Combat Roles within Armageddon - Limited Choices, or is there?

[Jingo]

At the moment people seem genuinely afraid and wary of the Tablelands due to a desert elf tribe(s) currently operating out of there.

Staff just really need to reverse the presumption that desert elves or any one tribe own the tablelands. I've seen this problem get worse and worse and worse over the years. But that's another thread.

[In Dreams]

This was offtopic, nevermind!

[650Booger]

Here's a crazy idea, but hear me out: Open up gith as a karma required race that anyone can play.

I like it!  more races, more combat main guilds, more karma options in general would be awesome!

I have various ideas for non-lethal combat stuff involving the arena, but I only have the energy to do something every couple of weeks.  The arena should be (and I think actually -is- according to docs) available to any noble clan or the templarate for hosting events.

correct me if I'm wrong about that.

[Armaddict]

As far as the arena...I haven't really seen it used for actual criminals in a fun way for awhile.

Do the whole 'We found a criminal.  Anyone want to volunteer to let him live or die?' i.e. Fight to the death, if the criminal wins, he goes free.

Sometimes other PCs would volunteer.  Sometimes you throw in a baddy that isn't just absolutely weighted to win (Gaj versus elven pickpocket?  C'mon man!).

[Molten Heart]

can public sparring grounds be crime-coded during certain hours? For example, if you're still in the building after dusk, they'll lock the gates. If someone comes by and you're still in there (someone being city soldiers) then they can arrest you? Or if you're sparring in there late at night, you're automatically coded and arrested as soon as a morning patrol comes by?

I imagine code that moves everyone outside when it's closed would be an option.

[nauta]

Here's a crazy idea, but hear me out: Open up gith as a karma required race that anyone can play. Don't put out an open role call. Treat it exactly the same as the desert elves. Put enough info to create a basic gith background and let players roll up gith (potentially limiting magicker roles as per elves and tribal humans).

At the moment people seem genuinely afraid and wary of the Tablelands due to a desert elf tribe(s) currently operating out of there. Introduce the gith and you suddenly have 3-4 groups at play in the Tablelands: Gith, a particular Desert Elf Tribe, Outsiders (and Kurac). Immediately the gith would present an antagonistic force against the desert elf tribe, but one they could potentially overcome buy themselves. It could cause the desert elves to start brokering deals with outsiders and/or Kurac. However if the gith were given enough leeway to also broker deals, then outsiders could be used as mercenaries in a stand off between the two groups. Furthermore if Kurac has any smarts, they'll realise that either party wiping out the other would be bad for Kurac so that may put them at odds with both desert elves and gith.

This solves the problem of the PCs of an antagonist group getting wiped out (desert elves and gith are born, not hired, so there can always be more). Players from Allanak seem to regularly travel to the Tablelands which will involve them in the conflict. It's PC driven and self-maintains. Finally if one group gets a significant upper hand, the conflict can come to a satisfying conclusion. Imagine playing a tribe of desert elves (or gith) driven from their homeland. What changes would that bring to their culture? How would they adapt? Or would they simply die out?

This is in essence what staff did last year with the gith wars.  I'd like to hear from staff why it was retired/how it went.  Here are my reflections (from playing a Sun Runner in the thick of it for a few months):

1. First, it was pretty awesome.  Let me just say that.  Period.  I got my ass handed to me by either NPC gith or PC gith, and in the thick of it, it was very unclear if it was NPC gith, staff animated gith, or PC gith doing the ass handing.  We had a jumping clan with something like 8 PCs, and the Soh were hopping too.

2. Location, location, location.

Players from Allanak seem to regularly travel to the Tablelands which will involve them in the conflict

Unfortunately, this didn't really happen.  I think a total of two crazy indies from outside the table lands opted to start things up, and kudos to you two crazies.  There was little incentive for Allanak to get involved, and surprisingly not much incentive for Kurac (see #3 below).

3. Diplomacy.

The diplomatic aspect was there, but there weren't really enough players to get this aspect off the ground.  Plus, even with Kurac, desert elf pride and the distance to the table lands didn't really motivate much interaction there.  Kurac, in other words, wasn't dying to go into the table lands, and the elves weren't dying to ask for help.

4. Resource War.

This part was a bit hard to deal with.  A key resource was tainted, but on the other end, we weren't really able to do much about that -- and in terms of actual game play, it had no effect, other than to make things more onerous.

But overall, I thought it was a petty good beta for a roll out.  Roll it out in the Red Desert, on the trade route between Luir's and Allanak.  This would get more people involved.

The only problem I saw as a player was that clutch staff disappeared, literally, during the climax of the plotline.  I have no idea what was going on behind the scenes there, but we lost all communication from staff for about a month or two in the Sun Runner clan.

[Dunetrade55]

I think if "badges of prestige" could be given out by clans to combat roles who have served them on a level above and beyond what could be expected of a common mercenary would do a lot to incentivize engagement with other clans. I also think allowing the Byn and AoD to pad out their forces for a big mission with irregulars would be a sensible thing to do. This would allow those who feel stifled by clan life to still enjoy some of the benefits of being assosciated with clans and increase participation.

The only problem then becomes how do you get the training? I suppose that's something to be worked out ICly... or I suppose you could just run in straight out of chargen and pit yourself against challenges until you either prevail or die, but considering the scale of difficulty seemingly tipped toward the strongest links in the chain might make that, unsustainable. As far as gladiator death matches, well, there's little draw to that given previously highlighted reasons. If the incentive or reward exists, then participation will follow.

