What level of breaking RP is worth praying for? Specifically in regards to talking about mechanics stuff.

There's a spectrum of oocish mechanics talks that goes from "You bash, I'll trip" (very common) through "I just need you to do damage, he has nice gear" (recently received) to "I'll lag, you maladict str and bob will do damage" (never seen one this bad). Personally, stuff like this really bugs me, but I know a lot of people don't care, and think "you bash, I'll trip" is fine.

The question is, at what point is this kind of thing something the staff would even bother sending the guy a tell about, or caring about in any way? Where is the line for what sort OOC stuff isn't even actively discouraged anymore?

Now obviously you can gently hint, e.g. "Ah, you need me to injure him while you keep him off balance?" or maybe even just say "hey that seems kind of OOC" in a tell and that may work fine for the most part (best on friendly newbies), but it doesn't always work. If you're dealing with kind of a douchebag anyway (as was the case in my real-world example) at what point is it bad enough that a you might say the "stay IC at all times" rule was broken?

Ehh. ICly it isn't the greatest but...

1. People would rather be oocish and alive, than RP-god-like and dead.

2. If people are charging at you and your friend, you don't say, Okay, you should use your gun to aim at his chest, and I'll start running to distract them. You say, "You shoot. I'll run."

>1. People would rather be oocish and alive, than RP-god-like
>and dead.

Sure, but it's an RP game. It's obvious *why* people RP poorly. There's tons of crappy RP people do for obvious power-gamey reasons. I don't think that's okay either.

My problem isn't here with shorthand, where it makes sense. I recognize that in reality people say short quick things. And it's fine to do likewise in CF. But would anybody really say "flee" for example, if that wasn't the actual command to be entered? I think not, they'd say "run", "get out" or "go!" or something, and people in CF often use those. The word "flee" is just kind of a strange word to use in the context of a fight, since it really implies a more long-term escape.

So yeah, maybe people would rather be oocish is and alive than RPed and dead. To that I say: too bad for you, RP is not optional in carrion fields. Your paladin shouldn't be killing (most) neutrals for gear either, and that's all about RP. Why is it okay to RP poorly when it comes to communication, and not when it comes to gathering gear?

I don't see your first example as breaking RP or OOC at all. Our characters learn to bash and trip and, while they aren't conscious to the concept of "lag", they are to the concept that bashing someone down prevents them from performing more complex maneuvers until they get back up. So given that perspective, I think it's reasonable for 2-3 guys to sit around saying, "You bash him down, I'll weaken him with my maledictions, and Bob blasts him with fireballs until he dies."

There's absolutely nothing about your second example that tells me that the player is putting any effort whatsoever into their RP/speech, but I'd say that boils down to them being lackluster or lazy, but not necessarily OOC. To me, this is common "in the heat of combat, I don't have time to jazz up my speech" vocabulary.

Aside from actually using the word "lag", I'd group your third example with the first.

>around saying, "You bash him down, I'll weaken him with my
>maledictions, and Bob blasts him with fireballs until he
>dies."

In this quote, it's okay because you're using bash as in a way people might actually say it. But the way people normally say it, is clearly in the sense of "use the skill bash" People will say "I missed my bash" or something, and the word bash does not mean that. If you miss a bash, it means you missed a really great party.

It's not about just using synonyms because game-skill names are forbidden, it's about using things in ways that make no sense. People will say "sleep him" when they mean "cast sleep on him". They do that because it's convenient and easy, but it sounds retarded.

But like I said, most people don't care about this one, and even though it bugs me I know it's hopeless to try to convince the many lazy people who talk this way.

>lackluster or lazy, but not necessarily OOC.

I do disagree substantially on the last two though. The point of RPing at all is to pretend it's real, you know? People should be sensitive enough to language to tell the difference between RPG lingo like "damage" and the regular meaning of "damage" The sense of damage in RPG terms is very useful, but completely different from normal usage. I think part of RPing is having the sensitivity to language to recognize when you're using gaming jargon that is totally out of place thematically. It's as bad as walking up with your fire giant saying "'sup holmes, Eternal Star bitches be poppin' up in here"* Sure, it's valid language that doesn't obviously refer to anything OOC, but it's not a kind of language that belongs in CF.

*edit: Yes, I realize this is a mishmash of the past twenty years of urban slang and nobody at any point has used both "holmes" and "poppin'"

I'm making the assumption that characters understand that the abilities their guild masters teach them have names and that they use them. So for a warrior to say, "I missed my bash." is perfectly acceptable to me. It's just like a modern day martial artist saying, "I missed the throw."

"Sleep him!" doesn't bother me a whole lot. A necromancer (or whatever) understands they have a sleep spell and that it's intended effect is to knock someone out, so shortening "Cast sleep on him" or "Put him to sleep" to simply, "Sleep him!" seems fine, I suppose. Everyone today uses abbreviations, slang, etc. to refer to things, especially when it's specific to a trade, craft, or otherwise specialized in some way.

All that said, I don't think any of your example (or mine) are *good* RP, but they're probably not grounds, IMHO, for a trip to the ROTD for a pep talk either, at least so long as they're doing a better job over all outside of stressful, time sensitive combat scenarios.

At some point, you just have to accept that given how much emphasis in places on fighting and PK in CF, the occasional "cb blind" or "gt flee out", etc. is going to happen and is going to be acceptable to most players.

