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If you don't want to RP, at least don't get in the way of those that do.
Athelas
Cape Town South Africa
I recently had a potentially awesome RP experience, ruined by someone who needs no practice at being the proverbial donkey.
While relaying the story of Athelas's first kiss to one of his protégées, at the perfect time for the story, and everything happening in character, Mr. IAmADonkey pops in, and starts chirping his very OOC criticism of the story.
Really!? Seriously!?
In the few months I've been back at playing Achaea, I've been sorely disappointed by people who can't seem to understand, that there are those who simply aren’t interested in bashing to level 110 and screaming their stats at the world.
Sure, there are many that do both equally well, but I have either developed a magnetism for those that just can't care less about spewing their insanity into the world or there are more insane persons than there have ever been before.
So, this is a kind request: If you are one of those that just want to play the game for the fun of killing things, please be so kind as to stay out of the way of those who are here for the other reasons to play this game. In fact, you could take it a step further by learning what Role play is. You could play a person that runs around killing beasts, because they are frustrated at being a complete mute. You would be completely in character all the time, by just keeping your mouth shut.
See, no brain-work, just bash.
Now go have fun and stop interrupting those who are having their own brand of fun.
Comments
He should have emoted pissing in your corn flakes instead, obviously.
You caught that too, huh?
Unlike some, I can at least claim that English is not my first languge.
Is this about @Jhui?
@Jhui, are you being an asshole?
(Also, I agree, if you can't positively add to the RP experience, shut your fucking mouth)
Clearly he did that too.
@Zii I can not fault Jhui for bad RP. Athelas and Jhui have never interacted directly. Although Athelas would admit to getting a warm fuzzy feeling, every time he detects Jhui's death via Deathsight. But that is completely IC, due to Jhui's attacks on Eleusis.
@Daeir I consider a discussion around the amount of HP you need in order to take down a particular denizen, an OOC discussion. As HP is a game mechanic used to communicate character health to a player. Therefore, a character interrupting a story with technicalities like that, and debasing a story on the grounds of those technicalities, is OOC. In my opinion.
I do find though, that I'm having to re-define what is considered OOC within Achaea. It really does seem, that the entire environment has shifted towards character advancement rather than character immersion. It used to be, that running into a dragon was slightly less impressive than running into a god. These days, I find myself in rooms populated by 5 or more, where Athelas is the only one that's not a Dragon. This however, could be due to a change in game mechanics rather than lack of RP.
So, I do have to admit that I might be overly sensitive to the issue. Ultimately, it is just a game, and our reasons for playing it do differ. Personally though, I do like being able to know exactly when Athelas would be happy, sad, angry or even uncontrollably irrational. While I care quite a bit less about when he'll have 4500hp, so that I can bash in Tundra.
@Tahquil It seems I'm not the only one that's overly sensitive.
Also, please read my statement again: "where Athelas is the only one that's not a Dragon."
That's pretty innocuous. I wouldn't bat an eyelid an eyelid at health being discussed, honestly.
@Athelas Join Mhaldor.
Discussing health is not the problem. How and when is.
Example of Completely fine OOC:
you tell personY: // Yea, I need to be at 4khp to gank that one.
personY tells you: // Get a rune man, you'll bump CON from 12 to 13 and make up the diff.
Example of OOC that just destroys RP:
You say, "The buckawn and I circled each other. He jumped and I stepped aside to get him from behind. I was really scared."
PersonY says, "Ooo, what happened next?"
PersonZ says, "Buckawns are easy dude, you only need like 2000 hp to kill them."
@Orzaansyn Interesting as it sounds, there is simply no IC mechanism through which Athelas would ever be able to join Mhaldor. He does respect Sartan as a god, and understands the need for a place like Mhaldor to exist. So he does not act quite as personally towards Mhaldorians, as other forestall characters might. But this is where things get interesting with him. His connection to nature is more than just an imprinted grove.
Let me put it this way; Athelas's background, now spans about 10 x A4 printed pages. The events and detail on that background, would require Mhaldor to become the protectors of all things Forest and Nature, in the way that Eleusis is now. It would literally require Mhaldor to renounce and reject all activity that damages forests and/or nature, while becoming the ultimate protectors of trees and plants, before it would make any amount of sense for him to join Mhaldor.
Athelas is not a Druid by choice, he is a Druid because he simply can not conceive of being anything else.
@Orzaansyn
I entered a short story, based on his background, in the bardic competition for Q2 2014.
