There seems to be quite a few high tension arguments going on, most of them have degenerated to name calling/scandals/etc. However, I'd like to REALLY talk about the issues that 'started' these epic ####-fests.

Cabal belief vs Alignment: I believe the playerbase and the IMM staff have a pretty big disconnect here. I believe it is safe to say that myself, and a significant amount of the playerbase believe that cabal beliefs should supersede alignment. Good aligned ragers should kill mages - regardless of said magi's alignment, because ALL ragers (not just neutral/evil ones) HATE magic. This should not be 'bad' RP. Obviously, certain IMM's feel different, and a lot of us disagree - can we please try to reach some common ground with this one??

Edge points for IMMxp - Personally, I'd like the IMMxp system to have NOTHING TO DO with edge points. Edge points should be IC rewards earned by YOUR character for his own feats (exploration/observation/pk/whatever). The current system of IMMXP=edges is designed in such a way that it will ALWAYS cause strife. I'm not saying 'quit handing out IMMxp' I'd just like to see IMMxp NOT give a distinct advantage to OTHER game mechanics...reward good RP with things that further RP (maybe like those custom longs good job with those IMMfolks), not things that boost PK ability/functionality.

You have pretty much a few different CF archetypes two of which I know to exist are:

Those who fall into the 'RP heavy' group

and those who fall into the 'PK heavy' group

Once in a while you get a few folks who are in BOTH camps.

Anyways, I strongly urge you to consider 'RP' rewards that do NOT give the 'rewardee' an edge in the PK aspect of the game. Also, you don't have the staff anymore to engage the majority of the Pbase, and people who DESERVE rewards (or think they do) are constantly over-looked leading to them getting even MORE bent out of shape, when 'chosen people' get rewards which in all honesty equal a SIGNIFICANT PK ADVANTAGE for RP...bleh

Please consider removing the IMMXP/edge point mechanic, it is seriously destroying the game. Maybe make edge points static per character, with additions to be found via exploration/pk/commerce/obs/etc in-game.

Please consider adopting a viewpoint on cabal belief vs alignment that more closely resembles the viewpoint of your current playerbase.

That is all.

When you create a character, you answer questions about that character. At NO POINT during that process does it ask if you hate magic, or elves, or like showering everyone in gold.

You are asked what your character's alignment is. THEN you are asked about ethos. THEN your char is free to evolve. But not until AFTER you have chosen your alignment and ethos.

And yes, I do understand that this is how someone designed the character creation process. It just makes a lot of sense to me.

Are you good/neutral/evil in Thera? Are your actions, which are based off that decision, orderly/neutral/chaotic? Finally, what are those actions? The final question is your character's roleplay. That roleplay is determined by the decisions you made prior to that, wherein you decide what kind of person your character is, then you play that out after the fact.

There's my ha'penny in all this.

While not uber common, 8% of 350 chars isn't inconsequential, either.
And since these are PBF purchases, all these characters represent reasonable investment: 90% of these good aligned rager PBF chars have 100+ hours.

It's certainly possible -- if you employ imagination and creativity and fun with the role. I don't think anyone is saying your viewpoint isn't a singular valid role -- but it's hardly the only way to play, or universal.

This came up on Dio's recently and this was my response:

"I think that your character's alignment is the principal guiding force in his life.

He's not a magic hating man who happens to be good.

He's a good man who happens to hate magic.

His alignment was there before whatever happened to him that caused him to hate magic or civilization or whatever.

Most people play it that their cabal takes center stage, but, in my opinion, that's not how it should be.

I think you should be more likely to change your cabal politics than your alignment, because your cabal politics are conclusions you've made about the world.
Your alignment is who you are. This is why you can leave a cabal without penalty, but if you betray your alignment, the repercussions are severe.

From my point of view, Alignment trumps Religion which trumps Cabal."

You do realize Theran history is founded on Order vs. Chaos.

Hell, the village is a product of this.

Ethos trumps align, always has.

Align is flavor, and was best handled as extra when Maran's were cultish to fight the cult of the ruby scarab.




Order vs. Chaos.

n/t

Basically, Ethos holds more weight in Theran history and culture than align does.

The village itself is founded on this ancient war.

Villagers are a byproduct of this, and thus their beliefs take center stage versus align.

It isn't too complicated.

The discussion is whether Alignment or Cabal politics are a greater motivation for any given character.

It's great to point out that a chaotic character's tendency will trump even his alignment, but it doesn't answer the question that is at the center of what we're talking about.

