Shattered Kingdoms

Couldn't agree with you more. Though unfortunately, in our version of the US (SK, that is) there are very very few Navy SEALs that will respect the President's authority. I'm not sure how this attitude can be best countered except, perhaps, persistence and faith that at some point it will be embraced by the players as the preferred method of interaction.

Well, D that is the issue. All status of power in SK require PK, they are all wartime generals, than presidents. When was the last time someone not master-gm became the leader of any group? In SK, power is ability to PK. If you don't have the ability to PK, you have no power, and even if someone were to make you a leader, no one will respect it.

Ability to PK > RP in terms of any leadership ability, in SK only not in RL.

Actually, this happens rather often. Of course, it doesn't mean that the rest of the leaders take the person seriously -all- the time.

Sadly, the game and real world are two separate entities and to compare one to the other isn't at all practical. Yes in a more ideal setting such a model for RP and PK would be a welcome change if pace, but will never work, especially in the environment you have created for the game. You went and gave us alignments, factions and kingdoms and then added CRS to farther add more in game conflict. So is it really so surprising the PvP and power leveling have became the true source of power and respect in this game?

So you can say such is poor RP, but your game design however says otherwise.

Yeah. I tried the RP route one time, and was put under a sleep spell, and killed by an OP charmy. I should have just cleaved, without uttering a word, I'd probably have won.



Don

And Chem, while I agree Minotaur Priests would probably OWN any other priest, it won't happen for cultural reasons, so in this discussion of RP, it is actually RP that stops the Mino-priest.




Edited for spelling, again...my keyboard sucks! Ugh!

All that said, I prefer RP. I consider SK to be an RP game first. Unfortunately the system as it is disagrees with that assessment. Some of the things I do for RP reasons put me at a disadvantage. My current char considers himself to be his God's representative in the mortal plain, and accordingly wears his full set of sacred armor and weapon. As polearms go, the Naganata BLOWS, especially compared to the Halberd. Better armor with better enhancements is probably available; in fact the breastplate I obtained using a certain cabal skill is better. I do it all anyways, though, because that's just what this guy would do.
I fondly remember the days when we had Damicon, and Lorias, and a host of others, and you could actually roleplay invading a city, and it would work to a degree. Now instead of any RP being created you will be either ignored, or curb stomped repeatedly, even after you stop. It's still fun, but the game has changed, and not necessarily for the better.


Don

Want to know why your realworld example can never be translated to sk? Because in sk no faction leader can point a finger and have those dozens of NAVY SEALs kill all the villagers loyal to group B. Faction leaders do get where they are in more or less the same way (through rp within their own faction and with allies to the point where someone's like "hey I should flag this mofo!"). But foreign relations are almost ALWAYS dependent on how much force is available to be brought to bear in the event that negotiations fail. That's true realworld as well as sk, the difference is in sk you have to personally represent the force aspect too.

How do you give RP some authority?

Have a small team of RP immortals who help enforce (in the background) Cabal / Tribunals strengths and authorities

RUN global storylines that have real impacts.

For example.

Let's setup a hypothetical. I'm going to use Kingdom A and Kingdom B. I don't want to use real names because people will misinterpret what I'm saying and think i'm criticising an existing kingdom.

Let's say that in Kingdom A - the playerbase is heavily influenced by ranks of PK strong, and PK trigger happy individuals.

They are constantly invading and slaughtering individuals in Kingdom B

Fine. That's fine.

Kingdom B doesn't have as many PK heavy players, BUT RP's gathering a coallition (not overnight mind you, something that takes months in the making) they involve many players, perhaps from other kingdoms / Cabals / Independently.

How do we resolve this situation?

An RP imm could easily translate the storyline into a war event. An event that might, depending on the results AND the preperations made, have a result of say a burnt city or fortress. (I don't care how well you PK if you have 3 or 4 kingdom's armies come in you may take out a few key players, but you are going to lose the war unless you also have 3 or 4 armies to match them ... or something equivalent in RP terms).

(In the game event, the immortals remove a city zone, and leave a burnt hole in the ground, with rubble to go through etc.)

Suddenly there is game impact, and Kingdom A - whose playerbase has been PKing and not RPing (well or effectively) is going to have to RP or else the city will remain burnt to the ground.

How will they need to RP? Getting resources, slaves, or employees, rebuilding. Or maybe they'll leave the old city as rubble and try to establish a new city. Who knows.

The point to this example is that: enforcing RP **sometimes** takes a guiding hand that exists above the system. Normally in RP scenarios that would be the DM.

In a mud the only equivalent is a team of IMMs.

Yeap, and the more effective you are, even if you're using cheats, the more people will respect you in game.

But its not a perfect world. Any sort of RP reward 'system' is prone to reward one player over the other, and then conversations like 'but he sucks at RP wtf lol imm favortism' start. Its a sticky situation. Wont work in this community. Maybe if you all stopped trying to prove to the world that you are better at RP than everybody else. wink wink.

On a more serious note a really simple way to bring 'respect' back to leaders of factions, faiths and the like, would be for imms to give them some of the 'player run organization' priviledges back. That is, back their RP event efforts up. Give those leaders some limited authority to make up some sort of event that they write up, help them 'dungeon master' it. Right now being a leader in a faction is nothing more than a responsibility and a way to be put under the spotlight of criticism by everybody else that thinks they're a hotter potato than said leader, and that they can run things better.

Give leaders a little real authority in the game and pretty soon they'll be working with eachother on the leaders' boards, instead against one another, to create RP events between groups for the enjoyment of everyone.

I for one believe that the majority of SK, even players you would think care nothing more than to PK stuff to dirt, are capable enough RPers. But why RP inferiority to some newbie that happens to be the leader of your cabal when he does nothing but talk all day while you are out there killing his enemies, right?

These proposed player run events dont even have to be of a huge scale like dragons invading everything, but they do need some helping hands behind them, and more often than not imms are simply too busy doing other stuff. Solution? recruit some GM's as angels to run stuff. It will be more effective than bonanzas, i think.

Agreed. You might want an IMM to lead the RP team though. Probably want them to have a sub forum so they can let each other know what sort of plots are being woven, and so they can see if they'll cross.

ANOTHER thought is to make sure that Cabal / Tribunal leaders are chosen by a patron immortal. Aka - are responsible enough to RP, and lead.

Lastly, you can never bring up MENTORING players in good RP enough. And to clarrify I do not mean the mentoring function in game I'm simply using the word for it's intended purpose.