"Batman Theory," or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the RP

[Leech]

For example: want to play a bandit that hates Vavardi traders more than anything, and camps out on the roads to and from the city to shake down any ponce with a 'dul' in their name? As it stands now, you're likely to rob someone exactly once before you're put away - and that first robbery probably won't even be successful, because Oldbie dul Tradesman's been around for years and trained his polearm skill to Grandmaster in his free time. I think if you could apply to staff with your concept, and get it approved, maybe they could lend you a hand - give you a little gang of NPC bandit cronies to fight at your side, a little hideout in the wilderness, and maybe a few legs up on your combat and thievery skills to get you started.

Of course, I think this should only really be put in the hands of trusted players, especially ones that are playing with the expectation that they're going to lose eventually and just want to shake things up and make some fun RP for everyone - anyone 'playing to win' definitely shouldn't be given a leg up on other players. I also think there should be tighter restrictions on these staff-assisted antagonists killing other player characters as well, for the sake of 'fairness' if nothing else.

Staff have done this in the past, minus NPCs, and it's worked great. I used the villain system to run three different stories that were all very fun and horrific, and eventually I did kill off that very public, balls-to-the-walls mage because I had a different character (Casimir) who I wanted to put more time and love into. Their narratives were quickly crossing each other and I had to decide which to back off of. If I had put more time, energy, and love into my villain I'm sure she definitely could have been a staple of the world. However...

Batman is an idiot. Like, flat out, hate Batman for the reason that depending on which comic you look at, he never kills. Joker literally would have got the death sentence by now in any court; insanity only works in so far as you can't determine wrong from right. Joker definitely can. Joker would be dead, realistically. Didn't we have a narrative going on OOCly where the whole point is for people NOT to escape Ahalin over and over again? This post here signals mission accomplished. Good job, folks. Now make up your minds, because you can't have it both ways.

Generally, I'm all for staff assistance when it comes to establishing theme. Unfortunately, staff cannot possess NPCs in the manner you'd like due to their own policies -- being hands off -- they can't help those villains overtly for some perceived fear of favoritism, and giving a villain computer controlled NPCs will help them very little because guard NPCs can do only one thing: guard. (Obviously, you can tell I think that's all bullshit, but staff have a set policy and status quo they'd like to see maintained, and that's all well and good for them.)

[Zeita]

Unfortunately, I have to disagree with the premise of giving a special 'get out of jail free' card to villains- some people have been given this treatment in the past by sympathetic people in certain IC positions, and it is often to the detriment of the theme. A large part of the theme (as I perceive it, at least) is that life is short, rough, brutal and often unfair. IC actions have IC consequences, and that those consequences are often cruel by modern mindsets. I wouldn't mind seeing more support for villains and antagonists, but wouldn't want it to extend to bending the IC rules, but I would be okay with giving them their own OOC rules to work under with extra bennies.

[Zeita]

Also, for the record, I'm of the opinion that this topic probably should have waited until after the current situation was resolved one way or another. It is an emotive matter whenever someone's life is on the line, and it would be good to divorce matters more clearly from extant RP.

[anietzschesweater]

So first of all, while I think this is great conversation I don’t think it is appropriate to have while active RP is going on. It can put scrutiny and pressure on people while they are trying to make IC decisions without OOC influence, and it also can influence how people respond, intended or not.

I think we have a lot of debates on what is fair justice which is a great part of our modern society, TI is not a modern culture. There is a theme to the game that is quite specific.

I also don’t know that making it easier to be a villain would encourage more villains, or at least affective ones. Harsher justice can bring out harsher villains, people who are driven by conflict, which only exists with two opposing sides.

Have OOC benefits of being a villain, some benefit system or perks, but I think that the IC world is specific and giving people benefits over others isn’t fair. There are no benefits to any side, and just as many risks, the only difference is the story line.

[Rabek]

I play almost exclusively "villain" characters. The risk of death is what keeps them interesting.

I would posit that, instead, the problem is that there is no reward to being the villain. IC, in particular, but also on a meta/progression level. Or, if there is reward, the risk outweighs it. What's the point of stealing a couple silver from someone if being caught means beatings or stocks or sitting in jail with no RP? And, unlike real life, you can't escape into the crowd if caught because the remember command allows 100% perfect recollection of a stranger you saw for half a second. And for witches, the only reason to go antagonist is if you make IC enemies (dangerous to magically attack people who are enemies of your character), sacrifice (which is ICly taboo even for witches), or just to be a general all-around jerk for no reason. You don't get anything from it, IC or OOC. Well, you get recommends when you die, I guess, and a better XP return. But what's the IC motive?

