The Wangrod Defense

[Borin Drakkmurl]

Just saw this short video, and a lot of it easily applies to Arelith and seems important these days, from stuff like player conflict and even rpr.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoYR3eCFqoA

[Born on a mountain, raised in a cave]

Matthew Colville might well be my favourite creator of DnD content on youtube.

I will agree that the video you linked is universally applicable, maybe even outside roleplay/game environments.

[The GrumpyCat]

That's a great video, and very applicable.

[Nymann]

This one... is exactly one of the "issues" right now :S Hope people will watch it and rethink their actions

I like it, thanks for posting!

[Astral]

Thanks for posting this! It's really important!

[CosmicOrderV]

This issue is a double edged sword. At the end of the day, if someone isn't having fun, part of that is their own choice. When they choose to get upset, that is their choice. As has been said in other threads: the only one we have control over is ourselves.

There's a tough line to draw, introducing legitimate conflict and negativity into a story, versus being 'toxic'. If one is not overly attached to their character and what occurs to them, then when 'negative' things occur in none grievous methods, there shouldn't be an issue. But people complain anyways because they mix IC and OOC too much. By saying that any behavior that makes another person 'miserable' or ruins their 'fun' is bad, we open the door to others jumping immediately to misconstrued reports to DM's in order to preserve their own ego and sense of control. At which point, the amount of people having fun, by virtue of arelith's roleplay quality, is going to steadily decline to the point of so many other RP'ing communities (see GW2, SWTOR, AA, WoW).

[The GrumpyCat]

This issue is a double edged sword. At the end of the day, if someone isn't having fun, part of that is their own choice. When they choose to get upset, that is their choice. As has been said in other threads: the only one we have control over is ourselves.

There's a tough line to draw, introducing legitimate conflict and negativity into a story, versus being 'toxic'. If one is not overly attached to their character and what occurs to them, then when 'negative' things occur in none grievous methods, there shouldn't be an issue. But people complain anyways because they mix IC and OOC too much. By saying that any behavior that makes another person 'miserable' or ruins their 'fun' is bad, we open the door to others jumping immediately to misconstrued reports to DM's in order to preserve their own ego and sense of control. At which point, the amount of people having fun, by virtue of arelith's roleplay quality, is going to steadily decline to the point of so many other RP'ing communities (see GW2, SWTOR, AA, WoW).

I think the disconnect here is that this guy is talking about Pen and Paper, about dealing with a small group of other people. Where as we're dealing with a server wherein your actions can effect dozens of others whom you may never even run into.

I still think it's basicaly valid, but at the same time you're right in that there will be situations wherein your character must do something that may result in someone else being unhappy.

On the whole I think it still holds some validity in the baisic idea. - Where possible you should seek not to ruin someone elses fun. That being said sure, there are times when you'll do something that may make someone else unhappy, and sometimes said person has to sigh, buckle down, and accept that. There's something to be said about remembering it's just a game, and not all of it will be fun for you. Sometimes stuff you don't like happens, and the best you can do is either let it pass, or try to make fun out of it.

But that also being said, in many situations there's nothing wrong with asking yourself, 'Do I really need to do this? Is this fun for the other player? Is there any way I can make it fun for the other player? If it's not fun for the other player(s) should I really -carry on- doing this?'

Again I do kinda agree, sometimes you have to do things that you know may mean that some players are upet, but which will make other players (and yourself) happy. That's fine. But trying to think of ways to make it fun for them, or at least avoiding the same action over and over, is still worth doing IMO.

[xanrael]

I think if people either have the mindset of "how do I make sure I win" or "how do I make sure I don't lose" they're way more likely to end up running afoul of the DMs. I know DM Grumpycat said "make it fun" but I think another way to word it is "make it engaging".

This may seem dumb, but I remember when I played Eve Online and our pirate/WH corp did horrible things to other groups; infiltration and betrayal, PvP in the most mean way possible costing RL years of their work, etc. A simple statement would often greatly change whether they were likely to quit the game after that. "We were hired to do this to you". Saying that brought them into a [false] narrative where their activities prior had mattered to others enough to hire mercs. It created a story where they were the protagonist, one that had suffered greatly, but still the protagonist and they felt invested in it despite losing nearly everything.

