Creation of prsonalities and evil characters.

[huitzilopochtli]

I have come to a point in game to ask myself who are my characters. Surey, they can't all act the same, doesn't make much sense and it kills the experience of the game.

So I created general guidelines which each character should follow and let the details be sorted throghout the game. For example, one of my characters was treated rather, as he thought, unfair, even evil. So he will most probably turn out to be quite vengeful.

But there is one character that spawned in the area without food and took on a rather long journey at the very beggining of the game. So she didn't experience almost anything which gives me infinite freedom regarding her peronality. Since all other characters are more or less good I was thinking of making this one evil. And I do mean evil to the bone, no trace of goodnes.
On the other hand, I'm not sure I'd be able to play throughly evil character. If do try it will certanly be an interesting experience.

So, my quiestions:
How did your characters get their peronalities?
What do you all think about evil characters. Does the limited number of evil characters improve the game and does the game need more of them right now?

[JJ]

alot of my characters have gained their personality due to happenings in their lifes such as war, hardships, and even vengence and some even reflect my own personality.

i think evil characters add some fun to the game, possibly destroy a town and set it into a whole different direction, other times they do bring a town together. but none the less doesnt matter how well you might role play it, you got the people who claim it bad role playing, some capital rule breaking, some think that even creating evil guys isnt a true society sim, more an everquest thing. some of the badest guys have added alot to the game over all which to me is an exciting part of cantr, being able to destroy a town, make it stronger, or even build it around you on some lonely place with out life. to me its all good. i say heck go for it. add a little excitement to it.

[rklenseth]

Here is a concept that alot of people haven't gotten yet....

ACTUALLY TAKE OVER A PLACE WITHOUT KILLING THE WHOLE DAMN TOWN!!


Remember most power hungry people aren't going to wipe out entire towns to take them over. They want power so they are going to take out the people who are in power in any fashion that they like but to kill the lay people isn't something a power hungry person would do. What power does he have if everyone is dead? Who does he have to rule if everyone is dead? And I would like to point out that if your character is using the knowledge that eventually people will respawn then that is sort of a capital rule breach.

I can see completely evil characters going around and massacring people but for a power hungry character it actually goes against the personalities of that character. He wants power not a bunch of corpses heaped up in the corner.

Plus there is always the point that the whole massacring a town so that is starts over (now I think it is massacring a whole island so that is can start over) isn't very original. I do not see the fun or stragety in arming three people with iron shields and sabres and crossbows. Now trying to arm an army, march them to the place you want to take over, and then trying to take a place over with as little bloodshed as possible is a real stragety. One that has yet to be done (though I know someone is trying to do it) and one that actually incorporates real planning and stragety.

Alas, until a better combat system is put in place we will continue to have the three or four maniacs or so called power hungry maniacs running around wiping out whole towns and now that the bar has been raised then whole islands.

And I can't wait until babies are added in. Then there will be less spawning meaning that the stragety of wiping out places to 'start over' won't happen anymore because there will be less newspawns to fill that gap.

[JJ]

oh? and people only point out sring sri, what about lad? where they kill anyone just cause they want to leave, or for asking questions. isnt that basicly massacring people? as for the spawning info characters in game have already figured out life spawns all over the place. they knew life started only in certain places. you can look thru the game and see that is common knowledge now. just more complaining about something that took alot of planing.

anyways back on topic, some of the greatest evil characters i can remeber that were purely evil or considered atleast would be craktar, maynard of corse one of the evilest master minds in cantr. a few others rodger landcaster, and abhol, purple tortoise who was completely crazy and cool for a evil character who planed a towns take over mighty well. lunatic larry, he was sorta evil but none the less added alot of fun and history to the game. so over all i think you should give it your best shot at being evil.

P.S. i know i missed a few other evil guys who were pretty cool. so dont get mad at me for not recalling their names =P

[nitefyre]

Hmmmmmmm *looks to his characters* I don't feel like I have any worthy evil characters, unless you count their paranoia or straight out overthinking of minor details of life, like why in hells bells did they just pick up that rice, maybe I should kill them, eh. Having an evil character would've been a great idea.

