PlaneShift
Gameplay => General Discussion => Topic started by: Pestilence on August 25, 2006, 01:54:26 am
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Is it just me or is lately everyone possesed by some ubercreature this or that or atleast has some supernatural abilities? Like having a skin that is strong enough to counter all blades or something?
It's really starting to bug me how often some people seem to be falling back on godlike abilities to gain an edge in an RP. Specially if they also start commenting OOC on how you are doing something impossible.
An example of what annoys me. In an RP I followed someone to a hideout in the sewers. There had been a kidnapping and we were face to face with the evil guys. They weren't really persons but something else aparently. "OK" I though and shrugged as that should be able in an fantasy setting afterall. Was prepared for a fight I would probably loose as I asumed the transformation probably made them stronger rather then weaker somehow ;)
Then suddenly someone walked in aswell. He attacked the two friends I was with and seeing his back was turned to me I put a knife to his throat. He smiled and desolves the knife. He also commented OOC that we shouldn't even think of stabbing him as his skin was so well trained blades couldn't possibly cut him.
You raising the eyebrow yet?
I mean come on we just had a post by the devs stating roleplaying should atleast be based somewhat on skills you actually have ingame. Now I don't mind a special move or some special ability to make your character unique but atleast have it be based somewhat on skills that are ingame or will be.
Invincible godlike people are the worst roleplayers in my opinion as they kill the joy for everyone else and they are often people who can't take it when someone else does the same as I have seen in many cases where it became a simple "Who got the fanciest godpower" competition that I leave fast as it's very annoying if you are playing a person thats within mortal standards :P
Thank you for reading my rant :P
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Great rant. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I also agree with what you've said. Touched on the very basic weakness of most RPers, you have.
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First of all...how does one train their SKIN? ::|
Second, you're absolutely right. Although I'd rather people RP as a godly character than actually take time to become one, it totally ruins the fun of a story to be all-powerful. The best way to avoid this would probably be to work out between the two parties who would get killed, their limits on how powerful they can be, and how then can die. Otherwise people are just going to get unruly and wreak havoc everywhere.
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First of all...how does one train their SKIN? ::|
Second, you're absolutely right. Although I'd rather people RP as a godly character than actually take time to become one, it totally ruins the fun of a story to be all-powerful. The best way to avoid this would probably be to work out between the two parties who would get killed, their limits on how powerful they can be, and how then can die. Otherwise people are just going to get unruly and wreak havoc everywhere.
The best way is to teach people what roleplay is, and what it isn't. If you are all-powerful, you are not roleplaying. A role that you play would be defined, that is why it's a role, if you just keep adding power to it as necessary, you are going outside the boundaries of your role, hence you are no longer roleplaying, you're just being pathetic. Seriously though, I think I'll avoid this by RPing with people who know what they're doing. A little selfish, but it works.
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I think people probably do this sort of thing because they think that getting killed or hurt will ruin their story idea...
However, part of the point of RPing is that it doesn't always go the way you plan... because YOU aren't the main character. People have to learn to adapt to what other people do while still getting the story told.
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I think people probably do this sort of thing because they think that getting killed or hurt will ruin their story idea...
Although there's some truth in that, I think most of it still stems from ego. Everyone wants to be the smartest, strongest, most famous, coolest, fastest, etc. Part of human nature. In fact, I'm the only one I know who isn't obsessed by the desire to be better than everyone else.
That was supposed to be funny. Laugh now.
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Agree with Siteri here..
I agree 100% that someone using abilities just to make them invincible is selfish, no fun, and, therefore, pointless.
Here's something i just kinda thought up on the spot.. not sure if it makes sense, but here it goes:
In RP everyone has a bubble around then. When you perform an action, it should only bump other people's bubbles, not pop them. If you pop them, then they are out of the RP and left with nothing to do. In your story Pestilence, i see two examples of this. Once is when the person acted like you slitting their throat had no effect on them, and the second was when you tried to slit his throat. No one wants to RP a character just so some person can jump out of the shadows and slice them in two. How would you expect everyone to comply with that? Both cases, to me , are incidents of bad RP. Don't burst anyone's bubble, just push them around a bit. ;)
Easton
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Wow wait a sec there Easton making asumptions here. I didn't slit his throat. I moved my knife to his throat. I didn't try to slit it. He had everychance to quickly move his hand in between or drop to the floor so there would be no more neck or something more inventive. The only stretch I made was that seeing he was busy with two people already he wouldn't notice me till the knife was near his neck.
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I completely understand your rant Pestilence. There are a few characters in planeshift I like to avoid roleplaying with for these reasons you ranted about.
I think these godly roleplayers fear having people see weakness in their character for whatever reasons or they can never lose. It becomes a competition on who's character is better ... stronger. I don't think they understand that it is more respected to have a character with flaws. Having the abilility to admit flaws gives you so much to roleplay with and makes stories interesting. It also helps give ideas to the evil (or naughty natured) characters, on how to prey on the good characters so that they have some roleplay content to work with. This makes the roleplay seem realistic in my opinion.
I could say a ton more on the topic but really we are never going to get rid of Godly roleplays (If that is even considered roleplaying), the only way around them really is to talk with them and hope they understand when you ask for them to tone it down and stick to more realistic tactics, or just avoid them all together. Perhaps you get lucky and they don't realise what they are doing. Then they give you the opportunity to help them develop character flaws and learn from you how to roleplay out those situations.
Either way godly roleplaying sucks and can be more harmful to roleplays then helpful. It can gain you a reputation to the point where people flee at your very appearance just to avoid that kind of crap. In the end Godly roleplayers only lose out, and it can be a very lonely world without playmates.
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Well the most annoying thing as seeing becuase of this and earlier events I felt like me week has been pretty much spoiled RPwise. Mostly becuase I tried to roleplay with other people. To just follow someone who I knew was to strong to really be hunting rats to see if perhaps there was something going on to meet new people that way.
I mean I don't think that sticking to yourself and staying in tight packs is a good thing to do as a roleplayer. You should try to involve other and to have your RPs intermingle so there really is a community, but for the first time I can really relate to the roleplayers who do form groups and only roleplay in that group.
