Roleplaying: Some Opportunities to Improve

[Refugee]

<deleted because yeah, it's too much IC info.  Don't really mean to be attacking anyone at all.>

As a player who's spent most of my time in Tuluk, conflicts between what I see in Nak and what I read in the docs make me confused about how I should play my PC.

Better?   

[Lizzie]

(thanks for editing)

(no response from me on this!)

[Fujikoma]

I'd contribute something, but yeah, might be offering up IC info.

[BleakOne]

Reading an old Player Submissions page about an Allanaki Senate meeting, I saw staff animate a Black Robe to put the smackdown on a vote to make the gemmed illegal. I don't see what's wrong with a Templar protecting a useful gemmed, if the staff-animated Black Robes are willing to humiliate a highborn, high-ranking Senator in order to keep their useful gemmed around.

Magickers are monsters, but the templarate use them for a lot of things and doesn't want commoners ruining a tried and tested tool. A useless commoner trying to break a Templar's things, be it a useful gemmed or a fancy bag, is going to find himself in trouble.

[Scarecrow]

Since Refugee changed his post, mine is no longer relevant. Edited to reflect this.

[FantasyWriter]

Without trying to start a semantics war, I've always seen Gemmed as slaves of the city state (but only slightly more so than you general Amos No-house).

Pick on a nobody gick... templar is not going to care. Pick on LT Hunglo Fale's pet Krathi.... get ready for the arena.

[Barzalene]

I really agree with The Lonely Hunter. We come into this with some agreements enforced not by code, but by culture. Some of those agreements include xenophobia and a fear of magickers. If you make an exception for the exceptional once every 10-20 pcs then you're still holding up your end. But if ten out of twelve of us are regularly making exceptions because the OTHER (be they elf or breed or magic user) is cute, or funny or harmless or well rped, then we are not collectively preserving the game world. And we're not holding up our end. That quickly becomes a problem. The next thing you know, everyone is asking to have their karma removed.

[Fujikoma]

IC events you never noticed maybe happened. Don't hate if you don't know the full story.

[Barzalene]

IC events always happen, but our responsibility remains the same.  Its easier not to play the docs. Again there is room for the exceptional, but that should be the exception.

[FreeRangeVestric]

If there were 'IC events' that amounted to 'people do not distrust breeds and magickers as much as they used to,' I think that would warrant a doc change and an announcement.

Don't worry! My characters are still all racists and, uh...magick-ists... The previously described scenario where even the lowliest sort of gemmed is treated as a prized possession of the state sorta irks me too. Wouldn't the Templars be wary of siding so unilaterally with a population that the citizens they are trying to hold power over (which involves them accepting that power, at least to some extent) view with hostility and fear?

[BleakOne]

Southern Templars are one of the few roles which are not supposed to fear the gemmed, so I still don't see the problem with the Templarate doing whatever it wants to them or for them as they see fit. After all, what could a witch do to someone who speaks with the will of the Highlord? I don't think the Templars particularly care what the people think, either.

For most others, yeah, don't buddy up with magickers.

[FreeRangeVestric]

I don't think the Templars particularly care what the people think, either.

Yeah, but they likely do realize that Joe-blow commoner has them outnumbered at something like 200 to 1, and there might eventually be repercussions if a group of people that all of the citizenry is taught are the scum of the Earth is openly and unilaterally placed in a higher place in society than they are. Even the most oppressive regime has to 'care' enough to not reach a place where they have full-blown riots on their hands...

...But I guess putting down said uprising could fall to the superpowered, do-anything-they-like sorcerer king serving as a deus ex machina to keep the game world as it is comes into play...But, I digress...

[BleakOne]

Yeah, unlike on Earth, in this case the government doesn't actually need to fear the people, since the government can lay waste to armies by breathing on them.

[BadSkeelz]

IC events always happen, but our responsibility remains the same.  Its easier not to play the docs. Again there is room for the exceptional, but that should be the exception.

If there were 'IC events' that amounted to 'people do not distrust breeds and magickers as much as they used to,' I think that would warrant a doc change and an announcement.

IC events happen between individual PCs that aren't going to amount to requiring doc changes. That was Lizzie's whole point: if you log in after two years and see two PCs getting along that you think shouldn't, you're totally in the dark as to why those two particular PCs are "getting along" at  that moment. Saying the whole game world has gone soft because of what you've seen is a little pompous.

