Shattered Kingdoms

Aright. I've noticed a trend IC, and also on the boards here.

We're teaching newbies to play mechanics. Not so good for the RP.
SK is hard to survive in, if you're low level. People tend to MinMax.

MinMaxing is the science of maximising combat effectiveness for
a minimum price in XP. This makes for one-dimentional characters,
and a dull, dull-dull, dull game.

Sk has tons of RP oppertunities. It's irritating when I see posts about "what's the best class/wepon/race/armor/spell?"

Stop playing a mechanic. Think of a viable character: What's his/her
Social standing? Is he/she noble, common, wild? What's his/her civilion Occupation? What about religious outlook? Major Goals in life? Political aspirations?

Then having done this, pick a country, race, and class based on the above information.

Exaple: Eledan is an up and coming Swashbuckler of the Empire.
He's not especialy religious. His upbringing is somewhat millitarized middle class. He has no civilian occupation, as his father was a soldure.
He wants to find the Underdark, and discover his Deep-elf roots.
Politicaly he desires to serve the Empire as his father did. Power is a means to him, not an end. He currently has a plan to assist his country's
flagging glory, but lacks knowledge and power to put it into action.

As a side quest, he's offering his services to the Imperial Reserve. If a
new charicter is in need of a guide, Eledan is up for it. Also he's in the habbit of bringing captured equipment to the Reserve base in Kytar, to assist new recruits. Eledan firmly beleives in the competance and millitary
prowes of the Legion, and aspires to be a good soldure who does not burden his officers with requests for equipment or funds. He lives of the
loot captured from his enemies, an often dispatches thugs and vagabonds who pray on law abiding peoples. He has a slight disdain for non-Imperials, and especialy Elves, or those without honor.

If you feel swashes are boring, I've got something in store for you...
A creative player can take the least powerfull, least versitile character,
and do something interesting and unexpected. The key to success on SK
is co-operation with others. Not MinMaxing. ANY class is the best class when handled correctly. Stay tuned...


Yegor

Play to win. That's the best way.

The trick is that you can't really judge RP by any sort of system. I can quickly tell you that the number of commands that a swash can make in combat are limited, and this can make them "boring" in combat. Can I judge the RP potential of the class? No, because its limitless. Up to the potential of the player.

Most of the observatiosn on the forums on how boring/interesting a class is are based solely off skills/spells because that is the only thing universal to all those chars.

This is a RPK Mud, Not a PK mud. RP is required not just log on, Powermud until you get GM then Start interacting to get things is not really what I call RP. Pk is allowed but beating the [REDACTED] out of people is
not RP, Its PK, I can beat you so I will attitude.
You need a Valid RP reason to kill someone, Not just because they look ugly or have one-eye

Those sound like perfectly good reasons to me.

I've been noticing that also. The way I see it, the more limited your spells/skills are, the more you have to think, thus, when RPing, you're much more creative.

I play SK more for the RP than the PK. But it is true, the game leans more into PK than the actual RP, so survival is important. If this means getting to GM, then the decision rests on the player. What I have been noticing though is that the lower level you are, the less chance you have of having other people actually RP with you.

yeah I was training on goblins with my new char last night and some guy just walks in and spam-bashes me to death. then loots my corpse and I asked him "what was that for?" and he pull all my coins out of my lunch sack and points at the coins and says, "thanks for the coins" and walks away. I had never met him. I guess he just felt like robbing a newbie. So I was stuck in the afterlife with no armor or money because I was still novice and my whole obsidian was taken.

Getting killed is a reality of SK. Just because you're a lowbie does not protect you in any way, shape, or form, especially if the attacker is close in level to you. The reality of the world of SK is that you can get attacked for any reason at any time in any place where there is not law enforcement (and people might still do it in law areas, but it becomes more unpleasent for them later at the lowbie level). If that bothers you, don't train in Uxmal. Teron is not the Chaos City full of danger, thieves, and cutthroats for everyone but lowbies. It makes complete sense to me for any lowbie dark/gray to walk by with only a few coins in his pocket, see you and rob you.

Hurrah!

Possitive reinforcement. I'm taking serious pains to do some RPing with the little guys... I hope others will follow my example.

The point about limmited skills and creative RP, it's true enough.
But not true, all at once.

I'm afraid if I told you more, it would ruin Eledan's plans. Plans I'm hoping will pay off in spades. Both for him, and the Empire. But ultimately for SK as a whole.

I'm afraid the PK attitude can't be removed totaly, but in time and IC, it's possable to make it very inconvenient to have such an attitude. I would sudjest finding whoever your realm's Large-and-in-Charge charicters are, and working on them to help extract vengence from the Spam-Basher. It'll take time, but there'll be side benifits along the way.

Levelling a character up to the point where he's taken seriously takes hours and hours and hours. Considering the huge investment involved, of course one should consider whether the leveling mechanics are fun. The various classes DO play differently, and that should be a consideration for a newbie.

Granted, if you have a great RP idea that involves a particular class, go for it! Class balance is good enough that you won't be shooting yourself in the foot. But the typical newbie doesn't know enough about the gameworld to make a background that strongly distinguishes between, say, sorcerors and warlocks. Directing them to the option they'll find more fun is a worthwhile service.