I'm not saying you would want to copy these methods on Arelith as you'd probably be banned in 60 seconds flat for curb-stomping the "Be Nice Rule". I do think you can weave a story of conflict where your counterparts become engaged and feel they are an important piece of it without having to play a carebear.

[A little fellow]

RPing with people is sometimes a really delicate balance, it is tough to disassociate ourselves with the characters we play, and it is easy to inadvertently trample on other character's stories to further that of your character's story - and it is easier still to willingly trample on another character's story (so don't do it!).

At the same time, you are often faced with other characters who inadvertently or willingly attempt to trample over your characters story, and if this occurs you are within your rights to not comply with their actions or to defend yourself against them if you feel they are only serving themselves.

I think unless a story between two or many characters is reaching a climax, every confrontation should be had on the understanding that BOTH stories need to be given room to breathe, and you should be looking as much to contribute to the continuation of your opponents story than you should be looking to contribute to your own. That requires an element of trust between two players and likely two factions .. which isn't easy to come by these days it seems, because there are A LOT of players who will take a mile if you give them an inch, but the way I think about it .. if you are willing to trust the player opposite you may be taken advantage of and burned, but you may also open yourselves up to some really healthy and compelling RP. If you are unwilling to trust anyone but those you're friends with OOCly you're a part of the problem.


As for major conflicts - when I was leader of a settlement I suggested to other settlement/faction leaders that major faction conflicts should predominantly take place on a set battlefield, with a set time and date that both would OOCly agree to .. which allows for the appropriate parley and posing before hand so there is a fill of RP. I thought doing things this way would make it easier for stories to progress because these conflicts could have definable winners and losers who have to RP accordingly.

Nothing like that ever really came about, regrettably, but it wasn't because faction leaders were unwilling by any stretch of the imagination, infact it was an idea with a bit of support. But the idea behind it was that it would do away with the tendency of players and factions to overhype their victories and underplay their defeats until a conflict stagnates completely.

Anyway, I'm rambling. Trust each other is the most important thing.

[Face]

^^^^^^
Little fellow's post should be required reading at the moment

[Mr_Rieper]

*everything*

Anyway, I'm rambling. Trust each other is the most important thing.

Amen. Trust is necessary for respect, and respect for one another is what every community absolutely needs. If you cannot trust the people you are RPing with to act reasonably, you will not want to respect their actions or decisions. This is why we have rules that we all agree to BEFORE we start playing on the server. This is why the Be Nice rule is rule #1, because "be nice" doesn't necessarily mean "let the other guy win all the time". It means "be respectful". You can have conflict between characters with both players being respectful of one another. As Matt Colville in the video says, you can have the rogue antagonising the cleric without disrespecting and annoying the player.

Trust is the first step to all of this. We need to trust the DM and admin team when they make decisions. And they must be deserving of this trust first, make no mistake. We are all players here, even the staff. Between players, between staff and between the entire community, things must be worthy of trust - and eventually, the respect will be earned. Demonstrate to others that you intend to act in good faith. Act like somebody worthy of trust. Don't make excuses for bad behaviour, hold everyone to a standard.

[Subutai]

I think one of the issues, and one that's perhaps something that could be solved more easily than just getting everyone to be friendly and nice OOC, is the bitterness that arises from what is essentially a lack of real consequences of a character being a wangrod. Very often, especially, the players who are the biggest "offenders" in this case (I put that in quotes because I don't necessarily want to cast them as the villains, since it can be a complicated and nuanced topic) are also players who put a lot of emphasis on having the very best builds. The problem with this is that having an extremely powerful build can make a character almost entirely immune to any sort of consequences or retribution.

Arelith has, from what I've seen, very, very few significant, permanent consequences for any kind of action that isn't an OOC violation. The only real consequence (other than maybe getting exiled) is getting into PVP. If your character runs into the middle of the city and starts killing people over petty things, if it's not in violation of PVP rules, there's no real consequence except having to fight other characters. If they murder politically powerful characters time after time, the same. Almost any kind of IC action never has any kind of consequence attached, except for other characters attacking yours.

