Events and storyplots

[Raona]

To try to summarize what I got from Isaldur's posts: He's advocating for a "Team Good" and a "Team Evil", who don't try to kill each other off directly, but rather try to score more points against a third-party antagonist. (Actually, perhaps more teams than that...and not divided by alignment necessarily...but I digress.)

I think there's space for both approaches. There are certainly some goods that go out cruising for a fight...and some that don't. (So too with evils!) So long as you don't expect that a *specific* PC, or even a majority of PCs, to take a brazen attitude to you, or even be eager to interact with you, I think it's totally nifty to express a desire for more such interaction in general. Advertising that interest may be half the battle. Ideally, it's done ICly, but I can see how OOC concerns might enter into the calculation of response, so don't think it is out of line to talk about that OOCly.

In short, while I think Isaldur makes good points, I don't think it's fair to tell evils they shouldn't whinge about people not interacting with them...even if they are whingeing, which I don't think is the case here. (Sorry, I'm a Yank, but love the word whinge.)

[Lathlain]

So in precis Isaldur - you see no place for antagonist/protagonist player interraction in FK that isn't imm-driven, and feel that the players of antagonists are largely wasting their time?

For the most part I've enjoyed a lot of good/evil player interraction in my years playing FK, and I'd like to think that whoever I've played with has enjoyed it too (feel free to call me out on that ). It's all a matter of give and take of course, and a healthy dose of OOC regard, but the general outcome has been one that I have always hoped adds some extra substance and flavour to our game.

My concern here isn't that people won't lay themselves at one-anothers' feet - that's just madness, as you say - it's that people won't allow the interraction to take place. If a threat is made that directly conflicts with the beliefs of your character, by all means gather an army of comrades and march for great justice, but please please please don't ignore it!

Ultimately, the thing to remember is that we're all playing a game together. Most players of antagonists are more than happy to stand in the face of goodly adversity and die for it, if only to further the overall character development of those involved and the underlying theme of the environment as a whole.

As cliched as this is going to sound, there can be no light without the darkness, and things will stagnate if there is only one or the other. We cannot and should not expect to be served roleplay by the immortals when we're quite capable of making it ourselves, and it's nobody's place to say otherwise.

[Isaldur]

I'm not saying it's a waste of time at all to play an evil character. Protagonist does not equate to "Good", and Antagonist does not equate to "Evil", simply put whoever the player characters are that are the -primary- role in a story or plot become the protagonists and anyone opposing them becomes the antagonist.

Antagonists are traditionally played by the DM because they are not meant to take center stage. Antagonists help in development of the story and provide the challenge for the protagonist to overcome. That's why I likened the current PvP and PK system of FK, and even many other MMORPG's that have PvP into the "Spy vs Spy" scenario. White Spy and Black Spy constantly killing one another over and over, only to come back the next episode whole and hale, ready for revenge.

Like I said, this isn't so much about good and evil characters as it is about how conflict between player characters tends to resolve itself. Having antagonists, be they a Paladin of Tyr harassing your Spur Lord of Cyric through the Dalelands, or a Priest of Malar abducting you and then hunting you through the swamplands of Marsember, played by a DM (In FK's case that would be an IMM or potentially a Story Councilor) avoids that conflict.

Do I think all interaction between good and evil characters should stop? Absolutely not. It's an important part of FK. I do however think that when two players meet head to head in any situation they both feel they are the protagonists, because in essence as Player Characters they are. That's just a recipe for disaster with the death and combat systems used in FK and most other Online games where Roleplaying is enforced because the "Spy vs Spy" scenario ends up cheapening the conflict, the story, and the immersion.

I'm sure most of you are familiar with this phrase and scene..

"My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father, now prepare to die!"

Now just imagine if the 6 fingered man came back to life minutes/hours/days later and killed Inigo.

