Play in Tuluk

[Asanadas]

Tuluk strikes me as the kind of place I would need to experience as walking in as an outsider, harnessing IC cluelessness to my advantage, in order to get the groundwork to comfortably play a decent Tuluki citizen.

I intend to do that some day when Allanak sacks and invades when my character concepts kick the bucket.

[Reiloth]

I think you can easily play either a Warrener or someone who was born 'in the country' and is still a citizen, but not intrinsically familiar with the culture and ways of Tuluk.

I do recommend playing as a citizen rather than an un-inked Luirsian or just a non-citizen, and as a human, for your first time in Tuluk.

[bcw81]

Five minutes later, well displaced from my original location, some authority figure comes out of hide and tells me I didn't do the right thing when I passed person X and is basically acting like I just fucked Marsellus Wallace.  He's going in and out of hide, so I'm missing my tells at him.  Eventually I figure out the correct social protocol, and get dismissed and continue my wandering.

If this ever happens, I suggest filing a player complaint. There is already code to talk to people from the shadows, if you're breaking your hide, alerting someone to your presence, and then hiding back up again - that's ridiculous. Your best bet if you ever see that again is to talk to staff.

As for everything else - Yes and no. Tuluk -is- really hard to get the first time, the second time, and the fifth time you try it. Even so, after every single attempt you learn a bit more and you slowly start to understand that the bard saying you were a 'totally cool dude, bro' because you were 'packing a dank hit of that qel, bro' was really just saying you suck at rolling tubes of spice and she was going to facestab you repeatedly with the blunt end of a pitchfork if you dropped a single grain.

[bcw81]

I think you can easily play either a Warrener or someone who was born 'in the country' and is still a citizen, but not intrinsically familiar with the culture and ways of Tuluk.

I do recommend playing as a citizen rather than an un-inked Luirsian or just a non-citizen, and as a human, for your first time in Tuluk.

Admittedly, Tuluk doesn't really have a whole lot of villages one can use as a 'I don't really know what's happening, lol, but I am Tuluki citizen.' You could say you were from the Kadian Village, I guess, but... I'm kind of unsure if they would allow unaffiliated people to live there.

[Reiloth]

I think that's why I like 'subtle subtle subtle' in Tuluk.

It reminds me of the Game of Houses in the Wheel of Time series -- Where every sentence someone says can be used against them, or could be some 'play' in the Game of Houses for one political entity or another. One can't simply ignore the Game, because that makes it seem even more-so that they are playing. It's incredibly annoying and intriguing at the same time.

[CodeMaster]

Tuluk strikes me as the kind of place I would need to experience as walking in as an outsider, harnessing IC cluelessness to my advantage, in order to get the groundwork to comfortably play a decent Tuluki citizen.

I intend to do that some day when Allanak sacks and invades when my character concepts kick the bucket.

yeah.  Actually, it would be cool if one of the family role calls were for a family of foreigners, maybe refugees from Allanak, that were hiding in Tuluk with no tattoos and attempting, as a group, to get citizenship.

[Reiloth]

I think you can easily play either a Warrener or someone who was born 'in the country' and is still a citizen, but not intrinsically familiar with the culture and ways of Tuluk.

I do recommend playing as a citizen rather than an un-inked Luirsian or just a non-citizen, and as a human, for your first time in Tuluk.

Admittedly, Tuluk doesn't really have a whole lot of villages one can use as a 'I don't really know what's happening, lol, but I am Tuluki citizen.' You could say you were from the Kadian Village, I guess, but... I'm kind of unsure if they would allow unaffiliated people to live there.

Yeah it would be nice if they weren't even coded locations, but something along the lines of "There are many outlying villages surrounding Tuluk in the Gol Krathu region -- Blurby known for its grain harvest; Turby, where many dusk horn herders hail from; Murrby, set in the grasslands east of Tuluk, where magickers are grown". And so on. Just so they could be used for backgrounds, and for new players to reference.

It also gives a little bit of realism to the 'countryside' of Tuluk, where I imagine there would be hamlets and villages surrounding the city-state.

