Or, wherein I try to get a roleplaying discussion going.

Obviously, not everyone who plays CF could give a rat's ass what I think of their roleplaying. Hey, it's your birthday, and you're welcome to your opinion regardless of whether it agrees with mine. However, being as it is that I'm in a position to hand out goodies or not depending on my opinion of a character's RP, I thought it might be informative/interesting to share some of the things that rub me the wrong way.

1) "-est ever" type declarations in player descriptions. CF is going on nine years old, and over that span of time I shudder to think how many times I've witnessed the the strongest or biggest giant that I've ever seen, ugliest orc that I've ever seen, or most beautiful elf with the largest breasts that I've ever seen.

2) Characters that exhibit great RP among their friends, but won't offer word one or any semblance of interaction to their enemies.

This is arguable, because enemies are often just that, enemies. I don't disagree that it would be silly for Battleragers and mages to routinely sit down for tea and discuss current events. At the same time, when I look back on playing the game and the characters that were fun to fight, I never remember the "I don't actually have quiet mode on, but I might as well" type characters. A year passes and damned if I can remember their names. It's the interactors that stick out in my mind, the kind of enemies with style that I loved to hate, the kind that made CF a blast even when they were mercilessly whipping my ass.

3) Characters that can quote their cabal/religion's helpfile very nicely, but falter quickly when a discussion/argument meanders away from it.

Maybe that's a player limitation, I don't know. Honestly, if I wanted to read help Sylvan/Battle/Maran/Scarab/etc., I would just read it. (If I didn't like what it said, I might just change it. I'm crazy like that.) Obviously, the basic philosophy of a cabal/religion is going to place certain restrictions on you, but there is always a lot of room to play with, too. Let me feel your character's role come out even in discussing that philosophy. The Tribunal laws, to take one example, are about as cut and dried as any of this gets, but there are a thousand different reasons why your character could believe laws are a good idea, and every one will color how s/he sees the laws differently.

Help file quotation syndrome is frustrating in roleplaying with enemies, but it's a hundred times more frustrating if you're a cabal leader or empowering immortal.

4) Cabal leaders or other authority figure characters who are afraid to reject applicants, toss out existing cabal members, or otherwise be harsh even when it's called for.

I don't know that this is so much a roleplaying concern in all cases, but the previous point reminded me of it.

5) Players who try to bring the concept of game balance into the game.

Yes, you as a player know the game is supposed to balance out in some way, shape, or form. For the most part, your character probably doesn't have that mentality. I have a very hard time even imagining how a statement of the form "X skill/spell/power is too overpowered, that's why you killed me" could be considered in-character.

6) Players who are only capable of playing one type of character.

I have to admit that since we're not yet to a point where every player who logs onto CF is capable of a superbly-roleplayed character, I can really only be so bothered by this. Still, I'm not a huge fan of the players who come up with virtually the same roleplay every time. That lack of versatility makes it hard, from an immortal standpoint especially, to figure out if you're really roleplaying or just playing yourself. If every character you make is subservient and attaches themselves to a more prominent character, how am I to know if that's roleplaying or if the player is just like that? If every character you play is a murderous evil bastard, how am I to know you're not just a sick person who punts puppies through goal posts? If all of your characters go on Tribunal killing sprees, how am I to know you as the player don't just hate law that much? When I can look at a list of characters and see saintly and diabolical, peaceful and violent, dominant and supportive, etc. characters all played with equal facility, it really impresses me.

7) The amazing halting role.

Sometimes I spot a level 1 character with just the most amazing role, with unique RP hooks or an enthralling backstory. Five hundred hours and fifty levels later, I look at the role again and nothing has changed. Granted, I'm thrilled that you wrote such a cool thing to begin with, but would it kill you to add on to it or update it periodically? It's tough for me to know how I should deal with a character with this elaborate role about abuse at the hand of mages, who I then see raiding the village and butchering Battle. Did he abandon his role entirely? Have a series of events gradually changed the character's viewpoint? I have no idea.

8) Players who are only "on" in terms of roleplay for interviews, or when they have reason to believe they're being watched. That one's self-explanitory.

9) Players who don't think very hard about the implications of their character's beliefs/roleplay, especially when it comes to choices in who to kill or what gear to wear.

There sure are a lot of paladins running around murdering sentient neutral mobs for gear without a second thought. Think about that for a minute.

If you're a Sylvan, and your character believes that conjurers/necromancers/etc. are bad mojo, what are you doing conjuring elementals with certain objects, or wearing the gauntlets of living flesh? How is conjuring demons bad, but wearing artifacts obviously containing entrapped demons all right? I don't care how many hit points or damroll they give you, that's weak.

10) Recently mentioned in another thread: Characters that attempt to speak completely or mostly in a 'different language' drive me freakin' nuts. The odd one word here or there for flavor? That I have no problem with, especially if it's for a concept that doesn't really exist in English/common. To try to explain what I mean poorly with real-world examples, words like 'karma', 'machismo', or 'bushido' might succinctly refer to non-Anglo-Saxon-ish background concepts.

That's enough for a start. Chime in and/or nitpick away!

>4) Cabal leaders or other authority figure characters who are afraid to reject applicants, toss out existing cabal members, or otherwise be harsh even when it's called for.

Best peeve this far. But with a question:
I've had a couple semi-leader figures. Mostly in battle. Often my character's role dictated that what I should look for in applicants was 90% fighting ability, and 0-10% theoretical discussions. Now I often met applicants who knew their theories, had a solid roleplay but sucked ass at PK'ing. I try to be a harsh recommender, and I was usually extra harsh at them. But since they were good roleplayers they could usually handle the extra harshness.

I think you get the question...
a) Should I induct Matraien and reject Zefarah?
b) Other way around?
c) Induct them both?
d) Reject them both?

I usually went with a)...

10) Recently mentioned in another thread: Characters that attempt to speak completely or mostly in a 'different language' drive me freakin' nuts. The odd one word here or there for flavor?

Ugh. Yeah. Hateum. Brings me to peeve number

11) The lack of proper cursing in CF. When people argue, and fight, most people don't say #### like 'you are a shameless coward!'. Especially not if they are duergar battleragers. If I am to curse someone I wanna call them fukking kunts, fags, ####packers. I wanna tell them how I fukk their mom in the ass with a tire iron. But that brings so much negative attention from everywhere, it just isn't worth it. So I'm forced to sacrifice that RP aspect. And instead my cursings become blatantly OOC because I only do it when I die silly deaths.

Having to sacrifice RP to keep people happy brings me to number

12) Cabals have so many behaviouristical rules it's insane. Pretty much every caballed char I've had have been forced to change their roleplay out of fear of being uninducted by 'an Immortal'. Of course you could always say that...

a) It's my weakness as a player that makes me change my roleplay to avoid in-game disadvantages. But hell, if I play a caballed character, I want to be with the cabal and I want to interact with them. I don't wanna play 70% of my time being booted for violations of silly fascist rules/laws that doesn't matter at all for the Cabal's goals.

b) My character knows about the rules and thus he should adapt to them... Can't really counter it. Except that in real life, when you break rules/laws, you get away with it 98% of the times. In CF, there's a secret immortal police that boots you for violating them, and you can never know if you are being watched or not.

...
Last peeve

13) Gettings punished/booted/yelled at by 'an Immortal' for things that were perfectly well roleplayed. When 'an Immortal' punishes you, it makes you feel like you did some horrible roleplaying or broke some rule. Also, it makes it very hard to figure out how your character would react to the punishment or if you should just treat it like getting slayed for cheating and move on.



Disclaimer: These peeves ended up covering a verry narrow niche, I know that. If anyone feels insulted by anything above, wasn't my intention.

I'm definatley guilty of this.

With my current char, my poor excuse to myself is that I'm so immersed in the roleplay and there is just so much going on I can't live without a second of it by taking the time recording it in my role.

But that's not my real question. I sat down and started to record some of the things that my char has been involved in. Now some of it has been fantastic and I started to fear that an imm reading it just might not believe that I had actually pulled of such feats of RP unless they had actually observed the incident.

So, how often do you read a role that you feel you have to question the validity?

This leads to my next thought, I write my roles from the third person "bob thinks he fooled fred into doing x" in which if I exagerrated, I as a player would be lying to an Imm. If I wrote my role in the first person "I fooled Fred into doing x" exaggeration could be veiwed as IC and an acceptable statement from the chars distorted point of view.
So is there a preffered approach or even an opinion up there on this?

Thanks again for the great game, and even if we 'forget' to record all the neat stuff in our roles does not mean we didn't do the RP and enjoy your game.

So much has happened in the past couple of weeks to my character. I really should spend an hour or two on wrap chop.

Sometimes though, I'd much rather be in game especially when so much is going on. I agree that it's sometimes a little hard to pull out of the game for a bit and do a bit of writing up on your role.

But for me, it helps me refocus on where my character is heading, what she is thinking about, and who might be influencing her...or who she might be trying to influence herself. Every time I update that role it helps me develop her a bit more and adds to her depth...at least that is what I try to convey. I hope I do a decent job of it.

Firstly, I'll start by saying that to me roleplaying was once only a tool used to get recognition and acknowledgement. Then, as my characters developed I noticed that it's actually exciting and fun to submerge yourself into a fantasy world and play as something that is different from reality. I sound like a cliche, but it seems to me that some players and Immortals forget that roleplaying is not something mortals use to get rewards but to enjoy themselves.

Secondly, I'll contradict myself and admit that I do enjoy acknowledegment for my efforts, or what I percieve as effort. My request is for Immortals that have watched characters to constructively criticize them on the Battlefield. I've had several characters that have recieved rewards so I was grateful for being watched, but come the end of the character I would always wonder what I could have done differently and what was thought of me from those who are experienced in interaction and roleplaying. I am aware of the concept of 'If you don't have anything nice to say..' and that Immortals are not all-seeing with nothing but free time but to me, as a player, knowing how to improve myself and what the in-the-know's think would give me more insight into the game and how to better myself in it.

-Exit

>1) "-est ever" type declarations in player descriptions

I believe this is caused by many books written about superly beautiful/hideous characters of heroes and villians. Thus, it has the mindset of characters with the -est features usually stand out in the crowd.

It does, Nep. However, I do try not to make my character too conspicious unless it is within my role/sphere of playing one.

>2) Characters that exhibit great RP among their friends, but
>won't offer word one or any semblance of interaction to their
>enemies.

Well, that depends on the role. I do try to speak with my enemies though usually it's parley and jabs at each other. Mostly, I try to speak with others.

I do agree that many just snub your words. Even when they have killed you, they offer no conversation. Especially thieves and assassins who quickly hide away lest they are seen. To me, it's bad RP.

>discuss current events. At the same time, when I look back on
>playing the game and the characters that were fun to fight, I

Actually the fun doesn't end in characters who are killed/Pked. But the aftermath that counts - those jabs, threats and understanding of your opponents. I do log these after each fight. It adds alot to the gameplay.

>never remember the "I don't actually have quiet mode on, but I
>might as well" type characters. A year passes and damned if I
>can remember their names. It's the interactors that stick out
>in my mind, the kind of enemies with style that I loved to
>hate, the kind that made CF a blast even when they were
>mercilessly whipping my ass.

