Top Mud Sites Forum - View Single Post - Of playerkilling, equipment, and roleplay.

thelenian · 06-28-2002, 01:02 AM

Exactly, but what exactly does constitute "roleplaying it out"? Thieves and brigands, when they've decided to gain possession of an item through use of deadly force, typically attempt to kill someone with no warning whatsoever, as quickly as possible, employing whatever dirty tricks are necessary to do the job. A good thief, therefore, will RP an attack for good eq by attacking with no warning, hoping to kill the victim ASAP, no holds barred. Killing for eq is always IC, with the exception of certain very unusual circumstances (i.e. That sword belonged to my last char, so I'm going to kill you to get it back with this new char I just rolled).

People will always employ what they consider the most desirable method to achieve a goal. The attractiveness of the PK-for-eq route is determined primarily by two factors:

1) How hard it is to gain the eq through PK vs. the "normal" way.
2) The severity of the repercussions of Killing another player, if any.

Both of those considerations are decidedly IC. You have to remember that in the world of a given MUD, murdering another person may not be considered as heinous as it is IRL. To assume so would be playing with OOC assumptions. If players do not treat murderers as criminal scum who should be hunted like dogs, it may very well be worth it IC to murder people for goods.

This statement makes my point very clear. If other characters don't treat murders seriously, it may very well be ICly acceptable for a noble to kill random people and not feel guilty. In fact, in medieval Europe, and many other parts of the world in a similar stage of social development, nobles often felt that they had the right to kill people who resided within their domains because they believe that the people, and everything else on their land, belonged to them, and would therefore not feel guilty at all. In a MUD world like the one you've described, murders are apparently no big deal. That you think murders should feel/act guilty presupposes that the IC society's moral system treats murders as a crime of the worst sort (as in most RL societies). If it is, then the players have to treat it ICly as a horrible crime consistently (if your friend murders someone, you turn his heinous a$$ in). Only then can you say that murders have to RP feelings of guilt and remorse. Assuming that because murder is a serious crime in your RL society it is treated just as seriously IC is making a projection of your OOC moral code into the game. As for retaliation being "not fair", you have to evaluate the sort of retaliation you're advocating. IC retaliation (PC's avenging the murder of their friends) is possibly RP (I say possibly because, often, there is no way the victim's friends would be able to know the identity of his/her murderer IC). Any sort of hard-coded retaliation (including extremely powerful NPC "police" types) is very suspicious, and often blatantly OOC.

06-28-2002, 01:02 AM	#12
thelenian Member Join Date: Apr 2002 Posts: 122	Exactly, but what exactly does constitute "roleplaying it out"? Thieves and brigands, when they've decided to gain possession of an item through use of deadly force, typically attempt to kill someone with no warning whatsoever, as quickly as possible, employing whatever dirty tricks are necessary to do the job. A good thief, therefore, will RP an attack for good eq by attacking with no warning, hoping to kill the victim ASAP, no holds barred. Killing for eq is always IC, with the exception of certain very unusual circumstances (i.e. That sword belonged to my last char, so I'm going to kill you to get it back with this new char I just rolled). People will always employ what they consider the most desirable method to achieve a goal. The attractiveness of the PK-for-eq route is determined primarily by two factors: 1) How hard it is to gain the eq through PK vs. the "normal" way. 2) The severity of the repercussions of Killing another player, if any. Both of those considerations are decidedly IC. You have to remember that in the world of a given MUD, murdering another person may not be considered as heinous as it is IRL. To assume so would be playing with OOC assumptions. If players do not treat murderers as criminal scum who should be hunted like dogs, it may very well be worth it IC to murder people for goods. This statement makes my point very clear. If other characters don't treat murders seriously, it may very well be ICly acceptable for a noble to kill random people and not feel guilty. In fact, in medieval Europe, and many other parts of the world in a similar stage of social development, nobles often felt that they had the right to kill people who resided within their domains because they believe that the people, and everything else on their land, belonged to them, and would therefore not feel guilty at all. In a MUD world like the one you've described, murders are apparently no big deal. That you think murders should feel/act guilty presupposes that the IC society's moral system treats murders as a crime of the worst sort (as in most RL societies). If it is, then the players have to treat it ICly as a horrible crime consistently (if your friend murders someone, you turn his heinous a$$ in). Only then can you say that murders have to RP feelings of guilt and remorse. Assuming that because murder is a serious crime in your RL society it is treated just as seriously IC is making a projection of your OOC moral code into the game. As for retaliation being "not fair", you have to evaluate the sort of retaliation you're advocating. IC retaliation (PC's avenging the murder of their friends) is possibly RP (I say possibly because, often, there is no way the victim's friends would be able to know the identity of his/her murderer IC). Any sort of hard-coded retaliation (including extremely powerful NPC "police" types) is very suspicious, and often blatantly OOC.