PK, RP, Fear and Respect

Lin

This discussion was created from comments split from: Ankyrean Anguish - Aetolia-based RAGE.

The conversation was carrying on pretty civilly, so I thought it warranted its own thread. Enjoy!

Rowena

Combat is a way to enforce your will on the world. 

If you do not like combat, if you do not want to be good at combat, do not place yourself into situations where it is forced on you. 

I give a lot of credit to Neoma because she made a roleplay decision that she KNEW was going to get her killed but it was true to her character. Instead of whining, she accepted it as the appropriate response for her actions and played it out. 

If you want the resolution to go differently with you goading in the face of all of your adversaries, learn to fight, because they're also playing and they also want to be the victor. 

Don't instigate RP conducive to combat, lets say... starting a war or goading an established violent warrior if you do not seek combat. Aetolia isn't the real world, violence is considered an acceptable solution to a problem unlike our society. 

That's my rant, from a former non - com seeking to learn combat in order to pursue more severe RP because the cuddly, fun forestal Rowena of old bores me so much now I can't be bothered logging in to be that person. 

Rowena

Just to further expand on that, 

I know many of you have played pen and paper roleplay. This isn't an all good party facing off against nameless enemies. This isn't WoW with two good sides that meet in the middle to kill the world destroying NPC bad guys and then squabble for fun though some of that does happen. 

Players in this world are the bad guys, players in this world are evil. Loch isn't a nice place. There are violent people, there are evil people and there should be because without them, it just becomes a giant friendship circle. It's fine to have cliques in Aetolia that chill out, like the real world, but you need to accept there will be enemies. 

It's not real life where you can just take someone to court for looking at you the wrong way and have them locked up if they threaten your life. The nature of the world with the way the different belief systems are set up and fantasy violence as a mechanic is that there is going to conflict and it's not going to be against npcs, it's going to be between players of opposing belief systems. 

Carivah

idk, the WoW-comparison brings up a lot of the PvE vs PvP differences, and that mechanical divide is much broader in Aetolia.

I couldn't kill a level 30 alt in PK, and I know that and I try not to stick my nose into PK topics, including being aggressive IC. But at the same time, it's hard to ignore those thousands of NPCs that I've murdered and pretend I'm totally non-violent.

It bugs me a heck of a lot. It's a personal problem mostly, but unicorns if I'm not stumped every time tensions start rising.

Rowena

The WoW analogy requires expansion that would require going into lore details so it was probably a bad one. The point was that neither Alliance or Horde are "bad," guys, they just dislike each other and gang up on the true enemies. 

Aetolia is a bit more polarized and much darker with organizations with teachings you'd consider evil on an RPG alignment chart. Anyway this argument is overly complex and I'm not sure I can be bothered with arguing good and bad, it's not really the thread for it anyway. 

The overall point was that RP and PvP are not mutually exclusive and if you're a non - com that doesn't want to fight, don't engage in RP that's going to lead to PvP.

If you don't want to learn to fight, that's your choice, but it doesn't mean that others that can shouldn't or that you're entitled to some kind of protection for the choice you made. It's roleplay and people can attack you if they have cause. Even single player RPGs you'll often get attacked by crucial NPCs if you go out of your way to pick all the choices that will upset them. The difference with Aetolia is you can't just load game.   

Eleanor

It's always hilarious when you've got someone who can PK going OH YEAH COME ON AND FIGHT ME THEN I'LL KILL YOU WITH MECHANICS YOU'RE A WUSS and the person who set them into chestbeating mode is there going 'lol ok then'. A lot of the time, they've got nothing to fall back on but 'oh yeah well you won't fight me so you're a coward', and then if the other person lets them have their mechanics victory, the PKer sure does show them the error of their ways with that one mechanics death. What rankles me is when people think that being able to mechanics-pk entitles them to winning all arguments and being superior to the poor wimpy non-coms.

Toz

It's a case of misunderstanding, really. Like RPers have no way to get at a high-tier PKer, because who cares? What are you going to take from them, exactly, if their primary fun is in mechanical PKing stuff? At best, maybe you can go get one of your PK buddies to beat them up.

