Shattered Kingdoms

This is hilarious, considering that static alignment is detrimental to RP.

roleplay

It's not clear to me that the static alignment system is "detrimental" to RP, but the argument can certainly be made that it puts some very rich themes off limits.

RPing is about making a "real" character, but the character is supposed to be "real" within the context of the game world, not ours. So while it might -change- RP, the alignment system doesn't really -hurt- RP. It just means that to RP a character who is "real" in SK means RPing one who does not change alignment.

I think that makes sense.

Some people don't like having their canvas framed before they paint it. That's how it is, I guess.

I've said it once, and I'll say it again. Diabolic is the alignment for anyone who wants to change alignments. Sure, if someone uses detect aura, then the RP might be harmed a little, but not sure by how much. Get in a certain religion and be a priest I guess.

This is one of those philosophical arguments about game design. I'm not even going to try to present a serious argument right now. I've done it on these forums in the past, so you might try searching to see if it still exists.

Suffice to say, my personal belief is that without a structure for declaring your character's personality to yourself, the rest of the game world and the admins, the vast majority of players of an online multiplayer game quickly sink to the level of making decisions based solely on what will get them the most useful items or relationships in the game instead of considering the values that their character had instilled in them up through adulthood.

People still do that even WITH alignments, but at least there is a framework for holding them to what THEY decided they wanted to be. Nobody forces you what alignment to choose, you just have to pick one and stick to it.

ALSO... I don't even like to admit this, but yes, it is possible in SK to change alignments. Possible but not probable. Everybody wants to be a unique snowflake, but most likely you aren't. You can probably count on two hands the number of people who have succeeded over the last 15 years. We only let the most dedicated players with the most impressive RP ever achieve it, and even then it isn't certain, because if it was, everybody would try to do it and then it wouldn't be special anymore.

Odd. When people explained big events in the past to me, they used words like "favoritism" and "cheating."

The framework thing is cool and has my stamp of endorsement, but I still think you have a deeply flawed personal view relating scarcity to quality. I'm surprised it managed to show up in this discussion, and I guess I should just figure that there's no changing your mind. Why do you make such problematic tangents in your replies, man?

Put in a way you might understand better, no offense, I like to think anyone who roleplays at this point is a snowflake. "Snowflaking" should be all about unique expressions with common resources, not about breaking molds. Holding people to unenumerated standards to gain access to some resources basically makes things look terribly whimsical and arbitrary, and I imagine does more to discourage, rather than encourage, that dedication, since it's treated like a pre-requisite... instead of the action being treated a reward. In my opinion, that's completely backwards and might be related to why two hands can be used to count a lot of things these days.

"Roleplay required, roleplay rewarded [less than 10 times in the past 15 years]," just sounds neither right nor inviting.

I hold you to a higher standard only because I know you can live up to it. This has been mostly put together with the same feelings with which one would render a compliment.

Maybe that's the philosophy part that I mentioned. My belief is that the best role-play is driven from making decisions mandated by your character's personality, not by attempting to change your personality.

That makes more sense, definitely.

How about a toggle that informs you when you recieve a tell while sleeping.
something along the lines of "You feel someone trying to probe your mind" or some such.