I'd hate those who put quiet mode so that they can practice 'peacefully'. It's bad gameplay for me. Quiet mode should be used like when conversing with an Imm, or some major cabal discussions. Even then, I don't put quiet mode.

>3) Characters that can quote their cabal/religion's helpfile
>very nicely, but falter quickly when a discussion/argument
>meanders away from it.

Well, I started quoting from the helpfiles first when I was learning about empowerment, cabals, etc. It helped me there during interviews; after a couple of years, I somewhat understand the cabals better and thus am able to create my own 'theory' or 'whys' to my character wanting to join/be empowered.

I have gotten head-on clashes with how certain philosophy of cabal should be with members and leaders.

>4) Cabal leaders or other authority figure characters who are
>afraid to reject applicants, toss out existing cabal members,
>or otherwise be harsh even when it's called for.

MOre often, I'm sure the cabal leaders do question the person intended. And if it is a good explanation, they let it pass. I mean, if you are going to boot anyone who flouts a grey issue, it's bad morale for the cabal.

Playing my character, i have so-called 'rejected' applications in my own understanding that are not worthy of the calling. But that's my opinion, and usually it needs a second opinion to balance. but how often can you get a second opinion?

>5) Players who try to bring the concept of game balance into
>the game.
>
>Yes, you as a player know the game is supposed to balance out
>in some way, shape, or form. For the most part, your
>character probably doesn't have that mentality. I have a very
>hard time even imagining how a statement of the form "X
>skill/spell/power is too overpowered, that's why you killed
>me" could be considered in-character.

I agree totally with this one. And I am also one who bitch about certian skills. Usually I come with a pk-mindset when using the skill. But taking a step back, I'll view it as an RP point of view. It's not easy as a player becoz you just want to be more powerful and stronger.

I have no solutions/suggestions to overcome this. It will and always be. Even in my AD&D games, players bitch about magical items and their worths. Heh.

>6) Players who are only capable of playing one type of
>character.

Everyone likes a certain class. Me included. However, do try to play other classes, which ended up quite miserably.


>7) The amazing halting role.

True. Even I have to remind myself to update my role and desc. More often, it's because I don't have the time to sit down and think what I want now, when my character is middle-age or old.

I did change my description with Llohuir and others too. Don't know if any witnessed it. *shrug*

>10) Recently mentioned in another thread: Characters that
>attempt to speak completely or mostly in a 'different
>language' drive me freakin' nuts. The odd one word here or
>there for flavor? That I have no problem with, especially if
>it's for a concept that doesn't really exist in
>English/common. To try to explain what I mean poorly with
>real-world examples, words like 'karma', 'machismo', or
>'bushido' might succinctly refer to non-Anglo-Saxon-ish
>background concepts.

I'm getting pissed with those so-called dwarven speeches and it's getting worse everyday. I mean, a little of it is cool; but every other sentences is going to screw my head.

Unless it is REALLY roleplay. Yet roleplay is a very subjective topic. What one finds cool isn't to others.

Nice that you highlighted a lot of things. Makes me want to relook at my description and role now. Thanks.

N>2) Characters that exhibit great RP among their friends, but
N>won't offer word one or any semblance of interaction to their
N>enemies.
>
>I do agree that many just snub your words. Even when they have
>killed you, they offer no conversation. Especially thieves and
>assassins who quickly hide away lest they are seen. To me,
>it's bad RP.

Definitely, which is why if I'm playing someone often unseen, I'll go somewhere relatively safe after a fight so I can be visible for the discussion. It's always best if your enemies know why they died. Sometimes it's good for them to know what to expect from you later on, so they know if they have a nemesis and why (or why not).

N>never remember the "I don't actually have quiet mode on, but I
N>might as well" type characters. A year passes and damned if I
N>can remember their names. It's the interactors that stick out
N>in my mind, the kind of enemies with style that I loved to
N>hate, the kind that made CF a blast even when they were
N>mercilessly whipping my ass.
>
>I'd hate those who put quiet mode so that they can practice
>'peacefully'. It's bad gameplay for me. Quiet mode should be
>used like when conversing with an Imm, or some major cabal
>discussions. Even then, I don't put quiet mode.

I played a character with (I think) deaf mode on for the first 20 levels. But I solo levelling and not PKing, so it wasn't really the same thing. It's kind of odd that quiet cuts off almost all communication, yet deaf only blocks tells.

N>3) Characters that can quote their cabal/religion's helpfile
N>very nicely, but falter quickly when a discussion/argument
N>meanders away from it.

Never done it, not even with my first cabal application. I expected Nighthawk to want something original and suited to my unwritten (as there wasn't any way to back in 95) role before letting me join Entropy. So, that setting the pace for me, I've always gone with an interpretation of the cabal concepts based on the character's pov.

N>4) Cabal leaders or other authority figure characters who are
N>afraid to reject applicants, toss out existing cabal members,
N>or otherwise be harsh even when it's called for.

I simply can't comprehend this one. If someone screws up and makes a good excuse, they get a warning, and the second screw up gets a boot from the cabal. Same with applicants. If they can't cut it the first time, they can have a second try when they've thought it over or learned from their mistakes. After a second try, they may as well give up. I'll never be a cabal leader though, I tend to have a good enough grasp of things to get in, but not to interview others.

N>5) Players who try to bring the concept of game balance into
N>the game.
N>
N>Yes, you as a player know the game is supposed to balance out
N>in some way, shape, or form. For the most part, your
N>character probably doesn't have that mentality. I have a very
N>hard time even imagining how a statement of the form "X
N>skill/spell/power is too overpowered, that's why you killed
N>me" could be considered in-character.
>
>I agree totally with this one. And I am also one who bitch
>about certian skills. Usually I come with a pk-mindset when
>using the skill. But taking a step back, I'll view it as an RP
>point of view. It's not easy as a player becoz you just want
>to be more powerful and stronger.
>
>I have no solutions/suggestions to overcome this. It will and
>always be. Even in my AD&D games, players bitch about magical
>items and their worths. Heh.

I don't typically enjoy players like that. In dice & paper RPGs, I like to think that magic items should be used as tools for puzzles and aids to RP, not as rewards. Most people don't agree with me.

BTW, that 'you killed me because' is typically whining, and I wish they'd stop. Fortunately it's pretty rare that I run into those people. Plus, they're often wrong about the real reasons, since usually you will not win one on one if you're attacked first. When they're right though, it's something to learn from and prepare for.

N>6) Players who are only capable of playing one type of
N>character.
>
>Everyone likes a certain class. Me included. However, do try
>to play other classes, which ended up quite miserably.

Everything old is new again. Every class I felt I had mastered has yet to be mastered again. So instead I'm checking out the classes I never used to play with, like shapeshifters, healers (both still new classes to my pov), warriors, etc. Maybe someday I'll go back to thieves, invokers, and bards.

N>7) The amazing halting role.

I'm only recently getting a proper handle on what a role is really supposed to be, in what Immortals want from it. At first I just put in character background stuff however I felt like writing it, even if the stuff was totally useless to anyone. Now that I have an idea of what they're really for, I can use them better. I think that might be part of why people don't really use the role stuff much, they don't really understand what it's for.

N>10) Recently mentioned in another thread: Characters that
N>attempt to speak completely or mostly in a 'different
N>language' drive me freakin' nuts. The odd one word here or
N>there for flavor? That I have no problem with, especially if
N>it's for a concept that doesn't really exist in
N>English/common. To try to explain what I mean poorly with
N>real-world examples, words like 'karma', 'machismo', or
N>'bushido' might succinctly refer to non-Anglo-Saxon-ish
N>background concepts.

Ditto. For me, it's all about the comprehension. If I can't make sense of what someone's saying, whether it's a language or an accent, RP with them becomes very unfun. Now, if they're nonsensical like the mad hatter or Yoda, that's sometimes fun. Long term though, it's all annoying.

>Or, wherein I try to get a roleplaying discussion going.

Hiya Nep! I'll contribute!

>
>1) "-est ever" type declarations in player descriptions. CF
>is going on nine years old, and over that span of time I
>shudder to think how many times I've witnessed the the
>strongest or biggest giant that I've ever seen, ugliest orc
>that I've ever seen, or most beautiful elf with the largest
>breasts that I've ever seen.

I try to keep my character descs to the purely physical, i.e. what you see. I try to keep it situationally neutral, so I don't put in the desc what my character is doing beyond if I can help it (they're not standing around with heroic awareness if were just slept... etc.)
This seems to solve the problem you're mentioning here. It's my hope that if others want to find out more, they'll interact with me.


>3) Characters that can quote their cabal/religion's helpfile
>very nicely, but falter quickly when a discussion/argument
>meanders away from it.

I try to talk to applicants a lot, I find this is an issue with them maybe 30%-50% of the time. I think I'm just getting lucky lately.

>5) Players who try to bring the concept of game balance into
>the game.

I'm fortunate that I never have run into this yet, or if I did it was years ago and I don't remember.

>6) Players who are only capable of playing one type of
>character.

You know, I normally find that my characters bounce from one extreme to the next. If I just played a OE character, I make a CG... and so on. The only align I almost never play is CE. CE just doesn't fit into my head. I enjoy making characters that are really, really, not the usual thing when I can cook such a concept up.


>7) The amazing halting role.

I've been bad about this at times, only updating my role every two weeks or so. I keep forgetting to "get around to it".

>9) Players who don't think very hard about the implications
>of their character's beliefs/roleplay, especially when it
>comes to choices in who to kill or what gear to wear.

I deal with this by basically treating NPC's as PC's. So, if I'm playing a good character, if I request an item, I usually give them the item I was using instead, if I had anything. Sometimes I request from neutral mobs, knowing they'll attack, just to "give them a chance", but other times I'm really mad and well...


>If you're a Sylvan, and your character believes that
>conjurers/necromancers/etc. are bad mojo, what are you doing
>conjuring elementals with certain objects, or wearing the
>gauntlets of living flesh? How is conjuring demons bad, but
>wearing artifacts obviously containing entrapped demons all
>right? I don't care how many hit points or damroll
>they give you, that's weak.

This just gets strange sometimes. For example, the bracelet of charms. Unless it was changed recently, I still can't figure out why it doesn't have a magic aura. I agree on the conjuring staff especially, but other objects are harder to call at times.


>10) Recently mentioned in another thread: Characters that
>attempt to speak completely or mostly in a 'different
>language' drive me freakin' nuts. The odd one word here or
>there for flavor? That I have no problem with, especially if
>it's for a concept that doesn't really exist in
>English/common. To try to explain what I mean poorly with
>real-world examples, words like 'karma', 'machismo', or
>'bushido' might succinctly refer to non-Anglo-Saxon-ish
>background concepts.

At times I've played characters that didn't really understand common or never learned it properly. Some of these characters eventually learned to speak properly as they advanced in the lore skill (as Sabiene did). Are you referring to mangled english or actually using non-english words to an extent that there literally is no way to know what a person is saying?


>That's enough for a start. Chime in and/or nitpick away!

I used myself and my playing style as examples since it was a convenient way for me to talk about this, but I'm wondering how others do things too

>I've been bad about this at times, only updating my role every
>two weeks or so. I keep forgetting to "get around to it".

Every two weeks is not bad at all, honestly. My disappointment is more with players who put in this fantastic role for their character when they start the character and never build on it.

