Elves: The Thread

[BadSkeelz]

Better than stilt lizards. Not quite as good as the guy who was dressing up raptors in full oufits.

[Yam]

Getting up in arms about fighting NPCs is sooooo 2008.

Who gives a fuck as long as it's roleplayed and makes sense.

[Suhuy]

Getting up in arms about fighting NPCs is sooooo 2008.

Who gives a fuck as long as it's roleplayed and makes sense.

I agree. It's not like you're giving it to a rat and the rat wields it. From a RP standpoint it sounds like a very creative way of bullying someone weaker than you, by giving them a small chance to actually defend themself but not enough to actually pose as a threat. As in, "Alright, kid, I'm gonna beat the crap out of you for no other reason than you're in my way. But here's a club and see if that helps you at all." What's not legit Rinther RP about that?

The problem is the instant it has to do with the code (or -- gasp -- giving your character a chance to practice skills) everyone wants to call foul.

[BadSkeelz]

I wish Rinth Orphans had hunt and pursuit code.

[Case]

Kill them all and don't worry about reactions. You won't have killed enough until I see another "FUCK THIS GAME" thread from a player of a formerly-long-lived character.

This is also way lazy and you know that. Killing selectively as part of a story or plot? Pretty interesting, gives material to work with.

Killing en masse to "shake it up" does the opposite, makes them focus on not dying or killing more people to stop it. When the first escalation is death over and over and over, it tends to create garbage RP that ends up nowhere, especially when PCs who knew dead PCs die and it just blank slates it all.

[BadSkeelz]

Kill them all and don't worry about reactions. You won't have killed enough until I see another "FUCK THIS GAME" thread from a player of a formerly-long-lived character.

This is also way lazy and you know that. Killing selectively as part of a story or plot? Pretty interesting, gives material to work with.

Killing en masse to "shake it up" does the opposite, makes them focus on not dying or killing more people to stop it. When the first escalation is death over and over and over, it tends to create garbage RP that ends up nowhere, especially when PCs who knew dead PCs die and it just blank slates it all.

Players are lazy.

[Case]

Kill them all and don't worry about reactions. You won't have killed enough until I see another "FUCK THIS GAME" thread from a player of a formerly-long-lived character.

This is also way lazy and you know that. Killing selectively as part of a story or plot? Pretty interesting, gives material to work with.

Killing en masse to "shake it up" does the opposite, makes them focus on not dying or killing more people to stop it. When the first escalation is death over and over and over, it tends to create garbage RP that ends up nowhere, especially when PCs who knew dead PCs die and it just blank slates it all.

Players are lazy.

Some are. Not all. I know you're not either. Encouraging it is shitty.

[BadSkeelz]

Everyone's shitty given the right circumstances.

Honestly I think the "extreme reaction" to acts of criminality is a symptom of long-players characters and players unwilling to let them go, to lose. It's human nature to want to protect that which we've invested serious time and emotion in building.

I'm not asking people to go out and kill every PC who's over a RL year old (you'd totally be stepping on my dwarf assassin focus if you did). But know that the irrational, "shitty" reactions is almost a given from an established character. Give players the benefit of the doubt, but be ready to immediately escalate to scorched earth tactics if there's no sign of reciprocation.

As far as Elves go... I think Tribes should be watching for those characters with a history of extreme (over)reaction to Elven deeds. And they should make the collective Elven shit list because of their reactions.

[Jingo]

I'm not sure if it's just a general phenomena on regarding long-lived players or if it's just a lack of meaningful leadership among leader players.

Frankly I lean towards the latter because I avoid them for the most part now. I don't enjoy the lame kneejerk overkill I tend to get from them.

[Rathustra]

I dunno. I don't think City Elves are nearly as 'broken' as people make them out to be. Slap a tribe on them, and they work out just fine.

City elves really only work if you think it's kosher to treat 'rinth npc's as sparring buddies.

I'm not coming down on people that do it though.

It wasn't on my elf, but a human westsider: I used to disarm one of the rinth kids, give them a sparring club, and actually spar with them a bit, then disarm them again, take the sparring club, and head home for the day.

I don't think there's anything wrong with fighting NPCs in the rinth.  I'd rather rinthers stick around inside the rinth, rather than join the Byn and never return.

Don't do this. I can't believe I have to write this post. NPCs are not your paper dolls - you don't get to interact with them on this level and in such a clumsy way as to ever make this justifiable.