And as final parting words, yes I understand that it may not even come down to PK all the time but the whole argument can be used in any lesser extent as well. I mug you, you mug me, I mug you again, you mug me again.

[Kirkus]

If it is fact the character that is afraid of a fight then fine. But you are calling for the same thing, a change in how the character would behave based on an OOC belief that there is a chance of 'dead and violence'. Oops can't talk to that guy, it might turn into a fight. Oops can't go there it might turn into a fight. You are advocating that if the Player sits back and thinks about the ingame consequences and chooses not to interact, that player is NOT basing their ingame actions on OOC considerations, while if another Player sits back and thinks about the ingame options available they ARE basing their play on OOC knowledge.

That conflict between players you are talking about gets broadened past a single interaction when neither character dies. Beat the snot out of someone, leave them snarling for vengeance and a followup rp. This also has the added benefit of no longer taking death so light heartedly. Save the kill for some spectacular end. At least this way people aren't thinking its alright to die 'I can just be resurrected and go on about my day'

Every pk situation I have ever been in we as players have discussed OOCly before hand... 'Ok 5 rounds of killmode nofight with rp in between, then killmode stun sound good to you?' 'Yep, alright' Its the player that is afraid of loosing what they have worked for.

The characters are characters because they KNOW the risk. It is my opinion that it is us the players that are sitting back biting our nails afraid to let our babies out into the world. You don't read very many books about 'just some guy that never did anything because he was afraid he might get hurt.' Thats a guy that lacks courage and a conviction that wills him to place his life on the line for the things that matter to him. Last time I checked we were playing adventurers.

[Isaldur]

If it is fact the character that is afraid of a fight then fine. But you are calling for the same thing, a change in how the character would behave based on an OOC belief that there is a chance of 'dead and violence'. Oops can't talk to that guy, it might turn into a fight. Oops can't go there it might turn into a fight. You are advocating that if the Player sits back and thinks about the ingame consequences and chooses not to interact, that player is NOT basing their ingame actions on OOC considerations, while if another Player sits back and thinks about the ingame options available they ARE basing their play on OOC knowledge.

Do me a solid and quote the portions of my posts where I get as hypocritical as you say because I honestly don't see it, but I'd like to.

To my view everything I've said boils down to this;

First Post: Don't rag on other players because they get in character enough to where they weigh consequences of actions and don't go out to raid a dragon's den or challenge Talos himself to a duel unless they are prepared.

Second Post: What I, and I stress the I part because I don't intend to speak for anyone else, have viewed over all my years regarding the outcomes and flaws of the systems inherent with Player vs Player in FK and other similar games.

Third Post: More in depth explanation of Second Post.

Am I being hypocritical here with my observations? I honestly can't see it, but that's not something I usually do see unless it's pointed out clearly and concisely.

[Enig]

Er...

Honestly, I re-read them to be sure, but I don't understand how you can derive that position from Isaldur's posts. Granted I could be wrong too, but what I got was something like an argument saying, "Sure, OOCly the players of good characters might know that the players of evil characters probably won't just kill them off without (extensive) RP, but that doesn't mean that the good characters should be aware of that ICly and if they have any sense of self preservation they'll maybe cross the street to avoid that axe-wielding berserker disciple of an insane god of murder." It really ties in with the discussion on whether or not PCs take death too lightly, too, as a consequence of all being essentially immortal. When it comes to that subject it often comes up how folks stride into certain demise with a smug sense of self-satisfaction, knowing they'll be brought back if they die, and I think that it's only natural for people to swing the opposite direction when that subject comes up (as indeed it has recently) by avoiding overly dangerous situations perhaps a little too zealously/obviously?

I do like the idea that Isaldur put across, though, or at least what I think he was putting across. Besides the aforementioned he also brought up the pointlessness of IC conflict, and I can't say I disagree. Just to illustrate, though, let me present an example.

