Blackmoon: Stories, Reflections, Comments

[Armaddict]

stop whining then about how you can't make a living as a hunter of beasts and become a hunter of players. be the change

...I hope that's not at me.

Can't...make a living...as a hunter of beasts?  Whut?

[BadSkeelz]

I know you don't like the spoil change because it's put a crimp on hunting and long-term meat management.

Seriously. Go arrow some dudes.

[Armaddict]

Edit:

Since GDB is srs business and I can't really tell if you're jabbing at me or not, I'll just say...

Okay!  *shoots arrers!*

[Feco]

I wanna add that I don't think spam fleeing is always bad RP.  I just think it's boring RP and I don't like to do it.

Verbally abuse me plz

[LoD]

LoD, do you still play? If you do, any opinions on raiding and its place in the game today?

I do currently have a character languishing away somewhere in the world, but they haven't seen daylight for many months and I haven't seriously played for several years; mostly due to a lack of time to commit, because I tend to need to invest a lot of time or the game to reward me with the experience I am after.

As for raiding and its current place in the game -- I always feel that raiding should always have a place in the game.  This is Zalanthas, after all, is it not?  A gortok eat gortok world where the strong take from the weak and survival of the fittest, smartest and luckiest abounds.

And while I haven't been playing, here is what I am assuming are the primary issues based on the few posts I've read:

Sanctuary

Everyone, including and especially a raiding clan, needs a sanctuary; a place that has (at a minimum) a quit safe room, general safety from roaming NPC threats, some system of laws stopping (most) arbitrary murder, favorable (or at least neutral) ownership protecting your general right to be there, affordable food and affordable water.  Most sponsored clans will have these made available to them.  It may simply be one enterable object that has a few NPC guards all linked to the same clan, but it's enough.

City-states make for poor sanctuaries when you raid its citizens.  It's only a matter of time before someone you've raided (and perhaps even killed) "recognizes" you with another character and all of a sudden there's a city-wide manhunt with a crim flag slapped on your back.  When there were two city-states, either of them could have created a great base of operations for a PC-led raiding group that was focused on foreign targets.  Unfortunately, now the burden of raiding likely falls upon the few pocket clans (i.e. mostly desert elves) that have the luxury of a remote sanctuary far from the grasp of the templarate or aspiring do-gooders riding around wanting to do good.

Certain villages or other locations may be viable, but they are challenging and the remote nature can sometimes make it difficult to find the interaction they would also want.  Contrary to popular opinion, the Blackmoon did not just spend their time running around killing people.  We spent a lot of time RPing at home in their sanctuary being free men and acting as free men and women do.  There were children to feed, non-combatants to support and goals that we were working toward.  In fact, part of the reason why the Blackmoon got involved in the Tuluki-Allanaki War was because its leader wanted a chance to see his people belong to something again -- it was on its way toward NOT being a raiding clan, though that didn't quite pan out.

Raiding Goals

While one of my personal player goals was to create a mundane threat for the world to react to, my character had goals of his own.  And, I believe, the raiding group needs to have goals, and those goals have to include things other than hurting/killing people.  Raiding people is fine, especially if it's to raise money for something or to create a reputation or to apply pressure to some particular group, but the clan/group cannot only be about random murder out in the sands.  Those kinds of clans have always failed in the past.  Even character concepts that I've had which involved killing players were strongly discouraged by the Immortal staff, simply because the concept included and encouraged PC death.

PC murder should always be a potential byproduct and never the primary focus of any group.  PC deaths can make for interesting stories, but we are here to interact after all, and our goals should support that.  Blackmoon would peacefully let anyone go that complied with our requests.  It made good business sense!  Let them live to be raided another day.  I suspect far too many PC-driven clans, however, begin to treat PC murder as a necessary part of their operations and feel that antagonists have to manifest in the form of death-dealers.  Again, that sometimes happens, but it certainly isn't (and never should be) a requirement.

A PC-led raiding clan would need to have some clearly defined goals it's looking to achieve, and it would be smart to alert the Immortal staff as to what those goals are so they understand better your motivations if and when things go south on an encounter.  Managing expectations is one of the most important lessons you can learn in life, and it's no different here.

Clan Goody Two-Shoes

From time to time, the playerbase reaches this strange homogenized state where everyone in power positions seems to have achieved an equilibrium devoid of political, martial or personal ambitions in direct opposition to their peers.  It sound like the game might have fallen into one of those (it happens sometimes) right now.  This breeds a "don't rock the boat" mentality across the group that quickly serves to squash anything it perceives as a general threat.