Flipside, what is a PKer going to do to a RPer? Probably PK them. And, mechanical death tends to be more annoying to the RPer than anything the RPer can do to the PKer back, which does end up in PKers tending to come out ahead on arguments simply by virtue of there not being a way to get back at them.

Rowena

^ This here is exactly the problem, that you're seeing a difference between an RPer and a PKer.

It's the same thing. PK is just a form of RP. It works well in some situations, like if you want to be macho, bravado, if you can't back it up by being able to fight people are just going to think you're a windbag, all talk, no bite. 

PK isn't the answer to everything though. Killing people isn't usually a good way to make them your friend / ally. For that you need to use different RP. 

Combat is an RP tool, yes it's mechanical. Emotes are mechanical. Says are mechanical. City channels, positions of authority, they're coded into the game. You know who the guild master is because the scroll tells you who and they have privileges. That is mechanical. This is not free - form roleplay. If it WAS free - form roleplay, that would be different, but we're not doing improvised theater we're in a world with tools and they didn't pump all the effort into making and balancing the classes for it not to be used or for it to be some sidegame / minigame for people that want to partake in it. 

Hadoryu

On the other hand, I find the 'lol ok then' reaction to IC death threats to be kind of immature. It reeks of "OOCly I can't PK, but don't want to admit to people who can having an advantage." I find the flippant attitude toward grevious bodily harm and death IC to be immersion breaking, when the same character generally wouldn't have the same reaction to someone RPly pulling a switchblade on them or driving needles under their fingernails.

Daskalos

Eh, I guess that depends. Dask is pretty flippant about dying -- 'I'll be back when I get back from visiting my Lord'... but that's because he follows Dhar.

Moirean

In my experience, the people who have caused the biggest sting and pain for Moi haven't been other PKers who killed her. It's been the Villis and the Elanths and the Lins, top-notch RPers who took her eagerness and quickness to kill away her problems and turned that against her through clever use of politics, laws and RP. I have a lot of respect for the amount of frustration and destruction people can cause without knowing a thing about combat - power comes in many forms and conflict isn't just about PK or emoted fights.

It's that well-thought out play that makes me utterly disagree with sentiments like "our characters are evil" - the best characters aren't a 2-dimensional good or evil, but a beautifully rendered range of motivations and actions. The sum total of these might be considered "evil" or "cruel" but I find it entirely unrealistic and uncompelling for someone to just be evil for the sake of being evil. That makes no sense and it's just a caricature. You'd scoff and call it BS or lazy if a character was presented so flatly in literature or cinema, and it's why pieces like Wicked and Once Upon A Time are so popular - they show the evolution and background that turns someone into a villain. Maybe it's just me, but when I see people playing as "I am evil because I'm evil" it's harder to see their actions as having as much depth as someone - like Iosyne, for example - who plays a character that is terrifying because that's where their story led them. It makes this statement that, chillingly, anyone can become "evil", given the right (wrong) conditions and twists of fate and choices.

Writing this up, I realized I basically said this years ago, as one of my first posts on the forums. I guess I'm a bit chuffed at my consistency on this view.

Eleanor

The villain is the hero of his own story, after all.

Also to clarify, my beef isn't PKers not being able to RP, because that's not a mutually exclusive arrangement and I know it, and neither am I condoning people not giving a rat's unicorn about dying- what gets me is people who think that they should always be able to win an argument with 'yeah but I can kill you', though it's not really a beef because honestly it's always kind of funny and sad to watch when their argument boils down to 'yeah well you say lots of stuff but I can kill you let's fight so I can win this'.

Draiman

Do PKers who don't RP even exist anymore? This is a serious question.

Moirean

Xarian RPs being a statue.

Rowena

Everyone is telling their own story and they clash. Violence is inevitably the resolution with certain character types unless you find a way around it. Like, baiting and goading them endlessly is going to make them more violent. You'd pretty much see the good answer, neutral answer and bad answer on a reaction wheel if this was modern RPG. Appeasement would be the way to sate them, failing that, there will be violence. If you don't want either, don't instigate something and taunt them endlessly. 