[Noobus]

One of the things I've never understood is reading that there is really no OOC or IC reward for playing Villians. What is this reward? Urth-wide Recognition(order keeps records most) ? An XP boost(which already exists)? A monument raised to honor your character? Completing whatever Goal your character has? Coming from someone who has played villians that were not even making huge waves, I have never felt that I wasn't being rewarded for what I was doing. Be it recognition by targets and friends alike or getting feedback on what I was doing if actively requesting feedback( This is from staff, but when inviting them to play ICly [You know] ). Someone has already stated that it is difficult for lawfuls to find someone(Gerolf?) who doesn't come out in the open already, which I think is kind of a boon to villians.

With enabling conflict to carry on.... most Villians let themselves known when they have committed some execution worthy stuff, I mean, how would I justify letting the joker go if previous jokers have been killed? Save for when the joker sees Batman coming and prepares for an escape route OR some other villian eliminates the villian they see as the most villiany.... some villians are heroes to some extent, could be that I followed D&D's alignment issues for too long.

N.P: Ignore nonsense, typed from phone.

[Leech]

I seriously despise the villain culture that's developed here. That's not an insult to anyone in particular, but more of an observation. There has always been this idea that being a villain automatically needs to come with benefits, or else nobody is going to do it, and I just don't understand that. It's unique here, and I think it's because the theme itself may be catered towards heroics and lighter play. Sorry to name drop but I always think it important to consider a game in comparison to its general environment (I.E. the MUD canon at the moment). Games like Sindome and Armageddon have wildly different themes, but over all, they are games based around struggle. Money is valuable, power is coveted, and these things encourage being an absolute asshole, because if you're an asshole you get ahead in life. It's not something that's coded, it's a product of the environment, a product of the setting.

The Inquisition is not a setting like those MUDs. The "good guys" don't suffer here. The bad guys do - Dav already won, the "heroes" won, and there is very little struggle but for that you invent. The whole theme is based on the persecution of mages and the right/wrong of the Church. The villains of the Inquisition, subjectively, shouldn't be your thieves and mad mages -- they should be the corrupt Reeve, the torturous Inquisitor, and the greedy Merchant. We don't need more crazy mage villains, we need more antagonists. Subtle, conniving, thematic, and sitting next to you in the bar plotting how to steal your wife. You can't OOCly reward these antagonists because the role is so subtle; what are we going to do, have a checklist that somebody must meet before they are given the cookie for playing an antagonist? No; but neither do I want to continue to encourage a revolving door to introduce our next mediocre "villain of the week," which is what will happen if more (because there are some already) code rewards are tossed out for coverts.

Consider the key points here: conflict is bred from the setting which ICly progresses the bad guy in a realistic manner with money/power (nice guys finish last), but both money/power need to be significant and coveted before they are important enough to be bad for. The lack of a real struggle means the lack of antagonists who will use their assholery to get ahead in that struggle. We have "class struggle", but silver and gold are so insignificant that it never makes quite the frantic scramble it should: a low class Southsider can improve their situation with relative ease. This doesn't attribute itself well to the idea of "class struggle," or any struggle at all. The "mage vs Order" thing has always been done well, when there are the players to do it well. Often enough, there aren't, or they're stagnating for whatever reason (no judgement, I stagnate a shit load). Right now, it's bitching: kudos to the demon summoner.

[BattleJenkins]

I would be wary of using Armageddon or particularly Sindome as an example - both of these games have a reputation for having a fairly toxic OOC culture. I played Sindome for about a year and I can confirm that personally - the staff were regularly immature and abusive to the players, and frequently and unabashedly used their GM status to give their own player characters a leg up on the rest of the competition. The game had lots of other problems, but I should stop myself from going into them before I write paragraphs and paragraphs of text about it.

Here on TI:L, there's a tremendous amount of respect between the players and the staff, so much so that I was startled when I came here from Sindome - I would very much hate to see that change! Whatever changes we try to make to our IC and OOC culture, I think that ensuring everyone is enjoying themselves as much as possible and treating each other with respect is of the utmost importance. Part of this, I think, is making sure that people interested in different types of play are able to coexist on this game - both people interested in cutthroat 'PvP' conflict and people more interested in socializing and 'PvE' conflict should feel comfortable playing here and interacting. The more accepting the game is to different kinds of play, the more diverse our playerbase will be and the richer and more varied the RP will be as well. So, whatever changes we make going forward, I think we should make sure to keep this in mind.

I do definitely agree that there is not much element of struggle in the game right now - money is definitely not at all hard to come by. I've heard that some players have had more fun doing something like a "no purchase silver challenge" and had to think more about how to spend their money and where it was coming from. It might be worth it to try putting some limits on 'purchase silver' to see if that drives people to be a bit more active and creative with trying to get resources.