As I say many times. Planeshift should be about having fun.
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Very interesting and accurate post. I've come across RPs where some characters seemed to be invincible no matter what. It's a turn off or, as Easton put it, a "bubble popper". Now, I won't just repeat what others have said, so here's my two trias: just like nobody is the main character of anything, nobody really is in control of everything. Even players behind an event or casual RP cannot predict nor control all the outcomes, and pretending to choose the one we like best is well... pretencious. We should always leave room for failure because that's the biggest of possibilities most of the times. I sometimes roll the dice when something depends on me RPing a certain ability, giving myself a fair chance of success as well as failure (depending on the experience I have in such situations, among other things), especially when it comes to affecting or reacting to other people's abilities.
And I try to RP abilities I have somehow "acquired" during my PS time (based on what my character has gone through since I started playing and learned in-game). For example, Rangers RP whistles as a means to convey simple messages because it's part of their training. To me it is not enough that a character's background story claims having certain training, a certain object or strength that would represent an advantage over other players if this hasn't actually happened in-game or if they haven't actually spent any time building those abilities through previous RP.
I've been told stuff like "I've always RPed that character has a very strong resitance to poisoned weapons" or worse "My character has the ability to read minds" when that character hasn't really trained any magic way at all (if there's any related to mind-reading for that matter) or learned that stuff from someone else who's bothered to RP their training or research. If one tells me "My character has telepathic abilities so he'll try to read your mind", the key is that they should try. That means they have to attempt it somehow and, most importantly, that they can fail at that. It's not up to them if they succeed. Again, dice could help here or if I'm into the RP they are having I can /tell them what I feel like sharing. But that's me being generous and it should not be taken for granted.
Invincible characters are not necessarily bad RPers, but they are selfish. It's more like they just enjoy roleplaying with themselves... if I have a chance to let them have their fun, I do so by walking away. Play alone, got all you need for your fun. It's tiring having to negociate every little move you make around these characters (especially if the main reason is that they want to be a certain way). This also applies to those who claim to be the most utterly evil, or the most dangerous ones around... and also to those who claim to be the holiest, most delicate and purest spirits in Yliakum.
*Pop* There goes the fun...
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First of all...how does one train their SKIN? ::|
Second, you're absolutely right. Although I'd rather people RP as a godly character than actually take time to become one, it totally ruins the fun of a story to be all-powerful. The best way to avoid this would probably be to work out between the two parties who would get killed, their limits on how powerful they can be, and how then can die. Otherwise people are just going to get unruly and wreak havoc everywhere.
Body developement.
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Invincible godlike people are the worst roleplayers in my opinion as they kill the joy for everyone else
Invincible characters are not necessarily bad RPers, but they are selfish.
Seeing roleplaying is a group effort I feel that qualifies as bad. Perhaps not bad in that they can't roleplay, but even wprse in that they CHOSE to not follow the rules of good roleplaying.
I mean the new player who doesn't know roleplaying that well and goes a little overboard might be annoying but is exusable. The people who know better are really much more of a problem. Specially seeing that way the new players will think it atleast is one way of playing. I mean I think there are several people who have been godpowered several times and just decided that if that is the way people play they should just have to think up one for themselves.
body developement would be I think training muscles. ;)
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Well it's the only explanation I could possibly give for someone like that. Either that or they were a Kran.
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Well I could think up of one explanation. Saw once on discovery of monks who were trained in hand to hand combat since they were children. They were able to grab blades with their hands without bleeding or anything. even do this with certain parts of their body. This could be somewhat of a explanation, but that technique qas in no part fullproof however. It only worked if the monk in question knew where the blade was going to hit and only at certain points at his body.
The body can be trained a lot to withstand such blows, but if the blow is unexpected they would be just as screwed as someone who did not have that training becuase the body wasn't prepared.
Same with Karatefighters. In the highest tournaments both sides in a fight get blows that could kill an untrained man, but they also mentioned what was the biggest threat.again that unpredicted blow. I even saw a guy take about ten kicks and not even flinch and then during traaining he got one hit who wasn't even as hard as those other but somehow he didn't expect anything from that direction and that was when he became unconsious.
And hmm had not thought of the Kran possibility, but afraid it wasn't a Kran in this case ;)
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This is what happens in all open RP, one up manship can't really be avoided, that's why we have stats... which come with their own list of problems of course.
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I was requested to add the link to the post I was refering to about the stats. Posted by Chaos third post.
http://hydlaa.com/smf/index.php?topic=25053.0
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Maybe I am being obtuse, but I am assuming you are talking about a character who is not powerful attempting to RP a god? I see a characters abilities in RP to be ONLY those things that cannot be done with current game mechanics. If someone is supposedly an invincible god then they should be on open PVP setting and have played that character for years and their description should say "you evaluate that X could destroy you with an eyeblink". A less powerful character trying to do this would just make me highly irritated. Nice post...
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my personal opinion is that any roleplay that includes any elements that are not explicitly built in to the game world are Out Of Context. Therefor any psychic ability is unacceptable. Your dagger to the throat move could be included as Assassin Strike even though it is not implimented yet. Anyone claiming Godly powers should be immediately cursed by the legitimate in-game Gods being transformed into a rat or some such thing for a period of time. this might require RP'ers to keep logs and would probably annoy GM's to no end.
We can see some of what the future holds for the game and anything extra should be lobbied for outside of the game and not included in RP until there is some concrete indication that it will be included in the future. "That is a good idea we will take a look at it" is not such an indication, a new skill listing on everyones skills page whether or not it can currently be practiced is. Otherwise if it is not in the game it is not a suitable Role Play element.
That is my opinion anyway and I'm not much into RP'ing as most of it seems to be self-aggrandizing nonsense to me. Ohh I can fake middle English better than you hee hee hee, I am a Lord and you are my Lady even though such titles do not exist in this world, really there is the Octarch and Vigesemis but democratically elected civil servants do not get European nobility titles.