>This just gets strange sometimes. For example, the bracelet
>of charms. Unless it was changed recently, I still can't
>figure out why it doesn't have a magic aura. I agree on the
>conjuring staff especially, but other objects are harder to
>call at times.

With regards to Battle and magic stuff, feel free to call something that seems misflagged either way to the immortal's attention. Other cabals have it harder, usually, in that they have to make judgement calls.

For example, should someone trying to revive the Empire be making use of a powerful, sentient artifact of Chaos? I'd think not, but. . .

>Are you referring to mangled
>english or actually using non-english words to an extent that
>there literally is no way to know what a person is saying?

For an example of what I'm talking about, go take a look at the drow language dictionary in the Lyceum. (Quick, before I burninate it!) Imagine a character that would only talk using that faux-language, no English words at all. There you go.

I have spoken with a lot of players about RP and have found some negative perceptions that act as disincentives to RP. I am not saying I agree with them, but here are a few popular ones I have seen:

1. “PK seems to be favored over RP. All of my efforts at RP go unnoticed, whereas PKers get all the titles. Therefore I’m not going to waste my time RPing.”

2. “The IMMs treat people unequally and show favouritism. Therefore you shouldn’t bother RPing, as CF is all about who you know.”

3. “Empowerment RP is not worth it. I basically just RP for over 50 hours and get absolutely nothing. The IMMs can take their RP and shove it.”

These perceptions might explain in part why you see lackluster RP from more than a handful of players. This is no criticism of anyone -- it’s just that many players think RP is done in vain. Some players feel resigned to the fact that they’re not going to get anything, and consequently their RP effort is severely inhibited. In other words, “I’ll just stick to PKing. You can RP all you want, since it’s a bunch of useless emotes.”

Another observation is that a large number of players are young and either do not understand or appreciate RP. Even if that were not so, I’m sure you agree that asking anyone to think deeply is a tall order in the real world – much less in a game. You’ll have to find some way to give these players incentive to put forth the effort. Some players with strengths in fiction writing are going to feel more at home, but what about the casual non-writing player? It is very easy to lapse into the mentality their RP effort is to no avail.

I’m just mentioning the plight of the disenchanted RPer. With my characters I try to help others develop their roles IC, and it is not easy. I can certainly imagine your headache as a game administrator trying to motivate the uninitiated and the skeptic alike.

1. “PK seems to be favored over RP. All of my efforts at RP go unnoticed, whereas PKers get all the titles. Therefore I’m not going to waste my time RPing.”

I don't know how to answer that except to say it's inaccurate. There's been plenty of mortals who finished their lives with zero PKs, but reaped piles of RP rewards. I can think of one that heroimmed in the last year as well, along with several others with reasonably abysmal non-zero-win records in that department. Herald is one cabal that has a ton of titled/quested/etc. members, but there's recent examples in every cabal (and uncaballed characters) who are less than deathfull, but consistently rewarded.

2. “The IMMs treat people unequally and show favouritism. Therefore you shouldn’t bother RPing, as CF is all about who you know.”

The majority of immortals have no way at all of figuring out who is playing who. The minority who can see your login information generally don't go to it unless a rules violation comes up. For example, it's reasonably common that we have discussions like "CharacterX deleted. Huh. Look who played him. It's on the Battlefield."

As an example, of all the current Scions, I have a guess at who plays one, and that's only because the character reminds me of a very cool character from the past. I've never even looked at IPs or other information on this person. As for the rest of the cabal, I have no clue, and don't want to.

As for accusations of favoritism: If you or someone else thinks they have a case of this kind, feel free to report it. If we see a string of crappy characters being rewarded by the same Immortal over and over, we will step in (and have, in the past). I'll also step up and say that a lot of these favoritism accusations are the last resort of people who lack the creativity or effort to reap these sorts of rewards.

3. “Empowerment RP is not worth it. I basically just RP for over 50 hours and get absolutely nothing. The IMMs can take their RP and shove it.”

Empowerment isn't for everyone, and it's certainly not for novice players. It's right in the character generation, and is re-emphasized in helpfiles. A lot of veterans view it as a perk more than a drawback- a chance to interact early on with an Immortal they enjoy, and something that isn't difficult for them.

The point of empowerment is to make sure that religions are consistent and well-represented. I certainly don't want lame priests running around with my stamp of approval on them. This is a large part of why I do most of my observation silent and unseen- the better players roleplay all the time because they enjoy it, and those are the people that have an easier time with me.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

>I’m just mentioning the plight of the disenchanted RPer.

Having read this, my question would be: What would you suggest we do to encourage RP among these various types of people?

I can’t even pretend to say I have the answers, since you have hundreds of souls to look after. Still, there are some things I’ve found useful to consider.

One reason RP is so dreaded is that it involves applied effort in so many areas: Description, Role, Emotes, Actions, and Dialogue (DREAD).

Your problem is that roles are under-emphasized. The Role drives the action of the character, and sets out the character’s understanding of the world. The remaining aspects of RP are like extraneous limbs. Without R, you just have a DEAD character. It seems absurd that Descriptions are required, but Roles are merely recommended. It’s almost as though you’re requiring our characters to have faces and bodies, but brains are optional. If so, therein lies the problem.

Other than that, most of the players are capable of RP if they put forth effort, but they need motivation. Your basic players will only do as much RP as is required of them. After all, it takes a large measure of thought to create a good description and solid role, and especially if you want heightened effort, people need to feel Acknowledged.

Basically, all of your little tidbits are useful, but people still want to see more of them, and more often. Offering immteraction or quests is great for some players. Handing out savoury exp for good RP also seems appreciated. If you have limited staffing to police or reinforce RP, then you can expect role depth and sophistication to suffer. You may simply have to allocate more resources to bolster RP. There’s no real substitute for Time.

Another observation is that many players are number-crunchers, and you can only expect so much of them. They often have limited patience for RP, and they expect immediate, tangible rewards for any RP-related effort. Getting them to write complete sentences is like pulling teeth. You will need a very patient, inspiring, and determined set of IMMs in order to elicit enthusiasm from them.

I hope these basic thoughts make sense of the abysmal RP you've seen. So far, the only element of DREAD that you’ve generally taken care of is “D”, by requiring descriptions. Unfortunately players still can't READ. To inspire them to READ you’ll need to put out more of your Time and Acknowedgements (T&A).

I've learned from my characters that if you give your players enough T&A and they'll RP all you like.

Unfortunately, I can still type.

Quirky, insightful, funny. If I had an archive, that would go in it.

Nepenthe is without speech! UNBELIEVABLE! hehehehehe

I for one am somewhat disheartened when I learn about
chars that have been rewarded through tats/leadership/titles/etc
WITHOUT having a role.

I for one am somewhat disheartened when I learn about
chars that have been rewarded through tats/leadership/titles/etc
WITHOUT having a role.

Roles are optional, and always have been. They're a useful tool, but in the final analysis we don't reward/penalize people based on their role, but rather on how they roleplay. I've seen awful characters with fine roles, and great characters with no role at all.


valguarnera@carrionfields.com

>Roles are optional, and always have been. They're a useful
>tool, but in the final analysis we don't reward/penalize
>people based on their role, but rather on how they roleplay.
>I've seen awful characters with fine roles, and great
>characters with no role at all.
>

I understand that there is a huge huge difference between a role and actually roleplaying. But without a role there is no continuity with a character. You can easily switch things up without being penalized or without anyone knowing the difference.

Let me give you an example

A few years ago there was a bard in scion who was secretly working for the villagers. Hey ok fine you wanna destroy the chasm secretly from the inside in the name of the village. Lets say no imm ever "snoops" this character when he deals with the village but the same imm happens to "snoop" when he is roleplaying like a legend for the glory of the scions This never happend with said bard but wouldn't every imm with their omnipetent powers know the deceptions and even MINOR background of every char?

The thing is a person with a role has even the smallest of restrictions put on them. And if they change something they do drastically then an imm will know. A person without a role can easily switch gears and no one will be the wiser, especially if they were flying under the "imm radar" at crucial times in their characters life.

You said chars are rewarded by roleplay and not their role.

But as far as not being penalized is concerned I cannot totally buy that. Even if you are not penalized as a char ie stripped of skills/spells/ etc you will be penalized in the ooc mind of the imm to a certain degree.

Example:

As good ole Neppy said earlier on in this thread he hated seeing stagnant roles. Meaning he would check someones role early on in their life and it was all about killing mages yadda yadda yadda. And then when he would check it 30 ranks later and said char was gangbangin ragers alongside mages he would get kinda peeved.

So basically what I have gathered from this thread so far...

Roles are a helpful tool but not required and you can gain quest skills/leadership/tatts etc without having one.

If you have a role you must update it as major things happen or it might kinda tick off an imm up in Asgaard.

I hope you can see my confusion and frustration.

But you can add new stuff to your role. Even life-changing stuff.

Or you could have a role that covers working for the village and then later working for (magic using cabal of your choice).

On the flip side, I imagine there's lots of sorts of subtle role playing which aren't particularly obvious to the imms if you don't supplement your actions with your role.

Anyways, if you don't like roles, don't use them. Or if you're waffling, maybe keep your role in an offline file or something.

Good luck, and everything.

n/t

.

If I read this right, essentially you're wondering why any player should bother writing a role, if they can get the special kind of roleplaying rewards without one, and at the same time stay flexible in adapting their character as they want to.

The first thing I'd say is that while a role isn't required to get rewards, the advantage that a character with a detailed role has, is that we notice them much more quickly. A good role usually says "Hey, I'm interested in in-depth character development, pay attention to me!". While this doesn't guarantee we'll do so, or that we'll like what we see when we do watch you, it makes it much more likely.

Secondly, a character with a well developed role lets us get a feel for what the character is (or ought to be) before we watch you, so you're already a bit further along than you would be otherwise in us being able to assess your roleplaying ability. If your role sucks of course, or you're not following your role, that's bad, but no worse than if we see crappy/inconsistent roleplay from a roleless character. To put it another way, if I see someone being inconsistent (in my view), it looks bad, role or not. I'm going to watch a roleless person a lot longer, on average, before I can decide if they're consistent enough to qualify for any kind of special attention/treatment, just because I don't have that unchangeable role of theirs to hold them to as a standard.

This gets to my final point - If you're playing a character with nonstandard attitudes/actions/tendencies/beliefs/whatever, a role is very much in your interest. For that Scion Bard who wants to betray them to Battle, as you used as an example, having a role from an early age means we're aware of your intentions, rather than tending to go with the assumption that you just got bored of scion/tired of getting rager-ganked/etc. Getting back to consistency, if your character *does* have a mid life change of heart, we're a lot more willing to see it if you've been roleplayed consistently throughout, and have developed the character such that we can follow and track that, and maybe we understand that your elf rager has finally decided that he just can't bring himself to kill good aligned mages anymore because that struggle has been a lifelong theme for him, rather than thinking you're just a tool who was tired of getting killed at a time the cabal was weak.

So no, you don't need a role. But it's definitely to your advantage to have one, even late in life.

