Things I think about that aren't random enough for RAT It comes back to Harsh

[Barzalene]

The first thing I've been thinking about is Grief
I was thinking about how grief is expressed. And how different societies would deal with grief.  I know a lot of people say: Life is tough on Zalanthas and so many people die than no one cares. Maybe, but that seems like an easy answer rather than a true one. I believe so many pcs die that players don't care very much. I believe people may be less visibly shaken, especially by the death of a stranger. But I think that mourning and some rituals of loss seem more realistic. More particularly, I wondered about grief among the cultures that don't show weakness, for instance various delf tribes, gladiators, rinthi gang members.

I'd been thinking about all than and then we got the harshness poll. And someone talked about how happy people seemed wrong in a place so awful. And someone else said that would make them more likely to be nice.
Both ideas have merit.

Even people in terrible situations have shown kindness to one another, have found ways to laugh, and to have fun. I think part of it is just your temperament. On the other hand, there are things that are acceptable in times and places of strife that would not be accepted otherwise.

I don't know if I have a very specific point. I guess I wondered what others thought. I think maybe Zalanthans would be slower to grow deeply attached. And I think they would be more guarded. But I think that the bonds they do form would also be less tenuous than we see in real life.

[boog]

I think people are all different and unique and that's what makes them then.

It's like victims of rape, for instance, not that I wanna bring up a super bleh point, but ... Some victims go nuts and wild, in regards to sex. Others become reserved and dislike the act. And yet some manage to stay mainly the same.

I think the same could be said of people on Zalanthas. Sure, the world's harsh, and people will react differently. Some will weep and despair. Some will be hard asses. Some will be nice to others in giving, and some will be nice to others to get something. It just depends.

I try not to criticize people for the way they play because there's a multitude of facets out there in people. I say play how you want and until you literally fuck up someone else's immersion (which is unlikely if you're in character), don't worry about it. Worry about having fun.

[Barzalene]

Absolutely. I hope it doesn't sound like I'm implying criticism. I'm certainly not saying I'm right and everyone who doesn't play like me is wrong. And I like your answer that the responses will be as varied as the people who play.

[boog]

Absolutely. I hope it doesn't sound like I'm implying criticism. I'm certainly not saying I'm right and everyone who doesn't play like me is wrong. And I like your answer that the responses will be as varied as the people who play.

Oh. No. I don't think you're like that. I just meant the criticisms in the other thread. I love you, boo.

[Travel Cake]

Ack! Wrong thread!

[Semper]

I think it's a very interesting topic, and something that would definitely help add another layer of depth to characters if incorporated.

I had a few points that came to mind while thinking about this. First was when or if Zalanthans would show grief at all, how they might show it, and what they might do about it. Ultimately though, it really depends on the perspective they're coming from and their own experiences, just as it is in RL.

I'd say when grief is experienced is the more important question to ask among the three. Grief is arguably one of the universal emotions which everyone can recognize, like happiness, but you can't really experience grief without first having cared for the object or person in question. For example, there's a large difference between losing your subscription to Reader's Digest to a fire than watching your wedding and family pictures burn, since there's way more value put in those pictures than those magazines (in this case). I'd think for Zalanthas, it would much be a similar thing, but they'd likely place value on things much different than we would in RL.

For example, a gladiator might not feel any grief at all after watching all his fellow gladiators die in the arena, but break down into tears for having the keep-sake of his loved ones taken away from him and destroyed. Death in the arena might be an honorable way to die, but countless valuable memories might be attached to the keep-sake.

Once you figure out what would be important enough to grieve over, depending on the culture/perspective, how to deal with it would come after naturally. Showing tears is probably a universal sign that one is grieving, but it might not be proper to do so in front of others, or just the opposite. One group of people might expect you to grieve by bringing back 100 heads of your enemy, while another might allow the individual grieving to lock themselves up inside a room until they've finished.

[Semper]

But I think that mourning and some rituals of loss seem more realistic.

Only if it is proper in that culture to show grief over whichever thing/person in question. Zalanthans would definitely feel grief, I guess the point I'd make is that they'd feel grief over things specific to their culture and perspectives.

Interesting question to note though, does a harsh world make you grieve over less things (show less grief), or does grieving over less things make the world harsh?

[Wolfsong]

But I think that mourning and some rituals of loss seem more realistic.

Interesting question to note though, does a harsh world make you grieve over less things (show less grief), or does grieving over less things make the world harsh?

In that same vein, then: Do people in Afghanistan mourn less than those in America do? Can you quantify grief? Does the presentation of the dead affect it? (IE, most people in the modern western world do not experience the death of others intimately - people die behind closed doors and professionals handle the corpse. Does this affect how grief plays out? Note also the time table in the modern day - you are allowed only x days off work to mourn, and then you are expected to get back to work.)

IMHO, lack of grief does not for a harsh world make - there's no tragedy in feeling nothing. Sure, that's superficially harsh, since nobody feels and nobody cares, but isn't it harsher to have someone grieve over and over again for the beloved dead? Someone who keeps soldiering on, open wounds and all, bitter, downtrodden, beaten by the world and beating back but feeling?

[valeria]

A lot of the world's cultures have very pronounced, public displays of (what my culture says would be) excessive grief and mourning.  I would consider a lot of these cultures more 'harsh' than my own culture.

I'm not sure the harshness of the reality has a whole lot of correlation with grief and mourning, myself.