Character Joe makes an evil wizard character who sets up a toll booth near Waterdeep and casts hold monster on anyone who passes by before forcing them to pay him, or he'll, say, break their kneecaps. What if the characters don't go along? What can Joe really do? He can RP hitting them, or he can code-wise hit them, or even kill them, but it's nothing they can't cure by going to an NPC cleric, so does his threat really hold any water?

But let's assume that Joe manages to get a thriving business of extorting travellers going and eventually some high-level good adventurers from Waterdeep hear about it and want to clear him out. How can they do it? They can threaten him or break his bones, but just like the low level folks Joe can go to a cleric and get that fixed. Even if they kill him he can get ressurected and set up shop again the next day, so is there really any way to resolve the stalemate?

It's just a light example but I think it illustrates the point nicely. There really is no way to 'take someone out for good', and it makes sense because nobody who's put time into their character, whether that character is good or evil, wants to have it all tossed out with a single fight, and therein lies the problem. In a regular game things are skewed towards the player, what with the ability to save and reload, and just generally through the narrative, which says that ultimately the good guys (protagonists) will win. In FK, however, when we have two players who are fighting one another they're *both* protagonists, which is problematic because we don't want either side to really feel like they've lost forever (ie. permadeath), and so we end up in these perpetual stalemates where nobody decisively wins or loses and the only consequence is the occasional setback that can be easily righted.

So, what's the solution? Forgive me if I'm wrong Isaldur, because I'm just trying to crib from your posts, if only because this point seems to have been overlooked, but it sounds to me like he's proposing situations where good and evil characters are motivated to work against one another via a third party, or to work against a third party.

Ie. five holy artifacts of Bane have been scattered around the world and they're needed to revive him. Can evil characters get them and work their super evil, or can the goodies get them first and prevent their gods from being lessened by the revival of Bane?

It's a situation where goods and evils are directly in competition with one another but it's set up in such a way that the closest thing to an antagonist would be the relics, or maybe the fellow who hid them. The essential point is that it's possible for one side or the other to decisively win without crippling any PCs, since the gods (ie. NPCs played by 'DMs'/Imms) are the only ones who stand to lose out either way.

That being said, however, there's no reason why smaller situations, ie. chance happenings and personal conflicts, can't be fun but I think it's a mistake to place them at the centre of good/evil interaction. Of course that being said we, as players, don't always have it in ourselves to set up situations like the aforementioned relic hunt, but I also don't think we need to have showdowns between the two sides all the time. If we treat direct conflicts between goods and evils as exceptional events rather than another check on our dayly/weekly to-do list I think that in itself will help make them feel more significant. If the problem is ultimately that evil characters don't have anything to do then maybe we ought to address that seperately from this discussion. 'Evil-themed' dungeons might be a good start, like small forts of good folks set up for evil folks to clear out in the same way that goods are expected to clear out undead crypts and goblin hovels, though that's a heck of a digression and would best be elaborated on elsewhere, I guess.

Regardless of all that, though, I did want to point out one last thing here. Namely, I think it's important to realize that different characters ought to behave differently, even if they share an alignment. Good isn't a catch-all for 'I'm a super divine paladin' any more than evil is a catch-all for 'I'm a sociopathic murderer' and different characters have different criteria, ICly, as to what constitutes something they'd willingly put their life on the line for. Saying that because not every goodie jumps at every opportunity to have a stare-down contest with an evil fellow that those who don't are (probably) motivated by OOC fear strikes me as pretty darn offensive. The argument that everyone is an adventurer, etc., etc., sounds like you're just trying to straight-jacket people into accepting the previous assertion but it doesn't strike me as particularly compelling. We have a number of people who play non-adventurers, whether it's because they're involved in unadventurable RP like the pregnancy RPs or because they're simply set up more as support/chatty characters, and I don't think it's proper to invalidate their choices by saying that because they're not actively putting their life on the line that they're not playing properly (ie. as an adventurer).