This can lead to a major issues when the character doing the initial attacking has a monstrously powerful build. If almost no other characters have better builds than your character, and especially if you're really good at PVP *and* have a monstrously powerful build, there's pretty much no consequences at all. If your character is being hunted by everyone from half the cities, so what? You'll beat them in PVP anyway.

This kind of thing can be extremely frustrating and embittering for people on the other side, because there's nothing they can do, really at all. There's no one they can go to IC, there's no punishment, there's no retribution. It's just a constant slog of losing. Maybe, sometimes, they'll get lucky. Maybe their group of 6 will catch your character resting, and initiate PVP before you can rebuff. Maybe you'll just be overpowered by a bunch of other powerbuilds. But the end result isn't very different. You die once in a while, and in the meantime, you can essentially do whatever you want, because without an extremely concerted effort on the part of lots of players, you can get away with anything, as long as a whole bunch of other players aren't completely prepared for your character to show up at any possible moment.

The only real consequence on Arelith is losing in PVP, and if your build is exceptionally hard to beat in PVP, you can be assured that you'll almost never suffer any consequences at all. Everything else is extremely minor and temporary, if it could be called a consequence at all. Even being exiled from a city or being hunted is only a minor consequence, when the likely result of ignoring it is PVP, which you'll win 9 times out of 10.

There are a number of solutions to this, but they all hinge on one or two key things: Changing Arelith's cultural fixation on PVP being the end-all be-all of conflict, and changing the idea that significant punishments for characters only come as a result of OOC violations, or at the explicit request/permission of the affected character. If a character is imprisoned in some deep, impenetrable dungeon for two years for their crimes, perhaps they lose levels from the lack of exercise and nutrition. If a character constantly murders politically powerful and important characters in the middle of a city, perhaps they're immolated and their soul destroyed by great magics, unable to be resurrected.

I'm not saying these suggestions are right, or the only possibilities, but I think some kind of permanent repercussions wouldn't always be unreasonable. These wouldn't be something one player could just do to another player on a whim. It would have to require a concerted effort, DM involvement, etc., and certainly involve some kind of prior warnings that such a fate could be impending for your character if you kept doing things like that. But overall, it may add some consequences to characters who, under the current systems/culture, essentially have free reign to do anything they please, which can leave a very bitter taste in the mouths of others who can never hope to do anything about it.

[CosmicOrderV]

Just by reading a few of your posts Subutai, I'm excited to roleplay with whatever characters you might have right now. I think you couldn't be more right.

With talks of the food/water system, someone always mentions buffs for eating. When assassins gained the ability to take out elected officials, people immediately complained. Death penalties have been significantly reduced since back in the day.

At the heart of all these issues is people not wanting to relinquish control, and not wanting to accept consequences for their characters. Then they go mask that insecurity with language that paints offenders as griefers. It's the dark that makes the light brighter. The struggle that makes the victory epic. We NEED consequences. More of them. Not less. This was another reason I think citizen storage and the expanded warehouse were great ideas. It gave a reason to participate as an IC community, and meant being exiled, you would lose those things.

[Ork]

Let's digest.

the players who are the biggest "offenders" in this case (I put that in quotes because I don't necessarily want to cast them as the villains, since it can be a complicated and nuanced topic) are also players who put a lot of emphasis on having the very best builds. The problem with this is that having an extremely powerful build can make a character almost entirely immune to any sort of consequences or retribution.

In this statement two assertions are stated as fact: 1) there are no consequences outside of PvP & 2) powerbuilders are immune to consequences. First, we play a roleplaying game. In this roleplaying game, the majority of players derive enjoyment from playing a role. We also enjoy playing a role around other people playing a role. We don't roleplay within a vacuum.

In addition, there are many players that enjoy the mechanics of the game. Some of us enjoy the mechanics of this game, some of us could care less. There are excellent roleplayers in either groups, and there are the opposite in both groups. To state that all powerbuilders are wangrods is a hasty generalization.

