Regarding RP NPC's

[Somnastra]

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.

*Ahem* Isn't this kinda where those RP classifications come in, though? Like... in peaceful settlements, violent, PVP RP is not allowed, period.

 

[Bitwry]

I don't enjoy pointing fingers so I won't name names, but I ended up in an RP yesterday that, logically, I shouldn't have been part of, but agreed to be. When thing started to get out of hand I tried to leave only to be told "No, you can't run - there are 10 mounted guards here that will chase you down" made me half give-up on the RP.

So thank you, for clarifying this

 

[Somnastra]

I don't enjoy pointing fingers, but I ended up in an RP yesterday that, logically, I shouldn't have been part of, but agreed to be. When thing started to get out of hand I tried to leave only to be told "No, you can't run - there are 10 mounted guards here that will chase you down" made me half give-up on the RP.

So thank you, for clarifying this

Oh, I'm so sorry.

On that note, if you ever feel like you're on the nasty end of some powergaming, don't be afraid to call folks out on it, or if they still won't listen, call a staffie to you. That's serious business, yo.

 

[DraconDarknight]

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.

Instakilling is indeed OPing, but I got to agree with angry here - the Enemy Lord walking into your settlement like 'haha nothing can happen to me either way', maybe even threatening people living there is also a form of OP.
The other thing that is to consider: I see the problem when people use 2 + NPCs for something like that, but where is the difference to someone logging in from their main and alt acc?
Imho 20 EUR for the alt acc, and removing the need for a minimum amount of fantasy.

 

[Angryboy]

"No, you can't run - there are 10 mounted guards here that will chase you down" made me half give-up on the RP.

THAT is powergaming. As Som said, it's a problem and I find that it ruins the fun of RPing if you're forced to do it. Talk to any online staff if you feel you're being powergamed against

 

[Michcat]

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

I'm not sure what you're asking here, but temporary alts are fine as long as you don't wishy-washy switchy between them.

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?

No, that is entirely not okay. You'll have to find players to aid you to complete these tasks, or do it yourself and face the potential RP consequences to scouting something that might not enjoy being scouted.

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?

Temporary alt-characters are allowed, as listed in the Survival Guide.
If someone is playing a character like that might as well keep it. Its actually a lot of fun- That being said, they are able to hold a temporary character on their alt perhaps once or two. Again, no switching back and forth.

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.

Its better to build up your house with a playerbase and derive their "manpower" from that. A house with two people does not have 50,000 soldiers. That is completely un-okay.
The Silver Council does not have any soldiers. PS doesn't have guards for a reason, player organizations are required to step up to the plate and try a go at that - doing such receives them potential benefits from The Silver Council.
People creating regions is just too bad - they'll grow out of it soon enough.
If none of the guards is online for crime-breaking whatnot, y' can report it to them. Or they obviously don't have enough guards. Or, you know, this is the medieval times where stuff like that happened because people weren't all that organized in a large trade city.

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.

I don't think I like your attitude. I would very much appreciate it if you cut that out.
The Silver Council are quite strictly defined as 'Ambient' NPCs. They're the IC explanations for why rules with OOC purposes come along and your character can react to that however you want. Such a thing is pretty goddamn necessary for the survival of the server, and I thought you would realize that - because you seem like a generally intelligent person.
Again, as stated above, Ambient NPCs are perfectly okay. It is outlined in the first post of mine - NPCs who will in no way engage your RP is perfectly okay. As I said, "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".
Following this line of thought, the ambient NPCs for building is also alright. However, in the case of your servants - That actually turns an Ambient NPC into an Active NPC, as the NPC begins to directly affect your RP. I highly suggest hireing a player to servant for you. Perhaps someone would be interested in butlering?
RPing a servant is only as boring as you make it. Theres even more incentive if you offer to pay someone - It is not impossible. As long as that servant doesn't poison anyones drink or do anything too effective, however (And you realize these are the restrictions of something that is a NPC), I think I can give that a pass.
With the War of Altera, dwindled numbers could be attributed to millions upon millions destroyed by Queen Grief (As stated in the History of Altera), you do have a good point in saying that the numbers would be unrealistic. This can be attributed to "Ambient" NPCs and explain away that there was an Alteran army for immersions sake.