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Roleplay at its WORST is self-aggrandizing nonsense, I agree. At its best it is people making up stories and using their characters to tell them within a setting that has acknowledged limits. There are -- I am generalizing -- two types of people who play something like this: those that wish to have fun and hang out with their friends and possibly have an interesting story come their way ... and those who do not deal well with real life or other people to begin with. This has always been true of immersive games, even when they were just pen, paper and miniatures. There is always the /ignore command option...
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two types of people who play something like this: those that wish to have fun and hang out with their friends and possibly have an interesting story come their way ... and those who do not deal well with real life or other people to begin with. ...
I can't argue with this although it doesn't really determine who is who. Some people like the feeling of progressing their character (like me) and the various statistics make this something well defined. Other people like to make a story and try to develop a plot line for their character and this is a more nebulous endeavor as there is nothing inherent in the character to show their past. You may keep logs of your adventures and post them somewhere on the net or even use them to create stories posted on the internet but they will not be apparent to the casual player in the game. I see nothing wrong with either approach and typically there is some overlap between these types. My character tends to be a matter-of-fact lets improve our abilities type but he also has created an outrageous fable of the origins of the Kran that he likes to tell as plain fact. Some of you will have heard of it and his description has been altered from the standard life history to reference it.
Of course there are other people who just like to make life difficult for people and they can be of either type, the less said about them the better.
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Nobody starts out being god-like nor should they be allowed to. That's the only clear level we have in this game: LEVEL 0, with 0 experience, 0 Progression points, 0 tiras, 0 training beyond what they were created with. No matter how much they write in their background stories, they should only limit to what their starting stats are (if you're born with Crystal 18 or mining 9 you can use it, but that's aeons away from being a god). You can write about how you suffered or lived before but making up strange abilities or objects in order to RP an edge over other players is plain pretencious and undeserved.
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Bilbous' way of saying that there are people who like to make life harder for others is probably the better way of saying it. I was just making a vague generalization between the people who are mature and play for enjoyment, and others who play to lord over others with massive l33t pwrlvling bull and hijack the game so nobody can have fun. Thankfully, in PS we might have to deal with these people but the community has enough cohesion to survive an onslaught of them, and the way the game is created basically everybody can have a good time. \o/ dev team
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Well personally I don't mind if someone RPs being stronger then his stats for RP purposes. I mean you don't want new players not to have a chance at all in a fight, but I do feel if for example someone has trained agility to the highest possible you shouldn't be able to say that in RP terms you are even faster becuase of years of training or something. In such a case you simply shouldn't be able to be faster unless you are doing something your character is simply trained in. like perhaps drawing a sword when you are swordsmen and the other only trained daggers. Then you could be faster, but you shouldn't be able to without effort be way faster then that person in things like running when neither have any handicap. Then you are obviously going outside the setting to what is "humanly" possible in PlaneShift.
And there in my book begins godly powers.
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I Hate God modding.
Firstly if you were some deity or extremely powerful being, that is currently posessing a body, your not so unkillable anymore. Your body is mortal and therefore, although your soul cannot "die" etc, your not immortal and your shell is just as mortal as the person attacking you.
The body would not have the abilities your natural body does and therefore your eyes cannot fire laserbeams and you cannot beat Laanx or Talad in an arm wrestle.
Case, friggin closed.
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hey now this post i like the way i see it your rp should be mesured and presented based on your lvls in game. yes ok im always talking about magic but its the easiest system to base demos on. example you should not have a special ability in a way of magic unless you have masterd it. and ppl aboveyour lvl should be able to partialy diminish your attack or even reflect it or desolve it completely if there that much more experienced. i also think there should be a chance facter maybe a roll of a dice if your gonna deflect it you get higher than attacker then it get reflected back if not then you take some dmg this is ofcourse if your more experienced in that way than your attacker.
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Ugh!RPing always encounters multiple problems like this.
Did you try asking the guy/person/fenki if they could play maybe play into a little bit more within the grip of reality?But you seem like a guy who did that. But I don't think you can do much more than that other than leaving the RP that would be going on.
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While I agree that always RP'ing someone who is more powerful than your current stats indicate is poor form, there is a time and a place to do this. Many people are commenting on how one shuold always RP at a level consistant with your in game stats, but if you are trying to facilitate a new RP session with some great threat, are you prepared to powerlevel a char for 3 months just to have an ALT character worthy of playing this great evil? I think not. You will create an ALT on the fly and then it is up to the others in the RP to react to this character in the appropriate way. There is always a certain amount of suspension of disbelief that is required in this world in order to carry out an effective and fun RP. While I find those who *always* RP a god-like character annoying, it is equally poor form in an RP where you react to some "powerful" character with scoffing because you read in thier desciption that they would pose no challenge to you. Yes, it is a 0 level ALT char created for the purpose of the RP. Use your imagination. That said, I have taken part in some great RP sessions where people have done the 'right' thing and treated this ALT char in the right way and all has been fun and games.
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The notion that all evil characters need to be uber powerful is a bit off... you can play a perfect lowlife at level 0 who lies, cheats and steals his way and RP stealthy skills that do not give them an edge in str or any other stat they can't actually be better at. We don't need more "sources of all evil", just plain bad guys. And besides, many players choose to make their main character the evil one, and they PL them accordingly. And, in my own experience I can say that usually well played alts do not pretend to be God-like unless there's an agreement set previously with all the players involved. A totally different thing is when someone tries to impose their god-like powers on others just because they want to RP a god-like character. Also, in my experience, these players will always tell you they are totally not doing god-like RP, so it's hard to talk them out of it.
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I agree with Zai. First of I don't mind is someone uses an alt that isn't really trained for RP purposes, but then it should only be used for this purpose and should really be an alt.
If you plan on playing the character more often some training should be put into the person aswell.
Anyhow my main problem isn't people playing themselves stronger then they are within the possibilities. It the one that desolve knives with a smile. That effortlessly beat you in any kind of speed eventhough you have max agility, that will always beat you in armwrestling eventhough your strength is maxed.
