Your profession.

[WhiteRanger]

I have noticed as I play the game, that what people call thier chosen professions vary greatly. For example, a warrior might be called, a hired blade, a guard, a fighter even......whats wrong with just saying....a warrior. Some people do that I have seen, but it seems to be shunned. The same goes for Rangers, instead of calling them wild men, travelers, barbarians (a few times), cant we just call them rangers, again I have seen it done by a few people in game, and I like it. In the north atleast, if you are an assassin and liscensed, you can say you are an assassin, whats wrong with a ranger saying he is a ranger. Are these terms supposed to be strictly ooc knowledge? I was just thinking....again...tell me what your views are.

[mansa]

I usually never play my guild as my profession.  I've had two long lived burglars that have been a Sergeant in Borsail and a Merchant in Kadius.  It was fun, and I was really beating some newbie warriors late in my career, as my Borsail.

I think people get confused when you ask them, what can you do?  It's always a laugh to hear, 'i can rescue, guard, kick, disarm, bash.'  Some people just haven't thought enough and written out their character's life.

[Krath]

I think it stems from the fact that the players of this mud want to keep it as IC as possible. Are
there some instances where you say your profession is a warrior, yes in some instances. However,
just because you pick warrior as your class and you enjoy fighting does not mean you specifically
have to stick with that.

I myself see that if someone says their profession is a warrior, think that it is kind of OOC.
I would rather see something creative, I.E. Blademaster, guard, mercenary, etc etc etc. All
the warrior class really is, is a set of skills, what you wish to do with your character is up to you, but
I just view it as when you say your profession is a warrior, you say saying I have these set skills.

Does that make sense? Sorry if I am rambling.

[sarahjc]

I think it's fine either way, if you want to tell people, "Well, I can fight beasts pretty good, and I'm not to bad with a long bow, and I know a bit about the sands... "

Or if you say, "Well, my pop raised me as a ranger, so I'm not so bad with blade or a bow and arrow."

Or if you completely lie and say, "Well, I was a street fighter for a while and I'm not too bad with a sword."  And really you are Burglar.

It is bad though when people ask, "What kind of skills do you have?" and the N00b answers, "I can bash, backstab, sap, kick, bandage, ..."  Bad, that is Bad..

[WhiteRanger]

I know what you mean, thats why I said profession and not -guild-....of course if your -guild- is warrior you dont have to be a warrior...I meant...if your character actually is a warrior...If your -guild- is burgular and you have gotten good with your blades and call yourself a warrior...why is that frowned on? The question isnt why do we choose different terms for our guilds.....but why do we choose different terms for our professions?

[Bestatte]

A lot of times (as Mansa pointed out) your guild doesn't match your actual profession - your job, what you are being paid to do.

My first character was a burglar/scavenger by guild/subguild. She practiced lockpicking but never managed to actually "be" a burglar. She was too busy being a spy

I think it's more a matter of what you DO with your skills that determines your profession. The Kuraci Outriders are a good example of this. They are, for the most part, rangers. That is kinda sorta their primary "function" to the House. They have other tasks as well, but if one of them said "I'm a ranger" it would make sense in that context.

Just because you can ride without needing a hand to hold the reins, just because you can forage for food, just because you are really good at skinning critters, doesn't automatically make you a ranger. The classes are really nothing more than skillsets, and it's up to you to pick and choose which ones you want to focus on, and your character will have whatever "profession" those focused skills imply.

Edited to add: Whoops, me and Whiteranger must've hit the enter button at the same time and his showed up first. Okay - one of my characters was a spy by profession. She had no problem with her boss calling her that..it's what she was. Obviously she wasn't gonna tell anyone else But she did think of herself as a spy.

Another one was in training to be an assassin. She thought of herself as such, and in fact I picked the assassin guild as her primary guild. For the same reasons as above - she didn't announce it to the general public.

Is that what you mean?

[Marauder Moe]

People also tend to avoid the words character, skills, game, spell, cast, slashing, piercing, bashing, subdue, and contact.  Its definitely silly and there is no reason any of these words would be absent from Zalanthan languages, but I guess people find them jarring as they all remind us of coded game mechanics.

