Getting Murdered

[Scarecrow]

Hi. I don't usually say much here and when I do it's pretty short and generally unhelpful, but I wanted to start a discussion.
It's about getting murdered, and how it seems like it's always going to happen. The only thing I dislike about Armageddon is a kind of annoying culture of twink murder. I.E master assassin shadows you into your apartment somehow and knifes you to death, lolraider beats your head in in the wilderness, generic desert elf shoots you with a terradin arrow, etc etc etc. I feel like everything in Armageddon, is about predicting if the situation is going to get you murdered. You can't trust anyone, even if they seem trustworthy, because as soon as you get into a locked room or anywhere vulnerable they are killing you. And if they don't, you're on edge the entire time, and probably thinking they are playing it cool so NEXT time they can cut your throat when you think you're safe.
I have played other MUDS were the entire starting region and area was not crim-coded, where people could be killed anywhere without SUPER NPC charging into the room and massacaring your brain. But in this other MUD, people didn't do that. You could even go to people's houses and apartments and not fear being murdered, even if they were better armed and armoured. And the times it -did- happen, the RP surrounding the kill would often be examined by admins to make sure it wasn't a twink murder.
In summary, I am often afraid to get attached to PC's here, or branch out to trusting others for meaningful RP, because it seems so often and likely they gank you for no apparent reason. I would like some comments on how to overcome this, or if I'm just imagining it, or whatnot. I'd like help in how I can play without being paranoid and wandering if every person I get close to is really an assassin who wants to rip my spine out and play it like a banjo.
Thoughts?

[kayza]

I'm jealous you get murdered
No one loves me enough to do so.

[Kalai]

... There are reasons behind most murders. ... That only makes the paranoia worse, though.  
The paranoia is really useful to playing an elf, if you decide not to get rid of it.

[John]

I've been murdered twice in 10 years  

Feel free to murder me more people.

[kayza]

Seriously..

I do get attached to my characters.. but I always working on new ones so when one dies I at least am not going to cry too much.  Sadly I have been still trying to get over the silly death of one I had awhile back

I would of much rather had him/her murdered.

[Drayab]

I've been murdered once, ninja-style out of nowhere in a public place, and I can only assume it was for my boots because I have no idea who might have put a hit on that character. It's my most memorable character death. So much better than boredom storage or getting carru'd.

Given the choice of two evils - twink murders or rp police - I prefer the twinks. As an added bonus, it's one less thing for staff spend time on, so that means more time for animations and the really fun stuff.

[Suhuy]

Some might argue that what you are describing is actually the central theme to this game, that even if you aren't constantly getting killed the mere fact that you're always on edge and worried about it is precisely how you should feel. I've had an unreasonable number of characters, myself, and often die to the silliest blunders on my part. And on the occasion where I'm being murdered, my blunders usually somehow involve me inadvertantly helping the person trying to kill me. In other words, I f*** up big time. Added to this there are times where it feels like every character is out to get you, where there are no real loyalties amongst anyone in game, but most of that is from many years earlier - I think, for better or worse, Arm seems to have evolved a bit in that regard. Sometimes it can be fun to be part of the world of betrayal in Arm, but if you feel you'd like a change and don't want to constantly have to look over your shoulder every second, try different roles. There are roles in this game where you could live a good long while, without so much as making a single enemy. The problem is most players find these roles boring and don't stick with them for very long. I have a sneaking suspicion what kills most family merchants, for example, is retirement due to boredom, not actual PKilling.

So it's really just a question of what's most important to you as a player in the end. With excitement often comes risk and that might mean having to worry about being backstabbed in your apartment. But it's a trade off that most players accept, because those are the types of roles which keep them entertained.

[John]

Oh wow. I didn't really read the first post very well. I didn't realise it was a post about people twinking to kill you. I can honestly say I haven't witnessed a twink in this game in years. Are they out there? Of course. But the number of them has shrunken ridiculously and I'd say they're almost always newer players. Definitely no older player twinks hanging around still.

I feel like everything in Armageddon, is about predicting if the situation is going to get you murdered.

As I aluded to in my earlier post, I've been killed by a PC twice (three times if you count the time I attacked someone and they killed me in retaliation).