The only real consequence (other than maybe getting exiled) is getting into PVP.

Since we all play a role in a community, the only consequences there are two kinds of consequences that should matter: 1) consequences at the result an in game event and 2) consequences meted out by DMs based on the rules we all abide by when we log on. In the first category, the player has full agency over what sort of consequences might stick and make an impact on their future RP. PvP can be that event, but players also have the agency to ignore or disregard that PvP. A great roleplayer might not always enjoy the circumstances that their characters are thrust into, but will always make those engagements meaningful to them and their future roleplay. DM consequences are solely a result of players failing to abide by the rules they've already agreed to by logging on. Naughty.

If your character runs into the middle of the city and starts killing people over petty things, if it's not in violation of PVP rules, there's no real consequence except having to fight other characters. If they murder politically powerful characters time after time, the same.

Let's glance back at DM consequences. We all joined Arelith and abide by the 5 rules. Sometimes we might have questions on how that plays out, but we all agreed to abide by them. Notably the "Be Nice" rule comes into effect here. Could a player kill a political rival over and over and over again every 24 hours and abide by the PvP rules? Sure. But, if that behavior persists without the concern of political rival's player, there becomes a breech of the "Be Nice" rule. So is there a consequence for players that constantly PvP without concern for their fellow player? Yes. It's a DM consequence.

This can lead to a major issues when the character doing the initial attacking has a monstrously powerful build. If almost no other characters have better builds than your character, and especially if you're really good at PVP *and* have a monstrously powerful build, there's pretty much no consequences at all. If your character is being hunted by everyone from half the cities, so what? You'll beat them in PVP anyway.

Every class combination and action in game back be countered and defeated. I'd challenge you to find a scenario where one individual character will win in every situation. If you are the victim of a character that is significantly more powerful than you, roleplay to garner the assistance necessary to defeat this character. If you're recruiting all level 5s to defeat a level 30, that's going to be a problem. If you are being constantly beaten by a level 30 character, I would approach them OOC to see if you can come to some agreement. If agreements can't be met, and you're being killed every 24 hours, then report. We are back at DM consequences here.

This kind of thing can be extremely frustrating and embittering for people on the other side, because there's nothing they can do, really at all.

There is plenty you can do. You can roleplay to find solutions. You can roleplay to garner allies. You can roleplay to accept defeat and change your character's roleplay to represent that. Players agreed to the rules when joining Arelith, and most people would agree that if their victim accepted defeat in a meaningful way that there would be little reason to PvP again.

The only real consequence on Arelith is losing in PVP, and if your build is exceptionally hard to beat in PVP, you can be assured that you'll almost never suffer any consequences at all.

There are consequences that do not include PvP: roleplay consequences and DM consequences. PvP should be treated like roleplay. Once again, every player has agency over if the consequence changes their own roleplay. Excellent roleplayers do this every time.

Changing Arelith's cultural fixation on PVP being the end-all be-all of conflict

I've argued that PvP isn't the end-all be-all. The end-all be-all is excellent roleplay.

changing the idea that significant punishments for characters only come as a result of OOC violations, or at the explicit request/permission of the affected character.

If we had harsher mechanical punishments, we would be reinforcing the wrong thing. Consider how Arelith would change if suddenly if your character died it was perma-killed. All players would become interested in making the best build possible for survival, and all players would either have a deep hatred for PvP (a roleplay tool) or band together to perma-kill characters they did not like. Sounds like a bad idea.

If a character is imprisoned in some deep, impenetrable dungeon for two years for their crimes, perhaps they lose levels from the lack of exercise and nutrition.

Boring. Who would keep playing that character?

If a character constantly murders politically powerful and important characters in the middle of a city, perhaps they're immolated and their soul destroyed by great magics, unable to be resurrected.

Also boring and stupid. That's not a logical or reasonable consequence.