The powers that aren't supposed to exist in the PS universe. And no not talking about things like lockpicking becuase the skill isn't implemented or breathing becuase there is no skill for that ;) Just some common sence. A thief should be able to lockpick and anyone should be able to breath [however the Kran might do that]
Those however that can't stay within those limits is what is annoying. That is why D&D and similar games have Dungeon Masters. To say "hello your not a giant you can't lift that much"or "hello you as a player might know that the world is round but these people don't know it isn't flat". People need to be their own DMs now and apparently not everyone is able to do that.
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I agree that God like rp (/me dodges effortlessly)should be discouraged wherever possible, powers, abilities and races should stay true to the settings, but a couple of other points have been raised in this thread that seem to have strayed from my perception of PS.
Firstly my current char is a freakishly large Enkidukai developed over the last 6-8 months who is quite capable of tossing the average member of the smaller races around Ylian/Enki/Dem etc one handed, he has his faults and weaknesses which a couple of chars have discovered but is a lot stronger than his race would normally allow.
Secondly unless I have been playing under a misapprehension for the last 18 months PS is primarily about roleplay and that is how I have been playing it. So I fail to see the correlation between ooc levels/stats and rp'd abilities.
Since just before xmas I have not trained at all for several reasons.
1. I don't have the time anymore and what time I do have I'd rather spend in roleplaying
2. The mindless bashing of mobs just got very boring
3. Training is almost impossible for me to justify in an rp fashion (in PS if some one is killed then they go to the DR, not reappear 20 seconds later in the same spot with similar loot)
Don't get me wrong I am not against training or PVP I just feel that it should not be necessary or required to be able to rp
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Well I think that is a possibility to discus Rp in the sence of playing being better in swordfighting then you really are personally. RPwise it would be a lot more fun to be able to conjure up a evildooer your friends have to vanquish the also stands a bit in a duel, specially with things like wipes I could hardly say different at this stage of development.
With me the problem arises when someone goes above what is "humanly" possible. In specific in this case in RP fights. Noone like to lose but people who do that in fact are simply cheating as RP rules don't even allow that and if this game had a builtin DM you know he would be whisteling those people back.
Specially RP people who have been playing for ages and are good at roleplaying and do it with humor I don't think people will mind. Specially seeing it normally doesn't mean death in the end, but fights aren't humoress and therefor if someone is cheating there to win... people will notice.
The person for example I talked about before I told him I thought he was using godpowers and asked if he could please stop, but he ignored me and now I met two people ingame already who say exacrly the same without me even having started about it. I again asked him to reconsider and still he claims he isn't using god power. After that he claimed everyone did it {practicly admitting he knew he was doing it :P ] but that he had to or else he wouldn't stand a chance in a fight. Even said I should just do it aswell.
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I agree that God like rp (/me dodges effortlessly)should be discouraged wherever possible, powers, abilities and races should stay true to the settings, but a couple of other points have been raised in this thread that seem to have strayed from my perception of PS.
Firstly my current char is a freakishly large Enkidukai developed over the last 6-8 months who is quite capable of tossing the average member of the smaller races around Ylian/Enki/Dem etc one handed, he has his faults and weaknesses which a couple of chars have discovered but is a lot stronger than his race would normally allow.(...)
What if there was a bigger, stronger character than you RP wise? Would you grant them that? They could have been worked on for 10 months... My suggestion for you to be able to claim you can toss anyone with one hand is that you get potions that would boost your strength or endurance and use them during the RP. That way you will be more successfull with you intimidation, which is what you seem to be aiming for anyways. And if you are going to duel afterwards you can warn the opponent OOC why you are boosting your stats. If they follow the RP it should be OK. Otherwise, what makes you think you can decide that you are stronger than everyone else when you have the same limitations everyone has? Yes, you can be larger, very intimidating, disturbingly muscular, I'm ok with all that. Just make sure that you state it that way, don't say you are stronger (you won't be unless you use pots or magic). There's no need for it in your RP and you'll get challenged OOC more than IC and rolleyed at (because you are not).
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I have to agree with Zhai here.
We all have the same possibilities.
It wouldn't be fair to decidde by yourself to just say you alone can go beyond the lmitations others should follow.
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You see someone trying to act like a God, Ignore them.
As talad said, if people arn't rping around you, Just pretend they don't exhist.
I think we could do the same with those who RP God's, Just ignore them.
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I think we could do the same with those who RP God's, Just ignore them.
prooving IC'ly that he is nothing more than a lunatic would be a better solution imo :) I've been doing this some time... pretty easy as a god knows everything. "what is my mothers name?" "what does <elvish phrase> mean?" Done :P
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I think we could do the same with those who RP God's, Just ignore them.
prooving IC'ly that he is nothing more than a lunatic would be a better solution imo :) I've been doing this some time... pretty easy as a god knows everything. "what is my mothers name?" "what does <elvish phrase> mean?" Done :P
lol peacer, your way seems more fun lol.
The only problem i could see with it, is if the person your mocking is stronger than you and challenges you.
Then you run lol.
But yea, i think i'll try your way, they could never know everything lol.
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This thread has the purpose of warning to anyone roleplaying a superman char. There is no debate at all, as it seems assumed by everyone that that kind of roleplay destructs the ambience.
This applies for the good type guy, that alone kills all the guards, rescues the donzel, and all that in a second without loosing his elegant hairform, and also applies for the evil type guy that claps hands and destroys mountains and cities (seems that this "superman" types always choose those ugly plain stereotyped kind of chars to play)
There is then, it seems, no disagreeing that all those illogic actings aren't enforcing any roleplay at all, rather destroying it.
Where I think there's more debate is in the stat/skill being used in RP.
I've faith in the players. The persons behind, have more potential than any game mechanics. I give them freedom. To the point that game mechanics are secondary, and what they do in fact roleplay, is what really matters to me.