You can't trust anyone, even if they seem trustworthy, because as soon as you get into a locked room or anywhere vulnerable they are killing you.

I've had this happen once. It was in about 2004 and it was one of my most memorable deaths. If you trust people too quickly, you'll eventually die. There's plenty of people you can trust. The issue is that there are a smaller percentage of people you can't trust. Determining who you can and can't trust is the difficult part.

And if they don't, you're on edge the entire time, and probably thinking they are playing it cool so NEXT time they can cut your throat when you think you're safe.

The tagline for this MUD is death, betrayal, corruption. If you're getting your daily dose of death and betrayal then you're winning at this game.

I would like some comments on how to overcome this, or if I'm just imagining it, or whatnot. I'd like help in how I can play without being paranoid and wandering if every person I get close to is really an assassin who wants to rip my spine out and play it like a banjo.

First step: Get paranoid about everyone.
Second step: Act on this paranoia and take steps to ensure your safety.
Third step: Stop being the victim and start being the antagonist.

Or you can go my route and have so many meaningless deaths to the environment, animals and NPCs that you welcome any PvP action.

Barring all that. You could try Tuluk?

I kid. I kid. Please don't hate on me.

[greasygemo]

I have a running mental list of amoses I can:
a. Kill easily.
b. Kill if I get the drop/have a poison weapon.
c. Very likely could not kill unless under extremely favorable circumstances.
d. Would be destroyed if I even reached for my belt.

... I find little reason to act on the list, but still, it tickles me inside that I actually made it "just in case"..

Honestly, I would much rather go out getting backstabbed in a dark alley than like, forgetting to bring enough water or a stray scrab reel locking me.
So much more satisfying. It's like, Aw, they really needed me out of the way, I must have made a difference. :p

[musashi]

Murder. Corruption. Betrayal. Welcome to Armageddon.

[greasygemo]

It's taken me a while to get my feet wet! But me likey some kill-stab best-friend for-money!

[hyzhenhok]

Getting murdered doesn't happen very often. In happens unjustifiably even less often (almost never these days).

I have been playing since 2007 and I have only been PK'd 3 times. Once in the 'rinth because I ignored someone who put a sword in my face. Once by a templar because I had attacked an NPC templar (because of a weird dwarf focus). And once in the 'rinth because I alt-tabbed and forgot about the game. Basically I was asking for it each time.

All of the stuff in the OP is avoidable if you're careful. Don't be predictable about returning to your apartment or let strangers into your apartment. Don't make enemies and you probably won't have someone shadowing you. Don't go out of the city alone unless you're a badass or know you can run away from danger. Don't wander onto delf territory and be extremely careful if there have been a spate of poison murders on the desert roads.

Or do do these things, if you like roleplaying in a a way that facilitates murder, corruption, and betrayal. Not every character should be a genius survivalist, after all.

[Scarecrow]

Those are some interesting comments, really made me think. I think the time I felt it was an attempted twink kill is because the person tried to use the crim code to get me killed as well as their assassin-fu skills. Another time I was lured out on a premise that exploited my character's good nature to help others, and a third time I was just dumb and got murdered in an apartment. It's interesting to think these kind of betrayals are what it's all supposed to be about, puts a new light on it for me. Please continue to comment, it's really helped so far.

[DustMight]

Murder. Corruption. Betrayal. Welcome to Armageddon.

While this is true, it is often taken to extremes.  I haven't been murdered in a LONG time and I think Immortals (who will no doubt correct me if I'm wrong) have stated that most PC deaths are due to NPCs. 

That said - the reason that bandits run in and attack is due to victim habit of fleeing.
The reason that murderers strike when they absolutely KNOW they can kill you is because they don't want to get caught or killed themselves.
Tons of threads on this unfortunate reality.

Some games handle conflict differently (and perhaps better in some ways, worse in others) but this is the game we have.

One thing I have had to learn over the years is to play my character and not play as myself codedly looking for advantage.  For example:  there is a difference between murdering a sentient being and killing an animal - do characters think like this? Mine do and won't generally wantonly wack a humanesque being.  I think that difference is often forgotten and its too the game's loss.  (Maybe this isn't as bad as it used to be - I play very little these days.)