If it doesn't make the final cut, I'll post it here. I'm confident you'll understand how lame anything other than Mhaldor doing what I described, would be in that story.
You have to be willing to change and adapt to play any online game. Also, if you were RPing out your first kiss with your protege, then there are reasons people would heckle that shit depending on how young the protege was. Newbie preds are pure shit.
I read that as telling his protege the story of his first kiss, not kissing his protege.
Wait... people who bash to dragon aren't roleplayers?
Well shit, I had better stop roleplaying then... lol, kill things
Who needs to read when we can insult new forumers? That's so much better, that way they'll get to feel the forum's toxicity first hand.
(my apologies for the hostility above - hostility meeting hostility is not really ideal. I just agree with @Jules that there's this trend to attack new forumers when they're griping about whatever, and it's like wat.)
Bit slow, but the IC/OOC argument about health is technically correct.
HELP STAT:
Staying in Role: IC and OOC
---------------------------
Please be careful how you talk about your stats.
Discussing strength, or intelligence (etc) in comparative terms would make sense and not break role and become OOC (HELP OOC). So saying "She's a bit stronger than I" or "He has a weak constitution" make sense and would be in character (IC).
Saying "I've got a +1 to intelligence right now, bringing it to 15" would be OOC.
Sentient beings know more or less how strong they are and who is stronger or weaker. Same for dexterity, constitution, or intelligence. They don't really talk about it in numbers though. Neither should you.
Health/Mana/etc would also fall under this category. Though, would also agree with @Silas (lol), that it's not really a big deal, and it shouldn't really 'destroy RP' for anyone, if they wanna talk about it.
Yeah, the whole health and mana and stuff is so pervasive that even the most well-meaning of people will fall on it, often without any real ill intent on their parts.
I don't know if it was possible or viable, but your best bet would have been to simply move to some other room. Perhaps after making some bitting comment, just to spice it up. With these things, moving away is the only real solution, unless you want to be bogged down in a discussion that will lead nowhere.
And you won't understand the cause of your grief...
...But you'll always follow the voices beneath.
I am so sorry you had such a negative experience like this. I'm even sorrier to see a full page of people continuing the trend of being jerks to you about your concerns here on the forums. Some people weren't raised with the logic that If you can't say something nice, then don't say anything at all and instead default into troll-speak at each and every opportunity. It's unnecessary and disappointing, but let me move beyond that to address your points.
You've raised some valid points in your post about the need for greater respect for the IC immersion of others. Sadly, there are many people in Achaea who aren't interested in roleplay at all and they're allowed, if not encouraged more and more, to exist as nothing but narrativeless individuals tied to ideologies and factions by nothing except their citizenship or House membership. That, to them and most of Achaea, is enough "roleplay" to justify all sort of interactions and conflict.
That said, I think there are a lot of long-term players, even those like me who have broken into the ranks of dragons, who do roleplay or, in some cases, wish they could roleplay more but are consistently met with derision or apathy from the players in leadership or the heights of Achaean's social circles (I'm thinking of @Jinsun's semi-recent Rant here). I think it is somewhat understood that you're going to get that kind of experience at times in Achaea today, but it wasn't always that way. A pattern was established at some point in Achaea by pioneering trolls and, even here on forums, jerkdom has become more the norm than the exception.
Meaningless dickery, if not discouraged more here and in-game by forcing people to take responsibility for their actions, will continue. My advice is to ignore the dismissive comments here lacking empathy for your situation. Not every player in Achaea is a responsible one. They won't necessarily admit that what they're doing is wrong or that their actions have an impact on others in the game or the game as a whole. Just keep roleplaying and, hopefully, the need to have such a thick skin for those who break your immersion will someday be unnecessary.
Album of Bluef during her time in Achaea
You should apply your own rules to yourself. Maybe then we'll learn from your example. But no, really, stop exaggerating just because it fits your point. No one in this thread has been a jerk to him. And the one who went the closest was, amusingly, not the one you flagged. You just want to twist people's words, as usual.
And you won't understand the cause of your grief...
...But you'll always follow the voices beneath.
I don't want to derail this thread anymore than necessary, but I feel the need to point out that I'm not exaggerating or being a jerk; I'm not calling any one person out (personally, I think that discussing flags here is just as toxic as discussing issues so I refuse to even go there with you), insulting anyone with snark, or even making comments intended to incite people into responses that are unnecessarily trollish in response.
That is the difference between what I wrote people shouldn't do and what they are doing, your comment included.
