Half-Giant Karma Requirement

[Pariah]

So a bunch of people were chatting about this in discord, about how HG's have a tremendous potential for outright ruining the game if played "badly".

Got me and some others wondering, would it make sense to ask staff to move them to three Karma?  Then you'd have less people with access and only those at the highest level of trust to play them for the role and not the inix riding 2 handed club meta?

Whatchu guys think?

EDIT:
I understand there are some spectacular HG players out there, but perception is reality and it seems that the perception is the bad outweigh the good.

[Pariah]

Why not restrict them to clans like D-elves have to pick a tribe.

When they are rolled up in chargen they need to say they are gonna be a HG for Salarr, or for the BYN or whatever.

This way we don't end up with every HG being the wasteland wanderer all by himself.

[mansa]

I think this might be a correctional issue, rather than something to increase the karma requirement on the fantasy race.





You can increase the karma requirement, but if the players continue to use the tropes associated with 30 years of half-giant race representation and historical examples in ArmageddonMUD then the outcome will not change.  The way you want half-giants to be played is not something that is inherit with those players that have 3 karma.

[zealus]

Having a Half-giant choose a clan puts a huge con on half-giants off the table: Loyalty. They are prone to wandering off.
I'd say that 2 karma is sufficient. And if someone doesn't do the racial roleplay according to the docs, then that should be corrected.
I think people also overstate how many half giants are poorly played. Same with dwarves. Not saying there are no issues, but please do not assume every HG or dwarf is like that.

[Hauwke]

Having a Half-giant choose a clan puts a huge con on half-giants off the table: Loyalty. They are prone to wandering off.
I'd say that 2 karma is sufficient. And if someone doesn't do the racial roleplay according to the docs, then that should be corrected.
I think people also overstate how many half giants are poorly played. Same with dwarves. Not saying there are no issues, but please do not assume every HG or dwarf is like that.

I think a lot of it is a negative feedback loop. People just assume the HG or dwarf is poorly played, so that's all they see. Nevermind all the roleplay that has gone on in the background.

[Pariah]

You guys could be right, it could be a smaller issue than it appears.

But perception is reality and honestly the one scary part was that when it was brought up on Discord, people pretty much all agreed that something should be done.  If you've been in the discord for more then a day, you know that unanimous thoughts or opinions are more rare than sorcerers in this little game.

But even that aside, it always struck me as odd that a half-giant was less karma than certain magickers.  If you give me a three karma witch, it will take me longer to "become game unbalancing deadly" than a one day old half giant who decides he's gonna kill some folks with a bludgeoning weapons.

If you take the PVP aspect aside and look purely PVE, that same random HG can clear whole swaths of the gameworld of critters because he one or two shots them.  So that takes away from people playing "normal" roles.

To say, they are fine where they are, and how they are, I feel is just the same as saying, "It's not worth trying to fix them."

[Blink]

I think half giant role play is just fine right now even though since the dawn of time there have always been people criticizing how they are played.  Everybody's an expert -- "All HG's should do this" or "No HG would ever do that" or HG's wouldn't know that".  and on and on.  There's more than one way to play an HG while still remaining in the confines of the docs.

Since I returned to the game five years ago after a long hiatus, I've been quite impressed with the HG's I've seen.  Some HG play is better than others but that's the way with any role.  People should stop worrying about how other people role play and work on their own characters.

[Pariah]

Having a Half-giant choose a clan puts a huge con on half-giants off the table: Loyalty. They are prone to wandering off.
I'd say that 2 karma is sufficient. And if someone doesn't do the racial roleplay according to the docs, then that should be corrected.
I think people also overstate how many half giants are poorly played. Same with dwarves. Not saying there are no issues, but please do not assume every HG or dwarf is like that.

That creates more roleplay though.
(Scene - Salarr Estate Allanak)
The fancypants salarr merchant is sitting there.
FP, "Hunter Amos, why I am getting reports of our giant being in Tuluk when we are here in Allanak?"
Amos, "I'm sorry sir, I'll go collect him come dawn."
Amos ways Half-giant "What are you doing you big idiot, you're gonna get in trouble!"
(Fade to black)

[LindseyBalboa]

I think, just like with d-elves at 2 karma, there should be no option to be independent. I think this solves a lot of the issues with HGs having no actual coded restrictions, and fewer enforceable or enforced roleplay limitations than a 0 karma city-elf.

This is an established coded limitation already seen with d-elves. It does mean that independent HGs will go the way of the lonefoot d-elf, but it means that half-giants will fall in line with the written theme they are already supposed to. There need to be VNPCs and NPCs that would be checking in and keeping the HG from just wandering off and joining their enemies. I've played with great indy HGs and I'm sure there were great lonefoot d-elves, but they did not exist in a vacuum.

