Thoughts on co-existance.

[Kaseijin]

yes i can imagine... all that.... i agree with you. but the graphic engine ...the game itself is there to help us share our imagination with others more effectively. I can imagine i am blacksmith and i made the best claymore ever...i am happy with that... now to share that with another player i need something...words...a drawing... an item in planeshift... it\'s not neccessary but it helps.
if we take your imagine theory to the extreme.. i could lay in my bed and imagine the best rpg ever... without internet..wihout a computer...without a pen.... without anyone but me. I used to do that ... some 15 years ago when closest thing to an rpg on a computer i played was golden axe.

i  am  just saying it will help me communicate my ideas/imagination to other players once the crafting skills are active.

if i free my spirit of graphics entirely ... i will stop playing computer games and stick only to the regular pnp.

[altair]

What Yliakum needs is more posts like Merdarion\'s if we want more people doing RP.

Originally posted by Merdarion
There is a nice little command that makes you crafting.

Lets assume you are a nice housewife and make dinner,
 just type /me cooks dinner, then after some time type /me serves the dinner, and you have made dinner for a hungry husband.

Having played lots of things from way back to paper and dice, I am out there trying to do my part but I hadn\'t discovered /me until this post.

So you had this n00b running around going \"Altair says mutter\", \"Altair says pokes you\" etc.  Not the greatest results...

Eventually people figure out you have to select a person to greet them properly etc.  But the best way to get more people into RP is for them to see it done in game and to get more information out there!  

Thanks Merdarion!

[Asenuth]

One problem that has to be addressed is the definition of the word \'Roleplayer\', since the word\'s meaning is so broad that it encompasses activities so dissimilar as to be comparable only in name. Broad, frankly, to the point of uselessness.

This is a problem who\'s solution is so blindingly obvious that it took me forever to think of it.

Defining it by goals rather than activities, the distinction between Roleplayers, Levelers (1) and Explorers becomes quite clear (2).

Sticking close to the definition of the word, we can define a \'Roleplayer\' as someone who is primarily concerned with the advancement of their role. More modern trends include a tendency to focus on story (even to the point of possible detriment to the character) so we will add a desire to advance the story as part of the definition.

A \'Power-leveler\' (\'Leveler\' for short) is more generally understood and, thus, easier to define. Inevitably, the \'Leveler\' is concerned with advancing the power or influence of their character. Combat prowess is simply the most obvious choice and the easiest to recognize.

An Explorer is primarily concerned with exploring some aspect of the gameworld. Which aspect is a different story, sometimes it is the obvious exploration of the gameworld\'s topography, or it might be the details of the magic system (3). Occasionally, just to confuse that matter, an explorer will concern themselves with the exploration of a character, thus causing some overlap with Roleplayers.

Not only do most people know what their interests are, but are also quite willing to say what it is.

With that out of the way, let us now attempt to describe how these types (4) interact with Roleplayers (5).

Explorers tend to get along with Roleplayers, since they can often understand Roleplaying as the desire to explore another personality, or to explore possibilities in the form of a story.

Roleplayers, likewise can appreciate the depth and breadth of knowledge that an explorer possesses, at least in their field of interest, and often appear in a Roleplayer\'s story as scouts, wise men, magi, etc. Whats more is that explorers will often dabble in roleplaying, improving the already amicable relationship between the two.

Levelers, however, present a bit of a problem, since they will happily sacrifice role, story and atmosphere in order to gain power. Such things are as meaningless to Levelers as they are sacrosanct to Roleplayers. They are less of a problem to Explorers however, since what the Explorer values can not be stripped from them, the worst that can be done is slow them down. Explorers tend to be a patient lot.

---
I wanted to address additional points in this post but, frankly, I don\'t write that fast and this post is already a day late!

---
More footnotes:
1. Examination of some of the earlier posts reveals some minor confusion of my use of the word \'Leveler\'. In this post an all my earlier posts it is simply a abbreviation of \'Power-leveler\'

2. I imagine there is a great deal of other goals that could be distinguished, but these seem the most relevant to the discussion.