I'm not saying these suggestions are right, or the only possibilities, but I think some kind of permanent repercussions wouldn't always be unreasonable. These wouldn't be something one player could just do to another player on a whim. It would have to require a concerted effort, DM involvement, etc., and certainly involve some kind of prior warnings that such a fate could be impending for your character if you kept doing things like that.

We have something similar to what you're suggesting. DM consequences. It happens when a player breaches the rules.

But overall, it may add some consequences to characters who, under the current systems/culture, essentially have free reign to do anything they please, which can leave a very bitter taste in the mouths of others who can never hope to do anything about it.

If you are left a bitter taste in your mouth about PvP or roleplay, log off and really analyze the source of that frustration. Was it the fact that you lost? Shrug it off, losing happens. There's roleplay to do. Is it because your opponent cheated? Report and let the DMs sort out if there was a breach of rules. Is it because the roleplay was lacking? This is your time to SHINE. Be the change you want to see, and really ham it up with badass roleplay.

Conclusion, I found your post a whopping load of logical fallacies and didn't agree with a single point you made. I hope my arguments were understandable, clear and persuasive in why powerbuilding does not equal wangrodery.

[CosmicOrderV]

Ork all you did was state what's generally known. None of your statements counter the quotes above them. The issue is that because players have so much say over which consequences may effect them, a player can elect to not be effected at all, and therefore, there is effectively no consequence.

Maybe I misunderstood Subutai, but I don't think powerbuilding equating to wangrodery was the point. Merely that, in an easily obtained circumstance, it's very easy to shrug off almost all consequences. You see it commonly in cliques. They don't care about the rest of the community at large, they just grow insular, and roleplay with each other. The only consequences they see are those among them selves, and what PvP encounters might find them.

[Subutai]

[Ork's post]

To start off, I'll say that, since I'm not quoting your post in full, please feel free to say something if I misrepresent any of your points. I don't intend to.

Now, first things first for my main response, I want to address your overarching statement that not all powerbuilders engage in wangrodery by clarifying that I never said, nor intended to say, that all powerbuilders do so. That's very obviously far from true. However, it is not far from true to say that there are some players who leverage their extremely powerful builds in order to engage in wangrodery. Those players who simply like to powerbuild, but do not engage in wangrodery, aren't the focus of my post.

Additionally, I'll clarify that my post isn't about singular PVP events. If a character is beaten in PVP, there's nothing more to it, as a standalone event. They were beaten in a fight. It happens. There's no reason to be upset, or call the other player a griefer, or anything else. Rather, my post focused on the aforementioned players whose characters engage in wangrodery on a regular and consistent basis, to the point that they become a nuisance and detriment to large numbers of players, who, as I stated in my post, either have the option to constantly lose whenever that character chooses to show up, or to constantly have a group together that's powerful enough to beat them, at any point that that character decided to engage them in PVP.

Lastly, I want to focus on what seems to amount to the middle points of your post, which is essentially what my original post took issue with in the first place, which is the lack of permanent consequences for large-scale, repetitive actions. This doesn't only have to do with powerbuilt characters who engage in wangrodery, but with any characters that consistently prove themselves to be egregious, blatant, and obvious antagonists in situations that would, were it not for the fact that we're playing a game with no permanent consequences, absolutely be something that would result in those consequences.

Your primary issue seems to be that the player of the character guilty of these actions wouldn't want that result, and that the results would be boring. This is where we disagree, perhaps on principal. To me, what a player wants to happen to their character should only extend so far. From a powerbuild perspective, if I play a drow male who responds to mistresses and matrons asserting their authority by killing them, then at some point, I don't think it's entirely up to me whether I want my character to face harsh repercussions, particularly if I knew those repercussions were forthcoming. My character should know there would be harsh consequences, me, as a player, also do. If I choose to continue, that's my own choice, and that's my consent to the harsh consequences.

So that this isn't entirely about powerbuilds, if I were to make a gnome alchemist who sets off explosions and tries to blow up government buildings in Cordor, the same is true. A harsh punishment, such as the character actually permanently being killed off, isn't unwarranted, in my opinion, and if I'm made aware of the fact that continuing to do these IC actions will lead to consequences like that, then by continuing to do it, I'm giving my consent.