I agree with you completely, by the way, but because of the way cabals are set up, it's not the sort of thing that would really be expected to generate conflict except maybe in the Fort. (That's something I think there should be more of, for the record.)

There is text. And it is that Homard, the magic sniffing battlerager, was great.

1. You write as though you speak for everyone; it's pretty clear just from this thread that you don't. That aside,

2. No, we are not going to do things your way.

The fact that there are multiple ####-storm threads on this board...well every official/unofficial/CF related board regarding the policies of this mud and its staff are not indicative that people disagree with the way things are being run, in fact no change is needed. How could I have been so blind as to not realize that everything is 100% awesome. Please continue as you guys are doing, you're doing a rock-star job.

Especially for this post

oh dude, I know it. I used to be on the side of the IMM's on most things. But their inability to see others points of view is just...piss-poor at best. I don't want to flat out argue with Daev and Baer, so I'm not going to continue on this subject or this post. They can reward as they see fit, and they can manage cabals as they see fit, and they can reap the 4-5 flame topics a week that will result. I am henceforth chosing not to care, this will be my last post under this topic, and possibly my last post (other than graveyard posts/questions) on these forums. I'm goin over to the free-speech version yo.

-Sarien

You must be new here. Weekly flame topics occur no matter what.

Imagine that CF is a restaurant that caters to all kind of people. It caters to all races, all sizes and all income levels. A restaurant we all had near our universities. Everybody goes there and hangs out. I fondly remember one near my university.

That restaurant has been there for years. The owners or the group of owners who run the restaurant do not care if they make money or not. They just want to run it “AS IS”. You can go in there and change couple of things as long as the owners allow it.

One day you come in after 5yrs of working in the real world and decide that the restaurant needs to change itself. Clean to be best of health codes, marketed so more people can come, accommodate new comers, etc. It’s all your opinion. But did you check with the owners before you publicly voiced your complaint? Did you check if the establishment allows your free-speech? Not all American corporations allow that.

I return to the restaurant maybe just for nostalgia, maybe even to remember those fond moments I had with my friend.

NOW, CF is almost the same. But this game is NOT_FOR_PROFIT incorporated American company (Not W C 3). None of the people who own it or pay the cost or invest time NEVER ever get paid. They are keeping it alive from the goodness of their heart.

None of us own a share of this game, so we have very little say or no say as how they wish to run it. Your blames will do nothing but sour them from the time and money they put in this.

I know for sure that if the SKULL is down, there will be uproar on this forum as well as QHCF. If you have criticism, make is constructive. Allow these IMMs time and many things will change as it has over the years.


***Sorry for being verbose***

1. Obviously align/ethos trumps cabal. Anything doesn't make sense and/or would create cookie cuttery badness.

2. His edge proposal may be worth considering. Not the issue with RP rewards that grant PK advantage, but specifically the idea of making edge points more standard.

When edges went in the word was that they would be just that. Edges, but nothing huge and not necessary. Now it seems many players believe edges are indeed necessary and (especially when combined) offer significant advantages. I don't agree with them, but it IS a beef a portion of the playerbase has that could be fixed without breaking anything.

Currently I think the system for granting edge points is nifty. It offers all types of players an avenue for garnering edge points. Perhaps though, the cap should be lowered, so that players don't feel like they have to farm every type of edge point path. Instead, maybe lower the number of edge points you can get OVER ALL for the various xp types and PK. I don't believe this would reduce the drive to commerce/explore/observe in the players that like that sort of thing (me) because we still get the nifty special skills.

In exchange (so that the awesomely coded edges still get used) you could increase the amount of edges granted for leveling up and aging.

>You have pretty much a few different CF archetypes two of
>which I know to exist are:
>
>Those who fall into the 'RP heavy' group
>
>and those who fall into the 'PK heavy' group
>
>Once in a while you get a few folks who are in BOTH camps.

CF is an RP *and* PK game. You can choose what you want to focus on, but they're both part of the game. As such it's fine if PK translates into RP advantages and also fine if RP translates into PK advantages. That's one of the key themes of CF; The RP and PK are not separate games, they're part of a whole. I strongly disagree with isolating the rewards.

align trumps ideals or dogma.

also, there are other ways to promote one's ideals than murderfest.

situationally, there will be times where things happen. react accordingly. meaning, react like align means something.

Align DOES NOT trump dogma.