3. The magic system\'s current (lack of) implementation not withstanding, it looks like what the developers have in mind will encourage this kind of exploration. My inner explorer squeals with delight at the prospect!

4. Not to be confused with either the MBTI or Bartle\'s HCDS. (see references)

5. Since the official position is that planeshift is focused on its \'Core-Roleplayers\' these comparisons are the most relevant to the discussion at hand. However, it might be worth while for me to make a more complete address of the types at another time (depending on interest)

---
With added recommended reading:

Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds, Spades: Players Who Suit MUDS - R. A. Bartle
\'The Window\' Roleplaying game - by Scott Lininger (Methods in the Madness)
The Forge\'s artical pages - from \'The Forge\'
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator - from \'TypeLogic\'

[confused]

Yep, I can also be on the bed and have the ultimate RPG adventure all by myself. But know one would ever share the experience.

Then comes Pen & Paper RPGs, which allows you and friends to enjoy the collective imaginative experience together. Have well developed characters with very detailed life background, even including parent\'s life experiences the parents have told. Characters know the skills and the trade of the parents, know what their social ranking is and how to behave accordingly. The characters have normal trade careers, or political interests if of the society\'s elite, when not adventuring to try to steal the dragon\'s treasure without being spotted by the dragon. Crafting trade characters create items to sell, with the occasional exceptional item being created and talk about adventures in the taverns. Mages prefer to do research on magical items or create new items or magic. Mages purchase excellent quality items from the crafting traders, or friends who are crafters. The characters can be commissioned to help fortify a keep or tower for a power land lord, building traps and casting permanent enchantments and the like. Characters who create exceptional items sort of become famous when the items passes between hands of the elite and those who with knowledge of the items. Items can also become famous when used to defeat a long time foe of the kingdom. All this is possible with Pen & Paper RPGs as all this is recorded on the player\'s character sheets and the GM (DM) history and events sheets.

Now with MMORPGs, especially graphical ones, do imply limitations to how much a character can develop whic in turns affects the role play of the character. I seen excellent MUDs, where most of the career paths are implimented, social structure in place, political system in place, economy existing between NPC and PCs. Even PC can create new magics, items and other strange things with the aid of GMs being present. Everyday life exists where one needs sleep, eat (hopefully find someone to do it for you or you better learn how to cook), being drunk of a joyous trip to the tavern. But all this is only possible if these features have been added to the game engine and world.

In Pen & Paper RPGs, if something (a feature or item) is missing the GM just creates it and impliments it immediately simply because the GM is with the players at all times. With MMORPGs it is not possible for the few GMs to be with every single player at once, also just can\'t create new features and items on the fly if it is graphical in nature (text base MUDs it is possible if the GMs are provided with a suitable interface to create these features in real time). Thus the game engine and world needs to support many features in an automatic manner to allow the world to continue to function with little direct GM partcipation to make the world progress forward in time and interact with the players. GMs should be there to change and mold the political landscape of the game and develop missing features.

Thus to fully role play a character in a MMORPG requires that the features that the character may use according to the character\'s background and profile must exist. You can role play at the moment in PS, but you are still limited in how you can role play. You can\'t for instant do the following:
 a knight requires an excellent crafted sword to deal with an annoying dragon (just using dragon as everyone can relate to it) who has been terrorizing the town. Your character is a weapon smith by trade, though occasionally go on small simple adventures as a way to relax and take a break from work. So your character creates the sword for the knight, spending long hours to perfect the weapon, inscribe your insignia on the item for all who admires the weapon that killed the dragon, would know that it was the jolly weaponsmith in the town who created the weapon. Of course the knight would first have to defeat the dragon and not loose or break the weapon in the process. When the knight returns to the weapon smith to have the weapon repair, the jolly weapon smith can boost about his work to his fellow tavern drinkers and strangers showing off the Dragon Slayer sword he created for the knight.

This is why I say role playing for many is taking a back seat as they await for the features to allow them to fully enjoy role playing their character to be implimented, thus there seems to be more power playing as there is not much to do currently. As the features are implimented I do see a shift to become more role playing world and less noticible power playing.