Quite sage. I see one major porblem however. CF is driven by killing mobs. Exp gains are from kills. Advancement in your profession is from kills. And so it goes. The rewards for RPing, exp-wise, pale in comparison. As long as this persits I doubt that the RP culture here will ever be a mainstream event. The alternative, e.g., giving exp for acting out buying berry pies at the bakery, seems tedious. And after you've slain the 257th lesser troll you are uninterested in RPing ridding the forest from this evil. It's about novelty. And novelty is found pimarily in PKing --some of the best interactions I've seen in my 5 year stint on this mud were in logs showing after-PK discourse. Some of my best interactions were also in similar situations. There's a raw edge there that can not be duplicated in most other enviroments. Novelty in RPing can become rather stale if it lacks a context. There are undoubtedly folks you can pull this off but this seems to be a minority or situational at best (I'm in the situational group). In the end, I fully support the exp gains from good RP, quests, and travelling to new lands (as currently implemented) but I have a hard time with wanting/mandating such play from all PCs. There is baseline of decent descritptions and relavent diction that the mud should and largely does mandate. Beyond that I think it wishful tihnking only realizable by removing 80+% of the playerbase. FWIW, I genuinely believe that allowing folks to customize thier PCs would held RP (not like stock ROM!). This is likly a Pandora's Box but I'll just give an example. I've ofthen thought it would be interesting to play an assaasin that refuses to use any weapons other than his hands. This is certainly doable in CF but gives you a handicap. If you allowed a character to trade now useless skills (here the weapon skills, shield block) for some replacment(s), I think folks might be persuaded to RP more. There is something about being unique that inspires RP. The "tallest", "most beautiful" things seen in descs... Also, some (most?) folks do not have the time to embellish a role (a sign of unique identity) but would rather simply act on it. Obviously, deciding on replacments skills (equivalent skill value) would be difficult but hardly impossible. One could envision a note after char creation as a petition of sorts and take it from there. Obviously, such customizations would need to be within reason (absurd example: no shamans swearing of famish and wanting deathblow) and coherent. But the assassin who wishes to focus exclusively on hand to hand combat certainly seems within bounds of both the class and the mud. Just a thought...

I can't imagine why anybody would choose to play a roleplaying game if they don't enjoy roleplaying. What it comes down to are people doing things that they don't find fun as players, for a reward that only the characters can value. There have to be good pk-only muds out there - why not play those instead?

Actually, scratch that idea. I just had another one - more people on this mud is a better situation, and roleplaying promotes a good atmosphere regardless of a player's goals and intentions. How about making consistent roleplay the only way to lower distention?

I won't say how I know this...only that I do know it for an absolute fact. RP gets rewarded even if you can't type worth crap, but if you play your character well and the content is there. The IMMS see it and reward it.

I was left as speechless as Nepenthe by the DREAD post, so since I
can add nothing worthwhile to that, I'm commenting on what led to it:

>1. "PK seems to be favored over RP. All of my efforts at RP go
>unnoticed, whereas PKers get all the titles. Therefore I'm not
>going to waste my time RPing."

Since titles below level 51 go away when you level, some Imms
pass them out on whims. I got one just for being obsessive (the
Galadonian Janitor one I keep commenting on here and on Dioxide's).
The titles at level 51 are all RP based, as far as I know. Even though
they often reflect the character's PK reputation, no one gets a
title without RP to go with it.

>2. "The IMMs treat people unequally and show favouritism. Therefore
>you shouldn't bother RPing, as CF is all about who you know."

If CF was about who you know, I'd have been banned years ago. Two
Imms in particular have good reason to dislike me due to long ago
events. I don't know if they actively do, because they and I would
rather leave it in the past. So don't ask who or why.

>3. "Empowerment RP is not worth it. I basically just RP for over 50
>hours and get absolutely nothing. The IMMs can take their RP and
>shove it."

Empowerment classes, as I see them, are entirely for people interested
in RP. If you don't enjoy RP, don't play those classes. RP done well
is its own benefit, and can be enjoyed without any special attention.

>These perceptions might explain in part why you see lackluster
>RP from more than a handful of players. This is no criticism of
>anyone -- it's just that many players think RP is done in vain.
>Some players feel resigned to the fact that they're not going to
>get anything, and consequently their RP effort is severely inhibited.
>In other words, "I'll just stick to PKing. You can RP all you want,
>since it's a bunch of useless emotes."

Again, the trouble looks like RP for attention, when that's not what
it's really all about.

Also, good RP is based much more in attitude and perception than
emotes. You can have a successful RP career and not emote once.
It's harder, but not impossible, especially if you can still use socials.

>Another observation is that a large number of players are young and
>either do not understand or appreciate RP. Even if that were not so,
>I'm sure you agree that asking anyone to think deeply is a tall order
>in the real world -- much less in a game. You'll have to find some
>way to give these players incentive to put forth the effort. Some
>players with strengths in fiction writing are going to feel more at
>home, but what about the casual non-writing player? It is very easy
>to lapse into the mentality their RP effort is to no avail.
>
>I'm just mentioning the plight of the disenchanted RPer. With
>my characters I try to help others develop their roles IC, and
>it is not easy. I can certainly imagine your headache as a game
>administrator trying to motivate the uninitiated and the skeptic
>alike.

I also try to keep people motivated and develop their characters, but
if they don't at heart actually want to keep at it, there's no point. Help
and encouragement don't do a thing if they don't want to enjoy RP and
the game itself for what they are.

I like roles that live within the CF world.

That doesn't just mean making reference to CF places, NPCs, deities, etc., though that's often helpful. It also means, in a certain mental sense, putting yourself within the world and asking 'what if?' or 'why is this this way?' questions. Even if the question doesn't make sense in a real-world sense, if the answer you come up with does within the context of the game, you'll probably have the seed for a role that lives and breathes in Thera.

I'm having a hard time coming up with a good theoretical example of this without dipping into my carefully-guarded "characters to play" pool. Why do all these newbies make a pilgramage to Balator to pillage practice weapons? Maybe your character thinks there's some grand conspiracy behind it. Why do so many characters have an intense fixation with axes? Maybe there's a secretive cult responsible. An example I can remember from actual play: Might not a warrior who eats magical roots all the time become physically addicted to them? Another: What happens when a dwarf decides to become a mage, now that Akan's mage guilds are empty and abandoned? What if a nature-based character thinks Sylvan has it wrong, a mage thinks the Masters have it wrong, a bartender becomes offended that Heralds give away drinks for free, a paladin feels the Maran are too extreme and border on evil themselves? There's a start to a hundred great roles if you ask the questions, and they're all rooted in the world and its people.

I am coming from something like this with my current role. Without going into any details...it makes my character's life very interesting and also allows for change and adaptation as things develop within the game.

No message

Suffice it to say that the problems you were having have less to do with your role and more to do with -- honestly, I don't even know where to begin on the list of colossal ####ups you made. If I had made a list of things you should not do if you wanted to be empowered, you would have hit every one and probably a few I'd forget.

However, I'm not interested in a potentially useful thread turning into the nth "Josiah complains about something, the free world unites to tell Josiah they think he's wrong, Josiah ignores this or makes up excuses why he's still right" thread. I don't know how to delete posts on this new forum, but I'm going to warn you right now, if you start going there in this thread, I'm going to figure it out.

One piece of potentially helpful commentary: A role is not a blank check to ignore your alignment/sphere/etc. You did have a role. It was not an orderly good role. If I see an elf paladin with a role that says "I'm going to murder everyone and take a whiz on their corpses" and he does, I'm turning him evil.

No message

The protestants in Salem Massachusetts were lawful good people,
on a whole. They burned young women alive on the pretense of
witchcraft. That was a dispicable act. They were still lawful
Good.

Sorry. "Burning the innocent" is evil. There's a reason these people are remembered in infamy. I'm sure Pol Pot had a rationale for what he was doing, but if I had to set an alignment on him, it'd be super-dark-red-aura evil.

He could make mistakes, because his "religon" (as spelled out in my role) allowed for confession and redemption.

He made a mistake, and got rebuked for it. Then he continued to argue and make the same mistake over and over. That's not confession or redemption.

Alignment is relative.

No, it isn't. There are absolute standards, and just because you think you aren't evil while you massacre babies and burn the innocent, you're still getting a (Red Aura) as soon as I notice it.

Ditto for Ethos and Sphere.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

No message

n/t

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

Other forums may appreciate that...but we don't

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

How the hell can you call Pol Pot super-dark-red-evil-everlasting-gobstopper type?

I liken him to Shokai, I mean the ends justify the means.....He was building a future. I hail him as a god. Oh wait....we arent talking about Winny the Pooh are we?.

Sorry forget about this Now I remember who Pol Pot was...

Pol Polt, Creater of Killing fields, Killer of Intelligent people, Maker of maps from human skulls piled high and Valgs love toy

::"I'm going to murder everyone and take a whiz on their corpses"


Can i use that role? Do you mind?


Thanks.

"a paladin feels the Maran are too extreme and border on evil themselves?"


I know of at least one that thinks like that and is sometimes rather vocal about it as well.

- Along with Nepenthe's halted role issue, the halted description bothers me too. I've seen middle-aged or old characters with that never age in their description, or who switch genders but are still their original gender in their description. Also on the subject, characters that have a lot of action going on in their description, such as "This long-haired maiden returns your gaze and smiles warmly at you in acknowledgement." Really? Does your elven healer intend to do this when that lich who just killed her looks at her as she recovers items from her defiled corpse?

- As the person who implemented (not wrote, but included) a lot of the language references in the lyceum, I will second that the overabundance of language really can bog roleplaying down. Now, Vella submitted a storm giant language reference, for example, and if you tried to use that excessively you would become incomprehensible. If I remember correctly though, when Vella himself roleplayed with this, it was pretty well done. Anyone who interacted with the character much at all could pick up what most of the words meant from inference.

- On the subject, thick accents drive me nuts! I often get a headache trying to decipher what certain characters are saying. I think a character can have an accent without mangling every other word. If you look at most fictional characters in books that have accents, you'll see its much more downplayed than it is by most characters on CF. Also, if your character has an accent, do they really have to *write* with an accent too?

- Races. It seems that not enough folks out there, roleplay their race, or believe that roleplaying their race consists of an above-mentioned funny accent. Predjudices, food choices, clothing choices, fears, racial superiority, emoted quirks, etc, can all make a race seem more believable. Often times, races are just humans wearing funny masks, if that.

>- Races. It seems that not enough folks out there, roleplay
>their race, or believe that roleplaying their race consists of
>an above-mentioned funny accent. Predjudices, food choices,
>clothing choices, fears, racial superiority, emoted quirks,
>etc, can all make a race seem more believable. Often times,
>races are just humans wearing funny masks, if that.
>
>

Playing a Felar or Arial should open up a whole wide range of physical actions that could be done to distinguish you from the usual humanoid character. I've seen most felars that I've interacted with make at least some attempt at this...such as twitching their tails, purring, curling up to sleep, sharpening their claws, etc.

But I haven't seen a lot of this kind of thing from most Arials I've interacted with. In fact I ususally can't tell that an Arial is an Arial without looking at their description. The only Arial I ever saw do anything like this was Kalmah, and I always liked it. Although he played the part of an Arial that was not full-blooded and therefore didn't have a beak, he used his wings a lot in roleplay. It always impressed me when he did that. Things like "Kalmah slows the beating of his wings and settles gracefully to the ground" or "Kalmah walks haltingly towards you" Then he would say something about not being used to walking on the ground because he preferred flying. There may be other Arials out there that do these kinds of things, but he is the only one I was ever priveleged to see do it.