I might see someone hitting 520 (as I've seen in another thread) but I won't assume that one to be strong/powerful, till the char is roleplayed. Until then, that number is meaningless. Same applies to magic. Nowadays, seems every player has a couple of glyphs for their chars, and they're able to use them. That I "see" those glyphs used by the game mechanics, won't make me assume the char indeed can, until it is roleplayed.
And even a step further, I am more inclined to assign the cathegory of a mage to someone that roleplays the magic even with 0 skill and no glyphs in inventory, rather than someone that solely uses the game mechanics, casting over and over a spell hitting a shortcut keyboard key.
If I see a decent description, that states the char before mine appears as strong, that char is for me strong, no matter what the "You evaluate..." thing might say.
Giving that freedom will lead to everyone being super powerful chars, you say?
If we rely only on stats/skills, we now have almost everyone being super powerful chars. Rely in roleplay and the persons ability to create and imagine.
Message shortened by PREY (Prevent Reader's Eyes Yell).
Might post something more later, might not. :P
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What if there was a bigger, stronger character than you RP wise? Would you grant them that? They could have been worked on for 10 months...
Of course I would grant that I only mentioned the length of time I have been playing this char to show that I have put considerable thought into him and not once have I been challenged oocly about it. (well not directly, a maxed out PLer did threaten to stomp me when he didn't understand the rp that was going on)
My suggestion for you to be able to claim you can toss anyone with one hand is that you get potions that would boost your strength or endurance and use them during the RP. That way you will be more successfull with you intimidation, which is what you seem to be aiming for anyways. And if you are going to duel afterwards you can warn the opponent OOC why you are boosting your stats. If they follow the RP it should be OK.
Firstly I don't duel and have autodecline set so there is no point in using potions, secondly in real life there are a few 7+ foot tall Strong men about and I didn't say the char was stronger than every one or could throw anybody thirdly I dont find downing a couple of gallons of potions in one shot in the middle of a fight particularly realistic.
Otherwise, what makes you think you can decide that you are stronger than everyone else when you have the same limitations everyone has? Yes, you can be larger, very intimidating, disturbingly muscular, I'm ok with all that. Just make sure that you state it that way
I do don't say you are stronger[/b]
I don't(you won't be unless you use pots or magic). There's no need for it in your RP and you'll get challenged OOC more than IC and rolleyed at (because you are not).
Sorry don't quite follow your reasoning there are you talking Game Mechanics or RP?
Maybe I didn't make my point clear enough :)
I don't have the time or the inclination to train my Chars anymore so in a Role Play game why should my chars be at the mercy of every new player who spends a couple of weeks non stop training, maxing out then deciding to RP?
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Well reading Chaos post the idea behind planeshift is to combine the game elments with the roleplaying. Neither should be looked at seperately. Granted this ofcourse is for when wipes aren't nececary anymore, but it does show you should not look at either as independant of the other.
Therefor my opinion is that becuase of the wipes and whatnot you shouldn't be strict about enforcing stats, but that if you want to RP a strong person you should atleast try to train strength up so the stat isn't still untrained after months of play with no wipe affecting stats.
You might not like this view but this is what the GMs have chosen for and thinking of games like D&D you aren't allowed to throw everyone around there either if you are in fact a level 1 wizard with a -1 modifier on strength.
Although personally as I said I am not someone who is asking for stats just to see if someone is actually able to do something. I do keep this in mind when playing my own character. Garile for instance at first was weak as I had not raised her ranks at all, but as time went on she trained more and became more confident about her skills with the knife. She still isn't an uberperson, but after all that training only few should be able to beat her speed.
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This is really an interesting thread. Back in the day, characters with godlike powers or the superhero or dark antagonist would have been exclusively played by the DM (GM) in my campaigns. Yes: I mean pen, paper and miniatures. This is because the characters themselves were not capable of it as their characters had not developed to the point where I would consider it. Also, the characters that always wanted to play gods, uberheroes and godlike villians always seemed to want to somehow usurp game control from the GM and ignore the other players and what they wanted. I have tried these scenarios before and, unless the character is actually capable of it within the game mechanics, it usually does not work out in the long run. I just consider it kind of mediocre for people to want to play characters like this. The point of the game is acting within the role of your character as it is created and exists in the game for the purposes of interacting with others and advancing your character, as you get more powerful the ability to expand your role occurs. If one wants to stand about RPing and talking with people and act like a god, other players will ignore you or make fun of you. If you WERE a god, they could not do this. So since they can -- you are not and should not RP as such. I mean who cares what people do with their friends online? I don't, but RP like this is never going to make it outside of a small group. Why not play your character as your character? There are so many possibilities to play, why does everybody get so excited about being a god or evil all powerful villian? Basic psychology gives us the answer on this one ...
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Well having reread the post by Cha0s and from your viewpoints it appears as if I have been playing under a misapprehension for at least a year.
It seems like even though I have gradually developed my Char from a callow young freak driven from his village to the adult he is today, it has been a waste of time because I haven't raised his stats to match.
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Lanser, if you were talking to me, this does not mean your year was a waste. If I am with you IG and you want to roleplay it that way and it is fun all around, then fine. I will play along with you and have with others.
That is one thing, but PS is wedding together RP and the game mechanics that they are developing, and the setting of the game and the abilities of the players should have SOMETHING to do with how they are played. If it was not so, we could all just hang around on IRC and make up whatever we want whenever we want. What if my PC is your friend and he is getting attacked by a bunch of rogues and you do not help because your character cannot fight? Do you really think my character would then support this uber-strength thing after that?
I keep alts that have not much or no skills and I use them for RP... not one of them is going to claim to be a great wizard, awesome warrior, or a god. They are just there for RP, to interact and tell stories with the other players... I just think if you follow the game the interactions you get are more sincere. Indygo gets my vote, he plays an excellent character, does good RP and maintains a place in the community even though he does not appear to work on leveling much. He makes no claims above the simplicity of his character and is honest and comes off very sincere. Hence I believe him and always pay attention when he is doing something RP nearby.
