Death Experiences - Lack of ANY Roleplay?

[Marshmellow]

There are other avenues of roleplay than just emote, and if you are the target of a PK like this, try not to assume that those avenues were not used.  'Think' and 'hemote' and 'semote' and 'feel' are good tools, and just because you were excluded from having them displayed to you does not mean that roleplay didn't happen.

However, you needn't emote before attacking and killing someone, but it is courteous.  It is better if your target can see that you're not acting like an unintelligent NPC/mob so as to avoid hurt feelings and increase in distrust between players.  Keep this in mind.  It would be nice for people to help to create a story instead of simply attacking people because they're trying to win.

[Jingo]

Guess I'll just grind skills as fast as a I can and retire pcs with low stats. 'Cause I know someone's gonna just walk in and gank me first chance they get.

...
But if I thought it was for real, then it's my only recourse.

Absolutely untrue.  Avoid danger you can't handle, whether in the city or wilderness.

True enough, as far as I'm concerned. I don't always have control of IC happenings, or maybe I'm just playing a role that forces me into dangerous territory. In both circumstances I only have control in my method of skill grind. It's not something I'm actually advocating, I just think it's the logical result of what some members of the gdb are advocating.

The flip side of what you're saying, if you think about it, is that you think you'll derive a coded advantage from people emoting, one that will enable you to escape more often or with less-skilled characters.  Ain't it?  Because we're not talking per se about poorly justified PKs; we're talking about minimally roleplayed ones.

I guess?

[DustMight]

You know, one of the things I tend to do now before PKing (or attemping to PK) is to wish up quickly with "My dude is about to pk this dude."

This usually leads me off on some comical run for my own life while I butcher my PK attempt in front of whatever wizinviz staff is watching only to end up dying in some inglorious way. 

At least, however, in this way there is some accountability on the part of the murderer.

[jhunter]

I suppose we can all play Dr. Evil and put  them in an overly elaborate, easily-escapable situations just so they don't miss out on all of the roleplaying that went into the situation so wizturbo doesn't call all of us sub-par roleplayers.

That's not got anything to do with roleplay wizturbo. It's far more realistic for death to happen in the blink of an eye, without ever seeing it coming, than to expect that you get to see the artisticly pretty way the moonlight glints off the obsidian dagger while they gloat about how they're gonna kill you and give you the history on it before proceeding to kill you while writing up eight or ten flowery emotes about the wind in their hair and the quiver of their buttocks. Emoting and acting OOC to "make it more fun for the victim" does -not- equal good roleplay. Sometimes those situations happen where both go hand in hand and that's fine. But to expect that it should be that way every time regardless of the situation or "it's subpar/poor roleplay" is, in and of itself poor roleplay.

[Marshmellow]

That's a strawman, jhunter, and you should know it.  That is NOT what anyone, wizturbo included, is saying should happen.  We're saying that we're all playing this game and that consideration for your fellow players and creating an awesome scene is more important than winning in that scene.

Yes, though, when you or your character winning is the more important than the game or the scene, you are not an exceptional roleplayer.  I wouldn't say 'sub-par' as you said, but you aren't anything awesome, either.

[jhunter]

I'm pretty sure that neither myself, nor anyone else that that we thought one should be putting "winning" ahead of rp. We're talking about -realistic- roleplay. Acting "in character" and not going "out of character" to go hold somebody's hand. When I see someone obviously acting OOC just to try and make a flowery emoted scene it ruins it for me just as much as some of you say someone acting OOC and not doing any of those things ruins it for you. My point, is that there are times, places, and situations where either is appropriate, neither one is wrong, -when used appropriately-. Neither one is right, -when used inappropriately-.

I don't expect information other than "BEEP your fucking dead" to come across my screen if they were successful in a stealth, surprise kill on my pc. If they have me incapacitated, trapped, etc and there is an IC reason to have a talk with me, emote out the scene more, that's cool.

