Golden Oaks, Gnomes and Strangers.

[Brar]

After being in a situation today, I would like to raise some thought.
First is to say I do'nt blame anyone, nor I target anyone and this post has only one goal, improve the overall experience for all.

So let me explain a situation I stumble across.
On one side a noob gnome, unexperienced in life and probably a new player as well.
On the other side 2 peoples.

Noob Gnome stumbles on the 2 peoples in a room only gnomes are supposed to "see" (unless you use search, detect hidden or similar or been shown the way)

Noob Gnome greets them with all his heart, but he do so in gnome language (it is the home language of the place after all) after a few unsuccessful tries, he switch to common, a language he only speak as much as the innkeeper would have teach him, hence very bad and without real experience.
So he greet them in a less friendly way being suspicious of who are those tall people in his village not even speaking the home tongue.
He receive no greetings, not explanation except that they are here to help with goblins and wererats.
For noob gnome, the least you do when going in a town of small folks is learn the basic of the tongue, especially in a village hidden in the forest and where you seemed to have searched everywhere as to stumble on a door that is hidden.
So he push them to see if they are thieves, one says to be a druid..good for this one but for noob gnome, it could well be Mask diguised as a druid.
So they began to be kinda hard on noob gnome because he don't let them do what they want.
Hence the noob gnome rebels himself. Reaction from the 2 PCs,xxx says, OOC, 'Geesh, this is really craptastic. Walk into a room with people doing nothing bad, bully them and blame them. Thanks.', goes west and quit for one.

noob gnome say, OOC, 'Well, youa re the one not even speak gnome in golden oaks'
xxx2 says, OOC, 'You don't have to speak it'
noob gnome say, OOC, 'no pbut don't ask my char to react any other way, what the hell do you know about him?'
xxx2 says, OOC, 'Just as you don't know what these two are about either. A Mielikki symbol is hardly something to call bad. Please do your research, and act accordingly'
goes north, kill more goblins, goes out of golden oaks.
for the other.

Now I states again, I don't blame or anything, just wants to try to have better experience for everyone, so we dont' have to resort to osay during a rp.

Here is my point of view: As much as the player can know about the gods ooc (if you really want to have a discussion about the gods, and the FR settings, I'm am at your disposal anytime, I always loved to debate about thos things), where it is written that a young gnome who just came out of his mother's skirt is supposed to know about all the human gods; some do, some don't.
Even then, there is no proof for noob gnome that it is a true symbol, taht could still be a thief that wear it to pass for a druid. Hence from what he knows about druids (which is very little) they are rescpectful of nature so they would know to speak gnome.

Secondly, when you stand in a room you are not supposed to see the entrance easily (you can try to find it based solely on character vision and hearing if you want, without spells or skills. I wish you good luck) do'nt except suspicious inhabitant of the village to look at you like a friend because you have a symbol on your neck... you don't even know if the noob gnome is a follower of garl or of malar...

Now, from an ooc point of view, my rp was extremely displeasing for you, but then I reacted in character to something I personally despites to the highest point, using ooc knownledge to twink and grind.
I know Golden Oak, I helped designed Golden Oak, and there is no way any gnomes there would ask for your help without speaking at least inept gnome, I don't care what you do, but don't comes at people with osay because you don't like the rp that is going on, try to react ICly, explain to noob gnome what is a druid, that you were ask by a gnme to come and help, comes up with anything but not an osay...
Historically, I think I was the strongest opponent to osay, otell and all those OOC channels, I can understand their use, but should they be used to avoid rp when you don't want to? I don't think so.

Noob gnome would have been a first character to a new players, minus one on our player base which is already thinned enough I think.

Now that is my point of view, I know some of my flaws, one which is to be an extremist when it comes to rp and a disgusts for anythign ooc coming during a rp, IC is IC and should never bring any OOC actions in my eyes.
I'm coming back after an effective 7 years of absence (played a few weeks 4 years ago but that don't really count) and the only thing I would like is to have the thought of everyone possible on this situation (even if you insult me I don't care, as long as it is constructive and improve things), not to blame anyone but to try to improve my rp capacities and adapt to the new player base if necessary.

I hereby ask the 2 peoples involved to not display their names as it is not the point here and would only lead to something displeasant and bad while it is not the subject.