This is why in tabletop there was ALWAYS a DM watching the play and making judgements about what was going on. The DM would moderate, punish, reward, assent to out of character play or cut it off depending on who was doing it and how they were using it. Right now in PS it is like all the players are sitting around the table, the DM has left the room, and the players are arguing amongst themselves about what they can and cannot do in game. It is really an unresolvable argument, the DM MUST DECIDE what the limits are and what is permissible.
Maybe I am totally wrong in how I view the game, but that is what the discussion is for. You guys tell me... I do not suppose Talad has any time to give us his views on how this stuff blocks out, but it would be nice to hear it summarized from someone with 'authority'.
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Sorry Eldoth it was in reply to Pestilence.
In reply to your points though if we were together and you were attacked by Rogues I would consider that an ooc occurance and as such shouldn't affect your Chars viewpoint, although I would certainly RP coming to my friends aid.
As for Indygo I've never met him and for my char I make no claims apart from being very large with corresponding physical attributes (nothing Uber). He has fought with Unar, Hagarath and Aucices with varying degrees of sucess (he does have an easily exploitable weakness)
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I had a thing or two to say earlier and I have a different thing or two to say now. It seems to me now from listening to all the ardent RP'ers that if RP is the purpose of the game the devs are going in the wrong direction. Why bother with training at all if you can be whatever you say you are and can convince others of? I propose a radical departure from the current system. No training, no npc's. your account starts off with a certain amount of points to be divided between the three characters allowed which are used to provide the abilities of those characters. If you decide to spend all your points on your first character then the others get no abilities at all. Then the GM's sole duty will be to create events and apportion development points based on players role-play. The GM will get a stat sheet for every character that participates in their event and will have a discretionary amount of points to allot for that event which will be based on the size and complexity of the event. The community at large could develop templates for adventures which could be used by the GM's with little or no preparation. A blank template for new adventures could be developed that would determine base rewards for original adventures which would then be added to the template store and re-evaluated post-adventure.
This is my idea of how a Role Playing game should be run. It is not fully developed but the bones are there for all to see.
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because skills are suposed to be the rule that dictates what your character can or not do, planeshift problem right now in consideration to RP is that its mechanics are barely scratched. making PS limited.
because for example if you wanted to be a cook or eaven a great cook in RP right now you couldnt because the mechanics arent in place for you to be a cook insted you have the option to pretend that you are a cook, but if it would nessecary to prove to another character IC that you were a cook you couldnt because you would not be able to cook in game. thats why there is scenerio rules, and "mechanic rules" skills
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It seems to me that the biggest problem with implimenting skills is designing the mechanics of skill advance. If you abstract the skill advance in the way I mentioned previously you reduce the amount of complexity required in implimenting functions.
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Thank you, Lanser. I enjoyed your reply. Actually I have enjoyed everyone's replies. This is the rare good thread. I have RP'd a cook in PS before and I do a bit of it when I am bartending at the Kada-El. Being a cook is believable, all you would have to do is stand in front of a stove a type cooking descriptions, and then descriptions of the food you are making. It does not voilate the RP vs. Game Mechanics concept because it is humble and limited ... it is one thing for a character to tell me he is a cook, but another thing entirely to say he is a God. Bilbous has a good idea in his post. Not sure if I completely understand, but it sounds like something that might be implemented with a GM as the guild master of a secret guild to which many dedicated RP characters belong.
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Well ther is obviously a reason why this thread focusses a lot on people who use uberskills in RPs to get an advantage in fights.
Reason one is simply becuase that is the part where gamemechanics are being developed mostly atm and that is what people are training mostly aswell.
Reason two being is that in RPs fighting is sometimes done quite a bit and it's a direct way to force someone to act in the way you want.
These two reasons I feel are the reasons why people feel wronged. Same when someone is making magical forcefields instead of just locking the door. It is practicly denying others options they normally would have. Forcing people to do things they normally wouldn't have to do. And if someone then feels this forcing is unjust people get annoyed.
Cooking as been mentioned doesn't force anyone to do anything. It doesn't take away options for someone else. Nor is it something you have to question normally if it's even humanly possible ;) As I mentioned I am not going to ask people what their rank in breathing is.
The point is that people should concider other people aswell when roleplaying. It's not just you who should be stealing the show. And specially with things like fighting and other things that effect others it is very important that you stay true to your character.
Chaos post even mentions staying true to the ranks you have, but I'll be pleased if people just stay true what is rank wise POSSIBLE. You shouldn't be stronger then someone who trained str to max and you shouldn't be faster then someone who maxed agility and you shouldn't desolve knives with a smile or some strange power that has nothing to do with the skills as we know them.
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o.k this R.p some people are describing IS WAYY to extreme.
Someone even said, get rid of the trainers and don't train at all, use Rp events as points instead.
I'm sorry, but this isn't AIM , this isn't Yahoo, this isn't MSN, We don't just talk to people all day long in a submersive society.
These people in my opinion need to start their own chat network, or go on IRC, and TALK ALL DAY LONG.
This is a Game that inherently NEEDS fights, killing, bloodshed, and POWER struggles.
To take away this element would RUIN THE GAME.
I am just disgusted by some of these RP freaks, i mean the ones that take offense to us players who train stats.
You choose not to train your stats, that's fine, but just like in the real world, some do and some don't.
Forcing people to stop training though, Isn't realistic, and makes a game where everyone sits around camp fires all day singing together.
I feel you need both to have a good experience, some RP, some training.
Some choose to only RP, others choose to ony Train.
That's fine.
But when the RPer's try to force their ideologies on the trainers, it always seems to come into direct conflict.
I'm just saying, I'M TIRED of those RP freaks who talk all day long and hold grudges against those who train.
I respect the Rpers who allow people to train and feel it is a NECESSARY component to the game.
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I agree the game's most fun when there's a good balance between training and RP, because both give you a strong sense of IG achievement, and because nobody should start as a master of anything (and yes, game mechs are a reference to what your character can do, and although they can sometimes be overlooked, they should not be completely ignored).