>>- Races. It seems that not enough folks out there, roleplay their
>>race, or believe that roleplaying their race consists of an above-mentioned
>>funny accent. Predjudices, food choices, clothing choices, fears,
>>racial superiority, emoted quirks, etc, can all make a race seem
>>more believable. Often times, races are just humans wearing funny
>>masks, if that.

(trimmed)
>But I haven't seen a lot of this kind of thing from most Arials I've
>interacted with. In fact I ususally can't tell that an Arial is an
>Arial without looking at their description. The only Arial I ever
>saw do anything like this was Kalmah, and I always liked it. Although
>he played the part of an Arial that was not full-blooded and therefore
>didn't have a beak, he used his wings a lot in roleplay. It always
>impressed me when he did that. Things like "Kalmah slows the beating
>of his wings and settles gracefully to the ground" or "Kalmah walks
>haltingly towards you" Then he would say something about not being
>used to walking on the ground because he preferred flying. There may
>be other Arials out there that do these kinds of things, but he is
>the only one I was ever priveleged to see do it.

I saw Kalmah do both those emotes long ago. This reminds me that my opinion of his constant use of the same emotes, is part of why I stopped using racially based emotes myself. He played up his emotes quite a bit, but otherwise seemed to behave just like anyone else. So, I've held off on arial based emotes for a long time, only using them when I felt they were appropriate or I was trying to make an IC point about species differences. Instead, I show race through philosophy and ways of thinking and behaving in general. Close examination of any race can give hints as to how that race might view the world, and I try to use that in my roleplay. If I'm too understated for others to realize what I'm doing, that just means I need more practice.

- On the subject, thick accents drive me nuts! I often get a headache trying to decipher what certain characters are saying. I think a character can have an accent without mangling every other word. If you look at most fictional characters in books that have accents, you'll see its much more downplayed than it is by most characters on CF. Also, if your character has an accent, do they really have to *write* with an accent too?


HA! Go tell that to whoever decided Mino's should talk like they do.
*shiver* I swear my brain has started to bleed several times while trying to decipher what the hell I was hearing.

Vashka

>- On the subject, thick accents drive me nuts! I often get a
>headache trying to decipher what certain characters are
>saying. I think a character can have an accent without
>mangling every other word. If you look at most fictional
>characters in books that have accents, you'll see its much
>more downplayed than it is by most characters on CF. Also, if
>your character has an accent, do they really have to *write*
>with an accent too?
>
>
>HA! Go tell that to whoever decided Mino's should talk like they do.
>*shiver* I swear my brain has started to bleed several times
>while trying to decipher what the hell I was hearing.

I think in the case of minotaurs, we're not supposed to understand them. That's part of the point. It's actually quite a bit easier to get used to than many other accents I've seen recently. Minotaurs being asked what they said is almost expected, but it's a big different when I have to ask a dwarf what they said, especially when that dwarf expects me to follow every word of his garbled speech. I'd think we're supposed to get upset with the minotaurs, but they do all speak exactly the same. Putting up with a dwarf with a unique speech impediment isn't conducive to RP, it's conducive to people wanting to kick that dwarf's ass.

So, even though I don't like the mino-accent, at least it's something to get used to and deal with on a large scale. No need to learn each accent one at a time.

This is a lot more micro- than Nep's macro-advice on roleplaying, but the two major misuses of emotes I generally see:

1) Assuming the response: These are emotes where you tell the other person how they react to your behavior. Roleplay is interactive, and a lot of people end up trying to remove the other participant(s) from the conversation.

Bad: emote flexes his muscles. You are awed by how mighty he is, and back off in fear.

Good: emote flexes his rippling muscles, revealing the honed results of years of intense training.

The first one assumes a bit of cowardice or intimidation on the viewer's part, which is a decision that should be left to them.

2) The psychic emote: These are when you use the emote command to communicate something that just isn't obvious.

Bad: emote thinks about what you said, remembering his childhood in Darsylon.

Good: emote furrows his brow, and a wistful expression crosses his face.

This is sort of a cop-out for not being able to think of a way to get something across. It's also used a lot by people who try to bludgeon bystanders with their backstory whether or not it has anything to do with the situation at hand.

3) Threatening Immortals with Judgement Court because you know Anglo-Saxon Law and they violate citizen rights by making you write description: This is never a good idea.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

I think emotes would be easier to do to (not that I have a problem with the current system, I've gotten pretty good at it) if you could add 's without the space or start your emote line with a word other than you name. Just a spur of the moment idea

--SIG
Two wrongs dont make a right, but three rights make a left

>1) "-est ever" type declarations in player descriptions. CF

I agree. I always laugh at these kinds of things. Along these lines is the description of the ultimate most badass-est guy ever with a permanent grimace and hatred in his eyes who's always so cheerful and easygoing when you talk to him. More common with evil characters. I think this comes to guts a lot as a player. People have this image of the evil villain who's mean, but they don't want to talk big because they can't back it up with PK skill, or they don't want to hurt their ranking chances.

>3) Characters that can quote their cabal/religion's helpfile
>very nicely, but falter quickly when a discussion/argument
>meanders away from it.

These dudes are the best. My favorite is when it seems like they have a trigger to cut and paste the helpfile for their religion if certain words are spoken.

BobNewbie says "How much time will it take to get to tar valon from here?"

Unempowered says "the flow of time decides all. It guides which actions must be taken at which times, and dictates advance and retreat as well."

Bob says "Uhh, okay."

(this does not reflect any particular character or incident)

>>with, too. Let me feel your character's role come out even in
>discussing that philosophy.

This is good, but can leak into what I described above. It can get annoying when someone turns every conversation into them describing their philosophy.

>7) The amazing halting role.

I have found myself falling into this a couple times. I start out with a whole bunch of ideas, unqiue perspectives, but find that it's too hard to remember everything I wanted to include, so I end up screwing up and end up dropping stuff to at least be consistant. But then i delete because I'm dissapointed in how it turned out.

10) Recently mentioned in another thread: Characters that
>attempt to speak completely or mostly in a 'different
>language' drive me freakin' nuts. The odd one word here or
>there for flavor? That I have no problem with, especially if
>it's for a concept that doesn't really exist in
>English/common. To try to explain what I mean poorly with
>real-world examples, words like 'karma', 'machismo', or
>'bushido' might succinctly refer to non-Anglo-Saxon-ish
>background concepts.

Not sure exactly what you mean here. Do you mean like people who spout random bits of latin, or elvish constantly? I've never seen spanish or french or anything. Or are you talking more about made up words?

Related to this. Has anyone ever read Preacher, the comic? Sometimes when I'm talking to somoene (dwarves can be especially bad) I get the sudden urge to roll up a character who talks like Arseface. Except I don't have the talent to make it so people can understand it, like Garth Ennis does.

For the uninitiated, here's an example of Arseface's speech:

UH TUMUHFUHYUH VUHYUHUH UHFUH! (Translation: It's time to face the vengeance of Arseface!)

>Not sure exactly what you mean here. Do you mean like people
>who spout random bits of latin, or elvish constantly? I've
>never seen spanish or french or anything. Or are you talking
>more about made up words?

There are, occasionally, characters who decide it would be a good idea to hold entire conversations in Tolkien elvish or something of the kind, including to people who have no idea what they're saying.

(Incidentally, these characters have convinced me to fight any implementation of racial languages, because "my fire giant only speaks fire giant" sure is a good excuse to avoid roleplaying with 95% of your enemies)

>7) The amazing halting role.
>
>Sometimes I spot a level 1 character with just the most
>amazing role, with unique RP hooks or an enthralling
>backstory. Five hundred hours and fifty levels later, I look
>at the role again and nothing has changed. Granted, I'm
>thrilled that you wrote such a cool thing to begin with, but
>would it kill you to add on to it or update it periodically?
>It's tough for me to know how I should deal with a character
>with this elaborate role about abuse at the hand of mages, who
>I then see raiding the village and butchering Battle. Did he
>abandon his role entirely? Have a series of events gradually
>changed the character's viewpoint? I have no idea.

In your example, you point out someone that was acting differently than what their role stated. Would you like to see people update their role even if nothing dramatic has happened?



>9) Players who don't think very hard about the implications
>of their character's beliefs/roleplay, especially when it
>comes to choices in who to kill or what gear to wear.
>
>There sure are a lot of paladins running around murdering
>sentient neutral mobs for gear without a second thought.
>Think about that for a minute.
>
>If you're a Sylvan, and your character believes that
>conjurers/necromancers/etc. are bad mojo, what are you doing
>conjuring elementals with certain objects, or wearing the
>gauntlets of living flesh? How is conjuring demons bad, but
>wearing artifacts obviously containing entrapped demons all
>right? I don't care how many hit points or damroll
>they give you, that's weak.

Ok, here's where I've got major problems. A long, long time ago I played a dwarf. One of my favorite things to do was to kill dwarves in Mortorn and get horned helmets and dwarven arm guards and the like. Even the crappy dwarven axe. Call me crazy, but I get a lot of enjoyment from playing a dwarf running around in dwarven armor.

Some time later, I'm playing another dwarf. I say, "Hey, my guy thinks dwarves rock, he's not going to kill any." No killing dwarven guards, no killing Pwent = no dwarven gear on my dwarf other than the one or two pieces he could buy from the arms-dealer. It sucked. There are many examples like this: Is killing gnomes the only way for a gnome to wield Goblin Render? Or, by turning a blind eye to friends and cabal mates killing people you don't want to kill yourself?

It would be really fun and great if there was some way to get eq from similarly-minded people without having to kill them. I challenge you Imms to whip out the fun-stick and go to town; to look out for the non-evils that are trying to stick to their roles yet want to wear fashion fitting their character.

Thanks for listening to the ranting of this mad man.

Hutto, with sleepy nitpickings

>In your example, you point out someone that was acting
>differently than what their role stated. Would you like to
>see people update their role even if nothing dramatic has
>happened?

I think so, yes.

I'd say 90% of the characters I see with really cool roles starting out never touch them again. I'm not saying that everyone with a cool role has to update it, but I'd think more than 10% would have had things happen that merited commentary.

I thought to myself: Maybe people don't know that we'd be interested in seeing more. Thus, this part of this post.

>It would be really fun and great if there was some way to get
>eq from similarly-minded people without having to kill them. I
>challenge you Imms to whip out the fun-stick and go to town;
>to look out for the non-evils that are trying to stick to
>their roles yet want to wear fashion fitting their character.

I just had a crazy idea. You know how shopkeepers will let you barter some extremely expensive piece that they wouldn't normally be interested in for their merchandise? What if a similar rule-of-thumb was applied to related mobs (maybe same alignment and race?) allowing you to barter an expensive piece for something they have? Sorta like a modified version of request. Could require it to be the same type of armor/weapon and able to be worn by the mob.

Kin, I'll give ya this breastplate and axe that are worth ten times more than that there breastplate and axe ya got.

I don't forsee this being used all that often, but I know some of my chars would have been all over it.


Hutto, the Sleepy Nitpicker

1) I've had a few -est characters, and I've tried to get away from that now. I think people just do it to feel like they have a distinctive character. Also of course with the player base being predominantly male, they'll lean towards "strongest, biggest, meanest". heh. Actually with my current character I've tried to avoid much of any distinctive features in the description. Clothes in your description can be dubious. If I include anything in it clothing wise I try to keep it vague, or something that could be draped over what I'm already "really" wearing.