[Aaron Goulet]

I'm pretty sure that neither myself, nor anyone else that that we thought one should be putting "winning" ahead of rp. We're talking about -realistic- roleplay. Acting "in character" and not going "out of character" to go hold somebody's hand. When I see someone obviously acting OOC just to try and make a flowery emoted scene it ruins it for me just as much as some of you say someone acting OOC and not doing any of those things ruins it for you. My point, is that there are times, places, and situations where either is appropriate, neither one is wrong, -when used appropriately-. Neither one is right, -when used inappropriately-.

I don't expect information other than "BEEP your fucking dead" to come across my screen if they were successful in a stealth, surprise kill on my pc. If they have me incapacitated, trapped, etc and there is an IC reason to have a talk with me, emote out the scene more, that's cool.

I can get behind this thinking.  My primary concern is that IC actions are ICly justified, but that's a topic for another thread...  One I'm not even going to bother starting, because we've all seen that discussion before.

[wizturbo]

I suppose we can all play Dr. Evil and put  them in an overly elaborate, easily-escapable situations just so they don't miss out on all of the roleplaying that went into the situation so wizturbo doesn't call all of us sub-par roleplayers.

That's not got anything to do with roleplay wizturbo. It's far more realistic for death to happen in the blink of an eye, without ever seeing it coming, than to expect that you get to see the artisticly pretty way the moonlight glints off the obsidian dagger while they gloat about how they're gonna kill you and give you the history on it before proceeding to kill you while writing up eight or ten flowery emotes about the wind in their hair and the quiver of their buttocks. Emoting and acting OOC to "make it more fun for the victim" does -not- equal good roleplay. Sometimes those situations happen where both go hand in hand and that's fine. But to expect that it should be that way every time regardless of the situation or "it's subpar/poor roleplay" is, in and of itself poor roleplay.

You're kind of misquoting me there.  I said sub-optimal.  Not sub-par.  I said twice already, it's acceptable to use the coded commands to assassinate someone without further fanfare.  It's just not great play in my opinion, and I don't see the value of encouraging people to just play for "par" to use your terminology.

And I never said there needs to be flowery emotes to make something cool either, I'm pretty mediocre at emoting myself, and I find big long flowering emotes to be rather annoying especially in tense, action oriented situations.  I wouldn't say you need to be Dr. Evil to assassinate someone in a cool way, you could utilize different skills to get the job done and greatly improve the story for the other player.  Assassin's get sap and poison (as well as other skills which aren't in the helpfile), which can set up situations where you can add more flavor to the killing.  There are plenty of options available to everyone as well which could prevent escape.  If those other options don't seem like a good solution, and you seriously don't believe you can enhance the scene in any way, then go ahead and just type "backstab poorshmuck"...but I don't see that as being a feather in your hat from a roleplay perspective.

[Marshmellow]

Not all assassinations are done with stealth, though, jhunter.  The complaint was that someone visibly walked into the room without stealth skills in play, did not emote and simply used backstab.  Do you support this action?  I mean, do you think there is NOTHING wrong with what the attacker did?  I'm not saying you should say the attacker is a horrible roleplayer.  I'm not saying you should denounce the new pariah in our midst.  I'm asking, "Do you think the attacker could have played that scene better?"  We're not talking about a completely super-stealth awesome kill.  We're talking about walking into the room and backstabbing someone no different than an NPC could have done.  What do you think?

[lordcooper]

Fuck, I'm surprised at what I've been reading here.

If I was going to kill someone IRL I'm pretty damn sure that I'd think / feel / even DO (emote) something before being able to kill them.

If you're being stealthy then you're hidden somewhere.  Chances are the character isn't standing within arms reach of you.

hide
semote ^me face scrunched up with intense concentration, @ steps lightly into ~wardrobe.

