Shattered Kingdoms

I'm still a relatively new player here, and I am enjoying the roleplay element of Shattered Kingdoms. One of my biggest roleplay questions centers around which aspects of the game can be considered common knowledge and which need to be "learned" by one's character, regardless of whether the knowledge is present OOC.

When I first started playing, it was quite simple. I didn't know much about the game OOC, so that was reflected IC. I was discovering Pyrathia along with my character. Now that I've started a second character, I'm finding it difficult to sort out which things I've learned in-game are things of which my new character should be initially ignorant, and act accordingly. It's also very difficult to allow my new character to make some of the same mistakes I've made with my first one.

When starting a new character, what should they be expected to already "know" about Pyrathia? For instance, is it acceptable for a new character to start off with a knowledge of everything on the website and in the help files? (Class skills and spells, races, world map, religions, maps of major cities, etc.?) Can a new character be expected to know how to use "recall" to get to a safe place or use "tell" to contact others? Conversely, is it considered acceptable to play a character as someone not native to Pyrathia, to whom many of these things are quite foreign?

Can a new character assume some in-game knowledge as part of their backstory? For example, could one claim their character was well-traveled in their youth and therefore already knows the locations of many different places by the time they are 16 years old? Could the same principle be applied to things like flora and fauna, potion ingredients or information found in library books in-game? Where do you draw the line here?

I'd really like to hear some various opinions and perspectives on this topic.

All commands are IC, meaning recall, tell, etc. are known.

I believe that if you can type "help <keyword>", then the information in that help file is IC.

I don't think the "well-traveled in their youth" route is acceptable, as well as the other questions related to this principle.

Depends on what mistakes you're talking about. If you mean a certain spot in a cave where if you don't use something in the room, then you fall and get hurt, if you mean that mistake, that's up in the air and however you want to go by it. I mean, if you the player read the room description well enough, you'd see in the description the object you need to use in most cases. If you can't see it in the description, then yeah, it's OOC, but that's pretty rare in my experience.

Some items have scripts on them triggered by a keyword. All of these keywords are OOC.

There's no real general blanket statement that can be made, but when in doubt, err on the side of caution and treat it OOCly. Of course, just ask around and someone will answer.

The official standard is that everything in the help files and on-line is considered common IC knowledge. This includes maps of major cities and the online worldmap as well. However, nothing else aside from that is considered common IC knowledge that your character would know without finding out or being told. This means that all quest start and endpoints, all keywords for scripted items, where good loot is, even the names of portal stones, are not considered commonly known IC, and it is illegal for your character to know them without being told or finding out themselves ICly.

However, I will say that there are many players who have been around the block a few times that will either play through quests or areas very quickly or, in some cases, abandoning all pretense and instantly knowing how and where to find all EQ and solve every quest that they OOCly know about (Or that they OOCly have read on another website for example). This doesn't mean that it's any more legal. It's relatively difficult to spot such players and have concrete proof of their "cheatery" unless an IMM has been snooping that player 24/7 and kept a track of every area they visited and every conversation they've ever had with others.

If you want my advice on the matter, I would advise you to adhere to the rules. Don't assume that your character innately knows anything outside the help files or the official website. If you need to know the portal stone names or common gate target names, find them out yourself by asking people or finding said NPCs in person before you gate to them. However, it's worthy of noting that it's rather difficult to "RP" your character solving a quest riddle that you already OOCly know, and no one is going to care too much if your genius sorcerer spends 5 minutes scratching his head before answering a riddle or if your moronic giant spends 30 minutes scratching his butt while thinking on a riddle if you happen to be solo and encountering a quest you've already solved a dozen times on previous characters. From another viewpoint, every minute in real-life is an hour in SK anyway, which means that if you spend 2 minutes thinking about a riddle or quest answer, your character has spent two hours wracking his brain.

On the other hand, you are bound to run into players whom you feel like are cheating. My advice on these encounters is to tend to be relax and be more lenient rather than be judgemental. While it's very possible that they are cheating, it's also completely impossible to know for certain unless you know the person OOCly, and it's 100% impossible for you to prove that their character didn't find out their answers ICly. Stick to your morals, and encourage others to do the same, but at best if you see someone whom you feel is cheating, simply report them to the IMMs and don't let it mess up your experience if possible.

Yeah, I was thinking of things along that line. It's hard to pretend not to know about the huge, aggressive, fire-breathing NPC that hangs out at such-and-such spot or the anti-recall dungeon pit you can simply walk into but can't get out without flying. As a new player, I should know better than to play a character that doesn't like asking for help.

In playing my second char i figured anything in the home city was fair to know since she grew up there... where trainers are, shops, even training grounds but once you get outside the city, that was where i had to play dumb ic until she learned from others or happened across it.

There really isn't a fine line. I don't think anyone expects a veteran to go asking where they should be leveling, or where the trainers are. Similarly, my priests will give advice to mercs on what specializations they might choose or tell a swashie where to learn eparry. Why? Because I know. And he/she asked.

The IC justification? My elf is 110 years old.. he's seen some [REDACTED].

Since, even blatant use of OOC knowledge goes without punishment (ie certain player always getting a certain scrying orb), I don't think this is an issue anymore. Every player will give 20million reasons why their newbie char has the knowledge of one of his previous chars. The only OOC knowledge left is the knowledge that the vets horde so that their chars can horde those items.

Well then you're cheating. The starting point of every character is when your character "comes of age" and it is assumed that they have not traveled to any major cities or areas of SK: That's why you get the "You have discovered XXX" message when you go there. Acting as if your 110 old elf should know how to get to the Temple of Murder without being told or discovering it is like saying that your three year old griffon should know how to get there on the same grounds.

My elf is 225 years old, and she would still direct a blossoming swashie to ask someone else (probably directing them to Aelavel) rather than to give information that she doesn't have any reason to know, even if I know exactly where to train eparry OOCly.

Sure, but your character can also build and incorporate that knowledge as well. I'll also typically take the full steps through any quests that I want to replicate (or take people who are new to it so we can "figure it out" together), and ask people if they know of interesting items that do the things I OOCly already know they do if I feel a need.

The ironic thing is that since so many people "cheat" and assume prior knowledge on their current characters, it's easy for my character to avoid doing so since he's accumulated that knowledge from them.