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Does this mean that the current set of rules that try to govern the conflict that we enjoy spurring are outdated and should be revisited? Or does this mean the game mentality as a whole is changing and we should all try to keep up? I think the faster we decide on what it is we're trying to accomplish, the less headache/heartache/griping we're all going to do and experience.
I think there's a little bit of hyperbole in these takes about 'people getting involved' or what is designated as 'allowable conflict'. I think it's disingenuous to blame 'us vs. them' for any of what is being discussed in the last two posts. It feels a lot like we're blaming 'tether tribalism' for what's actually just a bunch of Spirit characters being justifiably angry at Bamathis and banding together to show it. From where I stand: there's nothing established - just unwritten cultural norms. I have no obligation to these norms and nor do you.
The god in question is a divisive figure that not only draws trouble down onto his own order via his own actions, but also empowers mortal representatives and officers who have the exact same effect on people as he does. As I said to someone else, asking people to stay out of fights being picked with that order is asking those players to make unrealistic roleplay decisions. The consistency of my character is important - I am not obligated to breach that just because you think it's unfun to fight extra bodies. I don't think I have to put on a 3 Act Play to prove the existence of that consistency or how it would inform Iesid's decisions as a figure in Aetolia's story. It should be very obvious where he stands, because he makes no secret about his disdain. It would be a betrayal of what his character consists of to step away just because it isn't 'his turn' yet. There are no turns and there is no pecking order. If you insist that one exists, I would claim that you only do so because it serves you better at this very moment to have one.
Along those lines, I think it's a recipe for heartache to hope that every single fight, every single spat, etc is going to be neatly boxed up and only allow certain participants. That is, after all, what birthed the Battlefield system that has gone virtually unused since the Ilhavon 'event'. If people really wanted these neat and organized wargames between specifically selected sides, I would expect them to exhibit in good faith that they desire them by trying to utilize that system. Beyond that? There's absolutely nothing in the rules that says that we must make our characters stand aside or wait in line for their turn to have conflict with someone. I think that's asking us to cheapen the fact that we play characters in a world with an ongoing story.
Similarly, I don't think anyone is entitled to X amount of roleplay scenes before the PK happens. If my character is a publicly acknowledged enemy of Bamathis, I think it goes without saying that you can expect him to want to put a stop to anything Bamathis-related. If you would insist otherwise, you are trying to construct a system of rules that can then be utilized later in bad faith or an excessively pedantic manner. Or perhaps those rules will just set poor expectations. If what you are asking for is rules and regulations that you may then try to impress upon me in OOC tells without any IC interaction whatsoever, I'm going to say that I would just prefer we remain in this limbo.
But this is more than a story. It is also a game and a community of players. For that reason, I often encourage (and adhere to) moderation. I'm not going to go out and gank Bamathis congregants for no reason. They can bash, quest, RP out in the open (for the most part) and I will specifically avoid bothering them unless they have given a recent reason not to. But with that moderation comes an expectation that folks accept the reality of when Iesid will interfere or attack them: when there's some form of stakes. They're raising a shrine? Holding sermon? Defiling a shrine? Attacking villagers? These are all IC actions and they all have IC consequences, up to and including someone coming to interrupt those actions.
Though I seem to recall hearing a bunch of heartache over a single Gnome killing City guards no less than a month ago.
In the least, the forums provide quotable evidence that behaviors are acceptable.
Throw wide the gates.
When I start killing every Duirani novice, because Duiran has Haern as a patron, and it would be uncouth for me to change my RP, for a faction that does things my character doesn't like, I will be sure to reference this. Afterall, I shouldn't have to change my RP because it upsets people. (Sounds real bad when you read it that way, but I'm down to clown)
nobody has really used battlegrounds since their inception and they'd certainly be a significantly better solution to the desire to have a fight only between two orders than just expecting people to stay out of it regardless of character reasons they may have to participate. i personally make a point to not show up until someone outside of a relevant order shows up to fight my allies, and i usually have to wait at most one or two rounds of battle before it happens, whether as a response to someone in spirit doing it first or not. it has happened i think literally every single time.
it's not a one person issue by any stretch of the imagination, and it's only really an issue because people won't use the tools at hand to work together OOC to make something happen IC. last time i saw a battlefield get submitted it wasn't even rejected, it just got timed out twice.