I do also think we should take more of a look on the various conflicts we have in our game, and how the game's current culture and perspective seems to frame one or the other as being the 'protagonists' - in the Order vs. Mages struggle, it's currently the Order, in the 'Haves' vs. 'Have-Nots', it's the 'Haves', and in the lawfuls vs. unlawfuls, it's definitely the lawful characters. It may help to provide a bit more incentive to play the character types that are disadvantaged right now in some way - not necessarily with OOC rewards, but maybe seeing what sort of new game features, support, or resources we could make available to them to make them a bit more appealing.

All that being said, I want to say that I think this game is fantastic and I'm glad that we can freely have a discussion like this. The staff here has been extremely amenable to player input and implementing their suggestions, and it's something that I really appreciate.

[Voxumo]

I seriously despise the villain culture that's developed here. That's not an insult to anyone in particular, but more of an observation. There has always been this idea that being a villain automatically needs to come with benefits, or else nobody is going to do it, and I just don't understand that. It's unique here, and I think it's because the theme itself may be catered towards heroics and lighter play. Sorry to name drop but I always think it important to consider a game in comparison to its general environment (I.E. the MUD canon at the moment). Games like Sindome and Armageddon have wildly different themes, but over all, they are games based around struggle. Money is valuable, power is coveted, and these things encourage being an absolute asshole, because if you're an asshole you get ahead in life. It's not something that's coded, it's a product of the environment, a product of the setting.

The Inquisition is not a setting like those MUDs. The "good guys" don't suffer here. The bad guys do - Dav already won, the "heroes" won, and there is very little struggle but for that you invent. The whole theme is based on the persecution of mages and the right/wrong of the Church. The villains of the Inquisition, subjectively, shouldn't be your thieves and mad mages -- they should be the corrupt Reeve, the torturous Inquisitor, and the greedy Merchant. We don't need more crazy mage villains, we need more antagonists. Subtle, conniving, thematic, and sitting next to you in the bar plotting how to steal your wife. You can't OOCly reward these antagonists because the role is so subtle; what are we going to do, have a checklist that somebody must meet before they are given the cookie for playing an antagonist? No; but neither do I want to continue to encourage a revolving door to introduce our next mediocre "villain of the week," which is what will happen if more (because there are some already) code rewards are tossed out for coverts.

Consider the key points here: conflict is bred from the setting which ICly progresses the bad guy in a realistic manner with money/power (nice guys finish last), but both money/power need to be significant and coveted before they are important enough to be bad for. The lack of a real struggle means the lack of antagonists who will use their assholery to get ahead in that struggle. We have "class struggle", but silver and gold are so insignificant that it never makes quite the frantic scramble it should: a low class Southsider can improve their situation with relative ease. This doesn't attribute itself well to the idea of "class struggle," or any struggle at all. The "mage vs Order" thing has always been done well, when there are the players to do it well. Often enough, there aren't, or they're stagnating for whatever reason (no judgement, I stagnate a shit load). Right now, it's bitching: kudos to the demon summoner.

To be fair here Leech, I personally do think you are a bit biased on this topic, as you played a highly successful antagonist that had pretty much everything that was required to truly be a successful villain. So if you can do it why can't others is basically what I'm reading. I mean truth be told I'm a bit surprised you survived as long as you did, but that's a topic for another day. I mean yeah it helps that you were buddy buddy with a lot of the more influential players/characters on the game, but it went farther than that.

Most villains never get to that level. Most don't have that inherent rp skill that you do. I mean as much as it hurts to say, you are a rather fantastic rper, and you do have a certain silver-tongue in your poses, which is a good thing. I mean hell, even Rhea, my mage, never got to that same level despite running a plot that had been developing for more than a year.
Though I agree that there should not be more benefits for villains, nor that villains should be left alive once captured... that would be ridiculous. But I do think something needs to be done to correct the current antagonists of the game. The Brotherhood and Mages/Manus are nothing like what they were when I first joined the game. People died left and right during that time, and not just villains dying but random joes, goody two-shoes. The ratio of Good to Bad guys dying was fairly even unlike now. The brotherhood was actually a threat to most instead of just a minor annoyance, if even that. Mages? Well to be fair mages are their own worst enemies right now as they are so freakin paranoid that they refuse to so much as work together in large scale ways. It's like herding Cats, next to bloody impossible.

We need to stop looking at how to encourage people to play villains, and look at improving the quality of villains we have now. Quality over Quantity, people.

[Leech]

I mean yeah it helps that you were buddy buddy with a lot of the more influential players/characters on the game, but it went farther than that.

Plotted every move of that storyarc on Skype, too.