Tag isn't fun when it's 10 on 1.  Tag is fun when it's 10 on 10.

The same can be said of Aramageddon.  When peace is stretched across the general playerbase and there are not direct sources of conflict, characters that even smell a little bit like "evil" are quickly hunted, captured and killed on sight by the collective efforts of people that might normally be enemies or, at best, neutral.

This is a difficult, but not impossible, problem to overcome.  It may require some manipulation, however, and the creation of some events that begin to put sides at odds with one another.  That can be a hard thing to achieve, but it isn't impossible.  Perhaps the raiding clan, once established, could reach out to particular groups to try and arrange a purchase of their services toward hindering another House or a competing entity.  Perhaps the raiding group could be hired to achieve other tasks on the behalf of entities in the city-state, whom would like to do "bad things", but is swayed by clan Goody Two Shoes not to do so.

Recruitment

Trust me, I know a thing or two about recruitment. 

And the truth is that it is HARD to find and keep good people.  The Byn has a sanctuary, safe sparring area, decent leadership and constructive goals, and even its turnover rate has always been high.  And that's because Zalanthas is an angry angry gortok. 

It's hard enough to recruit and manage a clan of PC's when you have everything working in your favor, much less when you have to be careful about whom you recruit, always on the lookout for spies, divulging trade secrets and inside information to players whom may turn around and become templars or soldiers or raider-hunters with their next characters. You have to keep people involved and on task.  You constantly lose people to stupid things like that crazy random stat'd scrab that gets two lucky hits on someone that has been killing them for 10 IC years.  Most people in the city want to kill you.  Most things in the desert want to kill you and then eat you.  Or maybe eat you and then kill you.

And for a raiding group, whose entire existence is centered around smacking the angry gortok in the face with a stick, it's even more challenging.

That's why operation out of the sanctuary of a competing organization (i.e. Tuluk vs. Allanak) would have made for an easier setup.

Solutions?

If I were to try and create a raiding group in this type of environment, I'd need to come up with a good idea for what my end goal was.  What is my monetary goal?  What could I be striving to achieve or create?  Bringing wealth to a small village that offers you Sanctuary and, via that wealth, begins to grow or improve or what not might be interesting.  I might have to look at existing structures/places and see if anything would lend itself well to that idea.

Could you shrink the idea a bit and create a 'rinth-based raiding group?  The Immortal staff are unlikely to want to support clans that serve to segregate the playerbase (based on their removal of Tuluk as a play option), so thinking of creative solutions in the microcosm of Allanak might be interesting.  Striking some kind of agreement with the templarate for a cut of the profits and a guarantee that you will refrain from preying upon certain targets and be willing to assist them in certain endeavors might be possible.

Perhaps the goal of the raiding party is to send a message or to exact change within the city-state.  It's existence is aimed at making some group acquiesce to something you want to see, such as slaves freed from this organization, a gigantic bust of your face built on Meleth's Circle, the release of a prisoner or some other story-driven idea.  That would at least give you an obvious cause, goals, reasons to interact with the other players and a message to spread to its populace.

As in all things Zalanthas, your raiding group is going to be temporary.  Why not tell a story with it while playing the role of antagonist.  Nothing says you have to STAY the antagonist once your goals have been achieved.  Be creative and make suggestions.  You never know what might be possible with the right amount of effort.

There are a lot of possibilities, but I'd have to explore and acquaint myself with the game world to know where those opportunities might be.

-LoD

[Riev]

I suppose at hand, then, is the question of whether Blackmoon, as a clan, would have worked in today's climate where there are no sanctuary areas, or a backstory BEFORE it was opened to PCs.

Desert elves have long been -able- to be the raiders of the wastes, but even in the case of the Soh, there isn't much -reason- to be. Territorial by nature, most people don't give a crap about things in their lands so the demand is low. A Soh raiding people outside 'Nakki gates is just foolish and suicidal behavior.

Though I'm kinda down for a raiding group out of Cenyr, or the Mul Outpost if there were just a couple more rooms.

[nauta]

Though I'm kinda down for a raiding group out of Cenyr, or the Mul Outpost if there were just a couple more rooms.