2) I think the enemy interaction is more of a enemy vs nemesis thing. If someone just kills you over and over, and never rp's with you I consider them an enemy. If they bother to communicate with you, it brings it to a whole new personal level. This leads to a more dramatic conflict, and therefore "nemesis" status. Plus it always adds flavor to the conflict to know hidden agendas, or motivations. Jasmin talked with her foes on a regular basis and actually got most of them to speak with her on a regular basis. If you want to talk to your foe, don't just spout the typical good/evil/forrest dogma, say something to get their attention.

3) This peeve I can agree with, but I would like to point something out from a player stand point also. From my experience some cabals, and immortals, want to hear some very specific things before they'll empower/tatto/induct. Honestly I try to very it, but you can only stray so far from the formula before it's not the answer any more. I would love to throw some more hefty variation into my answers, but when imms and mortal leaders like to philosophically banter, the less you stray the easier the interview. This way you don't get your words twisted on you, and get less frustration.

4) I completely agree with this, mortal leaders/authorities are too afraid of stepping on mortal toes.

5)This has no excuse ic, just sounds like a whiner problem

6) This I have a little bit to say about. For some reason, I seem to only do well at team goodie. I've tried neutral, and evil, and I don't do near as well role play/pk/ or even rank wise. So when you make this statement, are you including people that play only good? I have done pretty well with several different classes, and have pretty different role play for each. I change races, classes, and religions. However I will admit that I'm guilty of playing maran after maran. I will have to keep my word and role up the rager I've been meaning to play. However that's the one where my other decent characters have come from heh. All I can say is "familiar is comfortable".

7) I'm guilty of the halting role with most characters, and I will freely admit that the ones I continue on were the ones that went somewhere. Sometimes it's hard to add when things have been dull, or all you have been doing is ranking. People think of huge roles so maybe take one or two times during the characters life to add to your role. throw in a twist, a short run down of what you've been doing, what you plan to accomplish before you die.

8) It's hard to role play with others in the younger ranks, because more often than not your either fighting or ranking. Many of the younger characters will rebuff role play during ranking. I find that role playing is something easier to do when it is reciprocated. My last character Torellios had a really neat falconry thing going on, and he talked to his falcon a lot. When no one joins in, it gets old talking to your phantom falcon.

9) This is definitely a problem, and not just from the paladin's side I'm thinking. The way I see it, and have encountered in game, is that until proven other wise, neutrals are just as likely to kill goodies as evil. They aren't necessarily the direct enemy, but I don't see a paladin as having an over amount of love for one. Not to mention the nexan encounters that can leave a bad taste in a goodie/paladin's mouth about neutrals. I've had characters that were so bitter towards anyone not good, that they took them out if they saw them.

10) The completely different language can be annoying, but I have to point out that the information is available in the Lyceum for some of it. I find it much more approachable if one word is used on a regular basis, so you at least have some idea of what it means. If not the character should explain it to people he has just met. After all we play using words, a form of communication, and if the communication breaks down then we might as well just type gibberish.

cheers
flame away

>6) This I have a little bit to say about. For some reason, I
>seem to only do well at team goodie. I've tried neutral, and
>evil, and I don't do near as well role play/pk/ or even rank
>wise. So when you make this statement, are you including
>people that play only good?

This is a judgement call. There are players that can keep playing the same cabal or alignment and make very different characters; there are also players that play a variety of them and still end up making a very similar character every time.

Ultimately, I'd be most impressed if you (for example) could play Maran or Battle or Scion with equal facility and shine as each, but as I've said, I can only complain so much if someone plays good all the time (but plays it well).

>10) The completely different language can be annoying, but I
>have to point out that the information is available in the
>Lyceum for some of it.

Yes, I've noticed that. Look for me to team up with Shokai to burn down the Inn. Well, maybe not, but selective book burning may be an option.

>1) "-est ever" type declarations in player descriptions. CF
>is going on nine years old, and over that span of time I
>shudder to think how many times I've witnessed the the
>strongest or biggest giant that I've ever seen, ugliest orc
>that I've ever seen, or most beautiful elf with the largest
>breasts that I've ever seen.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
This one I agree with, but it doesn't annoy me as much as some of the other things mentioned here. My description for Xandrya was quite beautiful and as a half-elf she quite naturally would be...it also changed a bit as she got older. But I would never desribe her as being the MOST beautiful woman you have ever laid eyes on. An Orc might think otherwise, Huh?

----------------------------------------------------------------
>2) Characters that exhibit great RP among their friends, but
>won't offer word one or any semblance of interaction to their
>enemies.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
I have always been bugged by those characters who kill me and then I ask why, just to get no answer at all or the all-encompassing "I had my reasons". Yeah, so you had reasons....Ummm What were they? Sometimes I might already know OOC what the reasons were...but it is interesting to get an IC response and give our characters a chance to interact on more than a pk basis. There are some that I just avoid though knowing that I would most likely get my butt kicked by them.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

>3) Characters that can quote their cabal/religion's helpfile
>very nicely, but falter quickly when a discussion/argument
>meanders away from it.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Agreed. Each character is an individual and should have his/her own thoughts and ideas on whatever the philosphy is that they embrace. Also every character should be influenced by much more than their sphere and alignment/ethos. The character develops depth if they are multi-faceted. And this makes them more intriguing and interesting to interact with.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

>4) Cabal leaders or other authority figure characters who are
>afraid to reject applicants, toss out existing cabal members,
>or otherwise be harsh even when it's called for.

Being new to CF and having never been in a cabal I will not comment on this.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

>5) Players who try to bring the concept of game balance into
>the game.
>
>Yes, you as a player know the game is supposed to balance out
>in some way, shape, or form. For the most part, your
>character probably doesn't have that mentality. I have a very
>hard time even imagining how a statement of the form "X
>skill/spell/power is too overpowered, that's why you killed
>me" could be considered in-character.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
This is the worst example of a pet peeve you have brought up. Especially when it is done blatantly and OOC. It's just plain poor RP.

I do think that sometimes things can be said IC that might be misconstrued as complaining about game mechanics, but really might be very much a person's roleplay, though. An example of that would be someone who plays an envious character. With sphere envy, you might very well be a warrior and say something to a mage about how you wish you could cast a spell to become invisible. Or you are envious of the items another character has. But if you were to play that well you would also be envious of many other things as well.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

>6) Players who are only capable of playing one type of
>character.
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
This one I think depends a lot on how long a person has been playing CF and their own personal preferences. Characters should not be cookie cutters of each other that's for sure. But if someone really enjoys playing a particular class/cabal/religion/race...or whatever. Or if they don't really like playing the goody...or the bad guy...why should they do that just to please an IMM? We are all here to have a good time. It's very hard to roleplay something you don't like doing. You lose interest quickly if you don't enjoy your character.

This is especially true for someone new to CF ...they may want to play a particular class over and over again until they get a really good handle on how to play it. That holds true even for older players who want to try a class they've never done before. They may screw it up a bit or get PK'd into oblivion and decide to try again. They should be allowed that privilege even if it takes a dozen tries to get it right or to have a character they really are happy with. On the other hand, the new character should always be unique enough that people do not look at this new character and immediately think..."oh that's so and so reincarnated".

----------------------------------------------------------------------

>7) The amazing halting role.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
This is a matter of taking the time to do it. And also having the opportunity to do it without ignoring what is going on in-game. I have found that I often log on with the intenions of sending a note to someone, or updating my role and then I get bombarded with invitations to go "learning" or if I am in the Inn, a lot of other roleplaying going on may be drawing my character in...so the good intentions go out the window. The way I have found to deal with this is to write up those notes/role adds offline then paste them on Dio's wrap chop and format them. I then try to take my character to a location in-game where I HOPE I will not be disturbed and then paste the text in. All that spamming as your role updates could be poetentially bad for your health. Another thing I do, if I am in the Inn, is to do an emote that I am writing in a journal or on a scroll or something so others can see that I am occupied with that and they won't wonder why I'm not talking to them.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

>8) Players who are only "on" in terms of roleplay for interviews, or >when they have reason to believe they're being watched. That one's >self-explanitory.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
That's the sign of a brown-noser who just does it for the rewards and/or Immteraction. Very poor and immature in my opinion. Anyone who enjoys roleplay will do it all the time..or most of the time. (It is kind of hard to do while you are constantly checking Where, Affects, Group, and doing whatever you need to while fighting.)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

>9) Players who don't think very hard about the implications
>of their character's beliefs/roleplay, especially when it
>comes to choices in who to kill or what gear to wear.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Yep this is VERY true and something that bugs me too. I played at another MUD, which shall remain nameless, for about a week once. It was designed in such a way that everyone had to begin gaining exp by killing bunnie rabbits and ferrets. I had rolled a Druid character. I quit really quick because of the fact that I couldn't see how a druid would kill bunnies and ferrets and then call herself a good druid. At CF the game is designed so you don't have to do anything that is opposed to your character's morals. But a character's morals should not be based solely on alignment...they should include race, class, ethos, sphere, and most importantly role.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

>10) Recently mentioned in another thread: Characters that
>attempt to speak completely or mostly in a 'different
>language' drive me freakin' nuts. The odd one word here or
>there for flavor? That I have no problem with, especially if
>it's for a concept that doesn't really exist in
>English/common. To try to explain what I mean poorly with
>real-world examples, words like 'karma', 'machismo', or
>'bushido' might succinctly refer to non-Anglo-Saxon-ish
>background concepts.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I agree with this too. I actually like an occasional word or two that can be easily understood or translated. Very strong accents are annoying to me too. I have a hard time understanding mino-speak as do many of us I think. And there was a ceratin character that I stopped going learning with just because I couldn't understand his thick accent. It made it hard for me to understand what he was saying half the time.

Characters that constantly whisper bug me too...although I know for some characters that is a big part of their roleplay. The problem I have with whisper is being able to read it. Whispers are hard to read in the color they show up on my terminal...kind of a muddy red-brown on black background...depending on the lighting in my family room, sometimes I can't read them at all. It would be nice if they could be changed to be more readable.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

I have one other pet peeve with RP that wasn't even mentioned here. And that is with those people who only RP with high ranking characters and ignore the new ones as if they don't even exist. One of the things I find to be fun is meeting the new characters that are coming up...learning what their character is all about. Observing and interacting with them can give you a good idea of what to expect from those who are up and coming and might one day soon make a great ally or a formidable foe.

>I have always been bugged by those characters who kill me and
>then I ask why, just to get no answer at all or the
>all-encompassing "I had my reasons". Yeah, so you had
>reasons....Ummm What were they? Sometimes I might already
>know OOC what the reasons were...but it is interesting to get
>an IC response and give our characters a chance to interact on
>more than a pk basis.

It's fine for you to be bugged by a seemingly non-motive PK. On the other side of the equation, killing four people and having three bombard you with questions of "Why?" gets stale. Often, the PK'er might be doing something else that they find ten times more important than answering questions of someone they killed.

Just trying to show the other side has priorities and feelings too. I agree with Nepenthe in that some of the best remembered people stand out in RP to friend and foes. Not everyone strives for that mark with every character though.

