Since being more active lately, I have found myself (more often) defending the stringing of a negative title to a player or (often enough) giving out negative titles. Positive titles are in there, too, but they are rarely controversial, so I'm leaving them out of this discussion. The reaction by the "punished" player usually shocks me, so I wanted to take the time to explain how I see titles.

First, I want to make it REALLY CLEAR that I am not, in any way, interested in arguing about your specific case of a title and why you were wronged. In fact, I'm likely to delete threads of that type. Trust me, this is NOT about you...it's about titles, in general.

To me, a title reflects a character's reputation in Thera. This can be good, bad, or some flavor of neutral. It's why leaders get titles, because their reputation of their role in a cabal proceeds them. It's why marked priests often get them. It's why they're often used as a reward for doing something gutsy/stupid/awesome (history often remembers the bold...and the character gets the reputation for it.) Reputations are not always good), so sometimes your "not to be so proud of" actions get your noticed, too. Just like the guy that steals lunch money is known as "the bully" even by people who haven't personally run into him...your reputation can be built if your action(s) that you do (especially if a pattern forms.)

The reason I love titles is because this is a really natural vehicle for announcing this reputation. I feel it is even MORE important with a low playerbase. If you repeatedly trick a guy into a group and bash him down...in a super active playerbase there's a greater chance people would talk about you and warn others. That's the kind of behavior that wouldn't be a secret for long. If the imms title you, it's an IC way to create the reputation that, if we're really buying into the world of Thera which should be chocked full of chatty PCs and Non-PCs, would naturally manifest. And, that's our role as the imm staff...to make that world "run" whenever possible with all of our tools.

It's also important to point out that people don't get to sculpt their own reputations...the world's subjective interpretation of your actions produces a reputation. Your role might say "I hate people that aren't knowledgeable about the world, so I follow them around and bash them down the minute they unghost....sphere: knowledge, yo!"....but you still might get a title that suggests you pick on the weak if you're noticed spam killing newbies.

Finally, call me crazy, but I think most of the time title attention is cool. It makes you stand out. I've been the recepient of less-than-flattering titles and I thought they were fun.

A few pieces of advice if you get a title that you perceive as negative...

1) Are you sure it's negative? It may just be another interpretation of your actions and give you a chance to RP more. If you're a spam killer of newbies, maybe you LIKE people to ask what's up with that and you get to give them your knowledge rant and preach your beliefs. (Note: I am not in any way endorsing spam killing anybody...I'm using it as an extreme example.)

2) Nothing bad has happened to your character. Seriously. A title is about the only "game mechanic consequence free" lever we have that produces a logical IC consequence without actually harming or dampening any of your mechanics. If we had really wanted to screw you over, we would have removed skills/spells, changed alignment, changed your stats, etc.

3) I'll wager that no negative title, ever, was removed because of whiney prays calling the imms names. That almost always jumps the train from IC to OOC...and in the OOC conversation other bad things can happen. Also, human nature, it makes us MORE convinced you needed that title.

4) If you still think your title is horribly unjusitifed and ruining your life (please read #2 ten times first, before proceeding) then I advise two things. First, roleplay differently. Keep it all IC. Consider how to prove the title wrong. Use the role command. Second, if you think it's staff abuse, email the administrators a calm, logical argument. I can't imagine a recent situation that the imps would overrule, but that's the right avenue if you want to address it OOC.

I got a negative title once that I recall. Boldereth the Half-Wit or something, instead of Half-Elf. I ran with it, had some fun with it and it got removed shortly thereafter.

Its really not a big deal.

"Tester of Death Traps"

That was on Brody, a CG human warrior in outlander ages ago who could be honestly said that curiosity killed that cat. Every time he looked at a (new) room that had a descriptor that said it might not be a good idea to go that way, he had to go see just in case it *was* a good idea.

Still didn't manage to con die him though.

I don't know if it was meant as a negative but I sure didn't take it that way.

Since people who are unhappy are invariably the vocal 90% of a population, I merely wanted to state I love any title I might receive...including the very FIRST title I ever got, which I don't even remember these days, but remember my very first character being a Knight, getting transferred by Cador, having a bitch-fest with him (hey, I actually WAS 13 at the time), and ending up with some unflattering title.