Before each of our characters' adventures start we are plain commoners, peasants, citizens... nothing else. Well, I guess you can say you are king or a princess if you want (not sure if that is within settings though, might be topic of another thread) or anything harmless like that to others' RP. The point here isn't if one or the other should be taken away, the point here is that some players ruin the fun for others by being selfish, stubborn in their ways and unable to compromise. That is the problem.
Why?
- Because they RP like they are the center of the stories (ALL of them). *Yawn*. And the funny thing is they don't often admit it. In my experience this happens more often with good characters (as often as characters claim to be "neutral" when they actually RP as "good"). Maybe because evil characters are the minority or maybe because they want to be superheroes.
- Because they often resort to OOC to claim their character's powers ("[<name> has received extensive training so he can't be surprised ever]") to "correct" what others do around them instead of listening to what they are saying. Three lines of "negociation" between actual character conversation/action is way too much unnecessary OOC. You want to have a reputation of being skilled in one way or another? Work for it. Don't impose it. And I don't mean PL, i mean make your character RP that they are in a learning progress as they "live" in the game (be it weeks, months, etc.). The problem is when they think they can pull it off from the beginning just by writing a background story.
- Because they think they can solve any problem. Hello! Most plots start with a problem. If you solve the problem in the first five minutes, the plot is over. You need to be clueless for a while for it to unfold completely and be most enjoyable for everyone. If your character can't be K.O. in a RP fight, can't be fooled by a cheater/thief, can't be poisoned or infected by desease ever or always has the answer for every little and big problem out there, you have a VERY boring character.
Who knows? Maybe everyone will say God-RP sucks and never admit when they do it. So let's try this: RP a weakness, any weakness... be allergic to something, have a phobia, have a "sensitive" stomach, the list could be endless... but please, choose one for your characters. You'll see they are fun. You might want to pick more...
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Who knows? Maybe everyone will say God-RP sucks and never admit when they do it. So let's try this: RP a weakness, any weakness... be allergic to something, have a phobia, have a "sensitive" stomach, the list could be endless... but please, choose one for your characters. You'll see they are fun. You might want to pick more...
Great poitn zhai, your post hit it exaclty.
And i love your last paragraph, RP a weakness.
I seriously think we should all try that, i personally haven't done so, and i feel that i should.
Maybe if someone says something about my tail I become vulnerable and shy, and so i'm less likely to challenge someone, and if i do, i'll willingly lose.
Something like that, so those who know me, can go after me and make fun of my tail, causing me therefore to lose duels instantly.
I don't know if this is a weakness... but my character doesn' drink alcohol, he has seen it's effects and he has never had a drop.
Anyways, Great post Zhai, i think you rapped up this whole thread! :thumbup:
~~Datruth
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Someone even said, get rid of the trainers and don't train at all, use Rp events as points instead.
I'm pretty sure this was my idea you are talking about so perhaps I should explain it better, not because I ever expect it to be implimented but just to be clear.
When I was talking about getting rid of the trainers and have points alotted after rp events I wasn't talking about all talk no action. If you think about a standard role-playing game like D&D what happens is that you go out have enormous adventure, glorious battles etc. you trash the dungeon. Afterwards you tally up what you did during the adventure and the gm awards you experience according to what you did and possibly awards you bonuses for things you did particularly inventively. Then when you have achieved enough experience to get the next level you spend whatever points that has earned you however you wish. The GM may make you role play making a connection but mostly this gets glossed over. What I was trying to say was that this game as so many others gets bogged down in the mechanics of the training. It would be possible to simplify it drastically.
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The problem with this is that this is a computer game. There aren't always going to be GM's around... and that system would mean it would be impossible to advance your character while there were no GM's around.
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well certainly the idea in not fully developed but in this scheme anybody could be a game master, grab a template flesh it out a bit and recruit a few participants. Off you go! Naturally the concept requires some more thinking -- such as the game master could not be what is typically considered a game master in these kinds of games, perhaps those roles of server cop etc. could be abstracted to the position of GODs. The game master would have control over their template and have some discretion over who could participate in their enactment of whichever template they were using but server rules get enforced by the Gods and only the Gods could interfere with the GMs rulings. So I, as GM, could kick you out of the adventure I am running if you are being disruptive but I could not kick you off the server.
Perhaps though, none of this makes any sense and is too far from Planeshift to keep discussing.
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I think you are right on Bilbous. But you are speaking of something that is yet to be. Since there cannot be a DM all the time, and giving that power to just anybody would be as problematic as the RP-God thing, the system you are speaking of is ... pen and paper D&D! Yay! Sorry, just regressing for a moment back to the golden age... The problem is vetting the DMs. Even if there were a DM rank with only the ability to be invisible and assign experience, that still could be abused by the wrong person. So, we need a concept of running the game that is a bit beyond what any game does right now.
We need something like a GMAI (Game Master Artificial Intelligence) also some new types of commands I think and a way to structure RP so that actions done RP have a quality to them and therefore can be assigned value. It might come in the form of additonal commands that must be used to do Quality or Value Added RP (QARP! VARP! sounds like my cat with a hairball); anything could still be typed through the tell channel, but to get the attention fo the GMAI you would have to use the /fight, /force, /coerce et cetera commands. Then stats and capabilities between the characters could be compared and evaluated by the GMAI and experience or rewards given, or punishment taken.
Okay, so that is about how far I can go without getting a headache. But that is my two cents and I like what Bilbous was saying. Unfortunately, I do not think the /tell should be removed from the game even if there are a lot of fancy tables and new commands, so the problem of annoying RPers will never go away...
Personally, it is interesting to me to be revisiting this problem after (urg) twenty years, and not having to do it sitting around a table with someone who keeps pulling out their +17 sword of ice/fire/frost/darkness to kill a kobold. I never understood it then, and I do not understand it now... loved your posts Daltruth and Zhai!
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Anyhow that is getting way of topic os think it would require some thinking and then a Wishlist thread to discus it further ;)
RP a weakness. hmm well Garile has some weaknesses but have to admit she doesn't have one big disadvantage. Would have to think about it. Although eventhough I feel people should have things they aren't good at having everyone have a phobia the size of mount Everest isn't very realistic either.
