Radamanthys wrote:
... or a Hellion allowed into the Faith of Death once (due to OOC connections) and never again after that. ...
While I appreciate Rad's wanting to pin this on OOC favoritism, I will correct him more for that player's sake than for my own, since I was playing Achernar at the time. From the time that I created the character of Achernar, I had always been fascinated with the concept of a "Death Knight". I tried hard to get Achernar's religion to be one that would allow hellions. As my tenure with Achernar (and the pantheon) was drawing to an end, and as I knew it was a matter of time before I retired, I wanted to see my death knight come to fruition. There were no other hellion players out there who were willing to take the risk of going the death knight route, even though I had mentioned the idea several times on the forums at that point. I also was having trouble getting my high priestess (Katia) to take the risk of investing a hellion. So eventually I was talking to an OOC friend of mine who had either just created a new hellion or who was wanting to create a new hellion, and I hijacked his idea, and I recruited him to become my death knight. Very soon thereafter (within a matter of a few weeks), I went inactive, and ~2 months later I resigned from the pantheon. The death knight didn't last long either.
Sure, it was wrong of me to "break the rules", but when I was a player, the same opportunity had been offered to me, to make my knight of vengeance (Nightfall hellion) that I had always wanted to see also. One of the things that had drawn me to SK (in the days when Dulrik was essentially inactive and things were generally being run by Dreddnahr), was the extremely open nature of the mud. There weren't rules and regulations coming out every orifice in the game. Immortals (those who were active at least) would actually interact with the players, in a roleplay perspective, and players not only had a lot more opportunity to "touch the divine", but to implement real changes in the game, get unique quests designed, have equipment redescribed, have fun new equipment built, etc.
Since that time, it has become the general rule that imms shouldn't be visible all the time, they shouldn't interact ICly with players except in the very rare occasions (another rule that I flaunted regularly- my tenure as Achernar and my tenure as Yed were probably the 2 imms with the most IC interaction with players- religion and non-religion members- since Yopparai), you won't get equipment redescribed, you won't get things built to glorify your accomplishments, etc. In my tenure as an imm, I helped push a lot of the rules that have been implemented and I fought against countless more. A lot of the changes made have been good, but I think a lot of them suck. Changes like cabal diplomacy, and hour requirements for important leadership positions, tribunals, and lots of others are really positive changes, IMO. But anything that steals from the "magic" of the game, the rules that stifle individuality and creativity and ***FUN*** that is supposed to be inherent in a magical world of swords and sorcery and wierd creatures for the sake of avoiding accusations of favoritism and crap like that just suck. Eliminating heroes, removing symbol powers, those sorts of things just blow. Allowing the occasional paladin of Meissa or Aludra? Allowing the occasional hellion of Achernar or Sadr? Meh. If people weren't such whiners every time someone else got something that they didn't think of (or wouldn't want anyway), and if some rules could just be left open for common sense instead of rigid militancy, a lot more fun could be had by all. BTW, this isn't golden age syndrome. Lots of things sucked back then, too. I just wish we could see some magical traits of the past reintegrated into SK2005.
Anyway... despite the above musing from an old washed up former imm learning the game anew as a n00b again, Rad is right, because I did circumvent the rule at that time. But my motivation was not to pursue favoritism, it was to intentionally circumvent a stupid rule. It just so happened that the only person I could find with the cajones to take the risk was an OOC friend at the time.
PS- Alshain sux