Thanks you for your time reading my long post and in advance, (that is for the older players) I'm sorry for my return in full form as those who knew me can see

Brar who is actually doing his first post since his return

[Vibius]

Actually I agree with one thing; a PC visiting a racial hometown to which he doesn't belongs, should be expecting to be questioned (with better or worse manners), even if somehow you have proven your good intentions somehow through a quest(s) in the area, characters from that hometown have right to inquire about others pc's doings there (with better or worse manners).

Nobody would be surprised if a character was questioned if was caught lingering around a particular ranger encampment, I think the same should be said around those (supposedly) hidden places. If you really don't belong to a place, you don't belong, expect to be inquired of what are you doing there, and perhaps that people will not be nice.

(Signed by a character that would not come near ardeep unless he had a very good reason to do so)

[Dapher]

Now, keeping things IC, I agree. You need to remember that this IS an RP MUD, I am not saying I am perfect, but we really need to try and stick with R, I know there are rare circumstances that sadly need OOC interaction, but every situation I have been involved in has been solved with RP

[Melian]

Eh. I agree on some of your points and disagree on others. I think the main point of this was the OOC talk, which, if it were relevant or helpful to the situation without providing IC info, so what? But that's not the case. OOC complaining is rude and there are other channels to deal with issues like that.

As far as the Golden Oaks, being hidden & suspicions. Yes, a gnome should be suspicious and ask questions, but I doubt they would be rude unless the other participant was refusing to answer or running from them. Personally, if they are friendly and can be respectful, who cares? So long as they are not harming anything, there's nothing wrong with that. And if in fact there is a problem, there is a patriarch who is responsible for overseeing the ongoings of the Oaks. A gnome should be proud to share their heritage and works with others so long as those others are reasonable and not rampaging the Oaks. And yes, Golden Oaks is hidden, but gnomes lead others there, show them around. Rangers know where it is, people show people who show people who show people. It happens. And noob gnome doesn't run the Oaks, Patriarch Namfoodle does.

Shrugs, my two cents. Love it or hate it.

[Moloch]

I won't post an opinion here, but I will say..This is certainly not the place for this post. In the future, if you have a complaint, post it where it belongs: in the complaints forum. This type of post does nothing but hurt feelings and cause confrontations. You are also only posting your side of the story, which hardly seems fair .

Thanks!

[Mele]

Just because people don't understand your gnomish at first pass doesn't mean they don't know the language, it means they're bad at it. They can know the language enough to communicate with the npc's in the town and be on good terms, but not well enough to take your heartfelt greeting. Good terms doesn't require someone to be fully fluent at any language. It happens all the time where people are on better than good terms with someone who barely speaks a few words of their language. Gnomes are known as a friendly happy race, with exceptions obviously(Especially with forest gnomes).

That said, it's also good to remember the area in question is a great leveling area for lowbie characters. So approaching lowbies there with any confrontational manner when given no reason is likely to upset people who are just trying to grab up some exp. Roleplay mud or not, it IS disheartening to be enjoying the other part of FK and have someone "up in your face" so to say, when you're just trying to get to a high enough level to travel without dying to road mobs. Now if the person was wearing a lovite symbol flaming flamestrike, much different. But someone with the symbol of Mielikki probably doesn't deserve that. This is just my opinion but I feel like that is both IC and OOC. If you know it's a lowbie leveling area and you see the Mielikkian symbol, you know they're probably not going to be GM gnomish quite yet. A little OOC consideration is always nice. We are a roleplay MUD, not Mush(Or Moo? Whichever the heck one has no levels/skills).

I greatly agree with Melian in this case, and would chime in to add that the person who does have the right to question who belongs in that forest would very, very likely speak fluent comment for the sake of any necessary confrontation.

I also agree with Moloch: if you are looking for knowledge of Golden Oaks that's harmless and doesn't need the story and logs above. If you want to be specific about the situation it's probably better for private conversation or complaints.

[Brar]