One added advantage to these two locations in particular is that they could draw together the three main divisions in the playerbase: delves and the rest (Mul Outpost); Kurac and the rest (Cenyr).  (Seik/Arabet sort of fall into both delf and Kurac, I guess.)  You could see a raider clan in the Mul Outpost raiding the Vrun but having to wheel and deal with the delves, for instance, or one on the main trade route (Cenyr-ish) having to wheel and deal with Kurac.

If only there were a spot that could draw all three together.

ETA: The more I think on it, the Mul Outpost seems perfect.  Kurac PCs already have some rationale to interact with Allanak these days, but the delves (esp. the poor Soh) do not.  It'd create some cool dynamics -- perhaps the Soh and the bandits team up for a bit, or perhaps they are at war -- and, by way of the bandits, the Soh could interface with Allanak plots a little easier than they can nowadays.

[Reiloth]

A raiding / criminal clan in Allanak will be a trail of tears if the crime code isn't changed from its binary, half-giant foundation. Having been in the Guild and Haruch Kemad and so on, it's very tricky. Possible, doable, but tricky, considering you are almost literally surrounded by multiple half-giant soldiers at every turn. When both assailant and victim are quite aware of the limitations/consequences of the crime code, they use it to their advantage in both ways, but yeah. It's sort of a sticky pickle.

IMHO, having a small base (3 NPCs, one quit/safe room, one save room with a limit to amount), the fabricated 'first group' of PCs come into game, and call it a day, would be my favored route. They will have Staff oversight, and they will have to recruit IG from there.

To me this gives the stimulated 'jump' that an area of the game world might need. Say, the Red Desert. Or the Tablelands. The Staff sort of coordinate with the 'leader' PC, spitball ideas, and settle on a concept/location for the 'antagonist group'.

If/When the group is wiped out, it's gone. Kaput. But other groups might form/be in existence and get de-virtualized.

I agree that tag isn't fun when it's 10 v 1. And it may take a bit of fabrication to even the odds.

[Patuk]

I mean, the 'rinth isn't even really a safe spot for raiders. Competition from other 'rinthi groups aside, the Arm and even the Byn can and do head in for cleansing every now and then. I've always felt that was kind of silly myself, but it keeps happening, so I guess that's just how things go.

[Reiloth]

Double Double Post Post

[Reiloth]

Worth a Read. From the RP Guru, LoD, from way back in the day.

Obviously relevant for any Leader, but I also found it relevant to the idea of 'starting' a Raider Clan/Antagonist Clan, as well.

http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,1745.msg14361.html#msg14361

I'll say it again, leading is rough work.

I figured some PC leaders (and their followers) could use some insight into just what goes on in the role of a leader.  Now I am simply speaking from experience and certainly not implying that my way is the 'right way' or the 'best way' by any means, but it has worked for me.

It starts when you log on, every day.

From the moment you log on, You feel a foreign presence contact your mind.  Someone always needs something: a few moments of your time, a decision about a job, a question about House policies, informing you one of your men is in jail, wanting to quit the House, wanting to get paid, asking to join up with the House.

And that's in the first 10 minutes.  If you collect all of these requests and add them together, you've just committed yourself (if you're lucky) to about 30 mins - 1 hour of simply handling other people's tasks.  This goes on all day long, so be ready for it.   There's no way around it, that is your job as the leader of the clan - a slave to your people.

I know that many people think that all you do is sit around in taverns, yucking it up with clients or nobles or smoking spice in a back den somewhere, but it's all part and partial to the leading gig.  People have no idea how much work it involves micro-managing a clan of players whom all want to have fun and need -you- to provide it for them.  While most leaders don't mind, the general populace should be aware at how time consuming dealing with it can be.

Keeping your followers active.

One of the main things you must do to have a happy clan is keep them active.  Now, this doesn't mean you have to have an RPT every single day and create large-scale plots and events.  It just means that your people need to have a sense of direction and purpose.  They can only stand guard at a gate or by your side for so many hours without losing their minds and wondering what the hell they are doing when their friends are telling them on ICQ how they just escaped a horde of gith and found a cool ass cave in the desert.

Keep your men busy.  Use anything that you can to give them purpose and even make up small jobs that really don't mean anything.  If there are 3-5 of them around, have them go outside and do something, anything.  They don't need to know why it's important, you're the boss.  Tell them that we need five gith skulls.  That ought to keep them busy.  Have them run to Red Storm and pick up a few jugs of spiced ale for a future meeting or to head north to Luir's to see what's going on of late and continue developing relations with their people.

