Regarding RP NPC's

[SallyPirate]

During roleplay, players cannot insert imaginary people/characters to assist them in roleplay that aren't really there. If you want two guards to follow you around, find two people willing to do it, if you want a cult of 20+ people, find people to join the cult. You can't use characters of players that aren't there either, that would be severe power-gaming (controlling their characters) and a bannable offense.

NPC's are used in Quest-lines and Shops (Like Jack), they can't be used at a persons whim to support them when they require it, as stated above, you can't have imaginary characters, you don't have anyone with you unless they're an actual person controlling the character with you, you can use an alt account though~ but they also have to abide by the one character per account rule.

 

[Ced]

During roleplay, players cannot insert imaginary people/characters to assist them in roleplay that aren't really there. If you want two guards to follow you around, find two people willing to do it, if you want a cult of 20+ people, find people to join the cult. You can't use characters of players that aren't there either, that would be severe power-gaming (controlling their characters) and a bannable offense.

NPC's are used in Quest-lines and Shops (Like Jack), they can't be used at a persons whim to support them when they require it, as stated above, you can't have imaginary characters, you don't have anyone with you unless they're an actual person controlling the character with you, you can use an alt account though~ but they also have to abide by the one character per account rule.

What about emoting the general town life of the settlement your RPing in?

"*Ced nods in greeting as two Elves pass by, on their way to the hunting grounds.*"
"*The sounds of the market greet them from the town square...*"

If it's not strictly benefitting your character and just simply adding to the RP, it's fine, right?

 

[SallyPirate]

Will have to discuss that- but populating a town with imaginary characters twould also be discouraged-

 

[Michcat]

I really should mention- The biggest issue here is the element of powergaming, in having non-existent entities perform tasks for you. Why not hire other players? (I am looking to soon make NPCs rentable, but such still-standing peeps are most wall decor then anything).

This is an RP server, and using NPCs in a fashion to serve and benefit your character goals is definitely working around actual roleplay - Not to mention being, as said above, a form of powergaming, and such is an unfortunately bannable offense.

The busyness of a market square, or perhaps a few passing fellows who won't in any way really engage your characters are definitely no problem

 

[Tybalt]

During roleplay, players cannot insert imaginary people/characters to assist them in roleplay that aren't really there. If you want two guards to follow you around, find two people willing to do it, if you want a cult of 20+ people, find people to join the cult. You can't use characters of players that aren't there either, that would be severe power-gaming (controlling their characters) and a bannable offense.

NPC's are used in Quest-lines and Shops (Like Jack), they can't be used at a persons whim to support them when they require it, as stated above, you can't have imaginary characters, you don't have anyone with you unless they're an actual person controlling the character with you, you can use an alt account though~ but they also have to abide by the one character per account rule.

One character per account? I'm sure my very brief character to serve as Skraag bait will be okay?

 

[Tybalt]

And let's say I wanted to do a scouting run? Could I get some real players to be unnamed scouts of my house for a brief amount of time to complete that?

 

[Angryboy]

And let's say I wanted to do a scouting run? Could I get some real players to be unnamed scouts of my house for a brief amount of time to complete that?

I do not believe that temporary alt-characters are allowed.

That being said... Sally, could players use temp-alt-characters on their account to play as generic characters to increase immersion and quality of roleplays so long as the character is only used for that particular RP and is considered "weak" in regards to other players?

 

[IceandFire]

I do not believe that temporary alt-characters are allowed.

That being said... Sally, could players use temp-alt-characters on their account to play as generic characters to increase immersion and quality of roleplays so long as the character is only used for that particular RP and is considered "weak" in regards to other players?

I have a few characters like that. My character "APS courier" is only there for immersion. Basically a temporary alt

 

[Baron]

Temporary alt characters are perfectly fine. As long as you don't use your main and your temp interchangeably for any significant period of time, that is.

 

[DraconDarknight]

Well the problem with it is that a city of the size of PS would have far more guards than it actually has, due to the limited number of players.
Another problem with that is that every 2nd person joining the server wants to create their own region, leaving the towns empty or getting emptied as soon as they arrive at their goals.
Other people get banned or generally bored with minecraft.
Then we also have the problem with Time zones and stuff

But really would the entire city of PS stand on the side and watch when A gets killed by in the middle of the streets or would someone call the guards? So now what if none of the guards is actually online?


The other thing is more RP related - Take The Silver council for example: How many soldiers could they actually claim to have RPwise?
I'd say at least 50000. and of course you wouldn't be able to use them in RP fights. - This is for example imho something that falls under Ced's 'Rping general town life.

 

[Angryboy]

Another problem with that is that every 2nd person joining the server wants to create their own region, leaving the towns empty or getting emptied as soon as they arrive at their goals.

That's part of the reason why the initial plot costs so much, as well as requiring nobility. It prevents players coming on and immediately getting a town, though most still seem to find a way around that seemingly.
As for being banned/bored, we've got the "inactive towns" count-down, where towns are turned to ruins if they go inactive for a long time.

Beyond that, it's down to the players to fix the issue of "too many towns".

 

[Somnastra]

But really would the entire city of PS stand on the side and watch when A gets killed by in the middle of the streets or would someone call the guards? So now what if none of the guards is actually online?