Hell, lets look at some 'real life' 'cabals (organizations)'

Christianity vs Muslim belief. Both think they are correct in their beliefs. Both could arguably be 'good'. However, historically they have murdered each other left and right...Does this make them 'evil'?

and one kills the other, then yes, that is a path toward evil-dom

I'm done responding/discussing this with you.

you're in for a lousy discussion at the same time because your viewpoint is not the generally acceptable rp/cf view

nt

Your alignment is what defines your beliefs and dogma, not the other way around. You can't have all these evil beliefs (pk'ing goodies is ok) and have a good alignment. It doesn't work.

And you should adjust it so. The cabal dictates that magi be killed, it doesn't say "Magi should be killed when you feel like it, if of course their alignment allows it." it says "magi should be killed". I don't mind that your 'ruling' is the way it is. I mind that it flat out contradicts what ragers believe/stand for/etc. And, if a rager acts as the tablet is written, in your book they are 'RP'ing badly' and well frankly, that is garbage.

a goodie can work as a scout, or as a defender, or maybe as a berserker focused on killing evil mages and tilting the veil

there are a ton of ways to roleplay out being a good-align villager. and not being an exceptional BATTLE character is fine because that character can be an exceptional GOOD character in BATTLE.

i'm not sure what's so difficult to understand here...

and can't understand how basic ethics and ethos would affect your character there is a simple solution. I have never seen a Battle imm come down on a good aligned rager who avoided a good aligned mage in a properly RP'd manner.

Please play evil. Always.

1.) how are any Argo mobs also goodies
2.) how can guard mobs be goodies
3.) why don't goodie tribunals get align change for killing goodie criminals?
4.) how did we somewhat recently purge trib of evils when goodies in theory should make terrible magistrates if they ideologically cannot follow cabal dogma on punishing criminals against 1/3rd of the population of Thera?

please.

Good aligned guards murdering good aligned criminals has long been a source of annoyance for me :)

The issue there is probably that no one (including me) has come up with a balanced alternative that respects area-writers' discretion and is interesting enough to code over other projects. Feel free to take time to think on one.

As for how to play a good aligned tribunal, I would probably read twist's paladin's bf thread and do what he did ;) I remember him guilt tripping my goodie criminal very effectively.

NT

I think a part of goodie guard mobs is the idea of home/territory. If it is your duty to protect a place, and someone that is known to cause problems in places like that, it follows that you would do so. Like if a goodie mage shows up in the Rager village, it would be fine for a goodie Rager to kill them immediately with no questions asked. Maybe yelling something for flavor. ;-)

Or the Watcher attacking a goodie that comes to the Altar room of the Fortress.

The protection of a home or sacred place against known perpetrators is usually considered a "good" concept.

Hutto, the Sleepy Nitpicker

_______________________________
'Sorry, I'm not 72323slhlst. Or however you say Elite'
-Vynmylak

Remember too that even though auras are a real part of CF and a hardline "you are this alignment." There is the issue of not everyone can see your aura. Hell not even all players can, not sure why a mob would without being a priest/etc.

NPC Guards should fight criminals without doubt.

>And you should adjust it so. The cabal dictates that magi be
>killed, it doesn't say "Magi should be killed when you feel
>like it, if of course their alignment allows it." it says
>"magi should be killed". I don't mind that your 'ruling' is
>the way it is. I mind that it flat out contradicts what
>ragers believe/stand for/etc. And, if a rager acts as the
>tablet is written, in your book they are 'RP'ing badly' and
>well frankly, that is garbage.
>

It's not all black and white. The Battle cabal is about getting rid of magic. Usually, they do that by killing mages. It doesn't make the game more fun to sort everything into tiny little boxes without flexibility. If battle characters want to kill all mages on sight, great. If they want to avoid killing some mages for good reason while still spending all their time working to eliminate magic, then that's great too.The word is full of grey areas and nuances, and so is CF, as it should be.

And I don't start docking alignment the second I see a goodie battle guy attacking a good mage. If I see it become a habit, I'll issue some sort of warning. I understand things are circumstantial. But still a goodie who plays like a neutral or evil should have consequences, imho.

"And I don't start docking alignment the second I see a goodie battle guy attacking a good mage. If I see it become a habit, I'll issue some sort of warning. I understand things are circumstantial. But still a goodie who plays like a neutral or evil should have consequences, imho."

The goodie battle guy ISN't playing like a neutral or evil by attacking goodie mage

he is playing like a villager.