I still loved the title, and proudly paraded around the fact that I'd gotten into it with Cador, and still had a character left

I guess I was right when I said a certain Transmuter wasn't played by one of our better players.

I had thought this might have been Rogue because I had recently slaughtered his Orc. But Rogue communicates differently so I wasn't sure.

This would have been my second guess.

I'm glad to hear he's losing intrest, maybe his absence will cultivate intrest in new players.

Everything you wrote in your post is applicable. Glad you got him now instead of when he had Duo... Oh wait he would never have Duo.

... I for one support this view perfectly. If a char acts one way there are consequenses. Titles are a great way to show reputations.

My current char has sure felt that, and I sure am proud of my title.

I've had "negative" titles as well:

Amberion the pitiful wretch, free of any home.

My Storm Giant Paladin that turned evil. (Was tricked by a gnome... meh)

I rolled with it for quite some time, a shame my RP and Swenglish wasn't that good or I might have had more fun with it.

Anyway, you have my support!

Always shoot first and then call whatever you hit the target.

nt

Goo scarabs? Gross, dude.

But this reads like a total troll directed specifically at me and in light of the rest of what happened, I'm inclined to think it is.

I've asked to politely discuss this in private and been met with crickets. I've sent two e-mails and didn't even get a 'Hey, we'll look in to it, calm the #### down and relax' response. Or even a 'You're a cockbag #### off and stop being a douche'. Not sure what it is you all want me to do but #### off and never play again because that's the impression I've got right now.

I didn't even want to post this but it's now been nearly seven hours since what happened happened and I am going off half-ass assumptions because that is all you have given me.

I hope I'm wrong, mostly because of several things. I've always enjoyed this game in the past and I'd like at least a little empathy for a second from one of you.

But in the end, it's your game.

Um, I don't actually know you from a hole in the ground. I don't keep up with forum handles or sites. However, if you're the dude that posted a bunch of heavily edited logs that showed everything BUT the reasons you got IC consequences on Dio's (complete with prays and tells taken out mid log), then color me totally unimpressed from what I know about your actions today.

The only thing worse than taking a story to unofficial forums to try to get griefers to buy into your pity party is actively editing the logs to deceive said griefers. And no, I'm not going to elaborate, because that's not the imm gig. We don't post our logs or give public details on specific character consequences.

Also, like I said, this isn't about a particular case. It's a general pattern I've been surprised by since I came back. If you're the case I'm thinking about you've already taken up too much imm time. It was, honestly, expressing my opinion and suggestions about the use of titles to betray less than flattering patterns of characters and why I'm a fan of it (in general) and why it doesn't justify an OOC flip-out.

Because if you don't have them, please kindly stop saying I'm posting 'heavily edited' logs when I'm doing nothing of the sort.

Also, why don't you tell the playerbase why what happened happened? Because I was sitting in the Inn with an orc and a thief when what happened happened.

Whatever. I got World Cup to watch. CF slowly is becoming not worth my time.

But again, continue slandering me. It's rather amusing.

Could you elaborate on what this pattern is thats got you so surprised?

Do people who full loot bother you? Complaining after dying? Begging for gear back?

I get it. You have your pet peeves. But could you please elaborate on what they are, so we as players can try to avoid them, so that our characters don't get ruined because of you?

This is 100% constructive and legitimate. I'm asking a serious question here and in no way trolling. Please don't take it that way.

As I think I mentioned, what surprised me was negative reactions to unflattering titles. Also, as I mentioned, it's not *my* titles in isolation that were the reason for this post...hour count wise I've spent way more time dealing with pray responses from title decisions that I wasn't involved in (though fully support.)

You lost me at "so our characters don't get ruined because of you." If you see a title on a character as "ruined" I don't have anything else more to say to you. I think I cleary stated why I support IC title changes.

If you're talking about something else, then you're talking about something outside the scope of the conversation.

Fact of the matter is, what I find to be acceptable gameplay, you might not. As a result, someone like you might give someone like me a nasty little title that I probabl wouldn't care to have. Which makes for a ruined character for me.

So let me reiterate my question. What sort of things do you find unacceptable that would cause you or perhaps another staff member to hand out a negative title?

You know full well she can't give a right answer with out you and a dozen others flaming her.

She nailed someone who needed nailing. I'm glad she did it.