[Patuk]

My main issue with 'subtlety' is that, as effected by the people there, what I see is more that people will end up talking about events and goings on even less than they otherwise would. Whenyou combine 'Tuluki value subtlety' and 'the templarate is wstching you be quiet,' what you end up is a large amount of interaction happening behind closed doors rather than in public areas, and 'outsiders' to the game's social climate being completely left in the dark of what is going on by sheer virtue of not knowing the ins and outs of city policy.

[Reiloth]

Hmm. I don't see that as much as topics like magick and traitors and shadow artists aren't broached in a gauche manner. People talk around subjects rather than outright blurting them.

In a narrative storytelling sense, this can work and be executed well when people feel and think their true thoughts while saying something different -- It reads well in a novel, for instance.

In a game, I can see how all you get is the quiet bar, with people saying 'how do you do' and you can't glean much more from them unless you can read their minds.

I think there's a happy middle ground that i've seen, at least, where people are subtle and quietly dance around topics that can't be discussed publicly, while they will be up front with many other topics.

[Patuk]

That is the issue I'm taking, yes. 1984 is a great book, but would make for a shitty game. If someone gets killed, a building is burned, or anything at all happens, getting involved is impossible if everyone who was around will go 'I don't know what you are talking about, everything is a-okay.'

[HavokBlue]

Like Nyr mentioned previously, the subtlety thing has changed.

It seems to be a part of the social etiquette of the upper castes and while average Amos may be familiar with the idea, there's not really a need for him to abide by it when he's dealing with average Malik. Faithful Lord Fuckwood will probably be unhappy with Amos if Amos works for say... a Kassigarh lady as a debt collector and blabs blatantly at the bar about how he legally gets to beat people up for money, because it goes counter to the constructed image of peace and harmony and benevolent care, but average Malik is probably not going to take much offense, if any, to Amos' lack of subtlety.


That's my interpretation of the new stuff, at least.

[Reiloth]

Yeah, and that's what i've seen IG at least.

[Harmless]

Among these choices the first one is the only one that is applicable to my view. I would play it. The only barrier I have is that I am involved in many plots with my current PC that I have absolutely no intention of ending. The other choices would be nice changes but that's best answer for me with the way the poll is worded.

[KankWhisperer]

Tulukis are dull. Tuluk is dull. Bards do everything but be entertaining.

[bcw81]

Tulukis are dull. Tuluk is dull. Bards do everything but be entertaining.

I feel like too many bards try to be nothing but singers or painters.

>.> On recent topics in the game discussion thread, I've always seen Tuluk as more of an Orlais from Dragon Age. Yes, everyone is extravagantly splendid, and yes, everyone is going to stab you in the back the first chance they get. Bards aren't about singing, they're about playing the game with knives and daggers and thoughts.

[HavokBlue]

I think there's some singing in there

[Aruven]

Ok a few thoughts on this.
Tuluk is pretty limited in what can happen due to the numbers of players in the game. If you want a warrior, you're and independent (And yes, an independent counts as some lackey of a chosen who goes and kills people and things for them) or you join the legions.
People used to be able to join Lyksae and Winrothol.
I think from a northern perspective warrior PCs got tired of killing Kryl for no reason as its become pretty obvious they are virtually indestructible and sooner or later a kryl was going to kill you, because lets face it, there are few NPCs worse than Kryl.
So warriors don't have much going on. Also, there was a HUGE 'peace'. It is pretty hard to employ a soldier in a culture that deals with things on a 'subtle' level with shadow artists and devious nobility and templars. Also --> THOSE templars.

I'm not a fan of removing the 'antimagick' stuff. I don't even know what that means. Mages haven't gotten any less twink, and its already hard enough for a city-state to fight against another city-state that employs them. Recent IC events and even those still on going confirm this. I like playing in Tuluk and knowing I won't have to deal with magick as much.

Trying to type this out, it is hard to be specific the way I would like. I think the game changes are promising (Player created clans, moving forward with shadow artists, transitions in the triumvirate). I think some of the problems will solve themselves.