It does seem like a lot, but it's why players play the game.  They want to build a story and have a good time.  Help them reach that goal.  They may die, yes, but if you are a high-level leader in your clan, I highly doubt that you're going anywhere soon and fresh meat pop up all the time in their stock leggings, pack and torch waiting for work.

Reward your followers with praise and coin.

If you want to be a clan leader for long, you'd better learn how to keep players happy.  That is one of the single most important things about being a leader - knowing what players want and giving them enough to stay with you.

The best system I came up with is to reward them whenever you see them and they complete a task, in addition to a monthly wage.  You may have the set the wage low if you have a lot of employees, but the fact that they will receive money in their pocket that DAY instead of waiting for some kind of monthly salary will have them logging in much more frequently for a chance at some coin.

If your guards are with you when you travel somewhere to make a little 'sid with some sales, gives them a small cut.  Buy them some drinks when you're in the tavern.  Allow them some time to look for 'cool eq' when you're riding through a village or town they rarely get to see.  Reward them when they do things well and, in return, they will begin to look for ways to serve you instead of waiting for you to tell them.

Provide them with a good set of policies and rules that empower them to do more than spar, spar, spar all day long.  Give them a schedule of things to do and guidelines with which to do them so that you're both comfortable they won't run willy nilly into the sands to their death.  If you don't set up these guidelines, people WILL die.  They'll do it even if you DO set up good policies - I used to call it Kohmar disease when I played Khann.

I'd JUST finish buying armor, weapons, food, water and clothing for my new hire.  Went over the rules and everything and the first thing they do when I'm not around is walk straight out the damn gate and die to krath-knows-what out in the desert.  Wasted MY time and MY money.  That happens over and over and over and over to -any- employer.  Those of you whom are employees wanting to know why you may be paid so slowly - these are exactly the type of bad apples that make we leaders wary of handing out much at all.

The burden, and responsibility, of command.

You are responsible for EVERYTHING.  If a player isn't have fun.  Your fault.  If an Imm hasn't made that special order yet, your fault.  If your employee decided that it'd be fun to storm into the Trader's Inn and slaughter the single most powerful noble lord in all of the city because they were bored and thought it be 'k00l' - guess what?  It's all your fault and you may be executed or punished because of the actions of another player you had NO CONTROL OVER.

This can be the single most frustrating thing about being a leader is the dreaded contact from a noble, templar or other such authority figure demanding you come speak with them about the actions of one of your employees.  I know that ICly they want to bring the matter to your attention and ask why it has occurred.  Someone's head has to roll.  It should NOT be that of the employer, however, as they have about as much control over the players and their ultimate decisions as you have over what shirt they're wearing in RL.

In addition to this, you are responsible when people don't get paid because they log in at odd times or infrequently.  You are responsible when they aren't having as much fun as they thought they would or when they get bored or when they can't figure out for themselves how to have a good time.  You are always responsible and it hangs like a weight over your head to provide these things to people in your clan.

Setting goals and planning.

So, you've recruited a group of people.  They train themselves and a few of them have actually managed to stay alive for more than 2 RL weeks and you want to actually use them now.  As a leader, you need to take a look at your position and see what you want, and can, accomplish.  Take a large long-term goal and chop it up into little sections, then set your men and yourself in motion on a timeline you'd like to see.  Email the Imm Staff on your project and what you plan to do so they can jump in and help/hinder you along the way as they see fit within the confines of the game world.

Examples.

Goal: Free the dwarven slaves of the southern obsidian mines.

Step 1: Gather dwarves loyal to my cause.  Train them. (ongoing)
Step 2: Establish a place of operations from which to train.
Step 3: Gather money to place bribes, hire men and get information.
Step 4: Case the mines, the guard rotations, the distance from the city.
Step 5: Meet with different nomadic tribes, asking for help.
Step 6: Meet with members of the target's enemies, asking for help.
Step 7: Meet with friends and neighbors, asking for help.
Step 8: Form a plan of attack that won't be reported to the enemy.
Step 9: Meet and gather the support of other dwarven tribes.
Step 10: Formalize the plan of attack and gather your forces.
Step 11: Set a date for the RPT, inform the Imm Staff.
Step 12: Let the RPT take its course.