Just like the example above of the goodie trib with goodie wanted person.

Is the elf tribunal that brings the elf criminal to justice acting evil/neutral? No, he's doing his _job_.

Alignment/ethos is part of who you are. Cabal is a choice your character makes.

Goodies clearly can kill goodies. It's how they go about it and their interactions that make the difference.

Alignment/ethos and even sphere absolutely trumps Cabal.

Alignment/ethos is part of who you are

Are you insinuating that if you spent your entire life HATING magic, and mages...that that wouldn't be part of "who you are?"

or how about, if you dedicate your life to upholding the laws of the land...that wouldn't be part of 'who you are'?

So, you're an Elf in battle, obviously you hate magic...you hate it so much that you murder those who practice it.

You honestly expect me to believe that someone who has devoted their life to hating magic, and its destruction would take a second guess as to whether or not to kill a mage based upon race??

Gosh...I don't see it that way at all.

"So, you're an Elf in battle, obviously you hate magic...you hate it so much that you murder those who practice it."

So, you're a guy in E.L.F., obviously you hate oil companies...you hate them so much that you murder those who work for them.

Does it matter you always donated a dollar to the poor blind man standing on the corner? Would people think you're a good person? Alignment in CF can't be compared to action in RL, obviously, but if you don't play any differently than a neutral or evil rager, why should you still be considered good? Ieralaine was a jackass. Not sure if it was the player or the character. Either way, his neutral change was deserved if you combine that with killing goodies without remorse. At least, that's how I feel.

The majority of us have no trouble at all understanding the concept.

>Alignment/ethos is part of who you are
>
>Are you insinuating that if you spent your entire life HATING
>magic, and mages...that that wouldn't be part of "who you
>are?"

Yes. Alignment/ethos is who you are. Hating magic and/or killing magic users is a choice. Killing them all without moral input from your alignment/ethos = evil/chaotic.

>or how about, if you dedicate your life to upholding the laws
>of the land...that wouldn't be part of 'who you are'?

Correct. Good/orderly is part of who you are. Upholding the laws is a choice you made. Killing criminals without moral input from your alignment/ethos = evil/chaotic.

>So, you're an Elf in battle, obviously you hate magic...you
>hate it so much that you murder those who practice it.

Right, and that is what elfs in battle do. The ones that don't roleplay a moral input from their alignment/ethos, don't remaing good. Why? Because they are good by nature and it is part of who they are. Being part of battle/hating magic was a choice.

>You honestly expect me to believe that someone who has devoted
>their life to hating magic, and its destruction would take a
>second guess as to whether or not to kill a mage based upon
>race??

If they were good aligned, yes, they would second guess every choice that comes into conflict with their inborn morality. That's part of being good aligned.

>Gosh...I don't see it that way at all.

Clearly you don't. I imagine it is a lack of understanding the alignment system.

It's very possible to play a good aligned character in Battle; however, it's also clear that the way you understand Battle has to be neutral or lower.

And that's fine. Or, why isn't it fine?

Can you even begin to understand that your take on alignment makes alignment utterly meaningless?

You as an individual do not decide what is good and what is evil. The society as a whole does. You cannot decide that magic is evil and have it evil. Everything is relative to beliefs of the majority of society. If you poll everyone, you will find that magic is not considered to be an evil act. If it were an evil act, then you couldn't roll a mage that is good. Good and evil are permanent fixtures and not situational dilemmas interpreted by oneself.

There are ways to deal with goodie vs goodie conflict that don't involve murder. Mutual respect, avoidance of one another and dialogue are a couple I can think of of the top of my head.

As an elf in battle you should be more concerned about the welfare of another elf mage in his use of magic and less concerned about slaying him outright. That is one of the differences you should be picking out when you set out to roleplay a good character in general. If you want to play a viscious mage killing freak, roll an evil or neutral. Otherwise you have to figure out how to make your role fit the role of a good character. You are pigeon-holing the role of a Battle member to be nothing but a magic hater who kills mages. You need to expand beyond that a bit, especially for a good character.

>You honestly expect me to believe that someone who has devoted
>their life to hating magic, and its destruction would take a
>second guess as to whether or not to kill a mage based upon
>race??
>
>Gosh...I don't see it that way at all.


I would compare this to a real life hunter/farmer, who has killed a very large variety of animals that do something to anger him, rabbits eating garden, mole/groundhog digging through grass and yard, etc, then some person coming over and tears up the ground and takes all the things growing in the garden without permission. The person isn't going to get shot.. likely, or a bit of hesitation is likely and if they didn't, then they would likely feel some sort of remorse after the act.