Given the "you bash, I'll trip" example, the more elaborate way to say it would be something like this: He's coming, how about you bash him to the ground, while I keep tripping him whenever he tries to stand up again.

In a combat situation, that won't work, your opponent will have either seen you and fled, or beaten you to a pulp, by the time you are half way through your sentence.

So, you use to the point sentences: You bash, I'll trip.

That's just about practicallity.

Poetry/classic literature may be beautiful and all (and in general even that's vastly debatable) but people just don't talk that way.

Why use sentences that will only get you the "what?" response, while you can keep it simple. Take a look at dialects, slang and internet talk.

True roleplay is about playing people that feel REAL, not guys that spout overelaborate gibberish.

And i generally look down on people who speak in a monosylabic way.

It's completely OOC to say Bash, trip, quaff, what ever and I tend to leave groups or hold back EQ I was thinking of sharing.

Imms have commented on this before, specifically combat over the Cabal channel, and Iunna had some input that made a lot of sense.

Man, man, man, ball, ball, ball, shoot, shoot, shoot.

I mean in competative things you streamline communication because it allows you to communicate more in less time when time is very important.

And that's a terrible comparison.

Bash, trip and quaff are all perfectly viable words to use in CF. Each one is a word that applies to a very specific maneuver or action, that the general adventuring Theran would understand.

Liken bash to push (since bash isn't a commonly used real life word). Is it ok to say "Push him down, so he can't escape?" Of course it is. But to say "I kept missing my pushes, and he got away" is a little bit awkward.

Ultimately, it's all about HOW you use the word, not whether or not you use it at all. "Trip him, so he can't run away" makes perfect sense in CF, for instance.. and it's probably the easiest way to say it.

>Ultimately, it's all about HOW you use the word

Exactly. The point isn't that all skill names are naughty words you should never use. It's more that people should be aware how what they're saying would sound in real life. In real life you wouldn't say "missing my bashes" but you might say "missing my takedowns" if you're an MMA guy, but even that's a little wierd.

The problem is that certain cf gameplay mechanics just don't make any sense in reality, so you have to use a little imagination to make it smooth. The whole concept of lag is a prime one, there just is no lag. Equally sensless is the concept of damage. In real life if you are personally maimed, eviscerated or mutilated, that's going to be a permanent problem for you. And hey, any one person can only be dismembered 4 times. Except maybe in boxing (and similar sports), there's no such thing as this kind of gradual eroding of health. The stuff with skills is similar, but less extreme.

In real life I know that I can do a given technique from the martial art I study, and some people are better at it or some are worse, but the way I think and talk about those techniques is very different from the way. Part of it is just that in CF a skill is a discrete entity. In real life I wouldn't say "Oh, I keep failing my roundhouse kicks" it just doesn't make any sense. Basically I think people should pretend they don't know that there's such a thing as a random skill check.

It's always been my opinion that you're supposed to basically pretend that the fight mechanics designed for fun are still supposed to mostly represent reality as we know it. Sure there's magic, and people are tougher overall, but I never felt that you should have an IC understanding of stats, lag, even the having-specific-skills.

Bashing is an established word in CF lingo, that everyone connect an action to. Even though its not feastable to say that you bashed a guy in real life, does not mean its unacceptable in the CF universe. If I say "Bash him" that can be easily translated and understood because every character in the CF universe will understand the meaning. There are several such examples in the real world, where words have gotten a meaning because of execive use.

The skills are scrolled up on an OOC list that show ranks and percentages.

while I will use IC language to describe these things, it's gay to say things, like "I get bash in 3 ranks!"

Bash being a verb, it's easy to make it work in the game, but there are those who take things so literally I have to hit nofollow.

It's an RP mud, or it's supposed to be, that's an attractor for me not, jk lol I have Dervish dance! woot!

Valk is right.

That being said, the people that are the worst about it generally seem to have high kill counts and Imm love, so I don't really think the Imms give a ####. That's your answer.

In 2 promotions I get an expense account and golf club membership.

or when I get my yellow belt I learn to round house kick like chuck norris.

Or 200 more hours of flight sims I can get my pilot liscense.

There are certainly plenty of examples of perks or skills coming with ranks in RL and the way people communicate them.

I think your just overly nitpicky about how people communicate just to have something to grief people about. Stop trying to push your standards on others? Especially if you don't set much of a standard yourself (thats not to say you set a low standard because you don't but you don't set one that the general public seems to think of as a higher one)

I church my RP to fit game mechanics.

My high standards as you put it seem pretty basic to me.

Anyway, I don't thing it matters anymore because as you said, people don't care.

There's nothing for them to care about.

The fact that 'bash' and 'trip' are on OOC lists, doesn't mean they're entirely verboten.

All the Imms are on an OOC wizlist. Does that mean we can't use their names? Every area is on an OOC list, too. So I can't refer to Galadon? Each race is on a list. Damn near EVERYTHING is on an OOC list.

So what's the point?

Bash is common word for adventurers in CF. "I've learned how to bash my enemies" isn't particularly colorful, but it is entirely legitimate in the world of CF.

"I missed 8 bashes in a row", is starting to sound OOC. That much I'll admit. But the word itself isn't the problem, it's how the word is used.