To be fair, the Chronology page does seem to be missing one major incident of mundanes and 'gickers not getting along that happened before some of the other most recently listed events.

I don't think the Templars particularly care what the people think, either.

Yeah, but they likely do realize that Joe-blow commoner has them outnumbered at something like 200 to 1, and there might eventually be repercussions if a group of people that all of the citizenry is taught are the scum of the Earth is openly and unilaterally placed in a higher place in society than they are. Even the most oppressive regime has to 'care' enough to not reach a place where they have full-blown riots on their hands...

That's what Gemmed are for: on top of a Templars' own abilities, they can tip the scales if deployed correctly. The Templarate keeps them around for various reasons, not the least of which are their destructive potential.

...But I guess putting down said uprising could fall to the superpowered, do-anything-they-like sorcerer king serving as a deus ex machina to keep the game world as it is comes into play...But, I digress...

If people are actually seeing what looks like doc violations (Gemmed being put in a higher place in society) they should report them in player complaints instead of wangsting about them on the forums. Then staff can actually look in to the problem.

I've personally seen a lot more diffusing of situations and forced separations (where the Gemmed gets the rawer end of the deal) than these alleged inciednts of "lol don't touch my gemmed you comminer."

[Barzalene]

I was speaking generally. I haven't seen this particular instance. I just think k its good that we check in now and then and renew the agreements and make sure we're all facing the same direction still.

[Zerero]

I've noticed this about the gickers too.  I've heard PCs in authority say that gicks had earned their respect, or that they were okay by them, because of actions in-game. 

One thing that shocked me is that the templarate protects them.  I understand they are useful tools.  But you've got gicks sitting in the bar provoking someone, and if that someone takes a swing at the gick, he'll end up in the arena unless he's purchased previous permission from the templarate to punch the gick.  I heard a templar say this myself.  The only other PCs with this sort of protection is the Arm and nobility.  So now you have gicks sitting around able to behave in any manner they want, and when someone tells them to shut up they pull out the templar card.  It grants them a social status above normies that doesn't seem to fit with the docs.

It makes me uncertain as to how my PC should behave toward them.

This statement is both misleading and incorrect, and as Lizzie says, doesn't belong on the GBD.

His statement wasn't misleading and wasn't incorrect. Leave policing the GDB to the mods.

[Fujikoma]

Long post deleted because you're all being silly, just play the game already.

[James de Monet]

Certainly there is a point to saying IC events influenced your character's feelings about x group, but the doc proponents have a point, too. If you see people being favorable to downtrodden groups more than not (or on a daily basis), there is a strong possibility at that point that those 'IC circumstances' are over-represented. Maybe PCs need to be more settled in their doc like ways out of chargen, making it harder for 'circumstances' to reverse the pendulum?

How long would it take of you living safely in a bad neighborhood before you decided that the 'ghetto' wasn't really that bad?

Six months? A year?

It should probably take your PC as much time of close contact with an undesirable to start reversing similarly deeply held prejudices.

How many bad things would it take to send that 6-12 mos of confidence crashing to the ground? One? Also applicable.



A gicker being nice to your PC once, twice, three times isn't 'circumstances', IMO. That's a fluke, or an ulterior motive.

[Lizzie]

Certainly there is a point to saying IC events influenced your character's feelings about x group, but the doc proponents have a point, too. If you see people being favorable to downtrodden groups more than not (or on a daily basis), there is a strong possibility at that point that those 'IC circumstances' are over-represented. Maybe PCs need to be more settled in their doc like ways out of chargen, making it harder for 'circumstances' to reverse the pendulum?

How long would it take of you living safely in a bad neighborhood before you decided that the 'ghetto' wasn't really that bad?

Six months? A year?

Two days. I've lived in good areas and bad areas. If I wasn't capable of determining whether or not I could survive in any given neighborhood, I wouldn't have survived it past two days. I lived in a ghetto tenement crack house where the snow came in through the roof and we used a bunk bed to keep it from falling on our heads, and we used the oven to heat the kitchen. It was really THAT bad. And yet, I knew within the first two days whether or not I'd be able to survive there - and get to know the locals, and be accepted by them.