[rklenseth]

First off, Ladvicitavoi doesn't kill just anyone and has never been involved in a massacre of an entire town. So lets keep the facts straight. Lad. kills or imprisons people (depending on the which Emperor is in power) for breaking the laws of the Empire, which are strict but laid out for all to read, or because the Empire preceives them as an enemy that could be a danger to the Empire. You just put together a few people armed them to the teeth and went about killing over 60 some odd characters (most of which had no clue about the politics of the island or were even conspiring against you) so that you could 'start over' on the island (considering you have the knowledge that eventually they will all respawn). You follow the laws, you will most likely live. It's the same as if you lived in the Roman Empire. I wouldn't have mind if you had gotten together like 10 to 20 other characters and gone around massacring the island. Then you could have been like the Mongols, who were a bloodthirsty people during the Dark Ages. I also applaud you for showing us the huge unbalance in the violence system and how so easily it can be abused. I don't think 2 people should be able to walk into a town fully armed and protected and wipe out 30 people. They would eventually get tired and a mob of 30 people could easily trample 2 people no matter how well protected or armed they are. Yeah, the 2 people might be able to kill a few of the 30 before going down but nonetheless they would eventually go down.

Secondly, your character shouldn't know that other characters will respawn. According to your character's knowledge, characters are born, they just don't suddenly appear at age 20. So if you wipe out a whole town then personally I think the town should not have anymore respawns unless new people over a good 5 are transplanted into the area from another area. That way there is a serious consquence to wiping out towns. Right now there is no consquence meaning that people can go into towns and wipe everyone out and they have the knowledge that everyone will just respawn. Doesn't sound right to me and sounds like breaching the capital rule.

[JJ]

dude dont give me that bull, lad has killed people for leaving on the path thats marked on the laws, they have killed towns before. just to take over it. how come no one ever complained about that. if the center of lad doesnt know about it to bad, but lad has killed off towns. as for the vilence system, 30 sleeping people wont be much rsistance even if there are 30 and only two men. i didnt arm them, im not the leader of the D.I.G. but i do know what is going on. and the violence system was alot better before. there are reported cases in history where towns have been massacred by only 1 or 2 people, and guess what no one ever heard them cry. now if violence isnt part of a society then arent you looking for a game thats just about text and no apprent weapons or cars or any of that stuff, and not a society sim? violence happens all the time now get over it, and stay on topic.

something id love to see someday would be a weird building where people could be traped inside and never come out again lol! like take the ksf for instance craktar could have had a cool trap inside leave the front door open get people to walk into one of the rooms in the back and just lock them up and leave to another room. slow painful death by starving them but think about all of the possiblitys and ledgends behind the building. oh and i thought about a few other causes that might make a person turn crazy or evil, war could leave them wanting to see bloodshed, or heart break could be another reason. you know this also brought me to think how solfius had mentioned about the building in which a small society lives in, what if a evil decided he decided to go a little crazy inside? the person would be the one who helps make tools and has access to weapons and such. but only takes resources a tiny bit at a time....

[nitefyre]

I agree that the method of killing entire towns is morally wrong and straight out annoying; but doesn't centric spawning mean there will only be spawning in those locals with more people than less. Like during my stay in k.F. there were quite a few spawns; but like on the Aki island, there are minimal spawnings. I also beleive spawning is part of your chars knowledge, as there are signs in many locals saying "If you are a Visitor/Newspawn, read these laws." So I doubt you shud charge these people with cr breaching.

[Meh]

There is no difference in the Ladvicitavoi method and the Shring-Sri method other than the time it takes to kill 60 characters.

The Ladvicitavoi/Bjolt method focuses picking on players that can do you know harm, stealing thier stuff and helps drive new players out of the game at least in Shring-Sri the characters had a chance to get to know the game before their characters were killed.

None of these methods of chracter killing is wrong.

There is another method which is to get a group together for a mass slaughter only to take their stuff not for land.

Slaughter is not the point of the game but it is part of it. The new violence rules should make things more fair. And with the new steel rules anyone who can marshall a force large enough for a slaughter shouldn't have to listen to this junk about the right way to take over an area.

The Crusades.
The spanish colnization of America.
The USA removal of native americans.
The Texan removal of mexicans.

