Forgotten Kingdoms Forums

Pkill should be made application only and/or cost significant kismet.

You have a significant number of players here who are engaging in pk as sadistic bloodsport. It's almost never a satisfying experience and leads to a great dissatisfaction with the game.

The complaint system has proved unsatisfactory as well in dealing with this. Often pk situations evolve over multiple interactions, not all of them logged. Plus, without the log (maybe even with it), the complaints disappear into a black hole. And frankly I'd rather not play a game than have to log every single interaction with other individuals.

Being evil is not, in my opinion, a license to kill anyone you want. And killing them because they disrespected you or wouldn't obey your instructions to bow or submit to some abuse is OOC gangster nonsense. This is a game with a small community. You know almost every player, whether you are aware of which alt they are currently playing.

The existing rules for pk are not sufficient to keep abuse from happening. I like this game, but to be perfectly honest, if I have to start logging every single interaction with other players then I'd rather spend my time elsewhere.

I've unfortunately gotten into the habbit of logging *everything* myself, since the rules for PvP are often misunderstood, stretched, or just disregarded altogether, like the time that guy and I agreed on km stun when he was really set to spar to mess with the flow of my spells, or that time the dude cast a death spell at me in the middle of Waterdeep's MS with absolutely no OOC warning, or the time that other guy dropped in invisible on me and started attacking with barely any RP, recalled when he was about to lose, and gated back at me after healing and regenning and cast a wail, which he'd said he wouldn't do... And so on... So on...

Personally I'm of the opinion that unrestricted PvP is much more realistic and true to the RP (why on earth would my Kelemvorite just look away when confronted with a wizard commanding a small army of zombies and such? But that's exactly what I've been told to do..) but I also understand it can be a tricky thing when you've got godlike level 50s facing off against average or below average chars... It's realistic, but not fun for most of those on the wrong end of it. And yes, the complaints system, while giving a chance for the wronged to show rule breakers in action, doesn't really do much to solve the problem in my experience.

The rules, for one, are not entirely clear. For instance, a few times lately I've been victim to an invis wizard casting things like deep slumber and other so-called harmless spells from afar, saying that because it does no damage and does not initiate combat, it's not PvP, which I think is completely incorrect. Why would you cast a sleep at a known enemy with any intensions other than to do harm? That's just an example, but I remember plenty other situations in which things just don't go right.

I'm not sure I'd go for the app suggestion... Because that just restricts certain people from acting as they should in some situations (e.g., the zombie thing mentioned above), but kismet cost... Now that's not a horrible idea. After all, the bulk of PvP should be RP, and RP experience is just what kismet theoretically represents. Perhaps using the 'murder' command and casting harmful spells at other PCs could somehow be made to have a kismet cost attached to it. I can think of a few problems with that immediately, but the basic idea is there...

Regardless, the rules most definitely need to be clarified or even changed in some places. There's also the code issue that forces PvPers to go far out of their way to avoid accidental deaths on km stun and so forth... But that's a different topic, I suppose.


P.S., Wow, that was a lot more than I'd intended. Hope it makes some sense...

There should be something, but I don't think it should go so far as to need apps or kismet (that would just cause the appbox to get even more flooded). I think there was an accept system for it back in the day, but there was bugs or something, I don't really remember.

CTRL+L is your friend though. Just configure the logger to append the buffer in case you forgot to hotkey at the start of the waffle, osay a refusal, and RP an excuse to leave. It works everytime and lets you log important stuff without having to weed through 100+ pages of your character killing stuff.

Please keep such discussions constructive.

What specific rules do we feel are unclear, what would be a better wording for them, what changes then to the policy would make it more engaging and fun?

I don't know that there is a way to make PK "fun". Nobody likes dying, most people don't just like to stun, because there is no gratification. We all know that we have to RP it out, and that you can walk away from it is okay too.

I really think short of removing PKing all together that you are never going to please the whole crowd, and that one, or two people will always have a complaint.

Unfortunately in a small setting like ours people are going to disagree, and bump heads aggressively when they do. We have had PK tailored over the last year, or so, and I dont believe we can water it down anymore than it is. Long post short: If you don't want to PK, don't do it.

Kismet, application costs, glory costs, etc. are unnecessary and have been unnecessary since the beginning of FK. This is the responsibility of players here, and we have IMMs to reinforce the rules.

Generally speaking, you are expected to react realistically as your character would. You are expected to give a fair OOC warning that a PK is imminent, and give your opponent the chance to run away, recall, flee and hide, or any other way to escape the situation. No one should feel compelled into a PK situation unless they personally want to partake in it and should be given any chance to RP as such.

