The "proper" responses to raiders.

[Jingo]

Tisiphone is slowly -willing- the thread to it's death.

[Heade]

Nah, just make your point here. I've read the OP.

Obviously not closely enough. The last four pages or so of this thread have been done to death. This was conspicuously not about code, at all, in any way, shape, or form. Let it die.

Just because the OP didn't mention new code as a solution to lack of meaningful RP in raiding situations doesn't mean that no one else should. It's pertinent to the discussion at hand, and no, I don't think we should just "let it die."

[Clearsighted]

Maybe it's just me, but this thread is feeling like it just got its second wind...Four more pages!

[Heade]

Ok, fine. Back on the OP's topic. Here's the solution, in the form that you seemed to be wanting it:

1. We need to commit to RPing these situations out instead of codedly just logging their desc and spam-running away.

2. We need to commit to playing realistic raiders who take calculated chances in an attempt to minimize risk. (ie, you KNOW you can get away with 100 of this guy's sid. He's offering. If you push your luck, you might just get p00ned. Take your 100 and open the road. Hell, as previously mentioned, perhaps offer to escort them the rest of the way for an additional 100 sid. Whatever.)

The point is, we need to RP instead of immediately resorting to agressive code or spam-running.

Additionally, if someone is wearing a skull-faced helm, a full body cloak, and head to toe armor, you probably don't have their description IC. You don't have their sdesc, or their fulld desc. You don't know they're the "blonde-haired man" because their clothes covered that up. All you have is a description of their clothing. Play that way.

There, problems solved. If people follow the above, we will have no further problems with raiding being an issue.

....


Right. Not everyone is going to, and thats the point. Thats why this thread became about code. Because you can talk about RP all you want, and how to play a good raider/victim, and you can be 100% right about how to go about doing it. But without code in place to counter the twinkish behavior, it's just not going to happen. People are too attached to their PCs and gear to want to risk death, or losing everything they own for something like "Good RP suggestions" to work without coded support.

If people know that they can codedly save their character by doing something thats obviously a bit twinkish, there's a good possibility to do that. This goes for raiders and victims alike. It could be argued that the raiders who run in and take aggressive action are doing it out of a desire to protect their characters, so the victims don't just spam-run away and get a posse together.

I say, eliminate that opportunity, or at least it's appeal. Put code in place that makes it more difficult, or at lease less appealing, to simply resort to something twinkish. I think there are a number of ways to make that happen. Most of them, in my mind, involve implementing new code.

Some of the code ideas are simple, others are more complex. Implementing a variety of them would actually make the system the best.

These two would eliminate tons of problems:

1. Bring in mask code that hides your entire description, other than the clothes you're wearing.

2. Make some sort of "follow" command that the person being followed can't cancel.


You'd see a return of raiders, better RP, and less PKilling over identity issues.

[Clearsighted]

What we need are innocent, automated, NPC travellers, whom can be attacked at the cost of a random chance to make you wanted in their home city. Some can be guarded, some can be alone. THAT will encourage real PC raiders to form.

[Heade]

What we need are innocent, automated, NPC travellers, whom can be attacked at the cost of a random chance to make you wanted in their home city. Some can be guarded, some can be alone. THAT will encourage real PC raiders to form.

I agree with this too. Put it in with the other code.

[Janna]

I just must be lucky after reading through most of this thread. I've had a few 'raider' type characters over the years and I've only really ever come across a few 'twinks' that insta-ran. I saw TONS as a Templar, but not as a raider. I only had one raid result in a death and the rest were RP'd thefts of some sort and everything went off without a hitch. No one to my knowledge reported my desc.

On the flip side, I've been raided twice to my memory. One time was done beautifully by a PC, the other was pretty well an insta-ganking attack which annoyed me some. The one that I survived, I never reported a thing about it because it was RP'd that they had snuck up behind me and the only thing I would've seen if I -did- glance at the last second was a hood or club in my face before being knocked cold.

I actually wish I get raided/tortured/beat up more. It's ARM after all.

[Delstro]

It takes me less than a second to type "Kill person." I have it set up as an alias in fact, "Kiss".


I run away after they have proved to me they are not reasonable. You forgot that part Heade.
I've always had a pleasant time interacting with people in the wastes with both of us thinking the other is a raider.

If I am a twink, (Shrug), so be it.

Clearsighted wins.

To fix raiding, I'd want:
The followed can't unhitch another PC.
If you want someone to stop, flee self, or flee [Direction].


Watch works at a distance.

Code Select Expand

If you can see them, you can watch them.

Look East
[Near]
The man in the Iron-colored mask

Watch iron east
You begin watching the man in the iron-colored mask to the east.

The man in the iron-colored mask walks south.

s


Follow works at a distance. (The following is based on agility, endurance, encumbrance, and strength of mounts involved.)
When they move you move, if you are running and they are walking, you'll catch them.
If you are walking and they are running, you will lose them.
If you are both running, then you go until someone gives up, or catches up.

Example:
If a Half-giant A is on a shaking erdlu and HG-b is ona racing inix.

HG-B follows HG-A, HG-A is walking. HG-B catches HG-A because the erdlu died under the weight.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

To fix raiding, I'd want:
The followed can't unhitch another PC.
If you want someone to stop, flee self, or flee [Direction].

