[Gathering] Making a killing at the Gathering...
Mr M.I. Pennington
There have been a few posts around now, mainly posts from and replies to Hoz,
about the issue of the Lions killing several members of the Bears at the
Gathering. Sadly Liverpool Uni. seem to have obtained a new newsfeeder with
a tenth the performance of the previous, so sorry if I'm a few weeks behind
on this and other issues...
The argument began over the killing of a group of Exiles at the Gathering,
which was in response to the death of a Lion. However it raises the whole
question of death and killing in the Gathering game. The issue is really
about how far do we compromise our IC actions, to allow for our OOC feelings?
Do you kill someone's character when your character would, when you as a
player know that will ruin that person's weekend...
Inevitably in LRP we are faced with times when there are things we ought
to do according to our characterisation, but which we as players find
difficult because of out of character considerations. Killing another
person's character is probably the ultimate example of this. Some people
take the view that to fail to stay in character is to wimp out and to
destroy the suspension of disbelief for everyone. Others feel that to bend
your interpretation of your own characters action's to justify things that
make the game more enjoyable for everyone is the better way. Of course
some people just don't give a shit whether other people enjoy the game or
not, but thats life. :)
At the Gathering these problems are in many ways compunded since a) The
Gathering attracts a great many people with very different views on how
things should run and b) No-one expects to get killed. Some of those people
killed at the Gathering and preceding events were undoubtedly extremely
upset at losing their characters. Should they have been killed? Some people
would say yes to all of them, some to no to all of them. I think the answer
is probably somewhere in between.
At the moots the Unicorns killed my character Thomas Finn, and (IMO, I've met
people who disagreed) this was definitely the right thing to do OOC. I set
the character up as a fall guy for the shit between the Bears and the Unicorns
that arose from the Rockholm incident. I knew exactly the risks I was taking
and the Unicorns must have known I knew. Furthermore the character was
virtually public enemy number 1, not to have killed him would have been
ludicrous and would have ruined the suspension of disbelief for everybody.
At the Gathering, the Bears killed Badger/Jethric of the Lions because as
a previous resident of Rockhome he was perpetually voicing dissent and
spreading bad propoganda about the Bears. He succeeded, presumably quite
deliberately in making himself a major irritation to the Bears, so they
killed him. To me this is a death that was definitely "on the borderline",
it's easy to justify killing the character, but it's equally easy to claim
that the Bears might feel Badger too unimportant to "deal" with. It could
definitely have been avoided IC, but since the player presumably set themselves
up for it, then they can't have minded too much.
The Lions responded by declaring a death sentence on any Exile they could
catch (since they thought the Exiles did it). They managed to catch a number
of Exiles all of whom were executed on the Lions Death Mat. These deaths
were in my opinon definitely out of order. To kill players who have not
really opposed you, indeed who have possibly no idea what they are even being
killed for is, IMO, on balance bad for the game, and not what the majority
of people who come to the Gathering want.
I don't wish to accuse the Lions of anything, I do think Bruce made a mistake
in approving the direct opposition of his faction to Exiles, but given the
stress of the event, it's pretty understandable. Pre-Gathering there it was
suggested by members of the Bears that at the event, our faction should
attempt to take out all high ranking pc members of opposing factions to try
and wreck their ability to fight effectively on the field on the Monday. This
would be entirely IC, indeed you could claim it's essential as part of the
Bears IC attitude that they be this ruthless. Fortunately we had some time
to think about it and we decided IC reasons not withstanding it was a bad
idea for OOC reasons and the idea was completely squashed (indeed we took
the opposite approach in the end), still we did come close to taking a
decision potentially far more unpleasant than the Lions took. There are no
saints or sinners in this matter. Furthermore the Exiles invited the attention
they received. It was them that invented the Horse and Cart technique, to
date the only other mass killing alternative to the Deathmat and it gives the
impression that they are happy to take it, since they presumably are happy
to dish it out...
In general I think killing players has quite a good effect on the game, so
long as it is kept to a minimum. Death of high ranking PCs causes turn over
in the factions, letting newer characters go places and stopping the system
from stagnating. It also causes conflict between the factions which is
essential since the game revolves around conflict. Furthermore players can
get a lot of enjoyment out of a well planned and executed assasination and
as character death is part of that game, thats fair enough. The principle
of the Gathering is conflict between the factions and assasination must be
one of the ultimate expressions of that, otherwise it becomes unrealistic.
General slaughter though is servely detrimental to the game. Apart from the
fact that it leads to bad feeling in a great many people, it contains few
of the points noted above. It doesn't cause new blood in factions because
it's the new blood you're killing, nor does it cause conflict between factions,
since it's more likely to be the expression of such conflict. I suspect as
well that there is remarkably less fun involved in rounding up players and
herding them to the Deathmat than in a meticulously planned hit. Finally such
wholesale slaughter prevents the development of characters with depth which
allows the role-playing that we all go there for in the first place. The
Unicorns killing Thomas Finn lead to a lot of players having a lot of fun, the
Exiles getting Deathmatted lead to a lot of people being very pissed off and
OOC problems on and off the battlefield.
Of course a lot of people will disagree with me, the issue of how far you
should suppress your OOC feelings and stay IC is one that has been discussed
before here. There are a great many Gathering players who feel there should
be no ritual of peace on the battlefield, there are also players who feel
the whole game is in danger of degenerating into nothing more than an enormous
game of "Killer".
The key thing is for the LT to be aware of what, overall, the players want
and to aim to provide that. I think the Ritual of Peace was originally
intended to produce roughly the compromise I've described, but with the
introduction of Deathmats and Horse and Carts, the situation is changing.
It's much easier to kill a player now than it was a year ago. If thats what
the LT intend then well and good, if it isn't then they need to make sure
they `fix' the two problems asap.
Hobbes
Steve Turnbull
In message <EGKnH...@liverpool.ac.uk>
m...@liverpool.ac.uk (Mr M.I. Pennington) wrote:
> [snippety snip snip, snip snip snippety, snippety snippety snip]
> The key thing is for the LT to be aware of what, overall, the players want
> and to aim to provide that. I think the Ritual of Peace was originally
> intended to produce roughly the compromise I've described, but with the
> introduction of Deathmats and Horse and Carts, the situation is changing.
> It's much easier to kill a player now than it was a year ago. If thats what
> the LT intend then well and good, if it isn't then they need to make sure
> they `fix' the two problems asap.
While I certainly can't comment on current policy, the original purpose
of the Ritual of Peace was to avoid a problem perceived at Spirit of
Adventure banquets: When the entire banquet was a time-in part of an
adventure the players were so worried about losing their characters
that they did not enjoy themselves.
Hence the fact that extreme measures were needed to kill a character
meant that attendees could have fun and not worry unnecessarily.
Whether this is still applicable or necessary I have no idea. It
is left as an exercise for the student to discuss ;)
--
Steve Turnbull
You are not a Human Being having a spiritual experience
You are a Spiritual Being having a human experience
-- Brian Herosian
... "The generation of random numbers is too important to be left to chance." Robert R. Coveyou Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Marcus Hill
Mr M.I. Pennington wrote a load of good stuff about killing PCs at
the Gathering, and the balancing of IC and OOC considerations when
doing so.
A thought that just occurred to me when thinking about my own well
known views on killing PCs (i.e. if you have the IC motive and
opportunity, you should not strain your characterisation too
much to avoid killing someone) is that one aspect of the Gathering
system may have created a different mindset among its players.
The aspect I'm talking about is that you almost invariably only have
one PC in the system, the only way to change PCs is to die. In all
the LRP systems I've played in other than the Gathering, each player
has many PCs, so not only do you not have all your emotional
investment in a single character, but you don't have the prospect
of "starting from scratch" if one of your characters dies, whereas
(to quote Cath/Rowan McYokel, who sparked this line of thought off
on the Dome) "It does seem that ppl who havn't LRPed in the good old
fashioned systemes before develop an unwholesome attachment to their
character..." Maybe the folk who only attend LT events do have such
an attachment, whereas those of us who are used to the occasional
character death may be mildly upset by another, but still able to
enjoy roleplaying the final moments. I dunno, it's just a thought
that popped into my mind. Comments? (Especially from those of you
who only attend LT events!)
******* LRP FAQ at http://www.upl.cs.wisc.edu/~chaos/LARP.html *******
"Come to think of it, there are already a million monkeys on a million
typewriters, and Usenet is NOTHING like Shakespeare." - Blair Houghton
Marcus.
Marcus Hill
Simon Doyle wrote:
> This aint directed at you Matt, you're the reason we all went to
> the Gathering!
More evidence of the growing cult of THE PENNINGTON...
John Scott
In article <341E76...@ma.man.ac.uk>, Marcus Hill <mar...@ma.man.ac.uk>
wrote:
> (to quote Cath/Rowan McYokel, who sparked this line of thought off
> on the Dome) "It does seem that ppl who havn't LRPed in the good old
> fashioned systemes before develop an unwholesome attachment to their
> character..."
Unwholesome is just the word for it. When a player faced with a legit
assassination attempt is allowed/encouraged to go and hide in GOD until
the money has been raised to pay off the hit, however, you have to ask how
much this unwholesome attitude is supported by the LT for certain people.
My attitude, as many of you know, is that if death (or threatened death)
is the result of your IC actions, you should take it or avoid it IC - not
winge and flange a way out of it through connections with the organisation
running an event. That's called cheating.
John
The University and I agree on a lot, but not necessarily this ...
Katie Allen
John Scott wrote:
>
> My attitude, as many of you know, is that if death (or threatened death)
> is the result of your IC actions, you should take it or avoid it IC
And let your comrades take advantage of the glorious role-playing
opportunities opened up therewith ;)
Kt
Hoz
John Scott wrote:
>
> In article <341E76...@ma.man.ac.uk>, Marcus Hill <mar...@ma.man.ac.uk>
> wrote:
>
> > (to quote Cath/Rowan McYokel, who sparked this line of thought off
> > on the Dome) "It does seem that ppl who havn't LRPed in the good old
> > fashioned systemes before develop an unwholesome attachment to their
> > character..."
>
> Unwholesome is just the word for it. When a player faced with a legit
> assassination attempt is allowed/encouraged to go and hide in GOD until
> the money has been raised to pay off the hit, however, you have to ask how
> much this unwholesome attitude is supported by the LT for certain people.
>
> winge and flange a way out of it through connections with the organisation
> running an event. That's called cheating.
>
> John
>
> --
> j.f....@brighton.ac.uk
>
> The University and I agree on a lot, but not necessarily this ...
Who are you talking about John? could you name the person if not on the
net then at least in private.
With Respect
Hoz
Simon Doyle
On Mon, 15 Sep 1997 22:51:01 GMT, m...@liverpool.ac.uk (Mr M.I.
Pennington) wrote:
<snip>
>
>General slaughter though is servely detrimental to the game. Apart from the
>fact that it leads to bad feeling in a great many people, it contains few
>of the points noted above. It doesn't cause new blood in factions because
>it's the new blood you're killing, nor does it cause conflict between factions,
>since it's more likely to be the expression of such conflict. I suspect as
>well that there is remarkably less fun involved in rounding up players and
>herding them to the Deathmat than in a meticulously planned hit. Finally such
>wholesale slaughter prevents the development of characters with depth which
>allows the role-playing that we all go there for in the first place. The
>Unicorns killing Thomas Finn lead to a lot of players having a lot of fun, the
>Exiles getting Deathmatted lead to a lot of people being very pissed off and
>OOC problems on and off the battlefield.
>
All I can say on this topic is that I brought a friend to the
Gathering. He doesn't even Table Top roleplay but was very interested
in joining us so he came to his first LRP/LT event. After completing
the Exiles linear adventure he decided to look around the market place
instead of marching straight back to camp. He was jumped but 5 Lions
and death matted. Despite getting a new character he found it very
hard to get back into the event and generally had a shit time after
that.
I had made it clear to him about the ritual of peace and how only
important plot characters are generally perm killed. Man was I wrong.
The upshot is that he will probably never come to an LT event again
which is a loss for him and a loss for LT as I feel he had a lot to
offer and, with a bit of practice, he could have made quite a good
LRPer.
Out of the 6 Exiles killed, 3 were new to the gathering and one had
been on site for only 2 hours. If things like this keep happening new
players will stop coming to LTevents and all that will be left are the
chummy chummy high IC's and what kind of game will that make! This
system needs new blood and fresh ideas so we should encourage new
players notkill them.
Si
(Gildak Ironclaw, Wamphyri Noble of the Exiles)
P.S This aint directed at you Matt, you're the reason we all went to
the Gathering! Cheers for your help and advise.
Steven J Lewis
Time to stick my head out above the parapet...
I've not discussed the Exile assassinations with Bruce/Rhino in much detail,
but knowing Bruce and the other players as I do, I can assure everyone that
we meant no OOC malice to the Exiles. We believed our good friend Badger was
killed by the Exiles (I believe in the end they were only accessories, by
virtue of their horse and cart), and so it seemed to us very reasonable to
go on our killing spree. That said, the first I knew of our success was when
I emerged from the Healers' Guild, in full Prince Bishop's uniform, to be
grabbed by one of our own men and told to get out of uniform immediately,
cos we'd killed 6 Exiles already. I was shocked/amazed. I think that we far
outperformed Bruce's expectations, I had thought we would be lucky to kill
one of them.
If anyone was upset OOC, I think I speak on behalf of all the Lions when I
say that we all apologise, and I invite any of you to join me for the
consumption of copious quantities of strong alcohol at a future event. I
personally have always believed in treating someone who has just had their
character killed as I would treat someone bereaved (for a while anyway), if
I am around I will ensure that such matters are always dealt with
sympathetically.
Stefan Louis, Grand Physician of Camelot, Master Healer to the Lions
Faction, the Peoples of Avalon, and the Prince Bishop's Men.
Steve Lewis, Manchester
Mr M.I. Pennington
In article <EGKnH...@liverpool.ac.uk>, m...@liverpool.ac.uk (Mr M.I. Pennington) writes:
Don't ask why I'm replying to my own posts, it's all Liverpool Uni's fault...
[My stuff snipped]
[John Scott's stuff inserted]
>> (to quote Cath/Rowan McYokel, who sparked this line of thought off
>> on the Dome) "It does seem that ppl who havn't LRPed in the good old
>> fashioned systemes before develop an unwholesome attachment to their
>> character..."
>Unwholesome is just the word for it. When a player faced with a legit
>assassination attempt is allowed/encouraged to go and hide in GOD until
>the money has been raised to pay off the hit, however, you have to ask how
>much this unwholesome attitude is supported by the LT for certain people.
>My attitude, as many of you know, is that if death (or threatened death)
>is the result of your IC actions, you should take it or avoid it IC - not
>winge and flange a way out of it through connections with the organisation
>running an event. That's called cheating.
Hmm, I nearly mentioned the issue about the Harts trying to kill Khaela
Moondancer in my first post and then decided not to. Not like me to wimp
out, but there you go, guess there are some punches I pull...
Should Lysandra kill Khaela Moondancer? She has every IC reason to kill her
certainly (that IC reasons exist is all that is relevant to this discussion
so I won't bore people with the trivia). Here is a classic example, where
contentiously the answer by my criteria is no. Killing the character is
quite simply not going to extend anyone's OOC enjoyment of the game, quite
the contrary in some areas. The issue remains do you bend the IC to
fit the OOC? At club level the answer is easier, because such things are
set by the style of the club. At the Gathering, with 3000 people there for
the weekend, everyone has a different opinion.
Here you have a situation where one half of the argument believes they should
run with their IC feelings and kill as IC demands. The other half (the half
about to be done in) feels differently, they feel that nobody should get
killed, and the game would be better in nobody's character ever got killed.
Such conflicting views are not a big problem until the first half develops the
IC requirement to kill the second, at which point you have potential
disaster. Personally I believe you can't simply demand that someone plays by
your set of rules, you have to compromise or risk ruining their enjoyment of
the event.
If you're not convinced by this argument, then consider this. The Harts
put a contract out on a former apprentice of a fully-loaded tome-armed
colour mage. He could have gone round with the Tome, and quite legitimately IC
blown all the appropriate people to kingdom come. He chose not to, and he
did so I suspect for OOC reasons. Partly because as an NPC he can't but
partly because to do so would quite simply not extend anyone's enjoyment
of the game.
There are four other points raised by John, the first is the issue of the LT
bending it's own rules to protect it's NPCs/DPCs whatever. It's well known
that the LT flanges things to keep certain characters that they regard as
important alive. It might not be true, bear in mind, but it's widely regarded
as so, which in some ways is more important. The basic opinion is that
you need reliable human beings with certain characteristics to play important
and influential roles, and that constantly replacing such people is difficult,
so you try to keep them alive. Balanced against this is the need to preserve
the sense of suspension of disbelief in the game, by avoiding any gross
Deus ex Machina, "i.e. Oh, I'm sorry that just didn't happen." The LT like
anyone running an LRP event places itself somewhere in between the two
opposite extremes I think, with a tendency of late to move away from the
former towards the latter (but thats just my opinion).
It's easy to argue (and I have done many times) that flange is bad, and that
Refs shouldn't do it. In an ideal world IMO, it would not happen ever. Having
said that it's hard to run an event for 3000+ people and people should expect
some compromise on the behalf of the Refs. If you've ever looked at some NPC
or other at an LRP event and thought "God he's crap, why did they pick him
to play that part." spare a thought for people who have to pick fifty odd
npcs to play the huge number of key roles required at an event like the
Gathering.
The second point is the one about an unwholesome connection to a character.
How connected to a character can we get, and at what point does it become
unwholesome? Can we accuse someone of being too attatched to their character
because they appeal to our OOC sentiments not to kill them? I'm not sure.
I'd argue it's an issue of style and attitude more than anything. Some people
want to play in a system where players `realistically' kill other players
they IC hate. I'm one of those people. Some people want to play in a system
where players bend their IC motives to avoid killing other players as far
as possible.
