Shattered Kingdoms

Seems like a lot has changed since I last came around. A couple questions:

1) Can a diabolic still kill someone without openly announcing to that person what they're about to do?
1a) Can a Hammer of Light still kill evil characters without telling them it's coming?

2) Are classic tricks for practicing skills/spells quickly still allowed?

3) Is my OOC knowledge of quests and gear location something I can still bring into the game on a new character without being deleted?

1) Each situation is evaluated individually. It depends on how what you do makes other people feel, but there has to be a feeling that RP occured. When you killed Mr. X's character, did he feel like there was sufficient roleplay? If yes, then it's ok. If not, then it may be investigated. There's no way to predict without knowing the details of what you are planning to do.

2) If someone sends a log of your "tricks" to the staff and it turns out they are bug abuse, then it's not ok. Only Dulrik is able to determine what is or is not a bug, so be careful and don't cheat. Just because something has always been done a certain way doesn't mean it's not just an old bug that has been abused for years.

3) It depends on whether it seems like cheating. If you get a quest item before getting the quest telling you to get the item, that's bad. But you're allowed to get lucky and know where to go to find the quest item after you get the quest. Lots of items have changed so you might not know as much as you think anyway.

u can find the new pk guidelines here, but they r not complete. two notable exceptions that haven't been updated despite confirmation in game by imms:

1. u can attack someone if they r outlawed in ur kingdom and ur a tribunal member of that kingdom - even if u find that character in other cities/kingdoms and they don't meet any other criteria in the post i linked

2. if someone quits the game and they e-mail the staff that they quit cuz of ur character - u can be deleted whether or not the complaint is valid

If you're going to pk everyone on a diabolical character, you could probably just post a note on the astreal boards stating "my name is flufferbutter and I'm a murderer. if I see you, I will kill you. Be warned."
And there you have your Rp. You could probably even make it a little better by adding your adjective. "Fear the dark-haired one!"
That's what I'd do anyway.

What would possibly be my motivation for announcing that? Is that a requirement now to tell everyone you are coming?

I don't know that you would -need- to openly announce to the person that you're going to PK them as much as you would need to do some amount of RP with them before giving them the axe. I believe that the primary reason players have been punished for not adhering to rule 1 is that their one and only interaction with the character they killed was PK, and not because the other character was attacking their city or one of their allies or there was some other pressing reason to attack the character.

Here's an example, and I'd appreciate Thuban's perspective as to whether this example is valid.

A necromancer walks into an inn, seeing a mercenary of Alshain. He asks him how he's doing, inquires as to whether they had any family or if they liked the weather. The mercenary talks amicably with him, unaware of the identity of the person he's talking to. As the necromancer turns to go, he says he has one last thing to say... before casting FoD and killing the mercenary, followed by animating his corpse and making his undead skeleton wear his symbol of Alshain while murdering a hapless child. "Death to those deceived by the falsehoods of truth!" he screams before hastily recalling.

I don't think this situation should result in any punishments for the necromancer, because he interacted with the character he PKed. I'm not too convinced that you can "cover yourself" by posting something on the astral board either, honestly: That's at best the absolute minimum requirement and leaves you open to being validly punished.

Rule #1 is meant to serve as a reminder to players that you should remember that other people want to play the game just like you, and you should be willing to alter your RP to accommodate that. Yes, technically if SK were "realistic" then a diabolic necromancer would have no problem with killing everyone they see with no warning, and with NPCs that's a completely valid approach: With regard to PCs, however, there needs to be an extra measure taken to ensure that the other person is getting more RP from you than the kill command.



However blurry it might seem to some, there is a definite line between killing people without any interaction at all, and broadcasting your direct intent to murder someone so blatantly that you're guaranteed to put yourself at a disadvantage. The question you should ask yourself is not "Am I sacrificing my chance to win by roleplaying?" but rather "Is it worth ignoring the rules just to get a kill?"

As a secondary note, here's some examples that specifically happened to me as I was learning SK on my elven rogue. They were frustrating to me because they seemed to be violating rule #1, and were very discouraging to me as a player.

One time I was training under Morea with my elven rogue and I saw a giant training. I said hello, and asked them if they wanted to join me. They shot some arrows north of us and walked off. I looked north and saw that they had shot a fytrysk and were trying to lure it into me.

Another time, I was exploring the Tower of the Rose, and I saw someone there that I'd never seen before. They killed me, took my corpse and ran off. I noticed afterwards that he was killing the NPCs there.

On another day, I stumbled upon the Druid Keep and was poking about, and decided to ask the guardian if I could "enter." He obviously denied my request. Then I got shot up and killed by a centaur, who, after killing me, told me to leave the place alone, took my corpse, and I never saw him again.


I obviously died many more times than these on my first character, and in the majority of my deaths they were PKs I accepted as my own mistakes. However, these three incidents always stood out in my mind as situations where someone else was just interesting in griefing or getting kills at the cost of the rules of the game and the enjoyment of other players.

Those are nice stories but you didn't answer the questions I asked.

Sorry, I meant to answer your first question with all that, forgot about the other two.

2) As much as I can tell, it's perfectly valid to wear heavier armor than your class is suited for to assist in mastering skills and spells quicker. I did make a thread specifically focused on asking those sorts of questions to the Rules Manager/Dulrik and got some response from Thuban, but I forgot to mention that tactic. Personally I've done that openly on every single spellcaster I've had for years and have never been talked to about it by a staffer.

3) It is against the rules to roll a character with knowledge that previous characters have had. Quests and Gear location should be included in this, it is your responsibility to "rediscover" anything that your prior characters knew. As an example, I recall way back in the day that someone got punished for showing up to a certain quest in Nerina on a new character after having already purchased the specific kind of herb that the quest just so happened to need.

Obviously, there's a bit more of a balance on that third point, as some things are accepted as "common knowledge" like names and locations of capitals and cities, but yet that you aren't required to know either: There's also the areas command which lets you know of areas near your level that I think it's valid to ask about to other people even if they haven't mentioned them to you, or to go exploring for. No one's ever been punished for knowing how to get to a training area appropriate to their level, for example. As for quests, however, you should not tell someone "Can you go help me get XXX to do YYY for ZZZ, oh and by the way we'll need to bring this and that before we go" if your character has otherwise not been told by others or interacted with the quest NPC himself.

As a side note, you may also notice that some of your knowledge about good gear isn't as valid as it used to be, as armor and jewelry especially has changed quite a bit if you've been gone for more than a year or two.

They can if other conditions are met as explained here. If at least one of those conditions is not met, then no.


You will have to be more specific.


That has always been against the rules as far as I know. You can see the exact text covering this in "help multiplay" under item 3, "You are not allowed to transfer information between characters any more than you may transfer physical things." I would say just try to make the tiniest modicum of effort to have your new character learn something IC and you will be fine. This is one where common sense will have to apply, since everyone uses at least some information gleaned from previous characters at some point. I don't need to see someone stumble around and get lost in the Exile Sewers with every new character, for example, to think the player is playing fair. That would be good RP, but it is above and beyond the minimum standard of rule-abiding fair play. On the extreme other side, it would not be good RP for your freshly-rolled novice level character to be a know-it-all who explains the steps of every high level quest in the game to other people.

On the last point, I am very much on board with trying to make more sources of IC information available for people. Maps, books, NPCs that tell stories or give directions, astral board notes, and so on. If you have ideas for that, please let me know.