There have to be enforceable AND enforced restrictions for a 2-karma race, if not actual huge coded drawbacks to playing them, for the game as a whole.

Half-giant changeability can still be played easily by switching clans. Half-giants can even wander off in this scenario - they'll just have a clan that wants them back instead of being able to go independently lumberjack timber to trade for silt horror shell.

[Armaddict]

I think the concept of 'ruining the game' should be taken with a grain of salt.

I am not fond of many hg roleplaying scenes, because I find the -effort- of being comedic relief to be immersion breaking a lot of the time.  But there have been some who made it seamless and enjoyable.  But that didn't ruin the game for me.

This may be out of turn or out of sync, but most of what I read when people talk about them ruining the game are talking about their ability to smash things, and they worry about getting smashed.  This is not game-ruining, this is a different game being played altogether.  Half-giants ARE dangerous, and are SUPPOSED to be dangerous.  That's why they're employed despite their stupidity, not because of it.

Being unable to cope with death unless it happens on your terms will always be problematic in a permadeath roleplaying game built around strife.  But it's less a problem with the race itself, and more a problem with the expectations set.  If you cannot respect the danger of other players, or have to avoid players entirely in order to strive for survival, you're not going to get the most out of the game in the first place, it's already been ruined.  Not by a half-giant, but by yourself.

That's not meant to be accusatory.  It is meant to be practical.

EDIT:  Also, Pariah, I appreciate you moving discord conversations to the GDB.

[Pariah]

Dwarves are restricted to their focus.
Elves are restricted RP wise and CODE wise to certain areas or make travelling from city to city difficult.
D-elves have to have a tribe.
Muls are hunted everywhere pretty much.
Breeds are moody emo teenagers

Why do HG's get this wide open palette to potentially abuse?

[Pariah]

EDIT:  Also, Pariah, I appreciate you moving discord conversations to the GDB.

I was banned for YEARS so I get there is a disconnect between them, anything that seems to have substance I'll always try and move here too.  You can't discuss things in a vacuum.

[HazelHomewrecker]

Being unable to cope with death unless it happens on your terms will always be problematic in a permadeath roleplaying game built around strife.  But it's less a problem with the race itself, and more a problem with the expectations set.  If you cannot respect the danger of other players, or have to avoid players entirely in order to strive for survival, you're not going to get the most out of the game in the first place, it's already been ruined.  Not by a half-giant, but by yourself.

That's not meant to be accusatory.  It is meant to be practical.

I agree with a fair deal of what you have to say, but not this.

The main point of discontent about Half-Giants in the discord discussion has been strictly out of the minority of people who play them as iso combat roles, who stroll up on you and might--with a 50/50 chance--decide to smash you with no RP. There isn't a lot of counterplay to this happening, especially if they're twinked up with a bludgeoning weapon that takes all of your stun in one or two hits. Even worse, if you reel (you most likely will), you will have almost no time at all to get out of the situation.

Half-Giants are cool, a good one is memorable and always fun to be around, but the bad ones destroy community trust and foster an unhealthy relationship/stigma toward them.

[Armaddict]

Dwarves are restricted to their focus.
Elves are restricted RP wise and CODE wise to certain areas or make travelling from city to city difficult.
D-elves have to have a tribe.
Muls are hunted everywhere pretty much.
Breeds are moody emo teenagers

Why do HG's get this wide open palette to potentially abuse?

Uhm.  If you're including breeds being breedy and d-elf tribalism and dwarven foci as the prices they pay, why are you not accounting for how stupid half-giants actually are?  Their palette is arguably less open than any of those, because they really aren't allowed to make actual influential decisions in the game.  They are muscle.  They are henchmen.  They assist in other people's goals, but if they try to -really- start anything on their own, they are shot down.  The biggest impact they have on the game is in their ability to protect and destroy on behalf of someone else, and random acts of violence in places where they can get away with it...which is precisely the kind of places where you should be seeing them and thinking 'Whoaaaa, a half-giant, out here?  I need to watch things very closely.'

Again, your bar for what turns over into abuse seems remarkably low here.

The main point of discontent about Half-Giants in the discord discussion has been strictly out of the minority of people who play them as iso combat roles, who stroll up on you and might--with a 50/50 chance--decide to smash you with no RP.

This is solved neither by a karma requirement or a clanned status.  That's not even something to be solved.  That's actually just the same old raider discussion but with grievance towards a race being as dangerous as it's supposed to be, so it should likely be moved over into ye olde violence-is-not-rp-unless-I-agree-with-it topic.