None of that has anything to do with being attatched to your character, and
I speak as someone who got WAY too attatched to my character. I discovered
(after he got killed :) ), just how sorry I was to lose him, and with him
everything I worked on both IC and OOC related to the character over the
last 18 months. That doesn't change my opinion about was it right to kill
the character mind you, but it did make me seriously consider giving up LRP.
To be that bothered about losing something that was just part of a game
frightened me a great deal. I was certainly bordering on having an
unwholesome connection to my character. I guess I don't really have a point
to say here, other than it happens to some people, and it's scary when it
does. So don't mock.
The third point is the issue of a "legit assasination". I guess that
John possibly means legitimate under the Stewards Guild/Gathering charter,
but much more interesting is to ask what represents a "legitimate
assasination" from an OOC perspective. When it is OK to kill someone's
character? To me the answer is simple, when your IC motives are pure as
the driven snow, when you have no OOC reason to do that person at all,
then it's a legitimate assasination. This is really just common sense,
LRP often suffers from a degree of bickering between people involved. Lets
be totally blunt we don't come together because we're all best mates, we
come together because we share a single common interest, LRP. When there
is bad blood between people, killing each others characters compounds that
bad blood and increases the risk that the OOC community that exists around
the LRP hobby falls apart. Basically it boils down to the argument that
it's a game, it just isn't worth causing real shit over it.
Over this year, I was put in a position where I was expected IC to kill
another character (I won't mention names, but folks who knew the name will
know the circumstances anyway). Unfortunately the IC reasons existed alongside
a great deal of OOC tension between me and the other player. I informed my
friends in no uncertain terms, that I was not going to have anything to do
with laying one finger on that character, no matter what my IC motivations.
It's a game. It's not worth it. Sure it's a flange, but it's a good flange.
God that was hard to say. :)
The fourth point is the allegations of cheating. Afaik Khaela Moondancer
received a warning from the Stewards Guild that she was to be assasinated
unless she paid up. At which point she told a close friend where she was
going, walked to the ritual circle and left. Which all seems to me to be
totally IC and fair and square. She could then have chosen to play another
character and gone and had fun, instead she chose to staff the rest of the
event, which she had paid for. An over-reaction by a person unwholesomely
attatched to their character possibly, but a perfectly reasonable, legal and
legitimate IC response.
Everyone has a different view of how role-playing should happen, and any
form of elitism is probably wrong. It's easy to sneer at people who don't
bother to get costume and it's easy to feel frustrated by people who are
clearly too attatched to their character. Equally it's easy to get annoyed with
people who think every item of costume should be made in perfect period
materials, to historically accurate patterns, or sneer at people who just
come for a fight and treat every character as a disposable duplicate of
the last. At the end of the day no method of role-playing is any more valid
than any other, we all aim to find a group of people who want to role-play
in a style we prefer so we can all be happy. At the Gathering with every
role-player there, that means compromise and (probably) picking and chosing
the characters you aim to spend your time with.
Hobbes
P.S. I'm guilty of a certain amount of reading between the lines in what John
says, and my apologies to him for that, especially if he wasn't accusing Lisa
of cheating in the first place, which is entirely possible. It's not pleasant
to have people interpret your words, they rarely get it right and it rarely
makes anyone happier about was written. However, I think the first three
points I make here are valid as points alone though, not simply as replies
to possible interpretations of what is written.
P.P.S. Apologies also to all concerned for getting involved in their shit.
Maybe an over reaction to not having mentioned the Khaela Moondancer example
in the first place, maybe it's just because Matt Pennington laughs in the
face of frightened angels...
Hoz
I will be going to Aftermath with some Exiles and also the Violet
Illuminations event I will have drink with any Lions there. I want to
get this IC as quick as Possible and get rid of any and all OOC shit
hanging around.
With Respect
Hoz
ha...@camdesign.co.uk
> My attitude, as many of you know, is that if death (or threatened death)
> is the result of your IC actions, you should take it or avoid it IC - not
> winge and flange a way out of it through connections with the organisation
> running an event. That's called cheating.
Damn straight. What's the point of setting glorious plots in motion if,
when you're killed before they come to fruition, there's suddenly a
flange round death? Game's only worth playing if there's a possibility of
losing.
H.
-------------------==== Posted via Deja News ====-----------------------
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Marcus Hill
THE PENNINGTON wrote:
> Everyone has a different view of how role-playing should happen, and any
> form of elitism is probably wrong. It's easy to sneer at people who don't
> bother to get costume and it's easy to feel frustrated by people who are
> clearly too attatched to their character.
I'd just like to clarify my reasoning in asking about people who
become attached to their characters. I didn't intend to sneer, and
I'm well aware that my own position on killing PCs is at least
as extreme as John's or Matt's - I agree with Matt that we should
respect other peoples' ideas of what is important in LRP. I was
merely speculating as to *why* some people end up on the extreme
that I'm on (die before bending your character) and others end
up on the other extreme (flange like a bastard rather than kill
any PC), and noting that in the (admittedly small) sample of
LRPers whom I know, and whose views on this issue and LRP habits
I also know, the latter view seems to be more common among those
who only attend LT events, and the former among those who go
to multiple PC clubs. This isn't hard and fast, and there are folk
who don't fit this generalization, but it seemed plausible to me.
In short, I'm not going to try to argue that my views are right
and others are wrong (though that is clearly true ;-)), I'm
interested in finding out *why* folk feel the way they do. It's
also an interesting dilemma to try to work out what we should do
in situations where there are people from both sides of this
issue involved. At club level, where a lot of the antagonism
is between NPCs and PCs, I've seen situations resolved by the
"Oh, s/he really loves that character, can't we flange this?"
method, but at events like the Gathering, where almost all
the tension is between PCs and you often won't know whether
a player will be upset if you flange to avoid killing their
character (I would) or if you actually kill them, the problem is
much harder.
One possible solution is to make killing people even more difficult
than it is already - but that in itself will make the event less
enjoyable for some people, part of the fun of LRP for some folk
is the perceived risk to the life of your character in some
situations, and if that risk disappears, you may as well go
around picking fights with everyone in sight (one person of that
ilk of my acquaintance refuses to go to the Gathering because, in
his opinion, the whole RoP concept makes the weekend utterly poo).
However, no matter how difficult killing a character is, if
it's possible, any sufficiently determined person will be able to
do it, so we retain our original problem. Now, as far as I'm
concerned, this means that if you put yourself at IC risk, you
should get enough IC friends to reasonably protect you. This
still means that you might be killed, and we *still* have our
original problem. So, how can we solve this equitably?
Well, I'm buggered if I know. Anyone else got any ideas?
Mr M.I. Pennington
In article <EGMJC...@liverpool.ac.uk>, m...@liverpool.ac.uk (Mr M.I. Pennington) writes:
> In article <EGKnH...@liverpool.ac.uk>, m...@liverpool.ac.uk (Mr M.I. Pennington) writes:
>
Don't ask why I'm replying to my own posts, it's all Liverpool Uni's fault...
[My stuff snipped]
[Steve Lewis's stuff inserted]
>Time to stick my head out above the parapet...
>
>I've not discussed the Exile assassinations with Bruce/Rhino in much detail,
>but knowing Bruce and the other players as I do, I can assure everyone that
>we meant no OOC malice to the Exiles. We believed our good friend Badger was
>killed by the Exiles (I believe in the end they were only accessories, by
>virtue of their horse and cart), and so it seemed to us very reasonable to
>go on our killing spree. That said, the first I knew of our success was when
>I emerged from the Healers' Guild, in full Prince Bishop's uniform, to be
>grabbed by one of our own men and told to get out of uniform immediately,
>cos we'd killed 6 Exiles already. I was shocked/amazed. I think that we far
.outperformed Bruce's expectations, I had thought we would be lucky to kill
>one of them.
>If anyone was upset OOC, I think I speak on behalf of all the Lions when I
>say that we all apologise, and I invite any of you to join me for the
>consumption of copious quantities of strong alcohol at a future event. I
>personally have always believed in treating someone who has just had their
>character killed as I would treat someone bereaved (for a while anyway), if
.I am around I will ensure that such matters are always dealt with
>sympathetically.
Bruce's mistake (_IMO_) was to permit the use of the entire faction to go
up against the Exiles, which meant a lot of people out to get them, with
the big advantage of having no npc to rein them in and free run with a
death mat. In a situation like that, people were going to get killed...
The problem with that (ignoring OOC shit for a moment) is what is the
response of the Exiles and the other Bears going to be? Well quite simply,
we should marshall our forces, gather all our allies, march down to your
camp and death mat everyone in it. EVERYONE. EVERYONE. I'll say that once
more in case you missed it. EVERYONE. Rank 10 through rank 1. The Lion's
faction declared open season on the Exiles and hence the entire Bear faction.
Sure you can argue pretty semantics that we might not have won. I think we
would simply by dint of surprise, but someone would have won and vast numbers
of people would have died.
Now maybe you think the Lions being slain to a man on Saturday afternoon would
have been good for the game. I disagree. Please bear in mind that afaik the
Exiles wanted to come down to the Lions camp and have a go. They were told
by our faction no, and IMO it was a bloody good thing they were. At which
point understandably they complained to the LT that they had their hands
tied by the Bears, and could the LT please go round and tie the Lions hands
similarly, which wisely they did. Sadly it was too late to stop some OOC
bad feeling, which the LT were a little too cautious about on the battlefield
_perhaps_.
The main point here, is that the Gathering as an event is not supposed to
be a simmering pot that waits for an explosion, at which point 20% of
attendants die in a bloodbath. Because like much of LRP it has the potential
to drift into open conflict certain checks are built into the system, the
biggest one being the npcs who run each faction are constrained IC by the
Gathering charter to avoid open conflict with each other (for OOC reasons
which I hope are clear from the above example). I think the Lions npcs
forgot their responsibilites on this occasion personally (which is pretty
understandable, the Gathering is a pretty stressful time for the pcs, let
alone the npcs).
If you're not convinced, consider this, to attack the Lions in their camp,
we need 40 marshalls, we need you to sign a disclaimer saying you don't mind
the consequent damage to any of your tents, and we need GOD to handle the
creation of 400 new characters. It's not a go-er guv. We can't do it OOC,
so you shouldn't be allowed to provoke us into doing it IC.
Hobbes
Trevor Burbridge
There's a complicating issue involved in a lot of cases of character
deaths that no-one seems to have mentioned. A lot of the killings over
the years that I've witnessed haven't been a simple case of one
character killing another completely in-game. It's often because of this
that the victims don't feel the death was justified and try to fight the
decision.
I'm not saying that these were out of character vendettas. What I mean
to illustrate is that there were other factors involved that lead to the
killing that wouldn't have been there in a completely in character game.
The most obvious example is someone who is hiding out in fear of their
life. This simply isn't practical in a game like the Renewal or
Gathering. What happens when that person needs to go to GOD or the Event
Desk to sort out stuff? What about going to the toilets or buying food?
In real life that person wouldn't leave the tent. In the game, not only
are they quite likely to be subject to attack on these excursions, but
even if they're not they are likely to be tracked to the place of
hiding.
There isn't an easy way out of this, since often costume is too tricky
to keep taking on and off - besides the organisers don't like people
wandering about out of costume. It spoils the atmosphere.
Who hasn't had to say to someone "I'm not really here - I'm somewhere
else". I know I have several times. This is just one example of how the
IC/OOC situation can get really messed up. I never go through one of
these events without some IC/OOC conflict arising. While you're trying
to sort out the OOC problem, other people are getting on with IC stuff
arising from false beliefs. The situation just keeps getting worse.
Just a few thoughts to confuse the issue even more.
Trev.
John Scott
In article <341EA4...@b29net.bt.co.uk>, Katie Allen
<ka...@b29net.bt.co.uk> wrote:
> John Scott wrote:
> >
> > My attitude, as many of you know, is that if death (or threatened death)
> > is the result of your IC actions, you should take it or avoid it IC
>
> And let your comrades take advantage of the glorious role-playing
> opportunities opened up therewith ;)
>
> Kt
Too right ... I feel I have set myself a high standard with Maroc's
death. All my character deaths now must be at the hands of supremely
powerful people, must involve a minimum of 2 beautiful women weeping over
a rapidly cooling corpse and must involve threats of war and revenge from
at least half of the factions or major power-blocs present or I'm just not
going to be happy ...
[for the humour impaired --> :-)]
John Scott
In article <EGMJC...@liverpool.ac.uk>, m...@liverpool.ac.uk (Mr M.I.
Pennington) wrote:
> >My attitude, as many of you know, is that if death (or threatened death)
> >is the result of your IC actions, you should take it or avoid it IC - not
> >winge and flange a way out of it through connections with the organisation
> >running an event. That's called cheating.
>
> Hmm, I nearly mentioned the issue about the Harts trying to kill Khaela
> Moondancer in my first post and then decided not to. Not like me to wimp
> out, but there you go, guess there are some punches I pull...
Matt wrote a lot about this - I've replied to him privately. Publically,
all I want to say on the matter is that Matt uses the term "the Harts"
indiscriminately. There is no Harts Faction policy to kill Khaela
Moondancer. There is a Faction ruling that she is not to be harmed within
Albion or by any of Albion, as was agreed at the moots.
Any plot to assassinate her was not carried out at the behest of the
Faction command in any way, and involved player characters from most of
the factions and guilds.
S.D. Swann
Death.
The Referees Decision is Final.
Faction Leader = Referee.
However, death doesn't always have to be the answer. Sometimes
better play can be brought out of a characters "potential" demise.
Witness the Wilfred DuBois Vs Arcane incident at the Gathering. Both a
player and an NPC were at risk of Character death, and the consequent
intrique, politic and double-dealings created play for a lot of people,
but both walked away from it grinning like imbeciles! GOD, to their
credit, let it run it's natural course, but if one side or the other
"bought it" as a result then so be it.
Wilfreds mistake (IC) was taking on the power of an entire Faction,
so the bottom line has to be that the FL in question has to be trusted
to manage the situation so that mass warfare doesn't break out in the
middle of a camping area. I'm sure that Rhino / Bruce had this in mind
during the incident described.
Steve Swann (Lord Magician Arcane)
FL Dragon Faction.
Steven J Lewis
Mr M.I. Pennington wrote in article ...>
>>My attitude, as many of you know, is that if death (or threatened death)
>>is the result of your IC actions, you should take it or avoid it IC - not
>>winge and flange a way out of it through connections with the organisation
>>running an event. That's called cheating.
>
The rule that I've always worked to in adventure writing is that you flange
the plot so that innocents don't die. You don't kill a PC unless that
character has done something themselves to warrant it. If they have had no
involvement in the relevant plotline, then it is a bit shitty to kill them
as part of someone else's plot.
I guess by those rules the Lions did go OTT, but maybe you could blame the
people who killed Badger, sparking off the whole train of events. A bit
shitty for the people who lose their characters, but every war involves
civilian casualties.
Steve.
Steven J Lewis
Hoz wrote in article <341F15...@netcomuk.co.uk>...>I will be going to
Aftermath with some Exiles and also the Violet
>Illuminations event I will have drink with any Lions there. I want to
>get this IC as quick as Possible and get rid of any and all OOC shit
>hanging around.
>
>With Respect
>
>Hoz
As a devoted follower of Keremar, I welcome all to join me in sniffing my
cheap lager (being a devoted follower of Keremar, I will then fall over).
Steve.
Mr M.I. Pennington
In article <EGnJo...@liverpool.ac.uk>, m...@liverpool.ac.uk (Mr M.I. Pennington) writes:
> In article <EGMJC...@liverpool.ac.uk>, m...@liverpool.ac.uk (Mr M.I. Pennington) writes:
> > In article <EGKnH...@liverpool.ac.uk>, m...@liverpool.ac.uk (Mr M.I. Pennington) writes:
> >
>
Don't ask why I'm replying to my own posts, it's all Liverpool Uni's fault...
> [My stuff snipped]
> [Marcus' stuff inserted]
>
>In short, I'm not going to try to argue that my views are right
>and others are wrong (though that is clearly true ;-)), I'm
>interested in finding out *why* folk feel the way they do. It's
>also an interesting dilemma to try to work out what we should do
>in situations where there are people from both sides of this
>issue involved. At club level, where a lot of the antagonism
>is between NPCs and PCs, I've seen situations resolved by the
>"Oh, s/he really loves that character, can't we flange this?"
>method, but at events like the Gathering, where almost all
>the tension is between PCs and you often won't know whether
>a player will be upset if you flange to avoid killing their
>character (I would) or if you actually kill them, the problem is
>much harder.
This reminds me of last years post gathering debate about whether
or not the Lions should have been flanged. Same essential argument
then, was flanging the Lions and saving their Gathering worth
irritating the rest of us with the flange? Of course Bruce went
on to turn them round into a shit-kicking faction, obviously
just to spite all us rec.gamers who voted to close them down. :)
There is a big difference IMO though between Refs flanging something
and players flanging it. Once the Refs start bending their own rules
to pick and chose who dies, you quickly lose impartiality and in
my experience player enjoyment as a whole suffers. But players being
smart enough to spot when something is good or bad for the game and
over-riding their IC instincts accordingly is a different class of
flange. (Ref flange and PC flange?). Wheres the point in staying IC
if it just causes grief OOC? In practice a great many IC decisions
are really rather arbitrary and if we want to we can come up with
a reason why our character behaves one way or the other in my exprience.
Ideally you want such moments kept to an absolute minimum of course,
whatever the lrp event style, but they don't have the same effect
that gross Ref flanges have.
>One possible solution is to make killing people even more difficult
>than it is already - but that in itself will make the event less
>enjoyable for some people, part of the fun of LRP for some folk
>is the perceived risk to the life of your character in some
>situations, and if that risk disappears, you may as well go
>around picking fights with everyone in sight (one person of that
>ilk of my acquaintance refuses to go to the Gathering because, in
>his opinion, the whole RoP concept makes the weekend utterly poo).