[Draklar]

Wow... you pointed out so many things I would not allow as a GM.... like becoming famous by creating new item (Yeah, right, there are old and expeienced mages all across the world who aren\'t actually famous, but character who just year ago finished being apprentice, became famous by creating something, others couldn\'t... fat chance ). Or this:

a knight requires an excellent crafted sword to deal with an annoying dragon (just using dragon as everyone can relate to it) who has been terrorizing the town. Your character is a weapon smith by trade, though occasionally go on small simple adventures as a way to relax and take a break from work. So your character creates the sword for the knight, spending long hours to perfect the weapon, inscribe your insignia on the item for all who admires the weapon that killed the dragon, would know that it was the jolly weaponsmith in the town who created the weapon. Of course the knight would first have to defeat the dragon and not loose or break the weapon in the process. When the knight returns to the weapon smith to have the weapon repair, the jolly weapon smith can boost about his work to his fellow tavern drinkers and strangers showing off the Dragon Slayer sword he created for the knight.

With me as GM you aren\'t able to do that either. Go avenge lady, which was robbed by a rogue. That is job for knight. Fighting dragon which is terrorizing whole town? That\'s how I would do it:
first round: Dragon breathes fire and kills the knight.
There. But maybe it\'s because I don\'t GM unrealistic overpowered RPGs like D&D. Wouldn\'t know

Anyway after going through many GMing tips this is exactly type of scenario that shouldn\'t be done. Killing a dragon... perfect way to turn your sessions into boring power-leveling campaign.

Small quests not about killing overpowered monsters are much more interesting. This is what I have on mind, and what can be done in PS at the moment:

Retrieve a lost artifact, which was lost somewhere in the wilderness, or maybe passed on through some characters.
Solve a political conspiracy that was going around some characters.
Retrieve an item lost while running away from a creature (Could be done by leaving item at some strong creature\'s legs).
And there are multiple solving possibilities. A rogue might just take the item while the party is fighting off the monster, leaving them for their death and getting prize all by himself.

Those are typical p&p RPG quests. Not some slaughter of a dragon

[Darakus]

When I RPGed in real life (paper and pen) I played Rift mostly cause it\'s one of the games where you can play the dragon )

The good things about dragons is that when they play a blacksmith the knioghts usually bring the scrap metal

[confused]

Hmmmm...

So where did you get the idea of a year old apprentice creating an artifact from, definitely not from me for I made no reference to age or experience of the characters, just what could be done.

You obviously missed the piece dragon (just using dragon as everyone can relate to it), it could be easily a hill giant, an extra fast regenerating troll, a vampire, etc. I also did not mentioned how experienced the knight was either. The example was to illustrate the idea of character interaction via the exchange of items created by players and used by other players to achieve a goal. I used simple old famous tales of a knight defeating a big bad monster so that power levelers can also understand the idea.

I could have used a political scene, where the character would go to another character (player) to have a forgery made of a document or a false document created to cause discord amongst the members of the court while trying to improve one\'s standing within a secretive organization who run an underground black market of slavery and drugs. How is this possible if the features of creating forgeries, etc are not implimented? How does the player create a forgery to give to another so that that player can carry out his plan of discord and chaos?

How would an alchemist create a love potion for a client, who in turns wants to get two people to fall in love so the family would not loose the house to a lord for some reason (use your imagination please) if the features of creating a potion nor invent a potion type is not present  in the game.

You might not like the simplified, but easily understandible by everyone, goals and items I mentioned, they just examples of what can be done in many RPGs easily for the GM can easily create the features at the moment that are needed. Also there is not just one style of role playing that just focusses on political intrigue within a court, there are many from adventuring and exploration to court politics, to becoming famous (most fatansy novels falling to this one) though various deeds, to drunkard tavern talk, to production of items for sale, to everyday living, etc. All this is easy to do in a Pen & Paper RPG than a MMORPG if the features or GM need for role play is not available. Players can only do so much before requiring a GM to create items and features to allow the players to continue role playing their characters.

[Draklar]

Yes, you didn\'t mention age, but creating a new item would require years and years of studying, most likely in library, not by questing. What GM will fall for that?