That being said, I haven't played a HG in quite some time, since before class changes.  We buffed all combat roles across the board.  My old half-giants actually had a fairly hard time being isolated and staying alive; they depended on people because their defenses were absolute garbage.  Even if they could smash really well, even the most minor of bad circumstances could spell death much more easily for them.  It may be that class buffs also threw this out of whack and removed the 'code equilibrium' that made solo hg play a lot more difficult than other races that were a lot less adept at smashing, but a lot more adept at not getting smashed.

However, I find that rather disingenuous since the same topic is and was and has been breached about magick in the game for decades, and they are on the same karma scale, with the same scrutiny, but with less ability to actually have an impact on the game at large.

[HazelHomewrecker]

I'm not trying to argue or pick a fight, I'm just explaining why the conversation is even being brought up. You're also picking apart what others are saying to validate an alternative viewpoint that isn't constructive to the actual issue. It is not a good experience to be grebbing 3 tiles away from the main gate and getting ran in on by a Half-Giant on an inix, charged and bludgeoned on the head for all of your stun before you can even type 'flee east.'

That is the ONLY point of the discussion. The same applies for Muls, or Dwarves. It isn't, to me personally, the race that's at fault for this. Rather, it is the fault of players perpetuating it in an unfun way for others. I think the problem is also slightly more niche than some make it out to be.

[Armaddict]

I'm not trying to argue or pick a fight, I'm just explaining why the conversation is even being brought up.

The GDB is the perfect place for arguing.  It's not a place where people just come to consensus so much.  It's a bunch of people behind different fences yelling at each other, "LOOK.  LOOK AT THIS SIDE OF THE FENCE."  It very rarely results in just outright agreement.  That does not make it unproductive.  There's an entire spectator aspect where people get to look over all the fences while not shouting about their own.  It increases overall awareness.  It reforms ideas and modifies behaviors, and refines expectations.  Please, argue with me whenever you can, it's a good thing, not a bad thing, and it's not something I hold against any other people playing a game where we all have to interpret things to the best of our ability.

You're also picking apart what others are saying to validate an alternative viewpoint that isn't constructive to the actual issue.

I'm not certain what the alternative viewpoint is.  You said yourself that it's a perpetuation of unfun regardless of race, so the only difference is that this one is good at it.  I've just broadened the scope to include that they're supposed to be good at that aspect, and that aspect is unfun (tm) for many people because it results in death.  I'm also emphasizing that it's an entirely different mindset than I play with when I'm playing.  Being outside the gates, 3 tiles away, is not a relaxing time.  It is butt-clenchingly stressful.  It is dangerous.  It is spam looking, using watch, doing everything I can to minimize the exact event that you're describing, because of the very real acknowledgement that it's not just a grief fest; this is what the wilds -is-, is a free-for-all of people doing what they do everywhere else (i.e. Progressing their power level, their influence, their wealth, their territory, their blah blah), but with a broadly expanded toolset brought about by the complete lack of law and order.  Not everyone has to be a cutthroat out there.  But anyone -can- be a cutthroat.  That is the setting.  When I die out salting, it isn't 'That asshole!', it's 'Ahhh, shit.  They fucking got me.'

I think we get enough complaints about karma-gating.  I think we get enough complaints about over-controlling things.  We made things easier for survival, and that made it easier for the antagonists, the raiders, the killers, and cutthroats as well.  But this is not an alternative viewpoint; this is the same one as before, the discussion of how raiding scenes are 'supposed to be', and I'm guessing general criticism is still coming from most of those who do not choose to play antagonist or raider roles and get to see how patience and hope for creating good scenes gets punished, not rewarded.

As a general antagonist player myself, that became an expectation, but that came over a -great deal of time-, with lots of GDB discussions, lots of refinement, and lots of realizations that had to occur that my role did not hinge on success of raids.  It hinged on how people reacted to my failures.  My ability to create content either grew, or was completely stamped out.  But that, like I said, was a big arc of evolution of 'how to play', and I'm certainly not going to be the one to deprive anyone of that arc of gameplay development themselves, particularly not when it's from a majority (not entirety) of people who weren't respecting the danger in the first place.

[Armaddict]

As an addition, just to be clear:  Like I said, I'm not exactly in the know of the current 'state' of the thing, and I hope I was pretty clear in that.  But I don't think treating it as 'abuse' is exactly genuine.  It seems a lot more like an expectation just like any other raider/raidee, antagonist/protagonist, criminal/victim discussion we've had in the past, only with the focus on trying to keep it from happening unless you agree to that expectation.  I don't agree with that expectation.