>However, no matter how difficult killing a character is, if
>it's possible, any sufficiently determined person will be able to
>do it, so we retain our original problem. Now, as far as I'm
>concerned, this means that if you put yourself at IC risk, you
>should get enough IC friends to reasonably protect you. This
>still means that you might be killed, and we *still* have our
>original problem. So, how can we solve this equitably?
Changing the "amount" of death would alter the balance of the problem.
Reducing the deaths would make some happier (and some unhappier), the
essential problem would still be there (the dichotomy between how the
two camps feel the game should be run), it just wouldn't come up as
often!
I'm not so sure if attatchment to a character is strongly linked to
the style of gaming you do or not. It does seem probable that in a
system where players have multiple characters they are likely to
be less attatched to an individual one I suppose. Having said that
(dons asbestos suit) I would suggest that maybe with more than one
character it is harder to really get into the role and role-play it?
My local club always enforced a rule of 1 player 1 character while
I was a player (I dropped the rule), so I can't comment on the effects
that has compared to the Gathering. I do know that in the 15 years I
spent doing TT, where I frequently played in two or three different
games at once, I never had any problem with over-attatchment to a
character (well not after I turned 15 anyway :) ). However I suspect
that it's vastly easier to get attatched to an LRP character than it
is to a TT one.
I remain committed to the principle that characters have to die
occasionally. Without the fear the failure for me, there can be no
thrill of success. Having become too attatched to a character that
I lost, hasn't made me change that opinion, but I think I have become
a little more understanding of other people's actions when their
character dies. I always swore blind that if my character died I'd
start up in a new faction, yet here I am playing another Bear...
Furthermore I accept that some people do not approach LRP in that
manner, to some, fear of failure and thrill of success has sod all
to do with the pleasures of LRP. For them character death/failure
is just somthing dreadfully crap that happens now and again but should
be avoided at all costs. One of the things that's nice about the
Gathering is that it's so large that it has room for everyone to come
and role-play the way they want to (more or less). At a club level I'd
go with the `house-rules', this is our club and this is how we do things,
but at the Gathering I think it's better to flex and compromise for the
way in which other people want to do things.
That principle is about more than just character deaths. I don't like techno
stuff in my fantasy campaigns, as a ref, the Flames of Abraham or anyone
similar would simply not be allowed to play in our local campaign. But
the Gathering is for everyone, and it would be a lesser event without
them, and without everyone else there who choses to role-play in a style
slightly different to mine.
Sorry folks, I think I've been watching too much Sesame Street again.
Hobbes
Ian Sturrock
In article <341FD4...@srd.bt.co.uk>, Trevor Burbridge
<tbur...@srd.bt.co.uk> writes
>The most obvious example is someone who is hiding out in fear of their
>life.
>
>There isn't an easy way out of this, since often costume is too tricky
>to keep taking on and off - besides the organisers don't like people
>wandering about out of costume. It spoils the atmosphere.
>
"Easiest" solution I've seen is to get everyone to bring a change of
costume & thus be able to play a different character if necessary. I've
seen it done, & done well, but it's still not *that* easy, & many
systems make it more dificult by only allowing one character at a fest,
tho' such rules can easily be ignored... Certainly if your regular
character is a human warrior & is hiding in his tent, playing a goblin
mage whenever you need to go out (or indeed get involved in the rest of
the event) should very much reduce the risk of being mistaken for the
other guy...
--
Ian
"Beauty and strength, leaping laughter and delicious languor, force and fire,
are of us." AL II.20
Ian Sturrock
In article <341FBA...@ma.man.ac.uk>, Marcus Hill
<mar...@ma.man.ac.uk> writes
<snip>
>
>Well, I'm buggered if I know. Anyone else got any ideas?
>
Yeah. Persuade people that their characters aren't all that important...
This thing about trying not to kill PCs seems to be a very modern trend,
& as other posters have pointed out is particularly noticeable at events
which permit only one character per person. In my day (skip the rest of
this paragraph to avoid hoary old LRPer nostalgia- the rest of this post
*is* relevant, I promise) we used to die several times a day & thought
nothing of it... Seriously tho' I recall when I first started playing at
Treasure Trap you expected to lose maybe 20% of the party on an
adventure *if things were going reasonably well* & there were several
notoriously difficult adventures in which more or less the entire party
died- most of the Gatehouse & some of the Hastur & Nursery adventures
were particularly deadly. You booked on such adventures knowing they
were a challenge, knowing that unless you were a VERY together party you
would probably all die. Spirit of Adventure used to be the same.
I recognize that fests are different from linears, but I don't think
they should necessarily be any the less difficult, or more merciful. OK
so your opposition is often made up of other players rather than
monsters- so what?
For me the truly wondrous thing about LRP is that I can put myself in
realistic combat situations, matching my skill against others, without
risking any more than a construct- 'my character.' It's like a real
swordfight, but without much real danger- all the adrenalin & excitement
is there. Take away the risk of losing 'Deadly Ernest' & you take away
any reason for me to draw my blade in the first place.
Those 'Exiles' who lost their first & only characters at TG & will not
LRP again- I think I'd rather they didn't (yep, I'm doing that annoying
elitist thing again)... How can anyone be so attached to a character
they only played for a day or so? Did Mel Gibson get angry with
Shakespeare for killing off his character at the end of _Hamlet_? Didn't
think so...
Character death should be a natural & important part of LRP. OK, it
helps if you die gloriously, but I've seen some great non-combat deaths
too- at Quest Celtaii '96 people were practically queuing up for us to
hang them or the STA to roll 'em up in a carpet & kick 'em to death,
just 'cos they were so bored...
--
Quartermaster Deadly Ernest
_Cutter`s Choice_
Pirate Live Role Playing in the North West & Around the Country!
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/2927/
SR Gibson
John Scott wrote:
>
> In article <341E76...@ma.man.ac.uk>, Marcus Hill <mar...@ma.man.ac.uk>
> wrote:
>
> > on the Dome) "It does seem that ppl who havn't LRPed in the good old
> > fashioned systemes before develop an unwholesome attachment to their
> > character..."
>
> Unwholesome is just the word for it. When a player faced with a legit
> assassination attempt is allowed/encouraged to go and hide in GOD until
> the money has been raised to pay off the hit, however, you have to ask how
> much this unwholesome attitude is supported by the LT for certain people.
>
> is the result of your IC actions, you should take it or avoid it IC - not
> winge and flange a way out of it through connections with the organisation
> running an event. That's called cheating.
>
My reply to that John is when OOC problems spill over int IC, then the
situation is not as black and White as it seems.
--
Steve Gibson
Lorien Trust Section Manager, In-Character section
+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+
| Work | Play |
+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+
| s...@wg.icl.co.uk | st...@mayhem.u-net.com |
+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+
Hoz
> Those 'Exiles' who lost their first & only characters at TG & will not
> LRP again- I think I'd rather they didn't (yep, I'm doing that annoying
> elitist thing again)... How can anyone be so attached to a character
> they only played for a day or so? Did Mel Gibson get angry with
> Shakespeare for killing off his character at the end of _Hamlet_? Didn't
> think so...
>
By the way it was not the Character they were attached to. It was their
first event, and as for your first event you do not expect to be killed
within two hours of being on site at your first ever Roleplaying event.
You say to yourself "why me?" You begin to question it and wonder what
is the point if you are just going to be killed because you do not know
any better. Because they do not know any better they lose interest in
Roleplaying all together. I hope this clarifies the point.
Oh yeh! your sentiments are shared by quite a few LRP'S but we will be
back and back with a vengeance.:) Thank you for the mention.
With Respect
Hoz
S/R HORROCKS
Well I just had to have my two pence worth.
I think its great that your charactor can die, it is because of this
that at the moment Im very worried about my charactor and belive that he
will not see the end of the next gathering if indead that he gets to
attend.
Dont get me wrong Im very fond of my character and will probably feel a
sence of loss when he dies, but if he dies so be it, as long as he is
killed for IC reasons then I dont mind,thats part of the game that we
all chose to be part of.
As far as I can see we have all chose to role play in a system that is
based in a feudal world were people walk round carrying weapons for
their protection.That is why I am made to take two body gaurds whenever
I leave the camp.
If you cant die then were is the risk and what is the point.
Mr M.I. Pennington
In article <34206716...@cableol.co.uk>, "S.D. Swann" <arc...@cableol.co.uk> writes:
> Death.
>
> The Referees Decision is Final.
I'll admit to hating this phrase with a passion. I hate it when a ref uses
it to me as a player, and I hate it even more when a player uses it to me
as a ref.
The problem with the phrase is it sounds so cut and dried and yet it isn't.
At what point is the Ref's decision final? Immediately? After 10 seconds
of discussion? After 1 minute of discussion? Ref's are not god, they make
mistakes like any other human being, and I'd hate to think that some poor
player wasn't going to point out my error to me because "the ref's decision
is final." Worse still is when people start to change the word Final to
right.
The reality is we all shout this phrase like it means something and it
doesn't. In different situations a ref has a varied amount of time to
make a decision (combat - about 1 second, other things usuall more), and
in that time they consider things. I fail to understand why people feel
rational discussion with a ref on an issue will not produce a better
resolution than the ref's opinion on it's own.
Of course, the ref has to make the final decision, thats what the hell
he's there for, and obviously when discussion degenerates into arguement
it's appropriate for the Ref just to call it and demand people move on.
No I'm not arguing that people should browbeat their Ref's and I'm not
arguing that players are entitled to make such decisions themselves. I
am arguing that common sense which many LRPers possess I hope, is a better
judge than some god-awful catch all phrase that sort of implies no discussion.
As a player I feel I'm entitled to point out facts that I feel the Ref
may be unaware of. As someone who ref's regularly I'd been thoroughly
pissed off if a player didn't point out something he knew about the
incident and I didn't.
The only thing worse than the above is when a Ref uses the prase "Ref's
decision is final" to avoid explaining why he took whatever decision he
did. Such people should have their tongues cut out, so that they may never
again inflict themselves on players anywhere. Ref's run the game for the
players, they're entitled to know why the hell a decision was taken.
Sorry, pet winge.
> Wilfreds mistake (IC) was taking on the power of an entire Faction,
> so the bottom line has to be that the FL in question has to be trusted
> to manage the situation so that mass warfare doesn't break out in the
> middle of a camping area. I'm sure that Rhino / Bruce had this in mind
> during the incident described.
My understanding of the incident is that Rhino approved the use of faction
resources to a project designed to kill as many Bears (Exiles) as possible. I
personally feel that such a project had an immensely high risk of leading
to direct confrontation between our two factions, i.e. mass warfare in
the middle of the camping area. Are you arguing that this could not happen
because Bruce approved it and the Ref's decision is always right? I'm
sure you're not, but it kinda reads that way. It seems to me that conflict
was very likely, so perhaps you (or Bruce) can explain what was in his mind
when he made the decision, that made him certain it would not lead to such
a result?
The LT and us have to trust the faction leaders to "get it right.", but we'd
all be morons to presume that everyone can get it right every time. EVERYBODY
makes mistakes, but life carries on, and it happens best when people admit
it and apologise. It doesn't have to come with a box of choccies, but
admitting when we make a mistake has gotta be a key thing that helps us not
make that mistake again. Please note that the fault isn't just Bruce's,
someone in the large Lions command group should have noticed this was a bad
move and pointed out to Bruce, which I can only presume they didn't. However
unfortunately for Bruce (but fortunately for the rest of us), the buck, in
the Lions, stops with him.
However maybe you're right, and this was a perfectly sensible thing to do.
I don't think so, off the scrappy evidence I have to hand. In which case
I would like to know more about why this was the right decision, because
at the moment I'm annoyed about it.
Hobbes
Simon Doyle
<singing>
Exiles gather in their masses,
Just like witches at black masses
Evil minds that plot destruction
Sorcerers of deaths construction
In the fields the bodies burning
As out war macine keeps turning
Death and hatred to mankind
Poison in their brainwashed minds.....
But really us Exiles are cuddly bunnies!!!!
Mr M.I. Pennington
In article <j.f.scott-170...@news.brighton.ac.uk>, j.f....@bton.ac.uk (John Scott) writes:
> In article <EGMJC...@liverpool.ac.uk>, m...@liverpool.ac.uk (Mr M.I.
> Pennington) wrote:
>
> Matt wrote a lot about this - I've replied to him privately. Publically,
> all I want to say on the matter is that Matt uses the term "the Harts"
> indiscriminately. There is no Harts Faction policy to kill Khaela
> Moondancer. There is a Faction ruling that she is not to be harmed within
> Albion or by any of Albion, as was agreed at the moots.
>
> Any plot to assassinate her was not carried out at the behest of the
> Faction command in any way, and involved player characters from most of
> the factions and guilds.
>
score (more than me for sure) knew who I was referring to, it was easier
to say Harts than to start trying to desrcibe who I meant. Still it was
a dumb, dumb, dumb thing to say, because it does imply the whole Harts
faction was was definitely not who I was refferring to.
Sorry.
Hobbes
Hoz
Steve could you explain a little better are you trying to say that Rhino
was right in taking the action he took, as a Faction Leader. Or are you
saying being Faction Leader gives him rights to shit on people not in
his own faction from great Heights because he has been given that right
by the LT. I would just like to remind you and all other Faction Leaders
that your are not Players at the Gathering, but are in Fact NPC. As such
you are members of the LT staff and you have to try to do your utmost to
make sure that the Players, you know the ones that pay money to play
rather than get in for nothing, have a good time. What Rhino did was
wrong and that is that.
With Respect
Hoz
Marcus Hill
It's a tough one to judge. We've even *tried* to explain the phrase
in the SoS rulebook:
"RULE 1
THE REFEREE'S DECISION IS FINAL
This is the single most important rule in the game. If the ref says
something happens, it happens. If you think that the ref has made a
mistake (i.e. has remembered a rule wrong, for instance, a spell
range or effect) AND you feel that correcting the error is more
important than keeping the flow of the game going, then point it
out ONCE. If the ref doesn't change his or her ruling, tough.
If you find a nice little loophole in the rules, tell the Rules team.
Don't try to exploit it in play, the ref will simply invoke Rule 1
and the Rules team will close the loophole. People who persistently
argue with the referee, point out insignificant mistakes or try to
rules lawyer to gain personal advantage are spoiling the game for
everyone else, and will be dealt with accordingly - up to and
including being sent off adventures. If you feel a ref has really
made a bad call, take it up with him or her after the adventure. If
you can't sort it out then, refer the problem to the Rules team."
That is, we've tried to make it clear that the *reason* for having
the phrase in the first place is because arguing with the ref
kills the suspension of disbelief, not because the ref is
necessarily infallible. If the ref makes a bad call that seriously
influences the way a situation is resolved, point out the correct
ruling. A good ref will change the ruling in such a case, or
even if the call was bad but insignificant, and someone points it
out. Of course, there's a fair amount of grey area between pointing
out a serious bad call and being nitpicky about a minor mistake
that could just as easily waited until a time out to resolve,
but that's where a group consensus has to start forming.
Mr M.I. Pennington
In article <341EA8...@netcomuk.co.uk>, Hoz <h...@netcomuk.co.uk> writes:
> John Scott wrote:
> >
> > In article <341E76...@ma.man.ac.uk>, Marcus Hill <mar...@ma.man.ac.uk>
> > wrote:
> >
There's been a number of replies to the original post now, saying "Well
I think it's ok to kill characters because...". So at the risk of repeating
myself, I'm gonna try and rephrase part of what I was originally trying
to say. A great many people feel that the real risk of character death
is an important aspect of making the LRP game challenging. They have many
reasons for that. Some DO NOT. For those that don't, character death is
something akin to real death (nothing to do wtih attatchment neccessarily),
it's pointless, unpleasant and they'd rather it didn't happen. Now we can
sit and debate the rights and wrongs of the two viewpoints, but that wasn't
what I was interested in. What I am trying to point out, is do you
compromise your style of LRP when you meet someone who plays by a different
style? Do you kill their character, knowing that they would never kill
yours? Do you kill their character because you think the risk of character
death adds to the spice of the game, knowing full well that for them it
detracts badly?
Hobbes
A.J. Whitehead
Hoz (h...@netcomuk.co.uk) wrote:
> Steve could you explain a little better are you trying to say that Rhino
> was right in taking the action he took, as a Faction Leader. Or are you
> saying being Faction Leader gives him rights to shit on people not in
> his own faction from great Heights because he has been given that right
> by the LT. I would just like to remind you and all other Faction Leaders
I don't think this is entirely fair. Lets just review what happened IC.
i) Badger/Jethric of Rockholme is vocal in his opposition to the Bear
presence in Rockholme.
ii) Bears kidnap Badger while he was a guest under an oath of Celtic
hospilty while he is on the way back from a singing contest.
iii) Badger is put in the Horse and Cart, taken outside the ritual of
peace and murdered.
iv) Lions are understandably upset and start killing exiles, whom they
mistakenly blame (with IC reasons) for the murder of Badger.
The point I am trying to reiterate, which has been made earlier, is that
this is a chain of events here, not Lions going on a random rampage. If
Faction A seizes a member of Faction B and puts them to death, Faction B
has to respond. You've criticised the Lions response, but what do you
suggest Faction B should do instead? Use strong language?
I take your point that the Bears were ready to storm the Lions camp
after the death of the six exiles, but can I just point out
that the Lions were wanting to storm the Bears camp first thing on SUnday
morning. Both factions felt pretty much the same way. I take your point
that killing six random exiles was probably not the most well-thought out
plan, but since the Bears had acted against Badger/Jethric, the response
had to be made.
I feel in this incident the mistake was that of the LT, for introducing a
character whose brief was simply to stir shit up, and was destined for a
fall, and not, as far as I can see, thinking through the consequences of
this, which the game was not quite able to cope with.
My quick thoughts anyway.
Alex
-------------------------------AphexTwin*SistersOfMercy*Bauhaus
Andy Eldy pudding and pie IUnderworld*MeatBeatManifesto*FLA
Make an album before you die IDownload*Autechre*uZiq*NIN*Lycia
-- I -------- Care -------- Because -------- You -------- Do --
SR Gibson
A.J. Whitehead wrote:
>
> Hoz (h...@netcomuk.co.uk) wrote:
>
<Snip - About Badger>
> I feel in this incident the mistake was that of the LT, for introducing a
> character whose brief was simply to stir shit up, and was destined for a
> fall, and not, as far as I can see, thinking through the consequences of
> this, which the game was not quite able to cope with.
