How do you feel about PC killing?

[Wastrel]

You never play selfishly?

You'd never avoid a Templar, ever?

You'd never not do dangerous things because you know better?

...You'd never silt sea a PC?

Really now Dman.

If I am playing a selfish character yes I will roleplaying being selfish. I'm not sure what you are getting at here.

ponydealwithit.jpg

If I am being hunted of course I avoid templars. I highly recommend avoiding templars in general. I don't log out to avoid them. I don't not log in to avoid them. I stay away from them in game. That isn't metagaming. That is playing a realistic Zalanthan. That is called roleplaying accordingly.

I knowingly walked my longest lived and within arguement most well known/well liked/popular character of all time into a Tuluki templar jail cell on purpose knowing I would never walk out again because it was the IC thing to do.

ponydealwithit.jpg

If I am playing a character that does not enjoy doing dangerous things, yes, I will roleplay accordingly and not do dangerous things. I'm not sure I understand this question.

ponydealwithit.jpg

Walking a character into the silt sea right out of character gen because you decide you want to play something else or because you get stats that are not realistic and/or make it impossible to realistically roleplay the character you have written is not metagaming. That is ensuring you do not ruin everyone else's immersion by trying to play an unrealistic or uninspiring character in a scenario that would be blatantly jarring to those around you.

The beastial, massive-muscled man - Poor Strength

I would find it almost impossible to roleplay that correctly and realistically and as such I might silt sea that character to save the staff the time it takes to answer a store request.

I'm not sure I understand your question here either, but I think you are implying I might silt sea a character just to try and get AI stats. Nope. I once silt sea'ed a cripple I wrote because he got AI agility. I couldn't play that realistically. So I silt sea'ed him for realism and roleplay reasons.

ponydealwithit.jpg

ohhh, so you're a method actor on a roleplay text mud from the 90s who completely inhabits his character from the moment he logs on to the moment he logs off and has no wants or desires as a player - no, none - you are just a mere vessel for the pc, a conduit

got it. also ponies r so ebin fuggg xBBB!! ))

[Desertman]

This is more or less accurate.

I don't break character until after the final after death kudos stop coming man.

[Wastrel]

epic simply epic

[Qzzrbl]

ohhh, so you're a method actor on a roleplay text mud from the 90s who completely inhabits his character from the moment he logs on to the moment he logs off and has no wants or desires as a player - no, none - you are just a mere vessel for the pc, a conduit

got it. also ponies r so ebin fuggg xBBB!! ))

Maybe you're missing the point of a roleplaying mud?

Wants and desires as a player should include: Playing as realistically as possible, even if it means screwing yourself over. That in and of itself is the mark of a good player.

I mean, you can set goals all you want, but the instant you start playing in a way that slips from the whole "realism" and "shit that makes sense" theme, you're really missing the mark.

[catchall]

Wastrel, you're bringing up so many different and unrelated issues that it's impossible to get a handle on what you mean, except that you've apparently been PKed or otherwise having trouble keeping characters alive, and you come here often to angrily tell everyone what the game is all about and your idea of the secrets of longtime players, on the basis of very little experience.

Avoiding a Templar can be IC.

It can be good RP to play a PC in a risky manner. It can be good RP to play them cautiously. It depends on the PC.  However, IC risks may have IC consequences.

A well-RPed PC can live a long time, or only a short time. It depends on the PC and the plots around them.  A long life is not some reward for good roleplay.
 
Not every PC has to be involved primarily in the power-mongering political minigame that drives much of the plot.  Not every PC has to be an effective killer, even long-lived ones.

"Using the code to your advantage" and "play selfishly" are so vague as to be meaningless.

You can't say broad, extreme statements like "I'm going to be as metagamey as possible" and expect people to charitably add "within reason" to all your statements in their minds.  Hyperbole (along with sarcasm) is a very poor way to communicate on the web.

[Wastrel]

To claim people should have no wants or desires as a player is simply ludicrous. I agree entirely with you Qzzrbl, I've done it. I've done it while I've watched "veterans" get all spastic and evasive while they talk big on the gdb about how they're such dynamic roleplayers when in actuality they're tavern sitters or code hounds who want their epic master warrior items. Its all bullshit. So when Dman claims to be Daniel Day Lewis I cant help but laugh a little. I'm not talking about a lack of realism, I'm talking about a lack of honesty.