A victimy, victim-looking victim has arrived from the east.

think (sharp pangs of nerves) Okay...time to prove my worth.  I can do this.

emote Easing ~wardrobe's door open, ^me face set like a grim mask, @ steps swiftly and decisively behind ~victim.

backstab victim

Far from ideal, but I could be happy with my PC dying this way.  Admittedly I only get to see the last emote, but I -as a player- know what character killed my pc and that it was probably pretty well played out and added to the gamewolrd.

NOBODY could kill with a thought or emotion.  This applies even more to crossing the distance to their victim.  If you're paranoid about your victim spam felling, then copy the last command, pasting it in the moment after you send the emote.

I'm not saying you should say the attacker is a horrible roleplayer.

In that scenario, I definitely would say they are a terrible roleplayer.  That other character could have just emoted about examining the doorframe before the assassin walked through it and backstabbed them.

Facetious example, but it's true.

[jriley]

I'm glad that the original poster is coming to terms with what happened.  He's probably new, probably a nice guy and may probably contribute much to the game if he sticks around.

That being said, I'm glad that someone stabbed his character in the head.  Stabbing someone in the head is roleplaying, in fact represents the culmination of artistic expression in this game. 

I support the right of players to stab anybody, pretty much at any time, for any reason, or for no reason.  The sole exception being that if one player is griefing another, although it doesn't sound like this was the case.

[lordcooper]

I'm glad that the original poster is coming to terms with what happened.  He's probably new, probably a nice guy and may probably contribute much to the game if he sticks around.

That being said, I'm glad that someone stabbed his character in the head.  Stabbing someone in the head is roleplaying, in fact represents the culmination of artistic expression in this game. 

I support the right of players to stab anybody, pretty much at any time, for any reason, or for no reason.  The sole exception being that if one player is griefing another, although it doesn't sound like this was the case.

I agree, but if you don't emote/think/feel, then it's shit roleplay.  That stuff may have a place in H&S and possibly even RP Enforced, but in an RPI mud?

[jhunter]

Not all assassinations are done with stealth, though, jhunter.  The complaint was that someone visibly walked into the room without stealth skills in play, did not emote and simply used backstab.  Do you support this action?  I mean, do you think there is NOTHING wrong with what the attacker did?  I'm not saying you should say the attacker is a horrible roleplayer.  I'm not saying you should denounce the new pariah in our midst.  I'm asking, "Do you think the attacker could have played that scene better?"  We're not talking about a completely super-stealth awesome kill.  We're talking about walking into the room and backstabbing someone no different than an NPC could have done.  What do you think?

In that -particular- situation, (if it was a pc which I'm inclined to believe it was not) if they weren't at least attempting for stealth (something which I don't think was covered) then the only obvious poor part was not rp'ing attempting to surprise attack someone when you were making no attempt to hide your approach. Otherwise, as far as he knows, the other guy was following him, watching, using stealth, thinks and feels about the situation before making the attempt, and then he botched his attempt at approaching stealthily. (Unbeknownst to him since one cannot tell if they are actually hiding and sneaking successfully other than someone responding to see you enter.)
As others have said, the only ones who can see the whole situation from both sides and have enough information to make any sort of judgement on the quality of roleplay, is the staff. We shouldn't be so inclined to make harsh judgements on the roleplay of others when none of us, from the player's perspective have enough information to do so fairly.

[DustMight]

We have no idea how much RP the assassin put into his attack in the form of thinks/feels/whatnot.

So he didn't emote his combat code, so what?  Nice when it happens, but it's not required.

Again, my advice is to wish up and warn the immortals when you are about to attempt a PK and then do it however you think is reasonable.

Finally, I tend to agree with jhunter, but J - you quote twilight in your profile, and that's just uncomfortable. 

[HavokBlue]

We have no idea how much RP the assassin put into his attack in the form of thinks/feels/whatnot.

So he didn't emote his combat code, so what?  Nice when it happens, but it's not required.

Again, my advice is to wish up and warn the immortals when you are about to attempt a PK and then do it however you think is reasonable.

