Shattered Kingdoms

Yes, that was the intent behind it. I'd suggested clarifying post-PK RP was perfectly acceptable if people felt it was unclear.

I am personally game to remove the "Gear your RP to be inclusive of others" line altogether. What this will mean in effect is that PvP will have to conform to all the guidelines in Rule 2 (as is already the case) and whether or not something goes over the line from competitive, sportsmanlike play to griefing will come down to Rule 10. That will ultimately be a staff judgment call. As jreid_1985 pointed out, it can be a fine line at times. Fortunately, it rarely seems to come up. I believe there has only been one instance of griefing enforcement in the entire history of the bans/punishments thread.

I would never guess "Gear your roleplay to be inclusive of others" had anything to do with PK. It sounds more like a rule against going no-tell. Deleting the provision is better than being vague.

I'd imagine that falls pretty clearly under Rule 1 already, even in your revised version. "Respect the fact that other players are here to enjoy the game as well" seems like a candid way to say "Don't grief people."

That said, I also support your revised version including removing the "Gear your RP to be inclusive of others" line, if for no other reason than it's historically how SK was built and survived for so long. Personally I don't see that much of a difference in that I think RP should always precede a kill, just that we disagree on the fact that said RP should have to be with your target about the fact that you want to kill them.

I'm all for rules that give power to the players without giving out license to grief. It's simpler and more sensible than the current state, where there's a whole bunch of addendums just to rule 1 that someone wouldn't know about unless they registered for the forums and perused the sticky thread and/or the announcements forum.

None of these are necessarily true and I'm confused why anyone thinks that they are. Maybe I am missing something, but let's look at Rule #1 again:


Where in here does you have to say you have to tell someone you are going to kill them, or even that the roleplay needs to have been during the current session? It doesn't say that, because you don't. There appears to be an incorrect juxtaposition between Rule #1 and the Hellion Code. Only Hellions need show their honor by warning someone before attacking them.

The roleplay of Rule #1 is justified by having two characters meet and have some sort of IC conversation at some point in the past. And the attacked party should be able to recognize that the person who killed them is a person that they've interacted with in the past.

The best opportunity for this is now available for over an hour every day. Hanging out in the Crystallis Lounge during Happy Hour should give people a chance to converse with each other in relative safety. But even some back and forth tells that happened the week before would be enough to satisfy the letter of the rule. (Note you should go beyond the letter if at all possible.)

The main point is that you shouldn't be ganking a total stranger.

I recognize that there are character concepts that are all about ganking total strangers, but they can't be allowed to be a loophole to operating a character in Team Fortress mode. There is a lot of hand-wringing about how PK is not being respected any longer, but keep in mind that SK has ALWAYS put RP and PK on equal terms. You must RP in order to PK. That's always been a core assumption of the game.

I'm not against the discussion here of potentially altering the letter of the rules to increase player satisfaction and have the enforcement make the most sense. But the principal needs to stay intact: RP and PK are conjoined.

And for what it's worth: I actually don't like simplistic solutions such as forbidding lighties to kill each other in any circumstance. But for every time there is a RP justified White Aura vs White Aura killing, it seems to spawn a dozen instances of completely unjustified bounds breaking. So if you like having rules that still allow room to maneuver, it's pretty important to not abuse that freedom.

Dulrik, I agree with absolutely everything you've said. The problem is that Thuban doesn't completely agree, and that's what's sparked this conversation.
Specifically, this point of yours and Thuban's don't agree.
Compared to this, from Thuban last DecemberThe difference, to make it clear, is that Thuban's interpretation of Rule #1 currently is that you not only have to interact with the character, you actually have to tell them you are planning on killing them and let them react to that, which most people will tell you typically involves the other person avoiding you like the plague, even up to logging off whenever you log on. At best it's rather dumb for many characters from an IC standpoint, and frankly cheapens the RP of a paladin/hellion that requires the same.

The game in general hasn't been policed that way for as long as I can remember before this, which is what has the playerbase concerned (and in my opinion rightly so) that the very nature of what makes PK "acceptable" is being redefined.

Edoras, you appear to have put a finger on the subtlety that I was missing. When I initially read Thuban's statement, I interpreted it as saying that you need to have a conversation that contains some animosity, but I didn't think it required actually saying that you were coming to kill them right NOW. And I don't think it should.

But what I posted just before this went even one step less, to just having any sort of RP'd conversation, not even necessarily one that had any animosity. So perhaps that would be what I propose should be the new standard. But I could also stand by requiring there be animosity as long as it is clear that once the conversation happens, the baseline requirement has been met.

I more prefer your rule, honestly. It leaves open the option for complete and utter betrayal from anyone without any warning, and I think that adds a lot more potential depth to RP. In SK you should never feel "safe" just because someone hasn't twirled their mustache and outlined their evil plan. It adds too much meta-gaming to the situation in my opinion.

For what it's worth, I think that's where the conversation is heading as well, which seems to be agreeable to you also. This is the most recent edit Thuban seemed to be in approval of, and it removes any possibility for an interpretation that you have to tell your enemy that you want to kill them before you kill them.

If anything, I'd probably say that your interpretation would require replacing "Gear your roleplay to be inclusive of other players" with "Don't target characters for PK that your character has never interacted with before."

Just so we're clear on who believes what:



If some guy walks up and insults your evil character, you don't have to say, "I'm going to kill you now." You can just attack. The RP is done and everyone understands completely what is going on; they should be very much aware they could be making themselves a target. Rule 1 has been enforced three times for PvP without RP by me and one player received a warning. In one case, the character logged in after being inactive for months and PK'd a character he had never interacted with. In another case, a player went around attacking multiple people at random, multi-logging in the process, thereby getting his characters retired, and later came back with a new character after all the previous ones had been retired and attacked someone in an inn with no prior RP. The player who received the warning was attacking people with a diabolic character, sometimes with RP, sometimes without it, but at least always RP after the incident.

At no point has anything beyond this been enforced. You could tell someone you're going to kill them if you want; that's a valid form of RP. You could just react to whatever it is they're doing that's antagonizing you. That's also valid, as in the necromancer vs. orphanage case that was brought up. You could have a conversation one day with them where they insult you and then later go back to get them. Any of this is fine, and the attacked party can be expected to understand why everything went down the way it did, because they were party to the RP involved. In the case of a guy going around attacking at random, no, they have not included the victims in any RP. As I have said multiple times now, that is the purpose of this rule.

The only thing that has happened is that I eased restrictions in the case of enmity and tribunal membership to essentially allow for the random gank in those cases. I figure if you're an elf and get attacked by a deep-elf, you understand why that just happened. Also, if you are in a tribunal you are broadcasting your intent to be involved in PvP to the entire who list and I assume you're ready for PvP, so you accept whatever happens after. I wanted to make it explicitly clear that random ganks in these cases are allowed, something that had never been made explicitly clear before.

If you look at what I've actually said and the enforcement actions I've taken as Rules Manager on this subject, I think you will see that there isn't a particularly strenuous requirement. But, as for the rule itself, I don't have a particularly strong opinion on whether it gets rewritten or how. I have a feeling we're on the same page with how this rule should work, so if the language needs to be updated to make it clearer, the staff certainly should and will do that.

Any updates to this answer in light of this thread? This is from a newbie forum post.