Urm.. Just to qualify this, Badger was a PC. He like many others decided
to come from Rockholme. He got in touch with me and asked if there was
anything that he should know as a citizen of rockholme. I let him know
what was going on and what most of the town (Those who were not played
by PC's) were feeling.
He knew what he was getting into, he wanted to cause Sh*t, and had a
good time doing it. The consequence desired by the LT Plot People (Me!)
was that everyone should be talking about Rockholme. There should be
plenty of dissagreement and tension. The Gathering is nothing without
conflict!
The problems that arose were due to circumstance and other factors. The
game should be able to cope with a lot of tension (IC). Does anyone
remember the Harts/Lions split in 94? The tension was so thick you had
to cut your way into the faction camps!
Mr M.I. Pennington
Ian Sturrock <i...@newaeonbooks.demon.co.uk> wrote...
>Yeah. Persuade people that their characters aren't all that important...
>
>This thing about trying not to kill PCs seems to be a very modern trend,
>& as other posters have pointed out is particularly noticeable at events
>which permit only one character per person. In my day (skip the rest of
>this paragraph to avoid hoary old LRPer nostalgia- the rest of this post
>*is* relevant, I promise) we used to die several times a day & thought
>nothing of it... Seriously tho' I recall when I first started playing at
>Treasure Trap you expected to lose maybe 20% of the party on an
>adventure *if things were going reasonably well* & there were several
>notoriously difficult adventures in which more or less the entire party
>died- most of the Gatehouse & some of the Hastur & Nursery adventures
>were particularly deadly. You booked on such adventures knowing they
>were a challenge, knowing that unless you were a VERY together party you
>would probably all die. Spirit of Adventure used to be the same.
I wasn't around in the good old halcyonic days of yore, when men were
real men, and used gaffa instead of latex and never-mind the chaffing.
To be honest you don't make it sound all that idyllic. Perhaps you could
explain the benefits of frequent death to long term character growth then
I might be convinced. Your arguement appears to be they're used to be lots
more deaths and even though we got rid of that, I liked it so bring it
back. Please convince me that high casualty rates are good for role-playing
and campaign.
I do think agree that difficult adventures are good for a campaign, but
with some careful thought, difficult doesn't equal dangerous. In our local
club, we made a game world where good and evil were a very big deal to
the players and to the monsters. People didn't kill each other unless
they were Evil with a great big capital E. That meant players didn't kill
monsters and vice versa as a rule (of course they were exceptions). Some
linears were very dangerous, scouting Evil orc army linears for example.
Get caught = dead, but that didn't always mean they were difficult. Others
were very difficult, (lock heads with the local smart arse bad guy) but
were probably not dangerous at all. In general smart players could figure
out which linears were dangerous and/or difficult and pick and chose. All
of which is to say, things can be challenging without requiring a mortality
rate appropriate to a 1st world war offensive. Frequent death rarely
produces in depth role-playing in my experience.
>For me the truly wondrous thing about LRP is that I can put myself in
>realistic combat situations, matching my skill against others, without
>risking any more than a construct- 'my character.' It's like a real
>swordfight, but without much real danger- all the adrenalin & excitement
>is there. Take away the risk of losing 'Deadly Ernest' & you take away
>any reason for me to draw my blade in the first place.
Great, now put yourself in the following situation. You, on your own, with
your sword in the middle opposing every single player from your local club,
playing their character. You have no idea why you're there, or what they
want. You have .5 second to decide what to do, and they have all been
briefed to work as a team to kill you as quickly as possible.
Does this seem likely to evoke a mood filled with adrenalin and excitement
to you? I doubt I could even say "adrenalin and excitement" in the time
it would take those XX players to kill me.
I'm not saying, they shouldn't have been killed here (I said that elsewhere),
and I'm not saying that characters shouldn't be killed in LRP, they should.
I'm trying to get you to appreciate the experience those Exiles had of the
event, and why it wasn't laced with adrenalin and excitement for them.
>Those 'Exiles' who lost their first & only characters at TG & will not
>LRP again- I think I'd rather they didn't (yep, I'm doing that annoying
>elitist thing again)... How can anyone be so attached to a character
>they only played for a day or so? Did Mel Gibson get angry with
>Shakespeare for killing off his character at the end of _Hamlet_? Didn't
>think so...
You'd rather they didn't LRP again? Nah, that's not elitist. It's something
entirely different, only I'm not going to say what, because then I'd break
my own rules on not being rude and insulting on the internet. I find it
difficult to see how you can justify being glad that four or five people
who you have never even met will not being doing LRP again on the basis
of this one experience. I think the more people who are a part of the
LRP hobby the better, I think it benefits the hobby to have a thriving
growing community of players, with a diverse range of interests and opinions.
As for Mel Gibson not being mad with Shakespeare. How do you know, did you
ask him? Maybe he was positively frothing at the mouth. Of course most
of Bill's characters got a groovy, tragic, death, one that your average
LRP would just die to get a chance at, but not all. Personally I find the
metaphor presented by the characters of Rosencrantz and Guildenstein more
appropriate to this example, don't you?
Hobbes
Mr M.I. Pennington
Alex Whitehead wrote...
>I don't think this is entirely fair. Lets just review what happened IC.
>
>i) Badger/Jethric of Rockholme is vocal in his opposition to the Bear
>presence in Rockholme.
>
>ii) Bears kidnap Badger while he was a guest under an oath of Celtic
>hospilty while he is on the way back from a singing contest.
>
>iii) Badger is put in the Horse and Cart, taken outside the ritual of
>peace and murdered.
>
>iv) Lions are understandably upset and start killing exiles, whom they
>mistakenly blame (with IC reasons) for the murder of Badger.
>
>
>The point I am trying to reiterate, which has been made earlier, is that
>this is a chain of events here, not Lions going on a random rampage. If
>Faction A seizes a member of Faction B and puts them to death, Faction B
>has to respond. You've criticised the Lions response, but what do you
>suggest Faction B should do instead? Use strong language?
>
>I take your point that the Bears were ready to storm the Lions camp
>after the death of the six exiles, but can I just point out
>that the Lions were wanting to storm the Bears camp first thing on SUnday
>morning. Both factions felt pretty much the same way. I take your point
And it would have been just as bad if you'd done it as we had. Assasinating
one character is not the same though as deathmatting anyone you can get
your hands on. Surely you do not perceive these levels of provocation as
the same? Bumping people off is tacitly (and explicitly) approved at the
Gathering, but I don't think widespread butchery is.
>that killing six random exiles was probably not the most well-thought out
>plan, but since the Bears had acted against Badger/Jethric, the response
>had to be made.
I agree with you, that in many ways I am splitting hairs here. We provoked
you, you retaliated and raise the stakes and then we complain because we
feel we can't counter retaliate and raise the stakes even further (i.e.
we can't storm the camp and have a go). There is no cut and dried position
here, we did start this all off, and we are complaining at the why you
retaliated. I guess I am trying to say there is a fine line, and you
crossed it... :)
No harsh words would NOT have been appropriate, but you could have worked
hard to find the ringleader you thought responsible and try and assasinate
him. Instead you just picked on some handy passing targets and vented
your frustration on them. I could understand why it happened, and I don't
blame you, but I still say you made a mistake. You shouldn't have handled
it in that way, because ultimately doing so detracted from the game.
From an OOC viewpoint, we killed one pc who knew full well what he was
doing. He set himself up for this, and he knew why he was killed. I'd love
to hear that guy's opinion on this, and how he feels about the Bears killing
him... You killed as many pcs as you could get, players who weren't up for
it, and had no idea what on earth was going on, let alone why they were
killed. I think thats bad for the game.
The Exiles captured a PBM and put him on the Mat (I reffed this), and they
waited for Urien (Hoz) to kill him and give them the satisfaction they felt
they deserved after having 6 of their own killed. Hoz thought about and
refused to do it, he made them let the guy go. There were about 30 odd
Exiles there, and everyone was baying for that guys blood, but Hoz insisted.
IC, It didn't make any sense at all, and for the life of me, I didn't at the
time, understand why Hoz did it. The Exiles go on and on about being evil,
they go capture one of the guys murdering their own, and Hoz lets him go.
The key point here is that _Hoz_ let him go. I suspect that true to character
Urien might have challenged the guy to combat, and Scafloc would have just
deathmatted him there and then. He said he did it because the guy was a
decent role-player who didn't winge and moan about the fact they were gonna
kill him. In hindsight I think a big part of it frankly, was because Hoz
realise what a steaming pile of poo it would be to kill the character. I
wonder if I'd have the guts to have made that decision when surrounded by
my entire group all shouting at me to kill him?
>I feel in this incident the mistake was that of the LT, for introducing a
>character whose brief was simply to stir shit up, and was destined for a
>fall, and not, as far as I can see, thinking through the consequences of
>this, which the game was not quite able to cope with.
Well, as Steve Gibson says elsewhere, no actually it was nothing to do with
them. He asked if he could stir the shit and they said fine... I think they
probably appreciated Badger because he did stir the shit, because without
the stirrers it all settles down into a tedious homgenous peaceful boring
gunk. However the LT (_IMO_) like people to stir the shit thusfar and no
further. The limit of shit stirring they like is essentially no outright
warfare between factions before the big battle. How do they ensure that?
They put responsible, reliable, well-briefed npcs in charge of the factions,
and those people let the shit get stirred so far, and when it reaches
critical point they stop it going further. Bruce should have ordered the Lions
to find the person responsible and kill him, he should also have ordered
you not to start open warfare with the Bears. I think he made a mistake.
Hobbes
Steven J Lewis
Hoz wrote in article <3421C8...@netcomuk.co.uk>...>
> could you explain a little better are you trying to say that Rhino
>was right in taking the action he took, as a Faction Leader. Or are you
>saying being Faction Leader gives him rights to shit on people not in
>his own faction from great Heights because he has been given that right
>by the LT. I would just like to remind you and all other Faction Leaders
>that your are not Players at the Gathering, but are in Fact NPC. As such
>you are members of the LT staff and you have to try to do your utmost to
>make sure that the Players, you know the ones that pay money to play
>rather than get in for nothing, have a good time. What Rhino did was
>wrong and that is that.
>
>With Respect
>
>Hoz
IC I believe that Rhino's decision was reasonable for Lord General Rhino to
take, given event over the last few months, and the way that Bruce has been
playing Rhino.
OOC and with hindsight, I think we all agree it was a mistake.
We have all learnt a lot from this about balancing IC anger against OOC
player enjoyment.
Steve Lewis / Stefan Louis
Lions Master Healer
Mr M.I. Pennington
In article <34225A...@ma.man.ac.uk>, Marcus Hill <mar...@ma.man.ac.uk> writes:
> Mr M.I. Pennington wrote:
> >
> "RULE 1
>
> THE REFEREE'S DECISION IS FINAL
>
> This is the single most important rule in the game. If the ref says
> something happens, it happens. If you think that the ref has made a
> mistake (i.e. has remembered a rule wrong, for instance, a spell
> range or effect) AND you feel that correcting the error is more
> important than keeping the flow of the game going, then point it
> out ONCE. If the ref doesn't change his or her ruling, tough.
> If you find a nice little loophole in the rules, tell the Rules team.
> Don't try to exploit it in play, the ref will simply invoke Rule 1
> and the Rules team will close the loophole. People who persistently
> argue with the referee, point out insignificant mistakes or try to
> rules lawyer to gain personal advantage are spoiling the game for
> everyone else, and will be dealt with accordingly - up to and
> including being sent off adventures. If you feel a ref has really
> made a bad call, take it up with him or her after the adventure. If
> you can't sort it out then, refer the problem to the Rules team."
>
Cool, I like this! I think we should all memorise this paragraph and
shout that instead next time. :)
Hobbes
Catherine
S/R HORROCKS <twigletzone...@twigletzone.demon.co.uk> wrote:
<snip some good stuff>
>As far as I can see we have all chose to role play in a system that is
>based in a feudal world were people walk round carrying weapons for
>their protection.That is why I am made to take two body gaurds whenever
>I leave the camp.
However, it is possible to walk around totally weaponless and *still*
not get attacked. The last time my character used a weapon was at G96
to frighten a would-be mugger (they since became friends!). Some of my
characters have managed to be in the middle of some really hairy
situations without a weapon of any kind and come out unscathed (hmm,
possibly good luck?). My point? That weapons are not always necessary.
Most folk will not attack a random blib-blob anyway, as 'most' of the
weapons are for show.
>If you cant die then were is the risk and what is the point.
There is more to the game than pure hack-and-slash. A lot of people
are more interested in political and guild goings-on. There is
surprisingly a lot of excitement with these seemingly 'tame' options.
IMO it is horses for courses. If you like the thrill of the
possibility of dying and get it then well done. But if not, there are
other alternatives.
Most of all, enjoy your LRPing. Enjoy the thrills and spills. Don't be
surprised at a death of a character if you know that it was a
possibility. And if you don't like what you are doing then change it.
A character can develop and change just like any human can.
Whew! Ok, I'll hand my pennies over to the PO now ;)
Happy LRPing!
Catherine
)O( Cath...@talisman.airtime.co.uk
or Spar...@hotmail.com
Seasoned LRPer, hopeful V:TM player/GM and consumer of fine home brew mead.
S.D. Swann
>
I agree with my learned colleague.
When a player steps into a situation it's part of the job of the referee
and plot teams to make the
player aware of the potential consequences, preferably in an in
character manner.
The other functions of a referee are well worth considering. In the
main you have to be prepared
to trust your referees to step into a situation and make a judgement
call and then step out again,
This, of course, should occour only when there is no choice, except for
a referee to be involved,
or where a referee is called for by the players involved. The rest of
the time, it's better if the
referee keeps as low a profile as possible and the players are trusted
to make their own calls.
A referees job is to maintain the flow of the game, and to maximise the
"suspension of disbelief"
(another stomach-churning phrase! grin!) by constantly making rule calls
and debating decisions
at the time, destroy that flow and suspension, and can seriously damage
the feel of any event.
In tabletop games it is often a maxim that, to maintain the flow and
pace of play, any debates over
rulings of any kind, are kept until the game has ended and then debated
in a civilised manner. I
personally feel that this is what we are currently discussing, so
perhaps I should instead be asking
the question, "how could the situation have been better handled" rather
than just getting involved in
a mud-slinging contest.
And perhaps it would be better to say that the referees decision is open
to discussion after an
event is over.
Flame on!
Steve Swann
Dragon FL
Mr M.I. Pennington
Steve Swann wrote....
I agree with what you're saying that no-one wants the game interrupted
with constant rules discussions. Frankly the Earthworks rules are pretty
bloody simply, and by and large they don't need a lot of reffing. I think
I probably took umbrage with the original phrase because I have seen some
people (both players and refs) abuse it (outside the Gathering). Certainly
the most appropriate time for a rules discussion is after the event, but
that is exactly what we are doing here isn't it? :)
However, I think we're missing an important part of the discussion here, at
least in reference to the Lions production line death mat. That is
Faction Leader = Lorien Trust NON Player Character
^^^
I think Bruce made a mistake in attacking the Bears not in his capacity as
a Ref, but in his capacity as an LT NPC. There are no rule issues about what
he did, that much is cut and dried. People have mentioned that what he did
was IC as Rhino, and I agree with them, from what I've seen it was an entirely
appropriate response for Rhino. However Bruce is not a pc, he is an npc and
that is a COMPLETELY different thing. He has exactly as much in character
response as plot, logistics and OOC responsibility allow him to have and no
more. It's poo when npcs have to bend their in character responses for OOC
reasons, but that is why there are npcs. If they didn't have to do that,
they wouldn't need to be npcs, would they? PCs are allowed to do whatever they
feel their character would do. This thread started by me asking how far
should pcs go in bending their IC responses to suit OOC pressures. NPCs have
no character, they are a device to move the game forwards in the right
direction, and their IC attitude should be subordianted completely to what
is required OOC. I think Bruce either forgot that, or more likely didn't
realise that what he was doing was OOC bad for the game.
You ask what would have been a better alternative? Here's my suggest, the
Lions come baying to Rhino for Exile blood after Badger gets killed. They
want to find them and kill them. Bruce works out what needs to happen OOC
and tailors an IC response to suit. I'd recomend playing on the Honourable
thing, which the Lions have been pushing all year. It's not honourable to
lynch people, blah, blah, blah, need to get ringleaders, blah, blah, blah,
find people actually responsible and punish them accordingly, blah, blah,
blah. There are other IC points I could make, but I'm not going to, because
to do so would leak forthcoming plot, so I'll just shut up at this point.
I think my point is made, Bruce controls Rhino in the best interests of
the game, thats why he's an npc. He could and should have pushed it a
different way.
I have to tell a quick anecdote at this point, about the time I ran a game
at our local club. The evening event (and long term plot development) called
for the most honourable paladin of the god of all really honourable knightly
nice guy virtues to turn up and claim this holy relic from the players. I
picked a guy to play the role and gave him an A4 page of typed brief which
he read. It basically boiled down to the fact that he was young, naive and
so sickeningly good, that even his own god thought he had his head in the
clouds. The character wasn't supposed to know the meaning of the word lie.
This was important for the long term plot development. Trust me.
The guy read the brief and went into the game and from that point on I lost
control, and had to trust him to play the role. Which was a pity because I
later discovered he had an intriguing interpretation of the role which
involved lying to every player in the room, concealing his identity, acting
in a pantomime furtive manner, drinking potions of anti-venom which he
hadn't been given because they didn't exist, and trying to bribe players
and npcs. It should have been a walk on, walk off role, but since he
confused the hell out of the players (who knew what to expect), it lasted
for some time. I canned the whole plot-line after that performance. What's
the point of the story? My point is that how-ever valid an interpretation of
the npc actions you may think you have, at the end of the day it all turns
to shit if the game isn't run by the person who is supposed to be running it.