I'm not terribly bothered. It isn't any worse than just mugging npc's to take their stuff and skill up.

And extra points if it's roleplayed.

Again, sort of a bizarre situation that I have to post this: this attitude doesn't fit the game. Leave it at the door. A mugging doesn't require you to impose more than the code itself covers - you stalk the NPC, you attack the NPC, you take the NPC's stuff. It's correct that there are some OOC oddness around the same NPCs coming back again and again, but I hope that players, especially players with any karma, are able to work around OOC constraints such as this to create a sensible IC logic.

Getting up in arms about fighting NPCs is sooooo 2008.

Who gives a fuck as long as it's roleplayed and makes sense.

Once more - I hate to say 'I'm disappointed' - but the combination of what is being said and who is saying it really saddens me. You guys really are your own worst enemies.

[Hauwke]

I find sparring NPCs at all to be kind of odd. Its makes the game feel like a hack'n'slash sparring others however is fun, then you get the whole: I beat the snot out of you fucks again and again.
Until someone better comes along and beats the snot out of you. Whatchu gonna do huh?

[Jingo]

I mean fair enough. If you explicitly don't want people to do that then we won't.

But as far as intent goes? And the relative harm that it causes? I personally don't have a huge problem.

But I suppose if leader pc's started giving their guards sparring weapons and fighting them then I would? So I could see how it's a bit of a slippery slope?

[BadSkeelz]

This is the Elf thread, not the "Does Child Abuse lead to skill gains?" thread.

[Yam]

Rathustra, don't act disappointed in me. I had a character that went around bonking kids on the head and stuffing them into the Salarri argosy.

Now what's really slick is if you give a mekillot a bunch of boulders. I mean a BUNCH of boulders. You gotta go sneak in and out making boulder trips. But once you give the mekillot enough boulders you can go give the raptors a bunch of axes and swords and then lead your new raptor army to the mekillot to take it out.

https://youtu.be/gTWo9oLJOWk?t=119

[Rathustra]

I mean fair enough. If you explicitly don't want people to do that then we won't.

But as far as intent goes? And the relative harm that it causes? I personally don't have a huge problem.

But I suppose if leader pc's started giving their guards sparring weapons and fighting them then I would? So I could see how it's a bit of a slippery slope?

My last post was more about being dismayed, which isn't helpful. But it really is dismaying to see such a disconnect.

Treating 'rinth NPCs as semi-generic 'slum dwellers' in the same way that any given chalton is indistinguishable from any other chalton to murder, mug and abuse them makes sense as an OOC abstraction for a sprawling labyrinth full of dejected poor.

Manipulating dumb AI code to force an NPC to fight in a way to maximize your sparring gains with some flimsy 'IC justification' for why you're doing it isn't. You don't get to choose how the NPC feels about the situation, it's not kosher to decide that an NPC wants to be your sparring buddy. Your comparison to guard NPCs is apt. You don't get to decide how that scene plays out.

Wish up if you want to see if the 'rinthi orphan wants to spar with you.

[Majikal]

Wish up if you want to see if the 'rinthi orphan wants to spar with you.

A dirty, rinthi-kid says in rinthi-accented sirihish: "My friends want to spar too!"

a tiny army of rinthi children arrive from nearby.
a tiny army of rinthi children arrive from nearby.
a tiny army of rinthi children arrive from nearby.
a tiny army of rinthi children arrive from nearby.

Eyeing you, a dirty, rinthi-kid says in rinthi-accented sirihish: "We're soooo hungry.. we should eat first."

A tiny army of rinthi children bites you on the hand, dealing frightening damage.



Now, back on topic!

I've seen some c-elf opportunities pop up in the game recently and semi-recently, they seemed to be received really well if the sheer amount of elves popping out of chargen was any indication, it spoke volumes for how much the playerbase wants to see it work. C-elf tribes get brought up often and I've not got to experience any of them personally (I missed out on Akai and Jaxa both), my only concern would be the raw power a clan of c-elves can possess, I got to be on the receiving end of both Akai Sjir and Jaxa. Your Borsail noble + aide + guard or your hunting house with 3 hunters and a merchant will be at the mercy of a clan of city-ninjas and things can get whackily out of balance fairly quickly.

I wouldn't mind seeing a c-elf clan that required role applications and was limited to 3-4 characters at any given time.

[RogueGunslinger]

Not really understanding this concept of balance when it comes to IC. A group of trusting, un-turnable individuals can shake up the game and cause some havoc? Sounds like a good time. People are afraid they might not be able to get back at the elves? Get good. It's not fun for the elves if they aren't putting themselves in some kind of risk. Capitalize on it.

