Wed Apr 21 00:36:57 2010

At 2 o'clock AM, Day of the Great Gods, 12th of the Month of Futility
on the Theran calendar Toranna perished, never to return.

I was going to start with some goodbyes and the reason I let this char auto, but I think I'm going to give my thoughts on playing evils first.

Toranna was latest attempt in a series of chaotic evil air shifters. Before the server wipe, I had a chaotic evil eagle/lion who I was trying to get into Scion, and some time before that, I had an eagle/grizzly I was trying to get into Scions as well. The air shifters pre-wipe were both Zurcon followers--one of which actually had the tattoo. Because there was a fair amount of time between them, they both had the general role (never got around to actually entering their roles, but it was in my mind the whole time) of experiencing prolonged trauma as a child, feelings of powerlessness, and pursuing magic as a means to attaining power. Eventually they concluded that life was meaningless, even power was largely meaningless, and became nihilists bent of the cessation of all life, on Thera, culminating in their own after all else had perished. For one reason or another, I got bored with each of those characters, had an idea for a different build I wanted to try, and deleted the old in favor of the new. Both of them (and a few other tries at the same type of build) were attempts to make an evil who was wholly evil and despised by most everyone. They had virtually no compunctions about anything. Toranna was a somewhat different take on the same concept, except that she wasn't a nihilist. I accidentally chose sphere chaos with her, which was a mistake I couldn't take back. She basically sought the destruction of everything even remotely connected to civilization. In her book, that also meant everyone who carried coins as well. She was also very much about the hunt. Both of these aspects of her grew or changed over time. In the beginning, she hunted pretty much anyone who defiled nature, carried coins, or would ever think to seek her death. This meant all goodies, ragers, orderly people, and nexuns. Shortly after her acquisition of final forms and the begin of her reign of terror, people started whining up a storm on the boards and a few people on IRC as well, so I toned her back some. From a roleplay perspective, this was probably a mistake (i.e. letting the OOC boards influence how I played her IC). Another strong influence on that decision was the number of tells I started receiving in game that were either fully OOC or were borderline OOC, whining about things. In one instance, someone accidentally sent me a tell that was supposed to be a pray accusing me of using triggers to pk (which I never did, btw). I usually prayed about OOC and borderline OOC tells, but it didn't seem to lessen the number of such occurances. I find such responses to be extremely irritating, and so for the sake of my own gaming experience, I toned her down a bit. Because of certain other aspects of her role, this actually made her less fun to play, since I was not being true to what I had originally designed her to be. The more that time went on, the more bored I became with her. Eventually I started rolling up other builds and trying out new things, just logging her on from time to time to keep her from losing gear, in case I decided to give her another go (which I eventually did decide to do shortly before giving up entirely).

The general trend I saw across all these characters is that for the most part, if a character is wholly bent on being despicably evil, people can't seem to separate the nature of the evil character from the player behind it. They begin to think that the player is just being a douche, start flaming the boards, complaining to Imms via pray, and generally breaking with their own characters' roles in order to be a douche back. I was thoroughly impressed with a few people I encountered (both in game and on the boards) who were able to recognize that the things Toranna did were simply a part of the character and not a reflection of the player. The responses I received from such people in both locations were a welcomed breath of fresh air. Kudos to those of you who fall into such categories. You probably know who you are, though I've been away long enough now that I don't remember names. To everyone else, try to remember this is a ROLEPLAYING game, and evil characters should be exactly that, EVIL! Evil should NOT be likable. That's what being evil is all about. Evil is SUPPOSED to be despicable and hated. Instead of letting a character's evilness drive you to break character, let the abysmal depths of a character's vileness drive your character to equally celestial heights of righteousness if you're playing a goodie. If you're playing another evil, let it inspire your character to reciprocate with equally evil despite. If you're playing a neutral character, be sure that your character's response is appropriate to the role you have chosen for him/her.

Playing evils has never been something that I've been particularly good at. I know what it is for a character to be fully evil, but I can't manage to keep myself to it. As a player, I'm just too much of a niceguy to play an effective evil. Being a niceguy player, who's trying to play an evil character just results in a lot of inconsistency in roleplay. I've never had an evil character who has been recognized as successful in any way like special title or whatever. Toranna was probably the closest thing to a successful evil I've ever played, and even with her I felt I was being far too nice most of the time. Playing goodies or neutrals is far easier for me.