Too many cooks spoil the broth. NPCs should do what the person running the
game tells them to. Here endeth the sermon.
I don't think I'm mudslinging here, I have a great deal of respect for Bruce
and I honestly think he's done a fantastic job with the Lions over the last
year, but if we go on about that, we'll just embarass him. So instead I'm
picking on what I feel was the first mistake he's made.
Hobbes
rasputin
some follow up comments about the thread
Character Death
I have never liked the idea of a ritual of peace because it encourages
people to attack anything on sight and not worry about the
consequences..IMHO
this year at the renewal there was NO ritual of peace and consequently
people wandered about the camp worrying whether to mug someone
in fact one pair of would be muggers were overheard in the following
conversation
Mugger 1:
Lets get him he looks like he has some money
Mugger 2:
No, he looks hard we might get killed
what's important to realize is that without a ritual of peace more
players were encouraged to think of their characters as vulnerable
people and worry about what would happen to them,, when its an
attitude of 'Oh not to worry if I die I'll get up in 10 mins anyway '
it detracts from the role playing.
Now I'm not saying that the gathering should adopt this policy
at their main event (could you imagine the nightmare at the event tent
if 200 people turned up at once for new character cards) but at the
moots and other events where previously ritual of peace have been
setup if could be a benefit to the general game in all..
just my 2 penny worth
//////If you play with matches expect to get burned\\\\\\
{##################################################}
\\\\\\unless theres a witch then burn her instead //////
Hoz
> > was right in taking the action he took, as a Faction Leader. Or are you
> > saying being Faction Leader gives him rights to shit on people not in
> > his own faction from great Heights because he has been given that right
> > by the LT. I would just like to remind you and all other Faction Leaders
>
>
> i) Badger/Jethric of Rockholme is vocal in his opposition to the Bear
> presence in Rockholme.
Who was he I did not know him or ever heard of him he was of no
importance us as the Exiles.
>
> ii) Bears kidnap Badger while he was a guest under an oath of Celtic
> hospilty while he is on the way back from a singing contest.
The Bears Kidnapped him NOT the Exiles( WE are Bears but not the
Kidnappers in this instance).
>
> iii) Badger is put in the Horse and Cart, taken outside the ritual of
> peace and murdered.
Again nothing to do with us they want to borrow it they can, in the same
way any Bear could ask to use items from another Bear.
>
> iv) Lions are understandably upset and start killing exiles, whom they
> mistakenly blame (with IC reasons) for the murder of Badger.
Is that the reason or was it the prejudices of your command group
against a group of players who were with you last year and who are not
to your liking anymore as the Lions. If your intention is to prove that
a faction i.e. The Lions are really hard and can Exiles because we as
Exiles are the largest group you could kill them it is not suprising. As
a Faction you have resources at your disposal that no group, no matter
how large, cannot have such as FSP. You have not won yourselves any
honour in the Eyes of the Exiles and I think most of the Gathering
world.
>
> The point I am trying to reiterate, which has been made earlier, is that
> this is a chain of events here, not Lions going on a random rampage. If
> Faction A seizes a member of Faction B and puts them to death, Faction B
> has to respond. You've criticised the Lions response, but what do you
> suggest Faction B should do instead? Use strong language?
The Lions did go on a rampage instead of going about it the right way.
If you had found out what had actually happened and been just a little
less eager in your willingness to Kill Exiles then none of this would
have happened. I recommend you take out the people Responsible or take
out the command group of the Exiles if you have a gripe with us not just
the random players who do not know any better.
>
> I take your point that the Bears were ready to storm the Lions camp
> after the death of the six exiles, but can I just point out
> that the Lions were wanting to storm the Bears camp first thing on SUnday
> morning. Both factions felt pretty much the same way. I take your point
> that killing six random exiles was probably not the most well-thought out
> plan, but since the Bears had acted against Badger/Jethric, the response
> had to be made.
It was not really much of a plan, your right there.
>
> I feel in this incident the mistake was that of the LT, for introducing a
> character whose brief was simply to stir shit up, and was destined for a
> fall, and not, as far as I can see, thinking through the consequences of
> this, which the game was not quite able to cope with.
The LT did not introduce him he introduced himself and came to the end
he chose with the actions he had taken.
( none of this is directed at you Alex but at your Command Structure)
With Respect
Hoz
Ian Sturrock
In article <EGs49...@liverpool.ac.uk>, "Mr M.I. Pennington"
<m...@liverpool.ac.uk> writes
>
>I wasn't around in the good old halcyonic days of yore, when men were
>real men, and used gaffa instead of latex and never-mind the chaffing.
Huh? I find modern LRP weapons hurt a lot more than the old ones used
to... I still prefer latex 'cos it looks so much better, but the TT
swords (that looked like cricket bats) had an inch of padding whereas
modern ones often have less than half that.
>Perhaps you could
>explain the benefits of frequent death to long term character growth then
>I might be convinced.
It's a tricky point. And it depends on the style of adventures you
prefer. The folks I adventured with at SOA, for instance, were mostly
into well-defined but quirky characters & sometimes our combat suffered-
ten individuals on a linear are not going to work as well as a ten-
person team, trained to fight as a team. My point about hard adventures
is that they force you to work together & to work hard. Once you've got
the hang of them you can cut down the fatality rate a bit...
Having said that, such adventures are less common these days as I
recognized in my previous post. Linears I go on or run might have 5-10%
fatality *on average* although deaths should generally only occur when
the party cocks up. Fests are different again. They're dangerous places
though & if you walk about by yourself you know that's a risk in itself.
Not a major risk, but a risk nontheless.
>
>Great, now put yourself in the following situation. You, on your own, with
>your sword in the middle opposing every single player from your local club,
>playing their character. You have no idea why you're there, or what they
>want. You have .5 second to decide what to do, and they have all been
>briefed to work as a team to kill you as quickly as possible.
>
I can't really imagine getting myself into such a situation- I'm
unlikely to let a load of heavily armed strangers surround me, & one
great side-effect of adrenalin is that you can run really fast, even if
it's only your character who is in danger...
>Does this seem likely to evoke a mood filled with adrenalin and excitement
>to you?
Yeah, for all that half second...
>I'm not saying, they shouldn't have been killed here (I said that elsewhere),
Well I wasn't there but from what I've read I can't see a *particularly*
good IC reason for them to have been killed either- I would have thought
that ransoming them (whether for cash, information, whatever) would have
been more sensible. I don't particularly like the artificial situation
that brings "deathmats" & causes you to be unable to fully get
revenge... Feuds, preferably to the death, should be a part of LRP IMHO-
even if they involve a group killing folks just 'cos they belong to a
different group. They should start small & eventually escalate to the
group-destroying stage... They shouldn't happen too often- but they're a
natural part of the process of having different faction- someone offends
someone else & eventually others are drawn in to the conflict...
>
>You'd rather they didn't LRP again? Nah, that's not elitist. It's something
>entirely different, only I'm not going to say what, because then I'd break
>my own rules on not being rude and insulting on the internet.
Oh, email me your response then, rather than making veiled references to
what it *would* have been... I'm sure I'll cope.
> I think the more people who are a part of the
>LRP hobby the better,
I don't.
> I think it benefits the hobby to have a thriving
>growing community of players, with a diverse range of interests and opinions.
>
I agree with that bit. I'm not going to agree with the first part
because their are plenty of people I'd prefer not to LRP with 'cos I
don't think they add anything to the hobby.
>As for Mel Gibson not being mad with Shakespeare. How do you know, did you
>ask him? Maybe he was positively frothing at the mouth. Of course most
>of Bill's characters got a groovy, tragic, death, one that your average
>LRP would just die to get a chance at, but not all. Personally I find the
>metaphor presented by the characters of Rosencrantz and Guildenstein more
>appropriate to this example, don't you?
>
Probably. To me that just supports my argument tho'. Whilst everyone
would love to be the hero of the story, at a fest there are so many
would be heroes that most of us end up as lackeys or grunts. Sometimes
IC death is trivial in the wider scheme of things. A senseless waste no
doubt. It sounds as if the deaths of those Exiles at least had some
repercussions tho'- we're still talking about it now..;)
--
Deadly Ernest
"I am a free prince, and I have as much authority to make war on the whole world
as he who has a hundred sail of ships at sea, and an army of 100,000 men in the
field, and thus my conscience tells me."
(Captain Bellamy. A Pirate.)
MD Horrill
rasputin (mi...@witsend.u-net.com) wrote:
: what's important to realize is that without a ritual of peace more
: players were encouraged to think of their characters as vulnerable
: people and worry about what would happen to them,, when its an
: attitude of 'Oh not to worry if I die I'll get up in 10 mins anyway '
: it detracts from the role playing.
There is a whole slew of arguments both for and against the ritual of
peace and personally I feel that ground has been gone over before. At the
end of the day the ritual of peace is a nescessity to prevent the
possibility of things turning into a bloodbath. Admittedly this is very
rare at events but I have run things in the past where 1 in 3 have died, at
The Gathering that would mean re-processing 1000 people. The system won't, and
can't be expected to be able to cope with that sort of pressure.
: Now I'm not saying that the gathering should adopt this policy
: at their main event (could you imagine the nightmare at the event tent
: if 200 people turned up at once for new character cards) but at the
: moots and other events where previously ritual of peace have been
: setup if could be a benefit to the general game in all..
Generally there isn't a Ritual of Peace at smaller events. There is at the
Moots and Gathering, for logistical reasons if nothing else but other than
that I can only think of one event that had a ritual of peace at all and that
was exceedinly limited in what it covered (the area with the campfire and
a few IC tents).
/>>=-
/< Mike Horrill
*[=========((*))||>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>=-
\< M.D.H...@bath.ac.uk
\>>=- http://www.netlrp.uk.com/larp/aldebaran
baZ
(Disclaimer - when I say 'we' in this mail I mean the Lions as I
interpreted their actions and beliefs. I do not speak for the command
team or any other Lions.)
I remember when Hoz wrote :
} A.J. Whitehead wrote:
} >
} > Hoz (h...@netcomuk.co.uk) wrote:
} >
} > > Steve could you explain a little better are you trying to say that Rhino
} > > was right in taking the action he took, as a Faction Leader. Or are you
} > > saying being Faction Leader gives him rights to shit on people not in
} > > his own faction from great Heights because he has been given that right
} > > by the LT. I would just like to remind you and all other Faction Leaders
} >
} > I don't think this is entirely fair. Lets just review what happened IC.
} >
} > i) Badger/Jethric of Rockholme is vocal in his opposition to the Bear
} > presence in Rockholme.
} Who was he I did not know him or ever heard of him he was of no
} importance us as the Exiles.
He was the guy with the home counties accent who started getting all vocal
at the singing contest after the bears sang that song about eating
Rockholm babies.
(Re: That song -
IC: Rant! Rave! Bears are barbarians, no honour, scum, no better than
animals! grr! Yada yada yada.
OOC: ROFL! I had trouble not laughing at that one, well done.)
} > ii) Bears kidnap Badger while he was a guest under an oath of Celtic
} > hospilty while he is on the way back from a singing contest.
} The Bears Kidnapped him NOT the Exiles( WE are Bears but not the
} Kidnappers in this instance).
We have, of course, since discovered, OOC, that the Exiles had little or
nowt to do with the killing of Badger. However, this was discovered after
the event was over, and entirely OOC. IC, (and speaking for myself, I
don't know what the command team has since found out) I have no reason to
believe that it was _not_ the Exiles.
} > iv) Lions are understandably upset and start killing exiles, whom they
} > mistakenly blame (with IC reasons) for the murder of Badger.
} Is that the reason or was it the prejudices of your command group
} against a group of players who were with you last year and who are not
} to your liking anymore as the Lions.
No, that is the reason. We recieved IC information that led us (the
Lions) to believe that the exiles were responsible. Rhino (IC) got *ahem*
a tad peeved and (IC) told us to go hit Exiles.
} If your intention is to prove that
} a faction i.e. The Lions are really hard and can Exiles
No, our intention was to settle IC scores.
} > The point I am trying to reiterate, which has been made earlier, is that
} > this is a chain of events here, not Lions going on a random rampage. If
} > Faction A seizes a member of Faction B and puts them to death, Faction B
} > has to respond. You've criticised the Lions response, but what do you
} > suggest Faction B should do instead? Use strong language?
} The Lions did go on a rampage instead of going about it the right way.
} If you had found out what had actually happened and been just a little
} less eager in your willingness to Kill Exiles then none of this would
} have happened. I recommend you take out the people Responsible or take
} out the command group of the Exiles if you have a gripe with us not just
} the random players who do not know any better.
At the end of the day what happenned happenned. OOC, and looking back on
the events, and seeing the OOC feelings it caused, yes, I think that maybe
it was a bad call. Nothing more than that, a bad call. No OOC bad
feeling was intended towards the Exiles, the Bears, or anyone else. It
was just a bad call.
Cheers,
baZ .-.
Ian Sturrock
In article <3423efb...@news.airtime.co.uk>, Catherine <Catherine@ta
>However, it is possible to walk around totally weaponless and *still*
>not get attacked.
Indeed. When the Gathering battles got too unwieldy (IMHO...) the FBA
mostly turned up on the battlefield unarmed & unattached to either
side... One year we played innocent picnickers caught up in the middle
of the battle, the next we were mostly being Official Looters
(astounding how many heavily armed warriors will get out of the way if
you yell "Excuse Me! Innocent Man Coming Through!"). It was hilarious
seeing Elrad elbowing healers out of the way to get to the fallen & rob
them...
One year the only injury anyone had was a stray arrow in the arm, the
next Cap'n Brennan got a really nasty cut off a bit of grass...
--
Deadly Ernest
(speaking of law-abiding citizens) "who will submit to be governed by laws which
rich men have made for their own security, for the cowardly whelps have not the
courage otherwise to defend what they got by their knavery."
Captain Bellamy. A Pirate. From Defoe's _General History of the Pirates_
MD Horrill
Catherine (Cath...@talisman.airtime.co.uk) wrote:
: S/R HORROCKS <twigletzone...@twigletzone.demon.co.uk> wrote:
: >As far as I can see we have all chose to role play in a system that is
: >based in a feudal world were people walk round carrying weapons for
: >their protection.That is why I am made to take two body gaurds whenever
: >I leave the camp.
: However, it is possible to walk around totally weaponless and *still*
: not get attacked. The last time my character used a weapon was at G96
: to frighten a would-be mugger (they since became friends!). Some of my
: characters have managed to be in the middle of some really hairy
: situations without a weapon of any kind and come out unscathed (hmm,
: possibly good luck?).
These two posts actually bring up a few interesting points.
Think of two people, lets call them A and B as I seriously lacking in
creativity this morning.
A wanders around at The Gathering without a care in the world and no more
protection than the clothes s/he stands in, leaves the faction for a couple
of hours, goes down to The Guilds, finds a bit of plot there and spends
a couple of hours negotiating a deal between the guild and another
faction, has a look round the traders, meets a couple of friends they
haven't seen since last year then goes back to the faction camp of a bit
of lunch.
B also has to go out of the faction camp to go down to the guilds but decides
to arm and armour himself up to the eyeballs and takes 2 bodyguards with him.
He goes down to the guilds, does his pompous and important bit, doesn't
find the plot as a result and then goes back to the faction missing out
the traders and the mates he hasn't seen since last year because he's
being important.
The question is which one of these two is the most likely to get jumped
and killed?
My personal feeling is that it is person B. Why? Because they have set
themself up as a target. Person A is unlikely to have and trouble as
although they are doing some plot negotiations they can quiet easily melt
into the background as "just another blib-blob player" whereas by taking
bodyguards and the like you single yourself out as a target.
As a real example compare Lady Tarragon and Corvus (Possibly a bad couple
to name in the same sentance I know). Now lets assume they need to go to
the loo (not unreasonable at a 4 day event). Corvus forms up his guard,
heads off in the centre of an armoured porcupine, has endless trouble from
The Bears and others etc etc etc. Meanwhile Lady T was grabbed one of the
Krays, has been and come back before anyone noticed she had ever gone.
Okay, so it might be a rather flippant example but I hope it makes the point
that armour and guards is not always the best form of defence, looking
like an innocent blib-blob can be just as effective and allows you to move
around much more freely.
On a personal level I hate having bodyguards, I feel cramped and restricted,
can't relax and find everything takes twice as long as it would otherwise,
I much prefer the blib-blob approach.
The problem comes when yuo have got used to the blib-blob approach but get
to a position where its no longer possible for one reason or another (such
as faction command group status). Then you get the problem of important
people from your faction, who really do need protection walking around
without any.....
Sorry this is all rather inarticulate, its is monday morning and I think
there is a point in there somewhere.
Chris Wheeler
In article <EGs63...@liverpool.ac.uk>, "Mr M.I. Pennington"
<m...@liverpool.ac.uk> writes
>The Exiles captured a PBM and put him on the Mat (I reffed this), and they
>waited for Urien (Hoz) to kill him and give them the satisfaction they felt
>they deserved after having 6 of their own killed. Hoz thought about and
>refused to do it, he made them let the guy go. There were about 30 odd
>Exiles there, and everyone was baying for that guys blood, but Hoz insisted.
>IC, It didn't make any sense at all, and for the life of me, I didn't at the
>time, understand why Hoz did it. The Exiles go on and on about being evil,
>they go capture one of the guys murdering their own, and Hoz lets him go.
>
>The key point here is that _Hoz_ let him go. I suspect that true to character
>Urien might have challenged the guy to combat, and Scafloc would have just
>deathmatted him there and then. He said he did it because the guy was a
>decent role-player who didn't winge and moan about the fact they were gonna
>kill him. In hindsight I think a big part of it frankly, was because Hoz
>realise what a steaming pile of poo it would be to kill the character. I
>wonder if I'd have the guts to have made that decision when surrounded by
>my entire group all shouting at me to kill him?
