Shattered Kingdoms

A newb roleplay related question.

Yesterday poor, poor Leri was charmed by a wicked lady who took her to see a bunch of wicked wicked deep-elves in the North and have...coffee with them. And talk about fish and...uh, not being good enough for undeadliness. The betrayal was exquisite and the setup was terrific.

However, I sort of dragged it all down for the main reason that I was unsure of what I can and cannot do as charmed. Intitially I thought that she would be unable to act on her own at all, but I found that I could do more or less all I wanted.

So here's my question: Is charm an "I will do anything she asks and as long as she is there, I wont react to my surroundings" type of thing? The reason I ask is the charmer took my character to face a bunch of evil ones with someone who has been scaring her for months leading the crowd. Considering the fact that she is nervous to the point of being utterly incoherent in 'normal' groups, imagine facing a bunch of delves who's debating rituals and torture and.. handing her coffee. Her first instinct would, as I see it, be to reach into her quiver and quaff a recall potion. (Edit: which I didnt do, but it made my reaction patterns throughout the whole deal pretty inconsistent).

Then again, she's not herself. I see it (or saw it) as having no will. But, if she has no will, then how can she move/talk/react on her own?

Any input would be appreciated. I was half expecting to die, so in the grand scheme of learning-how-to-RPK, I would like to know where the limits of a charmed one's "self" is. Thankies

I would rp charmed as doing everything you would for your best friend. Some would dive in the line of a bullet for their best friend and even tell a lie. But would you beat down an entire city as a principled elf for example for your best friend? Your mind is controled by a mage but you aren't completely without will and a few instincts and thoughts do remain in your head.

I recall a time when I charmed Garoad and I wanted to get him killed so I can tax his lewt. He worded away from me saying I don't to die master in my group tell. We rped it out a bit and he hid from me because even if I was now his bestest friend, his will to live was stronger and he knew I wanted to kill him.

So.. That means recalling from your 'charmer' acceptable behavior, if the fear is strong enough right? My character is a crowd-shunning nature girl, and a goodie at that, so she pretty much couldn't have ended up with a worse group of people than this bunch of necromantic wicked.

I understand that you, until the point of having your basic instinct threatened, will do everything in your power to please the charmer. I was just uncertain of whether the 'degree' of charmedness would suspend usual fears/reaction patterns as well.

Thanks for the help.

This is a great question. I like the debate behind this issue--it really is a roleplay matter at heart.



I would prefer to view charm in a slightly different fashion.

I'd say a player shouldn't recall from a charmer's presence--why would you, since it is your greatest pleasure to be near him/her?

I'd see charm as making a person helplessly in the thrall of the charmer. As the charmee, it is your aching desire to do everything and anything to please the charmer. It would make you giddy with joy to do the slightest thing to please the charmer. It makes you happy just to be near the charmer. Imagine the most lovesick teenager ever, with a hopeless crush.

(The only place I'd draw the line is if the charmer is asking you to do something sexually abusive or offensive--from an OOC standpoint--at which point an OOC prayer to an imm would be appropriate. )

Only at the most basic of levels--killing your own child, elf being "passionate' with a deep elf, a paladin denying his/her god--would a struggle arise. And even then, I think the charmee could very likely fail and follow the charmer's demand.

As well, I'd rp a charm situation as making your character kind of stupid. So, you wouldn't necessarily volunteer information that would be detrimental to your cabal/trib--you're too dense at the moment to even think of anything except your love for your charmer--but if asked, you'd spill your guts.



Incidentally, the most important part of a charm roleplay, in my opinion, is to allow the charmee to roleplay the situation. Simply ordering the player through game commands and not allowing the player to rp the situation is reprehensible. The character may be charmed, but the player is not. Granted, if the charmee is not cooperating in any meaningful sense, the charmer has no obligation to play nice.

I like wert's form even better.

Wert's form is the best form, however, it doesn't completely work in the context of this game, wherein if you're trying to have a charmee attack, say, their old bestest friend because they just referred to you (the charmee's new BESTEST EVAR friend) as a scum-slurping pig, many players will start removing eq/weapons or otherwise use mechanics to attempt and gain freedom. Which is suck. If we all just listened to Wert, we'd have a better game.

Of course, then you have the cases of drive by charming, or the ones that:
charm xxx
o xxx remove all
o xxx drop all
get all.lewt
c teleport <hometown>
release all

I guess as long as both parties are willing to do the RP then yes, wert's advice is best.

I've always played it out as dependent on the particular character. If it's a character with low intellect/wisdom that would be easily fooled by the spell then by all means do everything the charmer says and act like they're your baby brother or whatever. If you're a character that would be more resistant to the whole mind control thing then put up some resistance. I wouldn't go as far as to quaff a recall potion, but a single cry for help to somebody you know that can summon would be sufficient and not a far stretched thing for a high level high intellect and wisdom character. Of course character RP also puts a lot into it. If you play a timid character you'd probably be less likely to attempt to get away, while I'd expect somebody that displays more courage in general to make atleast a futile attempt.

With the way the spell is coded since you basically can do everything but attack the charmer and walk out of the room it's really up to the player how they react. If the spell held more restrictions it'd form more guidelines, but at this point in time there's not much to say what anybody should and shouldn't do. It will always be opinion based.

You also see a lot of...

c 'charm' xxx
o xxx remove all
o xxx drop all
o all junk all -or- g all
c 'sleep' xxx -or- brandish <insert random sleep stave>
release <insert charm number>
c 'petrification' xxx

A way to kill a person while taking all of their stuff and there is rarely RP involved with that sort of thing. I've only been a victim of one charm spell that actually held any RP and it was far from decent before they, of course, had me junk my own stuff and petrified me.

If they charmer is willing to RP, then you might want to indirectly try to get yourself out. For example you can send a tell to a friend you know can help, and say something like "you know, Fepel is such a kind and pretty deep elf", your friend, knowing your are an elf, should hopefully catch a hint and maybe try to help you. Just something I forgot to add to my previous post