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Old 08-11-2005, 08:50 PM   #41
Jazuela
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I'm not sure how to say "you are incorrect" without sounding like a snob. So - consider it said.

I am not in the "in crowd" in Armageddon. Half the staff thinks I'm a royal pain in the butt, the other half either haven't had to deal with me yet, or tolerates me fairly well. And yet - I've had plenty of opportunity to become "important" in the scheme of things. Mostly because the emphasis in RPIs is the player-driven plotline. I wasn't recruited to a particular clan several months ago - I showed up with my brand new character, and ran right into one of the PC clan bigwigs in the local tavern. He hired my character, and I ended up becoming prominent (although not particularly important) in the city. I schemed and wheeled and dealed and amassed a rather hefty sum of coins for a commoner to have..made a few enemies, several "fond acquaintences," and had quite a few spies and other assorted underlings working for my character. All that I did myself. No one helped me, no one pushed me up to that point, no one gave me a handout. And lemme tell ya it was a blast getting to that point, most of the time.

The only reason that I'm aware of, that I wasn't promoted to a full "officer" of that clan (the same rank as the one who hired me), was because of MY choices regarding various tasks. I was given the opportunity, and the task needed to promote, and didn't grab it. That was my decision. Not any manipulation on the part of the staff, or the "important" players. They had no control over MY roleplay, afterall.

To say that you "must" be in the "in-crowd" to succeed in RPIs is doing them a huge disservice. I'm a damned good example of the truth of the matter, and I know of several other players who aren't "imm-pets" who have played outstanding, high-profile, memorable roles in the game world.
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Old 08-11-2005, 10:45 PM   #42
shadowfyr
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To be fair, your not one of the type that I am talking about. Unlike most people, I tend to play a bit like I am in RL, for the most part. I tend to be introverted and a loner. I am not someone likely to walk up to the local clan chief and ask for a job, I am not going to seek out parties, etc. I might run a shop, if such a role was available and it meant more than just pretending that I was selling something, etc. Then again, I might not. I am the guy that is quite competent at getting the job done, when I have one, but not gung ho about finding them. The one that sit in a corner and watches other people make a fool out them themselves, not the one that drinks too much and ends up picking a fight with the large orc in the other corner or dances on the tables.

Now, I 'might' eventually, if anyone bothered to find out, get a reputation for consistent work and skill, but I might never even get to a point where I could play that role, if 90% of my time was spent dealing with people and admin that insisted I didn't 'act' enough or 'play the part' properly, i.e. I don't seek out attention and feed the system like everyone else.

Now, on the other end of the spectrum, when I have been more extroverted, I feel that RP in which emoting, "Kagehi sneeks along the streets dropping sticks.", is a both a cheat and a unsatisfying if there is no mechanism to make those harmless objects erupt into illusions, to instill the proper chaos on the city when triggered. Everyone else has to agree to play be 'my' rules in such a case and the one time I tried I got two people willing to play along and wonder just what sort of mischief I was involved in and 2-3 that refused to play by the implied rules, but instead screwed up the entire thing. Now, this might have just been the inexperience (great laugh, given I have almost 0) of the people involved, but it left me backed into a corner, with the only people satisfied being the jerks that thought messing up the story line was fun. I haven't tried since and I have seen maybe 1-2 other instances of someone using the RP channel on the mud I play at to even try to revive the whole RP society concept.

Would a moderator of some sort have helped? Probably. Better rules? Maybe. Some sort of real mechanism to provide for RP, instead of just having to fake everything? Definitely. Instead the RP society for all practical purposes has died of starvation. I can't do it alone and half the people in it have even less a clue than I do how to limit their own ambitions for the good of the whole. So.. I went back to being the guy that spends time killing stuff, mostly doesn't interact with anyone and no one really knows. It doesn't hurt me to be that way on a mud and having to make everything up myself just irritates me too much to bother with systems where 90% of everything 'is' based on that.

But the point is, your style of play 'can' have an effect, not only on your own play, but other people's play and how you are seen. Some ways of doing it are disruptive, some perhaps too subtle to get credit for. I don't think I could sustain an outwardly extrovert type style, in fact, I am fairly sure I can't. And I doubt that a quite style would actually get me any place. Maybe I am wrong.