There are no excuses for escaping the posted PK rules. Although someone is given the chance to leave and escape a PK, but it does not give anyone an excuse to avoid the rules and escape consequence if they started the hostility.

ie. Bob runs his mouth to Sally, and Sally warns Bob to watch it. She tells him OOC that she's about to slice him up. Bob can either watch his mouth and reconsider his choices or Sally can flay him like a fool after she gives him all applicable chances to flee with his tail between his legs.


Why does it have to be harder than this?
I play one of the most evil, terrible, horrible characters on the MUD and I don't think anyone's ever had an issue with his PKs.

Aldren wrote: Why does it have to be harder than this?
I play one of the most evil, terrible, horrible characters on the MUD and I don't think anyone's ever had an issue with his PKs.

Not everyone follows the rules so well, unfortunately... And imms can't be expected to watch over everyone's PvPs while they've so much else to do. I think something else to enforce good RP and keeping to the posted rules in PK situations would be a help. Just don't know what that might be.

Aldren wrote:
ie. Bob runs his mouth to Sally, and Sally warns Bob to watch it. She tells him OOC that she's about to slice him up. Bob can either watch his mouth and reconsider his choices or Sally can flay him like a fool after she gives him all applicable chances to flee with his tail between his legs.


Why does it have to be harder than this?
I play one of the most evil, terrible, horrible characters on the MUD and I don't think anyone's ever had an issue with his PKs.

(included only the relevant parts of your post I wanted to address.)

I had a weaker, lower level character killed because I refused to participate as the victim in torture-mutilation. Minimal roleplay other than "you move, you die" and they ambushed me while I was xping solo, starting off with the aggressive attack of dimensional anchor. Not only was I then killed, but I was resurrected and attacked twice more.

You have a subset of this playerbase who log on LOOKING for pk and will take any excuse to administer it. "Mouthing off" to them is going to be any failure to submit completely to them.

As for your playing evil, there's a noticable difference when the person behind the character is actually a decent human being who wants to have fun in the game and let others have fun as well. We have plenty of players on the "good" side who go around spoiling for a fight and look forward to logging in and brutalizing some "evil" players.

It has nothing to do with the character and everything to do with the person at the keyboard.

Y'all need to decide what kind of game you want to play, because you have some real problems right now.

Aldren wrote: Why does it have to be harder than this?
I play one of the most evil, terrible, horrible characters on the MUD and I don't think anyone's ever had an issue with his PKs.

We need to talk to each other, because it's really as simple as that.

I do think stun should be used more often, even if they're people you loathe and want to see dead. It's always easier to recover and lick your wounds from an "Oh man, I almost died." event as compared to a "I died, now I have to recover my crap, and then recover from the death, and then recover the level lost from it."

Would you (general question) want to be in the latter position? No.

Lylena wrote: I do think stun should be used more often, even if they're people you loathe and want to see dead. It's always easier to recover and lick your wounds from an "Oh man, I almost died." event as compared to a "I died, now I have to recover my crap, and then recover from the death, and then recover the level lost from it."

Would you (general question) want to be in the latter position? No.

I ran into a drow the other day in the UD. I was playing my dwarf. He and I were both moving around on foot and you know how stamina is down there. We just had the bad luck to end up exhausted in each other's rooms in the middle of nowhere.

He emoted that he was hidden in the rocks and I emoted that I failed to see him. Problem solved. No difficult corpse retrieval for either of us and we don't have to bother with random, anonymous pk when both of us clearly had other crap we wanted to be doing.

I have stated before and I'll state it again ... pk should be reserved for complex character development. That's how I do it. I pk with my buddies after a handful of otells and PM's detailing how it will go down. It's as staged as pro-wrestling when I do engage in it, but at least I know that the other person isn't coming away from it with bad feelings.

There are plenty of pk muds out there where you can go murder people and epeen about how uber you are. Not any need for that.

FK is particularly wonderful because of its RP. Part of that RP is the tension between rivaling faiths, races, guilds, etc. Sadly, this fun little drama of our imaginations would not be nearly as moving and captivating without PK. Consider your favorite books or movies and the plotlines therein.

That being said, I will have to agree that the rules are too regularly abused without repercussion. I and my partner have been victim to unannounced PvP previously. If things remain as is, the victim is burdened by the loss of level, time, possible loot, and fun - only when these matters are initiated inappropriately. I say this, because on the other hand I have been in PvP situations where I found myself otelling my murderer with how simply awesome the entire scenario played out.

So, there is my statement of support for this topic. Here is my suggestion to add...