TMNS' character got a title that was really not that bad at all, "Loathed by Many", but its after he lost 20 edge points and his charisma was dropped to 5. All this apparently because he kills a ####load of people with his evil character.

After the bitchfest on Dios about it, Cyradia happens to post this thread.

Magus' post may not be referring to just the title.

And having encountered this guy with a couple characters. He was a griefer.

He would threaten peoples gear Even though sometimes he didn't actually sacrifice it he would tell you he did.

In short he's a major cock.

His posts are exceedingly narcasitic and I'd be willing to bet he's already sitting in the Inn with a new character and a new merc chasing people out.

His behavior mad it unfun in the extreme for others.

He got off light.

He posted a log that states, "Your edge points have been set to -20." so it was AT LEAST 20 edge points, and that's only if his edge points are 0.

>And having encountered this guy with a couple characters. He
>was a griefer.
>
>He would threaten peoples gear Even though sometimes he didn't
>actually sacrifice it he would tell you he did.
>
>In short he's a major cock.

Maybe that was his response to you. Several other peopled posted "oh yeah you killed me, you weren't that bad though." Also, you have this certain holier than thou air of superiority ego thing going. If that comes out in your characters, which I think it does, and is why you play some decent evil shamans (you did Drucyrus right?), then I'd want to screw you over too.

>His posts are exceedingly narcasitic and I'd be willing to bet
>he's already sitting in the Inn with a new character and a new
>merc chasing people out.
>
>His behavior mad it unfun in the extreme for others.

I think his "Ok 72 hours works on reviewing my complaint" comment was kind of lame b/c the staff are volunteers, but he's also extremely agitated, as I would be too.

He did kill a ton, yes, but I see conflicting views on whether he was badly played.

Also, distention will kick in for him and he wasn't really level sitting. He just killed a lot really, really quickly.

>He got off light.

A permanent 5 Charisma plus losing at least 20 edge points is light? I'm not weighing in on the title here cause who cares and I like negative titles; I think they're great.

And he played it well. That 5 Charisma should be seen as a reward for exempliary douchieness.

My experiences with him were awefull. I don't think I'm alone or he wouldn't have gotten that title.

And no, I didn't play Drucyrus.

I never really see you complimenting anyone unless you're trying to kiss ass.

Horribly off topic, but he complimented my first hero on RP.

And Pro and Drucyrus have very different play-styles and attitudes, I'd say.

Doesn't sound like it has to be "gameplay" related. Though, certain "gameplay" behavior would, obviously, have IC consequences. For instance if you indiscriminately kill all of Thera, then add insult to injury in some form or fashion, it stands to reason your character might be near-univerally loathed. Hence a title "Loathed by Thera".

dfsvdv

>I've asked to politely discuss this in private and been met
>with crickets.

Sorry, CF isn't the only thing going on in any of the IMPs' lives.

I haven't gotten the chance to look at anything yet, and I don't think anyone else has either.

I don't like it but it is what it is.

I'm done for now, on Dio's and here. I'll check back after the weekend.

I've had a few "negative" titles in the past, and I've had some great ones. Several of the (-) ones I turned into positive. Just an example to where I gained the title of outcast of Galadon, and was perma flagged as an auto attack from city guards. It was funny, very annoying, but funny and I took the momentum and spun it toward a cabal and was able to join in a matter of a couple days. Several things to recall are, #1 this is a game, #2 it is major RP, #3 each situation is what you make of it, #4 have fun. Anyway, back to the game.

The fact that titles are mechanically an OOC thing and their frequency is low. That means if you get a negative one, you are being singled out from the rest of the playerbase in a negative way. The fact this often occurs while the player is already in a negative state of emotion tends to just make the matters worse (and the imms are likely in a negative emotional state to give it as well).

What you have is a recipe that is so obviously headed for disaster I have no idea why a rational individual would be surprised that this is how it turns out.

If 50% of chars had titles it would be less of a big deal because it would be less of a rare occurence (this would of course also make getting a positive title less of a reward as well).

To take your bully example if you treated people in a bad way and they in turn resorted to psycological retaliation in the form of name calling in real life do you think the bully would take it in a level headed way or do you think it would rile them up more?



