PKing: Let's Talk About the State of It

[Inky]

It's just a dumb tagline.

[Delirium]

It's just a dumb tagline.

That ShaLeah came up with in a t-shirt thread, IIRC, which explains why she likes it so much!

[Armaddict]

It's just a dumb tagline.

Yeah, we plastered it all over the place and discussed it relentlessly for over a decade because it's a tagline that draws you in, but we want you to discard it as soon as you're in game.

[ShaLeah]

It's just a dumb tagline.

That ShaLeah came up with in a t-shirt thread, IIRC, which explains why she likes it so much!

I wish! Alas, it was in place wayyyy before the contest that took place 14 years ago.
It won the popular vote, you know.  People agreed. Fancy that... the players choosing something that repeats the mission statement as one of our walking advertisements. 

I still have the t-shirt.

The MUD still boasts that tagline.


Here... let me fix it for you.

It's just a dumb tagline life on Zalanthas.

[Vox]

The point is these things are not mutually exclusive. Tell your story, live your PC's life(until I take it, of course). And I'll be living mine and telling my story (until I'm killed). PK is a seasoning on a greater dish. Some just enjoy it more than others and some are just allergic. So long as things are being exploited and Staff review determines the PKs are righteous, who cares? Stalking someone, climbing a building, settling onto a balcony, watching them spam craft in relative peace all while thinking and hemoting terrifying things until finally offering a room echo appropriate to what the victim would see before obliterating them. Then dealing with the corpse, the blood, picking into their apartment, changing one's cloak and slipping off into the hallway within the building before skulking back to the shadowy alleys the whole time doubling back and looking over one's shoulder/thinking and hemoting before returning safely in triumph only to wonder what mistake was made.. who saw it.. was I followed? Is quite the story to inhabit.

Happy to compare piles of kudos for great RP and kill scenes. There's far more happening under the surface than people imagine. Knowing Death walks the streets should help people realistically avoid traveling alone at night for example...

As for the tagline.. it's the theme of the game, love it or leave it.

[Inky]

It's just a dumb tagline.

Yeah, we plastered it all over the place and discussed it relentlessly for over a decade because it's a tagline that draws you in, but we want you to discard it as soon as you're in game.

Kinda like a dumb tagline.

[Inky]

Yeah. MCB is kinda just a dumb tagline. In all honesty.

A mission statement it is not.

It IS though. It HAS been for God knows how long.

http://armageddonmud.org/intro/what_you_know.php

https://www.armageddon.org/cgi-bin/help_index/show_help?rules


You may not like it, but murder, corruption and betrayal are the NORM on Zalanthas.

No it isn't. Because barely anyone plays it except to get their way.

No it isn't. Because I can play a character that is/does none of those things and get karma for it.

It's just a dumb marketing tool to bring in the thirteen year old edgelords. It has little to no bearing on actually what happens in the game. And I suspect the reason some players can't accept that is because they're attached to the nostalgia.

But it IS the norm, no matter how many times you personally play against the norm, it IS. Being able to play against the norm doesn't change the norm.  Player killing specifically not getting karma doesn't change the fact that it's normal in this realm.  You can't claim people barely use it and then claim a breath later that they use it too flippantly.

I find it hard to understand why, if Zalanthas as it *is* isn't the game YOU play, you appear really defensive and angry at the amount of murder your characters suffer through, encounter or witness.

We'll have to just disagree.  My experience with pk is one of the things that kept me in this game... and two of my characters have been pkilled while I was AFK.

Nah you and other's are trying to sell me that this dumb marketing tagline is the reason players play the game. It's not even close.

And it's not even close to the norm.

Scroll up if you want to see why I actually think player killing is usually weak sauce.

[Inky]

Edited by staff:  Let's not recommend things that are explictly against the rules as a means to achieve something.

[ShaLeah]

(stuff)

Wow. You must get pk'd a lot.

staff edit:  removed post that was moderated

[Inky]

Wow. You must get pk'd a lot.

Enough times to just be generally disappointed in players. I'll just keep adding to the list as I think of them.

[Eyeball]

It's just a dumb tagline.

Yeah, we plastered it all over the place and discussed it relentlessly for over a decade because it's a tagline that draws you in, but we want you to discard it as soon as you're in game.