[Feco]

As Nyr has already tactfully revealed in a subtle-yet obvious manner, none of my PCs usually last longer than a month.

I don't get the impression that Nyr did that.

So here are my thoughts on PK. I will show you zero mercy if my PC wants to kill you. I will do it in the most efficient way possible if I can. If you kill my PC, one of three things happened a) you outsmarted me as a player b) i let you kill me c) I goofed. Simple as that. Call it metagaming, call it code bending, whatever. Semantics.

Neither metagaming or "code bending" are necessarily synonymous with efficiency, no mercy, or what have you.  One can be these latter things and not be metagaming.

Concerning the rest of your posts: Your arguments throughout this thread are puzzling, and I'm struggling to follow you.  I would say you've lost me, but that would require me to have understood your position at some point.

[Wastrel]

I dont even know what I'm talking about anymore

[Desertman]

To claim people should have no wants or desires as a player is simply ludicrous. I agree entirely with you Qzzrbl, I've done it. I've done it while I've watched "veterans" get all spastic and evasive while they talk big on the gdb about how they're such dynamic roleplayers when in actuality they're tavern sitters or code hounds who want their epic master warrior items. Its all bullshit. So when Dman claims to be Daniel Day Lewis I cant help but laugh a little. I'm not talking about a lack of realism, I'm talking about a lack of honesty.

Daniel Day Lewis couldn't tongue clean and moustache dust my keyboard. Don't compare me to that amateur punk.

Come back when you've lived longer than three months and tell us about how the game should change. I played this game when you had to walk back and forth in the snow up hill both ways just to find a dial up connection to play with 20 players in peak hours.

Kids today. *sigh*

[Qzzrbl]

So when Dman claims to be Daniel Day Lewis I cant help but laugh a little. I'm not talking about a lack of realism, I'm talking about a lack of honesty.

I'm gonna stop you right there.

Play with Dman before you say a thing, or even continue thinking about this subject.

He is indeed one of the Daniel Day-Lewis'est players around, if that's how you wanna put it.

Erm... Back on topic-- nobody is claiming that they don't have wants or desiers as a player, of course! We all do. But we don't twink out and try to "cheat the system" without actually cheating the system to accomplish it. As a matter of fact, trying to rulebend your way to your goals will more often than not turn out to be counter-productive.

[Barzalene]

Maybe this derail is too big for this thread!

[Wastrel]

Dont worry I'm finished

[Wday]

LOL, ok depending on a PC but think real life, Lets say you have something iilegal on you, well first off you will try and avoid any cops or people who you think would turn you in. IN that yes avoid icly with templars, soldiers and so on is fine in my book. Say in real life I (because I am a bad ass and you can ask Dman) say i catch you I am going to whoop some ass, then you would try and figure out where I hang out at, where I live what times I come and go from work to avoid me. But you can't just shack up in a house and peek out the blinds all the time but you WILL weight your risk of got to go shopping cause (I am a bad ass) so you have to time it. In arm and life you don't pick a fight or trouble with someone who you may think can out do you, nots meta game thats just balance of life. Plus I just wanted to post something so I have done it, and I will wait for others and Dman to thumbs up my post,,,,waiting!

[Wastrel]

lol

[Desertman]

The funniest part about this is Wday is serious, I do know him IRL, I did show him this game many years ago, and everything he said is absolutely true. He is a bad ass. That is the only man I know personally who has killed something IRL with a sword.

Thumbs up.

[Nyr]

Dont worry I'm finished

Yes you are.  Go take a week off and stop trolling people.

[AreteX]

This thread turned into a steaming pile of GDB.

The real point anyone should be making here is you can have aspirations for your character as a player.  You can want things to happen and even actively pursue them, but you just have to do it in an IC and realistic way that fits the character and the rules of the game.

You can PK people if you want.  Just try and give them and yourself a great experience.   I won't ever run from great experiences and neither should anyone else.

[LauraMars]

Oh hey new sig

Now let's get to making that Lord Cagelar already Lauramars

He has to be Nakki!