[Dunetrade55]

Rath, not to be a dick, but staff CAN animate that rinthi NPC in the manner Majikal described. Further, she said it was a long time ago (or maybe I imagined that), we all make mistakes, especially when we're newbs... but you have two types of newbs, your creative newbs, and your grunt, squint, rough circle newbs. I'll take the former any day.

[Rathustra]

Rath, not to be a dick, but staff CAN animate that rinthi NPC in the manner Majikal described. Further, she said it was a long time ago (or maybe I imagined that), we all make mistakes, especially when we're newbs... but you have two types of newbs, your creative newbs, and your grunt, squint, rough circle newbs. I'll take the former any day.

You're right - and Majikal was replying (I assume) to my statement that you can wish up to get that interaction - if staff are available. Also yeah - we all make mistakes - it's not like I've hopped on port and docked Nauta's karma.

I'll take either newbie. The grunting newbie is just as capable of learning Armageddon as the imaginative one is at not picking up the game culture.

[Dunetrade55]

I will literally kill the latter newb. The game doesn't need more boring twinks, I think the quota is filled. Picking up the game culture is a difficult task, but, I've been just, minding my own business and BAM, staff animation, usually good, quality shit there. I dislike grinding but players are sort of forced into it to stay competitive, lest they just be a wild chalton to a Badskeelz sort of neanderthal who shoots townies in the face just because they can. What about the people twinking a certain skill in a certain place? Couldn't they, you know, learn to expect feral gangs of flesh eating orphans to descend on them? It's always immersion breaking when you find the evidence later. I'd think there are bigger issues than someone tossing a sparring club to an NPC here.

[Yam]

Fool. You wouldn't last an hour in the rough circle.

[Dunetrade55]

Also, not trying to call Badskeelz out as BORING... the one character I'm aware of that he played was just unnapproachable if you played certain backgrounds, which is completely legit, I'm sure that character wasn't boring. I was merely bringing up the Badskeelz mafia strategy because he's not alone and there's a need to highlight that others do it.

[Beethoven]

I am not staff; therefore, I am not allowed to animate NPCs. Because of this fact, it seems obvious that I shouldn't exploit the code to "animate" them to do what I want them to do. Sure, it's creative, but the whole reason that you need to get creative in order to do that is because you're not actually able to do this and need to use shifty code workarounds.

You don't get to decide that your "disarm" attempt was really the NPC willingly dropping their weapon in favor of your sparring weapon. You don't get to decide that they want to spar with you just because you can force them to using code. That seems crazy to me.

[Dunetrade55]

I am not staff; therefore, I am not allowed to animate NPCs. Because of this fact, it seems obvious that I shouldn't exploit the code to "animate" them to do what I want them to do. Sure, it's creative, but the whole reason that you need to get creative in order to do that is because you're not actually able to do this and need to use shifty code workarounds.

You don't get to decide that your "disarm" attempt was really the NPC willingly dropping their weapon in favor of your sparring weapon. You don't get to decide that they want to spar with you just because you can force them to using code. That seems crazy to me.

But that's the rub, isn't it? Nauta never said they were WILLING sparring partners. Your argument would disallow me from using the barter code to get a better price. NPCs are not off limits for interaction. Power-emoting is. It sounds like Nauta used the code to interact with an NPC, which is perfectly allowable provided actions weren't forced on them by emote. That said, when doing something like this, wish up and see if staff wants to play, too. You may die but at least it'll be memorable.

[Dunetrade55]

I dunno. I don't think City Elves are nearly as 'broken' as people make them out to be. Slap a tribe on them, and they work out just fine.

City elves really only work if you think it's kosher to treat 'rinth npc's as sparring buddies.

I'm not coming down on people that do it though.

It wasn't on my elf, but a human westsider: I used to disarm one of the rinth kids, give them a sparring club, and actually spar with them a bit, then disarm them again, take the sparring club, and head home for the day.

I don't think there's anything wrong with fighting NPCs in the rinth.  I'd rather rinthers stick around inside the rinth, rather than join the Byn and never return.

As a reminder, this is what Nauta said. You are reading a bit into it, unless you, you know, actually witnessed it first hand, and if that's the case, you should've submitted a character complaint and let staff look into it. But I'm more inclined to believe you're assuming and drawing more into the picture than is really there because it's what I've come to expect from people.