Concerning gear and looting:

Because Toranna was strongly about the hunt, she believed in leaving a person's gear for the most part. There were a few exceptions to this. If she herself had very little gear, and came across someone's corpse with lots of gear better than her own, she had no problems taking whatever had belonged to the other person that was better than her own and replacing her own with it. In such cases, she always left her own gear behind unless someone she knew had need of it. The first instance of this was when she was still an Outlander pledge, and was sitting at the tree talking to Isceth when Dronstyr and a couple Imperials attacked. Isceth defended very well, driving off the attackers, but Dronstyr had insects and spores, and no mana with which to recall or shapeshift. Toranna was unable to defend directly at this point, so she helped defend by flying to Dronstyr while he was hiding in and around Prosimy, and directing Isceth on where to go. Isceth eventually killed him, and Toranna grabbed most of the loot to replace her fine leathers and a couple other basic things. Isceth then sacced much of what was left. Several of those items stayed with her throughout most of her life, only being replaced shortly before I quit playing her. They were pretty good items, but there are a few things better which I eventually found. In all cases after that, she took what she could use for herself, and occasionally took something for someone else if it was a very good item (usually famous or legendary). Sometimes legendary items were taken as well simply because they had a very high value for bartering. As far as I can remember, she never full looted anyone (or even close to it after Dronstyr), contrary to popular accusation. In most, if not all of those cases where someone was fulled, it's because Isceth was around, and she's the one who fulled the person. Some would blame Toranna for such, but she figured it was not her responsibility to babysit for weaklings. At no time was Toranna ever able to corpseguard against Isceth, so there was nothing she could have done to stop her, and didn't feel strongly enough about it to bother wasting words. Whenever circumstances permitted, she DID stay to guard the corpse from anyone else she could prevent, but it was more out of respect for her fallen prey, and a courtesy that was her one quality bordering on neutrality/light. In one instance, she attacked someone in the High Tower (I think) and they fled into Arboria and died either to a zombie or to her (I can't remember) and stood guarding the corpse (I think it was either a rager, or someone who had teleported to the High Tower and didn't know how to get to Arboria). When the person began whining and insulting her, she warned him to watch his tongue. When he responded again with whininess, she looted the corpse and dropped it all on the ground, telling him where he could find his things, then said, "Have fun!" If anyone ever took things from her corpse (which was extremely rare since few people managed to pk her at all, and fewer still managed to pk her without her at least getting far enough away so they couldn't loot her corpse when she died of bleeding or some other maladiction), she would attempt to convince them to return her things, but was careful not to sound like she was whining about it. She would make the request and try to present a convincing case as to why they shouldn't bother keeping such-and-such, but in the end, if they refused to return anything, she would simply wait for an opportunity to kill the person and take it back. There were a few times when I died to someone while lots of other people were around, and I asked a cabal or group mate to loot my things for me. In some cases I got lucky and the friend was able to loot me, or the one who killed me voluntarily returned my things, or some lowbie looted me and returned my things in exchange for something more suited to them. Toranna generally didn't have a problem with this, because she saw it as simply another form of bartering.

I myself don't like to be fulled, so I generally don't full loot other people. However, as a general principle, I don't have a problem with full looting someone, provided that there is at least a justifiable reason for it (being a wholly committed, despicably evil character is a sufficiently justifiable reason in my book, though that's one aspect I generally don't include in any of my characters). I think that players in general need to recognize that's just part of the game, accept it, and learn to overcome it. When I first started with CF, if you got pk'd you could almost always count on being full looted. This was so much the case, that if someone DIDN'T full loot you, you would be tempted to think, "What, is he stupid or something?!" If ever someone DOES full loot one of my characters, I'll have some kind of appropriate IC response. In the case of my recent thief, if you full loot him, and especially if he hasn't done anything to you to feel like he deserved it, his response will be to not even worry about killing you and just steal everything he can, every chance he gets until you decide it's better not to be on his bad side. In my opinion, this is a much better response than whining or breaking character in any way. If I'm playing a goodie, I will likewise have an appropriate in-character response, suitable for the type of goodie I'm playing. Some might state that they will no longer show you the same respect, some might still refuse to full loot out of principle, but preach at you for it, or whatever else seems appropriate for the character. In the end, it's just gear, and while some of it might be very difficult to replace, it still can be replaced and you'll be stronger for the knowledge and experience.