It's a little like stealing - would EVERY character (or even MOST) characters just take whatever they could that didn't belong to them? I don't think so.  My most recent character did something like this and I had to pause and think - wait - that was stealing - would they really do that?

An unfortunate side effect of this is perhaps this situation (which has occurred a million times but most recently to me just a few days ago):

My character is in a wilderness location doing mundane stuff.
Another character rides in.
Character beelines away from my character before my character can emote. (Likely out of fear or perhaps to attack.)
My character leaves off what they are doing and beelines in another direction in an attempt to lose a suspected attacker.

It doesn't have to be like this and it's better when it's not. 

Note: Most recently, characters I've met in the wilderness have not been like this - which shows improvement and hope.   

[Kalai]

Some of them are probably just ignoring you, DustMight.

But yeah a big part of this game is dealing with the conflict, mistrust, and prejudice between a great deal of people. Remember, an elf is looking to screw you over to benefit their tribe, or at least enforce their territory, breeds are unstable, dwarves will put their focus ahead of you every time, foreigners are barbaric or loyal to things you don't understand, nobles are looking to advance their own ambitions and eliminate threats to the Way Things Are, long-lived characters/older people are jaded and bitter from the deaths of a great many friends & allies, due to the great quantity of unnatural disasters & conflict most people grew up in a somewhat broken home, there is a culture of violence of some manner in every city (and often between tribes - see most recent war), the price of survival is dear and the desperate take any advantage they can get, and when you start getting successful, others are going to want their cut of the pie. And don't get me started on radioactive magickers.

It's what makes things exciting, really. Dying to someone who Wants You Dead is a more satisfying part of a story than falling off the shield wall and into an unanimated NPC, and most murderers do want to make things exciting and scary for you and bring the world alive (hah), not just add to a kill count! Welcome to Zalanthas! Hope you have Fun^TM here.  

[Akaramu]

While I don't know if you play humans or not, I'd like to add that most PKs I see happening are 'misfits' who don't seem to know their place. Mouthy breeds who act as if they are someone special and go nuts over being treated like a disgusting breed, mutants who insist on their right to socialize and mudsex as if they were normal people, rinthi elves acting as if they own the place, gemmed mages threatening important people. Sometimes misfits get killed only because they turn out to be misfits and their employer / ally feels they would harm their reputation if they stayed affiliated with them. Or because -someone- had to be blamed and that annoying breed came in handy, because blaming an affiliated human would have caused trouble.

The trust issue is closely related. I've played humans who had friends / lovers who would have died for them. But breeds with 'friends' are often just treated as a 'friend' for as long as they are useful, then discarded. Mutants are in the same category. And elves by nature don't trust anyone but their own tribe unless someone passes a long series of complex tests.

Protip: Mundane humans who know their place in society live longer. Guaranteed.

[ShaLeah]

Protip: Mundane humans who know their place in society live longer. Guaranteed.

My come back to addiction character wouldn't die. By rights she got involved with powerful people who could have killed her for everything she did, but because she was useable and trustworthy she slipped the knife soooooooo much I retired her. She knew get place, she knew she was a pawn and was willingly so to whomever she was loyal to at the time.

I,  as a player, wanted her murdered, wanted her corrupted, wanted her betrayed. It's why I play Armageddon, because it's a krathdamned existence, you're GOING to die, it's just a matter of how juicily.

You're doing something right! Kudos!

[Clavis]

I love being murdered just wish some emotes, hemotes or something would be done before, and during. but thats also do to perhaps a lack of trust on the other players part. Do to others swiftly fleeing or what not. I had one death I so hated and would of wished it went the way of emotes and more. To draw me in, but I can see also why it was done the way it was. I've done it, do to lack of trusting another player.

This i would love to see changed, more people trusting each other and emoting during the more obvious killings, instead of swiftly going to code. now assassinations are a little bit different, not much you can really do if your hiding in the shadows in a closet.

[Nyr]

I love being murdered just wish some emotes, hemotes or something would be done before, and during. but thats also do to perhaps a lack of trust on the other players part. Do to others swiftly fleeing or what not. I had one death I so hated and would of wished it went the way of emotes and more. To draw me in, but I can see also why it was done the way it was. I've done it, do to lack of trusting another player.