But agreed that your advatages should be balanced by things your character isn't good at.
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Alrighty. I've been asked to weigh in here (thank you for asking unnamed person ;) ), and I shall.
As I see it, we are discussing two issues here.
The first is roleplaying beyond what is possible in the game world, stats aside. This one's easy: you can't do it. There is no glyph that can resurrect someone from the dead, so you can't pretend to resurrect people from the dead. Now maybe if the devs said, "we're gonna add a glyph to resurrect people from the dead..." it might be acceptable for a little while up until said glyph is actually added (my response to this sort of thing would depend on the case), BUT in general, if something is outside the current settings (and not planned for implementation) you can't roleplay it!
The second issue is the correlation between roleplay and stats. In an ideal (read: "finished," though it never will really be finished) Planeshift world, your character should not be even a moderate cook if your character has 0 points in cooking. HOWEVER, we don't live in that nice world. SO, stats are more like guidelines than hard-and-fast rules. I mean two things by that: first, if you roleplay putting some time into cooking, or if there's cooking involved in your backstory, you can roleplay being a cook! Second, stats that do exist in the game can be taken more liberally than they normally be. For instance, a person with only a few points in Red Way magic could call themself a decent Red Way mage. However, someone with 50 agility should not be outrunning someone with 150 agility. Yes, I know speed isn't actually based on agility right now and I'm not saying that in day-to-day life you should make your character walk slower if you only have 50 agility, but in a situation where speed matters, you can't just ignore your stats completely and make it up. Roleplay is acting and adopting a role within a framework; that framework is the game engine. Because the game engine is unfinished at the moment, you can fudge it a bit, but you can not ignore it completely. Without rules, all is chaos (no pun on my name!).
To address a few of the specific issues that came up:
Bilbous: very interesting idea, but it requires FAR more GMs than we have and they need to be full-time (paid) GMs, and that is a path that I doubt Planeshift would take (though I'm not a dev, so don't take my word as gospel).
Eldoth: I think things like GMAI are planned for the future (well, DaveG did say he wanted the engine doing as much as possible so the GMs aren't needed for events :P ). Just don't hold your breath.
Regarding the suggestion to roleplay a weakness: It's an interesting idea, BUT don't just add a weakness to your character. Only do it if it makes sense. Your character shouldn't all-of-a-sudden be afraid of heights; maybe your character will fall (or fell) from a high building (happens all the time in Planeshift, right? :P ) and broke a leg: that's a reason to be afraid of heights. Remember, you should always have a character framework, a core set of things that make your character your character... mmm, I'll make a little flow chart...
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|-> History (explanation/reasons behind the core character; this constantly expands as you develop your character through roleplay)-> |
Core Character (this is the most important part of your character: personality, hopes, dreams, reasoning, morales, ideals) -> |
Actions (what your character does because of his/her Core) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
Note that's a loop... (if you couldn't tell from the funky arrows).
One final issue I'll address before I finish... try not to separate roleplay and "powerleveling." Training your character's skills can be roleplay! I know it's hard to do this at the moment with the engine as it is, so I'm not saying never separate roleplay and training. But if it can work for your character, try to do both at once. Now that I've written a little novelette, I think it's time I went to bed. Let me finish by saying that I am one person with one set of opinions. This post is based on the way I think roleplay should work and explains the method I personally (just me, not necessarily anyone else) will encourage in Planeshift. It's not the only way, and it may not be the right way for Planeshift (though I do like to think it is ;) ). So ,take my comments with a grain of salt. :)
EDIT: General touch-up, i.e. diagram, typos, etc.
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Thank you Cha0s for the clarification although I think you are too modest, as a GM and Moderator in addition to being asked to post I think that your opinion carries a fair bit more weight than most :)
So basically one shouldn't be playing PS without training. :(
Since it appears from the posts here and in general that, I am once again in the minority, I would like to apologise to those I have debated with over the last few months.
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Stats and Skills
>Crystal Way
>>
Mental stat: Charisma
Description: Gets the pure energy of the crystal, more directly than all other ways.
Famous for the ability to heal and cure the most terrible wounds.
Someone says that if you reach a great knowledge, you can even bring back a person from death.
It's in there...
and I think i'd said before said before-- whether it was a bug or not--there have been cases of dying then being able to get up & move around again before dr loads, thanks to a well timed spell casting..
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Thank you for weighing in, Chaos. That should just about do it for this thread. I like keeping the character to within the spectrum of the character's skills and actual abilities in the game world. That is how I ran D&D, and it is the only way that anything makes sense...
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*smiles*
Thanks for posting Chaos. Felt you should have a say aswell seeing I refered to a post you wrote.
Well atleast glad most here seem to agree that roleplaying should be within the limits of what a normal person can do.
Lately I have been running in to this one person who doesn't quite a bit and it's pretty annoying but good to know I am right to feel bugged ;)
And yes would love to ignore the person, but you know how it goes. ignoring that person would mean ignoring the whole RP. Including the other persons in it and that is quite drastic sometimes.
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I have two suggestions for when people start roleplaying out of hand. First, drop that person a tell. Something along the lines of "Yes, PS is about roleplaying, but there are rules too," except a little longer and more precise to make it crystal clear what you're talking about. If the person continues to be a pest, send a petition. I can't speak for other GMs, but I will definitely intervene if I feel someone is disrupting roleplay. Probably, I'd do something like this: /tell to explain the issue (similar to what the player should do above); warning message if I get no response; if the problem persists, one last warning in a /tell with a threat to mute; /mute.
A lot of players feel that if someone is messing up roleplay, they have to go along with it in-character and try to make the person out to be a lunatic or find some other way of making sense of it. This is not the case. If someone is acting out-of-character, you don't need to incorporate that person's actions into your roleplay at all (you might send a /tell to other participants in the roleplay suggesting that everyone ignore the person). That person is in a different world, invisible to your character. Don't worry about out-of-character players; just do your thing and call for a GM if they get out of hand. Again, I can't speak for everyone, but I'll certainly do my best to help with that sort of thing when I'm on.