Need kill scripts back on NPC guards.

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Definately Not A Mimic
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Re: Need kill scripts back on NPC guards.

Post by Definately Not A Mimic » Fri Jul 23, 2021 3:46 pm

If someone tries to guilt you into a slave collar then they are being the bad rper. This is only my opinion but people guilting players into their way is not a good experience. You do have some say in what happens to your character, some choice. You may not like either option given, death or collar, but you do have a choice. And hopefully the other side will give you more options than that as well.

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Party in the forest at midnight
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Re: Need kill scripts back on NPC guards.

Post by Party in the forest at midnight » Fri Jul 23, 2021 3:50 pm

LovelyLightningWitch wrote:
Fri Jul 23, 2021 3:04 pm
Thing is: How do you avoid slaver raids? I've recently visited a friendly settlement where I ran into an old friend, and he warned me against staying inside my own settlement as nothing really protects against such attacks (the magic that I thought I could rely on apparently was removed).

And, reading the forums - you don't even need DM approval for such if you keep it at 3 raiders or less.

I have not ran into PvP yet, but I also play during dead hours. Usually behaviour is either interacting (or trying) to interact with settlement's community on the religious side of RP, or when there's nobody around or my partner is playing, hunt undead as is my character's faith obligation.

Both areas I know of for undead (Skull Crags, Minmir) are located near portals underdarkers use for raids, so it's a matter of time before I have a run in with "Good roleplayers accept the slave collar. You don't want to be gossiped about as a bad roleplayer, do you?" type of people (if for some reason the two of us cannot portal lens out before the encounter).

But let's say I only travel during IG day (which is a challenge with limited playtime, especially when trying to always play in a pair), and avoid night time slaver patrols and stay in settlements during the night focusing on immersion-focused/enhancing roleplay. I could still be doing everything "correct" (unless someone considers the killing of undead antagonistic and requiring punishment) and end up on the receiving end of someone gleefully describing how they mutilate my PC or try to enslave them as a group of 3 or less people decide to "take prisoners" or something.


And I feel I am not being unnecessarily fearful, as trawling the forums had shown me many people using exactly the above in their argumentation (if you're beaten and a good RPer, you accept being enslaved), (Consent and player comfort has no place on Arelith, we're a darwinistic setting), (Story trumps immersion/simulation), (Only poor RPers use -unrelent) and other things I consider worrying. Primarily the one that spoke of social darwinism as a good thing.
If someone tries to shame you into having a slave collar, screenshot and report. That is against the rules and is really, really crappy behaviour. Trying to OOC coerce people to do things is not cool at all, especially if you are not comfortable with it.

The reality of slave RP is lot of it is pre-arranged by players OOC from what I've seen. While IC my character will play up the threat of monsters enslaving people, OOC it's not something you need to worry about. The worst they can do is PK you, and there's very little punishment in that.

While there is an increase in Andunorians prowling the surface, most of it is away from settlements. It's often around the Nexus portal, Arelith forest, and the Dark Spires since people go there for easy runic materials. If you encounter monsters there and can't escape, or they refuse to RP and just want to PK you (feel free to report that too), go back to town and make noise about it. Hang up letters on town message boards. Characters will react to it and will send out patrols. There's a lot of people who really want to be heroes, and hunting and chasing off monsters is the #1 way to be a hero. The Helmites in particular exist to protect people, if you go to them and tell them your problem, they will help out.

If you see a lone monster around a settlement, they're in far more danger than you are, I suggest RPing with them. Or if they're not speaking to you or trying to interact with you, just keep on walking. If you see a bunch of monsters, remember that if they enter a settlement and cause havoc and a DM isn't overseeing it, they're in trouble. If there's monsters outside of town, you can go into town and /s and people will rally together to go engage them.

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Re: Need kill scripts back on NPC guards.

Post by Shadowy Reality » Fri Jul 23, 2021 4:24 pm

The GrumpyCat wrote:
Fri Jul 23, 2021 2:48 pm
Shadowy Reality wrote:
Fri Jul 23, 2021 2:39 pm
How do you justify this? How do you justify all the Elites and non-elite Guard NPCs standing there doing nothing, whenever someone is being murdered in front of them, even worse if it's another guard.
'Mate. You want me to jump into a scrap between two guys, one of which can summon a literal /dragon/ and another of which can implode me with a few words? Hell no I ain't being paid enough for that!'
This is not how it worked in the past. You are saying that so long as I have the mechanical power, I can just do whatever I want in Cordor, because if the PCs around can't stop me, neither can the NPCs. What is the point of having guard NPCs around then if they are not strong enough to challenge PCs?

