Bad RP/Strategy (split from RP Praise!)

[tiddy ogg]

[quote="Reaperman"][quote="T-shirt"]My suggestion is to remove skills. Have players roleplay their character are good or bad at something.[/quote]

I have to agree! I have quickly noticed that if you spawn with low strength or poor fighting skills you are doomed before you start. You can roleplay all you like but you don't have the muscke to back it up you are lost
My pathetiic char has been running a town for years, weak though that char may be.
Brute force ain't everything, though admittedly it helps.
![/quote]

[Marian]

I'm with tiddy ogg on this one. (even though he screwed those quotes all up and it took a minute to figure out waht he was saying. ) how many situations are you in that you absolutely have to have 'brute force' to back something up? Most of my good fighters carry around a weapon for a status symbol but have never had a reason to use it except on random crazy newspawns, and even that's not such a problem anymore.

I do have an evil char who is pitifully weak, but I'm using RP to recruit stronger people to help me out for the one part of my plan where stregth is needed.

And about half of my chars are novice or worse at hunting, but I've never considered any of the 'doomed'. That would be very lazy and uncreative.

[SekoETC]

Not everyone needs muscles. One of my characters is an awkward fighter and she used to be so weak that she couldn't even drag notes, before the change was made that all unwounded people can drag notes. And you know what, she's a town leader.

If you want to play just fighters, if you think that the only way to defend your wealth is by your own sword, then go play some traditional game and take your whiny ass off Cantr. The skill of fighting is rarely essential for newspawns. My youngest is a skillful fighter but has never been required to use that skill, nor would she want to, thinking that it's barbaric.

What I see here is an "every man for himself" attitude. These newspawners never think that perhaps instead of becoming a pirate or a town guard ("What's a person without a sabre? Nothing!") they could discover their best ability, be that mining or farming or collecting or whatever, and turn that to your advantage. When you gain wealth, you can hire some newspawns and most likely find someone with good fighting skills to defend you from jealous neighbours. People don't necessarily have to know that you're an awkward fighter, just make sure not to hit anyone in public. People are just thinking that ok, that person doesn't want to stain his own hands in the blood of common thieves.

I admit though that the skill system is poorly developped. One of my characters spent years inside, doing nothing but resting and every once in a while hitting himself with a waster. He's still an awkward fighter. In order to practice properly, you apparently need several training partners and sparring each day. I just simply cannot be arsed to repeat the same thing day after day. That's not roleplaying, that's just toiling.

[the_antisocial_hermit]

I don't think I have ever met a good roleplayer on cantr. Although there supposedly are, I have yet to see that. I've seen roleplayers who are a bit better then beginners..but never moderate or advanced roleplayers. I myself am a moderate/advance roleplayer, however I don't rp on this site because no one else really does..

1. You probably haven't met the right characters.
2. Even if you have, if you don't rp, you can't expect them to bother themselves with rp-ing towards your chars.

RP praise... hmm... I'd have to say Deputy Ranger Sean Warren Locke would be one.

[kinvoya]

I completely agree with Seko. I don't understand the player who kills off his/her player if they aren't strong (looking at you Socialist) when strength is so not a necessity. Sure your char might get killed because of it someday but that is the "society simulator" part of the game. Chars die. Deal with it.

I have a char who I have no idea how strong she is because she would never hit someone. She is a town leader of an important town at 25. She doesn't even have a weapon and has only a little wooden shield to fend off the animals. Currently my favorite char. Oh, my! How could she do it without muscles and a big weapon? Ummm....hard work, good luck and rp.

I see plenty of rp but not as much as when I first started and I'm glad. Back then the "extreem roleplayers" as I called them took over every town and I think other players felt too intimidated to even try (I know I did). I'm glad it's been toned down a bit.

[T-shirt]

Strenght is important for defending against animal attacks. With a high strength and an iron shield bears won't even harm you.

[the_antisocial_hermit]

Strenght is important for defending against animal attacks. With a high strength and an iron shield bears won't even harm you.

Not really. I have a fairly weak char that has been attacked by bears, elephants, boars, everything you can name, for years and years (it's been 7-10yrs at least), and she's only got 5% damage. She's yet to eat any healing for any of her hits. Other chars around her are much stronger and have died of animal attacks.. 3 hits. They had the same protection as her, an iron shield.

Now watch, she'll get hit for 40% the next time she's outside not travelling because I said all that. >.<

I'd like to say kudos on the rp for Empress Zmambee. This is my first time to encounter her since my first account a long time ago and it's great to see her still going stong.

[Mykey]

Bravo, what necessary phrase..., a remarkable idea

[Spillages]

WooHoo!! I`m part of that crew.