[Yelinak]

1) HG strength is wildly unbalanced. It's possible that this has been lessened somewhat with the recent changes to the way combat works, but even then, the fact remains that this race is capable of doing damage that is frankly beyond absurd. Like 100+ damage per standard melee hit. Even if a damage range of 50-100 has been nerfed to 1-100, it's completely ridiculous and gamebreaking. The potential to literally one-hit people with basic melee attacks - not backstabs or whatever - makes it impossible for any ordinary character to ever justify entering any measure of conflict with a HG. It defies the fundamental gaming notion of fairness. It does not belong in a game where most characters have about 100 hit points and doing that sort of damage otherwise requires mastery of very deadly magicks or extreme highrolls in skills that (ideally, at least) take a life of crime to learn. HG strength is incompatible with the way that this game is otherwise played.

2) Then there's the fact that HGs tend to have 200ish hit points, which makes them effectively impervious to many of the ways in which characters normally go about killing each other. That's to say nothing of the way this race essentially eliminates any notion of encumberance. I'm prepared to say that HGs should not be a part of the Armageddon experience at all as long as the game purports to have meaningful PvP conflict. The HG race plainly breaks most mechanical aspects of the game and circumvents almost all ordinary measures of in-character competition, whether violent or economical. Need an expert? Call a HG! They can do anything better than everyone! Well, except stealth. Their one Achilles' heel. Wahey.

3) The actual lore of the race is largely incompatible with the game. We're dealing with a setting where only the most cunning and well-adjusted survive. Then we have a race of... imbeciles, quite frankly, and it's just such an elephant in the room, pun fully intended. We're to believe that Zalanthas is ruled with an iron fist by sorcerer-kings and merchant conglomerates who universally ensure that such things as magickers (who can look like anyone else) are kept in check, but gigantic weapons of mass destructions are under no more control than automobiles are on Earth? Not buying it. It's silly. For what possible reason would they ever be permitted any measure of freedom? Why aren't they all controlled by the government(s)? It's simply unrealistic.

4) In my experience, very few players can portray the race in question in a manner that isn't in stark contradiction to the documentation. If you look it up, it says outright not to play your HG like some halfwit who can barely speak like a real person. Nevertheless, the staggering majority of HGs are played precisely that way. We're saddled with a subset of PCs who are played not only in a way that is utterly contradictory to their racial documentation but also a way that is plain unenjoyable. Who here really likes to be in the company of another "yup, me Biggie" brand of HG? And yet that is the norm. It's the norm to such an extent that anyone who can deviate even a little bit from this is hailed as the pinnacle of exemplary HG RP. Absurd.

If I had it my way, I'd remove the race from the game altogether; but that stance has never gained any traction, so if bumping its karma requirement means I'm subjected to this farce less often, that's a plus in my book. This race is a blemish on the game and it would be better without HGs, but anything that makes them less common is the next best thing. I dream of times when I might spend a day without being bothered by the burden that is a typical half-giant on Armageddon. I believe I've been quite honest here.

[cnemus]

I find that the more time I spend interacting with a character, the more I see the depth and effort being put into them by the player. I can see all kinds of faults on a surface level that become meaningful just by understanding where they come from.

I don't think the solution to HGs is to raise the Karma requirement, I think it is to spend more time getting to know them.

If someone is genuinely no RP killing, put in a player complaint. Sometimes the RP is happening where you cannot see, but it is still there. Even a grebber can piss off someone enough to get a hit put out on them.

My experience has been that antagonists usually try to give people options. If you immediately flee from antagonists, you might find yourself subject to less options the next time. If you interact with them and give them something to work with, I find death pretty rarely chosen.

[Lotion]

when i get my hg karma i'm going to day 0 etwo club no rp pk the entire gaj every day for a week straight while oocing ascii penises just so that some of the posts in this thread can have a grain of truth to them

[roughneck]

I don't know if restricting to clans is the best way, but maybe incentivize?

If HG PC's had a better chance to develop skills, have fun, and see combat in clans they might be better represented there.

Also, take away Half-Giant direction sense, max out cooking and skinning skill at low journeyman. Somehow make them dependent on other PC's. They shouldn't be independent, they're children that need to be cared for..... terrifying, monstrous children. That's the difference between playing a HG as a HG instead of a massive human.

[ShagGor]

IMHO, this is one of the most important parts of the helpfile on half giant roleplay.

"Half-giants have no culture to speak of. Possessed of astounding degrees of curiosity and kindness (usually), half-giants very willingly adopt the customs of those nearby, and especially the customs of friends. This trait can be either a benefit or a serious detriment to those friends (or neighbors), depending on the circumstances. Half-giants are able to switch their loyalties very quickly, and some races (such as elves) find this to be intolerable."

