on villains, monster roles, and all things antagonist

[Molten Heart]

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[BadSkeelz]

There may be tribes with different values, but the Tableland and Red Desert ones are pretty much evil all the time.

[lostinspace]

If there were people playing gith, I would expect them to be handled as "smarter than your average gith", more cunning and brutal. I don't know about you, but killing such a creature sure seems a waste when we could throw it into an arena full of breeds and see what happens. What we need is a gith role where you just play misc. gith for a couple months, and when you die it doesn't matter, you just get another cookie cutter gith and keep causing a terror in the sands.

[Molten Heart]

.

[ghanima]

I could be remembering incorrectly but I thought someone on staff later mentioned on the GDB that the gith in Red Storm were never meant to be there and their existence was essentially retconned.

If I'm just misremembering, I'd guess their presence there was still quite an anomaly to standard gith culture.

[BadSkeelz]

Gith are already cunning and brutal. The problem is that they're psychologically, almost physiologically incapable of interacting in a non-homicidal fashion with other races. Asking for a gith who can talk with other races is like asking for an elf that can ride.

What we need is a gith role where you just play misc. gith for a couple months, and when you die it doesn't matter, you just get another cookie cutter gith and keep causing a terror in the sands.

We had this and it didn't work. When you have people playing characters that "don't matter" for the sole purpose of "Causing a terror in the sand," you get shitty gamey play where roleplay boils down to who can codegank the other better. There was no interaction. There was no nuance. There was no rivalry or intimidation or satisfaction of a long-running feud being resolved. It was just gank and counter-gank.

Gith are far more useful as a NPC menace that can threaten PCs to give us a source of conflict to play off of. Asking to play them is like asking to play tarantulas in lieu of the Ratsucker storyline. Everyone was impressed and spooked by the spiders, but what made that plotline cool wasn't the culture of the spiders. It was the danger and menace and excitement they brought to a "safe" area of the game.

[nauta]

I dunno.  Placing players in the role of NPCs (be it gortok, gith, or whatever) would (a) be a refreshing change of pace; (b) allow some who do enjoy the code to get that out of their system; and (c) most importantly, it would make the world come alive.

From the other perspective -- and I'm not sure if I actually killed any PC gith or not, since they all looked the same -- having PC gith out there made the tablelands dangerous and exciting.  There were a lot of effects the PC gith had which you may not have noticed: it disrupted common routes, it forced me to move more cautiously through the area, it, in short, forced me to RP the dangers of the wilds instead of just 'pretending' that there might be dangers out there.  When I set up a tent for the night, or found a cave to crawl into, or whatever, I couldn't just idle and have a sandwich -- I had to keep an eye out.  When we traveled, we had to travel in packs.  It was great.

Perhaps the stress to the player of the monster is too much, but I'd think if the expectations were there -- that your job was simply to portray an NPC with a little better intelligence than the artificial scripted intelligence -- then it'd be a fun little escape for a spell.  Sure 99% of your time online would be idling or prowling around, but that's not much different than playing a rinther in the rinth or a Soh Lanah Kah.

Put it another way: if I knew that there were a potential non-NPC danger on the trade route between Luir's and Allanak, you bet I'd view the trip as a lot more exciting, even if I never met that danger a single time.

ETA: Part of this might be that these were gith and the opponents were desert elves.  Both are high-powered, archer-oriented, stealth oriented, high agility, no-mount combatants.  Everything about them feels twinky and gamey.  But if the role were the Benjari, and the opponents a group on mounts, the battles would a lot more emote-friendly, I think.

[nauta]

ETA2:  One thing about the gith thing that bothered me was that we couldn't tell the difference between an NPC gith -- which isn't going to wait around for an emote -- and a PC gith -- which might.  I wonder if a monster were implemented, if it shouldn't have some mark on it to tell people: oh, this is portrayed by a player, so we can slow down a bit.  (Or maybe that'd just cause meta-gamey things.)

[Feco]

Red Fangs (RIP) did some virtual trade with gith and there was a role in the tribe for a gith diplomat of sorts. That seems to support the notion that some gith communities could be talked to.

This is something I was thinking about, too.  I remembered that from the Red Fang docs, and thought it was super cool.  I figure we can't say much more than has already been said, though.

I almost wonder if opening the Red Fang and a Gith tribe together would be a good idea.  The Red Fang weren't 100% of the time killing people -- they could be an interesting medium by which non Red-Fang could, indirectly, interact peacefully with the Gith.

[spicemustflow]

I almost wonder if opening the Red Fang and a Gith tribe together would be a good idea.  The Red Fang weren't 100% of the time killing people -- they could be an interesting medium by which non Red-Fang could, indirectly, interact peacefully with the Gith.