Don't punish the victim. Do not punish a player for being weak and participating. This includes the loss of level/experience in PvP and the cumbersome reclaiming of a corpse. In the event of a fatal PvP, perhaps the character could be resurrected as they are at levels 1-10 under the assumption that his/her deity has graced them with a chance for vengeance/justice. I don't see too great an issue with the 1-item souvenir for the victor, so long as this remains limited and unabused.

There should be a cost for murder. Too often there is no IC penalty and no OOC reason to question one's homicidal tendencies. Kismet, perhaps, would be an appropriate currency only under the assumption that much RP should be involved before PK and that Kismet is intended to be reflective of RP/effort involved. Another option is a separate tracker entirely that is based either on time, rewards from others, quests completed, etc.

That's my two coppers!

To be fair to the original poster though... I don't think they meant that they have an issue with normal PK procedure, just the Joker-style evils and burning-times crusaders that use reasons like, "You did not grovel before me." or "My detect align tells me you're evil, prepare to die." to roam around on the offensive looking for PKills.

I only pkill for very rare faith instances. Event set up for players to kill one another. If I am cheated or wronged, and before/after warn the player for such I will be hunting them for the purpose to kill or maim.
I do not seek out reasonless killing, or ego-driven bloodsport.
I think that reasonless pkill is a minor thing in this game.

Lots of good points of view in this thread! And so I feel obligated to drop my two coppers in, for whatever they're worth. I've played a variety of alts over the years, from good to evil, and of various races/classes etc. I've been involved in a few pk, mostly ending in a mutual agreed upon stun, a very, very few ending in an actual death. I agree completely, that PK situations ought to always be agreed upon prior to the actual event. But, this is a game, a RP oriented game. And not everyone is going to rp the way I might, or he/she might. It's what makes it fun, I think. That very variety of input from so many gifted players, doing so many different things at random times, just makes me love this game more. I've gotten hammered in pk a few times, completely pwned, you might even say, several times. Though I didn't particularly enjoy that part, I welcomed the rp of it all. Some, both good and evil char's, as have been pointed out, seem to be more dedicated to the pk than others, that's their right, I think, and I feel that as things stand currently, we should leave the rules alone on the pk front, at least. Just my opinion on the matter

I never send out ooc messages about imminent pkill, because I don't aim to be in such situations by choice. In fact, I am repulsed by pk and hate having to do it or participate in it. I think in all the pk situations over the years, I have triumphed twice and lost more times than I could count. I will usually accept pk that follows the rules, pk that comes with a lengthy rp. But I do not enjoy pk attached or planned ocly. I much rather enjoy honing my skills to deal with mobiles.

I like the idea of having an accept or decline function for pk or having arenas for pk only or areas in game that allow it and other places that will not.

I feel like the problem with pkill is that it's disappointing for both parties. In the FR books that we all read and enjoy, time slows down and speeds up to match the pace of battle. The characters can dance around each other, trade blades and kicks, and then stop to yell stuff at each other, further driving the story. Remember the fight between Zak and Drizzt before Drizzt was sent to Melee-Magthere? Yeah, that's the kind of fight I want.
Here in the MUD, time moves at the same pace. The two mortal enemies stand there and hack at each other until one of them dies. There's no fun in that.

Terageld wrote:I feel like the problem with pkill is that it's disappointing for both parties. In the FR books that we all read and enjoy, time slows down and speeds up to match the pace of battle. The characters can dance around each other, trade blades and kicks, and then stop to yell stuff at each other, further driving the story. Remember the fight between Zak and Drizzt before Drizzt was sent to Melee-Magthere? Yeah, that's the kind of fight I want.
Here in the MUD, time moves at the same pace. The two mortal enemies stand there and hack at each other until one of them dies. There's no fun in that.

It's quite fun to go into spar mode and then roleplay out what the previous round's RNG gave you. The problem is that you're only going to want to do that with your buddies, and it puts a lot of class types at a pretty severe disadvantage. But even losing such a fight or being forced to retreat is fun. Except when you're retreating having lost an arm or two and can't pick up your fallen weapons.

What is not fun is having 2 or more other players of an opposing faith magic mirror you, astral walk in, and either kill you or try to kill you for having animated dead, or being an opposite faith, or being in their forest .... all situations that people have told me about recently.

Maybe we're to blame. Maybe we're not making it clear enough to the few aggressive types that we will not accept non-consensual pkill and we're not complaining about it enough when it happens.

I'm going to have to disagree with you, Ungtar. Those "examples" you gave are seriously lacking in context, I've been on both sides of that sort of situation before, and there's always more to it than "random magic mirror, hey look X is doing Y, let's astral!".