My Goodbye:

I let this and all the rest of my characters auto because I'm giving up CF, hopefully permanently this time. This is something I have tried to do several times over the years, unsuccessfully, and I hope I can manage it this time. Aside from being a massive waste of time from a practical standpoint, it's an addiction largely at odds with the profession I'm pursuing. Some people on IRC have commented along those lines in the recent past, and I've recognized the truth of it for myself for years. However, because I hadn't yet found a way of breaking the addiction, and because the engagement of my profession still seemed to be a long way off, I usually ignored the comments. I think I might have responded briefly once or twice voicing agreement, but recognizing that it was an addiction I hadn't yet been able to kick, and so just continued on without much effort. Such is the way with most forms of addiction.

Presently, however, I've been brought face to face with the recognition that the engagement of my profession is (or should be) beginning even now, and that it's being largely derailed by this and one other addiction. In order to facilitate my escape, I made the very difficult decision of giving my computer to someone else to keep for me for a prolonged period of time. The only computer access I would have would be using the computers in my school's library. Although it's possible to mud from those as well (put my client on a flash drive and run it straight off of that), I would have been limited to mudding during library hours, which seriously restricts my ability to do some of the cooler stuff on the mud that still makes the game enjoyable to me. The first couple weeks of no mudding was intensely aggravating for me, but following that, my mind began to clear of CF thoughts. As my mind began to clear, I found myself able to analyze certain aspects of my life much more clearly. During one moment of intense longing to roll up a new character, I had a moment of amazing clarity and one of the biggest root causes of my mudding addiction became crystal clear. The other major root cause I have known for a while now, but until recently, have had no means of dealing with (the means to deal with that one also came about as a result of giving up my computer and getting away from CF). At my writing of this, the thought of ever returning to CF is repulsive to me, as I realize how costly it would be for me to return. CF has been no different to me than a bottle to an alcoholic (or <insert addiction of choice here> . So I'm finally coming out of the bottle. There's one other addiction I need to break yet, and if all goes well, I should be free of that one as well within six months to a year. That one is also not a chemical addiction, but is going to be much more costly to break than CF was. I've been blessed in that the only chemical addiction I've ever had to deal with has been caffeine, and that one was easy to break after one, three-week long bout of withdrawals. Given that I'm such a habitual person in all that I do, I'm very grateful that I've never had to deal with any form of chemical addiction other than caffeine. I'm not sure if I would ever be able to break away from something like that. When the server wipe happened, I was actually grateful for it, and was secretly hoping that the game would be gone for good. I probably would have saved myself a great deal of trouble if it had stayed gone.

Well, I think I've rambled on long enough.

It's been fun. As much as I've enjoyed the game, I can't say I'm going to cherish any of the memories. I sincerely hope I never see any of you in the fields again. I have nothing against chatting with people outside of the game, though, so if you want to reach me, my AIM username is PaladinWhitestar, and you can find me on Facebook under my RL name of Jeremy Gable.

So this is Klaak, signing off!

nt

...that although you the person don't seem like a bad/cheap/malicious person, I stand by everything I said about this char.

IE You say you wanted people to treat the character as a character, yet you rolled 3 consecutive murder shifters with similar RP (your words). Doesn't really encourage people to not treat you as a shifter version of Rogue. You said Toranna hated civilization, but you traveled with known Imperials before you decided on Outlander (which is proven by PBF's). You said you hated coins and those who carried them but when you looted the piss out of me (and I don't blame you for the loot(well, mostly)) you left my coins (heh). You said you tried to be an evil bastard, but you and a goodie outlander were looking for wands together.

Again, nothing against you the person. Good luck quitting, and best of luck with life!

The consecutive murder shifters were consecutive attempts to accomplish something I kept failing at. The second of those three only ended because of the server wipe. I remembered the ending of that one after I had posted previously, and was too busy to post again correcting my error. The eagle/lion didn't get deleted, it just poofed with the previous server.

I don't recall traveling with known imperials before going outlander. Could you point me to the PBF that shows I did? I know there were a couple people I ranked with in the lowbie range who later took the oath, but at the time I was with them, they hadn't. There were a few people who later went for scions, and a large number who became tribs, but none of that happened until much, much later.