[Julthain]

Even if there were a "third party" that both protaganists (good/evil) were competing against for something, the "good" protaganists would still win via numbers. I can come online at peak hours on a weekend and "who" to see about five "evils" at the most, and the other fifteen to twenty players are either good or some type of neutral. Now how could five players hope to win against three to four times their number?

The real problem is that the game is so horribly skewed towards being good aligned, that hardly anyone wants to play evil. They know OOCly that if they choose to play an evil, they will miss out on half of the RP, skills, spells, and quest opportunities than if they were good and had access to everything.

For example, I think that there are at least two, maybe three, specialist schools in Silverymoon. There is a total of seven possible specializations a wizard can choose ingame. Therefore, an evil wizard only has a choice out of four specializations, while a good wizard has access to all seven. Sure, the evil wizard could apply for one of the other three, but they would still miss out on having a guild and its trainers/shops. It is even worse when you calculate race into the equation, because then it comes down to civilization access(which is where you find most of the trainers). Whereas a good character can go to any city, some PC's have access to a grand total of three cities.

[Kirkus]

First I will admit that you never did 'advocate' for people to sit back and consider oocly the ingame consequences of an interaction then choose not to interact. But you did say that some are detered by the chance of a pvp situation.

Just the CHANCE that it could end in violence or death is enough to deter some people unless they are sufficiently prepared for the encounter.

Yes I put some words in your mouth, and for that I am sorry. I will admit I had just got to work, it was 5 am I had little sleep and was not thinking clearly due to an earlier part of the post which I viewed as very insulting.

That's a great outlook for a character that does not care about their life Kirkus. Just the CHANCE that it could end in violence or death is enough to deter some people unless they are sufficiently prepared for the encounter. Why is it suddenly a bad thing that characters care about their lives and treat a chance of being beat up, dismembered, robbed, maimed, sold into slavery, or killed as a serious matter and try to avoid it when possible?

I especially don't like how you misrepresent me as thinking it is bad for a character to care about their life. Where did I say that? Perhaps that was not your intention, but I read it as a personal slight somehow. I don't see how being open to the concept of pvp, especially ones that don't end in death, means that your character does not care about their life or they take death and violence lightly. I was trying to speak to the player behind the screen. I quite plainly said that we (as players) don't have to fear for our characters lives because in a pvp battle every character has the right to ask for killmode_stun. I have never seen a situation where one player asks for killmode_stun and the other character didn't agree to it. There is no reason not to. In my mind there is more rp value from Not killing at the end of a pvp battle. True, someone out there might feel differently, they might feel that battling to the Fugue Plane is the only way to do it. That is their right. But I feel confidant in saying that a majority of our player base would be able to think of how an rp long-term and short, is better advanced by letting the looser live. Part of that being that many are annoyed by the situation where one pc dies and is back, pestering the guy that killed him five minutes later.

Edit: I finally found words to describe why that attitude irks me. You're asking people to change how their characters would react to something based off of OOC knowledge that "It may not turn into death and violence". I'm not down with that.

I am not asking players to change how their characters would react. I am asking for the players to ALLOW their characters to react as they would. I am of the opinion that we as players too often take a look at a possible opponent and do the quick math of that guy has cool shiny equipment, thus fear for our characters lives and shy away from any interaction, forgetting that we as the second party to the possible pvp have some say in how it goes down. I do not see how keeping in mind our options is using OOC knowledge to influence anything. I am saying we should remember our options, allowing the player to play without fear of engaging in rp. In the past I have been guilty of this too, not enough followers of a faith, not enough friends, you find yourself crossing paths with an enemy, Talos to Chauntea, Selune to Shar, etc and you as the player are thinking if this turns ugly, I am going to end up dead. So instead of saying anything, you hurry on your way. All I am saying here is to let the interaction unfold. What is so wrong with that? If your character would be scared, let your Character be scared. But at least give a little bit of rp.