My only thought's, when I heard that Blackblade (Leader of the PB's Men
a couple of years back) had been captured, was that he'd only got what
he deserved.
Before he left the camp, on his own, with eye-catching, definitely PB's
Man, armour on, I told him all that had happened, and that he WOULD be
captured and probably killed if he went out like that.
He went.
Admittedly, it would have been a slightly unfortunate act. He was one of
those who called for less extreme measures against the Exiles. [Yes, I
know it wasn't them]
Sergeant Major Kyot,
Prince Bishops Men,
Lions of Avalon
Hoz
Chris Wheeler wrote:
>
> In article <EGs63...@liverpool.ac.uk>, "Mr M.I. Pennington"
> <m...@liverpool.ac.uk> writes
> >waited for Urien (Hoz) to kill him and give them the satisfaction they felt
> >they deserved after having 6 of their own killed. Hoz thought about and
> >refused to do it, he made them let the guy go. There were about 30 odd
> >Exiles there, and everyone was baying for that guys blood, but Hoz insisted.
> >IC, It didn't make any sense at all, and for the life of me, I didn't at the
> >time, understand why Hoz did it. The Exiles go on and on about being evil,
> >they go capture one of the guys murdering their own, and Hoz lets him go.
> >
> >The key point here is that _Hoz_ let him go. I suspect that true to character
> >Urien might have challenged the guy to combat, and Scafloc would have just
> >deathmatted him there and then. He said he did it because the guy was a
> >decent role-player who didn't winge and moan about the fact they were gonna
> >kill him. In hindsight I think a big part of it frankly, was because Hoz
> >realise what a steaming pile of poo it would be to kill the character. I
> >wonder if I'd have the guts to have made that decision when surrounded by
> >my entire group all shouting at me to kill him?
>
> a couple of years back) had been captured, was that he'd only got what
> he deserved.
>
> Before he left the camp, on his own, with eye-catching, definitely PB's
> Man, armour on, I told him all that had happened, and that he WOULD be
> captured and probably killed if he went out like that.
>
> He went.
>
> Admittedly, it would have been a slightly unfortunate act. He was one of
> those who called for less extreme measures against the Exiles. [Yes, I
> know it wasn't them]
What was the name of the Character we did not kill when we had on the
Death Mat? It wouldbe nice to know his name.
Urien Captain Of The Guard
Chris Wheeler
In article <342721...@netcomuk.co.uk>, Hoz <h...@netcomuk.co.uk>
writes
>What was the name of the Character we did not kill when we had on the
>Death Mat? It wouldbe nice to know his name.
>
Blackblade.
Guy Incognito
m...@liverpool.ac.uk (Mr M.I. Pennington) wrote:
<Some stuff snipped>
Just thought that I'd pipe up.
I remember the good old days back in September 1996 when cries and
howls of "Flange!!!" from Mr. Pennington and several others when OOC
player enjoyment was placed by the L.T. ahead of role-playing
considerations. I'll explain what I mean:
Remember the Harts/Lions battle? In one corner of the ring were the
advocates of disbanding the Lions after they lost thus leading to lots
of first timers and other players finding they no longer have a
faction, and a lot of the other senior players finding that all their
hard work was for nothing, probably causing as much if not more
unhappiness than six players being offed.
So, _Then_ we had those advocating OOC enjoyment (the L.T. and others)
against those who wanted the Lions disbanding (role-playing continuity
army).
_Now_ we have those advocating OOC enjoyment (role-playing continuity
army) against a decision made by the Lions (their faction leader is an
L.T. member of staff) in offing some newbies and spoiling their fun.
Oh how the Anti-flangers and OOC enjoyment advocates have swapped
hats....
I just thought that I'd point out the wonderful irony of it.
Guy.
---------------------------
Guy Incognito
"When I am king you will
be first against the wall."
GSM Voice: 44 (0)468 202452
---------------------------
A.J. Whitehead
Distribution:
Hoz (h...@netcomuk.co.uk) wrote:
> > iv) Lions are understandably upset and start killing exiles, whom they
> > mistakenly blame (with IC reasons) for the murder of Badger.
> Is that the reason or was it the prejudices of your command group
> against a group of players who were with you last year and who are not
> to your liking anymore as the Lions. If your intention is to prove that
> a faction i.e. The Lions are really hard and can Exiles because we as
> Exiles are the largest group you could kill them it is not suprising. As
> a Faction you have resources at your disposal that no group, no matter
> how large, cannot have such as FSP. You have not won yourselves any
> honour in the Eyes of the Exiles and I think most of the Gathering
> world.
No, its nothing to do with any ideas about trying to prove ourselves a sa
faction. There was IC information and reasons for Lions to believe this.
I can email you about some it, but its IC really so I can't go into any
detail. Obviously. Crumbs this is a difficult one. :)
> The Lions did go on a rampage instead of going about it the right way.
> If you had found out what had actually happened and been just a little
To be honest a rampage was an I-C thing to do. Not for me perhaps, but
for a lot of Lions it was. Not that this makes it right in the Game of
course. I don't have a solution to this.
> The LT did not introduce him he introduced himself and came to the end
> he chose with the actions he had taken.
Ah well, my mistake. He said 'Steve Gibson told me to stir some shit up'
to me, and I evidently took him a bit to seriously. Apologies.
> ( none of this is directed at you Alex but at your Command Structure)
I know, its cool. I'm just think people are jumping on Bruce a bit too
much. Thats all.
Stuff and Gooviness,
Clare Yeowart
MD Horrill wrote:
<snip>
<snipped descriptions of A the Sneaky and B the Obvious>
>
>The question is which one of these two is the most likely to get jumped
>and killed?
>
>My personal feeling is that it is person B. Why? Because they have set
>themself up as a target. Person A is unlikely to have and trouble as
>although they are doing some plot negotiations they can quiet easily melt
>into the background as "just another blib-blob player" whereas by taking
>bodyguards and the like you single yourself out as a target.
>
<snipped case study>
>
>Okay, so it might be a rather flippant example but I hope it makes the point
>that armour and guards is not always the best form of defence, looking
>like an innocent blib-blob can be just as effective and allows you to move
>around much more freely.
>
>On a personal level I hate having bodyguards, I feel cramped and restricted,
>can't relax and find everything takes twice as long as it would otherwise,
>I much prefer the blib-blob approach.
>
>The problem comes when yuo have got used to the blib-blob approach but get
>to a position where its no longer possible for one reason or another (such
>as faction command group status). Then you get the problem of important
>people from your faction, who really do need protection walking around
>without any.....
>
>Sorry this is all rather inarticulate, its is monday morning and I think
>there is a point in there somewhere.
Do I get the feeling that you might be _slightly_ biased?
As a perfectly ordinary character at Renewal, I never even _heard_ of
anyone being mugged. I can only think of a few reasons that this
could be so (although if anyone can think of more, I'd be happy to
listen). Not necessarily in any order:
1. Character death actually meant something. At Renewal, there is
character experience, so most people don't want to lose it, and
character death was real. There was no 'wait 10 minutes and get up
again'. As has recently been pointed out, a lot of people tend to get
attached to their characters.
2. Just because you've got no weapons or armour doesn't mean you're
defenceless, which is what magic is all about. Giving you a chance
against those 6'4" killing machines in plate armour with the reactions
of a angry scorpion. In fact, it was a fair bet that anyone without
weapons, armour and bodyguards wouldn't have been mugged because they
had to be powerful enough to take care of themselves (or stupid enough
not to have anything worth stealing).
3. The camps were close enough that anybody shouting would have been
heard without difficulty by everyone in the area, and someone would
probably arrive in short order. Most of the trails were very well
used, so there wasn't really a quiet enough spot (that I saw, anyway).
What about the question 'who is more likely to get mugged?'
I think person A would be more likely to get mugged. They are a prime
target. Person B would be more likely to get attacked for other
reasons, i.e. he got recognised by the wrong bloke, he got mistaken
for someone else important, etc. After all, how many plebs get
bodyguards? Person B isn't really a good mugging victim, because he
has friends, who are presumably quite good with those weapons they're
carrying, and who knows what he could do himself?
As to the Corvus example, both player and character were easily
recognisable, so anyone who'd seen him would remember him. If he
hadn't taken a guard, he would have been dead.
I never met Lady T, so I don't know how distinctive she is, but anyone
who sticks out like a sore thumb can't afford to do the 'blib-blob'
bit.
On a more personal level, I like the blib-blob approach myself, but it
has its disadvantages. Firstly, if you do get mugged by three or more
people, you don't have much of a chance. And secondly, if you do have
to do a 'pompous and important bit', people (gate guards, etc.) won't
take you seriously if they don't know you by sight as pompous and
important.
That's what I think, anyway. All thoughts open to discussion.
--
Clare.
Clare Yeowart, cl...@witsend.u-net.com
Reality is what refuses to go away when I stop believing in it.
-Philip K. Dick
S.D. Swann
MD Horrill wrote:
> As a real example compare Lady Tarragon and Corvus (Possibly a bad
> couple
> to name in the same sentance I know). Now lets assume they need to go
> to
> the loo (not unreasonable at a 4 day event). Corvus forms up his
> guard,
> heads off in the centre of an armoured porcupine, has endless trouble
> from
> The Bears and others etc etc etc. Meanwhile Lady T was grabbed one of
> the
> Krays, has been and come back before anyone noticed she had ever gone.
>
>
Why not just put your hand in the air? Just about every LRPer
recognises that signal.Guards to go to the Loo is a bit
sad.........smile.
> The problem comes when yuo have got used to the blib-blob approach but
> get
> to a position where its no longer possible for one reason or another
> (such
> as faction command group status). Then you get the problem of
> important
> people from your faction, who really do need protection walking around
>
> without any.....
Until the moots of this year, I adopted the blib-blob approach and
found I could dissapear quite easily. Then the Gryphons twigged
it....laugh. Also, FLs and other
notable command group personnel are afforded one luxury that many
players aren't.
We can change Costume and STILL be the same character..... this is
because people
recognise your face and mannerisms rather than your costume. I sometimes
switch
parts of my costume but retain the Arcane identification bits (like the
crown...sigh) and
have succesfully crept about enemy camps, and sometimes I get recognised
and chased
and sometimes I don't......... Ask the Tarantulas gate guard, the ones
who spotted me
at 4.30 am during the moots.....laugh.....
Good debate, BTW.
Steve Swann
(Disguised as a Blib-Blob....tentacles and all)
S.D. Swann
Mr M.I. Pennington wrote:
> Faction Leader = Lorien Trust NON Player Character
> ^^^
To change the subject a little, but not the thread again (hopefully)
I'd bereally interested to know, as i'm sure the LT would as well, how
players
percieve the job of the NPC, for guilds, factions and solo specials.
[snip]
>.....Bruce is not a pc, he is an npc and that is a COMPLETELY different
thing.
How different do you think it is? [polite question, not an accusation!]
>He has exactly as much in character response as plot, logistics and OOC
responsibility
>allow him to have and no more.
Not strictly true. My understanding of the relationship between FL and
LT is as follows
[please correct me if I'm wrong Steve G! grin.]
The FL is primarily responsible for communicating the desires of the
players to the LT and
not for leading the players along by the nose. You should have noticed
by now that there
has been something of a change of pace in the last couple of Gatherings
and the phrase
"player-led plot" must have reached your ears by now. Now the plot team
wait to see
what the FLs say and then correlate that information, providing the
"glue" that keeps the
campaign flowing. It is VERY rare that an FL is "told" what response to
have to a
given situation. The LT puts a hell of a lot of trust in us and it's
what we say that often
determines the flow of any given event, if not the entire campaign. IMO
NPCship is not
that different from PC. In my own experience, FLs are often left to
devise instant on the
spot plot/decisions/actions and then we all get together and determine
what the most
likely results are......
> NPCs have no character, they are a device to move the game forwards
> in the right direction, and their IC attitude should be subordianted
> completely to what
> is required OOC. I think Bruce either forgot that, or more likely
> didn't
> realise that what he was doing was OOC bad for the game.
It's possible that you are right here. But, we do have characters,
Rhino, Ash, Arcane andmost of the other FLs are characters that have
come up through the ranks. They have
developed personalities and reponses to given situations. Sometimes we
have to compromise
those IC principles for plot reasons, but we try to find ways to prevent
that. Thats always a
secondary objective though. Bruce is new to FL command, and he is most
definately going to
make the occasional mistake or poor call. GOD knows [sic] we all do!
Grin!
FL actions should be subordinated to the players desires, specifically
the players of their own
faction first and then ALL players. OOC considerations should be taken
into account when
safety of play is an issue, or LARGE numbers of players would be made
unhappy with the
game. Otherwise I personally avoid OOC like the plague!
Steve Swann
Dragon Co-FL
MD Horrill
Clare Yeowart (cl...@witsend.u-net.com) wrote:
[MUNCH][MUNCH][MUNCH]
: And secondly, if you do have
: to do a 'pompous and important bit', people (gate guards, etc.) won't
: take you seriously if they don't know you by sight as pompous and
: important.
It can be fun watching guards etc get hugely embarassed when they don't
recognise an important person. ie. arriving at the Dragons gate on Sunday
evening in 1095 with Laird Thorfinn McBeth. Then again this was
understandable as he had gone "missing" in a fog bank west of Orkneyjar
over a year before.
ha...@camdesign.co.uk
At this point it might be wise to point out that Conor Cuchalain of the
Bears is not and to my knowledge, never has been a mugger, professional
or otherwise. Aspiring muggers should be wary of taking his, or my,
advice without careful consideration.
<SNIP>
> >My personal feeling is that it is person B. Why? Because they have set
> >themself up as a target. Person A is unlikely to have and trouble as
> >although they are doing some plot negotiations
<SNIP>
IMHO:
Nobody in their right mind would attack 'B' - far too high risk. A fight
that big attracts all sorts of unwelcome attention. Similarly, 'A' is
unlikely to be attacked - they don't seem to be carrying anything of
value. I reckon the discerning professional would wait around until 'C'
turned up - wandering about on their own with some obviously valuable
item, or bulging money bag, dangling carelessly from a belt. Pick your
targets....
> Do I get the feeling that you might be _slightly_ biased?
Sure, advice on mugging 'best practise' at the Gathering is very unlikely
to be appropriate at the Renewal. However, as the header specifies it's a
Gathering-related post, surely you'd expect it to be about the G.?
> As a perfectly ordinary character at Renewal, I never even _heard_ of
> anyone being mugged.
I've been to 4 Gatherings, and I've never been mugged. I've been an
perfectly ordinary character at a CP event - and I've been _involved_ in
people being mugged. It does happen, you just have to be more careful.
In fact you could argue that at the Renewal you're more likely to get
away with mugging someone. As they're dead, not just 'down for 10', they
can't get up again, collect a whole pile of their mates and a death
mat/horse and cart/whatever and kill you.... You don't have to be as
careful about someone seeing you, because dead men tell no tales (As long
as you hide the body well enough).
H.
-------------------==== Posted via Deja News ====-----------------------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Post to Usenet
Ian Sturrock
In article <60d6q1$h...@sun-cc204.lboro.ac.uk>, MD Horrill
<M.D.H...@lboro.ac.uk> writes
>Clare Yeowart (cl...@witsend.u-net.com) wrote:
>
>[MUNCH][MUNCH][MUNCH]
>
>: And secondly, if you do have
>: to do a 'pompous and important bit', people (gate guards, etc.) won't
>: take you seriously if they don't know you by sight as pompous and
>: important.
>
>It can be fun watching guards etc get hugely embarassed when they don't
>recognise an important person.
They also get hugely embarassed if you take the piss out of them...
About 4 years ago at the Gathering we were off to see some important bod
in I think it was the Dragons camp. Some of our crew tried just walking
over the bits of string 18" off the ground that surrounded the camp, &
were told off, 'cos apparently that string was a phys rep for a 10'
wall. So I took out my belaying pin (about 1' long) & did a fairly
convincing looking pole-vault over the string, telling the guards that
my belaying pin was a phys rep for a 10' pole...
MD Horrill
ha...@camdesign.co.uk wrote:
: At this point it might be wise to point out that Conor Cuchalain of the
: Bears is not and to my knowledge, never has been a mugger, professional
: or otherwise. Aspiring muggers should be wary of taking his, or my,
: advice without careful consideration.
Correct.
: I've been to 4 Gatherings, and I've never been mugged. I've been an
: perfectly ordinary character at a CP event - and I've been _involved_ in
: people being mugged. It does happen, you just have to be more careful.
I've had one ATTEMPTED mugging against me at The Gathering, I say attempted
as I saw the guy coming a mile off so put him down as soon as he tried
anything.
: In fact you could argue that at the Renewal you're more likely to get
: away with mugging someone. As they're dead, not just 'down for 10', they
: can't get up again, collect a whole pile of their mates and a death
: mat/horse and cart/whatever and kill you....
Muggings (or rather corpse looting) at renewal is hideiously easy. Take the
person down with a bow at range, make sure you weren't observed then loot
the corpse. Not a good method at The Gathering as the "corpse" might
get up again while you collect your ill gotten booty.
: You don't have to be as
: careful about someone seeing you, because dead men tell no tales (As long
: as you hide the body well enough).
Or find a hungry Beastman? :-)
Just some fool.
>I've been to 4 Gatherings, and I've never been mugged.
Ive been to 3 LT events (moots and G97) and been mugged every time.
Repeatedly. Occasionally by the same people. They KNOW i have nothing of value.
The most embarrassing one was being mugged by an 8 year old girl.
I think i must be cursed.
Arthur Scroat (aka Jester McYokel) [aka That one with no weapons, lets
lynch him]
******************************************************************************
Sam Harber "No rest for the wicked,
sjh...@bolton.ac.uk Not even the extremely wicked."
BIHE LRP Society http://www.acs.bolton.ac.uk/~sjh6eng
Steven J Lewis
MD Horrill wrote in article <605hae$m...@sun-cc204.lboro.ac.uk>...>As a real
example compare Lady Tarragon and Corvus (Possibly a bad couple
>to name in the same sentance I know). Now lets assume they need to go to
>the loo (not unreasonable at a 4 day event). Corvus forms up his guard,
>heads off in the centre of an armoured porcupine, has endless trouble from
>The Bears and others etc etc etc. Meanwhile Lady T was grabbed one of the
>Krays, has been and come back before anyone noticed she had ever gone.