coordinate a battlefield with a little bit of OOC communication if you want to ensure it's going to be a good and fair fight between orders/congs or declare holy war (actually don't those rules are ancient and probably need to be updated so people can't just spam join congregation to participate), because without these limitations you are fighting in an open world and multiple people have shown that as much as many of us would prefer keeping it order v order, it doesn't matter to them because their characters have every reason to participate (bamathis and severn coordinated to betray haern and blew up a piece of dendara like a month ago; their joint order members routinely antagonize spirit and duiran especially; and whatever laundry list of IC grievances shadow characters no doubt have (like when nipsy shows up to fight Omei people alongside bamathis order presumably because iesid dusted a lot of ivoln shrines during the war, or when other people show up to help bamathis order fight haern's order because he's their guild patron)).
if you want to keep it between two specific groups, use battlefields. this is quite literally their purpose as i understand it. if you don't, it's not really fair to expect people to bend their character motivations into awkward little pretzels and ignore their allies dying.
So. If this is an RP-centric game, why is 'but it's my RP' a maligned PK reason? Especially when it is done in moderation? I would agree that 'it's my RP' is a bad reason for just walking up and killing citizens of an off-tether city. That's a tremendous stretch. However, that's not what is happening here in any of these situations. In that scenario, the victim is minding their own business. In reality, there is no victim party in the PvP exchanges over the last week or so. The people holding sermons, shouting stuff, and raising shrines are making roleplay decisions - and those decisions are open to consequences or reactions. Violence is a valid reaction, IC - especially with parties you have given up the notion of reasoning with. As it would so happen, my character has absolutely given up the notion of reasoning with Bamathis - there was an entire story arc for it where he tried, even! He has changed after that.
If roleplay is so important to this game, why is the roleplay of rejecting or standing against a cause not an acceptable justification for enmity? Is it because the roleplay is not actively happening in front of you? I would say there is no reasonable explanation for this aside from an unwillingness to accept that there could be consequences for roleplay decisions.
Maybe we define 'roleplay decisions' differently? Not sure. I think I am beginning to see why my opinion is objectionable to you.
What you just described in my quoted block is the type of bad faith approach to "it's my RP" that I would agree as being unacceptable.
As it would so happen, I'm not doing that right now. My character is killing Bamathis congregants and Bamathis order members that engage in Bamathis business - and only when they are currently engaging in that business. He might pay a little extra attention to where they are so he can catch them doing minors or something, but otherwise he leaves them alone outside of what I'd like to call Work Hours. If you decide to kill absolutely unrelated parties because your character is mad at a god or character, it will be you setting that precedent, not I.
In reality, it is no different from the very opinion you have what I would be doing, it is not that I am doing these things but instead representing an example similarly posed.
We could go round and round trying to justify what is acceptable and what is not, ultimately it will boil down to tether tribalism on what is acceptable. When we are winning, we are right, and when we are losing it is wrong. At the end of the day neither party is correct. There is no amount of justification or rules lawyering that will make it acceptable. It is purely going to take based on the state of things, one side finally having enough that they throw a big enough fit for any appropriate feedback.
This is where things get a bit messy of course.
If we want to foster the type of environment that Elene and others have been bringing up lately regarding OOC feelings being hurt, and lots of player smearing. I think I can reliably say which side will break first. So, really as I see it, lets see what happens, I have been on good behavior as of late, and I'm not going to gather the masses to jump people for things like putting up shrines. (not like any of the defenders are even in the orders of the Gods for the shrines anyways) However, I know myself and others could certainly devolve our standards a bit to see what comes of it.
But the game does not change simply because you want it to. The rules - the written in stone rules - do not alter because you feel like they should. If the game is to change, then bring up the possibility of that change, and promote a shift towards an outlook that people can slowly come to terms with rather than find it dumped on their lap because you feel like it should be so.
I don't think the rules you are alluding to actually exist.
enforcement, vengeance, or yes, roleplay, can be Acceptable reasons to attack another player. The
visceral exercise of combat affords an unmatchable level of drama and challenge that help make
Aetolia an exciting and memorable world.