I never signed on to it as the sole point of the game, and neither did many others I expect.

[ShaLeah]

Wow. You must get pk'd a lot.

Enough times to just be generally disappointed in players. I'll just keep adding to the list as I think of them.

Let me ask you something... do you think a large percentage of your characters pkill deaths are ooc'ly driven or ic?

[Medena]

While MCB is definitely not a dumb tagline, neither is it a mission statement.  It is a statement of some of the major themes which help define ArmageddonMud and the world of Zalanthas.  If Arm had a mission statement it would be something more along the lines of "to create an immersive role-playing experience in a harsh, desert world".  Murder, corruption and betrayal all have a place in creating that world but if every player took it as their personal mission to carry out MCB, the game would be chaos.  I'm not anti-PK but come on, we can't all be running around constantly PK'ing.  It's good to have some long-lived characters who can help tell long term stories.

[Inky]

Wow. You must get pk'd a lot.

Enough times to just be generally disappointed in players. I'll just keep adding to the list as I think of them.

Let me ask you something... do you think a large percentage of your characters pkill deaths are ooc'ly driven or ic?

I think most players will say it's IC. I don't really think players are actually that capable of separating the two.

Usually what happens is that someone decides they're going to kill a character. And then they manufacture some IC excuse to get it done.

This is why I generally don't care what your IC reasoning was most of the time.

[evilcabbage]

or you say something to them that pisses them off in game and they kill you.

the fact that you suggest people should play with ooc friends makes me oh so disgustingly suspicious of you on so many levels. i don't like it, any more than i dislike the idea that you tell people NOT to take risks and NOT to associate with nobles and templars. avoiding negative interaction.


so basically, play in your own little sandbox and ignore most of the people in the game, right? except that completely destroys the whole point of everyone playing a game that can be at times collaborative, and at other times antagonistic. the world is brutal, the cities are run by sorcerers who clamped down with an iron fist, the templars in each city are corrupt, the soldiers are corrupt, the merchant houses are corrupt. the world runs on corruption every day. murder happens. if dying bothers you THAT much, send requests in to staff and ask if it was on the level if it seems super fishy, or - and this is one that might get tossed around a bit - find a mud that is not permadeath and won't punish you for making enemies in such an obvious fashion.

otherwise, you need to come to grips with the world you play in and accept that your death is going to happen, and it will not always be consequential in any way to anyone but yourself.

[Inky]

or you say something to them that pisses them off in game and they kill you.

the fact that you suggest people should play with ooc friends makes me oh so disgustingly suspicious of you on so many levels. i don't like it, any more than i dislike the idea that you tell people NOT to take risks and NOT to associate with nobles and templars. avoiding negative interaction.


so basically, play in your own little sandbox and ignore most of the people in the game, right? except that completely destroys the whole point of everyone playing a game that can be at times collaborative, and at other times antagonistic. the world is brutal, the cities are run by sorcerers who clamped down with an iron fist, the templars in each city are corrupt, the soldiers are corrupt, the merchant houses are corrupt. the world runs on corruption every day. murder happens. if dying bothers you THAT much, send requests in to staff and ask if it was on the level if it seems super fishy, or - and this is one that might get tossed around a bit - find a mud that is not permadeath and won't punish you for making enemies in such an obvious fashion.

otherwise, you need to come to grips with the world you play in and accept that your death is going to happen, and it will not always be consequential in any way to anyone but yourself.

Hey man. I'm not saying play this way.

But you'll probably agree that most players employ some mix of these strategies to avoid dying to other players.

[evilcabbage]

they all fall to me in the end.

[ShaLeah]

Wow. You must get pk'd a lot.

Enough times to just be generally disappointed in players. I'll just keep adding to the list as I think of them.

Let me ask you something... do you think a large percentage of your characters pkill deaths are ooc'ly driven or ic?

I think most players will say it's IC. I don't really think players are actually that capable of separating the two.

Usually what happens is that someone decides they're going to kill a character. And then they manufacture some IC excuse to get it done.

This is why I generally don't care what your IC reasoning was most of the time.

Finally something we agree on.

It's my (probably unpopular) opinion that the ability to separate IC from OOC takes YEARS and most of us learn how to manipulate that.