This i would love to see changed, more people trusting each other and emoting during the more obvious killings, instead of swiftly going to code. now assassinations are a little bit different, not much you can really do if your hiding in the shadows in a closet.

A couple of important points that have been made before:

RP happens before and during most PKs, but more often beforehand.  Consider some pivotal deaths in the world of cinema and television.  There are some in Game of Thrones, Battlestar Galactica, Serenity, The Walking Dead, etc.  There are times when pivotal characters are killed and they do understand why they are dying, but many a time, they don't know at all.  It comes as a shock.  They occasionally get a moment to RP a bit before fading away.  It's sad to say this, but if your character is the victim of a PK, their story was already written and is a footnote to someone else's story, and in the end, even their story will be a footnote in the greater story of the game.  I've been that footnote and it is tough to accept at times, especially when you don't know what the other person was thinking.

There are some rare opportunities for someone to have absolute power over a victim in Armageddon.  Usually, this sort of power is reserved for those that plan well and are lucky, or those that have roles in which they command that kind of power codedly (oftentimes both).  If your PC's goal is to have that victim PC killed, sometimes players will err on the side of getting the task done because that is the point of the plot:  to have the victim killed.  That death drives future plots even as it closes down the thread of life that the victim PC possessed.

Also, if you're hiding in the shadows of a closet, you're probably missing out on the real fun of being an assassin (with or without the skills or guild).  I wouldn't say that you're doing it wrong...you're just missing out.

[AreteX]

Many times your character is killed there are reasons behind it that you would never think about.

Example:  You were inside a Tavern and you gave someone a pat on the back and said, "You're a good friend, Amos."

There was a breed that HATES Amos.  He was teased by Amos.  He has Amos on a hit-list.  He wants to hurt Amos in the worst way possible.  Good friend, he says?  GOOD FRIEND HE SAYS?  I just wanted some friends!  Why can't I have any friends like THAT GUY!  -stabbity stab-

There are so many reasons to kill someone else in this game and a lot of them are probably never even eluded too directly to your character.  You may never know you offended someone or became part of some elaborate plot.  You're lucky if you do, though!

I have yet to be outright PK'd without directly knowing what was happening.  Most of my player deaths are NPC's, but I have been in a few knife-fights before, and those are rather obvious :0

[bcw81]

As a note, all those assassins that straight up murder you instead of sweetly emoting your torture are probably doing so because they don't want you to pick up your invisible mind cell phone and telling the entire world... or they don't want you spam fleeing and telling the entire world. More than likely they have good reason to assassinate you and have RPed out all the interesting stuff with verbose elites before you even see them (or with semotes) because they can't trust you.

[Is Friday]

A good portion of the time when my PC has something to lose and I give the other player the benefit of the doubt, I am disappointed. (SPAM FLEE/BROADCAST SDESC TO KNOWN WORLD.) So fuck you guys, you gonna die for seemingly no reason.

[greasygemo]

Yeaaa... I figure I'll hope that if I do have to murder someone, that they will black out first/go to like -9hp or something, so I have a chance to emote looming over them while they wheeze or something, but I wouldn't leave them the chance, to (Way Templar, Psi The tall, muscular man just stuck rammed a sword into my ribs!! Sound the alarm!!) unless for some reason I wanted to increase my OWN risk of being quietly subdued and have my head cracked open later..

[spicemustflow]

Also, if you're hiding in the shadows of a closet, you're probably missing out on the real fun of being an assassin (with or without the skills or guild).  I wouldn't say that you're doing it wrong...you're just missing out.

Care to explain this bit? I'm not sure I understand what you wanted to say.

[Delirium]

One of my favorite kills was somebody I totally hated murdering OOCly, but it involved deception, teamwork, a friendly chat with brandy, and a casual ear-whisper before the fatal blow.

Nobody seemed to believe I actually did it, either. They blamed it on the much more badass-sounding fella that wanted him dead...

I think that might be what Nyr meant. The roleplay surrounding a bait and switch, lure, deception, etc, is more fun than using >hide >backstab.