And I still remember forming part of the armed escort that took Corvus and
Feohtan to the loos at G93.
Stefan Louis, Grand Physician of Camelot, Master Healer to the Lions
Faction, the Peoples of Avalon, and the Prince Bishop's Men of New Durholme.
Mr M.I. Pennington
In article <34299876...@cableol.co.uk>, "S.D. Swann" <arc...@cableol.co.uk> writes:
> MD Horrill wrote:
>
> > As a real example compare Lady Tarragon and Corvus (Possibly a bad
> > couple
> > to name in the same sentance I know). Now lets assume they need to go
> > to
> > the loo (not unreasonable at a 4 day event). Corvus forms up his
> > guard,
> > heads off in the centre of an armoured porcupine, has endless trouble
> > from
> > The Bears and others etc etc etc. Meanwhile Lady T was grabbed one of
> > the
> > Krays, has been and come back before anyone noticed she had ever gone.
> >
> >
>
> recognises that signal.Guards to go to the Loo is a bit
> sad.........smile.
>
that the faction's servants dig round the back of the camp site, but since
no-one wants to phys-rep emptying it, I'm not going to phys-rep pissing in
it. When I'm using the 1990's porcelain lavs then I am definitely OOC.
Taking bodyguards to the toilet is the height of sadness. The point of
bodyguards IMO, is to help get as many people involved in some part of
the plot as possible. I did a lot of bodyguarding when I first started
the Gathering, and it was a lot of fun, because I got to attend all the
big important meetings even though I was a nobody.
Getting to attend all the big important trips to the toilet is not fun.
Hobbes
P.S. Apologies for dragging the thread into the gutter.... :)
Mr M.I. Pennington
In article <342995C5...@cableol.co.uk>, "S.D. Swann" <arc...@cableol.co.uk> writes:
> Mr M.I. Pennington wrote:
>
> > Faction Leader = Lorien Trust NON Player Character
> > ^^^
>
> I'd bereally interested to know, as i'm sure the LT would as well, how
> players
> percieve the job of the NPC, for guilds, factions and solo specials.
You don't ask the easy questions do you? :)
Job of an FL. (All totally IMHO of course.)
1) Balance IC and OOC priorities to ensure a good game for all. There are
a great many moments at the Gathering where IC priorties conflict with
OOC priorities (issues like bodyguards). At such points it's a job of the
FLs to flange the IC to ensure the OOC triumphs. IC the priority is `winning'
but OOC the priority is maximum player enjoyment.
2) Be the heart of the faction, to ensure that there is someone to provide
a dynamic core off whom players can feed for enthusiasm, motivation
and inspiration. Bear in mind that although they should be the heart of
the faction, they shouldn't be the hands of the faction. The NPCs should
tell the PCs what they want accomplished and let the PCs set about trying
to acheive it. Peace with XXX faction? Tell your High Ambassador to arrange
it. The game is about players doing things, not about them following the
NPCs around and watching them do things.
3) Ensure that the at the ultimate level the game remains within the passive
control of the game organisors. At the end of the day, the LT need to be
able to use their npcs to push the game world in a desired direction, FLs
are the key resource for doing that with. By being the IC head of the
faction, the FLs can manipulate things IC to ensure that OOC the game
runs according to the organisors OOC aims.
4) Do the paperwork. Goes without saying really. <shrug>
5) Provide a link between the players and the LT. A line so that the LT
know what the players are thinking and the players know what the LT are
thinking. The LT need to know what the players are doing, what they want
and so on. The players want to know what is going on OOC, why such and
such happened and the like. At the end of the day they're the customers,
it's their event.
For Guild leaders it's all pretty much the same, Guilds are very small
factions in a way. Of course it's their job to sell the lammies and get
the blasted money phys reps back as well. :)
What are solo specials? I know a special called Solo, but I don't think
thats what you mean. :) I presume you mean folks like Mordred? If so,
then their job is simply to stir up as much shit as possible and get as
many players involved as possible. Again like the FLs they shouldn't
be doing stuff, they should be involving players, but that is very hard.
Watching NPCs act is a poor substitute for role-playing, but it is better
than nowt.
> How different do you think it is? [polite question, not an accusation!]
I think it's a helluva lot different. I think by and large it boils down
to having a different approach to the whole game.
In LRP we all balance IC and OOC conflicts at some point. (Which is where
this thread started off really). A PC has no need to do so. Up to a point
he can ignore OOC issues and simply be his character. An NPC does not
have this luxury. They exist fundamentally as OOC tools of the game, and so
they invariably have to follow an OOC dictated course. A good NPC is capable
of making the IC match the OOC priorities as closely as possible so that
people are not conscious of being with someone who is an NPC. Ultimately
though their IC response is required to be totally subsumed to the OOC
objectives that further the game. Thats what I mean by saying they have
only as much personality as plot and logistics allow.
> The FL is primarily responsible for communicating the desires of the
> players to the LT and
> not for leading the players along by the nose. You should have noticed
> by now that there
> has been something of a change of pace in the last couple of Gatherings
> and the phrase
> "player-led plot" must have reached your ears by now. Now the plot team
I've heard of the concept...
> wait to see
> what the FLs say and then correlate that information, providing the
> "glue" that keeps the
> campaign flowing. It is VERY rare that an FL is "told" what response to
> have to a
> given situation. The LT puts a hell of a lot of trust in us and it's
> what we say that often
> determines the flow of any given event, if not the entire campaign. IMO
> NPCship is not
> that different from PC. In my own experience, FLs are often left to
> devise instant on the
> spot plot/decisions/actions and then we all get together and determine
> what the most
> likely results are......
I don't think I argued that the LT should dictate the course of the game
through the scripted use of it's NPCs and if I did, I didn't mean to.
The game has to be about players doing what they want to do. Their aims,
their goals, their actions. The NPCs job is to support that while it
remains with the limits imposed by OOC logistics and responsibilities.
> > NPCs have no character, they are a device to move the game forwards
>
> > in the right direction, and their IC attitude should be subordianted
> > completely to what
> > is required OOC. I think Bruce either forgot that, or more likely
> > didn't
> > realise that what he was doing was OOC bad for the game.
>
> It's possible that you are right here. But, we do have characters,
> Rhino, Ash, Arcane andmost of the other FLs are characters that have
> come up through the ranks. They have
> developed personalities and reponses to given situations. Sometimes we
> have to compromise
> those IC principles for plot reasons, but we try to find ways to prevent
> that. Thats always a
> secondary objective though. Bruce is new to FL command, and he is most
> definately going to
> make the occasional mistake or poor call. GOD knows [sic] we all do!
> Grin!
Sometimes I worry that npcs who get there by rising through the ranks don't
always full appreciate the magnitude of the change in their position by
the addition of the letter n.
NPCs without characters are deadly for the game. The best NPCs are the ones
who can make OOC based decisions look totally IC. That requires them to
have convincing characters with depth, but also to be inventive at creating
IC reasoning and argument, and to be fast thinking and ingenious. No easy
task by any stretch of the imagination. I think given the amazing job
Bruce has done in totally re-invigorating the Lions as a faction he is
entitled to make the odd mistake. Actually I think we're all entited to
make the odd mistake. :)
Hobbes
MD Horrill
Mr M.I. Pennington (m...@liverpool.ac.uk) wrote:
: Getting to attend all the big important trips to the toilet is not fun.
True. On a further note on the bodyguarding front. Getting to attend
the important meetings when a no-body is good. However from the other
side if you are the person taking the bodyguards then pick people who
don't know the person you're visiting. (ie. if you're going to the Dragons
to see Lord Arcane pick bodyguards who don't know who he is, that way the
bodyguards will find out who Arcane is if nothing else.)
: P.S. Apologies for dragging the thread into the gutter.... :)
Well what did you expcet with a thread I was involved with?
Guy Incognito
m...@liverpool.ac.uk (Mr M.I. Pennington) wrote:
<mucho snipped>
Try reading Niccolo Macciavelli's [sp] book "The Prince", it's
available in paperback as a Penguin Classic for about two quid.
I think Tim left my copy at Paul Wilder's abode (scary thought...)
Should be on the recommended reading list for FLs. But then most FLs
have probably read it anyway...
Taz
Mr M.I. Pennington wrote:
> Personally I have always assumed that all my characters piss in the cess pit
> that the faction's servants dig round the back of the camp site, but since
> no-one wants to phys-rep emptying it, I'm not going to phys-rep pissing in
> it. When I'm using the 1990's porcelain lavs then I am definitely OOC.
Me too, going to the bogs that are situated in the middle of the field is one of those OOC
necessities and sometimes eating. I don't want tomato sauce splattered all over my nice
clean (well on the first day) kit, especially if it's white.
And it's easy to tell, Wig-ON probably IC, Wig-OFF definitely OOC.
Taz
(all OOC unless stated otherwise)
(Tazael Moondancer, GHWHM at the Gathering)
Steven J Lewis
MD Horrill wrote in article <60t26c$3...@sun-cc204.lboro.ac.uk>...
>Mr M.I. Pennington (m...@liverpool.ac.uk) wrote:
>
>: Getting to attend all the big important trips to the toilet is not fun.
>
>True. On a further note on the bodyguarding front. Getting to attend
>the important meetings when a no-body is good. However from the other
>side if you are the person taking the bodyguards then pick people who
>don't know the person you're visiting. (ie. if you're going to the Dragons
>to see Lord Arcane pick bodyguards who don't know who he is, that way the
>bodyguards will find out who Arcane is if nothing else.)
On the subject of using bodyguarding to get people involved in the plot,
Rhino/Bruce always picks the people who haven't got involved much to go
around with him, so everyone gets a turn - I've missed out on going to some
great IC parties with him cos I'm too involved in things already.
Steve.
David Miller
Some time ago, Hoz wrote;
> I would just like to remind you and all other Faction Leaders
> that your are not Players at the Gathering, but are in Fact NPC. As such
> you are members of the LT staff and you have to try to do your utmost to
> make sure that the Players, you know the ones that pay money to play
> rather than get in for nothing, have a good time. What Rhino did was
*********************************
> wrong and that is that.
Hoz,
Aside from the issue you were discussing, I perceive that the cost to a FL
in time outside of events, general costs and grief at events, far outways
a mere thirty or so pounds of ticket money.
From you of all people, I consider this particular comment "unworthy".
DM
--
D.M.
David E. Miller, Harlequin Ltd, Cambs UK
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Jax-Ur at The Gathering, Orinoko at Labyrinthe, Obsidian at Mayfest
loonies we are least loonies we become
Simon Doyle
On 03 Oct 97 14:41:34 GMT, d...@harlqn.co.uk (David Miller) wrote:
>
>Some time ago, Hoz wrote;
>
>> I would just like to remind you and all other Faction Leaders
>> that your are not Players at the Gathering, but are in Fact NPC. As such
>> you are members of the LT staff and you have to try to do your utmost to
>> make sure that the Players, you know the ones that pay money to play
>> rather than get in for nothing, have a good time. What Rhino did was
> *********************************
>> wrong and that is that.
>
>Hoz,
>
>Aside from the issue you were discussing, I perceive that the cost to a FL
>in time outside of events, general costs and grief at events, far outways
>a mere thirty or so pounds of ticket money.
>
>From you of all people, I consider this particular comment "unworthy".
>
>
>DM
>--
Then again, if you know hoz, you know he don't spend only 30 quid.
FL's are there to help plot, not to kill characters, especiall
inexperienced role players who are there for their first LRP. This
kind of thing puts people off going to the Gathering.
Si
The Black Fish Of Death
On Fri, 3 Oct 1997, Steven J Lewis wrote:
- MD Horrill wrote in article <60t26c$3...@sun-cc204.lboro.ac.uk>...
->Mr M.I. Pennington (m...@liverpool.ac.uk) wrote:
->
->: Getting to attend all the big important trips to the toilet is not fun.
->
->True. On a further note on the bodyguarding front. Getting to attend
->the important meetings when a no-body is good. However from the other
->side if you are the person taking the bodyguards then pick people who
->don't know the person you're visiting. (ie. if you're going to the Dragons
->to see Lord Arcane pick bodyguards who don't know who he is, that way the
->bodyguards will find out who Arcane is if nothing else.)
-
-On the subject of using bodyguarding to get people involved in the plot,
-Rhino/Bruce always picks the people who haven't got involved much to go
-around with him, so everyone gets a turn - I've missed out on going to some
-great IC parties with him cos I'm too involved in things already.
Rhino/Bruce seems to be great at getting people involved
which I think is an invaluable skill in his position.
Of course, cooking up stupid schemes like sending some
poor mug to read "dwarven love poetry" to the Drow Matron
Mothers could be the sign of an unbalanced mind - but it
was bloody good fun!
Some Poor Mug(tm)
David Miller
Len...@wagon.demon.co.uk (Simon Doyle) wrote in response to me.
> >> make sure that the Players, you know the ones that pay money to play
> >> rather than get in for nothing, have a good time. What Rhino did was
> > *********************************
> >> wrong and that is that.
> >
> >From you of all people, I consider this particular comment "unworthy".
>
> Then again, if you know hoz, you know he don't spend only 30 quid.
I do know Hoz, "to a greater or lesser extent" for erm... 6+ years. I
believe that Hoz's real contribution to the well being of the Bears and/or
Exiles is much more than any of the goodies he may have sprung for.
VIz; his legwork and his 'gob'work.
That is why I made that comment.
Steven J Lewis
The Black Fish Of Death wrote in article ...
>Rhino/Bruce seems to be great at getting people involved
>which I think is an invaluable skill in his position.
>Of course, cooking up stupid schemes like sending some
>poor mug to read "dwarven love poetry" to the Drow Matron
>Mothers could be the sign of an unbalanced mind - but it
>was bloody good fun!
>
> Some Poor Mug(tm)
>
I've heard a rumour that they've started sending him replies. Can anyone
advise?
The Poor Mug's (tm) Master Healer.
Hoz
David Miller wrote:
>
> Len...@wagon.demon.co.uk (Simon Doyle) wrote in response to me.
> > >> make sure that the Players, you know the ones that pay money to play
> > >> rather than get in for nothing, have a good time. What Rhino did was
> > > *********************************
> > >> wrong and that is that.
> > >
> > >From you of all people, I consider this particular comment "unworthy".
> >
> > Then again, if you know hoz, you know he don't spend only 30 quid.
>
> I do know Hoz, "to a greater or lesser extent" for erm... 6+ years. I
> believe that Hoz's real contribution to the well being of the Bears and/or
> Exiles is much more than any of the goodies he may have sprung for.
> VIz; his legwork and his 'gob'work.
>
> That is why I made that comment.
>
Yes, it is true Poor old David has had to put up with my ravings for
many years now and in fact helped us as the Exiles OOC with advise on
how to improve our image and yes I did listen to his advise.
With Respect
Hoz
Hoz
David Miller wrote:
>
> Some time ago, Hoz wrote;
>
> > I would just like to remind you and all other Faction Leaders
> > that your are not Players at the Gathering, but are in Fact NPC. As such
> > you are members of the LT staff and you have to try to do your utmost to
> > rather than get in for nothing, have a good time. What Rhino did was
> *********************************
> > wrong and that is that.
>
>
> Aside from the issue you were discussing, I perceive that the cost to a FL
> in time outside of events, general costs and grief at events, far outways
> a mere thirty or so pounds of ticket money.
>
>
Ok Dave,
Let me put it this way. They (FL) are their to make sure the game is
enjoyed by the players and not seeking to show us, the players, how
powerful they can be by the miss use of an item that is not meant to be
used in that way i.e. death mat...
With Respect
Hoz
Guy Incognito
Hoz <h...@netcomuk.co.uk> wrote:
>Let me put it this way. They (FL) are their to make sure the game is
>enjoyed by the players and not seeking to show us, the players, how
>powerful they can be by the miss use of an item that is not meant to be
>used in that way i.e. death mat...
I disagree with some aspects (but not all) of what you are saying. The
Exiles (somewhat aided by yourself) propagate an air of ruthlessness,
toughness and downright nastyness IC. You can't really complain when
someone with (maybe dubious - not my opinion - I a don't know enough
of the detail to have one) justification plays you at your own game.
I agree that the FL is there to make sure PCs enjoy themselves, but IC
he may be justified, thats all I'm saying. If someone with the IC
traits of the Exiles topped (or were an accessory after the fact)
someone I cared about IC the gloves would definately be off and no-one
would be beyond reproach. Provided I was sure who did it of course.
I think that in this case that maybe you were victims of your own
success.
Steven J Lewis
>
>Let me put it this way. They (FL) are their to make sure the game is
>enjoyed by the players and not seeking to show us, the players, how
>powerful they can be by the miss use of an item that is not meant to be
>used in that way i.e. death mat...
>
>
>Hoz
Let us remember, when Badger had been killed, and the Lions believed IC that
the Exiles were behind it, Rhino/Bruce had 180 Lions PC's baying for Exiles
blood. If he had not given that order then he could have appeared weak in
the eyes of his faction, and his players could have been disappointed. Times
like these are the Kobayashi Maru of LRP IC/OOC situations, the no-win
scenario.
Please do not shout at me in reply, it was not my decision, I am merely
playing devil's advocate on Rhino/Bruce's behalf (someone's got to defend
the little chap!).
Stefan/Steve.
Hoz
Steven J Lewis wrote:
>
> >
> >Let me put it this way. They (FL) are their to make sure the game is
> >enjoyed by the players and not seeking to show us, the players, how
> >powerful they can be by the miss use of an item that is not meant to be
> >used in that way i.e. death mat...