[Patuk]

Oh hey new sig

Now let's get to making that Lord Cagelar already Lauramars

He has to be Nakki!

Yes.

Subtlety does not befit the cage :<

[Nyr]

Being metagamey as possible and bending the code as far as you can ARE against the rules.

What rules, exactly? http://www.armageddon.org/help/view/Rules Show me where it says I cant be metagamey or use the code to my advantage.

1. Role-playing is _central_ to the environment--it is not considered an
    option by the creators of the world, it is a strict requirement. If you
    do not want to role-play, please go elsewhere.

FYI, the things you were suggesting that you should do have nothing to do with roleplaying (or are examples of poor roleplaying), therefore it is part of the rules. 

[Arania]

Back to the original topic:

I like PK and I don't think there's enough of it. Your character is going to die anyway, to one of these five causes, roughly in order of awesome:

• Staff/RPT
• PK
• NPCs
• The environment (sandstorms, getting lost and thirsty, falling off the Shield Wall, etc.)
• Your own stupidity (which often subsumes #4 after you've been around a few years)

Of the five, the first two are by far the most aweseome. Funnily enough, they're also the rarest.

Whenever I feel sore over a PK, I remember: it's better than dying to raptor #4792, which is what would have happened otherwise. (Caveat: some people win Armageddon by promotion storage. This also causes hurt feelings from time to time, which seems to me absurd - congratulations! You made it to Red Robe! You win!)

Murder, corruption, betrayal: it's the first word in the game's motto.

As for courtesies and methods in PK: if your character would give my character a scene, then do it. If you're a noble and I'm playing a Spy from House MI6, tying me to a table and saying, "No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die," is awesome. If you're a random raider, enter the room, scream at me, and type "kill man." If you're an assassin, forego the screaming.

In return, when it's appropriate, I'll give you a scene right back. But when it's not:

Fleeing is roleplaying!  I roleplay a lot, I know this.

As far as acceptable reasons to PK someone, here's a non-exhaustive list! (I like lists, they make me feel all warm and fuzzy.)

• He's on your turf.
• He threatened your friend.
• You suspect he might PK you if left alive.
• He has nicer boots than you do.
• He sassed you when he shouldn't have. (AKA, Braveheart Syndrome)
• He saw something he shouldn't have.
• You're worried any of the above might be true.
• He's part of a clan that's in mortal competition with your clan (e.g. Tuluk Legions vs. Arm of the Dragon)

Many of these have solutions other than PK as well, but PK is a perfectly acceptable solution. Oftentimes it's the only solution after escalation.

Lest you think I'm all for PK all the time, here's a list of reasons that aren't acceptable to PK:

• You found out through specious means that he's a magicker/psion/half-elf/whatever
• You don't like the player/the character annoys you OOCly
• They're a magicker. There are caveats to this, but your average Joe should probably consider running away or doing exactly what he says in hopes of getting out alive to be the primary option.
• You're a templar and he isn't.
• You're a noble and he isn't.
• He's part of a clan that's enemies but not at war with your clan. (e.g. SLK vs. Dune Stalkers)

In closing, I'd like to point to the rules, specifically 2-4, found here.

2. Life is hard. There are no free lunches on Zalanthas. There aren't even free drinks of water. It is likely that your character will die, and if you are not clever your character will die very fast. Only (and we mean only) the very fittest of all live long enough to retire in comfort at the end of their careers.

3. Sometimes people are nasty. There are no rules against being extremely mean to others that your character may meet, be it cheating, stealing, killing, swindling, or otherwise making a fool out of. The sole exception to this is termed 'the rule of consent', and is outlined both in "help consent" and in point 5, below.

4. Complaints of unfairness will not be given an audience. If you think your character's situation was unfair, too bad. Live with it or don't. See point 2 above.

and this little piece of gold,

One thing I'd like to see in arm is more people focusing on how to make the game intriguing, by filling it with murder, betrayal, and corruption, instead of arguing about how combat isn't powerful enough the current topic on the GDB cycle of hate.  You know.  Since that's, like, the focus of the fucking game.

[James de Monet]

Some huge event coming up that will probably get your PC killed? Discretely miss out on the action.