First I would like to thank you for your input, and would like to add a clarification.
As I stated before, it is not a complaint, if so I would have done one and put names and whatever.
I stumbled upon a situation, it ends as a bad experience for everyone involved, I would not like for that to happen again so I try to open a debate, try to explain the situation from my point of view (I can't do that from the others point of view as I'm only me, unfortunately) and asks others for advices and for their enlightment on that situation, is it to complain and say haha you see some are on my side? No as their is only one side on my eyes, the players one (because even the imms and staff are players of a game). It is to learn and not repeat mistakes as their was obviously some, on my parts for sure but I couldn't see whith my sole opinion so I open the discusion to learn where my mistakes where (which I did actually)
I thought it could add to my (and perhaps some others) experience to discuss and why not have an intelligent debate about a real situation that happened, do I blame the others or anything? as I stated I think 3 times in my first post, not at all and I don't want any confrontation or bad feelings, just to learn and get better and why not help others get better (and I don't even speak about the two others peoples involved but anyone who could see the debate and learn something from it) but that is hardly done alone in my corner.To further explain, When I left the game last time, the houses in Golden Oak where said to be out of bonds for tall people and walking in one was considered a strikeable offense (much like going in Mithrl Halls), I guessed it changed, but then I did not fathom the range of the change as it became a leveling area for lowbies. Now I know and will react accordingly.
Would I learned that if not for this post? I don't think so and I would continue to act badly. Did I hurt anyone? Well, I only gave my opinion on facts if this has hurt anyone I am sorry for that, I can't say more.

Now, if this is problematic for you (I'm speaking of the staff here) that I state my point of view and asks for other peoples opinion to try to improve then says so and I will not do it again, I would find that rather damaging but I don't care that much.

Perhaps I did not express myself clearly enough in my first post, well I'm sorry I am not a native English speaker I do my best but I know I lack some vocabulary and sentense making skills at times.

Now I would be glad to have a private conversation about what happened precisely with the others involved, can you explain to me how I could do that knowing only their adjective. Except to write on the forum as it does not seem fit, I tried in game but I was not given the time to answer the osay and without a name there is no possible otell.

Again (as it seems it needs to be stated again and again) this is not a flame wars or anything, but it would help me to know where I was offensive or complaining or whatever you call it and why, because I tried not to and would not like it any other way, so if you tell me then I can change it for next time. (And if you think that it has no place here, the feel free to pm me)

Thanks for your time,
Brar

[Nysan]

This reminds me of an old thread about players avoiding orc players, of course this thread has nothing to do with PKs.

OOC has its moments. Anyone that knows my characters in-game knows I osay and otell now and then. It is usually grumbling about my typos, but occasionally it is something more. There is a limit to what should be discussed OOC and for some, its a trial and error process to learn that. Please think carefully about OOC usage and on the same coin, understand that some folks are still learning and may not know whats inappropriate for OOC. In short, be patient with those around you. We are here to have fun, after all. If there is a serious problem, we have the complaint forums and it is private for good reason.

Personal point... some folks RP religious ignorance. Some of my characters quite often don't understand symbols, even if I am well versed in them OOC. Its an aspect of that character. IC ignorance doesn't always mean the player is inexperienced. Something to keep in mind.

[Zorinar]

I think this post can be a good educational opportunity. I'm glad it was posted here so we can all discuss it. Brar tried to roleplay his gnome as he believed his gnome would act when seeing strangers in this hometown. He could have acted nice, threatening, drunk, jokingly... however he wished. I believe that he has that right regardless of the Mielikki symbol or not.

The following statement is what turns on a red flag for me....
"OOC, 'Just as you don't know what these two are about either. A Mielikki symbol is hardly something to call bad. Please do your research, and act accordingly'"

Those Brar were speaking with had RP opportunity to act they wish against his somewhat forward posturing but the ooc comment "Please do your research and act accordingly..." almost sounds like an ooc declaration of forced roleplay to me. I could be reading this wrongly, it is early, I just woke up and I have an exhausting life but If this statement was made by a staff member, I would interpret this as forced roleplay.

Forced roleplay is what I define as the mud players/administration forcing their views of how a character should be role played on another. I have been noticing / hearing about this a bit more often as of late from other players. Nothing destroys a mud faster than this. I myself have been told how I should be roleplaying my character more than a few times, and a few of those instances were completely off the wall and contradictory to D&D. The mud is based on dungeons and dragons, but I get the feeling a lot of people don't have much D&D lore and some of these people are asking others to roleplay in a certain way that is very much against D&D common sense. A character of a particular race / faith/ starting city should not be locked/forced into a particular roleplay. Variation and weird personality traits are what make up the most interesting of the characters on this mud. Perhaps many gnomes like the Mielikkians, (and / or vice versa) but that doesn't mean that Brar has to. I think we should let Brar decide how his character will behave and not get angry at him if he decided to be intimidating or not, even to other gnomes! You can always just thwap him in the upside of the head with your club or whatnot in game:)

[Nysan]

The following statement is what turns on a red flag for me....
"OOC, 'Just as you don't know what these two are about either. A Mielikki symbol is hardly something to call bad. Please do your research, and act accordingly'"

I like to believe the mentioned player confused RPing character ignorance with actual player ignorance. Of course, I could be misreading it as well.