>>6) Players who are only capable of playing one type of
>>character.
>>
>
>This one I think depends a lot on how long a person has been
>playing CF and their own personal preferences. Characters
>should not be cookie cutters of each other that's for sure.
>But if someone really enjoys playing a particular
>class/cabal/religion/race...or whatever. Or if they don't
>really like playing the goody...or the bad guy...why should
>they do that just to please an IMM? We are all here to have a
>good time. It's very hard to roleplay something you don't
>like doing. You lose interest quickly if you don't enjoy your
>character. This is especially true for someone new to CF
>...they may want to play a particular class over and over
>again until they get a really good handle on how to play it.
>That holds true even for older players who want to try a class
>they've never done before. They may screw it up a bit or get
>PK'd into oblivion and decide to try again. They should be
>allowed that privilege even if it takes a dozen tries to get
>it right or to have a character they really are happy with.
>On the other hand, the new character should always be unique
>enough that people do not look at this new character and
>immediately think..."oh that's so and so reincarnated".

Agreed here. It's easy, for example, to pick out the Amber & Jesse elven-healer-bria follower. I also found it easy to pick out Chris Warren-played characters. Shamus et al of the village were kind of easy to spot too. And of course, almost any rager that looks promising but deletes way too early is certain to be Abernyte. :-P

Is there anything wrong with that? Yes and no. Yes because there are people out there who will treat that player's new character the same as they treated all the previous characters. No because well, maybe they just like playing the same type of character. A fine line, to be sure.

>7) The amazing halting role.
>>

Guilty as charged.

>

>>9) Players who don't think very hard about the implications
>>of their character's beliefs/roleplay, especially when it
>>comes to choices in who to kill or what gear to wear.
>>
>>There sure are a lot of paladins running around murdering
>>sentient neutral mobs for gear without a second thought.
>>Think about that for a minute.
>>
>>If you're a Sylvan, and your character believes that
>>conjurers/necromancers/etc. are bad mojo, what are you doing
>>conjuring elementals with certain objects, or wearing the
>>gauntlets of living flesh? How is conjuring demons bad, but
>>wearing artifacts obviously containing entrapped demons all
>>right? I don't care how many hit points or damroll
>>they give you, that's weak.
>
>Yep this is VERY true and something that bugs me too. I
>played at another MUD, which shall remain nameless, for about
>a week once. It was designed in such a way that everyone had
>to begin gaining exp by killing bunnie rabbits and ferrets. I
>had rolled a Druid character. I quit really quick because of
>the fact that I couldn't see how a druid would kill bunnies
>and ferrets and then call herself a good druid. At CF the game
>is designed so you don't have to do anything that is opposed
>to your character's morals. But a character's morals should
>not be based solely on alignment...they should include race,
>class, ethos, sphere, and most importantly role.

More annoying is players who cry and scream about these IC issues on OOC forums. Did my rager wear a bracelet of charms? You bet he did. The description of the item states that, to an untrained eye, it looks like a regular bracelet. My rager knew that it made him hit harder than other bracelets. Is that a loophole I'm exploiting? Maybe. But who are the forum flamers to judge?

>
>>10) Recently mentioned in another thread: Characters that
>>attempt to speak completely or mostly in a 'different
>>language' drive me freakin' nuts. The odd one word here or
>>there for flavor? That I have no problem with, especially
>if
>>it's for a concept that doesn't really exist in
>>English/common. To try to explain what I mean poorly with
>>real-world examples, words like 'karma', 'machismo', or
>>'bushido' might succinctly refer to non-Anglo-Saxon-ish
>>background concepts.
>>
>I agree with this too. I actually like an occasional word or
>two that can be easily understood or translated. Ver strong
>accents are annoying to me too. I have a hard time
>understanding mino-speak as do many of us I think. And there
>was a ceratin character that I stopped running going learning
>with just because I couldn't understand his thick accent. It
>made it hard for me to understand what he was saying half the
>time.

If it's within my character's role to do so, I avoid or kill people I don't understand depending on what the situation calls for. Some drow comes up to me and says some crap like "Vendui" to my cloud warrior? Maybe it's an insult. Kill!

>One of the things I find to be fun is meeting the
>new characters that are coming up...learning what their
>character is all about.

I actually agree. Some of the most interesting people I have met were low-rank chars whose players were obviously really into their role and not yet sick of talking about their character's past and motivations.

A BMW is a BMW at any rank, and lowbies still have that new car smell.

>I do think that sometimes things can be said IC that might be
>misconstrued as complaining about game mechanics, but really
>might be very much a person's roleplay, though. An example of
>that would be someone who plays an envious character.

Well, right. Keep in mind from my point of view I'm able to check out a character's sphere and role, so I'll have a pretty good idea if this is supposed to be the case or not.

>This one I think depends a lot on how long a person has been
>playing CF and their own personal preferences. Characters
>should not be cookie cutters of each other that's for sure.
>But if someone really enjoys playing a particular
>class/cabal/religion/race...or whatever. Or if they don't
>really like playing the goody...or the bad guy...why should
>they do that just to please an IMM?

You certainly don't have to. I'm just saying: That kind of RP versatility impresses me. It is boring for me, as an immortal, to realize that a given player is playing virtually identical characters ten characters in a row. There are people who have played for five years or more, and every single character will exhibit some identical and very distinctive personality trait.

If you want to play the same race/class/religion for a dozen characters in a row, you're certainly welcome to do so -- but at the same time, by character three or four, I'm certainly welcome to pick someone that I find more interesting to offer opportunities for quests, interaction, etc.

>This is especially true for someone new to CF ...they may want
>to play a particular class over and over again until they get
>a really good handle on how to play it.

I agree with you to a point. . . I do think you will learn more by sticking with one class for a few hundred hours than you will by constantly rage deleting on first PK death in the teens and picking something else. At some point, however, I think you will learn more even about how to play that first class by trying some different things and seeing what others have to throw at you.

This is really only so much about class, anyway. Some classes have more narrowly defined roles, but it's very easy to make two warriors, thieves, invokers, bards, etc. whose roles are night and day to each other.

Some REALLY get under my skin, some just itch.

but, I am often very guilty of #7, the Halting role. I know it is a shortcoming in my game, but I have trouble fixing it.


For instance, my last character, Daryaeis, was a wood elf bard who believed that "song" came from outside of him from an Awen, and that only a bard who never used his vocal chords could allow the Awen to take over his voice for song.

He was even mentioned in the role contest before this recent one.

but...my problem was that I like to make roles that are wide open and can go different directions and allow character interactions to point me in what direction I end up going....

But with a bard who can't talk, it was hard to get many character interactions...so the role somewhat stagnated.

One of these days I'll break down the rank 36 "wall of stagnation" that has stopped all but a small handful of my characters who have a role.

------------------
1) "-est ever" type declarations in player descriptions. CF is going on nine years old, and over that span of time I shudder to think how many times I've witnessed the the strongest or biggest giant that I've ever seen, ugliest orc that I've ever seen, or most beautiful elf with the largest breasts that I've ever seen.
------------------


This is just because people don't know how to write good descriptions. The things you listed is annoying, but even moreso are people that list full equipment lists in their description. If you're char's desc says he's wearing a gleaming shirt of silver chainmail, but he's really wearing a shirt of black chainmail, its kind of silly.


-------------------
2) Characters that exhibit great RP among their friends, but won't offer word one or any semblance of interaction to their enemies.

This is arguable, because enemies are often just that, enemies. I don't disagree that it would be silly for Battleragers and mages to routinely sit down for tea and discuss current events. At the same time, when I look back on playing the game and the characters that were fun to fight, I never remember the "I don't actually have quiet mode on, but I might as well" type characters. A year passes and damned if I can remember their names. It's the interactors that stick out in my mind, the kind of enemies with style that I loved to hate, the kind that made CF a blast even when they were mercilessly whipping my ass.
---------------------


I agree that interaction with enemies is very cool, but your views on this are very colored by your skill as a player. I think I am just about as 'average' a player as there is, skillwise at cf. Often, I am too busy spamming 'where', hunting, or getting hunted to interact with enemies. This is triply true when playing a caballed char, who have the most IC reason to interact with enemies in many cases.


---------------------
3) Characters that can quote their cabal/religion's helpfile very nicely, but falter quickly when a discussion/argument meanders away from it.

Maybe that's a player limitation, I don't know. Honestly, if I wanted to read help Sylvan/Battle/Maran/Scarab/etc., I would just read it. (If I didn't like what it said, I might just change it. I'm crazy like that.) Obviously, the basic philosophy of a cabal/religion is going to place certain restrictions on you, but there is always a lot of room to play with, too. Let me feel your character's role come out even in discussing that philosophy. The Tribunal laws, to take one example, are about as cut and dried as any of this gets, but there are a thousand different reasons why your character could believe laws are a good idea, and every one will color how s/he sees the laws differently.

Help file quotation syndrome is frustrating in roleplaying with enemies, but it's a hundred times more frustrating if you're a cabal leader or empowering immortal.
----------------------


This one is just people thinking they have to do that to get into cabals/get empowered/get tattooed, which simply isn't true. I've played at least one trib who professed to leadership that he didn't care about the law persay, but was willing to uphold it in good faith. That may have gotten him watched, but he did what he said and everything was hunky-dory. Similarly, I played a rager that didn't 'hate' all mages, but had enough reason to dislike magic that he killed them. He was open about this and didn't get kicked from ragers. It's more of an issue of finding an IC balance between being able to ACT like the cookie cutter, but being able to have different reasons, and different ways of acting, especially out of PK. Hell, I got Scar to empower of a shaman of mine who ran around talking about how good and pure he was. Quickest empowerment I ever got, but I made it work logically.


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4) Cabal leaders or other authority figure characters who are afraid to reject applicants, toss out existing cabal members, or otherwise be harsh even when it's called for.

I don't know that this is so much a roleplaying concern in all cases, but the previous point reminded me of it.
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Not going to comment on this one as I've never had a cabal leader.


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5) Players who try to bring the concept of game balance into the game.

Yes, you as a player know the game is supposed to balance out in some way, shape, or form. For the most part, your character probably doesn't have that mentality. I have a very hard time even imagining how a statement of the form "X skill/spell/power is too overpowered, that's why you killed me" could be considered in-character.
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This is just bad roleplay, plain and simple.


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6) Players who are only capable of playing one type of character.
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If the chars are well done, why care? If some one really likes playing steadfast, stalwart paladins, and really pulls them off why be annoyed that they play alot of them? Do you get annoyed with Abernyte for playing lots of ragers and playing them well?


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7) The amazing halting role.

Sometimes I spot a level 1 character with just the most amazing role, with unique RP hooks or an enthralling backstory. Five hundred hours and fifty levels later, I look at the role again and nothing has changed. Granted, I'm thrilled that you wrote such a cool thing to begin with, but would it kill you to add on to it or update it periodically? It's tough for me to know how I should deal with a character with this elaborate role about abuse at the hand of mages, who I then see raiding the village and butchering Battle. Did he abandon his role entirely? Have a series of events gradually changed the character's viewpoint? I have no idea.
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Maybe you should make it clear that novelesque roles don't help people as much as they think that they do? My most recent char had a very simply written role, very straight forward, but he got more immteraction than I have in a while. On the otherhand, I updated the role pretty often with what he was thinking, and explaining goofy things that he was doing.

People, I think, are more likely to update their role if they don't feel like they are adding boring stuff to their Magnum Opus.