It should probably take your PC as much time of close contact with an undesirable to start reversing similarly deeply held prejudices.

I think it should take a PC more time than that, of not-so-close contact with an undesireable, to start accepting *THAT ONE PC.* There should be no reversing of deeply held prejudices in a world like Armageddon.

A gicker being nice to your PC once, twice, three times isn't 'circumstances', IMO. That's a fluke, or an ulterior motive.

Someone being nice to a mage from the first moment of contact, should be either a fluke, an ulterior motive, or a noob who didn't bother to take the docs seriously.

Someone treating the mage with suspicion, fear, loathing, hatred, general avoidance, or barely-present outward tolerance while inwardly wishing death upon the mage - is the norm. That same someone seeing ONE mage, TWO mages, at the bar - week after week, who have shown absolutely no sign that they are a threat to them personally, who the templars are making use of, who certain people of influence are treating with care - if not with actual cordiality - is likely to eventually warm up to them and at LEAST tolerate those TWO mages, while still thinking the general mage population is out to use their dismembered penises as altar sacrifices. But THOSE TWO mages - at least - have proven that your penis is safe, at least from those two mages. It's all the other mages you have to worry about. But not those two.

[Fujikoma]

Shoot, I was raised in an extremely conservative family, white, lower middle-class. Fear and distrust of the poor? You bet your ass.

You know how long it took me to feel safe surrounded by African American homeless people with mental illnesses? About two or three days. I had to learn to trust, quickly. The people around me took me in and treated me like a family member, because we were going through the same shit, some said they could look in my eyes and see the good inside me, and that it was rare, would have written it off as crazy talk but I've heard it too many times before. I found myself living in an area devastated by crack cocaine and the looming presence of the Atlanta Falcons stadium, which cut them off from downtown.

Basic training, know how long it took me to trust the people around me? At least a month. I learned right off the bat they were a bunch of dishonest thieves. Didn't have trouble with anyone but the white people, for some reason, they were violent liars who would break into your locker and steal your stuff. Did my lack of trust somehow influence them to mess with me? Maybe a little. The only people I've ever had trouble with had the same skin color as I do, and I'll admit it, it's made me a tad bit racist. I'm still highly suspicious of white people, especially when I don't know them and they're being nice to me.

But when people are nice to me, I respond in kind, nevermind what I may be thinking on the inside. If I give away what I'm thinking, I blow my cover and reduce the likelihood of them slipping, as long as I don't let them suspect I suspect them, the more likely they reveal their motives.

[Riev]

I think the problem is not the PCs are exceptional, but the players behind them believe THEY are exceptional and better than the measured average across all cases. Thus, they can justify how their PCs are "just being normal. Kike me."

[Refugee]

Sorry for too much IC in my post, didn't mean to be doing anything besides explaining how confusing it is to know what to do.  I've edited it, hope that those with copies in their posts will do so as well.

[Harmless]

"Hug fest." Yeah, this has definitely NOT been my experience, for the past 2 years straight. See my earlier post. The game is doing fine, players are for the most part keeping up their RP in line with the docs.

[ShaLeah]

There are ALWAYS going to be exceptions to the rule. And consequences for being found out. One of Arm's beauties.

[Desertman]

My two sids.

It basically comes down to this. Unless you want to be killed quickly for being shitty to everyone in a game that has between 70 - 80 people on during peak times, you can't just be a raging asshole to everyone.

If you are a raging asshole to every breed, magicker, elf, or mutant you meet, every single time you see them, eventually, you are going to make someone important angry, either directly, or through someone they know.

A smart Zalanthan knows to have their fun beating up that lowly kid breed from the rinth nobody cares about, and to leave that breed wearing nice gear alone, for the most part. Why? That breed is obviously smart/savvy enough to either take care of themselves and be a potential danger, or possibly know people who could be a potential danger.

We don't treat mekillots and bahamets like family either, but we know not to spit in their faces.

It's about making the smart decisions for self preservation. For all you know, they are hating them on the inside the entire time they are smiling on the outside. Why? Because it behooves them to not go full retard on every gemmer/breed/elf they see, because you can only make so many enemies from so many places and stay alive.

Correct hate/mistrust roleplay does not equal making bad social and political decisions with fearless abandon on the self preservation front regularly.