Ambient NPCs are okay - Ambient NPCs are those who won't in any way really engage your characters.
Active NPCs are not okay, for what I hope is obvious reasoning. Powergaming is and will remain a bannable offense.

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.

As stated above, I would like to re-reference Ambient and Active NPCs.

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...

These NPC guards killing people falls under Active NPCs. Not okay. If your town is empty, thats... too bad. You cannot RP that you have people if you fundamentally do not.
Should someone run around within your town while they know no one is online (Which is surprisingly easy to discern), you take it to a staff member - Even if you are a staff member, to prevent bias on the case. That would be a pretty harrowing offense of metagaming - also not cool.
Your best bet is to alert your town members who should be chased out with torches and pitchforks and trust them to uphold that. If your town members spend absolutely no time in your town, then it is arguably sparsely populated.

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.

It would technically be classed as meta-gaming, and player characters need to engage other player characters. Not NPCs.

I don't enjoy pointing fingers so I won't name names, but I ended up in an RP yesterday that, logically, I shouldn't have been part of, but agreed to be. When thing started to get out of hand I tried to leave only to be told "No, you can't run - there are 10 mounted guards here that will chase you down" made me half give-up on the RP.
So thank you, for clarifying this

That is an egregious infraction concerning powergaming. As Somnastra said, you are absolutely free to privately contact me - Such as that is definitely a bannable offense, and I'm sorry it happened to you. If something like this begins happening mid-rp, you're definitely able to contact any current staffies in-game or on the forums.

Instakilling is indeed OPing, but I got to agree with angry here - the Enemy Lord walking into your settlement like 'haha nothing can happen to me either way', maybe even threatening people living there is also a form of OP.
The other thing that is to consider: I see the problem when people use 2 + NPCs for something like that, but where is the difference to someone logging in from their main and alt acc?
Imho 20 EUR for the alt acc, and removing the need for a minimum amount of fantasy.

I once more reference ambient and active NPCs. You probably need towns members to keep those pesky Enemy Lords out, who seem to have a thing about walking into completely enemy territory and thinking that won't provoke a response from the house - or that they're not completely accepting any and all RP consequences.
The difference between NPCs and Alt Accounts is that one is invisible and the other is an entity. Besides, would there not be a certain element of metagaming to an alt account having a dangersense over your other characters?

Thread locked so I could address these points. It is now unlocked.
I'm sorry everyone feels so strongly about not being able to use their invisible poking sticks, but I am ready and able to persecute anyone powergaming in this way and I highly suggest this rule - like all the rules of our server - is observed. It only exists to aid the roleplay and immersion element of Altera.

 

[Catalyst]

Polo made a good point about the silver council but not having any RP NPC's makes an impossibility. There would be, what, 50 people living in a large landmass with signs of former life in the unused houses etc of a few thousand?

 

[Michcat]

Polo made a good point about the silver council but not having any RP NPC's makes an impossibility. There would be, what, 50 people living in a large landmass with signs of former life in the unused houses etc of a few thousand?

Then don't build a house unless you have someone to fill it, proceed to bring RP to town. Thats what I did with my old settlement of Kavdam and at its peak it had something like thirty members with constant RP in the town and a mini faction for guards to patrol the gate...

Edit: I must have misunderstood, apologies. Editing in a moment.

What you state there is "Ambient" NPC activity. It won't affect RP in any way, shape, or form aside from adding immersion. I believe that fixes your problem (Have you tried turning it off and on again?) - It is "Active" NPCs that is classified as a form of powergaming.

The Silver Council is run by staff and required to add immersion to server-necessary elements. I replied fully to Polo on this matter and I can quote that section of my post in but a moment.

Quote:

The Silver Council does not have any soldiers. PS doesn't have guards for a reason, player organizations are required to step up to the plate and try a go at that - doing such receives them potential benefits from The Silver Council.