Now, some of these steps may only take a few minutes while others will take RL months to handle properly.  This will create a LOT of RP and direction toward a clan and its followers that gives it a drive and a reason for being.  The men know the cause, they know what to do, they know why and the leader gives them the tasks they need to accomplish.  You must also stay on top of everything and keep driven.  Most importantly you must not DIE because if you do - almost all of your goals and planning fall apart as your employees die and leave the organization.

I could write all day about the trials and tribulations involved with being a clan leader, but I doubt anyone would want to spend the time.

Being a leader is DAMN hard work.  You need to be online, attentive, diplomatic, considerate, understanding, firm, harsh, deceptive, manipulative, cunning, quick and fair all at the same time.  It's not a job that anyone can do.  Anything worthwhile takes time, so just put one foot in front of the other and keep things moving.

-LoD

[John]

Sandman/Bushman was before my time (although I remember the days of the desert being dangerous no matter how close you were to the city). I remember hearing rumours of Sandman though and totally thought he was a Rukkian.

[LoD]

You guys have me reading all kinds of old posts now.  Thanks.

Here's some more information that I think bears repeating for the creation of any clan, group or plot.

As far as having success, I've succeeded the most in plots where I:

1. Involve people.  Create a goal that will include as many players from your own clan as possible and include steps that require both combat and non-combat roles.  Imms will support a goal more readily if it involves a lot of other players, even if it is only within one clan.

2. Draw inside the lines.  Create a goal within the guidelines of both the MUD and clan documentation which does not blatently go against their best wishes, common practices or established laws. (i.e. Coming up with a new style of mount for pulling wagons that grants your clan a special advantage in that field might be good whereas plotting to kill every family member in attempt to take over the operation would not be as good.)

3. Add to the game.  Create a goal that has an end goal that can be both appreciated by a wide variety of players and fill a NEED in the game.  Something that the game does not yet have, or needs more of.

4. Less work, better success. Create a goal that requires the least amount of Immortal intervention and work possible.  If it requires work that you can do in advance, then you do as much as humanly possible.  This will increase your chances of seeing it done.  I guarantee that an Imm will look much more closely at your proposal if it has been well thought out and designed ahead of time than if you are depending on them to do it all for you.  This would include writing up rooms, objects, NPC's, scripts, documentation, backgrounds, etc...

5. Plan to work, then work your plan.  This is not an overnight gig, or even something you should expect to happen in a RL month or two.  This might be something you need to commit to for several months or even years depending upon the outcome of your proposal.  There are going to be pitfalls, setbacks, challenges and problems that arise which many people see as Imms telling them 'no.'  My simple suggestion is not to accept that if you feel strongly enough about your actions and find another route to take.  There are many roads leading to the same city, so don't be discouraged when one is closed to you.  I mean, if your goal is trying to get home for Christmas and the highway you normally take is closed for repairs, do you just shrug and say, 'There's always next year.'?  No, you probably figure out another way to go about accomplishing your task.  The same can be done in Armageddon.

-LoD

[Jingo]

Well done, my apprentice. Well done.

I get what the Code Guru is saying, and though he projects a layer of vehemence in his opinion, I think we quickly praise the Grandaddy RPers of Legend, and disparage the 'common fucked up twink assholes', but really, they are one and the same. They (in this case) are Raiders. The difference between a well-played Raider and a poorly-played Raider is completely subjective. And, more often than not, the 'poorly-played Raider' is reacting to a 'poorly played Raider victim'. That is to say, the people that spam flee away and are caught with an arrow in the neck may become the next Jingo. (Sorry Jingo).

To be clear about one thing, I've never spam fled from a player who just approached me in the wilderness. And of the two times my character was shaked down by a raider, or thug, I played along each time. I love it when players play that way even though I realistically know they're going to be dead in a week anyways from an overzealous playerbase.

I'm more pissed that play like this is punished and that the arrow to the neck strategy is always going to get better results.

[Armaddict]

Edit:  Ignore this.  I confused an altogether shitty outlook of how people play the game and the way the game works as an actual directed 'people here suck'.  Not that hard to confuse, but not the usual thing that I respond to, either, as noted.

[Jingo]

Jesus.  Fucking -stop-.

You literally just pointed out good things that happened then went back to saying everyone else is shit.  STOP IT.

Chill brah. I'm just pointing out another way the game incentives us to take the easy route. I'm not calling anyone shit just now.