God RPing

[minetus]

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

[bilbous]

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.

[eldoth_terevan]

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.

[Pestilence]

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.

[Datruth]

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.

[zhai]

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...

[Datruth]

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!

~~Datruth

[bilbous]

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.

[Siteri Kidachi]

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.

[bilbous]

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.

[eldoth_terevan]

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!

[Pestilence]

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.

[Cha0s]

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 ). 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? ) 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...

Code: [Select]

|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|-> 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.

[lanser]

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.

[Anne Ominous]

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..