I would have no problem if someone described him/herself as a warrior (except maybe for the fact that oddly enough, wars are rather uncommon in Zalanthas).

[Twilight]

The rich, newly-minted noble asks the old, wizened man 'So, what do you do?  What can you do?'

The old, wizened sorcerer tells the rich, newly-minted noble 'I'm a warrior.  I can kick and bash and rescue and guard...'

The rich, newly-minted noble thinks 'This is not the droid I am looking for.'


The problem is, I think, that unless you are out there trading IC knowledge willynilly, you can never be sure about the player of the other character.  When someone responds, the asker doesn't know whether the person answering is really answering with their profession, with their guild, or are lying through their teeth, if they use the same terms which correspond to the guilds.  In turn, when getting asked, the answerer doesn't always know whether the person asking is really trying to get at their guild.  Its funny how as a gemmed person people tend ask about your profession, but the conversation is generally unsublty steered towards what kind of elementalist you are.

So, for those of us who have been in these situations, on one side or the other, the easiest thing to avoid confusion and the perception that we are either a) giving out our OOC guild or b) don't know the difference between profession and guild is to use other terms.  It just makes everything so clearer.  So there is definately a bias to use other terms.

[Larrath]

Sometimes the words just fit better, or they reveal the way a character views his trade.

Some 'rinthi warriors, for example, could consider themselves to be professional muggers, brawlers or streetfighters.

Tuluki warriors could see themselves as blade-dancers, weaponmasters or just big wussies.

Allanakers could view themselves more as fighters/warriors, sellswords (mercenaries), guards, whatever.


Other than 'ranger', which I feel is a rather silly word, and crafter/merchant (since it's a big difference), I don't *really* mind whether people use warrior or fighter or whatever else.
Personally, however, I like to use 'fighter' or some more specific noun, just in order to steer away from the "my chosen guild is Warrior!".

I also think that 'fighter' is a simpler word that would be used more commonly.  "I fight, therefore I'm a fighter".


About skills, though...I think it is extremely silly to go "Alright, contact me in two hours".  It gives the sense of RP-Encouraged, and other than psionicists/people who would know about the Way, I like to keep the sense of not really knowing how it works.  "Find my mind" is an expression that is somewhat more distant and vague, and I think it just better portrays the fact that nobody -really- knows how it works.

Disarming, bashing and rescuing are all combat techniques that I don't people should mention at all.  Kicks are fine.


Bottom line, my crafters are not going to start saying "and I've got a mean hand for clothworking and knifemaking!".  Maybe they can, but that IC has an OOC lining, which I do not like.

[Gilvar]

Some people choose to be referred to by their class, others don't. Just because "You like it" when people do, doesn't mean other people like to be referred to, or refer to themselves, as the arbitrary class-names set by the code.

There is a big difference socially between "a warrior" and "a guard", and that is just a single example.

[dolores]

I think Twilight makes a good point about the difficultly of determining whether the other palyer is responding with profession or guild when they use a word that could refer to either.

I'm generally okay with 'warrior,' although it sounds better to me in a tribal context, since I think most urban 'warriors' are probably more precisely described as sellswords, guards, etc.

On the other hand, I find 'ranger' confusing. I know the person I'm talking to is an outdoors-type, but do they work as a guide, a hunter, a forager, a caravan guard, a scout?

(I'm echoing Larrath a bit, too.)

--Dolores

[Comrade Canadia]

I think the fact that peopel are missing here is that if a guild is an ENTIRELY ooc concept... than it shouldn't something you dance around icly.

A warrior guild can be called a warrior icly, I don't see the problem - they just aren't called exclusively warriors.  What you do for a living ICly might happen to have the same name as what your ooc guild is... it shouldn't matter.  Yeah, this conversation sucks:

"So, what do you do for a living?"

"im a warrior i can dual wield"

But if you're an experienced roleplayer there's no reason you should dance around the word 'warrior'.  It's silly.