I'm a little dumbfounded to hear about the lack of enjoyment from tuluki culture, seeing as the other main city-state in my opinion really has none. The only thing Allanak has impressed me with is the amount of PC players to be found tavern sitting between dusk and dawn on any given day of the week. That and the amount of plots that seem to be continuously evolving there. (I'm not including the Labyrinth in this assessment, which is a different beast entirely)

[Kronibas]

As far as warriors not having anything going on is concerned, I think that if a wad of warriors formed up in Tuluk then, if there were enough of them and they were motivated, they could orient themselves toward PvP against Allanak, which would be way more fun than kryl.

I mean, usually clans can get in a shitload of trouble if they're heavy handed with PK'ing or make murder too much of their focus (or are perceived as such at any rate), but the current climate of the game seems like it would encourage and facilitate these tendencies as long as players chose a side and really worked toward harming the other side in tangible and terrible ways. It's a nice thought, anyway.

[Aruven]

As far as warriors not having anything going on is concerned, I think that if a wad of warriors formed up in Tuluk then, if there were enough of them and they were motivated, they could orient themselves toward PvP against Allanak, which would be way more fun than kryl.

Until very recently, this was not true. NOW, there is a reason and its probably the season to get involved and look at PK'ing and aggression against somewhere like Allanak. Up until the last HRPT? Not much going on, and for awhile prior, that didn't have to do with Kryl. Maybe that speaks to the various leaders in the city playing not driving plots, or maybe Tuluk just hasn't had much development until very recently.

Contrary to somewhere like say, Allanak, in which I could name off multiples upon multiples of plots and plot progression that kept a lot of people involved. So yeah, eventually people are going to stop playing in the north and move south to get in on the action. Also, I don't see every plotline progress, i'm just another player but i've spent a good amount of time in Tuluk, and in sponsored roles that cut paths between both cities, so I have a good feeling where the action normally goes down. And so far as I can tell, it hasn't been in Tuluk for awhile.

[Reiloth]

I think Tuluk has been an evolving creature, and this stage of its evolution is probably the pinnacle of what it can be.

Now, it either gets destroyed, or it fucks shit up. Commence!

[Rathustra]

As I rack up the hours, I find people being really friendly with my character.  Maybe I reeked of newbie.  But let's just say he wasn't a guy you wouldn't want to talk to on the streets if you were walking the straight and narrow, so it didn't make intuitive sense to me why people would be consistently interested in socializing with me.  Nevertheles, given Tuluk's duplicitous nature, I had to assume these kinds of exchanges were within the bounds of normal RP.  (Honestly, I should have gone for a higher-tier kind of commoner and not something like a dirty breed, but I was looking for a challenge and clearly got one.)

Of course I hugely appreciated all these guys' efforts to bring me into their RP.  But Tuluk overall strikes me as roleplay ultra-hard-mode - as in, I felt like I needed an extra layer of documentation for what was going on between me and the other PCs.  It requires just that much more effort to get into playing confidently there, which makes me understand why some people have had trouble enjoying themselves.
[edits]

Have you considered that they didn't have anyone else to RP with and were desperate for a new face???

[Rathustra]

Tuluk strikes me as the kind of place I would need to experience as walking in as an outsider, harnessing IC cluelessness to my advantage, in order to get the groundwork to comfortably play a decent Tuluki citizen.

I intend to do that some day when Allanak sacks and invades when my character concepts kick the bucket.

When Allanak was struck by misfortune after misfortune and even a little earlier before that - when tensions between the North and South had cooled after the Rebellion - a slow, steady trickle of refugees, outcasts and those who couldn't continue to live in the South for whatever reason, began to head north, arriving in Tuluk inkless, poor and weakened by the long journey.

These refugees found themselves tolerated, but never welcomed or enfranchised by Tuluki society - they lacked position in the caste hierarchy and were seen almost as unclean - moreso even than the slave caste. During Tuluk's resurgence the worst jobs fell to them and they did them in order to avoid attention from the seemingly omnipresent Templarate, with the luckiest of their number living in the worst hovels the Warrens had to offer - the rest had to do as best as they could in the mouldering wreckage of the ruins in the Old Quarter.