[Saranya]

I won't post an opinion here, but I will say..This is certainly not the place for this post. In the future, if you have a complaint, post it where it belongs: in the complaints forum. This type of post does nothing but hurt feelings and cause confrontations. You are also only posting your side of the story, which hardly seems fair .

I have to comment that I disagree with the above. Personally I have never had anything resolved to any level of satisfaction using the Complaints Process. The majority of the time I haven't even received an acknowledgment that the complaint was received, let alone any resolution.

No names were used above and it opens up for discussion by the entire player base something that was clearly causing hard feelings. The other parties are free to comment here. Misunderstandings happen quite a bit around here because we rely so much on non-transparent decision making and lack of information. Opening these discussions at least allows everyone to have a say and for the possibility of clearing the air.

[Algon]

]

I have to comment that I disagree with the above. Personally I have never had anything resolved to any level of satisfaction using the Complaints Process. The majority of the time I haven't even received an acknowledgment that the complaint was received, let alone any resolution.
.

I would have to agree with this. I have only filed a complaint once or twice and both times was never given any type of acknowledgment. Now this was years ago and with the new regimen I do not think that would be the case anymore .
I would still say that it would be the best thing to do if you are having a problem. That way you would at least be able to say, a compliant was filed formally.

[Brar]

]

I have to comment that I disagree with the above. Personally I have never had anything resolved to any level of satisfaction using the Complaints Process. The majority of the time I haven't even received an acknowledgment that the complaint was received, let alone any resolution.
.

I would have to agree with this. I have only filed a complaint once or twice and both times was never given any type of acknowledgment. Now this was years ago and things could be completely different now. I would still say that it would be the best thing to do if you are having a problem. That way you would at least be able to say, a compliant was filed formally.

Please I don't want to begin a war against the complaint system or any other in place system, as I already stated, it was not supposed to be a complaint so let's close this and can we refocus on the original discussion please? (Don't worry, I still love you all )

And keep the comments coming, it is very interesting.

Thanks a lot,
Brar

edited to corect typos :p

[Algon]

Please I don't want to begin a war against the complaint system or any other in place system, as I already stated, it was not supposed to be a complaint so let's close this and can we refocus on the original discussion please? (Don't worry, I still love you all )

And keep the comments coming, it is very interesting.

Thanks a lot,
Brar

edited to corect typos :p

For clarification, I was in no way complaining about the present system. In fact, I believe that it is running more smoothly than it ever has. Thanks to everyone who has put in the time to fix a lot of these problems like this.

[Lathander]

Derail

Since there are several people posting here about not having complaints acknowledged, I think I'll chime in. I've been head of the complaints team for quite some time and still serve in that role. It isn't possible to have a complaint sent in and not acknowledged. Once we move it from the original posting to our consideration area, an AUTOMATIC PM is sent to the player who posted. That is an e-receipt that it was received. Complaints is not the same as Applications and not everyone who sends something in is notified when it is resolved. It depends on the nature of the complaint.

Players may or may not receive any information beyond that. Sometimes we just deal with the offense, sometimes we don't consider it something that needs imm intervention. Other times the complaint resolves itself or the offending player disappears for a great length of time making the issue moot. Often times we receive posts that aren't true complaints, including a great many that start off with "This isn't really a complaint." We get preemptory responses to complaints that people think others will send in against them - "I know you guys are going to get a complaint against me, so here's my side..." - even though no complaint is then submitted. Currently, there are only 4 outstanding complaints, thanks largely to some much-needed help on the team.

End Derail

I don't see anything wrong with Brar's IC actions. He's a gnome in hidden gnome community protecting his turf. I wouldn't go so far as to say that every PC visiting a racial hometown needs to be proficient with the local language. I do say that IC actions have IC consequences. I don't see why the situation, as Brar described it, could not have stayed and developed into some good RP. Of course, there are other sides to it and I can only comment on what I read above. Nor do I think it is wrong for Brar to post here rather than send in a complaint. It's possible that I misread his post, but I didn't see him chastising anyone in it, just looking for a way to deal with similar situations in the future.