-Dave

[Ammit]

I can't think of any time "warrior" and "ranger" are better to use then any other term. Perhaps my minds just drawing a blank on this one.

If someone's a guard, I'd call them a guard, if someone's a mercenary, I'd call them a  mercenary, if someone's a hunter, I'll call them a hunter, if someone's a scout, I'll call them a scout. I've someone lives their whole life outside in the desert I'll call them a desert-dweller. Sure you can use warrior and ranger any of those times, but I personally think the terms I used are more descriptive and therefore "better." That's just my personal preference though, as Gilvar said, each to their own

(Can anyone think of a time "warrior" or "ranger" would be better?)

[spawnloser]

Some tribals, one specific tribe I can think of actually, has what the tribe calls warriors.  That's one specific instance I can think of.  Otherwise, I would hate to have the term 'ranger' used in game.  I wouldn't hate to have the term 'warrior' used in game, but would still probably cringe a little bit when I saw it, depending on the context.

[JollyGreenGiant]

(Can anyone think of a time "warrior" or "ranger" would be better?)

Sure.  The time you need the word warrior is when you're searching for something in the generic sense and not the specific sense.  Let's say you want to hire a bodyguard, and you're planning on insisting on finding someone with combat experience, but not necessarily experience as a bodyguard.  What kind of a person are you looking for?  You're not looking to hire someone who already -is- a guard and has experience as a guard, necessarily, your range is something beyond that.  Your potential hire could be a guard, a mercenary, a sellsword, an ex-militia, or even a caravan guide or a ranger.  But the broad term for all of those is 'warrior'.  Fighter probably serves equally well, but I dislike the word fighter for some reason.  'Veteran fighter' just doesn't have the same impact as 'veteran warrior.'

[WhiteRanger]

Yea ok I see what you are talking about. That is skipping alot of potential role play for our world. I guess it comes from reading to many Tolkien books where the term Ranger and Warrior are used freely. Will just have to remind my self that this is not a Tolkien style game. But thanks for the feedback.

[Linedel]

When all else fails... ask Websters.

ranger (15c).
1) A keeper of a British royal park or forest.
3a) one of a body of organized armed men who range over a region esp. to enforce the law.
3b) a soldier specially trained in close-range fighting and in raiding tactics.

Obviously in Zalanthas, "park or forest" could be generalized to "wilderness."  However, it likely doesn't apply to "hunters" who bring in material for a merchant house.  It could be applied reasonably to tribals/halflings who are keeping the land around their encampment in order.

Before looking it up.. I was thinking it could apply to someone that, most of the time, quits in the wilderness rather than the city.. as per the "high fantasy colloquial" meaning that we're all familiar with.. and that might still be valid.

On to warrior!

warrior (13c) a man engaged or experienced in warfare; broadly: a person engaged in some struggle or conflict.

Well, that doesn't say as much.  Personally, I'd say it could reasonably apply to a militarily trained soldier (NOT a guard) or potentially a gladiator.


Generally, I'd think its only "bad roleplay" if you're using it to succinctly describe your characters' set of skills, rather than your background/occupation.

(Of course, I'd probably only use either if I were playing a sorcerer.)

[Ix Machina]

Unlike Gilvar, I can.

If your profession, that is your job or livelihood, has you out fighting people and/or beasts, be you of class warrior, burglar, ranger or any other, then you are, for all intents and purposes, a 'warrior'.

If you are a tribal and your main function in the tribe has you fighting, either to protect the tribe from others or other purposes, you are a warrior.

If you are someone who goes around breaking into houses, and taking objects of value which you then fence off, you are a 'burglar', even if your class is something different. Of course, it probably wouldn't be a good thing to tell someone that.

If you are someone who trades for goods, services or coin, no matter what skill you chose in chargen, then you are a merchant.

I can't think of a good one for rangers. A lot of them are warriors, or hunters. I've heard them referred to as dunehoppers, scrubhoppers, grebbers, and other terms also.

[Ammit]

aaah thanks. Those are a few cases where warrior makes sense to use