A deluge and a violent coup/re-shuffling of Tuluk's power structure in the wake of the decimation of Tuluk's fighting forces (though no-one would ever say that out loud) have spelled doom for the refugees, however. Excluded from their homes and restricted to only one quarter of the city, their employment options have also been eroded as the city has fallen on hard times - Warreners openly struggle and compete for 'undesirable' work and there is simmering discontent and hatred for the unwelcome foreigners.

A crude shanty-town is emerging in Friel's Rest as the refugee population tries to recover. But they are on the brink - it would only take a spark to burn them all away.

So if you want to do a family role call for some refugees, that's cool too.

[slvrmoontiger]

Okay, I didn't feel like reading all the posts. First after seeing the poling results I guess having a while away from Tuluk has brought more players in, considering 20 players voted for playing in Tuluk regardless. Last time I played in Tuluk I don't think there were even 20 players that played there. Second of all, I picked the last option. I did this because of how few players there seemed to be that actually played in Tuluk the last time I had a character there. Third thing is I was informed by staff that I should play in another region for a while before I played in Tuluk again. I'm actually having some fun with where my character is playing currently, though sometimes it is very slow there.

[RogueGunslinger]

Tuluk is not for me. I've tried it. I've played there for long periods of time, even recently. There's not enough interaction for a player like me and I regularly play in places like the 'rinth where you seldom see people. The difference is in a place like the 'Rinth or Storm, there's an easy excuse to go to Allanak and interact with people. It can make perfect IC sense.

Tuluk feels completely disconnected from the game to me. It feels like you have to be in a powerful clan, or important house for there to be any chance of being a part of a plot. You can't just be Joe-blow cotton-picker/Kryl hunter and find enough daily interaction for that to be pleasing.

What I find amusing is this poll, where you'd think the vast majority of people are perfectly okay with playing in Tuluk. Well, that's a flat-out lie. I've been there. If all you people were willing to play it wouldn't feel like it's freaking empty. But even more than that, if you all DID start playing there, I feel like that would take too many players away from the places I do enjoy playing.

I'd be perfectly okay if Tuluk was wiped from the game completely. I understand that other people enjoy its nuances but if they're already basically not playing this game with me, I probably wouldn't at all mind if they were gone.

[KankWhisperer]

Why Allanak is better in my opinion:

• Inclusive:

        Any tribal, Luirsman, or Stormer can easily pretend to be from Allanak after picking up the accent.(Except to the Nenyuks who control the apartments?)
        That immediately adds to the amount of players who eventually have Allanak as an option to play from.
        Tuluk? Not so much. Tattoos were a bad game design decision. Too hard to fake unless you're a staff sponsored role.

• Quality over Quantity:
          There aren't numerous docs over complicating everything.
         
  
         
  • The nobles are pretty simple to understand. You know what a Fale is going to an inappropriate party noble. A Borsail is a cruel slaver. An Oash is a creepy fuck with gemmers. A Tor used to be a stuffy soldier. Tulukis nobles are just too ..nuanced?
  • A bard is not a bard. People see a bard in Allanak and think I may be entertained. A Tuluki bard has six different kinds with many not focusing on entertaining at all. Just too complicated.
  • You know where you stand. You are trash if you are and elf or a breed. You don't need to pull out a caste chart to know if you can insult someone.
  • You get to participate in murdering people. The templars aren't all knowing and have to figure out that you did it the hard way. In Tuluk if you are a foreigner, even one allowed to be there, you can't use Shadow Artists directly afaik.
  • Allanak has real corruption. I've done all kinds of stuff in Allanak as a Tuluki as long as I made myself useful to Templars. You don't need to be so 'subtle' about bribes.

Allanak gives you an outline and you have room to flesh yourself out in interesting ways. Tuluk forces you to fit into an uncomfortable box. Tuluk is all about keeping people out in my opinion.