Just because someone can PK doesn't mean they can't / wont do other forms of RP interactions. I don't know anyone that purely just kills shit and plenty of people that are VERY good at PK are very good at non - combat roleplay as well like Ezalor and Ashmer. 

If you want a debate, interact over philosophy, not provoke them. That is going to lead to a fight, it would be very out of character for some people if they didn't. If I was to sit at the gates of Enorian hurling abuse and preying on townsfolk I'd expect Dask to come after me, it wouldn't just be oh, they're just NPCs or Dask should talk me down not hunt me because I don't have his weapons. It doesn't work like that and sorry for using you as an example Dask but the point is, some conflicts are geared towards violence, some towards talking. Goading and insulting someone tends to lead towards violence against a lot of character types.  

Rowena

@Moirean - to drag myself into this, 

Evil is a broad term to summarize that some characters are on the bad guy end of the spectrum. That doesn't mean they see themselves as bad and they're not doing it for the sake of it. It's not lol, burn villages, kill people, evil for fun. Though some characters might see themselves as totally chaotic like the joker so perhaps for some it is.

Other characters have reasons behind contempt for something like drinking. As I explained to you IC, pragmatic warrior, dulls combat ability. Not because she's being bad and wants to rile up the city for the sake of it given most drink. I drink OOC, I also don't engage in fights with an axe.

It wasn't always that way, in the past it was harmony with nature and avoiding conflict, then Row became bitter and jaded and now she just seeks power to forcibly master her existence because finding peace with it didn't work. That's storytelling and while that story might not ring as true with you, others enjoy the narrative. What compels you IC is very different to what compels someone else. Rowena is compelled by Tina's stoicism and strength. Her determination in the face of everything, her security and solidarity in faith. 

The longer you play the game, the more your personal story changes, through contrived and organic means. You know that better than anyone. 

Moirean

Regarding the PK response stuff:

You may be entirely within your capabilities to PK someone but they are also entirely within their capabilities to use city laws against you for that PK. Using laws like that is just as valid a use of mechanics as typing dwhisper so-and-so. In fact, I'd say it's well played of them if they know a character will be driven to violence and law-breaking to goad them into a fight solely to elicit a negative punishment.

You seem mad that player-made laws protect people from being PK'd - as I said IC, change the laws if you don't like them, but there's nothing invalid with people using the laws to their benefit. Slimy and political, maybe, but their character might be a sneaky political type and it's just as valid for them to do that as it is for a violent character to resort to murder.

Aishia

I don't think I throw my "I CAN MURDER YOU" into my dialogue very often, but you'd be (not?) surprised how often it's simmering beneath motivations and attitudes about people. It's probably too easy to see others as weak and ineffectual. But I don't think I've ever gone so far as to only measure them against that one metric. It's kind of a stereotypical thing. Proud warriors see politicians and humble shopkeepers and townsfolk as beneath them. They're not right, but they sure as heck feel that way. It's just as frustrating to have people not take your prowess as a fighter seriously as it is to have people shrug off any other sort of power or influence you (feel you) have. You do your part! People feel like any sort of excellence entitles them to a higher status. People suck at valueing each others standards.

Rowena

Moirean said:

Regarding the PK response stuff:

You may be entirely within your capabilities to PK someone but they are also entirely within their capabilities to use city laws against you for that PK. Using laws like that is just as valid a use of mechanics as typing dwhisper so-and-so. In fact, I'd say it's well played of them if they know a character will be driven to violence and law-breaking to goad them into a fight solely to elicit a negative punishment.

You seem mad that player-made laws protect people from being PK'd - as I said IC, change the laws if you don't like them, but there's nothing invalid with people using the laws to their benefit. Slimy and political, maybe, but their character might be a sneaky political type and it's just as valid for them to do that as it is for a violent character to resort to murder.

Rowena is mad at the laws. I am not. You've completely blurring the two. I didn't put ANY of what I said to you in // to indicate it was an OOC gripe about the mechanics. I wasn't griping about the mechanics. Rowena was suggesting the law be changed as Moirean asked Rowena for a suggestion to make things better and Rowena saw the law as impeding.