[Drayab]

I recall hearing a story on NPR about an Iraqi father reflecting on the world his young daughter was born into. He told about the day when he realized how profoundly it affected her world view. The story he told was about how she talked about a car bomb going off not far from her school, seeing the carnage, and walking home from it. The thing that struck him was how casually she talked about it. She was not afraid. She didn't feel any particular empathy for the dead or the ones cleaning up the mess. For her, it was just a fact of life, and she related the story to her father in the same way you would talk about any ordinary experience. But do you think she would be distraught if something happened to her dad? Well, of course she would. I think Zalanthans might react similarly. They would be desensitized to brutality and sudden, violent death. But parents will still weep over children. Friends would weep over friends. Nothing says harsh like somebody crying over their dead friend in the street, and the uncaring crowds passing by to do their daily business.

[Semper]

Interesting question to note though, does a harsh world make you grieve over less things (show less grief), or does grieving over less things make the world harsh?

People can't grieve if they don't care for whatever they're grieving for. What I meant with the question though is how they got to that point of having no grief (or with less impact). Is it the person who does not care the one making the setting harsh, or the harsh setting making the person not care?

Would the person who set off the car bomb not have done it if they felt grief over the loss of life they just caused? Or a mass murderer end so many lives if they felt grief after each death? Might not be a strong correlation between the harshness of a world and how much people grieve, but I'm sure it's there. Figuring out causation from that is tougher, simply because there's so many other variables involved. And also, grief is only done after an act is committed, so it's not a direct cause-and-effect, but simply a measure.

And I do think you can quantify grief, but only as much as one can quantify an emotion. Beyond knowing your own grief, there's visible qualities that can be seen in someone else grieving, but attempting to measure someones emotion can only come with empathy, and that only comes with personal experience.

[Kalai]

When your own life is liable to be cut short at any moment, can you afford to be all that slow at forming attachments?

[Lizzie]

When your own life is liable to be cut short at any moment, can you afford to be all that slow at forming attachments?

On the other hand:
When the other's life is liable to be cut short at any moment, can you afford the risk of attaching to them at all?

I think grief is a natural process of humanity, which extends to the game. However, in reality, we might take a few days off from work, and go back to work. We'll still be agrieved, we'll still be saddened by the loss of a loved one. But it won't destroy our existence; we return to the mundane tasks of living within a few days.

In Zalanthas, a few days is only a few game-hours. So it just SEEMS like our grief is insignificant. We can't be moping around for a few RL days. The tribes need to be fed, victims need to be raided, deals need to be made, templars need someone to hate, etc. etc. After a few game hours, your character has *expressed* his grief for a few game days. And so it's now time to turn his expression inward, and get back to doing whatever the character does. Just like in real life.

[X-D]

Of course, As in real life, the older you get the faster you get over it. A 20 year old might have a hard time because of the lower number of people he/she has known to die. But forty years later the odds are good that a sizeable number of the people you have known have died, and twenty years after that they have been dropping like flies.

In game is even worse, IG if you start a PC, and he/she meets 20 other PCs in the first game week, if you keep them for a year game time, odds are 15 of the starting PCs are dead, also of the other 30 PCs he has met 15 of them are dead. If your very lucky, after 5 game years, 2 of the PCs he/she knew in the first year might still be kicking, but also your PC will have met a couple hundred other PCs and 90% of them already dead. In 10 game years 99% of all the PCs your PC has met will be dead, that number will have broken more then 500 total. Those numbers can be MUCH higher depending on clan/tribe. I had a bynner for 8 game years before he quit the byn, in that time he know around 700 people, by the time he died maybe 5 PCs he knew still kicking that he knew for more then 1 game year. Grief, I doubt Zalanthans spend much more time on that then settling down with a bottle of booze and one for his homey.

[Barzalene]

Of course, As in real life, the older you get the faster you get over it. A 20 year old might have a hard time because of the lower number of people he/she has known to die. But forty years later the odds are good that a sizeable number of the people you have known have died, and twenty years after that they have been dropping like flies.

I think this may be true for some people but not others. I think for many  it gets worse as you get older. The pain grows exponentially.   The weight of the losses piles up and wears you down. The older you get the less resilient you become. There's a better understanding of what it means to lose someone forever. Also the older you get the more others' deaths will remind you of your own mortality. Also, you may find it harder not to become attached even knowing the risks, because you understand the value of relationships.

I think it's unlikely that there is a universal truth.

[X-D]

Maybe, but those people are pansies.

No, really, I don't think so. I'm rather old now, and larger and larger numbers of people I've known for twenty or thirty or more years are dead, Of the ones alive, all of us deal with it better now then we did early on. All my living older relatives do as well. My aunts and uncles, older cousins even in some cases have begin dying off as well.

Change your comment from "Many" To "Some few" And I might agree. Spend time in an over 55 comunity some time, get to know people and talk to them. You might be surprised at exactly how few have any real problem with death, how many look forward to it while still enjoying the time they have.

As to the attatched part, I don't agree there at all, it neither becomes easier or harder to become attatched, that just depends on the type person you are. It does become easier to let go though.

[KankWhisperer]

Grief is like the defining thing about my character. He still remembers everyone that has died from when I started playing him and is emo about it in his own way. I think its ok to feel deep grief and remorse.

[Scarecrow]

One of my PC's had a love-interest (who is still one of my favourite characters I've met ever) and had heaps of fun with her (and no not just mudsexxor but times together, but of course there was some mudsexxor too  ). They were both oddballs, but made a good pair. Then, she died.
I had grown attached to this other PC, and felt sad they were gone. My character grieved, so much so it destroyed him and he became quite an evil person because of his loss. I still vividly remember that RP, and when I saw her body on the pile. I had no idea she was dead, then I saw her on the pile. My heart went in my throat, and I froze when I saw that.
It was horrible yes, but, -no- other game has drawn me in as deep as Armageddon. For the horrible parts, you endure. But there are also the great parts, and when you get them, they are awesome.
That is why I firmly beleive Armageddon is the best MUD out there. Aardwolf is nothing.

[Zoan]

Aardwulf tops #1 of TMS because the website's owner runs the game.