Mine are IC. I don't question certain players but I question wayyyy more. I believe how WE put 2 and  2 together is what separates us.  I highly doubt that sorceror that killed my character while I was afk said to his real life buddy playing with him "Let's fuck ShaL over." My character happened to be the perfect pawn for their plot. I wasn't even mad when staff asked me for my GDB handle so the murderers could use it.  My disappointment at THAT death was ooc wayyyyy after the fact. But ICly it was the catalyst to MUCH roleplay.  THAT'S why I don't mind even shitty deaths.  Because one character's death is another character's scar or revenge. 

If it's done right.

The thing is though... that it's not the death that has to be done right, it's the life right up to that pk.

[number13]

The point is these things are not mutually exclusive. Tell your story, live your PC's life(until I take it, of course). And I'll be living mine and telling my story (until I'm killed). PK is a seasoning on a greater dish. Some just enjoy it more than others and some are just allergic. So long as things are being exploited and Staff review determines the PKs are righteous, who cares? Stalking someone, climbing a building, settling onto a balcony, watching them spam craft in relative peace all while thinking and hemoting terrifying things until finally offering a room echo appropriate to what the victim would see before obliterating them. Then dealing with the corpse, the blood, picking into their apartment, changing one's cloak and slipping off into the hallway within the building before skulking back to the shadowy alleys the whole time doubling back and looking over one's shoulder/thinking and hemoting before returning safely in triumph only to wonder what mistake was made.. who saw it.. was I followed? Is quite the story to inhabit.

That doesn't sound like an interesting story for anyone other than the person experiencing the power fantasy.

I have had characters die in the game in all sorts of interesting ways that even a decade or more later stand out in my memory, sometimes moreso than even the life of the character. Fantastic deaths, shitty random deaths, private duels to the death, and public arena executions -- all interesting for the capstone they put on the character, and the ripple effects I imagined they had in the story of the game.

But sitting in an apartment spam crafting one second and dying the next would not be 'interesting'. It would be rage-quit inducing.

it's the theme of the game, love it or leave it.

You'll be playing alone sooner rather than later, with that attitude.

[ShaLeah]

it's the theme of the game, love it or leave it.

You'll be playing alone sooner rather than later, with that attitude.

Nah. He'll be playing with the ones who accept what this game was built on. That mission statement. 

Why can't players just play their character?  Allow those who live the norm to bathe in that blood and you can play whatever you want without crying conspiracy?

[Shabago]

Let's stop taking shots at each other and veer back towards an actual discussion, yes?

[Armaddict]

Once again...IF you can't handle the idea that characters are temporary, stories are not fully under your control, that the setting of the game is conducive to strife, murder, underhanded deals, etc...then I have serious doubts about your ability to interpret the stories told within with any degree of enjoyment, and you may indeed want to find one that shares your view of the purism and importance of individual stories and plots over the setting.

Arguing that MCB is just a tagline is missing the forest for the trees.  I do not view it as a mission statement, I view it as an apt, summed up description of what people expect from each other in the game, not just player characters, but everyone.  I find the idea of completely dismissing it as just an advertising effort to be short-sighted and illogical; you don't draw people in with an expectation then insist that living out that expectation is a non-entity within the advertised object.  That's weird.

This is not a pure PK mud.  That much is openly and universally acknowledged.  The objective of the game is not to run around killing people.  However, as well-framed in the introduction to the game itself:

The world of Armageddon is known as Zalanthas. It is a harsh planet where only the fittest survive, and competition over extremely scarce resources causes constant strife, struggle, and bloodshed. Deserts cover most of its explored surface, and the great red sun can bring daytime temperatures well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Most citizens lead lives of extreme hardship, struggling to survive and get ahead. Sometimes this is accomplished by means of banding together with others, especially powerful clans and Houses, or by forging friendships or alliances with powerful individuals. At other times, people survive by climbing over anyone who gets in their way, by cheating, stealing, killing, swindling, or otherwise taking advantage of others. Many Zalanthan citizens survive just by keeping their heads down and hoping no one considers them either weak enough or threatening enough to target.

That is precursed by:

Armageddon is, first and foremost, a role-playing game. Roleplaying is central to the game environment and is not considered an option by the creators of the world. It is a requirement. If you do not want to roleplay, this is not the game for you. The game has a combat system, magick spells, and thousands of other features for added realism, but you must keep in mind that the only reason everyone is here is to have fun while acting out a role. The most important thing is playing your character according to their own personality in order to help in the creation of a realistic fantasy world.

and followed by:

Your character will face hardship often, and will probably even be killed, possibly at the hands of another player.