Isn't this awfully wrong for some sense of immersion? You can apply it to any settlement. Banites can just waltz into Brogendenstein and chill there. Radiant Order can just march into the Hub and put everything to the sword.

I know that it's mechanically possible to do these things, but it doesn't mean we should. Because then those areas, and those NPCs simply lose meaning.

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Re: Need kill scripts back on NPC guards.

Post by UilliamNebel » Fri Jul 23, 2021 4:34 pm

The GrumpyCat wrote:
Fri Jul 23, 2021 2:48 pm
'Mate. You want me to jump into a scrap between two guys, one of which can summon a literal /dragon/ and another of which can implode me with a few words? Hell no I ain't being paid enough for that!'
That is more so cynical than anything.

In the real world, natural disasters and warzones are far more frightening than two adventure's having heated words. In Faerun natural disasters are a lot more terrible than a dragon. Yet normal folk rush to do what they can in those. The 'I am not paid enough' point is just so modernism jaded perspective slipped into a fantasy setting as to be near sophistry.

DM Praxis
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Re: Need kill scripts back on NPC guards.

Post by DM Praxis » Fri Jul 23, 2021 4:35 pm

PCs are welcome to test the limits of suspension of disbelief as to what they can and can't get away with. No, guards can't be reactive and responsive 24/7. Good roleplay is acknowledging that notionally, there are guards and you don't push your luck too hard, or you coordinate with us (and we're happy to help).

If people flout the setting carelessly though, I can promise you that it will catch up to them.

You know. If folks actually report it so we know.

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Re: Need kill scripts back on NPC guards.

Post by DM Praxis » Fri Jul 23, 2021 4:36 pm

UilliamNebel wrote:
Fri Jul 23, 2021 4:34 pm
The GrumpyCat wrote:
Fri Jul 23, 2021 2:48 pm
'Mate. You want me to jump into a scrap between two guys, one of which can summon a literal /dragon/ and another of which can implode me with a few words? Hell no I ain't being paid enough for that!'
That is more so cynical than anything.

In the real world, natural disasters and warzones are far more frightening than two adventure's having heated words. In Faerun natural disasters are a lot more terrible than a dragon. Yet normal folk rush to do what they can in those. The 'I am not paid enough' point is just so modernism jaded perspective slipped into a fantasy setting as to be near sophistry.
Yeah, I agree with you here (nothing personal, Grumpy!). But all of these situations are case by case.

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Re: Need kill scripts back on NPC guards.

Post by Babylon System is the Vampire » Fri Jul 23, 2021 4:50 pm

I said a lot about this already, so I am going to keep this short.

1) Settlements should be safer then they are now. That doesn't mean they should be completely safe, just that more effort should be put into attacking someone in a settlement then what currently happens. Cleary I don't have the proper answers on how to achieve this or my thread on this topic would have gone better, but I hope that we keep striving to get to that point.

2) No one should ever feel safe from pvp. I kind of wish more pvp happened out in the wilds then it does now. If you are running an event that centers on RP, great. Part of that RP should be a contingency plan on what happens if its disrupted by angry halflings, because honestly those are the targets that make sense. Even if the core group of your party, wedding, tournament, whatever don't like pvp you should find players that do and pay them as guards or something, even if the odds are at most 5% you will be attacked. The more varying playstyles interact and overlap, the more we will feel like a community that understands each other instead of beating each other over the head with proclamations of righteousness.

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Re: Need kill scripts back on NPC guards.

Post by The GrumpyCat » Fri Jul 23, 2021 5:40 pm

Praxis does pretty much have it right- but as an excuse why guards don't jump into every pvp that one kinda works? Again if I happened to be on as a DM and saw something go down - maybe I would interfere as the guards? But it would depend very much on the circumstance and, alas the DM team can't be on 24/7

Again though the real meta excuse is that we want to give players an amount of freedom and autonomy to tell their own stories, and trust to their ability to respect the setting, only stepping in when we think things are getting very out of hand.

