Shattered Kingdoms

My point is that if an IMM tells you something is against the rules, you're wasting your time complaining about how it shouldn't be. If you're going to argue that IMMs shouldn't be given deference as to whether something is good RP or not, then we clearly don't agree on a fundamental principle of how the game should be played, which is that the IMMs are in charge and we're not. Unless you plan on eating a curse, telling people to cast create food to prove their religion is a bad idea.

I really wish that one day a thread on these forums will die out without someone throwing the usual equation between criticism and complaining. I don't think I was unclear before but I'll repeat myself anyway. Obviously the administrators of a game are the authorities on the rules. But that doesn't mean that whenever a dispute arises between players and administrators about the soundness of a rule, it's the administrators that are more likely to be right. Whoever makes the most coherent argument is right, even if the rule remains as it is. Being a member of the staff isn't in any way a predictor of correctness.

This place is quite clearly a cathedral pretending to have bazaar functions. It's pretty damn disappointing. I'm also surprised that some pretty tame criticism of some arbitrary rule can be taken to mean advocacy for rule breaking. I wonder what would happen if I was as critical as I usually am in my field with all the various contradictions and inconsistencies. Some people around here are so sensitive to criticism that they'd get PTSD if they ever got anything peer reviewed.

Or we both disagree, and that's pretty much the end of it. I think that forcing or asking someone to create food to prove their religion is abusing an otherwise neat flavor feature of the game that takes advantage of the limitations of the game's engine. Everyone knows from a mechanical standpoint that there's no way to "fake" the create food spell, but that doesn't give license to avoid roleplaying a situation out without having to rely on some mechanical feature that was intended to enhance the game's atmosphere, not reduce it.

You clearly disagree and are also apparently immovable on the subject despite the staff disagreeing with you as well. That baffles me, but I guess that's just the way it is.

Or maybe players of Thubanites have to get a little more clever with their roleplay other than "Waah, someone is calling me on my BS."

It's kind of like using bash. Even if someone is using auto-anon, it narrows down the class choices you might be using. I can reasonably assume that any character using the bash skill is a mercenary or barbarian.

Or it can be counter-coded that the Thuban create food spell chooses a "random" type of already existing foods to completely throw this off as a means of determining religion.

Create food for Thubanites should just be changed so that they can create food of another religion.

Should just remove all unique religion foods and go back to magic mushrooms for everyone. Presto! No more drama!

But the themed food is cool.

I think it was Sadr who said "If kids can't play nice with their toys, then those toys get taken off them" or something along those lines.


Besides, it was sarcasm. I wouldn't expect them to take away religious foods in any form.
It may be a good idea however, to work in that uber sekrat thuban religion spell to change the food also with the other thing that it changes depending on what it changes too

"Roleplaying" with Thubanites is boring and a waste of time. It can also get complicated in ridiculous ways and that never makes it better.

-You're a Thubanite.
-No I'm not.
-Someone told me he saw you coming out of the shrine with a stupid grin on your face.
-The person who told you that is the real Thubanite.
-He happens to be a priest of Dulrik.
-And how do you know? He was hiding his aura. (the Edoras ambiguity principle)

If you're playing a lightie hardliner, you can ignore the ambiguity and go straight for the kill, especially if it's a darkie but you face all sorts of complaints and whining if it's a grey aura even by immortals. Just the fact that the polar opposite of the most powerful and virtuous God can accept followers who are less than completely evil already throws a wrench in the works. The imagery associated with Thuban isn't really the ambiguous, not always actually evil kind of evil. It's the super Lovecraftian kind evil that can't even be comprehended. Having a bunch of grey aura characters who can mingle with lighties and then insist that hey, I'm just selfish even though I serve the prince of darkness is one of the worst parts of this.

Some people who play priests detect aura when they resurrect so they spot Thubanite priests when they bring them back. That's just a code limitation. If Thuban gives them the power to distort their alignment, he wouldn't just betray them when they really need it for subterfuge. So I take it, that's against the rules too?

Anyway, bringing in the history of how and why different holy steaks came to be is OOC metagame knowledge. A fictional NPC inside SK would simply count on his commonly accepted knowledge that Aludrans should make passionfruits and not chunks of meat and become immediately distrustful of someone who fails. It's a bit underhanded to ask characters who don't have the actual prayer to do it since it forces them into a tight corner where they can't refuse but that doesn't mean that the whole thing isn't consistent with the in-game knowledge and expectations an NPC would have.

The staff just pronounced that this is against the rules without bothering to explain their rationale. It's okay. I'm not sure it's even their job to interpret edict-like rules. Discussion should still happen.

The fact that it was brought up in the same exact place as the rule for verifying cabal membership through "enter" is explanation enough. Players shouldn't rely on a quirk of implementation to "know" something IC about someone.

Thinking that something is boring and a waste of time isn't an excuse for poor RP. In fact, it's usually -when- someone on an OOC level decides that whatever RP they're going through is stupid on an OOC level that the game environment suffers. Back when I had a character in the Alshain faith, a paladin mid-induction sent me an ooc tell that said "ooc ugh I can't stand how freaking boring this is" because the induction process took like 30 minutes, which was apparently more than he was able to stand. Later, I found that guy murdering one of the NPCs in the cathedral for gear because he wasn't high enough level to request it.

There are many better, non-twinkish ways to base evidence on whether someone is a thubanite other than telling them to cast create food. I'd much rather Dulrik spend his time coding things which are good for the game as a whole, rather than spend time coding a feature so that one of the faiths can avoid being identified through their create food spell, which would have approximately no impact on the game because that's just one of the lousy RP ways to force someone to out themselves.