I realize that the train to Dead Horse has left the station, but I think this is the thing that mystifies me most about your position.

Most of the veteran players I know will call in sick to work, invite arguments with their s/o, miss three good parties, give up on the idea of eating/drinking/peeing/or sleeping for half a day, upgrade their internet connection, and skip out on a court summons just to attend an RPT, let alone an HRPT.

I just have no clue where you got the opposite idea. If it was from something you saw, I think you misinterpreted it. If someone actually told you that they do this, I feel pretty confident saying that is not representative of the pbase as a whole.


Back on topic, I think it bears pointing out that there are also roles where you can be required to kill PCs (like soldiers, Templars, gladiators, clanned raiding tribes, etc). In these situations, it can get interesting and complicated if you would prefer not to kill a PC for some reason when your character absolutely would or should.

[Quirk]

I can't resist a spot of devil's advocacy. I apologise for being a little off-topic.

So, sure, Wastrel's dug himself into a hole and thrown around a lot of dirt. He's saying veteran players use OOC understanding to their advantage. There's a bit of a backlash to this.

He is of course correct in some measure. Veteran players routinely avoid stupid deaths by adjusting their RP round OOC considerations.

Where code and RP diverge:
This is one of the most justifiable rationales for doing so: the way the code works leads to outcomes which don't make much IC sense.

I could tell tales of old dead characters here. Instead I'll provide an example: a noble's bodyguard beating up a rude 'Rinth rat on the noble's request is not ICly in danger of getting hauled in by the militia. It makes no sense at all within the context of the world. The IC law is flexible, written by templars on the spot to their convenience, weighted massively toward the rich and influential. The coded law does not work like this. It doesn't distinguish IC status in any but the crudest fashion.

Veteran players understand where these divergences happen, sometimes having run into them the hard way, and direct their roleplay to avoid their appearance where possible. Sometimes this involves holding a character back from something they should naturally do, but that the code won't properly support.

Exploration:
IC justifications are found to keep characters from doing things that have been found to be harmful or suicidal by previous characters.

This comes in many guises. For a relatively benign one, consider a hypothetical case where your character is weak from hunger. In the pack held by the dead PC you've just stumbled across are three pieces of fruit of kinds your character has never eaten before. One is a piece of fruit a previous character has eaten safely before, one is completely unknown, and the last is poisonous and killed a previous character of yours.

How many of us will put aside our OOC knowledge and elect to try the poisonous fruit first, given we can easily bend our RP to accommodate the alternatives?

---

So what am I saying here? Well, mostly, that these things aren't black and white. There are layers of knowledge about the game found out with one character which get carried forward to other characters, and only some of these are genuinely improved understanding of how the world works roleplay-wise. Players will use their understanding of the code to their characters' advantage and this can be a not inconsiderable source of advantage for veteran players. We do use metagame tricks in the sense that our characters don't make decisions that are reasonable ICly but which we OOCly know will lead to the mantis head in a boring or ICly unlikely manner.

What Wastrel's missing is that many veterans will happily make decisions that are reasonable ICly that they OOCly suspect will lead to an interesting death and give some other players some fun. How do they make characters that live so long? Well, as said before, often they don't. When they do, they adjust for code quirks, sure, but they also learn to endure boredom without taking silly risks, gain an appreciation of how to co-exist with the IC powers of the world, and find IC ways of expressing their character's desire for self-preservation at the potential expense of some excitement.

---

Oh, and since there's a topic:

The game thrives on conflict. Small-scale conflicts which rapidly result in someone dying and then end are boring. Large-scale conflicts can survive deaths along the way much better, and a small-scale conflict that festers and grows into a bloody ending can be a nice satisfying arc for all concerned.

So, as far as I'm concerned, if a conflict participant can be kept alive via a very little IC stretching, that's often good for everyone. Maybe your Nakki patriot doesn't see the wounded Tuluki left for dead among the rest of the pile of bodies. Maybe your templar is willing to exile the annoying thief rather than execute her. But if there's never any danger of death in these scenarios, the tension is lost. Some characters are going to have to die just to keep things interesting.

[Qzzrbl]

That was very well-written.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Quirk, welcome back. Gawddamn, welcome back.