And honestly so far people seem to be doing that?

I mean the current raid rules have been in for years, and in that time I can probably count on one hand the amount of underdark mass attacks (not even raids) we've had on surface settlments. And even less so unsanctioned ones. I've chatted to the team and in the last... maybe year? We can think of maybe four or five incidents of uders attacking surface settlments, most of which were overseen by DMs.

We've not recieved any complaints of anyone pressuing someone into taking the slave collar and the npc who you speak to to takes it specificaly says, in some ooc warning text, that you can report players for doing so. (EDIT and seriously! If someone tries this on you REPORT IT! Being pressued oocly into such a mechanic is something the team will NOT TOLERATE!!!) So I'm not really seeing this doomsday issue of underdarkers charging into surface settlements to take slaves. It... just doesn't really happenen? And that's fine.

To touch on something else.
Isn't this awfully wrong for some sense of immersion? You can apply it to any settlement. Banites can just waltz into Brogendenstein and chill there. Radiant Order can just march into the Hub and put everything to the sword.
Yes. Absolutly Banites can walk into Brogendenstein and just chill there. Sure? I have no issue with that at all. If Dwarven players don't want that happening should use the exile mechanic, or resort to pvp, or find some other way of persuading them not to.

As for the Radient Heart - the hub is an awful example for this as that's really wierd in terms of our pvp expectations to a point where even I'm not sure I understand it. So lets go with Devils Table instead?

So can the Radient Heart go into the Devils table and kill everything?
Can they kill NPCs? No. Killing npcs without DM oversite is against the rules, and also counts as a raid. They would get punished for this.
Can they kill PCs? Well if there's a huge mass of them going to Devils Table to do this, we would expect a) them to at least try to contact a DM and b) have a good reason for the attack in the first place other than 'I was bored'.

if they made no attempt, or their reasons seemed poor - or even if they did this repeatedly - then we'd probably get involved.

But you know, most of the time folk don't do this. Because most of the time they know to show some of the more blatent aspects of the setting. And because most of the time there'll be large amounts of high level peeps of 'the other side' just chilling- or within close distance - of that area and that they'd be smooshed to a pulp if they tried. Even leaving aside DM Fiat or anything else.
This too shall pass.

(I now have a DM Discord (I hope) It's DM GrumpyCat#7185 but please keep in mind I'm very busy IRL so I can't promise how quick I'll get back to you.)

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Ninjimmy
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Re: Need kill scripts back on NPC guards.

Post by Ninjimmy » Fri Jul 23, 2021 7:32 pm

Everything Zavander and Party have said is right.

We absolutely do not need kill scripts, sole exception of maybe Dis.
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Re: Need kill scripts back on NPC guards.

Post by Anira » Fri Jul 23, 2021 8:11 pm

I can't tell you how scary it is to hear people say that you should never expect to be safe from being attacked on Arelith.

The RW is a scary enough place without having to worry about being attacked in a game by someone who's had a bad day or just likes to grief people. I've watched a few of the PvP encounters between Myon and underdarkers and there was so much more RP that could have gone one instead of just corpse bash/burn the body. Frankly, it was savage. Really savage.

I play to relax in woods and hills where I may experience PvE, but I don't expect to be murdered by random PvP simply for walking through an area. Too much PvP and many times for something as simple as "He called me a name, I'm going to kill him." That is RP? I have had DMs that would have switched your alignment to CE right on the spot for being like that and if it continued, banned.

Had a girl the first days I was on the server just hostile me because she "stomped her foot" and that was supposed to be enough reason to attack me. Throwing a temper tantrum is not enough RP reason to kill a player. Why is your character having a temper tantrum? What about this situation causes your character to be so upset? I never found out. I would have liked to. My character and my partner were told to flee to Myon but we were too low level so we turned around and headed back toward bender and then BAM because I didn't do as I was told. Holy Cow!

Maybe I'm just old and miss the rich and slow development of stories and the progression of characters. I'd really like to see more of that interaction and less smashing. I stay out of cities as much as possible because of the PvP. It really upsets me and it accomplishes nothing since they just respawn and it's like nothing ever happened so I don't really see the point.

TLDR; I think I have a right to feel safe walking from point A to point B without being attacked at random. I should not have to expect it like I do IRL.