Finally, I tend to agree with jhunter, but J - you quote twilight in your profile, and that's just uncomfortable. 

I think by Twilight he's referring to the player.

Maybe.

[jhunter]

GAH! Yes, the -player- DAMMIT! 

[DustMight]

...so you say...

[Sokotra]

This is kind of comical because I'm still somewhat convinced that it was an NPC.  If it wasn't, however, then it is unfortunate that the OP fell victim to an assassin that decided to kill someone.  It happens in Armageddon, but I would say that it isn't overly frequent.  Usually you will just have the random run-in with some low-skilled thug or creep or whatever and you will be able to get away.  So, to the Original Poster, don't be discouraged.  This could have been one in very few PKs by the assassin in question, with tons of RP before the you came in contact with the assassin.  If you are going to assassinate someone you don't want them to even get a chance to look at you and see who you are - in case they get away.  It would be nice if they loaded up a nice "emote" macro or something to throw in there during the assassination, but that is not always possible and some people simply don't have the time or ability to do such things. 

Make another character, give it another shot - probably be a good idea to play in a little safer area if you don't want to risk getting killed like that too soon.  Otherwise, if you learned why exactly you got killed then I guess it would be fair to make another character that might be a little more "streetwise" and is able to avoid those particular dangers in some way.  As long as it isn't something that is IC-sensitive information that your character shouldn't know.  I'm assuming the OP is a fairly new player but I could be wrong.

[Bogre]

It really sounds like an NPC to me.

A PC would probably have looked at you sometime during the attack or done -something-. Not many players silently kill someone. And most check to see how close to dead you are .

Rinth players, at least veteran ones, tend not to murder indiscriminately because you reduce the player population up there, which is usually pretty slim to begin with.

[Wedna]

I'm glad that the original poster is coming to terms with what happened.  He's probably new, probably a nice guy and may probably contribute much to the game if he sticks around.

That being said, I'm glad that someone stabbed his character in the head.  Stabbing someone in the head is roleplaying, in fact represents the culmination of artistic expression in this game.  

I support the right of players to stab anybody, pretty much at any time, for any reason, or for no reason.  The sole exception being that if one player is griefing another, although it doesn't sound like this was the case.

I agree, but if you don't emote/think/feel, then it's shit roleplay.  That stuff may have a place in H&S and possibly even RP Enforced, but in an RPI mud?

I disagree. You can't say what is and is not good roleplay like that.

[lordcooper]

I'm glad that the original poster is coming to terms with what happened.  He's probably new, probably a nice guy and may probably contribute much to the game if he sticks around.

That being said, I'm glad that someone stabbed his character in the head.  Stabbing someone in the head is roleplaying, in fact represents the culmination of artistic expression in this game.  

I support the right of players to stab anybody, pretty much at any time, for any reason, or for no reason.  The sole exception being that if one player is griefing another, although it doesn't sound like this was the case.

I agree, but if you don't emote/think/feel, then it's shit roleplay.  That stuff may have a place in H&S and possibly even RP Enforced, but in an RPI mud?

I disagree. You can't say what is and is not good roleplay like that.

Fair point, delete the word roleplay from my sentence.  If you want to mindlessly perform commands without taking the time to consider how your character is performing them, how they feel about them and their reasons for doing so, then you should probably stick to WOW or Fallout.

[AreteX]

I didn't need to be flamed and called a pussy or anything else during this thread.  Alot of people came in here and berated me for being an idiot because I 'whined' about dying.

I guess I shouldn't of posted something like this, but, I did.  I responded to some people who responded to the thread, and now its three pages with a mixture of flames against me and all the other pussies on the board, or people saying, "Yeah, sounds lame, report them."



This GDB is a shithole of unregulated posters who flame people and go crazy with cursing as soon as someone posts something they don't agree with.  The lack of maturity in some of the responses and the generaly assholishness might be one of the reasons more people don't play a place like this.

