Shattered Kingdoms

I've been thinking recently about the whole "you need Rp before you PK" issue and I seek a little bit more clarification.

Firstly I wish to bring up the Black Rose. sk's ancient, well renown, and dealy uncoded assassins guild. There have been times in he past when I have hired PC's, claiming to be from the black rose, to kill someone for an agreed upon amount of money. There is RP established before the PK started. Sk between myself and the one i put the hit on, leading me to put the hit on them. As well as rp between the hit man and I.
Is this not sufficient RP for the member of the Black Rose to PK?
Are we no longer allowed to put hits out on people?
Had the Black Rose been completely killed off by the rules manager redefining acceptable rp for pk?

Next I wish to bring up betrayal.
Story time: Darivian was knightlord as Azoreth stepped down. There felt to be unmentioned tension, but it was never discussed "fall in line soldier or I'll kill you." And then, out of the blue, Darivian cleaves Azoreth. Should Darivian been cursed a levels worth of Exp for breaking his aberrant alignment, attacking a member of the same tribunal without official war between the factions? (Mc and lgn) and also for there being a lack of RP befoee the PK?

Also regarding betrayal: Thakathi. He and Azoreth were speaking in lengths on how to alter the leadership structure in the empire and also what do do about our enemies and allies. The two of us were working well together and were close allies. Lone behold, he'd been plotting behind my back with others to slay me after certain actions were taken Ic.
Should Thakathi have been cursed for pking without aggressive/hostile RP toward Azoreth?

In short, is betrayal acceptable? And if so, what RP terms must be met before doing so? I'm also curious how this would work cross-factions. If Azoreth wanted to betray Alira, but wanted to do so in secret, allowing the PK to be the spark for the Metaphorical RP flame, would I be able to do so? Kill/betray her with little/no warning, then declare war, and then RP verbally why she is being betrayed?

Let's also bring up Khalim that received a curse for PKing a member of The Fist while The Lefions were not at war with them, even though the Council is. Khalim has sworn an oath to obey orders of his superiors, including members of The Council. Since Azoreth is unable to alter tribunal diplomacy at this time, is it unacceptable for me to give Khalim the order to kill a fist member? Or does he seriously have to wait until Jomino comes around and officially changes the tribunal diplomacy?

It is my belief that PK should be acceptable without directly RPing with the character to be pk'd so long as prior RP had occurred with allies and such. Should proof of prior RP with allies need to be proven, I believe that the Playerbase could quickly and easily save those "I plan to engage in PK" RP sessions. Sending them to Thuban if need be at a later date.
Though I also don't feel as though the players should honestly have to log RP to use in their defense, when these PK scenarios are very abundant.

Thuban: I would appreciate a detailed explanation of the policy and scenarios that I have presented. I feel as though the Playerbase truly needs a very clear understanding of RPPK.

Thank you in advance,
Terak.

ur forgetting that thakathi told azoreth he was going to kill him right before he actually did it



don't rly care about the new pk guidelines b/c they aren't that restrictive.

do find it amusing when certain players get pulled aside to warn them about rules that have not been broken tho - lol wat?. if ur wanting to kill the who list and player counts - that's a sure fire way to do it.

first example w/ daravien would have been a curse under the current guidelines for pk.



problem solved, no curse.

the third example with khalim breaks the current guidelines, too. it's really not that hard to drop in a line or two of rp before u start going HAM on someone. it's also kind of cool to drop a schwarzenegger one-liner on someone before u tyrannosaurus rekt them.



problem solved, no curse.

The Black Rose isn't abolished by the new view of the "RP before PK" rule. In the worst case, it means that someone who gets hired for a hit has to simply tell their target in some way that they've been marked for death before they kill them.

With regard to the entire idea of betrayal, I would like to think that example along the lines of how Thakathi betrayed Jomino are perfectly viable, but honestly, I'm not sure anymore.

viewtopic.php?f=25&t=25939

Finney's above examples of stacking a threat along with the aggressive command, including Thakathi's killing of Jomino, seem to go against this interpretation of the "RP before PK" rule.

