What if characters were unable, or less able, to magically know the alignment and ethos of other characters? The way the current system works, I pick my true alignment and from level one, the gods have imbued me with this annoying aura that lets everyone else know exactly how pure or impure my soul is. If you pick evil, you should play an evil guy. If you pick good, you're obligated to play a character who is truly good.

One role I've always wanted to play is that of a spy or informant. While it should be nearly impossible for a goodie to walk the walk of a Scion app for very long without having to taint his soul, I can totally see a bad guy mowing down other bad guys “for the Light” so he can get into Fort and send the infos back to his pals at HQ. Unfortunately, game mechanics don't allow this. You can't pick your “fake” alignment and pretend while writing a role that says, “I'm really good, I swear!” (or I've never seen it work).

Would it be good or bad if scenarios like this, and ones like it, were possible, and if you actually had to “get to know” a character before you knew if you could trust them and know their true intentions? I certainly think it would open some massively cool doors in RP land, but can that much responsibility to be placed on the playerbase?

Many RPI MUDs, MUSHes, etc. let the players craft much more of the story than many MUDs (including CF) do, but that's probably because in a game like CF where PK is half the game and a huge part of both the PK and RP aspect is cabals.

Could it work? Discuss?

PS: This feels kind of Shadowy to me. I wasn't around when Shadow was, but it has the same cloak and dagger undertones that I'm getting at, and I know Imms have said before that Shadow just didn't work.

It doesn't really work in CF.

It's sort of like being able to group with the opposite alignment. At one point that was possible, but abuses of it occured at least a hundred times for every use that was interesting and facilitated RP in some way. Having the extra job of policing that back isn't something I want.

Also, there's the problem of: what happens when my Fort paladin tries to wrath your evil Fort spy? If you don't think he's going to try, smart money says that he will if you take detect evil and know alignment away. (Well, maybe not in specifically Fortress some of the time, but in those cases, how much fun is it really to spy on and betray players who aren't very good and who are going to get wasted by their enemies straight up without your help?)

This is completely different to the reasons Shadow can't work again, although that's also relevant -- people will almost certainly know very very quickly OOC that you're a spy, unless it's something like "only the Emperor knows my alligiance, and no one else in Empire is the wiser", and I'm not sure how much fun that is for anyone. In theory everyone should RP it to the hilt and trust you when they shouldn't; in practice, it's probably not going to happen.

I hear ya, and I have no idea how I'd make it work and be fair, I just wish it worked.

Ideally what I imagined was that Fort wouldn't have a reliable way of determining who is a bad guy and who isn't, kind of like in real life. Obviously that's bad, because Fort would be full of evil people who aren't interested in actually RPing turncoats.

So, what if...

What if Immortals had the option of playing "special" mortals who could play these kinds of roles because the player is essentially whitelisted or trusted to adhere to a strict set of guidelines while having these extra special benefits. This could include other things like wonky race/class combos, characters that influence global politics/quests, etc., not just cloak and dagger stuff.

Obviously everyone is going to know it's a staff member playing the character and "want in", and likely be on their best behavior, etc.

Some would argue it's not fair for Imms to be allowed to play special builds or pursue roles that aren't mechanically viable for everyone else, but I've always been of the opinion that I'd rather play WITH extra special characters like this than not have them exist in the game at all.

It just seems like RP beyond two guys talking or interviewing for a cabal doesn't exist anymore. It's exceptionally hard to "get motivated" these days, and I wonder if some of the bigger, grander, more global RP stuff that used to go on more frequently would help.

If you were allowed to use your Imm powers to intentionally give your own character, or another Imm's character certain leeways in the realm of RP without giving them a serious mechanical advantage, would that be something you would be interested in if it was simply for either your own enjoyment or ours?

Human ranger named Arduil, evil, I got Jezral to induct me into Sylvan (which, unlike Outlander, did not allow evil).

Nothing much came of it other than me being camoed and telling evil empiredudes that certain Sylvan members were here or there, or wounded, or whatever - but if you were an empiredude and "someone" told you that a guy who could wall of thorns and insect swarm you and potentially gang you with 3 other guys was somewhere...would you believe him and/or go there?

Deleted at about level 32. His RP was that he lied about everything. I maybe even had Jullias' tattoo. Which doesn't exist. And neither does Shadow anymore. Really.

I played a scion spy in the village. the only person who knew my alliegance was the then chancellor of scion. As a defender I purposely did not give bandages during raids, fed information about who was injusred and where yadda yadda. Even got accused by a cabalmate but in the end nobody was able to "discover" me. The character didn't last incredibly long though because as soon as the chancellor deleted I was stuck in the position of... now I have to convince someone else I am actually a spy without getting my cover blown.

I believe the char was named Bacer. I also deleted cause human polearm spec is just kind of bleh.

And I don't see any logical reason why it wouldn't work.

I site Tolkien and Weis/Hickman, Salvator as authors who have had kick ass good/evil teams.

When you're an imm and you would be taking on the burden of policing these things, you get a vote. As someone who just wants me to do more work like some kind of communist, you don't get one. :)

asegvaw

Has always been a wish of mine.

I would like to see levels not displayed either, only general 5 block areas of reference.

>I would like to see levels not displayed either, only general
>5 block areas of reference.

At one point they weren't displayed; I pushed for them to be displayed because the veteran and/or information-sharing players knew what level and class you were anyway and it seemed like too basic of a piece of information to deny only the newbies.

If you look at some old logs, you'll see the really ubers had #gag/#replace settings in their clients to automagically plop in Class/Level info based on titles. I know some folks still throw in stuff they've learned (ooc or ic, whichever) such as cabal, align, etc.

Hell, with Dupmasione I had started highlighting green and known enemy names red so I'd be able to quickly count up the odds for a raid/etc. It got me killed when I was experimenting with it because Glurgick and Obsoab attacked me and (like an idiot) I had highlighted Glurgick and Obsoab rather than (PK) Glurgick and (PK) Obsoab. That caused the whole fight to spam into red and I panicked and thought I was getting destroyed really fast and tried to do things I didn't need to do. That was somewhat embarassing.

Get rid of class/level specific titles, race on who, etc., in my opinion that tends to push it even further to empowering elite players / information sharing. It also massively empowers evil.

If you're in my PK range, I don't care what you are, I think I can find a way to beat you and if you don't know what I am either until I start bashing you, I think that situation favors me at least as much as you. Not so much for a newer player who needs to more carefully pick his targets, or a good PC who can't just aggressively murder everyone.

I've tried it a couple times, myself.

Matter of fact, my lich was crafted (from the beginning, not on a god damned whim, mind you) to turn on the Empire at some point and go Scion. His patron was Valg, which I did because I liked the idea of a truth-bound lich trying to avoid detection. As it happened, I was made anathema by some jackass and then it just looked like I was a rat trying to find a lifeboat by seeking out the Scions.

Despite my high hopes for the character, I think his role concept was either completely ignored or just looked at as some sort of attempt to power-game.

But, to you, initial poster of this thread, all the reasons brought up here are very valid as to why sneaky stuff doesn't work in CF. What Nep says right above this post about how it would massively help evils out of align/rage/class/level wasn't readily apparent is absolutely true. The only way it would even be remotely feasible is if the game were weighted far more heavily in favor of the good-aligned characters. But, even that is arguable since you would have all, or most, of the veteran players going evil to exploit their experience and play the underdog.

But hey, what ever, I personally think CF RP is extremely shallow on most days.

And as for Daev's response to mine. I'm talkin give people titles in 5 block incriments (Sp?) and no ranking so you don't know if that warrior has flurry yet or not when you engage him.