Of course, a bigger factor is if there is even any races I even want to play on a game. I haven't seen a lot I find all that interesting and the ones I do like on the surface, some twit mangles in the specifics. lol
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Old 08-12-2005, 04:20 PM   #43
Ilkidarios
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I'm sorry to pick on Achaea again, but seeing as this is a discussion on role-playing, I figured I'd throw something out there that is so NOT roleplaying, it tore me out of the experience.  Recently, I decided to try out Iron Realm's system one more time, but I was not pleased with the role-playing by a certain few players who ripped me out of the experience.  Here is a transcript of the dialogue (I removed the frills, such as people entering and leaving and it changing to night so it will take up less space):

[begin]
Major Senoske Darkstar, Angel of Retribution says to Crunk, "Wanna go to UW?"
-
"Mad Dog", Crunk Drac'Kal s'Lessen, Sniper says to Senoske, "Not particularly."
-
Khaz sighs deeply, as if he has suffered a great loss.
-
"Mad Dog", Crunk Drac'Kal s'Lessen, Sniper says to Senoske, "Gonna bash a bit
with khaz, it's mark bashing."
-
Major Senoske Darkstar, Angel of Retribution says to Crunk, "Blah you surk
hella good exp there."
-
"Mad Dog", Crunk Drac'Kal s'Lessen, Sniper says, "People are better xp."
-
Major Senoske Darkstar, Angel of Retribution says, "Not really."
-
"Mad Dog", Crunk Drac'Kal s'Lessen, Sniper says, "With a 10% bonus too."
-
"Mad Dog", Crunk Drac'Kal s'Lessen, Sniper says, "Yes really, you just can't
kill anyone but nubs."
-
Major Senoske Darkstar, Angel of Retribution says, "Ooer."
-
Major Senoske Darkstar, Angel of Retribution says, "Dude stfu."
-
"Mad Dog", Crunk Drac'Kal s'Lessen, Sniper says, "You can't."
-
Major Senoske Darkstar, Angel of Retribution says, "Yea i can."
[end]

Now THIS is bad role-playing.  Yet, there was no way I could even tell someone that this guy was jolting me out of the experience because apparently this "Senoske" is pretty high up there in world politics, so far as having the right friends in the right places.  I mean, when I first played, I often did OOC things to test out the system. People would use ATTACKS on me, and KICK ME OUT OF THE ROOM for being OOC, yet this guy can do whatever the #### he wants to and nobody does jack squat. And this was the center of town!

I told him in an earlier encounter (through the OOC "tell" system) "Talking about raising your skills and going to the fridge to get a snack is probably not roleplaying."  He got aggresive, he said "stfu I've been around longer than you here so I know." (he had really bad grammar by the way, I can't even remember what he wrote, this was essentially it though)  to which I politely replied that I have been playing MUDs for a long time too, mentioned that I used to play GemStone way back when, and not to get aggressive about it.  No words back.  I'm just saying, I gave Achaea another chance, but it's things like this that I just don't like.

Now why did I post this?  Because it goes back to the earlier posts about there being no rewards system.  I myself think there is a rewards system, and it is for players who don't roleplay.  Notice this guy has probably been a douche bag for the entire time he has played Achaea, yet he's still like a grandmaster of a city or something like that.  Meanwhile, little ol' Tithesus tries his hardest to roleplay but gets nothing.  

What I envision would improve Iron Realms a lot (besides changing business politics, but I know that's not a possibility) but a punishment system.  For instance, this guy's character credibility (the meter for measuring in-game role-playing) seemed to be really good.  Just simply put it down, and show some sort of effect that might have on him.  Maybe tell him to at least make an EFFORT to role-play.  Of course, they'd probably lose lots of paying customers that way, but that's how I'd do it.
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Old 08-12-2005, 05:38 PM   #44
AC1
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The problem I have with most Roleplay Encouraged and even most Roleplay Manditory games is that the only roles available are sociopaths. Oh, there are variations like
Cute Pixie Sociopath, Helpful Cleric Sociopath, Mysterious Necromancer Sociopath, Noble Warrior Sociopath, etc., but everyone is a sociopath. Even the "lawful good" type alignments tend to go kill harmless baby animals or slaughter everyone in the smurf village (or equivilent) from time to time. The average character kills more people (humans or other sapient beings) than any cop or soldier even durring a time of war, and yet suffers no unfortunate psycological effects at all. No nightmares, no pangs of regret. Most of the people you are killing are no threat to you, your family, your country or your world, and yet you go looking for them for the sole purpose of killing them. Why? Treating other people like disposible objects makes you a crazy bastard, even if those other people are NPCs or mobs, and so on a game level are disposable objects.