This is called the Bystander Effect. It actually happens.

 

[MRPolo13]

So the Silver Council doesn't exist. Cool, glad you covered that.

Seriously though, I always Role Played that the people that are there are not the only people, otherwise the whole server would make no sense at all whatsoever. Buildings don't take a single person and couple of hours to build, they take months and tens, sometimes hundreds of people.
While on one side no one should use non-existent people to their advantage, and I didn't even know there was anyone who was... intelligent enough to use them like that, I will give an example of Uriv and Spear's mansion. I RPed that there are servants working there. They bring food, clothe and so on. It would make sense for rich people to have servants, and nobody wants to Role Play as a servant because it's simply a boring thing to do. The solution? RP servants bringing food, cleaning the house and so on. And I honestly am not willing to believe that the biggest war in history of Altera had a whooping fifty people participating. Instead, I see each person as a sign of ten, hundred or even thousand people. While this obviously isn't the case, immersion is far better when you imagine a huge army fighting it out.
That's just my view on it.

 

[Baron]

@MRPolo13 There's a difference between ambient NPC activity (of course a town won't have 3 citizens, it'll have hundreds) like armies and the Silver Council compared to having invisible NPC bodyguards that can fight other players. It's a clearly OP force multiplier - who's to say I can't march into PS with Vorar and a hired army of 5,000 invisible NPC mercenaries that I say can kill characters?

It's fine to have some NPCs that are basically wallpaper for your RP, but it's absolutely not fine when the wallpaper is allowed to strangle people.

 

[Angryboy]

Epic stuff in a nutshell

Oh I definitely agree with you on this one, Polo.
As you said, however, people are not willing to RP as servants or such because it is "boring". If anyone did RP as a servant for me with no reason other than "I want to", then I would be highly suspicious and assume they're playing an assassin trying to kill me (does that make me paranoid?).

In the case of war, I would say that "assuming each player is a squad of soldiers" is quite fair. It wouldn't be a war if it was 10 people on each side... even the Game of Crowns could hardly have been called a "war", and that was a lot of players fighting.

The solution here? I think we should consider what is acceptable use of NPCs and what isn't. Commonsense should be used here; e.g large cities should logically have guardsmen in it and such.

 

[Angryboy]

who's to say I can't march into PS with Vorar and a hired army of 5,000 invisible NPC mercenaries that I say can kill characters?

Would Vorar ever actually do that though?

Like I said, commonsense. It's ridiculous to have a Lord march into a town with 10,000 invisible soldiers. It isn't ridiculous to assume a large town would have some guardsmen in it.

Take, for example, Azerport. It is now Capitol to a very military-based House. While I have no problem with other players coming in OOCly to check it out, I do have a problem with highly-notable enemies (Lords of an enemy faction) waltzing in RPly as if they wouldn't be killed immediately by everyone there.

*shrugs* I guess this is one of those issues which is nearly impossible to deal with through Minecraft...

 

[DraconDarknight]

@MRPolo13 There's a difference between ambient NPC activity (of course a town won't have 3 citizens, it'll have hundreds) like armies and the Silver Council compared to having invisible NPC bodyguards that can fight other players. It's a clearly OP force multiplier - who's to say I can't march into PS with Vorar and a hired army of 5,000 invisible NPC mercenaries that I say can kill characters?

It's fine to have some NPCs that are basically wallpaper for your RP, but it's absolutely not fine when the wallpaper is allowed to strangle people.

I think there is a difference between saying you got 500000 soldiers in total to make the RP make sense or saying you got 500000 Soldiers and used x of them to invade Port silver and succeeded.
And even that could possibly work if talked over with the Staff in advance (assuming the staff agrees).

 

[Angryboy]

This is one of many reasons why I want to make a proper RPG/MMORPG of Hollowworld... so we can work over issues like these.

That being said, I think we're going just a little bit off topic with this. *shrug*

 

[Baron]

There's nothing restricting you from saying certain players will be attacked on sight, but you can't say that walking into a town is going to lead to instakilling certain characters.

And the issue at hand here isn't ambient NPCs, it's active NPCs. This announcement was made because some players are using invisible NPCs as force multipliers, which is completely unfair. Imagine if you attack someone, then get told "Nuh-uh, you didn't hit me because my bodyguard blocked it for me. Also, my second bodyguard is behind you and stabbed you in the back."

Using invisible, undetectable NPCs that only exist because you said so is powergaming because of that very reason: you're giving yourself an utterly unfair advantage in RP against others, and that isn't fun for anyone.

Anyways, I don't see why this is being debated. We don't allow powergaming, and having magic ghosts protecting you is powergaming. Plain and simple.

 

[Angryboy]

And the issue at hand here isn't ambient NPCs, it's active NPCs. This announcement was made because some players are using invisible NPCs as force multipliers, which is completely unfair. Imagine if you attack someone, then get told "Nuh-uh, you didn't hit me because my bodyguard blocked it for me. Also, my second bodyguard is behind you and stabbed you in the back."

Oh yeah, that is definitely powergaming.

That being said, wandering into a town when you've got a high bounty on your head and having nobody oppose you may also be classed as powergaming in some ways. Hence the debate, there is a grey-zone between the "outright ridiculous OP bodyguard" NPCs and the "ambient guardsmen" NPCs.