> >
> >With Respect
> >
> >Hoz
>
> Let us remember, when Badger had been killed, and the Lions believed IC that
> the Exiles were behind it, Rhino/Bruce had 180 Lions PC's baying for Exiles
> blood. If he had not given that order then he could have appeared weak in
> the eyes of his faction, and his players could have been disappointed. Times
> like these are the Kobayashi Maru of LRP IC/OOC situations, the no-win
> scenario.
>
What makes you believe it was the Exiles? did any of you see it happen?
escape goats for last year and perhaps a way to unify the Faction by
presenting them with viable targets that in my opinion where easy
pickings. Why did you not go for my Character or our command structure
you know who we are. Instead a random group of Exiles who where not even
aware of the situation were butchered to give blood to a hungry faction
and the OOC problem is that some players had a shit weekend for
something they had nothing to do with.
With Respect
Hoz
Hoz
Guy Incognito wrote:
>
> Hoz <h...@netcomuk.co.uk> wrote:
>
> >Let me put it this way. They (FL) are their to make sure the game is
> >enjoyed by the players and not seeking to show us, the players, how
> >powerful they can be by the miss use of an item that is not meant to be
> >used in that way i.e. death mat...
>
> Exiles (somewhat aided by yourself) propagate an air of ruthlessness,
> toughness and downright nastyness IC. You can't really complain when
> someone with (maybe dubious - not my opinion - I a don't know enough
> of the detail to have one) justification plays you at your own game.
Unfortunatly we as the Exiles where not given permission by our Faction
Command structure to take any action against the Lions. In fact we where
forbidden to take any action against the lions and we ,perhaps unlike
other groups, listen to what our Faction command tells us to do and do
not disobey them. Which is why when our hands where tied IC I saught the
LT to tie the Hands of the Lions OOC.
>
> I agree that the FL is there to make sure PCs enjoy themselves, but IC
> he may be justified, thats all I'm saying. If someone with the IC
> traits of the Exiles topped (or were an accessory after the fact)
> someone I cared about IC the gloves would definately be off and no-one
> would be beyond reproach. Provided I was sure who did it of course.
I have no problem with someone going for us, we seek no shelter from
anyone, and will give it to any one wants to give it to us, so long as
we have the Backing of our Faction command structure. Without there
consent we will not act which is why I think this is the most
responsible way a group our size should behave otherwise you will have
Chaos.
>
> I think that in this case that maybe you were victims of your own
> success.
No victims of someone using us to boost their own support amongst their
faction. I do not blame Rhino by himself he is only one of the Command
structure the whole Command structure is to blame. He however as an NPC
and should have put a stop to it. But we all live and learn OOC I know
people make mistakes so Bruce has made his first as a FL it is expected
to happen at the end of the day we are all human and make mistakes.
With Respect
Hoz
Guy Incognito
Hoz <h...@netcomuk.co.uk> wrote:
>Unfortunatly we as the Exiles where not given permission by our Faction
>Command structure to take any action against the Lions. In fact we where
>forbidden to take any action against the lions and we ,perhaps unlike
>other groups, listen to what our Faction command tells us to do and do
>not disobey them. Which is why when our hands where tied IC I saught the
>LT to tie the Hands of the Lions OOC.
Fair enough. Maybe you should have asked them to 'untie' your hands.
Maybe the blame lies with your command group for offing that chap.
Maybe it lies with the Exiles apparent complicity and reputation IC.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
>I have no problem with someone going for us, we seek no shelter from
>anyone, and will give it to any one wants to give it to us, so long as
>we have the Backing of our Faction command structure. Without there
>consent we will not act which is why I think this is the most
>responsible way a group our size should behave otherwise you will have
>Chaos.
I agree. Maybe your command group should have dealt with it sooner.
There are a thousand and one reasons why this could have gone wrong.
Exiles being in the wrong place at the wrong time (when the murder
took place). With their reputation all it took was "one of our freinds
has been murdered, and some Exiles were nearby" to "the exiles
murdered our freind" - 2 + 2 = 5
>No victims of someone using us to boost their own support amongst their
>faction.
I vehemently disagree. He couldn't sit on his hands after this event
took place knowing that the Bears killed one of their friends and that
the Exiles who are also Bears were accomplices. The only way to fight
fire is with fire.
>I do not blame Rhino by himself he is only one of the Command
>structure the whole Command structure is to blame.
You just said that your command structure wouldn't back you up. Maybe
the blames lies closer to home. Who knows?
It's not like the Bears have ever done it is it? I think it was the
Bears (G94 and G95 for example) who perfected and wrote "The
night-time assasination handbook."
> He however as an NPC and should have put a stop to it.
Only as much as your faction's NPCs should have put a stop to the
killing of that guy in the first place. They shouldn't have stopped it
and he shouldn't have stopped it. I think Bruce's response was quite
reasonable. Enough to satiate the baying for blood (six bodies is a
pretty reasonable count) without starting Killfest '97. You would have
probably a similar result had it been a Hart or a Dragon. What am I
saying? Make that definately. We'd just kill the factions
middle-management. :-)
>But we all live and learn OOC I know
>people make mistakes so Bruce has made his first as a FL it is expected
>to happen at the end of the day we are all human and make mistakes.
There are about a dozen or so groups with mean and nasty reputations,
Exiles, Karlennons, Lobotomy, Red Branch, HoC et al. If they do
something nasty to someone you can only expect them to get it back.
If you can't take the heat...
The Gathering world ain't much like real life. If you do something
nasty sooner or later it will bite you on the arse.
I quoteth The Pennington "Death Sucks!" but shit happens.
>With Respect
>Hoz
Hoz
> >Command structure to take any action against the Lions. In fact we where
> >forbidden to take any action against the lions and we ,perhaps unlike
> >other groups, listen to what our Faction command tells us to do and do
> >LT to tie the Hands of the Lions OOC.
>
> Fair enough. Maybe you should have asked them to 'untie' your hands.
> Maybe the blame lies with your command group for offing that chap.
> Maybe it lies with the Exiles apparent complicity and reputation IC.
> Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
Unfortunately the Lions and the Exiles problems go deeper than just IC.
Our Faction Command structure did not allow us to attack the Lions
because they thought it will spill out into a OOC fight which no one
wants. It was the fear of the Lions and a fear of myself. Our Faction
command did not sanction the hit on Badger.
>
> >I have no problem with someone going for us, we seek no shelter from
> >anyone, and will give it to any one wants to give it to us, so long as
> >we have the Backing of our Faction command structure. Without there
> >consent we will not act which is why I think this is the most
> >responsible way a group our size should behave otherwise you will have
> >Chaos.
>
> I agree. Maybe your command group should have dealt with it sooner.
In what way would you suggest our command group dealt with it. We did do
the responsible thing and made sure that if we could not keep it IC then
we will contain it by not allowing any kind of Hostilities.
> There are a thousand and one reasons why this could have gone wrong.
> Exiles being in the wrong place at the wrong time (when the murder
> took place). With their reputation all it took was "one of our friends
> has been murdered, and some Exiles were nearby" to "the exiles
> murdered our friend" - 2 + 2 = 5
>
> >No victims of someone using us to boost their own support amongst their
> >faction.
>
> I vehemently disagree. He couldn't sit on his hands after this event
> took place knowing that the Bears killed one of their friends and that
> the Exiles who are also Bears were accomplices. The only way to fight
> fire is with fire.
Why only Exiles and not any other groups in the Bears? Why?
>
> >I do not blame Rhino by himself he is only one of the Command
> >structure the whole Command structure is to blame.
>
> You just said that your command structure wouldn't back you up. Maybe
> the blames lies closer to home. Who knows?
It was not a question of having our Faction Command Structures back up,
we as the exiles numbered 146 in all and did not need the Help of our
faction to go and stomp on the Lions. We would have been happy to go and
do it by ourselves. I think we proved a few points on the Battlefield
about the way we fought and I am quite sure we would have gone thru
their gate guard quick enough to do the damage required, But WE where
not allowed to by our Faction. You see with a group this big we cannot
afford to go and do what ever we like or feel like doing if we did then
all hell would break loose at the Gathering.
> It's not like the Bears have ever done it is it? I think it was the
> Bears (G94 and G95 for example) who perfected and wrote "The
> night-time assassination handbook."
>
> > He however as an NPC and should have put a stop to it.
>
> Only as much as your faction's NPCs should have put a stop to the
> killing of that guy in the first place. They shouldn't have stopped it
Our Faction command structure did not even know it happened until after
the event they had no input on the matter.
> and he shouldn't have stopped it. I think Bruce's response was quite reasonable.
> Enough to satiate the baying for blood (six bodies is a pretty reasonable count)
Yes maybe, six. But not all Exiles perhaps some other Bears would have
been a fairer way of doing it.
> without starting Killfest '97. You would have
> probably a similar result had it been a Hart or a Dragon. What am I
> saying? Make that definitely. We'd just kill the factions
>middle-management. :-)
I would do the same I would find someone of importance and kill them not
just a random group of players who no nothing about what is happening,
and who for the most had only just arrived on sight for their first
Gathering and one them who was at his first LRP event.
>
> >But we all live and learn OOC I know
> >people make mistakes so Bruce has made his first as a FL it is expected
> >to happen at the end of the day we are all human and make mistakes.
>
> There are about a dozen or so groups with mean and nasty reputations,
> Exiles, Karlennons, Lobotomy, Red Branch, HoC et al. If they do
> something nasty to someone you can only expect them to get it back.
> If you can't take the heat...
Point taken we will see.
>
> The Gathering world ain't much like real life. If you do something
> nasty sooner or later it will bite you on the arse.
> I quoteth The Pennington "Death Sucks!" but shit happens.
I will agree with you again and again I say we will see.
With Respect
Hoz
Stefan Louis, Scribe to the Healers' Guild
Sorry to keep fuelling this debate...
Hoz, you are singing the praises of the Exiles for following their Faction
Command's orders. So were the Lions. Any of us in that situation would have
given those orders, and that combined with the respect all Lions have for
Bruce/Rhino means that his orders were gladly followed.
In no way was Rhino trying to bolster his position within his faction, he
has no need to do that. He was doing the right thing by his people. When he
got the order from the LT OOC to call off the hit-squads, he did this
immediately, and if you had seen Bruce at the time he clearly looked shaken
up by it.
Sorry if I sound a bit more irate than my usual easygoing self, if you'd
just spent most of the day in the rain trying to manage a student Hall of
Residence during a bomb scare and controlled explosion then you'd be pissed
too!
--
Stefan Louis
Grand Physician of Camelot
Master Healer to the Lions Faction, the Peoples of Avalon, and the Prince
Bishop's Men of New Durholme
... in real life...
Steve Lewis
Technical Support Analyst
Technical Co-ordination Group
Barclays Technology Services (Barclays Bank plc)
Radbroke Hall
Knutsford
Cheshire WA16 9EU
Tel. 01565 614420 / Clearway 2000 4420 (Work)
Tel. 0161 257 2891 (Home)
Tel. 0973 740633 (Mobile)
Hoz wrote in message <343EDA...@netcomuk.co.uk>...
>Guy Incognito wrote:
>>
>> Hoz <h...@netcomuk.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>Unfortunatly we as the Exiles where not given permission by our Faction
>Command structure to take any action against the Lions. In fact we where
>forbidden to take any action against the lions and we ,perhaps unlike
>other groups, listen to what our Faction command tells us to do and do
>not disobey them. Which is why when our hands where tied IC I saught the
>LT to tie the Hands of the Lions OOC.
>
>I have no problem with someone going for us, we seek no shelter from
>anyone, and will give it to any one wants to give it to us, so long as
>we have the Backing of our Faction command structure. Without there
>consent we will not act which is why I think this is the most
>responsible way a group our size should behave otherwise you will have
>Chaos.
>
>No victims of someone using us to boost their own support amongst their
>faction. I do not blame Rhino by himself he is only one of the Command
>structure the whole Command structure is to blame. He however as an NPC
>and should have put a stop to it. But we all live and learn OOC I know
>people make mistakes so Bruce has made his first as a FL it is expected
>to happen at the end of the day we are all human and make mistakes.
>
>With Respect
>
>Hoz
Robin Jones (Health Education Team Leader)
Thus far I've pretty much stayed out of this debate since it didn't
directly affect me or the Beastmen. However, when Stefan Louis, Scribe
to the Healers' Guild, wrote
>Hoz, you are singing the praises of the Exiles for following their Faction
>Command's orders. So were the Lions. Any of us in that situation would have
>given those orders,
It piqued me.
No, Stefan, not all of us would have given those orders. IMHO the orders
to slaughter Exiles was wrong. If one of my group was killed at the
Gathering and I thought, rightly or wrongly, that the Exiles had a hand
in it I would not have declared final-death open-season on the entire
group. What I hope would happen is that anytime the Exiles happened
across the Beastmen there would be an almighty fight - within the Ritual
of Peace (thus remaining within the bounds of the Gathering Treaty) and
the Exiles would be forced to go around in large groups or have their
arses kicked big time. At the same time I would try very hard to find
out which _individual_ was responsible for the murder and arrange for
him or her to have an unfortunate "accident". That way the Exiles have
fun because they're constantly looking over their shoulders for Beastmen
or Beastmen allies and the Beastmen would having fun because they get to
hunt humans, and then hunt them again, and again and ... you get the
picture. Meanwhile honour would be served and our reputation upheld
because the actual culprit would be dead - permanently. This is not a
case of hindsight, it's more a case of knowing how to deal with revenge
while ensuring that everyone involved has a good time doing it.
>In no way was Rhino trying to bolster his position within his faction, he
>has no need to do that. He was doing the right thing by his people.
No, he was pandering to his people. There's a difference.
>When he
>got the order from the LT OOC to call off the hit-squads, he did this
>immediately, and if you had seen Bruce at the time he clearly looked shaken
>up by it.
Shaken up by the fact that the LT had asked him to cool it or by the
revelation of what he had actually done?
>Sorry if I sound a bit more irate than my usual easygoing self, if you'd
>just spent most of the day in the rain trying to manage a student Hall of
>Residence during a bomb scare and controlled explosion then you'd be pissed
>too!
Ah, went to the bar then did you ;o)
Be well,
Bin
aka s'Pika of the Beastmen |\_/|
(o o)
-- Magebolted by McTay -------------------oOO-(_)-OOo----
-- Recovering nicely ------------------------------------
Stefan Louis, Scribe to the Healers' Guild
All I shall say in reply is that for the last two months, I have never
claimed that the Lions were whiter than white, just that what the
Lions/Rhino did was perfectly understandable and IC. Perhaps with hindsight
not very politically correct or diplomatic, but what you had was 180 people
pouring out their communal grief and anger.
A.J. Whitehead
MD Horrill (M.D.H...@lboro.ac.uk) wrote:
> The initial killing, although not sanctioned by the command group, was
> carried out for a reason, the members of the Exiled who were killed were
> killed for being Exiles, NOT for comitting the initial act.
Where the hell did you get this notion from??!!!!!!
Sorry for exploding slightly, but there were IC reasons fro what
happened. You want an explanation? Fine. Go to the Lion parliament and
ask Marcus Tarquinian (OOC name Ade Eccles), or wait until the moots and
I'll explain it to you. Or we can talk IC over email. But the corollary of
what you have written is that we were acting OOC. The Lions were not, and
I'd prefer it if you did not make such insinuations.
Harrumph.
Alex
---------------------------------
Justin de Salieri@ The Gathering
Lion of Avalon
MD Horrill
Guy Incognito (gu...@whitecross.com) wrote:
: Fair enough. Maybe you should have asked them to 'untie' your hands.
: Maybe the blame lies with your command group for offing that chap.
: Maybe it lies with the Exiles apparent complicity and reputation IC.
: Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
Okay, I've been trying to stay out of this one but as The Bears Command
group and thier actions (or lack there of) has been raised I feel I ought
to make a comment or two.
The reason that hands were tied at this point was that the situation was
rapidly spiralling out of control and it was better to stop things while
it was still possible.
By ordering the death of 6 random Bears (be they Exiles or not) Lord
Rhino effectivel delivered a declaration of war aganst The Bears/Caledonia.
The correct response to a declaration of war from the Lions would have been
to muster the entire faction, march over to the Lions camp, storm the gate
and butcher every last Lion in the camp.
This was abviously not possible for OOC reasons if nothing else:-
1 - GOD couldn't cope with all the new character cards.
2 - A lot of OOC stuff (tents etc.) would get trashed.
3 - You can't have factions randomly anhialating other factions.
IF you want an IC argument the Gathering treaty forbids direct
declarations of war between the nations of Edjera that have signed up
to it and to deliver such a declaration is in fact a violation of
the treaty..... I'm not going to say any more than that now, wait till
the Open Grand Council where things may become a little clearer.
: I vehemently disagree. He couldn't sit on his hands after this event
: took place knowing that the Bears killed one of their friends and that
: the Exiles who are also Bears were accomplices. The only way to fight
: fire is with fire.
In which case peace and reconciliation would be impossible.
: It's not like the Bears have ever done it is it? I think it was the
: Bears (G94 and G95 for example) who perfected and wrote "The
: night-time assasination handbook."
: Only as much as your faction's NPCs should have put a stop to the
: killing of that guy in the first place.
The initial killing, although not sanctioned by the command group, was
carried out for a reason, the members of the Exiled who were killed were
killed for being Exiles, NOT for comitting the initial act.
The Bears did not order a mass execution of Unicorns in response to the
death of Thomas Finn. (although the life expectancy of the culprit may
be pretty short).
Stefan Louis, Scribe to the Healers' Guild
MD Horrill wrote in message <622g76$l...@sun-cc204.lboro.ac.uk>...
>
>The initial killing, although not sanctioned by the command group, was
>carried out for a reason, the members of the Exiled who were killed were
>killed for being Exiles, NOT for comitting the initial act.
>
As I keep pointing out, at the time we believed thatThe Exiles had committed
the murder, they have since denied this this, but have ADMITTED to
complicity, they knowingly allowed their "horse-and-cart" to be used.
>The Bears did not order a mass execution of Unicorns in response to the
>death of Thomas Finn. (although the life expectancy of the culprit may
>be pretty short).
I was surprised that they didn't.