I don't think I like your attitude. I would very much appreciate it if you cut that out.
The Silver Council are quite strictly defined as 'Ambient' NPCs. They're the IC explanations for why rules with OOC purposes come along and your character can react to that however you want. Such a thing is pretty goddamn necessary for the survival of the server, and I thought you would realize that - because you seem like a generally intelligent person.
Again, as stated above, Ambient NPCs are perfectly okay. It is outlined in the first post of mine - NPCs who will in no way engage your RP is perfectly okay. As I said, "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".

Ambient NPCs are okay - Ambient NPCs are those who won't in any way really engage your characters.
Active NPCs are not okay, for what I hope is obvious reasoning. Powergaming is and will remain a bannable offense.

 

[Baron]

Polo made a good point about the silver council but not having any RP NPC's makes an impossibility. There would be, what, 50 people living in a large landmass with signs of former life in the unused houses etc of a few thousand?

Again, ambient NPCs and active NPCs are different. One exists for immersion and the other exists for action, which isn't acceptable.

 

[roopot]

TL;DR about npc's

Remember that many games get away with having "cities" that are unrealistically small yet are able to have an unlimited amount of npc's which are unnamed... There always has to be a balance but it is difficult to achieve

 

[Sherbmonkey]

What if we have named npcs in our back story that we still interact with behind the scenes in the server..... like me going on spring break and saying it is me going back to my village to visit and then adding what I do there to my back story as long as I don't add to my character's skills?

 

[Baron]

What if we have named npcs in our back story that we still interact with behind the scenes in the server..... like me going on spring break and saying it is me going back to my village to visit and then adding what I do there to my back story as long as I don't add to my character's skills?

That's fine.

 

[Michcat]

What if we have named npcs in our back story that we still interact with behind the scenes in the server..... like me going on spring break and saying it is me going back to my village to visit and then adding what I do there to my back story as long as I don't add to my character's skills?

Given that really doesn't affect any RP directly, its pretty alright. NPCs are here to add immersion, but they are not here to take action.

 

[Tybalt]

@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 took down wallpaper once. Nearly choked my lights out

 

[Smurf]

What if it is in a large city? I mean, they are bound to have guards... Just not an army on hand. With certain exceptions- you should have to mention them in other RP's, have signs up that state them... The guards aren't just going to come popping up twenty at a time from nowhere.

 

[Tybalt]

I'm not sure what you're asking here, but temporary alts are fine as long as you don't wishy-washy switchy between them.

No, that is entirely not okay. You'll have to find players to aid you to complete these tasks, or do it yourself and face the potential RP consequences to scouting something that might not enjoy being scouted.


Temporary alt-characters are allowed, as listed in the Survival Guide.
If someone is playing a character like that might as well keep it. Its actually a lot of fun- That being said, they are able to hold a temporary character on their alt perhaps once or two. Again, no switching back and forth.


Its better to build up your house with a playerbase and derive their "manpower" from that. A house with two people does not have 50,000 soldiers. That is completely un-okay.
The Silver Council does not have any soldiers. PS doesn't have guards for a reason, player organizations are required to step up to the plate and try a go at that - doing such receives them potential benefits from The Silver Council.
People creating regions is just too bad - they'll grow out of it soon enough.
If none of the guards is online for crime-breaking whatnot, y' can report it to them. Or they obviously don't have enough guards. Or, you know, this is the medieval times where stuff like that happened because people weren't all that organized in a large trade city.


I don't think I like your attitude. I would very much appreciate it if you cut that out.
The Silver Council are quite strictly defined as 'Ambient' NPCs. They're the IC explanations for why rules with OOC purposes come along and your character can react to that however you want. Such a thing is pretty goddamn necessary for the survival of the server, and I thought you would realize that - because you seem like a generally intelligent person.
Again, as stated above, Ambient NPCs are perfectly okay. It is outlined in the first post of mine - NPCs who will in no way engage your RP is perfectly okay. As I said, "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".
Following this line of thought, the ambient NPCs for building is also alright. However, in the case of your servants - That actually turns an Ambient NPC into an Active NPC, as the NPC begins to directly affect your RP. I highly suggest hireing a player to servant for you. Perhaps someone would be interested in butlering?
RPing a servant is only as boring as you make it. Theres even more incentive if you offer to pay someone - It is not impossible. As long as that servant doesn't poison anyones drink or do anything too effective, however (And you realize these are the restrictions of something that is a NPC), I think I can give that a pass.
With the War of Altera, dwindled numbers could be attributed to millions upon millions destroyed by Queen Grief (As stated in the History of Altera), you do have a good point in saying that the numbers would be unrealistic. This can be attributed to "Ambient" NPCs and explain away that there was an Alteran army for immersions sake.