I like those ideas, except for this. This isn't good. If you want to follow a PC and not get unhitched, maybe try following their mount? If they have no mount, they have more manuverability and so you can't follow them easily. However, watch makes up for this, and their lessened ability to cover ground counts.

The unhitch command is very important for purposes of mundane following, such as link-dead PCs, mounts, etc.

[Delstro]

To fix raiding, I'd want:
The followed can't unhitch another PC.
If you want someone to stop, flee self, or flee [Direction].

I like those ideas, except for this. This isn't good. If you want to follow a PC and not get unhitched, maybe try following their mount? If they have no mount, they have more manuverability and so you can't follow them easily. However, watch makes up for this, and their lessened ability to cover ground counts.

The unhitch command is very important for purposes of mundane following, such as link-dead PCs, mounts, etc.

That is such a mindblowingly easy work around. Why have I never thought about this? I'm seriously amazed. I'm being serious. You wyn.

[fourTwenty]

Chase Command

[Qzzrbl]

Yeah... It's always been kind of ridiculous that someone could simply "unhitch" a following raider.

Maybe flee could take stats or a skill or something into consideration when fleeing from a follower. Higher dexterity/strength/endurance will manage to escape from a chasing PC after a distance.

[Heade]

Chase Command

This.

[path]

I want to be raided. I'm so ready for this. Once someone came upon me in the desert (I was sleeping, no less), where I thought I was all safe or whatever and they were all like, "Don't worry, I don't hurt women." What I want to add to this is it was a high-karma role this guy had, a mul. Not that a wandering mul would have be a raider. That was just an odd thing to say. So..long story short, I've never met up with any raiders.

I guess that's chivalry in the sands.

[brytta.leofa]

Once someone came upon me in the desert (I was sleeping, no less), where I thought I was all safe or whatever and they were all like, "Don't worry, I don't hurt women." What I want to add to this is it was a high-karma role this guy had, a mul. Not that a wandering mul would have be a raider. That was just an odd thing to say.

Just a thought: perhaps our wise consent rules are encouraging a misunderestimation of the desert's potential brutality.  It would be an odd thing for a male human to say to a female human, but, in that light, rather less odd for an escaped mul.

[musashi]

Well, maybe a woman ranger helped the mul escape?

[path]

Or, a woman rukkian. In which case from then on he would respect and honor female magickers. You're right. You never know. I didn't mean to point the finger and say, 'bad', just that I've never had a raiding experience, and that was the closest I've gotten, an experience I still find odd to this day.

[Clearsighted]

I think sometimes people allow their 'OOC pity' to get the best of them and cut people a break when they should be murdering them.

[KIA]

I think sometimes people allow their 'OOC pity' to get the best of them and cut people a break when they should be murdering them.

I've played some mean pieces of work from time to time, and yeah... sometimes the OOC pity does creep up. But it has come back to bite me in the ass before. It's dangerous to be nice on Armageddon. It can have consequences. Better to just kill when you're character would kill that to have some lapse into compassion-ville.

[Jingo]

It's got nothing to do with compassion. It makes for a funner game for everyone involved.

[Melody]

It's got nothing to do with compassion. It makes for a funner game for everyone involved.

It has its places and time. But on the whole, I agree with KIA.

It is NOT fun to lose a 100 day playing character because you oocly felt bad about killing another's character. Sure I might miss a plot or two with that player's character, but plenty of plots on Arm to be had. I do not mind when it is ic sympathy/pity/compassion which comes back to bite my char in the butt later though.

And I've yet to have a 100+ playing day character.

[Jingo]

Are we playing this game to win, or to have fun? Think about it. This isn't a zero-sum game.

This attitude about killing every potential enemy every chance they get, I think makes for a less fun game.

[KIA]

Are we playing this game to win, or to have fun? Think about it. This isn't a zero-sum game.

This attitude about killing every potential enemy every chance they get, I think makes for a less fun game.

It's not an OOC attitude. It was a character who was a cold blooded killer... and ONLY that. My point is that it's much harder to stick to a role like that than is imagined. And you know... good people play the best bad guys.

edit: And no, Jingo. It does not make a less fun game. It is exciting to play with the knowledge that at any given time, at any peak hour or even during the lower playing times, there could be someone out there whose sole purpose is to murder you at the earliest opportunity, as effectively as possible. It's dark, twisted stuff like that that flavors this mud, and it is perma-death that has always, invariably, made me happy to play the game... whether I'm playing a character who wouldn't hurt a fly... or one whose sole consuming focus is to destroy the world step by step.

[fourTwenty]

Are we playing this game to win, or to have fun? Think about it. This isn't a zero-sum game.

This attitude about killing every potential enemy every chance they get, I think makes for a less fun game.

Winning is fun.

[Heade]

I think identifying and eliminating enemies in a tactful or direct manner(read: however you can get away with it) is what makes the game fun for me. I play a permadeath game because when someone lets it slip that they are somehow my enemy, they don't come back to life when I get rid of them. On the same note, my characters don't either, which gives me a real, tangable reason to play them as sniveling little bitches who tell you how monstrous your massive, almighty cock is, till you drink that laced drink I gave you, and I stick a knife in your back.