I personally interpret this to mean that half giants are, under normal circumstances, not aggressive. They would have a childlike innocence about them and have no reason to be unkind. However, if they were born in Red Storm (e.g) and their friends turn out to be a bunch of homicidal raiders, they would certainly adopt that attitude. It's just what everyone else does. They cannot discern right and wrong on their own.

Not trying to create an excuse for anyone that would make a HG and grief with them, or just attack everything in sight, but honestly, I don't see this very often.

[Tuannon]

HGs can't be Scorpions, Elites, Swabs or Wyverns that I'm aware of (barring docu change for newstaff). Other than that it's really what the player can cook up.

[Riev]

I honestly would want to see or hear of some hard evidence that people are playing them badly. I constantly hear how HG are bad. People play them poorly. That HG made a decision I didn't like. They're too strong and could kill me.

Frankly speaking, I hear it so often I'm almost agreeing with Lotion and want to make an HG that does all this shit so there's something to actually complain about. Are there HG's in the past that I didn't like? Of course. There's also humans. And Elves. And dwarves. Oh god the dwarves.

Like Mansa said, 3karma doesn't carry with it the ability to play a better HG. It doesn't help anyone, and the core of the idea (complicated things must be 3 karma) is a slippery slope. You play elves bad, make elves 3karma. You played a dwarf that had a rudimentary "best fighter in the Known focus"? Make dwarves 3 karma.

Maybe petition to make the help files more direct. Better examples in RP logs posted by staff.

I personally interpret this to mean that half giants are, under normal circumstances, not aggressive. They would have a childlike innocence about them and have no reason to be unkind. However, if they were born in Red Storm (e.g) and their friends turn out to be a bunch of homicidal raiders, they would certainly adopt that attitude. It's just what everyone else does. They cannot discern right and wrong on their own.

Picking on ShagGor here, there should not be a time where a player is having to personally interpret a line in the documentation. It should be clear and concise. We shoudl discuss that, vs player-shaming for not playing what we personally interpret are good HGs.

[Kavrick]

I honestly would want to see or hear of some hard evidence that people are playing them badly. I constantly hear how HG are bad. People play them poorly. That HG made a decision I didn't like. They're too strong and could kill me.

Frankly speaking, I hear it so often I'm almost agreeing with Lotion and want to make an HG that does all this shit so there's something to actually complain about. Are there HG's in the past that I didn't like? Of course. There's also humans. And Elves. And dwarves. Oh god the dwarves.

Like Mansa said, 3karma doesn't carry with it the ability to play a better HG. It doesn't help anyone, and the core of the idea (complicated things must be 3 karma) is a slippery slope. You play elves bad, make elves 3karma. You played a dwarf that had a rudimentary "best fighter in the Known focus"? Make dwarves 3 karma.

Maybe petition to make the help files more direct. Better examples in RP logs posted by staff.

I personally interpret this to mean that half giants are, under normal circumstances, not aggressive. They would have a childlike innocence about them and have no reason to be unkind. However, if they were born in Red Storm (e.g) and their friends turn out to be a bunch of homicidal raiders, they would certainly adopt that attitude. It's just what everyone else does. They cannot discern right and wrong on their own.

Picking on ShagGor here, there should not be a time where a player is having to personally interpret a line in the documentation. It should be clear and concise. We shoudl discuss that, vs player-shaming for not playing what we personally interpret are good HGs.

I think it's a little hard pointing out direct cases and proof due to the rules against talking about IC stuff but I've personally experienced a handful of half-giants that are wildly independant or just not manipulate-able when they should be. i've had half-giant hunters basically go out and clear the entirety of the grey-forest solo and then come back with a crateful of things so sell them for a dime. It's a little hard to compete with that when I'm playing johnny-ten-days the hunter and half-giants who outperform me are trading for peanuts because 'duh, dumb HG'.

I think if I had to put a number on it, it's probably around 70-30 when it comes to the good half giants to the 'bad' ones, there was one as of recent I actually felt I needed to put in a player report for, and I basically never do player reports. I think the main issue I personally have with half giants isn't really to do with rp and stuff like that, it's more just about how they don't really seem to have any sort of downside. Bad agi and bad wisdom are not much of a downside when you can one-shot a lot of things right out of the gate and end up with 200+ stamina and health. The main 'drawback' to HGs is 100% supposed to be their rp, but it's very easy to ignore the rp requirements and honestly I cant expect staff to keep track of the RP quality of every HG.