I have no issue with someone being slimy and political. That's their character. Not all characters use subtle manipulation, some are just confrontational and blunt. Some characters instead of finding a way around something do just walk straight through, particularly if they have the tools at their disposal to take that option.   

Hadoryu

I've very frequently been aware of the subtle nervousness people experience when RPing with me if the scene calls for the characters being at odds with each other. I think everyone remains aware in the back of their mind if they have a significant power disparity with the person they're interacting with and it colors their experience at least to some subtle extent. On the one hand, I thought that kind of sucked because I've never pulled the "but I can PK you" card in RP, barring interactions that are violent by their very nature - I didn't really want to make the PLAYER nervous about interacting with me. On the other hand, I found it to be very comfortable when intentionally trying to intimidate someone IC.

Rowena

Hadoryu said:

I've very frequently been aware of the subtle nervousness people experience when RPing with me if the scene calls for the characters being at odds with each other. I think everyone remains aware in the back of their mind if they have a significant power disparity with the person they're interacting with and it colors their experience at least to some subtle extent. On the one hand, I thought that kind of sucked because I've never pulled the "but I can PK you" card in RP, barring interactions that are violent by their very nature - I didn't really want to make the PLAYER nervous about interacting with me. On the other hand, I found it to be very comfortable when intentionally trying to intimidate someone IC.

That's the thing. If you establish yourself as a killing machine and walk up to someone IC for casual friendly chit chat, your reputation would proceed you and they maybe wouldn't be as open for fear or some kind of conflict, you'd find it harder to connect to them. Some characters on the other hand might gravitate towards them like when a war starts up. The issue is people don't seem to get it's roleplay because there isn't a script and their reactions are unscripted. They'll focus solely on the strength of murder machine having an RP tool they don't and not the double edged nature of it that they'll turn many against them. That's just the character being played out in an organic manner and when you start needing to explain it and go into depth, you might cull a few arguments but then you get metagaming.  

Lin

There is one thing I do like about our prevalent PK culture: people really notice if you're any decent at it, and it comes out subconsciously. I would never say I was good, but when I had a complete curing system I was, by my own estimate, probably a nice low-middle tier (could easily kill someone with bad parrying/restoring, not much else).

Watching, carefully, how people respond to your character when you've been learning to fight is pretty interesting. It seems like the more your name appears on the winning side of deathsight, the less often people are willing to outright trash-talk or screw over your character. This isn't meant to be a blanket statement of course, and usually only applies to non-coms. I personally don't endorse acting more menacing than you can actually back up - mobs don't put up a fight, players do, so the "bashing disparity" doesn't really do much for me.

Being able to actually play off being kinda dangerous is highly rewarding. I feel like I earned what little I have, so I, too, am rankled when some 5%-of-my-might nobody acts like they're Mike Tyson at me. I will never ever say it's bad roleplaying, since I don't know every factor that makes a character act like that, but all the same, it's a little irritating.

Jensen

For some reason I've had almost exclusively a good experience with pk/being killed since my return to Aet back in 2012.  Idk if it's my attitude toward others or just respect being given to me, but I've had very little poor dialogue aimed at myself.

That being said, I don't run from fights save for leaving a room to avoid an insta, I don't talk crap after I kill someone, and I'll typically oocly tell someone "good fight" afterward and accept rematches if I won.

I might icly be mean depending on the reason, but I tend to shy away from boasting except for crafting with the opponents head.  but that's just lurv

Seir

I think it largely depends on the circumstances. My character has pulled the "I will kill you" bit that has been complained about only when there's been blatant disrespect shown because it's not really about RP once things devolve into petty insults. Other than that, when it comes to actual roleplay and roleplay fighting, my character won't and shouldn't lose to someone who is not reputed to be a fighter. I would, for example, not be expected to lose to some young Shaman (unless I knew that said young Shaman was a good, upcoming fighter). However, if I RP fought with someone like Daskalos, Edhain, or something, I'd fully accept my character either losing or getting into a draw since that'd be within the actual realm of possibility. 

It's also very possible to roleplay a political badass. Villi would probably be the best example of this. Villi didn't need to fight to demonstrate the scope of how good she was. She was manipulative, calculating, and clever enough that she could even outwit a PK'er without even having to come close to implicating violence. As an example, she did it to Seir a number of times during chess matches, conversations, etc. Sibatti would probably also be a good example since she was more about politics than fighting later on, but she balanced both fairly well.