And many many others that we have never heard of. The advantage of a total purge is thier is no one to write the history of how bad it was.

[Meh]

In addition you cannot take over a town without removing everyone possible for as far as possible.

There is way too much "oh my character decided to agree with you and kill you tomorrow after I complained on the forum and basically orginaizaed the overthorow there".

So it is an OOC reponse to an OOC issue of characters being too good at lying.

[huitzilopochtli]

I don't really think massacring a town for no apparent reason is evil. That's more like seriously disturbed.
There is a difference between evil and plain stupid. You can be very intelligend and very evil.

By evil I meant secretly conspiring against individuals (or goverments) that somehow did you wrong or just have some resurces you need, stabbing people in tha back rather then joining open fight, taking advantige of every situation without any consideration of morals...

Well, I guess I'll give it a shot so you all better beware

[Meh]

but like on the Aki island, there are minimal spawnings.

And I know I am way off topic.

This has enchanced the stability of that place in my opnion.

With few newspawns each one is precious and not to be thrown out like a used wet nap.

With people-centric spawning killing towns (Ladvicitavoi/Bjolt) and killing conquerors (Dhung/Krif Hills) will have to deal with the fact that killing people means less freebie people.

Something else I have only seen mentioned in the game but not implmented is long term imprisment with labor (iron working/clothes making/cooking). Is it because OOC this is a fate worse than death why this does not occur and daily executions continue? If the killer towns want newspawns they will have to take prisoners not kill everything in sight that is not polite.

This is also why I belive that food needs adjusted. Now that the iron towns get newspawns there is little to limit thier growth. Less food would mean the iron towns would have to do more to get food.

People-centric spawning, difficult iron, the new violence system. The only thing missing is increasing the food difficulty then the game will be more realistic and blanced for new and old players. After that anything that makes life harder on the characters should make other things easier. For example drinking water. If this is added iron and food should be made easier (after it is made harder from this point).

You have to ask yourself why there is almost 2 megagrams of unused iron in the game. Why would anyone horde 30 kilograms of iron? I would guess that the amount of food in the game is much higher than that. Hording is normal but I think it is overdone. Now of course with the new iron these hordes will have to be tapped.

[Meh]

So, my quiestions:
How did your characters get their peronalities?
What do you all think about evil characters. Does the limited number of evil characters improve the game and does the game need more of them right now?

I feel I owe you a direct answer for my topic hijacking....

I think there are plenty of evil chracters with poor plans. I have some charcters who while not evil have better plans for theft and violence. HOWEVER! AND THIS IS IMPORTANT! They are loyal and do not break alliances with people or other groups just beucase it is easy or I am bored.

They are not evil but will be veiwed as evil as Devestron if thier plots ever unfold. Of couse they will probally never be seen or heard of. The ones orgnaizing the plan and making the weapons for the plan do not have to be seen. So in a way these are only servants of a "making the bombs for the evil plan" people.

This is as close to evil as I get the rest are benign servants or leaders. Some of them have grudges aginst things that happened but are not obessed with seeing the grudge played out.

They all have one thing in common. A long term plan. They want things but not on any particuar shcedule. There is enough impatients in the game as it is.

I don't run and crazy, special, or greedy characters but I do like that people are doing that. There just seems to be enough.

[JJ]

thank you Meh for posting that up about lad and such. =) end of that.

[Meh]

I don't really think massacring a town for no apparent reason is evil. That's more like seriously disturbed.
There is a difference between evil and plain stupid. You can be very intelligend and very evil.

By evil I meant secretly conspiring against individuals (or goverments) that somehow did you wrong or just have some resurces you need, stabbing people in tha back rather then joining open fight, taking advantige of every situation without any consideration of morals...

Well, I guess I'll give it a shot so you all better beware

Now that you defined it like that I guess I have quite a few evil characters.

In D&D terms they would be lawful evil. Dark hearts, big plans, loyal to their side.

There is plenty of impatient and chaotic characters. There also seem to be plenty of poltics in the goverments - backstabbing etc.

To take the goverment out and leave anything left you have to be secretive and well prepared.

You also have to do it in a way that even OOC people do not figure out what is going on. There are too many coicendtal defenders from far off lands when things happen.