[Raona]

I would ask everyone to take Brar at his repeatedly expressed intention of raising a conversation as opposed to chastising anyone or complaining. I understand the concern about, and have indeed seen in the past situations where people claim to only wish a conversation to ensue but clearly really want to complain or single someone out...but they step out of the shadows and reveal their true intentions quickly enough. Until they do, I prefer to take them at their word. Brar seems to be avoiding that temptation and instead focusing on the general question he raised. Ideally he could have done so without even raising a specific situation, but perhaps that wasn't viable here.

With that - to the topic raised! Brar is giving us a glimpse we don't often get: the experience of a(n effectively) new player, stated publicly. Without more detail about exactly what happened and who said what I am not in a position to present an opinion on the actual events that took place, (and that would be the purview of the Complaints department, in any case) but I take away his point that were he a new player, he would most likely be soured by his experience. It also seems pretty obvious why he took away that impression: whatever his interpretation of the IC events, the OOC things said made the viewpoints of the players themselves readily apparent. All involved thought themselves in the right, unfairly persecuted by others, and dealing with poor roleplayers. When resorting to OOC, they did not employ it as a means of seeking resolution, but rather escalated the conflict and used OOC as a means of categorically arguing for the correctness of their point of view. It's a common turn of events...I'm guilty of it myself, in the heat of frustration and anger. (I was a central player in the aforementioned why-people-avoid-orcs hubbub...maybe I learned something from it; I can but hope so.) But ideally, each party would try to react ICly, and if they just could not get their head around it ICly they would resort to calmly asking for help OOC. To roleplay it:

ICly, if I were being pestered by a hyper gnome while trying to help Golden Oaks, I would likely either stop trying to help them, or chalk up the gnome as mentally unstable. In the first case I would leave, in the second I might, at first, ignore said gnome. If the gnome continued to trouble me, I'd go over his head, say, to Patriarch Namfoodle. (If I didn't know enough about the governance structure of Golden Oaks to know the hyper gnome wasn't in charge, I'd be a fool to assume such, though. For all I knew, he could be the king of the gnomes!) On reaching Namfoodle, I might have to resort to OOC:
A short human says to Namfoodle "Is this your messenger, Patriarch? Would you have us leave the Oaks?"
A short human nods toward a hyper gnome with a querying look
A short human says, OOC "I don't think anyone is about to play the part of Namfoodle, but can we work out what he would do, here?"

This effectively invites in an IC translator (in case there was no commonly reliable language) and OOCly asks for help understanding the situation (and RP motivations) without blaming anyone peremptorily.

A hyper gnome rattles off a massive run-on sentence in gnome to Namfoodle, without once stopping for breath.
A hyper gnome says, OOC "He would likely ask you why you are here, after what I just rattled off to him."
A short human says to Namfoodle "We are here to help you with the goblins attacking your village."
A short human says, OOC "I told him 'We are here to help you with the goblins attacking your village.' "

Alternately, or if that line of meta-RP didn't resolve things, one could turn to OOC more directly, asking for help understanding what's going on. Something like
A short human says, OOC "I don't understand why your gnome would be hostile toward me? I can't make any sense out of it, unless he is insane, and I'm not seeing that in your RP. "
A hyper gnome says, OOC "He's quite sane. He doesn't trust you because he doesn't recognize you, you don't speak his language, and you are armed and standing in his home."
A short human says, OOC "But I'm a Mielikkan, and I just killed a goblin invader!"
A hyper gnome says, OOC "He just sees blood on your blade, and doesn't know what the symbol around your neck stands for."
A short human says, OOC "Wouldn't any gnome know the symbol of Mielikki?"
etc.

That might not lead to a better, happier outcome...but it runs a better chance of such. I recall having that sort of conversation often in pencil and paper games. We were learning the world, after all. Telling someone instead that they have no idea how to RP is like flipping the DM screen over, throwing your dice, and walking out. An opportunity lost.

I'm still short on time so this isn't my best post...I thought about just scrubbing it, but I think on balance it manages the points I really wanted to convey:
1) Give other players the benefit of the doubt
2) Try as hard as you can to stick to IC
3) If you have to resort to OOC, do so in a way that won't make matters worse. Try defuse an OOCly frustrating situation. Don't start with an accusation, arrogance, or anger, it's only the very rare, very calm soul that can respond in a way to de-escalate from that. If you resort to OOC, please assume that the other player wants to have fun, follow the rules, and play well, just as you do.
4) If they make it clear from their OOC statements that such is not the case, file a complaint. The complaint process is not perfect, and communication is one of its weaknesses, but let me assure you that complaints are not ignored, even if the end result is not always well communicated to all of the parties involved.