I understand that my example may sound extreme but they are all alive/living creatures but one is seen as superior to the others and even may feel as though they have a kinship, while the others are nothing but vermin.

I got a last name in 2003 from Vynmylak because of my RP around killing a goodie shapeshifter. I also habitually killed Tribby guards.

But I didn't wander around going "It was their fault! Filthy mage scum!"

It's called remorse, and it should be the defining quality of any Good-aligned killer. Even strict Maran. Goodie RP actually becomes FUN when you start playing with the fact that maybe you can't fulfill your cabal duties perfectly, or maybe you do and that causes you to feel awful.

So, the guards in the conectrationcamps during WW2 in Germany weren't responsible in any way? The people executing and doing all other nasty stuff to the jews weren't to be held responsible just because they were following orders?


1: If a char choses to join the village, that is their choice to do. Already there they've made the choice that they MIGHT risk harming those of the light. So, they've made that choice.

2: A goodie village can go about killing mages all he likes, as long as he stays away from goodie mages, the few times he might be forced to kill a goodie mage, he's should be remoresful as hell about it. Nothing wierd with that.
(As someone said above somewhere, being a village doesn't mean that you have to be a super mage killer, you can do other things in the village.)

3: If you have made the choice to join the village, and then makes the choice to hunt goodie mages, then sure, fine, you're a GREAT villager. But you are not a good aligned character anymore. You are following orders, doing your job, but here we have gods to judge your actions and you will no longer be considered a goodie.

I just can't understand how hard this can be to understand? I mean seriously? It's like playing a Maran without using magic + with the incentive to actually kill SOME nexuns without being frowned upon too much.

>And I don't start docking alignment the second I see a goodie
>battle guy attacking a good mage. If I see it become a habit,
>I'll issue some sort of warning. I understand things are
>circumstantial. But still a goodie who plays like a neutral
>or evil should have consequences, imho.

I'm all for goodie villagers getting turned neutral for casually blowing away goodie mages. Then again, I think you can make a habit of killing goodie mages and roleplaying around it and legitimately be good. You just have to work really hard and spend serious time roleplaying with them and roleplaying unhappiness at having to kill goodies. Get drunk (IC) and spend an IC day moping around depressed or something. If you do that all that time, and always prefer other targets to goodie mages, I think you can repeatedly kill them and shouldn't get align-changed.

And frankly, I've never heard of anyone getting align-changed under those circumstances. I think the people who have a problem with this don't really want to be good, they just want to play a goodie race or something.

Also, the big thing people miss about CF is that morality is absolute and objective. Nothing that you think about your acts affects whether they're good or evil acts. Killing a goodie mage is an evil act. If you think that all mages are evil, you're objectively wrong. Magic can be an evil, corrupting force, but mages are simply not all evil. The reason this doesn't contradict the first stuff I said about roleplaying around it is that you need to acknowledge that you've done an evil thing and deal with that. Pretending you didn't do anything evil because your beliefs are different doesn't fly in CF. The gray area is that while an act may be objectively evil, how evil it is does depend on your ideas about what you're doing and why you chose to do the evil.

It's inherently racist and further down the evil scale of the alignment than the Nazi's to believe that it's okay to slaughter dark elves/fire giants/duergar without remorse.

Example; Oshui killing a dark elf trib with 0 PK's at every opportunity is good because the victim is a dark elf, the dark elf trying to get by and flag criminals is evil because he's a dark elf.

It's mostly a case of red team vs blue team. You can't use IRL arguments because I don't know about you guys but IRL I don't think it's cool to mass murder anyone regardless of their history, the only characters who strike me as actually being 'good' and not just on blue team are guys like Rydell (sometimes) and Khonso. " A red aura? FOR BAERINIKA!" not so much. Perfectly valid for a fantasy game but not for drawing RL analogies.

>Example; Oshui killing a dark elf trib with 0 PK's at every
>opportunity is good because the victim is a dark elf

Well, no. It's okay for a good character to do because the dark-elf is evil. Yes, even one with 0 PKs. I mean, not to be the guy that goes there, but how many personal confirmed kills did Hitler have?

gr

Oh snap.

If killing on the basis of race makes you analogous with a Nazi then killing on the basis of political belief make you analogous with Anders Breivik. Arguments from real life have no place in a game like this.