[Ath]

So on the topic of monstrous races.  I get it, it would be great to play one, I would love to play one, but I also understand why we don't.  It's been explained before, but Gith/Mantis or whatever, don't come close to sharing any semblance of relation with any of the other races.  Gith won't trade with others, they are the utmost evil and downright nasty.  We wrote documentation for our Gith during the war, it was strict, but each of the players understood.  The other issue is they are the ultimate isolationist role.  You cannot go anywhere, you cannot interact with anyone but your own kind in the sense of actual social interaction.

It would be fun to play a Gith with other Gith, but even then... we had the issue that not all the Gith players were playing around the same times as others.  Some got bored and stored, others just ended up dying, and most other PCs when they see a Gith player, they gun for them and shoot first and ask questions later... almost in all cases, no RP at all.  I figure the players had fun, but from a staff standpoint, it was kinda disheartening.

I agree, antagonists would be good for this game, player antagonists.  Balancing it is the issue in most cases.  This does get kinda off topic, but I wanted to at least give an explanation on it.

[Tuannon]

The difference in Tor noble mindsets was always interesting to me. Both had PC Scorpions who they used as aides or bodyguards and actual PC aides.

You had Kharad Tor, who was the officer who had a plan for everything but wasn't always at the forefront of action.

You also had Mallor Tor, who led from the front and sometimes went in without a plan.

Aside from that I think there are a few specific combinations of warrior/sub-guild that CAN work thematically for specific organizations, but most are practically useless for travel situations. This can be fine if you build associations outside of clan circles, but sometimes it does not work that way in game.

[John]

A tweak or five would definitely be needed to gith culture to make it viable as an open clan. I can understand reticence to do that  (although it wouldn't need any retains, as a different leader could rise within gith culture). But yeah, viable PC antagonists near Allanak that operate in grey areas would be ideal. The Tan Muark have filled this role to a degree at different times. Heck the Byn fell out of favour at one stage and I believe we're exiled to Red Storm.

[BadSkeelz]

So on the topic of monstrous races.  I get it, it would be great to play one, I would love to play one, but I also understand why we don't.  It's been explained before, but Gith/Mantis or whatever, don't come close to sharing any semblance of relation with any of the other races.  Gith won't trade with others, they are the utmost evil and downright nasty.  We wrote documentation for our Gith during the war, it was strict, but each of the players understood.  The other issue is they are the ultimate isolationist role.  You cannot go anywhere, you cannot interact with anyone but your own kind in the sense of actual social interaction.

It would be fun to play a Gith with other Gith, but even then... we had the issue that not all the Gith players were playing around the same times as others.  Some got bored and stored, others just ended up dying, and most other PCs when they see a Gith player, they gun for them and shoot first and ask questions later... almost in all cases, no RP at all.  I figure the players had fun, but from a staff standpoint, it was kinda disheartening.

I agree, antagonists would be good for this game, player antagonists.  Balancing it is the issue in most cases.  This does get kinda off topic, but I wanted to at least give an explanation on it.

I'm posting from work (as always) so this'll be kinda rambly.

I played one of the gith who stored. Mostly because the role sucked and I came to dislike the play it was encouraging. The biggest problem  with the role was the isolationist "no communication or interaction other than murder." Even playing with other gith was largely limited to sparring or trying to find other PCs to gank. The only real fun I had was in an encounter with a human that had no actual violence (Although I did steal their sunlon for eating).

Monster races are a dead-end for looking for improved competition and deepening the roles of Combat Characters within Armageddon. Actual Armageddon coded combat is nasty, brutal, and short. Emotes are brief to nonexistent, characterization can suffer, and I wager most of us are just watching our prompts waiting to punch in >flee. Monster Races like the Gith embody the very worst of Armageddon PVP, where there's no recourse but to attack another player, and no reason to do so other than that player is on the approved target list.

As someone who only plays combat characters, I feel confident telling you that the adrenaline and joy that comes from typing ">kill" amounts to maybe 25% of a character enjoyment. And when it comes to actual time spent playing, it's closer to 10%. If I want to swing a sword in to someone I have games that do a much better job of scratching that itch. (btw Ath: Chivalry, duel map,  no archer Comeatmebro)

What make Combat Characters fulfilling is all the work and living that goes 90% of a character's playtime that isn't spent fighting: Talking with your crew, getting to explore personalities; training that focuses on the roleplay, where a fighting style becomes another aspect of the character's personality; interacting with others outside of your clan in non-lethal situations. Being a bloodthirsty blade-twirling psycho in combat is fun, but being that character outside of combat and watching others' reactions is way more enjoyable.

Another key for making a Combat Character fulfilling is to make their jobs Meaningful. I led patrols against the spiders because they provided OOC excitement, but also I had the IC justification of needing to keep the road safe. Make the roads more dangerous and you'll see more combat characters who are probably happier players. The Red Desert gith and the Kuraci Fist are one example. The gith in the Red Desert don't particularly stalk the main trails. It isn't very satisfying going out to "keep the road clear" when you're fighting 10 rooms from the road, which itself is only mildly plagued by snakes and kagors.

[Ath]

At first I was going to smack you BadSkeelz, but you know what... you speak your point of view.  You come up with good feedback on playing one of the gith, that's fine.  It was great to see it in practice and give it a try, nothing wrong with that at all, but as we can see, it isn't the best of combat roles.

The combat role isn't just about the fighting, it's about the roleplay... I'm glad to see that posted.  Anyhow, I'm closing this one up early as we have gone over a bunch of information and we've covered a lot of what I personally was looking for.  Thank you to all of you for the feedback, it's greatly appreciated.