Now my view may not be one you share, but that doesn't invalidate the experiences I've had, the way I view some of the feedback on this OP, etc. Your post suggests that I "twist people's words, as usual," and yet I didn't point to a single comment directly in my reply. If anyone's words are being twisted, they're mine.
In short: There's no reason for half of the crap that is posted on these forums to exist except that some people use threads as a form of entertainment rather than expression. The same goes for IC interactions of the quality the OPer was pointing toward: I can't see what they add to game immersion or the roleplay experience for anyone beyond being a source of amusement for the person making the unnecessary statements.
I think some of the posts on this particular thread support that opinion. You're free to have a different opinion, but respond with something of substance, not a straw man argument intended to merely discredit the poster and not the post itself.
Album of Bluef during her time in Achaea
@Nim Not to worry, I've got a much thicker skin than most would credit me for. You are right though, there are those that seemingly refuse to read posts, before doing MORPH RANTINGTROLL.
@Shirszae This particular incident was quite a bit worse than my example, but we did leave, though I didn't have that witty remark handy at the time.@Bluef The RP will continue
But I honestly did not think there was this much sensitivity on the topic, so allow me the opportunity to present a more balanced point of view:
The day I created Athelas on Achaea, I had years of RP experience in games like D&D and Legend of the five rings. My motivation for creating Athelas, was based in events of a game where I was the Story Master. As such, I had a mile-long back story ready and waiting for Athelas.
I'm sure very few people have a story ready for any new character on Achaea, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Most people don't have a fraction of the storyline I had when I started with Athelas, and even I had to wrap my head around what a MUD is and how it all worked back then. Everyone has to deal with getting their head wrapped around the mechanics of the game, so a certain amount of flexibility around RP will always be required, especially with young ones.
My issue here, is that there seems to be very little in terms of player RP that happens these days. My experience, is that there are 60 year old characters, committing PK for reasons like: "I saw you are around my might and thought I'd take a chance.". Any issueing around this, is also simply batted aside by administrators, because the are truly powerless to do anything about a lack of RP.
One can't blame the players though, as there is little to no in-game reward for RP.
Back when I started, Athelas gained guild rank rather quickly, because he was doing things in character, that a Druid would do. These days, I'm confronted with city favours being based on how much gold a character donates to the city coffers, thinly veiled as gold obtained during a "Sanctioned Project Hunt". There simply is no reward for a player, that wants to truly act out the motivations and experiences of a character. So why would any new player do it? Especially when bashing and PK have such incredibly visible, immediate rewards.
Even the bardic competition reward system, seem to have tapered down. So the little motivation for RP there, is now also missing.
What's more, is that RP is a very player driven dynamic on any game. One can't blame administrators and event coordinators, when players don't engage with each other on an RP level.
But one can reward proper RP!
I for one, have done it with players in games that I ran. When I noted a player consistently delivering RP at a good standard, especially RP that does not involve combat, I'd hand that player something special in-game. For the most part, it was quite simple; A sword here, a bit of gold there and the occasional envoy assignment does the trick. In the case of Achaea though, this kind of thing would require exceptionally mature administrators. Who would recognise RP for what it is, and hand out such rewards.
A system like that would be incredibly difficult and highly unmanageable.
There is a solution though, but I'll have to polish it a bit before handing it in as an IDEA. The basic gist of it, revolves around players favouring other players for good RP, allowing moderators to reward such.
That aside though, and in the mean time:
I'd say this is pretty wholly false. I've never been attacked for such a frivolous reason, even as someone who's engaged in casual PK for most of my game life, and the admin do take their issues seriously and reinforce the RP requirement to PK. Is there an in-game reward for PK? Not really... it's overall an xp sink, on top of the resources you consume to do the fighting. There's a reward for bashing and questing, but that's kind of the purpose of bashing and questing: you have to generate gold somehow. See above. Also, which makes more RP sense, an organization rewarding a person for a personal growth or achievement, or a organization rewarding a person for benefiting that organization?
Why are we discriminating against combat-focused RP? Is it lesser RP than non-combat focused? Do (ex) members of Matsuhama's and Lupus's orders deserve less appreciation for their RP?
Such a system has been discussed before, and it's been generally accepted that it would be very subject to abuse
Aetolia had something like that, and eventually scrapped the whole thing because it was full of favouritism, griefing (because you could basically disfavour as well as favour someone's RP, or lack of RP), abuse, and the system just couldn't be salvaged without a very impractical amount of admin oversight. That's with Aetolia being a much smaller, more close-knit community, it would be even harder to make it work in a bigger game like Achaea.
Album of Bluef during her time in Achaea