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Re: Need kill scripts back on NPC guards.

Post by magistrasa » Fri Jul 23, 2021 8:33 pm

God, I gotta stop looking at this thread before I lose all hope. I'm not sure how we can have a grounded discussion about the server's culture when there's so many comments here that demonstrate such a profound lack of self-awareness. The amount of hyperbolizing and catastrophizing in this conversation has gone from funny, to sad, and then back around full circle to funny again.

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Re: Need kill scripts back on NPC guards.

Post by Watchful Glare » Fri Jul 23, 2021 8:40 pm

ScalesofEquilibrium wrote:
Thu Jul 22, 2021 9:44 pm
Irongron wrote:
Thu Jul 22, 2021 8:43 pm
Also, where is this carnage ridden PvP fest Cordor? I'm often wandering around the city and haven't been caught up in any PvP there for over a decade. If I'd been wading through blood every time I'd walked to the Nomad and back I'd remember.

Please do report PvP if you feel it was poorly executed or broke standing rules. I know that every single such report is discussed and actioned by the team.
I am happy that you have not witnessed such yourself or been forced into as much. That being said - that does not preclude it from happening at all from a lack of witnessing it. A lot of players on here can point back to a few leaderships ago in Cordor, when in succession the following events occured -

- Cordor Guard attacked in the Square.
- State Magi being hunted by various factions, some local.
- Open threats from certain factions toward the Government. Institutions of a rumor campaign encouraging others to seek violence. Some did.
-Threatening messages and home invasions of Cordor Government Officials.
- Cordor Guard attacked in their own barracks by another local faction.
- State Magi attacked in their own meeting then in the Culture District.
- Instances of posturing, warding, and incitement in the square.
- Propped up Charges leading to Court Cases seeking to harm Officials.


This culminated in a request for a community meeting, lead by GC, on the main Arelith Discord. It happened - due in part to the number of complaints. The actions and behavior were all but validated - as perpetrators attacked those who felt targeted, including stating that using OOC restrictions to criticize IC was fine; that PvP used to drive someone away was fine; and that their style of PvP and Conflict was 'enhancing' our stories and that we had to deal with it or leave. Multiple times, GC and other DMs had to ask people to pipe down. Simple requests to simply stop the behaviors or withdraw for a time were met with absolute criticism.

Since that chat, the same behaviors have been carried out against the alts of those who were targeted in the first place - often by alts (or sometimes original) characters of the perps who cultivated the above. Some have attacked the same character on multiple alts. Generally, these attacks involve little to no RP - save the one or two lines required - and no efforts are made to include the victims into any story progression at all.

Just as rumors and chats that didn't involve any of the players/characters in Cordor resulted in things growing hostile and violent - yet again, these same tactics are being used in place of any true 'conflict' RP. People wait outside of doors, stealthed. When a target logs in, suddenly several attackers do. Attacks against Guldorand Officials in the open Square of Guldorand were nearly a daily occurrence. These were often predicated on rumors that more or less sounded like excuses for the behavior - no real substance - no discovery of roleplay behind it. All of this has been reported, by multiple people, often of the same incidents. The answers afforded by staff range from silence, to general responses, to criticisms of the reports themselves - or the admittance that while the behavior is not in the 'spirit' of the rules, it is within the rules, so nothing can be done.

To summarize - the behavior...

- follows characters across alts... specifically victims.
- Involves little to no Roleplaying and absolutely zero consideration for victims.
- Involves easily verifiable false information being used as rumors and justification for violence.
- Involves nasty notices and threats being pinned all over the quarters and storefronts of the victims of these behaviors.
- Involves gank squads waiting and hunting out these PCs within the very limits of the rules. Nearly daily.
- Never involves the victims in any sort of meaningful conflict or progression.

All of these have been reported. All of these have resulted in a response of no or nothing can be done. To continue to spam the words 'report it' mean nothing if this kind of repeated behavior is permitted - exactly what, if at all, crosses the line?

It would be really nice if at least in populated town squares there was some incentive to not gank somebody cause you feel like it or 24 hours have passed.
This is not the first time I hear of it, nor that I've had accounts of such told to me by different individuals. What surprises me is that it is often unrelated people, who come from different places, but the same names keep popping up. I do listen to it, but I reserve my judgement until I have seen it for myself, I know how easy it is for bad rumors to be overblown. It is not always truthful, and sometimes it might be biased, so you should always take anything you hear with a grain of salt. But at some point you do start wondering when it's so numerous.