Most games also have easy or automatic resurection of PCs, even the roleplay required games. I tried, but I just couldn't wrap my head around the idea of death and miracleous resurection having no long term mental of physical effects. In real life people that have near death experiences or are technically dead for even a few minutes tend to mention it at every oportunity and occasionally speak on talkshows, and have it change their life. In most MUDs it is an everyday event, and people that make too big of a deal about it are annoying.

Your character and all of her friends are merciless sociopaths, and nobody thinks that there is anything wrong with that. I can't imagine living in a society like that, much less convincingly roleplay one of the residents of that society.


Angela Christine
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Old 08-13-2005, 04:21 AM   #45
shadowfyr
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That is one aspect of the game world I play in that on one hand I like, since I don't lose anything but some exp. **But** I also planned to feed into the journal I started writing bits about the consequences. I even have notes on it, like some players visiting the necromacer to change they race and skills so much they become addicted to it, or that you can tell those that have died a lot by how they look somehow thin and drained. Since the premise of the game is a sort of continous war with external forces, some areas are free for alls, where you can kill anyone at all, the whole game is filled with various lesser evils that have gotten past the barrier around the island and set up shop, etc., it seemed reasonable.

Sadly, this is another reason why RP has never taken off. While one brief attempt at a contest to fill in some of the history did happen, (it had only three entries and I can say with some confidence that mine was the only one that seemed to take it seriously and didn't suck. And that *isn't* tooting my own horn. They where that bad.) it ended when someone realized a wizard was already working on fleshing out the history. Or is supposed to be anyway.... There is no structure to the overall world, no means to give player input to the guy working on it, etc. So, no real 'base' for any sort of RP. Anything we do make up, may be completely erased by the single act of the Wizard doing the revamp posting the new history, which might happen tomarrow, next week, next year or next century, for all even most of the staff knows. Its a screwed up way to run a game, but its 'still' better than the prior admin, half of which burned out and retired, after firing the other half that where cheating and breaking rules (or pretty close anyway).

Point is, I tend to agree. Some 'real' difference needs to be made by reincarnation or resurrection. Means should exist to counteract this, maybe, but be hard to achieve (yet still achievable, even if you pick some horrible combo like Kitsune Cleric/Healer/Druid, which a) has only 'above average'' wis and int, b) horrible con and c) is better at being and assassin, which I felt was an insult to the species, than any of the three classes. Worse, the classes themselves are individually horrible and together only become survivable, unless you have alignment bonuses, really high wis bonuses, better con, etc. That's another big issue, at least in H&S. Roles often amount to, "Gee, your support staff right? I mean what *can* a healer actually kill? For that matter, how many undead are 'really' around for a cleric? And druids are good for what again?" lol Full RP type systems are better in that one respect, since their is no special quests for class X, special monsters for those with abilities like Y, etc., thus its more balanced. But as someone else pointed out, all too often it means you massacring the local village, because a **true** RP mud isn't likely to have a huge red dragon, with magic, more hitpoints than most of the wizard staff combined, and which takes 8-10 hours of straight fighting to kill (assuming you can find enough insane people to even try). You would think someone could find a decent balance between the two extremes...
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Old 08-13-2005, 05:01 AM   #46
Ashon
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It seems to me that the last couple of post come back to the same thing, essentially. Bad game design.

For instance, to handle the sociopath aspect of these 'RPI/RPE's' would be to design a game where your hometown, your nation is under attack. And this comes closer to a PVP. But Conflict breeds drama, and adventure.

History. It seems to me mandartory that a RPI/E mud would need a solid history before launching. Or it could even be based around discovering about the history of the world. But how can you roleplay if there is no background to use? Any truly Roleplay Intensive Tabletop game I've been in, had one of two aspects: A 5-10 page setting document, or had a Storyteller who allowed players to add parts to the canon of the world, out of the blue.

In response to Resurrection and Regeneration, it's again boils down to game design. If the game designer wants the game to be more Intensive, then they should either make the game less lethal, or make consequences, as hase been suggested for dying.

The last factor, which seems to be a big one, is that unless you've put in the time you don't really have an effect on the game. And this one of course is hard to overcome. But I imagine that with more advanced code, or a dedicated team of 'level developers' or staff member who lead RP Events, this could be overcome. Otherspace seems to do it well (from what I've heard). The Advanced code stuff of course is difficult code to write, and usually takes a PhD in computer science (Advanced AI and so forth)

Anyhow, that's my take on it.
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