The Sociologist, are you really starving those with poor fighting skills?
That is a little extreme, I try to at least play with what I`m given. I may have an advantage though having lost quite a few characters in the past.
I don`t take thier loss as completely devastating anymore. It happens and sometimes its a good story

I really wish people would stop telling others to go play something else though. That`s Bullshit. His motivations for this poor RP choice is clearly due too wise strategy choices. Why do RPers try to drive out the strategist? Can`t we all just get along?

Yay mykey! standing up for the other 90% of us.

[Solfius]

The strategist is still going strong Mykey. I've never considered myself a roleplayer; I found Cantr when I was looking for free online strategy games to play.

[Marian]

Not to be anal about this but can we take the bad Rp/ strategy vs RP discussion to anotther thread? (And I know I participated, but it's ben going on for like a page now...)

[Solfius]

Was that off topic? Sometimes I don't realise what thread I'm in; I just respond to what has already been said.

[The Sociologist]

Well, I had this character called Olympia who wrote poems and songs and turned down the chance to be Chancellor of the Zuzi Empire when still in her mid twenties. The moments shared with the Empress (Oasis), Catherine (Nitefire), and Edwin (Surly) were some of the best roleplaying experiences I've had in the game. Fair enough, I wasn't quite up to their standard, but I didn't do too badly either in the early days.

Then skills came along and she turned out hopeless at combat and hunting and otherwise generally very weak. However, I kept her going for a very long time because of her position. At that time I only killed off those characters whose actual professions had been ruined (eg hunters, deputies, sheriffs and so on).

Anyhow, I decided to roleplay Olympia the way she was. She decided not ever to carry a weapon, so she could hardly be chancellor of a town on a pirate coast, surely? The Empress told her not to be silly. She decided she was a vegetarian, but when potatoes became heavier she decided they were now too bulky for her to eat. She couldn't manage potato salad either because milk is an animal product. So she decided all she could eat was baked cod. The Empress told her not to be silly. And so on...

What I'm saying here is roughly the following. There are a lot of people here, even senior members of staff and members on GAC, who simply don't know what to do about how to roleplay their "skills". Remember, Cantr is not meant to be a free roleplay game. Treating it as such is surely a worse sin than discussing your skills in public!

Yet all these same GAC people, those who would prefer characters never ever even to mention their skills, still go "Ra! Ra! Jos is a genius!" Is it not about time they admitted to themselves that the skills system is hardly a work of genius. In fact, it is hopelessly broken and needs fixing.

Both my recent essays, I and II, were about trying to fix the skills system so that it becomes relevant to professions, relevant to callings, relevant to the way characters see themselves. Skills should provide the sort of "hooks" onto which good roleplay can be hung. At the moment skills are a hurdle to roleplay. They are currently too atomized for roleplay, rather more what you would find in an A-Life game.

Not only that, but their distribution is badly imbalanced. So, my solution to that is to treat Cantr as exactly what the skills system turned it into: an A-Life game. I exterminate inferior genetic strains. I am by now really tired of listening to those of you who would blame players for what is a fault of the game. Characters in the game are meant to react to their surroundings, including their own skills. Wanting to make skills "invisible" again is simply a poorly disguised wish to have them go away.

The slogan here should be: Fix or remove!

[Solfius]

If Cantr was a building it would be very strange to look at. It would have started quite small, but would have been extended in many different ways so the original character of the building whould be lost. A blend of different styles as different ideas by different people were added. From time to time I think of the code that makes it all work, and I'm glad I don't have to deal with such a sprawling system.

[Jur Schagen]

Yet all these same GAC people, those who would prefer characters never ever even to mention their skills, still go "Ra! Ra! Jos is a genius!"

*makes a note to himself that Soc obviously don't know what he's talking about*

Ever heard of presenting a unified front in public, even if there are dissident voices in inner circles?

On your essays... like Chris already said, almost all the items of essay 1 were already on our to-do list (except for some stuff like the bad idea for eternal life via children), though sometimes not in the exact same way as you formulated them. We are simply short on capacity to implement them. The wild ideas of essay 2, that would require little short of a re-write of all Cantr source code, couldn't be accepted by you when brought down to a level that actually _could_ be implemented; in fact, you withdrew from further discussion.

I must be really hard for you that your Cassandrian visions aren't recognized for what they are amongst mere mortals. I can imagine how horrible it is to know exact answers to all the questions that arise, yet nobody listening to every single letter of your insights given from above, but rather, mingling in their own puny ideas, corrupting the infinite wisdom of the oracle. Some say that it is a curse, and I'm really sorry for your fate.

Jur.

PS - and I would challenge you to find any "Ra! Ra! Jos is a genius!" quotes, or anything vaguely in that direction, but I don't think I should burden you with such a hopeless quest.