Your're right, the Fangs weren't at all imagined to be the terror of the wastes, they were much more about dirty deals and picking on the weak. During my brief involvement in Tablelands plot, I often thought how having them around would have been awesome for everyone.

[James de Monet]

I'd have to disagree.  I saw some great RP that went on behind the scenes of the gith incursion.  I don't know that it ever extended to quality inter-species RP, but it was definitely cool, and worth the experiment, IMO.

[Akaramu]

Maybe it's time to introduce or re-introduce some baddies we haven't seen in a while.

Dragonthralls!
A demon invasion from beyond the known world
A sorcerer who is actually scary
A new type of monster we haven't seen yet
Horrors spawned from what used to be Tuluk
A monster who mind controls and enslaves PCs, then uses them to infiltrate and attack civilized areas - my personal favorite. How scary would it be to have to fight former friends / allies turned monsters?

In fact, I believe that a completely new type of baddie would really freshen up the game experience for many veterans.

[650Booger]

ETA2:  One thing about the gith thing that bothered me was that we couldn't tell the difference between an NPC gith -- which isn't going to wait around for an emote -- and a PC gith -- which might.  I wonder if a monster were implemented, if it shouldn't have some mark on it to tell people: oh, this is portrayed by a player, so we can slow down a bit.  (Or maybe that'd just cause meta-gamey things.)

I did not know this, and yes that seems very immersion-breaking.  Gith should be able to write their own descs just like everybody else.

[Riev]

I seem to remember documentation somewhere about how gith are a tribal culture, despite being 'evil', who count battle prowess and the ability to tell a great story among their highest honors.


I've had a couple dwarves with the focus to "unite the gith tribes". Derp.

[WanderingOoze]

I sometimes take a break from social characters anyway, and just want to do my thang. I'd totally be down for playing a monster for awhile, just stomping around and eating things that come into my swamp.

I really want to be a braxat, or something. Maybe a Raptor.

[Miradus]

I sometimes take a break from social characters anyway, and just want to do my thang. I'd totally be down for playing a monster for awhile, just stomping around and eating things that come into my swamp.

I really want to be a braxat, or something. Maybe a Raptor.

You start out as a tregil.

[Lutagar]

Hey guys

Hear me out

What if we added

..Vampires

[Miradus]

Sparkly?

[nauta]

ETA2:  One thing about the gith thing that bothered me was that we couldn't tell the difference between an NPC gith -- which isn't going to wait around for an emote -- and a PC gith -- which might.  I wonder if a monster were implemented, if it shouldn't have some mark on it to tell people: oh, this is portrayed by a player, so we can slow down a bit.  (Or maybe that'd just cause meta-gamey things.)

I did not know this, and yes that seems very immersion-breaking.  Gith should be able to write their own descs just like everybody else.

Well, to be fair, some did I believe, but so too did some NPCs, and with the hoods up they all looked like clawfoot to me.

[650Booger]

..Vampires

... and catgirls

[Patuk]

Hey guys

Hear me out

What if we added

..Vampires

It's been done. An NPC in Luir's even has a discuss script mentioning these, I think.

[nauta]

I sometimes take a break from social characters anyway, and just want to do my thang. I'd totally be down for playing a monster for awhile, just stomping around and eating things that come into my swamp.

I really want to be a braxat, or something. Maybe a Raptor.

You start out as a tregil.

Code Select Expand


In the Shade of Rocky Cliffs [N, E]
A shadow falls over the area, driving off the uncomfortable heat.
A grey-horned, shaggy white ox is reclining here, looking a bit winded.
A small needle-beaked rusty-red insectoid creature is here.

The late, red sun descends toward the western horizon.


A small, round pellet-sized dropping falls from above...

> look up
Up from here is Cliff Face.
[Far]
Nothing.
[Near]
A small hairless creature grazes here, ears alert.


[Lutagar]

..Vampires

... and catgirls

vampire catgirls when

[WanderingOoze]

I sometimes take a break from social characters anyway, and just want to do my thang. I'd totally be down for playing a monster for awhile, just stomping around and eating things that come into my swamp.

I really want to be a braxat, or something. Maybe a Raptor.

You start out as a tregil.

Code Select Expand


In the Shade of Rocky Cliffs [N, E]
A shadow falls over the area, driving off the uncomfortable heat.
A grey-horned, shaggy white ox is reclining here, looking a bit winded.
A small needle-beaked rusty-red insectoid creature is here.

The late, red sun descends toward the western horizon.


A small, round pellet-sized dropping falls from above...

> look up
Up from here is Cliff Face.
[Far]
Nothing.
[Near]
A small hairless creature grazes here, ears alert.


Thats hilarious. 

[Miradus]

Tregil 1, desert wanderer 0