Originally posted by confused
You obviously missed the piece dragon (just using dragon as everyone can relate to it), it could be easily a hill giant, an extra fast regenerating troll, a vampire, etc. I also did not mentioned how experienced the knight was either. The example was to illustrate the idea of character interaction via the exchange of items created by players and used by other players to achieve a goal. I used simple old famous tales of a knight defeating a big bad monster so that power levelers can also understand the idea.

No I didn\'t. Any monster which is able to terrorize a town (thus has greater power than all the city guards), should be too much to defeat for a single knight. And no matter how experienced the knight is, against dragon - he\'s dead.
Unless, as I stated before, you play overpowering system (and having careless GM can be useful too )

Also, I believe you can easily roleplay out the exchanging bit...

How would an alchemist create a love potion for a client, who in turns wants to get two people to fall in love so the family would not loose the house to a lord for some reason (use your imagination please) if the features of creating a potion nor invent a potion type is not present in the game.

Buy set of healing/mana potions beforehand and roleplay the rest out. Although the potions aren\'t really needed.

By the way:
I\'ve been fighting in MB although there was no fight implemented. Just by inventing dice-combat system. If you really wanted to roleplay, you would make a dice-jobs system for others to use, instead of wasting time by looking for excuses of why it isn\'t possible.

[Tarachnul]

Here i present my personel opinion on the situation...


Rping is more fun(dont really want to say better or i would) than power leveling

However let me present you with a scenario:  

i generally roleplay fighters just cus everyone else considers them boring hack and slashers and i dont

lets say i was just telling farmer joe my long history(my own history for character) in combat, all of the great battles i had taken part in, and how it was due to extreme cleverness, strength of arms, and no small amount of luck that i stood before him today.

then uber rat of death level one comes by and beats the crap out me so i run away and it kills farmer joe.

how is that rping? personally i call that making an ass of myself...

sometimes in order to effectively roleplay your character(be it fighter, traveling wizard, theif extrordinaitre, or what have you) you must level up until a a certain point and as i tend to not be able to wait to begin screwing around and playing the knight errant, ominous sellsword, helpful ranger , or untrustworthy mage  
i will end up...god-forbid 8o... powerleveling for the first few days that i play and then rping with abandon

thus showing that rping and pl can and do not only co-exist withen gaming society but sometimes within the same character

However i find endlessly killing rats rather tiresome so i suppose it could be argued that all of those so called \"powerlevelers\" out there are trying to rp the most powerful being in existance thats right all 5,000 of them.

-Tarach

[Asenuth]

While I consider this very interesting, this thread isn\'t called \'Thoughts on Game-mastering\'. However if you should decide to continue such discussion in another thread I should very much like to read it.

Equally, discussion of \'What Roleplayers want\' is a related, but ultimately separate discussion. I will briefly address it here, but leave a more complete discussion for another thread.

Earlier  I said:
...
Roleplayers, conversely, tend to manage with considerably less features, requiring only enough to anchor a reasonable concept of the game world upon.
...

With games like PlaneShift the version of the world presented to the player by the server is useful since you can rely on everyone else present to view the world in much the same way. Unfortunately, whenever roleplay requires your character to do something the server doesn\'t support there is an inconsistency. In most cases you simply ignore the inconsistency and continue on, but it would still be nice if the server could reflect such things. It would be nice if you could anchor the events being roleplayed to the events the server recognizes.

How depends, null items (placeholder items), enhanced emotes (\'/greet\' Vs. \'/me\') or more complete interactivity with the world (such as the ability to close doors) are some examples of things that would help anchor roleplay to the gameworld.

At the end of the day a bad craftsman may blame his tools but a good craftsman would still prefer the best.

[Cirque]

Originally posted by Vengeance
I haven\'t heard any coherent descriptions of what the RPers want.  What do they want?  What are they missing now?

The ability to cut up wood with an axe and make a fire. Also the availability of a tent and the ability to pitch it.

A sideways and diagonal walking and running animation would be nice also. Even the various movements associated with jumping and landing. By the way whats up with enkidukai not being able to jump higher than dwarves lol?