Its hard enough IC.  "Find out IC" People say, and you go find out IC and get stabbed and lose your character.  Fine.  You get mugged and lose your money.  Fine.  You get bent over by a half-giant and fucked.  Fine.

But then you come on the GDB and post something, and get flamed with curses and insults.  Not fine.

This is NOT IC.  This is insulting REAL PEOPLE.  If I was a new player coming to the game, and reading this board I would think, "Holy crap, alot of assholes must play this game."  I would think a place like this with such a roleplay intensive atmosphere might have some maturity and respect, but it really doesn't.

Either way, I've said my piece.


Can an IMM please lock this thread, or better yet, delete it entirely.

[Gunnerblaster]

You know what... AreteX is absolutely right.

He was bothered that his 'immersion' was abruptly shattered because someone walked into a room and backstabbed him to death. Who wouldn't be? Well, he realized he posted in the heat of the moment and he came back and edited it before the 5th poster, yet this somehow blew up into 3 pages of flames.

Stop acting like jerks, please. It pushes players away.

[Armaddict]

Is the swift, efficient, code-only approach of killing another PC acceptable?  As I've said already, yes it is.   But I think it focuses more on insuring the outcome of the assassination attempt rather than bringing the world alive.  To me, the acid test for good roleplay is fairly simple.  If all parties involved can look back at the log of the event and go "wow that was cool" then you've succeeded, anything short of that is sub-optimal, and I wouldn't see myself encouraging sub-optimal roleplay on the GDB.

Unfortunately that test is highly subjective, circumstantial, and based entirely on the moods and personalities of those involved.  You not getting a long, elaborate scene is not 'sub-par' roleplay.  It means you got killed.  Whether it was planned or not, it was a choice made, and therefore -does- add to the game and its story, whether you became privy to such or not.  Such is the point.  No sub-par roleplay is being encouraged, instead the thing that has always always been present is being defended.  Every now and then, this thread always pops up because someone feels jipped.  Meanwhile, the result ends up the same either way, which means the story is neither subtracted from or degraded.  The story goes on, and your character's part in it is over.  Find another way in.

Modified to add:  By the way, I'm in no way discouraging what you're asking for.  I consider it courtesy, I consider it enjoyable...but I also consider it risky, having been in the place where you try and grant someone a scene and they just use it to spend that extra time using the way or using a chance to escape that wouldn't have been there had the 'efficient' way been used.  If you can fit it in, it's nice.  What I mean is that it is in no way 'necessary' to 'good roleplay'.  The roleplay is in the action, not the flavor text.

[Qzzrbl]

I didn't need to be flamed and called a pussy or anything else during this thread.  Alot of people came in here and berated me for being an idiot because I 'whined' about dying.

I guess I shouldn't of posted something like this, but, I did.  I responded to some people who responded to the thread, and now its three pages with a mixture of flames against me and all the other pussies on the board, or people saying, "Yeah, sounds lame, report them."



This GDB is a shithole of unregulated posters who flame people and go crazy with cursing as soon as someone posts something they don't agree with.  The lack of maturity in some of the responses and the generaly assholishness might be one of the reasons more people don't play a place like this.

Its hard enough IC.  "Find out IC" People say, and you go find out IC and get stabbed and lose your character.  Fine.  You get mugged and lose your money.  Fine.  You get bent over by a half-giant and fucked.  Fine.

But then you come on the GDB and post something, and get flamed with curses and insults.  Not fine.

This is NOT IC.  This is insulting REAL PEOPLE.  If I was a new player coming to the game, and reading this board I would think, "Holy crap, alot of assholes must play this game."  I would think a place like this with such a roleplay intensive atmosphere might have some maturity and respect, but it really doesn't.

Either way, I've said my piece.


Can an IMM please lock this thread, or better yet, delete it entirely.

For the record, it's not a great idea to take anything anybody posts towards you on the GDB to heart.... Especially if Malifaxis is posting.