Obviously, you may not agree with this, and that's fine.

[Xerah]

I've actually seen other players RP imprisonment for RL months; though I can't imagine that wouldn't ever happen on Arelith. People came to visit him in prison and he was making changes from there.

For me personally, I had a character get flesh to stoned in PvP and I just RPed that it lasted forever until some other characters OOCly messaged me to see if I wanted to bring them back (a few years later).

Both of those things were really cool player decisions and I wish more things like that would happen on Arelith.

[Mr_Rieper]

Conclusion, I found your post a whopping load of logical fallacies and didn't agree with a single point you made. I hope my arguments were understandable, clear and persuasive in why powerbuilding does not equal wangrodery.

Ork that was not the point of the post at all. Why come into the thread with that? Read his post in the context of the video in the OP. The Wangrod Defense is when a player is detrimental, even mildly, to everybody else at the table due to a perceived justification by mechanics or "I'm just roleplaying my character/alignment/class".

Nobody said powerbuilding always equals wangrodery. But it would be disingenuous to pretend it isn't the most common way it happens. People are free to powerbuild to their hearts content. Is it wangrodery every time you're beaten in PvP due to mechanics? No! Of course not! Is it a reasonable justification to throw your weight around on the server and force your way in RP until you get what you want?

If you answered yes to that, you question your values. We don't need the DMs to tell us when we're not worthy of respect. Yes, there are many things you can do to deal with people who want to PvP their way out of every situation. This isn't a thread about that, and that post wasn't addressing that either. Players shouldn't have to feel guilty or ashamed that they play well. The powerbuilders that are also valuable members of the community aren't the ones brought into question here. The thread is about having and treating others with dignity, and powerbuilders can do that too. Everyone can.

I remember the first time I met one of your characters, Ork. She ambushed him in a room while he had taken his armor off and was resting, and she trapped the door to hold him hostage. She robbed him blind - even his clothes - and made him run across Cordor naked. That was some great RP, and if I remember correctly, my character was a far greater level and could have killed her without even drawing a weapon. But it wasn't about that. You chose the perfect time to ambush, and I conceded that. And that's okay, it resulted in a hilarious and weirdly heartwarming moment when she arrived at a party later that year - wearing his stolen tunic.

Powerbuilding isn't the problem. But it is a tool that players can use to push some shallow and selfish agendas on others. It's important to acknowledge this, because it happens, even when it doesn't break the rules. Players should look out for one another, not prey on each other.

[Ork]

I come into the thread because often the argument goes something along the lines of "powerbuild bad, rp build good". It's tedious, tiresome and doesn't have actionable intent. There's nothing we can do on a macro scale to change bad player behavior, and that's solely in the realm of the DMs. I also have issue with the premise that PvP is the only consequence on this server. I'd argue there are no consequences when people play within the rules. And I think we're better for it.

Look at our most recent "crisis". What arose was a number of players complaining about how the DMs had been impartial or unfair. Now, imagine every PvP incident might involve a mechanic that removes your player agency. This is what Subutai has asked for. More hard consequences.

Let's look at your example of our first meeting. What true consequence was there in that moment? Your character had a consequence of running around naked, but you the player had no consequence because 1) you rolled with the RP & 2) made it meaningful to you and those around you. No amount of hard, coded, mechanical consequence should have changed how you roleplayed in that instance.

Xerah mentions that he played out a consequence where his petrified character remained so for a period of time. Who decided that? It wasn't met by consensus by all the players involved, but it entirely rested on Xerah's agency and action. Removing player agency for the allure of hard consequences is pretty asinine. The model Arelith has taken has moved away from hard consequence and relying on players to create their own. With that freedom comes the good and the bad, but I'd argue more good than bad.

Great roleplayers take shitty incidents and make them great opportunities for roleplay.

[Mr_Rieper]

I come into the thread because often the argument goes something along the lines of "powerbuild bad, rp build good". It's tedious, tiresome and doesn't have actionable intent. There's nothing we can do on a macro scale to change bad player behavior, and that's solely in the realm of the DMs. I also have issue with the premise that PvP is the only consequence on this server. I'd argue there are no consequences when people play within the rules. And I think we're better for it.