I don't believe PvP adds anything but headaches and frustration to this. It's a static world where typically the only change is driven and made by the IMM's (DM's) and as such the antagonists should be played by them. If anything the players who want to make a difference in getting plots and events should apply to join the Story Council and help out there, that way they are effectively playing said antagonists for the DM's.

Please keep in mind I'm not talking good and evil, I'm talking protagonist and antagonist.

You have a point here, the world is static, which to me is all the more reason to further character to character interaction.

Perhaps we need an Ingame Lesson on how to do a pvp combat rp. We did that once or twice in the past. This could dispel the fear of interacting with a daunting looking character.

[Isaldur]

None of what I posted is meant to insult anyone Kirkus. We're all entitled to our thoughts and I heartily encourage people to voice them so long as we all remain civil, polite, and courteous where familiarity with personalities is lacking when debating them. Thank you for clarifying your bits I may have misinterpreted because I can definitely get behind fixing a situation where someone is letting OOC knowledge dictate and deny something their character would do.

Enig, you hit the nail on the head and perhaps said it better than I.. although you didn't link any Princess Bride.

In the end that's the point of all this though right? We break everything down with discussion and debate until it's something that is understood perfectly and works, and just maybe it helps out changes behind the scenes.

[Gwain]

I'm quite happy to have any of my characters killed, maimed, shot out of a canon, dressed in frilly gowns, drowned, beheaded, squared, quartered, married, pregnant, shived, pulled apart by wild horses running in different directions, frozen, catapulted, devoured, burned, comatose, eaten by rabbits, gored, trod on, eaten, stampeded on, caramelized, peeled, flayed, fillet, salted, peppered, pickled, picked, flicked, tackled, tickled, torn apart by demons, torn apart by devils, eaten by weevils, tumbled, dropped, pointed, stabbed, gagged, strangled, mangled and tangled as long as it is for ic purposes and reasons. My take on potentially deadly rp is that its still just a game and at the end of the day if you can take it as well as you give it, then no one will truly be upset for long. This may not be true for all player types but I find that the ability to separate ooc from ic or to roll with things often works better than general ooc offense. Just do the thing you do, and rp it like there is no tomorrow and you should be fine.

Edit: Also, I would prefer if a way for them to return afterward was apparent if not obvious.

[Kirkus]

Gwain are you talking, in your edit at the end of your post, retrurn from the dead? return a taken item?

In the case of returning items taken after a fight, thats why I always push for the non-death end to a pvp fight. It, at least to me begs for a follow up rp. To return the stolen swag, save face, repay for insults etc... I think the best is to set up the follow up rp right there. Not necessarily a date/time but something like 'Hey, I am normally on Mondays and Wednesdays from 8pm till late in the night or weekends.. That way the guy can rp licking his wounds or what not.

There were some long post with many valid points that I had glazed over to answer Isaldur's questions to me and resolve that whole thing. Enig thanks for mentioning that there are people playing non-adventurers. My comment about us being adventurers was a generalization, that years ago probably would have been closer to resembling what we actually have, now it is not as relevant. I agree that those who play non-adventurers should shy away from a fight, that is what the character would ICly do. But I feel that a smot of some sort, to show through rp that you just aren't ignoring the other players would be really cool. I do this often when walking through Waterdeep market square, or if I pass someone on the road. Something as simple as 'Joe sees Bob the mean Cyrist and makes his way to the other side of the street, carefully keeping his eyes down as he continues on his way.' Yeah its not always possible, sure it could actually backfire and turn the attention of guys you didn't want to deal with. I don't really know what the answer is to that, I want to interact with other characters, even when it is something simple and quick. Shrug, I must be lonely...

[Gwain]

Gwain are you talking, in your edit at the end of your post, retrurn from the dead? return a taken item?

Talking about a return to life if killed being a viable possibility by ic means either through mortal intervention or imm intervention. Death can result in some manageable losses of course, but should not be made into a longer than average ordeal.