[dragonfire999]

rp\'ers want to have something to rp with
sitting down, making there own food/weapons/clothings
we want jobs

[Bardialus]

 Originally posted by Draklar
 But maybe it\'s because I don\'t GM unrealistic overpowered RPGs like D&D. Wouldn\'t know

Thats one of the reasons why you shouldnt critique about a subject unless you have observed all sides of the issue.

In D&D the game is an association between players and GM.  The game rests on the fact that if the GM wants to he could decide to kill you on the next roll.

Please dont assume that because you have played a few games of a different ilk that you know everything about RP.

The fact still remains that people have various schools of thought towards this subject and as \'an experienced RP\'er\' you should realise that fact and take into consideration the different views and aspects that are present.

Either live in a bubble or live as a part of the world....

[Merdarion]

Originally posted by Kaseijin
if i free my spirit of graphics entirely ... i will stop playing computer games and stick only to the regular pnp.

In PS I have graphics (good ones /me winks at Devs), nice ambient music, inventory, even monsters I can hunt down with my friends and huge areas to explore, so do you really think that crafting is needed to RP?

need to say more?

Well I surely need, the main reason i am playin PS are Sangwa, Kada, Draklar, Phinehas, Seperot, Moogie, Tybalt of course and anyone who I know from this forum.

PS could have tremendous graphics, a perfectly balanced and exciting fighting sys, crafting, house-building, but without them I wouldnt even think to play it,

Roleplaying is a thing that becomes bigger and better if you share it.

If you Roleplay you will get the place you want, you will become a legend,

Powerlevelers will come and go away, but our stories wont.

Well, I truly believe in the motto of the Ovates (For those who dont know: With a story we can change the world).

[Edit]
Post scriptum: Well Draklar, in my adventures there used to be a dead dragon in the end, but only after hours over hours of getting parts of a puzzle, solving political conflicts, et te cetera, and of course many sacrifices of the players.

[Edit]
Post scriptum: RPGs are, were and will ever be a possibility to have a \"second live\". In real live I am a fat ugly freak with long curly hair and a hang for computers, in Planeshift I am Sirvion Sirullis, last survivor of the great order of the Enk Whar. In Planeshift i am a swordfighter. Slim, With long hair like silk, sharp ears, huge eyes and his albino skin, haircolor and eyes (red  ones).
In real life i am dishonoured and used out by the guys in my class. In planeshift I am a honoured individuum.

If someone would be interrested I would gladly set up a PnP RPG round, maybe on MSN, either using ye ol\' DnD, or the great (german) DSA ruleset. Just not before end march, (school should be cooled down till then and my DL limit cooled again.)

If you RP, the Spoiling guy will just be a madman, the PLer will be an ugly brute of a bandit,

If you RP, there will be you and your love sitting on a rock watching the sunset (even if there is neither sitting nor a rock to sit on and the sunset looks wierd cause of some Server problem)

Well as I said Imagination is gods gift to us, what we make with it is our gift to god.

When the first men draw their animals on the walls of their caves and made their hunting hex RPing was born,
and over the ages it advanced and advanced, think of the first theatres, or just the hierachy of mankind at all,

On the ground level we are all the same,

Creatures who want to fullfill their primary needs as good as possible, hunger, thirst, reproduction, sleep and so on.

But we arent the same.

each individuum plays its role in the circle of live, THIS is what seperates mankind of animals, PLers are just animals wanting to be stronger so that they can get more and more.

Well I shouldnt be so mean to the poor animals, should I?

If you want to be a good RPer you have to develop your character even outside of game, thinking of how he would act in certain situations, and so on.

-Sirvion Sirullis

[Draklar]

Originally posted by Bardialus
The fact still remains that people have various schools of thought towards this subject and as \'an experienced RP\'er\' you should realise that fact and take into consideration the different views and aspects that are present.

Bravo! Really nice! Now read up to see that I\'m only defending possibility to roleplay in PS.

Also I am well aware of how D&D works... but what I mean is how strong characters can get in that game