I don't really understand this kind of "There can be no conflict!" mindset. If we're really all here to play a role, why in the world are we getting upset when things don't go well for us? Isn't that the whole point? If I'm playing an orc, I really don't want an hour of warnings and OOC consideration before he's knocked out of Ardeep. As it is, PVP is so heavily regulated that that's likely to happen without putting even tighter restrictions on it.

If you're roleplaying a degenerate necromancer, and have not been careful about it to the point that other characters are aware of what you're doing, why do other people need to turn a blind eye when they're playing a character who abhors such things? There's no IC sense to, say, a Kelemvorite ignoring it just to ensure someone's fun isn't spoiled. Same to playing a character of an opposing faith, or going somewhere you shouldn't be. My point, I guess, is that you chose the role you're playng. You should have considered the negatives of that role at creation, and you should be able to find some enjoyment in playing those facets if roleplay is actually your focus.

I'm pretty well against making this MUD a safe space for us all to play out our power fantasies without repercussion. IC actions should have IC consequences, and I'm sorry if your character's on the losing end of that, but running to, and advocating running to, an OOC solution(complaints board) every time it happens is quite simply insane, and waters down the process for real complaints.

I'm not even the type to go immediately for aggression at the drop of a hat. Hell, I've been on the losing side of a great many PKs, and not all of them have felt 50/50 fair. The only time I ever go to complaints is when something's actually been shady. "non-consensual pkill" is the most ridiculous term I've ever heard. If you don't want to be involved, extricate yourself from the roleplay and character that got you there. Don't "RP" a character that's intentionally contrary, and then pin blame on other people for responding realistically. The OOC warning is to let you know it's likely to go down, not to get your consent.

(I don't know where to put this, but in response to the quoted from an earlier post:

You have a subset of this playerbase who log on LOOKING for pk and will take any excuse to administer it. "Mouthing off" to them is going to be any failure to submit completely to them.

Sometimes, you'll just run into people of such extreme ego that failing to submit to them is, in their mind, worthy of death. Okay..? Do we need to measure every character by the same stick?)

As the rules are now, there have been times even in recent memory where I've felt like, "my character should have attacked by now". Instead, in almost every instance I've been involved in a PVP, I've gone to painful lengths to make it clear where things are headed. To be honest Ungtar, I've always felt like faith-vs-faith is one of those exceptions, where I don't mind moving quicker to PK when a Cyricist's mouthing off. Just let these things evolve naturally.

Anyway, the only reason I'm even posting is to oppose this sort of appeal-to-emotion argument demonizing a strawman PVP'er used at the end of last post. We really don't have a problem in FK with hyper-aggro PVP'ers, and tightening the rules on it even more sounds like a simply awful idea.

My two(scattered) cents.

If I put your two cents and my two cents together we've got a nickel.

I guess I agree with some of what you said. First I'll address the part I disagree with.

No, playing a necro or a follower of an "evil" god shouldn't be a death sentence whenever you run into someone of an opposing faction. And I disagree that those are justifiable reasons for a pk. You want to play a Kelemvorite and kill necromancers, there are plenty of NPC necros for you to kill without going out and killing some level 16 dude who just learned animate dead. Just like there are plenty of NPC goblins to kill without murdering the one player goblin who wandered too far away from the orc camp.

What you're saying about choosing roles can go both ways. You can be just as easily murdered by evils for choosing to follow a "good" god.

I have been informed repeatedly that this is a consensual-pk only game. And my understanding of that means that no matter your faith or racial choices, you cannot just be murdered. Even if it would be good roleplay for the other person's character to do so. So, as I understand it, if you say "prepare for pkill" and they say "no", then that means it's done. Over. One of you should leave. And that's probably the person who is in the least IC spot for their character to be (a Malarite in Ardeep or a Ilmater in Zhentil Keep, etc.)

So IF that's the way the game is played, and if violations of that are a reportable and punishable offense via complaints, then I would agree with you that there doesn't seem to be any need for further rules or restrictions.

EDITED TO ADD:

So it seems like we've got two understandings of the rules and there needs to be a final ruling. Do all pkills have to be consensual? Or not?

Here is my take on it. Yes, it has to be agreed upon. But if you are doing something that ICly would get you killed, you cannot just be like OOC...Nope, don't wanna...and expect it to be dropped.

If a Malarite walks into Ardeep and starts trouble...if you are warned its about to be a PK situation, you have two choice...Run away or fight. There is not, I am going to stay here, but I don't agree to a PK.