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8) Players who are only "on" in terms of roleplay for interviews, or when they have reason to believe they're being watched. That one's self-explanitory.
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Two edged issue here. If more of those little 500 xp bonuses were given out for random #### people did, maybe they would role play more when they didn't know they were being watched. Now, I got unempowered once for ####ing up my rp seriously when I didn't think anyone was watching, and since then I've been careful to roleplay -all- the time. But I don't push my rp as hard when I don't think anyone is watching, I just make sure I stay in role to some degree. If you want people to rp hard when they don't think people are watching, you need to watch them when they don't think you are watching.


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9) Players who don't think very hard about the implications of their character's beliefs/roleplay, especially when it comes to choices in who to kill or what gear to wear.

There sure are a lot of paladins running around murdering sentient neutral mobs for gear without a second thought. Think about that for a minute.
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This has always bothered the #### out of me. Such considerations have played into why I've never rolled a paladin. Too much hassle not being able to kill 2/3's of the things in the game. If it bothers you as an IMM so much, why don't you punish it when you see them do it. This seems like a pretty easy thing to fix, since you are aware of it, you see it often, and you have the tools to discourage people from doing things like that.


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10) Recently mentioned in another thread: Characters that attempt to speak completely or mostly in a 'different language' drive me freakin' nuts. The odd one word here or there for flavor? That I have no problem with, especially if it's for a concept that doesn't really exist in English/common. To try to explain what I mean poorly with real-world examples, words like 'karma', 'machismo', or 'bushido' might succinctly refer to non-Anglo-Saxon-ish background concepts.
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I would never rp in that way, but.......

Maybe if chars that did that sort of thing didn't get rewarded so often people would do it less? I've seen a good number of chars with this sort of thing going who have gotten glittering prizes from the IMMs.

"New payment options w/ Iron Realms"

>If the chars are well done, why care? If some one really likes
>playing steadfast, stalwart paladins, and really pulls them
>off why be annoyed that they play alot of them? Do you get
>annoyed with Abernyte for playing lots of ragers and playing
>them well?

It's not annoyed, so much as: How much more impressed would you be if they could play different kinds of characters and shine as much?

>Or, wherein I try to get a roleplaying discussion going.
>
>Obviously, not everyone who plays CF could give a rat's ass
>what I think of their roleplaying. Hey, it's your birthday,
>and you're welcome to your opinion regardless of whether it
>agrees with mine. However, being as it is that I'm in
>a position to hand out goodies or not depending on my opinion
>of a character's RP, I thought it might be
>informative/interesting to share some of the things that rub
>me the wrong way.
>
>1) "-est ever" type declarations in player descriptions. CF
>is going on nine years old, and over that span of time I
>shudder to think how many times I've witnessed the the
>strongest or biggest giant that I've ever seen, ugliest orc
>that I've ever seen, or most beautiful elf with the largest
>breasts that I've ever seen.
>

Personally, I don't mind this one. Why? Because it is possible to look at 10 giants and think that they are each the biggest you've ever seen (unless they are next to each other at the time). Similiarly with ugly orcs and elves that have a good pair of lungs.

>2) Characters that exhibit great RP among their friends, but
>won't offer word one or any semblance of interaction to their
>enemies.
>
>This is arguable, because enemies are often just that,
>enemies. I don't disagree that it would be silly for
>Battleragers and mages to routinely sit down for tea and
>discuss current events. At the same time, when I look back on
>playing the game and the characters that were fun to fight, I
>never remember the "I don't actually have quiet mode on, but I
>might as well" type characters. A year passes and damned if I
>can remember their names. It's the interactors that stick out
>in my mind, the kind of enemies with style that I loved to
>hate, the kind that made CF a blast even when they were
>mercilessly whipping my ass.
>

I tend to agree with this one. The reason is, your beliefs are often challenged by your enemies, whereas your allies won't bother. Not talking to enemies can easily fall within acceptable rp, but it can also be a cop-out.

>3) Characters that can quote their cabal/religion's helpfile
>very nicely, but falter quickly when a discussion/argument
>meanders away from it.
>
>Maybe that's a player limitation, I don't know. Honestly, if
>I wanted to read help Sylvan/Battle/Maran/Scarab/etc., I would
>just read it. (If I didn't like what it said, I might just
>change it. I'm crazy like that.) Obviously, the basic
>philosophy of a cabal/religion is going to place certain
>restrictions on you, but there is always a lot of room to play
>with, too. Let me feel your character's role come out even in
>discussing that philosophy. The Tribunal laws, to take one
>example, are about as cut and dried as any of this gets, but
>there are a thousand different reasons why your
>character could believe laws are a good idea, and every one
>will color how s/he sees the laws differently.
>
>Help file quotation syndrome is frustrating in roleplaying
>with enemies, but it's a hundred times more frustrating if
>you're a cabal leader or empowering immortal.
>

yep. I'll definitely agree this. The other thing that I don't like is when a cabal's position changes but the applicant quotes the old view line and verse, but still claims to have talked to the current members of the cabal. Then you can see that they are actually someone who had a character in the cabal under the old system and hasn't bothered making this character try to learn anything.

>4) Cabal leaders or other authority figure characters who are
>afraid to reject applicants, toss out existing cabal members,
>or otherwise be harsh even when it's called for.
>
>I don't know that this is so much a roleplaying concern in all
>cases, but the previous point reminded me of it.
>

I agree this too. However, you have to bear in mind that people will often screw up by accident. I found a once-more-and-you-are-out approach worked in those cases.

>5) Players who try to bring the concept of game balance into
>the game.
>
>Yes, you as a player know the game is supposed to balance out
>in some way, shape, or form. For the most part, your
>character probably doesn't have that mentality. I have a very
>hard time even imagining how a statement of the form "X
>skill/spell/power is too overpowered, that's why you killed
>me" could be considered in-character.
>

This is the worst problem imho. If I kill someone in a group of three they complain that I had levels on them, or that I took down the weakest member of theh group before running away, instead of attacking the strongest member. If I kill a solo person when they have levels on me, they complain that I attacked them knowing they had bad gear. If I attack the strongest member of a group they complain that I must be ooc friends with the weakest members because I didn't attack them instead (never mind the fact that often the weak already submitted in IC fashion).

Too many people cannot face that they died because they were out-manouvered, and try to explain it in terms of game mechanics. (OK, eyes of flame not working because of a bug is something that I don't mind expressed in IC fashion, and that is a reasonable reason for dying.) Generally though, even if you keep it IC you are often referring to game mechanics.

>6) Players who are only capable of playing one type of
>character.
>
>I have to admit that since we're not yet to a point where
>every player who logs onto CF is capable of a
>superbly-roleplayed character, I can really only be so
>bothered by this. Still, I'm not a huge fan of the players
>who come up with virtually the same roleplay every time. That
>lack of versatility makes it hard, from an immortal standpoint
>especially, to figure out if you're really roleplaying or just
>playing yourself. If every character you make is subservient
>and attaches themselves to a more prominent character, how am
>I to know if that's roleplaying or if the player is just like
>that? If every character you play is a murderous evil
>bastard, how am I to know you're not just a sick person who
>punts puppies through goal posts? If all of your characters
>go on Tribunal killing sprees, how am I to know you as the
>player don't just hate law that much? When I can look at a
>list of characters and see saintly and diabolical, peaceful
>and violent, dominant and supportive, etc. characters all
>played with equal facility, it really impresses me.
>

The way I like to look at it is, can you link a character to past characters through their roleplay. If you can (and I often can), it is a sign that your roleplay could probably use some variation. I try to change my characters in little ways specifically to make them difficult to link with previous ones. Any speech idiosyncracies could be different to those of previous characters, perhaps.

>7) The amazing halting role.
>
>Sometimes I spot a level 1 character with just the most
>amazing role, with unique RP hooks or an enthralling
>backstory. Five hundred hours and fifty levels later, I look
>at the role again and nothing has changed. Granted, I'm
>thrilled that you wrote such a cool thing to begin with, but
>would it kill you to add on to it or update it periodically?
>It's tough for me to know how I should deal with a character
>with this elaborate role about abuse at the hand of mages, who
>I then see raiding the village and butchering Battle. Did he
>abandon his role entirely? Have a series of events gradually
>changed the character's viewpoint? I have no idea.
>

I update my role for some characters but not others. If the character has a life-changing event or is trying to move a specific plot forward then I'll update it. If the character just doesn't like Joe Bloggs because Joe fled against the trolloc and got him killed, I won't update it. Ideally it should be updated but at the same time you (I presume) need to keep it from becoming overly cumbersome.

>8) Players who are only "on" in terms of roleplay for
>interviews, or when they have reason to believe they're being
>watched. That one's self-explanitory.
>

There is quite a lot of this about too. However, I think the general trend in cf is that this is improving.

>9) Players who don't think very hard about the implications
>of their character's beliefs/roleplay, especially when it
>comes to choices in who to kill or what gear to wear.
>
>There sure are a lot of paladins running around murdering
>sentient neutral mobs for gear without a second thought.
>Think about that for a minute.
>
>If you're a Sylvan, and your character believes that
>conjurers/necromancers/etc. are bad mojo, what are you doing
>conjuring elementals with certain objects, or wearing the
>gauntlets of living flesh? How is conjuring demons bad, but
>wearing artifacts obviously containing entrapped demons all
>right? I don't care how many hit points or damroll
>they give you, that's weak.
>

Yeah. I can remember a scion giving gear from my paladin and one other paladin to a couple of neutral mobs, and the other paladin had absolutely no qualms in retrieving his gear from this mob for the "greater good". Now if I was a scion, I'd be patting myself on the back for having corrupted him at this stage.

>10) Recently mentioned in another thread: Characters that
>attempt to speak completely or mostly in a 'different
>language' drive me freakin' nuts. The odd one word here or
>there for flavor? That I have no problem with, especially if
>it's for a concept that doesn't really exist in
>English/common. To try to explain what I mean poorly with
>real-world examples, words like 'karma', 'machismo', or
>'bushido' might succinctly refer to non-Anglo-Saxon-ish
>background concepts.
>

I think this one has been covered. However, the odd word tends to be picked up pretty quickly and if it is, probably adds to the flavor of the mud.

>That's enough for a start. Chime in and/or nitpick away!
>

>
>I tend to agree with this one. The reason is, your beliefs
>are often challenged by your enemies, whereas your allies
>won't bother. Not talking to enemies can easily fall within
>acceptable rp, but it can also be a cop-out.

I think its perfectly legit to be honest. How your views are depicted are often through the "you're neutral to" type of guys. There's been so many times that I've really detested someone, that after the fight has expired the most I bother to say to them is "Clean yourself up ****" or something similarly snide and abrasive. For a priest or lightwalker/darkwalker looking to "redeem" someone afterwards, sure, then it doens't make sense to be quiet, but if I loathe thieves for instance, see one and just mash their head in, I might just be irritated that they have the balls to talk to me afterwards and waste my time with their meaningless questions.

At least you say something. I repeatedly see evils kill uncaballed neutrals and never say a word. It's best to give someone something to go on, or you'll be just as forgettable as Nepenthe said.

Just a little think like insulting their fighting skills, or 'serves you right for using potions', or even 'thanks for the stuff'. It lets people know why you fought and what you think of them.