Personally, I feel like betrayal-style RP, where you interact with someone extensively but don't let them know you're secretly planning on taking their head off until it's too late for them, is one of the hallmarks that a game like this should thrive on. Personally, I -like- the feeling that if I befriend a deep-elf or a necromancer, that I should have to feel like I am constantly living or dying at their whim, and if I don't watch my back they'll stick a dagger into it when it suits them.

The way that I read Thuban's ruling, however, even the worst of necromancers that I've "befriended" would be cursed for poor roleplay if he decided to kill me without giving me a chance to respond (or instead, escape) first. That takes a whole lot of the realism and freedom out of the game-world of SK, because it shoehorns evil characters especially into the genre-unaware stereotypical villain archetype. You know the sort, it's the villain in movies who always loses because he left the hero unguarded in a room with one inept guard instead of just shooting him in the face when he first discovers his secret identity.

kid u haven't got a clue what ur talking about. i posted two notes on the astral board with thakathi warning every member of the legion and midnight council that my sorcerer intended to tyrannosaurus rekt them. if advanced, written notice that ur going to pk someone is not enough pre-pk rp - then sk needs to stop advertising that it allows pk.



and azoreth got a good 15 to 20 minutes of pre-pk rp before i dropped the schwarzenegger one-liner on him, which u can read here: azoreth gets tyrannosaurus rekt

u seem to be under the mistaken impression that i'm advocating u can just drop a one-liner and then start killing people, but u have to look at the one-liner in the context of all the rp leading up to it. i keep forgetting that i have to spell things out for some people.

Fair enough. The letters are a pretty clear showing that you had intended to PK them. However, I based my post off of what you had specifically shown in this thread, which didn't reference those letters or any other precursory RP at all.


From that post you were saying the PK was valid under the current interpretation of "RP before PK," but what I'm saying is that when the log which you provided looks like this:


That's not meeting the criteria Thuban specifies here:

Some of the examples in this thread so far involve tribunal characters. Anyone in a tribunal has signed up for PvP, and it is entirely up to you how much RP you want to give them before you strike. More is always better, but as long as all of your character's actions are consistent with his or her overall RP, none is strictly necessary. This opens the door for betrayals and assassinations of tribunal characters. This does not open the door for repeated spam-killing and lengthy harassment via charm or sleep spells or anything like that, but you certainly can try to surprise attack them. You will have to accept whatever IC consequences follow from such an attack, but on an OOC level, you're in the clear because you are attacking a character whose player has announced an intention to participate in PvP by way of joining a tribunal, a public choice that everyone can see.

The flip side to this is that tribunal characters may attack outlaws on sight. They, again, will have to face whatever IC consequences arise from attacking said outlaws, but the outlaws in question became such through actions of their own, and this constitutes prior RP. Outlaw status is, again, very easy to understand and it is easy to determine if you are an outlaw and, if so, why.

In all other cases, unless another exception is in place (faction wars, racial enmity), you must RP before PK. Again, the more the better, to give the other party the opportunity for maximum enjoyment of the conflict. Certain classes and alignments have further restrictions, and may require additional RP over and above the normal standards.

Would you mind giving an example of these? I'd imagine that you mean paladins/hellions, but those both pretty much just have the rule that you have to challenge your opponent, which you outlined is necessary.

Or do you just mean that even if someone is in a tribunal or has racial enmity that a paladin/hellion is required through RP to challenge them first just like any other character?

So by this logic, the black rose is dead. They have to info people they've been marked for death. Losing the element of surprise, especially if the assassin is a rogue, as they're easily to dendend against.
Idk.

I'm wondering why 'good guy vs bad guys' isn't good enough RP. Shouldn't a diabolic be able to kill a principled character based strictly on alignment?