It is nice to know someone not only read it, but posted a thoughtful reply. Thanks Valg. I feel all warm and fuzzy now.


>1) It could take something that is "someone's"
>responsibility, and turn it into something that is "maybe
>someone else's" responsibility. If I'm semi-busy, and I see a
>pray that might be mine, I might get slothy and hope my
>immortal buddy will cover for me. Currently, if I see a pray
>for me, I know it's my job to cover it in some fashion. (*)

This is true.

>
>2) It could dilute religions. Currently, each immortal is an
>expert on their own religion because they designed it, wrote
>the shrine/helps/etc., and have spoken with followers.
>They've seen multiple angles on the one faith, and know the
>nooks and crannies well. Covering 5 religions makes that much
>harder.
>
>3) Continuity and consistency. If I'm Immortal #3 on your
>team, and last time you dealt with Immortal #2, things might
>go screwy unless we've been on the ball with logs/summaries,
>etc. Short notes back and forth can fill part of this in, but
>my experience running multi-imm quests is that it can be
>trickier than it sounds.


The dilemma is, we use religions to encourage roleplaying, right? Is there some solution we can reach that:

1) Prevents people from throwing away 20-40 hours on characters that aren't any fun because they never get empowered (happened about a year ago, then again with my previous empowerment character several years before that, and several times when I was an empowering Imm myself several years ago),

2) Prevents Imms that aren't there from being prayed to by non-empowerment characters (has happened to me twice in the past year),

3) Encourages roleplaying without forcing everyone into playing the "Pick An Active Imm" game?

I hope that made sense. I re-wrote it about 3 times trying to keep it from getting overly ramblish.


-----Hutto is here, wishing he were asleep.

P.S.
On a somewhat related note, another half-baked idea I just had. If you want to see better roleplaying, somehow make it clearly competitive, like pk ratios. There is no good, clear, universal indication of a well roleplayed character. Leader of a cabal? Doesn't apply to uncabaled. Last name? Yeah, right. Title? Some cabal Imms are more title friendly than others. Tattoo? Pick the active Imm. Role contest? Only means you can write a good story. Quest skill? Possibly. Any one of these can mean you're a good roleplayer, but then again it doesn't really mean you're any better than the uncaballed, untitled, no last name, no tattooed guy standing beside you. It could simply mean you were in the right place at the right time, like involved in a quest. About the closest I can think of is becoming a HeroImm, or maybe getting your name put on the pillar in the Rager village.

How do you consistently guage something as subjective as roleplay? I'm sure the playerbase would love it if Drokolatryn Drokytolytrn Dragon-Nep every now and then picked one person from the Hero range as his... I don't know... "Most Amusing" or something and gave him a title as such, or a cookie. I wouldn't dare put that kind of burden on someone... unless he wanted to do it. *nudge Nepenthe* Or Yanoreth, or Valg, or some new unknown Imm, or a group or voting consensus among the Imms, or something like that where everyone has a chance. That would rock.