Generally though, if a PK'er is just throwing his weight around, it's not really roleplay at this point. It's just pure ego and more likely to be an OOC thing than IC. Unfortunately, nothing a roleplayer can really do about it. Combatants have the ability to, as someone said, enforce their will. In a world filled with constant conflict and strife, that can command a lot of fear, respect, etc. than someone who just politicks.

Irruel

There absolutely is a change in respect given when your character excels at something, and pvp ability has perhaps the biggest effect in this regard.

If you can pvp somewhere near the bottom of the top tier, or even the top of the middle tier, and you also have a reputation for speaking nicely (not so much trash talk, and showing people a bit of respect), then politically in the game you will get positions and votes - without any proof that you can do well in those positions. This rule is consistently true, and has been since the beginning of Achaea.

One of the most difficult things I have found to reconcile in my character, has been to the fact that I'm not good at pvp anymore. From going around picking on groups just for the challenge, to being intermediate at best (despite the arties), I have had to adjust my roleplay to match that.

It's not particularly easy but it is our responsibility as players to rp the reality of our character. As Rowena said, if you don't like the reality of your character, then do something about it. While Aetolia has a particularly high barrier to combat compared to the other IRE muds, it is still possible.

Jensen

Guildwise I always prefer a GM who is a fighter of at least mid tier caliber.  I don't want our guild to be swayed by fear of pk and it plays a big part in my judgement.  Cities on the other hand have more wiggle room because of war and security ministries.

Lin

Jensen said:

Guildwise I always prefer a GM who is a fighter of at least mid tier caliber.  I don't want our guild to be swayed by fear of pk and it plays a big part in my judgement.  Cities on the other hand have more wiggle room because of war and security ministries.

Unless the GM's a total tosser, that's not always a concern. A good guild will back up their GM, so long as the conflict isn't stupid.

Moirean

While this obviously isn't true across the board, the skills required for PK - quick thinking, an ability to analyze a situation and draw conclusions, the ability to lead others in a team, etc - are a similar skillset to those an org leader should have. I think it might be a jump to assume people get positions just because they are good at PK; imho it's because the type of people that are good at PK tend to also be good at/interested in leading.

Jensen

Prefer to follow someone, who's running a warrior themed guild, into battle than be cheered from the sidelines.  Also nice when they know what is possible/practical in terms of fighting.  

Cities have the numbers to have noncom leaders, guilds don't. I don't apply this rule to guilds that have other pursuits.  If you're the head of the Templar's or Carni, I expect you to know how to fight.  If you're studying magic or numerology I don't hold you to that concept because it's not the core of your rp. 

Lin

That I can definitely agree with. You can sell a non-com GM role in a guild like that, but it's gonna pretty much take all the charisma you have.

Areka

It is in this that I rather wish we had clearer demarcations in our HELPs for org roles, since leading the overarching values of an organization are not always the same thing as being able to code a system or understand all of the nuances of a mechanical class. Yes, there should be at least a basic grasp, but there's more involved than just PK. Some PK leaders really fail organizations on other fronts (dealing with guild health/continuity/working with the diversity that organizations draw). 

I suppose I am a bit sensitive to that as I've seen both sides of the coin with how PK and leadership can be, in my experience with Infernals and Templar. 

I'm also not a PKer and don't understand everything. I understand some basic principles and I have Daskalos' offense to help when another hand is needed, and with or without that I'm happy to jump in and at least autobash things in defense/events. Templar also have a position explicitly for overheading combat/heading the military side of the guild (Saybre, currently, Master at Arms). 

Apologies in advance if I seem a bit defensive. The 'Pkers only' thing really failed Infernals in a lot of ways. 

Though in the end I think for me, the bigger thing is that PK ability should be addressed in roleplay/held accountable in roleplay (if you're going to mouth off/pretend to be a super killing machine badass, you need to back it up, and if you're going to play the master-of-history scholar, you need to really understand the game's lore and the lore behind your skills, etc).