I think Templars are also inheritors of a brutal regime, you kind of have to be brutal to survive being a white robe. Not sure whether it's institutionalized or whatever but previous experience suggests there is a level of urging that used to prevail.

Quote from: EvilRoeSlade on Today at 03:14:13 AMTo be clear, I don't mind someone creating a raider and going on to kill a bunch of people. What I do mind is someone accepting a sponsored role and going on to kill a bunch of people.

I was about to say this. What do you guys mean, when you're talking about PK.
Every player's first concern is their own story. And everyone wants their story to go on. It is easier for a templar to keep their story go on, because they can easily get away with torturing/murdering people. But a raider will have hard time with that, since the victim will have no problem finding some support to take vengeance. Easiest way for the player of the raider is to silence the victim. So, a raider killing someone with just some interaction should be understandable by the victim as well.
On the other hand, Allanaki Templars are known for their short temper. Some could be easy-going on the outside, some could be sociopaths. If you know the temper of a Templar, you can shape your RP accordingly. I find it lame to say I don't want sociopath PCs/NPCs in Zalanthas. I expect harsh environments grow mentally instable people. There will always be such characters in the world.

Edited to add: You cannot label a player a sociopath just because he plays a sociopath PC. Also it is more toxic to call the playerbase of Arm toxic.

While killing someone is the best way of eliminating their negative influence on my plans for world domination, I will do it.

When I can trust people to get the hint that maybe they should stop pushing their luck, I won't have to kill them.

To the point, I applaud the dialogue of more closure around role ending scenarios, it was about fifteen years over due really. I'm not really a fan of a full post death report, but something like 'Amos was paid to kill you' is much better than absolutely nothing, or absolutely nothing and a reference to a helpfile.

I'm standing on business at killing one role off every eight years of game play. There are people who kill more people in one week than I have in my entire 'career'.

Murder. Corruption. Betrayal.

More of a tagline than a motto but that's beside the point. Where has this ideal gotten us? A toxic playerbase, a terrible reputation amongst the greater RP community, unsustainable staff turnover, and a dying MUD.

When you make your world the worst kind of place, is it really any wonder that you're going to attract the worst kind of people to play in it? I don't think so.

To be clear, I don't mind someone creating a raider and going on to kill a bunch of people. What I do mind is someone accepting a sponsored role and going on to kill a bunch of people. Though my experience playing a templar has shown me that in that particular role you can't really avoid killing a bunch of people - there's always another fool that insists on throwing themselves on your blade even when you weren't initially planning to kill them.

I agree with the changes in PK guidelines, but I think we need to go farther and change our entire community from a murder culture to one that embraces alternate punishments.

If reviewing PK logs is too cumbersome then it is because staff lack the correct tools to accomplish such a task efficiently. From my experience on APC I believe this to be the case.

Quote from: Dresan on Today at 12:44:48 AMIf the murderer can give the victim a good scene; that's great, please send them kudos. However, it is unreasonable to always expect a well RPed scene or understand the reason why you died or even fully agree with that reason if you learned it. I do believe that if people are forced to justify themselves to staff then the reason for their death will be a bit more obvious and perhaps be even better RP to the victim whenever possible.

I feel like it's a little far-fetched to say that it's unreasonable to expect a decently RP'd scene in a scene where you're dying. Without even talking about how many hours you lose when you die, Armageddon is an RPI, which stands for either Roleplay Intensive or Roleplay Enforced, I've heard both uses of it. Roleplay to a high standard should always be expected. This isn't me saying that you should get up in-arms about bad RP, but to say it's unreasonable to expect good RP from an RPI is a little bewildering to me.

Quote from: Dresan on Today at 12:44:48 AMFor the record, someone disrespecting a templar is grounds for a gory death, and its the fault the game and the entire community if this is not perfectly clear upon character creation.

Is it justified? Yes. Is it the only option? No. Is it the first option? Debatable.
Honestly any Templar player who goes straight to death penalties to solve issues is just going to shoot themselves in the foot. Nobody is going to want to interact or be around a kill-happy templar. As Dumbstruck said; It should be expected that people avoid sociopathic, murderous characters, both from an ooc and ic perspective.

That aside, I think calling anything which is critiquing PKs and putting on a spotlight on it 'carebear-y' is degenerate in the sense that it does nothing for the conversation. It just feels like a completely unnecessary insult to people who don't feel the same as you. Yes the tagline of Armageddon is 'Murder, Corruption, Betrayal', but Murder is one of three words, if the only way to make a game harsh and unforgiving to you is to send people a mantis head, then I don't know what to tell you.

The motto for this game is still: Murder. Corruption. Betrayal.

Conflict should be encouraged, and murder should still be expected. And there are plenty of justifiable reasons to kill someone.

If the murderer can give the victim a good scene; that's great, please send them kudos. However, it is unreasonable to always expect a well RPed scene or understand the reason why you died or even fully agree with that reason if you learned it. I do believe that if people are forced to justify themselves to staff then the reason for their death will be a bit more obvious and perhaps be even better RP to the victim whenever possible. After all, there is a lame reason why assassinating nobles and templars is rare in this game, despite how easily justifiable those deaths could be.

This game  at times tends to overcompensate with some of its issues and that might be the case here but seeing the same vulnerable players continuously get targeted because they are easy marks rather than any good IC reason has  been so revolting that I don't care about the extreme swing as much with this issue.

That said, this isn't Carebear Mush, everyone who plays this game should still expect to die at some point but it feels a bit like some people are trying to purely limit 'PK', even if it makes no sense to spare someone.  Instead, the community should try to improve its storytelling skills and further encourage the types of glorious conflict that better promote justifiable murder between two individuals. 

For the record, someone disrespecting a templar is grounds for a gory death, and its the fault the game and the entire community if this is not perfectly clear upon character creation.

Quote from: Dresan on May 23, 2024, 10:32:55 PMNo amount of RPee makes this any better. Its not harsh or gritty to keep punching down with murder while playing powerful classes or roles, its lame from both RP and gameplay stand point.

Actually, that's absolutely harsh (gritty is an entirely other matter not really related to this subject imo).

Which is why I think that as a community we should try to find a better balance of harshness and the other end of the spectrum. Stories about hope, triumph, and community can indeed be more interesting than 'The land of grimness where everything is awful 24/7 and everyone dies all the time for stupid reasons.' I have said too much and will probably be called a carebear now. 

I don't fully disagree. While I am indifferent to the carebear comment, the thing about punching down when you instagank minions and noncombat types sucks and is punching down. It's real cool and all that Lord Fartypants has a mortal enemy in Lord Templar Medallionface. But if it basically consists of snipping at each other like petty frivolous fops and nuking each others minions, that's just a really good way for neither party to wind up with minions because people don't like being nuked. Unless they have some special mental or emotional stuff going on that makes them an exception, most people will avoid getting invested in that after seeing 2-3 rounds of that, but by that it'll be too late for the half a dozen people who's time was wasted to not even defeat but merely /inconvenience/ someone else that their character is too weak to target personally. Being fallout damage sucks, and it sucks worse when it's <normal screen> <your prompt> <mantis head> with nothing in between.

Let's have the people talk for themselves. They might as well make clear what they mean if we're gonna disagree with them.