Who were you playing when I looted you and how far along was my character by that time? Were you Dronstyr? If you were, was that the first or second time I looted you? The first being when Isceth killed Dronstyr, the second being when I killed him myself in Velkyn. If it was the second time I killed Dronstyr, that's because part of toning her back was making her not hassle people about coins anymore, which took place before I killed you myself. At first, she DID loot and sac people's coins. If you weren't Dronstyr, then you'll have to give me more details.

As for looking for wands, Toranna really didn't care what alignment a person was. She WAS an evil bastard, but couldn't care less what type of morality other people lived by. The only reason she hunted goodies at all is because 99.9% of them would gladly hunt her if she let them. If a goodie outlander wants to play nice with her and help her find her wands, she wasn't going argue about it. Part of the price of getting the aid in finding her own wands was helping said goodie outlander find his own wands.

Klaak

Great spirits have always met violent opposition from mediocre minds.
-Einstein

Klaak: I don't recall traveling with known imperials before going outlander.


Copypasted from Mele... PBF:

Tue Jan 12 20:05:38 2010 at level 10 (1 hrs):
Took the bloodoath from Enlilth.


Jan 13, 2010|Lv 23|Hr 14 |21 Toranna, 16 Evenai,
Jan 13, 2010|Lv 24|Hr 15 |19 Akaisha, 23 Toranna,
Jan 13, 2010|Lv 25|Hr 15 |20 Akaisha, 23 Toranna,


Note: I have nothing against Klaak or Toranna, I just enjoy finding stuff on the forum

____________________________________________
Never take life seriously. Nobody gets out alive anyway.

nt

>I don't recall traveling with known imperials before going
>outlander. Could you point me to the PBF that shows I did? I
>know there were a couple people I ranked with in the lowbie
>range who later took the oath, but at the time I was with
>them, they hadn't. There were a few people who later went for
>scions, and a large number who became tribs, but none of that
>happened until much, much later.

Strong the cognitive dissonance is in this one.

The corollary to the "(almost) everybody thinks their CF #### don't stink" rule is that "The CF douchebags almost never think that they're douchebags." (A related, more specific version of this rule is that everyone thinks that other people loot the hell out of them but that they don't loot the hell out of anyone.)

And I'm sorry, but Toranna was a douchebag of relatively epic proportions. Mr. L. Mohican's comments above are a little unfair to Rogue.

But yeah, thanks for the backup. Glad I'm not just seeing things that don't exist.

Sorry Rogue!

To my knowledge, I did not have any interactions with this character.
Also, your post formatting did unspeakable things to me.

This long story seems to have a common thread, and in my eyes it's
immaturity. First and foremost your tone makes it sound like you're
making some profound sacrifice to conquer your "addictions" when,
in fact, all you're doing is not playing a game. (Two games if I'm
correct in assuming that the other "addiction" you alluded to is
internet-poker.)

The 'woe-is-me-I-must-focus-on-my-career-lest-this-dreadful-
addiction-sap-my-will-to-live' frankly makes me cringe. You're a
college-kid and part of that territory is being self-centered and
thinking that things are a MUCH bigger deal than they actually are.
These are both signs of having some growing up to do. Someday
you'll look back on the time you gave your computer away and realize
that this #### is all small potatos.

Now the character. Three flyto-murder-shifters in a row with no
actual role is pretty lame. It's thinly justified griefing no matter
how you slice it. And your defense is that it's a ROLE-PLAYING game?
I think that you're forgetting that it's a role-playing GAME. My
take on it is that most of the time we should be having fun while
playing and doing our best to help the other people have fun too.
Role-playing to be hated (though perfectly acceptable) seems like
not much fun for anyone.

I don't know you and I don't want to make too many assumptions
about you, but it seems like you have quite a bit of growing up to
do. Things that seem like a BIG DEAL right now will seem laughably
insignificant in fifteen or twenty years. This is the time period
where you learn to roll with the punches.

Oh, and if I've completely misread you and you're not IN college,
but rather TEACHING college and you're in your forties, then you're
a lunatic and probably beyond help.

Well, I just had a response almost completely typed up, but then
something funky happened with my browser and it all poofed. I really
don't feel like writing it all out again.

I'm just going to respond with this, and then I'm done with replies:

You have misread me quite thoroughly, although that's easy to do over
the internet, so no biggie.