No single death issues
----------------------
Any issue filed purely over an attack where NO DEATH or a SINGLE DEATH occurred will generally BE
DISMISSED outright. Death is a part of Aetolia, and there are numerous avenues to deal with the
repercussions of player killing without the Administration stepping in. These avenues should always
be taken, and issues that concern player killing of any sort should only be filed where they
constitute serious breaches of conduct and may constitute harassment. This does not mean that Admin
will never act if it is a single or no death involved. However, it is more likely to be dismissed.
Please keep in mind hard rules such as those that constitute open PK and the like will take
precedence if it is found that they are intentionally broken.
Roleplay-based deaths
---------------------
While a roleplayed motive can be a reason to attack another player, it is not carte blanche to kill
whomever you want with impunity. EVERYONE is presumed to be playing a role in Aetolia, and those who
violently inflict their roleplaying on others are subjected to a much higher standard.
Your role defines your motives, not the other way around. If it's not clear to others that you are
immersed in a role, then you effectively aren't. The burden is on you to demonstrate that your
aggression is in-character, not only at the time of a fight, but constantly through your character's
everyday behavior, habits and speech. See HELP ROLEPLAYING for more information.
Hurt feelings only go so far as an excuse for player killing. Failure to apologize is not a good
reason to continue killing someone repeatedly.
Teaming, assassination, and excessive PK
----------------------------------------
Repeatedly killing the same person for the same reason is rarely acceptable behavior. Killing
someone over and over, and other attempts to demoralize someone to the point of wanting to quit
playing are good ways to attract the ire of immortals.
Any time you assist another player, or group of players, in slaying someone - you are expected to
have a strong reason to help kill them.
Being hired to kill someone, by itself, is not enough of a motive. If you are claiming a bounty,
make sure you are aware of the motive to begin with. Just killing them because there is a bounty is
not enough. Both the hired assassin and the hirer are equally culpable for what results from their
interaction. BOTH need to make sure their reasons justify killing, and both will be punished if they
do not.
If you use assistance to slay someone, and do not land the killing blow, you generally _can not_ use
the same reason and attempt to kill the person again.
Nothing in here says that what I'm doing is wrong. If you do not believe my roleplay is in good faith, that's an altogether different problem to be tackling than 'what is allowed for PK cause?'.
Ultimately our specific argument boils down to me not agreeing with you feeling like you have 'carte blanche' on members of Bamathis' order and/or congregation when outside of normal avenues of conflict. And that's fine, we can disagree there. I do not believe in whimsical killing, and believe a well-written emote is infinitely more valuable than a well-crafted AI. This also doesn't change that I think people are being nasty to each other, and I don't rate it at all.
All of these posts pretty much build upon what we should be thinking about, though. It seems very much clear that we hold divisive accounts of how RP should be enforced, but with all of these actions being considered, they also do not align with how the game views 'RPK' as a whole.
"Defensible reason" isn't a concept that applies between players. It's for issues, and the admin to decide ultimately, because players are almost never going to agree on what constitutes a defensible reason. That's just a plain fact.
Yeah, no thanks.
Edit: Like I said yesterday, we can't police that crap if we don't know it's going on.
Edit: To make sure I'm clear about this - I want the people who did this punished, because fuck harassing people for character actions.
Edit again: Whoops, for some reason I thought Elene said forum accounts, can't trace IPs on Discord
I mean, we all get salty with each other and have differing opinions on "how" things should be or work out.
But don't be disgusting to people. It doesn't look good on anyone, and we have to learn from that.
They make Bloodloch fun, and honestly Bloodloch is a pretty fun place as it is currently, for all the things I can say on the forums in hypotheticals and combative retort, people should base opinions off of things done and said IC, and keep them IC. We can be opinionated and sometimes harsh when we are passionate about something OOC, and the forums often sparks some fueds between differing beliefs.
But we are all part of a small community of people, no reason to be shitty in earnest.
I would add to a point Elene mentioned though - I personally do find the "They are my allies", or "My org are allies to their cause", or "my friends that got assaulted I must revenge." reasons are really weak sauce to justify PK. Unfortunately, it seems like only a handful of players bother to really put thought into their roleplay development to justify jumping into the fray - for the majority, I reckon, it's just a casual excuse to pile in. For instance, that loser who's been sending Elene those PMs? Bet you he/she isn't one of you guys who has bothered to put in effort into developing their RP (lol, my mind is still blown that someone bothered to go through the trouble to make anon accounts).