Look at our most recent "crisis". What arose was a number of players complaining about how the DMs had been impartial or unfair. Now, imagine every PvP incident might involve a mechanic that removes your player agency. This is what Subutai has asked for. More hard consequences.

Let's look at your example of our first meeting. What true consequence was there in that moment? Your character had a consequence of running around naked, but you the player had no consequence because 1) you rolled with the RP & 2) made it meaningful to you and those around you. No amount of hard, coded, mechanical consequence should have changed how you roleplayed in that instance.

Xerah mentions that he played out a consequence where his petrified character remained so for a period of time. Who decided that? It wasn't met by consensus by all the players involved, but it entirely rested on Xerah's agency and action. Removing player agency for the allure of hard consequences is pretty asinine. The model Arelith has taken has moved away from hard consequence and relying on players to create their own. With that freedom comes the good and the bad, but I'd argue more good than bad.

It's a good point and I agree. The most valuable part of both examples is that the players involved chose the outcome themselves, even when it wasn't directly beneficial. I can only speak for myself here, I did it because it seemed like a natural consequence and... Let's be honest, it was fun. We made it fun. And this was addressed in the video, because although we didn't speak OOC beforehand, we came to that agreement as players because we could trust and respect each other by default.

But that mentality isn't shared by everyone, nor can we automatically expect them to. For most, there needs to be some form of deterrent for anti-social behaviour beyond DM intervention. The DMs simply cannot be watching 24/7, or be expected to mediate every minor instance of misbehaviour. But I agree, imposing consequences like that on players is doing a disservice to all the players who willingly impose consequences on themselves for the sake of great RP.

[Ork]

But that mentality isn't shared by everyone, nor can we automatically expect them to. For most, there needs to be some form of deterrent for anti-social behaviour beyond DM intervention. The DMs simply cannot be watching 24/7, or be expected to mediate every minor instance of misbehaviour.

Why? Who decides what the deterrent is? Will a deterrent even be effective? Back in the day, we use to preach the mantra of "when bad things happen to good adventurers". I still am fervent about that. So you got corpse-bashed, boo hoo. You, as the player, are responsible for making that encounter either a net positive or a net negative. You can control what you do.

At the end of the day, griefers gonna grief. We can't and shouldn't penalize our entire community because a one-line PvPer decides to have a field day. We have DMs and our 5 rules for that exact reason. We also need to levy an amount of trust in the DM team to get it done. The consequence might not be what we expect, but if we're the aggrieved party we're automatically not coming from a place of rehabilitation but more of punishment.

I love that this video exists, and I think it should serve as a reminder for all of us that our actions in game should have more meaning than "it's what my character would do". However, I do not support any sort of hardcoded consequence to stymie an already minuscule population of people that are already out the door anyways.

[Subutai]

Look at our most recent "crisis". What arose was a number of players complaining about how the DMs had been impartial or unfair. Now, imagine every PvP incident might involve a mechanic that removes your player agency. This is what Subutai has asked for. More hard consequences.

I'll just say that I mentioned several times that this kind of thing would need to involve an early warning system. I'll add that I think this system would need to be taken very seriously, and not be something a single DM could dole out on a whim. It would have to be something that would be the result of multiple instances of a character flagrantly doing things (like, to go back to my immediately previous post/example, a drow male killing matrons in the open) that are among the most grievous offenses possible. This wouldn't be something like, "These two characters got into PVP, and that doesn't seem like the right result, so we're gonna kill your character off". It would have to be something that more or less clearly involves some degree of metagaming the fact that you know nothing permanent will happen. Regardless of build power, a male drow would know, without question, that they would face unfathomably serious consequences for killing a matron (to continue to use that example), and to do so repeatedly is at least very close to metagaming the knowledge that there aren't any real consequences to face.