As for the murder shifters, my original post mentioned there was
quite some time between shifter #1 and shifter #2. There was a wide
variety of character builds and roles in between, including some
fortressites, a couple thieves, a couple ragers, a couple nexuns, a
couple imperials, my first trib, and several uncaballed goodies.
There was even an evil rager who was actively seeking redemption from
the time I first rolled him. I failed in a couple points on that
character and deleted him, then tried again after the wipe when I
started getting bored with Toranna. Shortly after my interview
process began is when I gave up my computer and so he has auto'd now
as well. Shifter #2 poofed in the server wipe shortly after gaining
final forms. After the wipe, I tried again with a slightly different
take and build, and Toranna was born. Years ago when I used to play
D&D, I loved being DM and using the Book of Vile Darkness and Book of
Exalted Deeds. I would use the Book of Vile Darkness to create evil
NPCs to be arch-nemesis for my players to butt heads with. Because
the NPCs were so despicably evil, it enhanced the heroics of the PCs.
One PC had his NPC wife murdered. One PC became possessed and started
wreaking havoc in the group. The NPC lover of another PC was abducted
and tortured. When the enemy was eventually defeated, the players
were so intensely wrapped up in it that one of them literally jumped
up from the table in his excitement. This has always been my take on
good vs. evil in roleplaying games. I don't always successfully pull
it off. I'm human and make mistakes just like anyone else. But I have
a goal and I try to hit as close to the mark as I can. As a
character, Toranna was SUPPOSED to be a douche. Her ONLY redeeming
quality was that she didn't like to full loot people. Did she still
loot occasionally? Yes. But when she did, it usually was not much.
All three shifters had roles, though with the first two, I don't
remember actually entering their roles. Toranna had a basic written
role. In all honesty, I wish I had NOT tried to tone down Toranna at
all, and left her as completely douchebaggy as she started out to be.
Trying to change her made her become more inconsistent.

Already I've retyped more than I wanted to take the time for, so I'm
just going to leave it at that and I'm done with replies. My time is better spent on other things.

Klaak

I'd make a piss-poor FBI profiler.

Anyway, comparing D&D and a MUD is really apples and oranges. From
across a table it's easy to judge who, AMONG YOUR FRIENDS, is upset.
Across an internet connection and dealing with strangers, it can be
quite difficult.

>>As a character, Toranna was SUPPOSED to be a douche.

The issue I have with this is that unless you're an excellent RP'er,
(which from all accounts was not the case with Toranna) it can be
next to impossible to differentiate between a douchey character and
a douchey player.

I, for one, can't imagine why anyone would want to play a character
who is a ####, but that's probably because I encounter enough ####s
during the course of my average day to have no desire to pretend to
be a #### when I get home from work (which is wall to wall assholes.)

I suppose the only reason that I commented in the first place is
because the passive-agressive-martyr personality that came across in
your first post really rubbed me the wrong way.

When, after a month, you get your computer back, try rolling up a
Herald Healer and make it your goal to help everyone. Graatch did it.
(well, that was a bard, but you get the idea.)

I endorse this:

>The issue I have with this is that unless you're an excellent
>RP'er,
>it can
>be
>next to impossible to differentiate between a douchey
>character and
>a douchey player.

You get the same kind of problem with cursing -- it's not that calling someone a fargin gnomepunter is somehow to us less offensive or superior to calling someone a ####er, it's that unless the RP is patently obvious around swearing at someone who just killed you, it looks an awful lot like raging non-RPing player.

I might use that if I play a gnome one day.

Of course I'd say there are varied RP appropriate responses to a death. Anger among them, as it seems a somewhat natural response instead of a "nice job man you sure beat me good there". Admittedly there are probably better ways of expressing such than using swears, but I can imagine a gnome might vow bloody vengeance on their killer and all other fargin gnomepunter's like him (which would be hilarious since I can picture a little gnome yelling that at a fire giant), which might fall under obvious RP where as fargin gnomepunter alone would just be thinly veiled swearing. Swearing just needs a context and a reason, where the words are used more for emphasis instead of just blind rage-induced jackassery.

I like the "grunt" social. Or scowl. Or snort.

I kind of think we are too civil. All our characters are killers (or try to be) but everyone tends to be very civil.

I like being edgy even if it pisses people off because of perceived ooc douchiness.

Also keep in mind characters are like 16-20 starting out and should be somewhat immature to be believable.

asf

...but it all comes down to: This character was crap.

flies on the turdpile

You were mean to fight, but I gained more respect of you when you attacked me that one time in Ugaard and you appologized when you realized I was already near dead when you struck.