What does all of this mean? It does not mean that Armageddon is for people who revel masochistically in abuse. We have created this harsh world with the idea that the heart of narrative lies in conflict and dealing with hardship. We hope that players will find in the harsh, unforgiving reality of Armageddon a great deal of freedom in which to explore the narrative of the world and, even more importantly, the nuances of its characters and the stories played out there.

You need to accept that stories intersect in cooperative ways, and they intersect in violent ways, and violent ways are not a detriment to the game; they fit right in.  You need to accept that the death of a character does not negate the fun attained through that character or the benefit of playing it (or else I'd highly suggest you never own a pet, or enjoy any activity that may one day cease to become an option as an activity).

If all you can do is escalate to 'I'm leaving', or reduce the coexistence of roleplay and deaths of all sorts, the only reaction you'll ever get out of me is an eyeroll, because your supposition is that I have done injustice to you, the player, by acting to the best of my ability my character's role within the game.

This is not a player-story-submission committee where the only pertinent stories are the ones universally accepted by other players; in this setting, this world, there is very clearly a short end of the stick, and player characters are often defined by the measures taken, the experiences had, the losses suffered, and the personality attained in evasion of that short end of the stick.  Turning this into an attack on other players who don't show respect and leeway to your story that you think it deserves is unwelcome, because it is in itself exclusive of other people's struggles, motivations, and traits anyway.

I'd suggest your characters trust less, scheme more, and act with a fair degree of wariness at all times instead of depending on the false premise of safety because you don't think anyone should have a current-day casus belli to benefit from your character's end.  Through this, you meld more deeply with the setting and tell a better story anyway.

Let's stop taking shots at each other and veer back towards an actual discussion, yes?

I think the original topic is in good spirit, but ultimately lacking insight into the layering of stories and how that will, inevitably, lead to conflict, and thus conflict resolution.  I find 'poor roleplay' extremely rarely here, but find different interpretations incredibly common, and the latter leads to misunderstandings and accusations that are just as detrimental, if not moreso, than the things that prompted them.

[roughneck]

I find 'poor roleplay' extremely rarely here, but find different interpretations incredibly common, and the latter leads to misunderstandings and accusations that are just as detrimental, if not moreso, than the things that prompted them.

You could post this in a lot of threads. Well said.

[seidhr]

A friendly reminder to be nice to each other and not recommend things that are against the game's rules as a means to achieve desired effect.

Kinda feeeeeeling like this thread has run its course, if it continues being a problem we'll lock it.

[Heade]

Arguing that MCB is just a tagline is missing the forest for the trees.  I do not view it as a mission statement, I view it as an apt, summed up description of what people expect from each other in the game, not just player characters, but everyone.  I find the idea of completely dismissing it as just an advertising effort to be short-sighted and illogical

I respectfully disagree.

I DO think of "Murder, Corruption, and Betrayal" as a tagline, and NOT a mission statement. It's a great advertising effort, because people see in that line, exactly what they WANT to see in that tagline. Don't believe me?

I can easily see, within that tagline, "Love, Trust, and Loyalty", because, without those words, the tagline "Murder, Corruption, and Betrayal" has no meaning. Without love, trust, or loyalty, what is there to betray? What is there to corrupt? The tagline is EXACTLY an advertising effort, and a brilliant one, at that. Definitely NOT a mission statement.

That said, as I've stated elsewhere in this thread, I don't think PK is the problem. But I certainly don't want people thinking murder is the "mission statement" of the game. That's just fucking stupid. This is a ROLEPLAY ENFORCED game, definitively not a hack n' slash. It's about roleplay. I'd like that to stay at the forefront of the discussion, because that part isn't debateable.

But having a tagline of "Murder, Corruption, and Betrayal" implies that the concepts of Love, Loyalty, and Trust, exist. Maybe those concepts should be spelled out a bit more for people in that opening tagline, for those who can't make that leap in logic.

Or, they could remove the aspects that imply the existence of some levels of Love, Trust, and Loyalty, changing it to "Murder, Murder, and Murder", and plenty of people will just quit.