1.) I made this plot to gather RPers together. Not for the sake of fluffing my own pride or senseless killings, but to break a few molds and rally the people who don't get to play with others that often.
*Semantics: I take full responsibility for people liking and disliking it, as it is my doing. Rail it on me, ladies and gents.
Breaking molds clique-wise is always good, but frankly a serial killer plot looks like every other plot in PS, except this one is on a bigger scale. It doesn't appear to be breaking any molds on the surface; if I hadn't read this thread or didn't know Cairn I'd probably think "Oh, just another power-fantasy-playing teenage boy who wants to kill f*in' everything". Which leads to...
2.) There needs to be more of this type of plot! Not the killings, but just...bigger ones that more people get into!
This. I'm as guilty of sitting back and doing nothing when nothing is going on as the next person. It's because I have a difficult time thinking of a plot that a) people would be interested in without deaths or kidnappings involved, and b) wouldn't risk being turned into that by others too much. Frankly I'm better at giving one character a backstory with some motivation to hang around and seek out others - for example, when I was new, I had Monala looking for signs of a missing friend. Another character of mine is an old guy that's looking for a wife to share his last days with (albeit in the rather unorthodox way of running around in nothing but a codpiece and feathers and hitting on every adult female in sight). I'm also not as fond of running 'events'; I'd rather let the RP occur naturally without making people think there may be some reward in it for them, be it an item, trias, or their name mentioned in an RP thread in the forums.
The only thing that I will ever hold offense against is:
RP with no reason at all/trolling/killing because you /want/ to OOCly.
I experienced this not long ago. Someone (I won't name names) sent me a tell asking for RP and then had their character kill mine (they didn't specify OOC that it'd be violent). No point, no further direct communication with me after that session, they just wanted some violence. I probably shouldn't have agreed to it as they were creeping me out with their OOC tells (nothing bannable or particularly inappropriate, just...creepy).
This is partially why people are speaking against big, "forceful" plots involving hard to ignore bodies dumped everywhere. I don't mind it, but allow me to play devil's advocate and draw some parallels here:
First off, in the case of the serial killer, it'd be exceedingly difficult to get through town unspotted with a corpse on your person. Secondly, a lack of GM guards or, as I recently heard of, deputized player characters, shouldn't mean the NPCs are completely inactive. People doing this seem to encourage other players to treat the NPCs the same way, and then you get Hydlaa becoming the Compton of Yliakum. This has been a problem since I started playing in 2008 and most likely well before that, too.
The killing I spoke of took place right in front of William. I still went along with it because I was trying to figure out who the player was and because I was bored and had wanted to RP, but really, I think the banker would have probably done something. The player probably should have at least tried to get my character to the houses by the Temple where there are plenty of hiding spots (though it'd have been difficult for him to do as he was acting creepy IC as well). It could've led to a chase scene, which would have at least been more fun for me, the victim's player. Treating silent inactive NPCs as just that can be construed as metagaming, which can and
will make people think "bad RP", regardless of whether you want people to say it out loud.
It's not fun to just have your character swooped down upon with a dagger every five minutes and, if you prefer playing realistically, wandering and recovering from the wounds they sustained in the fight that
didn't kill them in the Death Realm (particularly since few people enjoy staying there for long. It is kind of a boring area without many places to inspire RP, really, but that's another can of worms). Some also don't find it all that fun to find a truly dead corpse and bloody writing every five feet in the city that acts as the RP hub of the game.
I'm not saying the RP faux-pas of ignoring NPCs is the sole reason people will be annoyed by these, it's just one of them. There are more like what's already been mentioned - real life is more than violent enough and people play to escape it, killing plots are overdone, et cetrea. The incident I took part in was stupid all around, and I feel stupid for having participated in it now, given it's the sort of RP I tend to avoid for the most part. Fight scenes are really obnoxious to me, especially with one person seemingly intent on 'winning'. I was thoroughly annoyed with the player, who just seemed to want to fulfil that power fantasy, throughout the RP. It's not much of a stretch to see how people might feel that way about true death killers (whose plots crop up every few months it seems).
(EDIT: You people post
too freakin' fast! I had to try to post this three times and got the "waaaaait, there's x new posts now!" message interrupting me
)