Ambient NPCs are okay - Ambient NPCs are those who won't in any way really engage your characters.
Active NPCs are not okay, for what I hope is obvious reasoning. Powergaming is and will remain a bannable offense.


As stated above, I would like to re-reference Ambient and Active NPCs.


These NPC guards killing people falls under Active NPCs. Not okay. If your town is empty, thats... too bad. You cannot RP that you have people if you fundamentally do not.
Should someone run around within your town while they know no one is online (Which is surprisingly easy to discern), you take it to a staff member - Even if you are a staff member, to prevent bias on the case. That would be a pretty harrowing offense of metagaming - also not cool.
Your best bet is to alert your town members who should be chased out with torches and pitchforks and trust them to uphold that. If your town members spend absolutely no time in your town, then it is arguably sparsely populated.


It would technically be classed as meta-gaming, and player characters need to engage other player characters. Not NPCs.


That is an egregious infraction concerning powergaming. As Somnastra said, you are absolutely free to privately contact me - Such as that is definitely a bannable offense, and I'm sorry it happened to you. If something like this begins happening mid-rp, you're definitely able to contact any current staffies in-game or on the forums.


I once more reference ambient and active NPCs. You probably need towns members to keep those pesky Enemy Lords out, who seem to have a thing about walking into completely enemy territory and thinking that won't provoke a response from the house - or that they're not completely accepting any and all RP consequences.
The difference between NPCs and Alt Accounts is that one is invisible and the other is an entity. Besides, would there not be a certain element of metagaming to an alt account having a dangersense over your other characters?

Thread locked so I could address these points. It is now unlocked.
I'm sorry everyone feels so strongly about not being able to use their invisible poking sticks, but I am ready and able to persecute anyone powergaming in this way and I highly suggest this rule - like all the rules of our server - is observed. It only exists to aid the roleplay and immersion element of Altera.

Well the town I was scouting had no one in it. I just wanted to add immersion by telling so and so scout to do so and so. They ain't killin no one. And is it okay if we use np ca on both sides? Like my army fight their army, but neither of the invisible army's kill or interfere with actual players?

 

[Michcat]

What if it is in a large city? I mean, they are bound to have guards... Just not an army on hand. With certain exceptions- you should have to mention them in other RP's, have signs up that state them... The guards aren't just going to come popping up twenty at a time from nowhere.

Perhaps you shouldn't build such large a city without people to populate it. NPCs are strictly no-go, even for guards! If it helps, you could hire players or entice persons to join and support your city?

Well the town I was scouting had no one in it. I just wanted to add immersion by telling so and so scout to do so and so. They ain't killin no one. And is it okay if we use np ca on both sides? Like my army fight their army, but neither of the invisible army's kill or interfere with actual players?

NPCs that directly take action are really not okay - Neither side should be using NPCs.

Edit: Go forth and sally them character consequences that comes with warring! No actions but those of a player should be affecting RP.

 

[Tybalt]

Perhaps you shouldn't build such large a city without people to populate it. NPCs are strictly no-go, even for guards! If it helps, you could hire players or entice persons to join and support your city?



NPCs that directly take action are really not okay - Neither side should be using NPCs.

Edit: Go forth and sally them character consequences that comes with warring! No actions but those of a player should be affecting RP.

The no a won't be effecting anyone. Just so we can say the battle raged around them. Honestly be like the two armies are even and take out each other. It will not effect any real players RP . Just adding more to the story

 

[Michcat]

The no a won't be effecting anyone. Just so we can say the battle raged around them. Honestly be like the two armies are even and take out each other. It will not effect any real players RP . Just adding more to the story

Do it with player characters- Otherwise you're telling a backstory that doesn't involve any active persons.

 

[Tybalt]

Mmkay~