The solution, if the character is really being a super dousch then give them the title. if they start spam praying about it create a pray ignore feature. Creating a formal dispute process could help you so that players don't get the sense there is no way to dispute it (like the current way, and people want answers in a timely manner not the vague rp for a few weeks response). If the player thinks the decision is final and they have nothing to lose by having a melt down then they are not going to think twice about having a melt down. I don't neccesarily think ROTD talking to immortals is the best route for it either, consider something out of game handled through email or chat or something where the identity of the administrator in question is not hidden.

Daevryn posted elsewhere that the problem with certain evil douche bag / asshole type characters is that it's often very, very difficult to both pull off and detect the difference between genuine evil douche bag RP and unsportsmanlike, asshole player. That's actually got nothing to do with this case, but...

The same goes for negative titles. Having a negative-sounding title because you're doing a bang up job of role-playing an evil, seedy, lying asshole of a bastard is way cool. The problem is that since 95% of the negative titles that are set are for things like awful RP, constant full looting, cherry-picking PKs, etc., most player tend to assume that a negative title is attached to the player, not the character.

I guess it really comes down to the character in question and the motive behind setting the title in the first place. For example:

"Disgrace of Battle" - I wouldn't be bothered by this title at all if I got it, because it seems totally IC.

"Loves Loot More than Good" - This would embarrass me as a player.

"Serial Vulture of Fallen Heroes" - Ditto.

"Corpse Stripping Scavenger" - Also gay.

FWIW, "Loathed by Many" wouldn't bother me at all.

Negative titles are, more often than not, an OOC punishment. Some are just downright meant to make the person want to delete. I think for all Cyradia is saying here, that's the simple truth.

I completely understand why the player might think that, especially given what else happened to them, but that title does make perfect, logical sense IC. And honestly, if I'm an evil/chaotic bastard who is murdering everyone, that title would stroke my ego quite nicely.

Again, I'm not saying if I was that transmuter I would be happy with what happened to me as a whole. I'm just saying that if I was an EC serial killer, both my character and me would think that title was appropriate.

The incident with the transmuter really isn't a good example to cite about bad(ish) titles anyway, since there was clearly more to it.

Go find characters with negative titles and PBF's. Look at the relevant Imm comments. Tell us what you find.

Hey, I wasn't disagreeing with you on that. If my original post wasn't clear enough, I agree that a negative title usually means someone thought ill of the player. That's what I meant by, "... 95% of the negative titles that are set are for things like awful RP, constant full looting, cherry-picking PKs, etc., most player tend to assume that a negative title is attached to the player, ..."

At the end of the day though, if the title fits from a purely IC standpoint, I don't think the Imms should hold back just because us players can't handle separating something that is IC from something that isn't an OOC attack against a player.

Obviously, titles about how much of a looting #### some role-less air/off shifter are going to scream "OOC: this guy's a ####", but then again, so do that guy's actions.

If you're going to call a negative title that reflects the character's roleplay an OOC punishment, than you're defining everything as an OOC punishment.

IC, it's usually not an Immortal who "gave" a PC a title-- it's how the general populace has taken to thinking of that character. There can be IC titles, of course-- for example, if during an IC interaction a specific Immortal decrees one (such as "High Priest of _____") upon a character. But most of the positive and negative titles are designed to be reflections of a character's reputation.

I mean, if you're a super-Chaotic Outlander who spends an inordinate amount of squatting in Market Square complaining that he was unjustly wanted based on a very specific and arcane reading of the Tribunal Laws as written... well, word is going to get around that you're some combination of hypocritical and whiny.

Conversely, if you're some super badass guy and you become known by some super badass title, that's equally IC.

OOC punishments are things that can't be readily rationalized IC-- for example, a character who is slain or denied for multi-charring equipment, for spamming, or for going on an OOC tirade.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

I think it's really interesting you assume the player is in a negative state of emotion...I would not assume that. I would assume they're playing the character some way they can justify (hence the IC route of consequences.)

I agree with your last paragraph, which is exactly why I made the post (and what I think you'll find my suggestions for response entail.) If you think an email to the imps isn't formal enough, I disagree...anything more formal would probably make imps burn-out 5x faster. And, again, I don't think a game mechanic free consequence like a title should be keeping anybody up at night (or burn IMP hours.)

A counter discussion...

