Is armageddon safe and cozy?

[Gunnerblaster]

Create a Zalanthanian highwayman.

The figure wearing a black bandana over his face leaps out onto the road, brandishing his bone saber at you, one hand held behind his back.

With a *swish* of his bone saber, the figure wearing a black bandana over his face says, in northern-accented sirishish,
  "Stand and deliver!"

[HavokBlue]

Your victim walks north, atop a black-shelled inix.

[Gunnerblaster]

We need someone like this:
Looking for Group: Slaughter Your World

[Necro]

Losing is fun.

I stopped reading there.

I win in life, I constantly win on Arm, and that's how I like it baby.

This is either self-deprecating humor, or indicates that you don't like to step out of your comfort zone.

[RogueGunslinger]

Go read more of Malken's posts it'll be obvious

[Yam]

He's French Canadian.

[WaNoBe]

In all honesty I dont think the game got softer. I think I got a lot better at NOT DYING. Because if I recall I've done some stupid things.

Our player base is also an older crowd now than ten years ago. Sooooooooo maybe we all were young and dumb.

Lol, I remember when entire Byn units would regularly walk off the Shield Wall.

[Cutthroat]

I want to expand on what Marauder Moe and Delusion said earlier in the thread.

I would say the sort of believable "villain" in Zalanthas is more accurately defined as an anti-hero for literary purposes.

In my opinion, the average person that does something bad for badness' sake is probably crazy, and as such, being put down like a crazy Zalanthan should not come as a surprise to them (or their player). A far more believable type is someone who does what he does because he has to do it, especially if the reasons he has to do it are born from their own past mistakes... and is prepared to face the consequences.

A Bynner kicked out by his Sergeant because he slept with the Sarge's girlfriend and stole Byn stuff, then resorted to raiding on the North Road because no one else will hire him = believable.
A Legionnaire kicked out and forgotten because he lost an arm, after all his years of service, decides to become "The One-Armed Cutpurse" = believable.
A random nobody who has never been in any conflict whatsoever decides to up and start stuff with absolutely everyone, Grand Theft Auto-style = NOT believable, or at least, believed to be crazy.

Your PC does bad things because it suits your ultimate purposes, and possibly because he feels he has no other choice. The end justifies the means. Since many of my characters turn out to be anti-heroic in some way or another, I tend to think of a few of my favorites of this type of character: Captain Yossarian, "Dirty" Harry Callahan, Dexter Morgan, Jimmy McNulty, or Walter White. They each have reasons, gripes, and motivations to do things between "mildly annoying" and "very illegal and unacceptable to society", but are ultimately doing it for some arguably good purpose - whether that is solely for themselves, or for other people.

The tricky thing is, having no other choice is entirely subjective. A commoner who barely has food to eat, water to drink, and has no job prospects may have no choice but to steal to support himself. On the other hand, a noble with all her basic needs taken care of could justify "having no choice" but to attack another noble politically and raise her own standing in the city.

I think, whether or not players know it, they tend to fall into this antiheroic pattern in some way or another when starting believable conflict (which has happened often enough for me to observe and appreciate).

Ultimately how you decide to be bad is up to you, but when it comes to answering the "safe and cozy" question, maybe you are spending so much time looking for villainy that you miss the antiheroics that consistently show up in-game.

[Kryos]

What Cuttthroat said.  The guy is smart.

But as for safe?  Hah.  No.  Take off the rosy glasses and look with a clear perspective:  while death may be less 'random' so to speak, its shadow looms over us all and you can invite it in with any number of decisions, good or bad.

That, well, sounds like an improvement to me.

[Kebron]

In all honesty I dont think the game got softer. I think I got a lot better at NOT DYING. Because if I recall I've done some stupid things.

Our player base is also an older crowd now than ten years ago. Sooooooooo maybe we all were young and dumb.

Lol, I remember when entire Byn units would regularly walk off the Shield Wall.

I was there for that.... Twice... -.- Nothing is worse than when you're taking a simple trip and suddenly you see yourself going over a cliff... Funny part was, the second time it happened my climb check held... Half-way down... So I watched the entire rest of the unit fall past me...

I'm thinking its a combination of what a few different people have said, both a maturity change in the pbase as a whole with a decrease in super NPC's close to cities. I've started to see more dangerous stuff , I just seem to hafta go further to find it.

[maxid]

I'm thinking its a combination of what a few different people have said, both a maturity change in the pbase as a whole with a decrease in super NPC's close to cities. I've started to see more dangerous stuff , I just seem to hafta go further to find it.

To be fair, while some people are talking about NPC threats, but what I, and some others are discussing is the lack of PC threats in the world currently.  But yeah, the NPCs are still just fine, and most people still playing have a couple years under their belt, so they know how to avoid them.  That's where the PC threats picked up the slack for me.

[Akaramu]

To be fair, while some people are talking about NPC threats, but what I, and some others are discussing is the lack of PC threats in the world currently.

I disagree very much. I keep getting PKed despite playing paranoid careful, not leaving the city, not entering anywhere dubious including unsafe apartments, not pissing anyone important off, offering terms of interest to the opposing party, offering bribes, even playing offpeak.

I'm still waiting to see harassment that doesn't immediately end in PK. As someone else said, there doesn't appear to be anything between 'You poopy head' and 'backstab Amos' and I miss seeing that in between, very much. I've never heard of anyone getting raped, for instance, in several years since the consent policy was put in. Not disagreeing with the policy, but I'm sure enough PCs would play along for it to be tried more often. Just one example off the top of my head, there are many other possible forms of harassment of course.

