Some BlackFlame guidelines from the Settings Team

[Rigwyn]

Hi Rigwyn, thanks for the advice. While I get the gist of what you're saying in theory, I think practice proves more difficult. Even with proxys there's not much you can do in terms of destabalizing society. You can't murder or steal and so on, since the game mechanics don't allow it. There's no big waves you can send, only small ripples. So you'd have to coordinate with other members one way or the other, I think.

There's a huge difference between role playing and gaming.  You can't tip the world on it's side unless other players go along with it. This cooperative requirement produces balance - which is good. As for how do pull of villainous feats, that's all done via role play. You can't rely on the mechanics for that. Forget about mechanics. Good role players can show you how to pull off feats like this in a very IC way.

Also, I'm wondering now that you said you can't confide people because the punishment is permadeath. Let's say you did confide in someone, and this person 'outs' you as Blackflame, isn't that your word against theirs? They have no proof of the matter IC. Only posibility of proof are chatlogs, but even if the topic in the logs is IC, the existance of logs themselves would still be considered OCC, right?

Yes, it's your character's word against theirs and chat logs are ooc. For this reason, ic rumors can be quite nasty. The tongue can in some cases, cause more damage than steel. This is where it begins to become more of a mind game.  ^_^  It forces you to look at the game in a whole new way. As for punishment, that would be enforced by characters, and your character always has the ability to try to talk their way out of such situations.

[Ayko]

Oh,..
It never even occurred to me to do it strictly RP. But now that I do consider it, won't most people be unwilling to participate either way? Hmmm, perhaps if.... Oh and then I could... Yes yes...
Thanks again Rigwyn

[Rigwyn]

It sounds like it's making more sense as you chew on it. There is where "competitive play" becomes an issue when role playing. You can't force anything on anyone else in role play, and when you try to, people end up resorting to silly measures in order to "not lose" like metagaming or godmodding.

For those of us who role play, we enjoy the story - good and bad and we understand that unless you want a flat, uneventful story where nothing happens, you have let others succeed sometimes. Bad guys needs to let the good guys have their moments of victory, good guys needs to allow the bad guys to cause trouble and harm. When people get all attached to their characters and decide to be invincible or all powerful, you end up with these boring games where nobody wants to do anything for fear of looking bad.  In this context, the player/character separation rule makes a lot of sense.

We have had many long running BF story lines that were possible only because of this sort of mutual cooperation. Generally, when you give someone a little space, they end up giving you a little space in return at some point. ( at least, they should ) It's a sort of unwritten rule or courtesy that good players will typically honor.