I also do not like the polarization and oversimplification of a counter argument, that if you are not someone who lives on the edge of the rules but not the spirit of them, then you are also someone who by default enjoys poor RP and... Poorly... Done... Language... Lessons? And you are against all conflicts? What? I don't see what that has to do with anything. Even though our characters have not met or interacted with one another I have written with you before in other servers, and your RP and OOC conduct has always been stellar, even when it meant your character would close and permadie, or risk it, or be at risk of getting absolutely destroyed you wouldn't compromise your RP for it, so this being said that you'd rather there be no conflict at all other than exchanging poetry, or building that strawman as an argument is... A little bit baffling. The hyperbole responses.

Conflict is alright. Skirting the rules to get away with something in a way that benefits no one (OOC coordination, characters logging in just for the purpose of ganking another, then logging out) is not. Specially not when it's repeated behavior. I could get behind the idea of it happening once because it is impactful IC that it must happen and it would make sense that the characters should be there. Alright.

But when it becomes a repeated thing by the same actors? (I believe your post was aimed at voicing the reasons behind your opinion) I do not understand the need to defend it or say that this is not wrong as though one would feel personally attacked by the mention of such. Even just acknowledging "Yeah, if that is so and perceived like that, I can see why that person would be peeved."

Violence is to be expected IC, conflict is to be expected IC. It is the breaching or skirting of the rules that people have an issue with, and if nothing is done about it, the message it sends is 'it's alright to do this'. And so long as you don't act on the same level of someone that is willing to do all of that to win, you will never triumph because you can't force someone to RP. But you can throw a line of dialogue and kill them any time and claim victory. Or repeat it until they leave the server or stop playing that character. Or at worst, if nothing is done but others are punished for the same it gets seen as 'It's not alright for you to do this, but these other people can'.

I imagine that would be the kind of situations where, upon repeated instances, the DMs would just reach out to the player and see if they can tone it down a little or see how to accomplish a resolution to the situation. So far I've perceived that the DMs do want to be that link for the community or that they do care; or at the very least it is their intention to do so, as Irongron mentioned.
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Re: Need kill scripts back on NPC guards.

Post by Batrachophrenoboocosmomachia » Fri Jul 23, 2021 9:02 pm

Anira wrote:
Fri Jul 23, 2021 8:11 pm
I can't tell you how scary it is to hear people say that you should never expect to be safe from being attacked on Arelith.

[snip]

Maybe I'm just old and miss the rich and slow development of stories and the progression of characters. I'd really like to see more of that interaction and less smashing. I stay out of cities as much as possible because of the PvP. It really upsets me and it accomplishes nothing since they just respawn and it's like nothing ever happened so I don't really see the point.

TLDR; I think I have a right to feel safe walking from point A to point B without being attacked at random. I should not have to expect it like I do IRL.
There's a corollary to this that I think you're overlooking - that antagonists should always approach the role of antagonism with both restraint and respect. We're playing on a RP community server in an old video game, and no one here should be out to stress others out.

People should be able to send Tells saying "hey, I'm not super comfortable with the intensity here" and the other person ought to respect that. Everyone has different thresholds, and everyone is going to have to bend a little out of their comfort zone to suit everyone else. Being willing to do that, willing to address it, and willing to respect it is so simple and so huge and when both sides are game, so effective.

We're pretending to be wizards and dwarves and elves, people. Both sides of the discussion here can afford to laugh at themselves and take it down a notch I think.

Done.


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Re: Need kill scripts back on NPC guards.

Post by Ninjimmy » Fri Jul 23, 2021 9:58 pm

Especially since the conversation started with "NPCs should be able to kill PCs automatically" and has now moved on to "Should the server have PvP?" or, the infinitely more baffling, "should we even have conflict?"
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Re: Need kill scripts back on NPC guards.

Post by Party in the forest at midnight » Fri Jul 23, 2021 10:03 pm

Ninjimmy wrote:
Fri Jul 23, 2021 9:58 pm
Especially since the conversation started with "NPCs should be able to kill PCs automatically" and has now moved on to "Should the server have PvP?" or, the infinitely more baffling, "should we even have conflict?"
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Re: Need kill scripts back on NPC guards.