There's an evil character that appears to either be roleplaying an extreme evil persona or being a total jackass of a player as a pattern (pick one...spam killing, full sac/looting, etc.) Their actions are not against the rules, but impacting the culture of the game with their extreme tactics. Would you have us...

a) Do nothing
b) Warn the playerbase via a title/reputation as described above in an IC capacity
c) Take measure to "harm" the character's mechanic's by removing skills/abilities

In my all but meaningless opinion:

A) is bad, but is usually how it is handled unless the Imms see it enough to justify taking action I'd wager. I know imms can't be omnipresent and police every player all the time, so people get away with jack ass moves all the time. People that don't draw attention to themselves usually get ignored, since players don't pray about getting pk'd most of the time. But start multi killing and taking it too far and you'd go from comments like "quietly racking up a fair amount of kills and deadly/skilled" to "-10 cool points for spam killing newbies repeatedly and full saccing their fine leather." on a pbf.

b) I think this is actually the best way to handle it and I agree with the people who say it's entirely RP related. If I were playing EC death bringing mage, and I got titled like that, I'd be happy, if that was the only reprecussion. Also my char really would not care if he was hated or not or how he was known. What, all the sudden he has feelings because people don't like him because he kills everyone? Hell no, he would revel in the fact that people piss their pants when they see him in the area. However, a negative title could encompass why he was loathed- i.e. hated butcher of the meek.

Lowering stats though is a different story since that has other non-rp impacts. Plus a guy can be hated or whatever and still be charismatic. Take scions. Everyone hates them for the most part. Should they all not get the same treatment and have charisma dropped for being the murderous evil bastards they are (and are supposed to be)? The chancellor is a conjurer, we all know who she is, we all know she will kill you without a second thought if she wishes. So how does she not get the same effect and be loathed by Thera? Am I suggesting she really shouldbe? No- since that would screw her char over. A title is fine, stat dropping just causes us a loss of a great evil deadly presence in the fields. She's a player in a game playing her character extremely well most likely, so she gets praise for being evil and deadly. I guess the manner in which she is deadly is acceptable, but that does not mean she would be any less hated from an RP viewpoint by the rest of the therans.

Titles, in any form, tend to be a mark of notoriety, and its usually deserved whether the player admits it or not though, so generally negative or positive title, I think the imms use a good deal of discretion in handing these out given most 90% of characters are never titled.

c) That just causes character deletion, and leaves a player bitter. If this is all the player ever does when they play, fine, CF may be better off, but if they are trying to rp a super sadistic villian I am against the Imms nerfing their char. That's something that Imms would have the information better to determine though.

As an aside, outside of imm names and maybe isildur, I don't know a damn thing about chars or players in terms of linking them, and don't really care who plays who. Every char should be judged by the char alone, not the player behind it. This one may have done shady crap, but I liked the char a lot. I assume everyone that does anything does so for RP reasons until they go blatantly OC and try my best not to bitch about it, though like everyone else sometimes I fail and get a bit more heated than I should.

The thing that caused him to #### a brick was losing edge points and charisma over what appears to be level-sitting, which distention already provides a drawback for. The title was just the icing on the cake, like a "And you know I'm right!" from that particular Immortal as far as I'm concerned.

Other than that, I dig negative titles a lot. But if this is in response to that, then the complaint was less about the title and more about something else.

On another note, I thought the title "Grand Master of Complaining About Proper Law Enforcement" or somesuch was hilarious

My trib, for example, took a "bribe" in order to leave Hamsah for long enough to reach his next level. What the criminal trying to mummy didn't know was that I only needed to whack a mob for about 10 exp and thus would have been back in time to stop him anyway. However, the imm spying on me didn't know that, booted me, and gave me a ####ty title. But I kind of liked it because it made the character more interesting.

Nererial too had a ####ty title, but again, it made the character a bit more unique, so I liked it. Admittedly a lot of players were completely pathetic about it and made ooc comments saying things like "even the imms think you are #### -- just look at your title", but on balance, it was all good.

If you want to be a nefarious evil dude, or a cowardly orc, then why not embrace that reputation when you get it?

I heart you.

Cyhiraeth the Kaiden, Dallies with Wolves

are Celn, that one rager dude who eventually got it changed for a slightly better title, and that transmuter that just deleted.

Those were all very good and appropriate titles.

Thanks.