These characters should at least pretend to be conflicted if they engage in such two-faced-ism. Far be it from me to criticize anyone's roleplay, it just seems that the opinion of one's god should have quite a bit of sway in someone's overall opinion of the person being "favor checked."

Paranoia plays a large part in this game as well, and I have to say that people with good reputation and karma in general have it for a good reason. Without giving too much away, none of my old spies (back when I had spies), were ever shining examples of goodness. The best I could hope for from people with good reputation was a brief exchange of words before they either left the room or drew steel on me.

The code in general works well. Roleplay should be based at least in part on what they find within the code.

[Devi]

Problem with that are the players that 'openly' follow one god, but 'secretly' follow the other. IE; players that sacrifice to one god to appear good, but spy for followers of a different god.

I agree with Alamar on this, but the burden falls on both sides. The evil guys shouldn't have spies with bad favour/karma (according to Sathonys and Lilith) and the good guys should trust folks with good favour/karma. The system is now such that you can't have good karma and favour with the evil and good gods. I think it's really silly to do a faith/aura check and ignore the results. Why bother in the first place?

[Abharsair]

The main problem is that there are many actions which should give you good/bad karma/favor but which can't be evaluated by the code. Example: Someone lights candles in the Taniel and temple and gives money to the beggars, but on the other hand he sends tells to Sathos and informs them about the whereabouts of Crusaders and Taniels, getting them subsequently all slaughtered. From an RP point of view this guy should have a lot of favor with Sathonys and should he hated by Taniel. Unfortunately there is no way for the code to figure that out, and therefore some people consider this code limitation an invitation for this kind of behavior. Which it is not, if I might add, and as long as some people do that, those who check favor/karma can not base their opinion solely on those checks. If spies actually manage to differentiate between faking good reputation and faking good karma/favor (which shouldn't be possible) then I agree that good karma/favor should not be easily ignored.

Problem number two is what I wrote in my earlier post. Being revealed as a follower of evil deities or a spy has not nearly the severe consequences as it should have. And with consequences I mean the player-to-player interactions, not the code itself, since many NPCs do already take certain factors such as reputation into account. But seeing a follower of a good deity justify the actions of a known follower of an evil deity is just very painful (and slightly annoying) for us wizards to watch. Needless to say that it works the other way around as well.

Now if you really want to change the way favor and deity checks are handled, following measures would have to be taken by the player base:

1) Do not fake worship of deities or the favor with them. The gods know what you do. If you spy for the Sathos, be a Satho or a Lilithian, not some neutral or good deity because someone might check your favor. Naturally, if you spy for the Taniels, don't worship Sathonys either.

2) Treat followers of opposing deities with contempt, and if you are not evil yourself, treat those who follow evil deities like you would treat Jeffrey Dahmer, Charles Manson or Adolf Hitler. Sitting with them on a tree and talking about how the gods and their clerics are all wrong is just ... wrong.

If those two conditions are met, then we can:

1) Make it harder to check someone's favor/deity/karma.

2) Ask players to accept the results of those checks.

[Vargrahim]

Which it is not, if I might add, and as long as some people do that, those who check favor/karma can not base their opinion solely on those checks.

I agree completely with you here. But there is a problem that any such person with a good karma is protected from a Crusader. It is possible to attack, but one suffers a great penalty as a good character. This puts a great burden on those who try to punish doubleside behaviour instead of rewarding it.

I think that the system might be too protective of those who try to get the best from two worlds. What about loosening up on those restrictions? The "good karma" is good because it protects good characters, but it can also be a systematic mistake. It is easy to over-value the protection of people because generally we think "safety first" in real life. But in this MUD, I think doublesiders are more of a problem than the lack of safety for every individual.

Besides, even in RL your favourite medieval sovereign probably did not value the individuals right to a fair trial (and some modern states act like that still today). The truth is, it was always more a question of power and being seen in a light by those who have it, rather than some ultimate scientific truth about a character's goodness.

But seeing a follower of a good deity justify the actions of a known follower of an evil deity is just very painful (and slightly annoying) for us wizards to watch.

I personally have limited hopes in making the playerbase regulate itself towards direction A, especially when it is something which concerns each individuals own strength. Flipping the default to direction B and let people strive in the other direction A when necessary is then better. I hope you get what I mean.

The truth is, every possibility to improve your karma can be abused by a character which is actually "evil". Which should render it useless, because it loses its meaning. And what is then the purpose of keeping a system which does not work as intended? Better remove those mechanisms. I think this is about equal with the current situation, but from the fact it doesn't punish those who try to improve the situation. Those who strive in the other direction will do just as well as before. And if you are dead certain a feature can not be abused by doublesiders, then ok, implement it.

I might have too little hope for the playerbase to change, but I do not think it really ever worked so well when you asked for changes on other issues. Why would it work this time?

PS. It's kind of late and I'm tired. Sorry if you have to read it twice. DS.

[luminier]

maybe im taking a shot in the dark here... but sorry for causing so much pain abh =P....

regardless this being my first mud i never really understood until recently how exactly people should be playing this game. it definately took my character throught the ringer multiple times.

the new religion system is really cool by the way.