Shattered Kingdoms

Yes, I purposely removed Eralenax from power within the Black Hand, and I feel I was quite justified in doing so based on IC and OOC actions.

When this character was reaffirmed as a leader, it was under the agreement that his previous level of activity would be increased; however, it did not change. This left a secondary leader in a position where she had to make tough decisions about the faction in his absence. When he returned, Eralenax was incensed that decisions were made in the best interest of the tribunal and against his wishes, even though stepping up in that exact manner is precisely the role of a second in command.

The expectation that you had as a player was that you would say something regarding diplomacy and then come back at your own availability to find that everyone was still listening because you are the leader. However, players who were logging many more hours were bearing the burden of Earlenax's decisions when he wasn't around to do so. There is no evidence that you attempted to communicate with them OOCly about the decision, why you would not yield, and why you expected them to keep at an endless PK cycle. The reasons you gave me when we spoke were rife with OOC motivations rather than IC ones: You disagreed with the actions of certain players and wouldn't give them the “satisfaction of winning.” The IC reality was that they were winning, and that the other players/characters in the faction wanted to end the combat. I even gave the faction leaders an excuse to accept the truce in favor of pursuing domestic matters.

Despite this, you appear to have the expectation that I should have gone out of my way to inform you OOC when your tenure was up rather than treating you with the same “because I said so IC” method that you employed. Instead, I followed your lead and gave you the chance to roleplay it out. The same expectation was expressed to you when you asked to be removed from the Black Hand: I didn't say you couldn't, and if you believed that, then it was a misunderstanding. I said you had to roleplay the scenario and not get an OOC ninja uninduction.

We have vastly different, and entirely incompatable playstyles, it would appear.

So far as I am concerned, there is no reason to attempt OOC communication when IC communication has been provided. A decision was made IC and communicated to the tribunal, and was Within days overridden by the Second in command. You cite hours played as a valid excuse for this reasoning, yet that is an entirely OOC metric. Let me be clear when I say that I firmly believe IC motivation should always trump OOC motivation. In character there was no good reason to give in to the demands of our aggressors other than the troops being demoralized. The Norrh has priests to resurrect te dead, and necromancers to turn their corpses into new battle fodder. There is no real loss of strength present in PK for these obvious reasons, yet you insisted that we "admit defeat" and surrender, effectively demanding that my character do something he would never, ever do In the given circumstances. I the player had to compromise my characters RP to keep The Hand together, which I find entirely unacceptable.

I strongly disagree with your OOC methods and the clear belief that said OOC factors should beat out IC RP.

Additionally, If you're going to so strongly defend the belief that PK trumps RP as you have made very, very clear, you're going to drive RP oriented players like myself away from the game.

I don't want to play a game where all one has to do to "win SK" is repeatedly PK everyone else until the IMM staff forces them to "admit defeat" and surrender. As I said on several occasions, "I the player wholly support a truce, but my character absolutely does not."

It's supposed to be "where tactics and role-play collide." Not "where tactics always trump roleplay"

Wait... there are new hour requirements to hold leader flags now? Also, no more RP necessary to remove a leader just because you don't like how they are playing the game?

Congrats Meissa, you just reaffirmed one of the stereotypes of an IMM. *golf clap*

If good roleplay involves dying repeatedly and acting as if death has no meaning when you do, good job. Leadership positions in the game do not give you the authority to make all membership suffer. Its the opposite. You are there to make sure the members are having fun. When they aren't, its important to go out of your way to find out why and take the direction that will be most likely to bring about the fun again.

Your method was contrary to this and I would invite you to accept the criticism we are offering in order to improve your leadership skills as far as SK goes. You had interesting moments on this character to be sure. Its unfortunate that the inflexibility you have displayed got in the way of the fun for The Hand.

#1) You have to back up your words with actions in game (PK). By all accounts, the North and East should be rubble of cities and unable to be starting zones with how bad they were destroyed.

For the sake of the game, however, they are not. It is part of the 'suspension of disbelief' that you should have, being that you and your character are supposed to be separate. Something a vast majority of this community seem to not be able to cognate.

#2) You not being around OOCly is you not being around ICly. An absent leader will be removed because you are dead weight to the game and actively hurting the faction/game with your continued absence. Especially after you were talked to about it.

#3) All in game ruling bodies answer to a higher power directly. Druids have their ancient spirits, Hammer some queen/king dude, Talon the council of blossoms, Empire the Emperor, and the Hand has the Council of Necromancers.