Post by Haroshia » Fri Jul 23, 2021 10:32 pm

Batrachophrenoboocosmomachia wrote:
Fri Jul 23, 2021 9:02 pm

People should be able to send Tells saying "hey, I'm not super comfortable with the intensity here" and the other person ought to respect that. Everyone has different thresholds, and everyone is going to have to bend a little out of their comfort zone to suit everyone else. Being willing to do that, willing to address it, and willing to respect it is so simple and so huge and when both sides are game, so effective.

We're pretending to be wizards and dwarves and elves, people. Both sides of the discussion here can afford to laugh at themselves and take it down a notch I think.
This has been the core of most of the issues that upset people I think. When reaching out like this is met with "You consented to PvP when you logged in" followed by -notells, what is the proper recourse?
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Re: Need kill scripts back on NPC guards.

Post by Zavandar » Fri Jul 23, 2021 10:44 pm

so regarding someone sending me a tell when they don't want to pvp

firstly, i don't really like people messaging me in game to begin with. i'd play with -notells, but i want to be able to tell someone if i have to afk or something like that (and i want others to have the ability to say that to me).

speaking from experience, when someone tells me they don't want to pvp, they don't modify their behavior at all in character. i don't pvp every time i hostile someone. for me, it's less a "declaration of intent" and more a "declaration of possibility". which is how it should be, i think. i very often give outs but don't always (nor am i required to), and i try to take into consideration how the other party is feeling and if they'll derive some enjoyment from it

however

if you send me a tell that you don't want to pvp when what you're doing in character completely contradicts this (antagonizing, not complying, etc), then i don't really see why i should oblige that request. i don't see why i should bend my character to accommodate someone just because they don't want to rp their own character in a vulnerable position.

which i think segues nicely into the root of a lot of people's problems. they don't want to rp their character in a vulnerable position.

as i said earlier in the thread, many of my losses were more memorable than my victories. i created stories out of both. i don't lose pvp often, but this is just as much a product of me taking outs, capitulating, and compromising in character as it is me being mechanically aware of the game out of character. my characters also just do their darnedest to not end up in these situations and, failing that, at least try to not die. but i have seen across the forums and discord lately people saying outright that they will not rp surrendering. then what do you expect?

some people want such narrative control over this server that i think they'd be better off writing books. what's so unique about arelith is that we don't have all the control. there are so many other mediums where you can have that. i used to rp on WoW and if I didn't like someone's RP or their attitude or whatever excuse I felt like having, i could slap them on ignore and not worry about them anymore.

i say this without malice, that if you are so afraid of the potential for pvp or conflict, that you consider a different game. i defend arelith's dynamic so fervently because it's one of the few servers/settings/mediums like it that exist, and removing that will just make it like every other game.
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Re: Need kill scripts back on NPC guards.

Post by Batrachophrenoboocosmomachia » Fri Jul 23, 2021 10:52 pm

Zavandar wrote:
Fri Jul 23, 2021 10:44 pm
[snip]

if you send me a tell that you don't want to pvp when what you're doing in character completely contradicts this (antagonizing, not complying, etc), then i don't really see why i should oblige that request. i don't see why i should bend my character to accommodate someone just because they don't want to rp their own character in a vulnerable position.

which i think segues nicely into the root of a lot of people's problems. they don't want to rp their character in a vulnerable position.


[snip]
I like all your post but that part in particular.

Also, yes, people subject to any antagonism ought to be willing to bend for antagonists too- just to absolutely clarify that I think both sides must be willing to give and take, not that the onus is entirely on the antagonist to make accommodations.

Done.


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Re: Need kill scripts back on NPC guards.

Post by Zavandar » Fri Jul 23, 2021 10:54 pm

Batrachophrenoboocosmomachia wrote:
Fri Jul 23, 2021 10:52 pm

Also, yes, people subject to any antagonism ought to be willing to bend for antagonists too- just to absolutely clarify that I think both sides must be willing to give and take, not that the onus is entirely on the antagonist to make accommodations.
of course. this is what i try to do with outs and other opportunities and stuff. it's just that in my experience, people that message me that they don't want to pvp behave entirely different in game in those moments.
Intelligence is too important

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DM Monkey
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Re: Need kill scripts back on NPC guards.