None of these ideas are concrete, of course. I only bring up DMs because I don't think another player should ever have the ability to foist permanent consequences on another player. That would be extremely ripe for misuse and abuse. Additionally, players should always have the ability to create consequences for their character. A good roleplayer is completely able to do so, but a good roleplayer also knows where to draw the line between something their character would do because that's their character, and something their character would do because they as a player know they'll get away with it.

I don't want to call any of this a "punishment", because it wouldn't necessarily be punishing a player. A player could very intentionally take actions (like the gnome I mentioned earlier, blowing up buildings in Cordor) that would result in permanent consequences. I would love it if everyone were perfectly able to handle this kind of thing and choose consequences and outcomes for their characters that matched their actions, but unfortunately, there are some players who only see as far as winning, and sometimes that kind of winning leads to their characters taking actions that would warrant permanent consequences.

[Ork]

What you're advertising for, Subutai, is something that is already in place. DM agency allows them to dole out punitive consequences for players with that sort of behavior. Your gnome example already breaks a rule: Roleplay. If that gnome is "blowing up Cordor" but isn't taking into account the NPC presence, then that's bad form and a DM would definitely step in to mediate the situation.

I guess I don't know what you're asking. Hell, back before Cordor got a remake there were a number of heads surrounding a chopping block of players that got perma-killed.

If you're alluding to a population of players that abide by the rules, have skill in PvP AND win in those escalations, you could always ..I don't know.. lose.

[Subutai]

I feel like we're operating on slightly separate wavelengths, here. I'm not talking about an individual losing in PVP to another individual. I'm talking about players who exhibit a consistent pattern of wangrodery purely because their character is generally unbeatable in PVP.

To try for another example, I'll go for the perspective of a broader player base versus a single powerbuilding wangroder. This character resorts to PVP at the drop of a hat, for virtually any situation. After encountering this behavior a number of times, they take IC action. The character is exiled from cities, but still gets into PVP with them outside of them, or finds other ways around, usually culminating in PVP. The characters band together and kill him, but next time he sees them alone, he kills them again (after 24 hours!).

It soon becomes apparent that, whatever IC actions they take, this character will consistently use PVP to push other characters around, as if they don't let the character have his way, they'll be killed, again. Eventually, more and more characters start constantly giving in to this character, as their players realize (rightly) that their choice is always going to either be give in, or have their character killed (again) by this character. Sure, they might roleplay losing every time, and they might do so very well, but eventually, the players themselves get tired of having to kowtow to this powerbuilt character if they don't want to get killed by him for the third time this week.

In this situation, no one has violated any rules. All rules are being stuck to to the letter. The problem is that no one other than the single powerbuilt character is having any fun. They're roleplaying being killed over and over. Their characters are losing over and over. But it isn't fun, because they can't do anything about it. The powerbuilt character is always showing up, pushing their characters around, and they lose.

At some point, I don't think it's outlandish or uncalled for to bring in additional, more heavy-handed, IC punishment for the character. Other characters are only tolerating it because there is mechanically no alternative. They've used up all of the existing options that Arelith provices, and they're resorting to just living with it, because the other player isn't technically breaking any rules.

The question ultimately is: Should this character be allowed to continue to do what they're doing, with no real repercussions, because they've chosen that their character never suffer any? Or should there be some additional repercussions against them despite the fact that they've chosen otherwise?

I come down very much on the latter side. You may come down on the former, which is, of course, entirely fine.

[Mr_Rieper]

Typically in that situation, Sabutai, the character in question has actually violated the "Be Nice" rule. If somebody is constantly involved in PvP and resorts to it in nearly every situation, as well as one-liner RP before PvPing the people he does not like - he is in violation of the spirit of that rule. They are normally warned, temp banned or given a Mark of Despair. Or at least, that's how it used to work, from my experience on the server.

The type of person you're referring to here is actually punished a lot of the time. It's possible to violate the spirit of a rule without technically breaking it.

Characters who pursue crazy IC goals like murdering King Edward or turning Wharftown into a Banite fortress are actually subjected to IC punishments as well. That happens too. The conspirators who had Duke Galverson murdered were publicly executed, as an example.