Not all of the North is necros, in fact a lot of is tribes and Krychire isn't the seat of power. While the necromancers control the land, it's mostly due to the land being a barren waste of garbage that no one wants. They are not a military powerhouse and lack the legions or the taslamaran armed forces, so heavy losses to their guard mean they are left with a skeletal defense of mindless undead that don't really stand up to the other faction's forces in game.


So, yes, you were removed justifiably both IC and OOCly, and like everyone else on this mud lately, you choose to throw a complete tantrum and fit when things aren't done your way - despite you having no in game presence whatsoever to back it up.


I don't get what is wrong with most of you. You can't just talk like billy badass and have it be that way. At some point, you have to do things for yourself instead of always expecting an immortal to do it for you.


This game isn't LOL RP MUSH, it's a RPPK mud, which means roleplay supports tactics, and tactics support roleplay.


Honestly, I have no doubt that if you weren't removed, you'd lose your flag due to hours anyways.


The amount of entitlement among the playerbase is obscene.

This stuff sucked.

What I don't understand is how evil has the difficult time withdrawing and accepting defeat.

In comic boom terms, Baron Zemo gets his [REDACTED] stomped to death by Captain America on the regular. When his hunchmen get the stomping, he pulls back, formulates a new plan and then comes back with moonstones or some evil garbage. You could have dedicated the rest of your IC life to work in the shadows against the Harlequins.

My first character here had a "never say die" attitude, aberrant as hell. Wiser players enlightened me to the idea of a skewed sense of honor and it definitely put things in perspective. If good surrenders, yeah, sure, its a heavy blow and people should be seriously demoralized but in my perspective, evil should just be "wtf ever we gonna eat their faces eventually".

None of this may have made sense.

Anyway, I always enjoyed my RP with Eralenax. Godspeed, bro.

Death has very little meaning in this game due to the existence of priests. It means little more than the killed person has to re-arm themselves before returning to war.



This is patently false. Very, very few characters (PC or NPC) were killed in the grand scheme of things because PK in SK involves very, very few NPCs or NPCs in relation to what is available to the city/tribunal, and anyone killed would simply be resurrected. There is quite literally no capacity in game outside of RP to have a city-destroying war because the game is not built to support such. We can have constant PK wars indefinitely without it ever even registering in character with regard to city population because in the end, PK is an extremely minor skirmish between 2 to 10 characters.



Once again IC is being confused with OOC. Eralenax was a half-mad, entirely totalitarian, surface-world hating deep-elf. As far as I'm concerned, his RP was spot on. If you don't like how he acted IC, it needs to be addressed IN CHARACTER. There should have been a grand coupe where the rest of the tribunal rose up against their hated dictator and drove him from the lands. That would have been entirely acceptable, but this ninja flag-removal without a scrap of RP is utterly egregious.

I tried to coup.

Dammit.

It had less to do with how you played your character as mad, but the fact that your play choices in game did not align with the responsibility required of leaders. The resistance you display when presented with fair criticism only proves that you aren't cut out for a leadership position in this game. That's okay! Many players enjoy the game more without the obligations of leadership.

I would like come clarification on leadership positions then.



This to me makes perfect sense. Why would an insane power mad leader care if his soldiers were being slaughtered? He couldn't care less. His subordinates cry out for peace since they're being destroyed. What does he care? He's a dictator practically.



From what I can tell it SOUNDS like we need to determine whether the leadership position is an OOC or an IC role. From an IC perspective I don't see a problem with some nutjob not doing what is best for his or her underlings. That is the nature of power over the weak. If this were the death of a lightie leader. I would agree that it warranted his removal, but this is the North we're talking about.
The OOC side I agree with, getting PKed into the ground sucks, hard. So it is then the responsibility of a leader to address the player's grievances not so much the characters?




In Taslamar, Ayamao, and Zhenshi I would agree with this statement. In the North? The East? That is the nature of a power position in the North or the Empire. A corrupt totalitarian regime. Wouldn't one's troops and subordinates suffering be of little consequence to a power-mad leader? It would then be the responsibility of the underlings to take action sure. That all seems IC to me.

Basically what I've taken from this thread is: The OOC "suffering" of players > The IC stance of characters. So which is it? Is the Leadership position OOC or IC?

Disclaimer: I'm not addressing the limited play times, he most likely would have been removed due to his unfortunate schedule. I'm simply addressing the prescribed responsibilities of a leader and what they constitute.