[musashi]

To be fair, while some people are talking about NPC threats, but what I, and some others are discussing is the lack of PC threats in the world currently.

I disagree very much. I keep getting PKed despite playing paranoid careful, not leaving the city, not entering anywhere dubious including unsafe apartments, not pissing anyone important off, offering terms of interest to the opposing party, offering bribes, even playing offpeak.

My bad. I really should stop doing that to you, but it's pretty funny.

[Akaramu]

We both know it wasn't you! 

[Is Friday]

That's just how it is. A lot of my PCs die to PK because they are consistently involved in hurting peoples' feelings.

[Lizzie]

To Akaramu: Why -would- you have heard about a PC being raped IG? Just because you haven't heard about it, doesn't mean it hasn't happened. In fact, unless your -character- has some reason to know about it, -you- shouldn't have any knowledge of it. And if -you- the player do have knowledge of it, then you wouldn't be posting about it here on the GDB, because that would be IC info. In other words, whether it happens, or doesn't happen, isn't anything you'd discover by reading the GDB.

Regarding villainy in general: what Cuthroat said. In particular, the whole "my characters are all assholes who get in the faces of influential people" thing. If that's what you do, if you do it, simply because that's how you like playing, or because you have determined that the game needs "assholes who butt heads with influential people," then you might be part of the problem.  Characters like that, are pests. They're scene-wreckers, plotline-ruiners, disrupters of fun. I know I've had to put plotlines on hold, because "assholes who butt heads simply because their player thinks it's a fun thing to do" have gotten in the way. Plotlines that might have involved a half dozen people doing something interesting, discovering some new place, potentially risking their lives to save someeone or prevent something or other... all because some "asshole butthead" shows up and insists on turning everything into a plotline all about him. And when this happens regularly...

then people stop bothering to try and drive plotlines at all. And THAT is when the game starts to feel too cozy and safe.

[Is Friday]

With that being said, I've found it a habit of others that if my character has opinions or disagrees, they try to make you a mortal enemy for some reason. Women aren't supposed to think for themselves. 

[Feco]

I really don't think any single player can say what the environment of conflict is like on the scale of the entire game.  They simply can't be everywhere at once, and experiencing all things themselves.

That said, it's interesting to read each player's personal experience, and recognizing that they are wildly varied from mine.  We should all remember that.

Personally, conflict has never been an issue for me, and I've experienced, both from others, and from stuff I've caused myself, plenty of conflict that falls between "doo doo head" and "backstab amos."

If Armageddon was any more harsh I'm not sure I could handle it.  It's only with experience I've been able to keep characters alive in situations I wouldn't have been able to handle as a newb.

[SpyGuy]

What Feco said.

I think some people do have a point that PC raiders are unusual and some clans aren't as aggressive as they once more (though I'm really wondering why Kurac was on that list, I've never known them to be random PKers).  But then again it all depended on skilled players actually bothering to make a raider PC.  I've yet to be raided, whether it was from 2002 to 2006 when I used to play or more recently.  That doesn't mean it doesn't happen though.

[Spoon]

Just to clarify, the Kurac thing is an old school can of worms and shoulder-chips. Ssshhh...

[Kebron]

What Feco said.

I think some people do have a point that PC raiders are unusual and some clans aren't as aggressive as they once more (though I'm really wondering why Kurac was on that list, I've never known them to be random PKers).  But then again it all depended on skilled players actually bothering to make a raider PC.  I've yet to be raided, whether it was from 2002 to 2006 when I used to play or more recently.  That doesn't mean it doesn't happen though.

We're talking like... what... 14 years ago? something like that, there was at times intermitently when Kurac were not the lovable traders they once were but were much more actively doing "Bad things" to general travelers.
There was a pretty good run where the Kuraci military were actually raiders themselves though they didn't dress as Kuraci when they did it. And there were a few Kuraci leaders that were as likely to kill you as talk to you in my experiance.
Remember one of my first experiances with kuraci as a new player was walking into luirs during a sand storm with my hood up. Lowered my hood in the market, and then got stopped, searched, robbed by the person searching me as a "Tax" which pretty means they took everything of value I had, and then told me to hoof it out of town without a mount before they decided to finish me off -.- that happened on more than one occasion But like I said, something like 12-14 years ago? Also remember a time when there were more than a handful of magickers working for Kurac and I think they had a pretty good bit of influence in all that goings on... Stopping in luirs during that period was like combining the danger of raiders with magickers and poisoners and the guild all in one.

[Kebron]

Oh, also as to the kuraci magickers, there was a period directly following that where the kuraci killed most magickers on sight... So Idk if they belong on that list, Kurac isn't -inately- troublesome, it tends to go in cycles depending on who is in charge.

[SpyGuy]

Actually, now that I've opened the can of worms I seem to remember something about this on the GDB circa 2002.  By the time I started actively playing (sometime just after the mantis took Luir's I think) I never noticed it in game.

[Akaramu]

Personally, conflict has never been an issue for me, and I've experienced, both from others, and from stuff I've caused myself, plenty of conflict that falls between "doo doo head" and "backstab amos."

I envy you. I've tried to set up interesting non-lethal conflict unsuccessfully, it either fell apart without anything happening or was immediately cut off by instagank PK.

I never assumed to know every single plotline ingame. But if I haven't experienced something in several years, I miss it, even if others were more lucky than me and have encountered it while I didn't. Speaking for my own PCs, here. I've heard of others involved in non-lethal conflict between poopyhead and backstab Amos, but not my own characters. Every time I try, it just ends in quick death yet again.

[Dakota]

Oh, also as to the kuraci magickers, there was a period directly following that where the kuraci killed most magickers on sight...

lol