Post by DM Monkey » Fri Jul 23, 2021 10:58 pm

We don't need kill scripts. We just need players to be a little aware of a few things instead:
- This is a game you play together, which means there are other people playing the game with you.
- The focus of this game is roleplay.
- Conflict arises often in stories, this is bound to happen between player characters, and this is a natural part of the game. PvP sometimes arises from the conflicts in our stories.
- DMs can't be everywhere, but players should also keep in mind that NPCs are not mindless things standing there waiting to be possessed. They are a part of the story too, sometimes as background characters, sometimes as main characters. Just keep a tiny bit of awareness that what you're doing around an NPC can be seen and reacted to (even if it is not).

The DMs really want to tell cool stories. We can also help if bad things happen, but really only if you report them.

Try harder! Help set a good example of roleplay for the server culture.


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-XXX-
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Re: Need kill scripts back on NPC guards.

Post by -XXX- » Fri Jul 23, 2021 11:31 pm

I think that a lot of the OOC tension comes from players miniterpreting the setting to a degree.

It seems to me like those settlements that have some sort of plot armor vibe going are actually being ruled by NPCs while the electable positions available for PCs would equate to a glorified clerk.

So, hypothetically speaking, these elected officials running around and antagnizing everyone left and right, then hiding in their town pretending that they are supposed to be untouchable there sounds very much like disrespecting the setting to me.

Now I'm not saying that a faction shouldn't be antagonizing other characters, but I believe that whether they also happen to be city officials or not shouldn't play such a dominant role in that.

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Marsi
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Re: Need kill scripts back on NPC guards.

Post by Marsi » Sat Jul 24, 2021 12:20 am

Zavandar wrote:
Fri Jul 23, 2021 10:44 pm
if you send me a tell that you don't want to pvp when what you're doing in character completely contradicts this (antagonizing, not complying, etc), then i don't really see why i should oblige that request. i don't see why i should bend my character to accommodate someone just because they don't want to rp their own character in a vulnerable position.

which i think segues nicely into the root of a lot of people's problems. they don't want to rp their character in a vulnerable position.
Such a great post.

People who say you can't avoid PvP on Arelith are wrong. It's totally possible, just very hard when you suffer from main character syndrome.

You don't get to play a political operative, a heroic protagonist, or a witty badass, and wake up from existential encounters like a bad dream. The settlements of Arelith aren't yours to play the Sims with, undisturbed. If there is something at stake, you can't expect to be left alone. If some floating red numbers and then the fugue for a couple minutes is too traumatic for you, then maybe stop mic-dropping in front of Banites.

This is the problem I will always have with safe spaces protected by plot fiat because they become an ivory tower from which cowardly but very vocal players like to coax their antagonists (which are many) into demoralising, unwinnable affairs that graduate into full-blown social cold wars on discord or whatever.

However, I think that conflict at scale should be funneled into a more abstract system. Settlement warfare should be organised, sequential, and anticipated - it shouldn't be a gang literally marching into the town square themselves and clonking people on the head.

Why should the great bell of Beaulieu toll when the shadows were neither short nor long?


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Re: Need kill scripts back on NPC guards.

Post by UilliamNebel » Sat Jul 24, 2021 3:04 am

Marsi wrote:
Sat Jul 24, 2021 12:20 am
This is the problem I will always have with safe spaces protected by plot fiat because they become an ivory tower from which cowardly but very vocal players like to coax their antagonists (which are many) into demoralising, unwinnable affairs that graduate into full-blown social cold wars on discord or whatever.
And how does PvP fix that? Like legit, if things are so sour between players in game to the point of imaginary words spoken are getting things heated, what exactly will a virtual fight after the last bell in the internet school yard do? Or a beatdown if completely one sided PvP? I just do not see how possibility of PvP makes any difference either way with such a case.

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Re: Need kill scripts back on NPC guards.

Post by Zavandar » Sat Jul 24, 2021 3:15 am

one involves interaction and opportunities for counterplay

the other doesn't
Intelligence is too important

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Re: Need kill scripts back on NPC guards.

Post by Party in the forest at midnight » Sat Jul 24, 2021 3:50 am

If issues are that significant, DMs should be involved, PvP or not.

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