Best Of

I was going to stay out of this, given the demeaning and insulting nature of the conversation, but it obviously needs said: you are not your RP, and neither is any other player.

I fully understand being put off by aspects of another's RP. I fully understand actions taking place around you that may very well ruffle feathers or sour moods. It's an inevitable in a game filled with so many personalities, especially personalities that will often conflict. However, it's important that everyone is reminded to take a step back, take a deep breath, and honestly and fairly analyze why a situation or shout or any form of RP has hurt your feelings OOC. As someone who has previously played an incredibly inflammatory character, I can guarantee that the reason, 9 times out of 10, is less for reasons of harassment or any real attempt to upset another and more often than not because the opposing party has decided to take the RP personally.

We are all, mostly, mature adults who happen to play a dark fantasy game filled with conflict. I agree that people need to be aware of how their RP and actions, OOC or IC, can hurt others, but that's a two way street. RP is, largely, not an attempt to upset someone OOC or harass them (it's fairly clear when it is, and those sorts of situations are rarely, if ever, actually reported on the forums). You don't like that a side gloats or taunts or does anything villainous? You probably need to disable those channels of communication, then, and really think about why these things upset you and how to properly address that.

All I'm going to say is that when someone is feeling harassed, no amount of crying "one death" will make whomever is being targeted feel any better about it. I think we should take a step back and think about the spirit of the rule rather than what it literally says. It's there to prevent people who don't want to engage with someone from having to deal with them every time they log in. I could make someone's life very miserable without ever killing them and justify it with good RP reasons and while I could quote "one death" I don't think that's actually the environment we want for this game. Attack them once, twice, maybe even three times. Good, they ran every time and you made your point, but that's where it should stop.

More generally, I feel it is an apt time to remind everyone that even in normal times we should try to make the game an environment that is more inclusive rather than just a place where we entertain ourselves at the expense of others. This is only more true in the crazy, and honestly quite depressing, world that we currently find ourselves in. Many people use Aetolia as an escape from that. Just keep that in mind.